I Hate You (For Sedimental Reasons)

So, at the old day job, we had what's most lovingly termed a "team-bonding" session. In this case, it was canoeing a 13 mile loop around the coffee-tinted Harpeth River. I try to beg off the work-related functions - I have enough to do with the videography company, screenwriting, and classical guitar lessons. It's a distraction for work that's decidedly NOT my career - but it was something I hadn't done before and I was intrigued. (We're not counting the 30-person canoe at Disneyland way back in the 80s, which was lovely fun, truth be told.)

So, frak and ahoy, went ahead with it. Much bonding was had. Mainly, my knees bonding with the rocky bottoms of the river. What I knew intellectually was this: we've had a severe shortfall of rain the last year or so, and a lot of the local waterways are a kind of Bosco slurry. I didn't connect that large portions of this river would be unnavigable because the dry conditions. My boat partner and I kept getting stuck on gravel, and I had a hard time getting my balance after we'd walk the canoe through. We'd push along, and somewhere along the line, bam! My knee - either one, take your pick - would slam down, twist, crackle, pop, and other weird cereal noises.

When there was water, it was actually a good deal of communing-with-nature fun, but man...I can barely walk today, both legs are scraped to above the knee, my hips hurt, I'm cramping in my calves and thighs, and I have a cherry bruise on my ass the shape of Utah.

But yay! Still fun. In a way. Sorta.

Watched all of Angels in America with darling Heather this weekend. I think it's one of the best balanced play adaptations I've ever seen - full of stage artifacts, monologues, hyperintellectualizing, yet somehow organic and cinematic and seamless. Bravo Kushner.

I was reminded how much I'd flipped for Justin Kirk in the lead role. I'm still trying to put together the short film of "Diary of a Mad Deity" that I got the okay to do more than a year ago. I decided that I'm going to submit the SAG indie producer's agreement - they have a new, great one for no-budget short films - and try to approach him for it. I can't imagine that he would even agree, but what a vibrant, self-mocking, truthful quality he would bring to the piece.

The big page one rewrite of Pentozali moves along steadily...broke page 32 and felt like I got some good drama lodged in there. Feel like I've finally got the focus that completely eluded me for the last five drafts. Whee!

Weltingly yours,
The Purple Rose of Tennessee