I need to blog, but frankly, all I want to do is sleep.

And it makes sense that I do, because I do not get enough sleep during the week. I often only get 5 hours of sleep at best overnight. And I know it’s a problem, and on some level I tell myself that I will catch up over the weekend, but that never seems to happen.

Lately, that’s been because on Saturdays, I catch up on my movie writing. That won’t be a problem for a while, though, because I have finished the first draft of my screenplay (yay me) and so, if I am lucky, I will be able to have a couple of weekends where I don’t have to spend most of it writing.

Also luckily, this term they are going easy on the homework. TV History class has had none so far, and the homework for Pitch 2 and The Second Act is pretty light. Script Genre : Comedy just requires the usual “read the screenplay and then write me something that proves you read it” type thing. That leaves TV Script and Feature Script, and Feature Script I have in the can right now.

So the next big thing will be to finish my Bob’s Burgers script, which should not take long. Especially not after writing seventy three pages of movie script. After that, coming up with the final 13 or so pages (AKA the other half of the episode) of my Bob’s Burgers script will seem like child’s play.

And I still have more than a week to do it. How utterly laughable.

So I am on track academically, as far as I know. Which is nice. Hopefully I will be able to keep the dumb mistakes to a minimum.

Last night was one intense night of writing, because not only did I finish the damned thing, the last part is SUPER intense, with my poor Babs having to fend off a raving lunatic until her Dad can show up to kick the bad guy’s ass and save the day. So it was both intellectually challenging and emotionally draining. When I finally finished, I was both exultant and incoherent. It’s a heady mix.

Like I said before, I have enjoyed writing a movie. It was a good challenge and the sort of thing that can absorb me and fascinate me so that the whole process is quite pleasant, even if it is a lot of work. Work and fun are not as exclusive as some (very immature) people might think.

And it’s made me rethink my positions on screenwriting versus TV writing. Don’t get me wrong, I am still aiming directly at being a TV writer. But it’s made me realize that the actual writing involved is actually only a small part of that. I could write movies or television and be more or less just as happy with it, from the point of view of my own enjoyment.

But I don’t actually want to make movies. I want to make TV. Also, I want to have a job, rather than be yet another schmuck with a screenplay to flog desperately trying to get it read by the right people in hopes it might, someday, get read by other people who will hand it to other people who will have it read for them so all they have to do is read that person’s summary of… you get the idea.

TV writers don’t have to put up with that bullshit. They get hired by shows or networks, and get a salary and perks and such. That is what I am looking for. Sure, they have to deal with bullshit “notes” from people desperately trying to justify their position in the food chain, and there’s a lot of pressure and a high degree of output is required, but none of that bothers me as long as I get a paycheck that pays the bills with enough left over for some fun when I have the time.

I have no problem with pressure, I enjoy a challenge. And high output doesn’t bother me either seeing as I have spent all these years building strength and endurance in my writing muscles. I could probably write a half hour episode, from outline to final draft, all by myself every week and it wouldn’t bother me much.

If it was an hour long ensemble drama, I might need help.

So I am not about to turn screenwriter any time soon. But I will definitely ponder doing the minimum to shop my finished screenplay around. I mean, what the hell, I wrote the damned thing, the least I can do is give it some sort of shot at getting made.

Who knows, maybe I would end up getting drawn into the sordid world of film making against my will.

Oh, you want to pay me a million dollars for my script? Um, okay. What’s my next project? Give me a minute.

Next term I am going to have to write a pilot for an original series. The hard part will be coming up with the basic premise and characters of the show. actually writing the thing will be fun. But figuring out what kind of show I want to do and what show I want to do in that genre is going to be tough.

Odds are that I will end up creating a sitcom. Something with likable characters who have distinct roles both as characters and as vehicles for certain sorts of jokes, with an open-ended premise that allows for a lot of one-short characters and short character bits, like with Cheers or Night Court.

But there’s so many possible premises and core locations and such to choose from. It will take me a while to find the right one, the one I can work with, the one I want to stick with.

I know I want it to have a premise, but a minimal one. Something that establishes some parameters but that doesn’t force the show to repeat itself.

Anyhow, that’s my words and I gun’ go sleepnow.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

So, yesterday was the big day : I went to a gay bath house for the first time. And I wish I could tell you this blog entry is totally NSFW because I am about to regale you with tales of erotic adventure in the land of cock, but I can’t, for reasons which will become clear.

So while I will warn that there is some NSFW content in this blog entry, flog fuel it ain’t.

Caveats disposed of, my adventure awaits. It started when class ended at noon yesterday. I packed up my stuff, did my best to fill my soul with the spirit of adventure, laid a total smackdown on my social anxiety in a brief but decisive matchup, and set off to walk around the block.

This, I did. I guess this is how you get me to finally explore my surroundings a little : put the prospect of an all you can eat cock buffet in front of me. So I walked around the block. Because my school is at 198 West Hastings and Steamworks is at 123 Pender, and Pender is only one block from West Hastings, I could deduce that I would not even have to cross Pender to get there.

