Buried under luxuries outdated

I didn't give any thought at all to what my New Year's Resolution would be this year. I figured, since I've yet to truly keep any resolutions I'd made before, why bother thinking about it. Maybe my problem was that my resolutions were too contrived – maybe I'd be more dedicated if my resolutions were more sincere. Following that route of logic, I decided that if I had something genuinely worth dedicating myself to, I'd jump on it. Otherwise, I'd just let it go.

And that's when it hit me; letting things go, willingly, has become a bit of a sore spot for me. Oh, sure, I've let go of plenty of people and things in my life, but almost always, I realized, as a reaction or the result of a situation that I had little control over. What I need to work on is recognizing the things that are, or have become, detrimental to me, and letting them go.

I'm starting small; the clothes I haven't worn in a long time, the books I'm never going to read again, and most of the "stuff" that once had a home with my mother, and is currently taking up a sizeable piece of real estate in my basement storage area (in truth, it wasn't doing her any good, either, and I've just been perpetuating the habit for the last couple of years). I think it's true that if you haven't used or thought about something in a year, you no longer need it, so I'm going to force myself to get comfortable with passing things on. Maybe hanging on to things is an acceptable form of fear – the victory of the Creeping What-If's; "What if I need it and don't have it?" Instead of being afraid that I might need these things at some vague point in the future, maybe I should have enough faith in myself to figure out an alternative if the situation arises.

Oh, and give yourself 5 extra points if you know what song the post title comes from ;-)

A Cool, Clear Pool of Apathy

Apathy is the bane of my existence. Seriously, I'd rather have someone look me dead in the eye and tell me to shut the f@ck up than be patronized and pacified by an apathetic individual. I hate to fail at anything, but more and more I'm realizing that sometimes, you learn more from falling on your face than you do from your soaring triumphs. I guess I've hit that point when I just have to realize that I'm wasting my time trying to convert a person to an enthusiastic, passion-filled existence, and instead focus on the wonder that I know is out there.

I will not die an unlived life.

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid,

more accessible,

to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance;

to live so that which came to me as seed

goes to the next as blossom

and that which came to me as blossom,

goes on as fruit.

Fully Alive – Dawna Markova

Entertain me!

I've been a miserable, mucus-y mass of contagion since last Thursday. I will warn you straight away, I haven't been able to sleep because of the microcosm of plague, and I've been watching a lot of movies (thank The Maker for Netflix streaming video and AppleTV). Here's a run-down of what I've been watching, complete with my own two cents worth of commentary:

Valhalla Rising (Mads Mikkelsen) – A bleak, brutal and very weird story about a one-eyed Viking who goes on walkabout with a slave boy and a handful of would-be Crusaders. They set out for the Holy Land and end up… somewhere else entirely. It was a little too 'stream of consciousness' for my taste, but the cinematography was absolutely gorgeous; the film felt so cold and barren that I swear I needed an extra blanket just to get through it.

Brothers (Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal) – Let me get this out of the way right off the bat: I love the spelling of Jake Gyllenhaal's last name. Any name that manages to cram in a 'y', back- to -back l's and a double vowel and still be less than 18 letters is very impressive. Ridiculous, I know, but I already warned you that I'm sleep deprived. Anyhoo… The movie was well acted, but still disappointing, and I blame the trailers for that. They led me to believe that this was going to be some big psychological drama, pitting brother against brother in a tense and heartbreaking struggle. Not so much. It's a remake of a recent Danish flick (note: is Denmark considered a Scandinavian country? Is it cold there? Spending long spans of time cooped up would explain their cinematic style… I must do more research on this) but it definitely felt like the filmmakers put a heavy American spin on it. In the end I found myself not really caring what happened to this family, something that could have been remedied, I think, simply by giving the relationship between Gyllenhaal and Portman's characters a little extra time to develop. As it stands, it's barely more than a footnote, but watching it, I wanted it to be so much more.

A Clockwork Orange (Malcolm McDowell) – I will freely admit, I have never met a Kubrick film that I've liked. He definitely has his own style, and I am not a fan. But I figure when a movie makes as big a stir as this one does, even 40 years later, it deserves a look-see. Now, I've read the book a couple of times, and I did enjoy it, but sweet Jesus tap dancing Christ did I hate this movie. It manages to be heavy handed and nebulous (Kubrick!) at the same time, and misses several of the more subtle points that the book makes. It's a dystopian story, I get that, I really do, but by the end of the movie I had absolutely no sympathy for the main character what so ever. Even when I should have been appalled at the inhumane things being done to him, I just couldn't bring myself to care. At. All. Several times I caught myself thinking "Well, Alex, you're an asshole and you totally deserve it." The way the book was written, there was at least a little empathy for Alex as he went through his torture, and subsequent loss of his "lovely, lovely Ludwig Van". USELESS (but cool) TRIVIA WARNING: I read somewhere that Heath Ledger used Malcolm McDowell's performance in A Clockwork Orange as a jumping-off point for his performance as The Joker, and you can totally see it.

