Keeping it Profesh

T/F has over 300 volunteers and we're still 3 months away. And it's crazy. These volunteers are ridiculously talented. I mean one has flown to the South Pole multiple times. Who does that? I'm so excited to get everyone together. I keep trying to think of what we could do if we put them all in one room, well for one- put on a really super awesome doc film festival. Crazy how much effort gets put into one long weekend.

I love it.

I can't imagine living a life where I didn't have the freedom to be passionate about my job. I mean, I'm working with one of my best friends since kindergarten. People get confused in meetings because we can say two words and know what each other mean.

I feel like something is bubbling under the surface. I have so many resources I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to use them for.

 

I want to feel like this all the time.

h

Yeah Sundance!

So I have a meeting shortly for T/F and I have to go buy beer and wine for it. However, I'm completely excited about my friends who are actors,directors, screenwriters, dps, producers and what not that have films accepted into Sundance 2013! It's like finding out which friends are coming back to summer camp.

Can not wait!



Mother of George / U.S.A. (Director: Andrew Dosunmu, Screenwriter: Darci Picoult) — A story about a woman willing to do anything and risk everything for her marriage. Cast: Isaach De Bankolé, Danai Gurira, Anthony Okungbowa, Yaya Alafia, Bukky Ajayi.

Touchy Feely / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Lynn Shelton) — A massage therapist is unable to do her job when stricken with a mysterious and sudden aversion to bodily contact. Meanwhile, her uptight brother's foundering dental practice receives new life when clients seek out his “healing touch.” Cast: Rosemarie DeWitt, Allison Janney, Ron Livingston, Scoot McNairy, Ellen Page, Josh Pais.

Upstream Color / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Shane Carruth) — A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives. Cast: Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig, Thiago Martins.

A Teacher / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Hannah Fidell) — A popular young teacher in a wealthy suburban Texas high school has an affair with one of her students. Her life begins to unravel as the relationship comes to an end. Cast: Lindsay Burdge, Will Brittain, Jennifer Prediger, Jonny Mars, Julie Phillips, Chris Dubeck.

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Mud / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Jeff Nichols) — Two teenage boys encounter a fugitive and form a pact to help him evade the bounty hunters on his trail and reunite him with his true love. Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Reese Witherspoon. North American Premiere

Stories We Tell (documentary) / Canada (Director: Sarah Polley) — Sarah Polley is both filmmaker and detective as she investigates the secrets kept by a family of storytellers. She unravels the paradoxes to reveal the essence of family: always complicated, warmly messy and fiercely loving.

S-VHS / U.S.A., Canada (Directors: Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Edúardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans, Jason Eisener, Screenwriters: Simon Barrett, Jamie Nash, Timo Tjahjanto & Gareth Huw Evans, John Davies) — Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his abandoned house and find another collection of mysterious VHS tapes. In viewing the horrific contents of each cassette, they realize there may be terrifying motives behind the student’s disappearance. Cast: Adam Wingard, Lawrence Levine, L.C Holt, Kelsy Abbott, Hannah Hughes.

Cat

Okay, so.

Last night wasn't so super. A bird ran into the window, hard. I saw it on the ground later and my roomie came home shortly after. She said it wasn't going to live. I just felt stuck. I was too afraid to go to it. Felt really guilty about it lying in bed later. When I was little my mom and I always had baby birds in the house. In shoe boxes trying to feed them and what not. I realized I never knew what happen to those baby birds. And I could tell my mind was thinking about something but I wasn't connecting the dots. And then I did.

A few years ago at this time is when my cat left. He was 17 years old.  I never told anyone when it happened. There was only one other person I had ever talked about him with and she was a 4 yr old in who lives in Vegas. His name was Cheech. She said it was a good name for a cat. It's funny, I was about her age when I got him. I listened to the cassette tape of kid songs Cheech Marin had made. I didn't know at the time he was a pothead. He ran away once, my cat- not the actor. He was missing for 3 weeks. My step dad in that time took the family to Chicago and bought my mom a dog. I was completely upset. Later when we were home I found a cross on the ground. I held that little charm in my hand and prayed. It's really the only time I remember praying. I wanted my cat back.

A day later my mom told me to come outside. She swore she had seen my cat. I couldn't see him and then there was this white blur. I had to call him out of the bushes. But he was different. Wild even. Later I would sit with him, but I felt like he was never the same after that. I was talking to God when he died too. I told God that it was okay to take him because I wasn't going to be at my parents house long because I had just accepted a touring job. More guilt thinking about that. I held him in my arms, sitting in the same place for a whole 24 hours. He couldn't move. I fell asleep by accident and when I woke up he was gone. It's like he was just waiting for me to fall asleep. My last pictures of him where on an SD card I lost.

