my monster is chic

FINE

2010-12-29T22:38:00.000-08:00

I'LL FUCKING MOVE TO TUMBLR.

GARSH.

well. she's right.

2010-12-26T22:21:00.001-08:00

R.I.P. TEENA MARIE

2010-12-26T20:24:00.001-08:00

1)wake up 2)speak up

2010-12-21T21:20:00.000-08:00

I've lived a lucky life thus far in the way that I've never faced any obvious sexism or rampant gender prejudices. But every now and then I hit a wall and I'm like..."Wait a second...this is happening because I'm a girl and no other reason."

I should learn to extract myself from the vices of my gender. Like using my boobs to get what I want. Or playing dumb. Or playing weak. Or flirting. Effective, but a short term victory. Talking my way out of parking tickets and letting my male friends be right all the time so that they'll grant me something later or continue being my friend might feel like I've won something, but it is more detrimental in the long run.

Ladies.

I'll stop if you will. Just go ahead and open up that pickle jar on your own. Change that tire. Kill that spider. He can live without that ego boost. If not..well..find a better man. There are men out there that don't need to put you down to raise their own egos.

I get to a point where my male friends treat me like a child, they babysit me, they work on films without me, they confer with each other first and then pick someone to address me, and it angers me in a small way, but then I realize- Oh. I've trained them to treat me this way for a long time. I've acted the part. They aren't doing anything wrong. It's my fault. Oh dear, is that my instinctive guilt coming out? Women blame themselves a lot. Ugh, I can't tell anymore.

There is no feminism-fast track to acceptance. I'm not sure how to handle this. Other than, 1) Wake Up, and 2) Speak up. Um. I might need a new tattoo for the latter. That's the harder one.

I like being passive. I find peace in being non-confrontational. Gotta rewire the brain. I'm in the wrong industry for pacifism.

BE aggressive, BE, BE aggressive!!!!

Because we are taught not to be that way from a very young age.

The Wolf & I

2010-12-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a film. It's called "Patience." It was my idea. It's all happening.

All y'all new visitors creeping up on my google analytics, I see you. I hear ya baby. If you want a voice in this town, and you got big ideas, let me know. I do too. It's gonna be okay.

Anger, all the time!

2010-11-15T21:23:00.001-08:00

I can't help but feeling like we are a nation of enraged souls sometimes. Yes, you can argue that the zombie zeitgeist fad is just representative of our passive consumerism, but sometimes I feel like we are born to rage! Rage against the dying of the light, against the machine, we fight and fight and fight until our dying day, just to be heard. Clawing our way upwards out of obscurity. At least I think that's the path for artists. It's an uphill battle.

But if one's born into battle, and doesn't know any other kind of life, then how could the battle seem so bad? It's all you've known, and all you've had. (Thanks, Nicole Atkins.)

The waves fight the shore timelessly, infinitely, and crash on the rocks over and over again and the undertow will fight to pull you under and the dawn fights at the day fights at the light fading fights at the night. I don't see ecosystems anymore. I see great big bursts of chaos and confusion that inexplicably form patterns. We call it the circle of life.

Some mornings I wake up feelin' like an untapped resource. Sometimes my dreams eclipse reality.

white sea

2010-11-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

well there's that

2010-10-12T00:25:00.001-07:00

Someday I'm going to write something and it's going to scare people and they're going to trace it back to my life, like, "Where did that come from?" And I'll just tell them that my writing is generally a spillway for coasting through internal haze. And that the internal haze rarely translates into action.

Sometimes I merge lanes on the highway without checking any of my mirrors. I just brace for impact. It never comes.Painted the fuck out of my room

i wish i were you

2010-10-06T22:30:00.001-07:00

Im'ma radio. You're a radio. I think we are all radios, just mechanized bits of meat and desire who are equipped to send out frequencies. Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret. Ground Control to Major Tom- can you hear me?

When people pray to an unseen/unheard god they are on a ham radio, searching, scanning, looking for someone on the same frequency. Someone to hear our broadcast. People praying are broadcasting hope. Someone listen.

When I sleep in the same house as my mother we sometimes have similar dreams. We're on the same wavelength.

Over and out.

ideas

2010-09-12T00:42:00.000-07:00

A friend just told me to write down my ideas. Sometime I'm good about that, mostly I'm not. My thoughts live and die in conversations with loved ones for the most part. I save my thoughts to say to you because I love you.

1) I've been watching a lot of 80's films because I'm drawn to the pre-internet and pre-cell phone communication styles. The film "The Warriors," which is incredible, could not be made today as it is. It's based on a mistranslated act of violence, and today, which all the flipcams and iphones and bullshit we have to record history as it occurs, the premise of the film is an obsolete threat.

2)I like 80's films because they do not have to accommodate technology the way contemporary films do. There isn't a third party technology interface involved to communicate things through characters. It's all done through human interaction, without being enslaved to media devices. I like it. It's refreshing.

3) People losing each other in films is a problem. Like in The Warriors, or The Pick Up Artist (Molly Ringwald, Robert Downey Jr, 1989). Without cell phones, if you lose someone in New York City you will lose them. I like the justification of chasing down your target and the threat of a city swallowing up someone. You can't find them on facebook. You can't google them. They are gone.

fuzzy memories

2010-09-09T20:47:00.001-07:00

sad songs and chardonnay

2010-09-07T23:59:00.001-07:00

story of my fucking life.

I GOT SOMETHIN' TO SAY

Sorry, folks- I've been watching Strangers with Candy on netflix. So good. Watch it.

Anyway, I saw something TERRIFYING today

I went to the "Novel Cafe" in Santa Monica, which is right next to where I work, so that I could pick up a grilled cheese sammich for lunch. As I had forgotten my phone at work, which I would normally fiddle with while waiting for my food order to be ready, I seized the opportunity to window-watch the people passing by. Normal, right? Skinny kid smoking. Surfer mom and her blonde gap toothed kids. Meathead boyfriend in a green day shirt and his skinny little girlfriend holding hands.

The passersby hit a lull and I stopped backtracking their life stories, so I turned around to face the inside of the restaurant.

SO DIFFERENT Y'ALL

There are these little tulip shaped lights that I had never paid attention to before, and today I realised that they aren't lights at all- but hanging outlets for phones and laptop chargers, above each and every table. Convenient, right?

Everyone in the restaurant was plugged in and talking on their cell phones, or clicking away at a laptop. No one was talking to each other. It was scary to look at because people were quite literally plugged in- a woman was shouting, indifferent and oozing self-importance, while her blackberry was plugged in above her. She was skinny and standing, tethered to the tulip. She had fake breasts. Another man was pacing, while attached to his charger, talking to Gotham Records (the label sticker on his Mac laptop, I'm assuming it's his workplace) about signing somebody or something.

I hated. I'm never fiddling with my phone in public again.

We use technology as a communicative crutch. It's easier to push the buttons on a keyboard to broadcast meaning than to speak the words. I'm doing it right now. I've done it before. I love you. I miss you. See? I just did it again.

Someone apologized to me via facebook for breaking my heart three years ago. Wish he would have said it three years ago, when it hurt the most.

I'm lookin' for truth, here, people. Something real. Something not presented to me through a technological buffering interface to diffuse the pain or discomfort. Don't tell me I'm in the wrong city for that- I know it's here somewhere, hiding.

New York was gritty, sharp, real- it was video. Los Angeles is grainy, fuzzy, soft, smeared, faraway, smoothed over with smoggy skylines. The whole goddamn city looks like a faded photograph. There's truth somewhere here too. There's real people.

