LOVED This Weekend

I'm still on the fence with how I feel about holiday blog posts- do I do them? Are they cheesy? Do I need to let the blogosphere know that I celebrated? When it really comes down to it, I'm too busy living in the moment, and I hope you are too.

Living in the moment by celebrating with family. Watching our dog get absolutely round with not-very-sneaky pieces of turkey.

Living in the moment by Black Friday shopping with my husband- someone who looks forward to the dirt-cheap movie prices (and actually affordable tools/electronics/clothing items) all year round. We cleaned out three stores by the time we were done!

Taking all of those extra calories, that impending sense of holiday dread and a wide open space on the couch, and putting them to good use...by sleeping for almost 15 hours on Saturday. Not my finest moment, but I feel great.

Finally, our Sunday tradition- hiking Griffith Park.

This weekend was one of endings and of beginnings, as well. Allow me to wax poetic a bit, here. National Novel Writing Month is over, and I wrote 10,000 words. All on one topic. I don't think I've ever done that. The goal was 50k, but heck, I wrote most of those words in the last few days- and now that I have momentum I'll be damned if I'm going to let the end of the month stop me. This story is going to be written, ya'll.

Finally, there's Voices in the Desert; a collection of writers/bloggers (including myself!) are writing about advent. We're responding to scripture and letting you, our readers, understand what advent means to us in our own words. I'm both excited and nervous to write about that, but mostly anxious- and isn't that the point?

 

You Might Notice a Slight Change...

Or you might not. Whatevs.

I was really impressed by my sister-in-law's new blog layout (go check it out!) that I started tinkering with mine. Make it a little cleaner, a little more mature. And then I had a full blown new color scheme on my hands! But I like it and I hope you do too!

Our big news for the month (or two) is that I found a job!
Cue mass excitement.

I'll be working with St. Jude's Medical on a team that processes and assesses product complaints for their products- mostly pacemakers and fibrillators. I'll have to pull out all of my old textbooks (and some Internet-sleuthing) to make sure I remember all of my circulatory pathways. It's still a contract job, but there's the possibility to stay on after the contract is up. I start Septemer 30th.

In the vein of jobs, Mr. E's got extended one more week, although shooting on Wish I Was Here by Zach Braff has officially ended. Mr. E's just mopping up the loose ends around the office and with post production- and then he's done! He's on the lookout for another project to work on as well.

Sort of seems like we're passing jobs off!

Keep on the lookout for this blog in October: I'm participating in The Nester's 31 Days, which means I'll be posting once a day every day for the month of October. Sort of like the NaBloPoMo I did in February, only this time I get to choose the topic! So I've got a little something near and dear to my heart, funny, sweet, sassy, honest and above all else, my own experiences. It'll be fun, I swear.

Movies This Week
What Dreams May Come

Monster's University

Last #fiveminutefriday

Write. For five minutes straight. One-word prompt, five minutes, no editing. I'm linking up over at Lisa-Jo Baker (aka The Gypsy Mama) where we read, write and encourage.

He sat down with a huff and tipped all of the pens onto the desk and proceeded to organize them by color: black to blue to red. This was the worst part of the night. The flourescents overhead gave him a headache by 7 o'clock and the constant driving back and forth from the office to the movie set didn't help either. But the fridge was stocked and he had finally adjusted his chair to the perfect resistance, so four more hours wouldn't hurt.

"Hey," Jen whispered. "Hey, you!"

Dan cocked his head and cast a quick glance over his shoulder. The production office was nearly empty and he was pretty sure he was the only guy in the building. Their eyes met and Jen frantically gestured with her free hand as she reached into one of her desk drawers.

He looked around at the hollow offices and empty chairs. They were supposed to be waiting for the call from set to let them know when shooting was over, but someone always forgot. The last item on the end-of-the-day checklist. *He glanced anxiously at the phone, willing it to ring, beep, anything to avoid a confrontation with his supervisor. 

She grabbed what must have been keys since they jingled as she walked past his desk, tapping his chair on her way to the unused stairs. The production company leased the lower level of a five story brick building downtown, across from a Presbyterian church and a Starbucks- the lifeblood of America even in the city of dreams. Dan hung his head and followed her, certain she was going to let him know in excruciating detail all the mistakes he had made that day. The coffee without creamer? The 100 extra copies he made? The wrong size shoes he picked up for the props department? The movie business wasn't as easy as he thought.

He trudged up the steps after her, their sneakers scuffing in perfect tandem up five flights, but he stopped short when he reached the last step and the open door. Before him was a summer evening's paradise: a sky electrified with colors and clouds and the whole twinkling city before him. It seemed to stretch forever, melding at the horizon into the fading sun and beginning again as cloud formations built across the sky.

"Pretty snazzy, huh?" Jen grinned.

"Yeah...It's incredible."

"I have my phone connected to the landline- as soon as they call I'll get it on this so we don't have to go back downstairs." She shook her iPhone in reference.

"Do you do this every night?" he asked, turning slowly to soak in the 360 degree view.

"Every night in the summer. It's the only time that everyone's out of the office when the sun sets."

"Wow. This is great."

