I went to watch the basketball boys again. It's funny how there's always one white guy who plays. Some guy asked me to play one on one again and this time I said, I was wearing sandals and couldn't play.

I'm thinking to solve the problem, I should take the locker room scenes out, but I think they're integral to showing the the state of my baseball guy's self esteem. I can also showcase his attitude and hot temper in a locker room fight with his team mates.

I rented the movie 61*, Billy Crystal's movie about Roger Merris' record. I bet this movie will have locker room scenes. The only other thing to do now is to spend all summer renting movies about guys playing on sports teams and studying their locker room scenes. What a drag! The locker room scenes are probably the weakest part of my movie, but since they open and close the movie, they have to be stronger.

Oh well, I guess I'll have all summer to work on baseball locker room scenes.

It's funny how you think you've found a solution to your problem and then it turns out the solution doesn't work at all.

I bought my baby laptop thinking it would be great to be outside in a park on a sunny day and write. Or, write at a table outside of a cafe. Write outside anywhere. So today, since I had o go to my optometrist at the Embarcadero and pick an eyeglass case up, I decided to try and write while having lunch at those tables right in front of Justin Herman plaza.

I go, I buy some lunch at the japanese place that's right there and I grab myself a table and eat. Then I open up my laptop and low and behold, I can't see a damned thing because the sun is too bright. I tried to adjust my screen and I still couldn't see anything. I play around with the contrast for 10 minutes and finally I can see the screen, sort of. It's still very dark and I can barely see it.

I try to edit a story and but then I just completely gave up. What a joke! I buy the damned thing to write outside then when I finally write outside, I can't see the stupid screen. There's got to be a better way to do this! So much for my dream of writing outside in parks. I guess if I do this again, I will have have to sit in the shade, but the who the hell wants to sit in the shade when it's sunny outside. I am pissed and bummed! There's got to be solution to the glaring sun problem; I just don't know what it is yet.

In frustration I leave to do some research on how real men really talk. Someone in my screenwriting group suggested I go and check out the basketball games in the panhandle, so I can hear how "real jocks" talk and try to write it in my baseball screenplay. I'm like whatever, but I decide to give it a try anyway.

I get the court and sit down and watch these guys play basketball for an hour. I'm not sure what they all thought with me sitting there watching them. It was loud and I couldn't really hear what anyone was saying other than alot of fmbombs words and alot shot shit words said like it had two syllables. The basketball kept coming my way, which was kind of annoying, but other than that, I didn't hear anything really new about the way guys talk.

It's not like I don't know how guys talk, I do. I just didn't have the guys in my screenplay swear alot and some of my reviewers found that very unrealistic. My male reviewers anyway. I think I'll have to rent some videos to see how other screenwriters have handled it.

They didn't swear at all in the movie The Rookie. I mean I'm sure some guys swear but not all. In fact, I thought the guys at the basketball hardly swore at all. Maybe it was because I was there or maybe guys just don't swear that much, especially the young ones, because it was mostly young guys there, I don't know.

It was an interesting scene to watch. The guys reminded me of little kids at a playground and how you have to all get along. Then watching the guys, I also was reminded of physical a game basketball is, especially on defense. Some of the kids had great moves and they all do a good job of coaching each other and calling fouls. Actually, the funniest part was watching them argue over travelling, double dribbling, fouls and who was out and not out of bounds.

I think I might go again tomorrow and maybe sit in a different spot. I couldn't really hear well where I was sitting. If the guys were arguing and talking, it was on the side of where I was sitting.

Guys are funny though. As I was getting up to leave, one of them asked me if I played and I said no. I lied to him because actually I do play, but it's been years since I've played. And besides, I was wearing sandals anyway and couldn't play. I guess dummy guy didn't see that. I would only play basketball with someone I was dating anyway or wanting to date, because it really is such a physical game and I'd be rubbing up against the guy constantly, which would be fun if I really liked the guy I was playing with, but not so fun with a total stranger.

I guess it still must be a Mercury Retrograde because now I'm listening to Harvest by Neil Young. It all started on the way home when I heard Old Man by Neil Young on the radio. All of sudden I remembered that I had an ex-boyfriend named Phil, although I called him Drew, who used to sing me this song on his guitar.

Drew was a fellow student I met while interning in Washington, DC. He lived across the hall from me and my room-mate and so we became friends because of proximity. His room-mate also went to my school, but I didn't know him very well.

Drew had a car so we were always piling into his car to go out drinking in Georgetown or Dupont Circle. I don't even remember how Drew and I got together. I think we were all together at some bar in the old part of DC, in some club that was across from the Corcoran museum or was it the Portrait Gallery. Was it the Up and Down Club? Who knows. They had a tarot card reader upstairs who everybody said was the best in town.

Some old boyfriend of mine had shown up at the bar and he was coming onto me. I think I came on to Drew just to make this guy jealous. It was either at this bar or maybe that night we all watched fireworks and listened to the symphony on the mall for Labor Day. Or was that the time I met Rich, some other guy I think I bopped whiled in DC? It's all so hazy now.

Oh my god, I feel really bad. I cannot remember how I met my old boyfriend Drew. I'm sure it's in an old journal of mine somewhere, but I'm like, does it really matter now? No, I'm sure it was at that club across from the Portrait Museum.

