December 31, 2007 by Dave.

I’ve been such a slug lately. I really have not been focused on things as I should be. I’ve got my web series pilot written and I should get onto the next episode. But nothing. I’m not so into writing as I was. I have a couple of events I’ve been wanting to blog about. I can’t get into it. I’ve got a couple of opening sentences but can’t get motivated to get the rest. I’ve been like that for at least two weeks now.

Unfortunately it’s more than just writing. I’ve been trying to get back into the dating world again. It’s tough especially when you feel like you approach it in a bout of desperation—I need to be with someone, NOW! It’s a horrible way of trying to meet and connect to someone. I’m having my own moments of despair with Sophia, too. She’s been more of a handful lately, wanting to play every minute of the day when I more often want to sleep or just can’t. There are too many days when I feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. The money situation of course makes all the above worse. Because I don’t have a lot of money, it’s hard to go out anywhere. Plus because of my shifts, I don’t have much time to go out with anyone. All the work I’m doing is to get me out of a financial hole, which isn’t growing but isn’t really getting a whole lot better. And the need to be out of debt just drives my desperation which screws me up and makes everything more messed up.

I hate being like this. Guess it’s more depression. Par for my life these days. It just sucks to be like this.

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December 31, 2007 by Dave.

An old roommate of mine once dropped on me the John Lennon quote of “life is what happens when you’re busy making plans” (although I never knew it was Lennon until recently). At the time I thought he was really being an asshole; now I’m not sure if that’s what’s happening to me.

I keep feeling a lot of pressure to be where I want to be in my career right now. If I could actually afford to buy a house with a mortgage and be able to pay for things from my writing, things would be a lot easier only because there wouldn’t be so much pressure on me to pay off everything I owe—because I could only afford a house if I was out of debt to begin with. Lately the only way that’s going to happen in less than ten years is to sell a screenplay; but at the same time, that looks less likely to happen. Plus I’m beating myself up for a lot of missed opportunities I should have taken and didn’t. I feel I could have been further on my way if I had said yes instead of no to one or two film opportunities. Instead I’m doing what I need to do to pay off bills and feeling like I’m sinking further and further into depression as my dreams get further and further away. Even when I take a couple of steps forward, I’m not fast enough and so I still fall behind. I’m feeling more stranded and that I’ll never get to where I want to.

I was just looking at an older blog entry where I said “people lead lives of quiet desperation; some are more desperate than others.”I’m feeling that way again. It’s hard just to stay focused when I’m stuck in a pit. While I love John Lennon, I hate his quote. Maybe because it feels too true.

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December 25, 2007 by Dave.

I had Sophia for the weekend and I was going to bring her back to her mom’s house so she could wake up Christmas morning with a bunch of presents under her tree. Susan wanted to talk to Sophia on the phone that Christmas Eve Monday to get her excited for the next morning. Susan was talking so loud I could hear her end of the conversation as well from about three feet away:

Susan: Sophia, it’s Christmas on Tuesday. Do you know who’s coming tomorrow? Guess who.
Sophia (thinking for a moment): Auntie?

I busted out laughing with that one.

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December 25, 2007 by Dave.

I got word on Saturday from ABC/Disney Fellowship. I didn’t make the cut for their writing fellowship. So that makes all four major writing fellowships that I applied for turned down.

I actually heard about not making the cut in an odd way. I was on a screenwriting group board on Myspace where one of the threads was about the Disney fellowship. I wrote that I was waiting on any possible phone call from them; another person wrote that he had already gotten a call the previous week and was interviewing with them. That’s when I knew I was out of the running.

Yeah, I’m a little depressed about that. That was one I wanted and thought I was really on track for. Guess not. I now have to focus on the web series I’m creating. The pilot is written and registered with the WGA, but I’m not going to talk about it just yet. It’s pretty involved and I think can break through the clutter, plus I still need to cast and shoot the pilot, so I don’t want to jeopardize the thing at the moment. I’m looking forward to getting this out in the open. Should be fun.

