nicht kaput, und film.

The story of a broken chair, part 2.


I fixed it. And when I sat in it, oh man did that feel fantastic. Actually, I'm sitting in it now, and it feels a bit more solid. No weird creaking wood noises. So maybe I fixed it for good? I'd like to hope so, because I'd like to keep this chair around for a while. Wood glue, wood screws (that weren't all that solid, unfortunately), some clamps for the glue process, and voila, it's back to working status.


And I suppose for anyone who is like "don't buy from IKEA!!" they have valid points, but if you're willing to put a little extra work in (in case it breaks, like in my case), I'd say it's worth it. Mostly just because I love rocking chairs though.

Also, I love the fact that mine has a red cushion, rather than black as pictured on the IKEA website. Red is probably my second favorite color, and my house color (Gryffindor, duh), and even though it's supposed to be a power/anger color, I tend to just like it (mostly in smaller doses though). Although, it does make me feel a little empowered.


Moving on from the chair, I spent my week working as a receptionist and rereading Harry Potter (I'm currently about 2/3 through the 3rd book) and then my entire weekend I spent helping a friend with a film project for a class. It felt good to be on a set again, to be doing what I actually want to do with my life. The interesting part was I realized just how much I know, and it's a dangerous amount. I'm not a DP by any stretch, but as a photographer and artist, I understand a lot about making a shot look more dynamic/cinematic. They also at one point started listening to me about how to do the lights, which I thought was a very bad decision on their part considering that I probably know less about lighting than the two guys on the crew (although I do know when the lighting looks right within the shot...). I caught things for them on occasion (oh hey you have this in the shot...) and did some makeup on two of the actors (who I deemed my beautiful beat-up boys). It looked pretty good on camera, and the cast and crew loved it, so it was all good. Last night (after my 3rd late night in a row, following a week of being up early for work), I was so tired I crashed in a chair in the guys' apartment. Ooops.... They woke me up once they'd finished putting all the equipment away and sent me home, which was definitely for the best. Also, on a sort of funny side, I had some fake blood from doing the makeup, and when they were doing a quick pick-up shot, I got sort of bored and dripped the fake blood across the ground in a way that looked like someone had gotten stabbed or a really bloody nose and had walked away, and the guys thought it was so cool and decided they needed a shot of it. Krista and I thought it was hilarious that my goof-off moment turned so cinematic.

Not working today through wednesday, but I work thursday-wednesday (minus the weekend, and people have started asking me if I'm free to help them on films already...). Guess I'm sort of popular? Even if that's not the case, I think I'll believe it is for the time being, because that seems like a better answer than "we just want her around because we want to use her, but we don't actually like her because she's a bit of an insufferable know-it-all".

I'm exhausted, but I'm happy. I met new people this weekend, made new friends (at least that's how I would view them) and honestly just felt like all was right in the world. Although, unfortunately for Juan, I definitely felt my director side coming out. It can't be helped. Stick me on a set and if I know people will listen to my suggestions, I will be making a great deal of suggestions (at least in my head, I tend to tone it down vocally). It's one of my many faults, but it's part of what makes me me.


On a psychological side, I'm still clueless as to how to not be so emotionally distant, unattached. How to stop shutting myself in and others out. I was talking to my mom about it and she said that it was normal for someone who has been hurt to do this, to put up barriers and emotional shields. But I don't think I could explain to her that the extent to which I do it is unnatural. (actually, it's quite natural for me). It's unhealthy, and it's to the point where even when I want to let someone in, more often than not, I can't. There is a massive part of me that remains hidden constantly, and no one ever knows everything. Although, my best friend Nicole comes close to knowing everything. She probably knows me the best, even though we only met in January, and have been apart since the end of April. But we're soul mates, and the distance between us physically hasn't hindered our relationship. I'm blessed to have her in my life, even moreso to be able to call her my best friend.

I miss our froyo dates.

I love this rocking chair.

reception, realty, rain, and Harry Potter

So to catch you all up with how my life has been going as of late, I do temp work. I registered with a company back in early July, but up until last month hadn't gotten any work. I got a call for a 2 day job, and then got a call for a one day job, and then a call for another one day job, and while there I got a call for basically two weeks worth of work for the same company. The whole thing has unravelled quickly, and I'm overwhelmed with God's very sudden providence. Perhaps I had to learn the lesson that I can't do any of this on my own, in any way, before things would start to get better.

I'm currently working as a receptionist this week, and will be again the second half of next week into the following week. A bit boring, but I don't mind. It's at a real estate company, and in my free time I've been looking at the properties they have. In my normal ways, I'm absorbing information, learning about real estate prices, rent prices, what areas cost what, what to expect, etc. Everything is a learning experience.