So long, summer. It's been real.

2010-08-30T21:37:00.001-07:00

I meeeeeeeeannnnn...damn.

I was stuck in traffic today and I saw New Jersey license plates. I just about cried. New Jersey is a wasteland, yeah, but really it was seeing someone that was so far from home, too. It was seeing something so familiar in a place that really isn't. I really miss New York. I miss you. (yes, you)

It's going to be easier once the boys get here. They begin their road trip tomorrow morning in the AM- two weeks of driving cross country to make it to mecca, where I already am. (waiting)

When I look back on this time I'm going to remember the music I was listening to mostly. I'm feelin' music like never before, like, it's breaking my heart and waking me up and stopping the gap- I heard Jose Gonzales' "Heartbeats" recently, and oh, hell, it just took my breath away. I had to turn the damn song off to catch my breath! Hearing that song felt like a pain in my chest.

That's the most defining part of my new life. Music. I feel like the people that are coming in and out of my life right now are static. And I feel that way because you spoiled me.

I got so used to being myself, unfiltered and uncensored, that I forgot what it was like outside our little Brooklyn bubble. I can't do that here. I can't say what's on my mind because I get blank looks. I can't say how I feel (or voice the lack) because people are scared of how I live. Meeting tons of new people, building up that rolodex, yeah, but it's like flipping through a deck of cards to figure out how to present myself. I'm good at being charming. I'm not good at being myself. How long did it take with you? Awhile. And we lived together.

So many new people. But I don't know them and they don't know me. I can't wait until the boys are here. I feel like my anchors are road trippin'. My kite strings are coming! I need reminders of who I am. I don't want this place to change me. I'd rather evolve, first. Let the city morph to fit my needs. So far, so good, but I'm feelin' that strain of survival adaptation, that pull of self-preservation. I keep having to remind myself of who I am because I get lost in the shattered parts of who I think people want me to be. Remember who you are.

This is a love letter.

I wrote this song for you: (not really)

villianess

2010-08-23T00:48:00.000-07:00

c'mon now

2010-08-19T00:40:00.001-07:00

Would someone like to inform me of the exact percentage that my adult life will be spent sifting and sorting through disappointment? I would like to schedule around it. Thank you.

Parents- stop teaching us that if we work for anything, we will get it. Stop teaching us this. Stop coddling us. You baby-boomers, man. You brought us up softened and sorted into neat piles of self-esteem and self-worth so we enter out into the work force thinking we are necessary for something (see HERE. and you know that shit is legit because it's the mathafucking ny times.) and that we might even be overqualified for whatever it is we are approaching. It sucks. We're stunted.

Not that I dislike work. I love work. Working. Having a job to exhaust me. I think its marvelous. Being employed out of college is just splendid.

I dislike the ebb and flow of false hope. This, I find, is supplementary to pretending to be grown up. The parking garage that is $60 a month and a 10 minute walk away. The coffee that I spill in my car. The DIMINUITIVE paychecks. The friend who is angry with me. The boy that didn't call. The Ikea bed that did not come with all its parts. The cockroaches. The mac'n cheese nights. The clothing on the floor.

I'm requesting a time table, plz. I would like very much to know when I can expect the pieces of my life to fit together nicely, like they are supposed to. Like I was taught they would. When everything will fall into place, because I was told that they would. Well, I'm working, world. Hard. Exhaustively.

ATTN KARMA: cut me a deal.

I don't fear that things won't get better, because things always do, eventually. I fear that they might get worse before this happens though.

I'm feelin' like an unencumbered embittered heathen these days. Dazed like an antebellum dream. Sleepin' like a creepy mummy.

I got a tattoo months ago that says "Wake Up." Apparently this permanent reminder is not enough.

spaceman, oh, spaceman, come rescue me

2010-07-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

I got somethin' to say. I've got a theory I've been working on that has been pinging around unsaid in my skull for awhile.

You can pitch in if you've got some more fact or fiction to contribute.

I'm religiously untethered. (That's a nice way of calling myself a heathen, y'all.) I tend to see a lot of physical prospect out there, in this whole great big universe, that when I confront it, I back down a little. The world is so big, and we are just the gum on a planet's shoe.

I think not being religious can lead to a certain sense of impending doom. Atheists must live life as a means to an end, right? This is it. This is all we've got. It's hard to keep yer face up and smile into the sun with that kind of attitude, I'll bet. Not having a God up there can make you feel so small and insubstantial.

I used to sit in church when I was a little girl and feel like such an impostor. It all seemed so silly to me. I got baptized and cried, not because I felt the touch of Jesus or I felt connected to God, but because I looked up into the pastor's sweet face and thought "This is a ridiculous show," and I cried for lying.

I believe in art. I seek refuge in music, film, literature, and I think museums are my temples where I go to worship. That's where I experience enlightenment.

There's something else, too. I think science-fiction is the rational mind's answer to religion. I mean, think about it. Futurism and the obsession with the superiority of man-made technology seems like a hopeful prayer for longevity. For something more. For a goddamn eternity.

When I look at sci-fi nerds (like myself) and what we're drawn to, this is what we're praying for. Not a dystopian downfall, necessarily, but the idea that We. Are. Not. Alone. And I don't mean that we believe in little green men and probes and whatnot, that's reserved for the Roswell conspirators. We aren't consciously hoping for E.T. to come be our best franz plz, but just by being drawn to science fiction we are displaying an acceptance of the subject matter which implicates at least some sort of belief in it.

So I've been hoarding science fiction music to aid and abet my obsession. And I'm choosing to write about it now because I think science fiction film and literature is a more obvious choice. I'm more interested in the deviations and where the edges fray, and where sci-fi meets normal. Science Fiction music in my mind is divided into two categories:

1)"Subject" Science Fiction : Music that clearly states science fiction subject matter within the lyrics or title. Includes space, time, stars, aliens, etc.

"Rocket Man" by Elton John
"Spaceman" by Bif Naked
"Robocop" by Kanye West
"Remains of the Sun" by Leitvox
"Sad Robot" or "Space Invaders" by Pornophonique
"Starshine" by Gorillaz
"Conquer" by ABK, Esham, & Violent J
"The Stars Are Projectors" by Modest Mouse
"When They Came For Us" and "We Are Pilots" by Shiny Toy Guns
"Extraterrestrial" by Outkast
"Starstruck" by Santogold
"We Are All Made of Stars" by Moby
"Space Mountain" by Fuck Buttons
"One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" by The Flaming Lips
"I Want to be a Machine" by Pornophonique
"Slipstream" by the Crystal Method
"Space Oddity" and "Life On Mars?" by David Bowie (DUH)
"Phone Home" by 'Lil Wayne
"From Stardust to Sentience" by High Places
"I'm So Tall" by Chester French
"Paranoid Android" by Radiohead
"Technologic" and "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk

OR

2) "Prospect" Science Fiction: Music that utilizes typically science fiction "noises" like electronic beeps or sonar noises, without necessarily singing about science fiction. Not just electronica music. More like electronic, technological echoes that you would typically hear in a science fiction film score.

"Flashing Lights", "Stronger" and "Coldest Winter" by Kanye West
"Look Back In" by Moby
"Purr" by Tides From Nebula
"Rome" by Yeasayer
"Lullatwerp" by Disastertron
"Chromakey Dreamcoat" or "Satellite Anthem Icarus" by Boards of Canada
"What I Have Left" by Alexis Taylor
"Nights of the Week" by Apes and Androids
"We're Looking for a lot of Love" by Hot Chip
"Coconut" and "When I Grow Up" by Fever Ray
"Flying" by Secret Machines
"DEA" by The American Dollar
"Alice" by Pogo
"Sexy Saturn" by Bix
"Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit
And pretty much everything by this guy.
Or this girl.

