since 04'

6 years ago today I was in Beijing, watching the Sacramento Kings play the Houston Rockets. I could go into it, but my mind is somewhere else right now. I've been thinking about places, time and omission, so that's what I will (or won't) write about... 

I'm going to be heading north, to Portland in the near future, I'm over Vegas. I'm likely going to be there around Halloween, trying to check out a big event on Halloween. My favorite job of all time was working for a beautiful old indie theatre, built in 1917, It's a lovely, lovely place. I worked there for 6 years, as soon as I turned 15 1/2 I got my work permit and worked at Taco Bell for a little, was not happy with it one bit. I was going to an event called "Trash Film Orgy" on nights for the last few summers at the theatre, as well as frequenting a film group that held meetings there. Whatever you imagine something called "Trash Film Orgy" would be, it's that.  TFO is where I met... well, we'll talk about that later, I'm going to start crying thinking about it, so I'm going to go on with the story, and leave that part out for now.

I got the theatre job, at this point I'd like to make it clear that no matter how hard spellcheck tries to tell me different, I shall call it a theatre, it's big and beautiful and showing movies is a small part of what they do. It was the first adventure into the world of glitz and glamour for me... there'd be a Tesla show one night, then we'd clean the whole place and host a film festival the next night. I could fill a book about the celebrities i've met there and amazing shows I've seen, the things that go on in dressing rooms and working in the heart of the city. I love that fast-paced environment where everyone has to work as a team, up against an audience of people, swarms of people that just paid good money for something. I stopped doing Drama after high school because the theatre was so the same thing, except better for networking and was just so amazing when things went right, and solving problems when things went wrong is ever-so satisfying. I really miss doing that, but we move on, before I moved to the east coast I decided that I was over it, I was likely to return to some negative patterns in my life if I stayed there, and the pay is awful, and for a while I would wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, after a nightmare about cleaning the butter machine.

I still love that place, it's my home in many ways, I spent more time there than any house in my life, it's the only consistent in my sordid, ever-changing life. I still stroll in with warm welcomes, many of the people I trained run the place now, everytime I go in its that bittersweet nostalgia, I have loved and lost under those lights. Film is the most precious thing in the world to me, and places like my theatre retain that sense of magic... its yosemite level awe-inspiring. The person I mentioned having met earlier had a profound effect on my life, and the theatre and him are inextricably linked in my emotions, it's a sad story with lots of happy parts, and from a time that I've tried hard over the years to understand, and feel I will someday understand and come to peace with those experiences. For now, I've spent a good deal of time away from the theatre for those reasons in particular, but when I do visit the smell of popcorn and the beauty of it all grants me so much hope that maybe I can even fall in love again.

Here's a couple pics from TrashFilmOrgy 2004. After this, I started dressing much more often, a great boost of confidence, being accepted by friends and the general public as a girl, shortly after that I started working as a girl at the theatre, and the rest is history. These pics are some history too <3