The Glamor of Movies

I am so tired. Background work is such fun. Get to set. Sit around waiting for costume people. Get dressed (a bit of a struggle, in my case, of which more later). Get hair done. Get makeup done. Get on set. Watch a 32 second marriage ceremony for roughly 40 minutes. Go back to holding, find it's lunch hour, and get out of costume (or most of it - to keep it free of food stains, of course). Then sit for the rest of the day until you're told it's a wrap...three hours later. Glamorous, eh what? And this was another one of those damn films with no food! I had to get my own breakfast AND my own lunch, damn it.

When we left off last time, I had just been fitted for the awful dress I wore for this occasion...that was Thursday. So:

Friday I got up fully intending to go to yoga class, but discovered that it was awfully, awfully damp out...which means I don't breathe terribly well. I figure in another few yoga classes my breathing will be a lot better (yoga does this for you...honest), but it was NOT the best idea on Friday. So after reading the papers, I came upstairs to play with the computer for a while...and the phone rang - it was now about 10:35 in the morning. It was my temp agency, who wanted to know if I could race over to the Intrepid for orientation. As I told them, I could get there by 11:30. So I hung up and threw on my business casual outfit (well, I was already showered and all like that for the yoga class so all I had to do was swap leggings and the old t-shirt for slacks and a neat sweater and decent shoes). I did all this, raced downstairs, and was on the point of leaving for the Intrepid when the agency called again and said, oh, never mind, they think it will be disruptive if you come in late. Oh, says I, OK. Back upstairs, off with the business casual, on with the jeans. At this point, I just said the hell with it and went to the library which I had to do anyway because the books were due that day. While I was waiting for the bus to said library, the damn temp agency called again - to ask which days I was free for the Intrepid gig. I told them...for about the fourth time.

That was Friday. Saturday was the great street fair, the BBC (it's referred to as the BBC because it's on Bedford, Barrow and Commerce Streets) - or, to give it its proper name, Ye Olde Village Faire. This is the biggest street fair in the Village and actually starts the season. It's unlike the other street fairs because none of the sock/cheap sheets/Indian bedspread people are allowed into it, and almost all the stuff there is true artisanal work. And it has live music all day and into the night and people dance in the streets, and it's just wonderful. I got a bit plastered, but everyone always does at that fair...you just sit out at one of the tables and drink and see everyone you've ever known (really...two years ago a gal I knew for years and years turned up in her wheelchair, having lived in the Caribbean for many years...she wanted to come to the fair one more time and died the next day...true story). This year it was pals of mine and pals of Sarah's and other P.S. 41 parents and years worth of old drinking buddies...just a great day.

Sunday, I recovered...and the temp agency called again. A different person this time...this makes three separate people so far. They wanted to know if I was available today. I very patiently explained that no, I wasn't available today, would they PLEASE check their files because they should have my availability on a list SOME DAMN WHERE FOR GOD'S SAKE.

Up I got at 6 am today for an 11:00 call - very nice, that...quite often you're called for 6 am. Got up, showered, washed my hair and set it in the required tight set, sprayed it with setting lotion, sat down under my old fashioned hooded dryer (well, I got it for occasions like this) for an hour...and nothing happened. This was entirely weird. I mean, I felt the air from the thing, it was hot, as a dryer is supposed to be, but when I took the hood off, my hair was still wet. And when I put the hood on again in the hopes that it would do something...the damn thing died altogether and wouldn't work at all. I have no idea what that's all about...I'll have to play with it, I guess. Luckily, I'd planned to leave the curlers in until I got there anyway (God bless New York, where nobody turns a hair at the sight of an otherwise perfectly normal looking person with a head full of rollers and pin curls on the bus). And it mostly dried while I was en route.

Then I put on that damn costume. Now the costume, aside from its terminal ugliness, was fine. But the powers that be in the costume department had decided that I should have more underwear than I have worn in about a million years, and part of this underwear was an all-in-one. This garment comprises a bra and mid-thigh length panty girdle all in one piece. So I put on the support pantyhose, then I put on the all-in-one thing, then I put on the full slip, and then I put on the dress...that zipped up the back. At this point a horrible thought occurred to me. Can you see the problem here? How in the hell was I supposed to go to the john without completely undressing? Turns out that the all-in-one had a polite little slit in it for the purpose, but of course to make it work, I had to completely undress and redress...this time putting the pantyhose OVER the all-in-one. Sheesh.

Then on to Bobby the hair guy, who did me up in a lovely French twist, teased and sprayed to within an inch of its life, and what's-his-name the makeup guy did lovely things to my face, and all in all I looked quite nice...except, of course, for all that damn polyester.

So we wrapped, and I got on the bus to come home...and the phone rang. It was, of course, Joshua, with a request for me to get him cough drops and ginger ale because, and I quote, "I have that swine flu."

Actually, I'd sort of vaguely wondered when he'd hop on that bandwagon. "Hey, a new disease! Cool! I think I'll get it!" In fact, he has nothing of the kind...he has a sore throat. I know this for two reasons. Reason one is, where would he have gotten it? He hasn't been out of the house for a week - besides that, I collect all the neighborhood gossip at the deli, and nobody in the immediate neighborhood has it. Reason two is, he's eating like a pig and explaining movie plots to me. I'm sorry...I don't care what kind of flu you have, swine, pussycat, zebra or banana peel flu - you aren't eating huge meals and cheerfully telling people movie plots. You are lying in bed running 103 and wondering when you're going to die.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - while I was in holding doing nothing in particular - guess who called? The temp agency, wondering about my availability. I think when I get my unemployment this week, I'm going to go to Staples, buy a gross of memo pads and go and distribute them at their offices, because clearly these people have nothing to write on. Maybe I should get them some pens, too.

Love, Wendy