October 30, 2007 by Dave.

I’m sick today. I even called in sick from work, which I almost never do—seriously, it’s got to be like pneumonia before I consider not going to work. But today I was laid out. Party it was my fault: I slept with the window open and it got to about 32 last night. Not good. But actually I think it already exacerbated my condition from events yesterday.

Yesterday morning I got into an accident driving Sophia to school. We were driving up Route 2 past Alewife station as we always do. Traffic wasn’t too bad since we were moving at least 20-25 mph. Sophia asked me a question. The car ahead of me looked well ahead of me and I glanced at Sophia for a moment. I looked back on the road and the SUV was right in front of me (literally). I think I hit the SUV and the brakes simultaneously, but the hood of my car was crumpled in by their tire rack. Sophia starts crying, so I put the car in park to look after her. She was fine, just snagged by the seatbelt—which is what it’s supposed to do. I got out of the car and the only thing wrong with her car was a small red reflector on the right back side. Meanwhile my front hood looks like a pup tent. I went to the other car to see the other driver and try to exchange information. She was already on the phone when I got there (she apparently called the police immediately after she was hit). I waited for her to get off the phone and tried to look for a pen.

Now not to get too far off topic, but here’s another reason to hate Mass-hole drivers (all you Massachusetts residents know what I’m talking about and some know who you are). Our cars are stopped in the middle of the right lane of the road not on the shoulder, meaning we’re blocking traffic. One of the first things I did was turn my blinkers on to get people to go around us. Rush hour traffic passes right around us and keeps moving by. On the other side of the median, some woman (forgive me if I use the term loosely) stops her van (a real delivery van of some sort), leans out of the window and starts yelling at me that I need to move the cars over to the shoulder because we’re blocking traffic. I mean, there’s a woman in the SUV on the car phone saying something in her neck popped, my daughter’s freaking out, I’m in shock and this bitch is holding up traffic to yell at me to stop blocking traffic. I mean WHAT THE FUCK!

The local police showed up to move things along, a fire truck comes over to help the woman into an ambulance, and a state police trooper gets all our information for a crash report. I’ve never been in an accident like this (where my car is actually crunched up or someone was hurt), so I have no idea what to do other than get information and wait to see what’s going on. I ask the fireman if she was seriously hurt, but he gestures to me like “don’t worry it’s nothing”; so that was comforting. The statie gives me the lowdown of having to go get and fill out a crash operator report and the time I have to deal with insurance.

I’ve been in shock pretty much since then, but even more throughout the course of the day. My front grill is smashed in, but the only thing I can think to do is get Sophia to school. I do that okay, though nothing seems to be leaking. I drive back home to call Susan to get her to pick up Sophia and let he know what happened. Susan was freaked out but even more so about having to go pick her up that day on the bus. I tried to explain how bad the situation was but that just got her more panicked. So I had to pick up Sophia and then take the car to the mechanic and then take the bus to work. Before any of that I had to pick up a crash operator report form the police station. Doing that I knew the engine was overheating, which meant there had to be a radiator problem. I got two bottles of coolant, poured half of one into the car and drove off to pick up Sophia. I got to the school and poured the rest of the coolant bottle in before going upstairs to actually get Sophia. Getting Sophia back home was fine, having to deal with Susan’s “Oh, lovely” about the car when I got there wasn’t. After that I drove to the water park in Belmont, filled the radiator with another half bottle of coolant and made my way to my mechanic. He said I had to take the thing to a body shop. Actually the first thing he asked was if I was doing this through insurance; I said yeah, thinking I was at the time. He recommended a place nearby and my car just made it there. The guy looked at the car and said told me that this would be nearly two grand in work. Also that if I was going to my insurance, get the adjuster to come to him because they can work out a deal so the title will stay clean.

I still had to get to work, so I had to catch a bus. I check my cell and I got a phone message from my insurance company. It was just 3:00 pm and the accident happened at about 9:15. The woman in the SUV wasted no time to call her insurance company. Since I’m not that great at talking on my cell phone in a moving vehicle simultaneously, I waited to get to the office to make any calls. I call the insurance woman back and she tells me something I didn’t realize: I didn’t have collision insurance. I had the mandatory insurance to cover damage and injury to the other vehicle, but nothing to cover me and my car. So now I’m suddenly paying for the car repairs out of my own pocket. I called the guy back and told him the news. He said he’d write up an estimate to see how much it would cost. He called me this morning and told me the total would come to $1,200. That pretty much capped off my cold.

I had enough cash to make a $300 down payment, which cushions the a $1,200 hit to my credit card. I’m paying much more for the repair than I did for he car. However I’d like to keep this car for a while. It’s in good shape and not a total beater. Plus the cost to the wallet could have been higher. So I’m biting the bullet on this one. And it could have been a lot worse conclusion too.

