CooperWheeler.com

Since most of my time (and brain-power) is consumed by my new little man these days, I probably won’t be spending too much time blogging here. I’ll be back eventually, but for now, you can keep up with the Wheelers at www.CooperWheeler.com.

Peace. Out.

Preggers…

As I often say here, I realize that most of my readers are people who actually know me in real life. And while I dream of someday being an internationally-renowned writer who has a blog that attracts huge numbers of strangers fans, I’m good for now with my core group. :)

So, I’m pregnant. If you know me this isn’t a shock. I’ve been pregnant for a while – seven months almost! I have to say it’s gone by really fast, but I fear these next 10 weeks will slow to a creep. I only have a few more weeks of work until I’m on “maternity leave” (read: sitting by the pool as often as I can so I have a beautiful tan for the pictures). I know that once I’m home more, I’ll be thankful for the break, but folding and re-folding Cooper’s tiny clothes over and over to pass the time.

Being pregnant has been good for the most part. I feel lucky to be expecting a child when there is so much information that prepares you for the ups and downs of pregnancy – everything from medical information on how much weight-gain is healthy to anecdotes about cankles. Friends and family have been extremely supportive as well, of course, so I’ve had a really good experience. I haven’t had too many “extreme” symptoms other than being really exhausted the first trimester. All in all, I’ve been able to just sort of let nature take its course and – as Matthew McConaughey would say – just keep livin’.

I haven’t written anything up to this point about being pregnant, because I feel like my perception of it will really change after I see the finished product. Right now, I can’t imagine doing this ever again. Not that it’s been terrible, because it really, really hasn’t, and I know I’m very fortunate in that way. But it’s just such an interruption. And it takes so long. It has changed the dynamic of my relationship with my husband (preparation in some way, I’m sure, for what it will be like when there’s another person to consider in this family besides ourselves!) and it takes over your body in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

But people do it over and over. Geez, Michelle Duggar has done it eighteen times now! So, I feel like there’s something about seeing your child on the other side of this whole deal that makes you look back and go, “Meh, that wasn’t so bad.”

I haven’t hated being pregnant like some people do, but I also haven’t had that “Wow, I just love it, I feel so womanly, I am mother, hear me roar” experience either. It’s just kind of happening. The one thing I absolutely do love, though, is feeling Cooper move. It’s indescribably emotional and bonding and crazy. I have to try harder than I expected not to get freaked out by the thought that there’s another person living inside me, but when I feel him moving around or see my belly jump from him pushing off to do a cartwheel (that’s what it feels like sometimes!), I just love it. It’s not freaky in a scary way, it’s just beautiful and overwhelming and lovely.

So the countdown begins. I know I’m in the homestretch, and that’s very exciting, and I’m starting to actually “feel” pregnant, which is not quite as exciting. My fingers are swelling a bit which is giving me a touch of carpal tunnel syndrome. I make involuntary “oof” noises when standing up or sitting down or moving in general. Sleeping is becoming more difficult.

But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. My little boy will be here in a matter of weeks and boom, just like that, I’ll become a mother. I can’t wait to meet him and see what he looks like and what his personality is like. Will he get the hiccups when he laughs really hard like his dad? Will he love movies and 80’s music like his mom? Will he be athletic (doubtful based on his genes!) or musically-inclined (probably)? I really just can’t wait to know him.

Peace. Out.

Jesus People Nashville!

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that JESUS PEOPLE did a premiere in Nashville last week during Gospel Music Association (GMA) week. We wanted the chance to present the film to a Christian audience and couldn’t think of a better time to do it than this annual convention of Christian artists, radio stations, managers, publicists, labels, and media.

We wanted somewhere cool and kitschy and found the perfect venue in the Belcourt Theater in Hillsboro Village. Specializing in indie films and centrally located in an artsy part of town, the Belcourt was a perfect location for us! Our theater had about 350 seats available.

