Lost in Translation?

I spoke to my friend in L.A. He said my landlord is over 80 and her English is not great. When she said "show the apartment" she meant show it to me. Hmmm okay.

Anyway she emailed me and said the contractors are working as fast as possible to get the floors down. She wants to meet next week so we can get to know each other. This should interesting. ha.

My friend in L.A. (he is from Rome and his mom is best friends with the landlord) told him if I needed a place to stay his mom said could stay with her. She also invited me to watch election results with their family (including said landlord) which is very sweet.

This morning I wrote from 6 - 9 and then went on a looooong walk. I cut through Borghese Park, walked down the Spanish Steps, on Via Condotti, to Piazza del Popolo, then back through the park.

It was good to talk to G. and C. yeserday. I met C. back in L.A. when she was working for the L.A. office of the Italian film company she works for. She told me to cut myself some slack. I haven't even been here two weeks yet. She is a native Italian and when she moved to Rome it was difficult.

She also suggested I rethink production work and focus on my writing. Film budgets here are much smaller and type of positions I'm thinking of are usually filled by the producer's assistant for no money. Also given that I was a producer on a movie with a budget more than 10 times the avg. Italian film, she said her boss would say I was overqualified and not hire me (plus there is that uhm, language issue).

She wants to read my book as a sample of my writing. They have a couple English speaking projects.

This morning I was thinking about our conversation. I know my move might seem to contradict this but I am a very pratical person. Sometimes too practical. I have looked at my budget for the rest of the year and I think...I have to get a job! Instead I should for the next couple of months just finish my script, let my manager keep shopping the book and know that things will work out.

I have had a few kick ass writing days since I arrived here. I finally "see" the script in my head and think about the characters and dialogue all the time.

Yesterday after lunch G. showed me the building Fellini lived in. That street is so gorgeous. Today we are meet at some political lunch thing then he is going to let me borrow a bunch of recent Italian language films.

I hope to finish the rough draft of the script by the end of the month. I'm feeling very motivated and inspired.