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[ Edit: OK, I actually wrote this on Sep. 11 but I only remembered to post it tonight, Sep. 13. I'm backtracking the post date to Sep. 11, 2006 because it's my blog and I can do what I want. ]

Today, with no pre-selected movies on the viewing schedule, I got a needed break from the Toronto International Film Festival. After a few days of doing the TIFF shuffle and zipping around Toronto and back home from early morning to midnight, I find myself really dog-tired. When I awoke to the sound of my father’s voice (“I think she’s in a comatose”) at 2:30 in the afternoon, I remembered that TODAY marks the 5-year anniversary of 9/11 as well as that day I was supposed to arrive in New York.

Every year I remember that, but every passing year the details seem to fade. I was supposed to arrive in New York later in the afternoon by plane, but like so many flights on that horrific day, my flight was cancelled. As I recall, the organizers of TIFF cancelled TIFF in 2001 because of 9/11. When I look back at myself, at the weeks that preceded 9/11, the day of 9/11 and the weeks after, I see images of myself, events and people, however, the feelings now are just weak echoes of what I felt 5 years ago. Back then, I was going through my own personal drama and that 9/11 morning punched some clarity into my brain: how relatively small and insignificant all my personal problems really were.

I remember having to argue for my vacation (under the threat of being cancelled from the powers-that-be for another one of those “our emergency is your emergency” projects), the seeds of dissatisfaction, boredom, doubt and resentment, the beginning of the end of a friendship that I thought would last longer… and how all the latter were actually tied into each other in a swirling mess. I vowed that I’d never be one of those tell-all and regret writing it bloggers and so, I’ll do my best to NOT stray into that territory, however, since I do write in a stream-of-consciousness manner, sigh… I probably will a little bit…

What I do remember is a classmate who became a friend. A very eccentric person (OK, she was really weird and not in that cool, endearing way) who convinced me to quit what seemed like a promising job at the time. A friend who helped me to get a job at her workplace and who also, without asking her (and I would not ask that of anyone) was instrumental in saving my head from the job-cutting block later on. She later told me what she had to do to save my job and HERS and why she did it. I discovered who she really truly was as a person (or perhaps I had always known and just chose to close my eyes). I also came to realize that we were very different people and that I wasn’t willing to overlook those differences any longer because that meant continuing to BE someone FOR someone that I wasn’t willing to do or be. For example, I’m not willing to backstab someone for my own benefit or ambition. Enough said.

Mostly, I remember the day when my QA manager had urgently blurted, “… stop what you’re doing. She’s threatening to jump out the window. You gotta talk to her!” I recall 2 hours in a boardroom, the urgency, the hysterical crying, trying to calm a crazy person, feeling unbelievably uncomfortable… and lacking. Lacking what, I’m not sure. It was all so strangely surreal at the time because on that day, I was actually going to tell her that I was quitting my job the week after. In hindsight and also, according to my sister who is actually trained in such matters as suicide counselling, my manager should’ve never placed the entire responsibility on me and that we should’ve called 911. What no one really knew (because very few people knew what was happening in that boardroom and that it actually ever happened) was that she WAS willing to jump that day to escape from her problems at work. It was in her family and personal history, you see (no, I suppose you wouldn’t)… this capacity to buckle under stress, to really fall…

I stayed at that job partially because I needed a job, but mostly because I thought I had to pay her back for all her kindness. I stayed because I thought I had to be there for her if she ever broke again. I began to resent that kindness and questioned if it was altruism or a self-serving need of hers in the first place. I began to resent her expectations and the person that I was becoming. What I will never forget is that days and even weeks after 9/11, she never once inquired or expressed any concern for my safety… which really deeply hurt. Later on, I was told by someone that she had basically expressed that she wouldn’t have been too upset if I had died. I remember that even when we parted and hugged on my last day of work, we neither discussed the rift nor acknowledged what had caused it in the first place.

Months later, I saw her for one more time only because I had no choice. At the time, we knew some people in common and the world can be a small place. Anyway, I never did tell her how truly thankful I was for everything she did for me and how sorry I was if I hurt her in any way, however, I did not regret my other actions. I had to be who I am. And who I am, I suppose will always in some way, include her… as after all, I am the product of my choices, experiences and the people I’ve met along the way. I know that I was partially at fault, but I also know that if I had a chance to repair the friendship, I wouldn’t. I remember all of that, today on 9/11/2006, but… no regrets.

Tomorrow, I have only 3 movies to see in the following order:

• Sarah Polley’s feature film directorial debut Away From Her about a couple whose marriage is tested when the wife begins to suffer from Alzheimer’s. Looks like a tearjerker… and damn, so early in the morning to get depressed.
• John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus. With so many of the scenes including apparently unsimulated sex… is it art or porn? According to what I’ve read, the movie is not about the money shots… but about loneliness, confusion, frustration, relationships, our inability to communicate with each other and that sex is just another means of communication). Yeah, porn with buttered popcorn. Mmm, tasty butter, what a turn-on. I see my next blog post title right now: Getting Off the Shortbus (yes, I’m kidding… or maybe not, hehe). Mitchell has an edgy and daring style which you can see for yourself in his previous effort, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001).
• The North American premiere of Darren Aronofsky’s sci-fi epic The Fountain. I really enjoyed this director’s earlier efforts, particularly Pi (1998) and Requiem for a Dream (2000). He hasn’t had a feature film since Requiem for a Dream. I’m looking forward to seeing if he has a new bag of tricks or if he fell back on his earlier trademark directing and camera techniques. I read in a newspaper that The Fountain was screened in the Venice International Film Festival and that it got booed by some people in the audience… hmmm. Aronofsky, Rachel Weisz (leading actress in the movie, Aronofsky’s fiancée and also recently gave birth to his son) and Ellen Burstyn are expected to attend.

I guess tomorrow will be like this: cry and be depressed, next get horny (or laugh uncontrollably… I’m thinking it’ll likely be the latter), and lastly, blow my mind. Oh… and spend money at Indigo / Chapters book store. Sigh, gotta stop hanging out there in between movies.

Adieu,

fruity and thinking