You'd Look A Lot Better Without All That Black Shit Under Your Eyes

Sometimes I think as a writer I have to pigeon hole myself into a certain category, and if I don't fit into said category, I'm a failure.

I feel like a lot of my closest friends are constantly telling me to write a screenplay, yet most of them don't even read this blog. So why would they want me to write a screenplay? It surely can't be because they love my writing. I think it has more to do with the fact that I'd sound a lot cooler as a friend if I was a screenwriter.

Make that a successful screenwriter. The buzz of Hollywood. BFF's with every buzzworthy screenwriting name. My scripts would be so funny and awesome. I'd lunch with the Apatow's and have slumber parties with The Fempire.

I don't mean to sound like I'm dissing those people--why would I? I love their work just like everyone else. But am I nothing if I'm not a success? Does it not sound cool enough? You can't name drop me. You can't make yourself seem cooler cuz you're BFF with me.

And then there's the book scene. I'm sure whatever I write will never make it to the NYT book review. I'm pretty sure my poems aren't getting published in The New Yorker anytime soon. I didn't go to an Ivy League school and I don't plan on teaching at one either. I barely went to college. I barely went to high school!

I knew when I was 16 as I do now, that the hierarchy of what we were all dealing with back then would follow us around forever. In the office, at the meeting, in the scene. It's The Breakfast Club wherever you go. What I didn't realize was how cool it would be to be uncool. Nirvana had to come along in the 90s and ruin that for everyone.

I know rationally that I am what I am, etc. But still I'm not immune for wanting to be a cool, awesome, successful, paid person. Just "wanting" that doesn't really mean anything though. I can take action, and even if I do it's still not a guarantee.

I know logically not to measure my worth by who wants to be my friend or how big my apartment is or whether or not I'm the toast of the town, but I'd be lying if I said that my work doesn't get caught up in this kind of spiderweb of thoughts.

It is a spiderweb exactly. It's fucking sticky and enticing and I'm pretty sure that if I don't get myself out of it, I'll be eaten alive.