Mocked

We're in the thick of things. Life's been crazy, life continues to be crazy, and most likely life will stay crazy. Some big stuff happened this week.


You remember the mentioning of my senior media project, "thisisstuttering" a while back. If not, here you go: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2012/12/thisisbig.html

Well, this week was another monumental week for the project: the second trailer was released and the premiere was planned. WHAT?! thisisstuttering is for real and will be premiering on Thursday, May 2nd, at 7:30pm at the Production Center (Studio A). Here is the facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/408322535931743/

There's also a website that will have updates as they come up:

http://thisisstuttering.com

And here is the trailer.

thisisstuttering :: official theatrical trailer from Morgan Lott on Vimeo.



This film has the potential to completely alter the course of my future. The possibilities are endless. I'm nervous, terrified, and insanely excited to see what happens.

But we have to finish the film first....



In other news, it was Ms. Morgan McGannon's 20th birthday last Sunday. We cruised to Southlands, then we cruised to Chipotle, then we cruised to Laguna Beach, then we cruised to a faux-janky hotel with a rad ocean view, then we cruised to Newport to her extended families house, meeting her immediate family there as well, then we cruised to Rothschild's to enjoy some delicious Italian food, then we headed home. A fantastic day, that is to be certain. She's wonderful.

Here's a quick picture:

 

And here's a quick sampling of words, simply for remembrance's sake and memory recall in 20 years. Outside Rothchilds. Homeless. Soiled. Police. Ambulance. Firetrucks. Old women: prime seating.

Here is some social media shenanigans from the week:

And that's the post, ladies and folks. It's so busy over here, it's unreal.

Busiest days of our lives. I've been so busy I've created laundry lists of things to complete everyday, something I normally do in my head. Lately though, that "list in the head" thing is just getting me overwhelmed. Plus, there's something satisfying about crossing an item off of a list.

Farewell, fellow Internet users. Take a breathe of fresh air. I want to as soon as humanly possible.

writing

This morning, I looked in my closet. Many of you have asked "how do you choose what you're going to wear on Wednesday's?" Every Wednesday, I wake up, walk to my closet, and decide what I'm going to wear. It happens the morning of, raw and uncut. Mistakes happen. This morning, I looked in my closet and realized something: "I'm really going to miss this." Last week, I wrote about the blog and how it has lost its priority-ness over the years. (If you missed it, take a look: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2013/03/advantage.html) My passion for the blog has been lessening as time has gone on. But, as I looked in my closet this morning, I realized my passion for dressing up on Wednesday's has not dwindled. I realized that I really like the creative challenge of creating a new never-before-worn-by-Morgan outfit out of clothes I have owned for a long long time. I really like the creative challenge of creating unique color palettes, pushing the boundaries, mixing pattern/color combos. I realized I don't do this for attention, I don't do this to get a rise out of friends, family, coworkers, fellow academics, or you, the faithful blog reader. I realized I do this because it's a creative outlet that only works within the school context. Once I graduate, I will likely stop dressing up on Wednesday's, not because I'm done and sick with it, but because there will be no venue for the artwork. I won't have the consistency to promote the continuation of this 6 year long habit.

Another aspect is the people surrounding me. I feel 100% comfortable wearing anything and everything on Wednesday's around campus, it doesn't phase me. Throw me in a working context when I'm right out of college? Eh, drop that 100% down a few percentages. I'd love to be transparent and transfer my comfortability into any working context that's thrown my way, but, honestly, that is going to be incredibly difficult to do. We'll have to see what happens.

All that to say, I am going to really miss dressing up all crazy and stuff. I've been doing this for 6 years, it's become a habit, it's consistent. I have taken 162 pictures of Wednesday garb. One hundred sixty-two. If you're interested, peruse them ALL here:

college: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.143439557753.137074.714162753&type=3

high school: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.34414107753.57636.714162753&type=3

Looking through these pictures is fantastic. Every single one of them is tied to a memory or a group of memories. Every single one is tied to a specific blog post that has these memories recorded for years to come. This fact is legitimately fantastic. Can't wait to show my grandkids this stuff.





