Archive for year 2007
I’ve succumbed to twitter too thanks to Jess who succumbed thanks to some other friends. I actually find it pretty fun though I would find it much more so if there were more people I knew using it.
HD TV, TiVo and such
1I have a first generation TiVo that I’ve since hacked and upgraded in many ways. I’ve added a second hard drive, replaced the first hard drive, added a cache card and an ethernet jack so it can communicate with my wireless network instead of using the phone. When I first bought it I bought the “lifetime subscription” which has long since paid for itself but is locked to this particular unit. They no longer offer lifetime subscriptions and you can’t transfer it.
They were having a special where you could buy a new HD TiVo for $300 and transfer your lifetime membership to the new unit for $200 (basically buying a new lifetime membership even though they technically aren’t offered any more). I was so tempted, however we don’t have the money to do it and we don’t have an HD TV. It would have been more for prevention of future problems. Eventually I will get an HD TV and HD service at which point our TiVo will no longer be of any use because it will not handle HD quality.
Uhh, bummer. That’s really all there is to this story.
My latest film adventures
3Today I shot a film with the team that won the 48 hour film challenge for Austin and therefore went on to the next round. We were filming a short film for the national round today. Friday night we received our instructions on what genre our film had to be and some other details we had to follow. The writers wrote until about 1 a.m. and we filmed it today. It was a lot of fun and I got to do some more fun improving that seemed to please everyone.
I think I forgot to mention that on the last short film I did I got to do some great improving also and especially the scene Larry and I had together had everyone in stitches. Many takes were ruined by crew members laughing and the Director of Photography said we could have sold tickets.
and now some crappy phone camera pics from the set:
Can someone help me understand myself?
6I have always been anti-smoking. My mom has smoked for pretty much my entire life and I always hated it. Hated the smell. Hated that I seem to be extra sensitive to smoke. The slightest whiff, even from quite some distance can choke me up. For example, tonight, several people were smoking on the balcony with the door open and I had to close my bedroom door because I could smell it. Of course there’s also the extreme amount of money smokers spend and the whole issue of supporting the evil tobacco companies and plenty of other rational arguments that could be made even if you’re one of the people who believes that there is no scientific evidence that smoking is linked to health problems, but that’s a whole other subject and I don’t want to start that debate here. My issue is more personal.
The part I don’t understand is my own vehement reaction to it. With everything going on with Jess, I think one of things that hurts the most is that she has started smoking again. She smoked before I knew her but had quit before we met. The fact that it even registers on my radar sounds ridiculous even to me. Why do I care so much? Why is it such a big deal? Why is it so important to me that my loved ones not smoke? I feel the same sense of hurt and distance when Larry occasionally smokes too. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that no one is doing it to be hurtful or anything. I just don’t understand why it means so much to me. The first time I saw jess light up on our balcony, let’s just say my reaction was completely and irrationally emotional. Maybe because of our separation my subconscious read more into it like because she knows how much it means to me maybe I stupidly saw it as a big final “fuck you” which, of course, I know it isn’t. I’m sure we all know the stupid things we can think when we’re emotional.
But the fact is is that is a big deal to me and I don’t know why. I don’t think it’s a judgmental thing, but admittedly I could be wrong. I don’t think any less of her for it and I don’t think I’m better than people who smoke. I really do think it’s more of a connection thing. It makes me feel distant and disconnected and I do legitimately worry about the health of the people I love and supporting the evil empires of tobacco (which ironically is a trait directly instilled in me by Jess). To me it feels like it comes from a place of caring and concern and not a confrontational or judgmental place. I value my connections with people and anything that interfers with those connections bothers me.
I just don’t understand why I feel the way I do. I don’t want it to interfere with my connection. Why can’t I just not care about it? When Larry smokes, I feel down. When Jess smokes it’s of a whole other order of magnitude. It feels like it almost hurts as much as our separation which should be ludicrous! I’m sure there must be some deep subconscious motivation at work here. I just can’t figure out what it is. I’m really trying to be better about this and at least not be judgmental or sanctimonious about my feelings. I’d love to find the root of this and find a way to overcome it.
