Pirates and Projects and Teens, Oh My!

Wow - over a week without an exciting post to fill the time. But in all honesty, I've been so busy living the excitement that I have either lacked the time or energy to post at a given moment.

So here's what the last week and a half brought:

Did the Twelfth Night Cabaret fundraiser last Friday, put on 30lbs of costume and gear and did my thang. I haven't heard the final numbers, but I think we came close to our $20K goal. I had a serious temporal wtf experience in looking at one of the players, John, who is 16 with the requisite acne and braces. The same age and condition I was in when Sam & I got together. It blew my mind.

Kayleigh had a pirate-themed birthday party on Saturday; four 10yo girls dressed as pirates, hopped up on sugar. And two 13yo boys trying to eat me out of house and home while leaving messes behind (during my cleanup for K's party especially). You see, Tyler chose that weekend to have Project Halo, wherein he and his best bud Miles stocked up on oh-so-healthy chips and soda, and proceeded to play all three Halo games in their entirety in 48 hours. And me the only adult. So that was fun. Hang on, let me lay down for a minute.

Sunday I had a very productive 2-hour production meeting over lunch at the Swell with a couple creative professionals I really dig - one of whom I've known for 7 years, the other I met in recent weeks (but am very familiar with her previous work). Unfortunately, I cannot say more about the project at this time, but it's looking like a lot of fun and a great opportunity.

Simultaneously, there has been interest in Duo, the film we were working on when Sam died, from a production company in Seattle. They want to add it to their pitch roster to a funding source, as most of the projects are pretty heavy dramas and they need a romantic comedy to balance things out a bit. Duo does have a lot of elements in its favor: it's pretty much ready to rock, pending an editing pass to finesse and tweak a few bits; despite some interpersonal drama in the story, it's a pretty light, feel-good screenplay without being saccharin or predictable; three of the principal actors Samantha cast are willing (and excited) to come back and do the project. The deal is that if Duo gets funded, I will direct. To think of what I could do with that film with a proper budget...

Still working on the OA feature script, as well as a classic scifi parody screenplay. Plate full, certainly. But carved out enough time to have a coffee date with someone from Match. Nice gal, intelligent, well-traveled and with a common music culture. Spent a great deal of time in Heidelberg, Germany, my own hometown. You don't find a lot of folks out here in Seattle who can say they hail from Heidelberg, Germany, so I figure it's worth exploring a bit. We'll see - I'm certainly in no hurry.

Took the Sportaaj into the shop yesterday for an oil change and to replace the driver's side seatbelt, which hasn't retracted properly in awhile. Turns out the faulty retractor can cause the entire airbag system to not work, so it's good I'm having it done - it's a warranty fix anyway, so I'm not out any money. Unfortunately they were missing a part and had to overnight it, which means I'm in a loaner: an ugly as f**k white Taurus with a cassette deck. Anyway, the repair should be done today or tomorrow.

I close on my refi today. Thanks to Carrie, one of my widda pals from Gilda's, who happens to be a mortgage banker and got me a nice 30-year fixed. Beats my current ARM, and it will allow me to pay off the stupid lien on my house from the rebuild. Then I won't have to fight on two fronts and can concentrate on my settlement with RestorX (for which I've hired a local attorney).

I'm checking off the to-dos and lining up really cool professional projects. Aside from getting over a nasty flu bug and a sore shoulderblade, life is good.