Saturday

The film festival ran a little late, so didn't get home until almost midnight, though thankfully, ended up getting a ride home, so didn't have to catch a bus.  Had to be at a mandatory gardening meeting at 9 am this morning.  Just got home from the garden.  The meeting was cold and long, but there was food and coffee...so, it wasn't a bad meeting, just a rather cold morning to stand and listen for almost two hours.  Then I spent three hours pulling weeds and turning in the manure that I dumped there a few weeks ago.  Note to self to not let irises go to seed, and if they do, don't leave them there to overwinter.  Got most of them out.  Planted some lettuce for good measure.  Donated the rest of my collards to the food bank, or at least I told one of the women that works the food bank plots to harvest it and donate it.  I just don't think I'll make it back before the drop off (they donate Tuesdays, if I harvest it today it would be gross by Tuesday, sitting in a hot shed and decomposing.)

The other day, as I was walking home, a man approached me and asked me for bus fare.  Then he mentioned something about his heart, and proceeded to lift up his jacket and showed me his scars (from heart surgery.)  I gave him some change, and then as I was walking away, I thought about how much his face was sweating, and it was warm out, in the high 60's, but was that enough?  I dug through my bag and found more change, that I hoped would make up the rest of the bus fare.  When I turned around, he was following behind me at a distance, I gave him the rest of the change and left.  I don't know where he went after that.  There wasn't really any one else around for him to ask, and though I lean toward the "broke" end of things most of the time, it wasn't really that much.

I was asking a friend what  type of lightbulbs to buy now (because I haven't had to buy any in a while, usually my landlord takes care of that, but my light has been burned out, and I was just gonna change it myself, and when I went to the store, all they had were halogen bulbs, so I didn't buy any.)  Anyway, she just gave me one.  A very random moment.  And things wash out in the end.

And the last three people I've spoken to (my ride home last night, and two of the women I garden with) all spoke to me about anti-inflammatory diets.  I need to change my life.  I don't want to spend my future immobilized with pain and deformed joints.  I don't want to be sick.  If I'm getting a message that strongly, that many times, I need to listen to it.  Today turned sunny and warm with birds singing, and trees and flowers in bloom against a bright blue sky, and anything feels possible.  Also, one of the women has been offering her help for awhile, I should swallow my pride and take her up on it.  I always assume (somewhat wrongly, I suppose) that people offer things they don't actually mean, because it sounds good in the moment, and there is some of that certainly, but there are also people that genuinely mean it.  There is a message out in our world that to ask for help is to be a burden, you see it in attitudes toward people down on their luck all the time.  The whole "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" thing, which is largely a myth for most people.  There are some people who made it on their own, but most people had some help.  For me to ask for help makes me feel like I'm not enough.  It's a lie, I suppose, but it's got staying power.  (Reinforced daily through negative comments on social media, and through laws being passed across the country.  Don't get sick.  Don't lose your job.  Don't need help.  Don't ask for help.  Don't be poor.)

The film.  I'm happy with the way it turned out.  I guess it was long, so it was heavily edited (and still at the 7-minute limit), and that changed the story.  It previously ended with my asking him to stay, and him walking away, now it ends with us kissing on driftwood at the beach, so, amibiguous.  Two of my longer speaking bits got cut.  I was mostly looking at him when I watched it except the last shot.  And while I think I looked somewhat crazy, due to the angle of my face and where my eyes were looking (you could see a lot of the whites of my eyes), I do like my acting okay, and I like the way I delivered the lines.

We didn't win anything, but it was solid.  The lead actor in our film was in two films, and won best actor for the night.  He was good in ours, but fantastic in the other.  (His other film took the top prize.)  It's funny, I had seen him in a show shortly before my friend asked me to do this film, and if you'd asked me who I'd want to work with in town, he'd a been pretty high up on the list.  I hadn't actually thought I'd have the opportunity that soon.  Life is a surprise.

Friday

This year's NWNW Festival at On the Boards is heavy on the dance (weekend two is mostly dance.)  Attended the first night of the Studio Showcase earlier tonight: Violets on Smoke Rooms, Faith Helma I HATE POSITIVE THINKING, Makeith Wyeth 31 and Counting, and Nancy Ellis Nancy's NANCY.  (I'll write more on this, working one more film festival shift, shortly.)