She fell into one of the plastic lawn chairs littering the roof. "Don't let today get you down. We all start as assistants- unless we're suck ups. We know where you've been, how you feel. This is one of the only jobs you can get fired for guacamole when the boss asked for nacho cheese. But things like this make it worth it."

"This and the movie, right?"

"Yeah, but sometimes the movie is a piece of crap. But you do it because it's what you want to do. Every project is a step. And every step gets you closer to where you want to be." She gestured to the chair beside her.

"Where do you want to be, Dan?"

*Soooo that was a little longer than five minutes. But once I started I couldn't stop. At least there was no editing! Go on, Greg. Find a spelling mistake. I dare you.

Going On

Heyyyy. I thought maybe the best way to address this was head-on.

I'm working on finding my angle. My niche for this blog. Who I'm writing to, what I'm writing about and how I want to say it. Originally this was an update for those friends and family we should call more often (you know who you are)- sort of a "what we're doing" kind of thing. But since Mr. E was still in school there was a lot of "Brie's craft time" instead. Which is totally viable and awesome.

Except now that a) we've moved and b) we both have real jobs, there just isn't a whole lot of space or time to do craft projects and baking and sewing and pictures and posting all in one weekend. I'm not that put-together and that's okay.

Now that we're firmly ensconced in Burbank, LA is only a hop skip and jump away from home. There are endless possibilities of things to do around here: restaurants to try, graffiti to see, parks to explore, museums and concerts and movie screenings. The way we see it, we're only young once, but we're broke almost always. And therein lies the rub.

So keep reading! Because this blog will still be all about us! I will regale you with stories of our life- working in the industry, learning to love LA (which I currently don't but may be susceptible to at some point) and all the wacky ins and outs of our hobbies, our interests, and our dog. If you want to know what a grip is, how I created a duvet cover out of sheets, how Mr. E's personal films are being made or what new recipe I'm trying, then it's here.

It's all here.

And I want to share it with you.

Also I updated my About Me page...and now it's as complicated as I always wanted it to be.

My Five Year Letter

Dear self,

We just came home from a night in Burbank and by we I'm not talking royalty. My husband pulled the best impression of your young self that I've ever seen, head lolling to one side, deep breaths in and out as the street lights lit his mohawk between on-ramps and off-ramps so narrow they may actually have been blue prints for the Death Star. Tonight was magical and mystical and still a road block.

My tongue is sore from cheap Mai Tais. My elbows hurt from rubbing with professional amateurs. His teachers told him to meet and greet with the lower levels, the little ones who are looking for the right talent to bring them to the top.  Well, we did that, and were staunchly told in no uncertain terms that no one ever truly makes it. Glass ceilings and nepotism and type-casting run rampant in that old town, so who are we to change the game?

She talked to us from under the weight of years of hard work, drudging and slogging to get where she wanted, with opinions louder than the quiet voice in our hearts. She drowned out the optimism and talked right over the determination we both had. He and I sat quietly awash in her words and her wisdom of experience. Once we got back in the car we looked at each other and shared a moment and I knew she hadn't permanently silenced us.

We needed to hear what she had to say, just like we need to hear what everyone has to say: give us your wounded and your heartbroken, your sordid tales, your mistakes and your success stories. We want to hear them because we want to know, deep down, that every tale is different. Each story gives us hope that we, too, can be successful because we're not unique but we still have miles and leagues and fathoms separating us from them.

Listening to stories of the people that made it is inspiring and down-heartening all at once: the story goes that Harrison Ford was a handyman who happened to read lines one day. That Spielberg never got into USC despite his repeated applications. But they're household names now, so what gives? How can we tell that story too, but different?

Brie, the reality is, we may never make it, but in the end we'll make something for ourselves all the same. Big money and a million dollar home and agent-led movie offers was never the goal. Our conversations of the future always ended in doing what we wanted to do and being happy for that opportunity- and in that respect we're already halfway there. We may never make millions, have faces and babies splashed on tabloids or name our own sidewalk stars, but we'll enjoy what we're doing because we worked too hard to settle.

We'll make it because we're starting with the support system and the rest can fall into place afterwards. We'll make it because I knew from the moment he told me he wanted to be a movie director, the moment he confessed (by accident) he loved me, the moment we said "I do" and presented ourselves as Mr and Mrs E, that I would support him. His goals, his dreams, his wacky baggage were all packed and stowed with my own and ready for the ride we now steer together.

We'll wade through the muck with the rest of them, start from the bottom and work our way to the top, taking our turn at all the major milestones, but we have each other and that's years ahead of everyone else here. That's what sets us apart. He doesn't do this alone; I can't let him.

So here it is, your five-, ten-, fifteen-year plan: Just remember. Remember how bad you want this. Remember how hard you worked for this. Remember all of the side-gigs and pity projects and the hours and hours we've logged to get that one step farther. Remember the innocence and the naivete because you'll lose it in the City of Lights, piece by piece, and what's left over can leave you bitter and wary. We don't mind wary but we can do without being bitter. We have opportunities and blessings farther than the eye can see and there will come a time (or two) when we'll have to rely on just the memory of good things to keep us going.

Love,
The young and restless you