uncollected thoughts on crowdfunding a movie

just wrapped up my 4th crowdfunding venture. [ran 3 for The Black Sea (one a success, one a fail, one in-the-middle)]. The latest was done to support my next feature film Sister/Brother. I am a big fan of the concept and spirit of crowdfunding but less a fan of the actual doing, which runs counter to my default personality setting which is more or less to be quiet. I don't want to ask people for support in general, much less for something that I've taken years to write and assemble and that has legitimate meaning for me creatively, emotionally or otherwise because a) it could fail b) I am exposing myself. In fact after The Black Sea I promised myself I would never crowdfund again because the experience was so draining and unpleasant even though the movie would not have been made without it. Some of this feeling - that I'd never crowdfund again - was ego and some was the mistaken presumption that for a second-time filmmaker with a developed screenplay with actors and key creative personnel attached finding capital would be a smoother enterprise this go-round. Not the case. Though the film played at several festivals and had small group of followers, no magical doors opened and no money magically rained down from the sky as a result. No well-heeled or hungry bulldog producer sought me out to shake me by the shoulders and promise me s/he wouldn't sleep until this movie was made and in the world.

And so last fall I applied for a battery of grants from a wide spate of foundations, thinking I could patch a couple (maybe even a few) together to maybe get a whisper of a spark of motion with which to approach investors - and came up empty on all of them. Every single one. This was deflating naturally but I have served on enough grant panels to know the competition is fierce and the inevitable projects - meaning the ones that appear to be getting made regardless of the success of the grant - are favored. And it became clear that without some money already in that funding a narrative feature via grants is not a sustainable idea.

And so after some interior deliberation (and especially because MAKING A MOVIE > waiting for something/someone to allow you to make a movie) I decided to go for it. The people at Stowe Story Labs agreed to be fiscal sponsor. Plus, Seed & Spark was launching the second year of Hometown Heroes and I thought perhaps I could piggyback on that for some additional motion. I had raised 32K on my first venture for The Black Sea and this was going to be less, 25K, so how hard could it be really? Some well-timed, well-meaning tweets, a steady but not-too-intrusive-or-annoying FB presence, some emails to former contributors and the money should come fairly easy. Except no.

In the 6 years between my first crowdfunding foray and this one, several things transpired.
- Everything online became immediate right-now loud, look-at-me turbine engine of white noise
- Crowdfunding in general became ubiquitous ("Help Me Pay This Dude to Pack my Apartment!")
- Crowdfunding for your tiny indie movie became ubiquitous
These all conspired to run counter to my expectation of how things would play out.

Day One was good. Some of the people I was counting on came through. Then day two we hit plateau and moved into a nothing-nothing-nothing-drip-nothing-nothing-nothing-drop rhythm that continued for ten days and which began to grind me down, activating a rising whirlpool of negative sensation, ultimately causing me to question the validity of the project, the validity of the campaign, the validity of me as filmmaker, and at darker moments, me as person, charting the trajectory of various failures in my life and allowing them to feed/sustain a terrible narrative in my head that I've been working for years to unravel. Why did I do this again?

With some creativity, some conversation with other filmmakers (thanks David W), and a well-timed-but-accidental-because-it-was-planned-a-year-ago trip to Yellowstone I started to find a path out of darkness. What's the worst that would happen, the project failed at crowdfunding? That's not the end of the project, just of one avenue. As someone once said (or should have said) there are many paths to the mountain. Once I began staring this failure in the face and accepting it and contemplating other ways to get this movie made things became lighter and the path out continued to illuminate itself. Ultimately the project was successful and I reached my goal but it was not without personal impact. The more time that gets between me and the experience the more favorably I'll reflect on it but at present it feels like there was a corrosive in the process, something negative. Those are funny words from a person who just raised 100% of his project and I know there are plenty of less-fortunate projects so maybe I'll zip the lip, dispense with the analysis, and head to these notes:

NOTES FOR CROWDFUNDERS (OR MYSELF IF I EVER CHOOSE TO DO THIS AGAIN WHICH AT THIS WRITING I DEFINITELY WON'T THOUGH DEEP DOWN I KNOW BETTER THAN TO SAY THAT OUT LOUD BECAUSE WHO KNOWS REALLY):

- don't conflate running a crowdfunding campaign with making a movie. they are not related in the least. you can argue that modern world blah blah hustle hustle self-produce blah blah but they are divergent. (maybe this outs me as old.) There are many people doing this who are great at the flash and sizzle and OMFG YOU GUYS and the funny gifs of cakes exploding or dogs high-fiving but that doesn't mean they can frame a shot or direct an actor or find the heart of a scene in a sudden two-shot because you're losing light. Don't forget this.

- some people will surprise you. they give more than you anticipated or give more than once or are invested in your success without you even knowing it. their belief in you and/or the project will sustain you in the darkness. even when it is quiet, know that there are people in the world who have your back.

- some people will disappoint you. there will be people you are counting on, or at least presuming will support you - in no small part because when they asked for support for their project you were there for them; you gave money and tweeted/FB'ed about their project - who will leave you flapping in the wind. Do everything you can to not let this eat you up from the inside. Chalk it up to them revealing who they are, remember it, and don't dwell or let it fester. I mean, first try emailing them directly and give a gentle reminder or two (we have just 26 hours to go. remember when I gave you fifty bucks for X?)  but then cut them loose and never ever ever support them or their art again. (note: not sure the aspiring buddhist in me agrees with the end of that sentence and I'm still processing/wrestling with it but it felt satisfying to type it out.) At minimum, don't let their lack of response define you or impact your emotions.

- some people who supported you last time won't support you this time: but how can that be? you never know what is going on in someone's life and social media is a murky lens. So when the person who gave to your last movie, emails you back a one-word email (the word: UNSUBSCRIBE) after you sent her a direct email, not a mass email, appealing for support, just shake it the hell off. Maybe your email was annoying or maybe she is contending with darkness of any form and can't deal. Either is okay.

- your best friends are fellow filmmakers: one of the highlights of this experience was crowdfunding alongside a bunch of other projects and watching them navigate similar hazards and obstacles. Talk to them. Celebrate/commiserate together.

- don't do the whole campaign by yourself: even if you've done it before. you need a multitude of voices and you need days when you have nothing to to with it.

- let gratitude be your default setting: no matter the amount you raise or the difficulties you encounter. Treat the $5 contribution with the same level of respect and thanks as the $250 contribution.

