Up until a few weeks ago I was working on a film for 8-20 hours a day 6 days a week and I never felt better. It was thrilling and wonderful and, despite all the incessant whining and complaining I did on set about having to solve problems about lights that could have been solved easier with a little cash or lots more planning, it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life.

Every day of the film was looked forward to (except one day in a church where I had a little hissy fit about lighting and sulked outside because we weren’t able to do something pretty and wonderful) and I relished learning new things about cameras and film and thinking about imagery in stops and relished the problems of how to light with no budget at all in 30 seconds or less.

So now that that’s done and none of the attempts to get on another production or to start up a little one of my own have come to fruition I’ve found myself deathly ill with some kind of flu.

I suspect it’s because I have had too much free time and too much free time depresses me. I never realized how much I prefer being busy. For years I drove around the US with nothing to do but kill time and that was wonderful and enlightening. Now that I’ve been in Tucson for years free time is killing me, making me susceptible to airborne pathogens that are giving me chills and making the inside joke,

“So cold…so alone…”

all too real.

Ah…to be a young go getter in the golden age of whimsy and light. Sadly I missed that time and I’m left with being an old wanna be in the age of forgotten dreams coughing up chunks of lung and wishing, a forlorn wish, of a time when my frail shell would stop alternating between sweltering sweat and profound searing chill. It’s not much but it’s all I’ve got right now with all this free time and nothing else to do with it.