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.