Control Issues

13 weeks 'til my thesis is due. Heh.

I lost control last night, which brings up all sorts of questions about what I'm going to do off the diet. (Be so happy with the way my body looks I'll know better?) We had class at the teacher's house last night and she provided munchies as a thank-you for us traipsing over there: chocolate chocolate-chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, tortilla chips, salsa, sodas. Brian, another student, pulled out a bag of pistachio nuts and put it on the table.

I had my litre of water and sipped slowly.

I wrote a note to Carolann, sitting beside me: I want a cookie! She laughed. I started writing I want a cookie! over and over again on my ubiquitous piece of scratch paper. I always have one of these around--I'm constantly doodling faces or repeating words or whatever when I'm in class. It's a nervous tic, I guess.

I ate a tortilla chip. Slowly. I could taste its texture, its corn-ness, its lack of saltiness. (It occurs to me that perhaps what I was going through was salt lust. Oh well.) I took 5 minutes to eat that chip.

I still wanted a cookie. I stared at those cookies. I put way too much effort into thinking about, looking at, and craving those cookies. Probably because I couldn't have one.

I took one pistachio nut. Then another. Then a third. I ate three pistachio nuts and managed to stop. Pistachio nuts always remind me of the time I was in Paris (how's that for a pretentious opening salvo?) with my sister and we sat at a wine bar drinking champagne and eating pistachio nuts--the first time I'd ever had them.

I had no champagne this time; why keep eating pistachio nuts? They are tasty though. Pure fat.

Midway through the second half of class I had finished my water and didn't want any soda or any of the decaf coffee the teacher had made. I finally gave in and whispered to Carolann, "I want a cookie!" She gave me one of the chocolate chocolate-chip ones. (What? You thought I was going to waste a binge on a yucky oatmeal raisin one?)

I spent the rest of class eating that cookie, bit by bit. It was actually a pretty good cookie. Had this not been a test--or, rather, had this been in my pre-diet days--I would have had 2 or 3 and not tasted them at all.

I came home and wrote e-mail to Rob Petrie asking for help. He said that as binges went mine wasn't terrible, that I needed to drink more water, and that I needed to ask the teacher to put the munchies somewhere else, so that they weren't within easy reach.

The class at the teacher's house, by the way, was the class that has inspired so many entries this week. You will be happy to know....eh, fuck what makes you happy, we were happy that the class went pretty well. We discussed the first and last scenes of three of the students' screenplay (not mine, I wasn't fast enough) and what came in between, and problems that she could see just from this.

The teacher, Naomi Foner, sounded reasonable. She sounded a lot more reasonable than she had last week, for instance. Maybe it was just because she was in the element of her own home. Which was an amazing old Los Angeles mansion--if this is what screenwriting does for you, I'm all for it.

Carolann actually followed me from USC to Naomi's house, because I had maps and Carolann is terrible with directions. We got there earlier than we planned--we don't have to leave Len's class so early! joy! One of the things Naomi asked us to do last week was make a copy of the script we wanted to rewrite for everyone in the class. So Carolann and I trudged up to Naomi's manse.

    CAROLANN carries a Xerox box full of SCRIPTS. Beside her, DIANE
    totes two Staples bags, also full of SCRIPTS.
    
    Diane suddenly bursts out into maniacal giggles.
    
    Carolann turns to her.
    
            CAROLANN
        What's wrong?
        
            DIANE
        This is Hollywood's worst nightmare.
        
            CAROLANN
        What is?
        
            DIANE
        Two screenwriters wandering around a neighborhood
        with tons of scripts. 'Excuse me sir, would you 
        like a copy of my script?'
    
    Both women burst into giggles.

Well, we thought it was hilarious, at any rate.

I also had thesis class yesterday. Len brought in his pal and business partner, David Weisman, to hear our pitches and talk some about the industry. I did pretty well with my pitch--first time I've ever pitched! yay! I didn't vomit! yay!--and Weisman had some great comments to make, just on the basis of our pitches.

Then he told us how he got started in the business--he saw La Dolce Vita and thought it was a documentary, so he went off to Italy and ended up drawing the poster for 8 1/2. He did Ciao! Manhattan at Andy Warhol's Factory.

He told us the story of how Kiss of the Spider Woman got made (which involved a hilarious tale about a Major Hollywood Star who was also a Major Transvestite--neither of the stars in the film, thankyouverymuch) and why it absolutely, positively could not get made today. ("A fag and a commie? It's like, who do you hate worst?")

He told us another story--which Len didn't want him to--about the project he and Len had worked on over Christmas...a very un-Len-like project is all I'll say. And he showed us how the best of projects, the most put-together of projects, can come apart at the seams over studio politics.

We could have spent the entire day with him just talking. Not very effective for pushing ahead on our theses, but a lot of fun nonetheless.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

1.5 miles today. It was tough, mostly because I started off too fast--there was another jogger out and I raced her up the hill. Considering that I was just starting my jog and she'd already been out for a while, this wasn't one of my brighter ideas. I paid for it about a mile in.