Tag: writing

The Time I was Stung by the Most Venomous Scorpion in North America

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And no, I’m not talking about the Scorpio who broke my heart in the 10th grade, but yeah, that freaking stung too, thanks.

The Arizona Bark Scorpion. Well, well, well… if it isn’t the little Satan bug itself.

First off, I have a really lovely house. I generally enjoy living in the sweltering desert of the East Valley. But what I don’t enjoy is being POISONED by arachnids in the comfort of my own home.

Our house was built on top of an old orange grove, which sure, it’s nice having a fruit tree in my back yard. But that also came with a neighborhood infestation of scorpions. And like, you can spray your yard all you want but those suckers crawl up the cinder-block walls. And if you have a neighbor behind you that cannot even be bothered to pick up his dog’s poop for months on end, you can rest assured that a handful of scorpions will find their way onto your property at night.

But no big deal, we bought a black light and we do a nightly patrol. And it’s been all cool, man.

And this one RANDOM afternoon.

My oldest had just got home from school and we were in the basement watching TV when suddenly my poor, worse-luck four-year-old SCREAMS and grabs his toe. So, as the kind-hearted and understanding mother that I am, I’m thinking, ‘Kid stubbed his toe and he’s being way over-dramatic about it’.

I try to assess the situation and calm him down. And right as I kneel down to get a better look at his foot. I feel this sharp prick on the side of my inner leg, just above my knee. So, I jolted away and looked at the carpet, legitimately thinking that I had just knelt on a pin. And then I saw that sucker… and when I tell you… the absolute GOOSEBUMPS that you get when you watch a spider scurrying away is NOTHING compared to the sight of a freaking Arizona Bark Scorpion slithering itself underneath your couch.

My scream was blood curdling. I yelled some curse words in front of the kids. I stood in the middle of the room on one leg, saying, “What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?”

“Call Dad!” my oldest yelled.

Dad! Right! An adult! An actual adult, not a pretend adult like I am. I called Daniel to report that half his family had just been stung by a venomous creature which was still alive and inside the actual house. I’m sure he loved getting that phone call lol.

Well, he didn’t know what to do either. WE’RE NOT FROM HERE, OKAY! WE DIDN’T GROW UP BLACK LIGHT HUNTING AMONGST THE CACTI! WE WERE NOT PREPARED FOR THIS EVENT! He told me to take our son to Urgent Care. And I agreed because children under six are more at risk for scorpion sting complications. SO AT LEAST WE KNEW THAT.

FUN FACT / PSA: If you or your loved one are stung by an Arizona Bark Scorpion, you can just call poison control. You do not have to spend hundreds of dollars suffering at an urgent care clinic. A tip that we did NOT get until we were already inside the patient room with the doctor. (Gee, thanks a lot)

FUN FACT / PSA: Probably don’t drive if a scorpion has just stung you on your leg. Because the venom will spread and spasm your muscles. And it will hurt like a b*tch. And you’ll be punching your steering wheel and crying the entire drive because you didn’t know life could be like this.

Yeah, I don’t know why but by the time we got to the clinic my four-year-old? Totally fine. Like nothing happened. Like as if he wasn’t just injected with a neurotoxin. (Thus the magic of children anytime you take them to a doctor’s appointment of any kind.) I, on the other hand, am trying to fill out patient paperwork while doing the freaking stanky leg at the check-in counter.

Daniel met us at the urgent care so that we could both get the news that no one was dying, it just sucked was all. But we still had a major problem. I SAW THAT YUCKY BUG CRAWL UNDER THE COUCH. THAT THING WAS STILL INSIDE OUR HOME.

Rather than listing our house for sell immediately, Daniel suggested we wait for nightfall and then find it via blacklight. So, we went out to eat at Red Robin lmao. That was both a genius and stupid decision, because after sitting for two hours the venom actually pooled behind my knee so walking to the van after dinner was like walking with an icy-hot bear trap clamped around my leg. But hay, this girl got her bottomless steak fries so, like, was it really that bad of a day though? #notasponsor

It was dark when we got home, so Dan was able to find it with the black light and kill it. On the floor of our basement. Why? How did it get there? I would also like to point out that this isn’t even the first time in my life I’ve been stung like this. When I was nine, I knelt down to color a picture and a WASP stung me on the knee. INSIDE on the CARPET. Buddies, WTF are you guys doing there? I refuse to kneel down now. I’m just going to squat every time.

