So it's Valentine's Day today and I decided to walk around my office to see who got flowers. I'm glad I'm working in a small office in a burb of San Francisco, where everybody is laid back and not so status conscious. When I worked in downtown SF in a bigger very corporate office, there was this pressure to get flowers on Valentine's Day and if you didn't get them, people noticed. Most of the time, I think people sent flowers to themselves but bragged that their boyfriends/significant freaks or hubmeisters sent it to them. The receptionist area on Valentine's Day was the place to hang out to see who was getting delivered roses, flowers, balloons, stripograms, etc.

I didn't walk through the whole office, but I did see one bouqet. I'll have to walk through the rest of the office later to check for more flowers. Most of these women who I work with are married with little kids, so I'm wondering if they're going to get flowers here at the office or later from their hubbies and kids.

Valentine's Day at the office has always been traumarama experiences for me. I'm like one of those pathetic people who have never gotten flowers at the office. My boyfriends have always been the "I Hate Valentine's Day" types who wouldn't be caught dead succumbing to the crass commercialism and pressure of the day or at least letting other people know except me that they did. I would get dinner and flowers but never at the office. One year, I think it was 1996, I actually thought I might get flowers but I got nothing and I was so pissed. When I confronted the guy later that afternoon on the phone, he said "You know I'm not into commercial holidays". After that, I threw a shit fit and hung up on him. I think I wouldn't have been so hurt if one of my "office friends" didn't keep asking me all day if my boyfriend was going to send me flowers. Why I thought this freak of nature was going to send me flowers is still a mystery to me to this day. He so wasn't the type and I knew it, but I think I got caught up in the pressures of the day.

The Valentine's Day incident was just one of his many indiscretions, so I dumped him a few months later. Actually I first dumped him in November when I found out he was sleeping with other women, but we got back together with him around New Year's eve, so I was dumping him for the second time. You know years later, this same guy is still calling me wanting to get together. He calls me like three of four times a year to see how I'm doing and always suggests getting together. I even went to dinner with him once because I ran into him at Union Square and he offered to buy me dinner. He's a nice guy and everything but I was never into him back then and I'm not into him now. I'll have to write more about this guy later because he's a piece of work. I think I'm the only woman who's never bought into his act so my resistance is fascinating to him and he just can't give me up.

The first time called me back in 1998 two years after we broke up, I asked him, why are you calling me? And he said "because I think about you all the time." This was funny to me so I told him "You know, that's funny because I haven't thought about you at all". There was like this dead silence on the phone for about five minutes, but he soon recovered. Poor guy! I would actually feel more sorry for him if he wasn' such a jerk, but he is, so I don't.

I'm still having fantasies about the Beautiful Boy from my screenwriting class. I've never been so sexually attracted to someone I've never spoken to before. It's got to be karma or a past life thing or it's my damned hormones. But it is fun. Is that what Steve meant when he broke up with me because there wasn't this spark between us? There was a spark, but it was very small and I was so afraid of it back then. Compared to my crush on Steve, this attraction is like a blazing bonfire and I'm being burned in a totally silly way. I have never met a man in my life that was so jumpable. Well, there was Paul. But I worked with him and got to know him so he became even more jumpable. But this guy, I don't even know this guy and I'm thinking I just want to jump him and jump him now. It's hormones, it's got to be hormones, like ovulation or something. But you know, it might be kind of fun to date I guy I wanted to jump constantly from the get go, instead of someone I had to get to know to jump. Is there a difference? And I know the sex will be good and I'm never wrong about that aspect.

But all this mental stimulation is bad because I know the next time I see him, which won't be till February 25, I'll just freak out and not talk to him. I feel like I'm reliving being a 13 year old and I hate it, because that age was so depressing for me. And after all these years, it's not getting any better.

I guess I'm in the mood to rant about my writing habits. I told someone in screenwriting class that I write my journal on my computer. This person looked me straight in the eyes and told me I couldn't do that. And I'm like, why the hell not. I've been doing it for months.

I have a job where I'm usually waiting for things to finish like programs, queries or analyses and started writing out my thoughts into a Word document. Now I just do it all the time because it's fun and it's therapeutic for me to just write about the random thoughts in my brain and the petty details of my life.

Then there's this blog, which is like another journal for me and to which I post sometimes the same entries from my Word journal or just totally new entries. And it seems everyone is blogging or posting to an online journal so I know I'm not the only one.

I know there are some writers who have to do their writing manually by hand using pen and paper. Most published writers use their manual or electric typewriters. My pc is just like a typewriter for me. I've been writing on the computer since I was 18 so I'm just used to just freewriting on to the screen. I've heard people say that you edit yourself, but I really don't. Word does annoy me because it tells me most of the sentences are too long or fragments, but other than that I appreciate the instant spell check.

Is this a generational thing? People who aren't used to typing on computer will naturally feel that handwriting is the best and for people like me, who have been around computers most of their life don't see the difference between writing by hand or writing on the computer other than the fact that when you write into a document, you can actually read what you wrote. I took a typing class in highschool, which I totally hated because I made too many mistakes and never typed fast enough, but that class has come in handy for writing on a computer since I don't really have look at keyboard when I type.

I think I just shocked that person in screenwriting class, like it was politically incorrect to journal to a Word document or to the Net, but I love it. And I think other people do too.

A writing rant about selling out.

