Hmmmm.

We're all little islands. Lookin' for a bigger land mass to connect to. We all want to be part of something, much, much bigger...

I found this cover of Cyndi Lauper's "Good Enough" by The Acorns. So good...

And to update the schoolgirl crush situation, what began as a gentle tugging of the heartstrings somehow manifested into a yanking desire to live in a different geographic region entirely.

I'm in an experimental film class right now that's kind of making me cranky. I'm tryin' really hard to be experimental and for some reason..it's not working. You'd think that I, of all people, would be able to think outside the box, but it seems that my professor would rather watch five minutes of a faucet dripping or a dunkin' donuts styrofoam cup in the sun than my beautiful roommate writing her ideas on herself...



On a film shoot this weekend. So very, very, tiring. I'm starting to drown in the work, y'all...

Although, I must say this.

(Nothing makes me feel quite as gangster as these dipshit film boys who send me into the city alone, with their credit cards, to handle the paperwork, permits and insurance that they can't.)

Shit, yo!

I just did that thing where I hear a song for the first time and my heart just swells magnificently.

It's still happening! We are IN the thick of things, folks, I'm still listening to the song for the first time. How's it feel to read this and know that you are IN MY MOMENT?

It's "The Treehouse Song" by Ane Brun.

Oh, her voice! It's so sweet! I could overdose on that, y'all. Woman's giving me a toothache.

She reminds me a little of Laura Marling. Specifically, "My Manic and I."

What's with these women breakin' my heart? I keep finding new, young, hurting chanteuses to fall a little in love with. Adron, Ane Brun, Laura Marling, Lykke Li...

hot DAMN y'all

"Quattro" by Calexico. OoooooooohhhhhWEEE. Just came on through my itunes library via lastfm.com. I'm at work. I had forgotten how much I love that song.

Do you ever wake up and feel like you hit the ground running? I'm having that compulsory moving in time and space feeling in all kinds of ways right now.

Just. All kinds of forward momentum, hurtling through a college career and shooting stars and ships out out of my path like some kinda' sci-fi nightmare.

OoohhWEE I'm antsy

Ugh, the lack of sleep is bringing me down ya'll.

Stayed up late last night with Colin, Rachel, Jess and Dave editing an experimental film that I have to screen today. Which will be on youtube shortly, and I'll post a link here, etc. The night before I stayed up late..staying up late? I can't remember why, but I do remember getting into bed at around 4:00 am. Which isn't a good idea considering I get up at 7:15 am every morning.


The picture is from a friend's shoot in January. Before we could do anything, Rachel, Shannon and I had to touch up our make-up in the back room where we were holding actors. We were shooting at a bar in Brooklyn.

I sit in cars when I'm sad.

When I hear stuff about friends' pains that I was previously unaware of, oh, my, does my heart break. I can't stand hearing about a new, undiscovered sadness that I never noticed about someone I already care about. I hate hearing about my friends hurting each other in new and exciting ways.

I think the film kids are just generally dramatic. It comes with the artistic territory, man. We gotta feel pain to make some great art. And when we can't find it, we make it.

And because of our generational enlightenment (see HERE) we feel every bit of the pain we're creating. Is my generation a bunch of masochists? Or are we artists searching for our next story?

Bottom line: Some of my friends are very sad. I'm at a loss.

Is this what being an artist is? Exploiting pain? Can I elect to exploit my joie de vivre instead? I swear that comes around every once in awhile, really.

In order to break me out of this funk, I need to listen to some strong guitars and reassuring vocals. Time for "Leaders of the Free World" by Elbow.

Followed by "Papa Don't Take No Mess" by James Brown.

Yeah. It's going to be a good day now.

Um...

So, the picture I uploaded in the last post was:

FIRST) Made as the desktop background on the work computer.

AND SECOND) Made into what is now the background, which is THIS:

Oh, hey, birthday...it's been awhile.

The shoot wrapped yesterday. It went really well. Except this little hiccup when we were shooting in Manhattan, and this guy decided to walk IN FRONT OF our actors about TWO FEET away from the camera and generally acted like a dick. I really thought our actor was going to cut him.

