Had a terrific living-room reading of Wide Open Spaces (my thesis play) today. Now my head is hurting from all of the possible things which can be done with this play. My brain is just Really Full. 

It's a Really Good Thing to have friends who you can trust with "here is this thing I made that I'm not 100% sure how I feel about." 

"well, let's unpack it and give it a spin and see what happens. OH. There's your whisamaidit, and your doohicker. Hmm. Did you consider that the doohicker could be fragmented by that hawatchijig?"

"Um... no..."

"Because that's what's making your whoosis go all flickety."

"My whoosis goes flickety?"

"Yup."

"Damn, I thought so, but I didn't want to say anything."​

Right at the end of the discussion, I had a really clear image of a way that blocks can be moved around to make the play clearer and more streamlined, but it made sense RIGHT THEN and now it's getting slippery. so I'm going to go scribble on a legal pad for a bit. 

Feeling extremely grateful for such good, smart, supportive friends. 

The good news is that I got a freelance writing gig today, and I've been writing all day. It's a very boring product that I'm producing, but it feels good to be doing it. 

The bad news is that I have this horrible idea for an erotic vampire novel. I was thinking that I should write it, self-publish it on Amazon, and sell it for some ridiculously low price. Then I'll sell a zillion copies to people who don't know any better but at least they're reading (the Dogs Don't Know It's Not Bacon theory of publishing), and go to Vegas for the weekend where it's WARM and SUNNY, and I can drink 99-cent margaritas* outside. 

I thought, nah, I'm not a novelist, I have no prose writing skills. 

then I thought, what if the novel was entirely made up of e-mail messages? 

I'm trying to think of what my fake erotic vampire fiction novelist name should be. I think the imaginary chick who writes this novel is a Drunk J. Crew Model. 

Imma write a book

cause

books. 

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*don't worry, they water down the 99-cent margaritas unless you're actively gambling. 

In other news: The dogs are hating this weather. They're bored, but they can't be outside for more than maybe eight minutes because it's just too damn cold. I found some toys that you stuff treats into, on the theory that it's like a puzzle for them. I stuffed the little nozzles with food, smeared them with peanut butter, and figured that'd buy me about 20 minutes of peace and quiet. 

Bebe seems to have buried her toy somewhere in the house. Squeaky didn't seem interested at first. I tried to take a picture of her with it. When I approached her, she defended her prize, doing the "I'MA RIP YER THROAT OUT" growl. Notice that in this photo, she's trying to keep one eye on the toy and one on me. 

Today I went to the gym immediately after dropping V off at the train. I think this is going to be a good way to build a new habit.  I did 51 minutes on the elliptical, but was unable to use my telekinetic powers to make the televisions explode. I'll keep trying. 

Yesterday one of my cousins asked my other cousins and me to join her on a 25-mile charity bike ride for ALS this spring. It looks like fun, the ride ends at a barbecue in Wildwood (so it's sort of a "bike to the beach" thing), and it'd be a good training goal. I said sure. Now I'm trying to figure out if I have any idea what I'm doing, and wondering how exactly one trains for a 25-mile bike ride. Do I bike for three hours a day until 25 miles becomes No Big Whoop? Do I bike for an hour a day until I can easily bike 25 miles in an hour?  Is there a couch-to-25-miles cycling program? 

Yeah, there's an app for that, but the developer support website, couchtobike.com, comes up with a blank page. also, there are no reviews.  an app's not the same as an explanation. 

still, might be fun, though. 

Today I showed Ted the wonders of iMovie. 

All editing is his work. I'm very proud of him. Actually, all I did was to write his dialogue and show him how to find public-domain movie clips online. He did the rest. 

Today was a rough day. Battery at <10%. ​

Vince gave me half a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream, and said, "You can finish this." 

Much like handing a kilo of heroin to Kurt Cobain. 

I felt guilty for making it disappear almost immediately. SCHHHLOOP! Gone.

Then I saw this: 

Hungry Girl Summer Freeze DIY Ice Cream Treats! 

Hungry Girl is some apologist for the processed-food industry. She has a blog that's supposed to offer lower-calorie versions of snacks and restaurant meals that people supposedly crave. They're lower in calories, sure, and lower in Weight Watchers points, okay, but they usually depend heavily on Cool Whip and/or mayonaise as ingredients. 

One 8-oz. container Cool Whip Free, thawed 
3 pieces Twizzlers Strawberry Twists, finely chopped
1 tbsp. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tbsp. chopped peanuts
14 Quaker Buttered Popcorn Rice Cakes (1 package)

Basically, this fits right in with what people were eating in Interstellar. It's mostly high fructose corn syrup, various hydrogenated oils, gums, and sodium caseinate. 

