Tales of a Bohemian Crip

And I got to type that mythical phrase for the first time ever:
FADE OUT.
Is there a more beautiful fragment ever?
Well, okay…the case could be made for “All my love,” “Fuck me!” “Pay to the Order of…” or, on Daily Kos, “Screw you…eom.” But for today, FADE OUT kicks all their asses.
There are plenty of things that could mute this victory dance, you know…it’s a bit too long, and even though I know much more about scripting visuals than I did this summer, it’s probably not sufficient…still sorting out my Continuous from my Cut To, actually. And maybe it only looks like I did a great job weaving plot threads together because I sit around alone in here thinking of it. And in a few days, I promise I’ll tear myself up over all these things. But for now, I think it’s funny and I’m proud and happy.
VICTORY!!!

of activity writing-wise as the stuff I set in motion in the summer and fall finally hit, sort of.Which is great, but somehow? Still less cool than I imagined. The hit of the byline is not lasting like it used to. From a continuity standpoint, I guess it’s great that I’m beginning to build a reputation and that I have editors and etc who don’t know me as, say, Victor’s or Hayden’s weird friend, and that I have enough experience now that my pitches don’t get automatically rejected out of hand.These are all cool things…much less cool is that it’s taken about twelve years to get there, and I don’t know where I’m getting anyway. It is hard to sort out *possible dream* from wildest life fantasy at this point.At my wildest fantasy,I completely fail; without big dreams, I doubt I’d do this much

We saw “Julie and Julia” yesterday, which I was highly anticipating(Much more than B.’s copy of “Inglourious Basterds” that’s sitting on my coffee table right now…each time I go to watch it, I’m just sitting there weighing Tarentino(pro) vs. Laugh riot about WW2, which, even for an acknowledged sick fuck, still kinda seems like a con. I suppose I’ll watch it on the weekend as B. has already began asking me about getting it back in between having me make his weird internet searches…haven’t missed being his little net assistant.) It’s nothing gross…he’s just a Hobby Guy who’s probably dyslexic, so it means looking for materials and implements I’ve never heard of. Which would be tough enough if he wasn’t like an eight-year-old about it “Didja find it? How about now…” Argh.
Julie and Julia was very good, though.Unlike most of the critics, I really could relate to Julie Powell, although she did start to spin out when she started thinking of how much her readers needed her and everything. Which reinforced another pet theory. Mom said “This is that Billy Walsh thing that you say all writers have.Right?”Yeah. Something like that.I loved Streep’s Julia Child performance, which was recognizable but not like she was doing a Julia Child *bit*, which is probably a tough thing to pull off, but even more than that, she made her seem sexy.I also loved that this movie was all about women, but the quest for the Right Guy, and worse, The Right Shoes, was not in it. This was absolutely about the other stuff women strive for and I would like more movies about that, personally. I mean, you could argue that two hours of women sweating over a hot stove isn’t exactly a dream feminist scenario, if you mean “kicking ass and taking names” by that, but the film treated both women and the food with so much respect, it was.

