Alaska, Cloudy and Chill

So I have lots to say about New York, but first lets start with ALASKA. I'm in Anchorage for a 10 day shoot! YAY. I got in last night, after an eight hour flight. I'm making a face but you can't see it. Alaska is FOUR hours behind Eastern time, which means I didn't get checked in until almost 11PM Eastern, and I didn't get to bed until 2AM Eastern. I had to be at work today at 7:30AM/11:30AM Eastern time. I was a wee bit tired...but then I found the Starbucks and life was better. :) God I love Starbucks...

Ok, lets move along and not be boring. SO, Anchorage gets like 22 hours of sunlight right now, so the sun never really sets. Apparently it just goes down a little and comes right back up. Supposedly it doesn't actually get dark. I have yet to see this, because it occurs sometime around 3AM. And Mindy (best friend) and I are trying to figure out the East/West logistics of that one...But imagine this, the Golden Hour, typically the last hour of sunlight and the prettiest time for shooting, lasts for like 4-5 hours here. It's perpetual sunset! Which is, I gotta say, pretty rad. I'm just glad we don't have to shoot night shots this week, since that would be virtually impossible. I think one night I should set my alarm for 3AM and look out the window to see if it's dark. HA.

OK. So today Mindy and I drove around looking for shots. We were a little tired from the flights and very slap happy, mostly because we hadn't seen each other in about a month. And, that's when we almost drove over a cliff. Kidding, I mean Mindy had it under control at ALL times. wink.

Whole Delicous Foods

OK, I feel like it's late, which it is, but I can't sleep so I'll fill in on the last week. June 1st, Sunday, I'm packing when Emily calls to tell me we've just lost the apartment we're supposed to be staying in for the summer. Begin Panic Mode. Ok, but really, I'd already decided like 2 days before to just let it roll...so I finish packing and head to Louisville. Emily and Mom find this place on Craigslist, Ems calls, and we meet with the girl on Monday night in NYC. We decide to take the place. I might add that it has an HDTV, and a DVD player and surround sound. The only catch, we can only stay thru June, AND, it doesn't have air conditioning. YAY. So Emily and I are sharing a room and a full size bed (giggle) but we have the apt to ourselves until the 12th when the other roommy comes home. Rumor has it he's a JAZZ musician. Again, (giggle). Last week was fairly cool...but a heat wave hit Saturday and we've been sweating ever since. The box fan and crappy window air conditioning unit do no good. And the breeze has stopped, so open windows also do NOTHING. We are dying. Last week I spent my days exploring and wandering. We've found a couple of cheap diners, and Emily started her job at Starbucks and LOVES it. The kids there are really sweet. And it's a 10 min walk from the apt. Friday night we went to the Upright Citizens Brigade with Tyler and another friend from Western named Tony. Afterwards about eight of us ended up at a diner until three in the morning. Saturday night Tony and Emily and I hung out at the apt and watched movies. Tony brought the movie Arthur, which I had never seen but is HILARIOUS.

I forgot to mention that last Tuesday I thought I'd be a bad-ass and go grocery shopping for us. NYC is very expensive. We're talking $4 for peanut butter people. So we made a budget and a list and I stuck to it. But the funny thing is that Emily and I like the same foods, so we're going through foods like cheese and hummus and milk TWICE as fast as I would at home. That's interesting budgeting. We are about to start our 3rd gallon of milk tomorrow and we've only been here 10 days!!! What can I say, we like calcium?! Anyway, the point of this story was that I took the subway like 25 min away to a brand name grocery store because I thought it would be cheaper (it wasn't). I mean it was my second day here people. Then when I got back to our neighborhood I discovered the local grocery was pretty much the same price and had everything I needed (almost). BUT...the victory came on Sunday when we stopped by the Whole Foods Market on our way home from Central Park. Thank GOD! They had cheese for 2.99, and corn for .50, and milk for 3.99, and all kind of other wonderous deals. I'm telling you, everywhere else in NYC things are like $4.00. I could not find cheese or bread for under $4 anywhere else except Whole Foods. I'm a believer now. And I'll happily make that 20 min subway ride each week. (Or twice a week for us growing ladies). Smirk.

