Definitely have been having some crazy dreams lately, definitely have intended to write about them, but of course, now it’s all a blur. I barely remember anything — except running around with my old dog Mitzi, and possibly Ryan too. We were in a water park. There were waterslides and a crappy restaurant on the premises. My dog was barking, jumping up and down, following me. I think I ate a hot dog, even though I don’t like hot dogs.

I remembered this dream only yesterday, at J.’s house in Beverly, upon seeing CHUNK, their household hound who looks quite a bit like Mitzi and also jumped all over me.

I feel dumb about the Middlesex Lounge, by the way — all my stupid talk about paying a reciprocal friendship visit to G. while spinning the other night — I’m so forgetful sometimes. I forgot he was shooting a 24-hour reality TV pilot that I was actually invited to PA on. So, I take back all that smack I talked, and now I feel justifiably foolish for walking alone at 1am to a club where G. was obviously not in residence. Oh well. It happens. That’s just what I get for not paying attention.

In other news, I finished shooting interviews with J. & J. and M. and now, while the boys travel the south and everywhere else for 5 entire weeks, I’ll at least have a project to work on. I will finish that doc by April or die trying.

The boys left. That’s them, leaving: Jay, Ry, James, and Matty. Driving 24 hours straight in a packed van to North Carolina. I wish I could go with them.

This was my evening. The kids. The cats. Weeks ago I told E. stories of roaches in the oven of my 1999 Fenway flat, and he’s recounted every detail about seven times since I first talked about it. That kid forgets nothing.

G. is spinning down the street tonight, but I’ve no one to go with and I don’t know if I feel like paying $5 to say hello, drink a $3 ginger ale, then leave. Actually I definitely don’t feel like it, but he chewed me out earlier for not attending his DJ-ing events, and I’m supposed to be perpetuating our conceptual post-breakup friendship, which I suppose includes congenial gestures like walking 7 blocks at 1am solo into a chic club where I won’t drink and won’t dance and where we can’t talk, and where I’ll leave after a short period of time and watch the snow turn from slush to mud at the tips of my boots.

Ryan is leaving with J. and J. and M. tomorrow for the 5-week tour. He made me a key today but it doesn’t work when you try it in the lock. I of course interpreted that as a larger sign of some gross foreboding, but as usual, I’m probably just reading too much into everything again. We drove around Arlington buying guitar strings, Harvard buying pizza and travel mugs, and then I had to leave. If I think about his loooooong trip on which I cannot tag along, if I think about this long winter and these long days, if I don’t lose myself in books and FCP tutorials by B., I will get quite sad with the knowledge that my foremost friend is far away and will be for a long time. Because at that point I will realize that I truly have pushed myself into such hermidity that I really do not have a social life.

I can live with that, though. There is much to be done.

Redaction (noun)
1 : an act or instance of putting something in writing or adapting it for publication
*2 : a work that has been adapted for publication : edition, version

“Redaction” is from the Latin verb “redigere” (“to bring back” or “to reduce”), which was formed by adding the prefix “red-” (“back”) to “agere.”

Example sentence:
Tina was introduced to a number of literary classics as a child via age-appropriate redactions, sometimes in the style of comic books.

Back to words of the day, yes. It’s been an unproductive few days, relatively. This snow vacation is nearly over and I’ve just now, finally, gotten into my redaction of 2004, Love in the Time of Cholera. George and I continue to plot out April’s film production, I got a Patagonia liner fleece & scarf, and any minute now Ry will walk in the house, satiated from a long week of snowboarding, performing, and finally meeting a girl he’s really excited about. I would have picked him up at the airport were it not for the two cars blocking me in the driveway and the 2 feet of snow all over the van, not to mention the rest of the neighborhood.

At church tonight, oddly, our reader gave a testimony and quoted an old old archbishop who once said: Humility doesn’t mean having a low opinion of yourself, or thinking others are better; humility just means not thinking about yourself.

Isn’t that poignant?

I should have flown to Peru this week and shot documentaries about Lake Titicacca with Lapsed Modernist instead of babysitting, eating ice cream and sleeping til 2p every day at Ry’s. Seriously man. We’ve had no work all week, based on my office’s “if Cambridge schools have a snow day, we all have a snow day” philosophy that I’m learning to love.

