Best Birthday Ritual Ever

From one of my favorite people in the world, my good close friend, Amy Elliott:

I think I told you - the thing I did to commemorate 30 was take up smoking again for the year. I had quit at 20 (for the most part) but (and I think we share this) really still love it. I figure smoking one year every ten is a way to cheat death and give me something to look forward to on a major birthday (not that those milestones bother me). I haven't had a drag since my 31st birthday, as scheduled, and plan to do the same thing at 40, if it's still legal.

If I only I could trust myself to stop again, what a great concept....

visions of paradise

so I just was browsing around thinking how much longer can I wait to get portable email. I found a website: http://www.iphonevsblackberry.com and took the video demo. I'm watching the camera part and realize, hey, I have those pictures on my camera, and my palm too. (no camera phone yet.) They look like a Fijian island, a Fijian sunset, even two Fijians sitting in a tree. These are obviously the most generic photos used to entice and represent the ultimate vacation pics. So is that funny that I have the same ones from my year away? Or that we're less special than we think we are - rather just part of the generic paradise dreaming populace?

A couple of other funny links on Easter morning

A couple of other funny reads on this quiet Sunday Easter morn. I always forget how the world shuts down on Easter. Luckily, I remembered last night as we were walking into Zodiac - the very excellent new David Fincher film, and hit the HEB grocery before it closed at 1 am.

From the statesman by John Kelso:
Numskulls pilfer hooch, ditch camera

Stupidest stunt pulled so far this year by young folks in the state of Texas?

Right now I'd hand the trophy to those nine 18- to 22-year-old guys and gals who broke into Austin game maker Richard Garriott's property in the hills southwest of town, drank up his liquor, took pictures of themselves partying — and then left their digital camera behind. (more)

And from the the NYT Book Review - the TBR: Inside the List column by Dwight Garner:

Best-case scenario:

Gary Paulsen’s novel “Hatchet” (1987), about a 13-year-old boy who survives in the wilderness after a plane crash with nothing but a hatchet, has become a young-adult classic: the “Cast Away” of the preteen set. But “Hatchet” is only now making its first appearance on a Times best-seller list — because, it seems, the book helped save a life. According to the father of Michael Auberry, the 12-year-old Boy Scout who was lost in the North Carolina woods for four days last month, the book’s lessons stuck with his son and helped him survive. “I think he’d got some of that book in his mind,” Michael’s father told The Associated Press.

My kids just really, really, really hated Hatcher!

Now to get back to reading You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers which I promised a friend I'd read back in September. Cooking some Chicken Tortilla Soup in the afternoon. Then Sopranos and Entourage tonight. A perfect Sunday.

stumbling onto gather.com and building boats

Feeling a wee tad nostalgic this morning so looking up some old friends on the internet. An idle pastime, a huge time-waster, procrastination assist. But what I like about it are the surprises available from the ramble - like a walk in the woods. Charting familiar terrain you can stumble on new paths.

Like this morning I bumped into gather.com courtesy of the author, singer, NYT science writer, Andy Revkin (who I swear, packs more into a day than anyone else I've ever met...). Never having heard of gather.com before, I found a Boston.com article that describes it as,

A new Boston website aims to bring order to the tens of millions of weblogs proliferating online and provide one-stop shopping for overwhelmed Internet surfers. In the process, it could put some cash in the pockets of Internet scribes pecking away in obscurity.

The site, Gather.com, positions itself as a kind of eBay for online writers and their readers -- a gathering spot for musings and discussions on everything from wine and computers to fitness and spirituality. And, with a business model that could shake up the writing profession, executives from Gather Inc. are recruiting bloggers by offering them a share of the company's advertising revenue.

Or from Businessweek.com:

Gather.com: Social Networking Grows Up

The year-old site is trying to create an online space for the NPR crowd. But do they have time—amid kids and careers—to hang out online?

But then I also found this, from the Hudson Fisheries Trust, which is an amazing project!!! Building Bridges, Building Boats was just getting started as we left the Cold Spring/Garrison area. Otherwise I would have signed my kids up in a minute. What a fantastic learning opportunity!

Wow, loving the NYT Business section on Apr 2

My reading outside of this computer screen is way, way off. I remember how exciting it was to return to books after the early mothering years. I never gave up movies, keeping that a priority via babysitters, but missed much of my precious reading time. Now I barely read books at all, and magazines and newspapers only intermittently. Sometime in the last ten years I compiled a list of the papers and magazines I kept up with - I was responding to a friend who kept all newspapers and magazines out of her house, and also to the question, "what do you do?" The answer was, I keep current." Impressively so. Now my skew is shifted. There are days I don't mind as it's all shit and bad news. But somedays I'm surprised and delighted and regret my myopia.

