camp.

three weeks.

goodbye...

a little bit of this and that

Friday night, attended a screening at the SIFF at long last. Every year I want to go soak up film culture and somehow the time gets away from me. This year was no different; suddenly it was closing weekend. We picked The 27 Club. Joe Anderson - one to watch. Maybe you saw him in Becoming Jane as the Wickhamesque Henry or Across the Universe as Max? One of my new favorites.

I went for long walks this weekend. I organized some junk. I talked on the phone. And a slight worry began to creep in about the unknown future. It's really happening and I'm about to take flight.

These are some goals for this summer:

*Read at least ten books.
*Improve the dexterity of my right eyebrow so that it is equal to the abilities of my left.
*Run.
*Apply for things I'd never get, just to (for once, come on you coward!) do it.

More to come I'm sure.

Twenty-six years ago today I gave my life and heart over to Jesus. No regrets.

the chrysalis cracks

this is what it's like

finding your feet again

the part of you that couldn't

finally thinks you can

you're taking off some time to do this

a small apartment bedroom rearranged

to know that you are loved

you're finding your feet again

the part of you that couldn't

finally thinks you can...

...and you said:

Go now in the light of your God

Go now in the love of your God

Go now in the peace of your God

Go now in the joy of your God

(denison witmer)

One week until the new chapter begins.

tagged by bbc

I am: imaginative

I think: best when i am moving

I know: who i am

I want: to be significant

I have: everything

I wish: on stars

I hate: to disappoint you

I miss: the '90s

I fear: mediocrity

I feel: hopeful

I hear: the blood pumping in my head

I smell: like i need to take a shower

I crave: leisurely mornings

I search: for where i fit in

I wonder: if i will ever be satisfied

I regret: keeping my feelings to myself

I love: having friends of all ages

I ache: for the truth

I care: about the little things

I always: say 'i love you'

I am not: kind enough

I believe: in the resurrection and the life

I sing: out loud

I dance: as therapy

I cry: few and far between

I don't always: take care of myself

I fight: when i'm anxious and insecure

I write: about what i can't say out loud

I never: pay my bills on time (well, rarely)

I listen: to the lyrics

I need: to be unique

I am happy: when i'm outside

ok? ok!

snippet of a note from a very dear friend:

...Therefore, let this be our summer motto, I feel it in my bones, "long live happy."
OK? Let's just be ridiculously happy. Let the sun shine down on our pretty faces and let us laugh and walk among trees and shine flashlights and listen to fires crackling pine needles and let us embrace the magic of who we REALLY are.
long live happy...

rain rain you can stay

Oddly enough I haven't been minding the rain this week. I do wish it was warmer but what can you do? It's finally June in Seattle.

Last night I spent a few hours moving everything I have from the bedroom on the ground floor to a bedroom on the third floor. Every time I move (an activity I truly despise) I am disgusted by how many things I own. I grumble and moan and in my heart there's a desire to just pile it all up and burn it. Simplify and reduce so that at any given moment I could pack up and take everything with me. I guess you could say I've never been a homebody. Even so I am gladly anticipating a summer spent in Washington...I want to breathe it in (Anne Shirley). I am so looking forward to quality time spent with those that know me best. Still, it's fun to daydream about where to go next and what possibilities might be out there...! I just can't help myself.

in a little while i'll feel better
gonna travel all around the world
gonna see it all

gonna go to paris, maybe rome
but i'll feel better miles away from home,
gotta figure some things out

so sell all my things, i'm not coming home
there's nothing there to keep me there
just heartache and headache and worries and things that'll bring me down
my head feels much clearer being here

in a little while i'll feel better
gonna spill my heart to every stranger in every town
i'll visit castles in ireland,
have some fella play the violin and play a song for me

so sell all my things, i'm not coming home
there's nothing there to keep me there
just heartache and headache and worries and boys that'll bring me down
my head feels much clearer being here

