A Robber, A Black Out & A Day Lost

This strange body of energy has flown over head and put things out of whack. It began at 2:30 am.

I sleep with my bathroom light on, as some weird habit (or childhood fears) and my computer (which is also my TV) active and running. As I nestled into bed, almost asleep I hear a sudden explosion. The lights go out. So when I was plunged into total darkness you can image my surprise. I bolted up hitting the light switch. Nothing. Then I ran to my drawer and fumbled for my flashlight. Every stage mangers best friend. There she was, with her glow tape around her head ready for action. I put her on and opened the window. All the buildings of the dorm complex where black as night. But the street lights and apartment buildings that stand separated by a wall had energy. So what had happened? 

Suddenly, I see the undergrads running around tapping on each others windows. Girls hanging on to boys feigning fear as they scurry across (no doubt to the boys room for 'safety'.) Annoyed at the chaos I lay back in bed. My windows open with my now mute flash light in hand.  It was like sleeping outside after the chaos had died down, with the sounds of night creeping into my open window. The fresh air whirling around me. The darkness cradling me fast to sleep. Slowly, I fell back under.

I awoke a while later to all my lights on and windows wide open. So anyone could see into my room. I hopped out of bed, for fear of being watched and closed it all up. Slowly I fell back under. Waking at 12pm from a variety of strange dreams I thought 'Right. Must get out and about if only to a coffee shop to clear my head and get started on my final projects.'

After a bit of wandering I ended up in Starbucks. At first there was nothing to report until a woman, her baby and her mother came and sat at the table next to me. I was annoyed at the thought of being distracted by chatter and baby cries. I thought 'now I'll never be able to concentrate.' As they settled down a black man in drab clothes, caring a black plastic bag and wearing big black boots came up from the bottom stairs (where there is more seating) and stopped right next to the baby's pram. He knelled in a weird way, with his back totally up right, putting his hand into the mothers coat pocket she had hanging on the pram. He carefully pulled out her cell phone. 

When I looked up I saw the cell phone in his hand. The mother notices this man is very close and takes her purse away. He mumbles 'Sorry' and pretends to shift his shirt, then bends down to tie his shoe. His eyes on me now. Because I see him and the phone. But I say nothing. Suddenly, both are gone.

I turn to the women and ask them to check for their cells. No where to be found. Of course. I asked her "Was it silver and shaped like this" - I held up mine. 

"Yes it was" she said almost in tears. "Should I call the police" she went on to say, realizing the man had taken it. 

I said "Yes but it wont do anything." 

So she ran to the counter. "A black man stole my phone." 

The staff being black as well had a moment of shock. But realising the man that took it they could understand. He wasn't the usual Starbucks clientele. He had given them a strange vibe as well. 

They brought her to the back and called the police. I knew the man was stealing her phone but because I have that political correctness branded into me I couldn't open my mouth and say so. I didn't want to think because he's a poor black man standing very very close to a pram for some weird reason that he was a thief. But he was. That's the fact of it. If he was white I would have stood and screamed in his face. Strange isn't it? So since now I have seen this happen, I will not have some weird backwards notion of fear to judge people. If their actions warrant judgement then judge I shall. 

The woman was so upset, not at losing a 200 pound phone but because all her baby's photos and videos were on it. Her husband hadn't up loaded them yet. She went on and on about the lost photos. While she held her happy, healthy baby in her arms. Her mother trying to calm her saying "what matters is you keep your baby happy. Lets not think of it anymore. It's only a phone." But she was shaken. 

It didn't happen to me but even I feel violated. Violated in mind and pride. I wasn't a hero today and in fact I became a person who watches and doesn't act because of the ideas the world has put in my head. Backwards in a way.

All I wanted was coffee and to get homework done but as a writer we forget that worlds beyond our own exist.  When we enter them, sometimes we have to respond not just watch and write it down. Because it's when we interact with the happenings that we learn what to scribble on to the paper. It changes the result. Had I acted, what would I have said? What would have happened? Possibly nothing, possibly something bad or something good? Maybe a chase? But in a way I said something after the fact which let her realize it was gone in time to call the police and get the workers to take the tape from the hidden cams. 

But after all the only thing that she lost were some photos. Wasn't she the one who took them? She missed those moments,  hoping to indulge in them later. But now it's to late.

The sun is gone again. Now another day has slipped past me and nothing regrading my school work has been done.  Distracted by the twists of the day, I spent too much time indulging in what could this mean? When in fact it's only random acts that amount to mere moments I'll forget tomorrow. 

