Fool's Rush In

Happy April Fool's Day!

Anyone do anything dastardly? I've never been good at this prank thing, I'm too chickensh*t for it. I don't like the suspense or worry that something will go horribly wrong or someone will end up hating me. When I was 12, my brother rigged a bucket of water above the bathroom door and waited snickering around a corner for me to walk under it. Unfortunately instead of the intended bucket dump, it slid off the top and landed directly on my head where it bounced before finally soaking the floor. A bucket full of water - whadya think? Maybe 15 pounds? It hurt like hell. I think it explains alot about my personality...

So, guess what!? We are in the final weeks before our film shoot. Y'all may remember that I've been yammering on about this thing for months and months now and that raised all of the money on ye old interweb. So we're finally going to be getting this thing done this month.

Ya-freakin'hoo!

I could wax on endlessly about how miraculous it is to be sitting where we are right now. Don't tempt me. But, let's just summarize by saying this:

*Last fall, we were told "You don't have enough money to make this film".

*Last fall, we asked the internet, our friends, our family, you to help us make this film.

*This winter, the fundraising succeeded. Incredible considering the state of the economy and the rest.

*This spring, we will shoot our short film. 10 days after the boy turns 1, a dream 5 years in the making will come true.
It is a miracle. Nothing short.

I gotta be honest, it's been hella challenging trying to balance the two big roles of Mom and Director. Well, three - also Executive Producer. It has somehow magically worked due to very patient, sweet producer's who meet over here a lot during naptimes or so he can play in the play-yard while we chat and sweat details. I've also been seen location scouting with him in the Ergo or driving neighborhoods looking for locations while he naps.

Here on the right you can see how excited he is to be checking out an office location....below we are looking for a convenience store.

I gotta say, I think he looks like a future star baseball pitcher in this shot. Facebook friends, sorry for the repeat - but comon', that is ridiculous cuteness.

Here we are working hard in our PJ's.  Not my proudest parenting moment, but a sleepy baby doesn't pound on your keyboard (I've noticed).

I'll leave you with the schedule of the juggle from today. Our lil guy was a total champ as we made our way through this day, this last hectic day before my Mom comes back to see us through the shoot....


8:00 am meeting with potential unit production manager in studio city. We negotiated his price while dad had kid in lap and feed him applefish.

9:15 hike with friends and babies and dogs (oh and one of the star's of our movie!) Boy learns how to clap! I guess the blue sky and black crows were just finally 'cause enough for applause.

11:30 go to hollywood - wait for place to open to get delicious seaweed salad while on call with producer.

12:00 next hollywood errand - find dinosaur costume for movie (hub featured sporting costume) get awesome discount due to extremely cute kid in Ergo!

1:45 BHB finally gets the nap he was denied all morning.

2:00 finally eat delicious lunch, awesome production manager hired - talk to location guru and friend about the key locations that we're missing, he has great ideas...

2:30 babysitter arrives

3:00 go to location, meet with DP (Director of Photography) to talk shots

5:30  home to relieve babysitter

6:00 play with boy til 7 including admire his new clapping skills and laugh hysterically with him at the antics of the peek-a-boo dad. Then bedtime routine.

8:30 eat our dinner watching 6 Feet Under Season One to get inspired by good shots, good acting

10:00 sucked into emails with producers and put up an 'update' for our backers on kickstarter.

11:51 still typing blogpost that swore I wouldn't stay up til midnight to do....

Right. Goodnight.


Yours in the crazy, happy, busy daze ~


PS - I name my posts after movies. I haven't seen the one this post is named, I know nothing about it. I just liked using anything with Fool for this day. I'm working on another post called 'Enchanted April'. Is this naming my posts after movies too ridic? You can tell me.

November 13th

"We interrupt our regularly scheduled Movie Monday Madness to bring you a special bulletin about November 13th the movie and November 1st the short film"

OHMYGOD! HOLYSH*T! HOLYCRAP! I'M FREAKING OUT! (and yelling, obviously) But. OMFG!

It Happened! We did it! You did it! It was did! Ok, okay. I'll stop yelling. But, as you'll see, it's incredibly yell-worthy.

Our short film got funded! We just today surpassed our rather ambitious goal of raising 13,000 over the internets in hunks as low as 2 dollars, and for one person as much as 2,500 dollars - we somehow gathered enough signatures and people willing to put their CC where their typing fingers are and this is how it happened....

That Kickstarter site is so damn amazing. It's really just so special how they help artists and filmmakers and non-profits and bakers and bloggers and anyone who needs funding. It's an online democracy for art. Anyone can make it happen! It was such a perfect forum for us to get the excitement centered and focused - an incredible piazza if you will where we can all mill about and admire other people pursuing their passion. And let's be clear, the number one reason I liked the piazza's in Italy? The gelato. That's what Kickstarter is missing! A dairy sugar treat. Actually - you can get delicious fig newtons up there from Cassie, I did!

