Get Through It

After feeling my sickness coming on yesterday, it became apparent this morning when I woke up that the cold that was yesterday threatening was now in full affect. Ugh. I got up long enough this morning to pee, eat a few cough drops and plop down on the couch with my pillow. I didn't even bother turning the TV on. I simply pulled my purple velour blanket Tina sent me up over me and fell back asleep. This is how I spent the rest of my day. Curled up with a blanket dozing in and out of sleep. Occasionally waking up long enough to talk to Marshall for a bit and pee and then going right back to sleep. I guess it could be worse. I could be sick and have to be at work. Yep another draw back to my current profession - no sick days. Sure, I could take the day off if I really had to but I'm certainly not going to get paid for it. And so I count my lucky stars that my cold came on full force on a Saturday and hopefully will be waning by Monday. At one point in the day, I had another one of my cough drops with motivational phrases and it said to me, "Get Through It. Don't Give Up On Yourself." Thank you cough drop for the pep talk. Yes, I know I will get through it. At this point, after surviving the death of my son, I do believe I can get through just about anything the world can throw at me. So, I can certainly get through a head cold.

The one great thing about a head cold is the amazing sleep it provides. I was practically knocked out cold for hours upon hours at end. Best sleep I've had in a long, long time. In fact, I slept so hard I started to have bizarre dreams. I even dreamed I got fired from Homeland because I checked my cell phone at work. Ironic since even the producers themselves text me and email me while I'm at work to see how we are doing during the day. Not to mention the daily emails I get from the colorist about our daily's report and any number of other emails or text I get from the office, wardrobe, ADs and editors. Not to say I could never be fired but that reason certainly wouldn't be why.

I was sleeping particularly hard when I got a phone call from my cousin Brandy. It woke me up in fact and I was so discombobulated I didn't know what was going on. By the time I realized Brandy was calling me, I had missed the call and had to call her back. It was then that I got the second biggest shock this year - Brandy was engaged! I was floored. I never in a million years imagined she would be calling to tell me this news. At only 24, I never thought Brandy would be getting married. She's still in middle of Pharmacy school and her boyfriend will just be starting Pharmacy school in the fall. I guess in a lot of ways I still see Brandy as the little girl that used to call me at 7am on Saturdays to talk because she had just learned how to use the telephone. Now she's getting married?! I also find this hard to believe since I work in a business where practically nobody gets married before the age of 30 except maybe the actors but then all of them are divorced within the year. But, it's not just my business. It's society in general these days. The average age of people getting married is much older now than it was when my parents got married. I only know a few people that got married in their early twenties and over half of them didn't work out. Not to say that getting married when you're older is a sure fire way of not getting a divorce, but I think it helps you to know who you really are.

I am happy for her, but I hope they don't rush in to a marriage. They haven't dated but a little over a year. Hell, I will be celebrating my 3rd wedding anniversary in September and Brandy brought a totally different guy to that whom at the time she was head over heels for. My personal opinion is that they should have a long engagement. Live together. Really get to know each other. Finish school. Then get married. School is hard enough. To throw marriage in on top of that will only make things harder. Marriage changes things. For the most part, Brandy has led a pretty sheltered life. I mean we are from a small town in NC called Goldsboro. Even when she went away to school, she only went an hour away and spent nearly every weekend coming home. She's never even dated a guy that is not from Goldsboro or another surrounding small town. Her experiences in life are very limited and I worry that one day she will be exposed to life outside of Goldsboro and her comforts and that might open her eyes to other possibilities. Possibilities that might infringe on this upcoming marriage.

But, she's happy for now. And who wouldn't be happy judging by the ring he gave her. I have to give the boy credit - he spared no expense for her happiness. I am happy for her and I'm happy the family has some good news to celebrate in. I like her boyfriend Bryce a lot and I think he does everything he can to treat her right. He dotes on her and I have no doubt he loves her, as does she him. I just hope that it is the type of love that can withstand the test of time and change as they change. For there is one thing I know for sure - most people change drastically in their twenties. You come into your own during this time. You start to have a better understanding of who you are, what you stand for and what you want out of life. It's often why friends you had when you were in your early twenties are no longer the same friends you have in your thirties. You just changed and grew apart. Hopefully, this won't happen to Brandy and Bryce. Hopefully, their changes will complement each other and they will grow together and not apart. Only time will tell. I pray that they too will "get through it."