- find quiet: if you are lucky enough to find yourself in the hills of Montana in October and the light is golden in the aspens and your heart is open the smallness/greatness of existence will speak to you. This enterprise is so small it will say. It doesn't not have the meaning you are ascribing to it it will say. The meaning lays solely in your movie it will say. It will shake you by the shoulders and promise you that what you really need/want is already inside you and no matter what it won't sleep until this movie is made and in the world.

giant insects

the best i have felt in the last several years was standing on top of a dune on the southern oregon coast 2 weekends ago. we wandered up a forested path near our campground w/ no real plan and kept going. soon we could see a gigantic dune in the distance, urging us toward it. a short time later we stood at the bottom of it. we scrambled to the top w/ some effort and took in the impossible vista: ocean to the west, forest to the east, endless dunes north and south. the wind was steady and strong, blue sky, not too hot. the insect-like buzz of motorcycles and dune buggies off in the distance, intermittently coming into sight and then disappearing. a teeming wealth of glorious photo ops but I left my phone and camera back at the campsite. I was pissed at first but all I could do was document it in my mind. the longer i sat there watching there were slow openings: i had been wrestling w/ some concerns for upcoming movie projects and they suddenly felt so minor. everything human is really so gd tiny. I have to hold on to this feeling I thought.

later that day while everyone was back at the campsite I hiked back to dunes w/ camera. the giant dune was too far away for me to make the trek but i took some pix from the top of a younger sister dune. pix were fine but they didn't touch what was in my head. the perfection of it, the power of it. it was a weak facsimile, a bloodless iteration.

contemplating this all a week later I wondered was the magic ingredient was not having my phone w/ me? no ability to check/update, no ability to document the moment w/ photo. no choice but to be present. no way out. if i had been taking pictures I would not have been seeing. but then these are just tiny insect thoughts.

Rejection & Renewal

today is the 22 yr anniversary of the death of my son's namesake. he was driving back from his mother's funeral in Portland and fell asleep at the wheel 10 min from his house in McKinleyville, CA. (Margaret and I started dating shortly afterward and said if made it thru the hazards of being in a relationship in college and one day got married and one day had children, the boy would be named after him.) The last thing he said to me, in the foyer to our classroom on the 2nd floor of the Theater Arts Building, in a rush to get to Portland, the news of his mother's death fresh on his face was I'll be okay.

I got rejected for a job I wanted. granted still a day job (ie not filmmaking) but one that at least would intersect w/ my creative training and background. The sting was primarily ego-based but enough to mostly ruin the weekend. Late Sunday I started to think that maybe it was a gift, this not getting the thing I wanted, this transformative opportunity, this second chance to rise from the ashes and chart a course forward. That it was the pursuit of the job that was more important than the job itself (esp as relates to how I value my own self and voice).

It hasn't been confirmed but a rejection from a very selective film program I wanted desperately to attend is imminent. Getting in would have been a game-changer for my next movie Sister/Brother (which starts shooting this Spring).  When I got picked for the second round back in August, I had a few weeks to get the screenplay in shape and I did a line by line rehaul. In a sense that was the gift of advancing, not the perceived end goal. I am making the movie regardless.

Thursday I went to see the Pixies. In that weird sort of bookending that only music can seemingly do recalled seeing them 28 years earlier in Atlanta at the Roxy on October 15, 1989. Standing here in the recent present watching them made me think of the small tiny person I was then, a senior in high school, the broad deficiencies and wants that consumed me then. How I wish the me of now could go back in time, telling him not to put focus on such meaningless things. That made me think of the broad deficits and wants that consume me now. Is someone coming from 28 years in the future to tell me something similar? something like this:

Light can conceal as much as shadow can reveal. Things break one way, things break another. You'll be okay.

Today on my lunch break I ran up past the Duniway Park Lilac Garden, up Terwillger Blvd, on the path that circles the hospital where I had 2 brain surgeries, where my son had a fetal MRI when he was in utero to help them get a better look at the mass in his chest that was changing shape week to week, when we didn't know if he would live or die before he got to us, or shortly thereafter. The sun was out and the sky was blue. It was crisp and clear. My app told me when I finished the run but something inside me told me to keep going.

MM on Residency - Day 4

as it happens I didn't watch Bergman or Cassavettes.  I went back and forth on a few choices, watched the first 4 min of a longer Criterion movie that wasn't a great fit for me, started Weekend by Andrew Haigh and got 2 min in b/f MM called. We talked for close to 40 min and then it was too late to finish movie so I watched the next episode of Mindhunter but fell asleep, waking when F was wailing "Mama, Mama" due to a bad dream, discomfort or some mix of both.

Went to bed. F woke me up at 12:50. I laid w/ her for an hour and then N screamed "Dada, Dada" b/c he had a bad dream. By now I was wide awake so I did crossword puzzle for long time until I finally felt the pull of sleep. turned out light and went to sleep. ten min or so later F woke me up crying. This pattern repeated a few more times. around 5:30 I came out of her room again but cat mewing to go outside, N got up to use bathroom, I fed dog. I pleaded w/ N to go back to sleep and let me sleep until 630, (as we normally are up at 6). he said sure. by some miracle F stayed asleep. He came and woke me at 630 and we read chapter of his book and then F woke up. Kids were crazy. FaceTimed w/ MM and it started good but ended w/ them talking over one another, F sobbing, N hurt in the neck when F pulled him. Oy. I let them start a show and then Grandma and Grandpa came over. I got F fully dressed and got her in the car but electrician showed up to look at bathroom remodel. I had to show him where panel was and explain we've had 3 GFCI's and one overhead light in garage that hasn't worked since demo a few wks ago. he said ok. I drove Fred to preschool. (I gave her a dose of cough medicine and advil right before drop off). I drove to Max stop in Brooklyn, right at 17th and Rhine but it took me so long to park that by the time I was parked and walking to the station and just 2 blocks away the max was pulling up and I couldn't catch it. Waited 14 min in the chilly AM for the next one.

At work I emailed grant guy about sister/brother grant and investor deal, asking him to qualify what he told me. turns out I misunderstood a key point. No big deal. Had acupuncture appt at 10 and went running on treadmill at noon. both were key since I've been exceedingly focussed on others the last few days. Headed home in a few. Grandma and Grandpa are w/ kids making dinner (polka dot rice and fruit skewers). I have to decide which movie to watch tonight provided kids sleep long enough to allow it.

