April 23, 2002
3:03pm Tuesday

I'M AFRAID OF AMERICANS

I'm fascinated by fear, and I suspect the majority of other people are too given there's a hit television show revolving around it. Although then in theory you could say the majority of people are fascinated by children's puppet-show bunnies too. But really, watching something like Fear Factor makes it so totally obvious that the only thing holding us back from accomplishing whatever we want is our little tiny scaredy-cat cranium. Can you eat pig butt? Yes! Are you afraid of eating pig butt? Yes! So will you do it? No! (My god, some of the things they have to eat are super duper seriously sick.) But I'm going to swing this all around to writing now, because it's where the seat of my fear lies and I've got some odd little pecadillos. And I wish I had a forum because I'd love to know what you all are afraid of in the deepest recesses of your bones. Everybody's gotta have something. Except that one dude who was like, "Yummmm! Pig butt!"

I'm shy, right, and it sucks to be a shy screenwriter, because you're good at the writing part but you're not so good at the pitching and the working the room and the getting them to leave planet earth and climb into your story because you'd really rather be curled up sucking your thumb in the corner. No, I would not like something to drink, I would like a blanket to go with my thumb. Okay, it's not that bad for me, but until I know you I'd rather sit and listen to you and not say a word, but then we'll have drinks and a few hours later I'll be sufficiently loose and then we'll be pals. Not loose that way. But I can't have drinks before meetings! Maybe a little vodka, it doesn't smell. But it's a problem, because the kids in the business who really make it are the ones who go after it balls-out. They go to parties, they schmooze, they aren't afraid of being dorks, they work the room. I'm afraid of working the room. Maybe I need a partner to go with me, someone who's more Liberace than Michael Jackson, more Robin Williams than Thoreau. Someone, i.e., who loves to be the focus of the group.

I didn't get to the bottom of anything. Wait, I know what it is. I fear being the center of attention ­ I'm the opposite of an actor. But why why why?

You want to know what scares the crap out of me? Having a baby and not knowing you were pregnant. It happens to people! It's true! I personally don't see how it's possible if you're an average-sized woman and the baby gots no place to hide, know what I'm saying, but just how fucked-up wrong would it be to poop out a papoose and never know you'd been knocked up? I can't stand it. It makes me do sit-ups.

Here's something: how would you live your life differently if you knew you wouldn't die? If you could do anything you wanted for eighty years with the guarantee you wouldn't croak, how would you live?