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October 30, 2007 by Dave.

The last few days I’ve been doing something I haven’t done in quite some time: reading some of the articles on TomPaine.com. At its best, TomPaine.com is a progressive critique of the news and media that isn’t being heard in major media channels. At it worst, is a liberal political web site aimed at trying to cut through the white noise of the conservative blogosphere. It’s a pretty good site and the articles are helpful to the debate on national issues. The thing is I haven’t been to the site in quite a while.

Part of any depression is a disinterest in things that you were once passionate about. It seems like for the longest time, I was so angry and so out of it that I shut down and didn’t want to get into any arguments about anything. As such, I wanted little to do with politics. I can’t say I don’t want anything to do with it; it’s way too engrained in my psyche for that. But there’s a point where if I heard too much about something I’d either go off or crawl into a corner. As such I stopped reading the liberal blogs and tried to soothe my soul with internet poker or porn.

I only noticed a couple of days ago that I was visiting the site again, reading up on editorials and op-ed blogs on a few topics like child health care and intimidation tactics of the far right wing. I hadn’t realized I was doing it, kind of like I didn’t notice how much time I was spending playing Omaha Hi/Lo online. Except this was a good way, not a way to avoid all that’s going on in my life. I’m not sure I feel completely myself these days, but I at least feel closer to it than I have in a while.

Final Note: Thanks to all those who dispensed medical advice to me as to what anxiety and/or sleeping pills to take. So far some of the over the counter sleep aids are helping. I’m not looking to get back on anti-anxiety stuff again right now.

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October 24, 2007 by Dave.

It seems like the blog entries that got the most hits recently (and in some cases– because I cross post a lot– cumulatively) were the entries titled MILF Heaven and Being A Conservative. Seeing that I love generating blog traffic to my sites, I figured this title would be sure to generate hits. So, yeah… made you look.

Why is it I can’t string together two straight nights of good sleep? I’ve been having the strange combination of getting to bed late and then getting up early and not being able to go back to sleep. As such I’m in the middle of fighting a cold brought on by lack of rest. I get those so friggin’ often that I know what they feel like off the bat. So I’m stocking up on Airborne, drinking fluids and turning in early tonight. Thank god it’s my day off.

The sleep thing is always a constant. I was taking Klonopin for it because my mind races at night and if you’ve been keeping close track of my blogs, I’m pretty anxious by nature. I stopped taking it a while back, but now the sleep cycle has gone out of whack. And actually it was getting better towards the end of the week. The last couple of days I’ve been up early for no reason. I’m just trying to ride it out. Not really sure I want to get back on Klonopin, but need something to generally get to sleep and stay asleep. I’ve already tried pills. My next step is a hammer.

One more bio down for the web drama. That was actually very helpful and will help with the final character, who I really didn’t have a handle on until I finished this last supporting character. I’ve also added a little more to the script itself. It’s slowly coming. Forgot how hard truly character-driven and dialog-driven dramas can be. It’s necessary to get the characters and the relationships right so you know how they talk and interact with each other even before the first “Fade In.” I still can’t give out details, but I’ll say this: it deals with a family situation. Since everyone has a history with each other, I need to know their history and the shorthand they use with each other. They also have a personal history that gives them a place to come from. I need to explore that and get motivations ready for when they open their mouths. Plus I understand one key character a lot better now and can really get into what he says and why he’s doing what he’s doing. In my mind I’m still on target for a late-January launch, but we’ll see as the time gets closer.

Okay, the computer screen is getting fuzzy even with my glasses on. Time for a Nyquil induced night’s sleep.

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October 24, 2007 by Dave.

Along with “O, Brother Where Art Thou?” I’ve also been playing “Rubber Soul” by the Beatles. They were my favorite band growing up and are still one of my favorites. I was trying to get Sophia’s music education started early.

Me: Those are the Beatles. They’re one of my favorite bands.
Sophia: I like the ants.

A few days later, she requested to put the Beatles on and then had this exchange.

Me: These are the Beatles, B-e-a-t-l-e-s, not b-e-e-t-l-e-s.
Sophia: Are they black beetles?
Me: Um… No, they’re all… white Beatles.

So yeah, she’s still got to get it straight. Luckily she likes them. Her favorite song is “The Word.” It’s so cute to hear her sing the chorus!

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October 23, 2007 by Dave.