To make the filling, transfer Cool Whip to a medium-large bowl. Add chopped Twizzlers, chocolate chips, and chopped peanuts. Gently stir.
Set out 7 rice cakes, and evenly spoon filling over them, about a heaping 1/4 cup each.
Lightly place another rice cake over each filling-topped cake to form a sandwich, for a total of seven sandwiches.
Place in the freezer until filling is firm, at least 1 1/2 hours. (Use a few plates or a baking sheet, so the sandwiches are not stacked.) Eat up!

Yum-mo!  A mere 32 grams of carbohydrates per serving, and only 4 Weight Watchers Power Plus Points!

I no longer feel guilty for eating half a pint of Ben & Jerry's. I read the recipe to Vince, and it was so gross that reading it made me laugh until tears came out of my eyes. 

This could be the most artsy-fartsy photo I have ever taken. 

Ted Harris, with Shark Vagina and Septugenarian. A study in perspective. 

Also: 

There's a lot to be said for having a child you've met four times in the three years he's been alive spontaneously grab your hand as you walk through a crowded aquarium together, because you wanted to take him to see Real Live Sharks.​ It makes me feel like Glinda The Good. 

Was...

the year I became  a Master of Fine Arts

the year I learned what exhausted really means

tomorrow we're going to go see some sharks. 

What if the thing we call comedy is, "stories about the attempt to make love work?" 

Not always true, there's a lot of cruelty and anger in comedy. But even if you try to place Lenny Bruce on the spectrum of love vs hate, I think he might come out closer to the love end than the hate end, if only because "I HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS RIGHT NOW" is not unlike Cassandra's attempt to save the kingdom. 

But cruelty-anger comedy is generally less successful, feels less truthful or valid than make-love-work comedy. 

I'm still thinking about Silver Linings Playbook, about the non-romantic relationships. That's what spurred this thought process. So, okay, let's grab an example of something generally considered a good comedy, Monty Python & The Holy Grail. 

How is this about the attempt to make love work? 

King Arthur wants to get the Grail in order to sanctify his kingdom, but keeps running into his kingdom's idiocy (filth/disease/pestilence/The French/sexual repression/confusing thought processes about government, inheritance and marriage/etc.), and ends up arrested by contemporary police. 

Which really makes MP&THG a huge tragedy, because it basically says, "if such an idealistic crusade were to happen in England today, the perpetrators would be vilified and arrested." Maybe they should: we see the police covering one of the bodies Arthur dispatched, and questioning a contemporary witness. Maybe they shouldn't: we saw what happened when the person was killed.  

So, one could argue that Arthur's constant modus operandi of "I am doing this for your own good (trying to get the Grail to sanctify the nation and save it from itself)" is repressive and indicative of British imperialism, and not love, or we can let the text be a text unto itself, and say that Arthur wants to share the sanctifying experience he had when the Lady of the Lake gave him the sword and made him King, with the entire nation. he's coming from a place of pure, spiritual love. 

This blasted into my head between my first and second cup of coffee.  I wish I could control the blast stream so that I could use it more productively, but it is what it is. 

EDITED TO ADD: 

Mental overload. Too much Christmas, too much concrete jungle. I need someplace to chill for a few hours tomorrow. 

Likely candidates: Pendle Hill, Bartram's Gardens, The Michener Museum, Chanticleer. 

I Also just took something to make my brain shut down, preceded by chocolate. So maybe I can sleep this off tonight, go to the gym tomorrow and feel better. But holy cats, if anyone needed to "go on a sojourn," it's me. ​

But I managed to get one more submission in before the deadline. 

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Last night I dreamt that I was working  in the production office of The Muppet Show, planning out their Holiday Special.

Kermit and Fozzie and I were going over set designs and planning out blocking and stage management, relative to how we had The Millennium Falcon on stage.

Because, you know, it takes up a lot of room. And Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca were going to be on The Muppet Holiday Special, as some way to make up for or distract from the Star Wars Holiday Special, lo those many years ago. 

Of course, being my brain, it was Luke with his pre-accident Star Wars nose & jaw, and Han Solo with his Empire swagger. 

So, I had to help the two of them carry the wooden components built to stand in for the Millennium Falcon in rehearsal. Just then, Ted started helping himself to the piles of cheddar cheese and ham slices meant to accompany the pizza Craft Services had provided for the cast and crew. I hissed at him to stop touching the cheese and ham, he said he was hungry, and the head Stage Manager from the PA RenFaire started giving him a lecture. I said I'd handle this, and while trying to carry the Millennium Falcon in order to impress Han Solo, I used my most patient tone to tell Ted it wasn't time to touch the cheese and ham, he needed to wash his hands, go around the corner, get a paper plate, and when it was lunch time he should wait his turn in line with the Muppets, because I needed to move the Millennium Falcon. 

I woke up to find Vince holding his phone over my face, trying to record the lecture I was giving in my sleep. 

Thank you.