It seems that the sci-fi is either implicit or explicit within each category. Some bands, like Daft Punk or Pornophonique pretty much exclusively write songs heralding technology or space. There's even a subdivision of my subject sci-fi just for sci-fi rap. Think Kid Cudi, some Kanye songs, 'Lil Wayne's "Phone Home" or ABK's "Conquer. It seems to me that a lot of sci-fi rap involves a conquering theme, which is congruent to the mainstream aim of most hip hop and also seems to be the mission statement of science fiction. A lot of those songs, no matter what the genre or target demographic, will employ those fuzzy radio voices calling out to you through some staticky nowhere. Hope from beyond.

And all these different songs- this is just what I cound find in my 7500+ Itunes. So that's got to just be a sampling.

Furthermore, I noticed that when I was searching for links to the implicit prospect sci-fi music, a lot of the "fan made" videos depicted space scenes, orbits, galaxies...just images of space they lifted and set to the music, even though the songs never discussed space explicitly. Like Fever Ray's "Coconut" and Alexis Taylor's "What I Have Left." Both show space pictures. Both not about space. People know. They feel the same way.

Isn't this amazing, how this subject seeps into music from so many different genres?

And then I realized.

It's our gospel music.

When we sing out to the stars, we are throwing out our hope for a forever out there, not at the hands of some unnamed, unknown deity, but placing our faith in mankind to rekindle our futures and that there is more out there. Cloning? It's reincarnation.

I guess I am religious. I just think my religion is art. It's what I believe in.

We may not have a God, but we have hope. Hope in ourselves and the intelligence of humanity to perpetuate the species so we can seek out an eventual eternity. We don't sublimate ourselves with a hankering for heaven and dreams of the pearly gates. We evolve.

Here are the related links I could find on science fiction music videos and music. Here and here.

see? homegirl gets it.

2010-06-07T15:56:00.001-07:00

ATTN: 18-25 demographic, all races

2010-06-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

I gotta bone ta pick with our parents. The baby boomers. Not YOU, Mom and Dad, because you're both ideal grown-ups, but the vast generations of adults who are fucking up all over the place. This is why.

That's a seagull. Or, it was, before the gulf oil spill. Critter's still alive, but he's not going to last long. When they get coated in oil like that, they can't fly. Which means they can't get food. They die. They're immobilized by the oil. So they're all dying.

They dive into the water because they don't know. They just see their dinner swimmin' around, because the fish that are still alive in the gulf coast swim beneath the tar bubbles, and the birds dive down through it, not realizing what they're kamikaze-ing into. They float up paralyzed and blinded.

I'm so infuriated. Like, frustration-tears-furious about this situation because I DID NOT ASK FOR ANY OF THIS. Thinking about and watching the talking heads babble baffling arguments back and forth on the television makes me want to pick up and leave. It was just released that the head of BP is handing off responsibility to this Dudley guy, an American (BP is a british company, I learned that today), so that blame can start getting shuffled around. They spent $3 million on that ad that's been running on tv, but they are slow to reimburse crippled businesses along the gulf who rely on the shore for fishing income. They're also only reporting the minimum gallon amount gushing into our waters to lowball the cost of the $4,300 per gallon they have to pay. It's much worse than we know.

This is not the America I asked for.

Older generations, I'm going to helpfully and politely point out your discrepancies.

You tell us to dream big and shoot for the stars, and that anything is possible if we work hard enough, but you make education so impossibly expensive and unobtainable that only certain classes can afford to "dream big."

You tell us that we're all created equal, but some of us can't marry each other if we want. What's that? Oh, sorry, I can't hear you. It's gotta be this glass ceiling above me.

You tell us to slow down and not grow up so fast, but you put Human Growth Hormone in the food that we eat, so that our bodies develop faster and we physically become adults before we're supposed to.

You tell us to eat right, but you put high fructose corn syrup and monosodium glutamate in all our food so that we get addicted and obese.

You tell us that our body is a temple and should be treated as such, but you are the ones that set the impossible standard of beauty in advertising and media that taught me to hate my body with such enthusiasm starting when I was a little girl. I can show you the scars.

You are the ones who just want us to be mentally sound so we can be productive members of society, but what that entails is that you first discover symptoms, attribute them to a new disease, and then prescribe us the medication to quell this sickness you fabricated so you can profit from our purchase of the pills.

You are the ones that started the war, and asked us to die for it. You also asked us to kill for you.

Capitalism doesn't work because it is constant warfare within one society. It is marred by free-enterprising battles, the terrain pockmarked with self-indulgent battle scars left behind in the wake of destructive corporate tankers, and since YOUR parents worked their asses off so you could go to college, you have put your education to work by looking out for yourself and proliferating your finite fucking nest egg.

My inheritance from you is a war, its debt, a crumbling economy, dismal job market, and a destroyed coast. Fuck you.

I have lost my faith in you. You have ruined this country. My hope remains with my generation. We are the activists. We are the ones who turned up in droves to vote for Obama- highest young percentage of votes ever. You're welcome. And for those of you who doubt my dear president, here's a list of achievements thus far. I like that list. It includes Bo.

To my peers, if you're out there and sentient, I'm going to ask something of you. Put down the xanax and the adderall. I know we're Generation Medication, and that fake prescription is our birthright, but just stay with me for a second. You don't have to be dependent. You don't need any of our forefather's bullshit. We have the right to take this country back and start repairing the damages. We just have to get angry first. Please. Get mad. Get fucking infuriated and do something. It's what we're really known for. It's what we're best at.

Activism.

it is so hot

2010-06-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

thank you.

2010-05-25T16:47:00.000-07:00

"The world is meaningless, there is no God or gods, there are no morals, the universe is not moving inexorably towards any higher purpose. All meaning is man-made, so make your own, and make it well. Do not treat life as a way to pass the time until you die.

Do not try to \"find yourself\", you must make yourself. Choose what you want to find meaningful and live, create, love, hate, cry, destroy, fight and die for it. Do not let your life and your values and you actions slip easily into any mold, other that that which you create for yourself, and say with conviction, \"This is who I make myself\".

Do not give in to hope. Remember that nothing you do has any significance beyond that with which imbue it. Whatever you do, do it for its own sake. When the universe looks on with indifference, laugh, and shout back, \"Fuck You!\". Remember that to fight meaninglessness is futile, but fight anyway, in spite of and because of its futility.

The world may be empty of meaning, but it is a blank canvas on which to paint meanings of your own. Live deliberately. You are free."

found here.

quick little math lesson

2010-05-23T18:18:00.000-07:00

When I graduated college, I learned about subtraction. When we're in first grade or so we learn the arithmetic action of subtraction, the mathematical component and motions, but it's the anthropological, psychological concept of subtraction that doesn't really kick in until much later. About what you have left in your life when everything else is removed.

I've been formulating this theory because today I came home and my roommate had unexpectedly moved out. I dimly knew she'd be headin' out soon, but I've been too wrapped up in my last film project here for it to kick in that this weekend she'd be gone. So I came home, and saw the unexpected physical manifestation of what my life was like once she was subtracted from it.

All the shit I've accumulated in my years on this coast is pushed into corners, and this is the difference that is left in our lives once she is subtracted. My sneezes echo.

