Why not to throw rocks inside the house

Boys should come with a relationship equivalent to Carfax reports.



You change your mind
Like a girl changes clothes
Yeah you, PMS
Like a chick
I would know

And you
Over-think
Always speak
Cryptically

I should know
That you're no good for me

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in and you're out
You're up and you're down

You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up

You!
You don't really want to stay, no
You!
But you don't really want to go-oh

You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in and you're out
You're up and you're down

We used to be
Just like twins
So in sync
The same energy
Now's a dead battery

Used to laugh
Bout nothing
Now your plain
Boring

I should know
you're not gonna change

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in and you're out
You're up and you're down

You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up

You!
You don't really want to stay, no
You!
But you don't really want to go-oh

You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in and you're out
You're up and you're down

Someone call the doctor
Got a case of a love bi-polar
Stuck on a roller coaster
Can't get it off this ride

You change your mind
Like a girl changes clothes

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in and you're out
You're up and you're down

You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up

You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in and you're out
You're up and you're down

You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up

You!
You don't really want to stay, no
You!
But you don't really want to go-oh

You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in and you're out
You're up and you're down

- "Hot N Cold" by Katy Perry

Joshua Radin said it best

My family left for Florida yesterday morning, and while I've hardly been alone in the past 48 hours, there is definitely a different feel to the unusually empty house. Why didn't I go to Florida with them? you ask. Especially since they took the car you usually drive, leaving you virtually stranded in New Jersey? I didn't go to Florida because my best friend and I are going to Vegas and LA. Glorious, glorious.

I've never been this far out west before, and I'm very excited about traveling to these new cities. Going to LA will be an especially interesting trip. We plan on doing mostly touristy things (I really would love to go to the Magic Castle, home of the Academy of Magical Arts, but apparently it's very exclusive and by invite only. So if anyone can get me hooked up with three invites.. ;) ), but LA may be my future home one day. LA and I are going for a test drive.

I feel like I think about next year all the time, which is especially weird because no matter how much I think about it now, no real decision will be made until this summer. I am pretty much split equally three ways about what to do when I move out of my parents' house this summer--

1. Stay in the area, get the nicest crappy studio apartment I can afford, and get a job that will be able to cover my rent, student loans, and car insurance paycheck by paycheck. Oh, and groceries. Or maybe I'll just alternate nights between my parents' house and my sister's.

2. Move back to Michigan. Cost of living is a little lower there, and most of my friends are still in the area. We'll see how the film industry weathers the winter.

3. Ditch all I've known and move some place new. New Mexico if I want to pursue a film job. Anywhere else if I decide I don't mind what my day job is.

Here's the break down -- Jersey offers some semblance of financial security. My current job loves me, and I might have another option to pursue. Michigan guarantees easily accessible friends. Most of my friends in Jersey live at least a half hour away. Stumbling block to a lot of my spontaneous social activity ideas. Option number three, the anywhere option, guarantees adventure, if only from the looming giant of my student loans as I settle into a new state with no friends and no job.

Financial security, friends, or adventure.

There's a greater plan that needs to be considered here. Unfortunately, I don't yet have that sort of lifetime concept for my life yet. If I want to be able to move to Europe, I should probably focus on financial security now in order to have adventures later. If I desperately need a change now, I can be a little riskier in my decision for next year even if it fetters me financial in the future. On the other hand, if I don't know what I want to do next year, how can I consider where I want to be in five years? Or ten? What about the people in my life? If I move back to Michigan, that will alter where I am in five years. So will picking up and moving to a place where I meet an entirely new set of friends. There can be one goal -- putting a priority of friendships -- with radically different outcomes.

What to do, what to do.

Sometimes I miss that time in college when you feel like you have the whole world waiting for your graduated entrance just as eagerly as you are. There was something different about those options. There was less ambiguity.

And then there are so many options. When you don't mind taking risks, you sometimes get confounded by lack of eliminated options.

Who knows though? This greatly anticipated trip to Vegas and LA may change everything. After all, my friends always said I would be the one to elope...

Less freezing rain and more snow

Apparently, a girl knowing what an onside kick is not impressive enough these days. Well, I don't know if it ever was, but then again, I just heard the term "blocking in the back" a few weeks ago.

The days are full of Christmas and bad weather. Tonight is the second meteor shower of the fall that I won't get to see because it's too cloudy. My mom and I have made 17 different kinds of cookies, and one batch of dough is chilling in the fridge to be cut and baked tomorrow. This is a very important batch because it will be the record breaker for us. We've only ever made 17 kinds of Christmas cookies. It was my personal goal to break the record. And I still have more kinds I want to try. Other than that, I miss the usual semester's end rush to get things done. Maybe because when you have "I HAVE to get this screenplay done," you actually feel like you're doing important things. Or that at the very least, you DO get them done.

And I haven't gotten any writing done. That's mainly why I blog so little these days. I would just switch the focus of this blog a little but 1. I feel a little weird blogging more about my personal life and my job and 2. this "chronicles in screenwriting" blog is one of the few places that fuels me with any guilt at all about not writing.

On the writing front, the only real news is that I didn't get the ABC/Disney TV writing fellowship. I knew my chances weren't all that great, but how nice it would have been. This is definitely a contest I will want to enter again. And I haven't gotten my official rejection yet, but all the finalists are traditionally notified the week of Thanksgiving.

It's the holidays. I'll just watch Elf again.

Confessions

PostSecret has a cool video on its website this week. I think I recognize some of the locations from Central Park.

So I really like music. Unfortunately, I'm not good at finding music on my own. Most of my library comes from soundtracks to movies and TV shows or friend recommendation. Overall, though, I'm a little embarrassed to say that my music tastes are pretty pedestrian. Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance"? Love it. I will always stop for Whatcha Say, Tik Tok, and any Kelly Clarkson. On the flip side, I can barely stand Daughtery or that Empire State of Mind song. With three stations that play Top 40, some songs get rammed into you like a jack hammer. I have literally toggled between Z100 and 923Now when they're playing the exact same song. More than once.

I haven't been a diligent writer. I like to blame the holidays, because it's a very effective way to pass the buck. Who's going to argue with me over Christmas? I need to pick a project, though. Rewrite of Keys to the Garden or continued work on my collab spec? I have a YA novel idea I'm playing around with that I really like. Getting a day job has definitely increased my respect for full time writers who once juggled a job and writing at night - and sometimes with a family too. Inspiring.

However, I do have plans to write a travel narrative after my New Years' vacation with my best friend to Vegas and LA. Oh yes, that's called hitting inspiration before it hits you.

Yesterday one of my students told me my fingernails smelled delicious.

I hope I have a kid like him one day.