the russians are coming

Well, not exactly.  But changes are coming.

Sometime last year I had this feeling that 2009 would be the last year that I would practice medicine.  It has been seven years since I finished residency, and it is now more than just a seven year itch:  it has become practically a wound.

To make the long story short, I've found a job as a medical consultant.  No, it isn't filmmaking.  I'm quite aware of that.  The teleplay that I'm working on with my friend in New York is coming along nicely, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  In the meantime, I'll start my new job in September - seven years and one month after I began working at Kaiser Permanente - five years and one month longer than my residency classmates and I had estimated I would last in medicine.

Last week I met a ballet dancer.  A Russian ballet dancer.  As expected, he was in perfect physical shape, charming, handsome.  I was intrigued to hear his story, his life, his plans.  In turn, I told him of mine.  He then mentioned that he had an idea for a dance-based theater project and that it might be fun for me to write it with him.  When I shared with him that it would be "incredibly, incredibly, incredibly" amazing if one day I would work on such a project and also work for a film production company, he immediately corrected me, saying that it would be at most "incredible," not "incredible, incredible, incredible."

I confessed my ignorance.  So he proceeded to remind me that if I work on something really hard then ultimately achieve the desired result, then there isn't much there that is incredible.

Well, of course he was right.  I don't know if I was misusing the word incredible, if I never understood its meaning in the first place, or if I was not giving myself the credit I'm due.  This isn't a multiple choice question - I already know the answer.

I remember that when I working in Santa Rosa as a full time primary care doctor, I had imagined how amazing it would be if I could one day work just a few days a week and spend the rest of my time pursuing the things I loved.  Well, that's exactly what happened.  I spent three years in Santa Rosa searching for my passion, I found it in filmmaking, and I moved to San Francisco to work part-time while learning about the art, playing tennis, going to Paris for months at a time...

Then during this period of hedonism, I imagined how amazing it would be if I could one day not be a doctor any more, then be lucky enough to find some job related to filmmaking while working on various writing or photography projects.  All this is slowly coming true.  I've worked hard to make it come true.  So what's so incredible about that?

Nothing.  Absoultely nothing at all.  So I'll march on to my own little symphony and keep exploring opportunities that take me to my dreams.  What once seemed amazing will one day be what I'm living.

Changes are coming.

come

I'm no longer going to wait for the future to arrive.

Instead, I'm going to bring my future to me.  

today is friday

Today is Friday.

On Monday, I wanted an apple.  I didn't see one.

On Tuesday, I saw a beautiful apple, but I didn't want one any more.  

I did nothing.

Wednesday came and gone.

Thursday was when I felt like wanting an apple again.  I couldn't find one.

Today is Friday.  I haven't come across an apple yet.  I still want one.

Tomorrow will be Saturday.  Already.  

From now on, I will keep my eyes open and take the apple when I see one.  

Because I don't want to miss it again.

i once saw...

This is my fourth day in New York.  Already.

I'm lazier than I thought, it turns out.  The purpose of this trip, other than seeing my brother and friends, is to work on the script with my writing partner.  We've finished the first draft of all 15 episodes, and now it's time to rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite.

But it's soooo hard.  Sitting down in front of a computer and letting my fingers fly and translate whatever ideas I had in my head into words was one thing; rereading these words and then fixing all the necessary changes is really something else.  I know that this one particular part isn't good enough, it simply doesn't work; but I don't want to delete it or revise it - it's like you bought a new home (some of us need to really pretend on this one), it's not exactly how you thought it would be after you move in; there are things you need to fix, but you just don't want to.

Maybe I'll learn to love it.  Probably not.

On the subway today.  I saw this seventy-year old Chinese woman.  In pigtails.  Just like Pippi Longstocking.  She was adorable.  Immediately I think that some people would ask, "why doesn't she get a haircut more appropriate for her age?"  Whether or not I am one of these people is beside the point.  (I'd like to think I'm not, but then if I'm not, why would I have thought of it in the first place?)  Wouldn't it be nice if people never have to act their age?  I want to see fifty-year olds playing hide and seek.  I want to hear a sixty-year old sing whenever and wherever she wants to.  I want to find a seventy-year couple on a see-saw, talking about stories of their past and envisioning plans for the future.

