Got into a fender-bender last night. Here's the kicker: I was on my cell phone -- and I was the one who got hit. I think it was about 5 or 10 miles an hour. Tore up my bumper a little. I was in stop-n-go traffic on the 110 heading home after class and the guy behind me started going before I did.
Here's a driving tip: if the car ahead of you is getting larger and larger and larger, you're going faster than it is and you should SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!
Ahem.
I'm still debating whether it's worth having my insurance take care of it. Maybe I should save up the fender-benders for the time when some real major damage gets done. The car is eight years old, after all. However, I was hit by one of the few insured drivers in Los Angeles -- I should take advantage, don't you think?
Not that I can even get my insurance company (Northern California's AAA) to call me back, and SoCal's AAA won't touch this. Oy.
I came home and lay on the couch and felt sorry for myself for a while. I called Tiffany to find out what's been shakin' down in Santa Monica. I also asked what I should do, because my neck hurt a little. She said put ice on it and take pain killers -- that's about it.
Last night I became completely depressed. Part of it was the fender-bender, part of it was my general Weltangst that wells up every so often. (And part of it was biological -- guess what I discovered when I was getting ready for bed last night? Yes, I'm just as hormonal as any other woman.) A book I've been reading, Feeling Good by David Burns, recommends writing down the depressive or saddening thoughts that pester you, in order to develop objectivity about them. So here's some of what was going through my mind:
Et cetera.
I'm a ton of fun when I'm like this.
I know the number one rule of Hollywood, according to William Goldman: NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING. Every day the execs make decisions that they have no idea if they're going to work or not. "I know -- let's pay Jim Carrey twenty million for a happy movie like The Cable Guy!" All you need is one person to say yes to you.
I've also figured out what the job of the screenwriter is. (How's that for arrogant, considering I haven't even finished a full-length screenplay yet?) Here's the secret, folks:
The writing is important -- it's just not all important. Prose writers and playwrights are so used to being absolute gods of their worlds that it's hard not to be attached to the sacredness of each and every word set to paper. Screenplays aren't like that: they really and truly are just blueprints, some of them more engaging than others.
On misc.writing.screenplays, there's a debate on whether screenwriters should use CUT TO:, SMASH CUT TO:, SHOCK CUT TO:. This discussion seems incredibly useless (and amateurish) to me. (For one thing, why are the screenwriters telling the editors what to do?)
Bob Dole spoke at some private high school around here someplace today. He began the "Just Don't Do It" anti-drug campaign -- reportedly most of the high schoolers had never heard of "Just Say No." Can this possibly be true?
It cracked me up that he said Clinton was flippant about his drug use on MTV, which signals Clinton's inability to deal with the drug problem. What do Newt's comments on his own drug use signify? And if it's true that the modern crack epidemic was begun by Nicaraguan CIA confederates in order to fund the contras, does that mean the Republicans, who backed the contras, are responsible for crack use?
Dole also criticized Hollywood for romanticizing heroin addiction. He cited the movies Trainspotting and Pulp Fiction as examples of this. Can anyone point out for me what's wrong with Mr. Dole's reasoning here?