Does blogging work? It just did!
2I’ve seen billboards on the side of the road that say “Does advertising work? It just did!”
Um…no…actually it didn’t. All that means is that my eyes work and I can read. Just because I didn’t avert my eyes from your stupid billboard doesn’t mean I’m going to buy your product or frequent your business, which is more the point of advertising, I would think.
And with this post, we begin NaBloPoMo!
So I do have some semblance of a career!
2After all the doom and gloom here I figured I owed it to everyone to share the meager good that comes along with my giant heapin’ o’ bad.
First off I just finished starring in a really fun short film where I feel I did some really great comedic work. It felt good. I think it’s really going to be good and I met a ton of really cool people that I hope I remain friends with. As far as I know I will also be doing a feature film with many of these people in the beginning of next year. Great people, great experience.
Secondly, I just got the checks for my first paying gigs through my agency and they were even more money than I thought I was getting! Almost as much as I used to make in two weeks.
Though it’s hard for me to see anything but the gray haze of doom currently blinding me, I do try and take time to recognize and be thankful for all the wonderful things bestowed upon my life.
I now have a comment feed
0I always wish there were an easy way to keep up with comments on other people’s blogs instead of having to just manually check all their entries to see if there’s any new comments (which is the case for most blogs). For a long time I used a plugin which allowed people to sign up for email comment notification but I think pretty much only Jess and I used that.
Therefore I now have a comments feed as well as an entries feed over on the left there. Use your favorite newsreader (I use Google Reader) to keep up with new comments posted here. It’s all new to me so I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to work but hopefully any time a new comment is posted you will see it in your newsreader.
Clogged
2When I’m at my lowest points (such as now) and have all these pessimistic negative feelings, I don’t know what to do with them. I decided that I don’t feel comfortable expressing them here for various reasons, I can’t talk to Jess about them, and talking to anyone else doesn’t seem to really help all that much. This makes being caught between the Scylla and Charybdis seem like an appealing vacation idea.
I’ve never been good at giving up
5So I guess I feel the need to elaborate now that I’ve addressed the situation. Maybe it’s because I just need an outlet, maybe it’s because I know I’m nosey and always like to know everybody else’s business, maybe it’s because I know people who care might want to know more about what’s going on but might feel hesitant to sake for painful details. Maybe I just feel the need for confession and atonement. Maybe it’s some combination of all these things and more.
For quite a while there had been an undercurrent of tension and unhappiness in my marriage. It was mostly a good happy marriage but there were recurring problems and cracks which went un-dealt with. When I filmed “Deadly Obsession” I went through a very intense metamorphosis. I was living a small microcosm of the dream I’d always chased, I was living away from home for the better part of a month and somehow I just had something snap and put me into one of the most intense and confusing times of my life. I really for the first time admitted to myself the problems in my marriage and suddenly just felt very solitary and constrained by it. I thought that we may just not be compatible.
There were other factors that I’ll keep between Jess and I that made things even more confusing. I didn’t know what was real and what was illusion in my mind. How did I really feel? What was the truth and what was just a phase? Jess and I talked completely openly and honestly about everything. She wanted to work things out. I didn’t know what I wanted. I thought there might just have been some fundamental incompatibilities that couldn’t be overcome. Things just seemed to get worse and more painful until eventually we decided that we should try splitting up and see how that worked. I wasn’t sure I wanted my marriage to end but I had put Jess through hell and didn’t want to keep her living in limbo while I tried to figure out what I wanted and what my real feelings were.
When we moved into separate rooms, I went into a very hermetic life. I spent most of my time alone, I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just spent weeks alone with my feelings trying to sort it all out. Without the tension of being in a relationship, Jess and I got along better than we had in a long time. At first, I thought this probably meant we were better friends than spouses. However as time went by I found the fog lifting. I found myself rediscovering why I loved her and why I married her and why I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I wanted to tell her that I was really thinking I wanted to work it out but some other circumstances had arisen that made me feel I couldn’t tell her.
