For the third semester in a row I only have one girl in a video production class.
WTF?
We can't get ladies into production courses, it seems.
Miracles has the same problem with men.
No boys want to hang out with disabled people.
I guess they're too busy fondling their six thousand dollar cameras and boom poles.
It was my first day back at Miracles and also the big 20th anniversary celebration. Many of the students, volunteers, and community members came out for the lessons, demonstrations, and horse-face cake.
I helped out with the drill team demonstration, which basically meant I walked around with a lead rope for 20 minutes while the very independent students did their thing to some god awful music clearly picked simply because it had the word 'miracle' in the title.
Luckily, I got to stand with one of my favorite students who I haven't seen in months.
And, somehow, in those months he got waaay cooler.
Here's why he is cooler than me:
First he bleached his hair, not white-ish, but yellow. YELLOW, yellow.
Next, he was sporting some neon pink shades (almost famous sunglasses, but pink all over)
Matching stonewashed jeans and jean jacket which had been hand altered with neon orange, yellow, pink, and green signatures and drawings (I assume from his transition center comrades)
Black Chucks with neon pink laces
and, because he has to sit through the same drill team song every week waiting for his own lesson, he had choreographed his own dance which he performed just for the very few of us on top of one of the back tables.
Total rock star.
I swear the guys in the house next to mine have been playing bags everyday for a week straight.
You might say, "Carina, you haven't even been in town for a good bit of the past week!"
I can tell though.
They're just that good.
So, I've been spending the last couple days trying to write/plan my syllabus for fiction video production. I need to come up with three production assignments. I like the standard dialogue assignment, I have to keep the final project do-as-you-wish in under 5 minutes, but really can't stand the typical in camera edit first assignment.
Since I don't actually have a narrative filmmaking background (...shhhh) and really want them to have the freedom to be really creative without coming up with a police chase scene or drunkin-fratboy-rape scene (at least not until their final projects when I lose control, sigh) I have decided to force my background on them.
Assignment One: Take one of the provided Yoko Ono experimental scripts as inspiration for a three part structured narrative.
Here are some examples (and there are so many more):
Film No 4: Bottoms
String bottoms together in place of signatures for petition for peace.
Film No 11: Passing
See the sky from the bottom of a very deep well. A cloud passes through slowly from left to right and disappears.
Film No 12: Your Legs Forever
The camera work of the entire film should constantly go up, up, up non-stop. Collect 367 pairs of legs and just go up the legs (from toes to the end of thighs) pair after pair and go on up until you run through the whole 367.
Film No. 13: Fly
Let a fly walk on a woman's body from toe to head and fly out the window.
I can't wait for this semester's evals.
(Reason # 452 why you should come visit me: Home improvement opportunities)
Sweet rides.
We do what we want.
We hang loose with this guy.
Hot Hugs for all.
Loose seals!
We don't use our hands
...ever
Free rides. (yes)
5 star dining.
We're that close with the Might Mississip.
It's sooo big!
Dreams...
Do come true.
And finally, the best quack money can buy.Well it finally happened.
I am officially a bad mother.
Kitty was arrested this afternoon for wandering and has to spend the night at in jail.
That's not the bad mother part.
I am going to Chicago tomorrow and have to leave before the pound opens.
I have to ask my neighbor (the guy who turned him in in the first place) to take Kitty's proof of shots, new address, and $25 in legal fees to spring him.
But, I'm not coming home until Sunday and haven't made a spare key yet.
So, after neighbor springs Kitty from the joint, Kitty is going to have to figure out a way to shimmy up the side of the building, onto the hot tin room, through the slightly unhooked screen and in through the open window, where he will find a pile of food and a stern note telling him how disappointed (but not mad) I am with him.
And that I love him and will see him soon.
I do what I want. 
View from the front door.
Summer Camp?
Foyer
Stairwell
Of course I found a place for "Moby and Dick"
Kitchen! (Nice carpet, eh?)
Dining area
Close up of stovetop
Because when I drink, I like to sew. Naturally.
Living room. (Notice the high number of gilded mirrors and frames. That's right.)
This picture is really washed out. The blue walls are much more vibrant than that and the couch is slightly less orange looking... slightly)
Daily affirmations
This is the dresser in the bedroom. That's all I can show because my bed isn't coming until tuesday.
How exciting.
I woke up early early early so I could drive in rush hour traffic, hop on the rush hour metro, switch trains and meet Lisa at Union Station for her eight hour layover. I was all the way in the left lane on 395 going north when I see a red pickup truck riding up against the rail to the right. All the sudden the truck hangs a SHARP left, cuts across four lanes of traffic, and T-bones the car DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME. Both the cars spin and crash into the rail. Everybody in the left lane comes to a stop and a car pulls up in the right lane, left side all dented in, and a man gets out and starts yelling at the guy squeezing out his nearly immobile driver side door. The guy who was hit got out and immediately pulled out his cell and I spent the next five minutes trying really hard to get around them.
This is the third car accident I've been bystander to! Could I be cursed?
Watch out!
I had two people last night tell me point blank they liked my hair better when it was long.
Both within 4 minutes of each other.
One of them I didn't even realize I knew.
To give you an idea...
How it started:
I get into the car with the girl I've never worked with before and she asks me how my weekend was.
Me: Really good. I went to my cousins wedding.
Her: I went to a funeral.
And how it ended:
Some dude: Oh my god! I'm so sorry! I saw you earlier and thought you were a BOY!
Me: Why would you tell me that?
Some Dude: It's cause of your hair.
Me: You're not very charming.
Tranny: I'm a post op transsexual.
Tyra: (interrupting to explain to the audience) So that means you have nothing down there.
Tranny: (pause) There's something down there. It's the same thing you have down there.
Tyra: (Pause) Oh... Well... (immediate subject change).
I shouldn't stay up so late.
Drink every time you see a celebrity on the Planet Green channel.
I wonder if it counts as community service?
I'm quietly sitting at the kitchen table this morning when I hear the sound of a loud truck. Because I'm 12 and expecting a Wii to come in the mail any day now, I jump up and run to the front window.
Outside a dump truck comes to a stop. The backend rider flings a snake from the truck into my front yard and hops off after him. The man then grabs a plastic snow shovel and proceeds to beat the living shit out of the snake. Using the blade end of the shovel he is clearly trying to chop the head off, but because it's plastic all he seems to be doing is breaking bones.
"Jesus Christ." I say out loud.
Naturally my mother comes over.
"What's he doing? Is he killing that snake? Where did it come from? What's he doing?"
The snake is barley moving, but not dead. Since the plastic shovel isn't working he returns to the truck and pulls out a metal ended one. It's much heavier and he hits the snake once more in the head. Then, just for kicks, he goes along the length of the nearly still body, leaving visual divots as the shovel crushes ribs and back bone against the concrete sidewalk. Satisfied, he jumps back on the truck and drives away.
Outside the snake is still for a moment. We soon realize his is paralyzed, but not dead as the delicate tip of his tail slowly rises. He carefully wags it back and forth, the very tip flops over so it's nearly grazing the concrete. Eventually the tail lays down and the snake makes one last effort, squeezing his entire body and arching about an inch off the ground. He finally relaxes and lays still.
My mother and I close the plantation shutters and return to the interior of the house.
***
That night myfather threw the snake into a creek behind a neighbor's house while my mother made spaghetti for family dinner.
I opted for a sandwich instead.
