Feb 2011 Goals

Life has resumed enough to create goals again. *Ah* feels good. There is a lot of finishing that I need to do before I move on in some ways. Finish moving in. Finish vaulted video projects. Finish throwing out wedding stuff and writing thank you cards. This winter will be about making good on creative promises and closing the book before I begin to open more. Finishing is a really important part of the artist (and life) process that I have never been very good at. The next three months (until my birthday) I'm going to try really hard to strengthen that muscle. And maybe some others.

Oooooh, this makes so much sense NOW.

It is fascinating being on this side of the wedding planning line. My sister got engaged last week, and tonight I saw her for the first time post engagement. I went in with a list of self imposed rules: No asking about wedding plans unless she brought it up (asking about the proposal and all of that, totally fine.) No sentences that start with charged sentiment like, "You know what's a great idea..." or "It'd be great if..."

Lessons from Too Much Stuff (and A&E)

There are five levels of hoarding. You can tell a person's level not so much by the amount of stuff they have (although that may give you a clue) but from the type of help they need to fix the problem. Maybe they just need a friend to come in and point out that no, they actually never wear those 18 pairs of four inch heels. Or maybe they need a professional organizer, a trained psychologist, and pest control. 

Rarely does a television show change my life but I can now point to two. Back in 95/96 I watched the movie Babe. Yes the one with the talking pig. I've been a vegetarian ever since. Three weeks ago I had exhausted my Hulu queue and Netflix instant popped up the show Hoarders. I'd always avoided it due to its "reality show" genre and I just assumed it took advantage of people in compromising situations. What I saw however was a story that reflected my own habits of consumption and keeping in a way I had never had before.

Tsk Tsk

Coming back from a wedding is hard. I use to tsk tsk when I heard brides say this. Like "oh poor you not getting to pick out dresses anymore." But that is a way too simple assessment of something that is much more emotionally complex.

The truth is, it's hard not b/c of the what, but b/c of the how long and the how focused. As an event, a wedding takes a lot of life energy and mental focus to plan. I've done enough video projects to know that I have project let down after each and every one of them. (After a really good play is the worst.) But for 6 months most of my days were spent siphoning my wants (our wants), wishes and family mental health through this one event. Eye of a pin or something. Now that the event is over (whether it had been a wedding or directing a feature length film) I have spent more time than I suspected untethered.

But I can feel it coming back. I can see ground below my feet quietly rising from the distance. And I know that soon again I will feel my toes touch the earth and I will be off running again among the living.

And it's september. Who can't love that.

Size of a Dime

 

click for larger

The History Teller

We have all run into that old woman in the grocery store. "When I was young," launches a thousand words, strung together about days of yore. But not your days of yore. Nor the person next to you. And after the story ceases there is kind of no place to go. Yeah, you can ask them more about that history but because it's a personal history the dynamic is question (you) answer (them.) It is not an actual conversation. And you realize that pretty quickly and are eaten by awkwardness. That awkwardness illuminates the trouble with this trait: it isolates the teller. They feel they are *sharing* something with you but really they are removing themselves from you even if just a little.

Half of my family is story tellers. The other half is 100% not. If you're not careful, paternal family reunions can be one Homer-esque telling of the same stories you heard the last time you got together. As kids I remember LOVING these stories. As an adult I cringe. They leave nothing to actually converse about. It's like attending a lecture of one. On one side Dad at the podium. At the other side you in a soft folding chair watching the wall clock.

Parent Protocal

Interaction with Mom:
Mom tells me a story about this lavish wedding where the family did all this work, it ended up raining...like monsoon type of rain, the bride reacted so horribly that the father (owner of the yard) ended up not even attending the wedding. (And she is in noooo way hinting I will be like this with this story. It's told neutrally.)

Me: That's horrible. If it rains for us, we will put on our REI jackets, hand out umbrellas and take pictures of us laughing through it all.

Mom: You can't find umbrellas this time of year.

Out of Town Guests

My maternal Grandmother is probably boarding a plane right now to San Fransisco. I hadn't realized how old she was. You know how you see those pictures of you as a baby in the arms of some half zombiefied great grandparent you don't remember and you think your grandparents, the ones who played soccer with you and watched plays and ran around in mock dino battle could never share that half conscious expression. And then your grandmother, half hunched, surveys a step and begins the slow decent and you realize, you realize that age misses no one. And you can guess that your Mother is keenly aware of the same truth but for very different reasons.

