Filmmaker's Block

 I've had a dance film in pre-production for the better part of seven years now.

It's a duet, and the person I had originally wanted to do the duet part is dead -- that's how long I've sat on this. The person currently cast for the role is actually the third person I've contacted about this.

Everything is in place -- costumes are ready, storyboarding is done, we've been rehearsing... but I just can't pull the trigger on filming this piece. It needs to be shot outdoors in the summertime, and the window for that is closing fast.

It's not like I haven't done this before. I've produced two 'official' dance films, at least two 'rehearsal performance' films, and a sizeable handful of live performance videos. This shouldn't be that hard.

But this is a duet.

All the other videos are either solo or feature my siblings. This is the first one that features somebody that's not a blood relative of mine. We've worked together on other projects and she always brings competence and enthusiasm, yet I'm so intimidated about having somebody else perform my choreography. This has been my dream for literally decades. So why am I freezing now?

As much as I would like to blame college, I don't think they're on the hook for this one -- at least not entirely. They were extremely, conspicuously silent on any and all dance films I've posted so far (and I made the bulk of them while a student there, so they definitely knew about them), which, I suppose, is better than the 'you'll never be good enough/you're not trying hard enough/you're making yourself fail' BS that they usually drummed into my brain every single day.

In many ways, I see this as my last chance. I'm terrified that she won't like performing in it, but I'm also terrified that my husband won't support the travel I'm going to need to undertake to shoot the duet scenes, terrified that my in-laws are going to use this as one more reason to abuse me and manipulate my husband into lecturing me for several hours on end on a work night, terrified that my inexperience in film editing will make this look like trash and me like a wannabe who will never be, terrified that all the people who have given up on me (so, basically everyone) aren't going to respond -- at all.

There's so much to lose. There's so much to lose. And if I lose this time, I'm not convinced I have enough support around me to get back up again. If I lose this time, I'm scared there may not ever be a next time.

I have no community around me -- either in dance or in my location. I feel like I'm naked in the desert with a target on my back, surrounded by the guns of people who claimed they loved me. One wrong move and I'm gone. If this was a solo video, it would be one thing. But I don't want to drag this other dancer down with me too.

Bandwagon, Month Eleven

For the first time in my life, I have filled up a notebook.

I have owned quite literally hundreds (if not thousands) of notebooks over the years. Most of them sit blank in an apple box in my parents' basement. The rest are scattered on bookshelves, on desks, in closets, in boxes, on average one-quarter to one-third full. There's always a new notebook that's more portable, more pages, easier to write in, prettier, less full of dated or irrelevent information... there was always a reason to get a new notebook, despite the dozens sitting at home in pristine condition.

When I got on the bullet journal bandwagon late last September in a desperate attempt to reclaim my mind from the black hole of isolation and depression, I expected more than anybody else did that I'd ditch it after a couple of months.

Yesterday, I started on the last page.

I don't know what to do now. Do you thank it for its service somehow? Do you say goodbye? Do you just pretend it's just another page and carry on into the next book as if nothing's happened? Do you write some kind of epilogue summing up this particular period of your life? What do you do at the end of a notebook or journal?

I generally do about a page a day, so today is almost certainly the final day with this pink Leuchtturm that's been within arm's reach for almost a year now. It holds my page count tracker from last NaNoWriMo as well as the hastily-written sketch for this year's plot (scribbled 'backstage' in the desert sand of an outdoor amphitheatre while I waited for my cue during my most recent show). It holds notes on several dance film projects in various stages of blockage (mostly because I am TERRIFIED to talk to people -- any people, even professionally -- since my last remaining friends absolutely ditched me at the end of November after telling me they'd always be there for me).

I will definitely be referring to this journal in the coming months as I try to bring at least some of these projects to completion, so (as my husband always says), it's not 'goodbye' so much as it is 'see you later.' But our relationship is definitely changing, and it does make me a little sad.

Thank you for being my friend and companion, even when nobody else would, even on the days I didn't want to make it out alive. I shall remember you always with fondness and gratitude.

A Friend Restored

Anybody who's still alive from the olden days of this blog may remember me referencing Lila, my Neo 2 portable word processor.

Lila died after a brief illness in June 2019 -- the day I met my husband, actually. And while some depressingly poetic souls might try to turn this into a 'death to the old to make way for the new' story, I disagree. Lila was my friend. I couldn't bring Brittney or M back, but maybe, one day, I could bring Lila back.

