I saw this online and ordered it from Target. Super-cute right?
But I didn’t look closely and I made some assumptions. Like I figured those straps probably had a hidden snap or button.
Or I figured that there might be a zipper on the side.
It didn’t occur to me that they would have would have sash on the front and…
Yup, that’s a back zipper.
Totally practical if you have a “jumper buddy” to go with you to the bathroom and help you with the zipper every time you have to go. Otherwise, not so much. The zipper is high -I can’t reach top in order to pull it down — or back up.
I get it — it’s easy to get so excited about an idea that you don’t entirely test it before you send it out into the world. Focus groups are tedious — so many busy-bodies wanting you to make changes. Maybe I’m just not the right demographic — there might be some more limber-bodied folks out there who can totally make this work.
Getting notes on a script can feel either “good” or “bad.”
“Bad” is when you are hoping for accolades, for someone to tell you it’s really close, and instead you hear that things aren’t working for the reader, they don’t understand things you thought were clear, and they have thoughts — a lot of thoughts! In the cartoon version of your life that’s happening inside your head it’s a literal truckload of notes dumped on top of you. It’s overwhelming and it’s heavy. Like this picture — but with NOTES instead of money!
It’s like this, but with notes instead of money!
“Good” is when you know there’s some problems with your script, but by some stroke of luck, you have some folks who like it anyway because they see its potential, and hopefully they are a little bit smarter than you–or smart in different ways–and they say things that they think which makes you think things that you say and then everyone is very excited about where this can go. And while you’re all talking you start to “see” it. It’s like the visual version of having a word on the tip of your tongue — it’s not there yet, but it’s totally within your grasp and probably as soon as you get off the phone it will no doubt arrived fully formed. This is fun!
After a notes call you hang up the phone,with a sense of accomplishment — either because you’ve withstood the deluge without crying, or because you’ve held your own in a great conversation! Either way you clearly deserve to decompress by staring vacantly into the fridge for a full minute and maybe taking a stick of wrapped cheese and then wandering the apartment vaguely looking for the water glass you set down before giving up and getting a new one.
Then it’s time to get to work! You return to your computer, pumped to make this next draft the Great American Script… and realize that the whole conversation you just had is a blur.
You don’t panic. You close your eyes and think: A few moments from the conversation come back, but now you aren’t entirely sure if you and the other person were talking about the same thing. You remember thinking thoughts that were so profound you knew you’d never forget them, but you’ve forgotten what they were.
Shit.
Check your notebook see that you’ve got a few half sentences written down, like
“she should tell him that…” or
“maybe an element of betrayal”.
Double shit.
But wait! Now you look in the upper left corner of your computer screen, see the little Quicktime audible file and remember that you recorded the whole thing. Probably, it’s STILL recording, because you forgot you were recording. So you turn it off. You NAME the file with the project and date.
This is great! You don’t have to admit to someone that you forgot everything they said! Plus, now you can transcribe the conversation, which at a 3-1 ratio could take three hours. Three hours of typing without having to solve any problems. Hallelujah.
And while you’re listening and typing, not only will you remember what you talked about, but you’ll hear a bunch of stuff that you missed. Stuff people said while you were processing what somebody said before that. Tossed-off comments you thought were jokes, but now realize could be the key!
Re-listening to the notes will also help you process your emotions. However you felt during the call — good or bad — listening again will make you feel less so. If you felt good — hearing yourself talk will make you feel less brilliant, for sure. But if it was bad, you might find it wasn’t as bad as you thought. And putting it on paper will give you some distance, which — at least for me — is a better, more sustainable place from which to start a re-write.
One of those days where as you make your commute it is clear you are in the slow lane on the freeway, but you don’t have enough will to change to a faster lane, and you have a feeling there’s a program more to your liking than the one on the radio, but decide it’s not worth the effort of raising your hand to the dashboard and flipping through the stations.
Went to a screening last night with a friend who lives in Hollywood. Went to my friend’s house first and, par for Hollywood, ended up parking a few blocks away from her home. Walking back to my car at the end of the evening, I heard some sweet tunes outside the 7-11. I don’t know what song or what singer. It wasn’t too loud, but it was perfect for a fine evening. Looking over, I could see the silhouette of a man and a bike in the light of the store window. He had a couple of bags, but not an overwhelming amount. Could have been shopping for a few things. Or maybe homeless.
It’s a weird thing. Living here, any pedestrian or biker, you automatically clock: homeless or not homeless. I read something the other day that said over one-third of the nation’s homeless live in California. Don’t see many homeless folks in your state? That’s because they’re here.
As I stood at the street corner waiting for the light to change, the music got closer, and I looked to see it was coming from the man on the bike. His bike had green lights strung around the front wheel. So he had lights and sound. Older guy. Black. Wearing a hat. Styling.
Not the guy’s bike, but these are what the lights looked like.
We gave each other the look-see. Me, because it’s night, and I’m not in the normal protection of my car and not everyone is safe. Him, probably just because I was looking at him. I’m guessing I looked safe to him. And I decided he looked safe to me.
“I like your wheel lights,” I said.
He nodded thanks.
I was thinking I liked the music too. I would’ve liked to know who was singing. But didn’t want to go overboard. Too friendly with strangers is weird.
The light changed. I walked, and he rode. “Have a nice evening,” he called as he passed by me. I nodded my thanks.
After that intersection, on a side street, I looked across and saw three tents. Next to one of the tents, a figure on a little patch of grass, feet crossed, looking up at the sky. It was dark. I couldn’t really see, but just his posture looked happy. Like he could have been camping in the country and thinking it was a fine night for laying outside his tent.
Usually my reaction to tent enclaves is more anxious. I project a lot of my own worries and pity onto people. I assume they must be miserable and I can’t, in the moment, do anything about it.
Last night, though, as I walked to my car, with traffic cones and production cars on one side of the street, the tent encampment on the other, the green glowing bike gliding by on the quiet street, the whole thing felt oddly peaceful.
I was grateful for the moment of having things feel that way.
I got an email from a screenwriting competition — through the Writers Guild, so a pretty good one — saying I had progressed to the next round. Yay.
Then I did a pitch for a big job, and I didn’t get it. Sigh.
Then I got an email saying that a short story I had submitted was going to included in an anthology. Yay.
The job I didn’t get might have paid the rent for a year, while the two things I did get pay in exposure and contributor copies… I always say, who needs cash when you have compliments?
Snark aside, I am always genuinely psyched to find a home for a story, so I’ll provide the details next month when the publication comes out!
Super-cute right?
Yup, that’s a back zipper.