I will say though, I am actually thankful that I knelt on it, because otherwise I wouldn’t have known it was in the house or why my kid was crying. The clout is also sorta cool, not gonna lie. Saw the Arizona Bark Scorpion episode of the Kings of Pain and laughed so hard thinking of how calm my preschooler was compared to these guys. I’ll post it below so you can feel like you watched a little reenactment.

I Was One of 100 Screenwriters Working on a Single Film

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Literally, just a post of me trying to explain what exactly this is because everyone keeps asking lol.

One unassuming afternoon I got a message from my sister-in-law. “You should totally do this!” and a link to something called the 100 pages movie. Four producers were looking to recruit 100 screenwriters to each write one single page of a full-length movie. I thought that sounded like a really unique and fun idea, and serendipitously it happened to be “Sendtember”. The ONE month where I actually take chances and put my work out into the world. I felt like that was a cue from the universe to give it a shot, so I applied.

I got a follow-up email in the middle of the night that they were interested in my application and wanted to schedule a Zoom meeting to ask me a few more questions. After a bunch of technical difficulties with Zoom (of freaking course) we FINALLY were able to meet and it turned out that they only had one question for me:

“Would you like to be one of the writers for The 100 Pages Movie?”

And I was like, “Yes, I woooooullllld! YEEEEEEssssssss!” That’s exactly how I said it. Here’s video proof:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx_CTetuwJU

Being accepted also meant that I was required to meet them in Nashville so that I could take part in the behind-the-scene docuseries, sign paperwork, meet the other writers, and receive whatever page number I would be working on. So that was a bit hectic, trying to organize a last minute business trip. But also SUPER COOL.

I’ve only ever been to online writing conventions, so being surrounded by a hundred other passionate creatives felt FREAKING INVIGORATING. Sharing all our projects with each other, dropping writerly lingo like “scrivener” and “NaNoWriMo” and “Save the Cat”. We were all so hyped and energetic, (even though most of us admitted that this was too much excitement for us little introverted artists and we were going to pass TF out after the event haha)

The producers had gathered a really diverse team of writers. Some of the writers were professional daytime-authors and some of the writers had very little to no experience with writing. Some of the writers were local, some of the writers were from other countries. The oldest writer was in her late eighties and the youngest writer was 14 years old. But every one I met at the event was just… UNBELIEVABLY nice. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a nicer crowd than the screenwriters working on this project.

“SO HOLD ON. WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS PROJECT? I’M CONFUSED.”

Okay. Here’s how it works.

Every single day a new writer adds a page to the script. No one knows where the story is going, it just develops one page at a time. Each of us have an assigned page number. (I’m 85 BTW, which turned out to be a freaking nightmare. But I’ll save that for another post.) You have one day to finish your page and then you hand it to the next writer. Everyone has access to the entire script UNTIL you’ve completed your page and then you are left in the dark, baby. You do not know how the movie develops after that.

So for example, I wrote page 85. So I read the script every single day (what writers 1-84 decided to add to the movie) and then on day 85, I continued the story from where they left off. 15 writers after me finished the movie.

Does that make any sense? Maybe Marcus Johns explains it better than I do:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzcMzd_vys4

In short (lol), it was a really cool project. I def have a TON more to say about the process and the actual day I wrote. But because most of this project is a secret while they film and promote the movie, I’m going to save those details for another post. Mainly, until I can get a green light from the producers to be able to discuss what the script is actually about.

Overall, what I can say is that I feel really blessed to have been a part of this unique project. I so SO wish I could astral project 10 years ago and visit myself when I was depressed and unfulfilled working AR at a printer company. I would whisper in my ear, “Hey, you know your favorite vine about the guy who thinks his friend’s shower is like ‘a dang spaceship up in here’? … That guy hires you to write a movie for him.”

My Most Unpopular Opinion: I Neither Hated Nor Loved Barbie

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It was just a’ight.

DISCLAIMER #1: Because this movie is so “cOntRoVErsiAL”, I want to clarify right off the bat that this is not a political commentary on this film in any way. Any critiques that I may or may not share is based solely on the storytelling that was presented.

DISCLAIMER #2: I’m going to be sharing spoilers. So if you haven’t seen the movie and are wanting to see the movie, you have now been adequately warned.

