Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Reassessing Goals

Back in the day I always wanted to be the best and the strongest and the fastest. I often was the strongest and fastest in my circle.

When I started competing at dressage I always wanted to win and then eventually I managed to just want to improve.

I always wanted to win the Oscar for acting and later wanted one for screenwriting.

Now I just hope to make it through the day without throwing up.

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

I'm starting to get better. Which is not to say I can see particularly well or that I don't throw up and faint way too much but I feel better. Maybe it's a mental thing.

Chris is jamming with this site Kevin showed us. He got the tabs for Weezer's Undone (The Sweater Song) and he picked it right up. He got me to play the beginning but really I stink at making chords. My fingers are fragile.

I think we're going to write a song together. I'll do the lyrics and he'll do the music. I've got a couple of ideas.

I've been talking to vorpal a fair amount about his bio video. I have some good ideas and I hope they can help him. Sometimes though I do my best work simply by believing in someone and if there is only one person on this planet who has earned my belief it would be my beloved vorpal.

Awhile ago my editor in DC, Paul, was after me to write a script about politics. I said no thank you but I got an idea the other day. Maybe just maybe. Shoot I had a really good idea today and then I forgot it. I need some sort of recording device.

Monday, March 29, 2004

In which I offend someone (big shock)

I got a phone call today from a collection agency. It went round and round and round until I was ready to just hang up. The simple deal is that I had a spinal tap last year when I had meningitis. The radiology office sent me to collections for the amount not covered by my insurance company. My insurance company has a deal with this office so they have to accept the allowed amount.

They were billing me fraudulently for 109.45. I am sure most people would just give in and pay but I am so stubborn I won't do it. After trying and trying to get this person on the phone to say she would look at the explanation of benefits to see that I don't owe this money I said so you're telling me that the radiology office fucked up and I have to pay the price? The woman got really mad at me for cursing her out. I don't think I did. If I said you're a stupid whiny fuckwad that is cursing her out.

She said she was offended by my language. I am offended by someone trying to ruin my credit while they break the law. She might feel a little sting as I express my dissatisfaction but I will feel the larger sting much longer as I pay higher rates for everything because my credit score has dropped for something that is not my fault.

I spent fifteen minutes on the phone with my insurance company, ten more minutes with the radiology office and the charge is now removed from my account but you know the damage is done and I shouldn't have even had to go through any of this so yeah, they fucked up and I was fucked over. I'm just sayin'

PGL3 Update

According to my reviews I must have written the worst script ever. Which is cool because I don't believe that for a second and I didn't like any of the scripts I reviewed so it stands to reason that people who write scripts with naked 13 year olds who are prostitutes wouldn't like my work either. I've come a long way towards dealing with rotten reviews in a megalomaniac healthy way.

Some of my favourite people said very cool cheering up things to me and the happy glow from that will last much longer than the twinge of annoyance from people who don't get my script.

vorpal moved up to the top 1000 scripts and top 250 directors. YAY VORPAL! I am so happy for him. He's bummed we cannot continue the contest together but it's all good.

Vin and Brian and Carl moved up. I am proud of them also.

Saturday, March 27, 2004

Stephen King is being mean to me!

I finally finished From a Buick 8. It's a good story but he cheats a little towards the very end and I think he's above that. He's too good to manipulate the reader and I didn't appreciate what he did.

Then the very last line of the Author's Note I say not me baby. And not you either. We have way too much to do.

I notice that since he was injured so terribly he tends to write these horrifically detailed car wrecks and I can't read them since I had my own horrifically detailed car wreck. Or maybe he always wrote them and I am just super sensitive.

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Music

I got two CDs I bought online a couple of weeks ago. I got Rocket by Primitive Radio Gods and Pocket Full of Kryptonite by Spin Doctors.

Rocket is interesting because there is such a wide style of music on the CD. I bet it drove the DJs wild trying to find sound alikes so they could continue the success after Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand. Because it it's not a clone nobody will listen, right?

Fisher over to the Grapevine was asking me if I had heard Two Princes live or even in studio and I said no but I see I was quite wrong. I love this song. It's one I used to sing to my Danny boy back in the day.

Now I need to remember who did that great Calypso version of the you owe me so pay me song and who sings the song about I'm not sick but I'm not well? I'm psyched to be finding all this music I like.

And now a great big shout out to vorpal who has never ever let me down and always knows just the right thing to say. I've said it before but it bears repeating. I am the luckiest grrl in the world because I have so many loyal, wonderful, brilliant friends. I may not see them often in the tactile world but then again this works pretty darn well.

