Everything’s cool

I spend my nights alone in a small basement office, my shoulders hunched over a keyboard. My face illuminated by a flickering computer screen. I cross tasks off of a to-do list, which is left for me, neatly on the desk.

The tasks are mostly technical, non-creative stuff: export this file, capture this footage, lay it back into the movie.

The clock on the wall silently ticks the time away.

When the list is completed, I pack up my stuff, shutdown the computer, take out the garbage, lock the door and return home.

I’ve been working two editing jobs. My day job for the past two months has been a Candy Darling documentary that I’ve been working on from home. It’s the longest single project I’ve worked on in my short post-graduate career. Working on a long-term project has forced my lifestyle into a very regimented routine.

I start work at 10:00 a.m. The director comes to my apartment; he brings me a cup of coffee. I eat instant oatmeal before he gets there. We work until around 2:00 p.m. when we take a lunch break. We’re back to work by 2:45 p.m. He leaves around 6:00 p.m.

With the second job, I then leave my house at 6:30 p.m. and take the L-train to Union Square where I get out and walk the 12 blocks to the basement of 77 Bleeker Street, where a new list awaits me in the dimly lit office.

I sit there as I write this; I’m waiting for a Quicktime file to export. I have 35 minutes left. The status bar crawls across the screen even slower if I watch it.

It’s supposed to be my last day, although like most things it will probably drag on a little bit longer. The film is in its final stages. It screened at this past Sundance Film Festival, and there are minor changes throughout, a new sound mix and a new HD master transfer to help facilitate.

It’s called “Everything’s Cool,” and it’s about global warming. It’s somewhat of a comedy, if you can imagine it, and it’s about as funny as you could expect a movie about global warming to be. It follows a few colorful characters as it introduces us to the escalating problems the earth is facing.

The big joke is that everything is not cool. The earth is in real trouble and something drastic must be done… soon. It’s rather depressing to think about.

At least it was initially.

After the first day, I walked home with the images of melting ice caps, smoke pumping into the air and Congressional babbling spinning around my brain. I heard the last line of the movie echo: we’ve got 10 years to fix this.

Months fly by; did anyone else realize it’s March already? I write another rent check. I lose track of the days of the week. One deadline turns into another. It seems like I’m writing a column every Monday, although I know I’m not.

I take new jobs, finish them, and add lines to my resume.

I find new music to listen to and see new movies. My Netflix queue grows and shrinks. Life after college is flying by; it’s already almost been a year.

I go to new restaurants, with new friends. I have new experiences, new stories to tell. I get to know different parts of the city, and struggle to find comfort in routine. I drink too much to relax.

In a routine day, global warming doesn’t even cross my mind. Nor does the war in Iraq, or the escalation of the situation in Iran.

As the status bar nears five minutes, I think about time passing. Sitting alone in the dark, I come to the quiet realization that saving the world was never really one of my life goals.

“Maybe at some point,” I can hear myself saying, “if something really strikes me.”

But what am I waiting for? A neatly typed list to check off. Being active will never be convenient.

Maybe it’s time to make a few sacrifices, because 10 years, even to me, doesn’t seem like that long. And what does it matter if you have good taste in movies, or food, or you drink too much, if New York City is completely underwater?