Festival Eve

The human heart dares not stay away too long from that which hurt it most. There is a return journey to anguish that few of us are released from making.
-- Lillian Smith

Thursday, May 13, 1999
Two years ago: "It's Curtains!"

I'm ready for the Film Festival. I took out the trash, and went down to the basement and brought my clothes back up (they were hanging up to dry). But I haven't yet connected with my festival buddy to know where to go tomorrow! So I looked in my file box of addresses and found a faded scrap of paper with his work number -- too old! it's different now.

So I called my sister M----, got his numbers again, and left a message for him to call me tomorrow. (He was probably out at the opening night gala.) She and I talked, getting caught up on stuff. My sister B---- in Delaware reads this journal regularly, but M---- is only online at her office and normally doesn't. She'd snuck a peek, though, so she knew most of my news.

It was a strange sensation, looking over all the old address cards in that file box (a nice wooden one). So many names of folks that I haven't heard from or contacted in eight or nine years. Mail art contacts, too. There's an activity that I haven't done in a long time!

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I got started on June's design, since I won't have much time to work on it during the festival. It's soothing, just browsing through the CD-ROM image archives and looking at the pictures. I found something I liked, and started playing with Image Composer. This is just a good day for me getting stuff done ahead of time! I have a concept and the main image is almost ready.

My friend Blunt is back on the horse and writing again. I hope that he'll continue! I think he's been through more journal incarnations than anyone else I know, in a relatively short time.

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I knew that Jack was back in town this evening, so I called him. It was good to hear about his week. He's settling in at his new job, learning some new stuff which he always likes, and even teaching some coworkers about his philosophy of object-oriented programming. I could tell that was still bubbling up in his mind, since he kept talking about it when I was trying to tell him about my work stuff!

Jack really likes the area near Bellingham. Next month I'll go up there and see it all with him, the mountains and trees and all. He's looking at various places to live, and the time is getting short, so he must settle on something soon.

He'll be busy this weekend, doing a garage sale. He wants to get rid of a lot of his present furniture; it was cheap when he got it and it's been trashed by the kids the past few years, so he'd rather not move it all.

I'm really feeling torn! I want to see him! But the festival, and he wouldn't have much time, being busy with kids and moving and garage sale. And I have family commitments. Argh!

I had some bad news from a friend tonight. The relationship she'd been working on for quite a while has pretty much fizzled, which made me feel sad. She deserves to have someone to love, who loves her back, but this guy just wasn't ever going to be the one. It's a tough lesson to learn!