"A long time ago, in the magical, far-off land of Soviet Russia"

I just found an unpublished blog post in my drafts bin. The sole line is now the title of this post.

It was July. 

I wonder what I was thinking then? I look at old posts, my no-love letters, where I refer passive-aggressively to people who have aggravated me. Some of them, I recall who incensed me. Some of them I don't. Some of them I took down tonight, because they were petty and mean and some bridges, once burnt, do not need to be left to smolder. (Or perhaps ought to be rebuilt?) 

Things are coming together, slowly but surely. The draft is working but I need to put in some serious work on it. Tomorrow, then. These characters come easily now (and why shouldn't they? I've lived with them inside my head for a year and a half). 

A year ago, I was on my way to the Young Playwrights Inc national conference. I go back to NYC on Saturday, and I'll be helping with the conference - but I'm not a "young playwright" anymore, and I need to make my own path. That's what this EJAF fellowship thing is, though. Learning how to put things together, how to make my own deadlines and force things to happen. 

I had a long conversation earlier about the difference between friendship and pity - I need to spend more time and energy on people whose friendship I truly value, and less time and energy on people who I hang out with because they have made themselves out to be so pathetic that no one else will pay them any mind. Perhaps it's a resolution. But then, so is no longer using question marks for anything other than actual questions. 

It is January of my twenty-first year, and I am growing up.

(Do we ever stop feeling like children, just a little bit, deep down in quiet spaces and the recesses of our hearts?) 

So I'm thinking of picking up a foreign language next semester...

What do you guys think? I could do a higher-level French class (Good to retain what I know, possibly the most useless language to take, though) or Spanish (useful as all get out, but I'd probably just mix it up with French), or Hebrew (good if I go to Israel next summer like I'm thinking about, and I already read it and speak a tiny bit), or Mandarin (probably the most "useful" next to Spanish, but I doubt I'd get much use out of it and it's supposed to be tricky to pick up) or Russian (Really, all I want to do with my life is learn how to read Cyrillic, because it looks awesome.) course sign ups for Speaking Freely don't go up until fall semester, so I've got a while to think on this, but I'd like some opinions. So! What language should Aliza learn next semester?

IT'S DONE.

Well, first draft, at any rate. Weighing in at 75 pages, two acts and twenty scenes, let it be known that Like a Dog in Space has made it to the point that I'll be going over it ferociously with a ballpoint pen tomorrow morning furiously revising every last detail.

Also,

Let it be known that I do, in fact, understand the difference between Korolyov and Star City. Korolyov is mission control and manufacturing, and Star City is training. One is a suburb of Moscow and a city in its own right, the other is a military base that's slowly been evolving into a town since the 1960s. However, Korolyov was called Kaliningrad in the 1960s, which is incidentally also the name of a different, more major city further west, and it shares its current name with Sergey Korolyov (though in the play I've chosen to go with the alternate spelling Sergei Korolev, since this is the spelling I've seen used by actual cosmonauts). So, even though most of the action of act one more properly takes place in Korolyov/Kaliningrad, I've consolidated it into Star City for the sake of clarity, and also because... come on, Star City is a totally boss name.

(Incidentally, there are no less than four towns called "Star City" in the United States, in Arkansas, Michigan, Indiana, and West Virginia.)

Anyway, the point of that was that I really did do the research, and then chose to ignore it and exercise a thing called "artistic license." I was discussing this with a friend earlier and we came to the conclusion that the battle between factual accuracy and artistic license is one of the big dilemmas that comes with dramatic writing as a field. You want to do enough research to respect your subject matter, but don't want to include too much information that you sacrifice clarity. If you don't do enough research and just make shit up, then your name is Dan Brown and the Catholic Church puts you on their blacklist.

That and this is subject matter I'm really, really passionate about and I'd hate to do it any less than what it deserves. My geekiness must be shared!

Alright. Big day of revisions tomorrow. I'm off to bed.

Astronautically yours,

Leez.

PS - Did anyone notice I rewrote my bio in the sidebar? c:

Swimmer's Itch

Once, my dad told me that you get itchy when you swim in the ocean because of little tiny baby jellyfish, and some of them can slip in through your pores and grow inside your bloodstream.

It terrified me for the longest time.