Friday the 13th

I never really knew where the whole Friday the 13th superstition came from. I mean as far as my life has gone, Friday the 13th were more a novelty than any bad omen. So, I decide to do a little research on it and found that in numerology the number 12 symbolizes completeness - 12 months of the year, 12 hours on the clock, 12 Gods of Olympus, 12 Apostles of Jesus, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 signs of the Zodiac. Ergo, if 12 was the number of completeness, 13 was considered irregular for it transgressed this completeness. And Fridays have been considered unlucky days since as early as the 14th century - obviously, Friday was not the end of their work week back then. Accordingly, Friday is an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Who knew? Never again will I leave town on a journey on a Friday and certainly not a Friday the 13th. No, I will either have to leave Thursday or wait until Sat.

Superstitions are all quite silly when you really break them down and consider them, and yet we as a society still strongly believe in them. Whether or not you believe in the validity of the Friday the 13th curse or not, you still have to admit that when the very scarce Friday the 13th rolls around you pay a lot more attention to the date than any other Friday in that month. Well, today definitely seemed to be one of those Friday the 13ths when everything just seemed a bit off for me. To start things off I woke up at 9am wide awake even though I didn't have to be to work until 1pm. I laid in bed for awhile hoping I would go back to sleep, but I never did. So, I got up and started to get ready for the day.

It was then that it hit me. Uh oh. My throat is really sore. I drank some water hoping it had just dried out in the night. Thirty minutes and two bottles of water later and my throat was on fire. Oh boy, this is going to be a long night of work. It wasn't until I got in the shower that I realized that in addition to a sore throat, my head was also stuffed up. I took my vitamins and just prayed I would make it through the day before my cold really kicked in. At work I confiscated all of the medic's cough drops to help soothe my burning throat. I also doused myself with an emergency and bottle after bottle of water. So far, no worse.

The work day was going along splendidly enough for a Friday the 13th. No major casualties or catastrophes. Our actress Morgan had 5 of her friends from high school in Atlanta up visiting. They were all working as extras in the scene we were filming with Morgan. She was so excited to have her friends on set that the first thing she said to me was that they were here and I had to come meet them. One by one I greeted each one of them and shook their hand. One of her friends, Sophie, I had met last year when she accompanied Morgan to the premier party. It was nice to share in Morgan's excitement over her friends and it made me forget for a brief time that I was mostly likely coming down with a nasty cold. But then the sky opened up and buckets upon buckets of rain came crashing down all over our scene. Drats! Now what. As I sat inside watching the rain come down and the AD staff furiously try to figure out what to do now, I was reminded of my achy throat. So, I popped another cough drop or two. Eventually, the rain subsided and we finished our scene and moved locations for our night work.

By the time night came, I was convinced I was getting sick and had probably consumed a whole bag of cough drops and nothing else. When we broke for lunch I went and got another bag of cough drops instead of eating. No appetite. Yep, I was definitely sick. By the time we wrapped at 4am, there was no denying that I was sick. I popped one last cough drop for the ride home and realized that my cough drops had little motivational sayings on the wrappers. The first one I had noticed all day. And what did it say? "Don't waste a precious minute." Oh how profound in so many ways. My first thought was to Nolan and how I shouldn't have taken for granted a single moment I had with him. For any future pregnancy I might have, I most definitely won't waste a single moment but will enjoy each and every moment I have with that baby as it may all be over far too quickly. My second thought was how so many minutes of today had been wasted due to the rain or just poor planning. And that would be why we are just now getting off at 4am. But lastly, I remembered it was Friday the 13th and that the day had proved to be somewhat of an off day for me. However, being that it was indeed 4am on Saturday now, Friday the 13th was over. So I rushed home to enjoy as much of the weekend as I could - starting with a nice restful slumber. Maybe tomorrow I will wake up refreshed and no longer sick.

Is It Friday Yet?

Some weeks just seem to drag on and on. This was one of those weeks. It's probably because Monday was so brutal that it just set the tone for the week to be painstakingly long. I mean I basically worked in one day on Monday what most people work in two full work days. That being said, today shouldn't be Thursday, it should be Friday. And yet, it's not. And here we are on stage again. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy stage work. The stage isn't too far from the apartment, it's nice and climate controlled, there are no bugs and no sweltering heat and humidity. But, there's also very little to write about on days like this. Having very little if any interaction with the outside world, I find it hard to find something within the day that made me laugh or smile.

