Last night, despite being dizzy, I went to my screenwriters meeting. Nothing to critique, we just sat around and talked about the "Selling to Hollywood" conference, which Jennise went to last weekend.
Afterwards I went into Palo Alto to meet Darin, Greg, and Sho for dinner. I was spacy (or should I say, spacier) than usual. When we finally got seated -- after waiting most of our natural lives for a table -- I started scribbling things that I wanted to make sure that I said on the paper tablecloth. Otherwise I was going to forget them pretty easily.
I knew that I didn't want to drive home after dinner, but I couldn't leave my car on the street just off of University, unless I wanted to get a parking ticket. So I drove it a couple of streets over and then Darin drove me home.
This is my explanation for why my car was outside Greg's place all night, and I'm sticking to it.
On the drive home from Palo Alto, Darin and I stopped at the Walgreens to pick up the prescription that I dropped off yesterday afternoon. Darin and I had come to the conclusion that my dizzy symptoms were probably from withdrawal -- just like going cold turkey on heroin, except with less vomit, urine, and feces. (Heh -- sorry about that. You have to see Trainspotting.)
I take two prescription medications every day: the Main Drug and the Helper Drug. The Main Drug, while effective, has a side-effect of putting me to sleep. The Helper Drug's job is to counteract the sleepiness. When I don't take the Helper Drug, I am a completely exhausted zombie (I think I described this state a few weeks ago).
Our current working theory is that when I don't take the Main Drug, I start getting dizzy and nauseous. This is completely anecdotal and does not reflect the results of a double-blind study.
Well, I ran out of the Main Drug on Saturday, so I hadn't taken it for Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. We picked up the prescription at 11pm (or so) and I took one; I took another first thing this morning when I woke up. And guess what! I'm not dizzy any more.
One of the reasons I dropped my car off at Greg's was that we had made plans to have lunch together today anyhow. When I showed up at his house, McCloud, that flashback to the 70s, was on A&E. I sat down to watch that as Greg started to deal with the Cable Guy, who showed up right after I did asking for more money. Evidently Greg's already paid them; they just haven't entered that payment into to the computer yet, so Greg had the Cable Guy call the home office and straighten this out.
I watched the TV show. Whee ha, thank God the 70s are over. Not only was the script terrible and the camerawork pedestrian and the actors mediocre, but...the opening scene shows a man and woman enjoying an evening together. Suddenly, hit men break in! The man and woman hide in the closet. The cops show up. The hit men fire into the closet, but then they dive through the bedroom window to escape from the cops. The cops get the lovers out of the closet.
Later, the man asks one of the cops if the woman is okay. "Sure," says the cop. "She was only grazed by the bullet, because she wears a padded bra."
The man says, "Padded...bra? I didn't think the evening could get any worse."
And he was completely serious. Not the hitmen, not the cops dragging him in, no no...his girlfriend's figure was amplified; that's what bummed him out.
I thought I was going to die, but whether from laughing or anger I wasn't sure. If anyone thinks women were better off even 20 years ago, I suggest watching a little TV.
After lunch with Greg (the usual -- the Peninsula Creamery, which always makes me feel bloated and ill but I like their chocolate malteds) I went shopping. Price Costco, Office Max, and the Stanford Bookstore. As with so many things that I do, buying these things seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm not sure that Darin and I need 30 rolls of toilet paper, even split between two households, but there you are.