(rosie thomas)

like a virgin

Okay, so is it wrong that I totally loved the SATC movie? I've barely ever seen the show...maybe snippets of one or two episodes. Of course, there was beyond-gratuitous nudity here and there (HBO + "Sex" in the title = lots of HBO-style sex! Avert your virgin eyes!), and then there was that tediously annoying humping dog that every romantic comedy seems to employ these days...but I've already forgotten about all of that. (I wonder if there will be a TBS-cleaned-up version of the movie one of these days?) I admit I have become a big fan of the fashion and the friendships. I want more! It was such an experience to sit with my girls in the ArcLight Hollywood with a gleefully raucous crowd and get all wrapped up in the hype. Nicole is so Charlotte and Ashleigh is so Miranda. Which leaves me as some sort of Carrie-Samantha hybrid?

Dinner at Magnolia on Sunset capped off the fun. Delicious and so swanky. "Bring me another Gimlet please!"

when there's nothing left to burn...

...you must set yourSELF on fire.

This is a lyric that always cracked me and Michael up quite a bit. Stars. I saw them open for Death Cab a couple of years ago.

This was my Memorial Day Weekend (sorry, no pictures. I was just living life):

Friday - Opening Gala for the UW Senior Thesis Art Show at the Henry. Delightful company. So many creatively-dressed patrons. A scavenged buffet table. Then: Nanaimo Bars. Cinerama. Indiana Jones.

Saturday - Coffee with a very dear friend. Fall-down laughs. A bus ride. Folklife. Delicious dinner and conversation with a roommate. A walk through the dusk drinking organic strawberry lemonade. Feeling like kids. Falling asleep on the couch. Welcoming in a friend at 2am.

Sunday - Roadtrip to the east. Sunlight on trees and miles of green. Sasquatch! Blue Scholars, Cold War Kids, White Rabbits, Tegan & Sara, Rogue Wave, Mates of State, The Kooks in the sun. Running into friends. Death Cab at sunset. The Cure under the stars. Falling asleep in a bunk bed.

Monday - Breakfast and anecdotes at a beautfully set table. Wind in my hair all the way home. A barbecue at the home of beloved friends. Swinging in a hammock. Lying in the grass. Crawling in bed early for a sleep full of dreams...

Tonight I fly south. Yes, again. It seems these days and weekends of escape are never quite enough to satisfy.

why i love tuesdays

I may have just seen the cutest film I've ever seen in my entire life:

A power struggle with the box office Snape-alike, a sympathetic concessions girl, complimentary water, a secret picnic, little boys with British accents, lots of laugh-out-loud moments, an '80s soundtrack, a French kid with crazy style, Chuck Bass, and a heartwarming conclusion. Who could ask for anything more?

(Also just found out that the band members of Travis have a cameo in the Teacher's Lounge scene. How I missed them, I don't know. Too enthralled with the guy who looked like Reuben. Clearly this film and I were meant to be kindred. Must see again.)

giddiness

A little dream has come true this morning. I have been a talented artist's muse!!

remembering parachutes

i wanna live life

and never be cruel

i wanna live life

and be good to you

and i wanna fly, and never come down

and live my life

and have friends around

we never change, do we?

no, no

we never learn, do we?

so i wanna live in a wooden house

i wanna live life

and always be true

i wanna live life

and be good to you

and i wanna fly, and never come down

and live my life

and have friends around

we never change, do we?

no, no

we never learn, do we?

so i wanna live in a wooden house

where making more friends would be easy

oh and i don't have a soul to save

yes, and i sin every single day

we never change, do we?

we never learn, do we?

so i wanna live in a wooden house

where making more friends would be easy

i wanna live where the sun comes out...

