I’m having a good hair day today. Thanks to a revelatory haircut and some top secret advice from my new friend Cole, and the incredible resource that is my sister-in-law (or, when she’s not available to me, her blog) and EVEN THOUGH I woke up late with the vicodin hangover from hell {have we not talked about my broken rib? I’m sure we have. Thanks car accident, and ensuing stress and nightmare} I still managed to get a latte in me and spend ten minutes in the bathroom before hitting the road — during which I did not wash my face, because as I learned after getting my fancy ‘do, smudgy-mascara looks intentional when you blend it with a makeup brush and re-apply, but a bad hair day is a dead-giveaway to “I’m a total emo wreck and you should probably steer clear of me.” And today? Today was really not that day I was looking to give off the latter impression.
I’ve been a film freak since as long as I can remember. I just LOVE me some movies. I love the smell of the popcorn, and the thrill of hundreds of people laughing and screaming and EMOTING in unison, and most of all, I love the complete and total escape into another world.
I think when most folks think star struck, they think celebrity — like on my first day interning for George Clooney when he walked into the office, introduced himself and I found myself LITERALLY UNABLE TO SPEAK. I was nineteen …And, have you ever seen those blue eyes in person? (Thankfully GC is a nice dude and broke the ice for me by offering to share his sushi, but I digress.)
Anyway while I have immense amounts of respect for actors – I could never do what they do — but it’s the writers, the directors, and the producers...the creative teams behind my favorite films of all time that can – to quote one of the greats…really get my panties in a bunch. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to tell stories. True, or at least plausible, relatable, human stories that make you forgive your alleged shortcomings for just a minute, realize that we’re all flawed and struggling, but we’re in it together and there’s love and joy and beauty in that…and hopefully I’ll make you laugh until you pee in the process.
So yeah — for those of you who haven’t fallen asleep while I took that quick trip down pretentious writer lane — today I got to step back and have one of those moments where I realize that sure…our financial stability is unpredictable, and sure I work my ass off day and night on projects that end up in some foreign sale’s dude’s wastebasket. And SUPER EXTRA DOUBLE SURE that I’ve been rejected more times than I can count…had that “final pitch” inexplicably canceled more times than I can count, and although it seems incongruous with the ongoing parade of rejection that is working in Hollywood, I am, on occasion…LIVING THE DREAM. At least some tiny bit of it that I really think I could do to be more grateful for.
This morning, I sat in a room with a man…a smart, really lovely guy…who has produced some of the greatest movies of all time. Movies that made me want to make movies. Movies we reference so often they’ve left an indelible mark on the pop culture vernacular FOR-EV-VER. And for an hour, as peers, we chatted about this shared passion. We chatted about the behind the scenes experience of my favorite films, and about the changes in the industry since that time that I found my young self so-inspired to join this idealistic — often frivolous feeling — cause of simultaneously entertaining the world and ensuring they knew they were not alone. But most importantly, we talked about how to bring those great, penetrative, truth-and-humor-in-the-communal-human-experience movies back to life. Maybe together. Because wouldn’t that be something.
…and then I drove home in the 20 year old spare Subaru my mother-in-law has so graciously lent me with the heat stuck on and sun blazing because my car is still in the shop post-accident from hell, and I thought “man, it would be really nice to make some flippin’ money off of one of these life-fulfilling meetings one of these days.” …And we’re back to reality.
{Hair tutorial for Maegan’s simple faux-bob HERE. My hair is much shorter than Maeg’s and more layered, so it’s even easier to manage.}
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