I realized only recently, and quite suddenly, something that, in hindsight, is pretty obvious. That both the serious movies I've made, as well as the ones I'm working on, all share the same theme - that of people wanting to connect. No big surprise, really, considering the tone of this journal.

You might think that almost every dramatic movie ever written has that theme - after all, most movies are about relationships - connections. But the need to connect is rarely the theme (or moral) of those movies, it's just a tangential subject.

It's funny to notice this. It's almost like discovering something about somebody else. I didn't set out to make movies on that subject. I just came up with story ideas. But here, a theme has found me, or rather, spoken to me. And while I hope I don't become a one-trick pony (like Anita Brookner, in the world of books), I'm glad that I have something to say. I'm not the happiest person in the world, but it gives me a feeling ... almost of pride, that out of my own experience I can make something that communicates by film.

My own experience ... it's been very mixed over the last week. I'm continually wrestling with depression. I'm trying all manner of strategies to force the heavy cloud in my head to keep its distance. Sometimes successfully so. On Saturday, I rediscovered an old CD by one of my favorite groups "The Pet Shop Boys". The bouncy, happy songs of their "Very" CD brought my spirits back to life in a manner that propelled me through the whole day.

At lunchtime, I even had the nerve to ask someone out on a date. It's this guy who's the host at a restaurant I sometimes eat at nearby. It's been so blindingly obvious for months that we're both attracted to each other. Yet whenever we see each other, we're both tongue-tied. But this Saturday, I plucked up the nerve to ask him if he wanted to go out for a drink sometime. It was kind of embarrassing, because the restaurant was pretty empty of customers at the time. Only the (mostly gay) staff were there, hanging around with nothing to do, gossiping and giggling as I exchanged numbers with the host.

In the afternoon, I played tennis for the first time in a year. John and I had gotten out of the habit of it, and, in fact, we hadn't even been in touch much over the intervening months. When I finally made contact last week by email, his admission that he'd been through a tough patch in his own life prompted me to confess likewise to him. And, once we'd played - on a beautiful but windy Saturday afternoon - we went to a coffee house to sit and chat for a while. We didn't even talk about the "deep" stuff, but it was nice to see a different, more animated side to John than I'd seen before.

In the coffeehouse, while I was sitting with John, one of the guys I'm collaborating with on my next movie was sitting working on his Mac powerbook. It was a nice feeling, just running into somebody like that. A bit of connective tissue.