I saw The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams at ACT on Thursday. What's so weird is that there was a loud bunch of older women in the section that I normally sit it in. That middle section of first balcony must be cursed. My section was quiet and it makes such a difference to my mood to have it be quiet and reflective and not like some Saturday at the local village market square. Is that snobby? Why do people have to be so noisy all the time. These women were older and white but god, they were so ghetto! I'm like hello, this isn't your stupid church social, it's the theatre and people want to read the program and be quiet before the play starts. You know these people are not from San Francisco but from some hick yahoo town up north like Napa, Sonoma or Santa Rosa.

I swear to god, it's true when they say that between LA and SF, it's Texas or some version of Tucky as in Kentucky. I've got to remember to change the rest of my season's tickets, so I don't have to sit with the church brigade for every play. There were three russian women sitting next to me and they were talking, but at least they were quiet and I couldn't understand a word they were saying. God, I am such a snob. ACT must be getting desperate to get people to buy their tickets since they're now selling to white ghetto church groups.

I've never seen The Glass Menagerie and I really enjoyed it. I think it's one of William's best plays. When you watch any of his plays, you see first had how many times he's been ripped off by other playwrights and in movies too. He had an opening scene where the character talks to audience and introduces the play. It's like voice overs in the beginning of movies. I've got a voice over in my screenplay. Thank you Tennessee Williams.

The actors playing the parts were very good, especially the mother and the daughter. Actually, I thought there were all quite good. I love how you see the bad parts and good parts of people in his plays. The characters are never all bad. They have their faults but as an audience you see that they're motivated by good intentions.

In acting class, I was taught that all characters want something and that something is usually love. A character will try anything they can to get that love, no matter how ridiculous it is. Tennessee Williams really shows you this in his play. I wonder if I will be ever be able to write great characters like he can. You can't hate the characters, you can try, but he makes it difficult, because they're so damned human.

And universal too. The mother character reminded me of my whiny mother. But aren't all mothers whiny? I also related to the shy freaked out sister character. I think I could have been her if circustances had turned out differently. Whose to say that I'm not her now, all freaked and shy?

I wrote 13 more pages of my screenplay and went from scene 12 to scene 17. I'm supposed to write 21 pages a week so I have 8 more pages to write. I'm seriously tempted to edit, but Julie said to just keep going and edit later. I dare not tell her I write directly by computer. She's a big believer in writing by hand. Most people freak out when I tell them I free write on computer. There is something to be said to writing by hand and I know that. I don't censor myself as much when I write by hand and the words come out faster.

But screenwriting is so format driven that it's easier for me write on my computer than it would be to write by hand and then transcribe and type in later. I went to Borders on Union Square before the play on Thursday to work on the outline of my screenplay. I've changed my outline so many tiimes that I needed to redo my the stickies for my movie. I bought some coffee and sat down and noticed there was a girl in front of me with a beat sheet with her stickies. She was writing her screenplay in Final Draft on a Mac, I think.

It was so strange to see someone else working on a screenplay too and at a place like Borders. I think I might go there and write at night. The cafe is not crowded and if you're lucky, like I was that night, you can sit by one of the windows and look out on Union Square. It's very cool.

That woman's beat sheet and stickies looked so neat. My beat sheet is so messy and full of stickies with my chicken scratch hand writing. Screenwriting is worse or just as worse as acting. Everyone wants to do it. Everyone except me.

Honestly, I think I like writing stories better. I like the visualness of screenwriting. I like how a picture tells a thousand words but because it's visual, you have to assume that your audience knows exactly what you're trying to do. If you've ever read a bunch of movie reviews for the same movie, you know that everyone interprets scenes very differently. As a screenwriter, you have to acceptt that. Not that the same thing doesn't happen in written stories either, but in movies there's more room for ambiguity. I don't know if I like that.

I'm probably the only person in my screenplay class who doesn't want to be a screenplay writer and would rather be a short story writer or a novelist. But then again, I was the only person in my acting class who didn't want to be actor. It's my karma.

But I'm committed to finishing and editing this screenplay and sending it off to be registered. I'm sure it will just wallow away in the script files, but at least I can say I wrote one and I registered it. And that's what important to me right now.