Earlier I'd gone to a screening of The Glamour and the Squalor at the Harvard Exit.  A documentary on the radio DJ, Marco Collins, who pretty much changed the music landscape of the early nineties by breaking bands on KNDD in Seattle.  I remember my friends and I feeling hopeful and excited when we started seeing signs around that there was gonna be a new radio station...it was such a dismal radio market if you weren't into testosterone-fueled rock or oldies.  (There were the college radio stations, but there was some weird programming thing going on at KCMU (now KEXP) and people were boycotting it.)  I was going to a lot of shows, finding out about bands through record stores and friends, but there wasn't much airplay of stuff I liked.  When it came on the air it was such a breath of fresh air, like "someone gets me."  (Me and thousands of others.)  Music has always been to me, not just something in the background, but as necessary as breathing.  If I listen to it (and even more so when I was younger) I really listen to it, I pretty much stop doing anything else.  So if I hate the music, it's incredibly grating, and they were playing things I loved.  I just remember that first night it went on the air and being so happy.  (And hearing veteran DJ's Pat O'Day and Marty Reimer basically speak their minds about radio in the film, how calculated and controlling the format is, was incredibly refreshing.)

It was such a perfect moment.  (And I hadn't realized how many risks he was taking to get the music on the air, i.e., the time he locked the station, turned out the lights, unplugged the phones and fax machine and played the entire "Vitalogy" album before it was released.  Nor how many musicians can thank him for having a career, because if he liked it and played it, other venues picked it up.)  Marco is not on the radio now, except as a guest DJ sometimes on KEXP (which is the only radio station in this market regularly playing new music.)  I think there may come a time again where people want that gatekeeper again, there is so much out there with the internet, how do you find the gem amidst it all?

And while it wasn't quite as deep (it's close) as the Cobain documentary (which he was involved with as well), it was pretty honest about who he is, what he's been through (the bullying, the addictions, his sexuality.)  Pretty vulnerable to put that out there.  Just makes me like him more, and appreciate everything he's done more.

Saturday

Went to another "Incubator" show last night.  Again, just really enjoy seeing what people are creating, I think all three pieces were original works; I didn't keep my program (again.)  Last night had the added bonus of Shellie Shulkin, probably my favorite working actress in Seattle, in the middle piece, Serpent's Tooth, by Susan McNally (who also wrote the play Hearts that I went to the staged-reading of on Monday.)  Shit, she's good.  I found all three pieces engaging, nice emotional transitions for the actors.

On the way to the bus after, I am bombarded with requests for money: a quarter, a dollar, more than I usually am.  After I respond, they tell me to "be safe out there."  I feel an odd heat rising up my legs from my feet, from the pavement (?) I don't know.  I don't feel sick anymore (I was most of the day.)  When I look up, I can still see the sliver of the moon fairly high, which also seems odd, I suppose I expect it to cross the sky quicker than it does, it's doesn't seem all that further along than it did six hours before.  I think the bus is late, but it's only because I looked at the wrong schedule.  It's only a little after 9 pm when I get back home.  I watch a strange and wonderful Italian movie called Le Quatrro Volte about a goat herder who dies half-way through, and then it follows the path of his soul as it inhabits a goat, a tree, and a charcoal kiln.  Essentially there is no dialogue, just everyday life.  And the behavior of the animals is also pretty wonderful, especially the goats.  Such strange creatures.

I have a pile of library material, this was one in the stack.  Going to a matinee on my pass, and then hopefully to a third "Incubator" show, it's sold out, but there always seem to be seats, so I'm gonna get on the waitlist.  Ciao.

Morning, weekend, waiting for hot water

Waiting for hot water, water heater circuit blew. Fans running for the heat in the attic, circuits can't handle the extra power usage. Happens in the winter, too. I think I must just get sick from the smell of mold, it wasn't just those onions. Earlier this morning, I was washing everyone's dirty dishes (it's hot, it smells, and I don't want any more ants or fruit flies, I could send the spider up there...) and there was mold growing between things, totally disgusting. Made me heave again. Took it outside and sprayed it down with the hose.

