My Set Family

While making Snowmen I saw the people I worked with more than my own family. I spent twelve, thirteen, fifteen hours a day with them, five days a week. They pretty much were my family, complete with annoying/adorable kids, the crazy uncle who makes passes, the crazy uncle who drinks and smokes too much, the aunts with too much time on their hands, and even the fun cousins.


Sunday night we had a dinner with just our production department. It was great to just relax with these people who I truly enjoyed working with.




There was Murphy, our leader. This man is awesome. Then there was Peter, our second-in-command. Jeff, the man who ran the show at base camp. He was cool, not only because he was from Pocatello, but because he had Ray Liotta yell at him over channel one on the radio and didn't even flinch. Rachel, Jason and Michelle, my fellow PAs. We had a lot of good times...

One Year Anniversary

March 23rd was the one-year anniversary for my blog. I remember that I started it on a whim, but after awhile I became slightly addicted to it; I would do things just so I could blog about them later. While doing something I would think of the words I would use to describe it when I blogged about it at home later that night. There were even a couple times when I blogged twice in the same day (Check out Dec. 11 & 7, Nov. 5 & 19, Oct. 12, and September 12 & 28)! Since being in Utah again for the past six weeks or so I've been slightly less consistent with it. But that'll all change when I get back to the city in a few weeks. That's right folks--I'm going back to the city! I'm working with the Tribeca Film Festival again and will (probably) be staying in the city afterward. I will need a place to stay....

March Sadness Part II

I also returned my loaned out car today. And there goes my freedom and independence. Sad. Since I'm not planning on returning to New York for a couple more weeks, whatever will I do in the meantime for transportation? Oh how I miss the city and its subways and buses.

March Sadness

As I write this, Memphis is down by eight points with less than four minutes left. This is not good, as I have them winning the whole enchilada. After the first weekend I was tied for second with two others, and thought my chances were pretty good since I was the only one who had Memphis going all the way. But now, it looks as though I'll be settling for a much lower final position with no possibility of a cash reward. At least it wasn't Gonzaga or Stanford who cost me the dance this year; it seems for several years those two teams had conspired to do me in. So thank you Memphis, for making my March a little more Mad.

P.S. Thanks to Jeff, from whom I stole the title of my post.

Last Day on Set

Sunday was my last day on set. We're actually shooting for three more days, but the mixture of not enough money in the budget and not needing four PAs on the stage in Salt Lake got Michelle and I off the show early. I really wasn't too upset about it, because near the end I was really quite done with it. I weathered a lot on this shoot, mostly all the actual weather. It was hard to believe that our second day of filming, up in Park City at an elementary school, it was -3 degrees when our 28th day of shooting it was so hot (when it's been winter and cold for a long time, 60 degrees feels very hot) I got sunburned. The glare off the snow and the heat from the sun was too much to handle.

I don't miss the early morning calls and the dealing with kids and stage parents, but I do miss the people I worked with. While I felt pretty comfortable with my fellow PAs and ADs, it takes me awhile to warm up and get comfortable with other people. I unfortunately didn't really start talking with some people on set til I only had two days left! And my last day was hectic at the end that I didn't even get to have proper goodbyes with most people!

So while I enjoy my time off, and while I wait for pictures of my day as an extra as a nurse, I give you the few pictures I took on set. I wanted to take more, but most of the time it was a hassle to carry my camera around and take pictures...so this is all you get...




Goodbye Snowmen. I'm still not sure what I was supposed to get out of this, if I was just supposed to have the experience, if I was supposed to meet someone--be it a friend, contact, or someone else, if maybe I needed the opportunity to be back with family, whatever the reason for why I felt I needed to leave New York again, I'm glad I did it.

Michelle and I.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I love that there's a day in the year where everyone is supposed to wear green. I think it's so cool to go out on St. Patrick's Day and notice all the people wearing green. It's as if were all part of some secret club that got the message to wear green. And when you see someone not wearing green, you look at them with a sad look--perhaps they forgot, or worse, just didn't care!

 Last year I was in New York for St. Patrick's and Rosemary and I went to the parade down Fifth Avenue. It's a massive parade full of police officers and servicemen, and one of our friends was playing his tuba with his national guard unit. It was all very cool, figuratively and literally; it was extremely cold that day and I did not come prepared for it. I was thinking about that today and how that was a whole year ago and I was in New York then. Man I miss it sometimes.

Pink Sky

Driving home from work is my favorite part of the day. Not just because I'm finally leaving the craziness and boringness of set, but because, if it's still light outside (and with Daylight Savings it usually is), I can catch the sun setting behind the mountains. Last night did not disappoint; as I came out of Parley's and rounded the corner, the sky was a magnificent pink color! The entire Salt Lake Valley was bathed in the beautiful pink light and it was breathtaking! I never cease to be amazed and wondered by the colors of the setting sun. If I had had my camera, and wasn't driving, I would've taken a picture to post for you guys so you could see how beautiful it was. You'll just have to take my word for it that it was beautiful. Sometimes I can't believe the wonder of it all, and it makes me feel like a small little part of our big world.

Information Gap

I was visiting my mom at work and needed to find the closest auto store. My first instinct was to get online, type in "Pep Boys" or "Checker" and then click on the respective Store Locator. Know what my mom did? She pulls out the phone book. I'm not sure I've even used a phone book in New York! I love the difference in our chosen methods of finding things and that they still garner the same results.

