Preliminary Depression

So tonight I've had a little bit of a chance to catch up, but mostly on school work. Tomorrow morning I fly to Napa. Alone. For a wedding. I spent a good half hour printing out directions to my hotel, to the rehearsal dinner, to the church, and so on. I'm fully expecting it to be a good trip, but at the same time, I'm being forced to brace myself for a weekend of depressing situations. I saw an RSVP list for the rehearsal dinner and realized that I'm literally the only person who didn't add a plus one. Awesome. I'll be that odd person out that knows no one except the bride and groom, who will be too busy to actually talk to me, so I'll be standing on the periphery with a cocktail, wishing the whole things was over. Add to that a similar situation at the wedding the following day, then a day of wine tasting solo, and there you have it. My life in a nutshell. I can't even find someone to take me to the airport in the morning. I'm getting to a point in my life where I really hate weddings. I used to like them. Now they are a hassle filled with opportunities for me to feel lonely and bad about myself because I am perpetually and terminally alone. So here I go again. Traveling alone was so much easier when I didn't have to watch other people being together and only had to watch films.

So there you go. I'm in the preliminary depression stage. I can only expect it to get worse over the next 3 days. I'll talk to you Monday, if I haven't slit my wrists by then.

Been Here, Done This

Dear lady in the hall: Can you please yell into the phone a little louder? I can still hear my thoughts.

So anyway, it's Friday, and I basically have one day left here. I leave on Sunday, spend the night in Madrid, then leave the next morning. Quick stop in Paris, then on to Atlanta and San Diego. Will I be seeing you there?

It's been an interesting week, with lots of food, drinks, movies, hand shaking and walking. I came down with a cold a couple of days ago, so I've been trying to rest as much as possible. I got some ibuprofen and lozenges at the pharmacy, and that helped tremendously. Still, I need to get something for my runny nose before I run out of tissues.

The weather also turned rainy yesterday, which is a little bit of a bummer, though not unexpected. Apparently that's the usual here this time of year. This town actually reminds me a little bit of Asheville, except on the ocean. There are lots of similarities, except for all the Spanish talk, of course.

I'm not looking forward to packing everything up again, as I have amassed a mountain of stuff, between film catalogs, press kits, DVDs, and random stuff I bought. In retrospect, I could have brought fewer clothes, but I had no idea what I was going to need or not need. If I come back next year, I'll know what to bring. Namely, some warmer shirts and fewer dresses. They go pretty casual here, which is kind of cool. I did, however, get the chance to wear my "Mad Men" dress, which is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I decided to wear it on my birthday since I was also going to a couple of parties, and I feel good in it without being too sassy. It still has the feel of business. I did notice one of the festival photogs snapping a couple pics of me at the first party, although I have no idea where those pictures end up.

I do have to commend the festival on its great parties, as they all involve food and drink. The food is amazing, even though it is just hors d'evoures. I filled up on them plenty. Leek soup? Awesome. Yogurt w/strawberries? Awesome. Shrimp with green "mojo" sauce? Fantastic. Tuna sashimi? Yum. On my birthday I managed to make the most of it, eating the food and drinking the champagne (it's my birthday--of course I'm going with champagne!). Just get me a little loosened up and I'll start talking in Spanish to the two closest guys around, Juan and David. Yep, that's right. I conducted an entire evening in Spanish. Needless to say, we hung out after the reception and blah blah blah, there's some small pieces of the evening I don't quite recall, and I spent most of the following day hungover and a bit fragile. Still, I had a great time, and the birthday was a million times better than the sob fest I held on my couch last year. Plus, I'm planning to celebrate again when I get home, as long as my lame friends don't ditch me again this year.

So believe it or not, I'm a little bit homesick, but I think a large part of that has to do with being sick. That's when there's no bed like my bed. I'm planning to go to the Guggenheim tomorrow, which should be a fantastic adventure. I'm really excited. I'm a little sad and a little glad the festival is almost over. This is why festivals can only go for so long: people get tired of watching movies all the time. It can be grueling. So even though I'm looking forward to getting home, I'm also dreading the mountain of work I'll have waiting for me when I get there. School is going to be particularly difficult, but I'm hoping I'll be able to get everything straightened out quickly so I can get into some sort of routine. I'm also planning on my actual work to get into a bit of a routine, since September was one of the most brutal months I've had in quite a while. October will be kind of busy, but in November it should level out so I can coast through December and into January and the festival. Lordy, it seems like the next real rest I'm going to get is going to be in April. That seems so far away.

