jumping for joy

Dear Journal,
It's been ages since my words touched your sweet ivory pages.

Yesterday "21 internet bloggers" (as opposed to, you know, "life bloggers") were on set. I am writing in this blog thing, but I hope I am never referred to as an, "internet blogger." That would really bum me out.

One of the PA's on this shoot I've become friends with (on set) sent me his script he's trying to shoot in June. First off, this kid has never made a film ("but I've worked on so many, I have a lot of experience"), and second, it's a feature. Yesterday I forced myself to read up to page 23 in this 121 page screenplay. I have never had a harder time reading anything, ever. He's a nice kid, and seems smart, but it's really apparent from his writing that he has no idea what emotions are, or how people respond to tragedy. From what I can tell so far, the whole thing is based around a kid whose parents died I guess, and he goes to his uncle's warehouse to ask him for a job and instead his uncle sends him all the way to New York City ("cut between montage of big buildings, flashing lights, fire escapes, and protaganist's fascinated face" -- seriously, this is in the script, and it doesn't even make since because the kid is supposedly from Chicago, which isn't a rural area by any means) to check on his daughter who recently had her new roommate (she found him on craigslist!) kill himself in his room within days after moving in. Needless to say, she was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with a "stress disorder" and now takes three different kinds of pills. The kicker, is that the girl's father (the protagonist's uncle who apparently took care of him when he was younger-- which you finally learn on page 23, along with some other necessary character description, like the protagonists age) "used to drink quite a bit" and I guess took it out on our poor hero. This description makes no sense, but that's basically how the script is, too. So whatever. Imagine that, with a lot of camera/editing direction and unnecessary capitalization written in, too ("SLOW ZOOM on CHARLIE's FACE" "SMASH CUT to eggs in a SKILLET").

***

This past Sunday I found a great convertible loveseat on the street outside of our place. This was an especially awesome occurrence since literally earlier in the night I had been talking about how I had really wanted to go out and get a small sofa for my room this week, but then I got called to work on set and had to rule that out. In reality though, even if I hadn't been working, I've been feeling like I shouldn't be spending money on things like that, so I had been going back and forth on the whole thing.

Anyway, walking a friend to the train I spotted a nice brown microsuede couch (revealed to be a sofabed when we tried to turn it sideways and a bed popped out). It was set out with the trash, but with some finesse, two matching throw pillows thoughtfully placed on either side of the seat cushion. We sat on it and watched traffic pass by, smelled it to make sure it wasn't covered in urine or something, and set to take it into my room. Which we did thanks to my downstairs neighbor who helped me get it up the stairs.

After walking my friend back to the train, I went upstairs, stood in my kitchen, and couldn't stop smiling. Then I literally started jumping up and down (quietly so neither of my roommates would walk in and see how crazy I was being) because I was so happy. I don't think I've ever really jumped out of happiness before, or been as happy over a piece of furniture.

Tuesday night I went over the couch with a steamer, and now it's a lovely part of my room (which I desperately need to clean and arrange in some sort of manner that makes since).

I think one of the fish I've grown quite attached to is sick and will be dying soon. That's always kind of a bummer, but one you also tend to forget almost immediately upon turning your head away from the tank. Not like when I was a kid and I stayed home from school one day because I was such a wreck over my fish dying. Still, it's a bummer. Also, I think he's blind.

raining frogs

When I woke up this morning I decided to call State Farm to get the warranty information to get my car stereo repaired. I put the call on speaker, picked up the tv remote, and sat down on the couch while I waited on hold for Claims Team 6 to answer.

Feet on the coffee table, phone by my side, I looked down at the floor where a big dark hairball of dust and lint twitched. I stared at it for a second, wondering how this much crap had amassed under the table not even 24 hours after sweeping when it twitched again. Clearly a movement of something alive. Not dust. Not hair. But covered in both.

I hung up the phone that was still by my side playing muddled, too-quiet-to-make-out hold music, carefully put my feet back down on the floor, and leaned over to push the table in front of me out of the way.

