Posted by jessica on Jun 6, 2011 with
6 Comments
in
Funny Stuff,
Performance,
Thoughts and Feelings
as
blind leading the blind,
cab driver,
call,
car,
different corner,
direction,
drinking,
dunkin donuts,
google,
google maps,
grandfather,
leading the blind,
old train,
period,
ride,
shoot,
subway train,
taping,
yellow cab
I spent all day taping.
Man, I loved it, to be honest.
But I didn’t love taking the subway train in the wrong direction this morning. And not just any old train, either, but the express–so, I was way way way far away before I finally realized I was going the complete wrong direction.
I finally got off and, since call time was in ten minutes, decided to take a cab. But the only cab driver I could find just told me he couldn’t take me. Period. Though he could certainly stand next to his yellow cab and leisurely sip his dunkin donuts coffee, I noticed. But he did tell me that I could find a cab around the corner. I went to the corner. I even went around the corner. I found no cab. So back to the coffee drinking, non-driving cab driver I went.
“Can you please take me to Manhattan?” I asked.
Okay, I begged.
“I have a bad back!” he told me.
You can’t really argue with that, I guess. Though it wasn’t like I was asking him to give me a piggy-back ride to Manhattan.
“But I will drive you around the corner to find a car service,” he offered. I guess his bad back allowed him to drive certain distances. Like, just around corners.
So he took me to a different corner than the one I had tried and pointed out the kind of black car your grandfather would drive. I jumped out and hopped into that car, told my new driver the address and then waited while he promptly got lost. Yes, got lost. And meanwhile, I was a half hour late to my shoot.
SHOOT.
So, I took out my google maps ap and directed him myself. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Also, he spoke very thickly accented English, so it was terribly difficult to decipher what he was saying. Oh, it was a mess. Finally, we got there.
“All I have is twenty-eight dollars, sir.” I explained.
“It’s forty.” he answered.
“But I only have twenty-eight.” I re-explained (because he clearly didn’t get it the first time).
“…Okay…” he acquiesced.
I handed him the bills and ran to the studio in quite a huff.
Only to find that nobody had done anything yet and it was no big deal that I was late. THANK GOODNESS.
And then we taped and taped and I got my hair and makeup done by a very kind man who just adopted a Chihuahua whom he initially named Lupe (which she apparently hated and would not respond to) and so finally renamed her Lilly, which she accepted as her name.
Way to stick to your guns, Lilly the Chihuahua.
And now I am quite tired and I have a whole day of the same thing tomorrow (minus the morning debacle, I have decided–fun as that was).
Posted by jessica on Jun 27, 2009 with
No Comments
in
Funny Stuff,
Thoughts and Feelings
as
Amos,
chain,
chain link fence,
Deanna,
Emily,
fence,
fence river,
God,
humor,
link,
Madeline Albright,
perfect conversation,
period,
ridiculous ideas,
river,
Rosa Parks,
strength,
sweet strains,
walk,
women
The sweet strains of Japanese are serenading me right now as my roommate faithfully practices the language of the land which we are visiting at the end of the summer.
She now knows how to say, An adult woman is swimming, which will be a perfect conversation starter at the stage door, I am sure.
I mean, really, there’s got to be an adult woman swimming somewhere in the world at that moment, even if it isn’t exactly pertinent to the situation at hand.
I am feeling content with my thorough knowledge of the word, konichiwa.
That means hello, as you probably already know.
I plan on saying that a lot.
And when they ask me if I’ve had Japanese lessons, I will simply and modestly say no–self-taught, actually. And then I will take a sniff and mention something about how languages are just intuitive with some people.
As is the need to rise to a challenge.
To scale any wall.
And I don’t mean that metaphorically, at least not tonight.
See, three of us are walking home tonight and on a whim decide to take the river walk to get there. It’s just lovely here and who doesn’t want to see the moon reflecting on the water as much as possible?
That’s what I thought.
Anyway, we start on the river walk and much to our chagrin see that it has been closed off with a chain link fence, due to some sort of construction or other such nonsense.
We probably would have just taken the two block detour and veered away from the river walk had it not been for the two heckling men that were sitting by the chain link fence.
River walk’s closed, ladies, the one guy seems only too happy to report to us.
Yep, you’re gonna have to go around, guy number two says, I mean, whatcha gonna do–scale that fence in those pretty dresses?
And with that they both share an extremely long and generous laugh at what, to them, must seem like the most preposterous and ridiculous idea ever swapped between two men in the history of manly idea swapping.
And I am pretty sure there have been a fair share of ridiculous ideas swapped.
Just saying.
We don’t need to say anything, really, their laugh having sealed the deal.
With resolution in our steps, we walk up those stairs and right up to the chain link fence. Like a good team, we work together.
Deanna stands directly behind me, blocking the men’s view, should my dress lift a little too much as I am the first to scale the fence. With the river on my right and chain link on my left, I loop a leg over the fence. As I swing my body over it I glimpse one of the guys in the peanut gallery with his camera poised at me.
Perfect.
Hopefully he has a blog.
We pass bags for each other to hold and link arms as, one after the other, all three of us safely make it across.
We are Superwoman, Madeline Albright, and Rosa Parks all at once.
We take a few paces feeling quite proud of ourselves, laughing and savoring the moment as we leave those hecklers behind when suddenly we come upon an even bigger chain link fence.
Shoot.
Turning back is not an option.
Not with Thing 1 and Thing 2 back there; not with their camera and not with their laughter.
Again, we walk up to it, determined to make this thing work.
Thank God we are dancers. There is a hole, a tiny space between the chain link fence and the railing and one by one, we shimmy through, passing bags and grabbing hands.
We come through as women victorious. We wear dresses and climb fences.
And oh yeah, we get our periods.
Which is why I sent this text to my friend Emily today:
So I got my period at the beach today
and I fully blame you, my friend. Thanks
for dragging me into your lunar cycle;
really appreciate it…
After a few moments, I hadn’t gotten any texts back from her, which surprised me a little.
Finally my phone lit up with a text and I looked down to see this from Amos:
With all due respect…I don’t get a period so bugger off!!!
Oops!!!!