Idea for a story : Pender’s Game.

It did involve a bit of an uphill climb. Having lived so long in Richmond, which is flat as the surface of a still pond, gradient still surprises me when I encounter it. And it’s especially weird in downtown Vancouver because, unlike my beloved home town of Summerside, Prince Edward Island, the gradient in downtown Vancouver can vary any which way you travel.

In Summerside, it’s far from flat, but the gradient is exactly the same wherever you go. It’s like the town^[1] is built on a ramp. So the gradient is easy to ignore because it’s constant.

I arrive at the place, and as I suspected, it was very… discreet. Just a couple of small discreet signs that say Steamworks Bath House on them, and some very cool big wooden doors with brass handles. No doubt this is a leftover from the days when police routinely raided anywhere gay men to get together to fuck, and makes for better relations with the neighbors.

First surprise : signing up is not necessary. You can go in as a “drop-in”. It costs seven bucks more, but five of that is a refundable key deposit, so whatever. I intend to sing up eventually, and some time soon, because they have a “back to school” deal where students get a free ninety day membership.

Gonna wanna hop on THAT train.

So I got myself a “Standard” room. There’s a cheaper “basic” room but it has even fewer amenities and so I figured, WTF. Might as well spend the extra 3 bucks. I got my key and a remote control for the TV in my little room (16 channels of almost-identical gay porn, yay), and went down to find my room, room 206.

It ain’t much. The “bed” is more properly described as “a gym mat with a pillow and sheet on it”. The TV is small by today’s standards. If I ever got stuck downtown and needed a place to stay for the night, it would do, and you can’t beat the price. But luxurious it ain’t.

In fact, the whole place was a lot more rough-hewn than I would have preferred. Guess if I want something that matches my fantasies, I will have to get rich enough to be able to go to like, the super secret gay bath houses only rich people are even told about.

Anyhow, found my room, ate the lunch I bought at Subway, got undressed, then went on my first sortie. A reconnoiter, if you will. I discovered that the place was cleverly designed so that all the perfectly normal stuff like the gym equipment, dry sauna, steam room, lockers, and jacuzzi, are on the ground floor. So you can totally use the facility as a totally normal spa/gym without being exposed to any of that gay queer homo stuff at all.

That’s because the fun stuff is downstairs.

Not that this was immediately clear, because the lighting downstairs is quite subdued. Eventually your eyes adjust, and you can see stuff, but when I first went down there just finding my way to my room was tough. I wandered around the downstairs maze three times before I realized that the glory holes et al were located down what at first had looked to me like nothing more than dark recesses in the walls in the area where the rooms are located.

Once I figured this out, I slipped down into one of these areas, only to find myself nearly completely blind. It’s even darker in there, and the first time through I was too freaked out by that to slow down and give my eyes more time to adjust. So I was really in the dark.

Luckily, by the time I tried again, I was calmed down enough to let my eyes adjust and then I could see everything well enough. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to read the newspaper, but I could see what was around me, more or less.

And they do have glory holes, or should I say glory slots, which is not, sadly, a casino game where you can win gay sex but a slot in the wall you can stick your dick through in hopes that someone on the other side will feel like sucking it. Or wait on the other side in hopes of having a cock to suck. Having it be a vertical slot makes sense because that way, it can accommodate cocks and suckers of a wide of heights.

There is also something called a “slurp ramp”, which is the same thing but with the “cock” side elevated, causing the cocks to be at something more like face level on the “sucker” side. This is great news for me, because due to my knee injury I am incapable of kneeling. I can stand and I can sit, but kneeling is simply out of the question.

Ideally, the slot would have a little cushioned shelf like a window seat so I could sit n’ suck, but I guess I’m just a dreamer.

Anyhow, there was no action to be had there. Why? Because people look and see that there’s nobody there, so they walk on, guaranteeing that when the next person looks, there will still be nobody there, and so forth ad infinitum. I can only assume that when a certain critical mass is achieved, the party gets started. But I was there in the afternoon and I am guessing that is not the most busy time for the joint.

When I wasn’t walking around exploring, I was sitting in my room with my door open, hoping someone would join me. That’s how these places work. You leave the door of your room open and that signals your desire for company, so to speak. But no luck there either.

So I can’t regale you with tales of my erotic adventures because I had none. I was too depressed to even masturbate. So while I explored the facility, I didn’t exactly explore my sexuality. And neither did anyone else, for that matter.

Oh well, better luck next time. Next time I go, it will be night, and hopefully full of dudes, and I will have a better chance of finding me some action. And if not, the next time I will have to finally risk rejection by trying to take someone up on their open-door offer. I passed a lot of open doors on Friday but I was far too timid to try.

I wish I knew what the protocol was for that kind of thing, though. Do I stick my head in and ask if I can come and play? Or do I just slip in and hope for the best?

Oh well. So endeth my sad tale of a depressing lack of cock.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.