My children's book Missy Dreams of Duck, keeps replaying in my head. I came up with more scenes for the story too. Maybe this means it's ready to be written down. This is going to be a cool story. A young girl is unhappy and wants to run away from home. She wakes up and finds out she's become a duck. How cool is that. Ducks are my favorite creatures. It will be a riot to create a duck world or rather a child's dreams of a duck world, because in the end, my character wakes up and find out it was all a dream. There's a alot of freedom in creating a dreamy duck world. My duckies will talk like humans and behave like humans. In fact, duck society will closely mimic human society with a few exceptions of course for duck species behavior.

You can be so much more imaginative when you write children's and fantasy books. I won't have to agonize about writing character that are so human, you relate. Maybe Tennessee Williams did that easily, but I can't and I don't know if I'll ever be able to. I mean, Tennessee Willaims was a genius. How am I going to write characters as well as he did. I think it's impossible really. Sometimes, I don't know why I even try.

His characters were so multidimensional. They were so human with faults and failings and good qualities all mixed into very messed up people. You alternately despise and relate to all his characters. He had such a gift. And me, what do I have. Just voices in my head that tell me stories, just stories lines that play in my head like movies sometimes. How will I every measure up to him and his portrayal of humanity?

I wonder if writing as a profession will be like my job now, where I spend two days working on one thing, trying to solve one problem, only to find out the problem is unsolvable because I basically wrote the program wrong in the first place and I delivered wrong information to the customer. Only a part of the information is wrong, but it's an important piece of information. I did a check to see how much I was off and it turns out I was off by 5%. That's alot though and probably unacceptable in any other industry except the one I'm in now.

God, I hate making mistakes. I try to be so careful but I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote up this analysis. It sucks too because now the customer wants to see more detail and I can't give out detail without letting them know the original number we submitted was wrong. I told my boss about it and he acted like it was nothing, but I knew he was pissed. I know he's like thinking, I really need to check that girl. I told him I could give the customer the names they wanted but not give them the detail, after all, they didn't ask for it. He agreed so I sent the information off tonight. It's bad customer service, but for me I guess it's I'd better save my ass first customer service.

I've really got to be more careful. I'm lucky to even have a job and my own office to boot. So many people I know are unemployed right now and having a hard time trying to find a job. I'm not exactly thrilled by my job, but I stay put because the job market is so bad right now.

I decided today that I just need to finish my screenplay and be done with it. I have so many other stories to write. I was thinking about the feedback I received in class about my story. I was going to make some changes based on the feedback I heard, but I decided not to. It's my story. I like that my characters are inconsistent. I like how my characters act one way with one person and act a completely different way with someone else. That is real life. I've seen it at work and I've seen it in my own family.

I've seen guys at work act like total dicks in meetings and then call their wives and talk and act all lovey dovey or cower and simper when their wives are reading them the riot act. I'm like, close your door for god's sake, or call your wife where nobody can hear you, because you sound like a total wussy on the phone. I've seen my own brother who's a jerk and half treat people like shit, but totally act like some little boy when my dad scolded him. I've seen my uncle do that too with his dad and he's 50 something and it was kind of sad, to see him talk to like some little boy to his dad.

I want to see that in a movie. I don't care if it's consistent, it's real life. The people in my screenwriting class said that my characters should act consistently throughout the movie. And I was agreeing with them. But today, I'm like, NO WAY! Who the hell acts consistent? No one. I know I don't. If people in class think they act consistently all the time, they're dreaming. And don't tell me that when they're with their parents, they aren't reduced to grade school children. Well I guess if they're not from a dysfunctional family, that maybe they're mature, but not my characters.

The people in my screenplay are like totally dysfunctional, like with a Capital D. Oh well. I don't care. I'm going to write it the way I see life. It's my world, it's my point of view, it's my damned story. Then I'm going to register the damned thing and be done with it. There are other stories that need telling besides this one.