Surreak-i-dic

OK. So much to say....and I've been a bad girl about not writing things down. We'll have to start with the present and work our way through the last week... OK, so tonight, (Tuesday the 10th O' June) me, Emily, and our friend Tyler went to see November, an off-Broadway play. It starred Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalfe, Dylan Baker, and Ethan Phillips. It was pretty decent, made so even more by the fact that we met AND chatted with Dylan Baker after the show. His wife is a Western KY grad, and Emily and Tyler are fairly well acquainted with her. We saw him on the street right after the show...and Emily and Tyler BOLDLY stopped him and made pleasant if not totally BS convo with him for like 5 min. He was very gracious...he actually blew off the guy he was already talking to once Emily and Tyler mentioned his wife and WKU. I was totally star-struck, but he asked each of us what we were doing in NY and chatted with us about theatre and TV. Score. Nice guy. As we walked away a COLD front...I am not kidding...came in. The temperature dropped like 8 degrees and a crazy wind started kicking up dust in our faces. There was heat lightning everywhere, and we were giggling but running down the street. We were hoping to get inside before the rain hit (which we just managed). It was like a movie. With a crazy mind machine. We were covered in dirt by the time we got to our restaurant. I called my dad to tell him I just sat several feet away from Nathan Lane in a play. I LOVE student tickets. It was like $26 to see the show. It was a really fun night. Tomorrow we plan on trying to get student tickets to another show. And I have a lunch with a producer. Oooooh. Sounds fun, eh? We'll see. I'm loving it here so far.
Yesterday, I took a yoga class and wandered around the Union Square/Village area. I stumbled upon Strands, like the biggest bookstore in NYC. They had great deals and I bought a book for $1. I've just been wandering since last Tuesday. I'll try to post pics and describe things. Today I also went for a jog in Fort Tryon Park. It's less than 10 min from our apt. It was BEAUTIFUL. The Cloisters, this old, medieval, nun, cathedral building is located there. I jogged up to it. I'll post pics and more info later. BUT, once inside the park, the views of the river are very romantic and surreal. It doesn't feel like NYC at all. It's my next favorite place to Central Park, which we visited 2 days ago (Sunday). There are places where you are surrounded by trees and foliage. New York really doesn't play when it comes to their parks. They are FANTASTIC. Sunday, Tyler and Emily and I went to Central Park and meandered. It rained on us, but we didn't even care. I danced to Puerto Rican music and we all enjoyed watching people go by in row boats. Perfect.

Packin It In

Shoot is over. I was EXHAUSTED. I don't remember much from the last couple days. Now I'm in crazy packing mode for NYC. We leave on Monday and I feel like I've gotten nada accomplished. Which isn't entirely true. I worked on Thursday night and it was tons o fun. Don't know what your typical evenings are like, but when I'm working mine tend to involve cops. This time it was me and four police officers, complete with four cop cars. We got fun footage of them flying down the road with their lights on and surrounding a house. To say we caused a disturbance is a little bit of an understatement. The neighbors sat outside and watched all night...I think we were better than anything that was on TV. I think the funny part when working with cops is watching everyone else's reaction. When they drive down the road with the flashing lights on...everyone freaks out and slows down or pulls over. It's tres amusing.

SO, now...cleaning and packing time. I've got a crazy long list of things to do. I did get my apt. sublet the other day to a guy I know from college. I'm stoked that I don't have to have a stranger in the house while I'm gone. And I'm already thinking about the end of the summer and making a list of all the things I want to do in Knoxville before I move.

MDW

Day 6 of 10 day shoot. I just remembered that it was 4 years ago this weekend that I officially got my first job out of college. I remembered this because I saw a moving truck outside my window this morning...and 4 years ago yesterday I was wandering around Knoxville trying to find an apartment. Which was really difficult because it was Memorial Day weekend and nobody was open...and only two apts called me back. Ha. The End.

I Wish I Could Tumble Like That Kid in Narnia

I saw the new Narnia: Prince Caspian movie tonight. Wicked. Really enjoyed it. And those kids are so darn pretty. Of course with it being a fantasy/fiction type movie you have to "suspend your disbelief," lalalala. But during these films there is that one moment where I snap back out and think..."ok, that was just really ridiculous." That moment tonight came for me when a rather large, bearded, white male resembling Santa Claus uttered the words, "My father was a black dwarf from the northern mountains." And I lost it for about 5 minutes. Fake horse-people, flying tiger things, kids who never get shot, hey, I'm with you. But Santy Claus was a bit distracting.

Oh, and there were some hookers outside my hotel when I got back. That was nice. I had no idea the Country Inn and Suites was full service.

Doggie Style

Still Day 4: A Reeally long day. So today I got to go to the morgue. Well, actually it was the medical examiner's autopsy room NEXT to the morgue. But it def had dead bodies in it about 5min before I got in there. (I didn't see them...but my producer did!) So, you know how you walk into a room and you feel like you should know what that smell is, even though you've never smelled it before? Yeah. At first I just assumed it was the faint odor of decaying bodies...which was enough of a thought to make me want to flee the room. I mean it did smell tissue-y. Then my nose recognized it. Blood, mixed with cleaner. Yep. And there were still stains on the floor to prove it. They had just hosed down the floor, but come on...you can't get that stuff up easily. The floor was wet and sticky. I immediately rolled up my pants legs as soon as I: A) smelled the blood and C) realized there was blood on the floor. They were like, "Do you want to shoot a dead body?" I graciously declined.

Oh, and much later that day while setting up for an intv. at a guy's house, his dog carried off my clothes pins. Then I turned around and he ATE them. Not kidding. Bastard.

OH YEAH...You know what Subway and an Autopsy Room have in common? You still smell like that after you leave.