alive and kicking

I have no good excuses for why I haven't written for so long. Why is it that when my life is dull and nothing happens to me (like the entire year I was working at Pacific Primary) I write pracitcally every day, but when things are actually going on in my life that people might want to hear about, I stop writing almost completely? Please forgive me for being so lame. I have been rather busy.

I suppose let's start right after my last entry of substance, which I believe was right before Kevin came to visit. Kevin, as some of you know, came to LA to visit and interview at AFI. He was here during my prep week for Cycle 3, which was a bit of a wash as far as prep weeks go because of all the fun people who were in town. So anyway, Kevin showed up Thursday night after our cinematography tech class. I picked him up and it was so nice to see him! So good to see someone from what I still think of as my "real" life, that is, my pre-AFI life. He came to class with me the next day, to Narrative Workshop in the morning and then to Bill Dill at night, with his interview in between. Kevin is very hard to read sometimes, especially when he's being purposefully vague, so I'm not exactly sure how he feels about going to AFI at the moment, but I really hope he does. I think he's just what the place needs. Anyway, we also went out to lunch with Li-Wei and Steve one day, and went to dinner with a bunch of people and Jim (!) on Sunday night. Jim was in town to help Kevin Richey out with a commercial he was shooting. It was most excellent to see Jim too. He's doing really well in Montana and loves the school he's teaching at (MSU Bozeman) and the kids he teaches. Seems like the perfect fit for him, although of course we all wish he were closer to us... but what can you do.

Kevin left early Monday morning, which is about when Taylor called me saying he'd missed his flight home from New York, where he was visiting his sort-of girlfriend, and he had to change flights and do a layover for 6 hours in LA, and did I want to hang out for awhile in the middle of the night? Inconvenient, especially since I had an early-morning location scout the next day, but I hadn't seen Taylor since Christmas break and I missed him, so I said I'd pick him up and he could crash at our apartment for awhile. So I went back to LAX for the third time in four days and picked him up at midnight on Monday. He came and saw where I live and slept on the air mattress for awhile, and then a cab picked him up and took him back to the airport. Unnecessary, maybe, but it was really nice to see him.

Taylor, by the way, is currently in New Zealand making me jealous about how he has the time and money to travel the world and I do not. His blog has some pretty amazing pictures on it, and his Flickr page has even more. It doesn't help, either, that Jack just got back from Australia. I don't know what it is about Taylor going cool places that inspires that ultimate sort of wanderlust in me, but it does, and now all I can think about is what sort of places I might be able to afford to go this summer. The answers, unfortunately, are places like Oregon, where I have lots of places to stay for free... but that's not so bad. I would really like to go camping, actually. Real camping, in Yosemite or somewhere like that. And I might get to go to Montana to videotape Letia's wedding, which would be lots of fun. That depends on a lot of different things, though.

So anyway, Kevin left, Jim left, Taylor left, and things were back to normal for about two days until Carl and Lyssa came for Spring Break! We had the best time. They got in pretty late on Friday night, after Bill Dill. I brought Steve to the airport to surprise them, which was fun because it worked! Plus it gave Steve a little more time to hang out with them than he would have had otherwise. On Saturday morning we got up as early as we could stand and went to Disneyland! The day started off with a bang when the 20-someting parking attendant let us into the parking lot for free instead of paying $11. We decided that it was probably because we were a car full of girls with big boobs, as evidenced by the fact that before he let us in the lot he looked at my chest and asked what my shirt said. So, hurray boobs!

IMG_2419

Disneyland was great fun, despite the fact that we were there on a Saturday and the lines were ridiculous. I think we only actually ended up going on six rides: the Haunted Mansion (one of my favorites), Pirates of the Caribbean, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Peter Pan's Flight (my all-time favorite), the Matterhorn, and Space Mountain, which had been temporarily redone to include lots of flashy neon lights and a Red Hot Chili Peppers soundtrack. We waited in line for Space Mountain for about an hour and a half, stuck behind 5 insufferably stupid 14 year old girls, but it was all worth it in the end. I had forgotten how great a ride it was, since the last time I was at Disneyland it was closed. Oh, also we tried on silly hats! Observe:

IMG_2464

IMG_2463

So, in the end we spent a lot of time in line at Disneyland, but it was worth it. We had a great time. And I even got a new Nightmare Before Christmas sweatshirt =)

Will and Steve came over to hang out on Saturday night, but all of us except Will were completely exhausted, so we didn't do a whole lot other than lazing around talking. I wish they had all gotten to see each other more, but I guess we didn't plan that part of the trip well. They needed another day in LA to see people.

On Sunday we woke up around 9 and left to drive up the coast, stopping on the way to buy giant sunglasses in order to achieve our Thelma & Louise sunglasses-and-hair-scarves styling plan for the drive:

IMG_2553

It was very important that we look totally awesome and ridiculous. We drove out to Malibu and Highway 1 and we were on our way to San Francisco! Hurrah. I absolutely love introducing people who have never been to California to the state. Lyssa and Carol were completely in love with the scenery and were not too cool to exclaim over it repeatedly.

IMG_2565

But, ok, more about that tomorrow, and cycle 3 and all that, because I'm totally zonked and I have to wake up to do color correction before set tomorrow. Oh right, did I mention that I AM DONE WITH CYCLE PRODUCTION???? Cause I am! Well, with my own projects at least. I still have two more weeks of crewing, but whatever. Easypeasy. Night.

-cam