Sharing is caring

Whenever you start a new relationship one of the first things you have to do is the old film exchange. I always bust out Firefly and Buffy episodes and yell "Ooooh! This one! You have to watch this one!"

The kind of guys I date have always already seen my favorite movies so it's the TV I have to show them. The kind of guys I date don't generally watch TV but when I show them what I love they usually get into Firefly pretty quickly. Buffy is a harder sell.

For me, it's always some action movie. Ex-Boyfriend made me watch Con Air an absurd amount of times, and I'm still convinced it was my refusal to stop making fun of Nick Cage's mullet that got me dumped.

So this time it's gonna be Conan, The Way of the Gun and The Wild Bunch. Two of them are sitting on my table right now on loan and the other is in my Netflix queue. I'm also pretty sure I'm going to end up watching a lot of Robocop. Fortunately I like Robocop a lot more than I like Con Air.

Back in high school it was music. I knew about emo long before Dashboard Confessional came on the scene because one of my exes was a major Promise Ring fan. I remember the day he introduced me to Sunny Day Real Estate. I also remember the day another ex played me my first Sublime song and how happy it made me feel.

I still learn new music, but most of the guys I date don't listen to all that new gay shit. They listen to classic rock because they're men, goddammit.

It's one of my favorite parts of starting a new relationship - that moment where the other person gets all excited because they want to show their favorite films with you so you can share their love.

So they introduce me to the films they love, manly films with manly protagonists and lots of guns and muscles and explosions. Which suits me just fine.

Screw your preparedness

People.

Stop buying tickets so damn far in advance.

I went to see Hellboy2 on Friday night at the Grove. I'm not gonna go into detail, but overall I thought it had some great action scenes and looked beautiful but the relationships between the characters seemed forced.

Anyway, Officer Beefcake and I got some tickets to Hellboy and wandered around. We ate and then we started to wander and that's when we came upon the line. The Hellboy line. And it was loooooooooooong. And it was at 10:40. And it was currently 9:50.

Really? Who the hell started getting in line over an hour early for the 10:40 screening of Hellboy? What is wrong with you people? You're at the mall - wander around and contribute to the economy a little.

And now I want to go see The Dark Night this weekend but it would seem some of the more nerdy set bought their tickets while they were still in the womb so I'm not sure I'll be able to see it. And I want to see it opening weekend because ignoring spoilers for an entire week will be virtually impossible. I dunno. Maybe I can go on a Tuesday at 3:30 or something.

It's not like it's a concert or something. There are multiple showings for multiple days, but people still get all antsy and buy the tickets ahead of time. I like to be a little more flexible. What if I'm sleepy? I reserve the right to flake on seeing a movie at the time I had originally planned on seeing the movie. And I can't successfully do that if you bought your seat at the Arclight four years ago.

Liars, guns and money. Or maybe just guns.

I shot some guns. Here is what I learned:

Shotguns are heavy. I box with 14 ounce gloves but that shotgun was weighing me down. A woman my size would never be able to carry one around for too long. So from now on in stories I give shotguns to big dudes. The shotgun was also badass. I felt like shooting some zombies but there were none to be found.

Speaking of big guns, I actually felt safer holding them because I felt like there was less chance I would accidentally shoot something that required my entire body's attention.

The 45 was fun to shoot and I actually managed to hit what I aimed for. It was a WW2 gun and I wish I could say I was pretending to shoot Nazis but really I was thinking "I would like to make a hole there." I think guns make you a little bit more retarded.

The Magnum scared the pants off of me. I shot it only once and then fled, squealing in terror while OFFICER BEEFCAKE - for that is his name since he is in law enforcement and he is indeed beefcakey - blew lots of big old holes in the target with his ridiculously large hand cannon, a gun I referred to as "the laser gun" because it had a laser site on it. Officer Beefcake believes this makes me sound silly. I believe it makes me sound adorable. We'll see who's right.

Guns are loud. Not that I'm surprised to learn that guns are loud, but damn. Guns are loud. As soon as I walked into the range I jumped about ten feet out of my skin. An hour later I was just blinking hard when a gun went off. I never really got comfortable with how loud the Magnum was though. People in movies are all "ladeedaaa" about guns but Christ they are loud. And recoiley.

I also learned a few little combat tricks and that my thumb is weak and my hands are small and nobody needed my ID to shoot guns as long as I was with a big dude who brought his own artillery. And shells fly up in the air and hit you on the head if you stand right next to the guy firing the gun so you probably shouldn't do that.

Next time I'm totally gonna shoot the rifle, because fuck a zombie.

