I wrote this in June. Why I never posted it I couldn't say.

These days I’ve been wishing I knew how to write a screenplay, because I want to see Annie on My Mind adapted for film. Not that if I could write a screenplay, that would happen, but… I kind of want to try it anyway, because I love to go on and on and on about how the book is better than the movie, blah blah. Like, I know it’s hard to adapt a novel to fit into two hours, and that plotting and pacing and characterization have to be done very differently in a film, and I’m not even that good at writing stories with a beginning, middle, and end, but well. I wanted to try, for some reason, to see if it could be done better. And if this book in particular could be done at all.

If I could adapt Annie on My Mind for a screenplay, then maybe… Somebody else could. Or I could win the lottery and find someone to produce it for me. Someone who knows how to make a movie. I have never, ever been interested in, like, making movies, but I really wish there was a movie about teenage lesbians that doesn’t end in one of them going back to guys and/or one of them killing herself. Mostly, I want the anti-Lost and Delirious.

And then I was trying to think of who I could cast in this film, you know, if I had unlimited resources and any idea about how to make a movie. And I was like, “Blake Lively could be Annie,” because, uh… I have a crush on her. And she could, I think. Annie’s more like Bridget Vreeland than Serena van der Woodsen, so it would work. Even though Annie has long, dark hair, and if this movie were to happen, and someone like Blake Lively were to be cast as Annie, I’d be all, “Annie’s not a blonde!”

I can’t even please myself.

Who’d be Liza? For a while, I was toying with the idea of Anna Popplewell, because, uh, I had just seen Prince Caspian, and she’s beautiful, and she seems to be able to capture this quiet, soulful thing that I think works for Liza. Plus, I’m short on actors who could play teenagers. The only teenaged show I watch is Gossip Girl—thus, Blake Lively. And as much as I want to see Blair and Serena fall in love, Leighton Meester’s not Liza, so.

The thing about this, though, is that Anna Popplewell and Blake Lively don’t mesh in my head. Someone needs to be recast. I think Blake’s the one who’s not really a good fit and is only in here because I want to see her kiss a girl.

All right, lesbians. I think one of you has read Annie on My Mind (and whoever else is here, not reading Annie on My Mind, should read it, even the one non-lesbian. I’ll let you borrow it!). Who would you pick to play Annie and Liza in my fantasy film? And where can I pick up actors young enough to play teenagers? Blake’s twenty-one, and Anna’s…nineteen? So they’re pretty much perfect as far as Hollywood ages go. Probably, if this were a real movie, the best thing to do would be send a casting director out to senior classes and find two unknowns, but since this is a fantasy movie, I have to fantasy cast famous people.

The only character I’m, like, totally solid on is Chad, Liza’s little brother, who I think should totally be played by Connor Paolo, tiny gay Eric from Gossip Girl. He’s great at being the little brother, and Chad’s a great little brother, who loves his sister even though the gay thing totally throws him.

The adults I can’t be bothered to think up, even the two other lesbians, Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson. But I have to cast Liza’s best friend Sally and her boyfriend Walt. Sally’s basically an idiot, and Walt’s kind of a good guy, but kind of a frat guy. I don’t know.

Sadly, my favorite lesbians, Bridget McManus and Jill Bennett, are way too old to be the teenagers but way too young to be the older lesbian couple. There’s not a single out actor the right age to play a teenaged lesbian, is there? I’d like to throw Jodie Foster in there, as Ms. Widmer, Liza’s gay English teacher. How about that?

Do you know what I recently found out? Nancy Garden, the author of this novel, married her high school sweetheart. Legally and everything, because at the back of the book it says she lives in Massachusetts. That’s sweet. So, in my head, that means Liza and Annie last forever, too. Though I imagine Nancy and her lady might really be Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson. Whatever.

The book takes place in, I dunno, the late seventies, probably, because it was published in 1982, and I think I read somewhere that it took a while for a publisher to accept it—or Nancy Garden published it herself because no one wanted it, but I might be making that up. Anyway, the homophobia is really strong because of the time period, but the sad thing is, twenty-five years later, the reactions of Liza’s family and classmates and headmistress do not seem out of place. Neither do Liza and Annie’s fears of being all gay in public.

Sigh. It is hard to be gay.

Allison just suggested that Ellen Page could be in my fantasy movie, and I wholeheartedly agree. I think she’d be Liza. Who could be Annie, then? This is hard. I am clearly not cut out to be in pictures.