Battling my Demons, Cracking down on the eternal checklist, The Second Depression

And so the angry mob is back to hack at my brain and stretch my insecurities the size of a bill board. Ouch, ouch, ouch! ”God it’s really not so great to be young sometimes.” That’s what my mom says. Some days I have been paralyzed by thoughts of how much better is so and so is at this and that than me. I worry that I’m not good enough. Why can’t I blow anyone away?

Sometimes I worry why it is that my practice does not pay off and other times I hate myself for not being able to follow things through. I often feel like others were born with a secret knowledge and I missed out. Maybe I was born a baby and stayed one. I can pour myself a glass of milk, but since when was I expected to understand programming, word inside and out, and all these community offerings. I often find this plethora of opportunities stifling, though other times it’s made me dreamy eyed and hopeful. Lately I go back and forth between the two. 

I know none of the things I speak of are unique to me. In fact these issues are quite typical for someone of 24, but I suppose I become more angry with them than most. I do worry, however, about my lack of follow through with many of the things I endeavor. I hate how quickly boredom consumes me when I am trying to commit myself to meeting the finish line. 

When I was 17 I was diagnosed with Adhd. I associated this disorder with the former years of self-hatred that preceded the diagnosis. I couldn’t understand why I was doing so badly in school, but I knew I was not dumb. I knew I was definitely not dumb, but then why the hell was I completely unable to gather any interest in so many subjects. Back then I liked one thing and that was all. I couldn’t really bother with anything else. Now I am unable to focus in general, but my frustration is the same. I feel misunderstood, smart yet disconnected. I wish for my big break and that there might be some solid answer to all this, but it seems like I keep missing it. 

This is what I have been feeling for the past few months. However, this anxiety has inspired me to take care of some of the things I have been putting off for awhile. Stupid things, like verifying medical info, paying old bills, and keeping steady track of the less creative aspects of my grad school application process. I can’t tell you how many automated phone calls I’ve had to endure. “Did you say change your address?” “NOO!”

At least I am feeling more solid for doing these things, and am checking things off. I am also slowly feeling more confident as a creative person, but it’s not always easy. I guess I just have to do what I can.

Not having money has been really draining on me. So has being denied the training I need to really make myself marketable to new career paths. I’m finally pursuing being certified to take such courses, but I am unsure if I will have the money to support myself while I’m in class. Growing up is hard. Growing up during the second depression is even harder. Eventually this storm of self and country alike will come to an end.

Elections, The Visual Self, and Returned Happiness

I should probably never get involved with politics because I can already imagine myself jumping off my podium and physically attacking people of the likes of John McCain and Sarah Palin. I was reading about his new ad in which he slanders Obama using the first line of a speech of his from September 2007 completely out of context. You can read about it here. It seems to me that the whole McCain campaign is based on slander and lying. Yet, funny enough, McCain’s main tactic is to call Obama a liar? I don’t get it, and guess what thousands of dumb people across America will believe it. At least Obama had the decency not to spread lies about McCain – at least not to this extent.

This morning has been filled with such thoughts and my film school writing portfolios. What stories will I write about? What inspires me? I’m very inspired by politics, stories about relationships, race and gender, etc. Yesterday I was stumped about what to write about so I worked on my visual portfolio. I got a lot done. I really got on a kick, so much so that I could barely sleep last night. I kept staring at my photos and manipulating them on photoshop and all the while realizing how much I missed this aspect of my life – my fascination with the visual arts. This was a part of myself that I abandoned so long ago, but that is still within me. For awhile I had doubted that, but last night I found that my mind definitely does still operate in this fashion.

Today I woke up, sleep deprived, and came up with several ideas for my writing portfolio. I imagine the most difficult part will be the personal essay. Though I write about myself often in journals, food reviews, and the like I don’t really enjoy writing about my achievements very much. I don’t know why that is. I have always hated writing personal essays.

My recent productivity has made me even happier than I was before. It’s hard to imagine that a year ago I was tipping on and off the heels of depression, and being swallowed by immense anxiety. So much of what used to hold me back, what made me feel boxed in, has been cut off from me. I do not know how it happened, but it began around the time I was fired from my job in July. I had never felt so free as I did that day, like I was finally no longer lieing to myself.