Jeffrey (Steven Weber, Sir Patrick Stewart) – Yes, THAT Steven Weber (the guy from 'Wings'). And yes, THAT Sir Patrick Stewart (the one and only Jean-Luc Picard). I love Sir Patrick Stewart (and I love saying SIR Patrick Stewart, so much so that I will correct people, all obnoxious like, when I hear his name mentioned), I saw him a long time ago in The Tempest at an outdoor summer Shakespeare festival, and ever since I will watch him in anything. But I digress. 'Jeffrey' is about a gay man (Jeffrey, go figure) who meets the man of his dreams almost immediately after declaring himself celibate over his fear of AIDS. Don't worry, Sir Patrick Stewart does not play the "man of his dreams" roll in the movie; that part fell to Michael T. Weiss, who some of you may remember from TV's The Pretender. Anyone? Anyone? No? I didn't watch it either. Oh Well. The movie was done on a small budget, and at times, you can tell. But there are giggle-inducing scenes, like the 'Gay Waiter Hoe-Down' fantasy that make it easy to overlook the occasionally shoddy camera work. I also think it's funny that Netflix recommended this movie to me based on my interest in Eddie Izzard and the must-see Tom Hanks classic Philadelphia. I'm glad they did, as I thoroughly enjoyed it.

National Geographic: The Lord of the Rings – This is part of their 'Beyond the Movie' series, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. They take a look at the historic and cultural influences that Tolkien could have called upon when writing 'Rings'. They mention parallels between Aragorn and William Wallace, Gandalf and a litany of trusted royal advisors (I really liked the 'Worm Tongue vs. Rasputin' segment). The literature geek in me would have liked this to be twice as long as it was (it clocks in at barely over 51 minutes), but the whole 'Leave 'em wanting more' thing is applicable here. If you've got any interest at all in LOTR, rent this; it'll shed new and really cool light on the movies the next time you watch them (and as frequently as TNT airs them, that could be fairly soon).

Crazy Heart (Jeff Bridges, Collin Farrell) – No bones about it, I liked this movie a lot. Not a lot of action, but the characters are great, and the music was a big surprise bonus for me. I'm not much of a fan of country music, but immediately after watching the movie I hit up iTunes for a couple of the songs from the soundtrack. Story-wise, there were no forced happy endings here. The characters ended up maybe not where they wanted to be, but where they needed to be, which rang much more true than any Disneyfied ending. This may also be the first movie I've ever seen Maggie Gyllenhaal in where she didn't look like a tired 50 year old.

Robin Hood – The 2006 BBC series. I've seen this series mentioned in several of my online communities, and it's been recommended for me numerous times by both Netflix and Amazon. I've always loved all things Robin Hood (I even get the urge to watch Kevin 'Now I'm Using An Accent, Now I'm Not' Costner's Robin Hood every once in a while), so I finally gave in and decided to give this 2006 series a shot. Now, I feel the need to mention the BBC series Robin of Sherwood that aired here in the States on PBS in the mid-80's. It starred first Michael Praed, then Jason Connery (as in, son of Sean '007' Connery) as Robin and it was magical. It used a whole gamut of Celtic mythology to bolster the story lines, and it had a gritty authenticity to it that I don't think has been matched to this day. As I started to watch the newer one, I thought to myself "I'm not going to like this as much as RoS." I was pleasantly surprised, though, at how much I do like it. This is a scrappier take on the Robin Hood mythos – younger, more hip - that still delivers on the romance and humor. There are plot holes, to be sure (I don't think Robin and his cronies could actually waltz in and out of Nottingham Castle as frequently and as easily as they do here) but the writers have allowed for a few characters usually relegated to supporting roles to really develop here and I found myself actually more attached to them than the main characters. It's a fun bit of Saturday matinee-type adventure, and the dialogue is well written and well delivered. Fun movie tie-in: Richard Armitage, the actor who plays Sir Guy, has been cast as Head Dwarf In Charge Thorin Oakenshield in the upcoming 'Hobbit' movies (and given that Mr. Armitage is both very tall and very easy on the eyes, I'd say Peter Jackson's makeup department has their work cut out for them).