Here/Not Here

I chipped my tooth again. Last night. I was in the hallway bending down to look at mud on the floor as my son Nicholas was crouched below. He sprung up, froglike, unaware of my head nearby. He knocked me so hard on the side of cheek that my front tooth came out.  Or rather, part of my front tooth. Part is real, part isn't.

21 years ago (Feb 26, 1995 to be precise) the same tooth was chipped by my then friend Margaret. We had all just been at Westhaven Beach near Trindad CA. (Margaret and I didn't become a couple until later in the summer of the following year, 1996) We had been shooting a scene for my super-8 film (with the unfortunate title "One Wacky Mornin'"). George was in the film so he was there, me, Marsha, Margaret, Matt. Marsha drove us all back in her Volvo to the house on Beverly Drive in the Sunnybrae neighborhood of Arcata, (where I was finally officially finally transferred to HSU, after 2 semesters at CR, taking film classes like Cinematography I with John Heckel, for which I was making the Super 8 film). Margaret slid out of the back seat, headed up toward the house. I leaned out the open door to say something smart-ass like hurry up or lets go (she was running in to get something. wallet? Red? ) unaware that she was in the act of pushing the car door shut behind her. The window was half-down and met me right across the teeth.

Last night after verifying my jaw/cheekbone wasn't damaged - N hit it very hard - I went downstairs and found my journal from then Winter/Spring 1995. I was an avid journal-writer in those days. My journal writing taking the place of making anything. I was taking film classes yes and had fierce burning urge to make movies but with deficit of facility and things-to-say. The journal was interim life-raft that I mistook for something meaningful. It has different meaning now as document/snapshot so in one sense it's always contained meaning but the meaning has transformed across the years. I read several consecutive passages: I was 23. Finally feeling somewhere I belonged (or at least could grow to belong) and yet contending w/ some extreme alienation, alone-ness, probable depression. As I read I was struck by how much time has passed and how I am yet in the vice grip of that trio. One passage in particular had me in a piano practice room - I wouldn't take Intro to Piano with Deborah Clasquin until the fall but I would always sneak into the rooms to mess around - staring into a mirror and wondering who the fuck was staring back. Later in the journal contains a embarrassing passage about my imminent world-domination as a filmmaker. Based on zero evidence just gut feeling but i really know that feeling was me vs the world, me delaying, me deferring, me saying just you motherfuckers wait.

I kept reading, hoping to find a great narrative document of what happened when I chipped my tooth but nothing of note. Just a a single sentence at the bottom of the page in a rambling passage of early 20s spew (sample: The heart is split like a harness, a canvas for the finger, the hand, the soul before the solitary painter who mirrors, who reflects.) There it was, a single sentence, no context: I chipped my tooth again.

I have no idea what the 1995 'again' refers to (I chipped my tooth in 3rd grade. Am I referring to that?) but the 2016 'again' refers to 1995.

2 days ago I was at a memorial service. Seeing photos flip by, projected onto the screen - infant one second, parent the next, in the throes of debilitation in the next - crushed me. Vital, then not. Here, not here. There's a Kubrick quote that best gets at what fucks me up about it all: The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent. The scope, breadth, joys/fears of entire existence reduced to a tiny room, an open bar, a speech, then nothing. Just the programmed hum of the HVAC, clicking on/off whether you are present or not.

In Fall of 1995 I was taking Intro to Piano with Deborah Clasquin. [By coincidence Margaret was in the class too. But she wasn't there that often since it was early in the AM and since she and Red were actively splitting. Margaret dropped the class eventually.] Deborah was a great instructor, patient, deliberate, kind. At the very back of the journal I found a ticket stub from a public performance she gave. Feb 4, 1995. It was the kind of artifact one shares on social media these days so I did a quick search for her with aim to send it her way.

Only to discover she died almost 7 years ago, March 10, 2009. I had no connection to her beyond the class, had no contact with her in 20 years but it still hit me sideways, not unlike my son springing up, uncertain my head was just over him. Vital then not. Here, not here.

I am prone to look for meaning in things where maybe there is none. Maybe that makes me no different than anyone. Maybe the answer is always nothing, coincidence, indifference. Maybe the older you get the more numbers, lives/deaths, coincidences you contend with and sift through.
But all that said:
what does it mean that the woman who became my wife broke my tooth in the exact same place 21 years before our son would? What does it mean that the same forces I felt aligning against me in my 20s are still present? What does it mean that my journal is filled with arrogant puffery about the filmmaker I hoped I would become? What does it mean that the night I saw Deborah Clasquin's performance was 22 days away from when my tooth would get chipped, was 21 years and 5 weeks from when it would get chipped again, was 10 years and 1 day away from my 1st brain surgery, was 2 months after Nicholas K - our son's namesake -  died in his van outside Trinidad CA driving back from Portland, was 14 years and 5 weeks from her existing any longer? 

I am writing this at my day job and the HVAC just clicked on here.

Disneyland

spent a few days in Disneyland last week, staying at the Disney Hotel and going to the park on a two-day pass. difficult to summarize the sensations it provoked. I'd been to Disneyworld 2 times as a kid and to Disneyland many times as a man in my early 20s. Here, as a parent this time, I felt the strange and luminous intersection of past/present, child/parent. I felt some parts of myself surrender seeing it all through new sets of eyes. I felt the ephemeral hum that marketing sometimes calls happiness or magic. Let's instead call it a light, shining forward and backward, illuminating all the good parts (okay, mostly the good parts. there are still lines, there are still un-wonderful people), the best parts. Floating in the pool with my son, looking at the blue sky; riding Splash Mountain with him, a split-second decision; the caves on Tom Sawyer Island, etc were tiny unlockings, tiny steel doors rising in mostly rocky corridors.