Home is Where?

When I was staying with my friend Michelle at her parents' home in Ogden last week I became acutely aware that I don't have a home. I am currently homeless. I don't pay rent anywhere (except my storage unit in New York). Perhaps a better term would be "between residences". Which is nothing new for me. We moved a lot when I was a kid--Magna, Orem, Bountiful, Pocatello. Pocatello is where we spent the longest time, but even there we lived in three different houses. The home most associated with my childhood, the one with the nostalgic memories attached to it at 1441 Spaulding Lane, was sold and is currently being lived in by people who are strangers to me. Not that it matters; I haven't lived in Pocatello for over five years. But sometimes I think it'd be nice to be able to have my childhood home to go home to. My mom has a nice house in West Jordan, but it's not home to me. My dad lives in Brigham City, and his home is definitely not home to me. My apartment in New York was a good home, but I packed all my crap out of there. My sister's home in Taylorsville, where I'm currently staying, is very nice but she just moved in in Decemeber, so it's barely home to her. Sometimes I long for nothing more than my very own place, a place that I can decorate and get dirty and make my very own. A place that can by my own home.

Ice and Cold

I'm back from my three days on the "frozen" reservoir in Huntsville. It snowed, the sun shone, it was cold, it was warm. The only cool part was that I got to ride a snowmobile to and from set (which was just down a small hill, but nevertheless the funnest part of my day). Today we moved back to Park City and shot at a cemetery and at a little Episcopalian Church. The church was so small that most of the crew had to stand outside. It was a cold day and I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend coming up. Just wanted to let you all know that I didn't fall through the ice, and I'll try to tell you all about Christopher Lloyd being on set today when I have the time. Tomorrow is Daylight Savings after all and I need to prepare for the hour of sleep I'll be losing...

Hodgepodge

A few of the random things I'm thinking about:

--I really need to start organizing my photos and saving them to cds.

--I haven't read in awhile. This is because I no longer have my subway-reading-time. That's where all my reading got done previously, including My Antonia, To Kill a Mockingbird, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, John Adams, and Pope Joan. Now I listen to music as I drive the roads.

--it's snowy and cold in New York but today in Salt Lake it's in the 60's. Woohoo for missing the real winter in New York.

--I don't normally watch The Bachelor and feel any sort of sympathy or kinship with the women involved; they're usually spouting such awful things as, "He's so amazing. I really am falling in love with you, " and such nonsense after knowing the guy for twelve seconds. But last night was different. To be dumped on national television is awful (but then again, they did agree to "fall in love" on national television) but I thought it was really funny when the host said he would leave the room so the two could be alone to say how they really felt, even though all the cameras were still there and ready to broadcast their special moments to the entire nation. Melissa said something that gave me shivers: "You put a ring on my finger and made a promise but now you don't want to fight for us." Wow. Instead of watching it to get a good laugh I got a sucker punch to the gut.

--Jimmy Fallon debuted his new talk show last night. I love Jimmy Fallon, but the show was a little flat. He seemed really nervous, and Robert De Niro looked completely bored and uninterested in being there. Justin Timberlake was funny though (did I really just type that?). Hopefully Jimmy finds his groove and gets funnier.

--I think The Fray is going on tour. I need to check if they're coming anywhere near here...

--Speaking of music, I just bought Ray Lamontagne's new cd. This song rocks. But Hannah is my all-time favorite.

--I went to see my Grandma today. She's 96 and incredible. She was able to live by herself in her very own house on Main Street in Moroni until just a little while ago. She know lives in an assisted living place in Bountiful. Sometimes I get tired when I visit her--her room is always really hot and I hear the same stories about five times--but it's worth it when she tells me about my grandpa. He's been gone for almost fifteen years and she told me that she hopes he still wants her now that she's old and wrinkly!

--My grandma waited a good hour to ask if I had a boyfriend, and didn't sound too disappointed when I said no.

--I'd like to marry Jimmy John, and hopefully get free BLTs for life. Would grandma approve?

--I'm going to be MIA for a few days--heading up to Ogden to shoot on a reservoir. But with this warm weather recently, the reservoir might be more of a slushy mess. That'll be fun.

Escape to New York

I've been pretty neglectful of my blog lately. Since coming back to Salt Lake and working I don't feel like I have anything exciting to write about anymore. Living in New York was like living in a living, breathing, amazing museum everyday. Even if the day was only spent going to work, I still got to spend my day in this crazy city that was our nations first capitol, home to Central Park and Martin Scorsese, home of Rockefeller Center and Gray's Papaya, the place where you can be all alone in a city of millions.

Which is why it was such an escape for me. It had been a pretty crazy, awful year before I moved. Even though I had graduated college and spent time in Europe, it was still a year marred by personal heartbreak. All I wanted to do was get away, go to a place where no one knew me and where nothing was familiar or had memories attached to it. So when I had the opportunity to move to New York, it seemed as though everything had worked out for it to happen (I'm one of those people who believes in signs and things happening for a reason). I just knew it was right. And I wouldn't give up my time in New York for anything. The escape was just what I needed.

But perhaps it's time to move on. I don't really know. I just know that it's an adjustment to be around people again, to see my sister everyday, to drive a car. Maybe that time of my life where I need to escape and be alone is done. I know that I'd like to see my nieces more, to hopefully be a good example to them. But maybe I'm also just on the precipice of starting a gypsy life, where I move from place to place. My things are already in storage....