where the hell have you been
So I'm not even sure how to shake the dust off this old blog and get it back up and running, it's been so long. Let's see. In no particular order, here's what you've missed:
I moved out of 1844 E Burnside, happily, into a smaller two-bedroom job on NE Fargo with Joseph.
And we had a very nice housewarming party, including this pie:
The new house is nice. I'm much happier. It's got a big-ass kitchen, dishwasher, washer-dryer in the unit. I cook (well, I grill up random shit in a wok, but it's fun).
As per usual, I went all Ikea on the place.
What else? Jesus, I've had dental trouble you wouldn't believe. Earlier this month, on a Tuesday, I got a root canal on my right side, and the very next day while I'm still recovering from that I got a tooth extraction on the left. Let me tell you, I would have a hundred root canals before I ever want to have another tooth yanked out. But, thanks in no small part to the skullfuckingly inept "treatment" at my old dentists, The Willamette Dental Group (a cadre of poorly run, overbooked dentist offices using technology approximately as old as I am, and the only company covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield, by the way; jesus that's amoral), I now have a two-tooth gap, no molars on my left bottom side, and eating is, to put it mildly, an inconvenience. Sorry I have no pictures to show you. Actually, I took a bunch but iPhoto crashed, saving you from seeing any of the gory stages of my mouth's hobofication. That's right, I'm hobo-mouthed now, and to be honest more than a little ashamed about it. They're in the back so you can't tell, but it makes me feel really... bad. In addition to having to eat everything on one side of my mouth now, over time my teeth are going to spread out to try and fill that gap, so I'm basically stuck having to get a dental bridge (two false teeth side by side), which I am warned costs "in the ballpark of $5000." So, that sucks.
What else? I didn't have internet until two days ago, which is why there's been no updates except the random dream post. I've been updating my movie-blog, No Time For Love, Dr. Jones, from work, and Twitter from my phone, but the random shit I like to dump on here, I've let slide. But that's all over now, as both Joseph's and my money situations are starting slowly to stabilize. Huzzah.
I have been writing, working for a while on what I declared would be my first feature, Dogsview Ln., before recently shifting gears onto an old pile of mothballs and doppelgänger-related hijinks, my first completed feature script, the one with the lousy working-title Ellipsis. Starting with my old, Sundance-Institute-finalist draft, I've been building up a stronger (I like to think) story outline and really going to town with index cards. Behold:
So right now I'm deep into that. If you were to ask me right now (and fortunately nobody has) which film I intend to make my feature film debut blah blah blah, I'm less than 100% sure it'd be Dogsview Ln. anymore, thinking this one may come back up. It'd be a harder thing to pull off, production-wise, but if I got it into great-script territory, it plays more to my interests, strengths, and style. I think in my head I keep telling myself I'll just shoot both back to back, no big deal, piece of cake, right? Right now, don't make me pick. They're both open folders. I'm devoting more to Ellipsis these days, but neither's been put back on the shelf so far.
Writing Group continues. As we do every once in a while we're trying to Get Serious about it, talking about five-page-a-week expectations and deadlines and so forth. For a while, with me being super-stressed and busy (June was spent with me working Melissa's shift at Laika, coordinating, while she returned to SDI as an ass't editor; June also saw me moving in) and so many other things going on for myself and others, WG met an average of once a month (at best), but we're just starting to get our shit back together on that, and we're hopefully talking about it in a more serious light again. Maybe I'll come back sometime and post a long thing about my thoughts on that, or maybe I won't. Who knows.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of stuff. I'm still single. I don't date. I have a lot of opinions (and feelings) about that. A handful of passing crushes (and one a little more intense than I'd like to admit... oops I just admitted it) on some people who aren't right for me for varying (but concrete) reasons. I guess at least I'm interested again. God, it's been so long I feel a lot of the time I've forgotten how to be a boyfriend, and sometimes I worry that means I've forgotten how to devote my time to someone else and other times I worry that means I've forgotten how to give them their own space and not suffocate them with affection or attention. In other words, I'm probably exactly how I was when I used to date. I probably haven't changed a damn thing. Alas. Anyway, I still have an OK Cupid account but it just sits there, not getting much more action than its user, and I desperately need to rewrite (read: severely trim down) my bio whatever, start Getting Serious about that, too. Or else scrap the damn thing.