A Walk About

I was out exploring my neighborhood, having realized I've only ever traveled to school and back. I discovered if I go one way, a few streets down, there are large expensive homes with beautiful facades with gardens front and back. In the opposite direction lay ruined buildings, project housing and abandoned pubs with graffiti splashed on it. Which leaves me here, stuck smack in the middle.

Then I think how strange. We stand where time allows us. If we go back in time to my family in Russia, I wonder, were they poor or rich? Did I have family in Germany? Were they poor were they rich? Then when things got bad and they hightailed it to America did they became poor and rebuild?. Generation after generation, gaining and losing a little here and there so I can sit comfortably in the middle?

As I wander, I realize, I'm not foreign to this land. My great grandmother Betty Sunasky lived in England for a good amount of time. She was born in 1899 (was it in England?) She moved to America sometime in 1915-1920. Why? When did she meet Mr. Rosenberg (I don't know my grandfathers fathers name or if he even was around long enough for him to know.) Then I think, there is a history in this country I have landed in for school. Here I am wandering aimlessly when I have distant cousins somewhere, close? But that is the lot of the young, who sit happily in between. Not needing to know or knowing to much too soon, so the mystery has vanished. They tell us when we are young, over and over, so we won't forget. But how can we forget something we don't really know. Not really. We see black and white images and hear what sound like German fairy tales that parents used to tell to their kids; with children being eaten up alive. Cautionary tales, only these are real and the caution is for the future.

It felt strange walking in both neighborhoods. I didn't belong. And every time a taxi passed he slowed as if to say 'let me get you out of here, you look lost'. And I was. Somehow, both times I managed to walk in circles, coming right back to where I started. Not on purpose. I walked blindly without maps but I found my way back to the center. As if, even if I wanted to loose my way, I can't. I can't change where I start and where I end. But I saw a lot of neat things a long the way. Some foreign and somethings familiar, a dried up palm tree in the housing projects stood guarding the door. I thought 'that's home.'

East Vs. West and the Sea Inbetween

The great thing about studying the arts is your homework is... well... the arts. I've seen show after show in this town, some I love, some I hate, some I'm just glade I had an excuse to get out and about. But tonight, instead of class in a classroom ours will be held in the Royal Haymarket Theater. Before the house opens our class is to have a little Q & A with the assistant director for The Sea by Edward Bond. We all read it and now we get the rare opportunity to see Mr. Bonds work staged in the West End.

See, this is why I came to London to study. Yes, I was already living in NYC so close to Broadway but those shows are way over priced, so is off Broadway and off off (which can be over priced too - it's a really big hit or miss.) In London you come to expect what each theater has to offer you. Don't get me wrong, it's still hit or miss but at least you know there was thought involved, not just a make shift production in the hopes of an agent will come or some good PR will help you in your next cattle call. There theaters actually work with new writers and dare I say pay writers. Their fringe shows are our Off Off (or just one Off) Broadway shows. Their West end is our On Broadway.

I'm not saying their shows are better. I'm saying they have accessibility. That is what NYC lacks. The shows are all over priced, with no hope if your an artist, young person or student. And hardly any theater exists that will read your play, unless you have an agent or already are a name and consider putting it on. Here there is a whole list of theaters that not only welcome scripts by new writers but even provide feedback, for free.

So it will be sad to leave here in June but I cannot wonder around open jawed for much longer. Time to get make to NYC where I can never see shows and only get work if it means I give up all my rights as a human and slave away. If I wasn't so selfish I'd go back home and open a theater company like the ones they have here, that really are about new writers. But I'm studying the arts you see not business. (Which makes me a dreamer and a doer only in the abstract.)

A Lonely Life On a Distant Island

Why is it when I want to go outside all the sun disappears from the sky? It's an evil trick I say. Well, I've been trapped in my cage for over 24 hours; clouds, rain, fog, snow whatever the case may be I just need to get out so I can breathe.

Surrounding me are mountains and mountains of plays to hunt through, dissect and spit out again. It's too gruesome in here for words. I can smell the anguish of playwrights from 400 b.c. and onward  pleading 'do not pick my play for your butchery!' But my friends I must; Helen, Macbeth, Hecuba or even you Mad Moll will see my chopping block. If you are lucky the Gods will turn you into a deer just as I am about to do the deed and sweep you off to a land where you can sacrifice others.  But it must be one of you. Time is running out. The winds have not yet picked up speed. My soldiers in keys are getting restless, agitated even. I must pick one of you. So who will it be?

Running on Half

So much, so much, so much to do. I have piles on my desk and bed of books and plays to read, notebooks and scripts to edit and lists to check off.

