the slack daily

Job Creator

I think I might be a job creator, because I'm manufacturing a lot of assholes.

See this cat? This cat is an asshole. This is the stray/feral cat who likes to sleep in my yard. This cat is awesome, but this cat also knows that my dog wants to feast on ths cat's bones. This fact doesn't stop this cat. This cat finds a shady area under a thorny bush that backs up against the wooden fence so when I go outside and check to see if the yard to see if it's safe to let Daisy J. Dog outside, I can't see it right away. And this cat won't run away if I make noise from the porch. I have to go up to the bush and yell to get the cat to move. The cat is choosing to stay at a hotel where a giant monster may possibly eat it and the wake-up call is a unshowered sweaty woman yelling at her. This cat is an asshole.

See this dog? This is Daisy J Dog. This dog is an asshole. This dog is like a rogue cop: she plays by her own rules. This dog's Match.com ad would read "likes to crap in the house, wake up 14 times a night when you have to get up early, requires expensive medication to keep me healthy and fart under the covers." But this dog will never be on Match.com because she is our dog and we love her. Even though she's as asshole.

See this chick? This is me. I'm an asshole. There are many examples of me being an asshole, but this might be the most recent. This is a selfie I took of me drinking wine in bed in a fancy hotel room after running a 30 hour relay race, after I bombarded my social media stream for over 24 hours with 39849234 photos of my sweaty face. But I just had to take one more. Because I am an asshole.

 

 

6!6!6!

We've been married SIX YEARS MOFOS.

 

Will finally tells the entire story of the night before our wedding. (With my coda, here.)

Our entire marriage can be summed up in this exchange:

@betheboy LEAVE MY DESIRE TO HAVE SEX IN PUBLIC BATHROOMS OUT OF THIS.

— Nina Bargiel (@slackmistress) May 10, 2013

I Should Be Writing But I'm Not Writing But I Am Writing.

I'm working on a pilot.

I should clarify: I'm working on a spec pilot.

Working on a spec pilot means you have an idea for a TV show and you write a script of that idea and while you have an idea of where it could "fit" (you should ideally always have an idea of where it fits, even if it's sort of a well-it's-a-high-school-girls-MTV-but-could-be-ABCFamily-ized-or-oldified-to-Lifetime-but-maybe-it-could-also-live-online) but you don't have a buyer. You have an idea and a possible home but the chance of you actually ending up in that home is that sliver of light between slim and none.

Speccing a pilot is the most freeing (total! creative! control!) and a waste of time (no! one! will! buy! this!) but it gives executives and producers and idea of your "voice" and it gives you the opportunity to flex those writing muscles that easily atrophy when you're writing for other people's characters week after week. (Note: I love writing for other people's characters. Hire me!)

I'm not a Chuck Wendig. (Imagine Warren Ellis, but cuddly.) The dude is a fucking machine. (A writing machine, not actually, you know, a fucking machine--Jesus, this is what happens when I sit down to write something longer than a Tweet. Chuck, I blame you.)

Yes, that's mostly an excuse to not write. But the writing for me is the easy part. I hate it, but writing for me is simply turning off my brain and getting out of the way. No, the thing that takes the time is the jigsaw puzzle. How do these characters fit together? How does this story fit together? And how will this story continue, week after week?

Because even though the chance of your pilot being purchased/optioned by anyone is less likely than a unicorn crapping sparkles in your front yard, you still need to write something that lends itself to continuing. To characters that you want to spend week after week with. To situations that aren't contrived but still are familiar enough to circle of comfort zone of the everyday viewer.  If a Producer or Executive - who reads thousands of scripts in their lifetime wants to not only continue reading your script, but wants to know what happens next? That's what gets you the meeting, the job, the script option. (Which- having personally experienced - is awesome.)

For me, a pilot starts when I have two people having a conversation in my head. It's always two people. In the writing, it may branch out to more, but it's always two people taking about something dumb. I take those dumb conversations and make notes of them on my iPhone. In TextEdit. Snippets of dialogue grows like mold and out poops a situation.