Seeing this math problem led me to think about subtraction and the parts of my life that have been shed now that we are scattering. I'm all that's left in this apartment. I'm looking at my life now that the social construct is taken away, the roommate removed, the college subtracted, and the film shoots are at an indefinite hiatus now that the necessary academic requirements are no longer relevant/impending/impeding. So...what's left are the parts of my life I haven't looked at very often. The lesser parts. Like why I pick at my cuticles. Or fixate on the things(people) I shouldn't.

This is a pessimistic way of looking at things. Wise man say you have education, relations, riches, and LOVE. Which I'm truly, painfully, aware of. But right now, I can only hear my typing clattering noises clicking weakly in the empty apartment and my social calendar is empty. Shit. I'm a negative number.

H.A.G.S.

2010-05-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

There's always these little chillen's being carted around Hofstra's campus, trotted out from some nearby daycare center when the weather warms up a bit, and sometimes I want to run up and smack the smiles off their faces and yell I KNOW YOU'RE THREE. BUT PREPARE FOR WHEN YOU GET TARNISHED AND IT'S NOT FUN ANYMORE.

I had no idea that I would become this jaded. There wasn't an inciting event that lured me away from enthused orgiastic acceptance of unfortunate life circumstances, or any riotous fight with a loved one that made me the way I am, but here I am. Anesthetized. Overlooked. Unconscious.

When I'm stuck in traffic now, in the summer, on the Belt Parkway, people roll down their windows and just stew in the muggy heat out there on the asphalt. Lots of old people clutching the wheel and waiting for their exit to crawl by since I live in a "NORC" (naturally-occurring retirement community). We start out sprinting, just kind of racing for an inevitable flag to fly by like a graduation or a marriage, getting there as fast as we can until at some point we see the definitive light at the end of the tunnel and we slow down. We age and we move slowly and we stutter and we forget and we lose ourselves in the marathon. We put up a fight.

It's raining now. Rain always smells like pennies. I walk outside and can smell weird minerals.

I'm transitory. I am aware that we are always transitory, that because we are aging and moving and talking and changing at all times, that we are permanently transitioning from one moment into the next so that we may string together a personal, linear, sequence of events and scrapbook it and call it a life, but I feel especially transitory. Aleatory. Moving without purpose. This part of my life will go undocumented in my scrapbook.

In my french literature class this past semester, these two kids gave a presentation and asked everyone in the class to write out on a notecard what we want to be when we grow up. Yes, phrased like that, in a college course. I instinctively wrote "happy" (which has been my every shooting star/birthday candle/fountain coin/eyelash wish since I was a kid, but don't tell anyone that or it won't come true) and then the people giving the presentation asked who wrote happy. Of course my hand shot up, because I assumed that many people would have answered similarly. They didn't. They were astronauts, forensic anthropologists, dance studio owners, exotic trade derivatives. I was the outlier for just wanting to be happy.

I say things, a lot, I talk real big when it comes to my future, but I gotta say folks, when it comes to graduating college and staring down my identity for the first time, I actually feel like I've just been flung out of slingshot blindfolded and I can't even feel the trajectory. It's scary. It's normal, and expected. Right? We base our entire beings around the confines of some sort of synthesized academic personality and we identify with the people who have chosen the same interests so we conform to create a group, and find our role within this group, which is easier than tackling a larger percentage of the population. It's simple. We categorize. We eke out our identities and build ourselves up within these little microcosms, which just seems like exercises in futility once we have finished school and all of our anthropological attempts at existence return, sunburned, to their separate suburban homes with bidings of a good summer and see you soon. I'm going to miss my friends.

I can't remember everything about college. I mean, I remember these little moments and these big walls, and those people who maybe saw me when most didn't, but mostly I remember the spaces that contained me. That dorm, that bedroom, this one. I remember you and I remember the smiles that glowed in the dark and I remember the bone-crushing exhaustion and I remember pushing through that and I remember momentary connections and that's why I can't stay in New York. Nobody settles down here. No one grows up. Manhattan is a playground. Some people fall in love. I just shatter. At this point, my heart just wants to know it exists.

So, I watch the rain and I bleat out insipid refrains online into nowhere and hope to reach some sort of semi-enlightened catharsis. I mostly feel like an untethered kite. And I'm sorry for that. I'm mostly really sorry for the things I never said. Like thanks. I love you. It's been the best four years of my life.

Here's an irrelevant but currently-listening-to-song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOAPzYJprS8

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzbuzzzzzzzzzbuzzzz

2010-03-15T11:43:00.001-07:00

Okay. Breathe, breathe, breathe. I am standing on the shore facing a tidal wave.

Or, even better, I am a rubberband that is stretched much too tautly. Little plinks pull me down and I vibrate, but eventually I am just going to snap and strike out in futility.

The past three years have been a practice run. A drill. Simulated combat under controlled circumstances.

This is not a drill. This is the war.

This is the year of the tiger? I heard that weird things happen during that. I'm looking for full moons and swinging tides to explain the chaos, because shouldering it and not asking questions is not enough any more. I'd rather find an external source, some smoldering mysticism to blame. Until then I have to content myself with placating internalized falsehoods and picking my cuticles.

This is war, right? We fight. We fight. We fight.

We arm ourselves, kick and scream at the wicked things, and hope for the best.

i feel ya buddy

2010-01-04T00:56:00.000-08:00

remind me

2010-01-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. Mic check.

You ever hear a song that makes you feel like a damn hand puppet? Just like someone shoved their hand up your ass to make ya sit up straight real fast?

I heard her and sat up straight:

Hey, Jesus, What Gives? We Miss You! Come Back!

2009-11-08T18:06:00.000-08:00

I used to be afraid of very few things. When I was a child I pretended to be afraid of swing sets and falling out of moving vehicles, but really I was aware of how brave I was. I would ride horses. I would climb trees. I would get lost in the woods.

As I got older, taller, bigger and less outspoken, I started developing other strange fears to replace the old ones. I was no longer comfortable with the ocean pulling the sand from beneath my feet as the waves retreated back into the sea. It felt to me, like it wanted to take me with it. The idea of the moon’s gravitational pull, tugging back the ocean to expose its tide pools and thoughts and feelings, little living secrets, made me nervous.

Similarly, I stopped cloud-gazing and staring at the stars, which I used to find hopeful and beautiful. I was on a friend’s ranch one time, and looked up, out of the absolute darkness, and saw so many stars I thought that’s all there was, that I was in space, alone, hurling along like some kind of a sci-fi nightmare. It felt like suffocating.

We are taught to require a modest house in a modest neighborhood, where children can play and trees are sequestered into neat, attractive rows. Sometimes, when I’m driving down over a hill and I can see a basin beneath me, I remember that all of this used to be underwater, and there they are, those houses that stubbornly stick up on the hill like unwanted barnacles, dominating the landscape.

We are born red-faced and screaming, and we stay this way- dominant and needy, pure emotional little wrinkly beings until we are ruler-slapped into submission and put into little boxes that are full of boundaries and rules and then given our inbred, inborn self-centeredness that We are all that matters. This world is ours for the taking. Dinosaurs died for a reason.

In my backyard, there is a crepe myrtle. It is feeble. It’s little blossoms constantly fall, as if choosing death to escape the heat, and they fall to the ground, where they are trampled, or they choose death by drowning and float into the pool where they are ultimately sucked into the filter or scooped out by a net. When I was a kid, I used to pluck the big, resistant ones off a different tree that grew near our old house, and then I would turn them over, little pink frilly dresses, and play ballroom with them. Sometimes these little princesses would go on adventures in magnolia-leaf boats with an acorn captain, and they’d sail down the wild river, doomed to wander the seas eternally.

