...and the Curse of Heart Palpitations

It's staffing season in Hollywood, which basically equates to the old "hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror". Like Texas Hold 'Em. Or war, if you're an idiot who's lost all perspective. (As a side note, I cannot adequately express how much I LOVE it when people compare their mundane problems to real-life tragedies or situations of import. Of all human foibles, hideous analogies caused by solipsism delight me the most.)

I sit and try to write and every so often get a piece of news about staffing that shifts everything around again. Who's going to which show, who's showrunning what, who's submitted where...it keeps changing and every little adjustment, good or bad, causes my stomach to lurch. Coffee has become my enemy because I'm already wired and jittery, and any more caffeine pushes me over into visible shakes. I had to tell my best friend -- the cappuccino whom I meet every morning before we head into work together -- that we just couldn't do this for the next few weeks. She was heartbroken but understood. Sort of. She's Italian and she takes these things very hard...

So I try to write. I try to remember that it only makes sense to focus on what I can control, which at the moment is the blank screen in front of me. But when I'm vibrating at a low frequency at all times from fear and excitement and dread, the act of sitting down becomes impossible, much less writing while sitting. I'd love to be able to focus on something -- anything -- for more than twenty seconds.

Perhaps I should investigate how to do this next, because at the moment, I have no idea. I should go ask my friend who went to live on a mountain top with the Buddhist monks. I think they're Buddhist. I hope they are. I hope Hollywood hasn't affected my detecting skills to the point that important details of my friends' lives are not registering because they are not job related. Oh dear. Anyway, he's living on a mountain top and meditating up to eight hours a day. I wonder if I could do that or if I would actually without exaggeration die if I attempted something like that right now. Perhaps I would only go mad.

The closest I have come to finding some kind of meditation is watching the Wes Anderson AmEx spot over and over on youtube. I liked the M. Night one just fine, but this one...come on! sigh. I love him so. I do. I love him. I love him! I love him for the man he wants to be. And I love him for the man he almost is. (okay, I hate that movie as I hate few things in this life, and if hell has movies, I will be seeing that one on a loop, but in this case, that paticular quote really does sum up Wes and me perfectly.)