journal page 13

january 14, 2001
people on television singing and dancing in the streets over the taste of cola
8:43pm
more animating, nothing much new to report. i am getting a cold and am cranky. my computer has been acting up, making clicking rattly noises when it starts up, so don't be surprised if don suddenly disappears from around here... stupid computer. will try and write again before we all leave for sundance. i have a beard. it is brown everywhere with a little red here and there, and even white in bits on my chin. just so you know. my face does not understand uniform color patterns..

january 7, 2001
i have a dry spot on my eyelid.
6:37pm
spent the weekend watching football and trying very hard to claw back into getting work done. pencil tests still look great, no worries there. three cheers for brian, who now reports to hopefully have dialogue breakdowns all done by month's end (them's fightin' words, brian). had a big boost of confidence going thru all that has already been animated - it's very easy to get mired down in all of this busywork, lose sight of everything and get discouraged. just last night i was griping to rob about all the trained monkey labor i have been slogging thru just to get to point A with this film - and how i don't seem to have the all-night-animating discipline i had years ago. happily managed to fend off that exhaustion for the time being by stepping back and going thru all that's been done so far. and how easy it should be to pull it all together when the time comes. point A is not as far off as i had thought anymore. relief. still, this one is going to break my back.

also got a big boost of happy from listening to and taking notes on our likely soundtracks for sequences, which is a real early thing to do right now, but crucial for me to help map everything out in my head. this is going to be a really beautiful film. happy to report another round of classical music for this one. can't express how important the music - or lack of music - is for the films... beethoven was the glue that held all of 'rejected' together, and 'billy' and 'lily' were pretty much entirely music-less, thankfully so. 99 percent of film composers today don't do a thing for me so it's back to classical music. have got lots of renewed confidence behind this puppy right now. 'rejected' turned into a creative rescue mission of post soundwork in order to make that monster click... this one should weave together very simply and all pretty-like...

don

january 3, 2001
no sleep and no sleep make don a sleepy sleep
10:44pm
"2001" began on cable at the stroke of midnight on new years eve, which i thought was a nice touch. so i sat drunkenly through that all over again. swamped with getting back in the swing of things. i think all the sundance hubbub is getting all organized finally and i just bought new boots for bumbling around in the snow. will shoot all the pencil tests i did over the holidays tomorrow and hopefully all my little aches and pains will go away by then. um. what the hell was i going to write about? i am going to take a little break from life and toy around with the rrrrrr page, maybe there will be new things for you to see there soon. if you are looking for something to read, 'jimmy corrigan; the smartest kid on earth' is tops. as if you didn't already know. can't think of much else to recommend right now. i have too much paperwork to fill out. be back in a bit..

december 31, 2000
better acquainted with my teeth
shut up shut up shut up
1:18am
what is it with me and cars? this time this one violently broke down on the drive up to my parents' house. got to push it off the road, hike to callbox, tow to gas station. i am not sure how many car mishaps i have had this past year and last, but a quick perusal of this journal will probably provide a close figure. there's something very humbling about having to sit and watch people pump gas for four hours while waiting for a ride. i don't like cars. i've never liked cars. i don't understand people who like to rub cars with diapers. i've given every car i've ever owned some sort of impressive dent or scratch or enormous gaping hole and have run out of guilty feelings for them. it's a car. it's a tool. it's just a car. after the latest mishap, amy wrote, 'i was just thinking how paranoid i am becoming with you driving cars around'...it is kind of sad and troubling how the monkey at the controls is so unlucky. so the one thing worse than being in my hometown is being stuck there with no automobile. rob offered to mail over some astronaut sucide pills which was awful sweet.

no cavities from the dentist man but the girl who cleaned my teeth was really clumsy with the tooth scrapey tool thing and kept jabbing and cutting open my gums with it. so she swabbed my gums with this topical anesthetic goo to make the immense pain from her slashing go away but really only managed to spill the stuff all over my tongue and my lips instead, so my entire mouth was just completely numb and my gums were bleeding everywhere from the slicing and she says, "you need to floss more."

i write more real soon. i hope you all stay warm and have a happy new year...

don