Anyway, if there's one thing that I have decided from this trip, it's that I definitely want to make sure I get to Cannes in May. There are too many movies and people there to miss it. I just have to find affordable flights and accommodations, which is always the challenge. So that's it, I guess. I've been here, done this. And I'm hoping to do it again next year.

Sunday, September 19

I smell tuna. Seriously. So today I saw two movies, and both of them involved sheep and the western US. Strange coincidence. I was supposed to see another film, but I fell asleep this afternoon (I'm in Spain--siestas are expected!) and overslept. I'm kind of bummed about the whole thing, but I'll get over it. I've learned that Spain is the new UK; almost everyone here has bad teeth. I think it's from all the smoking. Another thing I forgot about. Even so, I really like this town. I could see myself living in a place like this. It's like Asheville with a beach. There's museums, movies, shopping, eating, drinking, surfing, history, the whole thing. Plus the festival, of course. It appears that cultural events are a regular occurrence here. I'm sure it gets hot in the summer, but at the moment it feels like fall. Chilly in the morning, warmer in the afternoon, then cool at night. And it seems like between 5 and 10, every family in town comes out for gelato and a walk. It's crazy. But I think it's kind of cool. Families hanging out together, chillaxing in the plaza instead of in front of the tv. It just seems like more fun. I finally got myself a gelato cone today, and it was awesome. That's definitely going to be a habit for the rest of the time I'm here.

Tomorrow I'm going to do the tapas thing, since I think I finally figured out how it works. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm definitely down with the wine prices only being a few cents higher than the water prices. I can deal with that. So today was a pretty quiet day, all in all. I have to get this sleeping thing down, but this afternoon was the first really good sleep I've had since I got here. I don't know why. But I did have a dream involving getting my phone confused with a vampire's phone, then something about a vampire style hit (yes, as in hit man) and the rest I can't remember. Anyway, I'm going to try to avoid the siesta tomorrow, especially since tomorrow is going to be a full day.

By the way, I'm not sure I mentioned it, but when I checked in, the lady said this room was very quiet. Does it keep out the street noise? Yes. However, anytime some lazy ass can't manage the stairs to the third floor, I hear them clanging around the elevator. Also, any time someone has a conversation in the hall or walks down the hall, it's like they're right outside my door. I guess on the upside, if they're talking about shooting things, it's all in Spanish so I'm not scared. You know what I mean.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now.

Saturday, Sept 18 San Sebastian

It’s 6am and I can’t sleep. I’m still tired, but my clock is confused. I did sleep on the train last night. The kind of exhausted sleep where you try to wake up and you just can’t. But it would be worse. It could be 3 am. At least 6 is somewhat human. I realized yesterday that I traveled for 30 straight hours. It seemed like I was never going to get here. But I suppose the thing I learned the most, is that no matter how comfortable, there are no clothes that are designed to be worn for that long. My jacket wore against my neck so much I thought it was going to bleed. Lesson learned. Next time it’s yoga pants and no bra. Socks are always good, though.

I will try to get a little more shut-eye before I actually get up and start the day, which is going to be interesting. When I go out today, I get to navigate my way around town to get my festival credentials, meet a veritable stranger for lunch, and find a film library for a 5:30 screening. Oh, and take some pictures and figure out how to get to the Guggenheim. Maybe even see the beach. It’s only a couple blocks away.

And now, some observations that I want to record before I forget:

The Atlanta Airport smelled of cinnamon and butter, and the musak played disco and R&B.

The cab driver in Madrid had a voice so gravelly, it sounded like he was impersonating Marlon Brando’s Godfather SNL style.

Americans are easy to spot. They’re the fat ones who put their feet on everything.

Spaniards have more respect for personal space than the French. But less than Americans.

Madrid Sept 17

I’m sitting here in the Madrid train station, waiting for my train to San Sebastien. It leaves at 4pm and right now it’s almost noon. Awesome. At least I have time to charge my laptop and my iPod and fiddle with my phone a little bit. I can’t get the phone to wok the way the directions say it’s supposed to. Dammit. Why can’t all the countries just do the same thing? I’m also wondering if I turned off my other phone before I left San Diego.