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December 15, 2007 by Dave.

Sophia’s mom had another fight with her longtime boyfriend and he left the house the other day—again. This is something that’s happened quite a number of times since I’ve had Sophia in my life and I try to make the best of it while trying to nudge Sophia’s mom to get rid of him once and for all (which I understand is not easy to do in a codependent relationship).

Anyway, Sophia was at my house today helping my roommate decorate cookies after her annual holiday cookie bake party. Shannon, my roommate, absolutely adores Sophia and they get along well. As Sophia was slathering frosting onto another cookie, Sophia started talking about her mom and boyfriend (who Sophia calls her “Bah”):

Sophia: Bah got into a fight with mom yesterday and left.
Shannon: Who?
Me: Her mom’s boyfriend.
Shannon: Oh, okay. And what happened?
Sophia (still focused on frosting the cookie): She said he ruined our life.

I couldn’t help but crack up at that. I swear I’m so glad I wasn’t eating or drinking at the time or I’d have choked to death.

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December 13, 2007 by Dave.

At the Capitol Theater in Arlington, sometimes they also show current Indian releases along with third run major films and first run art-house selections. And as with any marquee, they have to sometimes shorten movie titles to fit a number of them on there. This was on their marquee earlier this month.

Mr. Magorium Om Shanti Om

Make up your own joke on this; that one’s even too surreal for me.

And these titles were up on the Fresh Pond Cinema:

This Christmas
Gift Certificates

Good tip for the holidays.

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Sophia had her birthday last Wednesday. She turned five on December 5, which meant it was her golden birthday. A friend of mine mentioned that it also means you have to give them something gold on that day. Taking her suggestion, I got five gold dollars and gave them to her in a little gift bag. In the living room she said to me, “Thank you for my birthday.” There was supposed to be a party or gift or some other word after that, but I think that was the sweetest thing she ever inadvertently said to me.

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In addition to turning five years old, Sophia lost her first tooth this past Monday. It was loose for a good week and finally fell out while she was in school. So the Tooth Fairy paid her a visit that night. I asked her about it today when picking her up from school:

Me: Did the tooth fairy visit you?
Sophia: Yes.
Me: Did she leave you anything?
Sophia: Yes.
Me: What did she leave you?
Sophia: Five dollars.

Honestly, I don’t think I ever got a total of five dollars for all the teeth in my mouth. Man, I got gypped.

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December 2, 2007 by Dave.

I realized this week that my daughter will grow up to be a coffee addict. Since I’ve known her, Sophia has been notorious to wake up unless on her own terms. When she’s well rested, she’s up and about and bouncing around my room. When she’s not ready to wake up, it is a slow chore to get her to move. I admit I am just like this myself—unless I have an urgent schedule, a job related thing, or my bed is on fire, I find myself actually waking up anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half after my alarm has gone off. Sophia’s mom is worse than me. She is pretty much a lunatic bitch unless she gets some coffee in her after a good night’s sleep. Well, Sophia is heading towards the dark side with her mother.

Thursday, I was trying to get to Sophia’s school before she got to her nap time. I was five minutes to late and she was asleep. I usually try to wake her up gently over a few minutes. Her teacher however got a great response the other day by waking her up then planting her on her feet. I was actually surprised to see it work so I figured I’d try with her supervision. We started wake her up and then she emitted this groan. I’m not really sure you can call it a groan, but it’s the closest thing in human origin that it might sound like. Honestly what came out of her closed mouth and gritted teeth sounded either like a wounded jaguar or a velociraptor catching its prey. While I might be reaching with the velociraptor analogy, I’m not far off on the big cat. One of my distinctive memories from my adolescent years was a friend of mine up the street who had—at the time—an unspayed cat in heat; it sounded exactly like Sophia did that Thursday, except an octave lower.

I got her up and out of the classroom and to may car and it wasn’t until about half a mile from her house that she stopped making that noise. Hearing that sound coming from her as she struggled to wake up, I knew that this child would be forever doomed once she has to get to classes on time.

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