Recap: for months, I have been working towards shooting my 16mm movie this coming weekend. Last week, I lost my cast, but by the end of the week things seemed back on track, when I found someone who was prepared to perform in the movie along with (as the other cast member).

Our sad story opens last Sunday morning when this guy arrives at my apartment for what he, no doubt, thinks of as his audition, but what I'm thinking of as our one and only rehearsal. The guy (who happens to be gay) turns out to be much cuter tha expected from his photograph. He's tall, slim, with the open features that show his Eastern European origin. Born in this country, but learned to waltz while growing up in an immigrant community holding on to the ways of the old country. Anyway, I q fill him in on where the movie stands, and, after he's shown me that he can indeed waltz, I tell them that he basically has the part, if he wants it, to which he agrees.

So we spend an hour or so rehearsing the waltz. Since I'm still dragging around two left feet, this rehearsal is mostly about my trying to avoid trampling on his feet. In fact, I don't think that I'm doing too badly -- after all, it's the first n my life that I have waltzed with another person. And even though I'm focused on getting ready for the movie, I have time to notice how pleasant it feels to be dancing close to an attractive young man.

After he departs, I'm finally feeling somewhat optimistic again about the movie. With a week to go, everything is in place: the completed shooting script, all equipment rented, the cast, the crew, a shooting permit from the treasure Island Develo Authority, insurance, rights to the score, the complex 16mm postproduction process planned out, even the weather looks like it's going to cooperate.

That afternoon, I walked around my new neighborhood, visiting artists' studios (in October, the local San Francisco newspapers publish a list of open studios). It was a gorgeous day, but I felt increasingly out of sorts. There are times when I'm happy to be by myself. Then there are other times when I unconsciously absorb society's frown upon the solitary type, and today was one of those latter times. I retired to my apartment feeling lonely and depressed. Or perhaps it was a premonition.

I spend all day Monday visiting one of our customers in Silicon Valley, installing software for them. When I returned home late afternoon, there was a phone message for me from the guy I'd spent my Sunday morning waltzing with. He was going to hav ork this coming weekend, and had to bail out of the shoot. I knew immediately that this was the end of the project. There was no way that I was going to be able to get somebody else so close to the shoot; somebody tall, who could both act and dance ltz. And after twice losing the cast for my movie, I just didn't have the heart to pursue yet another replacement. Besides which, there was little chance of being able to reschedule the shoot this year, what with the clocks going back at the end of nth (which would mean one less daylight hour in which to shoot) and San Francisco's rainy season approaching. After a day or two mulling it over, I contacted everyone to let them know that the shoot was canceled.

For a day or two, I felt extremely numb and downcast, not to mention embarrassed that I had had to tell everybody that my shoot was canceled, and sorry that I had wasted everybody's time. And where did this leave me? Film has come to seem like a ine out of my career malaise. Now this big blow to my self-confidence.

But then some grace notes started to play. Just little things: a screenplay that I read where I identified with the lead character; a fat woman outside of Brooks Bros near union Square singing "Oh Mio Babino Caro" accompanied by the soundtrack on box. And I started to enjoy the lack of stress and tension now that I didn't have this big film effort hanging over me. And I realized that this was my first film failure after four reasonable successes; those odds are not so bad.

For the moment, I've decided to give myself a break, and not plan anymore big projects. I'm just going to take some time to smell the roses.