Last weekend it all blew up with an extremely emotional episode on my part. We talked it out and got past that moment and I told her how I felt. Much to my shock and dismay, she said that she just couldn’t do it. Though it had only been maybe a month since we split up, something had just snapped in her and as far as she was concerned it was final. It was over. The end. This was a shock to me because all along we had both said that this was basically a trial separation and that we weren’t permanently closing any doors, but at some point that had changed for her and I hadn’t known.
Now please know, I am begrudging her, just explaining. I was hurt, I was angry and I was shocked. It had been less than a month since we split up but she seemed to have gotten over it at record speed and moved on much, much further than I’d expected in such a short time but I understood and still understand. I hurt her, probably worse than she’s ever been hurt (just through my emotional turmoil, I never cheated on her or abused her or anything like that). We’ve had many talks since then and as always we remain friends who talk more openly and honestly than anyone I’ve ever known. I missed my opening. When she wanted to work things out, I wasn’t ready and now that I want to, she has no interest. I can’t blame her after what I put her through.
The irony is that I don’t wish this separation had never happened because we’ve both grown and learned some very important things about ourselves and each other. there is also great irony in that I think we are more compatible now than ever and could actually be happier than we probably ever were before. This is the very definition of Instant Karma. Part of me just has to smile through the pain because I know I brought all this on myself. Karma is making me pay for the pain I caused. Our roles are reversed now. Back when she was the one fighting so hard to keep me, she told me that we’d only just really admitted our problems and started talking frankly about them, that we hadn’t even really tried to work it out yet and at the time I told her that I just didn’t know if it could be worked out. She was right.
I told her last night that though she says she can’t ever see us getting back together, I just can’t go down without a fight. Our marriage means too much to me. I always said that I would only get married once and if I made that promise to someone, I was going to mean it. When I thought that maybe splitting up was the right thing to do, it felt like the biggest failure of my life. I had made a promise I couldn’t keep and it killed me. At least now I know that I was right to begin with. She is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. It killed me knowing the pain I was causing her. I actually wished that the tables were reversed because I thought that I would rather be on the receiving end of the pain than to deal with the pain of hurting her. Be careful what you wish for. Now, my pain is exponential because not only am I feeling the same pain she went through, but since I now fully understand that, my pain for having caused her pain is now retroactively multiplied. Maybe I’ve done irrevocable damage but I must go with my heart and fight for what I believe in no matter how futile and hopeless that fight may be. I re-discovered the woman I fell in love with and I refuse to just lay down and let my marriage die a peaceful death. I may not ever be able to win back her love and trust but it would be a far bigger regret to me if I didn’t at least try, even if she tells me that’s impossible.
So there you go. It appears I’ve permanently messed up my entire life.
Here’s the song I wrote for her when we started dating:
So I guess it’s time.
3I’ve avoided making this entry for a long time. Why I’m not sure. I guess for one I didn’t really want to talk about it. Also I didn’t really know if it was just a temporary thing or not.
Jess and I are separated. Have been for a few weeks now. We’d talked long and hard about it before coming to this resolution. There was no one thing, no big blow up, no cheating, no drama, no single event that brought this on. I do however think that while it was mutual, it’s mostly me who broke it. I don’t like it, I’m not happy about it. I think the separation has had the opposite effect on each of us. It’s pushed me more toward wanting to work things out and pushed her further toward thinking that life apart is the way to go. She’s moved on, written “The End” and closed the book. I think we’ve both moved 180 degrees and completely swapped places. At least I can’t help but laugh at the karmic irony.
That is all. Just thought I should let anyone know who didn’t already. Thank you all in advance for the sentiments but I don’t need words of comfort, as there is none to be had. If anyone still reads this blog anyway, I know you all care. Thank you.