As R. in Baltimore says:
> i really want to go on a cruise, or something. what do you think,
should i get a job this summer? kind of don’t want to. pretty lazy. i might
try to write a book like the da vinci code, and make millions of dollars.

If you knew R., you’d understand that she could totally write a book and make a million dollars in one summer. And then go back to teaching astrophysics to teenagers like nothing ever happened. I have some secret plans of my own, but it involves more financial loss than financial gain. Also got an offer to be a VJ with B. and learn FCP asap. Look at all my acronyms!

Very excited about the 48-hr Film Project this year. My team is back, compact, and better than freakin’ ever. This time we’ve got a sick technical set-up: suped up audio, a mobile FCP pro editing suite, a new DP with an HDV camera, and me shooting B-roll on my PD170. And I might recruit the Wiinikka-Lydon boys to join the ranks in acting/writing/set directing. Word up, produxion!! Holla back!

I love everything.

I really find it difficult to comprehend how any Americans would be against an end to the occupation of Iraq. The larger question is who would be in favor of this terrible terrible mess we’ve created? And now there’s no water at all? Read the latest from Riverbend on Baghdad Burning:

I’m sure people outside of the country are shaking their heads at the words ‘collective punishment’. “No, Riverbend,” they are saying, “That’s impossible.” But anything is possible these days. People in many areas are being told that if they don’t vote- Sunnis and Shia alike- the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off. We’ve been getting these rations since the beginning of the nineties and for many families, it’s their main source of sustenance. What sort of democracy is it when you FORCE people to go vote for someone or another they don’t want?

They say the borders are closed with Jordan and possibly Syria. I also heard yesterday that people aren’t being let into Baghdad. They have American check-points on the main roads leading into the city and they say that the cars are being turned back to wherever they came from. It’s a bad situation and things are looking very bleak at this point.

It’s amazing how as things get worse, you begin to require less and less. We have a saying for that in Iraq, “Ili yishoof il mawt, yirdha bil iskhooneh.” Which means, “If you see death, you settle for a fever.” We’ve given up on democracy, security and even electricity. Just bring back the water.

First, TAPIOCA has been updated, thanks to the snowstorm and my own new commitment to intense productivity. Feel free to check it out and read up on all my cool ambitious video adventures.

Inspired by a renewed displeasure with River Street, I plodded through the snowdrifts to Ry’s house tonight, despite the fact that he’s in Utah playing gigs during Sundance. He called earlier:
“Dude, you would love it here. You totally should have come.
There’s lots of film people and famous people and it’s like Mardi Gras,
it’s one big party in the streets… Next year you can come along, promise.”

I picked up some toilet paper, bagels, frozen pizza, juice, cream cheese, apples, soup, granola and dark chocolate truffles, just in case I get snowed in here. Very resourceful, eh? I think secretly — or perhaps admittedly — I would like to get snowed in here. I mean hell, the heat works, the fuses don’t blow everytime you plug something in, the kitchen is large, the toilet works, internet connections are functioning properly, my video stuff is here, I’ve a van at my disposal, and Ry’s stereo is awesome. What’s not to love? Anyway it certainly didn’t help that the girl I replaced in my current flat ended an email today with: hope the house holds up for the rest of the winter ;) cheers

I really hope winter ends quickly and I start seeing returns on all my imagined investments outlined below.
I don’t even want a boyfriend. AT ALL. With 98% of my East Coast friends being guys, I’ve got all the testosterone exposure I need. Why do all the girls move West, or to other countries? So sad.

You know how some people say you just have to envision what you want in order for it to actually be made manifest? Here’s what I’m envisioning:

- A nice, affordable studio flat with dual-colored walls: two sides lime green, two sides dark beige; ample kitchen space and a bathroom with superbly-functioning plumbing and electric wiring; I will build a loft for the bed to go on top and the bike to go underneath, build a large desk and overhanging shelves for an editing suite, and will hang my punching bag in the corner, or on the deck.
- A new Mac G5 tower (yes, I’m caving in to multimedia peer pressure here, so sue me).
- An overabundance of fresh fruits and vegetables.
- Immaculately clean countertops, floors, walls, and toilets.

