Meeting and working with more new people.

After tomorrow's shoot I will have worked with a higher variety of different shoots and crews than I ever have before within the span of a week or so. A ballet shoot, followed a couple days later by a fantasy trailer shoot, followed by a mystery/thriller trailer shoot, followed by a social media spot shoot, followed by a Boeing webcast shoot. What an exciting mess?! Now, I am needing a pillow under my head more than a lengthier, more comprehensive journal entry.

Sleep, my long lost friend.

I have rarely had a time in life where sleep was not easily achievable. I say rarely because I have had one or two semi-prolonged(up to a couple or so months) episodes of minor insomnia in total and am generally so sleep deprived I can basically take a nap anywhere at just about anytime in just about any position. It's a fun form of adaptability. Now... I am so wiped out that it is more of a fun form of necessity.

Bullies come in any shape and size... and from anywhere.

Including our own self-critical internal monologue(occasional dialogue?) It is a facet of life that might simply be a product of its own nature. A bully might only exist because non-bully targets also exist. There would be a natural hierarchy of coexistence defined by the scale from submissiveness to dominance. We all fall somewhere in that spectrum and even change somewhat fluidly as the situations, emotional states, environments(social and otherwise) create or deny the space for such to exist within us. I know myself to be very stubborn, even combative about some things, but I am also as easy to push over as an inverted pyramid when I or the people I love are vacant of threat or ominous danger. I feel that I have been pushed into my stubborn mode of operation lately and I hope I am able to navigate through it without incident or malicious intent, despite my protective response thus far. I wonder how long this situation will drag on.

Such a strange turn of events.

It has basically consumed my focus almost completely since this turmoil began. I don't like being manipulated and lied to. Especially when it is so unnecessary. I have nothing but positive desire to improve the situation yet some sort of fear or paranoia has infected someone I trusted and now this person has become erratic, negative, emotional and illogical. I have no desire to control this person(or anyone else for that matter) but I do wish to mitigate the damage this person can cause. I assume I am emotionally compromised due to this person's betrayal as well so I do need to be careful with my method of diffusion. Chaos is never an easy thing to quell.

The pains of separation.

I am definitely not a fan of breaking something I helped to build but there are occasions when it actually does need to happen. It isn't like writing a story where you know it will have a specific end that you are always writing to... it's more like a car you've built that has started going down the road and will, at any moment's notice, break down or fail due to the inevitability of entropy since you can't do anything to repair or maintain it while it is in the act of being driven. Probably a lengthy, somewhat clunky, metaphor but whatever... it gets the point across... I hope. Anyway, I am not a fan of jumping off a moving vehicle when it is still gaining speed. It generally means I will be missing the funnest part(the top speed portion of the journey) but when it needs to be done it needs to be done. I am nothing if not a slave to my ethical compass.

How does one learn to tell a good story?

By practicing telling stories... in hopefully good fashion. And, as with anything, there will be plenty of missteps along the way, ripe to be plucked for their gifts of wisdom and experience. And there are numerous ways to tell stories so there are numerous ways to crash through all this experience. The pain can be boring, seemingly useless, or just plain annoying... but always instructive, really... the white rats don't lie. So... in conclusion? One learns to tell a good story by experiencing a good deal of pain.

Deep thoughts would be more pleasant if they were comedic thoughts as well.

But maybe I generally don't give myself too much of a chance when I sort of rush through it every day. I know I can come up with humorous things on a fairly regular basis but doing it in writing, at the same time, almost every day of the week seems to be a bit of a daunting task. It seems like a great way to flex that muscle, though, and I have certainly felt the motivation to make the attempt on several occasions in the past. Just typing a bunch of variously valuable thoughts every day has its own merit. But doing it with the lubrication of comedic delivery... now that's the stuff of dreams... clown dreams.

I love the arts.

Even the arts I am not very familiar with... like dance/ballet. I got to shoot some ballet today and found it to be extremely entertaining. I didn't really understand what the dancing was supposed to say, like what it was intending to communicate as an art, but it still had emotional resonance with me. I enjoyed the set lighting a lot! Super cool stuff. I look forward to filming it again someday!

That's a wrap on this pilot.

Well, technically they are shooting interviews without me today but that's a wrap for me. It was a very fun, very challenging at times, reasonably lengthy learning experience that I will never forget. The cast and crew were all kinds of awesome, too. It will still be a couple months or so before the fruits of our labor materialize into something concrete but I think it will be well worth the wait!

The drama of reality.

Creating an incredible story takes the stress of an incredible tension, in one way or another. Opposition, whether internally or externally experienced, pushes achievement and increases potential. It's a messy but necessary element, much like the pressure necessary to form a diamond. The story gains the strength of trial experienced, resisting all doubts to its greatness otherwise. Bravo!

Allergy complaining session #189,302.

Okay... maybe that seems like a high figure... but maybe it's true? I don't know. If you count all the mental complaints I file in any given day during allergy season it probably really starts to add up quickly. Anyway... this complaint will simply be that I probably complain about this stuff too much. It's just a little runny nose, itchy semi-watery eyes, and somewhat affected sleep patterns. No big deal. I don't have any major diseases(that I know of) so I should be more grateful for the lack of truly negative situations in my life. Ha.

Hard work, not hardly workin'.

A long, physical day of work definitely puts me to sleep better than just about anything else. Sure, I only got a few hours of sleep last night and I didn't really get to take a nap today but I am wiped out big time... and now I will dream thoroughly and vigorously.

The incredible variety of people.