The poor crepe myrtle in my backyard is so tired. It’s tired because it doesn’t belong there. He was put there on purpose, to help break up the monotony of the concrete and rock, so he’s manicured and planted. I can’t help but noticing the exhaustion in more of the inappropriately placed plants in Texas. At some points in the summer, you look outside and see brown grass on the median, brown trees, gray-smoggy-ozone-warning skies, and from inside your artificially cold car, it’s like winter. When you step outside, you feel the hot air hit you in the face, it’s a lie, all lies.

There is a park near my home that is a swath of land in between neighborhoods that I believe was made into a park as an afterthought. Or perhaps to raise the values of the houses. Nonetheless, there is a “park.” That over there is a “river.” Behind you, behind the fences, you can see trampolines and Irish setters and the occasional abandoned piece of plastic childhood. In this “river” there is a “waterfall” and you can see the little hints of pressed gravel from the tired water running down unenthusiastically. It is not there for nature. That park doesn’t exist for conservation. It is there so people can ride their bikes and run and plug their ipods in and sweat along that concrete sidewalk, more proud of their loss of calories than their commune with the outdoors. The sun is dominant, punishing, and the park closes at dusk, so you can’t even stick around to stargaze or stare down the moon if you wanted to.

Once, on a dare with myself, I watched an eclipse on the internet, out of morbid curiousity, to see if I could handle it. I was so terrified, even as I was sitting in my protective house, aware of the computer, and it was broad daylight. When it happened, in that little box playing on my screen, I lost my breath. It was magnificent, but in a terrible, apocalyptic way. It doesn’t just look like two massive celestial beings matching up- it looks like a damn hole in the sky. It looks like a giant hole in a big black sky, and we’re all going to get sucked up into and spit out into nothing, nowhere, the great beyond. It went on forever. I wildly imagined that he was keeping the sun, that we wouldn’t get it back. Then it was over, and we were done. It came back, of course, a beaming reminder of the divine to shine anew.

I am now afraid of very big things. I can no longer swim in the ocean, and when I’m in my little pressurized cabin gazing at lift off, I can only stare at the dropping sky until I get dizzy and then I shut my window, shut my little world, plug in my ipod and become nothing. Our solar system (please note my overconfident use of the word “our,” we are so self-centered) I find to be impossibly perplexing. I am afraid of big things because I have come to terms with our inevitable irreverence. We are insubstantial. We are not only endangered ourselves, but as an overconfident race, we are quickly using up our resources and damning ourselves, our eternity to a less glamorous fate than we intended. What are we waiting for? I once fought with a friend, who quickly defended the human race, as the beautiful optimist she is. I asked her about Jesus, and when he was coming back, and when he did, what she would be expecting. The second coming of our dear lord obviously equates the apocalypse, so is this what we are waiting for? Even those with the Great Hope Our God are waiting for the end. We’re all waiting for something, for the light to turn green, for the morning to come, for our Prince to come, waiting in the wings to go onstage, or waiting for Jesus to come back and take us away from this place. That must be why we are using up all we got while we’re here.

I have a more practical view of the matter. We will be undone, our songs unsung, and we will neatly be replaced. We will return to dust. We put our dead back in the Earth, and she eats us up; we offer our bodies so she can get that carbon and iron and nitrogen and calcium, yum, taste that sapid flesh. As far as the parts of us we can’t see-that electricity that makes our synapses fire up and that ever-elusive soul everyone’s going on about, I’m not sure what happens to those. I suppose if you have a God you can trust he’ll take care of your luggage, make sure you get it later after you’ve touched down in your final destination and de-boarded, but as for the rest of us, we’re all just floating along, sometimes bumping into each other and experiencing momentary touches and connections, but for the most part, we’re alone.

I am afraid of very big things. I found a word recently- chromomentrophobia. Fear of time. I am not afraid of the physical prowess of the great beyond, and I am not even afraid of that stinging salt water itself, but more or less the notion that it will be there long after I am. My inevitable path hurtling along towards mortality terrifies me, because it means I won’t be around to see the end. The second coming. The Big bang. Armageddon. Nuclear Holocaust. I am disappointed, because I just want to know how it ends.

ce soir j'ai mes devoirs à faire, vous savez la routine

2009-10-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following on the back of a take-out menu at work a couple weeks ago.

I live in a city now. Growing up in Mississippi I used to lay awake at night and listen to the absence of humanity; I would instead hear the ever-present crickets and the swishing and swaying of ancient tree branches. Sometimes a dog would bark out his frustrations into the open night and rip up the silence. Once there was a whipporwhill outside my window.

Next I lived in the squished suburbs of Texas, which held a constant stream of car doors slamming and smart business suits clattering up to their front doors. I used to lay awake in the early mornings as the chain of cars started up and began the backing-out-of-the-driveway-ballet.

Then I was in a dorm way the hell on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line. I heard routine mowers and I heard the distant dull echo of empty voices on television, and always, always, ripples of laughter in the hallways, part of an ongoing joke I was never in on.

Now I live in the city. There is no single discernible sound, just multitudes of overlapping voices, alongside the constant rumble of motors and horns, growls of trucks, the sirens screaming injustice against the night, bicycle bells trilling for attention, and sometimes a dog barking, but here he's speaking out of turn. I'm a part of something much larger now, some grand wheel in motion I have no control over. I am a part and I am apart.

long time no see

2009-09-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

I am revving my engine. It's hard for me to write papers, especially when I live in this busy city and there are so many things to distract myself with and so many little details in my home of which I obsess over...and the rain is raining and the couch is calling and I just want to zone out in front of an old black and white movie.

I have to write a paper for my philosophy class which kind of makes me want to pull my hair out. One by one. Isn't that a disease? Anyway.

My nails have gotten too long. It's becoming difficult to type. You can always tell when the school year picks up because I'll chew my nails all off in order to type faster.

My philosophy paper is on love. More specifically, Plato's Symposium. I'm listening to sad love songs and putting my ear to the ground to try and figure something out. I chose to write about the discourse of Aristophones, which essentially states that the reason we seek out love is because we were once great big beings mushed together into one and then ripped apart when we got too strong and Zeus felt threatened.

Like this:

I loved that movie when I saw it in high school. I should rewatch it.

We are too nubile to take on this assignment. We don't really know love yet. Most of us are unbruised still.

My original thesis was going to be something about the "physical implications" that Aristophanes has "enumerated" within his discourse so as to illustrate the "tangible manifestations" or our "perpetual search for love." I think I'm going to change my thesis statement to "WHY?" instead.

Ennui

2009-05-28T10:43:00.001-07:00

I need a back rub real bad. I've been working ALL DAY EVERYDAY, you know, like a real grown up.

I'm like a real person now. I commute to work, I eat with real silverware (alone), take care of a pet, update excel sheets, spend exorbitant amounts of time in front of some type of electronic screen and therefore have entered the suburban despair of adults that is in stark contrast to my evident youth. Ugh.

I'm so bored, y'all.

It kind of dawned on me last night as I was sitting on the floor, folding clothes that I need to mend. The t.v. was blaring nonsense and I had done nothing with my afternoon/evening.

I am bored. Like, identity-crisis bored. Like....chop-al-my-hair-off or call-ex-boyfriends-I-haven't spoken-to-in-years-bored.

I love summer. Don't get me wrong. I just have been spending too much time alone.

I can't wait for Sanders to move innnnn.

Time's up. Going home.

