Day 1 of Short Film Shoot

Most of the time, the guys who work on movie sets are like magical pit crews. Everything is quick and efficient. No one complains. Even in the bitter freezing cold. Complaining stops the process from moving forward. Cold hands? Ssshhweeeep (that's the sound of someone leaving and coming back in the speed of light) Hand warmers. Battery low? Ssssshhweeep. New battery pack. Sometimes if they don't have exactly what is needed, they have to improvise, and usually they come up with solutions that are even better than what you thought you needed in the first place. Here they are standing completely still and silent while the camera is rolling. I love these guys!

My friend Amy, who is directing, is also in the middle of nursing two great big baby girl twins. And she forget her pump! By the end of the day she had a swelling problem. (Girls, come on, you know what I'm talking about.) So we got on the walkie-talkie:" Sam! Swelling problem! No pump! ASAP" and ssshhhhhweep, two volunteers. Instantly. These guys are amazing.

Agua Dulce

Today is Day 1 of shooting a short film I wrote. I feel like an bystander at this point; I'm just an observer. I think I will have more to report after the weekend. So, here's a song I love.

I Have No Control Over Myself

Reason # 627 to have children: So they can point out your flaws! Here's an old post I wrote:

I don’t know if I’ve been doing this all my life but I just had an 11 year old point out to me that if I’m speaking to a person with an accent, I start speaking with an accent. Like Madonna. I am horrified and partly fascinated by this. Horrified, well, for obvious reasons. But fascinated too because I have absolutely no awareness that I’m doing it. It’s almost like there is a new side of me I never knew about, like finding out I can speak Portuguese, or that I have a long lost twin who was raised in South Africa with my long lost real father.

“Do I bat my eyes when I do it?

What?

Like this.

Ew no.

That’s what Madonna does when she talks in a bloody English accent.

What? Mom! Why are you doing that?

Why am I doing what love?

Mom stop.

Ok guvna.”

See?? I’m ashamed of myself. She said I even do it when I talk to my black friends. I start saying Oh girl you know that shit ain't right! And with gay friends I’ll say Oh no she didn’t, and do a snap and a head swivel.

Mom you are seriously out of control, Mo says to me.

I am? But I can’t stop something I don’t even have any control over. What’ll I do? Do I need to get someone to record me so then I can watch the tapes? Analyze myself like a play by play? Am I just a desperate pleaser trying to fit in? Or am I old and this is the beginning of senility?

There’s really no comforting answer to this question.

I Like To Touch Dirty Things

What the hell did people used to do before there was antibacterial gel at the supermarket? I was wondering this while I watched some woman slather it up to her elbows and then onto her child’s tiny dimpled hands. As if that wasn’t enough, then she squirted a load onto the handle of the shopping cart, and rubbed it in like she was a crack-whore giving it a five-dollar hand job. She knew what she was doing, this gal. And she was smiling!  Smiling as if to say, I am taking control of my life, I will never allow germs, bacteria or possible bits of fecal matter to enter my world and cause me, or my precious family members, to get flulike symptoms. I have to say, it was mesmerizing. The whole procedure was so strange and wrong and oddly titillating, I wanted to drop to the ground and roll around like an old, happy dog on top of a dead squirrel.

Instead I gave her a self-righteous glare: Seriously woman? You think you’ve got it all under control? Everything all clean and perfect? Well it’s not! You’re going to get sick, you’re going to get germs, you’re going to get golden, oozing infections just like the rest of us, only yours will be worse because they will be rare anti-bacterial-gel mutations. “Now go buy your organic produce, YOU FREAK!” And I let my glare follow her all the way into the store.

Going to the grocery store is exhausting.

Filing it Away

This guy is trying to remember which article of clothing he forgot to put on.

Sometimes I’ll walk into a room to get something and then completely forget what I was looking for. I read an article that said walking through a doorway creates an “event boundary” in your brain where whatever you were thinking/doing in one room gets closed up and filed away before you enter another. So it’s actually your brain’s tidiness and not any impending altzheimer’s or absent-mindedness that’s causing you to space out. I suppose this is why retracing your steps can help you remember. My brain must be extremely tidy because it creates “event boundaries” at other times like when I call someone on the phone and then forget who it is I’m calling, or when I go through a list of my entire family’s names before hitting on the right one.

Being Brave

Going Postal

I have heard that the Post Office is becoming obsolete. I wish this were true, but the one I go to always has a line at least 18 people long. And one open window. Sometimes I think people go stand in there just to give me a chafe. Here is an old post about a not-uncommon experience.

I race-walked two people in the post office parking lot to get to the door first. I don’t know what happened, I heard them clickclackclicking behind me and I automatically accelerated. They wanted to get in line in front of me!

Oh hell no.

Ok, I only had that thought for a second. As soon as I saw the woman clutch her purse up close like a football so she could actually jog by me I thought, that’s it, you win, I give up. Cupping my hands around my mouth I yell, "Go get in line ahead of me. Save yourself one minute of time so you can get back to your job for the President of the United States or whatever urgent business you have to tend to!" I did have the momentary thought of giving her a roller derby hip-check into the bike rack by the stairs, but then the guy she was with bumped past me with his aggressive skip-walking.

Come on!

What is it with me and the post office? First off, I still use it. I’m not sure I have any friends who still go to the P.O. as much as I do. I mean I only go a few times a month but still, it’s definitely one of the stops on my itinerary. I can’t imagine anyone I know standing in line for a packet of stamps or sending off a package, I mean, they must, but I never hear about it.

I am thinking all these things when I take my place behind the panting horses in front of me. I take a look around: assess my approximate wait-time, consider the strengths of the other people around me in case there is an earthquake and we are all stuck in a pile of rubble together. It does not look good. Just me and 18 crazy people. A few more walk in behind me, including an old guy in a plaid wool blazer. I don’t know why he was reassuring but he was, there’s something about an old guy in a wool blazer, with his wristwatch and his black socks. But then I looked more carefully. One eye was slightly bigger than the other. And it was protruding. The other eye was crossed.

As soon as I turned back around, he started talking. “You know there were some communists in my driveway once.”

Ok, here we go.

“That was a frivolous tale. I mean the red ones too. Generally they are red, you know.” He chuckled to himself, the old gent, having a good time. In an instant, he turned on a dime, “That sacrimonious infidel.” He yelled, spraying spittle. “I told them not to listen to him. They knew what he was. But he was never part of it. Never. Part. Of. It.”

How does this guy get himself dressed? How is he standing in line buying a packet of stamps? Is his body just on automatic while his brain is spinning out like a car in the Indy 500? Does he have the thought: I need to buy a stamp to put on the letter to pay a bill? Or do his feet simply carry him from one place to the next, just maneuvering through his itinerary?

Oh my god he’s just like me!

I looked at the people ahead of me, some talking on the phone, some texting, some daydreaming, and I calmed myself. We all got up out of bed, got ourselves dressed, made a plan, followed through. Some of us just have more distractions than others.