There, buried under the poop, is are the nuggets of the story. Sometimes it's right on top so you don't have to dig too far and the pieces fit together perfectly. But sometimes you gotta dive in and get your hands dirty, and you try so hard to make all of those little shitnuggets fit that they disintegrate in your hands. Which means you were looking in the wrong pile of shit, so exhausted and filthy, you start over.

Now you get to take your characters, those assholes you started with, the ones who are taking up space in your brain where you're supposed to remember birthdays (thank you, Facebook) and Raising Arizona quotes ("This here's the TV. Two hours a day maximum, either educational or football, so as you don't ruin your appreciation of the finer things.") and you drop them in your story like a couple of Sea Monkeys, and it's up to you to make sure they survive.

Right now I'm digging through the shit. Hopefully there'll be something good in there.

We'll see.

#firstworlddogproblems

Things my dog won't eat if a pill is hidden inside:

• Pill pockets (all flavors)
• Salami
• Chicken
• Natural Balance roll, heated up then molded around the pill
• Cheese, slightly melted then molded around the pill
• Peanut butter

And as of this morning:

• Prosciutto

HA-ha!

2013 SoCal Ragnar Relay Recap.

Friday at 9:30am, I got into a van with seven other people all wearing matching shirts.

Shirts!

Van 2, ready to go.

33 hours later, after running 12-23 miles each without a shower or access to a proper bathroom, through no sleep and tired legs, after being chased by dogs (Will) and getting hit by a kid on a bike then having a panic attack (me), and with our first van dropping out of the race, six of us crossed the finish line, filthy, exhausted, and victorious.

I went in thinking it was probably going to be difficult, but not that difficult. I was only running 15 total miles. I've done two half-marathons this year, how hard could it be?

Before my first 5 miles.

 

After my first 5 miles.

I knew that much of the race would be hilly. I didn't realize how hilly.

What my first mile looked like.

After that first run, I started to realize what I had gotten myself into.

We go on the weirdest dates.

Because along with the hills and the all-night running, Ragnar isn't able to shut down the streets. It's not like a regular race where you cruise through blocked-off streets. You're waiting at stoplights and dodging cars and in Will's case, getting chased by a dog.

Will finishes his first leg.

With legs 6-12 out of the way, we handed off the baton to Van 1 and went to get some food and head to the next major exchange. It finally sunk in that this was going to be a grind, mentally and physically. I would go through pre-race jitters two more times, try to calm my nervous stomach in a porta-potty that had been anointed by thousands of runners before me (and baking in the hot sun for hours.)

 

You know you're running a 24-hour relay race when pooping at a place called "Tip Top Meats" feels like a luxury. #ragnarsocal #ragnar

— Nina Bargiel (@slackmistress) April 20, 2013

 

I would try to gauge hydration and nutrition and experience running through pitch blackness past abandoned fields and through freeway underpasses at 4:02 in the morning, trying not to let my brain get the best of me but still managing to outline a full Law & Order: SVU episode.

I decided to run as fast as I could through these sections, imagining that if a killer saw me they'd be so threatened by my physical prowess that they wouldn't bother. It made a lot more sense at pre-dawn and on no sleep.

After Van 2 finished our second legs of the race, Van 1 told us they were dropping out. We weren't sure if the Ragnar officials would let us continue, so while we waited to hear from race command, we all vowed to finish the race regardless. Even if we got a medal and a DNF, we'd finish the race we came to run.

Word came through minutes later: we weren't eligible to win the race (like that was ever a danger!) but we were cleared to carry on.

So we did.

Off and running my last 6.2 miles.

My last leg was my toughest leg of the race. Not only was it the longest distance, but there were multiple hills, including a final one that was going to be a bastard of a climb.

Ow.

 

As it turned out, the hill was the least of my worries.

I got through the first two miles and met up with my team who gave me a fresh bottle of water and cheered me on. I told them I'd be fine and I'd meet them at the exchange.