Drew was from New Jersey, Bergen County to be exact. I cannot remember the name of his town, all I remember is that it was in Bergen County. He went to some school I'd never heard of in South Jersey. He had that accent that was like a Bruce Springstein song. Maybe that was the attraction? He was also a fellow acquarian which was a trip for me.

He was a nice guy, definitely not quite my type, but he was very sweet and he had a car, and when you're a 21 year old girl in DC without a car, dating a guy with a car was a good thing.

We went to all the colleges and universities in the area to party. He chauffered me around everywhere, even to go shopping. I'm not quite sure why he went out with me. He told me I wasn't his type either, but he liked the fact that was I very intelligent. His parents loved me, which I found strange. When I first met his mom, she said I was too pretty for her son. I don't think Drew agreed with her. I mean, I think Drew thought I was cute and everything and the sex was fantastic for both of us, but I don't think he was quite enamored of my looks as his parents and especially his mother was.

Not that Drew was Mr. GQ either. He was kind of slob really and he was already losing his hair at 21, but he did have that car and a ready supply or marijuana and other drugs. Did I forget to mention that? Drew dealt drugs on the side. God, was I like a shallow drugged out 21 year old or what? Hey, dating a guy with drugs is much better than dating a guy who doesn't have any. Besides, he wasn't the first drug dealer I dated, but one of many before him and afterwards.

And it's weird because it's not like I did alot of drugs either. But I don't know. I just happened to always meet and then get subsequently asked out by drug dealers. I guess I should feel flattered because drug dealers can probably get any drugged out chick they want, but they chose me and I wasn't even a habitual drug user. Drew was very generous with his drugs too, sending me a monthly supply and even hash once, which was so divine.

God, I still remember that time Drew and I were shrooming back in house in South Jersey on spring break. I was so paranoid. I thought the cops were going to come and bust us. When someone did come by the house, it was to buy some drugs. Then other friends of his came by and we headed for Atlantic City and the next thing I know, I'm in the Playboy Casino at 1 am and staring at Playboy bunny girls. After a tour of the casinos, we decided to go to this bar for drinks and everybody got carded except me. The doorman just let me in. Nobody could figure it out.

One of the guys asked a bartender and he said they don't card any girl with a guy who looks like she's under 18 and he said I looked around 13. I told him I was 21 and legal and he said it didn't matter. It was an Atlantic City rule. Whatever. What a weird rule. I guess there must be a lot of guys bringing very young girls to the casinos, bars and clubs and doormen are trained to look the other way.

I had my first taste of chili cheese fries that night. What a weird night. Drew and I were still so high. We walked on the beach and on the boardwalk and then ended up at a donut shop so we could scarf donuts.

Poor Drew. I think the guy really like me, but I had to break up with him. Drew was working for Common Cause and he was Mr. Environmentalist. He started his school's recycling program. God, he even dragged me to a meeting to meet the founder of Common Cause. What a drag. We were all sitting around a table and we had to say why we were interested in saving the environment and I was so not at that age. I felt so stupid when it was my turn to speak, but I think I must have BSed my way out of it, because Drew said I gave a good answer.

Anyway, Drew kept asking me why I was breaking up with him and I said, and I think I actually believed this at the time, that I saw a future where I was a corporate lawyer and he was an enviromentalist big wig and that we would be on opposite sides of a case. I think about that now and I'm like, god, how pretentious or what? I think I said, I didn't want to be in the position of having to be married to some guy who was running an environmental group that was suing my company for its environmental practices, especially if I was going to the head lawyer to take the environmental group down.

God, what a laugh! I never did go to law school and I certainly never worked for a polluting corporation.

I can't wait till this Mercury Retrograde is over because I hate all these old boyfriend memories.

I think I am getting old. Why? Because I have a hard time hanging out with people I barely know and I don't think I ever had this problem when I was younger. I've been hanging out alot with my screenwriting group. I think I've seen them almost every week since May 16 and it's freaking me out.

It's difference when you're in class because it's a classroom atmosphere and you're doing work and not socializing. Now I'm seeing these people socially and I hardly even know them and it's just too much for me, to be with people I barely know that much. It's a total sign of age. Plus, I am so not one of those california types who easily makes friends and just as easily loses friends. I make friends for keeps, forever and it takes me awhile to get know people.

Usually, I only get to know people I click with right away, so when you start hanging out socially, it's so cool because you both get a long like a house on fire.

Now I'm with these people, some of whom I don't really click with and we've been hanging almost every week and I am being driven insane.

I think sometimes I am just complaining and whining because it is nice to have people to hang with, but I don't even know if I even like these people yet. I take a long time to decide whether I even like a person or not, even longer to decide whether I want to spend alot of time with them.

Time is like this special thing and you just can't spread it around and waste it on people you don't know. It's too exhausting! I feel like I don't have a life and that's such a big lie, because I do have a life, did have a life before I met these new people.

I'll have to think about what to do. Part of me wants to just drop out and not be in the group anymore. I feel like I have no boundaries and I don't like that. I never got into the fluid boundary thing. But this is a good sign because I'm usually so boundaryless, so maybe I've learned to take care of myself finally.

I feel bad because I am turning into such an antisocial freak! But I'm tired and I miss my personal time.

I have a feeling that if I ever become successful as a writer, that this is how my life is going to be. Hanging with people I barely know. There has to be a better way for me to socialize with people I barely know.

I wonder if this kind of stuff goes on back east, where everyone is much more formal about friendship. Do they have this instant friends problem?