not the same as mental midgets, but close
The quote of the day:
They can come carve "Z" anywhere they want around my house.
Running news:
Yesterday, 4.1 miles. Today: nothing. I've really been needing these days off. Rob informs me I may want to see if there's a correlation between days I find running to be especially hard and the pollution index.
So, Glenn wrote me and asked what was up with this running thing anyhow?
The first time I remember giving any thought to aerobic activity whatsoever was in college. I may have before that; I just don't remember. Two things happened in my Awareness of Aerobic Activity freshman year:
- my roommate joined the Stanford Crew Team, which had training runs of 5 miles up and around the hill near Stanford known as "the Dish" (not because it's gorgeous, but because there's a big ol' satellite dish on it), and
- another girl in our dormitory was a qualified aerobics instructor and taught aerobics classes in our dorm.
I remember disbelieving that anyone could run 5 miles in a row, let alone up hills.
And I remember the aerobics classes being really popular. The one time I took the class I was unable to keep up with the moves or keep moving for an hour straight. I have never been able to do an aerobics class--they make me feel uncoordinated and dorky, which simply exacerbates how I feel most of the time anyhow. I don't do aerobics, I have no tolerance for step, and don't even come near me in a tight thong leotard with a bouncy ponytail.
I took a weight training class at Stanford. I liked weights; I could do those. I couldn't do the running. At least, not for very long and not very far. I was in pretty good aerobic shape though, because my only transportation was a bike and I bicycled everywhere. Mind you, "everywhere" around Stanford and Palo Alto isn't far, but I could do 20 miles a day pretty easily.
Then I started working for a living and got used to my car. That's what you do in California: you live in your car. I forgot what it was like to get everywhere on a bicycle, and once you have a car everything else seems slow and annoying.
I began working out at the Apple Fitness Center frequently. Five to seven days a week. Mostly weights, but I had to do some kind of aerobic exercise. So I'd do the treadmill or the bikes or stairmaster. (I wasn't going anywhere near the aerobics room.) One of the staff members came up to me when I was on the bike and asked if I was a competitive bicyclist. It was either was the look on my face or the size of my thighs, I guess.
I got into the habit of doing 3 miles a day on the treadmill. I think I wanted to see if I could keep my body going the way I saw all those runners doing. Bicycling is easy: all you have to do is push the pedals.
(Now, don't write me and tell me how tough bicycling is; I know it is. I'm talking about mental models of exercise, and in my mental model, running is more difficult than bicycling.)
Once--I was upset about something and wanted to burn the anger out of my body somehow--I did 5 miles in 35 minutes on the treadmill. I've never been able to repeat that performance, but I was (and, actually, still am) stunned that I could do it even that once.
After leaving Apple I decided I could take up running near our condo. I discovered rapidly that running on ground is vastly different from running on a treadmill. Well, not so much different as harder. I did it pretty consistently, but I was slow and never progressed much beyond 3 miles. Of course, I didn't make getting past 3 miles much of a priority, the way I have now.
When I got to LA two years ago, of course, I did nothing. I wasn't going to go running in the area near my apartment in Studio City. I didn't go to the USC Gym. I was a big ol' lump, and I became a much larger lump. It's only because I lost 25 pounds earlier this year that I've been able to make such strides in my exercise recently. (Of course, I keep thinking, If I were able to lose another 15 pounds, imagine how fast I'd be able to run then.)
I've reread a whole bunch of my entries from 2 years ago and one thing I notice is my continual list of physical complaints. I was continually going to see a doctor for something or another. I don't much think about going to doctors these days. I don't believe that getting regular exercise is the only reason, but I bet it doesn't hurt.
Glenn, by the way, is one of the Venal Six mentioned so often in these pages. He wrote me and said that he had issues with the term "venal":
... Anyway... Let me preface this by saying, I'm sort of joking, but really... You (and I guess others) refer to "us" as the Venal Six. Well, technically that's a misnomer. Venal means to be "willing to sell one's services or influence basely; open to bribes; corrupt." Okay, some would say that fits, maybe, but not really. And, if it did fit us, wouldn't all in the GSP be technically venal. Aren't we all willing to sell our services? But, basely? I'm not sure about that. We never should have called ourselves the "Elite" and then used USC mail since it did look shady, but that doesn't necessarily constitute venality. Really, being venal applies more to politicians and judges, law enforcement etc. Not really screenwriters, even lying, cheating one's! ;-)
I don't think "venial" was meant either, but it fits better since it means something wrong, but pardonable. We might be better termed "mercenary" but then that too would apply to most screenwriters. We could be called The Lying Cheating Stealing Six. I like The Smash Cut Six because it has a nice ring to it. ;-) Oh well.
One good thing, in the end, is that the Writing Division did change the format of the Script List so that it resembles Smash Cut. I'm glad about that because it will help everybody. I highly doubt that if we'd simply gone and asked them to do it that way that they'd have changed it. If we could have dropped that "Elite" reference or modified it by "some of" who knows how this thing would have gone down. It's funny though, it's sort of gratifying to know we changed things, even though it was muy painful during the events...
On the Well, in the movies conference, there's a discussion of whether or not Banderas and Hopkins are babe magnets or not. Oh please. Like there could possibly be two sides to that debate.
Can you tell I'm blocked?
Actually, I think block is a sign of something worse, and when I sat down today and analyzed The Problem I saw what it was. Something far worse than block has happened.
I have a Problem that occurs every so often and which I'm beginning to recognize the signs of: I reach a stumbling block in the story. Something's not going right. I dive into the mechanics, into making the gears of this thing turn when they clearly don't want to.
Stop. Rethink.
Realize that I have to trash the last 30 pages I've written. Feel that this is okay, that it's for the best.
Agonize. Wonder if I'm a fool.
Cry.
Get out the yellow pads. Start working on the sequences for Act 2, the Great Wasteland of the Screenplay. Up the ante. Up the stakes. Make it organic.
When you have to start turning the gears yourself, there's something wrong.
I hate that.
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