outside of my office, no one, it seemed, was having an overly-good start to the week. ilana called from vassar, despondent that she wasn’t interacting better with her idol. my grandparents alerted me that they returned from vermont early because my grandfather, at a hale 90, discovered that a recurring problem has flared up. jamie, who came over to keep me company during those all-important and frightening night hours, and i took turns venting. my primary frustration was that, naturally, my writing class was less than kind to my fledgling screenplay. although teacher jon called my dialogue “excellent” and made allusions to ghost world before we began the verbal dissection, and half the class whispered praise as they filed out afterwards on break, in the during criticism abounded. the sci-fi carol-kane-clone who so irritated me last week kept sneaking looks at me during the dramatic reading as though if she peered intensely enough she could intuit whether the story was autobiographical. “have you watched buffy?” she asked. “they handle the thing you’re trying to do here really well in buffy.” i smiled thinly at her and willed her head to implode. later, during the critique of her screenplay i observed that we each held in our right hands the exact same pen.

but today began, refreshingly, with breakfast, with jamie, with bantering and chummy paper reading. karen and i spent another efficient day to a soundtrack of npr. we get along well; our work-styles are quite compatable. only the lack of a salary prevents this from being the most enviable position ever. and while i was filing for her, i realized how to fill a signficant hole in my screenplay. it requires much rewriting — i half-wish i had all that empty last-summer time — and research, cuz i’m now placing the girls in columbus, ohio from the get-go. columbus, oh!

welcome, elizabeth, back from the shitlist. please wipe your feet.

the legal department went en masse to lunch today: 4 professional women, one man, and me. i ate and watched and listened to them talk law-stuff and generally experienced them disprove this article, the end of herstory, which made me knit my brow and clench my teeth and otherwise facially express disagreement when i read it this morning. on the way home i asked my legal buddies straight out if they identified. to which (take that, hymowitz!) they replied, “of course.”

more from hymowitz if you’re interested: “Now it turns out that these efforts were not only a gigantic waste of money but also may well have harmed their intended beneficiaries. For if girls left to their own devices are much like boys�status-seeking, aggressive, ruthless�then think of what happens when you empower them. What girls need, it seems, isn�t more self-esteem, but a little Western culture to teach them how to control their darker side.”

large scale critique of 10-pages of my screenplay this evening. i’m nervous. i’m also considering changing my special major to film and minoring in history and/or polisci. maybe this will go a ways towards determining that.

friday, i made it roughly through the length of the workday before i broke down, cracked up and otherwise lost it walking down massachusetts avenue. my girlz, in fine form, rallied around me, coaxed me from my orbit — sheba in hand, face stickily-misted, mournfully crooning being alive — to lana’s house. they accomplished what cake did not. i spent the night there. the next morning we all convened again for breakfast, and then again that evening for dinner and dangerous lives of altar boys in yuppie bethesda. it’s a sweet film, one whose flirtation with cliche is redeemed by the earnestness of the boys’ performances and how straightforwardly their relationships are depicted. much like y tu mama, which bizarrely also featured a male-male-female triangle that ends tragic. emerging from the theater, nomi’s longstanding boyfriend, yoni, commented on the trailer for the fast runner, shown at this theater before every release. in the amount of time i’ve spent watching that trailer, i could have seen the movie twice over. as yoni put it, “from a culture that hasn’t invented electricity, comes a movie out of focus!”

tamar and i were still laughing as we staggered to the car, passing on the way my old friend ben, sitting with all the popular people i hung out with senior year when i went through my authentic teenage rebellion/fitting in phase. this morning, after dropping tamar off in rockville, and having seemingly run out of friend-type cushioning, i went shopping, only to run into ben again, on his way to philly. i have benz like i have girlz: as necessary to my life, wherever it happens to be taking place, as dairy products and diet coke.

finally i’m back home, home and alone — and alone is alone, not alive — and clutching a phone wherever i go. my rationale is that if i have to open a door that has somehow gotten closed while i was gone, i may as well be connected via phone lines with someone somewhere. if the feared villain leaps out and garrotes me, the person i’m talking to will get to hear whatever brilliant and beautiful sentiment floats from my near-blue lips in that last moment of stress and assure my posthumous fame. or could call 911 — i mean, whatever.

so many things are over. the heatwave, featuring ominous cloud-cover spilling down from canada’s forest fires; my second Giardia Offensive — with any luck, this time the enemy is well and truly vanquished and i can live my life both sedative and nausea free; ben’s visit. which was wonderful.

yesterday evening he lana and i meandered through fave local bookstore politics and prose like it was a museum, lingering in the poetry section to point out pieces to each other. one of the ones that struck me, that always does, was frank o’hara’s why i’m not a painter. we’d gone with the vague intention of celebrating my birthday in advance as neither of thems that i love so much will be here next friday to seize the day with me.

the previous evening we went to the first meeting of a discussion group on manifesta and third-wave feminism. looking around the circle of earnest, leftist twenty-somethings with excellent shoes, i remembered the first comotion meetings, before we even called ourselves that, and how initially i was impatient because everyone seemed so solicitous and showy-sensitive. that made me smile, and it — and the excellent shoes — gave me hope that this group will advance past the polite stages too.

i met my second boss yesterday when i went to assist documentary filmmaker ms. cantor. easy labor: mostly manual stuff, and i got to listen to npr the entire time. the film she’s working on, copenhagen 1943, is narrated by garisson keillor and edited by the danish fellow who edited dancer in the dark. i was quite impressed.