Today, after 2 days of receptionist work trying to find ways to make the time go faster, I knew what I needed to do. Reread Harry Potter. I was eleven when I read the first three books, thirteen when I read the fourth, fourteen when I read the fifth, sixteen (I think?) when I read the sixth, and eighteen when I read the seventh. The seventh one is the only one I've ever picked up for a second read, because I have this problem: my memory is sharp. Like a chef's knives. I rarely reread books, and I have to wait a significant amount of time to rewatch movies because I remember so much that there's nothing new, nothing to grab my attention, nothing that keeps me on the edge of my seat. Although, watching something in the cinema changes this. Movies on the big screen are far more potent. (Note to self: if I ever become really rich, I'm going to have a room with a home theater, and it'll be nothing but a home theater. Which also will act as a personal screening room for my work...) But enough time has passed that even though I know the plot of the first book, everything feels new, and I'm rediscovering everything.

My rediscovery is met with such a strong feeling of excitement and joy that it's all I can do to keep from squealing (I tend to make little kid noises when super happy), or from actually hyperventilating. When I finaggled my way into a PA position on an episode of Extreme Home Makeover (they were 2 streets away from my house) my mom was with me and couldn't get me to talk because I was sort of hyperventilating and boucing around and couldn't find words. When I was hired for the Olympics, I never actually told my parents. I called my mom, and because I had called her earlier that weekend telling her that a position for me was being finalized, she knew what I was calling about, and guessed it. It was all I could to do affirm her overly excited guess. She then screamed it out so that my dad and little brother found out. Anyway, the point is that my excitement rarely takes the form of words, and now in reading Harry Potter for the second time, I have no words for how wonderful this is for me. This is the world I have dreamed of living in since the moment Hagrid first told Harry he was a wizard and I read those words. Narnia was a viable second option for ideal worlds, and Middle Earth was cool but it was never my thing. Harry Potter's world, Hogwarts, has been my escape for most of my life. JK Rowling made my childhood.

It's raining today, which reminds me of England (even though it barely rained while I was there), and it feels perfect to be reading Harry Potter in the rain. In the Pacific Palisades (which looks like Puerto Rico geographically speaking). With a pumpkin spice latte to keep me warm (although now it's all gone). Also, my hair got soaked walking from the parking lot to the office, so it got all frizzy and wavy like Hermione's hair (you know I'm totally Hermione. I was nicknamed Hermione when I was eleven and people read the books and realized SHE'S TOTALLY ME). I'm from Ohio, so I'm used to just not caring that it's raining, so I didn't even bother to look for my umbrella this morning when I noticed it was raining. Might not have been the smartest idea.

I keep getting distracted by all these adorable Burberry plaid umbrellas. I really want one, but moreso I want a Burburry trench... Specifically this one:

___________________

Philosophical time.

I have depression. One in five women will be diagnosed with it sometime during their lifetime. Luckily for me, it runs in the family, and I had significant emotional trauma as a child, so it was practically written in stone that I would have it. It comes and goes, I've been on and off anti-depressants for years. This is the second time I've been in therapy, because I've found it does more good than taking a little while lobotomizing pill. It's taking me on a journey of self-discovery, and I've made some small breakthroughs in the past two months.

The biggest thing I have to tackle, and that my therapist and I are trying to understand, is the emotional distance I put between even people I'd consider close to me, and myself. I'm so used to it that until the discovery (via therapy) that it was there, I'd never noticed. Now I feel like I'm looking out over this canyon and wondering how I bridge the daunting distance. The other day I was talking to Luke, and I knew what I should have been feeling, and I felt the severe emotional disconnect. It was like the emotions I should have been feeling had gone through coffee filters until it was so thoroughly diluted that I barely felt anything at all.

So what's preventing me from feeling? From connecting? The idea came up that maybe my emotions are lagging behind. I tend to shut them off for periods of time when I'm overly stressed out and then when down time comes around, deal with them then. So maybe I haven't dealt with everything from last semester yet, or more likely, I haven't dealt with the stress of graduating and moving out here yet. After the mess of my entitlement-issues kleptomaniac roommate ordeal from last semester, it took me a few months to deal with that as well, starting with 4 days of isolation in my solitary four-day drive home to Ohio. I needed that. And it was just the latest in a long-standing pattern.

I've come to realize that processing things externally is hard for me. I internalize things and deal with it entirely inside. You know how in X-Men: First Class how Kevin Bacon's character absorbs energy, and can keep it inside of himself? He brings it inward, deals with it, and then can do what he wants with it. That's sort of how I handle things. Talking to someone about things is hard, and everything goes through a series of filters before it ever leaves my mouth. My therapist noted last night that even when talking about being frustrated by a situation when I noticed a severe emotional distance between someone I happen to rather like and myself, I didn't even display frustration. She could see signs of it in my face, and hear the undertone of it in my voice, but otherwise it wasn't present. Other people have said that my emotions, and what's going through my head, is often present in my face, but little elsewhere.

