My Sweater in the Trash

I actually stole that from a friend who was talking about how random and irrelevant CD titles often are. The thing is, as I was pondering this and how I was going to plagiarize it for a blog post, I realized that there is a *huge* difference between "My sweater in the trash" and "A sweater in my trash." Possession of either the sweater or the trash creates a whole different story. Sure, probably only an English major (former English major, really) would pick up on the emphasis created by the possessive. However, any good story teller would pick up on the difference.

I flew home the other day. During my trip I thought of several things to blog about. With a computer finally in front of me, my mind is rather blank. And it's a crying shame, too. I keep telling myself that while this blog is instructional to no one, some people might find the adventures of a undergrad film student mildly entertaining. But how few those adventures have been. Next semester, I say, when I finally take a screenwriting class, what I am supposedly at school for, when I write and direct my own short, when I am more immersed in the program than I've even been before, then, *then* I will have some stories. But I find myself anxious still.

Does anyone know whatever happened to Julie?

I got to visit the Apple store today. They really need to rename it the Happy Store. Anyone else see the advantage for an emerging filmmaker to have an iPod video, or at least one of those adorable little new Nanos that have video on them too? Why yes, I have made a short - in fact, I have it right here in my pocket.

I've been having acute episodes of Paranoid Writer's Syndrome. I'm not even sure what about, really. One hit me in Borders today as I was flipping through various books about writing. There are so many great quotes from writers, but often times I read them, especially those that absurdly try to define who a writer is or what they do, and something cold squeezes around my heart when I realizes that, whatever kind of person they're talking about, they're not talking about me. Those writers who talk about how writing is like breathing for them and they can't imagine being happy doing anything else and how a writer is someone for whom, I don't know, writing is like picking flowers, just as happy and joyful, they make me want to throw those books to the ground and run away. It's not that there aren't also a plethora of quotes about how writing is hard work and how most writers do everything they can to avoid writing and how writing is like picking up a pen and scratching until it inks out blood. It's just that I'm afraid that those are not the really writers. What if the reason that writing is so difficult for some of us is that we're not really meant to be writers? For every quote about how beautiful writing is, I need three of how painful and hard it is to reassure myself. It's a painfully scary business, writing. If you don't know exactly how thermodynamics work, you can learn it through studying. If you can't understand how to tell a good story, well, all you can do is keep chasing after the lightning. There's no guarantee you're ever going to get it.

On the flip side, while I was hanging out in the airport the other day I made a quick list of all the ideas I have for feature length scripts. Within two minutes I had a list of five or six ideas, and any one of them I would be happy to pick up and start working on right now. In fact, the difficult thing come the beginning of my screenwriting class is going to be deciding which one I want to pursue. It will be my fourth script, so maybe we'll finally be approaching on something good. Really, I'm excited, albeit a little nervous, about finally taking a screenwriting class. I've waited a whole year to take this class (stupid prereqs). Hopefully it will teach me the discipline that I've completely lost since this summer, and I will finally be able to work in a peer-review environment. I'm ready for this.

I really am in love with that Snow Patrol song. I love songs that encourage people, even if there is a somber note in it. It's a beautiful bittersweetness. "Have heart, my dear."

Somehow I interpret this as a happy song

I've got my things, I'm good to go
You met me at the terminal
Just one more plane ride and it's done

We stood like statues at the gate
Vacation's come and gone too late
There's so much sun where I'm from
I had to give it away, had to give you away

And we spent four days on an
Island at your family's old hotel
Sometimes perfection can be
It can be perfect hell, perfect...

Hours pass, and she still counts the minutes
That I am not there, I swear I didn't mean
For it to feel like this
Like every inch of me is bruised, bruised
And don't fly fast. Oh, pilot can you help me?
Can you make this last? This plane is all I got
So keep it steady, now
Cause every inch you see is bruised

I lace my Chucks, I walk the aisle
I take my pills, the babies cry
All I hear is what's playing through
The in-flight radio
Now every word of every song
I ever heard that made me wanna stay
Is what's playing through
The in-flight radio, and I
And I am, finally waking up

Hours pass, and she still counts the minutes
That I am not there, I swear I didn't mean
For it to feel like this
Like every inch of me is bruised, bruised
Don't fly fast. Oh, pilot can you help me?
Can you make this last? This plane is all I got
So keep it steady, now
Cause every inch you see is bruised, yeah

So read your books, but stay out late
Some nights, some nights, and don't think
That you can't stop by the bar
You haven't shown your face here since the bad news
Well I'm here till close, with fingers crossed
Each night cause your place isn't far

And hours pass, and hours pass, yeah, yeah...