and, for whatever reason, it really ticked me off. And I have been pretty much of an Apatow booster in the past(I like the way he writes and films vulnerable, geeky men, and the women, unlike the teen queens of much of my youth, do always manage to have something to say for themselves generally. HOWEVER, there is never any mention that a girl might be vulnerable in any of these movies…quirky and indie the Apatow maiden might be, but she always looks bangin’ in a halter top. And, even though these heroes make Benjamin Braddock look like James Bond, they always expect all the attention from the hot chicks. I don’t know why…it happened in the other ones too, but something about “Superbad” made me feel all “Where do you get off?”
Maybe because it wasn’t Seth Rogen playing the Seth Rogen lead, even though it was a character named “Seth”. I wouldn’t say Rogen is a good actor, exactly, but there is something warm and believable about him.
Maybe there’s been too much Apatow at once lately….spacing them out might help me stay with his bag of tricks for a while.
Not the easiest week I ever had. Everyone is trying to school me all the time lately. I try to act like I’m into it, like it’s all part of the journey and all that and I’m thrilled to have my errors corrected and my prose tightened(and I try really hard to feel that way…they have a point, right?)But it’s so hard…I don’t get a lot of attention from life in general, and now it seems like it’s all poised to tell me that I suck at one of the few things in the world I fuckin’ need not to be a SPED at.Because it really is one of the only parts of my world where I’m not wondering whether I’ve got skid marks, or something else imperfect-bodied and behind for my age and class. I NEED that to fuckin’ work because it helps me deal with the other things that *so* don’t.(Which, quite frankly, at this moment, seems like everything not contained in that expectant moment when the DVD slides in the player, but Monday mornings are often like this.I’m sure I’ll be chasing my political tail again by midweek.) Objectively, I know, despite being both blonde like a poster child and the kind of kid that used to get cramps in her hand cause she was just*so* excited by all the right answers bouncing about in her head, that a lot of the stuff I learned about life and myself from being treated like a precious bit of blown glass was wrong. Or at least, not things to carry into “adult” life. But it still hurts and I still want somebody to tell me I’m great.Probably every day.But not asking has made me tougher, and I’m proud to say that I’ve not shed a tear over this latest round of setbacks. Which might not seem like much, but my emotional life used to look like I was riding a mechanical bull every day. I just got swept along by every emotion I ever had, not to mention expecting to always Get it Right.
Mostly, I wouldn’t, you know, cause life doesn’t work like this, but it used to make me weepy and ashamed…I don’t cry much anymore.
I wish I could say it was from greater happiness, but equanamity is something. I’m proud of that. I’m proud that I didn’t immediately decide that I’m shit or that G. or the She-Kosers are fuckers(ok, maybe for a second.) I mean, I’m embarrassed that he caught me in an error, and I’m sorry I haven’t wowed the feminists yet, but this liberal agenda is going forward anyway.

The script draft really is almost done, and my little political tale finally came out in Breath, where it will be seen by tens. I still wish I could have figured out how to compress my original idea about the savant getting paid for his original idea in chocolate into a timeframe they could publish, but still, it is a fine fictional nugget. Not much better than fine, although I always picture some fictional critic or biographer calling each new thing some kind of turning point, a sign of new maturity or something of the kind, and it’s not, but “It was a’ight.”
Got the first comment on one of my original pieces since the review of that erotic novel with the wheelchair and bondage and the couple dribbling chocolate on each other(probably my most read article to date…duh!) but the comment was a bit critical of my lack of scientific knowledge. I hate to see that, but I couldn’t possibly study/stay current with everything. Sometimes it’s lucky to be so unsung, as I wrote this guy back and I know it will drop like a pebble in a pond.
But knowing that I work alone so much makes it hard to put in a full day because nobody is waiting on the pages.Especially on the script, which I have taken six months on and I wonder why as I’ll never have enough money to pay $40 every time a new contest comes up. Besides, crip life is designed for failure and depression, not success and achievement…it’s easier logistically if my schedule is always an empty page…if only I had the soul of a junior high pothead and could get back into watching the “Maury Povich Show,” again.
I’d love to say I quit watching because I’ve seen the light in some way, though I have in re the tabs and even more respectable celeb mags like “People”. I don’t intend to ever buy another of either sort. But really I quit watching cause it had become like watching the same show on a tape loop.
It’s funny how things can work their way into your heart and mind past the point when you need them anymore…writing stuff out makes it seem so Real and unchangeable.

