Looking Towards the Future

Having just seen "Children of Men," I have the dystopic hangover of all time. If you're prone to being sucked in by movies (guilty), then you come away from "Children of Men" wondering what is even the POINT of getting up tomorrow.

This is a great place to be, emotionally, if you're a writer. Because you have to believe UTTERLY in tomorrow's possibilities to get anything done. Yesterday is fine, today is good, but you have to believe that, sitting at your desk, in five minutes, what you're working on will look much better than the blank page you're looking at right now. If you can't believe that, you are buggered.

And if you're in a place where you're not only able to invest in "five minutes from now", but the entire future stretches out in a vast wasteland...I guess it's time to turn in an application to Starbucks.

So here's what I'm looking forward to:

1. My first clam pizza at Mozza. I ordered the bacon-and-leek pizza to go last week, and ate 3/4ths of it in the car at the first stoplight. It wasn't an especially long stoplight, either. Man, that was a good pizza. So, yeah, I can't wait to eat the clam pizza.

2. Having an awesome thesis screenplay. Yeah, I said it. I think my thesis will turn out awesome and I can't wait.

3. Valentine's date with Michael and the Scrambler. At the Santa Monica Pier, there's a small amusement park with a tightly edited array of rides, my favorite of which is the American Scrambler. But I don't really like to ride it alone. I like to ride it with Michael, who punctuates every rotation with a loud, hollered "Scraaaaaaaaamble!" I know, the commercials on sports radio and the ads in the New York Times will lead you to believe that what I really is some diamond-encrusted piece of metal. And maybe some ladies do. But personally, I'll take a ride or two on the Scrambler.

4. The last Harry Potter book.

5. Newly waxed eyebrows. I've clearly let things go to far, and thank god, I'm seeing my eyebroweuse Julie tomorrow at 2:30.