David Silver is a member of the rebellion

I got schooled in the Valentine's Day thing. Alas. Mine was "The Pitts," a tale I wrote in three minutes about a Oscar-nominated actor whose girlfriend broke up with him on Valentine's Day and he copes by getting drunk at the La Brea Tar Pitts.

I think it was the typo that lost it for me.

Anyway, it's cool. I'll do better next time.

I would like to take this moment to thank Josh Friedman for casting so many beautiful men in the Sarah Conner Chronicles. Especially Brian Austin Green. I never thought that much of him on 90210 but man, he has aged to extreme hotness level. I'd hit it like a screen door at a daycare.

That show is pretty engaging. It's taken a bit of time to get on its feet but every week I like it more than I did the previous week. I do wish the plot with the Turk guy had been drawn out more. There was a character who will be responsible for Skynet's creation and it looks like Sarah might be falling for him.

SPOILERS

Cool. If she wants to stop the machines she has to kill the guy she loves. This could be a neat plot twist. But then somebody killed him off already so that didn't end up being an issue. I guess that was so they could bring back her old boyfriend. But then that could still have been cool - a love triangle complicated by the fact that one member of the triangle might have to kill another.

Still, the story is moving along enough that I'm willing to see what else it has up its sleeve. Because it still has lots of guns and battles between terminators.

And it will involve more hot Brian Austin Green.

I'd hit it like a fly swatter in the Amazon.

How reality shows are born

I'm getting more cautious about web dates. I recently emailed back and forth with a guy who invited me to a party. Let me describe the party as he described it to me.

He's not Jewish, but it's a Shabbat dinner. He thought it sounded fun to use candles and stuff and eat Jewish food. Mmmmm unleavened bread with gefilte fish. Party food indeed.

Still, it's something unusual and I'm always down for something unusual. But then he explained further.

He's inviting himself, his two roommates and a bunch of girls he met on the web who "sound cool".

Uh huh.

And in order for him to not be a douche and invite a bunch of girls with him being one of the only guys, he's decided it's a "used-to-date" party. I have never heard of this but he talked about it like it was the latest in awesome.

Apparently each girl brings someone she used to date as her guest at the party. Doesn't that sound fun?

Actually the more I think about it the more it sounds like a reality show...

"On guy chooses from an array of girls who are all vying for his affections. The catch? The girls' ex-boyfriends are trying to win them back. Who will choose love? And who will choose familiarity? And who will sit back and stuff her face with knishes? You'll find out this season on Train Wreck Party."

If the thought of actually participating in this didn't horrify me so much I might actually go just to watch what happens, but since I have no desire to drag either of the men I've dated who still live in LA through this poorly thought out concept, I think I'll just wait for the DVD.

How I got my wedding dress

I'm waiting for Mom to get back from Curves so we can go get the wedding dress to take it to the resale place. They were really excited to hear we were coming. I think most of the dresses they get are Aunt Tilda's thirty-year-old poofy sleeve number from her second marriage. Maybe that means I'll get more money.

Mom tried to get me to go to Curves with her. No thanks. If my workout's gonna be dictated to me it will be by supremely hot Trainer who occasionally can be coaxed to lift up his shirt and show me his abs, not by sixty year old ladies in sweatpants who believe every woman on earth has the same body.

Anyway, now seems as good a time as any to explain what happened with the wedding. I met Ex-Fiance while I was working for a horrible newspaper in eastern North Carolina. He was working for one of our competitors as a news reporter. I thought he was cute. We dated.

Then I decided to move back to Raleigh and become a teacher and I figured that was that because I wasn't interested in a long term relationship.

But he kept sticking around. He came up on weekends and sometimes I went down to visit on weekends and that was the pattern we adopted. I had no friends where I lived and everybody at work was married and older so there was no alternative. That's life in North Carolina for me. Ex-Fiance's friends were my only friends.

Time passed. Years passed. We downed massive amounts of wine on the weekends and ate at the same pizza restaurant. We played Knights of the Old Republic on X-Box.

Then I decided to move to LA to become a screenwriter. I asked if he wanted to come with me because I was afraid of moving alone. He responded by asking me to marry him.

We were on a trip to New York to stay with friends. We walked to Central Park, one of his favorite places on earth but a place that means absolutely nothing to me, and he pulled out a claim check for a jewelry store and popped the question casually.

I thought he was joking at first, but then said yes because that's what you do. You say yes. It's not like there was anybody else out there trying to marry me. I was used to him.

The ring was my great grandmother's. He had gone to my mother and gotten it, but it had no stones so he took it to the only jeweler in town who would put stones in it (there were better jewelers twenty miles away), but the jeweler got sick so Ex didn't have it when we went to New York, hence the claim check. When I did get the ring back the amethyst in the middle (my idea) was deeply flawed and one of the braces holding in a tiny diamond on the side was not properly set so it kept picking at my clothes. I was always having to dig pieces of lint out of my ring.