In other news, last Friday, March 22, Ms. Morgan McGannon and I hit the town. If you recall from last week (Once again, ff you missed it, take a look: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2013/03/advantage.html), she and I babysat three balls of energy for an evening. Not only was it a crazy evening and will be remembered for quite some time, we made a few bux. We decided we wanted to do something fun with, a date of sorts. But what should we do? After we did some fantastic brainstorming (we played off each other's ideas very nicely), we arrived upon the perfect thing: Universal CityWalk and we HAVE to spend all the money. CityWalk is one of those strange places where there is so so so much to buy, so so so much memorabilia, touristy items, random gifts, but do we ever buy it? Hardly. So what if we went to CityWalk with the challenge to spend all the money we had? Sounds like a date night to me.

After we watched my sister Lacey absolutely kill it in her jazz choir performance at Fullerton College, we headed to CityWalk, used our earnings to pay for parking (boo) and then headed inside. We decided to get some food from the food court. Ms. Morgan McGannon picked up some Flame Broiler which proved to be a great choice. I, however, chose to go with Pink's Hot Dogs. Now, I have had only good experiences at Pink's, but this time was different. I order the "New York Hotdog." On the menu, it said "hotdog with spicy red onions." Sounded decent and safe, I like onions. Turns out I had no idea what spicy red onions were. This hot dog was quite possibly the worst food item I have ever purchased. I couldn't even stomach it, I tried. I tried to eat it, I really did. I couldn't do it. Ms. Morgan McGannon was kind enough to share some of her meal with me, bless her heart.

We continued on our way. Here are some pictures documenting our journey.

Super fun. And we got some super fun memorabilia out of it. And some super fun pictures. This girl is one of a kind. She rocks my world time and time again.



In other news, this week has been wild. SO much going on. Here's a review in tweets.

And that is the end of this edition of "It's Wednesday!" Lots of writing, lots of reading. That hasn't happened in a while. Writing is such an interesting concept: recording things, whether that be words, numbers, drawings, images, from your head onto another surface that can either be temporary or permanent. This writing I am doing right now will likely last until the end of the world. It's being permanently embedded into the recesses of the internet. It's like an engraving. Incredible. I'm writing about writing and as I write about writing, the writing is being written onto the written history of the world. Incredible.

Write something this week. Grab a piece of paper and a pen and just start writing. Go into it with an open mind. Let your mind wander, explore, investigate. Write it down. Seriously.

Advantage

Oh, Wednesday's. The famed Wednesday. I've been dressing up on Wednesday's for 6 years now and have been writing this blog for 4. Four years. There are 243 posts on this here blog, documenting the life of this random dude Mr. Morgan Lott. 243 Wednesday's that preserve memories that will last longer than I will be alive (if the internet sticks around, that is). Friends, I am in a rut. It's been 4 years and my drive to continue this blog is growing thin. Not to fear though, I will definitely be continuing this li''l' Wednesday tradition into my college graduation. The reason I say all this is for this reason: it's amazing how our passions change. I used to be passionate about this blog. I'd get super amped to write about the crazy shenanigans my friends and I would get into. I would write posts like this: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2010/12/story.html or this http://emliv.blogspot.com/2008/12/be-ready.html and I would be so jazzed to share it. I would look forward to Wednesday's because I knew I could think about the week and write absurdities about it, saving it on the interweb to look at 40 years from now. "It's Wednesday" created a great outlet outside of the lull of school and homework. Nothing else was going on. Fast forward to today and my passions have shifted. I am basically out of school, homework is minimal. Most my time is spent working on films, weddings, freelance. I have a girlfriend now, she's fantastic. I'm responsible for my food, my rent, my utilities, my house. My friends are always busy/unavailable/moved away and they typically aren't down to do super super random stuff like what I talked about last week: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2013/03/skipp.html. And, to be honest, neither am I. We've grown up, we've matured. Our passions lie other places. Now, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy a random adventure now and again, because they happen all the time. My priorities have shifted a tad, that's all.

So, ALL that to say, this blog has also experienced a shift. You faithful readers probably know what I'm talking about. Maybe not. Who knows.

How have your priorities changed in this last 5 years?


