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There was so much pretending going on...

I really feel that one of the most significant relationships of my life is coming to an end.
Perhaps it was gradual, but it feels sudden.

I don't know what it's going to be like to go from feeling like I've always had a partner, to being completely alone, but I have to prepare for it, because it's happening.
I feel it slipping away.

I'm not really sure what I did or why it's happening, but it is.

And I, the person who takes a shot at herself whenever she can, can't say that I deserve it.
But I also can't say that this person ever deserved me.

To hell with it.

'I ain't no good at this...'

'I ain't no good at this at all.
And even if you are good at it...what exactly are you good at?'

I've never suffered from writer's block.
There's never been a time when once sentence couldn't be followed by another, a time when I don't know what comes next.
To me, what's really difficult is keeping what comes after that out...keeping it out until it's time.
I've never thought of myself as a person who is unable to focus on details.
I always thought I noticed things that were important and some things that were not.
However, I'm starting to wonder if for me, important details are not sometimes snuffed out by the big picture.

I see the end before anything else.
I always have.
To me, there is nothing more important than the way something ends.
The path only leads you to where you end up, to the purpose, to the theme...to the truth.
To me that's what makes a story different from life...the ability to see the end and derive meaning from it.
I think that's what makes living hard for me and probably for most people.
We see where we want to end up, but we can't see the path, nor can we see where we really will end up. Getting there would be so different if we only knew where we were headed.

I kind of wish it were as easy as using Matrix-like technology.
I'd flutter my eyelashes and the whole would spill onto the page in the proper order, that it would make sense and allow others to see what I see.
But it doesn't work that way.
It's about execution and it's difficult to execute order in a jumbled storm of ideas, one bleeding constantly into the next.
"Are you like a crazy person?"
Why yes, I am.

No matter how I do it, whether through writing or by some other means, I just want to make people think, feel, and understand.

Write what you know. Write what you know. Write what you know...

Physical abuse, rape, murder, grief, lust, love, suicide...
I've written about all of these things, but do I really know anything about them?
Not really.

I wouldn't call myself a person who is not easily inspire and last night, I experienced a flash of inspiration, something that convinced me to change the way I was doing things.
I finished the first chapter of my novel and I am now writing "what I know," for the first time in my life.
Yes, a more extreme version of what I know, because it wouldn't be interesting otherwise, but what I know just the same.

I was worried about the way I was executing it in the beginning, but I think it's coming together in a way I like now. I'm not sure if a unique quality is good or bad in this case, but I have a good feeling about this one.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
^ This is the imaginary line of songdom.
No one reads these blogs, in part because I have never promoted them. I thought I would start, but knowing that so many people around me hate my songs and poems, and they should, I thought I'd create an imaginary line of song/poemdom, so if they want to stop reading, they can.

Okay...new one.
Written about five seconds ago.

I can’t read your mind
I wish I could
It’d be best for both of us if you could say
What you want not what you should

I dream in pale whites
And vivid reds
In ‘maybe tomorrow’s
And ‘should’ve said’s

Your mind is plagued by thoughts
Of someone it shouldn’t be
But it’s not me
No, it’s not me

Take those words and let them out
’Cause I don’t care if they hurt me
When you keep them all inside
It’s not just them that can’t be free

I don’t know what you need
And you won’t tell me
And trying to make you
Is born of my greed

I keep things to myself
You’re not the only one
When the truth is surfacing
I’m the type to run

We’re two of a kind
What can we do
When you’re the best of me
And I’m the worst of you

We could take our words and let them out
And hope the truth would set us free
When we keep them all inside
It’s hurting you, it’s hurting me

Let’s take our words and let them out
And hope the truth will set us free
When we keep them all inside
It’s hurting you, it’s hurting me

Haven't written a song in a while, but sometimes I can't keep them down.

I call this one "A Little Shelter."

All I see is darkness
Save for one bright light from you
All I see are rain clouds
But you're the sun that's breaking through
Thought I would be shipwrecked
But then I saw your shore
Thought my heart was frozen
But you warmed me to my core

Could you help me through the darkness
Could you guide me through this storm
'Cause I am cold and I am lonely
And fear without you I'll not see the morn
Could you spare a little shelter
In a warm welcoming place
For I've withered down to nothing
So I won't take up much space

Let me be your sunlight
Show you how you glow like gold
Let me take care of you
When you break down and grow old
Let me keep you sailing
Worry not about the shore
When I have no more to give you
I'll find a way to give you more

I could help you through the darkness
I could guide you through this storm
When you're cold and feeling lonely
And fear you will not see the morn
I can spare a little shelter
And you can fill my empty space
'Cause you're the only thing worth something
In this godforsaken place

What I choose to do is of no concern to you and your friends.