I suppose my filters are so strong that little comes in, and little goes out. But I feel. Inside this shell of my filters I feel so much, and people never know, because I don't let them.

I want to stop having this huge distance, but I don't know how. It's been as natural as breathing (no really, it is) for years. My entire adult life, at the least, with roots that may date back to my childhood. I've only become aware of it in the past few weeks, and now I want to change it, with no idea how to, and no idea where to even start.

gebrochen herz

Mein Herz ist bruch. Warum? I weiss, aber... sage ist sehr schwierig. Die menschen umringen mich sind nicht alles gut. Einige sind, aber, die grausamen sind unerträglich furchtbar. Ich verstehe nicht warum sie sind dieser weg.

Ich hassen sie, weil ich bin sehr verletze. Sie haben mich getötet.

progression

oh art...
So, I've been working on this drawing for, well, forever. The date I have marked on the paper is 01/26/10. Granted, I put it down about 8 days later when I left for Vancouver/Whistler BC. And didn't touch it until about 3 weeks ago. Maybe a month. I'm not sure. Anyway, it was about 1/2 done, maybe a little more than that, but there was a lot of work to go. Where it is now, I'd say it's 4/5 done. But, I thought I'd post the progression of this piece for you to see.

Here it is at the earliest phase I kept record of. I try to take photos along the way, to sort of show where I started and what's left to go. I did the background all in one go, I think. It's been so long that I don't know.


This skin is probably one of the most frightening things I've attempted. It's blue. They used some very intense lighting in this scene, and I had recently figured out how to really do skin, so I was a bit thrown off and intimidated. Hence why I did everything except the skin first.


Getting this blue skin started. This is where the image stayed for a very long time. Noses are hard, blue skin is hard, eyes are my favorite, but they're wicked. Also, teeth are much harder than people ever think they are. Faces are hard, to be honest. But they're so telling, and so beautiful. Especially David's. #meltingintoapuddleofgushyfangirl


Right, so after a year and a half untouched, I picked it back up and did one of the hardest parts of the entire thing: one of the eyes. And it happened to be the eye that was crying. I also went back and really tried to work on the skin to get it where I wanted it. Blue/teal, yes, but with skin tones that make it feel less....weird? Also, that tear was/is a nightmare. A mess. But I think I can live with it.


Getting going on that mouth. Wait, actually, sort of really getting going on everything. The nose is shaping up, the left side of the drawing is all finished except for the mouth, and I'm gearing up to get the right side done. Obviously, eye on the right is scaring me, so I'm avoiding it. The whole right side is pretty rough overall though. This photo came from my phone, which is why it doesn't look as neat and tidy as the others. But, having a smart phone for the first time ever is wickedly exciting.


And now we get to where it's at now. Sorry for the photo quality... the colors were a bit off, so I tried adjusting it and, well.... eh. It is what it is. But, you can see a mostly finished mouth, a finished nose, and really just the eye region remains. Also, fixed his jaw line on the right side. Sort of. That eye is scaring the life out of me because blue and skin tones all intermingle there and blending them and getting them right is going to be a nightmare.

His teeth are going to need work..... actually, if you just take a finger and cover that untouched eye, you can see that it looks pretty good, and mostly finished. Lots of work, but I think that the Never Let Me Go drawing I did took a lot longer. Strange, considering that this is color, and color should take more time than "just shading". It had a ton of intricacies though, lots of details.

So, there you have it.

A few nights ago I watched some David Tennant era Doctor Who, and boy, I forgot how good it was. I mean, yes, it's amazing, but after the f'ed up mess that Doctor Who is now with Matt Smith, and the whole River Song crud, it was even more amazing. I was in awe of David as the Doctor. He's just.... he'll always be my Doctor. Christopher Eccleston was great, fantastic. But David is the best.

Also, saw him in Fright Night, and he was great. Those little things that make David, well, David, are incredible. He just has this energy, this synergy, this charisma, this presence.... he's probably one of the underrated actors of our time. He's the man in the room that everyone wants to know, and that shines the brightest. And he's got the talent to back it all up. As I told someone today: screw morals. If given half the chance, I'd sleep with him and have his children.

I'm not kidding on that one. Well... it might be a bit hard, considering that I'm fairly sure I'd turn into a gushing, blubbering fangirl the moment I saw him and lose all coherency, decency, and ability to think. I'm sure he gets that a lot.

"you'reDavidTennantIloveyousomuchyou'rethemosttalentedpersonaliveIloveyoucanIhaveaphotoortenwithyouIcan'tbelieveit'sreallyyouyou'llalwaysbemyDoctorcan Ihaveyourautographwillyoutattooitonmeyou'reDavideffingTennantIloveyouwillyoufathermychildrencanwebematesI'llbakeyoucookiesandcookdeliciousfoodIjustloveyousomuchactuallyIadoreyoupleasefathermychildren. I'm so sorry about all that; it sort of just came out."
I hope you caught all that.