I don’t want to write the great American novel and now I don’t even think I want to write something that’s good enough to win any prize. I love the Anne Rice and Stephen King books but they’ve never won elite prizes for writing like Booker, Pulitzer, Nobel or a National Book Award. And those writers are my favorites because they tell good stories. They may not have the most poetic writing in the world, but god can they tell a good story. And that’s what I want to do; tell a good story and entertain my reader if only for just a few hours.

Maybe it’s a product of my lower class upbringing, but I have no pretensions like Jonathan Franzen. I’m a reverse snob. I don’t want my books in snotty bookstores where regular people are afraid to go in because the snotty book people treat you badly because of your writing taste. The best thing about a company like Amazon.com is you can indulge your own peculiar tastes in book and because it’s all anonymous without judgments, it’s the most democratic of all book shopping experiences.

I know all my friends, especially CF will hate my writing. CF never even liked my Art is Scary story even though JW loved it and everybody who saw me perform it loved it. She’s not very generous that way, which is sad. I am happy for her when she’s successful but she has never celebrated my success or told me any of my stories were any good. JW loved my stories and for his insight I will always be grateful.

CF is so quick to judge that Jane Campion sold out on the ending of the movie "The Piano, but I think that’s a judgment. I know I’ve said people have sold out but the more I look at being at artist, the more I think that art is a collaborative process and that one has to compromise to get one’s art in the world. And I’m starting to think that it’s not selling out and to say sell out is a elementary understanding of the business. I just know right, I’ll be accused of selling out. But you know, whatever. Those people who don’t want to sell out can spend the rest of their life resenting other people’s success and not having the time and energy to create their art.

I need to be commercially successful to buy my free time. And what is so wrong with masses and masses of people want to read my work? It just means that more people can relate to my work, which would so cool because that would mean you were in touch with how normal people think. I don’t think I’m normal so to write something that lots of other people like, normal people, would be so fun and great for me.

There’s nothing wrong with people’s attitude about selling out. I just think society has brainwashed everyone into thinking there’s something wrong with appealing to massive amounts of people. It’s society’s way of keeping the artist from creating and producing art; to denigrate successful artists. Art like theatre needs an audience to live, art produced to appeal for one or a few is not art but some self indulgent piece of art that only a few people will like. And that’s fine. But art that captures the imagination of a lot of people I’m beginning to think, is like tapping into the universality that exits in all of us. This tapping of the universal mind is what I think true art is about because it’s the most real, the most widely read and watched, because everyone that sees or reads it can relate.

In honor of Waylon Jennings who died today who wrote one of my fave country song "Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys".

From the NY Times today. Worst Country Song Titles of All Time Until the next Time.

All I Want From You (Is Away)
All My Exes Live in Texas
Beauty's in the Eye of the Beerholder
Bubba Shot the Jukebox
Did I Shave My Legs for This?
Don't Put Me in the Ex-Files
Don't Squeeze My Sharmon
Get Your Biscuits in the Oven,and Your Buns in the Bed
Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart
He Can't Talk Without His Hands
Heaven's Just a Sin Away
Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)
How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?
How Come Your Dog Don't Bite Nobody but Me?
I Bought the Shoes That Just Walked Out on Me
I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling
I Got Tears in My Ears From Lying on My Bed Crying on My Pillow Over You
I Got You on My Conscience but at Least You're Off My Back
I Guess I Had Your Leavin' Coming
I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You
I Left Something Turned On at Home
I May Be Used, but Baby I Ain't Used Up
I Wanted You to Leave Until You Left Me
I Would Have Wrote You a Letter, but I Couldn't Spell Yuck!
I'd Rather Be Picked Up Here Than Put Down at Home
I'd Rather Pass Another Kidney Stone Than Another Night With You
If Fingerprints Showed Up on Skin, Wonder Whose I'd Find on You
If I Ain't Got It, You Don't Need It
If the Jukebox Took Teardrops
If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me
If Whiskey Were a Woman, I'd Be Married for Sure
If You Can't Bite, Don't Growl
If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?
I'll Give You Something to Drink About
I'll Marry You Tomorrow, but Let's Honeymoon Tonight
I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home
I'm Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail
I'm the Only Hell Mama Ever Raised
It Only Takes One Bar (to Make a Prison)
I've Been Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart
I've Been Roped and Throwed by Jesus in the Holy Ghost Corral
Lay Something on My Bed Besides a Blanket
Let's Do Something Cheap and Superficial
Make Me Late for Work Today
My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus
My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, and I Sure Do Miss Him
Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill
Queen of My Double-Wide Trailer
Redneck Martians Stole My Baby
Remember to Remind Me I'm Leavin'
Savin' the Honey for the Honeymoon
She Feels Like a New Man Tonight
She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy
She's Actin' Single . . . I'm Drinkin' Doubles
Shut Up and Talk to Me
Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone
The Chick's Too Young to Fry
The Man That Came Between Us (Was Me)
The Pint of No Return
There's a Tear in My Beer
Velcro Arms, Teflon Heart
Venom Wearin' Denim
Walk Out Backwards Slowly So I'll Think You're Walking in
We Never Killed Each Other (but Didn't We Try)?
Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass?
Who's Gonna Take the Garbage Out When I'm Dead and Gone?
Why Did You Leave the One You Left Me For?
You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too
Your Alibi Called Today
Your Coffee's on the Table but Your Sugar's Out the Door
Your Negligee Has Turned to Flannel Nightgowns
You're a Hard Dog to Keep Under the Porch
You're Going to Ruin My Bad Reputation
You're the Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly