Screenwriting

My latest writing project is writing an indie film with 2 friends.  I won’t out them because being associated with me can put you on a top-secret CIA hit list.  Let’s just call them K and C.  How about KFC?  That’s sort of catchy.

Anyhoo – I love our movie, and it’s very fun collaborating.  I’m a born collaborator.  I collaborate my head off all day long, and I find that I like it when I write, also.  It fits my personality.  When I wrote “Shrink Rap”, I sent chapters to my friends each time I finished them.  I loved the feedback.  I didn’t want to write in a vacuum.

(For my writing friends, you can skip this paragraph.)  When writers write novels, or non fiction, they get “beta readers” to read their work and give observations and helpful suggestions.  I beta read one book for a friend.  (I sucked, but that’s beside the point.)  Beta readers are usually writer colleagues and friends who do this out of the kindness of their hearts.  Plus, it’s sort of helpful for one’s own work to critique other projects, I would think.  And, it’s nice to pay back the love one day to your friends.

That being said, I’m completely petrified about asking someone to beta read.  It seems like such an imposition.  Just thinking about it makes my guiltometer zoom to 100.  We’re a third of the way through the movie and I’m already sweating it.  I asked a lovely, bloggy writer friend if she knew of any script writers that might beta read.  Being the sweetie she is, she volunteered to do it herself.

Yet here is the problem – movie scripts are really weird.  When you read the script for “The Wizard of Oz”, you think “Huh?”.  (At least I did.)  It’s just so sparse.  You’re supposed to leave lots of space for the director’s interpretation, so a lot of  groovy description gets left out.  I still can’t resist putting in a couple of “camera goes to his brown teeth mouthing the words” sorts of directions, even though I know it’s wrong.

Do I impose on my writer friends to beta read?  Will they think I’m a pain?  Do I need a screenwriter specifically?  Should I lose weight?  Should I move to a warmer climate?  Should I put my kids up for adoption?

Just wondering.

 

Robots are Taking Over Pennsylvania

Good-bye Cruel PA

Bye, guys!  I’m going to a conference in Boston for the rest of the week.  Maybe they’ll teach me the difference between breasts and ovaries.  Here’s hoping.

Important and Weighty Matters

Sorry I’ve been a bit remiss about blogging lately, but I’ve had huge, overwhelming issues on my mind.  World hunger, evacuating Iraq without destabilizing the country, and how my underwear started to give me wedgies.  The first two issues are a bit tough, so I’m concentrating on the third one.

For years I’ve been wearing the low cut bikini underwear from Victoria’s Secret.  They send you a coupon in the mail, and there I go. . . off to root through vats of underwear, hip to hip with size 2 teenagers.  “Look at this thing!” they laugh, holding up a size large.

“I’ll take that, Twirpo,” I say, grabbing it from them.  “Let’s talk in 35 years.  Kay?”

But recently, this same underwear, this Old Faithful, this Robin staple, has let me down.  It crawls right up my butt during the day, leaving me to choose between asking about a kid’s family history, or reaching under my ass and excavating cotton from my butt crack.

I’ve been working on this problem.  Everyone is raving about “Hanky Panky” underwear.  They actually make bikinis as well as thongs.  I tried a bikini.  Nice.  The problem is 1) They’re not cotton and 2)  They cost a zillion dollars each.  They cost as much as the dinner china pattern I chose for my wedding, and no one’s eating off these babies.

I googled “Women’s panties that don’t give you wedgies”.  Soma intimates came up on someone’s blog.  She assured me that Soma panties would not try to crawl up my anus to reach my sigmoid colon.  I ordered some.  I’ll let you know.

I bought a couple of Hue panties at Rehoboth Beach.  They were pretty darn comfortable.  I tried to recreate the experience by buying Hue panties at the local department store.  These have thin elastic that cut grooves into my skin.  Maybe it’s a hint – lines for the plastic surgeon to follow for my liposuction.

Jockey’s fit well, but major pantie lines.  I refuse to go for old lady panties.  My search continues.  I go where no man has gone before.  Except for the trannies.  They’ve gone here before.  I wish they’d take me with them.