Ah but it's pretty darn sweet tonight, let me tell you. Needless to say I'm just so thrilled. It's overwhelming to me that 95 people so far have stepped forward to support us. 95! I got 95 emails that said 'New Backer Alert! So and so is your new backer! Amount pledged x dollars'. So 95 times my little heart jumped when the emails came in. And some of the times if the numbers were especially crazy my heart and feet would jump around the room and our little baby would squeal and my dog would look worried and my mom and step dad get excited and IN FACT!  I just scared the kee-rap out of the cute hubs because as I was looking at the email to see the wording for the above sentence when another 'Backer Alert!' came in for a big hunk of money from a dear friend and I just skitterred across the house trying to squeal quietly and scared him a little bit. What is happening? Why am I so lucky? How are we loved so much by friends, family and strangers alike? It's just nuts, and I'm shaking with the prospect of it. Make that 96 and wipe the tears from my face for the 45th time today.

So that's what is going on over here friends! It's an incredible day. February 1st. I'll never forget it. This experience has given me a new faith. It's a humbling and moving reminder to me of the great Nike campaign from the 90's.

Just Do It.

And we're gonna.

Your incredulous hostess of soon to be movie making fame,



PS - Thank you again to my dear blogee friends who are among the 96. I so appreciate you. And thank you again JJ for putting up the widget on your blog. Love you and the B-day Bea!

16 Candles

So tomorrow is my birthday. I'm going to be 39 (for the first time) and it's trippin' my sh_ out.

For the record, my adorable step-dad would prefer I didn't swear, so to honor his readership and the fact that he cares enough to tell me his opinion, I am going to ix-nay on the four letter words from here on out. I mean, I think you'll still effin' know what I mean, but perhaps LCD has just become a softer, sweeter place.

Birthday's are just weird. First of all, a lil shout out of huge thanks to my Mom! Whatup Momma! Thanks for um, you know, OUCH. I've realized that instead of this day being all about me, I think it's time to share just a little bit of the good stuff with the woman who suffered mightily to bring my tiny pink butt to the planet. In fact, now that I know the score, it's high time to write 38 thank you notes for the last 38 celebrations. Damn. But now I know.

And my Mom was awesome at throwing birthday parties, I've got seriously big shoes to fill in that department. I think my high school friends started to look forward to the fun party coming a few weeks after Christmas, 'cause she always rocked it.  Let's run down a few, shall we?

• Sweet 16 was a bitchin' 50's themed party and we all wore poodle skirts. My Dad and his best-friend DJ'd the event with all of 'their' music and we cleared the dining room out and did our best swing-dancin'. Only trouble had to do with Dad's BF who was visiting for a few weeks and trying to sober-up down in Florida. Dontcha know he picked that night to relapse into a pool of booze which turned him into a puddle. The net-net was a really uncomfortable moment where he swerved me around the dance floor and pawed the back of my poodle. THAT was a pretty crappy high school moment. Ahem, yea. Kinda dark, sorry about that. Also need to apologize for an unfortunate rash of alliteration. The sad fact is that he died later that year from complications from his alcoholism.
  

• For 17 she did a super cool scavenger hunt. Since we were all driving then, she had clues hidden all over town. One required a purchase at the McDonald's drive-through for (how she got them to participate is beyond me) and a crazy-dig-up-something-thing on the side of a lonely stretch of a brand new road. It was an all afternoon affair of driving and laughing and some actual thinking to solve her smarty-pants clues. My dad even built a rough little wooden treasure chest to hold all of the goodies for the team that won. In fact, I still have it in all of it's splinteree glory. Wait a minute, I have to disclose this lil tidbit...it currently holds all of my journals. Ha! How precious right? About time to retrieve that from storage for the old bonfire. Godforbid anyone read those. Oh wait, isn't that what this blog is? E-journal 2009-2010.
  

• 18 was the best. To celebrate my then new ability to gamble, the rents threw a Gambling Night. No kidding. They rented all of these tables including craps, black-jack and roulette. Their friends were the dealers all smiles in bow-ties. There were lessons on how to play the games and we all got big piles of tiny pink and blue monopoly money. Then we bid on prizes at the end of the night, the most memorable was the giant Hershey's kiss. What a fun night for us big shot seniors to get all fanced up in our fancy-wear. She even served us caviar and sparkling apple cider as champagne. Genius.

I think maybe the last birthday I looked forward to was 1996 when I turned 25 and could like, finally rent a car. Other than that, they have been steadily losing their charm. I do have to say the cute hubs rocked 30 pretty hard by surprising me by flying my best-friend from HS into town. He dropped me off at a massage place and when I walked into the heavy incensed air and soothing music - there she was. I almost fainted. He then sent us on a scavenger hunt around town (hmm, a theme) which was hilarious and amazing and then surprised me again that night with twenty-five of my favorite people at my favorite restaurant. He was already, you know, my fiance at the time - but his stock went up pretty high after that one.

