after my two hour power-lunch with a successful screenwriter, i’m uncertain what i can or should do with my life. but i was uncertain before. on one hand, he said, If i can do it you can do it. luck and grit. the ability to sit still. &c. on the other, he said he doesn’t understand this business, no one does. he could be out tomorrow (aaron mcgruder said that too. i suppose it’s a truism about most kinds of success). we had a pleasant chat; i really enjoyed it. tho he stated and restated his committment to the mainstream, the man’s hair, tweed, and glasses all point to intellectual with-a-capital-i. he looks like what he is, the son of an english professor and a librarian and a life-long resident of swarthmore, pennsylvania. he may have eaten lunch with nicole kidman but what shows is he’s a writer.

to finish with a flourish, he said, not to rain on your parade or anything —

and this came on top of: nothing new comes out of hollywood; every screenplay is digested by a 12-stomached cow before it makes it to the screen and the vast vast majority succumb to the bile; people like charlie kaufman, todd solondz, david lynch and neil labute (a) are flukes and (b) don’t exist

— but a screenplay on victoria woodhull, the subject of my screenplay qua honors thesis project, is in the works, a pet project of the man who did robocop. the kicker is, his’ll undoubtedly be far better than mine.

well thank god that’s over with. an intense, relatively emotionally-stressful week, by which of course i mean three days. thursday and friday, being as i have no class, i usually get up late, dawdle, gawk at the internet, and maybe dabble in homework or necessary tasks. unfortunately i actually have to write a seminar paper this week (on social vices — this could be fun) so after my exciting lunch date on thursday and except for the 2 como info sessions on friday, i’ll be reading reading reading. reaDING!

while walking through the increasingly redundant snow this afternoon, which the WA in me wants to cross out fiercely in pen, i sank mentally into the comfortable realization that these are the Best Years of my Life. it’s marvelous. i have been happy since graduating high skool. even a little before. i’ve said this before, i know. it’s terrible; this statement is as unnecessary as the weather. it reminds me of when i said iloveyou for the first time cuz i no longer felt like i could notsay it. (to be historically precise, it was “ithink iloveyou” and it was squeezed out of me in no small part because of the inescapable resemblance his gray sweatshirt gave him to the man of my dreams.) (also, i adore parantheses. as long as i’m stating the obvious. and anyone who reads this drivel, especially [penn]becca who is a Girlfriend for the first time in a long time and it seems to be making her happy. or especially if they hug me after, in real life. i appreciate that.)

i need post-its. this shouldn’t be so difficult. i feel like everyone in the known universe has post-its except me, and uses them for strategic, appropriate purposes, like sticking them to desktop monitors with helpful reminders about appointments and assignments. i have old fortune cookie fortunes taped to my monitor but it’s just not the same: “A cautious person leaves no stones unturned (Lucky Numbers: 3, 12, 15, 17, 35, 37)” is a little vague.

right now i could be working on grant essays, but i had seminar all day today. some people have seminars during the afternoon. this class, the seminar papers don’t come in til early morning, so you have to spend the pre-lunch hours going over them. then seminar itself starts at 1:15 and it commonly runs til 5:30. if that’s not all day, i don’t know what is. we watch the sun set, for god’s sake.

this week one of the seminar papers got my blood boiling. i’m trying to be apolitical this semester, i’m trying i’m trying like i tried last semester, i’m trying to be calm, reading with my little pen in hand, and OH MY GOD this guy is making unsubstantiated generalizations about the mainstream jewish community and its intellectual leaders, and christ what is that PARAGRAPH OF ANTI-ZIONISM doing in an american social history paper? i don’t read anti-zionism before i’ve eaten. it’s a policy of mine. i also don’t take classes in which i have to argue it with people; that’s another policy. it’s a sensitive, complicated, personal issue to a lot of people and a 5 minute discussion inevitably won’t do it justice. i thought a class like this would be safe. i draw hammers in the margin and write SOAPBOX in big red letters, which helps me blow off a little steam, but i still tremble a little when the prof says we’re going to start going over his paper.