Mile two found a ton of traffic light and running past a drainage ditch, but after cutting through a parking lot, mile three was Fiesta Bay. It was a warm, sunny day and everyone was out, rollerblading and riding bikes. I navigated through the crowd and gave wide berth to a couple of 10-11 year old boys on bikes. I'd guess I was about 10-15 feet in front of them when I heard them laughing and yelling and then an exclamation and a skid and as I felt the rush of air on my left side I tried to get out of the way. He only grazed me, but I tweaked my back in the process.

I slowed down my pace, realizing I was at the halfway point and I still had about three miles to go.I thought that was going to be the worst part of my race.

Again, I was wrong.

Here's something you may not know about me: I do not like running over freeways, even if they have tall fences to prevent you from going over. I don't know why. I've never fallen off a freeway overpass. I don't know anyone who's fallen over a freeway overpass. But it freaks the crap out of me.

As I navigated the cars entering and exiting the freeway, I realized I was not only going to have to go over an overpass, bu there was no fence. The only thing that separated me from the 5 down below was about as tall as my hip.

I tried not to look, moving straight ahead, but I didn't feel like I was getting enough air. So I took a deep breath. And a deeper breath. And a deeper one. I was gulping air and it wasn't enough. I was starting to get fuzzy around the edges.

I crossed and then realized about twenty feet later, there was another one.

My throat hurt and now those fuzzy edges were going black. Tears sprung to my eyes but since I was salty and dehydrated, I was now blind. There was a part deep in my lizard brain that told me that if I didn't keep moving forward, the thing that I feared the most (falling over onto the freeway) was most definitely going to happen.

I crossed the freeway and saw that I was at the bottom of my final, two-mile hill. I used the last of my water to flush my eyes. My throat was raw from trying to suck down air. I wondered if I should text Will, but I knew if I told him what had happened he'd insist on coming out and getting me. You're not allowed to run with a pacer during the daytime hours.

I decided as long as I was upright, I was going to finish.

I closed my eyes, calmed my breathing, and remembered that final hill at the Tough Mudder. It was just one foot in front of the other, all the way up.

I opened my eyes and started up the hill.

Runners passed me, one by one, each with a "good job" and "you got this." Another team was out there waiting for their runner to pass and saw that I was clearly in distress. They asked if they could help and I just said I needed to finish and each one high-fived me and promised me I would. A guy in a Tough Mudder shirt carrying an American flag gave me a thumbs-up. (Later, when turning in the flag we were issued by Ragnar staff, Will ran into the guy. He recognized Will's shirt and said he had seen one of Will's teammates in distress but committed to finishing and was she okay? Will said that was his wife, and she finished. This is why I love racing.)

I got to the last exchange and told Will I just needed five minutes and a cold towel. Afterwards, I celebrated with my crew. My Ragnar was 95% done.

Bikes and panic attacks and hills, oh my!

Will brought us home with the last 5+ miles, and we ran toward the finish as a team.

DONE.

 

It wasn't the race that I thought I would run. My guess is that it wasn't the race that many of my teamates thought they'd run. But I think the point of a race like Ragnar is that you give up that control. You deal with the task in front of you, and when you hit a roadblock, you solve those problems together.

Will, Tim, Shira, Brian, Zvia, our rockstar driver Desiree who took care of every single one of us and Elizabeth for being the best van decorator and mascot we could have ever asked for: thank you. Thanks to Eva for organizing the group, because wrangling a group of people to do anything is always a Herculean task.

After my final leg, Will said we were never doing this again. After a shower and a good night's sleep, we're figuring out when we can do our next one.

It's not a race for everyone. The physical and mental grind, the lack of sleep, being filthy and sore and trapped in a van with a bunch of people, even if they are your friends, is a challenge. I won't lie: it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But in life, the hardest things we do are usually affairs tinged with grief and sadness.

But in the past year, between Spartans and Tough Mudders and half-marathons and now the Ragnar Relay, the hardest thing I've ever done is a badge of honor.

Now if you don't mind, I'm going to take another shower.