Yesterday, I earned one. Today, I am taking one. That is all.

The first time I did this, I got a lively case of the hots for one of the actresses in my cast, pursued her with an uncharacteristic boldness while I was still in the early stages of re-assembling my heart after a breakup, and ended up getting embarrassed, ignored, and punched in the groin. Ah, the Theatrical Life.

I’m taking an early bedtime tonight, and have downloaded the sound-mixer Audacity for my laptop. The last time, with my old laptop that was a glorified word processor/porn storage device, I lost two hours driving back and forth to Orange County to mix and burn the music and sound cues on my home desktop. When you only have eleven hours to stage a play soup-to-nuts, you cannot just go giving away two hours to LA traffic. I remember almost crying from the CDs not playing in regular CD players, calling to push back my tech rehearsal so I could give it one more shot, and barely making it in time to smuggle the final working versions to the sound operator before tech period closed.

I keep doing these little quick-hitter jobs, and they do scratch the itch; but they also serve to remind me how long it’s been since I got involved in something bigger. I can’t remember any point in my life when this close to 100% of my creative energy was going solely into writing. Maybe that’s a good thing, or maybe it’s going to drive me mad soon. I do know I jumped at this opportunity, and I anticipate enjoying it. I also anticipate you won’t hear much from me Sunday, while I recover.

But a lot of hidden clutter has been swept away. I delivered a great feast to the paper shredder yesterday as I went through the desk drawer where I’ve been stuffing “records” for years with only the most sporadic attempts at organization. Just to show you how haphazard my filing has been: some of the folder tabs were still the ones written by Wrong Fiancee #2 – I broke up with her in 2004.

What didn’t help my scattery brain at all is that while school did teach me about the musical circle of fifths and the symbolism of the character name “Muley Graves” in The Grapes of Wrath (hint: He’s stubborn and doomed), it did not teach me how long I should hold onto financial records in modern American society. Mathematically, this is not only simpler to learn than the quadratic equation, but far more useful to most people. But this time, rather than just lament my lack of knowledge, I went and looked it up for myself.

I was hanging on to A LOT that I did not need. Cell phone bills, old receipts, pay stubs – I found one dating back to my job at the Peoria Journal Star; in 1999.

These numbers tell a shadowplay story of my life over the last decade. They tell me about the guest lecture income I used to get from Columbia College, all those business lunches in Century City and Beverly Hills, the phone calls I made late at night to certain numbers, the celebratory havoc created when I sold the screenplay, the long dreadful crash that followed. They describe my travels, my relationships, the places I worked – it would be easy to start thinking it’s an amazing record of my existence, and maybe shouldn’t be so hastily shredded.

But really they’re just numbers and data – they’re only useful to the extent that my personal memories can vibrate them to life. And my memory will only last so long – already it leaks and compresses and re-interprets as it tries to crush my lengthening life into a useful summary equation.

All these receipts say is that I saw a movie at such-and-such theatre on such a date. But that conveys nothing about the experience, about what the movie was, who I was with, and how did both make me feel. For that, we are all much better enlightened by the review I wrote of that movie.

By the end of the day yesterday, I was filled with an immense gratitude that I blog. I know there’s maybe 10-15 people at most who even read this stuff with any kind of regularity. But even if no one read, it is so enriching to me to have these stories and pictures at my fingertips – each captured in all the myopic hackish awkwardness of the moment. It is better than a record that I existed, it is a reminder that I lived.

1) Dr. Dre
2) Jennifer Aniston
3) Adolf Hitler
4) Transformers 3
5) Mortgage Modification

You heard it from the Internet itself, people. Transformers 3 is less popular than Hitler.

Update: A simple screen refresh later:

1) Willie Nelson
2) Vlad the Impaler
3) Whooping Cough
4) Low Mortgage Rates
5) Bristol Palin

Somewhere, Jennifer Aniston is having a sad over her fickle fandom.

So I don’t exactly care about the sundered love. It’s the track record that fascinates me. There have now been 14 seasons of The Bachelor in the last eight years, and only one couple forged by that show (not even the four the article claims. One.) is actually still romantically involved. And, per Wikipedia, it’s the one where the Bachelor abandoned the “winner” he had selected (Melissa Rycroft, another future DWTS contestant) after changing his mind and deciding his true love was the runner-up. So even claiming a 1/14 success rate over an eight-year span only counts due to a technicality.

