brown studies and blue eyes

Just got off the phone from a conversation spanning over two hours with T, an independent filmmaker in San Francisco, and I'm happy. His picture shows him to be a beautiful man with dark, almost black hair, a chiseled superhero type face (or in today's case, chiseled video game hero), and intensely blue eyes. I asked him and he told me his family is of Irish descent, the kind who have dark hair, fair complexion, and very blue eyes. He was born on the east coast (Massachusetts, I think) and has been living in the Bay Area for the past 15 or so years.

It was our first conversation but we immediately settled into each other. I think it was our shared sensitivity as artists and observers - he gathering ideas for characters and stories for his films based on personal experiences, and me doing the same for my short stories and essays. We discussed tiki themed bars (Tiki Ti Lounge here in L.A., the Tonga Room in S.F., and Trader Vic's in Chicago which has since closed down). I told him a couple of my L.A. stories, that I used to have two shrinks, one of which turned out to be a pr0n actor, the other a former Playboy bunny. And he told me about working with crazy but interesting movie producers, having to travel to L.A. or New York regularly for castings and meetings, and working with actress Lili Taylor (whom I adore).

All in all, he inspired me to plan another long weekend in San Francisco, and when that happens we'll go tiki bar hopping and eat at vegetarian restaurants, and I can also see K and J, my two best friends. T also made me appreciate cultivating friendships again, an art form quite natural in most people but in my case dusty and covered in cobwebs from lack of use. I simply haven't been in the right situation to use it for the past several years.

I feel like I'm still out at sea, but the lighthouse I see from the distance radiates warmth the colour of intense blue Irish eyes, and I begin rowing in that direction and I didn't know I knew how to use the oars.