Anyone heard the new Coldplay? What do you think? I'm still a little peeved at them for putting on exactly the same show in the same city less than six months apart on the X&Y tour...

poetry

I was introduced to Denise Levertov as a junior at the University of Washington, in a poetry class of seven people and a young, arrogant professor who nonetheless respected my interpretations as the only known Christian in the class. I remember reading Evening Train as I walked down The Ave at lunchtime, in the rain. I sat in coffee shops and marked it up with pencil. She was a woman, she was a Seattleite, she was a Christian. Her poems were a honeycomb to an aspiring writer. I wrote what I then considered to be my best college paper on this woman who had passed away the previous December. It is buried now on some floppy disk in an old backpack at the bottom of a box in my parents' basement, perhaps. But the poems still strike my heart:

Variation on a Theme by Rilke

A certain day became a presence to me;

there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:

a being. And before it started to descend

from the height of noon, it leaned over

and struck my shoulder as if with

the flat of a sword, granting me

honor and a task. The day's blow

rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,

and what I heard was my whole self

saying and singing what it knew: I can.

more salton sea

Praise the Lord for Facebook...and Felicia, the coolest makeup artist/costume designer I've ever met. A few more photos from Saturday:

L-R: Nathan, Alex (Actor), Daniel, Andrew (Director), and dear Mandy

Proof I was there amidst the action! Following Mandy around as was my MO that day.

Shooting in the empty pool...dehydration and faint heatstroke had set in...

Foul.

They weren't kidding.

Fouler and fouler. Poor Phil...had to keep doing take after take because the flies were crawling all over his face.

Me in my audio glory!!

Seriously you guys, this is going to look SO COOL once complete. I can't wait to see it.

the salton sea shoot

On Saturday I spent twelve hours in the desert; 102 degrees in the shade. In the middle of the Colorado Desert in Southern California lies the Salton Sea - a vast salty body of water with abandoned communities clustered along the shores. I've never seen anything like it in the U.S. before. Nature colliding with human possessions; years of erosion, rot, elements and animals eating away at everything; eerie and desolate. I went out with Mandy and a small group of her classmates as they began shooting their class final film project, tentatively titled The Midlands. We arose at 3:30am to pack the trucks with tracks, the camera, the dolly, lighting, generator, sound equipment, food and water, blankets, etc. and headed east. When we arrived at 7am it was already 85 degrees. Three actors, five crew (and me, who didn't really count), two locations, and thirteen hours of shooting before heading home exhausted and hungry (In & Out!) at 7pm.

*Most of these pictures are not mine...I took many pictures with someone else's camera so hopefully I'll be able to post those soon instead of these, which I stole...*

Our DP (director of photography), Nathan, in front of one of the abandoned trailers...right here is where I spent the first half of my day running communications and water back and forth, fetching props, learning to wrangle cable (I'm terrible), and taking photos of the action.

The abandoned motel, our second location of the day. Hornets' nest, pigeons everywhere. Wish I could show you a picture of the attached building where we filmed the last shots of the day (I say "we" but really I was outside "guarding the trucks" aka reading The Lovely Bones and watching skeevy photographers take turns throwing their hatchet at a palm tree while everyone else toiled in the filthiest place I may have ever seen). Piles of rubble, bird parts scattered, fake blood splattered, and the droning buzz of a thousand flies. We wore masks in order not to breathe in too much feces and asbestos (and who knows what else). There were at least two fashion shoots going on here that day as well...so surreal to see the models draped over the rocks and grafitti-strewn structures.

Nathan and Daniel, the audio director, at the edge of the empty pool. I did get to hold the boom mic and be in charge of sound for an entire scene. However it was discovered about three-quarters of the way through the shoot that the mic was on the wrong setting and the dialogue will probably need to be dubbed in post-production.

Staying cool at the water's edge. Water lined with dozens of dead fish, their eyes plucked out. We decided against a swim. Miraculously I did not get sunburned at all...way to go SPF 30 Sport!

Mandy the AD (Assistant Director), script and shot schedule in hand. She is amazing. The "sand" you see is actually all crushed shells and bones. Our poor actress got several puncture wounds on the bottoms of her feet from running to the water's edge take after take.

What a fascinating day!!

leaving on a jet plane...

...don't know when I'll be back again.
(Okay, I do...Monday.)