Let smilin' dogs be happy

Tuesday I got up at 6:45 AM, and by 7:15 I was in an utterly foul mood. I won't bore you with the details; suffice it to say that I probably would have slapped my own mother if she had looked at me funny, and not thought twice about it. All bundled up and looking, I must imagine, like a dead ringer for the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, I got Max ready to go out for our morning walk. He seemed eager enough to go; unless it's raining or he's really tired, he loves his walks. Grumbling to myself as I crammed doggie clean up bags into every available pocket on my parka, I opened the door and stepped out into the near blizzard winds. Grumbling out loud as the first blast of arctic air hit me, I pulled the door shut behind us and turned to step off the porch.

And that's when it happened.

Max realized that overnight a huge amount of The White Fluffy Stuff had landed in his front yard. He immediately went into this ridiculous butt-wiggling, front feet stomping canine jig that I've come to associate with unbridled happiness on his part. He poked his entire face into the snow and came up with a small mound of it on the end of his nose. Tail wagging furiously, he looked up at me as if to say, "Did you see this?! This is GREAT!" He then threw himself into a full-on nose dive into the snow that had drifted around the cherry tree, taking mouthfuls of the stuff and trying to throw it up into the air the way he does his toys. Despite my foul mood, I caught myself chuckling. Max responded to the slight shift in my mood by cocking his head and perking up his ears ("C'mon, this IS great, right!").

I decided that instead of taking our usual walk we would head down to one of the open fields at the bottom of the hill. There's this little stand of pine trees that sits in front of the party center. The place ain't exactly hoppin' at 7:45 AM on a blustery Tuesday, so that's where we went. As we approached the field, Max went into excitement overdrive, bouncing on his front feet and wagging his tail so hard it came all the way around to his shoulders. With his ears pinned back and his mouth open in excitement, he pulled me over to where he knew the edge of the grass was under all this new White Fluffy Stuff. I told him to calm down and he dutifully, if extremely impatiently, dropped his butt to the ground. I laughed again, because he was staring longingly at the empty expanse of snow, wanting to get out there so badly he was practically vibrating. I unhooked his leash and said "Go get 'em!"

That was all it took; he launched himself forward, stretching into this kind of cheetah-like run that he does. My Maximus is a fairly large dog, and he's got the long body of a Great Pyrenees (which he gets from his mama), so when he gets into a really good running stride, it's kind of impressive to watch. I stood there for a solid five minutes, watching him do laps in and around the strand of trees, running for all he was worth then skidding to a halt, turning on a dime and heading in a completely different direction. He would come bounding up to me with a huge grin on his face (anybody who's ever lived with a dog knows that they do smile), darting and fainting at me, trying to get me to play with him. We found a stick, actually a small branch from one of the pine trees, complete with floppy pine needles still attached (the needles perplexed Max to no end, but since there was a bare section of branch at one end, that was all he needed) and I threw that for him for a while. He would go rocketing past the branch, snatching it up as he went, usually without even slowing down. Sometimes he would stop abruptly and just shove his whole face into the snow, looking for God only knows what under the inches of precipitation that were so bothersome to me just a half hour before, but were now brining both of us so much joy. And that's exactly what it was. Watching Max tear around in the snow, I thought to myself that there should be a picture of this scene in the dictionary, right next to the definition of 'joy'. And I realized that I'd been laughing at him the entire time, and that I was no longer feeling any trace of the foul mood lingering from before. I think that's part of the magic of dogs; just by doing whatever it is they do, they make us feel better. I have never in my life met a human being capable of doing that, but it's come naturally to every dog I have ever had.

I am a human coffee plant

Nothing brings a smile to my face quite like the smell of coffee brewing. There's something earthy and deep about it that literally goes right to my soul and sits there, making me feel all warm and fuzzy and happy. My friend David is a wine connoisseur; he belongs to 'Wine O' The Month' clubs (not to be confused with Wine-o The Month…ahem) and knows all the 'rules' about what wine goes with what kind of food, and at what temperature the wine should be served. I can barely separate good wine from bad fruit juice. However, I told David once that I am as offended by bad coffee and he is by bad wine, and it's true. My point being, I am quite serious about my coffee. Anyway, since it was early and the house was quiet my mind started to wander. I accessed that part of my brain that I have dubbed The Archives of Useless Information (because as some people will tell you, I am a cornucopia of useless information) and did a quick run-down of everything I know about coffee. I came to the startling conclusion that being a coffee farmer and a creative person are not at all dissimilar. Why? You wonder. Well, of course I'm going to tell you. Read on…

The best coffee beans grow in ancient, dangerous places – rain forests, soaring mountain ranges, even the sides of volcanoes. It takes years before a coffee plant (it's a shrub, actually; there's a piece of useless information, to you from me) will start producing its full crop. Even once it does start producing, all the fruit (the coffee beans are actually hanging out inside a berry) does not ripen all at once, so it's necessary to return to the same plant several times in order to get all the coffee the plant has to offer.