Kind of symbolic, no?

The night we got engaged his favorite basketball team got into the final four. When everyone told him congratulations he thought they were talking about the game.

Then we moved to LA. I paid for the move. I paid for the apartment. For four months I paid all the bills. He never could seem to find a job. He kept saying he was looking for one but wasn't satisfied with anything less than news reporter, even temporarily, so while he drank more and more and went out to hockey games I laid on the couch, exhausted from working at a school that didn't yet have its shit together so I could pay both of our bills.

I'd get up at 3 am to go to the bathroom and he'd be on my computer playing some video game where you conquer other cultures.

I dreaded sex.

Then I started to make friends. I went to the gym and got First Trainer. I was at the gym as much as possible because I didn't want to go home.

Because of First Trainer, I cut way back on the drinking. Then I told Ex I'd like him to go a week without drinking. He agreed. I marked the bottle. The very next day after he promised to stop there was less vodka in the bottle. I confronted him. He said it must have evaporated. I marked it again. The next day there was MORE vodka in the bottle than before.

He's not too bright.

One day two months before my wedding I was addressing envelopes for the wedding invitations while watching TV. I saw that credit card commercial where that girl in her wedding dress runs and hugs her friends because she's so happy.

"What an idiot," I said.

I looked down at the cards in my lap. I realized what I had just said. That's when I knew I didn't want to get married.

He didn't take it so well. Before he moved out he would get drunk in the middle of the night and come into the bedroom to demand to know why I wanted to break it off. He finally moved out.

He took me to lunch a few months later to catch up. We were going to try to be friends. When the bill came he discovered he had no money. I paid.

It's the last time I paid for anything. I haven't seen him since.

Zombies and boys who could become zombies

Last night I started talking to a guy who seemed cool even though he was 26 and therefore a bit younger than I like. But about five minutes into what had begun as a fun conversation he told me he had only ever had one girlfriend and she lasted six months and since then he'd only been with one girl who exclaimed wonderment at how huge his penis is. He wanted to know if this was true. He wanted me to give him an assessment of how big "big" is.

I changed the subject. He asked me again for a penis assessment.

I told him I did not want to talk about his penis. He said technically we were talking about other people's penises and could I please answer the question? I walked away.

OMG. That's all I'm saying. OMG.

Now, to get your mind off that, a scene I wrote this morning for the zombie movie:


INT. PHARMACY - DAY

The shelves have been completely ransacked. Blood and rotten body parts litter the floor between ripped up rolls of toilet paper and pregnancy tests.

Zombies can be heard next door moaning and banging against the door to the hardware store mixed with the sound of sporadic gunfire from the boat, but the pharmacy itself is serene in its destruction.

Except for the smell. Kate wrinkles her nose and grabs a can of Febreze off the floor and sprays it liberally.

She hops over the counter and slips on the remains of a dead body right in the spot where she had planned to land gracefully. Kate crashes to the floor, grabbing at the counter and knocking over everything on it.

EXT. HARDWARE STORE - DAY

A TRANSVESTITE ZOMBIE looks up at the sound of the crash. He/She begins to wander over to the smashed open windows of the Pharmacy while her buddies continue to stare at the Hardware Store and moan.

INT. PHARMACY - DAY

Kate has a slip of paper in her hand with various medicines listed. She picks through the pills and jars of liquid medication that line the walls behind the pharmacy desk and puts them in her bag.

Transvestite Zombie appears in the smashed doorway at the front of the store. Her tattered dress flows behind her as she stumbles in barefoot, no doubt having lost her fantastic spikey heels.

Kate is oblivious, busy concentrating on figuring out which multisyllabic name was the right medication.

Behind Transvestite Zombie, another zombie appears. Then another.

Kate puts both medicines in her bag, takes one last look at the list, then turns to hop back over the counter-

And comes face to face with Transvestite Zombie.

KATE
Hi.

They stare at each other.

KATE
You look fabulous. You might want to retouch your foundation though, honey. Makeup's over there.

She backs up, gun out, sussing out which way to handle the now half dozen zombies before her.

She checks her ammunition. Not good.

Transvestite Zombie sniffs the air, displeased.

The zombies stop, not sure about the counter or the smell.

Kate picks up her walkie.

KATE
(into the walkie)
Uhhh boys I need a little-

She's stopped by a loud screech, followed by static. She looks at the walkie. It's got masking tape around the bottom. "FIX THIS PIECE OF SHIT!" Is written across the tape in black marker.

