Zugzwang

The necessary move that made everything weird.

Lessons from a weeklong shoot:

• Realizing ones full creative vision is never easy but it sure helps to have a competent tech person who can be coerced into believing; and enthusiastic performers who trust your direction, intuitively understanding that it is in the directors best interest for everyone to look good on scene. 

• Particularly at this stage of education, describing the proverbial proportionality between effort and result is ludicrous, yet this still must be done. When the plebs whinge it is necessary to remind ones self of the limitations faced by those lacking in artistry and imagination. The culture of immediate gratification does not help. There are those who would pick a microwave pop-tart over the wonder of a cloud-light soufflé in the name of convenience.   

• Diva behaviour is earned. If you have the capacity and talent, it may be forgivable. If you are a donkey masquerading as a gazelle, please shut up and just listen to the directions given.

Hours of axing, experimenting with song transitions, story-boarding and playing hooky to get the right lighting for scenes, surely it will amount to something? Many toes were stepped on but ruthless efficiency is required in producing quality within a limited time-frame. Please do not expect your arse to be buttered and have a good day. Shooting wrapped and now the grueling editing process is underway. In our techies we trust!

I am a research slut.

Time to commit to one field and knuckle down to a specific area to work in.

Your work ethic sucks.

It makes it hard to respect you as a colleague and it is probably why you aren't doing as well as you think you ought to.

The best of intentions vs reality.

Plan: Go to the gym. Treadmill. Lunges. Squats? otherexerciseythings?
What I did: Bought cake. Ate cake.
On the plus side, I walked to buy it.

Narcissim

I'd totally shag male me.

Making up for lost time.

Because I never did things in the right order.
Spending ones late teens and early twenties subsisting in a state of existential nihilism is a big waste of time. I know that time machines were not made within my lifetime because I would have gone to 18 year old me (conundrums for past/present/future self aside), given me a good shake and said "stop wasting your time, live, Live, LIVE! All this pondering and internal stewing will not serve you better than exploring life externally as well. Get out of this room, pull on these shoes and go forth!"

I need to walk so far it will be too tiring to get back, to read to the point that words are being recognized but not understood, to look directly into someones eyes and smile, to laugh until my ribs ache, to make love under the stars, to watch the sun rise over a horizon untouched by habitation and to liberate the reverberating rage threatening to seep between the cracks; a festering and pullulating mass, lest it find release in a tumultuous -and potentially regrettable- tsunami of angst.

This is a list, I shall work on ticking the things off. One at a time. The reading one seems the most feasible with my looming thesis submission. Perhaps I will want to look into someones eyes again, maybe it will make me smile. Tickling counts, I shall get a friend to tickle me, I will laugh. If tickled sufficiently, my ribs will ache. One day I will walk too far, it will take me to that dream sunrise. If I go alone, the silent scream within will die. If I don't, the stars shall see our bottoms. Why am I not taking this more seriously? Maybe I should.

Flight and freedom

Things to do before you get on another persons $2000 road bike:
1) Figure out where the brakes are
2) Work out how to change gears beforehand

I have not ridden a bike in ages and somehow managed to forget that RPM/spinning does not constitute bicycling. With terrible night vision, having never cycled a type of bike that requires one to tip forward so much at the hip and being only able to graze the ground with the tips of my toes, it was a harrowing ride.

That said, it was fun and the adrenaline rush and inducement of panic jolted me out of the numbed and oxymoronic apathetic-agitation (how would one describe it, being throughly agitated without really giving a shit about anything or being able to localize the source of the panic? There must be a more concise and elegant way of putting this but it escapes me right now). The emptiness of the bike path, the quiet whirring of the bicycle, the lake quiescent but nature whizzing by, and the wind whipping your hair into a tangled frenzy.

I would do it again. With a better fitted helmet. In the daytime -until marginally familiar with the paths. I would have stood and cycled, harder, faster, if there wasn't anyone else with me, maybe that is how things are, only alone can one be free. Maybe, hopefully, someday it will be possible to learn to express myself completely, freely, with at least one other person.

This has been a year of new experiences. Realizing when giving up was not actually a bad thing. Learning to move on. Trying things I have never done. Taking on more responsibilities, the myriad causes that mean so much to other groups. They might not be my personal fight, but if it will make the world more just, why should I not stand with them and speak out against bigotry and injustice? My goal for the year, three months in, is to live. To really live, to try as many things as I can. To read as widely but more deeply. To overreach and take risks I wouldn't normally attempt. To take ownership of my life and never pick the default road unless it is the best possible option.