What happened in between, the last part (seriously)

In order for a relationship between two people to survive, the key is for both of them to keep moving forward.

Life and history are full of little ironies. America's nationwide prohibition of alcohol ended because of a vote in Utah, best known for its population of teetotaling Mormons. The first and last men to die building the Hoover Dam were a father and son, exactly 13 years apart. Jesus of Nazareth, a peaceful man and carpenter, was nailed to a wooden instrument of torture and death. In 1854, the U.S. brought Japan out of isolation with a fleet of ships; 87 years later, the Japanese returned the favor. Henry Ford once proclaimed history was bunk, yet he is now inextricably part of it thanks to his advocacy of the assembly line and a livable wage. And my romance with the woman who said those words up above died in part because she was herself unable to move forward.

What happened in between, part 2

Love is blindness, I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night around me
Oh, my heart
Love is blindness…
—U2, "Love is Blindness"

Bono had a point when he wrote that song back around 1990. Love, or being in love, blinds you to (some of) the realities of your relationship with that person, and yet not seeing those realities is exactly what you want. You just want to stay blissfully ignorant, awash in all of the positive sensations. And for the last year Roxanne and I were together, I think that's pretty much how I was: blind and enjoying it. Because in hindsight, I see now there were a couple of moments well before the breakup when I should have realized that the last words of our story were not going to be "…and they lived happily ever after."

(Side note: check out both the original version of that song, from their 1991 masterpiece Achtung Baby, and Jack White's cover from the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby.)

What happened in between, part 1

I went from April 2012 to August 2013 without writing an entry here, and kind of a lot happened in that gap. Here are some of the highlights…and lowlights.

Three years

(NOTE: Yeah, yeah, been a while. I'll cover what happened since April 2012 in the next post.)

Three years ago today, I went on my first date with Roxanne. We drove down Highway 1, had a beach picnic at a lighthouse, rode roller coasters at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and cuddled under the stars. Lovely day, lovely lady.

Two years ago today, we celebrated our first anniversary. Dinner by the water in Half Moon Bay, small gifts exchanged, hours of passion.

One year ago today, we drove down to Monterey to spend our second anniversary wandering the aquarium, getting great Mediterranean food at this café in Carmel, and getting me through an infected bug bite that threatened to ruin the whole thing.

Today we were supposed to cuddle in a hammock, scarf down obscene amounts of sushi and sashimi, and pack for a 2-day trip to Vegas to celebrate our third anniversary with Cirque du Soleil tickets. Instead I'm home alone, writing this and thinking of what could have been because, as unbelievable as it sounds to those who saw us together since that August day, we broke up last month.

UCLA says no way

Well, it was worth a shot. But until I got the official notice last Friday night (the 20th), I hadn't really been giving it a whole lot of thought. Maybe I knew that it wouldn't happen because I waited three and a half months between submitting my packet for film school and hearing anything at all from Westwood. Maybe that's why I've been focusing more on Santa Barbara, Northridge, Long Beach and Fullerton over the last few weeks.

Just in case, I've accepted SF State's offer. But as much as I love the Bay Area, I need to get out for a while, so my heart is still set on one of those schools down south.

Breaking the Silence

Wow, it really has been forever since I posted here. I hate to sound like a cliché, but so much has happened in the last 13 months. Applied to 8 universities—to date I've been rejected by one (San Jose State) and accepted by two (Cal State LA and San Francisco State), with my Big 3 of UCLA, Cal State Long Beach, and UC Santa Barbara yet to chime in. Celebrated one year together with the fair Roxanne, then marked a year and a half with a weekend getaway to the Mendocino coast. Volunteered at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, made some new friends and professional connections, and even found an actress for my new short.

Yep. Still making movies too. This one hasn't even started filming yet, but the script alone has me in proud-papa mode. It's called Sleigh and Toombs, and it's a dark comedy about two hitmen—well, a hitman and a hitwoman—who take a freelance assassination job, only to find that the target is their boss. Hijinks and gunfire ensue.
I think this is the best thing I've written for school since starting at DVC in '09. Not to be egotistical or anything, but I know I'm a damn good writer, and the quality of this is beyond anything I've (re)written for my film classes or any of the essays I've done for my English classes. To that end, I want to shoot it on higher-quality cameras than the dinky camcorders rented out by the DVC media center—like maybe dad's Canon EOS 7D. Hell, if all goes well I want to submit this sucker to film festivals.
My point is…I can't wait for this film to really take flight. Just like I can't wait for this fall so I can head to university and take flight myself.

Good gravy, now THAT was cliché.

A story pitch!

This semester I'm taking Film-292, Introduction to Digital Filmmaking, at DVC. We're covering every aspect of the movie-making process, from pitching a story to editing and finalizing the actual film, and over the course of the semester we'll be making 3 short films. My first, a 1-minute "magnum opus" involving two guys, a candy bar, and a mousetrap, got finished this past week and will be up on YouTube or Vimeo once I find a slow moment. For the second, a 5-minute silent, we have to come up with a story, pitch it, write a treatment, then a script, and basically learn how the pros do it. Here's my pitch, for your consideration…

We start outside a movie theater at night. Two guys walk out, laughing and smiling, and they get into a car and drive off. Cut to the car pulling into a Denny's and them going in past a guy sitting alone in a booth, followed by cuts first to them in the middle of a meal, then after they've finished eating. The bill comes and they reach for their wallets, only to find they don't have enough cash to cover it. They look lost for a few seconds—until the loner comes to their table, puts their cash under the salt shaker, and takes the bill up to the register to deal with it himself. He comes back with the receipt, grabs his coat and leaves, and the original pair stare at each other in disbelief. They turn the receipt over and find a hand-written note: "Today you, tomorrow me." Cut to the loner walking out into the night, fade out.

Fade in again, a few days later. One of the guys is at home on his computer, reading news on the Internet, when he sees something that makes him almost spit out his drink. He prints out an article and rushes it to his buddy; it's about the loner who paid their bill—turns out he was a multi-millionaire who was found dead the previous night after giving away every last penny of his fortune. The two give each other a "you know what this means, right?" look.

Cut to a night at the same Denny's, a month later. The guy who didn't print out the article sees a young woman having trouble with her bill, just like him and his buddy that one night. He smiles, gets up…
Fade to black.

Thoughts?