So I left off on the Mark Freeman interview.
Later that night, I saw "Keep the Lights On." My first reaction was: woobie of all woobies, Sarah Monette would go apeshit for this. I am mostly able to use normal people words, though I still have some rather strong emotions, which I'll get into later.
"Keep the Lights On" is darkly comedic or comically dark. I thought it was going to be angsty, but I wasn't expecting to care. But the first scene is a guy surfing through a phone sex line, and the audience just started giggling, and I was like "Oh, I'm not the only one who thinks this is funny? All right. I'm down with that." Of course, then the film gets into the Danish puppy-gay's drug addict boyfriend, and their painfully co-dependent relationship, but all the characters are still so fun and quirky that you honestly feel bad for them. At least I did.
Yesterday we interviewed Ira Sachs, the director of "Keep the Lights On." And the actor who played the drug-addict boyfriend of the Danish puppy was there as well. And...I kind of asked him if I could hug him. And I may have said something about puppies. And I feel really awkward and embarrassed about the whole thing, but my only regret is that I didn't get a photo. It's on film, though.
And if you know me, you know that I don't like touching people and I don't like men, so I don't even know why I did that, except that I have a strange relationship with ficitonal characters. I relate to characters better than I do to real people. And an actor, especially a woobie (woobie = kicked puppy. Adorable and tortured.) messes with my perception because he's a person, but he's a character, but he's a person that I can physically hug instead of just feel woobied about. And he's a ginger. Ginger trumps gender.
(I just realized: Ginger + gay + drug addict + abusive co-dependent relationship + prostitution = Felix from Doctrine of Labyrinths. It's a book series by Sarah Monette and one of my favorites of all time, and I think I know why I got all gushy now. Ah well.)
Yesterday was a long day. We were planning on interviewing Frameline volunteers, but we were all too drained, and I had nearly burst into tears during the morning meeting (don't worry; it's all on film), because for the first time I felt like I couldn't handle it. So I only went to one movie, "Children of Srikandi," a documentary about queer women in Indonesia, which was brave and an interesting concept, but no "Kuchu." Very scripted and not informative.
After that I went home and I took time to read a book and be alone, except for when one of the boys barged in my room demanding to know why I wasn't out having fun. Because my idea of fun doesn't involve alcohol and penises? Spending time with a book for the first time in over a week was glorious.
But if "Kuchu" made me want to become an activist, "Lights" made me want to write again. I haven't been able to write since I got here, not just because I've been so busy but because my mind feels really unstable right now. Not in a bad way, just that it's changing so fast and being opened to so many things, I cannot focus on the creative process long enough to create something. I'm thinking so much, but I don't have time to process anything, and writing is just a way to process life, isn't it?
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