I don't know if my Grandmother started the knot or is still untangling the fine work of her mother or the mother before that but almost every characteristic that I am working on extricating from myself springs directly from that source. That seems harsh and isn't within the truth of the matter but here, picking and choosing words, I suppose I should be more careful. Grandma is an incredible inspiration. She and her husband built an incredibly successful business with their own hands. They were the ones who had us kids over for weekends. Grandma gave me my first painting lessons and encouraged me to be a dancer after I gave her an impromptu Christmas ballet performance to Beach Boy songs. (I have never taken ballet so, you can bet how good THAT was.) She is part of the family where a lot of my world view comes from. The paternal side always has their heads in the clouds. The maternal side feels the world through their hands and their feet on pavement. If I have work ethic, it comes from the maternal side. My love of the arts is from their encouragement.

Watching a Tea Pot

When I planned my short oh-so-long-ago it was dependent on having rain. B/c it's Oregon, and our winters are wet.

When I planned wedding crafts it depended on the weather being dry. B/c it's Oregon, and our springs can be beautiful and it's usually dry 4 out of 7 days by June.

So to you El Nino or La Nina or global warming, or to God, to whatever you are, I say screw you.

Love,
Kelly

Two objects can't be in the same place: language

One thing I love about language is how it is often used so inefficiently. My family, including me, has mastered this skill. Years of practice to say absolutely nothing. Z doesn't communicate this way so it's been in his reflection I am starting to see the way I communicate everywhere. It's like a linguistic treasure hunt. Unexpected delights around every corner.

Adultness

A high school friend's sister-in-law just died. She had a rare liver cancer. She and her husband had been married for 11 and a half years. They had 3 daughters together. She was 30. I knew both of them (the husband and wife) vaguely through high school choir. They were so committed to each other. So incredibly young.

And yet they had already had such an adult life together. They were adults. Young in that adulthood but still adults. They had traveled together. Raised children together. Changed jobs together. It makes me think about my adulthood and makes me realize that while Zach and I are only a year younger than them, I feel like we are a decade their junior.

This is it

This is it. It's the moment it happens. The moment where you step out of the stream and say, "I no longer care to keep up with what's current." I always wondered how people don't understand email or refuse to stop writing checks (just use a credit card for god's sake!). But it starts with a moment like this: I don't care who Justin Bieber is.

Oh watch irrelevancy take me over bit by fleshy bit.

Not Ominous, But Something to Consider

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen died. This isn't new news. It was this last February. When it happened it didn't even blip on my radar. I don't follow fashion like I follow other celebritiesm. It's not a world I know.

But something struck me about an article that popped up two days ago in my gmail. It said he committed suicide. And again, maybe this isn't new news but he, at the top of his professional game, felt alone. He died the night of his mother's funeral and obviously he was severely depressed.

Food

Last night I attended the Portland Food Cart Festival with Z and a few friends. I'm capitalizing the letters as if that was its name. I have no idea.  Zach and I talked a lot about the event on our drive home and we were both made uneasy by it for slightly different reasons. I thought I'd be overwhelmed by the crowds but I somehow managed to turn off that part of my brain. (I wish I could remember HOW I did that but that's a work in progress I suppose.)  I even sustained a 15 minute conversation with a super friendly drunk guy behind us in the ice cream line.

Is that Goliath in your Pocket?

During the whole healthcare debate, I never once stepped into a doctor's office. I do have this vague feeling of unease knowing my future access to medicine is through a for profit corporation but really mostly, I don't think about that set of issues. Until today.

Oh, I hear ominous music. It's not. But in the course of an hour I came face to face with some of the health insurance stupidity and I'm amazed this much can exist at the simple fringe. If it's like this for the simple stuff, what happens if I have a baby. Or a car accident. Or cancer.

Half Adult

I am threatened by the doctor's office. Apparently. Or maybe it's the unknown. Probably. (Control issues, what?) I know if I walked into my dentist's and I didn't have some piece of paper, I'd probably be comfortable enough with the system to say, "I'll get it for you," and be pretty sure I'm safe from tar and feathering.

Not so with my (new) doctor's. I haven't seen an official doctor in five years. My experience with the medical community in the interim has been less than pleasant. (With the exception of Z's parents. Who are medicals. And who are great.)

Small Victories

Work game plan. It's small but you know, a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a soda from 7-11. I don't even know what we're talking about.