Kevin hooked me up with a terrific site for Chris to get his tabs. Several of my friends have been ripping and running trying to find the tabs for Chris so he could learn Personal Jesus but he was having trouble figuring out what was what. Kevin walked me through the installation of power tabs and how to use it and it rocks hardcore. Chris was playing the beginning of the song within seconds. Awesome! Kevin rules.

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

I applied for American Candidate. Here is my 399 character typo riddled reason for wanting to be president:

I am intelligent, commited, passionate, compassionate, stern. Tthe only reason we are not ina terrible recession is because the refi boom has fueled a false economic recovery. We need to concentrate on keeping jobs in the US and growing new useful businesses. We need to take care of the 25,000 American GIs who have no recieved medical care since coming home from Iraq. I listen, I care, I think.

Why can't I sleep?

I am getting spam from both political parties. Today George W asked me to party with him. Or have a party for him or something. If I get five people to come to my party a lord high muckity muck in the campaign will call and talk to my guests. As if I would give any political person my phone number.

Clinton said he wanted to make history with me. Hubba hubba. Sadly Clinton thinks my name is Gertrude. George however thinks I will give him ten thousand dollars so they are both confused.

Let's play just the candidates by their looks. I have not seen either of these men in person nor on television. Just pictures and a lot of people making fun of dear old George W.

Kerry looks like he would do bad things on purpose. That he would not only push the big red shiny button but he would be whacking off while pushing it.

George looks like he would push the big red shiny button because he thought it would make coffee. He might destroy the world but it would be because he's too stupid not too.

Sunday, March 21, 2004

I made this

My grand accomplishment for the weekend.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/houseofinsomnia/was/index.html

Part of the text of an email to my friend Jose which pretty much sums up my brain stuff.

Eh yesterday was kind of a sucky day for me. Everything was bad and it was my birthday so it seemed particulary unfair but on the other hand my mom no doubt went though some pain on my birthday so maybe it is fitting.

I'm a little discouraged because I was hoping i would be much better. My vision is still pretty iffy and it comes and goes. Right now it is pretty good but suddenly it will just fuzz out or I'll start seeing things that aren't there. Most of the auditory stuff went away but the occasional high pitched mosquito starting his motorcycle noise comes around a few times a day.

I'm kind of worried that this is as good as I will get. I am very sensitive to light and working on the set was really hard because the lights are so strong. I could draw you a map of my retina by now because I see it so often.

But you know it could be worse. Five percent of people who get this end up blind in at least one eye and I can still see. In fact I get to see things that aren't there and I don't even have to take any mind altereing chemicals.

And I can hear just fine so that's good because you know how important my music is to me. Most of the feeling in my face came back. So that's all good.

Thank you for the compliment. I keep dreaming that I am touring and doing stand-up again or motivational speaking in front of these huge audiences. It's very nice to get all that applause.

Did you know I finally finished my most recent script? It;s supposed to be horror but when I get stressed out I tend to crack a lot of jokes so it just got funnier and funnier. Chuck has read the first half. That sounds kind of odd but it's written in a format like Creep Show so there are three disticnt stories although the last one is only six or so pages long. I entered it in PGL3. I will find out on the 25th if it moved up to the next level.

Okay time for me to work on my blog. I don't know if you know that I am wriitng a novel in my blog. I got so discouraged and scatter brained that i didn't work on it for a month. Of course I did write 50 pages of my script in two weeks of that time but still. Time to catch up.

Talk to you soon,

Geo

PS - I am supposed to get new headshots in a couple of months so I will send you one when I get them. The photographer is a friend of my favourite casting director and he said this guy will do pictures I actually like.

And More Bats

This script also had a bat biting the end off of a pencil. That's just as inane as that movie that had ferrets eating carrots and squeaking. Whoever wrote that must have thought that ferrets rhyme with carrots so they must like eating them.

Bats

I adore bats. I think they are super cool to quote Plastic Bertrand. I'm reading one of PGL2s top fifty scripts and it called bats flying rodents. I think this is one of those sort of ubiquitous bits of misinformation that litter the world.

Bats are members of the Vespertilionidae family. How is that for a wicked cool name? I read a really bad book about giant bats attacking New York called Vespers a few years ago. I wonder how many people picked that book up thinking it was about Catholics.

According to this one site I looked at once out of the 4500 mammal species running around over a thousand are bats. That's impressive and interesting but is it true? It seems to me I could name 4500 species of mammal myself if I sat here long enough. I am sure things like dogs count as one even though there are lots of breeds.

