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i’m working on this, what’s amounting to hopefully my first short that i’m gonna shoot, and i’ve definitely learned that i write only slightly better than i do math.

me and a couple of folks (fred, cary, and eduardo) are trying to figure out how to find a good corrective function, that fits a couple of constraints that are a huge-mongous pain. why is it so hard to make things just look right?

and why can’t it all be solved just by playing video games? or wandering reddit?

http://www.space.com/images/bestgalactic_sombrero_02.jpg

sorta makes it tough to get too pissed about anything, no?

I shifted into third gear and turned the wheel. The road flowed underneath the TT smoothly, not even a chirp. The wind blew, not hard, just a dull background of white noise underneath the smooth vocal stylings of Kenny G. She sat in the passenger seat, staring hard at the CD player, mentally willing it to change to something less evil.

“I can change it, you know,” I told her, “it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Yeah? Could you?”

“Sure,” I said, reaching for the button that would end one source of madness and bring forth another. My cell phone rang, interrupting progress. I reached down, looked at the dimly lit screen announcing who was patiently waiting for me to pick up the phone, and hit the red button to cancel the call.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Oh, nobody. Just my agent.” I replied.

She turned a little in her seat. “Agent? For what?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m acting now. Well, not yet, not really ‘acting’ right now. But when I get a gig, I’ll be acting then.”

“So that’s what the agent’s for?”

“Yeah. I heard that’s the thing to do when you want to act. You get an agent.”

“But… can you actually act?”

I squinted my eyes at her in my best imitation of Clint Eastwood. She had to be kidding. “Of course I can act. If I couldn’t act, I wouldn’t have an agent, now would I?”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”  She looked back out the window.
I downshifted again to take a turn, then brought it back up to 4th gear on a nice straightaway.

“I’ll make a damned good actor, you know,” I told her.

“I’ll bet you will. Just now you sounded just like that actor… what’s his name, from Planet of The Apes…”

“Charlton Heston?” I supplied.

“Yeah, that guy. The NRA guy. Do you like guns too?” she asked.

“Not as much as he does.” There was something I was forgetting. Something I had to do.

“Well, then you probably won’t be as good an actor as him. All good actors have a cause. Do you have a cause?”

“Not yet. I figure my agent will give me a cause. Or I’ll find one along the way. Like Tom Cruise.” What the hell was it? I was right about to do something, and it seemed important.

“Can you do that line he does?”

“Who?”

“Charlton Heston… in Planet of the Apes.”

“Which one?”

“The one about the ‘damned dirty apes.’ Can you do that one?”

“Uhm, I suppose I could, if that’s the kind of role I wanted to play.” She was taunting me. I could tell. She had that little half-smile on her face, like at any given moment she was going to bust out and laugh.

“This is serious business, you know,” I told her, “I’m really doing this.”

“No you’re not,” she said.

I remembered what I was about to do, and reached forward again to change the CD. I pushed the button and swapped the CD for the next one in line. Dangermouse started flowing from the speakers.

“You’re right, I’m not.”  I hate it when she’s right.

Yes, and then I sat down at the table, looked around, eyeballed the salt, and instead chose to pick up the napkin.  I proceeded to fold it in that fancy way that restaurants love to do, making a little pyramid, or a teepee, a home where my little indian friend could live.  I placed it on my plate carefully, and looked across the table at my girlfriend, who stared at me with curiosity.

“What are you doing, exactly, there, Michael?” she asked.

“I’m not exactly sure, but right now it looks like I’m making a little home for a very small Native American.  Or an Egyptian.  Not sure yet.” I replied.

“Well, you let me know when you find out for sure, okay?  We’ll put a tiny ‘for rent’ sign next to it and post it in all the newspapers.”

Sarcasm is a wonderful thing – it makes me smile.  So I smiled at her.  And considered muttering something about “jack’s sick sense of…” but thought better of it.  Instead, I just smiled.  And kept on smiling.  Until I got bored of smiling, and returned to my architectural masterpiece, the lost, last pyramid of Koperwasia.  I thought about what the advert would say: “Efficiency, kitchenette, great view of the bay. Must like campfires, bows and arrows, and feathers.”  Maybe not.  I straightened out the napkin and returned it to my lap.

“So do you want to take a walk?” I asked her.

“Yeah, but we have to pay our bill first.”

“Screw it.  They’re commies anyway.  And they don’t know how to make a latte.” I said, getting up from my chair and grabbing her hand.

We ran.