She languished in my closet for three years as I waited for the day. My brother gave me his own Neo 2 that he wasn't using (a slightly newer model who I affectionately if somewhat awkwardly called 'Lila 2'). Lila 2 suffered an even more brief but similar illness in November 2021 and died on Day 17 of NaNoWriMo. Luckily I was far enough ahead by then to absorb the blow of not writing an extra thousand words during my lunch break, but I did feel the loss deeply.

As the world begins to open up again and I begin to travel more for performance training and opportunities, I miss being able to whip out that little device on the bus or in a guest bedroom between classes or rehearsals.

Months ago, when I was bemoaning the loss of the Lila twins in a Discord group, somebody sent me a link to a tutorial for changing the little button cell battery. Suddenly there was hope. The symptoms they both showed during their illnesses could very easily be explained by a dying backup battery, and both units were old enough to conceivably have this issue. (I had also been hyperfixating on The 8-Bit Guy's restoration videos during most of the pandemic and wanted very much to try doing a simple repair of an electronic device simply because it looked so satisfying.)

There was nothing to lose. Both machines were unusable in their current state anyway. I bought two CR2032 batteries, popped out the AAs and cracked open Lila 2.

The hardest part was getting the old battery out. All the objects with skinny pointy ends in the entire house seemed to be made of metal and the last thing I wanted to do was short out the motherboard for good, as fixing that is definitely beyond my abilities. After trying my fingers, wooden knitting needles, and the hard end of a shoelace, I finally cut a fuzzy end off of a Q-tip and that did it (no, we don't have toothpicks in the house).

The next hardest part was getting twelve very small and fiddly screws back in. I spent six years in construction and screws don't scare me, but one was a particularly stubborn little thing and I had to enlist my husband's help in the end.

I put the AAs back in and tried to power it on. The screen remained blank. My heart dipped a little, but I plugged it into the computer, whereupon the screen lit up and asked if I had changed the internal battery. I pressed Y and it told me to press Enter to restart. I did, and within seconds it appeared to be ready. Of course everything had been wiped, as I had expected. When Lila 2 started showing symptoms of the same illness that had taken her predecessor, I had backed her up immediately (unfortunately I had not been so proactive the first time around, but I have come to terms with the fact that everything on the original Lila is now irretrievable). After a few minutes, I unplugged it from the computer and tried again to power it on.

Nothing.

I began to panic slightly more. The entire point of having a portable word processor is so that I don't have to carry my laptop around. It's no use to me if it only works when connected.

But in the spirit of trying everything, I raided my husband's remote-battery stash for more AAs and tried again to power it on.

It worked.

I almost screamed. I typed a few sentences, turned it off and then on again, typed some more, ran into the room where my husband was live-streaming and danced excitedly by his desk until he looked at Lila 2's screen.

One down... one to go.

Lila the original is in a bit rougher shape. I had a sibling dump a Tim Horton's frozen lemonade into her keyboard many years ago. Her motherboard seemed unaffected, however, quite a few of the keys stuck, especially on cold days. Not only that, the Caps Lock key came off right around the time of her death. I remember saving both the key and the scissor mechanism, but I've moved three times since then and could not begin to tell you where that key and the mechanism are now. Could I still use the button without a proper key? Yes -- the plunger's still there -- but if I'm going to restore her, I would like to restore her to her former glory.

I'm just happy knowing it's possible and that I have one of my buddies back with me for November. I already have a plot that I'm very excited about, and I feel much better knowing I'll be able to write on the go both during the event and in the pseudo-planning time leading up to it.

For once in my life -- a friend died and it wasn't permanent.

29

 29 things I've learned about myself:

1. At age twelve I theorised that my brain and my ears processed spoken words more slowly than other people and this was why I could never keep up with conversations. Over ten years later I learned that that's a real thing (called auditory processing disorder) and I have it.

2. I find writing novels much, MUCH easier than writing short stories. In fact, the more condensed the medium, the more I struggle with it.

3. I do my best artistic work either as a passenger in a vehicle or alone in a darkened room between 11pm and 2am.

4. At age seven I decided I wanted to be a choreographer. I didn't even know what the name for it was yet, but I knew I wanted to make dances. In the twenty-two years since then, nobody has been able to convince me otherwise. (In other words: if you're on a mission to talk me out of it... just give up. Save yourself the hassle.)

