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Dearest Mama,
I had meant to start this earlier today, but certainly didn't, did I? Still, I didn't want the day to end without touching base. It feels like forever that you've been gone, though it's not quite been nine years. That sounds like forever right there.
I wanted to talk to you about last Saturday, in particular, and maybe the whole weekend and the days leading up to it. But last Saturday, in particular. You know, that would have been the 17th anniversary for Jeff and I. And, in keeping with our custom of taking vacation around the anniversary, that's what I'd continued to do. This time, I wanted to do something different. Wanted, hell - I had a NEED to do something out of the routine for this time of year. Instead of running off and waking up somewhere else, I decided to stay here in town. But I also needed to make sure I didn't bolt out of here at the last minute, I needed to be invested in staying put.
I found my answer in the First City Network newsletter: the First Annual LGBT Film Festival. THAT would be different AND it would offer movies and shorts that I would most likely never get to see. Count me in! The tickets went on sale to the public that first Friday in October and I raced from work to the ticket venue to make sure I was able to get my tickets. I finally decided to buy the Festival Pass, as it would be a neat memento AND was the best deal. Good call! I then taped it to my kitchen cabinet to remind myself of this change in my regular fall schedule and waited for the 24th to arrive.
And you know what? Even knowing I had the weekend "booked", I STILL found myself thinking about plans to get outta town for that time frame. Can you believe it?? I know, old habits die hard, and I've had a lot of time invested in that particular habit. Heck, I'd like to think I did pretty well at planning little mini-holidays for this special time in October, especially as time went by. I would like to think Jeff would agree with me on that. (He had a trip out of town last weekend. Old habits die hard, as I said.) So, I figured the best way to keep myself in town was to overcommit my time for the entire weekend. That's exactly what I did, too.
Friday, I got off work, came home and ate, then headed to the Jepson Center for the first two films of the festival. "Boy Meets Boy" was a sweet short that took place in Korea and featured a fairy godmother that admonished her charges to "be careful who they met on the street." Adorably stuck in the '60's, as the culture over there is today. As I said, it was very cute and sweet. Then came the feature, the one I'd been looking forward to: "Fruit Fly", a musical (you recall how I just LOVE musicals!!!) starring a straight Phillipina actress who is in the States to put on her latest show. I just LOVED it!!! Honestly, I do think that would work for a mainstream audience, especially given the popularity of "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Fame". Very upbeat, catchy tunes, too. Then over to Club One for the reception and TWO shows, with one of the festival's guests serving as the intermission talent for both shows. You would have loved the old jazzy songs he had in his repertoire!
The next morning, I got up at weekday time (ugh) so I could make it out to visit Dood for his birthday. I had told him in a couple of letters that I would be coming out there, so that promise to him also locked me into staying in Savannah. Good! He and I had about a forty-minute visit (twice the allowed time!) that went very well and left both of us happy and reassured. Very good!
Then off to the festival's first matinee at 11am! The first was a kicky little all-girl rap video called "U-Haul Rap" and was a humorous take on the baggage, of all kinds, that we bring into new relationships. HAHAHA! The feature film, called "Drool", was a tale of old love gone bad and the healing power of new love. That was pretty good, but more of a dark comedy.
Then I was off! Back to midtown for the 1pm birthday party for my five-year-old "nephew" Aaron. Monkey Joe's is a BRIGHT place!!! I do believe those inflatables in that place glow in the dark! I wish I could have been there for the cake, made by his grandmom, but I had a 2pm matinee to get back to. Hmm, maybe I overbooked myself??
But back to the Little Theatre I flew on that drizzly afternoon, getting there just in time for the festival trailer. Close call! This was the part of the festival that was my favorite: shorts!!! The longest of the eight films was just over 20 minutes and there were TWO music videos, both of them featuring Joshua Kipp, the entertainer from the previous evening at the Club. Yes! Films from Iceland, Ireland, Canada, and even Australia, interspersed with festival winners from the USA. I tell you, Deb did amazingly well at selecting the films for this festival!
The Icelandic film, "Mother Knows Best", is quite entertaining, would work great at a P-FLAG film festival, and has a FINE ending! The Irish film, "James", charts a young man's journey toward adulthood; it was pretty good until the ending. Then again, the film had only 18 minutes to tell its tale, so perhaps I just needed to know a bit more than it offered. The two Canadian films, "Falling For Caroline" and "Tranzploitation", were quite humorous, with the former having several physical comedic touches (because "falling in love brings out the klutz in all of us" - I can SO relate!) and the latter including a hilarious lament about discrimination against trans(gendered) in the chip aisle of grocery stores. What a hoot!
