The Day After....

The good thing about this year's Day After The Oscars is that it doesn't feel like a societal hangover. Usually the show is sooooo long and sooooo boring and sooooo insulting to humanity with it's excess that the day afterward I always wake up feeling ashamed, like I was run over slowly by a steamroller as penance for living in a country that so blatantly flies in the face of global poverty and despair. But this year, thanks to - I don't know, Ellen Degeneres? - I didn't wake up feeling that way. So many celebrities spoke out about global warming and the need for something to be done; Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" won Best Documentary; the Oscars themselves were supposedly "green," although I need to check up on that...

Today is about editing. New Orleans. I've written the outline and it feels good. This morning I'm going through the footage and making notes about the good soundbites are. Next, after lunch, I'll throw the outline together in what's called a Radio Cut. Basically, the radio cut is the story told in audio only - soundbites, music, pacing. You pay no attention to the visual. You just lay out the story in your outline and see if it holds together if you close your eyes and listen.

I'm also researching hosting this blog somewhere else because I'd like to upload video examples of what I'm working on or at least screenshots of it. It'd be good to see a progression of each project.

Alright, I gotta get back to it. have a great day, y'all!

Home Again

I've been away for a very long time. Although there were pockets of time when I was home, they were short and always spent preparing to go on the road again. Most of the places I visited were for work and I enjoyed them a lot. One great exception was the Sundance Film festival. I hated it, but even there there was something good to do. I co-produced a video with my colleague, Karina Longworth, about the Iraq documentary "No End In Sight." You can find all of my videos on http://www.netscape.com/member/alexia/activity/videos. Every video I do for Netscape ends up here. Some I'm not so proud of and some I can't stop watching... :)

New Orleans, my most recent trip, was an incredibly rewarding experience. I saw a lot of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, and met a lot of locals affected. truly, though, everyone in New Orleans was affected, even if they didn't lose anything personal, they lost a lot of the city, and for New Orleanians, that's almost worse than losing your house. Check the above URL regularly for videos from my trip there as well as more from the India trip. Awesome, amazing stuff.

Overall, my three months of travel have been so eye-opening to me societally, certainly, but also personally. I've seen things I never imagined, and experienced things I couldn't prepare for. Now it's good to be home where I can rest and look out the window at the lake and be grateful about where and how I live.

Everyone should visit Kolkata. And everyone should visit New Orleans. But, truly, everyone should visit somewhere new whenever they get the chance. It's the only way we're going to learn about each other so we can grow and evolve.

"Difficulty shared is difficulty halved, Joy shared is Joy doubled." -Chinese proverb

I've Had A Lot of Espresso

I’ve had a lot of espresso. And it prompted me to have this conversation with this guy who’s out of work and newly moved to the area. He’s a mama’s boy. He told me himself. Calls her everyday and talks about everything. You know about that, right? Some of you have that. I used to have that, but my mother’s dead. I know… “BOOM!” right? It’s not that weird. It’s COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FUCKED UP, but it’s not that weird. It’s part of the cycle, although, as an aside, I really hate people who hear about my mom and tell me things like: “I’m sorry your mother has transitioned.”

“TRANSITIONED”?????????? You’re sorry my mother has TRANSITIONED????? Well, I’m sorry that I can’t get a decent cup of coffee in the suburbs, can’t fit into a size 10 anymore, and that the price of gas in Los Angeles is un-fucking real. TRANSITIONED?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To WHAT?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

People who push their new age agenda make me absolutely, fucking crazy. If I wanted to hide from the facts, reject her death, live in denial that I can never, ever, EVER hear her voice again unless I play recordings of her over and over, I’d curl up into an ASANA, chant “Om,” and pretend I loved everyone TOO! BUT I DON’T!!!!!!!!!

I WANT to be miserable about my mom,
I WANT to miss her,
I WANT to rage as out-fucking-loud as I can because
I
HURT
SO
MUCH.

I’ve… had a lot of espresso… And none of it, and nothing else, can ever bring my mother back. So when I talk to a nice guy about how much HE loves HIS mom, it makes me feel

alive.

And like I’m here, and will be here, to speak of her and her beautiful deeds, forever.

Death isn't a "transition." It's black, and it’s bad, and it’s lonely-making,
and it’s okay. And I've had a lot of espresso, and you know what?
Mom LOVED espresso...

