2009-07-02 - 11:28 p.m.

Oops. It's not actually 11:28pm. More like 1:04am the next day, which is thankfully a day off. I've been out and about not completely because of birthday celebrations, but because I'm leaving in a matter of days for Buenos Aires.

Unlike Sydney where you can freely associate koalas and kangaroos with something real in the city such as the Opera House, my only points of reference for Buenos Aires are: a) the sadness of being gay and breaking up from Happy Together, b) Anthony Bourdain's episode there, and c) Emily Haines finding her musical groove again in the video that I've basically ripped off for the aesthetic of my Sydney video. I'm going to see how much I can rip off that video again for the city that video was originally shot in.

But I'll be using the words Buenos Aires as much as I've been mentioning Sydney soon enough, so let's move backward to the last couple days. Firstly, I'm now 29 years old. It does feel like a defeat. I'm truly scared of turning 30. I'm not even joking. I'm just defeated. I'm more mortal than ever. I'm not as invincible as I felt a few years back.

I'm also not summing up my 20s as this magical era as I thought it used to be. Basically, I've only had a couple of good periods in life: maybe 3-8 because childhoods are generally remembered fondly, and 18-23 because that was the peak of my whole social thing and feeling like I actually belonged or something.

Otherwise, my 20s have been just as dull and mundane as those miserable years as a teenager in middle and high school. At least in exchange for having it shitty growing up, I got to watch a lot more TV and read a lot more comic books as a kid.

Part I: Rental Regrets
Wednesday's morning meeting was fortunately only 20 minutes. I chatted with some coworkers, roughly discussed travel to Peru yet again, and finally fled campus for the rental house to test out the cases and cases of equipment we'll be bringing to Argentina.

We're bringing not one, but two mini35 rigs out there. It's a bit scary. Beyond the base adapter and lens I used in Sydney, we've tacked on a shoulder mount, follow focus, matte box, and an LCD monitor.

After fully building out our rigs, I managed already to ruin one of the cameras by picking up the very heavy system by the camera's on-board mic accidentally instead of by the handle, thus almost ripping the mic off. Oops. I also realized after spending hours at the rental house, I still failed to realize that the mini35 rig was missing a much needed switch that was responsible for the tension on the base plate connecting to the camera. Why am I writing about this here?

Beyond all that, I was just frustrated with the amount of gear we were using. It doesn't take much to make a good video; it doesn't take much to ruin it either. With the lack of faith I have in the monitor's swing arm and the matte box's less than tight grip, I'm thinking I may end up using only the base components yet again... Will my coworker be slowed down trying to keep his full rig together? Again, this should all be discussed when I'm speaking of it in past tense. Just talking about it in future tense makes me nervous.

So the day basically dragged out, much to the frustration of a few coworkers waiting to leave and celebrate with drinks just nominally in my honor, until 6:15pm when I finally let go of all the nervousness and the built-up rigs and escaped work.

Part II: Birthday Celebration For Convenience's Sake
Before we get to the evening drinks, I'll just mention a few other fun things that happened. Because everyone was planning on not being at work on my actual birthday (aka today), a little bit of celebrating took place yesterday.

Firstly, because it was long overdue, I managed to make some time and clear a couple appointments from my schedule to deal with the rental situation and piggyback a lunch with Doug. In spite of the relentless rain lately, we deviated from the usual and headed to one of my favorite lunch spots: The White Horse Tavern.

Over a good cheeseburger and a Miller High Life, Doug and I chatted about the usual wanting to do our own projects and such. I have to admire Doug for being continually motivated to get his projects off the ground. He did give me a great idea in my future attempts to reignite any interest or discipline at all in writing and hopefully then shooting what I write. I'll still categorize this under blowing smoke up each other's asses, but it was a good lunch anyway. Full of motivational tips, too!

As if getting back from the rental house after 2pm wasn't bad enough, I abandoned my coworkers once again to have some cake in my honor at 3:30pm with the people up the street. For the most part, I managed to avoid boss #2 and new editor. It was actually an enjoyable celebration in spite of having to drive through heavy rain to meet with people who clearly needed an excuse to indulge in my diva-like demand for chocolate cake with butter cream.

And like I said, it wasn't until 4:15 or 4:30 (and even then, less than two hours total) that I finally had some time to tend to a serious amount of work that ultimately carried over to today. Add to that a visit from a former editing student that I had to make time for (almost an hour), and I didn't give myself a lot of time for staying ahead of the preparation game yesterday. I felt awful about being an irresponsible coworker.

On the other hand, the student drove from NJ and back in one shitty, rainy day just to have his film reviewed by one professor. I did my best to offer a second opinion, though I felt bad for being so scatterbrained as I reviewed his film. I swore I was going to watch everything all the through... and that I wasn't going to pause and comment on his edit. But I did.

Okay, so finally, a small group of us headed to Boston Beer Works for some post-work, quasi-celebration drinks. I was still full from the cheeseburger. We chatted over nachos and beer for a few hours. It was actually quite enjoyable; though as always, everyone goes home too early. In last night's case, 9pm was admirable for them, but just a poor showing to me. For better or worse, I've trained myself to drink like a fish over the last ten years. As new guy pointed out, I always seem disappointed when people bail before I can get my drink on. He was actually right.

