MOVE OVER BLOGGER, IT'S TIME FOR SOMETHING MEATIER.

In case you hadn't noticed, this blog kinda fell apart about two or three years ago, and hasn't been really well upkept. I was unimpressed with the tools that I had available to me through Blogger, and as such simply dropped off on my duties.

Now I've finally got the whole thing transfered over to wordpress (yay me!) and I can do the things with the site that I've been wanting to do for a while.

I hope you enjoyed the ride on Blogger, and I hope you'll pick up the trail where we left off on Wordpress.

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Read me: http://www.panesar.ca / http://intosandeep.wordpress.com

E-mail me: apap@panesar.com

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[PLEASURE]

THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

The path of least resistance is a futile one to follow for me...seems like everything I do or have done in my life has travelled the path of most resistance. Any attempt to take the easy way out, the low road, the most travelled path has simply never been an option.

The tests of my youth even illustrated that I was attracted only to the hard way. If there was an exam where I had the option of choosing three of four questions I would choose the three hardest ones. Regardless of the fact that I knew I would get a better mark by choosing the three easiest ones. In the end the result isn't what mattered, it was always the challenge and feeling of accomplishment. While passing an exam is nice, "ace-ing" an exam was always elusive.

Yet day after day I see it wherever I go. The lowest common denominator running around with better toys, making more for themselves, seemingly happy or at least sufficiently numb in their lives that any hardships can easily be avoided. Why is that for them--the unwashed masses; that person who is so deathly happy with working at the local hardware store chain for $10 / hr and never knows where anything is--the life worth living is the one that requires the least effort? I don't get it. I suppose I never did, but somehow they do get it.

Now I'm starting to see and feel what a lifetime of climbing uphill brings. Eventually the hardway becomes the only way, the high road is the only one you can see, and the least travelled path is the only path that ever really presents itself. The world starts tailoring everything for you. Things become pointier, less soft, you keep moving until one day you wake up and realize that you're so far out to sea that there isn't anyone around to give you a life raft;you've got to swim back to shore on your own.

I'm at that time now. I've only just begun to swim back to shore, and I'm not sure I'm going to make it all the way. Then again I suppose this is the hardway presenting itself again. I didn't really need to swim out this deep into the water now, did I? I suppose not, it's just that sometimes the way out is much easier to find (inspite of the hardship along the way) than the way back home. The way back home / to shore is a long swim away.

With no dinghy,
With no guiding buoy,
With no preserver of any kind.
With no lighthouse to guide me in.

I am alone in the return.

And yet in this moment the water around me is warm, feels--I suppose--like a womb-like comfort. All I have to do is to stay here and drown myself in this sea of loneliness and sorrow. That would be too easy...and there in lies the rub.

With all the strength I can muster,
With all my facilities about me,
With all warmth near by.
With all presense.

I take the long way home (again).

And when I reach shore, and open the that door to my home. I will make sure that I will balance the hard ones with the easy ones. Temper myself, and perhaps take a little corner of the page in the book of life of that woman who works at the Tim Horton's down the street and can't count change to save her life, but is still happy.

There can be no more halves.
There can be no more imbalance.
There can be no more corners.
Me will mean me.

I will be I.

[PAIN]

THE TEARS OF MOO

My life is the dream that everyone wants, and no one cares to admit. I have a wonderful home, I have a great family, and I have a beautiful baby girl who sleeps through the night without pain, or effort. My shower has a setting that drenches me with $100 bills; and I use the bills that don't come out wet to light my cigars when I sit in front of my Citizen Kane sized fireplace dreaming about what my next conquest will be.

That is of course the dream that everyone wants right?

My reality is somewhat different. My daugther (The Moo) is ill with Infant Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), so for the most part nights are sleepless, and The Moo is in more pain than anything that small should be; my relationship with J is mostly buggered due to our attentions being focused solely on the infant; I live in a shitty top floor duplex apartment with very loud and noisy neighbours--on whom I've called the police twice; and I'm lucky if I find a single $10 bill in my wallet these days. Touché jeeves.