Where I lay my head may not be my home, but I will last on my own.
'Cause it's me and my life.
It's my life.


I interviewed today to be a photographer with Olan Mills.
Although it's closer to what I want to do than working at the Chamber, it made me realize how far off my course I've taken myself and it makes me wonder how many of us live wasted lives with real passion buried somewhere inside.

The interview went well, aside from my moments of hesitation at the questions, "Do you like children?" and "Do you like to drive?"
I lied, but I almost wish I hadn't.

I'd earn three dollars per hour less than I'm currently making, but mostly I worry about it being full time.
I was getting ready to take my mom's suggestion and turn one of my two new screenplay ideas into a novel first. She thinks that once I'm published, it might be easier to get a screenplay deal and she's right.
But when will I have time to write?

People never turn out the way you imagine they will.
Why should I be any different?

"I have one too."

"One What?"
"Sense of destiny."

Once again my desire cannot be quashed.
No matter how defeated I might feel, something always pulls me back.
There's always the same goal, but a new angle, a new plan of attack.

Last year I wrote to Jason Reitman about my scripts and he told me to figure out which one would be cheapest to make, produce it myself, and get my foot in the door that way.
I thought it was a stupid suggestion to be quite honest.
Not putting one of my babies in the hands of professionals seemed absurd.
But lately, I've been thinking about it, really seriously thinking about it.

Take "Good Grief" for example.
There are only a few locations.
Grief Counseling itself (any classroom), two houses, and a video store.
No explosions, no special effects.
It would be very cheap to make.
And if it actually turned out well, it'd be easier to sell "Singing Swans" and get that one made for me.

So why couldn't I do it?
I know a lot of capable people.
Why couldn't I crew up and do it?

I'd need someone to help me gather resources and promote it and someone to help with cinematography, but other than that, the idea doesn't seem all that overwhelming.

The one thing that worries me is the acting.
To be honest, I wrote this for Alison Lohman and Ryan Gosling.
I couldn't deal with bad actors.
But the more I think about it, the more I'd like to try this.

Am I nuts?

With my whole heart under your hammer...

I wasn't built for failure.
All of this unfulfilled love...
Love of work that will never mean anything to anyone but me.
It weighs me down.
It crushes my soul.

Missed the final round at yet another film festival.
I'm so easily discouraged.
My heart just sank.

I'm going to miss the deadline on the Blue Water Film Festival, but I'm not really upset about that, because I know I couldn't make a film to save my life.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
I don't know why I would feel such passion for something I'm not any good at.
Maybe I'm not a good writer.
Maybe my friends think they're doing me a favor by not telling me that everything I write is shit.
But I do love movies and I believe in their power more than most.

Within minutes a film can make you look at people you’ve never seen before, people who might not even exist, and see yourself and the people around you. You can get pulled into their world and see your own and in relating to them and understanding them, you walk away understanding more about yourself and more about life. I often hear "Ash, it’s just a movie" and sometimes it is, but when it’s meant to be a study of the human condition, when you can make people examine their lives when they otherwise wouldn’t, when they’re too scared to see the truth, that’s a beautiful thing. I'd hoped that in loving this so much and believing in it so much, I’d get to be a part of it. But it's becoming clear that's never going to happen.

I feel lost.
I can work at this job I hate and save up to move to LA or New York, but when I get there, people still aren't going to read my scripts (Hell, only one person here bothered to read my newest).
I can pay an agent, but I don't look like an actress and I won't find work.
I'm going to die wanting this.

It all just seems like such a waste.
I seem like such a waste.
There's this tightness in my chest that doesn't go away and I can feel myself breaking a little more with every passing moment.
It hurts to breathe.

What do you do when you're living with the illusion of purpose, but the world has no need of you?

I don't know how much longer I can be here.

Crazy-ass week.

