22 minutes

Today was one of those days at work where we do what's called block shooting to maximize our efficiency in shooting. So we combined about 6 scenes that totaled about 12 pages of dialogue and shot it all as one long continuous scene. Now normally the rule of thumb in film is that a page of dialogue equals about a minute of screen time. This is just an estimate as comedic dialogue is often quick paced while dramatic dialogue accounts for dramatic beats and pauses. But I don't think anyone could have imagined what combing those 12 pages would equal. 22 minutes. That's right. 12 pages of dialogue with 2 actors added up to 22 minutes per take! Over and over again today we shot those same 22 minutes. I felt a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. After awhile it becomes the longest 22 minutes of your life. You could just see the life being sucked out of all the crew as they listened to it over and over and over again. It was unbelievably exhausting.

When we finally finished the 12 page scene and moved set there was an audible sigh of relief from both the cast and crew that the 22 minute repeat torture was over. Yes I know it will never play as one long scene and combined together it will never equal 22 minutes of screen time when it airs, but the 22 minutes that were devoted to each and every take was painful. It made the day seem to labor on. You almost expected that we should be going home once the 12 pages were finished, but no such luck. Nope we had to move sets and do another little scene with different actors. And to top it all off we were filming entirely on stage - the black hole of death. While I enjoy working on stage in some regards because it is climate controlled and convenient, in a lot of ways it is boring and depressing. Imagine working in a big warehouse with no windows. A warehouse in which you are only allowed to go outside for one hour in the middle of the day to eat lunch. The rest of the day you spend in a windowless room with no concept of the outside world. Is it still daylight? Is it raining?

But, there always seems to be something that happens on stage days to make the day enjoyable. One way or another we find a way to make each other laugh or to find comedy in our predicament. Today, I was rather amused by my new bookshelf in my office. Ross, our office PA, had asked construction to make me a two tiered bookshelf so I would have a place to stack the 12 script books from this season. Perhaps Ross should have been a bit more precise in his request. I did indeed receive a two tiered bookshelf. However, it was more the size of a nightstand than a bookshelf. My books wouldn't even fit standing up on the shelves and there was certainly no way 12 of them were going to fit. Ross apologized as he knew as soon as he saw the bookshelf that it was merely a comedy of errors and would in no way be of any use. Though it did become a rather great conversation piece as people filtered into the office to muse over it. So we decided we would keep it but hopefully also give it a larger partner as well.

Lightning

I finally started feeling a bit better today, like maybe this cold was finally on its way out of here. And then we had more car work to do. I am always prone to motion sickness so car work is my least favorite thing to do. Today's car work involved the actors and camera in the car, and the rest of us in follow van watching monitors that were receiving the wireless signal from the car. Great. Usually, it takes some time for my motion sickness to set in during these sort of scenarios so I was praying this car work would be short lived. Three people in a car and only two of them are talking - how long could this possibly take? Well, thankfully it didn't take long. We hadn't been in the car two minutes and a wave of nausea came over me. Oh God, now? Fortunately, I managed to ward off the vomiting, but continued to remain nauseous for some time even after I was out of the van. That's odd. Certainly not how my usual motion sickness occurs. Usually, within minutes of removing myself from the moving vehicle, my motion sickness has resolved itself.

But eventually the nausea passed and I soon forgot it. Especially, when no sooner were we inside the Duke Mansion but the bottom fell out. The wind was howling, the grounds were flooded, and lightning and thunder was cracking all around us. How lucky are we that we are filming inside now? Whew that was a close one. We had some down time while the actress was changed over, so I stepped out on the massive front porch of the Duke Mansion with several others and admired the downpour. You could hardly see the fountain out front for all the rain. This was one of those commonly talked about southern showers. They come in out of nowhere, dump buckets of rain on you in no time, and then are gone just as quickly as they came. Sure enough, by the time we were ready to shoot the rain had all but stopped and the thunder was no where to be found.

On the way home, I decided my appetite that had vanished for days was suddenly back. So I decided I would stop at Harris Teeter on the way home and pick up something quick to make for dinner and a few other items. The roads were still wet from the downpour, but the sun was still out and they were quickly drying. I enjoyed the daylight as it will most likely be the last I see of it all week as we will be working late into the night come Thursday and Friday. When I returned to the apartment I received what appears to be potentially good news. We will see if it all pans out or not. I hesitate to even admit it to myself in the fear of jinxing it. But as I sit and contemplate the news, I am reminded again of the artwork I saw weeks ago with the phrase, "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." I think I might just have to get that piece of artwork. It seems more and more prevalent to my life right now. This storm isn't going to just pass and if I wait for it to, I will be missing out on a whole lot of greatness. Just because I got struck by lightning once, I can't be afraid to whether the storm again. The odds are, lightning never strikes the same place twice.

Sick Days

There's nothing fun about sick days. Especially, when it's day three of being sick. After spending my entire Saturday sleeping on the couch and eating cough drops, I was determined to actually make it out of the house today. Unfortunately, my cold had other plans for me. I woke up just as stuffed up as yesterday with my throat slightly less on fire as it had been. I did eventually decide I was sick so I put on jeans and a T-shirt and rode the elevator down to Earthfare. The one great thing about my building - a grocery store right downstairs. I stocked up on canned soup, but decided I would get a bowl of their hot Tomato soup for now. I didn't feel quite as tired today as yesterday, so I came back up and ate my soup and indulged in one of those ridiculous reality TV shows. Yep, I turned on my computer and watched The Bachelorette. I figured, why not. After all, Emily was from North Carolina - Charlotte, in fact. It only seemed appropriate that while in Charlotte I watch her. So I spent a few hours of my afternoon nursing my cold with some tomato soup and The Bachelorette.

I finally mustered up enough strength to go to Cardio Funk class at 5:30 and had a very strange occurrence. As I was leaving the Y, this woman came up to me and asked if I was Kara. After I said yes, she told me her name was Bergen and we had worked together on One Tree Hill. Now she looked familiar and the name sounded familiar, but I really could quite place her. I did end up spending a few minutes talking to her and learned that she is still working in the business and has become a producer now. She told me she worked mostly on reality TV shows life Top Chef and some others she named but I can't remember. Why was she in Charlotte, I asked. She told me she was here getting a movie together to hopefully shoot in the fall. It sounded like a small, low budget indie film. Now I'm unclear if she works as a producer only on these small films and does something else entirely for reality shows, but it sounded like she was kept busy as she told me she had spent most of the year between NY and LA. Regardless, she seemed to remember me and gave me her info in the hopes that I would contact her and get together. Sure I will. You never know where a contact can lead you.

After my work out and shower I decided I had somewhat of an appetite back and wanted something more substantial than cough drops and tomato soup. I decided I would make one of my favorites that Stacey introduced me to - Steak and Fry Salad. I know, to a southerner this sounds a bit weird and I am usually not one to mix my foods this way. I am one of those people that believe your meat should not lie on top of your salad. But, I tried it for Stacey and loved it. Then again, I haven't had anything Stacey's made that wasn't awesome. Weeks ago I had made a huge container full of a homemade dressing Stacey gave me the recipe for and it just so happened to be the dressing she used for her steak and fry salad. While not as good as when she makes it, the salad turned out to be quite good and scarfed it down as if I hadn't eaten in days. Oh wait, I hadn't. It was indeed the most I had consumed since Thursday and the small salad quickly filled me up. I was amazed what a little bit of real food did to help me feel more human and less sick. Perhaps by tomorrow morning this sickness will be gone for good.

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.