I guess I should be glad because at least I have other stories in other formats to tell. For some people, this might be the only story they have to tell. I think I have at least two more screenplays in my head besides the one I'm writing now. And at least a couple dozen stories to write in either short story, novella or novel format. Then there's that play of mine that I started in 1998 and only just got the ending to a few weeks ago. I know I should finally finish the play and get that over and done with too. God, then there's that novel of mine.

The my love and S&M novel and my screenplay about first love are my story ideas from 1998. Crazy Eddie and the baseball screenplay are story ideas from 1999. I haven't even gotten to the other story ideas from the rest of 1999, not to mention 2000, 2001 and 2002. God, my production is so slow. I think I could be writing 8 hours a day, five days a week, at least until age 65 and still not run out of story ideas. And I think this is a good thing, right?

I think I'm depressed because my allergies keep me up at night and I'm not sleeping well. It's hard to sleep when you can only breathe through your mouth.

I'm also starting to freak out about being a professional writer, because it looks that's the direction I'm going in. I've had a few opportunities before to write for a living, especially when I was doing the PR thing part time. But I've always shied away from having my writing turn into a job. Because I've hated most of my jobs, I didn't want my writing to turn into something I hated.

But if I want to make money at writing, I'm going to have to start treating it like a job and like a profession. I'm going to have to treat writing friends like colleagues instead of friends, which is what writing friends are really. I mean, the only thing you really have in common with your writing friends is your writing, which means they become like work friends, so you have to be professional at all times. After all, one of your writing friends might be your editor one day, you never know.

But I think I'm ahead of my own writing time time table. It usually takes five years for any artist to develop their style or in the case of a writer, their writing voice. I started seriously taking writing classes in 1998, so I've only passed my four year anniversary of writing. I thought I was already on year 5, but I'm not. I still have one more year to develop my writing voice.

Maybe that's what was freaking me out. I thought I was in year 5 of my progress and I wasn't measuring up to where I expected to be with my writing. But I'm only in year 4, which makes total sense because I'm only now discovering my writing voice and my style. I still have a year to perfect all of it.

Thank god I realized this, because I was starting to think that I was seriously behind in my creative development. I'm right where I should be.

This whole screenplay class is stressful. I think I'm in a class with people who seriously want to write screenplays for a living. It's like their chosen profession. And me, I'm just dabbling in it so see what it's like. Everyone in the class has gone out and bought the expensive screenwriting software. Now either money is overflowing out of the pockets, which hardly seems likely or they're really serious.

No wonder my screenwriting class reminds me so much of one of my acting classes. It's because everybody is deadly serious except me. And I'm getting the same reaction too, I really think they're all posers and I don't like them. I don't think they like me either so it's mutual. And what's so ironic is I have yet to hear one story idea that I'd pay $9 to see as a movie. No one in the class is that great of a writer and their storytelling abilities aren't that great either.

I know I can tell a story from my storytelling class, but I'm not sure anyone in the class can. If the can, I haven't see evidence of it yet. Two people are writing stories about teens and one is like that Jessica Alba show on Fox about the school for "altered children". Like how dervivative is that. That's been done before and done very well. I'm such a mean person, aren't I?

I really like everyone in my screenwriting class. They all seem like nice people. I just don't feel very comfortable speaking in that class and I feel kind of bad about that. I know I should contribute more to the class discussions, but honestly I don't really have anything nice to say about anyone's screenplays, so I stay silent.

I know I need to find something I like in each screenplay. A leader in a communications seminar I took said you have to find the gold in what people are saying if you want to communicate with them. I'm going to have start doing that in class and at least find one good thing to say about each person's screenplay. Everybody else in class volunteers their opinions very readily no matter how stupid or dumb the comments seem. I need to figure out a way to do this but not seem vapid. Most of the time, people in class just seem to talk to hear themselves listen and don't seem to really pay attention to what a person's screenplay is actually about. But whatever. At least it sounds like they're giving feedback. Never mind that most of the comments have no substance or weight ... at least they're commenting.

I'm going to bed early tonight. I'm thinking if I stay in bed longer, I might actually get more sleep even if I can't breathe half the time. You know, double the time of actual sleeping. My life is so miserable when I'm sleep deprived!