the social is political is personal, it turns out. as we start, i preface, “i was personally upset and offended by your paper,” which might even be under-playing it, but he snaps to attention and nods soberly. i restrain myself to pointing out logical inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies in what i hope is a logical, rational matter (please don’t write me off as an emotional woman). other folks join the fray — the ones who are arguing with me, i notice, are two of the other three jews in the class. the prof has the last word and it’s one i agree with. whee!

everyone likes my colorful, junk-food seminar break. i relax. after class, the prof tells me she thinks i handled it well. i shake hands with the paper’s author who smiles and says, We should talk sometime.

i am not a rightist. just because i will defend to the death israel’s right to exist does not mean that i don’t think its current government cannot or should not be criticized, like tikkun. i believe in a two-state solution. i believe in affirmative action and the necessity of white guilt. (i don’t believe in Beatles.) drop bush not bombs. equal access to marriage for any committed couple, if they desire it. (the dream is over.) (valentines day is over.) there should be more space on campus for people to articulate opinions that are left of center but right of the barn. be polyamorous if you want but protect yourself and be honest about it. against abortions? don’t have one. (he was the walrus. i could be the walrus, i’d still have to bum rides off of people.)

i think what it amounts to is i have too many men in my life. not possible, you say? well. clearly you didn’t have a chance to listen, starry-eyed, to aaron-fucking-mcgruder saturday night: unwilling prophet and [emphatically not a] social leader of my generation, graduate of umd (just like frank cho! man, they really churn them out over there), compelling, acidic speaker, and all-around articulate, bitter, talented, funny guy.

clearly the screenwriter responsible for steven spielberg’s last summer blockbuster didn’t just write you back, setting up a lunch date for this thursday.

clearly you don’t have a terrific boyfriend who continues to make you girlishly giddy, long after your relationship is due to have become blase.

i could keep listing, i guess — my father, my grandfather, my brothers, my various muses and friends, shakespeare, vonnegut, tom robbins, douglas adams, j. franzen, m. chabon, b. dylan, p.t. anderson, j. carrey, w. goldman, b. bragg, b. & sebastian, m. python, t. tykwer, m. brothers, m. miller (science/religion teacher from high skool. you don’t know him), e.e. cummings … o, and chaucer. this is no particular order. have i forgotten someone?

i could not be happier. i’m halfway through a bear-cookie valentine that i bought at target because it looked lonely and frightening and also pink, and was very drastically on sale, along with everything else there (i got a kickass seminar break for $15). jonah&sarah, one of the hotttest couples of campus, invited ben and me to spur-of-the-moment ethiopean food on the phringes of philly. all 4 of our orders appeared on one huge tray, prompting the question of how many people need to order before they receive more than one tray. it hardly matters, good ethiopean food is always so good, and so filling. mmmmm.

that, and the target run (we spent an hour there — how?) came at the end of a terrific day, in which i got the final OKAY on my screenplay idea. OKAY, i can finally 100% throw myself into doing it, as long as i get the grant. elizabeth, who i may live with in nyc this summer, said that not only could her dad, who rents apts, possibly let us have one, but we might be able to have HIS. a summer in new york with cable tv and space to twirl in? could that be more perfect?

then i went to break up with my advisor, who can’t be my advisor anymore. but i asked if he’d remain my father figure on campus, and he said of course. heart heart.

then i wrote a poem, and i like it a lot, but it’s long. i don’t know if i should post it here or not.

i’m almost done with the bear. the icing’s so hard it’s kind of made me nauseous. within 3 hours of feasting, one should never attempt to eat other food. oh well. i haven’t mentioned yet but aaron mcgruder is coming to campus tomorrow — hands down the coolest speaker i’ll have ever seen.

oh dude! we were just talking about absinthe.

and we’re always talking about the axis of evil.

oh my god, how did i miss reading television without pity joevan recaps while the show was going on? they are hilarious. hi-lar-i-ous. admit it, you and 40 million other red-blooded americans, loved that show. loved it! you watched BOTH HOURS of the finale on monday. you would follow joevan into battle. you would nominate zora for president, or at least psychic priestess of america (didn’t miss cleo leave that post vacant?) you cheered, maybe you even almost cried, during that last ‘waltz’ around the ballroom, and when zora asked if she could kiss him. it actually looked genuine!(ish) — genuine enough.