Most recently I have been obsessed with taking pictures. I bring my camera everywhere, photographing food, scenery, my new skinny self. Despite the fact that the economy is in a depression and these terrifying bigots might run the world I seem to be living on my own plane of existence and strangely enough I don’t think that the happiness I feel is derived from a delusional way of seeing the world, but rather through appreciation. As in the days when I realized I had recovered my worst depression some years ago, my first impulse is to practically kiss the ground thanking whoever that whatever dark cloud flew over me has finally dispersed. This time I knew it’s cause, and I knew that time would eventually free me from it’s grasp, but I am nonetheless thankful that I can once again be happy. I cherish this feeling.

Odette visits the Treasure Island music festival

My crazy discombobulated hedonistic romance of a life has it’s perks more than I am inclined to admit or appreciate either in my day to day life or on this blog. Dysfunctional though I may feel, I have been granted certain privileges due to my unstructured way of living. Yesterday I attended the Treasure Island Musical Festival with my lover Kevin’s band The Frail. I was granted a V.I.P. pass and the chance to see numerous amazing bands such as Justice, CSS, GoldFrapp, Hot Chip, and more. The Frail’s Tent was right next to that of Hot Chip and Goldfrapp, and although we did not see them much the fact that we were positioned next to them made us feel really lucky (not that I’m in the band or anything).

We got to the festival by about 10am without much sleep. Kevin had been practicing the night before and we got locked out of the house at 5am. Fortunately Kevin jumped some gates and got us back in, though this pissed off Tracy’s roommate. The plush couches in the tent at the festival were much appreciated when we arrived at the festival you can imagine.

The Frail played at 12:30 and did an excellent job. The sound was well orchestrated and the view of San Francisco from behind the stage made for beautiful photographs. I was impressed with the performance, and the turnout was pretty good considering it was the first act.

After that we drank. As it turns out beer was free in certain parts of the VIP lounge. Other than that the drinks were horribly expensive. Later in the afternoon, I ended up meeting this guy who is friend’s with Kevin’s band and really hitting it off with him. I was very drunk and started flirting and went off with him for a little bit. I was having a good time, but it was a rather inconsiderate thing to do since I went there with Kevin.

I have never been to a music festival before, so I didn’t know what to expect but having the VIP pass and being able to access the artist quarters made the experience way better than I could have ever imagined. I was worried about crowds and not being able to see the performances. I was imagining sitting on the grass all day. Not so. Later we went to go see The Frail play again at the DNA lounge at an event called Superego. There was a fashion show and a number of popular local bands playing. It was a nightmare as I was really worn out and didn’t have time to change from the night before. I was also drunk and well…hmm… In any case, I didn’t want to be around people, that’s for sure. Everyone there was very dressed to the max. Sometimes San Francisco can be so image obsessed. I couldn’t care that much about how I looked even if I tried.

Kevin and I later went home and stayed up late. Tomorrow we are flying into North Jersey to spend a week in the east coast, where I’ll be checking out film schools, going to the beach, being creative, and eating a hell of a lot of pizza.

For a Brief Moment

I woke up thinking her hand was in mine. I said to her “You’re joking, you’re not really dead.”

“Yes I am,” she said, “You’ve known this for a long time.” All the sudden this became difficult to accept. I don’t know what state I was in or why she was laying next to me holding my hand. I heard my roommate rustling around the room looking for her things – we were sharing the same room and she was getting ready for work, I was still lying down. She kept saying sorry. She thought she was waking me. I thought I was already awake.

When I told her I didn’t believe she was dead it was simply because it didn’t make sense having her there and all. I was holding her hand, she seemed to be alive. I didn’t get it. I wondered, later on, if reading Jane Erye had encouraged this thought. Perhaps I was remembering the scene between Jane and Helen. 

But I’d never felt so close to her before, not since the last time we’d held hands which must have been years ago. I think it was a figment of my imagination but it was terrifically real. You might have thought I was scared, but I was not. I was rather laid back lying there with her, her condition was a minor confusion rather than a matter of distress. And this was not the case at all until she informed me that I must surly know that she is only returning from the dead.

After my eyes opened and I saw my roommate I was sure if I closed my eyes and continued to sleep she would come back again. I lay in bed for another hour, but she did not come back.