2009-05-19T11:26:00.001-07:00

I am cranky. I am cranky because I am hungry. And cold. This here facility I'm workin' in keeps the temperature to a bare minimum and my digits are going numb.

I had a pretty smooth transition into summer. There were about two weeks of event after event, peppered with deadlines and last minute study sessions, and then...radial silence. Static. Summer.

I went to graduation to see Sandy walk and cried. Sandykins looked right at us, way the hell back in the bleachers, from down on the football field, shrugged, held out her hands, and said

"It's done." into the camera her brother was holding. We rewound it and watched a few times.

Last night I wandered into the film boys' new house and got the grand tour. They're taking house name suggestions. This is a trend I like. People name their houses here instead of saying "Colin's house" or some such. I live in the "Jerusalem House." Some of our friends lived in "Robot House."

The front runners for their new house name are Doctor House (ha!), Monster House, the White House, and my personal favorite, The Barn.

Here's what I've been up to:

This is Kyle and me on the bus on our way to Comm Prom! (School of Communication Prom)

Here's us cuttin' a rug at Comm Prom.

This is at the HFC Film Festival.

This is the Max Kolb Telethon. I was a "background actress."

This is Sandy, Cj, and me at graduation last Sunday.

Here's me 'n Dave at the HFC Barbeque.

Here's another picture of all of us at the barbeque. I'm in the HFC hoodie!

goodness

2009-04-29T06:21:00.000-07:00

Ah, so I think my synapses are re-mapping. I can feel minute crashes like fireworks going off in my head and all my thoughts are realigning and readjusting.

I think...the more I get used to this place, the more I'm ready to leave. Does this mean I don't like settling down?

We shot the director's intro's for the festival last night- I got to be in both Matt's and Colin's, which was fun. I made cameos in their videos.

Oh, the new hfc website is up now: www.hfcfilms.com. Soon all of the films will be up there!
I made a mosaic using this website. The questions I was answering were these:

1. What is your name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your hometown?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. What is your favorite movie?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What is one word to describe yourself?
10. What is your favorite song?
11. Where were you born?
12. What is a hobby of yours?
13. Where do you go to school?
14. How are you feeling right now?
15. What do you love most in the world?
16. What do you want to be when you grow up?

I thought it was fun.

Oh, the places we'll go

2009-04-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

Spring is here. I can smell the mulberries already. Mmmm.

Here's a picture of Sandy and me, actin' cute as shit in my room.

More later, I swear!

Been awhile.

2009-04-13T13:47:00.001-07:00

Movies, boyfriend, Binghamton, Hofstra, film, graduate school, summer school, classes, tests, papers, films, etc.

That about covers it.

Spring break kind of whet my appetite for summer. Classes started again today and I am dragging my feet.

I need a few mores spring breaks before I feel like handling classes again.

twitter.

2009-03-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

I gots one. I got an e-mail from Eddie Izzard's website saying that he had recently joined twitter, so I immediately had to join myself. Didn't even think about it. I love Eddie Izzard. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before, but DAMN I LOVE EDDIE IZZARD.

I also found Christopher Walken's twitter account. He mostly talks about his cat.

I'm at work. TIRED. I'm not sure if any amount of caffeine is going to get me through this twelve-hour day.

So. We shot "Bedroom Dancing" this past weekend. It was great. I took a bunch of pictures.

Robots!

2009-03-10T07:11:00.000-07:00

Colin showed me this. It caught its balance! The damn thing has instincts! How scary.

The arrival of Courtney and "Bedroom Dancing" are getting closer...

In other news, I've started dressing for spring. It's a habit of mine this time of year. I'm so stubborn, that I think that if I show Mother Nature I'm freakin' ready for spring by dressing for it, then she'll get the idea. I like to envision myself the sole boycott-er of winter. Don't worry guys, I got this. I'll take care of it. Spring will be here before you know it! Thank me later, yadda yadda yadda...

I'mreadyI'mreadyI'mready let's go. Summertime. Now. I need sleep.

let's blame postmodern things.

2009-03-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

AHHHHHHHHHHHH.

You know when things suddenly just pickupspeed, and you find you can't even take a nap without your own subconscious sabotaging your only attempt at rest? I'm so there. Wakin' up in panic mode from a decent, peaceful nap.

Doesn't help that Courtney is adding fuel to the fire- her excitement for her visit and "Bedroom Dancing" is putting a bit of pressure on me to live up to her expectations of Leah-the-Filmmaker. Etc.

Whadda day, y'all. This is from a shoot in October. I was the..production manager? Yeah. Something like that. So I got to walk around, NOT SOUND MIXING, with a cup of coffee in hand, sometimes doing work, but mostly overseeing and making sure people were fed. I'm not too sure what that boy was saying to me, but I doubt I was pleased. It looks like a gun thing.

I wish I had a heart that's real hard to break!

always somethin' there to remind me...

2009-03-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

Oh, oh, oh. Having a good, productive day. Don't you just love those?

Colin and I are pluggin' away at the next film.

Here we are, hard at work...
I was gonna say somethin' else but I forgot.

Oh! The feeling of catching up with schoolwork is tremendous. That's what I was going to say. Most of the time, films keep me pretty preoccupied, and the other, lesser homework tends to fall by the wayside until I glance at my calendar and notice a few days before that OH that's comin' up, and I'll do it, but now I'm working at a decent, normal pace. It's nice for once.

I'm at work right now.

Also, right now, it's "Mustache March." All the boys have pretty ridiculous facial hair ranging from Ulysses S. Grant to 70's porn stars. It's great.

I'm blasting this song right now. People are dancing.

What a great day.

Over and out.

moviemakin'

2009-03-03T16:31:00.000-08:00

I had to dig my car out of the snow today. I didn't love it so much then. Colin says hi.

Another ridiculous film picture.
I had to sound mix from the bathtub because we were shooting inside a tiny bathroom. It was still wet since someone had just taken a shower.

Colin and I are gearing up for the great movie collaboration of the semester- "Bedroom Dancing," a film I wrote, he's directing, and the best-friend-of-all-time is starring in. Henceforth, TBFOAT will be referred to by her name, Courtney. Should be exciting.

push and pull

2009-03-01T23:04:00.000-08:00

So, listen. Today it started snowing while we were wrapping up on a film shoot. A really good film shoot, too. (There was a sex scene that I had to stay in the room for- requisite female, plus sound mixer equals necessary precaution..despite the awkward sex scene though, still a good shoot.)

Anyway.

The snow started out as this annoyance, this cold and wet hindrance, while I was loading up the van.

Oh, but then. I went to hang out with a couple friends in the tower dorms- these really tall motherfuckin' structures that dominate the Hofstra landscape, and up there, in that high rise, watchin' the snow and gabbing with some new faces and new friends made me feel like a NEW woman. It was beautiful. And then we all started getting phone calls...saying classes were Oh-fish-uh-lee cancelled tomorrow, March 2nd. Beautiful. Me, being at the end of the alphabet, was the last to receive the call. The call punctuated the visit nicely.

I left after that and drove home (in the snow oh my god oh my god oh my god oh i'm fine okay this isn't that bad) and I got out of the car...

And couldn't go inside yet. I looked around, and there was no one! Now, y'all, I live on a busy street. Four lane nightmare with store fronts and parking lanes and people and pets...and there was no one. Nothing. Virgin snow!

I beeped my car lock and started trekking into lands unknown, rendered unfamiliar in the piling snow. As I was walking the blocks, I started to notice that A)I heard nothing but silence and B)All of the street lights have different color temperatures.