That’s it, really. That’s the collective whole of what I want. Except I’m afraid it’ll make me complacent again, provoke an inability to travel for long periods of time. Whatever.*

*(I had a stepfather once, briefly, decades ago, who said my problem was not merely OCD or stubborness or an inability to conform to any social mores, but rather a hyperactive imagination: I would imagine both good and bad potential outcomes of any event, situation or circumstance, and this incited both irrational fears and positive anticipations, none of which were fully based on reality. I guess not much has changed in 15 years…)

But, as Mohan says, “This is a take world, Bonnie. You have to reach out and take what you want. Nothing will ever happen if you just sit back complacently and wait.” I’m hoping she’s wrong, but a little feminist assertiveness never hurt anyone…except, maybe, all those girls who jumped out the windows of Smith College…

OY!

* * * In non-women’s-college-news,
Ben and I hung out last night. We were served meat by a funny waiter, then went to see Kinsey. I still love Liam Neeson as much as I did when I was 16. After tea and perpetual banter (me), I went home and dreampt of having wild, fun adventures with my old roommates in England. In some funny way, I feel like a part of me is still there, living with them. In this mirror reality we are having burgers at The Krobar and sharing McVitties plain chocolate digestives and talking about international politics and relationships at night, and dressing up for crazy multi-lingual parties. My perpetual contact with them via cyberspace could account for this feeling, but, perhaps on the other side of our weird mobius strip, I’m still there right now, brewing bad coffee with bad water into a cracked pot for all of us.

J. and I made the recent discovery that we both write dates and phone numbers Euro-style (or global style), ie: 21/Jan.05 or 21 January 2005 or 617.868.6600 or 617 868 6600.

As he says:
Using the dashes and periods in the date totally tickles my brain. like when you’re making a cake and mixing the ingredients in a bowl. you’ll see the flour spread out on the bottom and on top, you’ll have little sand castles of brown sugar and crisco or whatever (do people really put crisco in cakes?) and they’re all different shapes and sizes and none of it makes any sense. until you take a step back and recognize that each ingredient is the perfect size/shape to create this awesome thing (cake). but instead of a cake, you’re making a little nugget of information that is completely 100% efficient. so efficient that if it were a flame, it would produce no smoke. so efficient, that it must be european.

Mentally preparing my 5-year plan again. Marcus wrote from Vientiane, Laos where he’s hiking the entire Ho Chi Minh Trail with his pal N. They’re filming people along the way, photographing, planning to get a grant and publish a book about the experience after it ends in 6-or-so months. And guess who might be editing the endless hours of video footage? That’s right — moi. I really hope I get the opportunity. Would be excellent.

Had a meeting with D. last night regarding video projects…he wants to shoot a quick film in April or May on Chinatown. I’m down if my sound guys are. It’s nice to have projects in the works, you know? I don’t even care if i go to art school now.

And speaking of 5-year plans, having two barely-functioning toilets, a porch roof that will cave in if I hang up my boxing heavy bag, a busted mailbox and several electrical outlets that blew last night got me thinking about my living arrangements…which got me thinking about changing cities, or not… I’ve no definitive plans yet, other than to bait-and-switch come summer. I’d like to live alone, almost regardless of cost. But it’d be so much cheaper to live alone in Center City, Phila. But there’s fewer media jobs there. Thinking of eventually shacking up with S. from work (not like that, sicko), which would also be fun, in a responsible, anally-clean professional women kind of way. Time will tell.

Meanwhile my contemplations have inspired more dreams. Last night I dreampt I was in my kitchen when I discovered roaches. Jumping roaches. Every time you’d try to squish one, it’d jump up and fly several feet away, and then another would appear. Really gross dream. I confronted my roommate and said, “You said there were no roaches here!” She kind of winced and said, “Um, well there haven’t been any for a while…” This is just another situational anxiety dream. I’d love to figure out a conclusive, directional life plan and stick to it — even just for the next 5 years. Honestly, having a plan I think would solve everything. That, and living completely alone.

In the ever articulate words of M., bored as pie in NL:
“even though i hate people i could do with having some of them around.”