But still I have to wonder. I wonder about a lot of things that are plunked down in front of me as a fact.

Back in the day when I used to hang out with my friend Colin I used to sell the occasional bat house for him. If you have never seen a bat box you should take a look and of course a thatched bat box is the bomb dot com. I'm just sayin'

Sunday, March 07, 2004

Bluer Than the Night Sky

I'm editing the book I wrote for November. It's amazing the things I write that I forget all about. To whit:

Death evades those who want it and take those who love life. How many times have you seen it? Some evil piece of puke will flourish and rake in the money while he’s gouging every one he can, pinching every ass in sight and someone with a golden heart dies. Gold is apparently not a good thing for hearts to be made of. These sweet, loving, good people with so much to give are gone in less wind than it takes to blow out a birthday candle. Doesn’t that just kill you? But of course it doesn’t really kill you. It just kills part of the essential you leaving the husk and the pain to walk the earth and scream and cry and throw things until you end up in a place like this.

A place with bars and padded rooms and people who are worse off than me. Some who are better I suppose. They sure don’t care about the things I do. They work so hard to be good. Whatever good means. They lie so they can go home. Whatever home means. Be with their loved ones. Whatever love means to them.

I doubt it means love like a phoenix. Love that burns you even as you fly and ignore all the warnings. Love that makes you take a bullet. Love that makes you throw a child off of a train track two seconds before the train comes. Love that makes you cut big long gashes in your arms and throat because you want to believe. You want to believe that there is one millionth of a percent chance that your love lives on another plane. That speck of hope that never dies, just kills you, hurts you, stabs you, keeps you staring and calling and longing. The hope that you can be with him again and it will all work out.

Friday, March 05, 2004

Where's Trixi?

I counted to ten. I put away ten pairs of Ma's socks. I took ten deep breaths. Nothing helped. I was raging with anger.

"Ladies don't raise their voices to their poor sick mothers, right Dixie?" I asked myself. "They suck it up and take abuse like-" and here I stopped. Like what? Why should I be taking abuse from anyone? How did that make me a lady?

Thursday, March 04, 2004

Where's Trixi?

"You're too old for this imaginary friend crap" said Ma.

I tightened my shoulders and said nothing. What was there to say?

"Turn around and look at me."

I didn't.

"I raised you better than this. I raised you to respect your elders. Look at me."

I spun and stared at her with three decade of frustration boiling out of me. "Respect what Ma? Don't you think that respect is a two way street? Aren't I old enough to deserve some of my own? Don't you know how it hurts me when you act like Trixi never existed? Like my pain at losing her never existed? Like I'm crazy for even thinking about her much less thinking she is still alive?"

Ma snorted and left the room. "You are crazy" was all she said.

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

I just did my first PGL3 review. It's so hard to come up with something positive to say sometimes. It's funny how when someone tells me to keep writing I always consider a slap in the face. Like anything anyone else says will ever stop me from writing.

If I could write 60+ pages of a script with the equivalent of a brain tumor some reviewer is not going to make me stop writing, by gum.

I read one from PGL2 that I liked called Cheeks. It's a sort of over the top gangster love story. I love to read a story that makes me start mentally casting and filming it.

Where's Trixi?

Lord love a duck. My mom can drive the sanest person crazy.

She started in the second I took her in to set her up in Trixi's room. Her nose turned up. "Are you putting me in your room?"

"No Ma, this is Trixi's room. I thought you would be more comfortable in here."

She tossed her head and put her hands on her hips. "Dixie Rose Lee you are too old for this nonsense to continue."

I just looked at her and then I started unpacking her suitcase. She'd get to her point with or without input from me and without seemed less painful and futile.

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Where's Trixi?

It's all set. Mom is coming over tomorrow and she will be staying for a few weeks while we rehab her and I try very hard to get her out of this depression. She used to be this great vibrant fun person who attracted people every time she set foot outside and now she never goes out at all.

Today is the last day of the rest of her life. Or something.

Monday, March 01, 2004

Where's Trixi?

My father called. I don't talk to my parents much these days. They say I don't try to work out of my situation and then they don't explain what that means.

Mom is sick and she's fighting with dad. He said she stomps out of the room all the time and then she sits on the couch panting because she's really too sick to be stomping around. She's been asking for me.

I guess I should explain what is wrong with her. She had a D and C and had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. This was some time ago but she hasn't really gotten better. I think she doesn't have any motivation. Getting healthy is hard work. I'm thinking she can come stay with me for a bit and we can do some simple stuff to build her back up.