Playwrights vs. prose people - I'll tell you who wins

Once upon a time I felt like a crazy person wherever I went. What I really mean is whatever kind of writing workshop I took -- I always felt like the most effusive one, the most compulsively honest one, the most uncensored and the worst about attention seeking, but not on purpose really I swear.

Now I know there's not too much reason to feel this way around people who sit around writing plays.

Or even necessarily on the subway. This morning I entered a practically empty car (why? Because I overslept 3 - count 'em - hours. Uhhh... what can I say about it? It happened. I'm here now.) and this nice girl with a slightly grown out brown bob and sunglasses walked into the pole on her way to her seat and then SAID OUT LOUD something like "That was great." I didn't have to think this one over. I totally smiled back. (last night subway reaction required more thought and cringing when man began vomiting on floor/ sleeping/ vomiting on floor/ sleeping) Obviously we have this thing in common... we're starring a little bit in our show and we comment out loud when the stage/life directions get mussed, differ from the being-written-2-secs-in-advance draft. That's cool. Nice to smile at ya attribute sharer.

I don't think many of the other people in the Monday night prose writing class are like this though. And there's all kinds of people in the world. What i'm saying is, sometimes I look back on a night in a creative group and think "Doh!" I mean, I was just myself... I talked a lot, made a lot of eye contact, was extra friendly to the people who read stories, but still made all my needs improvement comments while they were silenced and listening like I'm Madame L'expert. I wan't FLIRTING with the teacher - I just agreed with him a lot. And my prose isn't ever in the head of a peaceful sensual person, so I'm sorry I didn't really connect with that ethereal nice girl whose story I maybe got too much pleasure from remarking my lost-ness with. I just don't want to tread all over quiet people, but I yearn for my creative outlets and I'm so excited when I get there.

I just hope everyone's having a good time. So you know, I'm not actually actively worrying about this --- I know I go through my day sometimes choosing people to judge and think a stray evil thought about now and then -- it's okay if more peaceful, quieter, unobtrusive people think one or five about me. But I just get a warm feeling inside when I see some other brunette stumble and apologize to her imaginary audience - or read a couple other plays people wrote about women-on-the-verge. You are not alone.

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