First Order of Business

Item 1: The Nashville Film Fest

Is over. BUT, Dan and I did manage to catch the Animated Expressions I program last Saturday night. There were a bunch of other films I wanted to see including the Animated Expressions II program, but alas, due to lack of planning combined with work, class, and tennis schedules – we didn’t make it to any of the other films. I refuse to attend a film at 10:15 pm on a Sunday night when I not only have to be up early but have to be focused and moderately productive for at least 8 hours the next day. Not gonna happen.

The animated shorts we saw were, for the most part, creative and entertaining. The program opened with British filmmaker Selina Cobley’s Crow Moon which was stark and elegant and I thought was a good choice for an opener. Then we were treated to such concentrated cinematic gems as Signe Baumane’s Teat Beat of Sex and Michelle Meeker’s When I Grow Up.

I was thoroughly enjoying myself until the closing piece, Chainsaw by Australian filmmaker Dennis Tupicoff, took up the screen for 23 minutes (incredibly lengthy in the world of animated shorts). It was rough, and not because it was long. Maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this particular short, but between the baby bird killings and the graphic bull fights, it really put my teeth on edge and generally rendered me fussy and irritable. I can’t help it, I’m hyper-sensitive to that kind of stuff even if it’s only animation (which is why I could never stomach cartoons like Tom & Jerry or Bugs Bunny as a kid – way too violent. I’ll take Strawberry Shortcake and The Smurfs thank you very much).

After such a jarringly violent end to the evening, I wanted Indian food at our favorite Indian restaurant (see previous post for details) to soothe my battered senses. This prospect cheered me up considerably until we got there and found out there was no parking for miles around. Seriously. The streets were just crawling with people. Which, granted, it was a Saturday night, but there were nightmarishly large crowds of people EVERYWHERE. Needless to say, we drove home in irritated defeat.

Item 2: Tennis

Slowly improving and enjoying myself more as I get back into the swing of things, as it were.

Last Tuesday, even though my forehand was giving me problems (my timing was way off and I kept swinging up over the ball thus hitting it on the outside of my racket instead of hitting in the middle, where one is supposed to hit it), my serve was spot on. I was consistent. My second serves rocked. I had great spin and speed. So even though the rest of my game was sucky to mediocre, at least I was able to bask in my glorious serve. Yeah, I'll take it.

Item 3: Haircut

Heather walked by my desk last Wednesday a mere hour or two before I was leaving to go get my hair cut. She sighed, “ohhhh…I’m so jealous. I love getting my hair cut, it’s so relaxing”. Huh!? Are you kidding me!? I start stressing about my haircut the minute I hang up the phone after having made the appointment. Haircuts make me tense and self-conscious and irritable. I almost always leave feeling like an ugly duckling.

Perhaps if I didn’t have shitty hair, haircuts would be relaxing for me. But, I do in fact have shitty-ass hair that stylists are forever visibly frustrated with. They start out excited to try new cutting techniques and new products specially formulated for curly hair, but by the end of my typical 3 hour appointment, they are ready to shave my head. The products don’t work as anticipated, the cuts don’t work properly with my non-uniformly curly head, even the flat irons and curling irons fail to satisfy them. And I can tell. And they sigh. And say things like, “I don’t understand, it worked well on my other curly haired client”, or “well, we could always take a little more off here…or here”, or “any ideas?”

So the stylist I went to last Wednesday, despite having a really great personality, layered the hell out of my hair which does not and never has worked on shitty hair like mine (and I mentioned this fact to her several times) and gave me pseudo-bang-like things where my hair is its curliest. Yep.

So there ya go. Another devastatingly stressful hair experience. I give up.

Item 4: ACE Mentors Scholarship Banquet

Was last night and appeared to be a success. Our team of high school students gave their presentation and while their public speaking skills were woefully under-developed, the powerpoint they put together was probably the best one of the evening.

I expected to be under-whelmed with our team’s showing this year at the Banquet, mostly because they have been alarmingly unmotivated this year. I don’t know what the deal was, but we just didn’t have any of those kids who are natural leader types or natural over-achiever types in our group and it really showed. But, the evening went fine, their presentation, while not stellar was fine as well and maybe next year we’ll have students who are more interested in design rather than playing beer pong on the computer.

Item 5: Jim Wallis

He’s speaking at Belmont University tonight…for free. I don’t know a whole lot about him, but I caught a snippet of his interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and he sounds interesting. So, I’ll let you know.

Happy Friday. Meeting adjourned.