I really enjoyed sound mixing, contrary to my expression in the photo.

After we wrapped the shot, we all went into The Slaughtered Lamb (actors, crew, everyone) and got a pitcher of beer and some bar food and just laughed. It was a good time. It was definitely a fun and easy shoot.

My favorite part of the shoot this past weekend were the drives into the city. Riding shotgun on a drive into Manhattan on a sunny day while you're listening to someone else's music and barely hanging on to everyone else's conversations was just my favorite. (I wish it were time for the SF road trip '09 now.)

One of the things I realized in my morning revelries on the shoot was that I feel really undeserving of a few of the people in my life. I can think of two specific persons that I am just totally unworthy of. Or more specifically, their unconditional, unadulterated adoration.

Colin called me at midnight last night, not realizing it was already my birthday.

I'm at work now. I should probably do some actual work.

Ramblin' heart

Happy Valentine's Day!

I was on a shoot for most of today. I came home, took a nap, woke up confused and cranky, and did the very least of what I needed to accomplish before now. Bedtime.

I'm beginning to feel the lovely little gentle tug of the heart strings due to a schoolgirl crush. Those are wonderful. Those beginning stages.

Speaking of heart strings, have you ever listened to a song for the first time and loved it so much you could feel it effecting you? Today that happened with "Tonight" by Lykke Li.

We were driving to the location in Queens, and the A.D. was clicking through ipod songs to play for us and that song came on, and oh, dear, watching the litter and the city scenery pass by and listening to that song made my heart hurt so bad on this fine, futile, holiday that I could've just about cried.

The shoot is going well. I had to step in as sound mixer (um, I didn't know how to do that prior to the shoot.) So that's exciting. It's always fun to learn a new skill.

My lovely roommates are primping and laughing and getting ready to go out. I would join them, but, you know, I have to get up early. It's fun to listen to their happiness and silliness as I'm about to go to sleep. I'll have good dreams.

I found an old valentine on the photobucket account I kept up with in high school. Someone gave that to me and I loved it so much I scanned it for posterity. Good thinkin', too, 'cos I don't know what happened to the original.

Oh, she's listening to The Get Up Kids again

I have an idea. I'm going to need some help with it though.

Let's boycott growing up.

If we all, at the same time, concentrate really hard, I'm sure we could just stop the aging process. Let's stop down our synapses and slow down our breathing and close our eyes for a few years, and when we wake up, we'll be more or less immortal.

I can't do it alone though. Humans are radios, we send out signals y'all. It's why my mom and I have the same dreams when we're sleeping in the same house. If we're all sending out the same signal, maybe it'll be strong enough to start our own station.

Let's lead a revolt.

Who's with me?

Wake up, wake up, wake up..

Sometimes I get a little nervous that I'm going to run away. It's not something I've ever planned, but sometimes, when I'm driving in the mornings and I'm squinting, bleary-eyed into a reluctant and dusty Long Island sunrise, I want nothing more than to drive ANYWHERE ELSE. I'm also in love with driving.

I can't wait for the Road Trip.

Also, this is really fucked up.

Film shoot aujourd'hui.

I'm waiting for people to arrive to call time.

Goodnight chitlins

Rachel and I made a new advice video!

This one is actually real advice though. The first two were more or less disguised complaints, but you know. It happens.

Also. I had an idea. After watching "David After Dentist" for the 10,000th time with the roommates + Colin, I thought that it might be funny to film a series of Colin re-enacting these videos. Like, expression for expression, inflection for inflection re-enactments of David After Dentist, Scarlett Takes a Tumble, Grape Stomp Lady, etc...

So. Coming soon.

Work Computer?

Someone keeps downloading porn. Or something. On this computer. It will be okay for a couple of days and then suddenly it's rife with viruses. I try to type, but then my writing stutters with all these obscene pop-up messages. I do work with a lot of boys, so I'm thinking it's just...porn.

I'm on a shoot this weekend. Someone's thesis shoot I produced. Should be fun. Except for the two RAPE scenes we have to shoot. I'm not really looking forward to those for obvious reasons.

