me today: "our museum includes props/ costumes from batman & harry potter." reply: "okay, but do you have things that aren't for kids?" WHAT

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

second-in-command? :0)

update: i got said burrito. drove back for said burrito when i left it in the work fridge. didn't have time to warm it up. instead took bites and then warmed it in my mouth. it actually worked.

adulthood is going to sleep at 8pm so i can wake up and have a breakfast burrito from a shack.

are there vegetarians in the apocalypse

key & peele 105

"and wait. you said his mom was doing something at the supermarket? working. so... well, working is like acting on a set every day in a film no one's ever gonna see. and it lasts for the rest of your life." (10:12 left)

what a fun day. introduced to mh-aise!

yay! http://variety.com/gallery/varietys-10-tv-scribes-to-watch-2/#!6/andy-parker/

http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/qa-conan-obrien-and-andy-cohen-on-changes-in-latenight-1201223073/

Variety: I’d like you two to compare notes: What is your favorite part of the job and what is your least favorite part? Conan O’Brien: It’s the yin-yang of it. My favorite part of the job is that we do one every day, and my least favorite part of the job is that we do one every day. … It’s like magnets that are constantly attracted and repelled from each other. Going in every day is fantastic. You get this fresh shot, you can redefine your job every day. And then there are days when I’m talking to actors and they’re telling me about going to shoot a movie and then getting six weeks off. And I’m thinking, what am I doing, I’m chained to my desk. You get this wanderlust. I want to get the hell out of there (sometimes) but I think if you sent me to Prague for three months I would build a talkshow desk and start calling the Wayans brothers and say ‘Get in here.’ ” ... Variety: Have the changes in the way people watch television these days — on their own timetables and often in clip bites — changed the way you produce your shows? O’Brien: People can find the thing that’s just right for them now. We have a culture and technology now that allows this. I did a bit where I went to an American Girl store, picked out my own doll, took it to lunch, drank a lot of white wine and behaved like a mad man. So now I’ve made this thing and a woman who sees it and likes it blasts it out (via social media) and the next thing you know, it’s everywhere. I’ve had more 45-year-old moms come up to me and say, “I didn’t know that much about you before, but that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” Now we have a system that delivers the perfect bit to the perfect people. That didn’t exist three years ago. That’s not bad. ... Variety: Do you think intense media coverage of latenight personalities and the competition among shows is good for business? Does that make more people pay attention to the shows overall? O’Brien: To me it just feels like there’s more noise about everything now. There’s been noise about latenight ever since I can remember. When I got into it, it was Jay (Leno) and Dave — that was treated like the Cold War for a while. That was a ton of noise. Now I think there’s so much noise that it all goes away. Cohen: It all negates itself. When your whole (“Tonight Show”) mishegoss happened … O’Brien: Yes, that’s what we called it. It’s an old Celtic term. Cohen: It was the mishegoss of 200 … 6? O’Brien: 2010. Cohen: It’s interesting because of how much noise there was about that. And there are even more outlets now than there were then. O’Brien: We’re now at the lifecycle of a fruit fly. The technology changes, but the thing that doesn’t change is people doing the work and having a connection with people who enjoy that work. So tune everything else out, do your thing and make it the best you can. Evolve it, grow it and make that connection with people. Do it as long as it means something to you, and the minute it doesn’t mean anything to you, go away. My plan is that the minute it doesn’t mean anything to me anymore is to do it for six more years for the cash and then get out. Cohen: I’m glad you wound up on an up note. Wait — I have one last question for you. O’Brien: We should do an episode of my show where you’re in my ear … and an episode of your show where I’m in your ear. Cohen: I like it. I wanted to ask you: I’m really bad with faces and names. You’ve done this for 21 years, you’ve had thousands of people on your shows. When you’re out and about and people come up to you, how many of them do you recognize? O’Brien: I have two tips for being in show business. Always tip at least 15%, preferably 20 or you’ll read about it somewhere. The other tip is never say, “It’s nice to meet you.” Say “It’s good to see you.” I could be in the Chilean mountains hiking and stumble upon an old swami. I’d say, “It’s really good to see you” because if I say, “It’s good to meet you” he’ll say, “You fucking asshole. I was in your audience and you said hello to me in 1994.” Cohen: Right. “Good to see you.” O’Brien: Right, and keep them talking until they tell you who they are. Cohen: Well, it was good to see you, Conan.

you should know i'm really only on facebook under coercion: a deadline is after me.