Though we had all worked tirelessly on inviting people, working our connections in town and the industry, and doing everything but begging people to come out (I may have begged a little…), we felt good about our expected crowd, but these things are always uncertain. Our RSVP’s indicated we would have a solid showing, but we still didn’t know exactly how many people to expect (Would artists follow through on their RSVP? Would people show up who had seen the Belcourt’s ad on their website? Would everyone decide to go to a random showcase at the last minute?).

The screening was planned for 7:30 p.m. sharp, with doors opening at 7:00. When we arrived on site at about 6:20, there were already people lined up outside the doors! … Okay, so it was, like, three people, but it was still a line! Artists were also showing up early, though many of them decided to hang out at a restaurant down the street until doors opened (can’t blame them for that!).

Speaking of artists, it was really encouraging to see friends like Scott Dente, Greg Long of Avalon, and Ben Cordonero of Salvador come out to support me and the project. Other artists included Aaron Shust, Cindy Morgan, Wayne Kirkpatrick, Steve Taylor, Margaret Becker, Tammy Trent, and many others! (I’m sure Dan and Jason can add more to the list!) We also had a really nice turn-out of label reps and publicists.

All in all, there were somewhere between 250-300 people in the audience…not too bad! The theater felt really full and you could feel the energy in the crowd from the first moment.

We all went into the screening knowing that the potential for offense was present. Obviously, the film is not made with the intention of being offensive, but you never know how people will react when jokes hit really close to home. Maybe they’ll be the rock stars who count “This Is Spinal Tap” among their favorite films or maybe they’ll be Scientologists who cry cease-and-desist on the creators of SouthPark. You just never know.

For this particular screening, it seemed like the jokes were well appreciated. People laughed from beginning to end – and not just chuckled here and there, but literally howled with laughter at some lines and situations. Granted, there were also a few audible gasps and a few moments of uncertainty (“You’re a big boy for an AIDS baby!”), but overall, I think people had the exact reaction we were hoping for – they thought it was funny and it made them think.

All in all, I felt really great about the whole evening. Who knows what will “come of it” in a business sense (Was there anyone in the audience who could distribute the film? Will we all become household names over the next few weeks? How many of those in attendance would actually buy a DVD?), but the night was a success and it was my pleasure to be part of it.

On a personal note, this may be the end of the JESUS PEOPLE road for me until something happens with distribution. At this point, I’d have to pass on any major travel (getting pregnanter by the day and all…), so unless we do another screening in the South (ahem, Charlotte, ahem!), this may have been my last opportunity to see the film with a large audience (again…until the awesomely major distribution deal comes through, of course!). Working on the movie, meeting and making friends with the people involved, and having the opportunity to see it through to completion has been one of the highlights of my life. I feel so honored to have been so randomly included and can’t imagine a better “first film” experience.

So, thanks. Thanks to all of those who attended not just the Nashville screening, but the others we’ve done as well. And thanks especially to Dan, Rajeev, Jason, Damon, Edi, Lindsay, Rich, Joel, Karen, Chris, Kevin K., Sambrells, Katie, Jim, Garrett, Kevin C., Mandy, Ryan, and Pete. You guys were and are awesome.

Peace. Out.

I vs. We

I’m currently reading “The Enchantress of Florence” by Salman Rushdie. I’m about 50 pages in and haven’t quite decided if I’m enjoying it or not, but the passage below really struck me as I was reading. I’ve recently been thinking more about community, what it means to be part of a community, and how much responsibility I have to the (chosen and unchosen) communities in which I find myself. There’s a lot more than that discussed here (ideas about class, monarchs, and more), but I’ve italicized the items that particularly spoke to me. These questions have stuck with me over the past few days. In particular, I’ve been going over the self-as-community line. It’s ended up leading to thoughts like…Should my first thought of myself be as an individual or as a part of something greater than just my self? Can I be a community all to myself (based on the plural selves idea)? Where are the healthy boundaries between “I” and “we”?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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[The emperor], Akbar, had never referred to himself as “I,” not even in private, not even in anger or dreams. He was – what else could he be? – “we.” He was the definition, the incarnation of the We. He had been born into plurality. When he said “we,” he naturally and truly meant himself as an incarnation of all his subjects, of all his cities and lands and rivers and mountains and lakes, as well as all the animals and plants and trees within his frontiers, and also the birds that flew overhead and the mordant twilight mosquitoes and the nameless monsters in their underworld lairs, gnawing slowly at the roots of things; he meant himself as the sum total of all his victories, himself as containing the characters, the abilities, the histories, perhaps even the souls of his decapitated or merely pacified opponents; and, in addition, he meant himself as the apogee of his people’s past and present, and the engine of their future.

