Perhaps becoming an agoraphobe.

Yes, yes, one of those crazies who decides she'd rather live in solitude and never see the light of day.

Actually, The Doc thinks I may have a mild case of hypothyroidism. Huh? Yeah, that's an under-active thyroid. The thyroid controls how the body uses energy (Thanks for providing me with this info, Web MD) Symptoms include fatigue, depression, not being able to crap, and memory problems. I have always had major issues with my short-term memory and it would be just magical to know that there's something I can blame for why I can't remember where I put my keys, or why I'm constantly freaking out at a horse show about learning my courses. I make tiny hand made maps and carry them with me until right about when I go through the in gate.

So now I try to drug myself to sleep at night, but it doesn't really work a lot of the time, no doubt because of my increased tolerance to it. It just makes me slightly chilled out, I become more impulsive, and then my eyes play tricks on me sometimes where it looks like they're dancing or hovering above the screen. It's really not as freaky as it sounds, it's kinda cool. Not that I'm into hallucinating, or anything. It's just a by-product of my predicament.

Oh, and then there's the awesome memory loss of some of the things I've done by the time morning comes around and I'll have 20 emails to respond to from long lost friends who I decided I must chat with. Or old bosses to see how they're doing. Those kinds of weird things that are partially the fault of the Ambien, partially because I am me and prone to impulsivity. I see an opportunity, I want it, I take it. Better to take a risk than not.

Tomorrow I have to get my culo in order to write some more stuff for The Malibu Times. Nothing too terribly exciting - some feature about wine making in Santa Monica and some drain pipes being replaced in Malibu. Then there will be a film screening for Blue Valentine and Biutiful.



Those are two films I'd really like to see. I'm not sure if I'll go see it unles they snag a high profile visitor to chat with the crowd, I hope so! For me, I'd become a 14 year old girl to have a shot at talking to Ryan Gosling.
And It's been a while since I saw a Spanish language film, for real. I mean, I saw "Frida" but that hardly counts. I bet the real Frida Kahlo wouldn't be so pleased that her likeness would speak English. But if she had spoken Spanish and everyone would just be subtitled the whole movie, that wouldn't sell as well, and in the end it's all about the billz. Also, I'd be curious as to her opinion about Salma Hayek taking over her role, when Salma is super sexy and Frida had relentless pain flayed out her whole life. It was kind of blah in the way Frida and Diego interacted. They had the open marriage, but clearly jealousies arise constantly, until the marriage can't be healed when her husband sleeps with Frida's sister. OOh lawd.

I'd really enjoy being a film or stage critic. Everybody hates a critic, they say, wellll.....shrug. I remember thinking way back in high school that it would be such a great way to combine my love of theater and writing. Of course, high schoolers have these ideas of grandeur about what they can do, what they'll see, without all th ework it'll take to even be the lowest on the proverbial totem pole. You could argue I'm not qualified to do either, but I want to. Also, I'm determined when I want something. I'm pretty sure the fan club for reporter isn't that high, either. Odd that someone like me, or is hypersensitive to real or imagined hypersensitivity, would take on a role where you're expected to glean personal information you willingly gave me, then whittle it down further into how I think it sounds best.

So many more films I'd like to see. And of course lots of plays. Not that they're hard to find in LA, but the Broadway and off b'way stuff is much more happenin' in New York.

For now, this will be sufficient for my rambling, at times lacking cohesion/coherence, will end, for mow. For now I attempt to sleepand I hope the word "deeeeeaaaadddddlliiiiiiine" doesn't haunt my dreams. OK, maybe a bit.
Arrivaderci!

Woops, awake.

"Writers are such private, solitary people. they may become things other than that, but writing almost without exception gets done because of an inward-ness, a sense of privacy that you retain, even though you know that the piece you write may go public. The perspective the writer has on himself or herself seems crucially important to me, regardless of other people's perspectives." -- Ann Beattie in her essay "Melancholy and the Muse"

Sounds like me. Mostly solitary, cynical, content in smaller groups. Or if I'm in a group setting, I'll try to just be with a few people at a time. Shrug. This is how it goes. I'd question it if I cared.

Oh, another part of this essay I found funny was this another part. It's exactly how I feel whenever I sit down and look at my enormous, rambling mountain of notes and transcribed interviews, when I sit down in my non-work clothes in the dead of night to write an article:

"Past writing performance -- at least, in my experience -- counts for little. Neither the routine, nor the triumphs that sometimes results from adhering to that routine, can be depended upon. I have sometimes taken down books I've published from the shelves and been amazed that there was time when I apparently wrote on sentence after another, followed by even more sentences, to form a paragraph. Such an odd activity: needing to simultaneously remember and to forget something in order to bring into focus what did not happen, but might have."

Reading this essay, I almost felt like this woman had tapped into my brain. I found it particularly amusing, the part where she talks about her lack of a solid schedule and working in the dead of night in her underwear. Sounds exactly like me, and it's no wonder I'm an insomniac -- it lends itself nicely to what I like to do, though, doesn't it? I hardly ever write an article during the day. I feel creatively stifled...and man, doesn't that sound pretentious? Shrug.

Moving on.

I have this steel trap memory for the most random things ever said to me. I remember my 6th grade teacher told me next to start a thank you note with the words "thank you" (sorry, Mrs. Albee, I've broken that rule a few times out of laziness). My 10th grade English teacher told me not to start a sentence with "there is/are" because it is an immediate snooze fest for the reader. Again, sorry, Ms. Scobell, broke that rule, too. I remember when I moved to Long Island from Michigan, I wrote a note to her and I didn't include one form of the verb "to be," because of an assignment she had given us where we weren't allowed to use any form of it. Talk about a stretch -- that just meant I'd use "to have" in its various forms, more often.

Another thing that stuck with me -- my 9th grade teacher told me I'd never truly appreciate literature because I told her I was sick of talking about symbols in our assigned books. What possessed me to say that, I don't know, but I tend to speak without editing my thoughts, at times. That really incensed me. I also remember being infuriated when she docked me a point on a spelling quiz because my cursive letter "i" looked like an "e," even though she agreed she could see the dot above it.
Oh, that's another thing -- ever since probably 3rd grade, I've written in cursive unless there's some reason not to, like when a college professor told me my handwriting was hard to read (woops). I read an article about a year back, or so, about how cursive writing is going to be a thing of the past and I thought that someday I'll be that 80 year old who still writes in cursive, like some sort of relic of the past. Granted, my penmanship probably could leave something to be desired, but I don't care too much. As long as we have word processors, there's no need to worry about such things as penmanship (crap, there I am, giving in to the argument I just presented -- oh well).

I'm not sure what the point of this blog entry was meant to be, but oh well. Sometimes ya gotta do what etc.