45

You know, I'm really happy with where I am.  Not just geographically, but in life.  I'm especially happy with the woman I chose to spend the rest of it with, and who chose me right back.  But some days require remembrances, and this is one of them.  And the aforementioned woman to whom I'm married is incredibly supportive of the need to remember.  She knows it's not about her, or any kind of comparison.  It's about family, and history, and respect.  And I love her for that.

Samantha would have turned 45 today.  I was in a very different place when I marked her 40th.  I was far angrier.  At an unfair Universe.  At the cancer that claimed her life.  At myself for surviving.  But here, five years later, I'm much more at peace.  I no longer write first-person letters to her.  I rarely feel her presence anymore.  I don't think it will ever seem fair, and I will never forget over twenty years with my high school sweetheart - which includes two children who are almost adults themselves.  It's important to mark these days, and to remember.  If only to contrast the present with the past.  It's all about perspective.

Happy Birthday, Sam.

The Eagle Has Landed

And welcome to the first post of 2012.  Our New Year holiday was low-key and intimate, much like our Christmas (and the older I get, the better I feel about that).  We hung out at Dan & Trish's with some friends, and, since I was fighting a headache, I stuck to water and remained the DD for the evening.

The second draft of the Green Light screenplay is done, now we're really starting to hone the work.  We've shown it to a small, select handful of our filmmaking peers, and there is some buzz about it, which feels good.  Of course, writing even a fictional version of real events tends to dredge up some of that stuff, which knocked me emotionally off-kilter for a few days.  Now things are mostly back to normal...

"Must. Have. Coffee."

"Normal" being the occasional wake-up call at 3, 4 or (if I'm lucky) 5AM.  This morning it was 3.  I know when this happens, I can usually parlay it into some productive time while the rest of the household is still sleeping, but it still messes with my ideal schedule.

And today I realized that I used to be an incredibly sound sleeper.  Never really had a problem with 3AM awakenings until after Samantha died.  Go figure.  There's likely some hyper-vigilant sense being triggered. 

Not sure what I'm going to do about it yet.

Mid-Holiday Lull

So here we are in the eye of the storm, between the craziness of Christmas and the New Year.  Life has kept us all busy during the past few months, and I've actually felt the itch to blog far more often than in 2010.  I'm making regular posting a priority for 2012.

After two years of being tardy with the holiday spirit, we actually started decorating the day after Thanksgiving.  Hosting a holiday party on December 3rd gave us the perfect motivation for getting the tree up, the lights on the outside of the house, and festive lit garlands inside.  And the party was, I believe, a rousing success - what with the fifty-some people crowded into our tiny main floor, the Winter Warlock theme cocktail* and the karaoke machine going full blast in the living room.  At one point, someone found me in the kitchen and said, "you need to come see this..."  I pushed through the crowd of stunned onlookers snapping photos with phones and digital cameras to see my 17 year old son giving a karaoke performance for the ages.  As longtime readers know, Tyler is not the most outgoing or social person, and coupled with his hatred of crowds and the normal teen angst, performing FOUR karaoke numbers in front of fifty plus people was not exactly high on my List of Things I Thought I'd See, Ever.

But when it came time to pile into the car and head north to Bellingham for Christmas Eve, my boy was back to his hermit persona.  Which we're actually learning to be okay with.

Said Christmas Eve celebration in Bellingham was a lovely gathering at my mom & stepdad's place (formerly my grandparents' home), including my sister & niece, brother & sis-in-law, stepmom and grandmother.  We shared a wonderful meal, exchanged gifts, drew names for next year's exchange, and headed home.

On Christmas day, we stayed home and didn't do a thing.  Oh, we did the stockings and gift thing, I cooked breakfast, and we mostly lounged around in our pajamas all day, watching movies.  Kayleigh got The Lion King blu-ray, and I was the happy recipient of Thor, Amadeus, Stand By Me and Citizen Kane bu-rays.  Kayleigh also got a bit choked up when she found a framed version of this photo in her stocking:

Kayleigh with Bob Schneider at the Triple Door, Seattle (2011)

It was perfect.  And Boxing Day was perfect too.  Now we have a short week, and the New Year this coming weekend.  My New Year was back on November 1st, but what the hell?  It's a reason to celebrate with friends.

Then, in a few short weeks, we'll be in production on The Collectibles episodes 4-7.  Looking forward to getting back on the set with some terrifically talented people.

And then there's Green Light, the screenplay Raechelle and I have been planning for two years.  We finally outlined it this year, and now the first draft is almost done.  It's the somewhat fictionalized story of what happened to me after Samantha died, and what happened to Raechelle after her breakup with her ex, and how there were several opportunities for a crossover of worlds, but we didn't end up meeting until a certain guy placed an ad for a vocalist on a certain online bulletin board.

Crazy.

Anyway, we're almost done.  When we have a workable first draft, we'll give it to Dan Heinrich and Lisa Coronado to look at.  From there it will be honed, sharpened, shopped, sold and produced.  Hopefully here in Seattle.  Although the Washington State legislature just tied our film industry tax incentives to a homeless spending bill and drowned it to death.  But that's a topic for another post...

Season's Greetings!

As Promised...

Here's a shot of me actually wearing the Vincent Price Gothic Steampunk Monster Hunter costume from the Halloween party last Saturday.

With my hot flapper wife.

And lest I forget, I've been directing this for the past couple months.  We open on Friday night and close on Halloween.  If you live in the Seattle area and want to experience a very cool performance, you have a small window of opportunity. Tickets available here.

Halloweeny Goodness

It's that time of year again.  Last year I had very little time or interest, and ended up with my fallback costume, the Awesome Pirate:

...with his hawt rocker girlfriend.

But this year, I wanted to go a little bit darker, a bit more steampunk-esque, and channel my inner Vicent Price...

Yeah, that's the ticket.

The concept is an early-Victorian monster hunter, in the tradition of the classic Hammer and American International films of the 1950s & 1960s.  It's a concept I hope to parlay into some original fiction, and it starts right here:

 The only newly acquired elements are the velvet-finish top hat, goggles and 19th century vest.  The velvet front-flap Regency trousers were custom made by my high school theater pal Andrea Edelman, who is an amazing historical seamstress and milliner.  The deerskin gloves are part of my pirate/swashbuckler ensemble, as are the replica firearms, black shirt, knives and baldric (in which the pirate cutlass has been replaced with a mallet for stake-driving).  The boots are one of two pair I own for costume work, and are best suited for later-period endeavors (the others being massive gray cavalier boots).  The black suede jacket was one of those amazing $16 Goodwill finds, and is incredibly versatile.  Add in the brass-handled cane, silver cross and bottle of "holy water", and you've got a vampire-slaying, demon-exorcising, ghost-hunting, werewolf-shooting badass.  Can't wait to show it off at the neighbors' Halloween party on Saturday.  More pics (with me actually wearing the costume) to come, I promise.

Flashbacks

Had a burst of creative energy yesterday and finished the outline of Green Light, which I followed up by actually drafting the first five or so scenes - with dialogue.  And of course when I write, I require a music playlist of appropriate mood.  And since Green Light is about the end of one life and the beginning of another (as referenced in Rhymes With Drowning and My New Life Out Here), there are some tracks in the mix which perhaps have more emotional power than would normally be expected.

Like this one:



When the time we have now ends
When the big hand goes round again...

Can you still feel the butterflies?
Can you still hear the last goodnight?

I know people get married to the song, but it has a different meaning for me.