I have accidentally dated two painters . . . and I was thinking last night how much I miss sitting in a studio at three in the morning helping out with a painting. When I first moved to Austin, ten years ago exactly, I would meet Chantal every night at her studio on the UT campus, and I’d sit there and we’d talk and I would clean and sometimes pose, and things like that. I remember that fall she was in a litho class, and I would sponge the stone for her while she etched. There were always other artists around at night and I got to know all of them. We would all be in the studio until very late at night. Some time later, when there were gallery openings on campus, I would go and see the finished work of the artists I had befriended. They were good people and I liked knowing them. I don’t know . . . it felt like being a part of something back then, and I miss that feeling. You know?

my good friend emma sent me this

not that i needed further confirmation about the thing i will become though hey there it is in black and white!!!

I remember a couple years ago in Oakland, I knew A Girl From The Internet, though I had never met her in person. Her name was Simone and, like a lot of people I’ve known over the years, we pretty much only communicated in the middle of the night. It is good when two people like this find each other, because then you both feel less lonely after everyone else has gone to sleep. There was absolutely nothing romantic about it. We couldn’t sleep and liked talking to each other. That’s about as honest as it gets!

One night, maybe a few months after first speaking, she texted me at midnight and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was at Lake Merritt, by the little pavilion with the white columns. I don’t know how I ended up there, but I was watching a dozen or so people dressed in black juggle flaming bayonets and bowling pins and wands. It was surreal. There were maybe two dozen people there, and we were all standing around watching these people do things with fire in total silence.

After a while, Simone walked across the grass and stood next to me. She had come from the direction of Fairyland. I said, “Oh hey, Simone,” and she turned and hugged me. She reeked of liquor. I asked her if she was drunk and she said, “I mean, yeah.” I thought that was so cool for some reason. She told me she had seen a show at the Fox Theater and that it had blown her mind.

We split a joint and hung around the fire jugglers for a while. And then we did a thing I like to do, which is to walk a complete lap around Lake Merritt, which takes about an hour. When we finally got back to the pavilion by the water, everyone had left. I walked Simone home. She lived a couple of blocks away.

I said good-bye to Simone and she hugged me again. It was a nice hug. I reckon you can tell when they’re sincere like that. She went inside and I saw her go up the stairs.

I don’t know what ultimately happened to her. We talked a lot but I only met her that one night. She seemed to get a little sad there towards the end, and then I know she left for a while and went to the sea. She was always sending me these pictures she had taken from the hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And then one day she just sort of disappeared.

Something reminded me of Simone the other day and I remembered her. She was a cool girl. I hope she’s OK.

wait ok this album rules a lot too

follow the smoke to the riff-filled land with this’n

here is some advice i would give to a modern screenwriter: if your script begins with narration, trash it. sometimes i’ll put my soul at hazard and bear witness to some New Thing, and my god, when the first five minutes of a movie is a voiceover of a bunch of expository information, i want to kill myself. you are working with a VISUAL MEDIUM, so SHOW ME SOMETHING.

can a movie begin with narration and still be good? of course! but there is this particularly egregious way that they go about it anymore that feels supremely lazy and ham-fisted. it’s like a cheap shortcut. if you have a story to tell, then believe in it! because it sure is obvious to me when someone don’t care about their own story. that’s kinda sad! c’mon!!

you know how you get better at writing? you read books. if you want to get good at writing screenplays, you need to watch a ton of movies, preferably something that wasn’t made in the last fifteen years (lol)~

i only say all this because i care! i want things to be beautiful! is that asking so much??

yes

i have tabulated the average amount of fruit i eat every month:

• oranges: 10
• mangos: 15
• apples: 25
• bananas: 30
• raspberries: 150
• blackberries: 150
• grapes: 300
• strawberries: 300
• blueberries: 600

ok bye 🍎🍊🍌🍇🍓🫐🥭