5. I still accidentally tell people I can't read music even though I totally can. I just couldn't for so long that I forget that I've learned now.

6. I would rather live in -40 year-round than plus 24 or higher for more than two days. This opinion becomes stronger every day. I become completely nonfunctional if the temperature is over 23 degrees.

7. I am very passionate about art, specifically integrity within art. If you don't like it, leave; because I'm not dialling it back.

8. Eating chicken can be an okay (rather than terrifying) experience, but ONLY if my husband prepares it.

9. By age four, I had chosen what would be my favourite potato chip flavour for apparently the rest of my life. And I am very much a snob about different brands.

10. I love '80s keyboards. The more '80s keyboards/synths a song has, the more likely I am to like it.

11. The people who call me 'stubborn' are generally the people who are mad that I'm not putty in their hands. (After years of having my identity shaped for me by people in authority, I'm forging my own and I don't take requests from just anybody.)

12. My favourite books are Perelandra by C.S. Lewis and Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers. Both books are art in every sense of the word and have inspired some of my own works.

13. I have been loyal to Papermate pens since my early teens. I also very much prefer having capped pens rather than clicker pens (I like the weight of the cap on the end while I'm writing).

14. I hate cooking. I would literally rather starve than cook. There is literally nothing I even remotely like about being in the kitchen for any length of time.

15. I really don't enjoy food/eating. I don't understand it when people talk about food as a source of pleasure. To me, eating is a necessary evil that takes up valuable time and energy that I could be devoting to my art.

16. I think and talk about death a lot. I don't see this as morbid or wrong. It's simply a part of existence and I don't understand why people avoid the topic so much. It's the one thing all of humankind has in common. Death is something that touches us all sooner or later, and it's been a huge part of my life so far. It's shaped who I am as a person and as an artist. To ignore it is to ignore what makes me who I am.

17. I HATE toxic positivity. It's a form of gaslighting... which is manipulation... which is abuse.

18. I also hate sleeping. Just lie there unconscious and unmoving for eight hours? What a colossal waste of time. Do you know how much art I could get done in eight hours? Sleep feels useless and dumb to me. This is also why I never take naps, no matter how tired I am.

19. I really wish I could draw. I mean, I can draw okay. But I can never think of anything to draw.

20. I am honest to a fault. About EVERYTHING. If you don't like it/can't handle it, get out of my life. And I mean that.

21. I never expected to live this long, let alone get married. And I'm not quite sure what to do with myself now. I never prepared for this.

22. If I could pick an age to be stuck at, it would probably be age nineteen. I was dancing almost full-time, choreographing for my friend's dance team, gainfully employed at a flexible well-paying job that I really enjoyed, on good terms with my church at the time... there was literally nothing wrong with my life when I was nineteen.

23. The first time I ever remember hearing about Jesus was when I 'accidentally' read Mark's account of Jesus raising Jairus' daughter from the dead when I was about four or five. I had heard of Jesus in Sunday School, but I'd never heard of Him doing anything like that in the Sunday School lessons. Maybe this was why I got so angry and felt so betrayed when my young cousin died... and was not raised back to life.

24. I wanted to be a dancer before I even knew what it was called. I have no memory of seeing a dance performance and thinking, 'I want to do that.' We had no TV and my parents never went to the theatre. I don't know how I knew dance existed. But I wanted it so badly I begged my parents for lessons for over a year before they relented. I point to this internal 'knowing' as one of the signs that this is my calling.

25. Sunset/dusk/night have always been my favourite times of day. That's when all the inspiration is born.

26. I feel alive when I'm near trees, in the country with emerald-green grass and pink and orange sunsets.

27. If you overplay a song -- no matter how good it is or how much I like it -- I will hate that song for the rest of my life. This is the reason I absolutely despise Bohemian Rhapsody. I do not care how clever or well-sung or well-crafted it is. I have heard it approximately eight million times in my life and nobody should ever have to listen to ANYTHING that many times. I loathe that song. Same goes for the Frozen soundtrack.

28. To me, 'luxury' is having a fireplace in your house. Even (especially?) if it's a gas fireplace.

29. I see myself as a joyful, positive person overall. My journals are consistently filled with joy, ideas, possibilities, and hope. Maybe that's why it hurts SO deeply when people rail against me for being 'too negative.'