D&O: Sorry, I diverted the question. What are you going to miss about Austin? Mary Miller: Oh yeah, the vegetarian options, the awesome Mexican food, all the coffee shops, a handful of close friends. I’ll miss going to Magnolia with Greg, just the simple things. I’ll miss Barton Springs. I used to wake up early and go in the mornings when it was still free, before eight. As if three dollars makes a difference, but it’s like, “We’re here and we’re swimming for free!” But I guess if you go everyday it does make a difference. I was going three times a week, and it was just the best way to start your day ever. But, I don’t know. I’m also pretty ready to move on. I was talking to someone the other day who went to graduate school in Houston, and he said, “I love Houston, but after I finished grad school there, I felt like I couldn’t stay.” When you go to a certain place for a specific purpose and a finite amount of time, I think you have in your mind that you really need to reconfigure your life afterward, so it’s separate from what came before. And as much as I love Austin, I’ll be ready to leave. - See more at: http://downandoutmag.com/2014/03/28/the-last-days-of-texas-an-interview-with-mary-miller/#sthash.FkenrO91.dpuf

http://www.davidfarland.net/writing_tips/

letting people know what i'm looking for has been not as stressful so far

key & peele as rosencrantz and guildenstern! sweet

What to Remember When Waking By David Whyte In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake, coming back to this life from the other more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world where everything began, there is a small opening into the new day which closes the moment you begin your plans. What you can plan is too small for you to live. What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough for the vitality hidden in your sleep. To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others. To remember the other world in this world is to live in your true inheritance. You are not a troubled guest on this earth, you are not an accident amidst other accidents you were invited from another and greater night than the one from which you have just emerged. Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window toward the mountain presence of everything that can be what urgency calls you to your one love? What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky? Is it waiting in the fertile sea? In the trees beyond the house? In the life you can imagine for yourself? In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk? ---David Whyte

today i bought mlb.tv. whoops (apparently can't handle free time and money)

The Idols of Babylon and the One True God 46 Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. 2 They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but pthemselves go into captivity. 3 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, qwho have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; 4 reven to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. 5 “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? 6 Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship! 7 They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; wit cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble. 8 “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, 9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. bI have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. 12 “Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness: 13 I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; dI will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”

i'm in a book?!

mindy!

she is a gem.

today i related exactly with a 55-year-old woman on cell phones. :) thanks, morgans

http://www.entertheworshipcircle.com/media/search.aspx?pt=17

http://therumpus.net/2014/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-mary-miller-2/