And by the way, Beer Works would've been more fun if I were less attuned to some of the under-paying that happens in group situations. I have been on the over-paying side of things way too often lately, and certain people likewise have not. Don't act like I don't notice, people! I know I make more than everyone who hung out last night, but it's still bad practice!

Moving on, I got home, cracked open a beer, started writing an entry here that never got finished, and ultimately passed out for almost the rest of the evening. I blame the whole passing out thing lately squarely on old age. I really didn't feel like I'd drunk that much. My body was obviously telling me something else.

Part III: The Business End Of My Birthday
Because of what felt like a hangover this morning, I didn't get in to the office today until almost 11am. And once again, I demonstrated a lack of priority in my upcoming trip to my coworkers not only by showing up late, but also leaving for lunch shortly after around 1pm. I also had yet another appointment around 11:30 today that went for almost an hour; this time, with the guy who would be doing tweaks on the mixes for the upcoming live performance DVD.

As for the actual work day, more Peru planning happened, and barely anything on the equipment side of things happened by the time I left at 1pm. There was also a ton going on in the background with some new installs of Avid hardware and such, so it was just a mad house. Birthday excuse aside, I'm grateful my coworkers didn't mind my lack of effort today. Certainly in the way passive aggression works, my sluggishness helped make up for my frustration with my coworkers' over-complicating of things lately.

Speaking of which, packing when I got back from lunch was a nightmare. Bubble wrap city! Backup city! Every piece of gear seemingly needed bubble wrap or 2" of foam all around it. Likewise, everything seemed to need a backup. Yikes.

The coworker I went to Sydney with was at least on the same page with me about keeping our total weight of equipment down. That seemed to have been thrown out the window with this other coworker. He's a nice guy, but he's even more paranoid about things getting lost or broken than the other one.

Everything did get done more or less though, and by 7:30 after a little footage review and printing out of my travel documents, I was ready to hit the road. It's shitty that everyone else has a long weekend to look forward to. I have to be at the office at 1:30pm on Sunday, which means I have to get up and waste my whole damn day prepping to get to the airport before I have to waste my whole damn day being on a plane. I hate traveling!

Part IV: The Party End Of My Birthday
Going back to those 1pm lunch plans today, I'm kind of glad I forced myself to go out to lunch. It was a nice, almost old school "fancy lunch club" gathering once again. Any lunch that runs two hours and feels like it could've been even longer is okay in my book.

My coworker from up the street drove me to meet Paul and Lauren at Petit Robert, a restaurant I've never even heard of in Kenmore Square. Let me tell you: we'll be back! Besides the shitty weather, it was a perfect spot for a fancy birthday lunch.

Over some fun conversation, we collectively had lobster bisque, French onion soup, quiche, croque madames, and steak frites. It all looked damn good. As far as people in my life right now go, I couldn't have had lunch with a better group of people. It was a lot of fun, and I hope I see Paul and Lauren sooner than however many months it's been since the last time we hung out.

As for dinner, right when I got home from work at about 7:30, I found my parents and even my brother all waiting for me to go out. My brother picked out a great card that demonstrates that he still knows me awfully well. I loved the card and his own jokes that were inserted throughout. I felt like shit because in comparison, I did nothing great for his birthday... if at all. Yeesh.

We flocked in my dad's Jeep Commander and headed to Saugus for a reliably solid steak dinner at the Hilltop Steak House. I love that place and its tradition. That house salad with the oddly yellow creamy Italian dressing evokes some kind of nostalgia even though we haven't been going there for that many years.

Dinner left us collectively well fed and in such good spirits that it was amazing how conversation carried over to the whole ride home and beyond that. My brother, who's normally tuned out when we're all together, was quite chatty. It was actually a pleasant family memory for a birthday. And of course, what better way to cap the night and put my already huge stomach over the edge than some Eldo Cake?

I talked very briefly to Elliott today, and then Darcy just before finally writing this entry. I'm glad my friends remember to call; even if in Elliott's case, we just seem to have huge gaps between talking to each other at times. It's nice to have friendships that have remained reliable.

On the other hand, I see from year to year how my social circle is like tofu (to paraphrase Chris Murphy): it's directly influenced by the people I'm around. Facebook is the definitive barometer of this theory.

Year to year, the well wishes do come from familiar faces from over the years. However, a good 70 to 80% of the messages come mostly from the people I you only see day to day just because we happen to work together. Isn't the strength of most friendships, work-related or otherwise, directly related to proximity anyway? It's frustrating knowing that friendships are so fragile and fleeting like that, but at least I'm somehow continually social in one form or another. The whole idea of having "work friends" is still frustrating in this respect.

So yeah, it wasn't a birthday of drinking to self destruction, or a birthday surrounded by friends and supporting characters. However, it was a good one given the circumstances. I'm glad the day felt special at all; it really didn't seem like it would with all of the packing, business, frustration, and crappy weather to deal with. But it worked out.

So now I'm most definitely 29. It still is such a shitty idea in my mind, but I'll just think about that some more some other time. Thanks for reading.