I wasn’t sad or terrified, and eventually I wasn’t all that confused either. I didn’t want for anything, nor did I feel cheated by the experience. What exactly happened is still not clear to me, though I think I should cherish whatever it is I had. Whatever it was, it was blissful as could be. 

 

Because I Want To Become a Magician

“Personally, I loathe tricky effects, photographing through the fireplace from the viewpoint of a piece of coal, or traveling with an actor through a hotel lobby as though escorting him on a bicycle; to me they are facile and obvious.  As long as an audience is familiar with the set, it does not want the tedium of a traveling smear across the screen to see an actor move from one place to another. Some pompous effects slow up action, are boring and unpleasant, and have been mistaken for that tiresome word “art.” “

- Charlie Chaplin from his essay ‘Directing My First Film’

In hopes of achieving inspiration – in coming to know what I like and I don’t like – I ventured to read a book on filmmaking written by filmmakers. I have always been the type to value a story. Beautiful images and wonderful composition have only amused me for so long, and though these things should be appreciated I find that they are more readily available to viewers than a good story. I know for instance, that the films of Jean Luc Godard are quite beautiful, but his films do not move me. I stare at his films for quite awhile, trying to endure them till the end, but never have I successfully done so.

I have no idea what Chaplin thought of Godard, or any particular filmmaker for that matter. What I do know is that the cultural obsession with such films has had an affect on my own my direction and my knowledge of what I want. Obscurity is a necessary part of life, this we accept. I’d go as far to say that that is the point of many of these image based films, but I think that they miss something very important. If it is a necessary part of life we should relate to it.  A certain level of obscurity is fine, but not so much that we cannot relate to it at all. There is a balance. Woody Allen has that balance, even politicians who come at the right time bringing a little bit of something different in a otherwise normal package have that balance. Hello Barack Obama. 

What so often drives us to continue watching, though, is emotion. As someone who is not so in touch with her own emotions it’s very interesting to me when an artist is able to isolate one or two of them and make me reconsider them, seeing them clearly outside of myself. Usually when the artist is successful in gathering my interest in this department he’s made said emotions seem both new and familiar at the same time. 

My ultimate purpose in the future is to do such a thing. At the moment I have this particular vision in mind:

I imagine a girl ridding her bike in the dark, the latter part of the evening. She has just left her day to day lover who finds her frigid and bored with him. She is riding through the Panhandle – a park that has a long strip of pavement but is surrounded by Eucalptuses, the sprinklers are on. The camera goes back and forth between the look of excitement on her face, the passing trees in the park, the sounds of the tires flying across the recently wet pavement all heading in one direction. She turns off from the park to a more secluded road where she eventually parks her bike and walks up a set of stone stairs leading to a Victorian apartment. She rings the bell, and a man comes out grabbing her immediately. She is no longer the person she was when she left her day to day boyfriend. Ideally you – the audience – can feel the sinking feeling of the person she was, and the possibilities of what wanting someone else so much means.

You might think this is typical. You might say that this has been done a thousand times before. Furthermore you might say that the way that I have portrayed this scene is drab and evokes nothing. But it is just one example of an attempt to capture and bring back a certain feeling that I think that anyone anyone at all would like to relive in her own life. In fact I’d go as far to say that nothing is more memorable, more talked about, or more feared than that sinking feeling.

I’m fascinated with the sinking feeling, not just because I haven’t felt it in awhile, but because I think that making anyone feel that feeling without the experience that would cause such a thing would be an act of magic. I suppose my goal in life then is to be a magician. Directors, I think, become obsessed with becoming magicians of a certain type of emotion – whether it be fear or love or something else. I hope to perfect at least one of these things.

It is difficult to say how this is done. It is a symphony of things, and music and image are never to be ignored though to rely too much on one or the other doesn’t seem to yield the best results – at least in my opinion. Even working with the basic things – a basic love story, a basic feeling such as sinking – there is so much to say. The movies I’ve liked best have seemed the easiest to make. What they had was a compelling story and a way of focusing on a moment in such a way that the ultimate feeling of a character or the scene was literally chilling. When this is accomplished it is quite magical, though when images are continually altered it seems more mechanical – though a good mechanic is still an admirable figure nonetheless.