And I don't want to see or hear anyone judge them or laugh at them.

Only admire them.

no caution

Earlier this week, I saw the movie "Lust, Caution" for the second time.

I didn't like it the first time.

I liked it more the second time around, but that wasn't the only difference.

Ang Lee was there.  In the auditorium.  In front of me.

I like movies that make me think.  I like movies that let me think.  Ang Lee's movies do both.

During the Q & A after the movie, as I watched and listened to Ang Lee up on stage, I saw myself up there.  I was comfortable, funny, engaging, and more importantly, I was a movie director.

That's my lust.

i say, i say

I had one of those enlightening moments last night.  In the shower.

I've been ruminating over how to deal with my neighbor upstairs who insists that I hear her every footstep.  Pleading with her several times to lighten her steps has yielded no results; she even turned this issue around and accused me of harrassing her!  The nerve of some people!

So I decided to change tactics.  I realized it was futile to reason with an unreasonable person - after all, if she was going to change, she would have done so after my first plea months ago.  I decided to treat this as a challenge.  Each one of her annoying steps would be a test - a test for me to overcome my easily perturbed emotions.  Rather than feeling the flames of anger consume me, I would welcome each step and make a conscious effort to find my inner peace.

I know, they're just footsteps; it's not like I'm living in a war zone or something.  But, it's still a big deal to me.  When I made this decision and the calming shower was drowning out all extraneous noise from my ears, I told myself:  you know very well that you can't expect other people to change for you; all you can do is change yourself.

A second later, I realized I had heard someone say the exact same thing in the very recent past.  

What wise person uttered these words?  I realized a few seconds later that it was me - I had said this to my mother the day before when I offered her advice on how to deal with a difficult child (no, not me, another one - she's got plenty of them, the poor woman).

At the moment, I just laughed out loud for some reason.  I don't know what it was - realizing my own wisdom or some other random reason - but it continued for a good fifteen seconds.  We're always telling people that they are adept are solving others' issues, just never their own, and that they should listen to their own advice to others sometimes.  I guess I finally did it.

I listened.  

And I hope to hear more than footsteps.

when i write i get it right

I've been in a bad mood the past 24 hours.

Silly, really.  Just can't get some issues out of my mind.  I keep asking myself - why, why, why.  And, of course, I might as well be asking a worm since no answers came.  (Why a worm, you ask?  Well, I was going to say a tree at first, but I do believe that some trees are magical and will reply like the one in Pocahontas, whereas no one has ever heard a worm talk back, right?  But I digress.)  I'm troubled by affairs of the heart, you see, and as some of you who are more experienced in such matters would likely tell me as I so wisely inform you that I got no answers:  no, duh!

This afternoon, I took my mind full of unanswerable questions and a heart leaden with anger and jealousy and took them along to the Café de Soleil to work on episode 13 of my script.  There, without my cello, the internet, the TV, or my noisy upstairs neighbor to distract me, I sat and wrote for over three hours.  I got 15 minutes of the script done.  In case you're wondering, that was excellent.

On my way home, I felt a slight relief.  Perhaps I unloaded some of my angst on a character, or maybe I transferred my jealousy onto another.  I don't know; I felt a bit better.  

Notting Hill was on tonight.  For me, it's one of those movies that I don't mind watching over and over, at least some parts of it - mostly the group dinner scenes - they're full of... well, life.  One of its characters said this to me:  don't take it personally.  There is no rhyme or reason in life.  No one knows why some things work out and some things don't, why some of us get lucky and some of us don't.

Some of you may disagree.  You might tell me that everything happens for a reason, although that reason isn't always revealed to us.  Or you may say it's all karma - every action is a reaction to something either in this life or a previous one.

That doesn't work for me.  Because you see, I'm one of those people who would obstinately search for that reason now, however elusively, no matter if it is meant to arrive in 30 minutes, 30 years, or 30 lifetimes.  

And that's why no rhyme or reason works better for me.  I don't know why some things work out and some things don't, why some of us get lucky and some of us don't.

It all ends up the same way anyway.  The world doesn't work differently just because you believe it to.  But I do.  

And that's what's important.