Today though at lunch, Ashley (one of the producer's assistants) asked me to join her for a walk. I was rather surprised by the request but jumped on it. I haven't taken lunchtime walks since our writer Meredith left so I was happy to have someone else to join me. We walked down past the stages to a little pond where a crowd of Canadian geese reside. It was lovely outside so the walk was rather enjoyable. It was nice to just get outside and feel like I had a little bit of exercise for the day even if I didn't burn off that White Mocha I drank for breakfast.

Unlike yesterday which seemed to be packed with surprises and fun times, today was slow and laborious. Not only had I received an unexpected gift, but one of our camera guys Patrick received some unexpected 40th birthday wishes on set. His wife and son and fellow camera crew surprised him with not only a huge birthday cake with 40 flaming candles, but also a singing Marilyn Monroe birthday gram. She came complete with birthday balloons and a kiss on the cheek for the birthday boy. It was rather enjoyable to watch and Patrick took it all in good spirits. After all, it's not every day you turn 40! I did it up for Marshall's 40th birthday - bouncy house and all.

Today though we were filming in mostly one room all day with the same actors for a very long scene. After awhile the hours just seem to go on and on as you replay the same 7 minutes over and over again. The only cool thing was a prosthetic arm we had for the scene. We aren't the type of show to normal have things like this, so when we do shoot someone or have prosthetic limbs, it always is cool and different. It was the one thing that seemed to get everyone excited about the day. Besides, it was something different than the last 7 minutes we've done a million times over. We were finally moving on to the aftermath of those 7 minutes where we actually did something exciting and new. So yeah, I guess I do get to see things most people don't get to see at work. Fake arms aren't the norm at most workplaces.

Bracelet

Guys seem to have the most trouble finding the words to tell Marshall and I how sorry they are for our loss. I've seen countless men struggle to say something to me and instead just end up hugging me tightly and walking away. Some walk away teary eyed. Other's walk away before any emotion can be traced on their face. Still some say nothing at all. Pretending almost as if they know nothing about our tragedy. I can always tell the ones that are the most deeply hurt by our loss. Like Johnny V. The first time I saw him when I returned to Homeland, he didn't hesitate to come up to me. He hugged me fiercely then pulled away and started to say something, but choked on the words instead. So, he shook his head and hugged me again and walked away saddened by the encounter. Perhaps it was because some time had passed, or perhaps it was because Marshall is a guy, but Johnny V was finally able to find the words when Marshall saw him last week. He told Marshall he was deeply saddened and affected by our loss. He also admitted that despite his best efforts, he just couldn't find the words to speak to me. Marshall told him it wasn't about find the right words. We both knew he cared.

Today, whether it was meant that way or not, I felt like another guy showed me he cared. Nelson, our Director of Photography, came up to me first thing this morning and handed me a little brown jewelry box and told me he had gotten me something. Inside was a beautiful vintage micro mosaic bead bracelet. I've seen the things on Etsy and Ebay for a pretty good penny. I'm told by my more trend savvy friends that they are all the fad right now. Who knew? Fad or no fad, it's beautiful. But more over, it was very thoughtful. Since Nolan's passing I received a message here or there from Nelson on Facebook about how sorry he was for our loss and he told me again when he saw me in person. But that's just what people say. People that don't even know you say that. Plenty of people have said those same words to me time and time again in the past few months. To me, this gift really showed me that he did care and think about me. Who knows, maybe it was his girlfriend's idea. Maybe not. It doesn't really matter to me. And it doesn't matter that it had nothing to do with Nolan at all. What matters is that it showed me that I wasn't just another coworker to him. He did actually care what I thought and he did actually care that I knew. Otherwise, why bother. There was no occasion to give me the gift. None other than he thought enough about me at the time to purchase it.

Later in the day I found out that Nelson had purchased a bracelet for one other female on our crew - Kim, our 2nd AD. Kim had seen the bracelet Nelson had purchased himself weeks ago and knew all about the bracelets. (Apparently she is in the know). In fact, she was the one who informed him all about them and about their worth. Later as Kim noticed I had one too and wanted to compare the colors and styles in them, Kim noticed that mine was a thicker wider bracelet with more mosaic beads. Kim joked as only Kim the New Yorker could, "Yours is bigger. He must like you more." I doubt Nelson likes me any more or less than Kim, but he definitely made me smile with the simple and kind act of a little unexpected gift.

