Went to Norma's yesterday for okra, greens, slaw, and chicken fried steak. I realize from a detached standpoint that chicken fried steak is ground up, flavorless, stringy meat, stuck back together, deep fried, and covered with a gravy that is little more than flour dissolved in water -- but I am culturally unable to view this as anything but the highest and most elegant luxury. Ciro tactfully restrained from criticizing this viewpoint, although he was dismayed by my subsequent purchase of several cut-price Cadbury eggs -- which is irrelevant as they are not for him; I am hoarding them in a highly secure unsisclosed location.
We spent the evening at Tasnim's, talking politics and watching Moon for the nth time. (We are quite fond.) While slicing tomatoes for the salad, I cut my left index finger in the same place I always cut my left index finger. I'm good with knives, but I am somehow body dysmorphic and believe my left index finger is a millimeter slimmer than it is, which it soon will be if I continue to shave bits of it off.*
Today, Dallas has one of the highest pollen counts in the country -- one of the highest pollen counts charted -- and so I feel terrible: exhausted and sore-headed with a half-closed throat. I saw an Alaska license plate on the way in to work, which is not something I've previously seen driving a Texas road.
I'm about ten pages into my current feature script, Hayseeds and Scalawags, which I tend to describe as a modern romantic comedy version of the country mouse and the city mouse, and which Ciro favorably described to a friend as "Blue if it was funny instead of sad," insisting that I must never be trusted when I say romantic comedy. I think it's funny anyway. Also, it's possible Ciro was talking about my other ongoing script, also a romantic comedy, Unidentified Objects -- which I have pushed back because I loathe the idea of shooting anything in Dallas in the summer, particularly this close on the heels of the Erykah Badu hooplah.
I'm skeptical of both the play-acted "think of the children" faux outrage and her claimed motivations; the intellectual point she claims to be making is fascile. (Really, Erykah Badu? This is a statement about liberating yourself from groupthink? Because there's so much consensus surrounding the Kennedy assassination? Like hell.) It's bad art. However, the city is overreacting and it makes for a hostile filming environment. I'd rather shoot elsewhere, which moves the script down a few slots on my development schedule.
*graphic depiction aside, this dramatic wound is the equivalent of a paper cut.
Incidentally, this Monday is national grilled cheese sandwich day. I don't know whether I can handle the wait.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
