Tonight I decided that I didn't want to work as an executive assistant for a cg animation ceo in the Other City. $$$ when coupled with my other part-time job at the nonprofit downtown, but 12 hour workdays commuting from city to city? No, thanks, I'd rather have a harmonious creative/heart life.

Too bad. True, his company produced trite work and cg animation will certainly not revolutionize narrative art, but he was offering me the rare chance to co-write some screenplays. We also had these great interviews where I perceived, finally, tantalizingly, a little of my worth. . .

But you see, diary, I tend to hastily leap unto sinking ships. I prefer them to tugboats and cruise liners. I prefer them to ships that depart from port with the shattering of champage bottles, ships that arrive at ports attended by fanfare and bold newspaper headlines. . . . Maybe I am too attracted to the idea that I possess enough willpower and talent to rescue what is nowhere near the Island of Hope.

That's why I stayed at the attic for so long, dreaming that I could rehabilitate it into a happy well-lit safe place, a home, and that's how I ended up at the dumb magazine run by the former oil construction heiress who could sell snake oil to old crippled men, so cunning and slick-tongued was she.

I did not know, those few years ago, that sinking ships are often commandeered by captains who are willing to employ, in their starry-eyedness, any means deemed necessary along the journey to wherever they have projected their stars.

There are more sinking ships in my past, but not many. I may not remember easily, but I can learn real quick, especially when I've been knocked off my feet, eye-teeth gleaming like pearls in the sand.




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