In other news, this last week has been a rollercoaster. I can't go into too much detail. I do have one story though:

I went to Temecula for a couple days with Ms. Morgan McGannon to visit her family. It was wonderful: swimming, enjoying the HEAT, food, food, food, getting work done (surprisingly), PF Changs with her brother and Oz the Great and Powerful with the rest of the fam. On Saturday night, we babysat three of the neighborhood kids: two sisters named Kassidy and Kaylin and the neighbor boy Shane. These three kids are all under the age of 7 and, in my opinion, the PERFECT age to have an absolute ball. The reason? They're old enough to carry on intelligent conversation, laugh at jokes and tell jokes back, run fast enough to where "freeze tag" is a workout, the list goes on. And they are NOT old enough to be "too cool" for imagination, for fun games, for burning energy, for being overly disrespectful. So, to say it lightly, it was a BLAST. Shane and I teamed up as "the boys" and we conquered a fort, making sure the girls didn't get it, because, well, boys rule, girls drool. But, the evil girls had the ball and we needed to get it. Good thing we had our invisible weapons though because without those the girls would have taken over our fort. The girls had a secret animal and always had secret meetings, so Shane and I grabbed some testosterone and RAGED. We ran around the house, threw stuff, lounged on the couch. Then we watched tv. Here's a pic Ms. Morgan McGannon snapped:

 

And then, once we settled down, Kassidy and Shane started gettin' all in each others bizness. Ms. Morgan McGannon has the play-by-play (read from the bottom).

Simply fantastic. It was a great weekend. So much learned. Holy cow, so much learned.

In other news, here are some social media snippets from the rest of the week:

Bam boom bing. HERE WE ARE. RIGHT NOW. 

Take advantage of every day. Every day is a new day. Every single day is a single new day. A unique day. A day never experienced before. A day that will never be repeated. A brand spankin' new set of 24 hours. 

Take advantage of it.

Valentine

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and let me say, WHAT A WEEK for Valentine's Day to fall upon. This picture is a literal representation of walking into the future, time isn't stopping, the days still turn into weeks into months into years. We have phases, seasons.

If you read last week's post, you'll realize real quick it wasn't normal; in fact, it was pretty dark. If you read last week's post, you probably wondered what in the world was going on, what could possibly inspire such a vague, somewhat depressing quip. Well, here's the story:

Last Sunday night, the 3rd of February, there was a bunch of peeps hangin' at my house. At about 10:45 pm, I wanted to show Ms. Morgan McGannon a video as well as our new "chill zone," the garage. We just recently put a few couches, tables, etc. to make the garage a SWEET spot to relax, study, play music, anything and everything you can think of. Now, our lawn has not been maintained so our grass is very overgrown. In fact, here's a picture of it:

Now, Ms. Morgan McGannon was not wearing shoes and did not want to walk through the treacherous grass to the garage. Carry her? Why not. I pick her up, take a step into the abyss of the jungle grass, step into a hole/unevenground/SOMETHING that throws me off balance, I stumble, with Morgan in my arms, and we go down. Morgan's head comes in direct contact with the ground, we both stand up, seemingly alright. She mentions her head hurt, which is normal for someone who is dropped on their head. And then she needs to sit down, and then she is immense pain, and then she can't move her neck at all. WOAH. After some initial tests, she is able to move all of her appendages, which was great, but her neck and head were basically immobile... and in a lot of pain. NOT GOOD. AT ALL. I have been around a surprising amount of neck injuries and if there's one thing to learn, it's that neck injuries are extremely serious and can occur even in the simplest situations, such as being dropped onto grass. Neck injuries need to be treated as a worse-case-scenario because one wrong move and full body paralysis becomes an option. It's one thing to break an arm and assess the situation, it's another thing to mess with the neck. We stabilized her neck as best we could, talked to a number of reliable resources, and had to make a decision: 911.