This is not exactly a newsflash, but the Disney operation really has their act together, sustaining the illusion on myriad fronts, buy-in from all parties big and little. I did not want to leave. I ached as the bus pulled away and took us.

in the cave, photo by MM

I left wanting to cling to those small moments, protect them and keep them close and readily accessible. There is something instructive and uniformly true inside them but I am unable to fully articulate it at present. But I can feel it.

birthday in ramble form, in picture form

AM of 43rd Bday, awake, play w/ kids, spend interminable amount tracking down superhero cape from N's daycare (he rec'd fri for good behavior and we can't find it anywhere) and finally find in double stroller we never use in garage. walk up to woodstock farmer's market, stellar day, deep blue sky. run into our neighbors and friends the B's, buy blue-berries and salmon and iced coffee (M) and italian sausage (me). Walk back to elementary school and play for a bit (including under the play structure) and head home for lunch and naps. N wakes up before F and comes out to say hi to me and mom in living room prior to heading downstairs w/ dad to watch a bit of winnie the pooh. soon after we're headed to Jamison square to meet N's buddy J, play in the water. Later at home M makes the salmon for dinner. we pajamatize the kids and grandma and grandpa come over to put them to bed. Margaret and I find our way to the Lutz for a needed drink and needed adult conversation, topics covered: owning creative/artistic flaws in the same way as Parisian women, panic & anxiety and the death this week of RK and the seismic aftereffects, pursuing equity financing for film #2, measures of success, ie real-world v internal, good fortune. Later at Laurelhurst to see Kumiko the Treasure Hunter. beer and popcorn. inevitably I fall asleep for part of it. we drive  home. I say to M, "R. dying this week really messed me up" M says "I know". Suddenly i recall the sunrise I got to see this AM, five more than R got to see; i recall my birthday a decade ago (at lovely hula hands if memory serves) and the uncertainty that held me. home on my wave of good fortune, overwhelmed w/ joy

"...a bridge to be traversed later..."

Been digging through some old journals recently, not merely for nostalgia's sake (though I admit to having a kryptonite-like weakness for such) but for a future film project (or more specifically to aid with the rewriting of a screenplay for a future film project.) Said future movie is set in college and features characters based on some I've known, some I've been, all with the requisite amount of self-concern appropriate to that age. I was both entertained and shocked at my pages - a document of booze, coupling, aspiration, bad jobs, academia, malaise in a small college town in Northern California in the early to mid 90s - at how it captured what I was doing but also what I was feeling/thinking and primarily consumed with: getting over seismic heartbreak and navigating through new people and scenarios with a profound level of self-consumption, self-aggrandizement, self, self, self, self, self.

My opinion of my own (past) self and where I was headed and what I would do is both funny and sad from this current viewpoint, looking backwards 20 odd years, watching steam and vapor trails and abstractions of my (imagined) self coalescing, settling, and hardening even though the me of then thought I was further along and more finished than the me of now does. My behavior in several instances was not laudable - I'll spare the details - but driven by what I can only classify as a sick sort of entitlement. Who the hell did I think I was? I kept asking as I read. And then my eyes fell upon this passage, a ripple of prescience:

which says, if you can't decode my scribbling:

"It's quite conceivable that I'll look back upon 
this portion of my life, many years from now, and find myself sickened at my self-involvement. Alas, a bridge to be traversed later." 

Well BP, I'm traversing that bridge now. (Though does a person excoriating themselves for being too self-involved on their own self-involved blog mean anything?) Here I am. There you are and here I am. Don't get me too wrong, this is all wonderful for the sake of the future movie - which will share some things in common with this person/place I once was - but I do wish it didn't come bundled with shame, regret, misgivings, error, misstep. And so on. And so on. And so on.

on synchronous stingings

I've been reading and loving The Unwinding by George Packer - non fiction about the end of many precepts and certainhoods in US mythology to put it generally, which may sound dull but it's a fantastic read. Last night I at last got our (almost) 6 month old F to sleep finally and headed out to the kitchen table to read the book and enjoy a beverage, as is my wont while my wife got our 2 yr old N to sleep, prior to our nightly ritual of sitting on the futon and starting one in a cascade of endless Law & Orders and me falling asleep w/o fail 20 minutes in every time.

On page 241 I read about the ascendency of a NC congressman, seen and framed through the eyes of a NC businessman attempting to affect change via biodiesel, and came across this passage which involves said congressman-to-be being tended to by his father in a remote place after being stung multiple times by yellow jackets.

This naturally and immediately suggests to me a whole line of internal inquiry about what to do if/when my son is ever stung by a bee/yellow-jacket/hornet/other. Will he need and EpiPen too? Will he be one of those stories about allergic kids who swell up 3x in mere moments? Will the sting be his undoing? (note: don't be alarmed, these are all the healthy normal thoughts of any parent, sensing/anticipating peril around every corner). I felt blessed we hadn't encountered such yet and was somehow confident we wouldn't cross this bridge for many moons.

This morning we headed down to the river to check out the boats b/c it's Fleet Week. This is when some boats come up the Willamette River and park and allow the unwashed masses to come aboard (note: this is one of those things I would never ever do w/o a kid. It wouldn't even cross my mind. however the calculus of daily decisions is supremely altered w/ children in that going somewhere you don't have any actual interest in going trumps the catastrophe of staying home b/c at a minimum you won't have to look at the laundry/dishes and see them as some tacit reminder of your failings.)

We made it on to one boat, which was fine and neat and made me glad we went. Other boats had long 3 hour waits which we could not endure so we walked around the promenade, around the booths at Saturday Market (on Sunday) and past the not-yet-running-b/c-it's-10-AM carnival rides behind miles of chainlink.

We were standing at one chainlink bit, attempting to encourage N to walk for awhile since I'd been carrying him for probably a mile's worth of distance - now feeling it burn in my chest, arms, legs, in particular b/c I made the ill-informed last-minute decision to wear flip flops instead of the hassle of shoes upon leaving the house - and he was not interested, urging me to carry him instead.

And from nowhere, he began wailing in pain and we looked down and saw a stinger sticking out of his neck. A bee.

Moments later I am carrying him, the sun beating down, him screaming in pain, my flip-flops clap clapping on the walkway, trying to decide what to do - back to the car? find a first aid tent somewhere in the swell of the Rose Festival grounds? He can't stop crying, he can't stop touching his neck. And I am suddenly pulsing with fear - part particular to parenthood, part particular to my own stripe of dark worst-case paranoia - b/c we don't have an EpiPen. (But why would we?) And: Is this just coincidence? that 14 hours prior I was reading about stings and feeling blessed that N had never been stung? What are the odds? 

And: Will this sting be his undoing? 

