Playwriting Blues

I'm attempting to work on my play for Script Frenzy, but I am sooooooooo distracted. If you could see me right now, you might think I feel this way because of one the following details.

I am sitting on my fire escape enjoying a glass of Chardonnay in the perfectly mild, 65 degree Spring day (never mind the goddamn ginormous black flies). No one can really see me, but I wanted to wear it, so I did - a new dress - and it is so cute. LBD with flair - small spots of electric blue, white and lavender explode like constellations across the pattern, and I am sporting my fake Ray Bans, which are the same shade of purple. Michael would be so proud. I miss my friends. As any true Southerner would tell you, Sundays are meant to be spent with company.

My current company is The Rapture humming along in the background. I got to see them play last night in Williamsburg among a sold-out crowd of dancing fans. I don't often refer to my ex with love and thanks, but for the introduction to this band, I am grateful. And though I believe his motives to be based purely on an ecstasy high, I'd also like to thank the guy at the show that was so moved by the music and my dancing, that he wanted to kiss me, and did.

Your lips were soft and I appreciate the gesture.

That aside, I am brought back to the memory of writing another play on another beautiful Spring Sunday 10 years ago (if you can believe it). I, a senior in college, worked to complete my B.A. in Creative Writing, by taking a playwriting class. One of the most fun classes I can ever remember taking in my academic career. Our main assignment, outside of reading Shakespeare to our heart's content: write a 15-minute one-act play to perform to an audience of peers. No topic too taboo.

My play, F*@!in' Addicts, told the tale of a Guns n' Roses Addiction Support Group. The cast consisted of my friends Metta Pry (also my roommate at the time, and a true G n' R fan - a poster of Slash hung regal in the kitchen), Matt Brooks, Stuart Gaines, Ben Seeman and Erin Adams. The play was hilarious, and I got an A in the class, but that is just filler as to where my current nostalgia comes from.

I sat on the porch steps basking the sun and writing. At the time, I lived in a canary yellow house on Chatham Road in Asheville, NC, and I was dating my neighbor, Brian. He came down to offer creative support, and helped me plow through several more pages of the script with tales of his own love affair with the band. It was hilarious. The mix of my creative high; the surge of testosterone seeping from the topic at hand; the soft, feminine beauty that can only accompany a Spring afternoon; and the intimate laughter between lovers quickly morphed into an intense need to fuck.

And so we did.

I hope the brutal honesty of those last few sentences made you go back and read it again because that is why I even started writing this post. I am distracted. While I love my scenery, I've got nothing but memories to break my concentration. When I finally abandon the fire escape and crawl back in the window, I'll have to cross over my bed to get inside. Those sheets are lonely, and I can think of nothing creative to say. Here's hoping my libido shuts the fuck up and my expressive self finds some room to breathe. My script sure could use it.

          

Best of...

I wrote this last January and never posted it. I think it's because I don't really like it, but fuck it, here it is.

Cut the freckles right off my face
they're as useless as a pocket full of paper lace.
Like the bump born to the bridge of my nose
How dare these genes impose!
The curse of the Hopper hips they say it will be
One day your straight as a Dogwood tree,
the next your trying to remember the proforma.
Though I do look more like my Grandma Norma
I didn't ask for this,
something somehow so amiss.
For a t-shirt that doesn't quite fit,
screen-printed with your name on it
handmade with nothing but the best intentions.
But that I won't mention.
Here in this place where I wait,
It sure is getting late.
Wow, real first rate.
Another one of my "Best of" plays as I sit
and makes me feel cheap.
Oh, sorry, wrong heap.
This one's "The Ultimate"...
Even more full of it.
Not unlike this poet.
That's not what you meant,
I know
but I'm dragging it in tow
just like this state of mind
It'll be gone in no time.