go read the snark. it’s virtually as much fun as repeating the entire gleefully-prefeminist experience from episode I. (my campus paper published an article from some idiot in connecticut trying to make an anti-joe millionaire argument. go back to russia, okay? maybe on the boat you’ll find your long-lost sense of humor.)

after history seminar yesterday an intense powwow with my teacher-mentor. when i’m done with this class i’ll have taken 4 credits with her — that’s virtually a minor. you have to have fire in your belly, she says. you get too distracted. (starved for declarations. tell me more.) want this more than anything, she said, or it won’t happen, and you’ll just be another one of those people that Wants a lot but doesn’t get anywhere. make this the first step. after all, why NOT you? (okay but.) (i’m short?) you’re short? since when? i blinked at her again. she told me stories of her old best friend from college. who’s your best friend?, she asked me. (i haven’t considered that question since israel, right after highskool …) you have lots of good friends, don’t you? matt rubin brought you diet coke in class. her best friend was tall. i could call her up right now, she says. (will she, once i leave her office?) instead, she turns to the computer, impatient with me or just eager to get on with the rest of her evening. i’m tired, she says. as i walk out, i answer, Go to sleep.

it’s inspiring to have people tell you things about you. or have you not noticed? a woman i’d only worked for for a few days last summer told me i had bad depth perception. transfixing! how did she know? indeed she was right — or, i’d never thought about it, but why not? parking was always tricky, and abstract math. tempting to get a psychiatrist just so she can tell me things about me. i’d rather divide people into categories than join the fray. if i’m not the resident expert i don’t want to address an issue. i think, I don’t belong here, when what i mean is, I wish i’d done this reading. it’s more fun when it happens spontaneously, when you don’t have to pay for it.

anyway, i’m so inspired i come home and entirely redo my resume, basing it nearly word-for-word on my brother’s, which he spent ages on over winter break. that’s what brothers are for.

terrible twos

for you, I will drink my ginger ale quietly

and eat my 19s with my fingers

instead of throwing them at other kids, even though

targets abound, and so tempting, oblivious

and chewing, with TV eyes. I like making them cry

and trying to describe it: their faces expand

and turn the color of juice while juice

drips from their eyes.

for me, you will stop staring at the wall,

your frown of intense concentration (you

have the most dramatic eyebrows ever seen

on a toddler) will scamper off, leaving you

surprised and forced to find a new expression. you will cope

by sucking my thumb & we will stare

as deep as 2 year olds can get into each others�

sticky happy faces, immortally softandround with youth

while around us children break things. we are serious

and calm: we read already: our palms tell our stories

in Mr Sketch. I reach up and smooth your hair: your curls

are burnt-toast, mine are maple-syrup. we�re suited

to each other, all the adults say so:

I�ve never seen 2 year olds so sweet

on each other! & we smile, our hands hidden

and working under my blue duck dress,

beneath your Osh Kosh. soon, we�ll sneak to the kitchen

steal cookies and watch Pulp Fiction

but for now we�re content in the playroom, playing, dodging

other kids� cereal, celebrating being 2 years old, and coming.

ester&ben = 2 years old today. this is the happiest 2 year old i’ve ever been. let’s hear it for love — and clocks.

there’s no reason to be up on a sunday morning before the dining hall opens for brunch except to look out the window and think “snow! we don’t need more of that!” and find funny things to read on the internet. so here’s one from the onion, in case you missed it; and another from rabi’s lj: cooking with monkey. try the brie and baguette one.

people are sick everywhere. walking around the library with your eyes closed, you’d think you were in a hospital of some beleagured war-torn south american nation, where hoarse delirious voices call out for water and legs have to be amputated and there is no morphine. actually, with very little connection to my metaphor, i’m picturing the atlanta scene in Gone With the Wind where scarlet gets more and more grossed out by having to play a nurse. but who wouldn’t?

that’s enough of that. i missed the protest but i hear it went well. i missed everything last week, in fact. but i’m beginning to get my energy back and that’s exciting.