The ambulance came, and we went. Surreal. X-ray. CAT scan. NEGATIVE. Good news. Strained muscles. Pulled muscles. Time will heal, throw some pain killers in the mix, a few days of intense soreness, and we should be good. However, what should have taken maybe an hour at the ER took 10. We spent all night in the ER, waiting, waiting, waiting. Listening to babies crying, listening to people coughing, waiting, waiting, waiting, listening to beeping, beeping, beeping. It was a LONG night. Mr. Karl Holmlund saved the day by coming to pick us up. Morgan was down for the count, and she would stay out for days.

I took it really hard. I dropped my girlfriend on her head. WHO DOES THAT. I hurt the girl I care for most. WHO DOES THAT. Yeah, it was an accident, I get it. I had little to no control of the situation. I get it. I still beat myself for days. And I'm talking BEAT. And you know who came through? Ms. Morgan McGannon did. She encouraged me so much even amidst her pain. The pain that I caused her. What an example of forgiveness, grace, and humility. Throughout this experience, I was continuously reminded of promises made by my Father in heaven. Even though I mess up, Jesus forgives and forgets, encouraging all the way through. SACRIFICIAL LOVE.

It's a been a week and a few days. Morgan is still in pain. Heatpads, icepacks, medicines, massages, resting. Some days are harder than others, some days hurt worse than others. We had some GNARLY conversations this week. I had some GNARLY conversations this week. I feel like I've matured 5 years, I feel grown up.

 

But you know what? I have learned SO MUCH. It's been a growing experience beyond belief. You could sit in school for years and never even touch on the things only experience and living through this has taught me. I am legitimately a better man because of the multiple complications that came up in the last week. I've heard them called GROWING PAINS.

Unreal.

#breathe

I have a few videos for you. They're rad.

First, enjoy beautiful music.

Second, Mr. Marc Wymore asked Mr. Isaac Svensson and I to document his miraculous kidney transplant. His sister, Corri, stepped up to the plate and donated one of her kidneys to Marc, a type 1 diabetic who had 10% kidney function left. This is his story.

Lastly, a FANTASTIC trailer. So inspired by this.

And, ladies and gentlemen, that is today's blog post. PHEW. So intense. I am so thankful for Ms. Morgan McGannon. So so so thankful.

Who are you thankful for?

Nicknames

You remember last week? When I said it was decently significant? I showed you a screenshot of a tweet? Yeah? No? Here's a refresher: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2012/12/thisisbig.html. More on that in a bit.

Folks, it's finals season. This is the time when people start gettin' a lil loopy, the library is WHERE IT'S AT, and sleep becomes a thing of the past. Projects, projects, projects; papers, papers, papers.  Finals season is when college gets real. Classes begin to mesh. And whether you want to or not, you have to recall information you have learned throughout the semester to a point where an "A" is deserved. My largest project is an assignment for my Graphic Design Forms I class; a 100+ page graphic design book on an episode of "This American Life," the radio show on WBEZ hosted by the elegant Ira Glass.  I chose an episode called "Content Unknown," and I have been enjoying myself thoroughly. Here are three of the 50+ spreads.

So, something big happened last week.  It requires some backstory though.


On October 20, 2012, my house, The Bakery threw the FIRST Bakery Dance Party, a party that exceeded all expectations and was a blast and a half. Here's the blog post detailing that event: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2012/10/blog-post.html.  At this party, at my house, a number of visitors showed up that the members of our house did not know, which is GREAT. It was cool to open our house up to not only our friends, but to the Biola community at large. There was a certain point when I noticed a certain girl enter the scene, I had never seen her before, and she caught my interest. Huh. I continued dancing to my lil hearts content, shooting photos up the wazoo and happened to snap a few of this certain girl. Here's one of them:

At the end of the party, I noticed this certain girl heading out to leave, so I quickly stopped her and asked for her name. She said, "My name's Morgan."  I have to be honest... I didn't know what to say! I must've answered "uhh... me too!" We had a short exchange and that was that. Fast forward a couple days, Ms. Morgan McGannon sees me sitting at the Flour Fountain, she joins me, and we start a conversation that lasts from 10:30am to 3:00pm. I asked for her number. Fast forward a couple days to November 8, I have asked Morgan out and we head to downtown Los Angeles for the LA Artwalk. It's a good time, we cruise around, look at some bizarre art, look at some bizarre people, enjoying each other's company. As we walked around, we stumbled upon this RAD Hyundai hideout with all sorts of crazy things to do, including this wild photobooth that connected directly to facebook. Take a look!

