Free Stuff

Do I love free stuff or what?

Chen Kaige's new movie, unimaginatively titled "Together," is having a preview tonight. We saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September. In the Globe and Mail on Saturday was an ad promising free double passes to the first 75 people at the TVA Films offices on Monday morning at 9 a.m. Since the offices are across the road from my job, I decided to go.

Wow! I've discovered the free people! What a wild, motley crew. They come from all different strata of society and they represent ages from 18 to 75. And some of them are clearly professionals at the game because they all know each other. "You heading off to the free breakfast for Bicycle to Work Week?" "Yeah, I'll see you there, but first I have to get to the free Frigidaire oven mitt giveaway at the Bay." "That goes without saying!"

And do I love free stuff? I have my double pass now and I'm intending to give it away. It's a really good movie, but I have other plans. I'm giving it away to someone at the office and I knew this before my rendezvous with the free people. Why all the trouble?

It's FREE, man!

Confidence

...Though not "in confidence". I have yet to make a "friends only" post. I think I mostly stay at the public level of disclosure here, anyway. There are things I don't tell you. On the other hand, I have few compunctions about revealing my emotional states and see no reason to hide those. Snake knows of the existence of this journal and I told him yesterday that it would be unlikely that I'd trash him here in a moment of pique. To me, that would be a betrayal.

What I will say about him is that his depression is getting tiring. Is that mean and awful to say? whatevah. He is busily reassessing his options in life (he didn't get that job, by the way, though he does have work at another college). His strategy is to imagine every possible path his life could take and then predict the worst possible outcome for each. The behaviour would be absolutely comical if I didn't have to live with it and if I wasn't the kind of person who always try to force a positive spin on every situation. It's becoming something of an absurd grudge match at this point: Eeyore vs Polyanna, best of three falls.

The comical nadir of this pattern came yesterday. My mom had offered to pick up some new kitchen knives for us that she saw on sale. Yesterday, assuming we hadn't given the go ahead for the purchase, he mourned the knives we'd never have. When I told him that I had asked mom to get the knives, he instantly turned glum and decried the waste of getting more junk when we already had adequate knives.

What's especially frustrating is that, after a lot of years of struggle and self-induced misery, my life is brimming over with possibility and happenstance. Finally, after months of back and forth, my sister and I have a signed contract for the book/CD we're creating. That means we need a mostly final text in a week (her job) and I need to create about 13 rough backing tracks to songs so she can begin rehearsing singers. I'll fly to New York July 3 for the recording session. In the meantime, I have to find a cheap but excellent studio there which is compatible with my music software so I can mix at home. Then I have to kick into high gear with layout and illustration so that these are roughed in by August 1. Yikes, what have I started? The book will be delivered in final form on October 15.

In order to clear my plate for this operation, I finished off my brother-in-law's website this weekend, accomplishing my goals of using some simple javascript, externally linked style-sheet and attractive, intuitive navigation.

On top of that, I am brimming with music and inching toward drawing some comics sometime in the fall. Not everything is happening as expected or hoped for, but life is getting richer and hope is alive.

I know Snake so well (so well) and I know he'll come through this. I just have to listen patiently and offer whatever help. But I'm trying to take care of myself too. I can't fix his mood and that kind of hurts.