There are FEW things more awkward than filming a sex scene, by the way. The first time that happened to me I was a blushing wide-eyed freshman, just horrified and holding a boom. (Which I'm awful at, by the way. I ruin takes as a boom operator because I forget I'm holding something, so slowly, ever so slowly, it starts dipping into the frame...)

I tend to blush easily, so I've learned to avert my eyes during the filming of a sex scene. The worst thing would be if I embarrassed the actors by being embarrassed myself. Could be bad.

I also hate when I'm working on a shoot with blood effects. For some reason, I get really nauseated.

I worked on one of my friend's shoots last year (the same one where I BROKE MY TOE. Seriously. It clicks now. I have a toe that clicks.) and there were all these bloody scenes and my stomach literally turned. Was not fun.

Then, once the boys figured out they could make me ill by making me look at pools of fake blood, of course they had a fun time with it. These are the same boys who got into my facebook yesterday and changed EVERYTHING to be about farts, lesbians, or Colin. Oh, and the same boys downloading porn on this computer.

I've always said that HFC is a frat. (Uh, sorry, fraternity) I only realized recently that if HFC (Hofstra Filmmakers' Club) is a brotherhood, then I AM THE LITTLE SISTER.

I can't get no respect. And I don't have a motherfucking valentine.

The picture is from a little film Colin shot of me last week. You can see it here.

Ugh. Over and out, y'all.

By the way.

Rachel and I started a video advice series awhile ago.

Here.

Aaaand here.

Oh, the huge manatee!

I took a trip! Don't ask me how going farther north was able to cure my "Po-Mo Sartrean Existentialist Blues" (See HERE.), but somehow it was.

My roommate saw me feelin' blue and whisked me up to Binghamton, NY- which is one of the most interesting places I've ever been. It was like the long-lost twin sister of the town I grew up in, and being there gave me a kind of culture shock that just slapped me back into reality and out of my dreariness.

Day One was our arrival. She and I both rolled out of bed at about 9:00 am that morning and began the four-hour drive to her hometown. I tested out a playlist that I've been compiling for our "Southern Fried Road Trip '09" to see if it was good driving music, and I'm happy to say that it is a successful playlist, with just enough dead people, black people, banjos, and blues.

We arrived at her house- which is a LARGE, red, incredibly strange post-modern structure that stuck out like a sore thumb on the snow-covered mountain, and then took showers and got ready to meet a couple of her friends.

We went to the Cyber Cafe West- which is where I first realized that I was in a very different place.

Listening to Rachel and her friends talk about all of the artists in town and compare their work was just the greatest. These kids, they talk about the local artists and compare tastes and preferences of student artists, as if this were the NY Times, y'all. They started comparing student photography, talking about the differences in pictures from one high schooler to the next, and then segued into who was dating whom immediately. I was impressed.

That night we went to what they called "First Friday"- which is an art gallery walk, basically. I met Rachel's high school art teacher, who kept calling me Mia.

The next day we got up early and ate at the Broadway Diner. I had lunch with some more of Rachel's friends and listened to them reminisce and pick apart the lives of their other friends and enemies.

Then, Rachel needed to get a hair cut, so we went to the Daniel Louis Salon- where, Rachel warned me, Daniel would talk to me and shit-talk "the 607" area. We get there, and Rachel goes into the salon area to get her hurr-did while I'm sittin' in the waiting room, trying to inconspicuously scribble on a script. It was hard, because there was this three or four year old girl who kept coming up to me and handing me pieces of paper to draw on or fold into samurai hats for her. At one point she reached up and grabbed my lip ring and said "What's this?" so I grabbed her little pierced earlobe and said "Same as this." I'm glad her mother wasn't around for that. I may have insured that little girl's acceptance of facial piercings.

Daniel himself did indeed come out, and immediately asked me how I liked the place, and told me that he gets so sick of the town that sometimes he just comes home and says to his wife "City. This weekend. Let's go." He started suggesting places for me to go visit, namely Ithaca.