I’m exhausted. I tried to sleep on the plane, but you know how that goes. Some winks here and there, but nothing substantial. I’ve been trying to practice my Spanish since I got here, and so far, I’ve been mostly successful. Granted, travel vocabulary is usually the first thing you learn, but still, I’m pretty proud of myself.

Anyway, here I am, sitting on the marble floor because there are no outlets near the seats, listening to one of those little rides for kids play a song every 2 minutes. There it goes again. I saw a sign for a bowling alley upstairs, which would be fun if I didn’t have all this crap with me but did have someone to bowl with. I guess that’s my least favorite part of travelling. I’m always alone. I think I’ve been on 2 trips with another person since I became an adult, which is pretty sad when you think about it. It seems like most people travel in pairs, especially on these international trips. I just wish I had someone to watch my stuff while I went to the bathroom or got a sandwich.

So there was a guy in the Atlanta airport who made everyone at the gate fill out a sort of satisfaction survey on behalf of the US Dept of Commerce. I put that I have only been on one other international trip in the last 5 years, so now I’m lying on questionnaires. Awesome. Still, it’s a little exciting to lie to the government.

Anyway, my butt is getting a little numb. My computer has less than an hour left of charging. I need a serious nap. And some freakin connectivity while we’re at it.

El Viaje

I'm exhausted. I'm actually looking forward to sitting on a plane where I can to little to nothing for 14 hours. Even though I'm sure I'll have a middle seat next to fat people. Tomorrow I go to school and try to get organized once and for all for the trip. I still have a hotel reservation to make in Madrid, and I haven't heard back from my friends as to whether or not they want to see me in Atlanta for the first time in seven years. Maybe they don't care enough to even answer me and that's the pointlessness of friendship.

I'm really looking forward to having some time to myself in the near future, as in when I get back. I remember the old days when I had nothing to do a lot of the time. Now I have no time to do anything. I work nights, I work days, I go to school, and on the weekends I try to catch up. I have little to no social life. Oddly enough, I'm mostly okay with that. I do have a friend who has been trying to get me to go salsa dancing with her for some time now, and I found out that the reason she's been nagging me is because she thinks the instructor is really cute and she's trying to hook me up. I've just been too busy and too tired to go, so her plans have been thwarted.

I stopped talking to the guy. He was a giant jerk to me and I've had enough. Another reason it's been nice to be busy. I don't have time to think about him or avoid calling him or whatever. I like being mad because it helps me hold on to all the reasons I'm entitled to being mad.

So anyway, Spain is around the corner and I expect it to be a great trip.

2015

So glad it's a three day weekend. Today I went to a friend's house for a cookout, and I thought it was going to be a great time. It was okay. Somewhere in the middle of it I realized that I was literally the only single person there. That was awesome. On the way home I tried to think of someone else who is single. I couldn't think of anyone. None of my friends, none of my co-workers, no one. It made me really upset. What is it that makes me such a freakish person that I'm not worth dating? The extra added bonus of the cook out was that there was a guy there that I went out with once about 6 months ago or so. He had a date with him. Again, that felt awesome. It's like every time I turn around, I'm being reminded that I have nothing and no one. I found myself wondering what it's like to go home and share a life with someone, where you know that they will always be there. I'm not sure I've ever had that.

Nope. Haven't.

I've had lots of people that I can depend on to trample me and treat me like dirt, but no one I can depend on to be there for me when I really need them. Like when I'm irritated at work. Like when I'm feeling lonely and just want to feel like someone cares about me. Like when I have a funny joke. Like when I have gift certificates to a restaurant or tickets to the zoo. It's always depressing when I don't buy things because I have no one to share them with. I have $100 to a swanky place downtown. I've had it for a year. And there's no one to go with. I've booked a trip to Napa and I'm going alone. I'll be in Spain for almost 2 weeks and there's no one to write home to. No one who wants to know what's going on or even misses me. I'm pretty sure I've never been missed.

So in the end, it all feels pointless. I'm going to be 35 in a couple of weeks. I've never had a relationship last longer than a year, the longest in California has been 3 months. I have no prospects. I don't make a lot of money. I don't have a lot of friends. I'm not beautiful. I've gained a bunch of weight in the last three months. I'm not that smart. I basically have very little going for me. And all I want is this one thing. And it's not going to happen for me.