I’ve been playing the soundtrack “O, Brother, Where Art Thou?” for the last five days. Sophia likes the “You Are My Sunshine” song– well at least the chorus. She sings with it every time the song comes on, and sometimes asks me to play it again. Thing is I never realized how depressing that song is. I guess I keep associating the chorus only sung with the Oscar Mayer (??) commercial from the late 70s. LOL! Listen to the rest of it and man is that some of my love life wrapped up in a nutshell.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away.

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October 19, 2007 by Dave.

I finally have all the paperwork on my new used car pretty much settled. Over the weekend I got a 1992 Geo Prizm from someone in Brockton for $750. A little worrisome purchase at first. He wanted cash to buy the car so he could pay for a truck in New Hampshire; I had to pay by check to pay out of my credit card. He took the check and changed his plans to buy the truck that day. Sucked that he had to do that, but that was the only way I could pay.

Luckily right now any complaints about the car are minor stuff. The radio doesn’t work too well (although there is a CD player), the windows are manual, and the driver’s door can’t be opened from the outside—which makes having the back seat child lock engaged interesting. I don’t feel as worried in this car as the Concorde. The transmission doesn’t slip, it has decent pick up and the mileage looks good. Yes it’s smaller than the Concorde, but at least it runs.

It’s been a lot less stressful this week in getting around and picking up Sophia at school. No having to go by a specific bus schedule and take three buses to get near Sophia. It’s been helpful to say the least.

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October 17, 2007 by Dave.

I think my life would be a hell of a lot easier if I were a conservative. I wouldn’t have to worry about thinking for myself all the time. Everything I need to know will be outlined in easy to remember talking points— generated by the party leaders and think tanks— that will be repeated and repeated until I fully and firmly believe them, even if I don’t fully understand what they are and even if the points are contradictory to earlier points. I also know that I wouldn’t be alone in how I think. Every conservative would think exactly like I do and we’d all be in agreement on the issues of the day. With no need to argue amongst each another, we can focus all our energy on fighting our common enemies: liberals and terrorists. There are enemies all around us and they are easily pointed out to us by our party leaders, which again focuses our energy for the fight rather than mindless speculation. As such I could do nothing but support the troops, no matter where my country sends them and why. We don’t need to know why we got into Iraq. We’re there now and we need to stay and win, whatever that means.

I wouldn’t have to worry about doing things against my interests. It doesn’t matter that the government needs money to rebuild our infrastructure, adequately fund our schools, or provide a safety net if something goes wrong in my life. My tax refund deserves to be bigger; it’s my money after all. As such, I wouldn’t have to worry about being interested only in myself and for my benefit. That’s what this ideology is all about. I just need to hold out for what’s best for me, others’ welfare be damned—even if that means forgoing long term security.

This naturally leads to not having to worry about my future. If it’s too far away for me to deal with, why should I have to worry about it? Everything will eventually be taken care of. Through faith in god and country, all will be made good in another world; through faith in the free market that controls us all, everything will be made good in this world. If things go wrong for me, it is my own fault and need to work harder or pay for my own lack of faith. I would have no one to blame but myself, and that would be just.

I wouldn’t have to worry about what my government or party leaders do. What they do is for love of country and its people, and can be given a wide latitude. Whether it be tapping our phones, reading our emails, monitoring our every move, they are doing it to make use free. Whether it be opposing racial quotas in our schools or reducing gains from civil rights movements, it is done to make sure we are all equal. If it appears some party leaders are doing corrupt things, it is because they are being smeared by people who don’t care for our country and its way of life. We don’t need to know every sordid detail about our elected officials— except about those that are aiding our enemies, then we should dissect every aspect of their lives and expose them for what they are.

And I wouldn’t ever have to worry about doing the right thing, because no matter what I do it will always be the right thing. If you are a conservative, you can do know wrong. This is taught to us on the radio, on selected news channels, in the Bible and churches, and most importantly from our party leaders. Conservatives are always in the right and liberals and terrorists are always wrong, and there will be people around to prove that point if it is ever in doubt. Rightfully so we are always on the winning side.

Being a conservative means to be free of worry. Isn’t that all anybody wants from life no matter what the cost?

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October 14, 2007 by Dave.

This is probably one of my more disjointed journals because my head is all over the place these days. I have not been in the best emotional frame of mind the last few days, maybe even longer.

I think it kind of started soon after my October New York visit. Why is it that whenever I take a trip this year I come back more worse for wear? It’s not that I had a bad time. The reunion was cool, the conference was fun and I got to see a bunch of different friends that week. I think I got unsettled after all of that. Physically I was a little more on the ball trying to lose weight and stick to a diet. At the start of the conference, I lost all focus on that and haven’t really been consistently to the gym or got back on a diet since. I’ve been on my bike a little bit, but that was sporadic the last few weeks. A couple of weeks ago, the cyst on my kidney decided to grow causing a lot of pain in my back for a week. This meant no bike riding or going to the gym. Really though the lack of proper eating just screwed me up.