I have to find something to put my 120 film in. I used to have a black bag, but I don't know what I did with it, been a long time since I've used it. The film is only covered in paper, so it's good to keep it in the dark. There's a car show up there this weekend (where the lab is.) The other lab does a great job, but they don't list their prices and they are a little snooty, although, they are giving a discount for film development for the Longshot thing. I could do it myself, only it's color and I need to have it scanned. I should go weed before it gets too hot. Supposed to be around 90 degrees for the next few days. Think I'll find something to attempt to write a haiku about, bad or otherwise. Practice is worth something. Incidentally, I have managed to keep my coffee consumption way down this week, by not drinking any after the morning is over. Maybe could go see the 14/48 show tonight, it's the last night. I had intended to go at some point, but totally fell off of my radar until now. (Got notices about it too, but have been off of Facebook for the most part, so didn't see them.) Just after 9 am now and already 70 degrees. I feel lazy.

I don't know where any of this (acting) will lead, but I was kinda' holding since I finished the pilgrimage thing (another odd want that I followed for years until it was played out. Well, maybe not entirely, but not at the top anymore. It's holding somewhere.) Wants come from somewhere deep inside, and if I said before that I wanted someone (God? the Universe?) to tell me what to do with my life, to write it in the sky, I never saw the message there. I was looking in the wrong place: it was already in my heart, but I dismissed that because it seemed frivolous and selfish. I spent years looking for answers that were already here, in a place I didn't look. In some ways, it's better to find this now, I'm a different person than I was at 21 (I love my 21-year old self, but I was a basket case; I was dealing with way too much pain), my emotional range is more available now. I know somewhat more about myself. And like I said last night, it doesn't matter where it leads, it matters more that I listen to it and follow it. Trust.

Saturday-No Plans

On a day without plans, one can never tell where you will go. Went to the march, met a friend, ended up at Folklife http://www.nwfolklife.org/festival/, then tried to find somewhere to buy tickets to SIFF http://www.siff.net/. I sat on the curb outside the theatre thumbing through the guide trying to figure out if there was anything I wanted to see during any of my free time and while sitting there someone walked up to me and asked if I wanted a free ticket so I said yes. It was to a documentary called Harana which I think translates to Serenade, about a dying courtship ritual in the Philipines where a man would court a woman by showing up outside her window with his friends and play/sing love songs until her parents let them inside the house. It was enlightening, charming and beautiful. It was one of the producers that gave me the ticket, I thanked her again after the screening and she said I looked like I needed to see a movie. So I did get a free ticket afterall.

Is that my next destination? I don't know...my grandfather, whom I know almost nothing about except that he was born in the late 1800's, was a musician and served in the US military, was from the Philipines. Over the past year, I've been having these interesing Filipino encounters, first an oral historian, then six months later I randomly ate dinner with her sister at a Greek festival, and now this. Travel works for me that way: encounters build up until I go. It's just a seed that's been planted now.

Then I went back to Folklife, went and got coffee because it was cold, and wandered back through stopping to listen to what turned out to be my two favorite acts of the day: the Sweet Lowdown from Victoria, BC and Science from Seattle. Sweet Lowdown was two woman, banjo and guitar, Science was two men, both guitarists, who did a rockin' version of Eleanor Rigby. It began to rain, the air filled with the ozony raindrops-on-pavement smell. Started to leave again, but stopped to watched a juggling act and then stayed for part of a string-band's set. It was dark then, raining harder, wind picking up, half the audience dancing.  At the bus stop, a man asked me to waltz, I said I was uncoordinated (I am the woman who smacked her face into a doorjamb recently) so he handed me a button off of his jacket, and I jumped on the bus. Getting off the bus, someone made eye-contact and gave me the solidarity sign. I kinda' feel like I had been hibernating, (the cold, the lack of light?) and recently woke up and began ferociously gorging myself on life. When I looked at myself in the mirror when I got home, I was looking pretty scrappy.

Film

Finally finished the roll of film in the camera and began to shoot a second. Woke up at 4 am with a wicked headache but didn't bother to get up and take anything for it until 5:30. I always do this, they almost never go away on their own. Still have it, though not unbearably so. We get to sing the very difficult Estonian song in rehearsal tonight. It's energizing and the sopranos always end up in giggles because it is so difficult to sing. There's a long 16th note section near the end that I practiced in a corner in the Chicago airport for a couple of hours, but still can't get in it's entirety when we sing it altogether. We haven't sung it since Finland. I need to put all of my music in a central place (so I can find it when I need it.) I will say that a lot of the music is easier now that I've been studying Finnish, since the pronunciations are easier for me, except for the Estonian song, on that one, not only am I having trouble keeping up matching the words with the rythym, but I found out tonight that I'm probably pronouncing the vowels wrong. We have about a month until we sing it publicly.