Laure-Marie is drunk with happiness.

Let me just say, it's not too often I post twice in one day. In fact, it's almost never.

Today was a fabulous day. I spent most of it alone, but I finished editing Carol's novel, which was a labor of love and much time. I ventured outside the home to the gym (as usual) and to Walgreens and Old Navy, and then...

Dhoom Taana was released.

Not to brag, but we got 240 hits on Youtube in under 2 hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7n2lrXdOYQ

I have been plugging this thing for the last 2 hours, so get used to seeing the link in all of my posts. It's on every website I can think of. I linked everyone I know to it. Yes, I'm obsessed. It's my baby!

The day just kept getting better. My loan got approved. I logged on to Protagonize and saw a few comments on my story--all of them positive, all of them begging for another chapter!

I feel like the past few weeks of real trial--the death of my dog, the struggle with some of my close friends, the stress of the production--were all supposed to make me feel even better now as I sit here reflecting on how wonderful things feel right now.

Accomplishment makes me glow. In fact, it makes me too energetic to sleep. Now I want the next thing to come so I can start work on it.

Oh, I guess that'd be school.

DHOOM TAANA IS UP

This is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7n2lrXdOYQ

watch it.

Laure-Marie Verity has a new name.

Lauren has changed her facebook name twice in the past month.

First it was to Ren, the cute nickname that replaced Lauren in freshman year of college.

Then it was to Laure-Marie, the name she used as a username on Protagonize and started to love.

Laure-Marie means elegance. It means foreign wealth, fame, fortune, dare I say fuckloads of diamonds? (Lily Allen reference there) It means a new start, which I desperately need. It means confidence. It means Audrey Hepburn, not questionable Katy Perry. It means Catherine Deneuve, not Paris Hilton.

It means everything I think a lady should be: skilled at foreign languages, player of a musical instrament, a possessor of good taste in all things, a woman with a cool exterior but a passionate interior, confident, beautiful, intelligent/well-versed in pop culture and historical culture, very of the moment but also very classic, and lastly, happy.

I wish I could be all that! But someday I know I will be.

Ren Verity is so tired.

My film editor didn't upload Dhoom Taana tonight, so we all sat around our computers (and by all, I mean all 30 of us) for nothing. But oh well, tomorrow he says.

Good news: I won this thing called the Mod's Mention on Protagonize for one of my stories. I'm not 100% sure what it is, but I think it's like a "you're doing all right on this" sort of thing. Which I like. It was very flattering.

It's 1:40 AM and I should be asleep, but I'm sitting here ruminating on how many of Neil Gaiman's blog entries I have to read and how I need to finish the Bollywood cast poster by tomorrow. Not to mention Carol's book, which I got pretty far in today.

And also how I should have taken the bowl and cup sitting next to me into the kitchen. And how glad I am that my house has running water, because living without it for three days was a nightmare.

Ren Verity is perplexed.

Neil Gaiman has been writing too many entries in his blog. I can't keep up. One minute it's bell jars and the next it's Comicon, and on top of that I've been awake for way too long and feel like I've got ADD.

That aside, Bollywood is over.

That's right, you heard me. My project is FINISHED.

This should make me feel relaxed, happy, grateful for my free time...at least accomplished.

But no. Mostly I feel regretful that it's over and sad that I have nothing to do for the next three weeks. I'm so happy with how it turned out. We did an amazing job for an amateur cast with a zero dollar budget and no experience with filming a bollywood video.

The final cut will be available in a week, I believe. For now there are preliminary videos on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=112904497100&ref=nf

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=112901382100

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=112880327100

That was yesterday's shoot. Other videos can be found on youtube (previously linked in the blog).

At any rate, now I have other things to attend to, as much as it pains me to say so. Student loans, college scheduling, Carol's novel, The Once and Future King, Chuck season 2, and writing (which has been neglected) are all up there on the list.

3 weeks isn't so long...

Questionable.

If I believed in some kind of otherwordly spiritual being (and that's not to say I do), I would expect that it's testing me right now.
I've had a good summer. Like, really good. Tons of things to do, work/fun in terms of the Bollywood project, a nice vacation right now, and I'm shortly leaving for college. But in the past few weeks (especially before I left for Disneyland and right now) things have been just collapsing. It's strange.
I'm learning to appreciate the calm times when things are just so-so, not overwhelming or boring. It's not effecting me as much as I would have thought it would, but maybe that's just because I'm older now and used to things like this happening.
But anyway, if someone is testing me, I bet they're surprised, because I'm surprising myself right now, since I'm not upset or anything. That will probably follow, but I'm keeping stable and in control. For once in my life. :)