Soon I will have the experience to explain the vast symmetry of how these things work, at least to me, but that of course is more than I am expected to explain. I look forward to the occasion.

 

Confusion, Low Energy, What to do…

Future Future, what type of person am I? Am I the type who just has fun and accomplishes nothing, or am I the lonely soul living wholly for her art, and which of these two is better? No it’s not that simple, but these questions come to mind nonetheless. 

Recently I have not been feeling motivated. I have been tired, hating work, liking coffee too much, and only thinking about being petted. I only exercised three times last week! I have become obsessed with sushi. 

I have become sick because I have eaten too many acidic things – some of which I drank ahem ahem. Now I am drinking coffee at Philz…hmmm. Other than that I have been good, cuttingh myself off from certain foods (at least this week). I have also lost weight. WOHOO. 

BUT, lately I don’t feel like waking up in the morning or doing much of anything. Ever since I heard that I may not be able to do the lengthy media training at the Bay Area Video Coalition I have become extremely discouraged. I know that it’s not the end of the world and that I can still take courses there, but I am very upset. I was putting a lot into that program, and I was incredibly excited about it. I have also missed the deadline for pretty much every kind of affordable class in the bay area. I tried getting into screenwriting at CCSF, but they assured me that there was no way. Fortunately I have found a screenwriting class in berkeley but it will be $350 as opposed to $60. I swear, next semester I am going to be taking so many fucking classes, and I will register for them ALL ON TIME. Photography, art, EVERYTHING.

In any case I’m confused. I am tired and confused. What should I be doing? I know that writing this makes me feel better, and now whoever is reading is realizing I’m writing a lot. I always do when I’m confused and sad.

Here is something to keep in mind from Tarot.com:

Keep in Mind this Month: Focus on what you are trying to accomplish rather than on your shortcomings to best overcome any self-doubt and to ultimately reach your objective.

I need to get that through my head, it makes me hopeful.

Shootings, Goings, The Hot Hot Heat

There have been numerous shootings east of my house in the mission. This was mentioned to me by numerous friends some of whom were near the places where said incidents took place. 

Last night I met Rochelle for dinner at Emmy’s prior to her two month leave in South America where she will be teaching. I am sad to see her go. We are all sad that she’ll be gone for so long, but, as Tracy said, “You’ll be back in no time.” Hearing this phrase, I forgot how true it is. Whenever you leave a place you know, the instant you come back it’s like nothing happened at all. I have feared that that would be my experience if I were to leave California and return home, but I don’t know if you can so easily forget 3 years of your life. Perhaps I’d be surprised.

Lately the weather has been crazily hot and this has made men far more frank than I’d like. I have been followed around, and even an old man with a cane stopped to tell me he ‘like it’. Men moaning “Oh baby I need you, mmm baby come back.” are not absent from this scenario. Until now it hasn’t been so clear to me that I live in a city since I feel I’ve always lived in one, but the regular interactions with strangers I have had to deal with as of late have been so excessive as to remind me that such things don’t happen in places like my hometown Elkins Park Pennsylvania. I have always thought of myself as such a city girl that to even realize that I was living in a city would take me outside of what I was – a city girl. 

But there is some escape. My new house is gigantic compared to my last, and I am often home alone in it such as now. I like to walk around it. I like to walk up the stairs cuz who can do that in San Francisco all that much? I look forward to my new room when I will not be awakened by a symphony of car alarms (Really you would think their was a professional conductor on my street). That room is far more peaceful. 

I am having many moments of self-doubt, and irritation. I am aware that I am not a patient person, and this often gets the better of me. I want things to happen fast and when they don’t I either quite or become deeply distressed. I endlessly ask myself what I can do to speed the process. Never do I realize that a little waiting is part of anything. Even in situations where waiting is imperative I get anxious. For instance, yesterday when Rochelle was coming over I called her to see how close she was. She was a block away. I tried to think of a way to meet her, but when she said “See you at your house” I realized that just waiting for her made a lot more sense than walking out to meet her for one block. This doesn’t always occur to me.