OK. So:
Every day I save whatever I'm working on to the desk top. Pretty internet pictures. Work word documents. Notes to myself. Then, 20 minutes before the work day is over I clean my desktop. I put all of those random things I've been accessing and saving on the desktop, in their appropriate sub folders. And if I have extra time, I clean a little bit within those sub folders. Then I start the next day with a clean work surface.

The result? World peace. I'm at least 13% sure that's a possibility.

Moving

I ran into a...um...community acquaintance tonight. I was, of course, shoving a cookie into my mouth as she flagged me down and during our brief conversation I kept trying to wipe my mouth just in case I had chocolate caking the corners. Standard operating procedure.

I suddenly felt bad about not inviting her to the wedding. I then decided I didn't care because we are moving.

Ah moving. Every once and awhile I get the sweet taste of what it must feel like for someone who moves as a way to run from life's unpleasantness. It provides a care free avenue b/c well, you won't have to clean up the mess you may be approaching. I admit, in some small way, our move is running. But I feel like instead of running away, it's running toward. Yes, it does afford me moments like the one tonight in the parking lot where I can take all the complicated emotions this person evokes, wad them up into a ball and toss them into the nearest emotional garbage disposal. So, yes, that falls firmly into the running away camp. But then I think about what we are running toward. Evening walks, a friend recently pointed out. Cheese tasting parties. Calling someone last minute for an evening of conversation. Community. Something I've never felt here but for fleeting moments of illusion.

Good bye illusion.

It's Spring!

And that means macro photography is in full effect!

Vintage

I found this journal entry from Dec 26, 1998.

Now, if I was the person I wanted to be, who would I be?  I would be about 140 pounds, but athletic.  I’d be very friendly and warm, but would be a bit reserved until I knew a person and then truly open up.  I would be well read, able to speak poetical lines.  I’d dress stylishly and daringly.  I would be able to converse in Spanish, French and German.  Be able to play the piano (or at least a bit), the guitar and sing.  I’d be organized and reliable.  I’d be vegan, live my beliefs to the best of my ability.  Write daily and be able to juggle.  I’d be able to drive a stick, remember names, and drink tea.  I would watch less than a half an hour of television a day, but go to movies occasionally.  I’d make an effort to meet new people, help all people and and run no more red lights.

HAHAHAHAH! But really I'm laughing because more than 2/3rds of those things are STILL on my list. 

Old Letters

Occasionally I find letters from when I was a teenager. I'm never quite sure how to respond to them because on the one hand, they are kind of precious. On the other hand..well, sometimes I forget that I had a few years of being really painfully awkward. They help me, however, to realize how far I've come. None of us are happy all the time. Most of us fight the ups and downs of our chemistry and of life. But oh God. We are all so much better than when we were 16. I sometimes look at 16 year olds and wish I could go back and change some things. Then I find a letter from when I really was 16, 18, etc and oh God. I would give up none of what I have now for that. That was nothing but heartbreak and discomfort. I may tell myself to wear more sunscreen and get off soda, but you know. Mostly I'd just give that girl a hug and let her fight the fights she'd have to take on alone.  And then I'd go back to the life I have now. The self understanding I have now. The guy who cooks me pizza. The friends who help me dream. That girl will get here. And until then I will put her letters some place safe so that I can happen upon them another night of cleaning.

Old Man Talk

The YMCA is one of the few places I go where I rub elbows - sweaty elbows- with the conservatives who make up the majority of my childhood home. Sometimes I find the parking lot bumper stickers abrasive, but mostly I find it interesting. Not, "Oh look at those ridiculous conservatives not understanding evolution," but, "Oh OK. This is where they are coming from." It always makes me frustrated but not in the way you might think. I leave longing for a venue where I could ask politically right constituents questions and not have the whole situation instantaneously erupt into a verbal pissing contest.

Strings

I am a holder-on to things. And at some point in my life those things began holding on to me. Each consecutive move has been more boxes and more ridiculousness. More embarrassment. That's not who I want to be anymore. I don't want to be held down by stuff. I'm not yet to the point in my life where I'm stationary and can support such weight.

So this weekend I began the largest closet clean of my life. Half of my history is now firmly inside  plastic bags set for Goodwill. They are stacked haphazardly in the hall. Last night I went through one more time and saved a few items but mostly I just folded them and said goodbye.

Sewing a Family History

So we got back this afternoon. After 3 days in supposed crime ridden Oakland, we came back to the stereo stolen out of our car parked in N Portland near the Max. Mostly it's just an annoyance. They'll be disappointed at its retail price. I'd like to think that all the taco bell cups I had strewn about the car made their process more difficult. Zach and I kept looking at the hole hoping it'd tell us the time. (It didn't.) The whole thing has provided a lot of jokes. I'd like to use the newly realized space for an in car fish tank. Terrible idea or pure genius. You decide.