July 4th
I felt great, for reasons which are probably silly to the average bear, but I felt really motivated. I couldn't sleep. I was bouncing off the walls.
I thought that now was the time for change.
I was gonna start working out every day, no slacking.
I think that all the time, but this time I really meant it.
I was going to stop drinking pop all together.
Having recently found out I'm allergic to coffee and cola, and having a strange obsession with the whiteness of my teeth (so I gave up tea too), my Mt. Dew intake had definitely increased.

July 5th
I wake with moderate to severe back pain.
I go to the bathroom and find that I'm urinating blood, a significant amount of blood.
And Aunt Rose isn't due for weeks.
I read about it online, knowing it's probably a kidney infection.
It says if you have a fever, go to the ER.
I did have a fever, but I didn't want to tell my parents.
Eventually I did and my mom took me to the hospital, which was packed because all the doctors' offices were closed.
We went to Physicians Health Care instead.
I peed in a cup.
By then it looked like say...grape juice.
The doctor told me I did in fact have a severe kidney infection and if I'm still peeing blood on Monday, which is my birthday, I probably have kidney stones.

I take some antibiotics, which I've taken before, which made me ralph.
I also got a nifty pill which numbs my bladder so I can't feel the pain, but I only have one left and it's only Thursday.

I still had to work and not being able to go to the bathroom as much as I need to or drink as much water as I'm supposed to be drinking was a bad thing.
I have the day off tomorrow and on Saturday's I'm there alone, so it should be better.

The upside is, caffeine causes my medicine not to work, so I gave it up completely.
Now I can really give up pop.

I'm still peeing blood, so we'll see what happens on Monday.

Not fun.

My dreams swept into the dustbin, and me along with them…

I got a job.

Lately I find myself crying over nothing and I can’t stop.
I know it’s just depression.
My mom suggested I take something for it.
At three different points in my life I’ve taken anti-depressants because of problems with anxiety.
Sure, I’m a naturally sullen person, but that didn’t change while I was on them.
Each time, I talked like a flapper on a duck’s ass…even more so than usual.
I couldn’t sleep.
And I experienced more suicidal thoughts.
I don’t think it’s wise for me to go down that road again.
And as taking pills won’t change where I am in my life, it’s not as if pain would go away by my taking them.

I know that losing Chloe is part of it.
Residual pain of feeling useless from not having a job is part of it.
But it is now accompanied by a new pain of feeling like a failure, a feeling that this will be my life, a feeling that I will live, die…and my name will be forgotten.
I can write while I work to be sure, but it’s the acting and singing part which causes me pain.
I want to perform.
I’ve always wanted to perform.
I want to write indie dramas which would make people examine the human condition…their own lives.
And I want to act in them.

But the older I get, the harder it’ll be for this to happen.
I’ll only be 23 next month and I feel like…that’s it.
It’s too late.

I have to keep this job because no one in my life believes in me and I would never ask that anyone else be forced to support me in my pursuits.
I don’t ask and no one answers.
And if I did, no one would answer.

I am lost.
Not in the way that so many others are lost…for I know where I want to go.
I’m lost because I can’t find how to get there.
I’m lost because this love is as important as any other and I live without it.
Shall I abide in this dull world which in its absence is no better than a sty?

Tell me something true...

The truth is a nasty cough syrup no one wants to have to taste.
But I thrive on its bitterness.
I take too much and it lives in me, shutting me down, little by little.
A noble death.

I knew a man who seemed to like me, who in fact, could not seem to leave me alone.
He disagreed with everything I said and not even passionately, as he had no reasons to support his disproval of my ideas, my likes, and my dislikes.
I loathed him.

I see now that in part, what I hate in him is what I hate in myself…a resilient stubbornness.
I am in pain today at the thought of hating myself more than usual.
But my stubbornness is different from his.
Mine is not free of passion.
Is it wrong to defend a belief to the death when you feel strongly about something, to try and make credible arguments until you’re blue in the face?
Is it wrong to not give up when you think something is truly important…even when there may be no hope of convincing your opponent?

I am not so closed-minded as to be immune to the convincing arguments of others.
Am I then just the right amount of stubborn or am I indeed closed-minded, but cannot see it?

It’s not like the sea to leave you with me.