Still depressed about my writing. Well, I'm either depressed about it or having grandiose delusional dreams about being famous and being on David Letterman's show. I still can't figure out why I'm writing. I don't really even enjoy it that much, despite the fact that when I do sit down to actually do it, the words stream out easily. Everyone who has ever read my writing, had told me to write for a living. Me, I'd rather climb the corporate ladder surely but slowly and get paid shit loads of money. I know how to do the business thing and really well too. And my last job, people really respected me and asked me my opinion all the time. I hated people asking me what to do, but my friend Amy thought it was a sign of respect that people gave so much power to me. I had that at my last job too. My stupid boss kept telling me to watch what I said, because people in the company really valued my opinion.

I hated all the responsibility of those two jobs. I was always on my guard, I didn't trust anyone and I had to be so careful of my behaviour. All that corporate stuff now seems like walk in the park compared to writing. At least in a corporation, I knew how to behave, how to get ahead. With writing, I'm so drowning, not knowing if I'm any good. And then part of me thinks that if it were up to me, none of what I wrote would every be any good, so how can I even trust my own opinion.

I wish there was another way of creative expression that was so easily and readily available to me. But there isn't. Writing is what's there for me. Writing comes naturally and easily to me, never mind the fact that grammatically it's shit.

I wish I had a crystal ball and could look into my future to see if I do keep writing 10 years from now, or is this just another phase I'm going through.

Then there's those stupid damned stories that won't get out of my head. Voices of characters who want me to write down their story and who bug my constantly even when I'm in the shower. Sometimes I feel like I'm being haunted by the spirits of characters looking for a writer who they can tell their story to, a writer who will listen to them and who will just let them babble on forever about their life. I fee like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost when she found out she really had the gift. It's like every character from here to eternity is camping inside my head, telling their story over and over again, till I get tired of hearing them and finally write it down. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just delusional like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind.

Sometimes I wonder if there's a big hole in my head where spirits can slip in and live for quite a long time. Spirits of people I don't even know, have never met and will probably never meet in real life. I don't think all my characters are dead either, but just living their life as best they can, somewhere else.

I don't know if I want this gift. I feel like I've had it all my life, but it's only in the last 5 years that I've let it flourish. I know it's bad karma to turn down a gift, but there's got to be a limit somwhere.

I'm getting a little depressed about my writing and wondering why I'm even doing it. Maybe I need to list all the times people have told me what a good writer I am.

Grade school memories

2 poems of mine were published in the local paper, The Garden Isle. Hardly an accomplishment since I grew up on a rock in the middle of the pacific ocean with a total population of 35,000, but still, I got to see myself in print at an early age.

My fourth grade teaching assistant, who was at my school interning from Chico State University, made us write commercials. He told me I wrote good dialogue. But then again, he also taught us Esperanto, so what does he know.

In my six grade english class, my teacher made us a write a story and then had our stories individually bound and donated them to the school library. I wonder if it's still there.

My sixth grade teacher also made us write our own hawaiian style legends at camp on weekend up in the mountains. My legend was published in the local paper. I'm sure the island folks were thrilled.

High school memories

7th grade english teacher made us write an inclass fantasy story. I wrote a story abou shoes and where shoes go when they die. My cousin, who's six years younger than me, told me my 7th grade english teacher read my story to his class as an example of a good creative story.

At graduatiion, they handed me the English award for my class. I went to small (800) public high school, so I'm not sure what this award really means, other than I did get $100 to spend.

The rest of my life

A press release for a concert I was promoting at Stanford University was published in the campus paper. They printed the release verbatim. It's a university paper, I think they'd print anything.

A press release for a race I was promoting made it to the front page of the Outdoors section of the Chronicle. Finally after two years, they printed something of mine.

I ghost wrote the deacon column in my church monthly newsletter and people told the head deacon, they loved my articles. It's a small church, what can I say.

I wrote up the special brunch menus for my friend's restaurant and people love it. How much can go wrong writing up descriptions of food.

I wrote up a bunch of flyers for the church singles group I joined for awhile. The minister in charge of the group, Dana, loved them, and so did the people in the church. But like I said earlier, it's church people.

