i dunno shit that just didn't add up. i suppose after a few years of therapy i had strength to ask questions...despite what the answers were going to be. something i couldn't do as a child or young adult. like why was my name changed at 18? who are rose and bud (foster family) and why do i have memories of them? if my dad died when i was 9 why did i find mail from him after '88?
i started looking into my adolescent medical history and came across files that only lead to more questions: why is my father not marked as deceased? why was my case never followed up on? i moved onto my early childhood medical records that i had in nv. i found records on me being admitted to the hospital about every 3 months. a police report was made and because of this it lead me to look into the criminal files on E and discovered, for lack of a better term, the mother load.
it was then that i called the judge who presided over mine and mother's cases. now this is where it gets serendipitously weird.
the judge has a daughter named Kristina. She married my father's eldest son. Her name is Kristina Dominguez.
when i called i simply said that i was Christina Dominguez and was immediately forwarded to judge w by the receptionist who thought i was his daughter. he recognized that it wasn't his Kristina. i didn't know who he was and started asking how i could get a copy of my mother's court transcripts. he replied that he could do better than that had been waiting for my phone call for some time and that he knew people who wanted to get in touch with me.
it was then that i started talking with my father's eldest son and catching up. R, his wife and his daughter came to SF in 2004. we talked for hours each night and after a few months I went to NV with zim to meet my father, rose and bud, judge w and other family.
it was a crazy time and left me with probably just as many questions as it answered.
tell me this rings a bell. i think you may have not been communicating with me during parts of this because you didn't agree with me dating zim...
sent the email off and was returned with a beautiful letter back from Beaner.
she reminded me of my spirit as a child and how much she wished that she had my strength, courage and fearlessness. i forgot that i was those things. best part was that she told me it wasn't a friend she found it was her long lost sister. i had the same sentiments and, between you and me, while writing back - i had to stop and cry several times. it's the best thing that's happened to me this year. i'm already looking forward to visiting her in Oregon this spring.
i refuse to look back on this year in the next coming week. it was a hell of a year with not much forward progress. and as much as i raise my fist at myself and the powers that be i *know* that it was not all in vain. i feel as though a foundation was laid out that will prove beneficial over the next few years, i hope.
events that made me smile this year off the top of my head:
full moon in hawaii for my birthday
my new bass
14' of snow in 14 days for my utah spring visit
my time with morgan
fireworks on the bay while kayaking
rock climbing in la jolla
the burn
dlb's
writing a letter to zach after 12 years
reconnecting with Beaner
my massive exposure to new music
finding out that someone actually reads this load
Check out the story of the guy who made a YouTube video for $300 and landed a $30M deal with Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures. He put up the video on a Thursday and by Monday, he had a bidding war going for him. Pretty cool.
Here's the video:
1) He bought premade 3D models of a robot and a spaceship. You can buy this stuff for pretty cheap over various 3D model sources on the Internet. Actually, you can get a lot of this stuff for free--it just depends on whether you find the model that works for you. He then duplicated and animated them in a 3D program like Cinema 4D, Maya, 3ds Max, Lightwave, etc. If he's a desktop creator, he may have used a program like Adobe After Effects to combine the live video with the CGI. It may have cost him $300 to make the movie, but there's a good chance that he needed about $10k worth of gear to bring it all together. That's assuming it's all done on the cheap with a desktop or three (the render time has to be horrendous for something like this--he would need to work in parallel).
2) He bought a collection of premade explosions. This stuff can be cheap or expensive, depending on where you get it. The explosion that impressed me the most is the domed building. Either he bought one premade (you can sometimes buy a 3D model that comes premade with an animation of it exploding), or he had to make the model of the building (which you can do with the 3D programs listed above), then create an animation of it exploding. If those buildings are not actual models of the buildings in Montevideo, then I'm less impressed. But I'll bet it is.
That animation looks professional. What strikes me as odd is that the green screen of the kid with the robots behind him is not perfect, which tells me that maybe he doesn't do that kind of VFX for a living. But the 3D stuff was great. Getting that kind of smooth motion and explosion action takes some practice...unless he bought it premade. But $300 is not a lot, even in Uruguay, so I'm guessing he had to make at least some of that himself. Very nice work.
3) If he was using After Effects or some such program, he can duplicate actors into a crowd, or maybe he managed to get a lot of people to act for free with no food (feeding a crowd that size would eat his whole budget up in no time). He can also create fog.
The water splashing, and the dust puffing when the robots stamp their feet are nice touches, and probably not easy to do. The camera work is great too because it not only increases the tension, it doesn't let you look too closely at the CGI, which is very important for suspension of disbelief. He got a lot of things right beyond the technical stuff.
Overall, it's great, and he obviously put in a lot of work. Kudos to him. What's strange to me, though, is that so many studios would come to him and offer up so much money over a cool video that had...um...no story. Maybe 2012 did so well (biggest box office hit in the history of both India and China) that they figured stories are overrated (and so darn hard to get right!) so long as you have engaging destruction. Well, they may be right, up to a point.
