Woman Fears Boyfriend Preparing To Write Screenplay

SEATTLE—Sarah Waterston, 24, told friends that she fears boyfriend Lenny Lobkovich, 27, is preparing to write a screenplay, and she admitted that she specifically chose to date Lobkovich over two years ago because he was not aspiring to write anything or had he ever aspired to write anything.

“I initially was attracted to Lenny because he seemed to be the only guy in Seattle that wasn’t an ‘aspiring-something,’” Waterston said. “He just wanted to be a CPA, not a novelist, screenwriter, or a creepy poet.”

Waterston said she spent enough time in relationships with would-be male writers during college to “write off” the entire class of men, partners who would continually succumb to depression, mood swings, and who had a tendency to abuse alcohol and hallucinogens.

“After hearing the phrase, ‘You don’t understand what I’m creating; you can’t understand what I’m creating,’ screamed at me by a blacked-out man covered in mud and wearing only a loin cloth for the fiftieth time, I swore I’d never date another writer again.”

Although Lobkovich has never specifically mentioned plans to write a screenplay, Waterston thinks he is hinting toward his intention and said she would not be surprised to find a “Screenwriting for Dummies” book somewhere in his apartment in the near future.

“It’s almost unbearable to watch a film with him now because of his running commentary about the supposed failings of the work—continuity problems, stilted dialogue, poor casting choices, and sloppy camera direction,” Waterston said. “What really makes me suspicious is his running assertion that even CPAs could frame a script better because of their superb attention to detail.”

Waterston said that she also thinks Lobkovich is suffering from what she calls the “Terrentino complex,” a condition caused by the myth surrounding celebrated writer/director Quentin Terrentino’s supposed instant success, which allows average people to believe that it’s easy to succeed in the film business.

“Lenny keeps making these ridiculous parallels between himself and Terrentino. The other day he mentioned that Terrentino had worked in a pizza joint while writing Reservoir Dogs and asked if I didn’t just find that totally ironic, since he, too, had worked in a pizza joint,” Waterston said. “I had to leave the room.”

Although she said she does not know what her reaction will be if Lobkovich begins framing a script, she hopes that the pursuit will end quickly and painlessly once Lobkovich realizes it’s not as easy to write as he might think.

“As far as I know, you need to be an insane, sadomasochistic, manic-depressive freak to even begin to have the stamina to write, and luckily Lenny’s a mild-mannered accountant who didn’t even have the endurance to attend more than two of the 28 spinning classes I bought him for his birthday.”