You Are Your Mother

Today was the last day of episode #204 and as a treat the writer, Alex, and director, Lodge, treated the entire crew to an ice cream truck. True the truck might have been more beneficial yesterday when we were in the hot sun all day, as opposed to today when we are in the air conditioned stage, but regardless it was a nice surprise. I debated indulging in it since I didn't make it to a single Zumba class all weekend. I had opted to hang out with my husband and sleep as opposed to going to the gym. But, I decided since I still have very little of an appetite besides coffee, it couldn't hurt. So, I got myself a scoop of butter pecan and then I thought, oh geeze, it's happening. I'm turning in to my mother. Whenever we got ice cream when I was a child, my mom always got butter pecan and I always hated. Why would you get such a thing when there's chocolate? Or even better, chocolate and peanut butter? I don't know if this is still my mom's favorite or not, but I would guess that it is. I do know that when I took the first bite, I immediately thought of her.

I had always been told to just wait until you have kids and you will realize you are turning in to your mother. Well, I guess I assumed that meant when you say things or do things in regards to your own children you will realize that your mother did them to you. I never imagined it would happen even though my child died. But twice since Nolan died I have had people that have known my mother a very long time tell me that I was starting to look a lot like my mom now. Odd. I've never really favored either of my parents. I always assumed I must have more of my mom's looks since I have cousins from my mother's side that look identical to me. My build and stature is more reminiscent of my mom's sister though than my mom. My mom is a good 4-5 inches or so taller than me. She's not pear shaped like me and my Aunt Jo. She has auburn hair and hates sweet tea. And yet, people think I look like her. I'm a brunette with blonde highlights. I have darker skin and darker eyes. Sure, I guess we have similarities and I think my mom is a beautiful woman so I take it only as a compliment to be told I look like her. But quite frankly, I don't see it. Not yet, at least. Today, however, I see myself becoming more and more like her. And I'm okay with that. My mom was and is a great mother. She raised me right and taught me well. I am the woman I am today because of her. People have said over and over again to me through the whole Nolan thing how strong I am. How I've dealt with it with such grace and strength. Well, any strength I have I got from my Mom. She was my rock growing up and she gave me the strength to make it through Nolan's death. If it wasn't for her being so steadfast, I'm sure I would have balled my way into the nuthouse. In times like these, I've found that someone has to be the rock. Someone has to be the strong one. I know my Mom had her times of weakness. I know she spent many, many nights crying in her bed. I saw her cry when she held Nolan. But she was always strong when I needed her to be strong. She didn't cry when I cried out in pain. I know she probably wanted to, but she didn't. She held my hand and helped me breathe through the pain until I could get the epidural. So I'm okay if I am becoming like my mother. Today it's butter pecan ice cream, tomorrow maybe I will be somebody's rock.

In the Country

Well, here we are back in Mooresville, NC and it's another hot one. Yikes. I can feel the heat permeating up through my shoes. It almost feels as though my feet are on fire. As if it's not bad enough, but we had to do process trailer work. For those of you not familiar with this, a process trailer is a device that allows us to put a car on the back of a trailer and drive the car with actors and cameras in it around. It is typically how driving car work is done these days as the trailer is big enough to put cameras on the outside of the car as well as lights. Whenever we do process trailer work, I get the privilege of riding on the back of the big diesel truck that tows the trailer around. The back of the truck is not your normal truck as it is equipped with metal bars, monitors and harnesses to strap its riders in and also has a lower flat bed aspect where additional lights or equipment as well as people can ride. My spot is always on a bench in front of the monitors where I get to ride backwards facing the car in tow. So in addition to the already hot day, I find myself sitting on a metal bench with my back up against a hot generator and myself encompassed in a black wrap that blankets the monitors. Oh boy is this fun.

Meanwhile, most of the crew gets to sit around the work trucks while we are off shooting on the process trailer. While some took this time to clean out their trucks, I found that other took the time to play games and do a little gambling. I haven't quite figured out the game they were playing or how you win, but from the cheers as we drove in on the process trailer, I guessed it was lots of fun. They couldn't possibly have been cheering at the site of the process trailer for that certainly meant they had to go back to work. It did manage to get so incredibly hot on the process trailer that even my iPhone had decided it had had enough and was done working. Yep, I had heard rumors of the rare iPhone temperature warning, but today was the first time I experienced it first-hand myself. When we stopped and I was able to get off the process trailer, it took a good 5 minutes of me holding my iPhone in front of an air conditioner for it to stop the warning and turn on. Wowzers! That was hot!