I published an article on the ultra marathon race I was promoting in UltraRunning magazine. It's a running magazine, anyone could submit articles.

I did get misquoted in a SF Examiner article on ultramarathoning once, but who the hell cares about ultra marathoning?

My acting teacher, John, who is supposedly this ultra famous acting teache, said I was a good writer. All of friends who have interviewed for acting schools and acting programs here and on the east coast, said that everybody knows John. John taught at ACT for 12 years and he knows Annette Benning and Danny Glover, and is well respected on both coasts in acting circles. But he's an acting director, what does he know?

More church stuff. I wrote a prayer for the people and read it at a service one Sunday. Some nice looking guy who I'd never seen before came up to me afterwards and told me, my prayer really moved me. Then Pam, who was on the worship committee and an editor at Harper Collinss, came up to me and said she really like my prayer and requested a copy for the church files. I was like OH MY GOD. Pam was classmates with Hilary Clinton in college at that Seven Sisters school, whose name I can't remember right now. Pam worked for all the top notch publishing houses in NYC before moving out here. Pam liked my prayer. And Pam is so articulate and well spoken and so east coast in speech and manner. That woman spearks in grammatically correct and perfect sentences at all times. Pam would know wouldn't she? Or is this just because it's a small church?

I wrote and performed a story I'd written called Art is Scary. About 30 people were there, most of whom I didn't know. People loved my performance and three people, two guys and one woman said they loved me story.

And finally, I got a fanmail from someone who'd read my blog and was kind enough to tell me.

I'm not sure if I feel better, but I think I need to keep writing I guess.

Screenplay freakitis is gone now, thank god. Julie, my screenwriting teacher didn't call me till Thursday so I was left to stew in my own juices. I think what was really bugging me was the beginning and ending of my screenplay. Julie said to start later in my original story and leave all the baseball stuff out. But DAMN, I was so attached to all the baseball stuff, I mean after all, it's the story of a baseball player, right? By Wednesday afternoon, I couldn't take it anymore and I took all the baseball scenes out and started the story in the locker room after game 2 of a three game series at Pac Bell Park. Once I did that, the screenplay freakitis went away and I was able to write 10 pages of the screenplay that night.

When Julie finally called me on Thursday, she suggested exactly what I had already done. I guess I just beat her to the criticism.

Screenplay writing is such a trip. First of all, it has to be in this special format and you have to use a courier 12 font, which when printed kind of looks like you typed it yourself on a typewriter instead of a computer. The film industry is very particular about the format, so there's even software programs which you can buy that puts the screenplay into the required format.

I would buy the screenplay software if I thought I would be writing screenplays for the rest of my life, but I don't know that yet. So I cheated and found a free template on the Net. The template has all the macros built in which do all the formatting stuff for you. I downloaded a demo version of the most popular screenwriting software, Final Draft, at work but I think I like the template I have on my pc at home much better. Besides the template was free and you just can't beat free. I think I'm going to check out the full version of the screenwriting software out on Monday at the Academy of Art college, where I take my screenwriting seminar, just to see what the full version is really like. Julie says they have a pc lab there with the software on it.

God, what else? Damned allergies are in full swing right now, which makes me totally miserable. I went to see my kineseologist/homeopathic doctor today and he said he was going to try to up my immune system more so my histamine reaction wouldn't be so bad. I don't think it's working, but all the other stuff he's treated me for has been great.

God, I hate my allergies. I think I'm going back to taking the powder form of aloe vera, which is totally expensive, but so worth it because when I was taking it, my allergic reactions were very minor even in pollen season. I keep wondering when the company that makes the powder form of the aloe vera is going lose their exclusive patent on this product, so I can buy it generically from someone else. I haven't seen it on the Net or in any of the health food stores, so I guess they still own the patent. The stuff is so expensive, but I'm thinking it would so worth it right now if I didn't have to go around with my nose stuffed and snot dripping down my upper lip.