This “we” was what it meant to be a king – but commoners, he now allowed himself to consider, in the interests of fairness, and for the purposes of debate, no doubt occasionally thought of themselves as plural, too.

Were they wrong? Or (O traitorous thought!) was he? Perhaps this idea of self-as-community was what it meant to be a being in the world, any being; such a being being, after all, inevitably a being among other beings, a part of the beingness of all things. Perhaps plurality was not exclusively a king’s prerogative, perhaps it was not, after all, his divine right…[I]t was accordingly inevitable that the men and women over whom he ruled also conceived of themselves as “we”s. They saw themselves, perhaps, as plural entities made up of themselves plus their children, mothers, aunts, employers, co-worshippers, fellow workers, clans, and friends. They, too, saw their selves as multiple, one self that was the father of their children, another that was their parents’ child; they knew themselves to be different with their employers than they were at home with their wives – in short, they were all bags of selves, bursting with plurality, just as he was. Was there then no essential difference between the ruler and the ruled? And now his original question reasserted itself in a new and startling form: if his many-selved subjects managed to think of themselves in the singular rather than plural, could he, too, be an “I”? Could there be an “I” that was simply oneself? Were there such naked, solitary “I”s buried beneath the overcrowded “we”s of the earth?

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Peace. Out.

Quality (of life) vs. Quantity (of money)

Hello, readers! I know at least a few of you are out there…I just checked my stats for this month. :) It’s been a while, obviously, since I felt I had anything to say or add or flesh out here on the ol’ blog, but I’ve been rolling something around in my head over the last few days that has brought me out of retirement.

I work in freelance TV and film production, which means I kind of have to sit around and cross my fingers hoping that work comes in every month. I do my part to build and maintain relationships with past, present, and potential clients, but it’s really not much more than a crapshoot (mixed with a healthy dose of faith). I hope work comes in. I budget for the times it doesn’t and I’m thankful for the times it does. Living a life where quite a large portion of my schedule is unknown can be scary and crazy, but for the most part, it works out.

For someone like me, landing a huge project (70 days!) in one phone call is pretty major. It’s a project that will last the whole year through and one that I will be paid quite well for. It’s basically a freelancer’s dream.

Except that I’m starting to feel like it’s more of a nightmare.

The project has the potential to be fun and cool and lead to other fun and cool things. But the reality so far has been more disorganized and stressful and, well, so completely not fun, that I’m starting to question taking the project at all.

I know the status of the current economy. I know that with a baby on the way, it would seem like a really stupid thing to do to turn down work of just about any kind. The question that keeps coming back to me, though, is “Is the money worth it?” I mean, is that the be-all, end-all of my decision-making at this point? Is there no room to weigh quality of life? Yes, money is absolutely important, and I can’t say how grateful I am to have the opportunity to work right now. But I can’t help wondering if decreasing my happiness, increasing my stress, and experiencing sort of a general sense of dread over the whole thing is worth it.

I know, I know, welcome to the real world, right? People aren’t always happy with their jobs and they often just do them for that paycheck once a month. But I don’t know if that’s what I want my life to be. I want to believe that if I turn this down for really honorable reasons, then I would be blessed with something else to take its place. That keeping this rather poisonous experience in my life is robbing me of the truly awesome things I’m “supposed” to be doing right now.

And yet bills have to be paid.

Where’s the balance? Is there hope of any?

Peace. Out.