Four days with an assortment of family left my limbs feeling like loose buttons hanging off an old sweater. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I hoped of a repeat of the incredible experience Z and I felt at my maternal grandfather's memorial service. We discovered a family we never knew we had. I hoped for a similar story here with these cousins, but something about 30 plus members of our truly extended family shoved into my grandparents home was less than conducive to how I connect with people. So yeah. Fail. I spent most of the 5 hours making surface chit chat and being recognized by people whose names I could barely place. The only hiding spot was our single rental car. I watched as other cousins bonded and my sister had a great time interacting with her favorite uncles while I was nothing but awkward. The uncle I interacted with the most just proved that I officially don't like him. Officially. Again.

Buttons hanging off for dear life.

Happiness is this kind of weekend

For the first time in my life, I feel like I actually directed. The act of directing. I've never felt that before, and it was only possible b/c I had a crew. I had people I felt comfortable relying on. We all knew our jobs and so when something particular needed to be done within a certain realm, whosever it was just took it on w/o question b/c they knew it fell into their domain.

I use to be afriad to ask people to do a very particular job. I was worried I'd hurt feelings or come across as self important. ("Why don't you just do that yourself Kelly? Or do you think you're too important to remember what time this shot is suppose to be finished?!") Now I realize that in a groupwhere everyone has a clear line of their job, a day can run totally smoothly. Amazing. I never felt the need to apologize or explain. Everyone just worked. Problem solved. They picked up a task w/o question as soon as they realized it fell within their role. Each and every one of them. Amazing.

Sun

At some point last night the fog lifted. I don't know if it was when Z and I stepped in front of a friend's FCP class at the local college or later walking out of Taco Bell with comfort food. I don't know, but the thick anxiety that has been making house in my brain finally left for greener pastures. It threatened to return for a moment this morning but for the most part I have been free to battle the complexities of preparation w/o also having to battle myself.

A new kind of goal list

So here I am, standing before my 29th year. Twenty. Nine. Holy mother of wow.

I'll get to an assessment of 28 here in a few days but first I wanted to put in some thought on this next year's goals. Twenty-eight seemed like a year of trying to get shit done. Cooking. Video projects. Music. Cards. All were activities. I kept weight off the list, and I kept most internal working off of it too. Twenty-nine may be a different tune.

The Sting of Reality

Today I had some things explained to me. Scary things. Things about money and life and decisions. Sometimes life is the running as fast as you can toward a cliff and then at some point closing your eyes and hoping, praying that your body will do its best at this great leap. We take so many great leaps...and they often aren't the ones we think they are. Moving in with Z was not a great leap. Marrying Z isn't one either. I am gliding merrily with my eyes open and creased with smile lines. No leaping involved. Music, however, is one for me. Asking people to help me create something like a short film is one too. However, currently, I am standing at the sidelines watching my parents take a deep breath before they begin to build up speed. Sometimes living is scary. Money. Life. And decisions. Theirs make mine look so effortless. As if I am out for a summer stroll.

Piles of You Know What

We had impromptu guests (in addition to a non-impromptu guest) on Saturday. It was a rare and delightful occurrence. We all discussed Z and my moving to Portland and then the ones who hadn't yet seen our apartment got the tour. (It takes about 5 seconds.) As they were passing my studio, one looked in and said in disbelief, "Wow. How are you going to move all of this stuff?!" I was a few rooms away, heard the remark and felt the associated embarrassment. Nerve struck. Even though the entire evening had been beyond pleasant, I still wondered if our guests thought poorly of me seeing the one space in the apartment that is fully under my care.

Math is Hard

I always forget how absolutely exhausting filming is. There's always another shot. Another set up. Put this up. Take that down. A never ending stream of watching the sun shift up and then down and you're on a race against it.

So what I thought would be two hours, morphed into, well, 9. We had lunch. There was some printing trouble at the beginning of the day to rile us all up right away. We saw the Albany Fire bring out the Albany fire speed boat and search the river for a lost dog. No really. Jazzy. And now we're back and I am logging lessons learned and will begin on flowers perhaps in the morning.

