j'adore pirates

I've started to look forward to injuring myself because of the mass quantities of pirate band-aids I have acquired. I think these are from my friend Jessie. On Monday, I was galavanting around in heels like a decapatated chicken, and last night I high-tailed it to Denver for several hours of trotting around LoDO looking for meter maids with Sarah, who lives in a great apartment with a big black Afghan dog named Smokey who looks a looot like a muppet (ala Henson's the Dark Crystal years). PS- if you call Denver's Public Works parking division and politely inquire what the current term for "meter maid" is, they will coldly inform you that they are VEHICLE CONTROL OFFICERS. Um, that's the best thing ever. I digress.

Sarah came out of my old I'd-prefer-to-forget-that-year People Production days extremely sweetly (and conveniently) on my birthday-- we went out to the Mercury Cafe for an Argus Fest documentary, and we met two great filmmakers (who, by the by, let me oogle the new SonyHD prosumer camera, and homina-homina-homina, schwiiiing! I have found my new camera of my dreams). We giggled through the worst vegan cheesecake in the world (that's not chocolate! it's sand!) and me trying to pour red wine 3-glasses to the wind (Jane... it has a cap on it). To make things even better, she introduced me to her awesome friends Noah & Patrick, and the lot of us boogied down at an Irish Pub to Thriller, Jane Says, and a slew of other great songs that are delightful to drink wine & port to. Ever since, it's been so refreshing to start exploring Denver again, and have my filmmaker chica in crime to talk about movies, job opportunities, the glowing SinCities of cinema, life, woes, the works. I'm really grateful to have re-discovered the city with kindred spirits while I'm still here.

Yesterday I sent Thad a musing, heart-sick email from a very deeply introspective place, and he sent back the sweetest note today-- the kind where your heart melts and you remind yourself to put that dialogue in a place where you won't forget it, because it's the kind of thing that makes your life feel connected and meaningful.
Here's a snippet of the conversation:
J> ...so emboldened by the new day and light coming in my window and my new warm sweater, i sent another message... and then resounding hours of silence with nothing but the sounds of my fingers typing the keys, my bic writing proofs on a stack of 8.5x11 paper (glossy finish), and a few false alarms of returning to find my phone skewed across the dates: 2/6, 2/7 from vibrating after I had let it rest between 2/13, 2/14.

so here i am, with an hours-old cup of coffee next to my screen, rjd2 on my speakers, looking without trying to look at my silver plastic phone, which is again lined up perfectly on the vertical border of my desk calendar in hopes that someone will send me a message and it will skitter across the dates. i'm missing you. i'm aching to be elsewhere. i'm punished by the guilt of procrastination.
i'm riding the bus to denver later for documentary soul-searching to rid the knot in my stomach that will be more temporary than the knots that nest in my heart. i'm slowly driving myself crazy. i'll talk to you soon.
love miss ponder tuck a strand of hair behind my ear sideways glance once more toward the phone
janekathryn

T> Darling,
You were feeling so poetic yesterday! : ) This is beautiful.
I'm sorry that we haven't been able to connect much this week. I am, of
course, eager to talk to you soon.
I hope that aside from all of this madness, that you are well and
finding a reservoir of strength and peace at your aid.
I miss you. I love you.
Pistachio

There are so many things in my life that I cherish-- my family, nature (and the incredible feeling of experiencing it for the first time every day; each winter, spring, summer and fall day feels proustian in it's "remembered firsts" category), worlds of books, documentaries, cello nights, mp3s playing in my apartment, photographs, deeply happy memories, new opportunities to explore, better myself & learn every day. As materialistic as my secret crappy t.v. shows are, the feeling of putting on the new vintage sweater with the new blister-causing shoes, as mundane as my favorite cereal with a cup of just-right coffee and the morning headlines. But above the materialistic, the mundane, the guilty pleasures and even the artsy-fartsy things that make me feel like who I am... friends, kindred spirits, people I admire and love and want to reach out and hug every time I see them... my friends and my family are the biggest, most important part of my life. As cheesy as it sounds, I love loving people.

Someone accused me a few months ago of being "probably just another psycho b*tch..." his definition of women is that we are progressively more and more psychotic, depending on how far out on the spectrum we are of having someone to nurture. He blamed it on our maternal instinct, and not having someone to nurture causes our estrogen to just head straight for "crazy". The accuser was not deep, or capable of compassion, but he made me remember something-- I really do feel happier when I have kindred spirits around. It helped me realize why the last two years have been so difficult... I feel it emotionally and physically when many of my closest friends are so far away. Even realizing that helped, and it's made me appreciate my arm's-length kindred spirits even more.

I'm unbelievably wordy right now. Man, it feels good to stretch out and type when you're tired and full of thoughts. This is also my favorite thing.
Tomorrow at 8am, Robin & Sarah L. and I are embarking on an international documentary competition. Several hundred people in 94 teams and 9 countries are waking up at 8am to discover the "genre" and "theme" of the project, and begin shooting... we don't know what we're filming yet, but a completely edited DVD must be off in the mail by Monday at 5pm. Music, cross dissolves, rack focuses, bars, tone, credits, voice-overs, lower-thirds, release forms, shooting permits, mini dv cam tapes, new batteries for the mics, boom drops, timelines, external hard drives... we're mentally practicing all these things, and have no idea what we'll be filming.
I'm nervous. It feels like the old days when I'd put on my Clinton Softball shirt and my low-tops and get on stage in front of 250 people waiting to laugh, and not have any farking clue what we were going to be saying. Would Alex pick me up while re-enacting the Titanic? Would Zach be a ranting Jehovah's Witness demanding a magazine subscription for me? Would I soon be singing about Altoids in a Swedish accent while holding hands with the PBX sorority leader?
It's weird to go to bed not knowing.
And wake up knowing.

Here's to waking up to opportunities... *Slainte*
(and a perfect example photo-- tom, beth, sarah l, janek & pete before Bella Karoli/Bluebook. rawk.)