jem on jém

[ENTRY 012]

terminal\user\jem\journal

On Monday, I started working on animating map traversal clips for the long-form documentary I’m working on. “Steadily exacting” is how I would describe this journey as a whole. This has been eating away at me slowly since December, taking small bites at the corner like that French bulldog. I tell myself it’s fine because I work on it sparingly and when I feel like it, but more often than not, there’ve been excruciating week-long periods of burnout. I think I’m over that hump now, despite the most recent rounds of fine-tuning lines on a map as they travel from A to B. The effect isn’t animating, but cheating the effect using some well-timed key-frames, masks and crop effects, but it looks good enough for now.

On Tuesday, I listened to what would soon become my favourite Daft Punk album during my morning walk. Later that night, I finished watching Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, an attempt to reignite my fire for getting through my classic film watchlist that started this year (I’m in the 70s now). I don’t think I’ve ever seen Elliot Gould in anything, but I could watch his private detective Philip Marlowe meander around, chainsmoking while being an asshole to everyone but his cat, for at least a couple more hours.

On Wednesday, I caught up with my tribe, my gang, my movie dudes (those that were available), for a classic double feature determined by the vibes of the night. This led to a screening of Wild Hogs and I Saw The TV Glow. One of these films I ended up liking more upon a rewatch, beyond an appreciation for what it was going for the first time I saw it, and the other was fucking Wild Hogs.

On Thursday, I broke my 37-day Wordle streak. It was the furthest I’ve gotten this year, and not even halfway to my all-time streak. During times like this, I sometimes (pretty much always) go back to that Paul Atreides quote: “This world is beyond cruelty.” Nonetheless, the end of day was brightened watching the final three episodes of a Prestige (with a capital ‘P’) TV series that’s easily become one of my favourite pieces of episodic science-fiction storytelling, exemplary for the medium and canvas it takes place in.

On Friday, I edited some more while I listened to film scores. I bought a pack of Blackberries and Raspberries because I ran out of Blueberries. I caught up with one of the coolest friends I know, cooked a meal that will feed me for the next week, earned a skin for Magik on the hit game Marvel Rivals, and watched nearly half of Rogue One.

On Saturday, I finished “animating” all fourteen of the clips I assigned myself, and was shocked when I discovered they actually fucking worked well-enough when dragged onto the main project timeline with everything else. It means I can export a cut. It means I’m at picture lock. I celebrated by getting rained on, before trading my touch-starved Switch console for $3.90 AUD and purchasing, then subsequently spending the night setting up, a new iPad, with the sole intention of using it to read comics. I rounded out the night by finishing Rogue One.

Today, I made pancakes just for me for what felt like the first time in years, wrote a film review I was happy with, and purchased (with in-game currency earned and not real money) a digital costume, with no real-world value, that bears a striking resemblance to Sebastian Stan with a fuck ass bob.

And now I’m writing this.

Unintentionally, this has become the most unproductive and depressing recount of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I’m being intentionally pessimistic for the joke, which I laughed at myself for a second, which is why it’s earned a spot in writing.

What was supposed to be me calling it a day (with an entry that was just going to be my Rogue One Letterboxd review copy and pasted) has grown, like one of my Dad’s plants I remembered to water while he was away, from simple dot points about each day, to now… whatever this is.

I could write more than what I could an hour ago, but I’m content. I like the turn this night has taken. Within an hour, I’ve gone from holding the smallest amount of shame (I’m talking 10.1%), to once again saying “fuck it” and being happy with what I’ve done. The moment this starts feeling like work, I’ll have already stopped.

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