SCRIPT

This day was hard. I started to really question this project like I do with most of my projects, but the difference with this one is that it never stops and I can never just set it aside until I’m feeling better. I felt so stuck, unsure of what decisions to make about this project, and thus unsure what decisions to make about my life, and temporarily frozen in a state of hopeless confusion. Because I can never get away from this, it is forcing me to address these issues of doubt and questioning myself that I experience with every project I do but never actually confront. This is what I wanted with this project, to address reality directly, but on this night it seemed like this complete hell I had created for myself. Writing this post a few days after, it seems to silly to have been so affected by something so relatively unimportant, but the truth is, I did.



[LAUREN wakes up. Upon waking Lauren feels a strong desire to feel like a princess that day and makes it a goal to pick up a tiara.]

[LAUREN gets in her car to drive to school. She pulls out her phone and turns on the audio recorder and thinks out loud for the entire ride to school. She waits until later to decide whether this recording will be posted or kept private, so as not to feel inhibited in her thinking.]

LAUREN: So what am I thinking right now…?

[LAUREN works for a while, enjoying the quiet of the empty early morning studio.]

[Setting: 10am. LAUREN takes a break to go for a run. She runs to Blick Art Store to look at paper.]

LAUREN: [Though she thinks Valentines' Day is silly] I think I’ll make a valentine for Jeff. It has to be different. . . I know! I will NOT use any red or pink whatsoever.

LAUREN does a thorough search for unusual materials, brainstorms with a few sketches, then sets to work on the valentine.

LAUREN will have a tuna melt for lunch today. (She and Maggie used to love eating these in 4th grade.) Perhaps it will bring back some fond memories???

[Setting: 4th floor computer lab, 2pm. LAUREN TA's class.]

[Setting: grad studio, 5pm. LAUREN returns from class.]

LAUREN leaves a message on Erqi’s facebook page So they won. Are you happy now?

[Setting: LAX airport, late evening. LAUREN boards a plane. Lauren tries not to act suspicious. She buys some trashy magazines to read.]

LAUREN: [Sending a text message...] About to leave. See you soon. I love you.

[Lauren strikes up a conversation with a stranger. Sitting down in her seat, she pulls out the magazines she bought earlier and reads them while trying to believe as fully as possible that these are the kind of magazine she likes best. She saves her favorite article from one.]