childcraft

so i came back from dallas praying that it would finally be out of the forties.

it's not.

there's snow on the curb.

so depressing.

in other news, my first film is up on vimeo. give it a looksie. leave a comment. i was really happy with how it turned out. the next one is going to be with my partner, Geoff-- it's a character study on a fat Jewish carpet salesman named Mordecai. I'm pumped.

in other, other news. someone please buy me this:

actually just the 15th book: Guide to Childcraft. I remember that was the only one i liked to read because it had all the gruesome pictures of the babies with cleft lip and rickets, and what sores meant what diseases and how to treat someone for electrical shock.  it worked out well, because while the other kids fought over the other books, i dove for the parent's guide. i dont think i ever even cracked the other ones. 

i'm going to see if i can just buy that one on ebay or something. 20th birthday hayyyyy?

subway songs

something about subway musicians just fascinates me, and i mean the real musicians-- not the homeless guy with the boombox who sits in the center of the Jackson underground tunnel, which stinks like urine (wonder why). 

in the Lake red line station, where i get off for work, there is an old chinese (?) woman (?) who plays this bizarre cello-eqsue instrument, it's more like a broomstick with one string on it that sings this sickly, off-key song (I looked it up and found that its a erhu). She plays the same song over and over, i only wish that i could figure out what it is. 

there's also a native american-looking woman in sunglasses who plays the guitar, violin, castanets, tap-dances, and whistles all at the same time, with a tin measuring cup tied to the head of her guitar begging for spare change. 

a threesome of old crooners harmonize to stevie wonder, and a hendrix lookalike jams on an acoustic guitar. a wanderer sings amazing grace a cappella. a drugged out man playing african drums dedicated all his songs to the Jonas Brothers, who, according to him, died in a tragic plane crash in south america. 

Once i saw a young guy playing some pop punk acoustic serenades in the Washington Blue Line station. as soon as he started playing, a crazy at the other end of the stop started howling unintelligibly. the boy stopped, and the howler would too. start again, and the howling started up. it was a competition, and i think the homeless scraggler won because the boy eventually gave up in frustration, whining to himself as pop-punks do. 

yesterday i saw the icing on the subway musician cake. a man holding a plush tiger, both in matching red sweaters, gold chains and sunglasses. his boombox was playing a karaoke song. The plush tiger was freestyle rapping to "Eye of the Tiger".  he was all "yo, imma tiger, gonna eatchu, hear me roar" it was probably the best thing i've ever seen occur in a subway. 

so don't even bother asking, corner homeless. my spare change is going to help keep music alive. 

*edit: found this youtube video of the tiger guy, but it's from two years ago when the tiger was just a baby. it's pretty big now. poor quality, but at least it's proof!

the thaw

i think it's finally the beginning of the end. 

the end of the long, seeming perpetual winter. 

It's a gorgeous day out, an unbelievable 60 degrees, and my windows are open and the venetian blinds are being sucked into them from the gusts of Chicago wind that bring words of change. 

So I'm working on a screenplay right now. About some troubled son coming home for a funeral and finding himself, blah blah blah. But i'm loving it, because i feel so productive. I'm sitting here type type typing away, feeling oh so legit with my screenwriting software that makes any stream of consciousness look professional. 

i feel like for the past few weeks i've been balancing on the edge of this cliff, or maybe a coffee table, wobbling back and forth but overcome with this feeling that something big is on the other side. the calm before the storm? possibly. I can't explain it. But i have been doing a lot of lucid dreaming, finding an hour before work to crash face down on the couch, hoping to conjure some bizarre choose-your-own-adventure. It's all been giving me these weird feelings, not weird bad but weird unknown. 

I think i need to blog more, let these things out. I have all these occurrences and stories i've been meaning to relay. 

i'll leave you one now, about his lucid dream i had a few days ago. Saturday, to be exact. It echos this feeling i've been having recently:

whatever I'm doing at the moment has to stop. All of a sudden i am overcome with an urgency to go outside. It's an apocalyptic panic, and i grab _______'s hand and pull her with me, searching for the nearest door. As soon as i get outside, the air hits me like concrete. It's difficult to breathe, the air is so thick it's like inhaling water. I look down at my hand, pawing through the atmosphere, watching the air part against my fingertips and the spaces between my fingers, like when you slowly press your hand on the surface of a swimming pool. I am still clenching her hand, making sure we don't get separated. The sky is so dark, like when it storms in the middle of the day and you lose your concept of time because its suddenly night at noon. We are on the beach, the sand is damp and caked, the water is dark and grey and troubling. We get to the surf, and i spy a whale! a giant, dark whale and i can see his skin perfectly, all the bumps and tightness, and so i let go of her hand and turn around to call her attention. But the second i turn to face her, the water starts pulling me in and it's the strongest undertow that i could ever imagine, and i cannot even begin to fight it. It pulls me away, leaving her on the shore.

I wake up, sprawled on my back on the couch with one leg up on the back of the couch and my arm over my head and the other dangling off the edge, and i think that my roommates must think i'm absolutely insane. 

any dream interpreters out there?

on a lighter note, this is a bit of wisdom i got from an vibrant old woman with a broken arm:

"when a bird falls and injures itself, it's best not to help it. The bird will use all of its remaining energy to heal itself slowly."

she tells me she refuses to go to physical therapy, but instead is fasting and has a newfound energy and sense of focus. 

and then she tapped my nose with a smile and was off.