Lately

The past couple of weekends have been really good. Last weekend was FULL - Friday we went to a poetry reading at the Leopard Forest coffee shop in the thriving metropolis of downtown Travelers Rest, SC. It was actually really good. The poet laureate of SC, Marjory Wentworth, was there. She read for about half an hour. I enjoyed some of her stuff, but overall she was kind of... well... flat I guess? She had great imagery in some of her work, but she read in that high school English teacher style, all breathy and monotone, making a singsong nonsense out of her beautiful words. It was quite the pity. After she finished, they had open mic night. Next time, Gail and Shaggy and I are going to READ! If I'd known there was an open mic, I would've brought a couple of poems.

After the poetry reading we tried to figure out where we wanted to go next and I suggested that we go to the Gaslight - it's this tiny little place set off the beaten path that I've always wanted to go into but have never had the courage to try it by myself. This place looks so noir from the outside, it's crazy. There's latticework over the windows and this big huge tree that covers most of the parking lot with shadow. The sign is old and weathered and in old-English letters it says "Gaslight Underground". This place looks like the shadiest place in the world - like a place where bikers and mobsters get together to play darts and make bets on horseraces. I've always been intrigued by it, and with the group we had I was brave about it. We decided to go, and it was awesome! It was dark and filled with bar signs and dartboards and surly old men looking into their beers, talking feverishly about sports, gas prices, and the state of the economy. There was an old pool table out on the porch, so we got some beers and played a couple of games of pool. I'll definitely go back there sometime.

Saturday we went to our favorite pool hall, the Palace, and shot pool with a buddy of ours. Then Saturday night was LARP - I finally decided that I'm just not having fun with my current character, so I'm going to bring in a new one. The nice thing about Cam games is that they allow you to have two main characters, so I can just make the one I've been playing do a fade and bring in a new one. I'm having fun deciding how I want to play him.

Sunday we went to see SPAMalot! It was awesome. I got a black t-shirt that says "I'm not dead yet" in white letters across the front. I plan on wearing that the first night I bring my new character into game - ha! Not dead yet, "yet" being the operative word, right? After SPAMalot, Erin, Shaggy and I went to an old burned out mill and took about ten thousand pictures. What a great weekend.

This past weekend was my screenwriting class - I think it turned out to be definitely worth the money. I can't wait to start writing a screenplay. The professor recommended this program called Final Draft, and I'm going to go see about it. From what I understand it's fairly expensive (around $200 I think), so I'll probably have to save up for it. But I will - I'm pretty excited about this whole screenwriting thing. What a great class. It was really inspiring. On Sunday we watched Little Miss Sunshine and the prof kept pausing it to show us different parts of the script and how they were used in the film. It was incredibly cool and interesting. I really want to give this a shot.

Other than that, not too much is going on. Work's still work, spring has come to the South so I'm sneezing my head off every five minutes. The Sox are doing well - leading their division, but it's still early in the season and anything could happen. I'm still staring out the window wistfully at work every few minutes, dreaming of being independently wealthy. The cats are starting some sort of gambling ring since we told them that they couldn't have their martial arts cadre. You know. Same old bullshit.