Like today. On the kitchen counter I found a stack of folded papers from Monday, Apr 2. (My birthday!) which of course I hadn't bothered to read that day. In a rare breach of John's careful organizing and archiving, this edition was separated from the pile. Pretty much every single article was interesting -from David Carr's superb "Thousands of Laid Off. What's New?", to Laura M. Holson's, "Warner's Digital Watchdog Widens War on Pirates," about Darcy Antonellis and her fascinating career trajectory. Julie Bosman's "Pushing a New Writer Upstream" about the pre-selling of a new author. Angelal Macropoulous, "A Misfired Memo Shows Close Tabs on Reporter," about the really interesting misdirection of a Microsoft PR company's email to the Wired journalist covering the story. And more. But all good. All interesting.

David Carr's piece my favorite: an excerpt:

“Newspapers have shifted from going after mass audiences to targeting upscale audiences. This is a great story,” Mr. Martin said, referring to the Circuit City layoffs, “but it’s about working people. There have been dual wage systems before, but here you have something completely different — the wholesale firing of people who did their jobs well.”

Yeah for the home team

Superb NBC television show Friday Night Lights won a prestigious Peabody!

Friday Night Lights NBC

No dramatic series, broadcast or cable, is more grounded in contemporary American reality than this clear eyed serial about the hopes, dreams, livelihoods and egos intertwined with the fate of high-school football in a Texas town.
Produced by NBC Universal Television Studio in association with Imagine Entertainment and Film 44

Which is awesome. If you haven't been watching, you should catch up with the online stream.

And pretty great for Spike Lee too, with his masterful and heartbreaking, When The Levees Broke. Heartiest congratulations!

I love Miranda July

Her work just speaks to me. All of it. Check out the website for her latest - a book of short stories to be released on May 15th. It's hilarious and wonderful. As so much of her work is. Funny, and poignant. Searing and magical. One of the stories was published earlier in The New Yorker this year - (Sept 18, 2006). I loved it. Can't wait for more.

Birthday pic

Here's a nice birthday pic shot by my good friend and blogging inspiration, Matt Dentler.

But it brings up an odd dichotomy. I don't blog under my real name. Of course my friends know who I am but strangers get a more abstract view. I write both very personally, and yet not about my real life at all. I barely mention the kids, leave out tons of daily details and affiliations, and haven't (until now) posted personal photos. I've enjoyed the gray.

This is the second time that Matt has linked to me by name. I'm both flattered by the positive attention and wary. Does it matter? Will readers linking from Matt expect more of a dedicated film blog? Is there a downside to owning my random thoughts publicly? Will it reflect poorly on me? On John? I'm not really sure how I feel. (Like Peggy wrote once, " Embarrassed about your blog? Heaven forbid. The whole point of a blog is to put your life up where everyone can see and comment on it. Wait, though, you already did that!" rather hilariously referencing the documentary....)

I did have a lovely 50th birthday. It was great to celebrate with John, and Chris, and Kate and Matt, and the few others who I shall delight in keeping anonymous. In these narcissistic times we live in, it's nice to keep some zones of privacy. Isn't it?

From 40 to 50

So in more mulling about this upcoming birthday, I started thinking about this last decade. What happened between the landmarks of 40 and 50?

I'd been excited about turning 40. I fully expected a new tier of ease and self-confidence. Instead I ran into a brick wall. Ruptures in my marriage, the first serious seam I wasn't sure we'd recover from, then health problems and general disorder. 1997 was a difficult, painful year but I came through fine, stronger, better. This last decade an amazing one.

Some Highlights:

- Fell deeper in love with email. Hardcore. (Though surprised to just learn that my beloved Highland Chain provider actually started in Sept. 1994. Before that I wasted hours with the more often than not, dysfunctional AOL. Not sure exactly when email entered my life but it took with a vengeance. I remember when my neighbors brought up the Highlands Chain idea, the concept of a local internet community with email, I said, "what a stupid idea." Then I became the poster child, an intense power user to this day. (Thank you Richard and Susan Bates.)

- Mothered my daughter from age 9 to 19. My son from 7 to 17.

- Created and produced our IFC cable TV series Split Screen with John. Four years, 66 episodes, over 100 active filmmakers working. A true joy. Terrific entertainment. Spawning features The Blair Witch Project and How's Your News? while providing early first looks at American Movie and Waking Life. Tim P slipped out of our lives for awhile but in walked Amy Elliott and PH O'Brien in a big, big way. And Mike LaHaie. And Josh Braun. And too many others to mention. A wild ride indeed.