I went to Casual Fridays at the SF Ballet last night and saw program 5. The featured drink was a naked cosmopolitan, which was vodka and white cranberry juice with a lime twist. My friend and I drank three of these and didn't even get a buzz. I guess they forgot to put the vodka in. Next time, I'll get wine. Should have known to get wine, since all the staff was drinking it,

We chatted in line with Evelyn Cisneros, who used to be the premier ballerina with the SF Ballet, before she retired. I loved her in Swan Lake, which I saw a few years ago. She's very pretty and very, very thin. She was so friendly and nice and she chatted to us happily about her 18 month old son. My friend said "ballet tickets $46, chatting with Evelyn Cisneros PRICELSS". Gotta love that mastercard ad!

Went through a thing about my mother on Friday. Just when you think you're over your parents, they come back to haunt you in the most unexpected ways. I was remembering the way my mother was when I was about 5 years old. She was this always on the go passionate woman, totally dedicated to her job and workaholic, perfectionist freak in heels and makeup and hairsprayed hair, who wore her emotions on her sleeve and was totally quick tempered with a sharp tongue that could slice you to ribbons in a minute flat. And me? I was her totally hyperactive child, who was always falling down, getting into scrapes and who was constantly getting into her way and making her late for work. My poor mother though. I think if they had Ridalin in those days and I was on it, my early childhood would have been alot happier, but the term "hyperactive child" didn't even exist yet.

I used to be so afraid of my mom. Being around her was like a stepping into a mine field. I never knew what action of mine would piss her off and it seemed like back then, everything I did made her really angry. I learned to be very careful of what I did and what I said to her, just to have her not yell at me. It's an odd way to live, but as a child I think you easily adapt to all kinds of weird situations and they become normal after awhile.

The thing about my mom came up because I now have three friends in my life who subconsciously reminded me of my early childhood experiences with my mom. All three of them are like her in their own way. I seem to make make them mad by the majority of things I do and say. What's so interetesting though is I don't want what it is I do to piss them off. It's just like it was when I was a child and I couldn't figure my mother's reasons back then either. They're my friends and I love them so dearly, but my relationships with them are sort of strained right now, because I was very resentful of them being agree with me all the time, for seemingly silly things.

But yesterday, I figured out that they were all reminding me of my mother and once I figured that out, the resentments inside me all went away. I think I was subconsciously thinking of my friends as my mom. Strange huh? I was surprised because they're nothing like my mom, but it's the minefield effect that was confusing me. But what' s so cool is that now the strain of the relationship, at least for one of my friends, is gone. At the ballet last night, we had the best time. It was like in the old days, when my friend and I used to do everything together and we just loved being in each other's company. All the strain is gone. I hope with my other two friends, I get the same results.

The things with your parents is funny. When you grow up, you either start to emulate them or if you had teenage rebellion like me, you do everything in opposite to them. Like take my mother for example. She's this passionate, wears her heart on her sleeve, girly type woman who dresses to the nines in ruffles and lace. I'm this buttoned up, closed down, stiff upper lip with a glacier reserve type who wishes she could wear shorts and tshirts for the rest of her life. But then what's totally trippy is that even though I've tried to do everything to rebel against my mom's teachings, at work, not in this job, but in other jobs, I was this on the go, well-dressed, always in heels, makeup and perfume and suits with pearls, workaholic bitch. I became my mother at work! So scary!!!

But when I got this insight yesterday about my mom and me, I realized that I didn't have to rebel against her anymore or freak out because I became her at work. I could pick and choose the best of my mother's traits and get rid of all the crap that I didn't want. When I first realized this however, I freaked out.

Part of my identity was so wrapped around being rebellion against my mom and her teachings and praying to god and every other diety I could think of, that I wouldn't become like her. Losing this mom part of my identity made me feel like I didn't know who I was anymore, and that's not a great feeling to have.

I had similar feelings when I let go pf my resentment about my dad and my relationship with him and his untimely death. I felt the "I don't know who the hell I am feeling" back then too. And it was even scarier the first time, because I distinctly remember feeling like I was in a foreign world for a couple of minutes and the sidewalk was going to open up and swallow me. Losing a big part of your identity is not a pleasant feeling. I had so identified myself as someone who hated her dad, that letting go of the hatred and resentment was like losing this enormous part of myself. I lost my m.o., I guess you could say.