Summer will be yet another season in her absence.
No sun will shine on the love she has forgotten.
It has blown through me like wind through the trees.
Embers grow cold and ash too blows away.
It erases all evidences of me from memory.
She focuses her efforts on lies,
Lies of happiness, of unfathomable compatibility.
These lies I can’t combat.
I dwell alone in this house of truth forever.

I just want my baby back...

I lost Chloe on Tuesday and I've been crying since.
My mom and I tried to make her grave as nice as we could, but we couldn't keep from feeling bad about leaving her alone in the ground.
And when it rained, I felt it even more.

I can't imagine life without her, this angel that I loved more than myself and I understand that maybe what's so difficult is not losing what you love, but what loves you.
I'd rather feel this way then forget her.

My back is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time...

I didn't make it to the final round at the Nantucket Film Festival with Good Grief.
I'm feeling very defeated.

I took a look back at the script and fixed any remaining errors and immediately printed two entry forms for The Austin Film Festival, one for Good Grief and one for Singing Swans.

I'm starting to realize that I'm not the kind of person who gives up easily, but I'm also starting to wonder if I'm not being unreasonable and immature.
I'm starting to wonder whether or not sticking with this particular dream is really a good idea, when I've got others and the constant defeat this one carries is weighing me down.

I feel myself trying despite my best efforts to throw in the towel and curl up.
But what does that mean?

"Amid the sufferings of life on earth, suicide is God’s best gift to man."

You can be sad as you want to.
No one can punish me like I do.



In youth, we are much more easily satisfied. With age comes an unquenchable thirst for things, a wanting which can slowly eat us up.
When I remember my first love, I recall feeling like I'd be happy as long as we were married, feeling like I would need nothing else. Eight years later, this sentiment is gone, although my feelings for him remain. I have found a new love, yet one which does not diminish the first, but this romantic love could never restrain a more mature wanting...the desire to be my own person and to have my own purpose. The people I love and my desired course can only coexist peacefully when they encourage my ambition. And to me, that is a true sign of their affection.
I have heard it said that "Ambition is the ice in the lake of emotion," and that may sometimes be true, but it is a dangerous generalization. If pursuing the goal of being the person you believe you were meant to be is selfish, then I don't want to be anything but. However, to me becoming this person, the best person you can be, is proof of love.
I now believe it is possible to be ambitious and still love completely.
I now believe that it is possible to be in love with more than one person at a time.
I no longer wish to marry.
"How time distorts things."

Lately I've been thinking about how conceited people are self-centered, but in their own way, self-loathers aren't much different. Both types of people make everything about themselves, whether inadvertently or intentionally.
Having a tendency towards self-loathing myself, I've noticed an uncontrollable, paranoia which comes in waves, the feeling that everyone hates being around me. Only recently did I realize that reading into every little thing, the slightest unintentional insult, a person's mere absence, reading into these things and making them about myself is self-centered. And as part of the reason I hate myself is my potent desire to not be one of those people who loves myself too much, this is something I hope to avoid in the future.

We are complicated creatures, but we must never cease our efforts to truly understand ourselves.

Three down...

I know I haven't written in a while.
Unfortunately, my Uncle Gary recently lost his battle with ALS.
I was helping my mom with this bowling benefit to aid my Aunt Tina in paying his left over medical bills. In the end she brought in about $5,000 which might not be much, but will come in handy.

I was also working on finishing up my latest screenplay, my third, Singing Swans.
It's all done now. I revised it, but of course there will be mistakes I can't see and things I can't correct until others have read it, but being that the subject-matter is kind of taboo on two fronts and that it's more sexually explicit than anything I've written before (although in reality, I used tricks to get around making it too dirty), I don't know how quickly my volunteers will get through it. It might be uncomfortable.

I'm to that point where I finish something and then I feel empty.
It makes me feel as if I have to start something else immediately or I have no sense of purpose, especially now that I'm done with school and don't have a job.

I applied for three jobs today and eight internships.
Beyond the scripts, there's always poetry, and music, but until I can make it on my own, nothing I do feels worthwhile.

I submitted Good Grief to the Nantucket Film Festival and Singing Swans and hopefully my next script, I'll submit to Austin.

I was also going to audition for Glee, but my brother was a real douche about it and so once again, I don't think I'll have the confidence to try, despite the best efforts of friends I don't deserve to convince me to do it.

Anyway, that's what's crackin'.