Fortunately there is a calming element to my life. I successfully read a good chunk of that screenwriting bible STORY yesterday while at Philz with Kevin. I notice that when he goes to the coffee shop with me I get more work done. He is so focused that it reminds me to be so as well. When I’m alone I sometimes find myself on myspace….

Today we’ll meet up again to do the same. I probably won’t bring my computer because it’s the words of other people I need right now. Often I wish I could just become injected with knowledge, there is so much to know, but more often than not I obsess over what it is I can do to make my dreams happen as fast as they can. I wish I knew the answer to this, it is what I’m always searching for.

Movies and Motels

Yesterday I got some of my final things from my old apartment. I ran in and out with a little white dress while my scrouge like roommates and their new flatmate sat at the table like the evil step sisters in Cinderella. Though the insecurity of living out of boxes and plastic bags can be wearing on the soul, I realize it’s better than living in situations such as the one I am leaving. 

But what is next for me? I am floating for the moment, though justifiably so. All the sudden the city that has seemed my home reminds me of a tourist destination, a place I’m only temporarily visiting. 

Kevin, who doesn’t live in the city quite yet, often comes to see me from San Jose. Usually he stays with me, but my precarious sleeping arrangements have made it so that this has become quite a complicated matter. Yesterday we headed to Ocean Beach later in the day. The sun was still up, and it was heavily populated despite that the evening was soon coming.

Just the day before we had hung out and caught a movie at a weird theater in the Stonestown Plaza. It was “Tell No One” a French thriller that came out in 2006, but only hit USA shores recently due to the fact that many thought it’s plot was too complicated for American audiences (I’m not joking about that btw). I say the theater is weird, because it didn’t feel like it was in San Francisco. It reminded me of a theater near my hometown in Pennsylvania. It was populated by old people and a practically ghost like entry way which required you to yell “Excuse me” if you wanted someone to ring you up for your pop corn. 

The movie was excellent, and I had no idea what was going on till the end. The color schemes especially attracted me. The movie opened with an Ottis Redding track making it seem somewhat vintage. Perhaps this caused me to see some old school connection to it. I did notice a brown-orange trend in the color scheme though. I imagine they used a film camera to make it, and I would be interested in finding out which one. 

Despite that we’d just seen a movie, Kevin and I decided to see Woody Allen’s Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona following our trip to the beach. We missed the earlier showing because we had to pick up stuff from my old place, so we went and had dinner in Japantown to pass the time. We ate lightly and drank heavily (three large crafts of sake one hot, two cold). We went to the Kabuki theater, and definitely didn’t have to compete for a seat (the show was at 10:10). 

Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona is definitely one of Allen’s best films in a long time. I particularly enjoyed the use of voice over in the film. The characters were highly developed. I was worried that Scarlette Johannson would be used as a sex pod, but her character’s confusion about what she wanted in life made her far too real to be a mere icon. Johansson also acted and looked very different from other films she has been in, especially in Matchpoint. Penelope Cruz did an especially good job. I never doubted her character was a crazed nut for one second. I liked the movie so much I’d see it again.

Following the movie we decided we wanted to be alone. We called around looking for hotels and finally settled on a motor lodge in the Castro. We picked a dark room so we could sleep in late. By the time we even found a place it was 2. When I was waiting to get our key I was reminded of my hotel searches in Mexico a month earlier, except there it made sense that I wouldn’t have a place to sleep at night. 

This morning I woke up thinking about my parents, and how I missed Philadelphia. I feel so far from where I am from and the things that have made me. I know this is just a symptom of my situation, but the feeling can be rather overwhelming at times. Something seems different is all I know. I don’t think it is a bad thing, but a change is about to take place. Or maybe nothing will happen at all.

Here We Go

I keep re-writing the start of this entry, trying to figure out exactly what I’m trying to say. I guess all I really know I want to say is this: I’m moving tomorrow, thank god. I wasn’t really thinking about it at all, but now the time is here and I am fortunately blessed with a great opportunity that I did not foresee at the beginning of this wretched housing hunt.

I have a lot of things to be thankful for, a lot. I feel more confident and happy than I have in ages. I am doing the things I want to do instead of just talking to them. I am hanging out with the people I want to see, and accepting that what is happening is happening for a reason.

