hard to sleep last night from pain. went to the gym yesterday and rode the bike, reading phantom of the opera. all i can do are passive exercises for my arm, just swinging it in a circle and a cross. what makes it worse is i keep dreaming about basketball. and getting lost. dense cloud of depression on the edge of my peripheral that i've been ignoring. feel so far from home.

i forgot to write about this. when i was in la in december to get the house together, i went to the other room and was hounded by this guy whose energy i didn't like. i think the reason was because he had a very negative, bitter energy, and he told me he was working on a "bad high-concept screenplay because that's what audiences like, so that's what i write." this is the kind of thing that makes me hate talking to other screenwriters who haven't been produced yet. this concept of writing a bad screenplay because audiences are idiots. what it says is, "i don't have the confidence in myself to write a good screenplay."

i wasn't being very open to him, but i was being polite enough to have limited conversation when he would talk to me. at one point, he just stopped and stared. finally he said, "i'm going to say something that might sound really weird. there's something about your eyes. like, you're looking at me, but you don't look at me the way a person normally looks. i feel like you can see inside me, like you really know me, know things that nobody else knows. maybe things even i don't know myself. does that sound crazy?"

i just smiled and he said, "that's not the first time you've heard that, huh? people tell you that a lot?"

i smiled again. he looked at me like he was expecting more of a response. then he just said good night and left. i noticed he hung around behind me, watching me but i ignored him. i was relieved when he finally left.

i don't remember much about him. only that when he told me he was from out of town on business, i knew he was lying, and that he'd taken off his wedding band because when he was thinking about what to say to me, out of the corner of my eye, i noticed him absently stroking his ring finger.