Psych 101

Until then, however...

I didn't work at all during the weekend up in the City, which meant I lost a lot of time: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I did a little bit of writing Monday night, on the Rewrite Script.

Yesterday was spent rewriting my Everybody Loves Raymond. It had to be at USC by 5pm, which meant that not only did I have a deadline, I had a deadline that involved figuring out commute patterns.

I rewrote giant sections of the script and I think it's better than it was, but still not as funny as I want it to be and it doesn't hit on the issues raised enough. I basically went for Okay rather than Great, because I didn't give it any more time than that.

I dropped it off and left a glowing class evaluation for the Sitcom teacher, who was wonderful, even if my work didn't reflect that.

I came home and watched the new Buffy--where are they going with the whole snake thing?? Then Fernando, who was playing with Darin's new G3 computer left and Darin came up to the living room to snuggle with me as we watched TV.

First, two episodes of Frasier--the second one ever, in syndication on WPIX, and then the most recent one. It was great seeing how much the characters have developed and how comfortable the actors have gotten with their characters. I don't watch Sitcoms--not a statement of superiority, merely of personal preference--but I like Frasier a lot: it seems to be a show for intelligent people.

The best story I ever read about Frasier was how one of the writers explained Niles's character to David Hyde-Pierce: "Frasier is a Freudian and Niles is a Jungian." That cracks me up. And it evidently explained the character to Hyde-Pierce.

Then we watched The Long Kiss Goodnight. I don't understand why that movie didn't do better--I had a good time watching it in the theatres and a good time last night. ("She's my only daughter.") It's better than most action movies and Geena Davis kicks butt. Yes, the script is nonsensical, but it never stops long enough to let you figure that out. Sigh. It killed the female action movie for a while, which really bums a chick like me out.

Then, the most recent Larry Sanders. He isn't really quitting after this season, is he? Damn, but this show rocks. My biggest regret: I'll never be a big enough star to have appeared on Larry Sanders.

I have to finish the Rewrite Script by Friday, which is May 1 and also the deadline for entering a script in the Nicholl Fellowship contest, a prestigious screenwriting contest run by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (as in, "I'd like to thank the Academy..."). I have approximately 20 pages to go, with maybe another 10 pages of rewrites that I absolutely have to do.

So what have I done so far today? Have I dived right in and written those 20 pages (as I have done many, many times, in a single day)? No, I have not. I've played Civilization II, went for coffee, then went for a walk (and boy, is it gorgeous out--Los Angeles in spring is something special). I came home and immediately decided the pressing thing was to write a Paperwork entry. Which was good, actually, because I realized that today is Wednesday, not Thursday, so I have a full 24 hours I can waste.

Can we say, Passive-aggressive? Avoidance Behavior? Dooming Self To Failure?

I knew we could.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Yesterday: 4.7 miles.

Today: went to get some coffee, kept walking. Probably 3 miles altogether. Because I started and stopped and didn't sweat, I don't count this in my weekly total.