With three weeks left before the chains are unshackled, I don’t have the time to be board. Which is nice. Really nice. I had a hard time in the beginning of this term because GT and I had moved in together over the winter break and I had no time to enjoy having a real home, for once. We spent the whole time re-doing the apartment and moving me in; that it felt almost like it never happened. Then having to leave quickly and come back to this tiny, temporary, dorm room, away from him and all my friends, seemed almost unbearable. So dramatic, I know. But it's how I felt. Now after being thrown into the hardest term yet, I find myself almost content. At least knowing it's only for now and not forever, I can just let myself go. Also I have to say my classmates and I have really bonded this time around. That only helps a situation like this. More drinking means less money for food, but less money for food means less binge eating and self-loathing.

I think what really made my term, was yesterday. It all kind of clicked. Everything we have been learning seems to be sinking in. I think. I hope. I've had a renewed excitement about playwriting and my own work. I think, maybe, just maybe, I can do this.

Although it's hard because from my writing, in terms of grammar and spelling my tutor asked me, 'Are you dyslexic?' Crap. I know my spelling has come a long way over the past few years but it's never easy and it never seems to be enough. It’s pretty much the pain of my existence. I feel like a runner without legs. Having to hobble on my hands, hoping it will carry me to the finish line, and perhaps no one will notice. But how can they not? It’s ridiculous to think I can get away with this without someone saying, something isn’t right here. You run fast but the way you do it seems off. I keep hoping one day I’ll wake up and the hardwiring in my brain will be fixed. I’ll go to the computer and not stop myself after every line saying ‘is this right or wrong? I don’t know. I don’t see it.’ So I look up the words. All of them. The same ones I looked up yesterday and the day before that but it doesn’t stick. I never does. I’m beyond frustration at this point. But it hasn’t stopped me. It almost did, way back in the beginning. I used to love writing assignments in high school but my grades came back the same: ‘Great story however you’re not proof reading your work Hollie. A for content. F for technical.’ Well, the truth was, I did proof read it but to me it looked great. One of my teachers said ‘You can be a writer even if you’re a bad speller, that’s why they have editors.’ Although I know no editor would even deal with me, it gave me a bit of hope and so has this course. Today is a good day, who knows what tomorrow will be.

Running out of...

Four weeks from today I will be on another plane. So far, so good. No weird dreams or panic attacks... yet. Right now I'm thinking I can do this.

This term has me going nonstop. So much work to do, which is great, but so little brainpower left. I mean, I cannot stand having nothing to do while being trapped in this dorm room, but too much and now my head won't shut up.

We have to turn in our idea for our ten-minute play today but I have like 20 ideas. I cannot pick the right one for this moment in time. The reason is whatever we write will be put on stage next term, so I want it to be something that really shows what I can do- i.e.: whatever it is needs to be better then my other stuff - the pressure.

I hope I do not go into shut down and pick something lame like I did last term for my short film script. I think I let myself down with that one. (Mostly time was my enemy on that - not having much of it) This go around I cannot use that excuse on myself.

Every time I begin to type something other worlds from other scripts I've started become clearer or go a shade darker and it throws me off. My biggest problem seems to be A.D.D. So many ideas and so many tiny past script revelations - just not the organization and time to deal with them all.

V is for - Vasectomy...

It's the day that all petty women love, all men fear and every unattached woman drinks a box of wine alone and cries softly watching some soft porn.

It is the day designed to force false love on to others, in the gaudiest way imaginable. Housewives fight over who received the larges pot of dead plants, even though they sent them to themselves because their husbands can't remember holidays, birthdays let alone made up days. Teenagers in school brag about who sent a secret candy gram to them in class - (see housewives means of receiving gifts).

Why do we do it? Because it makes us feel loved? - No, how could it? Superior? Of course The Stores are happy because they can get us to buy the craziest dolls and other nonsense that normally wouldn't leave the shelf. Just bathe it in red and slap a heart on it; someone will come along and give it a home. Usually it’s the new boyfriend that forgot he has a duty to carry out, not wanting to screw up his promised shag, he will rush to the store, buy the cheapest form of wine and that ugly looking stuffed animal that looks like it's heart has been ripped out (instead of the lovely dovy expression it should hold). Then slip off into the night with a gleam of a job well done - not love - in his eye.

I know I shouldn't be so bitter about this; I’m in a relationship (and even though I'm in another country, right now - if he was here - I'd be the same practical person I am.) I think romance is a nice thought in the back of my mind but put it in front of me and I cannot keep a straight face. Immature? Maybe. Cynical is more like it. People normally would think that a downfall in a person, but to me, cynical people laugh more then romantics (who tend to cry a lot. Like children.) Who wants to spend the short years we have on earth, crying false tears because we think that's what love has to be?