We made our way to salvation, hearts slowing, N brave as hell. And I was re-presented this seeming
perpetual lesson: The lack/loss of control is a fundamental component of this whole enterprise.

oblivion tour

flew to SF last week to attend memorial service for M's uncle. Marin sun and sky were warm and blue, a counterpoint to the dark finality of everything surrounding us. Travelling with 2 small children amplified all stress and discord but also small, breathing reminder of the ephemeral nature of this whole ride. a gut-punch coming and going. i didn't know him well but i knew him. enough to feel something large stir as i sat staring at his broad grin frozen on poster-board at the front of the venue, joyous to the end. later in sausalito, boats on the water and tourists with peace sign poses in front of a parkside fountain. I am in a wool suit pushing a stroller, hoping an infant will sleep, the heel of my dress shoe extracting skin and blood. Later that night, watching alcohol shake loose obscured sadness, the true fear and effect of  the ultimate pulsing right there under all our manufactured forms, tiny truth pellets falling into a dispenser one at a time.

 the next day w/ M's dad, back in Marin again warm and blue, his person and form showing signs of decline, the same but different. we go to a park she went to as a girl; we go to her elementary school pulsing with one-upon-a-time Ms; we drive through rolling hills, find the house where M was a girl 36 eye-blinks ago, the hill she rode her big wheel down. ten seeming minutes from now will i/we tour similar terrain? the morning becomes afternoon and have to leave, to cross the bridge back.

 the next day we are w/ dear friend and her son, watching him drive in a run on an elementary school field, feeling the prickled absence of his father, an absence that continues to shadow me, forcing me to confront unanswerable questions. later at their house, the last place i saw him, hugged him, told him 'hang in'. more large things stirring, more gut-punching, continuing as we board the plane, as we return, as we unpack, as we sleep, as we rise, as we go through the motions of daily routine, leading me to a conversation w/ M at the kitchen sink the next night. Why am i perpetually fucked up, why am i 9 parts dark black to 1 part graciousness and blessings instead of the inverse? why does what i dodged continue to extract skin and blood? more unanswerable inquiry. I am exceedingly lucky and I know it but I don't always feel it. I feel the potential result more than the actual. I feel the passing form of the shark that missed me instead of the relative calm blue water i laze in now. when and how will it end?

over and over

up early Sunday AM, down Hawthorne Blvd and SE 37th w/ coffees and scones and 2 young kids to watch an old friend passing nearby in road race and a surging tide of runners pass in great swells, expelled from some great bottomless ocean. I am suddenly overcome as I watch - the sense memory of running/training-for several marathons myself, starting with 3 I trained for a million years ago in Los Angeles and in particular one in 2007 meant to demarcate my survivorship after my brain tumor enterprise and all parts therein in 2005 - as well as the simple metaphor of standing, participating, moving despite odds, body, history, as well as the non-stop nature of the bodies: Bodies running, then more, then more, then more. And a line from a song I used to listen to frequently once upon a time loops through my head as I stand holding my son (who's watching the 4 white guys play rasta music out of the rain under their small canvas tent) "...over and over we die one after the other..." and the bodies are all at once confirmation and defiance of this.



later, I have 2 hours to myself so I see Sunset Boulevard at the Laurelhurst, a film I am very familiar with but it too is bottomless. my past and present intersect on and off screen, the aspirant screenwriter who lived in LA a million years ago reads the film different than the non-LA based director of now, but then there has also been time/space in between, and I am exactly between Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond now, so I understand her in different ways, her delusion once so grotesque now more comprehensible and human and hence more tragic. Also, the precision and perfection of some of the shots and tightness of script and casting and score - all a marvel as per usual

There is connection to be made between these two events, these two paragraphs but I don't know how to say it or even really what it is but I can feel it. Something about perspective and sheer luck of being able to have it. Forward and backward and forward and over and over one after the other.

X and Z

from the introduction to Memories, Dreams, Reflections, K. Jung

been thinking a lot of late about the concept of internal narrative, ie the driving and/or defining story that we all use or draw from, unique and distinct from anyone else; the story that somehow got formulated at a very early age and laid the bedrock for subsequent years and how we use subsequent life, living, and/or events and/or actions to support that narrative, ie how the narrative itself becomes self-fulfilling. example: narrative is I am X because I sometimes do Z. action: I just did Z. conclusion: I am therefore X.

Very difficult thing to break out of, this self-fulfilling loop, spanning decades usually. In fact it's quite typical to proceed unawares for large chunks of time. It's easy to. My internal narrative has its roots in early childhood and is very simple and basic (I suspect most peoples are) but once I identified and isolated it I began to see it everywhere - which is disturbing in and of itself, ie how can something so small and benign from a young age ripple through an adult life impacting thought and deed? - in how I speak, how I move, how I cogitate, in what I respond to and who I respond to. It engenders a deeper question: Am I really, truly X or do I just think I am? in other words, can I transcend the narrative I've been living/re-learning for close to 4 decades or will it end up explained by the vague assertion that's just who I am?

Any presumption that the human animal is capable of profound complexity and depth seems to be refuted by this disturbing article from the NY Times magazine, which explores how advertisers exploit the cue-habit-reward loop, and which suggests quite easily that we are not that removed from rats in a lab responding to squares of chocolate.

Still, as I found myself contemplating recently I felt a tingly sense of discovery. Maybe the code hasn't been cracked but that a code has been discovered at all is an auspicious starting place. As I said, every person's narrative is extremely unique, extremely personal so there's no point in me listing all the details and memories that comprise mine but suffice it to say that it deals with me perpetually seeking something from the floor of one particular lake. the wrong lake. Or put another way, I am now trying to keep this principle of Lojong front and center, number 59:

Don't expect applause.

It is exceedingly more complex than that and yet just as simple, sort of like how a well-worn maxim such as 'Be Kind to Others" can be cliched and profound all at once.

past and present all at once

the day, tues 2.7.12,  began at 640, rising to feed Strunk and Lennie. I got dressed and went for a run. As I was leaving Strunk came outside through the open door. when i returned there she was sitting on the front porch. She followed me back inside. M & N were awake by now so I said hello, then jumped in the shower and drove to the dentist. Had periodontal cleaning (this is a little more advanced than your standard teeth cleaning thanks to my prior bad habits). When I was done I came out to the car and thought for a bit. I could either drive the car home and see M & N and then walk to the bus on Hawthorne or I could drive over to Brooklyn and pick up one of 3 lines at intersection of powell and milwaukie. Since it was after 9 am and since on Mon/Tues we have someone come from 9a-12p to sit with N so M can do some work (be it of the day job or writing variety) I thought it best not to interrupt them and opted for the latter choice.

