Day 289

My phone rings at eleven, right in the middle of my zombie hours. It's Victor and he's asking if I want to get lunch. "I'm already near the Marina, I can get you in fifteen minutes." Struggling to get up and thinking about how toasted I'll be the rest of the day, I muttered, "Sure."

The lure of Halo and a ride around town was enough to motivate me to get up and out. I packed my bag for a possible slumber party. An extra t-shirt, socks, and contact case. Plus my laptop and assorted chargers of course. I'd been over earlier in the week so a toothbrush, towel, and pair of shorts were already waiting for me. His Anne is gone to Taiwan for two weeks on vacation, my (by default) George is in London, working her accounting magic. This has left both Victor and I apartments to ourselves. Our answer to all this alone time? Hang out a lot together.

I'd stayed up the previous night watching "Quiet City," two-and-a-half times in a row. It's a walky and talky movie, my favorite mini-genre. Just two strangers meeting in a city and then wandering and exploring (each other), almost in real time. The list of movies that previously fit this category probably numbered less than five. Then I read about mumblecore a few weeks ago, after watching Medicine for Melancholy at the Roxie, and decided I needed to know more.

Shot gorgeously with consumer cameras, on limited budgets, and focusing on the lives of twenty-something hipsters, this was the movie movement I wanted to belong to. But if I was too young for Before Sunrise/Sunset, I've suddenly become too old for melancholy and dance party usa. What the hell happened? How had the intervening decade managed to go by without me doing anything? It made me feel pathetic.

Then it made me feel inspired. After watching the movie once through, and then staying fully awake for the actor's commentary, and some of the director/cinematographer/sound design guy's commentaries, I knew what I had to do. I had to make my own mumblecore movie -- okay, short -- with D.I.Y. rigs, improvised dialogue, and whatever else I had to patch together.

I wanted to do it even if I had to get in front of the camera, something I loathe, just to have some material to work with. Once I hopped into the car, I started babbling to Victor about all this stuff. I think I did a terrible job explaining why I was so impressed by "Quiet City." But in the ten minutes it took for us to drive out to meet Ameer for lunch, he had agreed to watch it. I didn't mention that it was a little long and boring in parts.

Tentative working title for our tentative to be done project: "Dumbledore." Just kidding. Or maybe not.