Good morning, Thursday. So today’s my birthday and as I hover over another year in the machine, I can’t help but note
my surroundings and feel some sort of ephiphanistic/cathartic/metaphoric
textbook moment of what another year older means in my book.
So I’m sitting here prepping this post , at 11 pm at night as I enjoy the last hour of this year, alone. In a hotel room. By the airport. In Atlanta. It's not at all lost on me that my eco friendly Marriott room (green is the new black) looks much like what I imagine a recovery room would like like had I opted for plastic surgery in Costa Rica instead of working. There's even an extra bed for my attending nurse should she need to change my dressings in the wee small hours of the morn. Fantastic. The vague smell of apricots mixed with ass is less terrific. But after all, this hotel was not what was intended, a Plan B if you will because our swank Plan A hotel had us checking in a night later, and they did not have any rooms for our crew of 12 and change, because there is an absolutely massive global convergence of Jehovah's Witness types in town for an annual hoo ha. I've never seen so many awkward skirt lengths in my life.
Also worth noting as I round homeplate on another year, I’ve
officially become that kind of New Yorker again- the kind that irritated the
crap out of me when I left for a while. The kind that finds a sports bar in a
convention center hotel fodder for endless jokes and ironic quips. And though this is probably the only time all year I will indulge in a stack of onion rings,
my reference that said stack resembles the seafood tower at
Balthazar is nothing short of pretentious. I need to reel this because I don't want to be a sheltered New York type, who no longer
can grasp how the rest of the world survives without kale salad from that
little Aussie place in Chelsea Market where the guy who mixes the tahini looks like Heath
Ledger. I know. Awful.
Further, as I try to ignore the smell of ass and dried fruit while my insides fill with regret from yet another order of French fries (not a stack, mind you. But a plate), I am embracing the fact that as a producer all of these years, there is always much more to learn. I’m shooting at an airport and learning the difference between various crews, various airplanes, and various rules and regs that would make most rebellious fly by the seat types such as myself cringe, but it’s all in a day’s work.
Having another birthday is like doing a photo shoot in an airport- you can’t account for planes not arriving when they are supposed to, or make a cloudy sky sunny or vice versa. This is not unlike life, for even the best laid plans are subject to change like whoa, and at a moment’s notice. At this point, I’ve learned it’s best to just roll with it, because freaking out over the unexpected intensities that life inevitably brings is just not worth it. That's where that Plan B comes in.
When you work in production, if you’re worth your weight you excel at coming up with Plans B,C, and sometimes Plan Z. I wonder why it is that in life when things don’t go as planned, we can’t take this approach. Maybe your job is not what you expected, or you find a grey hair on your eyebrow or you realize that no matter how much Pure Barre you do, your butt will never look like that girl who does full splits right next to you, because she is most likely the girlfriend of kale salad Heath Ledger. It’s cool, because there’s always a Plan B, and if you’re willing to roll with things, it’s always going to be ok.
I've often thought about how silly it is to say things like "this is not the life I planned". Please find me a single human being that is living the life they planned- that's just not the way it works, and if it did, how boring would it be? Too often this year and really for my whole life, I’ve
pushed and hemmed and hawed to live some notion of a life I think is right for me. I’m not
sure what this year will bring, but I do know this- there’s always a way, and a
the end of the day, even if you are stuck in a chain hotel alone on your
birthday, it’s cool. It's more than cool, because it's a challenge to live a life less planned, but one worth taking. I think I’m going
to proclaim this year the year of rolling with it, even though I woke up this am to finish this post and felt less than sartorial about things because this whole week has been about rolling with it, and sometimes, it's tough to do. I felt weary and in need of some solitude, but there's too much work to do for that. I will, however, indulge my daydreams today and think of places like Paris and the new Balenciaga handbag I want and having nails that don't look like they belong to a grizzly bear on meth. Because although I'm sitting in a hangar in Atlanta, there's always time to come up with alternatives, even if today, they are simply in my mind.
On a fashion note, I am more than relieved that I have missed the era of high waisted jeans/shorts. I hate them. I don't care how good you look in them. I just can't right now, and from the looks of things, I never will. I am somehow so glad to have missed that fashion boat. Oh, and also Tinder. No to that too. Big no. I will not be swiped over! Very, very relieved that I missed that boat completely. It's not for me and feel very lucky to have my dear husband. Dating is just super awks now and I'm not sure I could bear it. But I digress and will end this post because there's work to do and plans B,C. and Z to think of.