Although really I was kind of out of it in addition because of what happened with my car. When I came back I had to start looking for a new one. That’s been driving me nuts because it meant taking Sophia back and forth on a bus. It was fine for just me but to take three buses at a time to pick up my daughter and drop her off at school once in a while was too fucking annoying. It makes the stress of finding a good deal that much harder.

A good deal is needed because of where I’m at financially. I still have a huge debt to deal with on my credit card and am starting on my payment plan to pay down my taxes. The payments for the credit card are just too big right now. It does help that I’m working a lot of OT to pay off some of the debt, but it wears you down. It’s not a pace I like to keep going at, but I need to pay stuff off.

Then there’s the new project. Since the conference I knew that this project was going to take off and I needed to get it figured out and written. I’ve been writing character bios and doing research on stuff, but I’m dying to get to the actual script. I’ve been very impatient and needed to wait. However I recently started some work on the script, even though I really need two more character bios to finish. Not the best thing to do. I do need to go back and create the bios. Although really it’s more than just the bios.

There’s also the upcoming writer’s guild strike. While I’m not a WGA member, the strike still affects me. Anyone who sells to a studio struck by the guild can’t join the guild, so it makes it much longer before I can sell a screenplay of mine. The strike may go on for a few months so who knows when that will be settled. It’s not like I’m a hot commodity right now or sold anything, but if I want to join the Guild later on (which I do) I have to wait until the strike is over before I can even query anyone. No one in the industry is accepting or looking at new scripts now because of it.

I’m doing with this bios/project what I do in a lot of aspects of my life. I have this image of what I need to do and what I want to do and jump in rather than have a plan to what I need to do first. Or what I have planned on is not living up to what I had in mind. Either way it grates on me. To me there is a great disconnect of between what I want to do or have and what I have or am doing. All that does is make me more anxious about things and gets me no closer to where I need to be. Pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then there’s my own ubiquitous problems with women—or lack thereof. I’m single and hating it, but I really have no time to do anything about it. Also my head is easily all over the map about any kind of relationship. Have you seen the tag line for the upcoming Robert Redford movie Lions for Lambs? It reads: “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” That’s pretty much what’s happens to me with women. I feel like I’m just flailing around for some sort of affection that I’ll take anything right now. That potentially leads to a lot of bad situations. At the very least, it leaves me confused and not knowing what to do. It’s all part of my own emotional problems. I can’t be happy alone or with someone when I can’t be happy with my own life as it is. It sucks to live like this.

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October 6, 2007 by Dave.

I was looking at my paycheck today and saw how much sick time and vacation days I had, and I calculated that I could just about afford to take the seven weeks off needed for a producer’s lab I applied for. There’s a lab in LA that has runs two nights a week over seven weeks. The thing is you need to be in LA to attend. With how much time I still have left I could afford to go and not work. Sort of. I still have a lot of bills that I need to take care of and that means needing to work OT as often as possible. Still I had that little glimmer of hope.

However that was dashed when I got home and found a letter from the Film Independent group. It was a very thin envelope so I kind of knew what to expect when I opened it. It still suck to read it though. It was a form letter politely saying that I wasn’t selected for the producer’s lab. Like the last lab I wasn’t accepted to, I had a feeling that I wasn’t accepted. When one of my officemates asked me if I was interested in OT on a weekend that would have been during the lab, I had a voice saying to take the OT because that was for sure. Turns out it was the right move.

Still it sucks to not get accepted. This is the third lab I’ve heard from that I wasn’t accepted in. Plus I was kind of hoping this one might work out. Thought it would; turns out not. It gets frustrating when you continually send stuff out that gets rejected. Granted that’s the life of a writer/artist, but that doesn’t make the rejections any easier. As the quote from my therapist goes, “When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember you were hired to clean out the swamp.” You’ve got to keep telling yourself to keep at it, keep doing it, keep moving forwards even if it’s an inch or two. There are some days that you have to scream it out loud more than others. This is one of those days where my throat is sore from yelling.

Two things are keeping me going right now. 1) I still have to hear about the Disney Fellowship. That’s a paid year in LA to write (in my case screenplays) for Disney. I hear about that by early December; I really want that one. 2) I’m very preoccupied with this new web series I’m co-creating. I’m very psyched about this one and I think we’re still on target to get something launched by the end of January. I’m starting to outline the arc of the series and I still have two characters to flesh out.

Really want the Fellowship, but I’m loving this project, too.

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October 3, 2007 by Dave.

Saw this one at Fresh Pond Theater.

Chuck Balls of Fury

I don’t even want to go there…

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