SVC* Called Me From a Cab in Brooklyn at 2 AM Last Night:

On the road to AZ. 2011.

"Do you know my parents still ask about you? They love you. My mom was worried when [I passed up a kind of cool professional job because I didn't feel like I was ready for it]. She was like, 'I hope Alice doesn't sell herself short, because she's very talented. I hope she does something instead of wasting her life'--which you're doing. Well, she didn't say that. I'm saying that."

LOL DEGREE IN PLAYWRITING!

*SVC used to be called Vince in this blog.

Adult Swim: A Parable About Worry

Pookie and I were all about the public pool in our summertime youths. ALL. A. BOUT. IT. Splashin', and mermaidin', and jumpin', and slidin', until--TWEET TWEET ADULT SWIM.

To the snack bar we would go! And if we forgot money...we'd pout. Fiddlesticks. Nuts to all those 18 and older. One of these pouty times I remember Pookie turning to me and saying, OKAY PAUSE--This story makes Pookie sound like a brat, but, the brattiness is necessary to the message. UNPAUSE. She said, "I can't wait until I'm 18, and I can swim, and you can't."

AND I WAS REALLY MAD.

"Noooo," I whined. "Noooo..." and then the whistle blew, and we dunked ourselves back into the cool water, but I was fuming. I was probably six and plotting about how as a 7th grader I was going to trick the lifeguards into letting me swim so my sister would NOT get the better of the situation. And, I gave myself a heavy head full of schemes and angst. And I was not happy to be somersaulting in the June heat.

The truth of the matter is that I think that summer was the last summer Pookie went to the pool with me at all.