The Australian film, "Evelyn Everyone", was a trip into the world of e-dating for a woman looking for change. The US short, "Kristy", on the other hand, is about a young girl NOT wanting change: her favorite shirt is being worn to tatters and so is her mom's patience. Both good, but I was waiting for the music videos, and at last they came! In "L1fe", pronounced One Life, the singer pledges "in your memory, I'll do the very best I can." Then, in "Tell Me", a jilted lover is trying to urge is estranged partner to say if they're "alive or dead, just tell me." On the surface, it's a classic boy-and-girl soul number, but there are fabulous undertones here! So, there you have it: eight films showcasing straights, gays, lesbians, trans, parents, kids. Something truly for everyone!
Whew! Not done just yet! The final films, which began at 5pm, were "Frequent Traveler", a fun Portuguese tale of a guy just craving touch and willing to go to extreme measures to attain his goal. The showcased feature film, "Watercolors", was a tale of first love and was a brilliantly told story. The only downside? Well, it was the night of October 24th and I was going home alone. I cried and ate sushi and felt better... but i sure wish I could have called you so you could tell me everything would be alright.
One last note about the LGBT Film Festival. I do wish someone had invited Robert Redford (in town, filming a movie about Abraham Lincoln) and Ron Howard (in town for the upcoming Savannah Film Festival) to attend these showings. For all I know, maybe the two gentlemen were invited and couldn't fit it into their schedules. These films should be playing to a much larger, and more diverse, audience than that held by the tiny Little Theatre space. Truly.
Well... (YAAAWWWNNN) I better get my silly self to bed. It's 2:16am on a Thursday morning and I have to get up at 7!
with much love forever!

busy bee

That's the moniker bestowed upon me by one of my fabulous former sister-in-laws after she saw my status update in facebook this past weekend. She's right, of course, and I didn't even list ALL that I was scheduled to do. If she had only known, she probably would have wondered what drugs I was taking to keep up with all of it!
Seriously, this time of year DOES get pretty hectic for me. September started it, with Dragon*Con and teaching and my day job. Then, there are the weekends with my singing bird, in addition to other events, such as the Savannah Jazz Festival, the O'Jays concert in Charleston, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. This was all followed by a five-day trip to Orlando for Halloween Horror Nights, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and more walking on concrete than a body oughta do. Thank God for swimming pools and hot tubs! Then back to Savannah in time for the second-ever Innovation Awards and the first-ever LGBT Film Festival (I wonder if anyone thought to invite Mr. Redford?), featuring a total of fourteen films and two drag shows in just under thirty hours. Sunday was "Mowgli and Moses" and Shalom Y'all Jewish Food Festival with the Carolina Klezmer Project, aka "Jewish Jazz." Oh, yes, and I even was able to fit Reel Savannah's Sunday night film ("Revange", a wonderfully layered foreign treat!) into my already packed weekend. Whew!
The pace isn't yet to abate, though. I have a Halloween party on Friday, which should be much fun! I haven't been to a Halloween party in YEARS! Before she moved, one of my friends used to throw these fabulous parties in her A-frame house, with costumes everywhere and even live bands. I've also volunteered to help Saturday morning, perhaps longer, with the set construction for the upcoming "Diary of Ann Frank" production. This particular piece resonates with me: my stepdad was in the plane she writes about going down. Incredible!
This coming weekend also begins the Savannah Film Festival, which is eight days of films and shorts and classes and interviews and award presentations... Oh, my! Woody Harrelson and Emmy Rossum are the stars I'll be on the look-out for, so if you see them first, please tell 'em I said hi! I have tickets for the 9:30pm shows on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, as well as the Directors' Choice at 7pm on Thursday, but I want to be sure to catch some of the morning and afternoon selections. I've even saved some vacation days for that very purpose, just as I did last year and the year before. I just wish I could have taken Mama with me for some of the films I've seen: she would have loved being there when Ellen Burstyn was given her award and for the interview with Malcolm McDowell last year. Just like Hollywood, but better!
Ah! Time to go and dream of the fun times ahead!