If you really love someone you don't have to buy them buckets of roses for them to know. It should be in the way they won't let you go out of the house in your idea of fashion, in the way they suggest before you try and cook for friends to think of maybe a catered affair instead, in not letting you spend loads of cash on a pair of ripped jeans, in letting you have the last bite of chocolate cake - when it was their birthday, in joining you when you burp saying they can do it better, letting you take the first shower before the hot water runs out and of course slipping in a casual, frank ‘I love you’ and not linger in silence expecting a return reply but quickly moving onto a topic far from that of teddy bears and angels. What could possibly say 'I love You' more then a surprise Vasectomy? The promise of no more 'accidental' children and lots of unprotected sex is way more romantic then a singing card covered in glitter - could ever be.

So dears, I won't say happy V-day. Instead go get sloshed and taunt young lovers in the street with kissy sounds, if only for a laugh. Then return to your love one - or your mirror - or hand - and say, "You’re not looking your best dear, here is a hat for when we go out. There, that is better. Now no one will know. Just you and I. And I will never tell." In that way they know they are really loved.

Happy Vagina day!

It's the Final Count Down... duh nu na nah

Where to begin?

I’m officially at the half waypoint for this semester; it seems to be flying by. I keep thinking it’s only just begun but five weeks in to a ten-week term? I’d say we are way beyond hello.

I’d love to say this has been a piece a cake but it tastes more like cold veggies. They are good for you but hell I’d rather have a heaping pile of sugar.

I got a really bad grade on my Metamorphosis review (I think? I don’t really understand the Brits marking system. Just like their driving, they always seem to be on the wrong side of things, if you know what I mean.) Any who, apparently I’m not thinking on a MA level, I believe was the term used. This guy is two years older then me and younger then half the class - so I take that into consideration when reading my marks. I mean, he’s dumbing down the in-class tutorial (his words) yet he then expects us to magically know at what level our assignments (all One of them) should be at? I didn’t really let it bother me as my final full-length script is worth 90 percent of my over all grade.

In my other class we write scenes that are more like 10 min plays every week. I’m feeling like maybe I can do this - (not the analytical critic stuff, clearly) - But I’m starting to find my voice as a playwright (I hope). Half the battle is losing the part where I stop myself before I even begin because now I don’t just watch with a camera pointed out my window. I slowly approach the front door of a house, ring the doorbell, wait until the character registers that there is a bag on fire on their stoop. Then I laugh hardily when I see them realize they just stepped in poo. Once the ice is broken, I approach, extend my hand “Hi. I’m Hollie and for my next trick I’m going to write your life.” When I see the horror on their face I say “This is what playwriting it all about. No thanks needed.” Then when the cops come to explain to me that these people inside the house aren't characters in my head - but real people - I just laugh it off. Silly cops - they just don’t get my work. Isn’t that like the man? Always keeping a sister down?

Well, I can laugh about it now that I’m out of my rut. This weekend I stayed in my dorm room allowing the stress to build, with the work load pilling up I couldn’t focus on anything. For the first time I couldn’t write. (Not even a checklist and I love to make lists! I write lists for lists I have to make. It's kind of a sickness. I should really seek help. Hold on, let me add that to my... uh nothing... it's nothing.. stop! Don't take it away.. I've already named it)... [silent sobs.]

(That was embarrassing. Awkward. As I was saying - What? That? You didn't see anything, alright! This knife in my hand? How did that get there? That's right, back away...) Moving forward - My play I’ve been working on for 2 years now has been keeping me awake at night recently. That means it’s getting agitated. Something wasn’t working before. So with all I have learned in these short five weeks, I’ve re-structured it but that means it’s now gone silent. Perhaps a part has gone missing or maybe it needs a sacrifice? (This knife? That's so weird how does it keep getting there?) I’ll find in the remainder of the term an answer (I hope) and continue to work through my checklist of homework but despite the minor set backs I am enjoying this term much better then the last. More plays, more people, more… well everything. Only it’s still not home. It’s like I’m training for something. Something big, a huge match? I’m trapped in an 80’s montage and the upbeat song is getting played out. I’m hoping the next bit comes soon. My hands can’t take any more cold meat. *

*(A reference to Rocky - not some weird sex metaphor - jeez people, get your heads out of the toilet.**)

**(Or was it?)

Momma Ameri and the Big Game of 08'

I am amused that the BBC News is just as bad as news broadcasts back home in covering an election. They do all the guessing which flips flops through out the count, which makes no sense to me. Why guess? Just wait until the winner is officially announced. But then again I'm not a TV producer; I have too much common sense. More surprising is how much UK cares, I mean they even televised the Super bowl for crying out loud. I cannot escape!