Drove on 17th and decided to park at Rhone by the credit union b/c i could take the 17 line and what's more at the end of the work day I - fast forwarding here - saw myself walking through Brooklyn at the end of the work day, our old neighborhood.  where we lived when we moved up from los angeles; where we lived through my diagnosis and treatment; where death and rebirth are ribboned together in my memory, intersections on several planes.

I waited for the bus. The bus arrived.

At day job things went normally, which is to say paint-dry boring and mind-numbingly un-engaging. In the afternoon  I got an email from my endocrinologist regarding recent blood draw. It was not bad news (in fact it was expected news) but the mere interaction was enough - as it always is - to send me back to brain tumor world, those sensations and aches pulsing just below the skin, the quake, the blackness, the fear. A reminder - not that i needed it - that I am not as recovered emotionally from the entire BT experience as I am able to convey. After an object is shattered you can reassemble it but it is not the same. Which is to say I carry wounds, despite the ultra-positive outcome. (This is one of those surreal paradoxes of survivorship. Put against the notion of your oblivion how can isolation, sadness, depression be anything but whiffs of smoke? Question: If the outcome is positive would it not neutralize, mollify or mitigate anything as ephemeral as an emotion? Answer: No). The best analog I can think of is soldier, long-returned from combat, wrestling to re-enter 'normal life', surrounded by those who haven't been there, who assume that since the war is over s/he is now well. backpats and whew, dodged a bullet! and what is there to worry about since you're fine now?!

At 5 or so M called to say that Strunk hadn't eaten. Not a huge deal but she had been showing slight lack of appetite the past couple days. As we were talking Strunk began throwing up. Should I make an appointment at the vet? M asked. We decided it best to see how Strunk was doing the next morning. I left work.

At the bus-stop I got on the 19 instead of the 17 b/c the 17 was 10 min away. This meant I had to exit at powell/milwaukie (instead of 17th and Rhone) and walk through the Brooklyn neighborhood. Valentines Day will mark 8 yrs that we moved to Brooklyn from Los Angeles so as I walked I couldn't help but let associations ping-pong through my head, the past and present all at once, the new coat of paint on what i recalled as a decrepit house, the coffee shop once such a large part of our lives now a remodelled lesser iteration, and so forth. Also Strunk was in my thoughts, thinking about how she'll probably be fine but how one day she'll die; about how she and Maxwell (RIP) and Henry (RIP) were part of our family, part of our transition from Los Angeles to Portland, part of the past and present all at once. I thought of all the things we've done, all the life we've lived in those 8 yrs - 4 houses, travel, illness, 2 pet deaths,  birth of our son, and a gazillion stops in between each.

 As I approached our old house on 14th (still the same green paint, the same birch trees) a song came on my ipod randomly that put me in the house in march 2005 between my surgeries, me and M in the basement painting it yellow. I was outside the house and inside simultaneously. Outside, I saw the telephone pole that Henry scrambled up; I saw the house that Maxwell ran to that day he got out of the yard; I saw the Miller's old house where Strunk had got locked in their basement for a whole weekend while they were out of town. Inside, I saw the drop cloths, the paint cans, the spattered radio playing the song I was currently listening to; I felt the low quake again, the black fear i felt then, not knowing what was going to happen, neither M nor I truly knowing if I was going to live despite our positive talk and thought, despite the shiny new yellow wall.

I walked further, past the house, around to 16th Ave, everywhere seeing triggers: there's the house where we ran into Joe H and got the bookcase we currently have in our basement. there's the house that was for sale when George was in town that we all looked at; there's the squat purple house on a hill that we walked by when we took Maxwell for walks. The sky was grey and the streets were empty. it was like walking though an old photo album, a long-destroyed city after an apocalypse, ruins all cauterized and stiff but each humming and vibrating with the imprint and charge of life. These images were not merely triggers for the BT year but also our rebirth and replanting after moving from LA, all inextricably linked together, symbolic death and rebirth fused with possible death and then symbolic rebirth. Strunk and Henry and Maxwell were there for all of it. They were all (save Strunk) pre-N and to that end, like our kids.

I got to the car. I started the engine and pulled away, out of Brooklyn, away from the pulse of so much that i'd forgotten to recall. Traffic was rush-hour terrible. Over to Holgate to 39th to Lincoln to our street. I parked in front and as I ascended the steps I saw M & N in the door window. I presumed they were waiting for me because the traffic kept me away but when I opened the door M said Strunk is dying. She waited for you. It was 5:50 pm.

Moments later I'm in the bedroom, lights off, a candle burning, over Strunk's body. She is near the end, laying prone, eyes glazed, gasping intermittently. My mind is spinning, like i'm sleepwalking, in a movie about the memory of an old submerged dream.  I get to say goodbye to her. I pet her and talk to her. And soon she is gone. Just like that. Added to the tally of things we've done and life we've lived in the 8 yrs since we arrived here. The raw pain of her death another of the gifts I am lucky to savor because I am alive. The steady pulse of everything arriving all at once, symbolic death and literal death fused together in one liquescent moment, here for one beautiful shimmering instant, and then gone. just as quick as it came.

2012

a new year is always a symbolic thing. several big things coming this year already: milestone birthday (ugh), travel, directing a feature film and hopefully lots of joy and friendship filling in all the gaps. oh and the steady white-noise of self-correction and self-improvement be it in the physical, emotional, or spiritual realms. 2011 saw me posting much less on this blog, not for lack of interest but due to a dilution of time owing to a tot and directing a couple short films. one is almost done, one just got done. you can follow them both here if you have that desire. meantime i post semi-regularly here, a few words about whatever the last film i saw was.

letter to occupant



dear Occupier -

okay, so i may be outing myself as out-of-touch or crustily approaching my midlife point or encountering the new viewpoints that can't help but come along with a baby, and further my opinon may be influenced by the fact that the building i work in for my day job is directly across from where the occupy gaggle at chapman and lownsdale parks sat tarp-covered for several weeks, where i was afforded a close-up view of all the day-to-day dealings, watching as admirable idealism was joined by gathering streams of wanderers, miscreants and drug-using hirsute bandana-faces and this further pains me since at core i've felt mostly liberal my whole life but recent events force me to this moment in time so I'll just be blunt and say it: the occupy movement has reached the height of ridiculousness.