Yeah, yeah, she still counts the minutes
That I am not there, I swear I didn't mean
For it to feel like this
Like every inch of me is bruised, bruised
And don't fly fast. Oh, pilot can you help me?
Can you make this last? This plane is all I got
So keep it steady, now
Cause every inch you see is bruised, bruised, bruised

- "Bruised" by Jack's Mannequin

Jack's Mannequin is my new favourite already favourite band

Two to one
Static to the sound of you and I
Undone for the last time
And there this was
Hiding at the bottom of your
Swimming pool some September
And don't you think
I wish that I could stay

Your lips give you away
I can hear it, a jet engine
Through the center of the storm
And I'm thinking I'd
Prefer not to be rescued

Two to none
Roads that lead away from this
I'm following myself just this once
And I got spun
It appears you're spun as well
It happens when you pay attention
This could take all year, but

When it's quiet, does she hear me?
A jet is sent to the
Center of the storm
And I'm thinking I'd
Prefer not to be rescued

And ohh-oh, I can feel her, she's dying
Just to keep me cool
I'm finally numb, so please
Don't get me rescued... rescued...

And it's unclear
But this may be my last song
Ohh-Oh, I, I can tell
She's raising hell to give to me
But she got me warm
So please don't get me rescued

And ohhh-oh, say you'll miss me one last time
I'll be strong, but whatever you do
Please don't get me rescued...

Cause I'm feeling like
I might need to be near you
And I feel alright, so please
Don't get me rescued...

- "Rescued" by Jack's Mannequin

This is poetry

Listen Carefully

Sunny Days and Rain

Today was definitely an umbrella and galoshes day, a fact I was oblivious to until I was standing on the corner of where I work in the coldest shower I've had in months, waiting for the five minute long light to change to let me catch my bus. It's definitely one of those days where you are more likely to giggle about it than freak out. However, it rained so much on me that my jeans turned a completely different color.

Music is surprisingly important in my life considering I'm not that musical or involved in musical things anymore. Music is my memory. I'm the kind of person who instantly loves a song and plays it over and over again and completely makes it my own. So instead of smelling baking cookies and being instantly transported back to my Christmas time or something, I hear a song and can practically enter an exact memory of my life at the time. When I hear certain DC Talk or Newboys songs (old school, right), I go back to summers in our house in Leonia with the window open and the smells and sounds of summer coming in, the checked curtains, the breeze, and whatever nerdy things I did when I was fourteen (I'll never tell...). Love Don't Let Me Go or Put Your Hands Up for Detroit is instantaneous transportation to going out with my girls in England. Star Mile reminds me of quiet nights in my room in England. Over and Over Again was always playing on the radio in the bathroom freshman year. Breathe goes back to the smell and feel of Rice Hall last summer when I was an au pair. Any Coldplay song, the last three or four years of my life. Ben Folds, the Fray, and Regina Spektor are these seasons memory makers. I have an actual playlist on iTunes called Songs of my Life.

When Jeremiah was up here last week (yay AU!), he introduced me to Regina Spektor. One of her songs has been on repeat a lot on my iPod and computer, and today I realized that it would be the perfect closing song to one of my shorts that I'm working on. I don't know what it's like to get rights to a song for a student short, but if I end up making this before I graduate, which I'm going to try, I'm also going to try to get the rights. Or maybe I'll just use it without permission. : ) These are the lyrics to the song, but I also put up the link to the youTube video, because I think if you just read the lyrics, you might get a completely wrong impression of the song. It's a HAPPY song. It's like the Fray's Cable Car or Ben Folds Still Fighting It, where it *looks* sorta depressing, but in a strange way, it makes you feel better. I don't know; I've created a new genre for music called Happy Sad songs. Because that's what they are. And I love them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wigqKfLWjvM

"Fidelity" by Regina Spektor

(Shake it up)

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

And suppose I never met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose we never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course its gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better
Better better better

I never love nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting by heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind
All this music
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart
Breaks my
Heart
Breaks my heart

Friday is my salvation this week

I love this song. The funny thing is, it looks sorta sad. A lot of the lyrics are real downers. But whenever I listen to it I get really into it and I feel better and more ready to tackle whatever tough stuff I'm dealing with. I think that comes from the chorus -- Yeah, things get rough, things get stressed, things fall apart, and yes, we're in overtime and we're coming to the last second. But there's time left. Things can still change. I don't know about anyone else, but I've seen a football game won in the last second. 8 seconds is eternity. 8 seconds can change your world.


I never knew
I never knew that everything was falling through
That everyone I knew was waiting on a queue
To turn and run when all I needed was the truth
But that's how it's got to be
It's coming down to nothing more than apathy
I'd rather run the other way than stay and see
The smoke and who's still standing when it clears

Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
She's on your mind

Let's rearrange
I wish you were a stranger I could disengage
Just say that we agree and then never change
Soften a bit until we all just get along
But that's disregard
Find another friend and you discard
As you lose the argument in a cable car
Hanging above as the canyon comes between

Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
She's on your mind

Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
She's on your mind

And suddenly I become a part of your past
I'm becoming the part that don't last
I'm losing you and its effortless
Without a sound we lose sight of the ground
In the throw around
Never thought that you wanted to bring it down
I won't let it go down till we torch it ourselves

And everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
She's on your mind

Everyone knows
She's on your mind
Everyone knows I'm in over my head
I'm in over my head
I'm in over...

Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
She's on your mind

(the fray)