Firsts

Tallis, yesterday, saw his first real Impressionist Paintings at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, as well as the most amazing thing to me, after more years than I care to imagine, a real Rodin, one of the ubearably lovely sculptures of God's hand creating Adam and Eve. I was honored to be there with him for his first real Amazing Encounter With French Artists *huge grin*.

The day before we had the last of the campus tours, at Brown - here are photos of one of the seven tours given that day. Yeah, there is some competition. Tallis says it might scare him into trying for better grades :) We went to two lectures at Brown and enjoyed them both, one was on auditory science and one was, I believe, on communication patterns or something, hard to tell as it was taught by a T.A.

And now we are back.

And next weekend Ben takes "Dark Horse" to the International Family Film Festival in L.A., and I take it to the Women's International Film Festival in Miami. We have to divide and conquer because they take place on the same weekend.

College Tour Report

On the Epic New England Colleges Tour:

I am full of lobster in Providence, R.I., after making Cthulhu-mask faces at my insanely-hilarious son during dinner and watching Tallis totally embarrass himself trying to eat snowflakes (insert in-joke).

It was the perfect dinner, we were deeply silly. Tallis has shown me his web comics late at night, and we have watched “House” several times online, and “Dollhouse”, which was enjoyable, but the best time so far was tonight, we were gigglingly happy, and it was like it used to be when we were punchy on the way to SCA camps of yore. This was the first time he had ever tasted lobster, and he told me the long long joke about the desert snake, and educated me about the Bush Sumo and Finger-Jousting Rituals. Much fun.

I love this, and I have missed this so very much . . . very grateful for this young man and his amazing mind and heart.

So far he ADORES Williams College, does not like Middlebury, likes Amherst pretty well except for the small interior spaces, and found Wesleyan to be kind of blah today. All except for the graveyard right outside the window of Joss Wheedon’s former dorm, where he is purported to have gotten the inspiration for “Buffy”.

On the drive to Providence, we talked about Theo, and how psyched we both are that he wants to learn piano, and God and I had a discussion for an hour afternoon in the silent car as Tallis wrote a short story for school.

Things are so much better than the first day of the trip at Middlebury, when I was all by my lonesome and sad. Walking around campuses with him is really rather educational, and I LOVED going to the two classes I was allowed to at Amherst, Neurology and Computer Science. I could actually almost understand the JAVA they were teaching, knowing something about semantics and logic, which delighted me no end. And oh, did I want to be going back to college!

Not thinking about anything but this moment is the key to this trip. When I think about the future without him living at home it does not work. Laughing about our newly-developed Cthulhu finger masks really helps.

Now he is over there playing his new game "Goo", which we both think Theo will love. And we are contemplating our last day, tomorrow, at Brown, and then we fly home.

And then I am back on the Festival Circuit!

So it Goes

WELL then. Heh heh. The second screening yesterday had all of 5 people, including me. It began 44 minutes late, and the projectionist began to freak out as the 7pm hour came and went, as we all had to be across town at the gala. But they soldiered through, though we had to remind them to give us all voting cards for the Audience Award. I know I got 7 votes at least since that was the number of gushing audience I had :)

I had no idea how to drive to the gala so I caught a ride with my friend Bill the actor/director, and we waited around a long time while his parents had some mysterious errand, then finally gave up and went to the gala. The food was served right when we got there, a lucky thing. I knew no-one at my table of course, but they were very nice anyway, it was the crew of the scary murdering-woman short film.

And though we were up for two awards, we didn't win, and I did not cry, though of course I was crushed. Larry would tell me to just shake it off, I told myself, and I was a very "Big Dog" (as my Dad would have said) and went to congratulate Bill for his Best Cinematography award, and spoke to the nice folks I had made contact with, some of whom sound very interesting to know in the future. Fingers crossed.

Then I got a ride with one new friend and went to bed as early as I could, as I had to get up early this morning. I made sure to order a wake-up call so I could pack and have breakfast and be leisurely.

The wakeup call never came.

I bolted upright, threw things at luggage, beetled to check out, and bombed down the freeway to West Palm Beach Airport. Flung the rental car at them, raced to the security line, made it through fine, and got to the gate, and of course the flight is delayed for over an hour. I sure hope I make my connection in Atlanta!

Now I am here waiting . . .

These hard things keep happening, you literally can't win them all, and I am very thankful that I am flying home to the best family ever, and also four very fuzzy cats, and exciting work with Ben on our Deliverables and all the pre-pre-pro for the next movie.

Wish I were there now . . .