KATE
(to herself)
Oh come on!

She drops it on the ground.

She takes her gun and shoots Transvestite Zombie, who stumbles and falls.

The other zombies begin to climb over the counter. Kate shoots wherever she can, but more seem to keep coming. Some move around the side to try coming over the counter that way.

Kate fires her last round of bullets and then she's out, but zombies are still advancing.

She grabs a broom leaning in the corner and holds it out like a weapon. As zombies approach, she knocks them out by a quick sweep of the broom. She twirls it, then knocks another one down. She pushes it into a zombie's gut then rams it into the same zombie's open mouth.

She kicks the zombie off the broom, flips it around and backs against the wall at the back of the drug shelves. The zombies close in-

And drop one by one to the ground as gunfire erupts behind them.

Kate ducks down and pops a few more zombies with her broom. All the zombies that were in front of her are piled on the floor in a lifeless heap.

Her husband stands behind them, offering his hand to get her up.

CHRIS
Get what you needed?

KATE
Yep.

He picks up her gun and walkie and they both hop over the counter, where Josh is holding off the forces of the undead with a steady spray of bullets.

Kate grabs her gun from Chris along with the box of bullets he holds up for her.

They all line up and shoot together like any good family should.

Dating made easy

I had my date. It was okay. I'm on the fence about it, but I was expecting it to be horrible so at least it beat my really low expectations.

I'm feeling jaded today so this is like the world's grumpiest post.

Anyway...

We walked around my neighborhood which is nice since I really like my neighborhood and walking around in it. I don't like caramel in my hot chocolate anymore though. When did that happen?

It's weird. Date kept trying to get me to talk about myself, which used to be no problem at all, but I just didn't want to. I feel so ambivalent about everything these days that it seems like so much effort to tell my life story all over again. I mean, seriously, how many times am I going to have to tell a new boyfriend about my daddy issues or that I think Sin City was a terrible film and Jimmy Buffet is the worst thing to happen to music since the plastic recorder? Maybe I should just type up Emily cliff notes and hand them out to my dates so I don't actually have to keep having the same conversations.

Can you see it? Every time someone asks what I teach I hand them a sheet with an explanation of what I teach, where I teach and how I feel about it, together with a note about how I will cease speaking to you immediately if you make a racist joke about my students. Imagine how much easier dating would be if we never actually had to talk to each other.

Fuck it. I'm going to hire a matchmaker like in ancient China. Give her a list of criteria, say, "Must be Jensen Ackles" and then let her go out and make it happen. Then I don't even think about it until I show up to the wedding and meet whichever Jensen Ackles she found. Then I'll give him my cliff notes and we'll sign the papers and eat the cake and everybody wins.

This is all very questionable

I was on the phone with a Potential Date the other day. The guy's a writer/director with three produced features behind him and when the strike is over hopes to resume his work on a studio feature starring some Oscary type people. So far, so good.

The first time I go out with somebody I like to pretend sex doesn't exist. The first meeting is about sizing each other up in the personality game and learning things about each other slowly with no pressure and no assumptions. Also, recent events have made me an untrusting soul.

I don't take compliments well either, especially when I just met you. I think it's because they come across as fake, or because I watched my smooth talking father talk women right out of their money time after time growing up so I don't really trust a guy who's quick with the flattery. Just ask me questions or tell your stories, don't try to get in my pants.

This has also made me "hard to read" according to Ex-Boyfriend, who didn't even kiss me on the first date because he thought I didn't like him even though I thought it was the best date ever.

Potential Date seemed really cool except he broke my rule. He mentioned how close he lived to me and that he could be over at my house in six minutes and we could watch TV together. He referred to me as "hot teacher." He wanted to read my zombie script even though I'm only halfway through the first draft.

Hey, Potential Date, I don't know you. Back off.

But I decided to give the guy a chance because he seems okay despite what I'm writing here and we have a lot in common. We'll see. I made it a day date in a nearby public place with no alcohol because I have learned.

Anyway, he also said something that kind of annoyed me. He asked if I prefer TV or film and I said both.

"Oh, honey, that's not a good idea," he said, as if that unwillingness to attach myself permanently to one form of writing destines me to a tragic end.

Now, this guy knows way more than me about the Industry. He makes a living writing and directing films, so he has an educated point of view.

But what is with this idea that you have to pick one? Is that true? I have to pick long form or serial form, but both is unheard of?

There are writers who do both, I know there are. They start in one and move to the other.

I have specs in both categories so if I meet a TV producer I hand over a TV spec. If I meet a film producer I pass him my feature. Is that wrong?

I don't understand why I have to choose. Don't make me choose.