if a bit lacking in That Special Feeling, somehow.(I wish somebody wanted to surprise me a bit more often, but it seems like a shallow thought when soup kitchens are expanding so much and all that. But I’ll say it, just between us in this blog nobody reads, sometimes I wish I could be wowed. Or wooed.)
I really thought by now either A. or myself would have someone special to introduce to family festivities, but instead? They just keep shrinking. Sometimes I hate all of us and wish some tiny old fucker in some boat of a car would crash through my bedroom wall and crush me while I sleep. And it’s not because I don’t occasionally dig the minutia of knowing I’ve got the new Mary Karr to read, or new fanfic, or cold soda and a fresh Netflix…those things are all cool. What’s not is this feeling of being potbound, trying to grow in a life that’s too small. Which is where I am, mostly. And I’m not glad about it.
I’m grateful for the blessings I have and that it looks like I’ll be moving to new markets in’10 and, despite the fact that evil stepmonster told me to lower my expectations as a way to justify her own, things-encrusted misery, she probably had a point.I’m not likely, at this point, to be a magazine editor with her pick of sexy lovers and an ex-husband with whom I feel fond and exasperated, a nice house, a book, and maybe a cute daughter. But I’m sick of my extended adolescence…what’s next?I need to get involved in something enough that I can stop waiting. I almost don’t care on which front.

Just got a very backhanded compliment on something I wrote over the summer,which kind of burns my butt, even though I know it’s fannish silliness and there is something about that that is very mockworthy. But it’s good practice for my plotting, or, at least, I like to think so, although being really great at it would make me feel like George Costanza winning “The Contest”. But, still, in all that stuff there was not one joke that made this person smile? Not one image that struck her as being accurate or thoughtful, or who knows? I won’t say I put my heart and soul into that, being that it was a homage to the creations of other hearts and souls, but it is hard for me to write anything without leaving my handprints on it so it sort of feels as if she gave me the pages back complaining about the smudges. But I sort of pushed her into reading it, which is very unlike me. But most people are more impressed by the way I can capture so many sorts of voices, so I admit, I expected a compliment or two.(Or twelve. Forty years of feminism later, and I still feel like a selfish wench typing that. But yeah, you don’t point someone to something thinking “Man, is she ever gonna hate *that* Right?)
But I can’t say anything else beyond the neutral comment I left cause it’s like begging someone to pay you a compliment…it doesn’t satisfy your soul even if you do manage to pull the right string.
I guess she’s not a real Entourage fan so much as a watching-Piven-emote and get shirtless fan. Which, okay, I also like, but all the guys have their own places in my heart.
In my own Southwest way, I am Queens Boulevard.

although, of course, in practice, I’m not alone very often. But very few people live a life like mine(in some ways everyone is, while they wait for the economic rebound)
I thought I would feel more like the rest of the world now that everyone is sweating state budgets like I always have to, but this is one place where nobody wants to be a veteran. There is no prestige in being one of the former poor while everyone is talking about the techly new poor(God, that would give Larry such an erection. But I guess that’s over now…Disability Nation has so been colonized. Getting that job was more fun than having it though,so I pretend to feel set free by its absence, but around the 24th of the month, I still feel as though something should happen. Even though I got my last check in, what, April or May?) It doesn’t take long for me to decide that any arrangement is “forever and ever,” amen. Even though Mom is the only thing that comes close, well, that, and CP. Everything else? Absolutely debatable.
Except for my nice little holding pattern watching the purses while the real people dance. And I still do my little Harriet the Spy thing.

Trying to act as if I’m okay with all the waiting, which, with the upcoming holiday, might stretch into January. Why do I always hit what passes for a hot streak when the Real Writers(which I mostly do not feel like one of,) are all swamped with work? Nobody has told me what to think of myself or what comes out on the page for about two weeks now, and I’m feeling this void as only a former grade-grubber, who used to get muscle aches from being the good little girl with the right answer, can. Sometimes I’m just dying for somebody to come along here and slap a gold star on this whole enterprise. Whatever the hell it is that I’m doing here, which I sometimes get confused about, because, right now, at least, I’m doing what comes along, as opposed to filling some grand vision.”War and Peace”, or, hell, “L.A. Confidential” is not bursting to be born on my desk right now.
It’s mostly a little of this and that. I have several projects so I don’t have an excuse not to work for a few hours every day just because Byzek has not gotten back to me about MSFriends yet, for example.None of them really call out to me for my every waking moment though. It used to be like that a lot, though, of course, that’s completely uncontrollable and led to me not attempting to write anything for six months in between.
I don’t think I should run things like that anymore. Mostly I could keep that up because I imagined myself catching a few minutes to scribble in between clients in my shrink’s and/or legal office, much as I had through my student life, between classes. I hadn’t ever really imagined that this would be, you know, It.