the disconnect between ideals and impact is staggering. hundreds and thousands of City dollars spent to police and/or clean and/or monitor their movements as you rally your venom fists in the air to protest...what exactly? no rights are being violated. no peoples or races or creeds are being oppressed or at least they aren't being oppressed by the police or by the citizens of portland trying to cross the steel bridge on trimet or the max to get to work. the political-banking-one-percent stranglehold on everyday life is undeniable but you - occupier - are not doing anything to dilute or neutralize it. you are not being watched by banks or wall street or the political-industrial complex. you are not changing peoples minds for the positive. instead you've squandered a fair amount of justifiable rage and alienated a shit-ton of people who may have initially agreed with you. You are acting like petulant, entitled children. Disperse, re-gather, politicize. The only way to change the game is to play it.

over it

love

b

always danger

the other evening, home one day from hospital, our son slept in bassinet and i reached absently for a book of poetry from the shelf behind me. it was always danger by david hernandez. it's an outstanding book just in general, but at this intersection of fragility and robustness it resonated in unique and shimmering ways. highly recommended.

wknd in thumbnail, independence day edition

indeed indeed, i was granted a 4 day wknd from my job, got friday off but i feel compelled to back the narrative up to thursday when my recently-exposed cans of film arrived in seattle and we met sipes and R at dot's cafe in clinton, both of whom are from back-in-the-day collegiate memory-pools as well as present-day. R was here for just a night, en route to seattle for a wk long vacation. we talked baby, movie, zombies etc and parted ways. M and i rented bored to death from clinton video and went home and promptly watched 3 of them.



friday we slept in and walked LB up to the mt tabor dog park. along the way we fell into more memory-pool business, artifacts and long-forgot moments suddenly pulled up from the sludge of time, suddenly alive with value heretofore either un-accrued or unacknowledged. part of this is due to the life-changing undertaking headed our way in a matter of weeks, part of it is getting older but we came to realize that, it being july 1, it was 15 yrs ago or so that we hooked up, which engendered a semi-exhaustive inventory of all the random and free-will things that had to happen for and to both of us to have arrived at that point in space-time and all the random and free-will things that had to happen for and to both of us afterward to continue to be together. kind of a head-twirler. we noted all the things that had happened in 15 years, the trips, the places, the events. all in an eyeblink. later was breakfast at genies. we made a list of all the crap we had to accomplish over the 4 days, all connected directly or otherwise to baby. afterward we drove to hospital, had ultrasound, checkup etc. all on course. large baby headed our way. we noted that he was in the 94th percentile and then we noted how we promised we'd never talk about boring crap like what percentile the kid was in. conundrum.

we went home, attempted to nap. went to academy theater to see Meeks Cutoff which was amazing for several reasons, one the images, one the rhythms, one the screening itself, mere 4 dollars with delicious pizza and beer, sold out on a beautiful summer night and on top of that i saw one of the mechanics I work w/ in my day job sitting in a nearby row - frickin a, so glad to live in portland, oregon. not like other places. also, fantastic movie (lest that get lost in my chittering).




Saturday we woke up. walked back up to Mt. Tabor and the dog park, drove to my parents to borrow the CRV, then drove to Ikea which was supremely un-fun and crowded, a testament to commerce and large-ness, giant carts filled with giant boxes every which way you'd turn inside a maze, not necessarily dissimilar from the one in 'the shining', on an unbelievably beautiful summer day. we wanted to turn and leave but we had some items that we had to get - so we got them. getting them in the vehicle was one undertaking. getting them out of the vehicle and into the house was another. came home and let LB into the yard. He promptly rolled in feces (whether it was his or not was not established). after a quick nap attempt we walked him up the street to dog-washing establishment which he resisted but what choice did he have in the matter? Some time later we returned the CRV to my folks and stayed for dinner which was salad w/ all varietal of bit and tidbit to add and augment. my mother has a propensity for documenting things that may or may not need to be documented which i've certainly inherited (see: this blog entry or see: this blog) and on this summer night she took pix of each salad and then forwarded to all the dinner guests. I think this is my salad. which was delicious (note: i manipulated the colors, camera is functional)

sunday morning we were both exhausted and sore, partly from lifting the ikea crap (me), partly from being 8 mos pg (mm). the skies were overcast so we planned to block off a couple hours and she would do some thank you cards (for last wknd's baby shower) while i assembled the ikea items. everything went smoothly enough, except for the budgeted time part, b/c when i had finally put everything together and we'd moved it to where it needed to live, even if temporarily, it was 4 pm, and, aside from a brief timeout for breakfast, all time was spent assembling and card-writing. This is more stress-inducing than it may sound. At 4 pm our back-up doulla arrived for an interview. she was great. all went swimmingly. M walked up hawthorne to get more thank you cards while i took LB to throw the tennis ball. we reconvened back at the house. we watched a nova special - recommended to us by a compatriot in our birthing class - called the miracle of life (i think) which focused on genes and chromosomes and cell replication and the wonder of it all. this was the perfect thing to see as a sort of appetizer for T. Malick's The Tree of Life, which we saw a couple hours later at the fox tower. I'm still processing the entire film which is long and winding and lovely but suffice it to say that it's Malick - one of my top 3 - and E. Lubezki shooting a film that encompasses the birth of galaxies, planets, and life itself and all attendant developments therein, from conciousness through love and death and all stations in between - and i think my final assessment will be at the highest range of esteem. tbd. at a minimum i think it has to be seen twice. and i'm only at once. but you should see it. [bonus: mm, very pg, got out of her chair mid-movie and upended a 'small' mr. pibb - i use quotes b/c their small is more like a bucket - which ended up soaking the purse and contents of our friend J sitting right next to us. bonus 2: man directly in front of me who had weird/distracting affect of constantly and perpetually moving his head in little circles, like one might do if one had a sore neck but say for 30 seconds or so, not for 2 hrs and 18 min.]



 Monday, independence day, we wake up, one more time w/ LB up to Mt. Tabor dog park. He's come a long way in just a few days, multiple dog-exposures helping to ease his anti-social leash fear thing.  We watch the end of Bored to Death (which is fantastic) and head out to friends' house for bbq. They were kind enough to allow LB to hang in their back yard and aside from one tiny incident wherein he crawled thru a hole in the fence and feverishly devoured all the contents of a metal bowl in the neighbor's garage everything was fine. we ate like kings and talked for awhile and then headed home. intending to somehow take the reins over chaos we inventoried all the gifts, blankets, clothes, and other items that have found their way to our house. It sounds benign enough but in fact it was a strange and stress-y undertaking, each item underscoring the move from abstraction to actuality in t-minus 4 weeks. I mean, it's not all stress, it's mostly lovely but uncertainty is a demon that breeds many hell-hounds as the old song goes (note: that's not actually an old song, i just made it up). We took deep breaths, walked to new seasons (where we heard tu fawning over the pa!), bought a sandwich, walked home in the twilight, as all around us were explosions near and far, cracking and booming, shaking and reverberating, seemingly endless waves rolling in, rolling in, rolling in.

this morning the sky was cerulean. the sun was shining. i rode my bike in to work and could not stop smiling. and i'm not a smiler.

