If I Were a Boy

The other night I was out at a bar listening to a band, and, after a few drinks, I was relaying some of my dating debacles to one of my guy friends. We hadn't hung out in a bit so he needed to be caught up on quite a few of my latest dates. When I was done with my tales he looked at me and said, simply, "Wow." Then he made me a sincere and interesting offer - he said that he would look over potential dates to translate their profiles from guy-speak to Julie-speak.

Interesting.

It made me think... are some of my dates not working out simply because I'm unable to read boy code? Can he offer me the online dating equivalent to the secret decoder ring in the box of Cheerios? Are men and women really so different that even a general dating profile needs to be translated for the opposite sex?

One general difference I've noticed between the ex's is that, what would take me and a number of girlfriends 20 words to say, would take my male friends about 5 words. Neither is better per se, but when you're trying to decipher a dude's profile - where only words and maybe some pics are available to you - I figured it'd be helpful to get a guy's interpretation on a dude's potential for me.

I took my friend up on his offer and showed him three profiles of potential matches. In less than 24 hours, I got the following interpretation from him:


Guy 1:
He looks like Larry David. He’s the guy you meet in a bar who looks like Larry David. Never mention Larry David when you’re trying to meet a lady. Larry David.

Guy 2:
He wants to date Jennifer Garner. He thinks he’s Ben Affleck.

Guy 3:
He’s at the store every Weds when the new comic books come out. Really (I mean REALLY) out of shape and if you’re lucky, has good hygiene.


In guy-speak terms, I went from considering a funny guy, a nice guy and a slightly dorky guy to a Larry David look-a-like, a guy I'm sorely mismatched with since I look nothing like Jennifer Garner and an out-of-shape, stinky comic book addict.

Now I'm wondering - has adding the guy-speak translation helped or hurt my cause?

What do you think? Do I need a man to meet a man?

That Couple Is Cheating On Me

I was part of a great foursome. And by that, I don’t mean some dirty foursome, as in swing-this-way-foursome. My ex and I had a couple that we got along with perfectly. There was no - ‘oh, the women are friends, so the husbands have to hang out’ or ‘he’s nice but man, she’s a nightmare.’ We all genuinely liked each other. Even our dogs got along. We’d go out to dinner, have game nights, movie nights, simple hang out nights and sometimes, we’d separate and do just the girls while the guys hung out.

Now our foursome is a threesome...again, not the dirty kind. The couple is like family to me and I still love hanging out with both of them and try to do it as often as possible. And while I think I’m pretty fun to hang out with, I can’t morph myself into two people (and I certainly can’t morph myself into being a dude). Naturally, my friends found another go-to couple for their game nights and such. Naturally. Yet, I find myself... jealous. Is that weird? My girlfriend and I have spoken about the breakup of my marriage often, but recently the discussion was less about my feelings regarding said breakup, or the transition to singlehood and more about what a bummer the breakup of the foursome has been. It’s really a big ol’ bummer. She concurred.

When I go on dates now, I find myself not only looking for someone that could possibly be a good fit for me, but I try to suss out whether they’d be a good fit for my friend’s husband. I want to ask... “so, um... Do you like strategy games? Are you up on technology? Could you say, have a well thought out conversation about a good graphic novel you’ve read recently? Do you even read graphic novels? And if no, would you be willing to have a go at reading one soon?”

And do I add these questions before or after the question about whether he’s okay with my dog sleeping in the bed (see previous entry if confused)?

Oy. I should just create a questionnaire. Or better yet, maybe I’ll just bring my friend’s husband and my dog on the date with me. Just get it all figured out right then and there.

Thoughts?

Locked in the Bathroom

Since I’ve gotten my little sky diving confession out of the way, I guess the next thing to talk about is what I’ve been doing these past nine months. Although I’ve been absent here, I’ve thought a lot about the documentary and have done some more shooting. In thinking about it, I realized that while documenting how I’m handling life’s curveballs is interesting, finding out how other people handle them is even more fascinating to me. So... Keeping that in mind I’ve spent much of my BLP shooting time interviewing other people. I talked to my sister, my brother-in-law, some friends, my parents and even some of my parents’ friends.

One interview that really stuck with me was with my mom’s best friend, Barbara. Her first husband passed away from a brain tumor when I was around 13 years old. For me, his illness and subsequent death was significant not only because they are like a second family to me, but also because it was my first real experience of life not working itself out. I remember saying to my father offhandedly when they told me about John’s illness, “Okay, but he’s gonna get better, right?” I assumed my father was going to say something along the lines of, ‘of course’ or ‘it’s going to be difficult, but yes eventually...’. You can imagine then the punch in the gut it was to hear, ‘ we don’t know.’ The air of not knowing if something was going to work out entered my atmosphere and has remained to this day.