 

This past Tuesday and Wednesday my very good friend Kevin took me to Las Vegas with his band The Frail. I didn’t know I was going till the day before (same as my trip to Mexico). I am so glad that I have a schedule that accommodates these random trips.

It is so weird that it is Friday today. I can hardly tell the days apart. Last night I met up with a friend to learn Final Cut at around 11 and there were so many people out and about. There were so many pretty girls! Everyone was all dressed, looking for something I don’t’ know what. I didn’t know what they were getting out of it. I used to do just that, but now when I look back on it I don’t know what I was searching for. I know that that life didn’t really make me happy, but you would never have known that from the way I looked.

 

I guess you could say I’m in a different place now. I have said that many times before, but this time I’m completely unapologetic about it. I don’t even entertain the idea of going out.

 

So now I’m moving again, AGAIN. I was thinking about this and how I always have trouble buying things offline because they don’t have my current address or something like that. ‘Wait, you don’t live in the Castro anymore?’ people still ask. These kind of questions, this regular state of people being a few months behind of my life has been pretty consistent. I guess I move fast.

 

I’m currently in the process of applying to grad school, so who knows where I will be a year from now. You might think I care, but I do not. Things are easy going here, and I feel I have a network, but life has treated me in such away that I am bound to be ripped from the seams of where I am and put somewhere totally new. I willingly follow because I guess it’s just the nature of who I am. I am always packing my bags in some way or another, sometimes literally sometimes emotionally.

 

For the first time in my life I finally see possibility as a form of freedom rather than a burden. Light-heartedly I realize I can do anything I want, and this finally exciting rather than frightening.  

 

I’m in a Coffee Shop on A Sunday

And it’s very beautiful out. I am sloppily writing down some story ideas in on word, when really I should be writing them on final draft but oh well. I have had a really disenchanting weekend as far as the people in my life. One of my ‘good friends’ invited me out to dinner and was 2 hours late. Today another friend texted me to go hiking, and then never wrote back about when we’d go. I got in an argument with another friend, and all the friends I probably wouldn’t get in an argument with are out of town or aren’t answering their phones.

Which brings me to a state that I’m sure many of us have all gone through. AKA: I feel so alone in this world. Look at it out there it’s so sunny and there are so many things going on and I have nobody to do anything with blah blah. 

What does one do to solve this state? Is is solveable? Do you just go out and meet new people? Some people have a group of friends who last for years, but I have not had that. My relationships are temporal, and very often they weren’t very strong while they lasted. I admit that I’m a weird person and this does not help, but a lot weirder people have gotten by as far as I know. 

A few months ago I read this line in one of Miranda July’s short stories. She was realizing that her friend Sara (that wasn’t really the name) was her ‘real friend’. This was different than the people she’d always imagined herself ending up with. But one day she realized that the truth was that Sara was her real friend, her real friend indeed. She hung out with her, she knew about her life, they’d known each other for quite some time.

This was something I related to a lot. Often times we have this idea of the types of people we should be around, but we don’t end up around those people. If we do find them, they sometimes don’t feel the same way. I remember when I first met my ex boyfriend awhile back. We were in a car and he played one of my favorite songs. It was an obscure one. I’d listened to it in my bedroom, but none of my friends knew it and no one knew I listened to it. It was very much my own. But then he was playing it, and I looked at my friend who was sitting in the back with me and whispered “I can’t believe he’s playing this.”

He and I liked the same songs and each of us would like to repeat them. At first he wasn’t the exactly what I had imagined, but he did like the things I like and embodied the type of person I wanted to be around. I guess this is why I got so sore when he left. 

But he was a lover, not a friend. It is more normal to find these things in lovers than in friends I’ve noticed. I have had almost three lovers I felt this way about, but only one friend. I do not know why this is. Maybe cuz sex and all that other stuff starts to make the lover seem greater than your expectations. Oh who knows!

Well, besides all that, here I am, alone again. I met a friend who I really liked here, but she is not around anymore, and we did not hang out regularly as you would imagine best friends would. If we lived in the same city I’m sure this would have happened. All an all, however, I have had a very difficult time having long lasting friendships in California. I don’t know if it’s me or this place, but now another one of my objectives is not just to improve myself and work towards my goals it is also to find my people. Where are you btw?