2002-04-18 - 3:19 p.m.

I think I have spring fever. The weather is warming up, finally (in Texas, we start dreading summer round about February), and I daydream of reading, and lounging, and swimming, and drinking gin and tonics. I�ve been quite busy for a while now � first with the marathon, and then my film class. When you add in South by Southwest, Jeremy & Stephanie�s wedding, and that general expectation that I�ll show up to work most days, I feel like I�ve been on a rollercoaster. Somehow, I still had to find time to work on my final project for the film class, something I was dreading, as it actually required me to "think" and "challenge" myself. For the record, I hate challenging myself. But my film partner Bryan and I managed to finish the script, and scout locations, and find props, and round up actors. And we shot the entire thing in one weekend. I mean, it threatened rain all weekend long, and we didn�t get final confirmation from our main actor until the night before we started shooting, and it�s awfully hard to find white face paint unless it�s near Halloween (although Noxema will work in a pinch, provided you have an amenable actor � thanks, Rob), and Bryan�s car broke down the week before, and�.well, let�s just say that deep down, on some level, I�m sure I had a good time. Despite the tension, and the worry, and the stress, and the overriding feeling that I really didn�t know what the fuck I was doing�um, why do people make movies again?

Actually, it worked out better than Bryan and I ever could have hoped. It didn�t rain, and enough people showed up at kickball to make it look like an actual game was going on (what�s a film without a kickball scene?), and we finished ahead of schedule, and the actors really had a lot of fun with it all, considering we made them get up early two days in a row.

Now all we have to do is edit. And pray that we got all the shots we needed. Because there is no way I�m going to try and spend another weekend shooting pickup shots. Frankly, I don�t need the stress.

This might be more fun if someone else were in charge, and I just had to do what I was told.

So, yeah. I�m really looking forward to summer. Kickball on Thursday nights. Sunday afternoons at Barton Springs, reading the New York Times. Matinees every Saturday afternoon. Road trips in air-conditioned rental cars. Napping after work every day, because it�s just too hot to do anything else.

This feeling of expectation is nice. Enjoy it while it lasts. I�m sure I�ll start complaining about the heat soon enough.

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