02-08-04

I've been home-bound the past few days. Sick as only an over-stressed fool can be. Every shallow breath feels like my lungs are being teased with stinging nettles. My soft palate is tender; soda bubbles hurt as they go down. Orange juice is a new adventure in pain. I drink water and tea. I take my zinc and vitamin C. Sleep. Draw. Knit.

Me. Knitting. How the hell did that happen? I blame Stitch 'n' Bitch, a knitting handbook. My ambitious project; to make a sweater. Not any sweater, this one's black and has skulls and crossbones on the sleeves.

I must be feverish. That sort of project makes sense only with a temperature.

The spaciness of a fever helps me draw. I spent a few hours working on a project that's due on the 19th. It's a city-scape collage that's gridded and transferred to a larger piece of paper. Making the collage was fun.

Last night was the first time in a day and a half that I've written. The words screeched to be let out. I opened a notebook and let 'em rip. I'm afraid to look at what I wrote. Hang on.

Just before I nipped your skin

But after we fell on the bed

I said thanks

For that tendon that runs from

behind your earlobe.

Hmmm. There's a true moment there. We'll see what happens. Call it a Collins kick; I like the plain-spoken approach to poetry. There's no coyness or subterfuge in his work. I'd be happy to integrate that into my writing.

The screenplay. From hell. *laugh* A rough-draft of the first act is due in a couple of weeks. I'm going to write the one that I proposed, but I'm going to write another one. The second will follow Gilgamesh more faithfully. The focus will fall on another character, but it might make a more interesting story.

Writing a screenplay, taking an acting class and reading scripts over the winter break has affected how I watch movies. Last night, Crash was on IFC. For the first time I watched it all the way through without getting totally creeped out. It was more interesting to see how Cronenberg made the movie happen; how the visuals informed and how the characters released the story. I'd read the Ballard novel over the winter break as well. Reading the novel made the movie make more sense. That's a shame, because the movie should be able to stand on its own. I read Cronenberg's shooting script and it seemed to be a faithful, though not slavish, adaptation of the book. I wonder what got lost between the book, the script and the movie? How much was lost in order to fit the movie into an hour and a half straitjacket?

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