but i will return this evening to a now doubly-empty house, with only the memories, and sheba, to keep me warm. and cake. it’s cake day at the office. cake helps.

fun day at the office: one of the lawyers just got a new dog. she’s fond of west wing president who shares his name with a kind of pear so she decided to name the dog “bartlet.” someone queried as to whether she’s hinting anything about the sexuality of bartlet’s portrayer, martin sheen. “no,” she said, “he’s not a fruit – but my dog is.”

another one of the lawyers brought in a dvd of classic film omega code II, directed by brian trenchard-smith, of leprechauns 3, happy face murders and atomic dog fame. this anti-catholic, anti-EU, anti-UN (the latter two are conspiracies against god) but otherwise good-humored dramatization of Revelations features flickering fireplaces in every other scene illuminating the antichrist (michael york) who rises to the rank of world chancellor and begins armeggedon.

speaking of the end of days, one of the interns came across this charming piece from the detroit free press. Callahan, one candidate, was quoted as saying to the AP, in reference to his opponent, Levin, “I mean, the man has never owned a Christmas tree. He’s not a Christian. And I’m thinking, ‘Jeez, how can he represent me then?’ ” he later also refers to Levin as “pro-choice and Hebrew. enough said.”

ben’s here, keeping me company for a few days, now that my father has disappeared to new mexico. otherwise, now is a great time to come visit — i can guarantee anyone who wants one a bedroom (complete with bed!)

we’re going to do a character exercise, said my writing teacher john last nite with one eye on the clock. quickly. everyone just call out names of your favorite movie characters. i think better with a pencil in hand: i picked one up, and immediately two names came to mind. harry burns from when harry met sally i said, and then, eleanor of aquitaine in lion in winter. teacher john scribbled as suggestions peppered him from around the table.

all right, he said, that’s enough. those of you who have taken a class with me before know what i’m going to say. he counted up the names and announced, i have twice as many male characters here as female characters. i looked around to see if anyone was surprised. one woman on my side of the table, who’d established herself early as a sci-fi maven and resembles carol kane, objected “but we have more women here in class. of course we’re going to like the men more.”

i hissed. more constructively, teacher john counted heads and said, no, there are 6 women here and 6 men. sci-fi woman slunk back. teacher john continued: regardless, i’ve taught classes of all makeups, and the results are the same. he delivered a small lecture on the importance of activity to memorable characters. television, plays, books are different. in films, characters have to make decisions, to be assertive, to fight, which is why more of the resonant ones tend to be men.

by contrast to sci-fi woman, at whom i was still hissing internally, i remembered this: ages ago i went to camp with and idolized a girl named emile. she once said that she’d made out with everyone — straight girls, straight guys, queer girls, and queer guys — and so knew definitively that gay guys were the best kissers.

left to my own devices at work this afternoon when my immediate boss ducked out, i thumbed through mefi, ms., and motherjones, exhausted arts & letters, and caught up on my british news. over lunch today two of the interns and i watched part of manchurian candidate. as a consequence i don’t feel too strongly that i’m contributing to the betterment of humankind, but i do feel reasonably well-educated on current affairs. besides, even with diversions, i’m impressed that i’ve been making it through 8 hour workdays. i’m, uh, not tempermentally inclined to that sort of thing, as a general rule.

i also received a range of opinions on act one of “drive”, which is the working title of my screenplay. some harsh, some glowing. since this is my first attempt, i’ve had an easier time distancing myself and accepting criticism. it needs work, of course, but i’m enjoying playing with it.

it’s vegetarian week. who knew?

enthusiastic nonathletes, my father and i made it to the pool on the one overcast day in recent memory and headed straight for the powerblue and creme chaise lounge to read (me) and table on which to spread the times + crossword puzzle (him.) sedaris’s me talk pretty one day, which liz leant me yesterday, kept me laughing for two hours. i took breaks now and then to people watch, marveling at the fact that, with the exception of the underutilized and over-muscled lifeguards, i was the youngest post-puberty person around and a contender for lightest, yet i was wearing the most modest swimsuit.

this forced renewed consideration on the topic of bikinis. sure, society says you should be sarah jessica parker or else wear a t-shirt (and please god, not a white one), but how much does it really matter? none of the leathery matrons and matriarchs around me seemed to care. if they aren’t going to let a little extra tummy fat or a couple spare tires scare them into hiding, it shouldn’t bother me. examining my conscience, i can’t tell whether it bothers me or not, but i certainly notice. it’s society, man. it has its hooks in us deeper than we know.

what do langston hughes, eleanor roosevelt, socrates, and tchaikovsky all have in common? according to this, they’re all gay. according to an article in the times this morning, joining their illustrious ranks is nietzsche himself. i’m astounded and a little skeptical. what suffices as proof? were they videotaped? did they confess a questionable dream to their posthumously-published diaries, or some experiment to a linda tripp?

moreover, just as people asked when dc erected the statue of FDR in the new memorial, how would they feel about being portrayed in a way they chose not to portray themselves? so far as i know, wagner, woolf, and susan b. anthony were happily – or at least contentedly – closeted in life. how much do their preferences matter after death? which should matter more: respecting their assumed wishes or the greater good of the icon-hungry community?

scratch that last: this seems to confirm the bit about susan b. and this makes it more than clear. god, i guess i’m out of it. {original link from the reliable guys of malpractice}