What Would You do with Millions of Dollars?

This conversation is unfolding as I type.

Alex:  What would you do with millions of dollars?

Me:  I’d get rid of the blue carpet on the stairs, buff up the wood, and put an oriental runner there.  Then I’d set up specialized housing for autistic adults all over Pennsylvania.

Alex:  That’s weird.  I’d put an Olympic sized pool in the backyard and a lighthouse on top of the house.  Then I’d go up there and shine lights at people.

Me:  Right.  That’s really normal.

Kevin:  You two think too small.  I’d hire an army and take over the world.

When is school going to start?

Little Break

Just a wee little breakipoo coming your way, cyber pals.  Be back in a week.  Have a wonderful, fun filled week.  I’ll catch up on all your blogs when I get back.

Feel free to leave a detailed account of your weekly life in the comments section.  I’ll analyze you and send you a report.

Go Fish

I grew up in Boston, where we considered seafood to be the largest food group, except for ice cream, of course.  My dad cooked squid before it was popular.  I remember him removing the ink sack and getting black stuff all over the sink and his hands.  Makes you wonder how squid ever became popular.

Adam cooked squid last week, and it was not only yummy, but it looked beautiful.  I tell him that he could have been a chef, if only he’d had more ambition.  Here’s Adam’s fried calamari:

I asked the chef to pose for a picture before we ate his creation.  Apparently, Adam feels very serious about calamari.

We buy our seafood at a local fish store called Go Fish.  This is the most wonderful store in the world.  They not only have gorgeous fresh fish, but they serve sushi, too!  You can go there for dinner Thurs – Sat, and they even serve non seafood yummy stuff on Friday and Saturday.

Heather is the wonderful owner of Go Fish.  Not only does Heather have great taste in fish, but she can stand the Altmans.  She gives me cooking advice and easy recipes.  If I ride my bike to the store on a warm day, she offers to put my fish on ice.  She even slices our lox fresh off the salmon.  Here’s Heather slicing our lox:

Here’s some of Go Fish’s delicious fish selection.  (I just drooled onto the keyboard of this laptop.):

For any of you cute little blogettes who live in Reading, you really should visit Go Fish (619 Penn Ave, W. Reading).  Have some sushi or buy some fish.  We don’t have a Jewish Deli.  We have one place to see an art film.  But we have Go Fish.  Take advantage of it.  For those of you who don’t live in Reading – so sorry!  No fish for you.

Vampires and Me

I have a long, intimate history with vampires, starting at age 13 when my best friend Sheila and I would read “Salem’s Lot” out loud to each other, using a flashlight while sitting in a dark closet.  We scared the piss out of ourselves.  For years I couldn’t walk by a window at night, if the shade was up, for fear of a vampire beckoning me from outside.  My brother, Artie, had to go in the room first and pull the shades down.  If Artie got bitten by one of the undead – oh, well.  Them’s the breaks.

I’ve always loved vampire books.  Now my cup runneth over!  There’s MaryJanice Davidson, Charlaine Harris, Stephenie Meyer and Kim Harrison.  I watch True Blood on HBO with Adam and the boys.  Where else can you see a vampire rip someone’s leg off and wave it about?  (Well, maybe my bedroom if Artie had let a vampire in.)

Despite the vampire over exposure, I’ve never had a vampire dream.  Until last night. In my dream I was making out with a very sexy vampire dude, when he bit my lower inner lip, and began sucking out my life blood.  It didn’t feel good, and it was disturbing.  My dream thoughts went something like this:

“This is a really bad idea.  Should I stop him?  How am I going to take care of the kids if I’m stuck in a coffin all day?  I guess I could turn them into vampires, too, but then they’d be teenagers for all eternity.  Unless I staked them.  I’ve often wanted to stake them.

Boy, Adam’s going to be pissed.  I guess I’ll have to turn him into a vampire, too.  I think he’ll enjoy being undead more than I will.  He could play golf in the dark with other vampires.  No wait time.”

My alarm rang.  Yes, I checked my lip for bite marks!  Duh!