Lessons Learned:
-Don't use pngs when working with InDesign. It fucks w/ the printer and makes your boyfriend angry. (And rightly so.)
-Maybe don't use InDesign at all.
-Print all necessary storyboards days prior.
-Give actors an action where their emotion changes. For example, "You become sad about the dog when your paintbrush hits the paper." I need to go back through my storyboards and come up with those action/emotional ties.
-Give them a starting action that begins before what you plan to use in editing. That way they aren't just starting at the beginning of the scene. Give them a little chunk to get into it. Same for the end of a scene.
-big coats obscure all costume changes so yeah.

That's it for now. I'm sure as I'm editing together the test I'll learn a lot more.

Now time to over decaffeinate and try and relax.

One, Two, Three

Shooting is not intuitive for me. My instinct as to where to place a camera is in one word: wrong. I shoot like I draw. Flat. Profiles and head ons. Then I try and translate those directly into a visual frame and something always seems off. I can never explain what exactly it is. But like in a dream where there is a reality that makes no translatable sense once the lights come on, so is my translation of what I see in my head to what I see behind the lens. And I never realized until the last three days it's b/c I don't have realistic ideas in my head. Literally the shot composition in my mind has a feel to it, but that feel won't exist if I actually shoot it that way. I have to relearn everything. Thank God I can finally start.

So tomorrow we are doing a test shoot for Plein Air. Fast and furious. Three of us guerrilla style. And every time we place the camera I am going to think three things:
1. Shoot the action at a 30 degree angle
2. Set the camera below eye level and shoot up
3. Create depth. Make sure there is a foreground, a middle ground and a background.

That is my mental checklist. That will be how I begin my shots. From there I can tweak, but until it is a natural instinct for me to place the camera this way, I will literally be counting one, two, three each and every time.

On the Topics of Knights in Shining Armour

Z and I spent 4 days down at the Southern Oregon coast with some close friends. The topic of romantic notions came up and we basically distilled it down to this:

Women (in general) grow up with the romantic daydreams of a man riding up on a white horse and saving them. But more than saving them, choosing them. Picking them out from all the other women in distress and saying, "You."

We wondered if men had an equivalent of this female notion of romance and the guys said that they thought it was being the knight. They wanted to be this strong man that could fight and win for a woman. But then they also said that they wanted to be able to fight and lose and still have the woman see their value and choose them.

It was comforting somehow to think that the white knight wasn't just our (female) story alone. That maybe the story isn't created just for little girls but for little boys as well. Little boys who dream of being that for the woman they love. To be, in the end like the woman, picked out of a crowd. "You."

(Also cleeeeearly we were working off reeeeally strong generalities here.)

Learning Perspective

Last night I got home from work, went jogging, showered, grocery shopped for a weekend getaway, wrote an entire song from scratch with guitar, cut a rough together for the guy I work on music with, and constructed a complete mock for the outside of our invitations. And then I got into bed, at midnight, feeling like I'd gotten nothing done.

Perspective is a tricky little bitch, and I feel like I'm just beginning to claw some out of myself. If I could find and keep perspective in my emotional toolbox, then maybe I'd be less critical of myself. And maybe you'd be less critical of you, too.

Your Everything.

Tonight Z and I sat down (or rather I stood, he sat) and I did my second attempt ever at voice recording.* Now, I record myself all the time. Z got me this cool little voice recorder, and I probably use it more than my laptop. But singing random lines while driving down the I-5 is a bit different than staring at a mic and feeling the squeeze of headphones against your head.

Walking into Dawn

(*Note: I wrote this a few days ago. If it disappears in a day or two, pay no mind.)

If you looked across any place I spend much time you'd find an anthropological study about my genetic line. The stacks of dishes, the groupings of coffee cups, the piles of clothes, the binder of environmental news clippings. That is a line that threads back through my genes, through my parent's and to my paternal grandparents. And so it is hard this week looking at the dishes, the cups, the clothing and the clippings to not think about the part of my family we lost last week.

This Plus That Actually Equals Zero

Two posts in one day, right?

I take notes during my weekly work meeting. After the meeting I type them up in a Google doc and send them off to people. I've set the privacy settings so that they don't even have to sign in to use. But after yesterday's meeting I get an email from my Mom. It reads:

"I can't make this work but for now it's okay."

I looked at the note for a few minutes trying to figure out why I was confused. Then I realized that the note didn't directly call for an action. If it was asking for help, it needed to ask for it. But she wasn't really asking for help. More like she was saying, "I might need help later." It was prepping me for a later help request.

Rules

Last night I got shit done. Today I'm walking into walls. I think lack of sleep may be the common denominator.