Lover of my soul…

“Oh, you’r e the movie lady,” the motel clerk said over the phone…

During the month of September I had been touch base with Yvonne at the motel to make arrangements for a movie shoot. And this was a special motel. When I was scouting for movie locations, Yvonne was the only motel clerk who was nonplussed when I said I wanted to shoot the movie and didn’t show me off the premises.

“Can I check in at noon?” I asked.

“Sure, your rooms will be ready.”

And thus I began another weekend film shoot.

It is the first weekend in October, and it is the first of two movie shoots I will have that month. I will be shooting two young men in bed in their underwear for 6 hours. So far, all three short films that I’ve ever made involved men in their underwear. The third and present instance is a choice of my own. There were several moments during the preproduction where I wondered what the hell I was doing. Taking the key for the motel rooms my thoughts were no different, but I couldn’t stop now.

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My younger sister gets her own private room at hospitals now. There can’t be the risk of infection from other patients since her immune system is too vulnerable from lupus. It’s routine that happens every two weeks. My sister is admitted to the hospital for three to four days. I come at least one day to spend eight to ten hours with her, just sitting nearby with my laptop, a book, or student papers to grade. I’ve been at the hospital enough times now to like the chicken salad sandwiches from the cafeteria. In spite of her illness, she has enrolled into school to get a business degree. The homework keeps her mind occupied and gives her something to pin a future of five years on.

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As soon as my weekend film shoot is over early Sunday morning, I go over to my mother’s home where my twin sister and two children are spending a week’s visit. I plan on staying over for the night and it’s just as well since my younger sister has come home to her apartment from the hospital and she has to learn to use an oxygen pump. I spend the afternoon with my sisters and niece. My younger sister gives me two dozen dilaudid for a birthday present.

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It is now a familiar routine. I make sure the Coke and Mountain Dew are chilling in the fridge, the snacks are out, and the pizza has been scheduled for delivery. Every two weeks or so, a bunch of people come over to my house and we discuss what we’re going to do for our next movie project. This time we’re participating in a weekend film competition, and my brain has been going over the checklist for the last three days on casting and available crew. I wonder what happened to the days of lazy weekends with me having nothing to do but procrastinate on the dissertation and watch Dexter. Never realized how cocooned I was.

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I’m figuring out the rhetorical Sudoku puzzle that is my dissertation project, and I think it’s all coming together. I’m not getting stuck anymore. The matrix of German philosophy that I’ve had to absorb for three years is telegraphed effortlessly from my fingers to the keypad. I’m reaching a runner’s high.

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“Cut!”
I’m filming in a restaurant. The movie is about an unemployed guy named Mark who holds on to an old book of matches that the love of his life wrote her phone number on. Things aren’t going as smooth as they should because the woman who volunteered for Director of Photography is deaf in one ear. This is also information she didn’t reveal until the night before the shoot and it was too late to get another DP. I have to keep reminding her to keep the boom mic out of the frame but I have to stand right next to her and yell in her left ear. I think that this movie shoot isn’t going to turn out well at all…

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It’s the worst of Mondays. It’s the worst of Mondays because I used a personal day to stay home and get the editing done on the weekend film and ship it off before the deadline. I’ve been up 36 hours straight since Saturday night and things are progressing slowly for a primary reason: working with high-definition footage with a non-linear editor goes very slowly on the computer. I need at least a quad core to speed things along. I will definitely need to upgrade. I also have to pick up my sister at 6:00 p.m. from the airport because she has a court date for child support. I need to at least have the film burned to DVD so that I can mail it off before midnight after I pick my sister up. It’s going to be that kind of day. But at least it’s day that I’m learning from.

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It is the perfect autumn day. Cold, gray, and windy. I indulge myself for the weekend and turn the fireplace on…and extra $5 for the gas bill. I have nothing to do on this last weekend of October, and this is good. I’ve just met another dissertation deadline, so I have some brain space free to catch up on reading or movies. Then I remember I still have a half dozen dilaudid from my sister. Just as good a time as any to finish it up. It will be my trick and my treat.

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It is Sunday, the first day of November. There’s an easily familiarity that evolves when you know someone after a few months. I hear Tom shout, “C’mon in; it’s open!” Tom was Director of Photography for my homo erotic religious film short and we have been meeting twice a week since the end of filming to look at the edits. I have to have the film mailed off by Monday at midnight for consideration by the film festival. Tom and I are trying to work out the sound on the film for an exterior night scene, and he’s not happy at all. I tell him don’t worry. Let’s suture what we can so we can send it off. But Tom is a perfectionist, and he wants another all-nighter to finish the edit which will take me into the last minute to submit the film, but I trust him. He promises to leave the film for me at the lobby desk Monday morning so I can send it before midnight. I’m not worried. I know the routine now.

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The inbox of my personal gmail shows that I have a message from my dissertation advisor. I fight the impulse to close the browser window and never read the message because I fear the worse, but I have to read it. Have to move forward.
“…This is your best work by far. I’m impressed.”

I feel like I’ve won a million dollars. Not just because of his praise, but because I’ve finally captured that elusive gift that has avoided me for so long. I can finish this thing after all.

Thank you, October. Best gift ever. Myself.