Converting important thoughts into words can be difficult. Doing so with another person is even moreso. Trying to get a message across is like a fire in a theater- rather than line up single file as they had been organized coming in- rehearsed countless times-, instead, all the words panic and rush out as though their lives depended on it through the one pair of double doors with no other exits available.

The fire spreads and you try to get everyone to calm down (and it would be much safer and quicker that way), but all the words want to pour out at once, pushing and shoving to be out into the open, fresh air, some getting trampled in the process and either never making it out or losing its meaning.

You speak faster and struggle to sound collected, but for some reason there's an urgency to say it all at once as though it would hide the mounting embarrassment of the jumble of thoughts that seem to be escaping but don't really seem to make as much sense as you had originally imagined it would.

And once it's over, you hope everything got out safely and nothing got left behind.

In writing, it's much different. You can go back, control the urgency of that fire, suppress it, pause, go back in time. Trying to say what I had written just now to someone would probably have come across entirely different.

I love short films. Sometimes an idea doesn't work out for a full-length movie, but that doesn't mean the story is any less. Kevin Spacey's production company had a contest where the winners would have Kevin Spacey star in their short film. This was one of the winners:

The other two winners are different and pretty enjoyable too- The light-hearted Spirit of A Denture and the darker Envelope.

Here's a short, pretty cute one that's about a minute long:

Night Light from Qing Han on Vimeo.

And there's Dennis:

 And finally this one:

I've noticed a lot of shorts I've seen have themes like social anxiety/isolation and heartbreak. I suppose they're emotions that tend to be more easier to relate to a mass audience because everyone has experienced those at some point in their life, but not everyone has experienced the opposite.

Living by myself is actually pretty nice, surprisingly. I suppose I've always been comfortable by myself.

My next step is to hire a Portuguese maid and we will not understand each other but mean the same thing when we speak to each other in our respective languages.

I rewatched one of my favorite movies the other day- It Happened One Night- probably one of the earliest screwball romantic comedies ever made (1934). I hadn't seen it in years, but I had forgotten how well it stood up to time. As it's so old, you can actually watch the whole thing on youtube (albeit in really poor quality). Anyway, I had forgotten Clark Gable's monologue in response to "Have you ever been in love?"

Youtube has been kinda screwy with the timing, but I think it starts at 1:11:25 with Claude Colbert asking "Have you ever been in love?" It's towards the end of the movie, so spoiler alert. Well, as spoiler as a movie about 75 years old can be.

In any case, I'm just updating this as a break from editing yet another wedding. Between photo obligations and a full time job, it's literally working two jobs. I need a break to just do something creative. That gnawing is always there and I've got a list of personal projects that expands every day. Sometimes, I wonder what's the point in trying to make anything, really? Does anyone even care? Am I isolating myself in my hobbies? The new life I've taken on I feel like has the potential for so much personal growth, like I'll be able to produce something great one day. But doing things alone gets exhausting after all this time and I've taken a different path in life when I look at how all my friends are these days. I think I just need to hear someone say, "hey, you're doing great" and give me a reassuring pat on the back.

I suppose in the end, we've got nowhere to grow but up.