Good People Love Dogs

This is how it is:
Good people love dogs.
Bad people kick dogs.
If a person seems bad until they love a dog, you’re dealing with a flawed character.
If a person seems good until they kick a dog, you’re dealing with a maniac.

I was watching As Good As It Gets this morning. I’ve seen it several times because it’s Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt and a good solid script. If you don’t like Nicholson we can’t discuss movies, if you don’t like Helen Hunt I understand your point but politely disagree, if you don’t like well written drama we can’t be friends. Sorry. Anyway, the things I just wrote are things I already knew, things that everybody knows intuitively; they’re so true that they’ve become cliché. It’s programmed into people, even ones who don’t like or own dogs, even ones who are deathly and irrationally afraid of dogs, I bet it’s even programmed into cosmetics scientists who do horrible experiments of dogs without blinking an eye. Those people’s hearts melt when Jack Nicholson tells that little rat dog that he’s perfect just the way he is.

Introductions

I know several people, at times I suspect that every one of them despises me, some of them I know despise me but I’m ok with it because I’m not particularly fond of them either. The people I expect to read this blog and my revered professors will be referred to by name, most others will be referred to by epithets (WARNING: epithets are subject to change at a moments notice (sometimes less)). I’m setting this down now so that I will be obligated to stick to it in the future when Svengali really starts attacking my work.

Anyway, let’s meet the leads:

Me: writer of this blog, dramatic writer, voice of judgment.
Gina: friend, fellow dramatic writer, directing Carpet of Leaves, voice of reason.
Aryana: the roommate, fellow dramatic writer, keeping cokehead hours without chemical influence, voice of dissent.
Amanda: former roommate, literature major, constant presence, voice of innocence.
Alison: former quasi roommate, literature major, often absent, voice of experience.
The Junior Dramatic Writers: the height of mixed-bagery (like The Village People I tell you), voice telling me to burn things.

Professors: voice from above.
Kathleen Tolan: renowned playwright, how can I miss you if you won’t go away?
Dean Bell: Beats? Classical story design? Coherent input? Advice from an advisor? Thank fucking god for Dean Bell.
Eric Mendelbaum: softens up a bit after a mental breakdown, but seriously Mendelbaum, what do you want?
J.D. Zeik: I agree with every criticism of him but I like him anyway.
Howard Enders: poor Howard.

Parents: voice from afar
Amy, my mom, my mother, Madres, Mumsy: well-liked despite a staggering bluntness, alive despite a staggering unawareness.
Eric, my dad, my father, Fadres, Mr. Sir, data monkey: like me but bald and inexplicably proud of me.

The thing in the vent: voice of the damned.

Why me? Why now?

I have decided to start a blog. My friend Aubrey inspired me. Aubrey, who those of you who are not Aubrey will not know, had the same internship that I did, has the same birthday as I do, is in the same major as I am (albeit more sneakily), and owns the same Shakespeare anthology as I are (the pervious word is abandonment of grammar and sense in favor of style). She is effectively me with pink polka dots. This is not to say that she has a skin condition that gives her pink polka dots it simply means that if you take me subtract everything that is antithetical to pink polka dots as an institution and add a comparable amount of essence of pink polka dots you would have an extremely puzzled Aubrey. She will be puzzled because to be alchemically created by a stranger out of a person you used to know is a fundamentally puzzling experience. If you reverse the experiment and create me out of Aubrey then (a typo was edited here) you will end up with a version of me that will be angry at you for destroying Aubrey.