Positives first. I had a lot of fun watching this film. A lot of the jokes hit me just right and it was nice seeing something so original. Initially, I felt that the storyline with the Kens oppression in Barbieland was such a smart and funny commentary on the toy line. I distinctly remember playing ‘Stupid Ken’ with my sister, where Barbie would repeatedly reject his proposals. So for the most part it accurately portrayed my experiences growing up and playing with Barbies. Acting was great, sets were perfect, Margot Robbie’s wigs were immaculate.

So, this is why I only liked it and not loved it.

Barbie has two storylines. Storyline A is that Barbie suddenly develops an existential crisis and travels to the ‘real world’ to find out who has been playing with her. Storyline B is that Ken’s identity revolves around Barbie until he discovers that men rule the ‘real world’. In my opinion, both of these storylines are good. My biggest problem is that after the midpoint, Storyline B becomes Storyline A and then Storyline A just pilfers out of existence. Everything that is set up in the first half of the movie is magically solved for no reason. “And now Gloria’s daughter is totally fine with Barbie and has a relationship with her mother again.” “And now the Mattel executives pose no real threat to anyone.” “And now no one has an existential crisis anymore.”

What happened to Storyline A??? It was so strong but then there was hardly any follow through. In my personal opinion, Storyline A was the stronger of the two. Barbie was the PERFECT medium for that story! A perfect doll with everything she could ever want decides to become ‘real’ because the ups and downs of life are more fulfilling. I thought that was an insanely beautiful message. The scene where she sits on the bench and examines all the imperfections and nuances of the real world made me cry! (Don’t lie. You cried when she saw an elderly lady for the first time and said that she was beautiful. Admit it.)

But then Greta filed it away. It was like she never-minded the whole storyline. I mean, yeah, “I’m Just a Ken” was fun, but not fun enough to completely derail the story. Patriarchy already takes over everything in my womanly life, why does it have to have my fun Barbie movie too? And speaking of the word ‘patriarchy’ lol. Like I get that was supposed to be the humor of the film and I laughed the first time it was said (“Barbie, why didn’t you tell me about patriarchy?”). But if you drank every time they said the word ‘patriarchy’ after that you would be in the hospital getting your stomach pumped. Everything was SO on the nose like that. When America Ferrara went into her speech I felt like I was reading a Twitter thread or something. It wasn’t any new information for me. Girl, I know the expectations for women are impossible, please tell me how to accept my fear of death and cellulite.

And honestly, despite the thematic pounding I still enjoyed that storyline. I’m not trying to take away Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House, I just wanted it to remain B storyline, you know? Like y’all got me invested in this mother-daughter, existential crisis, flat foot, several executives riding a pink bike into Barbieland thing. In the end when they literally said, “But what about Barbie?” I was like YEAH HELLO??

So… okay… I know that script doctoring a Best Original Screenplay nomination is a ridiculously bold claim for someone who writes John Lennon fanfics… … But this is how I would have written the ending lol.

I think Sasha should have either refused to go with them or run away from Barbieland. Then Gloria would have made the decision to chase after her into the real world. Later in the film, Sasha would find her mother crying next to Barbie’s dream house in her room and holding the Mojo Dojo Casa Ken from Mattel. Sasha feels temporarily sorry for Gloria, remembering that her mother missed playing dolls with her she picks up Barbie and pretends to ask Ken why he is crying. Their conversation mirrors Barbie and Ken’s conversation in Barbieland happening at the same time. After the dual heart to heart scenes, Gloria and Ken realize that they have purpose outside of their relationship to Sasha and Barbie. They make the decision to become their own people and follow their own dreams. During the conversation, Barbie and Sasha apologize and vow to be kinder to those around them. Both Barbie and Sasha have a deep realization that they want to be real. For Sasha, putting away her meanest-girl-in-school facade to become a genuine version of herself. And for Barbie, literally real.

Then cut back to the original script where Ruth Handler’s ghost arrives for Barbie and Billie Eilish sing-whispers us out with the most beautiful song of the year.

I mean I don’t know. I guess it’s sort of nitpicky of me. Overall, I enjoyed the film just fine. Using my mom’s movie rating I would give it a C+ or a B-, which means if I were at a party and someone wanted to watch it I definitely would.

It was a’ight. Still recommend.