...the tick-tocking of the clock...

Time marching forward, a fixed point on the horizon, a line in the sand, a before/after blip on the space-time continuum, a freight-train (whose exact dimensions and impactful-flattening capacities are tbd) barrelling our way - all engendering some admixture of fear and excitement in (mostly) equal measure.
six point five tiny weeks. we have shower/party this wknd, a guest in town, then another guest in town
and then we're going to sit in the house behind the locked front door and wait, savoring each last liquid moment of silence...

call me

i can't tell you how much i am not a fan of cell-phones. i don't like to watch people 'interacting' w/ them on the bus or at a movie theater or at a restaurant. i count the times i've witnessed couples or families on separate cell-phone calls or texts or whatevers as among the best representation of the worst of modern life. i am aware this makes me look cranky and non-integrated. this is all by way of saying, due in part (okay, in total) to the new arrival (see below post. no, not the song, the one under it) and all the attendant spreading limbs of change slowly wrapping around us, that after a decade of not-having-a-cellphone, which really did not put my life at a detriment in any, way, shape, or form - i've capitulated. last week m found a good deal online, too good to pass up, so we ordered me one.

i came home from work yesterday and the new phone was on the porch in a box. (next to it was another box filled with 16 millimeter film stock from kodak. two separate tracks, alternate worlds, now intersecting, ribboning toward the horizon). i haven't yet opened it. but it's in the house. lurking. waiting.

wknd in thumbnail

my posting in this forum - as the faithful reader will note (hi mom!) - has been reduced to something less than intermitttent trickle, something less substantial than smoke-wisp and - as per usual - this is attributable to a variety of churn and chop in a multitude of oceans, if you'll allow the indulgent metaphoring, and i feel guilty and irresponsible but only up to a certain point. mm and i have a ticking clock, set to arrive in early august, which has moved absolutely everything else to the backburner.  We're steeling for waves of change that we can only surmise - we've watched plenty of others ride the waves but we're beach-bound or at least we will be until early august when we'll have no choice but to venture into the water (continuing the indulgence of the maritime metaphor).

alas, herein and forthwith, i will document our three-day holiday weekend, fittingly deemed 'memorial day' b/c we are certain that it will memorialize our rapidly shrinking autonomy.

friday, i got home early from work. m was home already. our houseguest of several days had moved on (hi e!) and we walked the dog and put our pajamas on. It was the exceedingly early hour of 5:30 pm but we were both fighting exhaustion and illness (m has had a wretched unshakeable cough) so we felt zero remorse about being in for the night, even if night was several hours out. we sat quietly and read in the living room - m is reading salmon rushdie, i'm reading the making of the empire strikes back (don't ask). at one point we started to discuss plans for the wknd but quickly agreed to not discuss anything related to the weekend. instead we ordered a pizza and watched 3 episodes of treme and went to bed. it was a glorious afternoon/evening.

saturday, i made breakfast. we finalized and sent out invites for our party/bbq/shower (a surprisingly stress-inducing undertaking). despite the weather report the sun was out. we walked the treme dvd down to clinton street video, hoping to get the next disc but it was not to be. we put our name on a reservation list. we looked at a store that combines babyness with ecological sanctity. we walked to a cafe on division and drank waters and tried to decide whether or not to go see a movie. we walked to hawthorne and ate frozen yogurt. we stopped in jackpot records and bought things (m got tv on the radio on vinyl, i got the new figurines, we ordered the new bill callahan b/c they were out). we walked home.
we took naps. we got a call from clinton street video saying the next disc of treme was in. we decided it was fate deciding our night. m went to get the dvd while i walked the dog. we got into our pajamas. we reheated the leftover pizza. we were in for the night.



sunday, i awoke in a sort of panic. i am shooting a short film in a few wks and there are multiple threads and strands that i have to address. i scrambled into my office and began listing them all, began multiple emails to various peoples regarding various aspects of the production. i storyboarded most of the movie. i sat down and had coffee as i read 'the making of vertigo'. later i watched david cronenberg's videodrome (which is interesting not only b/c the last time i saw it was 20 years ago, which you can verify at the picture of my journal from this recent interview w/ me and not only b/c the movie is fucked up and fantastic but also b/c it features a character getting a brain tumor and naming his brain tumor Videodrome. when i got my brain tumor i named it 'marla singer' after a line of dialogue in the movie fight club but if i had recalled this movie at the time i may have named it videodrome instead). we left the house (!) and picked up C and went to the laurelhurst theater to see Vertigo which, was stupendously jaw-dropping and affecting and effective even though i'd seen before and even though the print was faded, nicked and less-than-stellar. we came home and ate a late dinner (w/ the corn tortillas C had made) and watched another 'treme'.



monday, i woke to an email that had repercussion for the short film, that contributed to snarling a scheduling problem that i had unsnarled before that would take 3 shooting nights down to 2 and all the attendant haste/error/issue therein. it burned in my gut and i felt a low-grade depression, a malaise spreading through me. all my internal-voice doubt spigots were activated and began flowing. i read interview w/ david cronenberg wherein he cites orson welles' quote about how a director merely presides over a series of accidents, about the illusion of control and i felt mildly better. my dad picked me up and we went to the living room theaters to see werner herzog's 3D 'cave of forgotten dreams', which helped put my small concerns in perspective and which was also awesome. after, we went to hopworks and talked about baby things. later, back at home, we took the dog to the dogpark to throw tennis balls. we came home and i assembled a stroller. (note: seeing it in the corner now, existing, waiting for a passenger, is a strange odd scary thing). we ate dinner and mailed thank you cards for said stroller. we watched the end of season 1 of treme, which rocked our world. already planning to re-watch at some point down the road when we've fully digested/processed. this AM it was the first thing we both thought about.

thank you weekend. i loved you so.