Tonight marks the end of updates to showcat and the start of updates to clare.overt.org, the space Bryan has given me on his server, where I'll be running a Movable Type blog that Ali helped me set up (many thanks, Bryan and Ali!).
It's been a good almost-year here on blogspot, minus the outages and the ads etc. etc. Hopefully Blogger will let this site live on as an archive of mediocre blogging.
Go look! Update your bookmarks and your blog links!
So:
The disappearing ex from last semester apparently only broke up with his "ex" for a week. In between visits to Austin. How'd I find out? She called me in mid-March, having just found out that I existed. I find it gratifying and hilarious that an absurd story actually got more absurd. Plus I got to bitch him out on the phone. Apparently they're getting engaged.
My Peace Corps invitation packet arrived: Senegal, West Africa; Sept 16, 2004. "Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture Extension Agent."
Complicating the decision: I'm currently in CA visiting Berkeley (and Leslie and Bryan) and the campus is painfully beautiful, the program utterly perfect, the weather amazing, the mountains and trees and Bay stunning. "Delayed gratification, delayed gratification... AAAAARGH!"
I'm surrounded by green paradise, but all I think about are dusty huts and bicycle rides through African savannah.
My parents recently got a new kitten, named Yo-Yo after Yo-Yo Ma.
This is him in early March:
And then in late March, on his first trip outside:
I like how you can tell he's older by his ear-to-head ratio.
Kittens have got to be one of the best things in the world. My mom and I used to wish for a Kitten of the Month Club, where you'd get a new tiny kitten every month, have it for the fun kitten stages, then send it back once it got older. For a while we ignored the problem of what would happen to all those unloved mature cats, but I figure you just send them out to nursing homes and farms according to personality type—lazy lap cats or hyper hunting cats.
I can't wait to have my house with wood floors and big porches and, what, five cats? How many can you have before you're the Crazy Cat Lady?
(1) In the mail: Letter of admission from Berkeley, requesting a reply as soon as possible.
(2) Also in the mail, on the same day: Letter from Peace Corps stating medical clearance, impending invitation from Placement Officer.
(3) In the back pocket of my jeans: Small, folded piece of paper with the handwritten phrase "humping is for lovers."
Movies at SXSW:
Super Size Me and Bush's Brain: Two films that capture, along with great stories, that sense of incredulity and frustration that, for so many people, permeates life in today's culture. Both are very much worth seeing, and, luckily, both should be coming out in theaters in the next few months.
The screenings themselves were different experiences, however. Both were at the Paramount Theater in downtown Austin, Super Size Me on Friday night and Bush's Brain Saturday night (the last two nights of the film festival).
Bush's Brain almost filled up the bottom section of the Paramount (500-600 seats), with overflow into the balcony. Everyone who showed up got in. The audience reacted well during the film, and then a bunch stuck around afterwards (it was almost midnight by this point) for a Q&A with the co-producer, who had a cellphone in each hand so she could ask the co-directors for elaborations or clarifications if needed. The official Q&A turned into a discussion among a group of two dozen or so standing out in front of the theater with the co-producer. Which is exactly the kind of result politically-themed documentaries should produce.
The night before, however, the distributors for Super Size Me forced SXSW to only admit 350 people into the screening—for a theater that holds about 1,200. This was supposedly to "create a buzz" and get people to pay to see it during the theatrical release, but what happened that night was that a quarter of the pass-holder line was turned away and a couple hundred prospective ticket-buyers were turned away as well, almost all knowing that there was enough room in there for them—and many having been in line for over two hours, after being turned away at the first screening a few days prior, which sold out all 1,200 seats. The "buzz" outside the Paramount that night was not a happy one.
But—a good festival overall, especially for the documentaries.
Now, apparently, I have seven weeks of college left.
In the past few days, multifarious Good Things have taken place.
First, I received Peace Corps medical clearance. This wasn't unexpected, but it was the last big hurdle before talking to a placement officer and receiving an invitation to serve. This is exciting and terrifying at the same time, naturally. So far Peace Corps has just been an application process to me—filling out forms, scheduling exams—but now it's threatening to quickly become much more real, with a country name and a departure date and everything.
Second, South by Southwest is in full swing. If there's a profession where your job is just to attend film festivals, then sign me up. I love this stuff—I'm volunteering for a little over 50 hours and I get a badge that'll get me in to almost every single screening. I saw one Friday, five Saturday, three Sunday, and three Tuesday. Like I said, I could do this professionally.
I didn't see anything Monday because Monday I drove to Lufkin to film Susan sorting through files at the Angelina County Courthouse. She was looking for records of what happened to the money that her family was awarded after her lawsuits against Pilgrim's. So she looked through files. Then looked through more files. It was riveting cinema, let me tell you.
The drive there and back was interesting, though. The road was almost entirely fogged in on the way over—four hours of white cloud keeping visibility to 50-100 yards or so. Driving back that afternoon, however, the fog had cleared and the scenery opened up in all directions. Golden sunlight flowed over rolling fields and baby cows and purple- and white-flowered trees along the highway—spring has sprung in East Texas, and I imagined that even the baby chicks that I filmed a few weeks ago have bloomed into—well, they would bloom into ugly adolescent chickens, but you know what I mean. Growth. Flowering. It was a day for singing loudly to Vs. and Clandestine and the Proclaimers.
So back to Austin and SXSW and after a day of films I check my email and, wouldn't you know it, I got into Berkeley.
BWAHAHA!
Like my mom said when I called to tell her, "I can't believe they let you in!"
So, in celebration, here's the 20-minute timed writing exercise I did after my hour and a half interview back in February. The prompt was "Describe the room that you are in." After that hellacious interview, I let whimsy take over. Journalistic? Nah. Still makes me giggle? Hell yes. Apparently it didn't scare them off.
Sitting at a small round dining table in Brad King's kitchen, I once again ask myself, "What kind of person paints a room lime green?"
This question had been floating through my mind over the past hour and a half, as Brad grilled me on my past work and professional aspirations. My eyes kept drifting to the bold blue of the living room, the TV dedicated to Nintendo, and the wooden rooster staring solemnly from across the coffee table.
Now, sitting by a window while melted snow from a freak Austin snowfall drips to the concrete of the back patio, I am left to contemplate the room itself.
A Red Stripe box holding two empty bottles and a can of Bud Light sits next to dishes and an empty two-liter of Coca Cola on the kitchen counter. The coffee pot is empty, drained by Brad's three cups and my one, which sits next to me, lukewarm.
I glance over my shoulder at a golf ball and a pack of Hooters playing cards.
A kitchen does say a lot about a person, I think to myself.
Brad's dog, a lazy black lab, blinks at me from the living room. She, too, appears mildly perplexed: "How did I find myself here? What does any of this really mean?"
"And why does he have ceramic salt and pepper shakers shaped like chickens?" I add silently.
The white tile shines except for spots of coffee and black dog hairs. The stainless steel trashcan lid is covered with fingerprints smeared through a fine layer of dust.
The utilitarian clean of this kitchen conflicts with the neon green of the walls. Is this a room in a delicate balance of order and chaos, or simply the unfortunate result of poor interior design?
So yeah. This unexpected turn of events makes my decision about this fall a bit more interesting. I'll be flying out to Berkeley the first weekend in April to do the official J-School visit thing—Leslie and Bryan, clear the couch!