sea change

The title was a term coined by Shakespeare when he wrote "The Tempest" in the early 1600's, or thereabouts. He used the term in Ariel's song, Full Fathom Five, to denote the transformation the creatures of the ocean had performed upon a human body, with the bones being replaced by coral and pearls replacing the eyes. Celtic Woman does a beautiful rendition of the song; in the video, underwater visions are coupled with the ethereal nature of the airy Shakespearean character invoked by the singers.
Ever since the invention of the term "sea change," others have taken it up to represent broad transformations in appearance or meaning or even demographics. The latter was perhaps best done by the Australians in the 1990's when a television show about a character moving from the city to an actual small seaside town resulted not only in increased tourism for the area, but also a permanent population shift to that town and other small beach communities. Talk about real life imitating art! Usually, it's the other way around, isn't it? Then again, maybe people simply wanted to slow down the frantic pace of their lives and what better place to do that very thing than by the sea?
Sometimes, though, a physical move to a new locale is not possible. Financial constrictions, family responsibilities, and work requirements aren't necessarily conducive to rooting oneself up and moving to a new clime, to begin again with making social connections and a new home. This was all brought to my attention earlier this week when I was having my morning caffeine and indulging in a past televised favorite, "Just Shoot Me." Jack Gallo, played to the hilt by George Segal, is recounting how he came to be the owner of a painting of boats. He has found the painter in a meadow, busily working his craft, but all the works are ships at sea. When asked why, the artist replied "Sometimes in life, you gotta make your own oceans."
Now, there's a quote I can completely embrace. Sometimes... you gotta make your own oceans. Hence, I blog, enjoying my private beach when I absolutely cannot travel elsewhere. I write, letting the sea of my own creation wash over me, bringing the new thoughts and new attitudes to attain the changes I need in my life, taking away the thoughts that would hold me in the past. My own ocean. I like that. I may not yet be able to visualize the vastness of that ocean, but the little piece I see grows every day, the beach I trod gets a little wider and longer each time I visit. My own ocean, coming to life, moment by moment, in the ocean room I created in my house about this time two years ago. My own ocean.

renovation and tv

Okay, I think I get it now, this attraction to the tv that many people have. It all boils down to money, I do believe. This summer, I had to re-examine what I loosely call my budget. Actually, I never really had a budget, I just made sure the amount I spent wasn't more than what I made, so my cushion in my checking account didn't get a butt imprint from my good times sitting down too hard. Well, that hasn't been the case this summer. I had to get a new water heater, as the old one was about 17 years old and just wasn't quite up to the task anymore. So, there was an unplanned expense, but not too bad. I was able to put the device on a "6 months, no payments, no interest" plan and the labor was the only upfront, out-of-pocket expense. Cool. In fact, just last week I paid the final installment on the water heater. Yeah!
About the same time as that renovation, I decided that the time was right for new windows, to finally replace the old single-pane versions that had come with the house back in the 1950's. Actually, the window replacement had been on the agenda since moving into the house eight years earlier, partly because the windows were old and not energy efficient, partly because the doofus who had the house before had painted them all shut, making them useful only for viewing the outside world but not enjoying any cooling breezes. Anywho... As I was saying, I felt the time was right to replace some windows and I had a coupon that allowed me to put the cost of the materials on a "12 months, no payment, no interest" plan. So, I figured out how much the windows cost and how much I could afford to pay monthly for a year and let that determine how many windows I could buy. The magic number was seven, which allowed the front of the house to have new double-paned, double-hung, white vinyl windows. Fine, the back of the house would have to wait its turn, maybe next year. So, I purchased the windows, signed my name, and arranged to have one of my kin pick them up for me, as he has a truck.
So, there I was the proud owner of new windows. Woohoo! But who to install them? Well, honestly, I had ass-u-me-d that one or two of my brothers would help me out with that, especially as they were well-versed in that sort of thing. Yeah. Uh-uh. Not happening. Strike one! Sigh.
So, there I was the proud owner of new windows, which needed to be installed by someone I would have to pay. Woohoo. That was an expense I had NOT included in my plans, but a best friend of one of my brothers was in need of work and could take care of it for me. Alrighty then! I had known this guy for years and knew he could do the work. We never discussed money, though. Not once. Strike two! I just said "get 'er done!" and he said "no problem!" Well, those first two windows took him all of a day. No problem for me, I wasn't in a rush, as long as it got done.
