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i woke up at 7:50am this morning and was out the door 10 minutes later to start an early day of painting. jeff wasn't there (off running errands, but left the door unlocked), but bruce and i already knew what to do. we started with the kitchen ceiling, bruce rolling, me trimming, then we did the kitchen walls. afterwards, we climbed back up to the 2nd floor, trimmed everything once again, and put a 2nd (and final) coat on the ceiling. not sure what it was, but today i was very calm, maybe the arrival of the weekend and knowing this would be the last day of painting until next week put me in a good mood. bruce's friend and landlord susan came to visit him. at one point, from the second floor window, i spotted something on the windshield window of alex's car and knew immediately it was a parking ticket. apparently even for a visitor's permit you need to move the car every 24 hours, otherwise the car is classified as "storage" and that's a $15 fine. bruce told me a trick of how i can park my car on a private way and not get ticketed. i wrote the city of cambridge an e-mail about getting a parking consideration; someone wrote back saying considerations are only for parties or renovations, not for personal use. i immediately moved the car to the "demilitarized zone" then returned to painting. we were done by 1pm, and instead of continuing, we decided to call it quits. each of us went home to write up an invoice for jeff for the hours of work we did this week.

i came home, showered, then heated up a can of soup for lunch (i didn't have any breakfast). bruce dropped by to compare our hours, making sure we got our stories straight. he was impressed with the color selections in my place. i put the printed invoice into jeff's mailbox, mailed off my unemployment postcard and mortgage payment, and went to the bank (in shorts and t-shirt!) to deposit some checks and to withdraw some money. when i came home the mail had arrived. besides another heartbreaking nstar utilities bill, i got a letter from the department of unemployment about an automatic enrollment in a 2nd round of benefit extension. i could very well go an entire year not having found a permanent job yet, surviving off of the goverment's money. a reprieve from the inevitable, but nevertheless a reprieve. i was already bracing myself to face the harsh reality of a benefit-less existence, but looks like i have another 3 months.


snowdrops

blue flower bulbs

unknown perennial

i had asked renata if she wanted to go to the 3rd annual found footage film festival. problem was, there was a very good chance that they'd sell out of tickets for the 8pm and 10pm shows, which are held in the smaller capacity coolidge corner theatre AV room. she also asked if we could also invite amy, and i had no hestitation in extending the invitation, but there were no tickets to be had. turns out elias had bought a spare set of tickets, and i found out later in the afternoon when i had already told amy i couldn't get extra tickets and left renata a message on her answering machine with the same story. i wasn't going to invite anyone, but renata called me up from the road after work inquiring about this fabulous found footage film festival i told her about, not yet hearing the cancel message i left her, but since i could get my hands on one set of tickets, i was able to invite her. turns out she would've probably had a better time doing something else, as this year's found footage was quite terrible.

i was late in picking up dan and cymara from nini's corner in harvard square. i was driving alex's car, the first time i've used it since driving back from the airport, not counting the few times i played parking space musical chairs on my street. i didn't even know how to turn on the headlights, and cymara had to verify for me that they were in fact not turned on. we drove to coolidge corner, were we found parking in the municipal lot. we met elias inside zaftig's, where he was just about to get a table for the four of us. everyone paid elias for the tickets he bought earlier today, purposely missing work just to get them. i had the youngmen sandwich, this hot pastrami on pumpernickel bread with a liver spread and fries. it wasn't a very good sandwich (you'd expect something a little bit more magical for $10), and i could do with a little less liver. i also had the egg cream drink, which was pretty much flavored tonic water, as revealed by cymara, who used to work at an ice cream shop so she knew all the secrets. it didn't even have eggs! after everyone finished eating, we paid and left.

as i had originally thought, there was a sign on the theatre door alerting patrons that the 8pm found footage show was sold out. elias' friend matt was waiting outside. once they started seating in the AV screening room, i grabbed two seats and went outside to wait for renata, who was driving into coolidge corner. we coordinated via cellphones, and once i saw her across the street, i ran into her car to help her find a parking space. we ended up getting a spot in the municipal parking lot just when we were losing hope of ever finding a spot on a friday evening. we rushed into the theatre, where the first show had already started.

the first show was titled magic star travelers, weird children shows. the segments were too long, which made it seem very tedious and caused me to lose interest, dare i say, bored? the thor vs. hercules cartoon was entertaining (thor and hercules fight over a mortal woman! who will win?), and likewise kiddie a go go (a b&w go go dance show seemingly geared towards children). the american dental association presents: the haunted mouth was only funny because i've been trying to get renata to take better care of her teeth, so this segment hit close to home. the k. gordon murray trailers ("puss n' boots!") i've seen before in past found footage festivals, and likewise santa and the ice cream bunny. i had promised renata bucketsful of laughs, but what i delivered was this slow-moving foray into mind-numbing weirdness. i sat through most of magic star travelers without laughing, i probably only found 10% of it amusing.

during the brief intermission, renata told me she met two people she knew here in the theatre, and brian and his posse showed up for the next show.

the 10pm show, whoops, apocalypse!, featuring various strange segments on christianity, started off strong with christian dating, but then deteriorated into the tedious streams of weirdness i now unfortunately associate with found footage. i felt embarassed that i had been raving about this event to renata, and it turned out to be quite the opposite. i could sense that renata was bored, and even caught her sleeping (not surprising, she's not a night person). at one point renata left to go to the bathroom and didn't come back for a long time (i was starting to get worried). when she did return, after a few minutes, she whispered to me that she's had enough and was going to go home. i could've gone out as well since the show was almost over, but being a sadist, i wanted to see it to the bitter the end, no matter how unentertaining it was.

after the show i went outside and called renata to make sure she made it home in one piece and didn't drive her car into a ditch after being subjected to almost 4 hours of mindless drivel. that's when she revealed to me that during her long bathroom break, she was actually outside reading. i then went back into the theatre for the best of a/v geeks. i couldn't tell renata that this was the best part of the show. i figured my credibility was already shot, and i couldn't subject anyone else to anymore found footage madness. but in all honesty, the midnight found footage films are the best. since they're on film instead of video, the production value is much higher. we saw a soothing piece on plastic (various plastic items being extruded or molded on conveyer belts), another one about a clown with a toothache, a mormon film teaching teenagers about sexual morality (pretty much anything is a sin unless you're married, even hand holding or the mere thought of the slightest perversity is strictly taboo), and the capstone was a puberty film for girls about changing bodies, followed by a short musical film about veneral diseases are for everyone.

elias returned the dvd's i had left in his house during the premature 24 hours movie marathon at his place. i drove dan and cymara home, and then returned to cambride, circling the block once before finding a parking space. i get to sleep in late for a change tomorrow! my normal weekend sensations are coming back!