That the scribbling would represent my part in my life. Even immediately after college, it was as if I imagined myself somehow reborn by the anti-climactic exchange of seven years of my life for paper with a gold seal on it into the sort of public-policy geek that the disability rights movement most loves.I pictured myself setting the scene at a lot of transit actions, really. The funny thing is,I did a lot of that stuff and haven’t really had occasion to write about it much.
It was just before blogging took off as a thing, and now I’d kind of have to blow the dust off of it. It would be hard to recapture that sense of certainty that all that rolling and chanting was even self-changing, much less world-changing, at this point in the game.

I thought there would be news before this, but there hasn’t.Have sent things out, but everything is kind of hurry-up-and-wait right now all at once. The writing life is not all that compelling when you are not taking meetings and facing big ethical dilemmas.
I still write about three hundred words a day, unless I get nuts and do a Kos diary in addition or something which leads to maybe 1000.(Without Grayson shooting his mouth off, I feel less confident about my ability to comment on the political process…who knew my best muse is a Jewish congressman in Orlando in a bad suit?)
I still don’t really know if I want to commit fully to screenwriting or if the old image of a book with my name on it is really what this is all for.
I’m really wondering since having friends who have put books out seems to have moved “Write book. 2. Get rich.” to the deepest, darkest regions of Fantasyland with a loving father and a winning scratcher ticket.
I still want to do it, but it has been a long time since my writing has been about some deep passionate Something that I just have to say, or die trying. Sometimes I have a feeling, or an idea, in the case of the savant-car builder story, and if it persists enough, I put it down, because, what the hell, I can. Or it helps me contain my anger or my lust. And I have acres of time every day…you know, I might as well.
I think before I started publishing reviews and stuff it was about more than that, but it would be freaky to let “Short Bus” or “Hands of My Father” grab any part of my heart or soul.
So why couldn’t I quit for more than a week or two?(And if just did what Wanted Out, like my friend Deb says, I’d be right back to epic fanfiction crossovers, which I think I’ll lay aside again when the holidays are over, but I am loving that this challenge gave me the permission, and that my recipient seems so likely to embrace a journey I’d already begun without her.)
But I don’t think Life in Fandom, even if I could wake up tomorrow and be like Shrift, or Nestra, or Shalott,is really the ticket either.
There are so many places where I don’t know what I really want. Not that it ever felt up to me for more than five minutes every few years anyway.

that one of my first few diaries on Kos got Rescued by someone last week. It’s hugely validating in that they have people combing the blog for two-hour shifts every day looking for things that ought to get read and somebody thought my little cry from the heart fit the bill.
I tried to do Rescues for a while but I had no knack for it. I was also trying to combine it with other obligations and adding two hours of travel and attendant time, which almost never worked out well. I don’t miss those particular bits of “Freedom” anymore at all, especially since I generally traded my little room hunched over a keyboard for Planned Parenthood’s room hunched over a keyboard. Very Broadening, and it always left me writing my half-assed rescue summaries with thirty seconds to spare or something. Which probably made everyone I edited with hate me, really, but I just felt all my stress and drama.
Still, Rescue was one place in my life where I really FAILED, not just got left behind, so it means a lot to start paying that debt back. Also, nobody mocked me for the huge admission of vulnerability that diary contained and it seems that people were touched, as I was.
This is good to know, both for the writer and the spaz, that, on occasion, while things I think may not be universal, they are also not so weird that nobody else may appreciate them.