Letters from Sundance

i woke up this morning thinking again about where i am, what i'm doing... the first thing i thought was: "i'm going to be in New Orleans by myself for two weeks. i was here (at Sundance) for one week (and hated it-ish)." i thought the next feeling would be panic, but it wasn't. I thought maybe i could relax a bit in New Orleans. it seems odd, such a destroyed city, but i loved it when i was there just once, and i'm sure i'll love it again. it won't be as hot as it was then (101 in the shade), and i'll have a car, something i don't have here.

i asked myself today why i'm doing all this - running around and filming. i'm surrounded by "filmmakers" here, people with a clear purpose. i asked myself: "do i not have a clear purpose?" honestly, i don't know. i thought about what i told you, that when a company is paying me so much to go somewhere and do something, i want to live up to that expectation and work hard. not work my ass off, i'm not doing that here, but i'm not taking any time off to stop and look around. my inner motor always revs on high when i'm in the field. maybe i feel guilty when i go on the road because i feel like i don't work hard enough when i'm home. i don't know...

i'm saying all of this so that maybe you can see something in it and give me a little insight into why i do this, who i am, and - ultimately - what i want. i think you might know. or at least might be able to see through everything to some clear answer. i'm not sad, i'm just even. and i've never been that. ask anyone. i've always been either 100% great or 100% shitty. No Middle Ground. that was my middle name.

then i thought about you. i thought: "well, i'm making money. i'm building toward a goal of owning a house," but for what? to live in, sure, to settle somewhere. to have a place that's forever the place where i have a comfy armchair in the corner by the fire with a bright, wide window next to it where i can read.

do i want to make films? i honestly don't know. evidence would suggest that i don't, seeing as i haven't. should i call myself a filmmaker? i don't know... i DO know that i want to do everything in my power to help you get to where YOU want to be. i'm committed to that. it's a very clear goal in my head.

when i thought about New Orleans i thought: "i have the car and will be alone. maybe i can just drive around and see what i see. i always 'see' with the camera, never taking time to see with my own eyes. i'll have the time to do that in New Orleans." maybe i can even write some commentary for the web. i don't know. all i know is that i'm not not looking forward to the trip. it will be un-fun to be away from you again for that long, but at least i won't be doing stupid stuff like i'm doing here. this is just awful. being in this sea of hypocriticals who are all discussing the new, affecting Iraq documentaries while they ignore the State of the Union is something that really brought everything home to me. Don't Make Any Art That Doesn't Matter. fiction is stupid unless it has a global, influential message. if you're going to entertain, you better knock it out of the park. that's why i like docs. maybe i am a filmmaker and just need to own it more by actually settling on a project and seeing it all the way through. i'm GREAT at all the small stuff. TV shows. 3-minute features. but what about something more...? what do i care about?

actually, i care a great deal about the elderly. and i care about cancer. and i care about music. and i care about you.

my heart is so heavy right now about my mom. i still just can't believe it.... i miss her so much. i wonder sometimes if i'm just going and going and going to try to rid myself of the pain of not being able to talk to her. my body misses hugging her so much.

i want to come home, babe. i think i need some vacation time. i think i need a break. i'll take a long one after SXSW. April.

Happy New Year?

Doesn't it just suck when people blow it?

Catching Up To The Future

The future just arrived. Today. Actually, last night. It started last night. M's father pulled me aside to tell me something in confidence. This has never happened before, so you can bet that - even with a few glasses of wine in me - I paid attention... John asked if I had any thoughts on having children. I said that, yes, M. and I have talked about it a lot. He then suggested that I go first, because of my age ("Your clock is ticking," he said), and suggested I do so with M's brother as the donor.

...

I KNOW!!!! WOW!!!!!

But that wasn't all. NEXT he suggested MY BROTHER AS A DONOR FOR M. This is all pretty big stuff and just so REAL, it was an incredible moment. As a result I can say officially that I have had more "real" moments - moments that you realy can't sleep through; moments that when you're in them you are 100% aware of how important and impacting they are - with M's family than I have with anyone else. They're just good people and have embraced me into their family with such gusto that I can't ignore it anymore. I am HERE TO STAY, and actually HAVE AN IMPACT on their lives. It's an incredible feeling, especially after so much time feeling invisible. Amazing...

I Dream Like This

I dream of Mom all the time. Michael just told me that he had his first dream of her "in a while" 2 nights ago. At the moment my eyes had landed on a page of news I was reading online and caught the word "Obituary." I suddenly remembered doing a Google search on her a few weeks ago and finding a notice my Dad had put up about her death. I can't remember where he put it, but it was somewhere familiar. One of our schools, or something. "Beloved wife of..." It's still so dissociating. You can't imagine it unless it's happened to you.