So to summarize, I guess birthdays can be aiight. Honestly I'm already mentally blowing by these days and the hubs birthday in February because I'm all a quiver about BHB's birthday in April. It just feels like it ain't about us anymore. And as you can see that's a pretty good idea. Plans for the weekend are minimal but I will be enjoying one of the last weekends that my folks will be around. Let's not talk about the mighty withdrawal that is coming when they actually depart, it's just best not to. Nope, let's not. Let's just enjoy not-turning-40 for one more year.

For fun here are a few pics from birthday's past.

That's the BF. Even though we haven't lived in the same state since we were 20, we often manage to celebrate our birthday's together. This is the birthday after the toughest Christmas ever, 2006. Drinking was an excellent idea then, or so I thought. I love bar self-portraits.

Oh lookie!  Here I am enjoying another vice that I no longer imbibe in. If you ever go by FU Sugar you'll see that it's going ah, pretty well. I've only slipped a few times since Halloween. Tomorrow is tempting though. Look at that cake! Be strong Jane, be strong.

By the way, I have to apologize for all of the naval gazing and bio-pic quality of recent posts. I guess this entry into a new year as a new parent is creating the space for too much rumination.

And finally, don't forget to vote in Movie Monday. You'll make my whole birthday with your vote. Or a comment. OR if you really want to make an old lady happy, toss a few bucks on our movie. (or see sidebar to left) Time is growing short.

Ain't that the truth?

Yours in cusp of the middle age,

Meet the Parents

So my Mom is in town. And my Step-dad. Here's the thing: these people are really good people. Not like, oh you know, good as in they are well groomed, wear matching jewelry, listen to NPR all day and wear LLBean.

No these people are Good (capital G), as in, are loving and always of service and cheerful. Really! Cheerful pretty much all the time. Frankly it's a bit tough being around them because any impulse I have to throw a snit or complain or whine about dumb crap gets quashed by their laughter and Can-do attitude. Oh and I should say that they are well groomed too, but not so much on the catalog outfits.

In fact, it's been hard to come up with stuff to write about up here because I think alot of what I do here is thrash around about my garden-variety angst which has been minimized by all this damn loveliness. Of course the other thing I do is talk about sleep which I know y'all are probably over hearing about. And frankly? Nothing to say right now - drama done for the moment. OK. Okay, wait..I know you won't mind just this one little tiny eensy bit...

The boy sleeps. I put him down. He goes to sleep. As I'm leaving the room, he smiles at me. I'M NOT KIDDING! He does this at night, he does this at nap time. And then he sleeps - 3 hours during the day, 11-12 at night. Ridiculous. And if I wasn't me, I'd hate me too.

Back to the parents. They live full time on an RV, so they are staying in their lil traveling house about a mile from here. So. Life is so sweet with our routine of getting up and making coffee for Papa L. They arrive at nine, he drinks it makes jokes and starts doing all kinds of stuff around here. Like fix lamps. He goes to his favorite hardware store. He watches the stock show. My mom gets the baby up from a nap. She changes him into a cute day costume. They sit together and coo and laugh while I flit around trying to get something done. And meals are made, errands get run, the baby is so beautifully taken care of since his naps are totally honored and yet, something unique for this household, still stuff gets done! If I could freeze time I would. I do pine for my Mommy and Me groups and a little bit, but not enough to miss a minute of this magic.

They were originally going to be here to help us BHB sit while cute hubs and I made our short film. And then, if you remember, we had a reality check and realized that we didn't have a huge chunk of the budget required to shoot the short in the manner we'd like to. Meaning: pay people something, not steal locations or shoot without permits. It turns out law-abiding is an expensive habit. Harumph.

Soo, we decided to do some fund-raising type thingee's while they are in town so that we stay focused on making some art while we get the benefit of some delicious Gramma babysitting and Papa L tasking. So last weekend we had a fund-raising party and today we threw a fund-raising Garage Sale. Both only mildly successful in terms of actual dollars compared to the work put in, but strangely fun and also came with the great house purging and house prepping that a g-sale and party (respectively) will do for you. Picture above: Boy and Grandma prepping for garage sale with couch on porch.

The place we're really hoping for some magic is our online effort. Last week we mounted a computer-to-computer Obama type funder on a super bitchin' site called Kickstarter.  Perhaps you noticed it the widget over there to the left? Give it a click, or go right here. On the page you'll find a video of cute hubs and I yapping to the camera and some real fun comes when BHB makes an appearance (about 3 minutes in).

If you can, pledge a few bucks. Really, just 2 is seriously great. What's even better is if you can pledge a few, and then forward to some friends and say 'Hey! Check this out! These people have a small child (with a big head) and still want to shoot an ambitious short film. I think they are kinda nuts but in the best way and I pledged a little, can you help them out too?' Then the magic of the interweb comes to life with all of the forwarding and hey-ing and tweeting and lovin' and then our movie gets made thanks to you. Seriously.

I hope that sounds good. I've backed a few projects up there and it's super damn fun to be a part of their projects. Artists are crazy people and I enjoy being counted among them, especially in times like these - we're hanging out on the edge.

Also, this is our movie poster. Our friend Bob designed it. We love him.