Meanwhile, over on The Bachelorette, there have been a total of five seasons, and two of those couples are still involved – though one of the two came together less than a year ago and are not yet married, so it might be premature to call it a success.

It is not unique to television matchmaking that relationships, both prospective and committed, end. They end CONSTANTLY. Over an eight-year span, I wonder just what percentage of American adults are still with the same romantic partners by the end – 50%? Less? Stars of the show might have the benefit of selecting from dozens of pre-screened, demographically-prime candidates all competing feverishly to show their best side, but it’s clear that the mechanism has not improved on real life for helping people find a “right” partner for the long haul. In fact, it arguably makes it worse – once you’ve tasted the pattern of being flown to exotic locations for network-funded super-dates, surrounded by beautiful singles fawning over you, with millions more admiring you by proxy – how do you settle in for Pizza-and-a-DVD night in your torn PJs with a single mate who is not having their hair professionally done every day anymore? How does all that soft-focus glamour help them negotiate chores for the week?

But if the second of those two Bachelorette relationships holds, we’ll really have a chance to learn something, because that will be 2/5 – a 40% success rate, compared with The Bachelor’s dismal 7%. Does that mean that women, when in a position of power to choose, make better long-term romantic choices? Or do they just commit more to the choices they make?

And the final point of interest for me is that this track record seems to have absolutely no impact on the show’s popularity. American audiences seem perfectly willing to adopt a form of voluntary amnesia, moving from one image of picturesque romance to another without ever acknowledging that THEY’RE ALL FAILING. Getting a rose doesn’t mean the next fifty years are going to be blissful and perfect, and having pretty dates by candlelight don’t make the feelings involved any more true or profound; or capable of dealing with a flat tire or a sick baby.

Does this encourage fickleness? Neurosis? Serial monogamy? The mis-valuing of sculpted romantic “moments” over the qualities that might actually produce a well-functioning long-term relationship? It’s like in all this emphasis on creating what we’ve deemed to be a sufficient level of constant magic we’re actually herding people away from lifelong commitments. Whether that’s good or bad is for our culture to decide, but it is so very curious that this is the outcome of a show built on the premise that TV can script progress to a real-life marriage proposal, with just enough contestants, makeup, and sponsors.

So maybe it’s finally time to get one of those webby, touchy, smarty phones all the kids today are carrying around. It’s not that I ever go a truly unacceptable amount of time without this Internet needle in my vein, but there are times when I’m out and about and it could prove more expedient than carrying my laptop everywhere. I could also get on Facebook at work – although I don’t see that as a good idea from anyone’s perspective.

It’s not that I cannot afford it – I’ve got the money handy. It’s that upgrading in this way – finally admitting I’m going to be getting on-line with my phone, is going to mean paying for a data plan. That may only be $30/month, but that revises my monthly budget upwards just as I’ve been doing everything I can to do the opposite.

And there is that whole sense of being dragged further into this forever-plugged Matrix world in which we’re now living. I held out for quite awhile on even getting a cell phone. I realize I spend an unholy amount of time on the web at home and work, but I did hold a certain pride in at least not carrying the whole thing around in my pocket everywhere.

Guess I’m going to have to go camping more often. As phone/wireless coverage expands, I wonder if “No Signal” zones on the planet Earth will become more sought after.

He did edit out my coining of the terms “jingo-sadist” and “terror slam”. Was proud of those.

Scientific American: Bone Marrow Transplant Stops Mouse Version of OCD

The Apples in Stereo: Sunndal Song

Rogue Wave: Good Morning (The Future)

The Antlers: Bear

Passion Pit: Sleepyhead

Codeine Velvet Club: Hollywood
(See this video and then the video for Vanity Kills – insanely sexy)

Pomplamoose Music: September
(Yeah, I know I’m late to the party with Pomplamoose. I didn’t say it was all “Brand Spanking New Things You’ve Never Heard Of Wot I’m Listening To Right Now”.)

Peter Gabriel: Flume

Pierre Henry: Psyché Rock
(The basis for the theme song of a television program you might know)