Apparently, it was a problem for him, so he got a buddy to come help him. They finished up tout de suite the next day and came bopping along to get paid. Hey, I was glad to have the work done! I wasn't too keen on having had a stranger in my house, some guy I had never even heard of before, but it was done. So, now, my brother's friend is ready to get paid. Oh, and he "needs to pay his helper, too." Uh huh. Translated, that means I was going to be paying more than I had expected. Great. He wants $100 per window. That would be $700. Seven. Hundred. Dollars. And, no, he doesn't offer an easy payment plan, that needs to all be paid at one whack, preferably now, thank you very much. Damn. Strike three, and I am out of the renovation game for a while.
So, I write him a check. With just a few penstrokes, I have given away two weeks' take-home pay. In less than two days, this guy and his buddy determined they were worth the money it took me 80 hours to bring home. Yeah, those windows on the back of the house will definitely have to wait a while longer. The windows currently installed will be paid off by mid-April 2010... or I'll have to add on the interest, which I certainly do NOT intend to do! And, truth to tell, the house looks better now and is ever so much easier to cool in the summer. My house faces the sun from sunrise to sunset, so having energy-efficient windows HAS helped lower my electric bills, in addition to keeping my thermostat between 78 and 80.
At any rate, the dimple in my cushion has meant that I've had to more vigorously shop sales at the grocery store. Neat things like that. Also, I've cut back on how much of my pay goes into my IRA. Bad things like that. Mostly, though, since I don't engage in shopping as a sport, I've had to lean toward less expensive means of entertainment this summer. More often than not, I check to see how much something is costing me per hour. A night at the theater, not including treats? Well, that's about $5 per hour. Not bad. A night at a local playhouse, enjoying a show? That'll run at least $10 an hour. Hmmm. Just how much did I want to see that particular play?
In addition, I have to include my travel expenses this summer. I do, after all, have reasons to bebop off to Charleston every other weekend or so, as well as trips to hither and yon. Thank you, VISA and MasterCard, for allowing me to enjoy today and pay next month! True, I have spent less than I normally would during the summer, when I have more free time on my hands, but I've also had that much less to spend, thanks to home improvements. Eventually, those will pay off even more than they currently have. I keep saying this to myself, as I pay the installments every month for my lovely new windows.
Most recently, I turned to the Savannah Jazz Festival for my entertainment, accompanied by my Charleston bird for three of the five days I attended. This FREE event is one of my favorites these last couple of years, mostly because I have the luxury of being introduced to music and musicians I would otherwise have never enjoyed. And enjoy it all I do! I usually, half-kidding, tell folks that I go because I've already "paid" for my admission. Sure enough, that part is actually true! The City of Savannah is one of the major sponsors of the weeklong event, meaning my tax dollars are actually being spent on something for ME to enjoy. You better believe I'm there!
But when there's a dearth of free events available, what's a girl to do? Well, there's always the television. Not only is it already bought and paid for, it actually is supposed to provide countless hours of entertainment. I'm already paying the cable company for the basic seventy channels of possibilities, so I should maybe partake more often, or so went my logic. And you know what I found out? There ARE some good shows on the picture tube. There's some real schlock and drivel, too, but I just avoid those, including advertising-driven "news" programs and so-called "reality" shows. And of the seventy-odd channels available with my cable package, I actually tune in to twenty-two of them. Not every day, mind you. But the four music video channels (GAC, CMT, VH1, and MTV)? Yep, almost every weekday morning, along with my coffee. The Weather Channel? You betcha, especially during hurricane season. The other seventeen I watch off and on, and even so, most of those are reruns of old favorites, with a few new shows thrown in for good measure. Married With Children. Just Shoot Me. Frasier. Scrubs. Sex And The City. Futurama. The Big Bang Theory. How I Met Your Mother. Medium. Drop Dead Diva. Good Eats. Dirty Jobs. CBS Sunday Morning. Mostly, a little light fare before bed, with no blipped words or blacked-out areas of anatomy.
Admittedly, television programming has come a long way in filling a need for more thought-provoking shows, but mostly, it's there to entertain, not to enlighten. Oh, but there ARE enlightening programs out there, you say? There are many fine programs on The Learning Channel, The History Channel, PBS, and Discovery. Sure, there are, but do YOU watch any of them? And, no, Virginia, news programs are NOT included in this category. So-called "news" offerings are, by and large, video versions of The National Enquirer, filled to the brim with sex, drugs, and death. What we must not lose sight of this: television programs are written to attract ADVERTISERS. It's purely happenstance if the shows delivered through our cables, satellite dishes, or antennae bring us some modicum of mood-lightening or mood-enhancing entertainment. Enjoy!