Cinematography dream. I never noticed it before because the black asphalt absorbs the light, but now that everything is white, I noticed the pinks, the greens, the oranges, the yellows all flickering their fluorescent nonsense into the snow. It was beautiful.

So. Yup. That's my story. A southern girl who finally developed an appreciation for the snow. And, I don't know y'all, there's just something especially poignant about seeing my cowboy boot prints trailing behind me in the snow.

Hmmmm.

2009-02-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-02-26T20:59:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-25T07:40:00.000-08:00

"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.

Oh, the songs we'll sing

2009-02-24T07:17:00.000-08:00

Interesting birthday weekend. Cowboys and Injun's themed birthday party was on Friday night (mine) and Shannon's birthday party was on Saturday night. Here are two pictures from each. The picture from Friday is in my room with Fiona, Rachel, me, and Harry.

Colin invented a camera on Saturday night.

I don't quite understand what he was saying still, but essentially it takes the exposures of three pictures all at once and overlays them onto one image. (Which can be done in post production and isn't necessary in a camera, but he seemed excited.)

It was a good weekend. Some friends visited Rachel and me from Binghamton- some new friends from my life-changing trip! It made me really happy that they came here. I doubt their visit to Long Island shook their faith as much as my trip there had me shakin' in my boots, but, still. Vacations are good.

The weather is ever-so-slowly starting to warm, and with it comes my renewed hope and faith in humanity...once the dust settles, I plan on being one of the few left standing. And by that I mean, THREE EASTERN WINTERS DOWN, ONE TO GO.

Rachel and I are just counting the days for when we can pack up our cars and snatch up the little cat Lucy and run away to the west coast where our REAL life will start.

How common is that feeling, by the way? The yes-I'm-doing-something-right feeling and the yes-I'm-where-I'm-supposed-to-be feeling? Should I feel that way all the time, or just when I've accomplished something? I should experiment and report back. I do it all the time.

It will look like this:

Day One: Ennui has set in. I'm having another identity crisis. Whooo boy, here we go!

Day Two: Why am I here? What am I doing? What is this existential mess I've gotten myself into? My neural net is all kinds of tangled up!

Day Three: Rachel, what's wrong with meeeee? Mom! I hate it here! I want to go home!

Day Four: New situation. New friends. New inside jokes. Okay, okay, things are lookin' up...

Day Five: Identity crisis averted. I wrote a script. Colin, Rachel, get ready, let's make a movie.

Over and out.

OoohhWEE I'm antsy

2009-02-19T07:40:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-02-18T09:40:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-02-17T09:53:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-02-17T06:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-13T16:17:00.000-08:00

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..

2009-02-13T05:47:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-12T21:11:00.001-08:00

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?

2009-02-12T07:12:00.001-08:00

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.

2009-02-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

Rachel and I started a video advice series awhile ago.

Here.

Aaaand here.

Oh, the huge manatee!

2009-02-10T06:30:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-02-02T11:31:00.000-08:00

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

Oh, dear. Again.

2009-01-30T23:21:00.001-08:00

I've been a bad girl and there one is no one around to reprimand me. I hate being my own moral compass, because I'm just getting away with murder here. People don't really notice what I'm doing.

I have this talent that, if I were to roll around in nuclear waste, would morph into my super power. I can either say exactly what someone wants to hear, or, I can say exactly what can make them cry. It's a talent, I guess, and also a curse because I know how to hurt people, and I do. I play people like instruments. I'm manipulative, and very few people catch. Someone needs to put me in my place.

I'm upset about this now because I did this today a couple times, in different situations, and now I feel like a really bad person. The first time was on the phone with someone that I actually do like when we're not working together on a film, and we were inevitably fighting and she said something nasty, and then I just let it rip and said exactly what I knew would hurt her, but kept it relevant to the conversation we were having. Conversation. Fight. Whatever. I feel bad. In that moment I knew exactly what to say to her to make her hurt, and I did it, and I shouldn't have.

I just. I play people. I can play people's sympathies, but without throwing a pity-party for myself and inviting others. They think that they are each the gatekeeper to my secrets and my pains, but what they don't know is that THEY ALL KNOW EVERYTHING, but they are each sworn to secrecy. They don't know what each other actually knows.

So my friends, my loved ones, walk around, carrying my burdens alone, thinking they are the sole inheritor of my trials and tribulations. They each think they are special, the chosen one to bear my burden. I don't know why I do this.

I'm a horrible person. I'm really manipulative, and for no reason. If I play my friends, then what relationships are real?

Que fait tu...

2009-01-29T06:16:00.000-08:00

Day 1 of the daily grind here. Today marks the beginning of yet another semester when I wake up at 7:15 am exactly, curse, and roll out of bed to commute to work, then classes, then back home again where I will either do homework or find some other way to waste my time until I fall asleep and begin anew. Ugh.

It smells like maple syrup in my office. It really bothers me, because I particularly hate the smell of maple syrup. I don't like it.

There's a bunch of grey, slushy snow out right now. Winters on Long Island are not attractive. There will be about five minutes of a winter wonderland out there before it all just turns into grey snow and black ice.

At least I can play my music as loud as I want here. I'm always the first one in the office, and I do that on purpose, so I can take over the front computer and stereo that's up here, and subject all the dawdling teachers and bleary-eyed students to my music at stupid o'clock in the morning as they wander in for their morning education.

I do the same thing in the car during the summer, actually. I love pulling up to other cars with my windows rolled down, blasting, Francoise Hardy or some such.

As much as I whine about it, I secretly love my morning routine. I love being here this early. I take over. I blast my music, make coffee, clear out yesterday's paperwork, chat with the engineers, and catch up on e-mails all before my boss wanders in, messy-haired and with sunglasses on. (He always drives with the top down. Always.)

I feel like I've been at this a really, really long time. I feel like it's always been this way.

Dear, me.

2009-01-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

I abhor winter. It's pretty through a fogged window, but actually being in it and experiencing WINTER is not as fun. I feel like I'm shriveling. I'm drying up and losing parts of myself and when I crack my spine because I sit in the same chair for too long, staring at the same pixels, I can just imagine the little icicle fissures that are forming in my spine.

Being this miserable takes a lot of work, y'all. You have to constantly, and consistently, be unhappy about life, without ever saying anything to anyone. You leave that to steep in your own internal whining, and pretty soon, you'll have your very on wintry depression ripe for those long, cold, evenings when you can't sleep even though you know you are getting up at 7:30 am to be on set by 8:30 am. And, as an added bonus, you'll be so annoyed with your own petty self-righteousness and self-imposed martyrdom, that it will add a nice little edge to your sadness.

Get me out of here.

2009-01-15T22:47:00.000-08:00

Clint Eastwood is my hero.

2009-01-03T23:15:00.001-08:00

I kind of feel like we're the first generation struggling with consciousness. In recent interview, Clint Eastwood talked about how back in the day you could hit a bully without worrying about possible psychological ramifications, whereas now, my generation is the first to be implicated in the former wrongdoings of our parents and their parents, when they taught their children to quell feelings and emotional outbursts. Especially males. So now, my generation is emotional and conscious, and very sensitive to world events. I mean, okay, some of us are enormously stupid and not worth the astroturf I walk on, but still. Metrosexuality? Young people voting in record numbers? All related to our accidental, generational, enlightenment.

Ummmm.

2009-01-02T22:14:00.000-08:00

I'm feelin' like a breakable antebellum dream lately. I think it's being back in Texas.