When I talked to Barbara about that same event, it was so interesting to get her perspective on the entire experience. She’s happily married to a great man now, but at the time, she was taking care of a dying spouse while raising three teenage girls. And even though I was there, and lived through it, the thought of what that must have been like for her is mind boggling. How did she get through it? How did she manage? How did she not lock herself in the bathroom and refuse to come out? And here’s what she said:

I had diarrhea every day for a year.

I should tell you here, that Barbara is a very honest and generous person, but mostly, she’s hilarious and a lot of fun to be around. She’s not very shy when it comes to her bodily functions and so, when she answered with what could have been considered a sarcastic or glib response, I knew she was being totally serious. Her emotionally gut-wrenching experience became a physically gut-wrenching experience.

For Barbara, best laid plans turned into mourning and diarrhea. It seems that even your intestines are not safe from your life going awry.

Milestone in Post Production

The short film I wrote and directed, titled, Milestone is very close to being finished. Alicia is furiously editing it and Banana Whale is providing the music, and there’s color correction happening, and foley being added...all sorts of fabulous post-production things are occurring. So, that means it will soon be reaching its finished line; which is thrilling for me!

I’ve been getting asked a lot about what the experience of directing was like and usually I respond with very short answers like ‘I liked it,’ or ‘I learned a lot’, or some sort of something that was positive but general and allowed the person to get on with their life. Lately however, while sitting with Alicia and going through the fine tuning process I’ve realized something... The biggest thing I’ve learned about directing is that the number 1 thing you need to do is surround yourself with people who are both honest and smarter than you. It can be hard to see the forest for the trees when you are listening to your own words and watching performances that you’ve directed. As I expected, there were moments that I would’ve done differently if I had to do it over again and there were lines that, once they moved from the page to the screen were no longer necessary. While I, on my own, could’ve sussed some of these things out, the fact that I had Alicia sitting there with me, offering her thoughts and concerns helped immensely. With her editor’s eye she was able to not only offer suggestions, but was actually able to put those suggestions into the video so I could see them in action. That was amazingly helpful!

So... to all of you newbie directors out there like me... do not operate as a one person show – surround yourself with people that think like you – only better, faster and smarter. You’ll thank me later!

Best Laid Plans (Part 4)

Joe and Julie Go to Ghana

In order to do a documentary about going on a trip, you must have someone there doing the documenting.  This someone is a sweet-tart-eating, pancake-loving, root-beer-drinking dude named Joe.  Let me be clear on this - the list of foods and beverages that Joe will take into his body can be counted on one hand.  Pancakes: Yes. Sweet Tarts: Yes.  Root Beer: Yes.  Pizza: Yes.  Salmon: Yes.  Everything else: NO.  Many questions arise from this list, such as how salmon somehow got an acceptance letter to Joe's stomach but say, Milky Way bars didn't.  

Now, if Joe were standing over me as I wrote this, I'm sure he would throw some more foods and beverages onto this sad little pile, but there wouldn't be many.  In fact, a typical non-work conversation between Joe and I goes as follows:

Me: "Hey Joe, what about lasagna? Will you eat lasagna?" 

Joe: "No. Gross."

Me: "But you eat pizza and it has basically the same ingredients."

Joe: "But pizza's not gross."

Me: "What about vegetables? Don't you eat any vegetables?"

Joe: "No. I talk alfalfa pills."

Me: "Joe, you need to be studied by the AMA."

Joe: "Bring it on."

Somehow, every conversation degrades into me telling Joe that the American Medical Association should study him and Joe expounding on the power of alfalfa pills.

So, when I was first thinking about doing this documentary and initially talked to Joe about whether he was interested in going with me, my first question was not, 'are you interested?' or 'how do you envision this,' it was "what in the hell are you going to eat???"

Joe promises me that he will "iron man it" as he likes to say, but we've been planning this documentary for awhile now and I have yet to see him show the slightest bit of interest in any foods outside of his safety list.  So now on my Ghana 'to do' list I have: visas, shots, permissions  and ensuring that Joe doesn't whither away and die from lack of food and drink.  I have also promised him one carry-on bag filled with Sweet Tarts, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've wondered if Customs will assume that Joe and I are somehow carting drug laced candies with us, since nobody would understand needing to carry an entire bag of Sweet Tarts with them.  Though I also realize that I tend toward worrying... while Joe tends toward... relaxing.

Yes, this is going to be a great partnership.