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com
my best friend from grammar school recently found me. she moved away when we were 13 to Oregon.
i remember getting very serious about riding my bike to oregon to see her. i mapped out a route started doing research on camping, the whole bit. i wouldve done anything for her. i did everything with her and her family. friday bowling nights, dancing madly, piano lessons, doog, the silliness.
how do you catch someone up on 16 years of your life? how do i catch someone up on my life?
btw the dad i thought was dead. found out that he's not. yeah, interesting man met him a few years back...elva? she's well. turns out she was wanted by the nv authorities for child neglect and taking me across state lines and changing my name in '83. i know. i know was a little surprised too. interesting story if you've got the time...
survived the holiday weekend with the box set of six feet under, my running shoes and a giant dose of isolation.
if it were any other time of the year my time spent alone would probably be concerning. i tried to incorporate holiday time with family a few years back and that ended up with a greater division, a black eye and several bruised ribs.
i've gratefully shared numerous holidays with friend's family but there were always awkward reminders of what i didn't have and that somehow made the season that much darker.
i'm accustomed to spending the holidays selfishly alone. it's my time to focus on me while the whole world wraps themselves in themselves.
last year was over 21 days skiing and a quiet utah cabin. this year 30 days of bikram and skiing.
am i distracting myself from loneliness? i am alone but not lonely. i like to think of it as i'm distracting myself from distractions. i hate waking up on my birthday recovering from the emotional blender of the holidays. i want to be clear and focused. In my short years of being an adult, i recognize that for the time being this requires a sabbatical from the month of december.
i notice this sense of shame comes over me especially during the holiday season that i can't shake. i see it. i see where it comes from but i can't stop it from hitting me every year. now until my birthday are the darkest days of the year. typically i will bury myself away, work, travel, avoid having to talk about family or holiday celebrations.
part of what keeps me hidden is fear. i fear that if stay open to this or acknowledge it that i'll be consumed, swept away to a place i can't be reached or saved. like i'll lose my footing and float away to insanity. funny how fear of this irrational unknown is so crippling.
there is always a part of me is grieving no family - the holidays just intensify it. it will be almost 10 years since i cut off communication. i want to stay open to that pain this year and let the light lift some of the shame. i know I haven't done anything wrong but i keep punishing myself (and friends) for shit that is done and over.
i trust myself and know myself to be able to handle what i've been pushing away. it's hard and at the 'end' of it - i know i can't ignore what's through the looking glass.
I'm on the phone - it's you on the other end. You're falling alseep, and for some reason this is a very bad thing. I'm looking for someone who's supposed to be able to help you, while on the phone with you - they're supposed to be somewhere nearby i think. I keep saying your name, but it's not working. That's how it feels - not that you're not answering, but that your name is not working. I'm trying to remember what name i'm supposed to say that will work, but i can't think of it. I think the person i'm looking for knows the name. And it's not Bento.
this dream a friend had of me tickled so many emotions. the kind of emotions that have yet to come in the forms of words. i should have been dreaming this.
I'm still putting it on with what I've been experiencing in my waking life. dischord with my family name, slipping slopes of death, recognition of helplessness in helping myself and this sense that others do not see me as I am.
I enjoyed this more than I thought I would...and I really enjoyed the last third as all of the seemingly disconnected bits came together. I haven't read a book this strongly about "identity" since the Auster binge I went on about 15 years ago. (Speaking of which, his new book is next up in the queue...)
For the first time, I have heavily censored a post. I am strongly pro-1st Amendment, and it doesn't sit right with me to do this. But there is no resolution of this situation that is going to make anyone feel better, so I have decided to respect the wishes of my friend's family and redact the post I wrote about my reaction to my friend's suicide.
It’s taken me long hours to convince myself that this family member’s not-so-veiled threat of litigation over something in which s/he has no rights needs to be translated. This translation should read: “I am in unimaginable pain, and if you do this for me, there’s a chance that the pain might be a little more bearable for today.”
I have been telling myself that compassion for the living is more important than a memorial for the dead. That whatever it is I’m feeling is just a drop in the tsunami of tragic feelings her family is dealing with. Any unkind thing I say to them now will be carried for the rest of their lives, and it can’t be taken back next week after I’ve cooled off. I keep telling myself this, but I still feel raw about it.
Per their request, I am removing almost every detail about her in my post, which makes the whole post quite ironic when read in context. Also at the family’s request, I am removing a heart-felt poem written by her which was posted in the comments section by someone who loved her. It is full of despair and beautifully touching. It is my understanding that this poem was published on the Internet. I firmly believe that a writer who publishes her poem would want it read, felt, and appreciated for as long as possible…
…which brings me right back to the mantra of “Compassion for the living is more important than a memorial for the dead, goddammit.”
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com
This month is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The challenge is to write 50,000 words during the month of Nov. I dove in immediately after the World Fantasy Convention. The great people I met at the convention must have inspired me because I've been on fire since then. I'm writing at a record-breaking speed for me. Yesterday was my most productive day at 3,700 words. That's a long way from the 1,000 word glass ceiling I used to live under.
I'm off to LA tomorrow for a filmmaking seminar so I needed to meet my 25,000 word goal for Sunday by today. Good thing I'm deadline driven. I'm now at 25,349 words. Yay!
Now if I can just keep myself from being distracted by my lust for a new netbook, I'll have a very rough draft of a novel to work with by mid-Dec. I'm keeping my fingers crosssed.
