I've been here going on 5 years, and still don't know that much about the area. I just re-upped my lease for another year, so figure maybe I should be learning more; it's got a lot of history. I mean, this is where the Erie Canal ended, some of which I've seen. It used to be the richest city in the country, thanks to industry and trade. Some of the homes that still survive here are flat out magnificent.
But much of the city is really very sad. It's been left behind because it did not adapt to the changing times, and is now struggling to catch up. Medical technology seems to be taking hold, thanks to a couple of strong research universities, and I've begun to recognize there's a strong theater movement in the city...so not all is hopeless. I just need to let myself take the time to investigate these things.
But I keep myself busy at home, writing and plotting and researching. I rarely go out. I think I'm trying to make up for all the time I wasted, when I was younger...when I was in college. I'd already been studying Hitchcock's method of filmmaking; I'd happened onto Truffaut's series of interviews with him in a bookstore and that was all one really needed to know to get started. Plus, I had a career going as an artist.
If I'd had my brain in gear, I'd have moved out to LA to live with my father instead of hitting classes, and learned how film worked by doing it. Instead, I hid in the idea I had to learn first and do later. A form of avoidance, really. But all I really learned was technology, not the ability to get something done, which is really more important.
Guess that's where I got left behind, because back then I couldn't see that changing my life was the way to go.
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