 We then took off to Hollywood Blvd, the Walk of Fame, a place you can't go without wild memories being made. It was a late Thursday night, the Walk of Fame was not as crowded as it would be on a Saturday afternoon. Earlier that evening, the film "Lincoln" had premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theater, so the red carpet, large trailers, and the rest of the big kado were being cleaned up, preventing us from experiencing the grandeur of the famed Chinese Theater. We had to walk around it and as we were, we were approached by two gentlemen. They proceeded to ask if we would like to help them out with their web series called "The Dark Knight Retires," the scene would involved the actress (which would be Morgan) getting mugged, and the scene would end. They assured us it wouldn't take long. Morgan quickly agreed, which surprised me, because the two gentlemen did not have a camera in hand, did not necessarily look like filmmakers, and Batman was nowhere to be seen. To make sure these two dudes weren't con artists/muggers/bad guys, I started to lay down detailed questions that con men wouldn't have answers to "What lenses are you shooting on? How many episodes in your websites? What episode is this that we're filming? When does it premiere? What is your medium for release?" They answered these questions without hesitation, so I eased up. Turns out, "The Dark Knight Retires" is a webseries made my "YouTube Celebrity" Mr. Hunter Davis. Here's the trailer for the series:



So, the scene takes place, Morgan does great, and the whole event is hysterical. The shoot finishes with a Taft-Hartley signing and we were on our merry way.

Perhaps my favorite part of this story happened after it was all over; it was when Morgan turned to me and said "This WOULD happen to me, this kinda stuff ALWAYS happens to me!" To which I responded, "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT. This kinda stuff ALWAYS happens to me too!" If we keep this up, we'll have stories to fill novels to fill libraries.  Here's a picture. I was under the impression we were supposed to be "hard" like Batman. oops.

Night ends, Morgan and I keep chat chat chattin'. Chit chattin' a lot. Here's a couple more pictures. And then more chat chattin'.

And then, long, DTR-esque, story short, I take Ms. Morgan McGannon to Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles to ice skate. You know, we're skating around, the moment came,...

And that was that! So we're all OH-FISH as of what was actually December 6th, and you know what? It's been GREAT! It's a been a whirlwind of a couple days and it's been amazing to think about the process it took to get to this point. Unfortunately, this isn't quite a topic for this blog discussion, but if you're curious about what in the world I'm talking about, ask me and we'll chat. I will say this though: it's been incredible to see God show up within our conversations and within our relationship. She's got a heart of gold and challenges me to be a better person, something that is immensely important to me. The evolution of our relationship has been ridiculously natural and easy... it's difficult to convey over text. I'm way too excited to see what God's got in store for us and that fact that we're both trusting God to guide, discern, and wise us up is, in a word, RAD. Phew. Love it.




Next order of business: THE BAKERY DANCE PARTY 2.0. This was round two. People DUG that last one, they demanded another. We opened up our house, The Bakery, and, well, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

TOO MUCH GOOD STUFF.  To see the FULL album of SWEATY PICTURES: click: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.304126426364600.65411.279911478786095

I'm literally speechless. We provided music and water and around 270 people showed up to our little house. UNREAL. (By the way, that number was determined by: 150+ leaving through the front door at the end of the night, 11:30. People leaving through the back gate into the driveway, probably around 50. People coming and going throughout the evening, probably around 60-80 [Our most packed moment was around 10:15]). People came for good clean fun, NO alcohol, NO freaking, JUST A BLAST. And when sweat is literally pouring down the walls like waterfalls and dripping from the ceiling like rain, you know it's been a perspirational night.

GOTTA LOVE IT.



And that's the post ladies and gents. It was a big one. This week was HUGE. Unreal. Never would have guessed in a million years. Oh, one last thing, the Bakery Dance Party 2.0 was placed an interesting time. Remember how Morgan and I met during the first one? 2.0 was the day after I asked her to be my girlfriend. The Bakery brings people together.

GOTTA LOVE IT.



Goodnight and good luck.