Rumpus: You know, it occurs to me that we talk a lot about how we know a story works (which I still don’t understand). How do you know a story doesn’t work? Or, maybe more interesting, how do you know a story won’t work, even with more revision? Miller: This is a great question. And I don’t have an easy answer for it. A story works when there’s momentum, life behind the words. Some stories have this and others don’t, and it’s difficult to say why this is. If all stories “worked,” though, writing wouldn’t be much of a challenge; it wouldn’t be art. There are many stories I’ve wanted to write that I’m simply not able to—sometimes I haven’t found the way in yet, and it doesn’t matter how hard I try. Sometimes the way comes later, when I’m not working or thinking about it at all. When stories don’t work, you try to convince yourself that all of that time and energy wasn’t wasted, that it will make you a better writer, if nothing else. There’s definitely a magical quality to writing that can’t be explained. I can write something I love in two days, or I can work on a story every day for months and it never comes together. I think there simply comes a point at which you’re beating your head against the wall with revision, when you’re making something different but not better. For me, revision usually has more to do with making the language prettier, finding clearer images, using more active verbs. Perhaps adding a line or two of dialogue to try to better capture an emotion. But I’ve found that if the story isn’t there in the beginning, right from the start, I generally can’t beat it into shape no matter how much rewriting I do. // After that, I edited it many, many times. Even though it’s short (around 65,000 words), that’s still a whole lot of words for someone used to writing 3,000 word stories. Making all of those words work together is difficult. It took a lot of cleaning up, a lot of rewriting scenes in order to make them more vivid. I used everything—every oddity I’ve ever seen on the side of the road, every interesting memory I could make relevant. I can’t remember who said it—I think it was Allan Gurganus when he was visiting the Michener Center—but he told us to “spend [our] gold,” meaning, put everything you have into a story. Other “gold” will be waiting for you for your next project. // Rumpus: Let’s take the car accident, since that’s not really a spoiler. A man dies in a car accident early in the book, and the narrator’s family witnesses it. What did you adjust, do you remember? Miller: I knew that I wanted the father to go to these people, to be a kind of hero in the situation—this was an opportunity for him to show his authority, as well as put his beliefs into action. I also knew that I wanted Jess to play an integral role; she’s much more active than her sister or mother, who just stand there waiting for the paramedics to arrive. Like her father, Jess becomes a part of the event. She isn’t content to be a witness, as she is in so much of her life. In early drafts, Jess didn’t put her fingers on the dead man’s neck, feeling for a pulse. But I wanted her to do something, put herself in the scene. It’s a small way for her to feel in control of an uncontrollable situation, much like her life. // This is interesting about mood causing plot, and I think that’s certainly the case for the girls. They’re bored and worried and can feel their parents’ tension, and this leads them to act in ways they wouldn’t otherwise. They’re also in new surroundings where they can imagine that they aren’t really themselves, at least not the selves they know at home. I guess I’m always working through feel—does it feel right? It’s something that’s difficult to explain but I think all writers work this way to some extent, whether we’re aware of it or not. For me, writing has little to do with thinking. I don’t want to control the narrative. I listen to the rhythm of the words and dialogue and try to give the characters the space in which to say and do what they want without intervening too much. // Miller: It’s definitely about the rhythm of the words and how they sound together, writing one sentence and then another and another and cutting something immediately if it doesn’t feel true. I come from a family of musicians and—while I have no musical abilities of my own—I think I inherited a good ear. It’s also obsessiveness. I’ll spend a lot of time working on a single sentence, debating over a dash or a colon, etc. I want things to be perfect. I know nothing will ever be as perfect as I want it, and this is very sad, but sometimes I can get close. // Miller: I try to think as little as possible, at least while working. I look at some of my early stories and can see the machination behind them, like a gear slowly moving. For example, sticking a dead father into the story to explain a character’s sadness and bad decisions, or trying to impress myself with my own cleverness. You don’t need a dead father to explain a character’s sadness. And impressing yourself with wit/cleverness often feels like what it is—authorial intrusion. // Anyhow, this is beside the point. I think training your instinct comes from writing and reading. There’s no big secret. And reading slush helps, as well; I’d recommend everyone edit a literary magazine at some point. It’s time-consuming, but there’s a lot to learn from other writers who are also learning. The patterns (twelve stories about whales in this batch?) are also interesting. // I’ve learned a lot about language from reading slush. You can immediately tell if a writer is in control of the narrative. This writer will avoid using too many words like “possibly,” “probably,” “maybe,” “perhaps,” etc. He/she will avoid using clichés, as well as a lot of metaphors, and won’t take four sentences to say what they could in one (or write a great sentence and follow it up with a bunch of stuff that just weakens it). //

http://splitsider.com/2014/02/talking-to-new-daily-show-head-writer-elliott-kalan/

What was the transition process like? What was it like learning how to do this job, and what are the new responsibilities you have? The job has a very different set of goals and responsibilities and objectives and skills. As a writer, I felt like it was my job mainly to generate ideas for material, and then when I was on an assignment, to produce jokes with a point of view that were funny, sharp, fit the voice of the show, and were as interesting as possible. As head writer, that’s still very much a part of it, but at the same time, there are a lot of skills like communication between departments, personnel management, interaction with show management to a much greater degree than I’d been involved with before; things that were never a part of the job as a writer. As a writer, you focused on the writing and your place in it, and as a head writer, your eye is so much more on ‘How is everyone working together? Is this department integrated with the rest of the show properly? How can we make sure all the writers are doing the best work that they can and the work that’s most appropriate to the show and serves the show the best and serves Jon the best?’ It’s a widening of scope outside of myself, in a way. It’s interesting because when you get you get married, your point of view becomes ‘What’s best for us?’ rather than ‘What’s best for me?’ With having a son, it’s like, ‘What’s best for my family?’ Now, I’m responsible for this group of three people and not just for myself. It was a similar transition going from writer to head writer. You become responsible for more than just yourself. It’s similar skills to what I’m using in taking care of a baby, which sounds like I’m comparing comedy writers to newborns, which is not the most flattering of comparisons – but there is definitely a feeling of ‘Okay, now I’m responsible for lots of peoples' work and not just for myself.’ I’m enjoying the job a lot. I like being challenged by it. The reason you want to move up in an organization is so that you’re always being challenged, you’re always being presented with new things, new ways to grow the skills you have, ways to get new skills, and new opportunities and problems, and things that you haven’t encountered before. I’m the kind of person who, if I do the same thing for too long, then I start to get frustrated. Getting this job has been a godsend because there’s the excitement of being challenged by a new situation that you haven’t been in for. I come home at the end of the day and I’m like, “That was great! I really did a lot of new stuff today and I’m interacting with people in a new way.” It’s really exciting.