Posts made in January, 2012
Day 21: Necessary Adjustments
Day 21. The big brown UPS truck pulls up in front of my house. The driver, a salt and pepper haired George Clooney type in a snug pair of milk chocolate colored shorts, talks on his cell as he jumps out and walks my way. I don’t normally take note of such, ahem, details but he’s just super handsome. I open the door as he rounds the corner. I, of course, am still wearing pajamas, have bed head and don’t have my tooth in. There’s no way in hell I elicit a similar response in him. He doesn’t bother getting off his cell. He smiles and hands me two small packages—an envelope and a small box. I mime and mouth, “do I need to sign?” He shakes his head, “no” as he refocuses on...
Read MoreDay 20: What’s next?
Day 20. I am fighting off a scratchy throat, which threatens to blossom further as I type this. I am still behind in my editing and not working is not an option. Sleep did not come easily last night despite my exhaustion. I yawn and stretch my arms as I fire up the Avid this morning. That simple move strains a neck muscle, the one that always goes out when I don’t sleep well. Brilliant. Ice pack on, Tylenol popped, a sip of hot water with lemon to keep it all at bay. Despite the onslaught of Debbie downers from my health and body, I remain over the moon thrilled. “It looks like you are ready to get to the next level,” I read in an email from my super duper awesome web...
Read MoreDay 19: Take it or leave it!
Day 19. My cell phone rings. Which startles me. It never used to ring, ever. Then I remember I have reception at the house now. I recently switched from AT&T to Verizon. Voila. Full bars. Hallelujah. I pick up because I see the name of a talented writer, director, actor friend of mine come up. He is checking in to see if I’ve had a chance to read the latest draft of his script. I have not. I plan to. He’s feeling a little shaken from a note he just got from an agent friend of his. He’s shaken because he disagrees with it and it has instantly planted doubt in his mind about the scene. We talk it out. He relaxes. Opens his mind and decides to take a look at the doubt...
Read MoreDay 18: Woman in Film
Day 18. My stomach gurgles. This foreshadows one thing: an inevitable trip to the bathroom is in my near future. I stand in the middle of a mob of women—no idea where the ladies’ room is. Awesome. This is not how I envision beginning my experience with the Women in Film mentoring program—needing to take a shit! We inch our way towards a set of double doors. I had no idea there’d be this many women applying for a mentor. Even though my abdominal discomfort escalates I tell myself, “just relax, you can make it through.” I find it pretty much intolerable to poop in public bathrooms. I highly doubt I’m alone in this outlook just like I’m obviously not alone in wanting a...
Read MoreDay 17: Ready? Okay.
Day 17. Five, four, three, two, one. It’s time, to start the clock. It’s time, to really rock-it team. It’s time for vic-tor-y! I just spent the last nine hours straight with a cheerleader. Not in person. She’s one of the characters in my documentary. And she’s awesome. It’s tempting to attribute her pep and circumstance to her ripe old age of 17 but I know it’s not that simple. It’s more than just her youth. It’s a part of who she is as a person. I firmly believe being a cheerleader, literally or figuratively, is due to an inherent zest and zeal in the pompom shaker’s make-up. I’m partial to the cheerleader. I was one from the 7th grade through my senior year in high...
Read MoreDay 16: Choices
Day 16: I’m out of automatic dishwasher detergent. This discovery foils my plan to remain in pajamas all day editing. Working from home has its perks. I seriously consider letting it wait, but, the dishwasher is stuffed and there’s not a clean dish in the joint. Reluctantly, I put on pants. Driving home from Whole Foods with “six items for $80” in my possession like the satirical rap song “it’s on in the whole food parking lot” says, I curse myself for buying the hooey hooey (read “expensive”) dishwasher detergent they sell to save a trip to Vons, getting lured into their cheese section—I can’t resist the triple creme from Cowgirl Creamery which is the...
Read MoreDay 15: Fear: Friend or Foe?
Day 15: I realize this experiment is being born out of the one place every artist or self-help guru or new age life coach tells you to let go of because it impedes the creative process: fear. According to dictionary.com fear is a noun defined as “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.” Real or imagined—how annoying. Death is real. My fear that the next-door neighbor is plotting my premature demise by purposely putting his trashcans right in front of my truck every Monday morning on garbage day blocking my path to the road is probably imaginary. Or is...
Read MoreDay 14: The Time Paradox
Day 14. I’m not exactly sure how it’s already two weeks into the New Year. Being busy definitely aids time to fly. I have a feeling I’m going to blink and find myself typing “365” after the word “day” any minute now. In sharp contrast, I’ve been slogging my way through the book “The Time Paradox” for the last three months and I can’t seem to get to the end. The book was written by two Ph.D. smarty-pants types, Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd and it is all about, well, the paradox of time. I hate jigsaw puzzles but I dig paradoxes—the more absurd and contradictory the better. A time or two (or twenty) I have been labeled a walking contradiction by my main...
Read MoreDay 13: Let’s start from scratch!
Day 13. I wake up with a soggy cloak of funky fog over my head like from a hangover. But it isn’t acquired from some super fun, wild night in Vegas involving Wayne Newton, Carrot Top, Mike Tyson and a bevy of exotic dancers, although I am missing a tooth—long story. I didn’t drink any alcohol, take any drugs or create any meth from the ingredients in cold medicine. No, I ingested too much sadness last night and it’s lingering today. “That call is inevitable,” I say as I fry a pan of life-extending bacon and pull out the butter for the pancakes, “especially when you get beyond 40.” It can come at anytime. And whether it comes from a delicate chime, a rap song or a...
Read MoreDay 12: Everything stops…
Day 12: I hear a delicate chiming sound coming from somewhere in the house. My hands momentarily hover over the keyboard, ears perked. What the hell? Luckily, my synapses fire quickly and I realize, oh, that must be the contractor’s cell phone. My fingers and I go back to editing. I still have so much to do today my head spins from just the thought of all the work. I’m a mixed bag of panic, adrenaline and excitement nuts. The priority is the doc editing and I’m on a deadline. Dan the awesome editor man begins cutting on Monday and I’m stringing out three scenes for him to take and make brilliant. Obviously, contractor is synonymous with home...
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