Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Crap and Holy Crap

Sewer goes again - thank god for Rapid Rooter. Fixed in an afternoon.

The very next morning, RG starts getting really really dizzy, which she later describes to me as a feeling of wanting to go to sleep. Also, the house smells kind of like burning. She's telling me this on the phone, so I suggest she turns off the heater now now now.

The oil company man comes in this morning and gives me a quote of $4,000!!!! for a new oil heater. So this, since I don't necessarily want to kill off prospective buyers of this, our beautiful but toxic home, seems fair.

We had a nice weekend, except for my cold. Spent in the lovely Edgefield Inn in Troutdale, OR (just outside of Portland), where I drank too much, we both ate too much, and we found a place on our way out of town called John's Marketplace, way out on Multnomah Blvd.

Every beer ever.

A large cooler of nothing but large bottles. Another large cooler of foreign brews at the appropriate temperature. Yet another large cooler of nothing but six-packs. Shelf upon shelf of excellent beers that they didn't have room for in the coolers. I am working my way through them.

Siletz beers won in the popularity contest: the Spruce Ale (made with real spruce tips, so it smells a little like a Christmas tree) was not what I was hoping for. A little weak. The Siletz Oatmeal Cream Stout (made with oats and lactose - hence the "cream") is a rich, chocolatey brew with undertones of coffee and an overall thumping in the back of the head feel. Last but not least is an organic fresh hop ale from a brewery I can't remember (I'll post it later). Yummy. Similar to the Sierra Nevada Fresh Hop Ale in body and nose. I have the Hair of the Dog Double IPA, a Deschuttes brewery Hop Trip Ale, and Siletz Chocolate Porter (made with real chocolate) left to drink. I suspect I'll be done by Friday, though I may reserve one for Saturday night, as I expect Saturday will be a day of pain and heavy lifting.

To explain: the poetry appreciation chair must be moved into storage. A 1920s antique optometrist's chair, it's really cool, but large, heavy and currently only used for hanging things off of. Then there's everyone's favorite futon and frame, which must also find pride of place in our storage unit, until we have a larger home to put them into. Then, to accommodate the fellers installing our new furnace, I need to move six sheets of drywall from the top of the stairs to somewhere they won't be in the way.

Then drinking.

Then dinner.

Then dirnking.

thndrknvdfof

Monday, October 1, 2007

Somehow Made A Film

Sans Vie is a French film I've been working on ad nauseum, except that I enjoy it, and was shown to a relatively large audience last Friday night.

I think I stopped breathing once or twice, and I know for a fact that my hands went numb while I was watching it. It wasn't so much that I wanted other people to like it, I was entirely concerned that the software used to create the whole thing had barfed somewhere and I hadn't noticed.

Just my luck it worked out OK. And people liked it, to boot, which was gratifying.

Matthew Morris, the director, was calling people up onto the stage, got the lead actors, the cinematographer, the cameraman, the key grip, and couldn't remember who else to call up. He and I had spent all summer in my basement, editing and fighting over little points of continuity and other things. RG pointed at my head, and you could see the palpable embarrassment. Which was gratifying.

The way he explained the "why a French film?" question was intriguing to me. It had to do with someone who told him how to learn guitar, and it had something to do with the learning process, i.e, if you learn from a particular person, you will end up sounding like them, so he decided that he wanted to make movies, and French movies are more like the blues, and since he learned the guitar by learning the blues, he learned to make movies by making a French movie.

Foux de fa fa

Still, a worthwhile project, if I say so myself, and a huge learning experience for me. And it's not over. He plans to finish the movie as a feature, shooting from next weekend, through February. In the meantime, I will be spending a lot of time in my basement learning the tools I've been using for the last four months, including the cool Color program Apple released.

And I kind of need to finish my basement. And the back yard. And the front porch. And the windows. And the plumbing.

Breathe....