(You'll see that this becomes a trend- people kept suggesting places for me to visit.)

I started eavesdropping on Rachel's conversation with the stylists after the little girl left (taking all those pieces of paper with her. Her mother is going to have fun with that load of laundry if she doesn't check that child's pockets before sending it through.) and I realized what a small-town celebrity Rachel is. She was talking about the films, and about me, and I just beamed with pride while I was sitting alone in the waiting room. To them, she is making movies in the city, and that is all that matters. That she escaped the town.

After that, we went to Steve's Vintage. Rachel had told me stories about this place before, concerning a pair of Lucite-platform heels in a size 5 that she called "Baby Stripper Shoes" and sure enough, there they were, in all their baby-ho-bag glory. Steve himself is a riot. He talked to me for two hours, and kept handing me pieces that sure enough, were perfect and that I loved. When we were leaving about two and a half hours later, he hugged me and said he had "post-partum." I spent sixty dollars on a nice dress, two belts, a vintage t-shirt from Rachel's high school (she rolled her eyes at this one), and a Lacoste cardigan. While Steve and I were talking, he started giving me suggestions of places to see, things to do, etc.

That night, we built a transgendered snow-man named Merle.

That's the sweater I bought. And yes, Merle has breasts and a mohawk. Those are Rachel's friends, Harry and Stephanie.

The kilt I'm wearing is my high school uniform that I found in Rachel's closet.

The longer you live with someone, the harder it is to distinguish belongings I've found.

I loved it there. I didn't want to come back. I was so enamoured of Rachel's friends and life and small town. She promised me we'd visit again soon, and I'm planning on shooting my senior thesis there.

Before, I had always loved pulling stories out of Rachel about her hometown and her friends and family, and then when I finally got to meet the people behind the legends, I was literally star-struck. That's what it felt like, meeting this people I knew so much about. And then- when they knew about me too, because I'm in a lot of her stories, I just about planted roots down right there and made myself home.

On Sunday morning, Rachel suggested we started planning our route out for our "Southern Fried Road Trip '09" which did wonders to brighten my spirits as well. Over spring break, the two of us, along with a select group of people we can imagine ourselves being stuck in a car with, are going to drive down to Atlanta, over to Birmingham, over to Oxford, up to Memphis, up and over to Nashville, and then up, up, up to Long Island. We're taking Rachel's dad's Suburban BEAST on the road. And, Mom, don't worry, we'll take a boy or two too to insure our safety.

The town is failing. A big plant dried up and people lost jobs, all before the economy tanked, so the place is not doing so well. People are into art and skilled trades, but I met a lot of kids who wanted to go to college, but couldn't because of the money, and can't get a job because of the economy. It made me sad. And grateful. I realized for the first time what a weapon my education is.

I realized, too, what Rachel must have gone through in high school- always being the smartest person in the room. And how hard that must have been. We went to a party one of the nights, and her friend Harry told me "Get ready for no one to understand what you're saying." and sure enough, after attemping to converse with a few people, I scuttered back to Rachel's friends laughing at my failure at communications with the more inebriated individuals.

Seeing those kids. The degenerates, the dumb, the drug-addicts, the drunks, and the disorderly- made me feel like I could breathe again. I am far from home. In the cold. Making films. Because I am ambitious. And smart. And competitive. I will not end up that way, dropping out of school to pursue the management track at Target.

So many of them are incredibly talented artists, which terrifies me- they are stuck in that town for financial reasons, and their voices are just drowning in a sea of financial woes and the Bermuda Triangle Small-Town Syndrome that just takes over people's lives, and sucks them down, never to resurface them. I'm so scared for these artists.

And then I get back here- and see my friends- who are talented, and plodding along through school just like I am, and I can breathe again. Rachel's going to be okay. Harry is going to be okay. Colin is going to be okay. They're going to make it. We are going to be just fine.

I also got back to Long Island to see the snow cowering in fear from a Spring sun, which makes me feel just fine.

Happy Groundhog's Day.

Sometimes I want to follow that little groundhog into his hole and bop him on the nose until he tells me spring is coming.