I also unearthed old pictures from a Mac I had thought long dead and gone (original iMac, guys. What is that, circa 2000?) so I found myself looking at pictures of myself make-up-less and wide-eyed with flowers in my hair and looking a heckuva lot happier.

I also spend the day making phone calls wheedling strangers to do stuff for films. Not my films, mind you, but others. I'm practicing my negotiatin' skills for when I'm in the real world, tryin' to produce. Oh, I forgot to mention that when I make these phone calls I make sure to turn my southern accent dial to "high." It helps to be southern and female, I think. People are always tryin ' to save a damsel.

Working without merit gets very, very tedious. Especially when there is a boy involved. Yeah. With eye-talics, even.

There are two pictures of me here. One is when I was fifteen. One is the most recent picture.

2008-12-16T08:25:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like an island. Or like I'm missing some necessary strings that connect me to other humans, and instead my strings are floating in clouds and not doing a very successful job of tethering me to day to day life.

Or maybe it's just the semester is winding down and I'm dreading finals.

French final aujourd'hui at 1:30. FINAL french final, might I add. The end of an arduous french minor.

Last Wednesday I won Best Original Screenplay, that's what the picture is.

Thanksgiving

2008-12-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

I stayed in Pennsylvania over Thanksgiving weekend with my incredibly gracious Aunt and Uncle. The house is so old that I had forgotten what they sound like. It was like a living, breathing creature, who moaned and wheezed as the wind blew and it made settling noises. The radiator even clicked as it was doing it's damnedest to warm the house, chugging it's little metal heart along. It was my first Thanksgiving away from home- but I couldn't have chosen a better place to spend it.

I followed a grey cat around the yard to see what kind of mischief he was getting into. I also saw a hawk tearing apart his dinner squirrel, but that wasn't as fun.

Well.

2008-04-25T15:13:00.001-07:00

No more (real) film shoots this season! I think tomorrow I am helping someone film their beginning level film production (16 mm no sound plus-x black and white negative), but he told me that if he didn't feel things were adequately prepared he wasn't going to ask me to be on it, out of embarrassment. Hm.

Tonight is the deadline for the films to be in the Hofstra Filmmakers' Club festival. This is actually a very exciting time of year- lots of fighting, redemption, tension, et cetera. I would elaborate but most of these stories I've told so much already that they are just tiring at this point.

That picture is of me, on location in New Jersey for shooting my own movie! The little girl in the background is the little sister of my lead actress. And she kicked my ass in monopoly, p.s. Clearly we are hard at work.

Okay, that's all I've got in me right now.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh.

2008-04-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

I am currently experiencing some really uncomforable levels of pulls in different directions.

Film - French - Friends - Familial (Not really, I'm just homesick.)

I was on a really brutal film shoot this past weekend. Three day shoot, from 6:00 am to Midnight EVERY DAY. And it was also cursed...five people got a stomach virus, one kid got a fractured wrist, I broke my toe, and we all kept cutting our hands up on the dolly track because the polish was chipping off and slicing us up. There was a tetanus scare for awhile.

My french professors are beginning to pressure me into double majoring in film and french, and one of them especially is pushing me to do the study abroad thing with her. She's trying to barter with me because I keep telling her I don't have the money. So she wants to get me financial aid and and audit one of the courses so I don't have to pay for it. I understand her enthusiasm and I love her and I love the class, and I would probably go to pretty great lengths to study abroad but I genuinely don't have the time/money. She also has asked me to attend a black-tie conference thing that only three students in the university are allowed to attend, and I agreed to it, but when I consulted my schedule later I realized that I would be in Jersey filming my own film, which I can't just walk away from. If it was any other person's shoot other than my own, I would.

I'm also working with two kids who are running or SGA President and Vice President, I'm on their campaign staff. This translates to me making commercials for them. At first there was all this hubbub of people saying they would love to help these kids, and then of course I got stuck doing all the work. I mean, I don't mind because I believe in them and their platforms, but sometimes I get sick of being a workhorse.

I feel like I'm held together with masking tape!

I'm very excited about my film shoot. It's going to be shot entirely on location in New Jersey with some of my closest friends, and it's going to be nice and relaxing. I've worked on almost forty films by now, so I can make a good schedule.

All of my actors are really pumped up about the shoot, which makes me excited. They've been working out, getting tans and haircuts, and hanging out with each other in their off time (out of rehearsals, classes, et cetera) in order to cultivate the kind of friendship they'll need to portray onscreen.

After next weekend, it's a downward climb. Until then...let's hope the masking tape holds!

I found two interesting websites:

www.rcrdlbl.com

It's a neat indie mp3 site. I'm in love with "No More" by The Dirty Projectors.

www.postcardsfromyomama.com

This is a site where people submit things their mothers have sent them, it's actually really funny.

Oh, here is a picture of me and my roommate from the shoot this past weekend. She was the lead actress and I was the key grip. I would post a more revealing picture of the shoot, but I kind of signed a contract saying I wouldn't give anything away about the film.

Anyway, that's it. Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Over and out.

Geekfest 2008 yo

2008-03-09T00:38:00.001-08:00

I...hate, HATE dorm life. Just throwing that out there.

Right now it is 4:38 am and there is what my roommates and I like to refer to as "Geekfest" going on in the common room, which shares a wall with my dorm. Geekfest usually gets together and plays Guitar Hero and various other video games for extended periods of time. It's dubbed "Geekfest" due to the very interesting specimens of humanity that make up this fascinating anthropological study.

Geekfest has now been at it for about seven hours. I'm going to shoot somebody.

I live in a high-traffic area dorm- lots of people coming and going at all hours, and since I am on the first floor, right next to the elevators, I have the privilege of coming out of my room in the mornings to see the havoc I heard take place the night before when I was trying to sleep. So far this night someone has broken off a elevator door, busted open a fire extinguisher (there is glass everywhere) and tipped over a trash can full of beer cans. I hate my dorm on the weekends.

Dorm life! Hooray!

It's almost five in the morning. In addition to hating the dorm, I hate daylight savings time. I WANT MY HOUR BACK.

Um. Wait, what?

2008-03-04T10:31:00.001-08:00

I have a sinus infection and both my ear drums are torn. How does that even happen?!?

Gross.

The mockumentary is up!

2008-03-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

Here it is! Haha, it's just a rough cut, but there's me acting/improvising/being generally awkward.

Dojo Diablo?

Froglish

2008-02-29T06:22:00.000-08:00

I am at work. It is tiresome.

I work in basically the film equipment rental house of my school and it's like the movie Empire Records except film related. We are all entirely too involved in each others' lives.

Last night I did a mockumentary for a couple friends, meaning I acted in it, which is rare these days. It was fun. It was kind of a Christopher Guest-style thing, where I improvised and said ridiculous things off the top of my head about pirate radio and had to keep a straight face. I'll post the link once it goes up on http://www.current.com/.

The picture I posted is of me on a recent film shoot- There were about eight or nine child actors. Mothers have this instinct on a set and they understand who's in charge immediately- so they told their children to stick with me and I'd take care of them...so they followed me around the entire shoot. It was cute. I got back the behind the scenes footage to edit to put on the dvd and there's always me running around in the background of the interview and then a trail of little ones behind me. P.S. That kid that is taller than me (the redhead) is 11. He's a beast.

Excuse le titre.

2008-02-27T17:09:00.000-08:00

Rules of Suck it, Nostradamus!:

1) Don't talk about Suck it, Nostradamus!.

2) No, really. You do NOT TALK about Suck it.

3) There is no Suck it.

That's all for now.