It kind of seems like it would go without saying but, whether as a personal reminder or a genuine nugget of relatable truth, I feel inclined to emphasize the notion that there really are an enormous variety of people that exist in the world. It becomes really easy to think we have met most types of people for a variety of reasons - we don't make many major location moves, we have met so many people in our life, the internet's pseudo exposure to others, pop culture awareness, and the list goes on. I know I have often fallen victim to this sort of thinking as I continue my search for a quality relationship, making assumptions that seem safe about the character of these almost entirely unknown women merely based on a very thin slice of information presented in profile format. I know I can't possibly have a remotely clear idea about the depth of a person's character based on this, and I generally don't throw any assumptions that far into that hat because of it, however, I am definitely needing to better realize how little I(or anybody, really) even could know about anybody based on just about anything gleaned from so meagerly represented. Assumption has kept me safe from the pain of confusion and loss but it has, no doubt, also kept me from the grander possibilities of the more positive aspects of a quality relationship. Oh, how child-like in my knowledge do I feel as I better realize these concepts.

Prepping for this year's golf tournament.

We have much less stress about it this year since we are not doing a livestream but there is still an immense amount of preparation going into the setup. Luckily, we have a good financial base on which to operate and we don't feel overly rushed or underprepared on any particular point. It's nice just having done it last year to have a precedent for this time's fun. Plus, even though we have only three returning crew members from last year, our new crew will do quite nicely and it should be a fun day for sure. Huzzah!

Gettin' all worked up.

But in the good way that doesn't have anything to do with becoming angry... rather, turning the phrase a different way, I would call it the dream of any freelancer - getting gigs with regularity(not nearly as catchy or fluid a phrase.) So, even though we have a lot of work to do with my business much of it doesn't pay particularly well and I'd like to start saving money. I'm now deciding to do as much freelance work as I can until the time comes that our business can support me/us reasonably well. Luckily these two things don't really conflict in any particular way other than the scheduling challenges that could occur. It will be well worth the effort!

More big shoots quickly coming up.

But we have plenty of time to put a quality product together. We have a good crew, a good venue, a solid precedent, rad talent and should have good fun when the event comes again next week. Still lots of preparation to do, of course, but most of the week is quite clear for that. Just a few decisions to be made tomorrow morning and we're off to the races. Yeee hahhh!

Time is certainly difficult to really pin down.

Each day passes in a blink when the schedule is full. Especially when so much more could be filling it, whether productive or not, to the insatiable curiosity of the racing mind. It makes me think of meditation and self-discipline. Can we gain control of our time through something use of meditation? It seems counterintuitive for sure... spending time doing something to potentially better manage one's time. There could be a solution somewhere in the pursuit of better time efficiency... but I don't know where to find it, outside of actually utilizing a schedule properly. Maybe it's really just that simple. Maybe.

Dream Log: Assisted Flying is Still Fun Flying

As far as I can remember I have never had a true flying dream in my entire life. It sounds like such a fun possibility, and I hope to one day have one, but my assisted flying dreams are still pretty cool and fun in their own way. And, on top of that, this dream had three different variations of the same type of flying. It was some sort of single person helicopter/drone type thing that was big enough for me to ride it from underneath it while standing on the bottom of a ladder type platform that extended below it.(something I've never actually seen in waking life that I guess my mind invented for the dream.) I flew each of them around in a sort of utilitarian way, as if it somehow served a purpose to the people I was working with in the dream, but I don't exactly remember what that purpose was. I remember seeing my old friend Allison, as well as a girl I used to go to school with named Jackie that was teaching an elementary school class in the dream, and talking money(something to do with taxes?) with one of the sound guys I work with named Chad and the producer Curnal but I don't remember anybody else specifically and I don't really know what we were doing. I remember the geography of the dream was somehow important to my group. I don't remember our purpose really at all, unfortunately. I remember a very positive feeling from the whole thing, though, which may more may not be connected to my meager flying stuff. A fun dream, to say the least. So even though I don't remember any specific storylines involved with it I'm glad I took the time to write it down this time. I haven't recorded anything about any of my dreams in quite a while.

The subjectivity of art and criticism.

This could be a topic I ramble about for days and days. Art alone is it's own topic easily expanded to entire areas of thought and study... add in the exploration of criticism and you've expanded the range exponentially. All I will say on the topic now is that it is an easy topic to ramble on about. I got into a conversation about this stuff earlier today and basically threw away(not in a negative way, mind you) a couple hours without even realizing it. So be careful with your timing next time you entertain the idea of jumping off the art and criticism cliff of a conversation... you might be falling for a while longer than expected.

What does the shape of YOUR week look like?

I am referring to the ambiguous, entirely mentally constructed shape that may have been created by you to represent what a week's shape looks like in your mind. For me, Monday's are in the bottom semi-right corner... sort of where 5 o'clock is on a clock. From there, Tuesday through Thursday roll counter-clockwise up until roughly the noon position or so. Friday kind of rolls over to about 10:45 followed by Saturday(the largest of the days), which rolls down to about 7:15 or so. This leaves only Sunday to complete the rotation back to the beginning of Monday. For me, these are all somewhat loose estimations as the mental construct I am detailing is both a bit foggy in my perception and somewhat fluid in its construction in the first place. I think the days themselves tend to be somewhat larger the closer I am to them in time. I am not sure how much they change in size, what causes them to shrink or expand(other than proximity) and what colors might be associated with them, if any. This has all been a fairly deep part of my recollection, however, as I think I have seen it this way for as long as I can remember understanding the format of the week. I think I've even drawn it out before as I have had a couple conversations about it over the years. It definitely doesn't translate as well to paper as I would like but such is the medium of art in the first place. Anyway... I find the concept of a week's shape interesting... and hopefully my description of my own representation is at least a little entertaining or useful.