Make a note. Five years from now. 2015. I'll be sitting on this same couch, watching this same tv, watching this same episode of the Simpsons. I'll still be here by myself, still working at this job that doesn't pay me nearly enough to live comfortably, still wondering why other people get to be happy and I don't. I'll be forty. Alone. Maybe I'll get a cat. At this point, it seems that's the only companionship I'm eligible for.

Hiring?

Just saw my national cable tv debut. Meh. I didn't have any lines, so I won't be SAG eligible. Meh.

Anyway, I'm so glad that this is a three day weekend, and I'm leaving for Spain in less than 2 weeks. Yes, I have a lot of work to do, but at this point, I'm adopting a 'fuck it' attitude, where I just do what I can and not worry about the rest. Plus, next week I have to work (in addition to my regular office hours) Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday morning, and Sunday night. And I teach on Tuesday night, so this weekend is my last chance to relax until I leave and sit on a plane for some ungodly amount of time.

Plus, this week marks the first time I've come really close to quitting my job. Or at least thinking about quitting. As you may or may not know, we moved our offices recently, and so there's a lot of shifting and a lot of things we're not quite sure about yet. Most of our shit is still in boxes. Plus, it's a giant open space, so sound echoes like you wouldn't believe, meaning that it is impossible to have two separate conversations going on at the same time. And if you are having one conversation, everyone hears you having it. Awesome.

And then there's the tension between me and one of the guys in the office. He's not my boss, but he's 'spearheading' the new office plans, so suddenly he thinks he is. His job, just to be clear, is to coordinate with contractors, designers, vendors, etc. His job is not to tell me what to do. But apparently that's what he thinks it is. And he's such a fucking prick about it, I just want to strangle him. Mind you, this is someone I have gotten along with up until this point. But he has chewed me out every day this week. For nothing. Because I did something he didn't like. And he did it twice publicly.

Our weekly staff meeting (where my actual boss was absent): "Lisa, I know you have a lot of things that need to be unpacked"
I come in, haven't even set my purse down: "Um, Lisa, you left a box where I don't like it" (and was too fucking lazy to just move it 50 feet to the place where I wanted it)
Yesterday, at a meeting in front of everyone: "Lisa, I don't want to single you out, but..."
And today, when I was signing for a UPS delivery: "Um, these boxes don't go here" (I hadn't even finished signing my name and was getting yelled at)

Then there was the day I was talking to my actual boss about the possibility of installing a permanent theater in the new space (my boss' idea, but one I'm excited about). Boss and I were talking, discussing the theater, and said prick overhears (as aforementioned--there is no such thing as a private conversation in this place), and starts to go berserk about the 'plan' for the place and how the theater won't work and this is so terrible and I need to re-think what I'm doing and blah blah blah. And the conversation didn't even concern him. And he basically told the boss that the boss' idea is bad. What an asshole. Suddenly I was in the middle of a pseudo-argument about whether or not we should have a theater and how film exhibition doesn't fit into our mission statement, and basically I'm unnecessary. It feels great to have your contribution marginalized. Fucking great. Don't worry about the fact that showing films is what this organization has been doing for 18 years, or that it's what we're known for, and it's the main source of income (other than grants) that our organization has. As my boss said "If there's one thing we know how to do, it's exhibition" But this jerk is insisting that suddenly we're a place for workshops and that is going to bring in so much money that I can't do anything if it competes with that (i.e. we can't have more than one thing going on in the place at the same time, god forbid).

I got more respect when I worked in catering. How pathetic is that?

So yes, I started thinking about going somewhere else for money. Because apparently I have to go somewhere else if I want respect.

Add that to the fact that I have been forbidden from talking about my trip to Spain at work because someone got jealous, even though that's an important part of my job and I'm the only one who can go. But somehow I'm the bad guy because I have the right knowledge and skills to go to a film festival and do what I have to do. Those people could have gone to grad school and spent a ridiculous amount of money doing so to get the same skills, but they didn't. They could deal with the stress of putting together a festival and trying to make sure everything goes smoothly while working 14 hours days for 2 weeks straight, but they don't. They leave a 5 and go to their boring little lives, then bitch about how I get to do all the 'fun' stuff. I fucking deserve it.

You know anyone who's hiring? I can start as soon as I get back from Spain.