-Taking the plunge to direct and loving it. (Thank you Miranda.)

- Curated a night at The Moth in June 2001. In the Dark: Filmmakers Illuminate with storytellers Peter Hedges, Bingham Ray, Caroline Kaplan, Darnell Martin, Pam Yates. (Thank you Judy Stone.)

- Spent years getting a local school referendum passed. Personal power politics in a small town. Learning how to build coalitions and get things done. Along the way some surprising, deeply satisfying friendships.

The small town love and beauty of Garrison and Cold Spring, NY. Understanding what it's like to be in a place where parents and friends really look out for one another. A real community. A rich home while it lasted.

-Discovering the mind/body connection. (Thank you Healers: Mhairi, Karen Gorney, Linda Blaikie, Teresa Peppard, Karen Greathouse, Allison Anderson.)

-A serious committment to yoga and now pilates. (Thank you Magda Schoenfeld, Kate Graham, Shelley Gilbert, Angela D. Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle.)

-Cannes 1999 with IFC. An unforgettable night celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary. Attending the Dogma midnight premiere at the Grand Palais, the after party at the Hotel du Cap, the sunrise on Paul Allen's yacht. Spike, Jarmusch, and the Blair Witch guys in town in a big way too.

- Actually everything with Kevin Smith. The Movies. The Family. The Friendship. Hanging at the House.

-Natalie Goldberg's workshop at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos in 2000.

-Paris for my 45th birthday with Nan and Beau. Amsterdam a few years later.

-10 days in Fiji. Then a year. Every second of it.

- Reel Paradise.

-New Zealand. And yoga for 30 days with Philip & Coral Savage.

- Cleaning the house to move first to Fiji, then again, more permanently, to Austin. Torture til I discovered the joy in dispersing our material goods. Christmas in July.

- Wireless internet

- Gaining weight steadily. Losing 30 lbs in 6 months in 2001-2002. Yea!!! Gaining it back in 4 years.

-Moving to Austin. Coming from a place I loved to a place I love even more! The easiest transition ever. Loving Austin with its great energy, wonderful people, and quality of life. All my wonderful good new friends here. Immersing fully into the Austin Film Society, proud to be part of its rich history and vital present.

-My friends. Those of you who see me through. Turn me on. Make me laugh. Make me think. Help me feel connected. Make everyday worthwhile. Thank you.

- John. Ever mercurial and exciting. Brilliant. Impatient and confrontational. But funny, and kind, and loving too. At the center of it all.

Turning 50 on Monday

I'm turning 50 on Monday. And while I feel no need for a big to-do or life changing marker, I am finding myself mulling a bit. Well, mulling a lot. About what a great ride it's been. How much I love John, and the kids, and a wide swath of friends. It all so unlike what I'd imagined. Not that I imagined much...maybe that was part of it. Sure I had glamorous images, like the NYC literai party scenes in Capote, or like Norman Mailer, George Plimpton and their set in the great doc When We Were Kings, but not really for myself. I had yearnings but a torturous present. It was hard to see past that.

Mulling more too because of a trip back into the files. Needing to find some paperwork for my sister...neither one of us clear about some banking from 20-odd years ago that's now essential as her first just turned 21. I climb up the steep ladder in the garage loft, perch on my grandmother's old suitcase, and take a deep breath. Long typewritten letters from my father. Breathe again. I realize I've come to prefer the imagined sanitized version of him. The real guy too difficult. The reality painful. Not dwelling on my own writing in this dalliance down memory lane. Instead letters from some remaining friends. Letters from many now passed out of my life. From Alison and Jessica and always the ones I love from Karl - cranky, and smart, and loving from so many years ago. I'd forgotten there were so many. And it reminds me to reach out and prod him into writing again right now.

These long years John and I have traveled together. It feels like a moment but it's actually 25 years. I think at the time Karen C. gave me a note with a quote from Marilyn Monroe that said something like, "Twenty-five years, that's a quarter of a century... Makes a girl think." My 25th birthday my first with him. 25 years later, unimaginable then, impressive and exciting now. "Half-a-life" "Half-a-life" rattling over and over again in my head. A ridiculous film that John, Bingham and I used to laugh about endlessly when we worked on the opening in NYC - and I can't even think why. Because of the guy's thick french accent? Because he was only 35? So now close to 50, the details gone to me, only the pleasure of the memory, and the amusement of the phrase in my head. It's been a half a life with John. Half a life ago, I could never have imagined I'd be so happy now.