Though I wasn't able to vote, in my home state of Florida - that's right, I'm registered in FL - even though I haven't really lived there in years but my mothers address has always been my legal home because I have moved so many times, it would have been impossible to function had it not been.

The draw back is I have been asked to jury duty (back in South Florida for the second time) and my mother informed them I am currently across the pound but they do not believe her! Because last time they served me I was in NYC. It's not that I wouldn't do jury duty, I totally would, it is just I'm never in the state.

So of course mom says they will arrest me when I go visit her but I doubt that. Come on. Over jury duty? Really? When I'm not even in the country? Seriously, Florida you never cease to amaze me.

Not voting and not attending jury duty - I guess that makes me a typical American. Yet, I feel the guilt! My country maybe young but she’s still old enough to be an immigrant mother, who reminds you of how bad things were in the old country and how I have brought shame on my family. Oh big Momma A, do not hurt me so… I promise I will vote for the big one.

GO BLUE! - That’s what we really need Momma A is some foam hands, a large stadium, the dems in blue the reps in red and they fight it out with an old fashion skin’s football. Winner takes the white house. I mean it’s the American way right? Think of the advertising space? Just a thought.

Booze and Coffee, What More Could A Girl Want?

This term is going along quiet fast. It's like driving somewhere new, it always feels long the first ride over but then after that it goes by much quicker, whether it's 2 minutes or 27 hours. Believe me, I know, I've moved to so many different time zones back home, I got the feeling I lived more on the road then in some of my apartments. The first term here in London felt like a lifetime compared to all my other wonderings. This semester is much easier. (Not the workload the mental stamina to sustain normal life here.)

After a week running from show, to talk, to class, this weekend I headed down to South London to booze it up with a fellow classmate. We drank our way around her neighborhood, then ate an entire pizza, and smoked some liberty herbs. At the time they all sounded like a good idea, hours later though and I felt my insides wanted to kill me. I imagined them slithering out like a snake and choking me to death. Luckily, they didn’t. So it was still good times.

Then yesterday I remained in a state of constant sleep and actually remained that way through to today. Now of course I'm running late. I have to print all my classmates’ scenes from last week and read through them. And lets not forget the gym, for at least 30 min to run off this weekends madness. So must gulp my coffee down and wish the world a productive and creative day - or what's left of it.

Ah it's nice to feel busy, even if it's a lie.

6 weeks till home...

Dive into the Deep End!

Well you cannot say I'm not trying.

In last Wednesday’s class we had Joe Penhall come and speak. He wrote Landscape With Weapon and loads of other Plays/TV/Film - he was even the first writer on King of Scotland but had his name removed because it was going into another direction. More importantly the class (the lushes that we are) boozed it up with him at the Old Red Lion (where his first play was put on- it wasn't on purpose just that everything else was closed.) In our drunken stupor I'm quiet sure I let my feelings of being a Hollywood writing whore - in that I'll write what you want me too as long as you pay me - be known and at some point I'm pretty sure he referred to me as a lesbian, was it because I'm a loud American woman? Or because I came straight from the gym to class in sweats and an over sized cap? My lack of makeup and decent clothes doesn’t make me a lezzy - they have better sense then that Joe - it makes me lazy. Ah well, it was good times. Nice to meet writers who are as laid back as he is.

Next day and onto an open talk with Ben Jancovich the senior reader at the National Theater Co. This event was held by Stellar Networks - free. It consisted of me, a rep from Stellar, her boyfriend, Ben, an indi film producer, her American script consultant, a radio writer who went to City Uni 2 years back and did the same program as me and a former teacher playwright. The topics mixed from TV development and other things I didn't care about to the more important Theater development end. I didn't really learn anything new but I did get a clearer picture of the UK Theater/TV World. Also had drinks after - not me, which was a shame because I was so sober I realized what an ass I made of myself speaking about things I had no clue, which was clear to all. Right, well I headed out early to keep some of my dignity intact.

I was so hyper when I returned to the dorms that I stayed awake until 6am today. Now red eyed and droopy at 10:30 am I must get ready because I am seeing a dress rehearsal of Speed The Plow at the Old Vic starring Jeff Goldblum, Kevin Spacey and Laura Michelle Kelly by David Mamet. I'll say this now; I'm not a big Mamet fan, so I hope I like this. (Not saying I don't think he's good at what he does, I just don't like plays that speak at me with 2 actors the whole show. I prefer all my senses engaged. - There I go again making an ass out of myself.)
Ta