This Can't Be Broccoli

For me, the Superbowl is like a party that everybody’s going to, but me. It’s like Valentine’s Day when you’re single. It’s like the 4 th of July when it’s raining. You can appreciate it, and you don’t want to ruin it for other people, but a big part of you just wants it to be over. It’s not the people who like football that I mind.   It’s the people who know nothing about football, but watch the game just because it’s something to do. The nice thing is that the Superbowl airing means it won’t be long before my personal Superbowl airs— The Oscars.

Trying to get myself out of the house during winter goes as follows: -        Come home -        Sit on the couch -        Put on the television -        Zone out -        Tell myself I need to get ready -        Tell myself I don’t need that much time to get ready -        Text people to make sure they’re going out too -        Tell myself I could always just go out tomorrow instead -        Take off my socks -        Pull a blanket over myself -        Eat a snack -        Eat another snack -        Eat another snack -        Shower—whic...

I put off watching Game of Thrones because I was convinced that I was going to read the books, and I wanted to do that first before I started watching the series. Then I got about a third of the way through the first book, put it down, and never got back to it.   Now Game of Thrones is a pop culture phenomenon and I had to admit to myself that I was probably not going to get back to the first book, and that even if I did, I was going to have to watch the series before that anyway. Of course, by watching the show, it’s way more likely that—even knowing the books are always better—I’ll probably never read them. I used to be such an avid reader and now it’s taking a lot to get me back on the horse.   When you write, you feel like you should always be writing, and so things like reading fall by the wayside. But I can still squeeze in another hour of television. Do with that what you will.

I like to swear—a lot. But it’s always tricky having characters swear.   It’s definitely easier than it must have been years ago, because people are just more used to it, but it’s still tricky. The minute you put the “F” word in a play, you risk a certain alienation.   Often times I write the word, and then when I hear it out loud for the first time, I end up taking it out.   More than anything else you do onstage, you have to earn the right to swear.   Either by showing that it’s the absolute truth of your characters, or that the situation calls for nothing else. In life, you can swear just because you feel like it, but onstage it has to count.

Regarding the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress— I don’t think Patricia Arquette deserves to win. She was godawful for the first half of Boyhood —maybe even two thirds of it.   The only reason she was better by the end of it is because at that point she’d been playing the damn character for a decade. Meryl Streep deserves to win, but she won’t, because people are like “Ugh, we CAN’T give Meryl another Oscar.   We just can’t.” And I get that, but in that case, you should have nominated Tilda Swinton for Snowpiercer and that this whole problem would be solved, so I have no sympathy for you Academy. No sympathy at all.

Today I wanted to applaud a parent. She turned to her child, who had been talking non-stop for five solid minutes while her mother was filling out a library card for her and said— “Sophia, you’re being annoying.   Stop.” I could barely suppress my joy. Because, you see, I have never heard a parent call their child annoying and yet all I see all day are children being annoying. I get the sense that parents feel using the word “annoying” to describe children is the same as calling them “jerks” or “assholes.”   That it’s not appropriate.   Or, maybe it feels a little like bullying, to just come right out and say a kid is being annoying.   Or maybe they feel that kids are inherently annoying—that it’s just a part of growing up, and so why try to stop it? But as someone on the outside looking in, I long to hear a parent just tell their kid that talking in a baby voice or hopping up and down for no reason or climbing the walls is not okay. ...

The supermarket before a snowstorm is one of my favorite places to be. I’m not sure why, but it might have something to do with the sheer lack of logic involved. People load up their carts with enough food for weeks as if we’re not just about to experience a blizzard, but a zombie take-over.   The night before our last blizzard, I saw a man fill a cart with two turkeys, a ham, and eight bags of coffee.   That man is not food shopping, ladies and gentlemen, he’s playing a badass game of Supermarket Sweep . On Monday, we’re expecting another blizzard, and today, the markets were already a zoo.   I felt like saying—“We just had a snowstorm a week ago!   What did you people do with all that food?   You couldn’t possibly have eaten it all!   Nobody likes bread all that much!!!!” Forgive all the exclamation points, but I felt they were merited. Sometimes I wonder if bad weather forecasts are just the supermarket lobbyists driving up busin...

The surge in “Master” Classes worries me. When I think of a Master, I think of Pat Morita in The Karate Kid .   Anything less than that, and I’m tilting my head to the side a little wondering if you’re using the term correctly. Yes, there are masters in the world, but not nearly as many Master Classes as local colleges would have you believe. “Jackie Freedman, who was recently an extra on a movie that’s going straight to video, will be coming in next Tuesday to give a Master Class in scene study.” Now, Imaginary Jackie Freedman might be a great scene study teacher, but what exactly has she done to earn the title Master? And isn’t it putting a lot of pressure on IJF to then BE a Master? Can’t we just go back to calling these things classes or workshops?   Were they not selling well back when we did that?   Did we need to jazz it up by diluting the term “Master” to the point where everybody is now a Master. Somewhere I can hear Pat Morita we...