Thankfully, the process trailer work was short-lived and we moved on to the rest of work on the side of a road. Even better. Now we just get to stand on the hot pavement the rest of the day. And boy was it a long day. My drive in this morning was pleasant enough as I was able to see the sun rise over the countryside as I pulled into crew parking. It really was lovely and quaint. We parked and had lunch on this farm and it was a very pleasant place to be. I can always see why people like this lifestyle. My ride home was not quite as pleasant. The sun was going down as I pulled out of crew parking, already making for a very long day. And now I had an hour long drive ahead of me. Great. I talked to Marshall for part of the ride which was a relief as I was starting to doze on my way home. I hardly made it up to my apartment awake. I could have easily just fallen asleep but the stickiness of the day had to be washed off first. The only upside to days like this is I have no problem sleeping. Sleep is still something that I struggle with. I'm not sure why but I have a hard time falling asleep before midnight, making days when I have to be at work before the sun, very long days. Tonight, however, I don't suspect I will have that problem. The sun and long hours have worn me down and sleep will be my friend again tonight.

Picture in the Paper

Yesterday was such a full day that by the time I got home, I had forgotten half of what we did. To top off our evening yesterday we had dinner with some of the girls from my show - Jen, Kim, Morgan and her mom Maryann. After dinner, Marshall and I decided to try our luck at going to see Spiderman and Morgan decided she wanted to come with us. So we dropped off her car and she rode with us to the theater. On the way, Marshall congratulated her on her picture being in the May edition of Vanity Fair (very cool spread on the hot kid actors of TV). Then Morgan shared her excitement on being in another magazine in which she will travel to NY in a few weeks for the shoot. I can't for the life of me remember the magazine but her excitement over it was endearing.

When we got home Marshall commented on how nice it was to be able to share in her excitement. With Morgan stardom is still so new and fresh to her, that her reactions are real and genuine. I hope that as she continues to skyrocket into the Hollywood scene (which she surely will), that she keeps that same outlook. She's a great kid and I really enjoy being around her and I love when she shares things like this with me. It's people like Morgan that restore my faith in actors that they are actually real people. Sometimes I think society forgets that. Sometimes I think even the actors forget that. While I can't say that the new Spiderman was awesome, I can say that my time spent with Marshall and Morgan to go see it was. We had a great time hanging out and hopefully we can all do it again before this season is over.

This morning I woke up to text from Susan that her sister who lives in Mooresville, NC had seen my picture in the paper. Yep, apparently I'm famous in Mooresville today. Haha. I guess when we were filming in Moorseville last week, someone was taking pictures and I ended up in a couple of them. Kinda cool. My favorite though was a caption under one of them said "worked under a tent" as if I have some posh workspace. Oh yeah, I have a glamorous job, don't I? I get to work under a tent with actors. Now don't everybody rush at the chance to do my job all at once. There's only so much space under that tent in the 104 degree weather. I have to say though, it did make me smile to know my picture was in the paper. Sure, it's just the Mooresville weekly, but who doesn't like being in the paper. Especially when it is totally unexpected.

Ironically, we are back in Mooresville filming tomorrow. While I enjoy the town, I do hope this doesn't become a regular thing for us. The hour drive, especially on a Monday morning, is not ideal. I would, however, like to visit Mooresville on a weekend as my friend Carl told me the downtown area is rather quite nice and busy on the weekends. I could see why people would want to frequent there on the weekends. It has a nice little vibe to it and it appears that the town is trying its best to revitalize the downtown area to make it more appealing to the younger crowd.


Unlike yesterday, Marshall and I had a pretty low key day today. I guess sleeping in until 10:30am kinda set the tone for a quiet, lazy day. We walked the dogs, walked to Starbucks and otherwise just hung around. We finally decided to walk to get some dinner and ended up at Paco's Tacos. It was pretty good but the best part was that it was only a couple of blocks away from my apartment. It was nice to just slow things down a bit. Unfortunately, Marshall and the dogs will be heading back home tomorrow and I will miss them greatly. It's been so nice having them here this week and I know it might be a few weeks before I see them all again.