On a similar note, seems like I'm always hanging out with one or two exes and not hanging out with another one or two. These things continue to cycle, but lately I've been realizing that some friends (including and not limited to exes, and also including but not limited to potential future exes) never contact me, I always contact them. That kind of one-sided bullshit is silly, because why am I continuing to chase someone who never chases me? It's time to acknowledge, if I like them more than they like me, and they don't need me at all in their lives, then fuck 'em, right? Not to be callous (it's actually a very depressing thought), but, right? I don't have time for all the people I love who love me back... why am I making time for people who never initiate even a hello-how's-it-going?
(Naturally, after so long, I ought to just call them "friends," and not "exes," but for me there is a distinction. For me there is a level of comfort and remembered intimacy from having once loved [at least physically, and also really really liked] someone, even for a short while, that makes them remain "more than just friends" to me. I don't mean that to sound creepy; I just mean to explain in some limited and jeez-I'm-tired kind of way why I draw a line at all, when discussing obliquely people who I haven't shared much intimate with in a long time, somewhere between 3 and 10 years.)
Spacecat's doing well. She loved the carpet for a while, dragging herself on her back along the new scatchy softness she wasn't used to... but, alas, then we got fleas, and she has become extremely carpet-paranoid. In fact, between the heat and the fleas and her itching all the time (even though the flea problem is being treated), she will have nothing to do with carpets, blankets, couches, beds or laps. Just the hardwood, the linoleum, table-tops, and her favorite bed-du-jour, my printer. (Right now it's just sitting there, getting clogged up with cat-fur, waiting for me to afford some new toner anyway.)
Hmm. Joseph now DJs/set-lists a monthly dance whatsit at the Beauty Bar, which is cool. I'm going to try and submit two films (Open for sure, Bathwater if Pat and I get some working new score for it done in time) to the NWFVF, just because. I was thinking about shooting something new this fall, just something short and quick and rough again, get back into it. I haven't shot anything since Every Room, and it feels weird. If I can get my shit together (and I really hope I can), I'm going to try and apply for this year's RACC.
In general I am just as detached and unengaged with my life as always, full of piss and vinegar and rants and raves but not grabbing my own life by the balls enough, not being proactive enough, not being the person I want to be. I need to get back to the gym, commit to a schedule of writing regularly, see a doctor, a therapist, an auto mechanic, and (for Spacecat) a vet. I daydream about something like adderall, which I've had once, like it's some kind of magic cure-all drug for my disengagement. Hell, maybe it is. Anyway I want to get on some, start talking to someone too, and write write write, direct direct direct, and go out and meet people and be the me I want to be. The thing is, there's always one more small hump to get over before any of that starts. I always tell myself, I'll do it just as soon as. Procrastinator's Blues, man.
I've been watching The Wire, finally. 'Sgood. I got an iPhone 4. 'Snice.
I'm probably/almost certainly back in the AD seat for another lady friend's first feature at the end of this month. Ms. Miranda Lehman will be directing Wrong, a mystery with some surreality to it that I called Lynchian and hope she takes as a compliment, and once again I'll be bitching to everyone about schedules and trying to keep us all on-task on set. I guess it's a compliment, that people assume I know enough about each department and have a commanding enough presence to be a no-budget indie film's pit boss, and I don't think I'm bad at it to be sure (though no pro, yeesh), but it's an exhausting and thankless and not-creative part of filmmaking, and so it's not all that rewarding for me. But, you know how it goes: if I do this for them, maybe they'll do something for me one day...
In just under two weeks I turn 32. That's 100000 in binary. A whole new digit. I won't get another one of those until I'm 64. I'd like to do something for it, but I don't know what.
Anyway despite the length of this thing I'm positive I'm leaving out a ton of interesting or blogworthy things from the last two-plus months, but whatever. It's almost three in the morning. I've done enough.