A frog. This dust is in the shape of a frog. A frog is on my floor, in my living room, 3 stories up in the middle of Brooklyn. A real, alive for all intents and purposes, frog. It didn't really look like a frog. It had the basic shape, but appeared to just be a frog shaped dust bunny. But it had to be a frog under all that dust. It was moving.

I didn't know what to do. How to pick it up. I grabbed a magazine subscription card having long fallen out of its host and slid the hairball frog on to it. Setting the card and dust frog on the table, I carefully tried to remove the hair and dust covering the thing. It was too hard. Too knotted and tangled. But yes, under it all, there was a frog.

I got a bowl of water and dipped the living room frog-based tumbleweed into it slowly to help in sorting out the mess. I untangled its tiny body with the most delicate touch I could manage, piling the wet lint next to the bowl. The frog floated there in the shallow water, not necessarily "moving" by any means, but also not appearing to be just quite dead.

He was maybe an inch long, and one of its arms appeared to be broken, or at least missing its tiny frog hand. I'm not sure if frogs can break bones, but I'm sure frogs can be broken, and he looked like he had been through quite a lot. He must have crawled quite far to have amassed the amount of dust and hair and all that he did. Like a little frog based tumbleweed.

...


He's some sort of aquatic frog. He doesn't move much, but he's alive. I don't know if he will stay alive, or even if he's made it through while I've been writing this down. Maybe there is too much chlorine in the water. Maybe if he was still alive after crawling around in dust and hair on my living room floor he should just stay dry. I don't think I have the means to care for a frog. I have a bigger bowl, and maybe he can live in that. I guess we'll see if he makes it through the day, and then I'll figure things out from there.

Life in the first world

I thought I was watching some kid pray to mecca at the indian museum
today.

On closer inspection he was kneeling down facing a wall playing a
video game.

"… But some explanation may be of value to the less introspective signs. We can say that the hydra can mean many things: jealousy, vengeance, resentment, anger, frustrated sexuality, violence. Scorpio is a sign of intense desire; and the hydra's many heads can mean the many desires of the uncivilized human heart. Left to grow in the darkness, they can become poisonous, and begin to destroy others. But they cannot be dealt with by repression. They must be understood, held up to the light, respected as part of oneself. And although vanquished, it is a good idea to remember that one immortal head. For Scorpio, all human beings carry within them the seeds of good and evil. Evil is not an abstract thing, or somebody else's fault; it is in everyone. Human brutality cannot be blamed on society, but ultimately only on oneself. It is relevant to realize that Sigmund Freud, the great founder of modern depth psychology, had Scorpio rising. Therein lies the deepest meaning of Scorpio's myth: come to terms with the hydra in yourself, and you redeem the world.


Astrologers broadly agree that the following are the characteristics of Scorpio:

* Intense
* Powerful
* Determined / tenacious / persevering
* Emotional / sensitive
* Calm but seething
* Reserved / withdrawn
* Secretive
* Deep / profound
* Revengeful (if hurt) / unforgiving
* Passionate / sexual
* Loyal / devotional
* Ambitious
* Extreme
* Willful / fanatical
* Mysterious / magnetically attractive / exciting
* Deeply resentful / brooding / potentially destructive
* Scorpio is the Zodiac sign that indicates the deepest interest in sexual matters, and for most Scorpios, sex is an expression of love."

All that astrology stuff is so stupid.

Except for me.

For me it is dead fucking on.

A Problem I Have

it is so windy. it feels like my windows are open.

they aren't.

Because the night

Never have I been so blown off. Waiting outside in the "wint'ry mix"
for so long to be told they "didn't think I was really coming" and my
role was double booked, to be filled by another.
As soon as I solidify alternate plans, my original dream evening plan
calls.

This is what happens I guess.

The internet (myself included) doesn't have time to read.

This is why twitter is such a craze, and this is why I hate it.


Despite the fact that I don't have an attention span either...

I just hate writing and then looking at the post and going, "man, that is so wordy... what a long block of text." There is no reason that should be a negative thing, but it is now.

Boil it down. Reduce it to 140 characters. And then update 50 times a day.

People are more likely to read 100 short entries they can quickly scan over and through than one long entry like the one I just posted.

But, like I said, that goes for me too. What a bummer.

What have we done?