To me however the only thing that really matters are the moments when The Moo is in pain. She is a riot otherwise. She's cute, she's cudly, and she's a happy baby when she's not feeling the bitter sting of reflux and stomach contents. She's on medication--Losec--that she takes once a day that is difficult to administer who's side effects seem to be taking their toll on her. Quite a lot for a 6 month old to be dealing with, and yet when I think about the other people who's children have congenital diseases remedied only by surgery at even younger ages, and I go...yeah, it's not so bad after all.

My wife and I barely sleep, though I must admit I sleep longer than she only because I go to work in the morning. The majority of the time my wife is up with the Moo all night because the reflux causes The Moo to have somnia interruptus--she sleeps only in 45 minute chunks. Then she plays for 2 hours. To which the pediatrician reacts with a wagging finger meaning decidedly not normal.

So we with either hold her all night--more particularly J does--and we soothe her, and care for her as best we can. We don't go out. We don't see family. We don't see friends. We hang out in doctor's offices and emergency rooms. We keep our apartment like a tornado went through it, hoping that it serves to invite one--just to break up the monotony of it all. As a result we are miserably non existent, and terribly off course. With exception to work, and work people, human contact is absent. My wife's human contact is far less as it includes only myself and the Moo.

We continue the path of treatment knowing that she can will grow out of it, and with each passing day we wish and pray and need for this to all go away sooner, so we might have some semblance of life with a happy baby...look forward to those happy times...create happy memories of youth. I bought a video camera for Christmas to record the Moo's first one. Instead it's used to shoot video of her sleeping at night so we can show the pediatrician. Any remaning element of fun that we once had in our lives is gone, squandered, lost...only to return once the Moo's ailments yield either to age or medication.

We are now beyond the meds. The peds want tests tests and tests to confirm or deny the presence of aliens, bacteria, small larvae, intestinal malformation/rotation, and/or acid reflux (GERD). We will see. We continue to hope. We always wait...sometimes silently, other times with tears...

A horrifying waiting game this has become, with almost no end in sight. Yet then each day I come home and I see the tower of strength that is J. That she is the one who holds it all together, and without her interaction in both the Moo's and my life this just wouldn't be holding together. Thankfully matters of the heart do not only rely on me, since my heart has grown weak, and my body has aged faster than it should.

J is the light at the end of our tunnel. And with time (we both know) the Moo will become more like a regular child, and the tests tests and tests will subside...as will the pain...as will the screaming...as will the insomnia...

And the tears of moo I collect from the Moo in the cup of my hand. There they will stay until the pain leaves her and the sun comes out to dry them away. Then we will be a family free to be a family like we have never had the chance before.

[PAIN]

UNIVERSAL GROOVE BLOG BEGINS.

I've been working on an independent feature film for nearly 6 years. Shot in 1999, Universal Groove is finally nearing the end of post production. The shoot was rife with production and post-production issues and just to get to this point everyone involved really had to wend their ways down a twisted path.

A lot of people put a lot of hardwork into their contributions to this film, and I'm certain they've all either forgotten that the ever worked on the production, or no longer care whether it comes out, but it's good to acknowledge them anyway...so thanks (nods head), even to the green members of cast and crew.

We're close to the finish line--in that we can actually see it--for the first time since this journey began in the desert somewhere outside of Searchlight, Nevada so long ago. To this day I'm still haunted by flashes of yokels spinning their pickups round and round in the middle of nowhere at 5:45am...

Sometimes (on good nights) when I close my eyes I get flashes of a time even further back when visions of after hours clubs, interviews in strip clubs, and excessively long periods of missing time--likely due to one of the two former--dance across the inside of my eyelids.

So, what exactly happened to get us here? To this point? To this juncture? To this moment? and will we make it to the end?

The time has come for everyone to understand what it takes for an independent film to be made with money from your own pocket; with someone else's money; and with no money.

So I've started the Universal Groove Movie Blog as a sanctuary for the story of the "making of", and a place to come clean on everything that happened along the way. Ask and you shall receive.

[PLEASURE]