If anyone's interested in reading it, you're welcome to, but if you're really ageist or homophobic, I don't recommend it.

I'll share a bad poem I wrote at like 4am last night/this morning.

Why must I have a tender heart
So quick to take a bruise
Why must I find the truth in words
Others can refuse
Why must the ugly always distract
From the one thing I should see
Why isn't the pretty, the good, the praise
As much a part of me
Why is it only jabs and jeers
Repeat inside my head
Why have I built a wall which blocks
Whatever else is said
Why do you not all leave me
Beneath rubble of words I hear
I'm buried too deep and all rescue efforts
Now seem insincere

20 years mystery of stomach problems solved?

Went to an allergist.
Today I found out I'm allergic to Coffee, cola, gluten, wheat, yeast, milk, soy, pineapple, tomato, sesame, mustard, rye, walnuts, almonds, apples, clams, black pepper, chocolate (could be fatal, my throat closes up and I have to carry these epi-pens wherever I go), oh, and coconut.

Now I have to start a gluten free diet, but maybe I won't feel sick all the time.

Congratulations on ruining America...

Never mind the fact that the health care bill gives racial preferences which are unconstitutional and violate the Civil Rights Act.
Never mind that it will increase the deficit to an unprecedented degree.
Never mind that even liberal media reported that at least 6 out of every 10 Americans didn't want it passed.
Just ignore all those people in the lobby screaming "Kill the bill," those people, your constituents.
Just ignore the fact that the AMA is made up of only 17% of doctors, so having their approval doesn't mean anything. Ignore the fact that most doctors hated this idea.
Ignore the process, ignore the constitution, ignore the people, ignore everything which made this country great.
Obama was a constitutional scholar.
To study it and still ignore it or find ways to bypass it shows that he has no respect for it. If you don't respect this document, the greatest document every created in the history of the world, then you don't respect America.
He is officially the worst president in history.
Words cannot describe how much I hate him.

You belong in poetry...

And you belong in fine things, but you belong to someone else.
You belong to no one town.

You alone are holy.
You alone are beauty.
And you alone are lonely now.

You really let it out
For just a moment and I could see how.
You’d only lay me down on sheets that tear and give out.
I’ve never known a love ‘til now.

"You see women...on TV, in the movies, and they get left or whatever.
You just wanna kick 'em, they're so whiny.
Look at me."

Is there any feeling more humiliating and useless than the feeling of being in love?
It's embarrassing, feeling dominated by something you have absolutely no control over. Or perhaps, more accurately, someone. You can't make someone love you, especially not when you aspire to be who you are and not what they want.
You can't make someone stick around, no matter how much you may want them to.
And even when someone's a reason to get up in the morning, they might not think of you all day.
People act like being in love is such a wonderful thing..."What grace have I to fall so in love?"
But it can be an agony growing inside you, taking on a life of its own, like a child in the womb.

Most girls I knew couldn't wait to fall in love, pretended it, even before it happened. They wrote names of boys on notebooks, dreamed of weddings, named imaginary children.
I never wanted that.
I never wanted to be the kind of person who felt possessed by thoughts of someone else, but that's what I've become. To think of one person every day, without fail, and several times a day, makes me feel pathetic.
To spend so much time thinking about something which was never truly mine, someone whose hand I've never even touched and in all likelihood, will never touch, seems absurd.
It seems I've lost someone who might have been a dream, but is there any loss greater than the loss of a dream?

I wonder about karma.
I tell people that no one's ever loved me, but I don't think that's true.
What I mean is that no one I've loved has ever loved me back and that's only mostly true.
What is true, is that I haven't treated the people who fall in love with me very well. In most cases, this was only because I didn't love them back and not loving them was enough to hurt them. But to be honest, when I was younger, I was far less tactful, and what is now my best attempt at a gentle disappointment was once purposeful destruction.
Maybe I deserve what I'm feeling now because of my past mistakes.

I spend my time thinking about someone who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.
A ghost who now hates me or doesn't care for me, who not long ago seemed to admire me.

What does one do with all that pain?

I'm not to that point in my story.

Oscar show for Hop on Pop Culture...

We had no cameraman. Our tripod sinks.
It happens.

Use whichever link you prefer...or both, simultaneously.
Comments are welcome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-34D3im9nE

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=103400213