Catch Up and Thank You

My comedy routine went really well.  I’m a happy camper.  I’ll even have a you tube video up shortly.  Remember – not for the faint of heart.  (That means you, Mom.)

Our internet has been down for 2 weeks, and I went to Boston right after my comedy show, so I’m way behind on everyone’s blogs.  I’ll catch up this weekend.  Sorry for the neglect, bloggy friends.

I’d like to thank those of you who gave suggestions for the show, and show you how I used them:

Pearl from Pearlies of Wisdom:  Can you work a TV and a remote control (of course, the husband would be the keeper of the remote!) into a joke, ie. maybe a wife losing control while the husband is searching for the remote control among the bed sheets…or something like that. She could say, “I’m coming” in between pants and he could say, “Hold on, I’ll be with you in a minute.” (as he’s looking for the remote)It sounds real enough to be funny.

I love this suggestion, and Pearl even helped my hone it further.  Here’s what it became:

Middle aged men love their remotes.  Hell, let’s face it, all men love their remotes.  My husband doesn’t like to let go of our remote, so he uses it as a dildo during sex.

No one understands why the dog is always trying to chew on it.

Mary of Resident Alien:  To my mind, just about the funniest middle-aged sex scene I can think of is in the movie ‘East is East’. The husband accidentally traps the flesh from his wife’s upper arm under his hand during the, um, act, making her squawk at him to get off. For some reason, this just cracks me up every time. I’m also partial to Viv Stanshall’s line, ‘a wine and middle-aged spread party’, though that has nothing to do with sex…

Very funny thought, Mary!  Here’s what it became:

The other night I screamed when my husband accidentally rested his elbows on my upper arm flab.

That made him think of some interesting S & M possibilities, like pinning me to the bed like a butterfly.

Many jokes were from my friend Polly, who came over to brainstorm with me the weekend before the show.  An example of what we came up with:

I couldn’t understand why my husband’s butt disappeared, but he didn’t lose any weight.  Then I realized he had a butt in the front.  The other day he came  in the house and was walking right towards me, and I said, “Hey, Honey!  Your ass looks good in that shirt!”

The moral of the story is, that it takes a village to raise a comic.  Thanks, all!

The Last Women’s Libber

My kids crack up at my antiquated “pro women” stance.  On the bright side, I think this is because the concept of women being equal to men has become so widely accepted that it  seems superfluous to stress the point.  That’s terrific.

When I was a little girl, I hated when my mother received missives addressed to “Mrs. Ronald Aaron”.

“What the fuck?” I’d say.  “You’re name’s not ‘Ronald’”

“Watch the language, Trash Mouth.” she’d reply.

Today, I went over my friend C’s house to help her with her daughter’s wedding invitation list.  C had mentioned that she found this task daunting, and couldn’t stop procrastinating.  The wedding is September 19th.  For me, doing something like that with a friend is one of the only ways to get me to work.  I’ll never forget my friend coming to my house when we moved, and helping me clean out my closet.  It was crucial – even if she did have me give half my sweaters to Good Will Industries.  I thought I’d help out C in a similar manner.

We sat down at the kitchen table for our task.  C said that she wanted the invitations to be addressed in a formal manner.  We looked on a website for the format.  They gave the “Mrs. Ronald Aaron” thing.  Unless the woman is a doctor.  Then she gets to be Dr. Marilyn Aaron, while he remains Dr. Ronald Aaron right under her.  Blech.

There was a column of rules just for women – women who are divorced, widowed, remarried.  “I’m going to be ill,” I said.

“Sorry,” said C.

“Why isn’t there a formal way to list everyone’s entire name?  This is so stupid!” I whined.

“We can do that if you want,” said C, looking sort of stricken.  I felt like a puppy beater.

“Oh, C, it’s your wedding,” I said.  “And you’re right.  It looks nicer that way.  I’m an idiot.  Let’s just do the regular formal thing.”

So what, if I crossed my fingers behind my back as I said it?  The important thing is that we got almost the whole list done, and I didn’t vomit once.