But you know what, that "I don't know the hell I am feeling" passed and was replaced by the joy of realizing I could reinvent myself over again. A brighter, better, happier Brenda!!! What a concept!!!

So, I'm in reinvention mode right now. I want to take the best of what my mother taught me, throw the crap out that I hated and reinvent yet another "brighter, better, happier Brenda". God, my mom was amazing. Everybody loved her, well, everybody loved or totally hated her. There was no inbetween reaction from anybody including the family. My mother was so smart, so determined and such a damned good cook and hostess. That woman knew her jewels too and could spot a fake a mile away. I think I'll get rid of mother quick temperedness, impatience and mine field personality but leave all the fun stuff like her sense of humor, her ability to turn any bad situation around to her own advantage and maybe her ability to deal with men. My mother was a determined flirt, a real southern belle even though she wasn't from the south. Growing up, I watched my mom flirt and charm men and have them eating of her hand in 10 minutes or less. That skill set will come in handy for a few things, I think.

What's definitely so great though, is I think I finally left home and I can now be my own person. I can now be the person, I've always wanted to be because I'm not living my life out of hating my father and my mother and I"m not also not rebelling against either of them either. This is such a weird concept, don't you think?

I'm starting to freak out about writing my screenplay. I'm writing a story from a guy's viewpoint and I'm like, I don't the first thing about being a guy. I finished the outline for my screenplay and handed it to my screenwriting teacher tonight. She's supposed to call me tomorrow night to discuss. YUK! I am so not looking forward to it.

I like my screenplay but I think I have very weird taste in stuff. Nobody likes the stuff I like.

The enormity of my project is really getting to me. 200 pages of a dysfunctional father/son relationship from the son's pont of view. What a trip!!! I don't even know why this story is so important to me. It's not my story. I'm not a son, I'm a daughter. All my friends think I'm trying to therapy out my own father dying and me not being there to say goodbye or make my peace before he died. I made my peace years later, but I guess a part of me thinks would I be any different if had made my peace. This story is my way to find out.

God, I blame my friend Kim for all this. She took me to her company's tailgate party to see the Oakland A's play the SF Giants in Oakland. I was a baseball fan but only because I liked going to Candlestick and sitting in the bleachers on a sunny day and watching a good game of baseball with a bunch of friends and eating lots of hotdogs.

It was Kim who told me about the hot young players on the A's team. How they're all under age 25 and totally cute. They had those great commercials in Oakland, showing the A's jumping up and down on some bed. She was right. There were so cute. And compared to an older team, they looked ever more like little boys playing a grown up game. I kept seeing little boys in little league, which then became very little boys learning to play catch with their fathers.

Then came the 2000 world series. The A's versus the Yankees. Those A's really gave New York a run for their money in that short series. New York would breeze through their games with the Mariners, but with the A's, they had to fight for every game. There were such different teams too. The A's played new metal and new hard rock music in their stadium, music I really like. The Yankees played 70's and 80's music. The A's barely looked like they could shave, while the Yankees, except for Derek Jeter looked positively geriactric.

Nowhere was this age disparity more evident than in game 4 of that series. Barry Zito, the funky and cool pitcher originally from LA, you know the original incense surfer dude, pitched in that game and whacked Yankees by a huge score. During the game, the A's looked like a team right out of the college ranks and the Yankees looked like a team full of fat but professionals athletes biding their time.

Then came the actual world series with the Yankees and the Mets and all the stories of hometown boys finally playing on the team of their childhood or not, as the case often is. I loved the profile of Al Lighter from the Mets He was the good, true and humble baseball player who just always wanted to play for his home team.

Somehow between my crush on all things Oakland A's and hearing all those stories about famous baseball players talking about their father, Playing Catch with Dad.

Even the title is new. I originally called my story "Little League Baseball Dreams" The idea sat on my writing shelf for the longest time and I never finished it. But now in my screenwriting class, the baseball story has morphed into screenplay I'm trying to go wtith the flow and be relaxed about it, but its hard, very hard.