Once the berries have been picked, it's on to the roasting process, which is, in and of itself, a monumental pain in the ass. These little suckers have to be roasted at low heat for a specified period of time, until all the hull and berry parts burns off (I'm told this stinks to high heaven, BTW). Then the beans have to be stirred up, the heat increased and the beans babysat until they get to a specific color and texture. There's no set list of times for any of this, because outside temperature, humidity and altitude all play a part in how long it takes to roast a bean. There are fast, cheap, easy ways to do this (I will not entertain any comments regarding fast, cheat and easy people), and there is the expensive, time consuming, labor-intensive way to do this. Take a guess at which one yields the best cup of coffee.

What I'm saying is, creating anything-art, music, literature-is just like harvesting coffee. If it's really good art, it comes from a place inside that may not be easy to get to; hell, it might even come from a spiritual or emotional place where we don't like to venture too often. It's never realized in just one trip to this dark place – we have to keep going back in and picking around until we are able to extract exactly what we need (which may not be what we WANT – but that's another blog entry entirely) in order to make whatever it is we are creating come to life. But even once we do pull it out of ourselves, we still need to work it over, turn it this way and that, and sometimes beat the snot out of it until we're able to use it in our art. This process is not fast. It is not easy. It is sometimes not the least bit pretty. We get dirty and we get tired. But when it's all said and done and we're sitting there, admiring the pretty thing we've created, it makes us smile. It's like breaking that vacuum seal on the bag (or can) of coffee, that instant when it hits you and you think "This is gonna be good!"

I'm just sayin'.

That's a wrap

So it's done; we wrapped production this morning at 5:30 am. Tonight was the wrap party, and after spending several hours surrounded by bowling balls and booze (you wouldn't have thought that would be a good combo, but there were no injuries and a good time was had by all)I had to call it a night. The drive home from Elyria was a blur, because moments after I got in my car I was overcome by this slightly surreal mixture of sadness and gratitude that I'm still sorting through.

On the one hand, I'm saddened that I won't be seeing a lot of these people ever again. There were many folks that I would have liked very much to have gotten to know better, but there simply wasn't time. I've also made a couple of new friends - people that I'm sure I'll keep in touch with even after the office is locked up and everybody has caught their flight home, or to their next job, or where ever their road is taking them.

And on the other hand, there is this certainty I have that spending so much time around so many talented people has pushed me to better my craft. You can not be in the company of so many amazing people and just be walking through it yourself - you have to do the absolute best that you can do, and more than that, you must do even better. It's very humbling, and at the same time very inspiring. And I don't think I could ever, in a thousand years and with all the words I've ever heard or read, thank those people enough for that.

The Sum of My Exhaustion

Wow. Just... wow. It's been a ridiculously hectic 3 weeks. As of today, we've got 3 more weeks of filming, and one more of post work (closing up the office and shutting down all the accounts, etc.) and that'll be that. And it made me a little sad. This past week was the first week of filming, when everybody was kind of thrown into the fire, and we're all now used to how the people around us operate on a daily basis. I now know who is a scatter-brian, who has a martyr complex and who is just flat out lazy. But the 3 of us production office ladies (or "Crazy Office Bitches" as we've been dubbed) all get along really well. We work well together, and we stick up for one another even though we'd never met before mid-May. I totally dig that. I know I'll be sad when it's over, because most of the people on this film are from out of state, and the likelihood that I'll ever see them again is pretty small. Then I got to thinking that if I were to get one of my screenplays made, I could hire the people I like and work with them again. Strange logic, I know, but it's been motivating never the less. In honor of that motivation, a snippet of a song by one of my all time favorite bands (that would be Carbon Leaf). It's called 'Changeless':

Let fondness be our souvenir
To keep it warm, we'll keep it near
Otherwise with no heart to recall...
A memory's just a memory after all
I will not leave this pulse alone
Though it may take the long way home
I will not wait until the end
For my applause for you my friend

What are the odds, what are the odds?
This ends and we don't meet again
What are the odds, what are the odds?
This ends and we won't meet again
What are the odds, What are the odds?
That I have missed your smile