Shhhhh! Your Dating Life is OVER!

John Logan, writer of such Filmic Awesomeness as GLADIATOR, RANGO, and THE AVIATOR, said in a lecture a year ago that "the great and necessary gene for a writer is silence; and love of silence; and respect for silence."

I take this as holy writ: first, because John Logan is the man - not only for his chummyness with Mr. Tony and Mr. Oscar, but also because he's had seventeen scripts produced (which, in Hollywood, means the dude's got a big, shiny gold star permanently imbedded on his forehead) - and second, because I'm such a silence addict, myself.

It's always nice when someone declares your proclivities (which have heretofore been referred to as "neurotic") to be a necessary part of what it's gonna take for you to hit the astral body at which you happen to be aiming - namely, professional screen-writing. My brain is too small and too easily distracted for me to succeed without swaddling it with silence, and it's assuring to hear that this is okay. When I'm asked what kind of music I like, I no longer have to feel sheepish saying my favorite band is no band at all - that I enjoy meandering around, uninterrupted by sound, in the hallways of my mind

There is a problem with this, though... people. 

You may not be aware of this, but amongst the various critters of the animal kingdom, people are notorious for their noisiness. Whereas squirrels and chimpanzees and ligers prefer, for the most part, to surround themselves with silence, most people get a little bit of silence and they go nuts. They start to hum or - worse - whistle, and then it's just over. You can kiss that wisping, profound, irretrievable thought you were chasing goodbye.

So, for the next year, I plan to avoid people. I have received the Divine Gift of being canned from my place of employment on the Socratic charge of "corrupting the youth"(ish), and I'll be jiggered if I'm gonna waste this gift having my thoughts interrupted by people. Especially not (shudder) female people. Nope, I'm going to cloister myself in my little office, in my little ivy-encrusted, cinder-block shed in the woods, and I'm going to write, write, write. I am, I am. For serious.

At least, that's what I keep telling myself. I even said that yesterday, when I went back and re-activated my profile on this flippetty-flip-flip dating website I used to frequent.

Oh, the humanity!!!