I told that, now 5 year old not to lose the key to her handcuffs she was playing with or she would get stuck where she was. I knew as soon as the words left my mouth that I was giving myself advice. Still don't think I've taken it.

Grace

I decided I would try and write intentionally. It's so easy to let my mind wander from here and there but I'm not sure it's entirely useful. Though I'm not sure writing should be particularly useful.

I've been thinking about the word "grace" lately.

I haven't quiet found a definition I like for the word. I liked the word more for how it makes me feel. It's something along the lines of " blessings that come from above regardless of merit" I guess.

Last Christmas I went to church with my family who had recently started to go. I had always attended church with my friends growing up. I took part in Jewish holidays and studied Mormonism before school. I was interested in how other people thought. I think the part in religion where they refer to God as Father always made me uncomfortable. I'll admit, I'm on uneasy ground when it comes to my father. So it's a little odd for me to be thinking about Grace I think.

A boy broke my heart once.Just once, so maybe I'm lucky. It took me 24 years to learn what most girls had learned in high school I guess. His name was Curtis. Funny, I had so many pet names for him I didn't really use his name until he decided we couldn't be friends. A few things bothered me about that situation. Mostly when he did it, he did it via text and I think that's heartless and very cowardly. Also he seemed to blame his ex girlfriend and God. He had recently started going to church and said I was off his path and it was an uneven yoke. None of it sounded like the words were coming from him though. They were all from someone or something else. I felt like he was using religion to hide his accountability for the situation. He said he had repented the time we had together and God had forgave him. I think that was convenient. Awhile ago Twitter said I should follow him. Which was a punch in the stomach. He still writes on there. Topics of interest he says? #Fetishes.

Yep. The guy uses the religion card on me like a cross on a vampire and he's still taking pictures of naked women I assume. It's weird that my heart still cares for him. Like a phantom limb or something. It's not there anymore but you can feel it.

He was never sure why I liked him. He thought trust and love had to be earned and built. I had always been the kind to give it blindly to all of my friends.

But that doesn't explain why I have a thing with the word Grace.

This summer I ended up working with a really awesome film director. I describe people as awesome when they are both accomplished in their field and super cool to hang out with. In his movie he showed to us the lead character was named Curtis. Have you ever noticed how when you don't want to think of someone they're everywhere? I think I cringed every time they said it in the movie. It's funny, I could have seen the movie months before that but for some reason at that time and in that place is when I saw it.

A few month later I was in New York for a film festival. I dragged an old college friend of mine to see a show in previews on Broadway. I had worked with the lighting and set designer the summer before. I watched the whole show on the edge of my seat. There was the actor I had heard so much about over the summer. The one who played the paranoid dad named Curtis in the movie was now on stage saying he didn't believe in religion. I couldn't take my eyes off this intense actor and the turntable the set was built on  moved so slowly you didn't realize anything was changing until you saw the entry door stage left was now on the right.

I love theater. I've been surrounded by film and tv as of late but theater does something for my spirit. After the show I ended up, through some smooth moves if I say so myself, at the bar with the cast. I had my back to this actor. This tall, brooding, intense actor. My friend was flipping out asking if I would go talk to him.

I've always been more comfortable in these situations when I'm by myself. I hate people trying to pressure me into things or telling me I can't do something. So I finally walk  up to him. I have this thing where I stand in front of someone and don't speak until they acknowledge me. I will say, slightly awkward situations amuse me. Anyway, he says hi. I think I tell him he was great in the show and then I mention I worked with his director friend the past summer.

This is the great moment.

 It turns out all of his friends he is with were crew from the movie I had seen him in. Suddenly they all have questions for me and want to know more about me and are so incredibly enthusiastic about what I do for a living and what not. It was great. It's why I work in the arts. Because it's a small enough community that suddenly friends of friends become just friends. This actor took the time to learn my name. Saying it over again making sure it would stick in his mind. It was nice making friends with this pretend Curtis.

The plays name was Grace.

So I don't really know what I'm trying to say.

I guess I'm the type of person that thinks everyone should be loved. You don't have to prove anything to me. Life has been amazing at providing what I need to be successful and I work everyday to be grateful for it. I do think there is some sort of higher power, but I also see us as the higher power. The kindness I show for others has been given back to me. I don't think the situation has made me more timid when it comes to love. If anything I became less afraid of it. It's not the unknown anymore.

When he cracked my heart open I became so close to those I shared it with.

There are so many clichés for this situation. I will admit it is always in the back of my mind somewhere. I think a lot though. Hopefully the next entry will come from a different place in my mind.


Mad Love,

L

Home

Every blog, journal, what have you I write always starts at the beginning. They never quite have an ending. Just me restarting or rather taking off. I love to write when I am taking off on a plane. The whole excitement of starting the next adventure I guess. But this time I'm starting this blog (again) sitting at home. It took me five years to almost feel comfortable calling some place my home, but this might just be it for now.