MOUSE IN THE HOUSE..AND I AM NOT THE CRAZY ONE…MAYBE.???

So I saw a mouse in my basement apartment a few days ago. Crap…….It’s spring. ….WHY ARE THEY NOT PLAYING OUTSIDE?????? I don’t know. But they are not. Maybe I am more entertaining than things outside? Right??…no. 

Anyway, I knew I had to do something. But I am um not into killing  So must get some way to catch and release. Off to Home Depot. Find "Wall of Traps" that ….um.....Hmm. Did you know you can kill an animal by sticking it really hard to something else? 

UGH!!! NO!!!! Search search search….THERE!!!! One catch and release trap!!!! SOLD! 

So I get back home….set it…BAMM. I hear it! I look and the trap is wiggling all over the place! I rush to get my shoes on. Back to trap. Silence. Hmm. Maybe it is calm now? Or in shock? I place it in box. Take to nearest woodland area/park. I am giving it my list of instructions for how to live in the wild as we drive to location and then as I walk with box to woods on edge of soccer field. People watch curious as I tell the box to stay away from roads….and birds….and maybe swamps (I am considering what to worry about as we get along on the trail)…Maybe outdoors actually is...um.....dangerous? ????

And then we get to a wonderful location. Beautiful field next to woods. I then I think at the last sec……Please don’t let hawk take him…… immediately????. LOL. Ok. Not LOL. FOL. 

I open the bottom….. place trap on ground….Silence. Ok. Maybe he is scared. I finally peek inside…. SIGH. All I can say is that I am FUCKING GLAD I DIDN’T TAKE HIM TO THE BEST FUCKING WOODLAND WHICH IS MAYBE 10 MIN FARTHER OF A DRIVE…..MFER MOUSE who IS NOT in the BOX!! ……That I have been giving advice to…..in front of the park people. 

NEXT DAY.....Fine. How to remedy this? Must obviously seal him in pretty much as soon as he gets trapped right? So I get some gaffers tape and peel some pieces. Leave them ready near the trap. Set trap and listen and wait. BANG!!!! I HEAR HIM. Rush over. Trap moving all about. TAPE TAPE TAPE. Got him!!!

Take to park to release. Waiting for him to come out of trap and dash to woods when daughter and father come up to ask what’s going on. I explain. Father then explains he does the same…..but with squirrels…..outside. 

I leave you all for a second to consider this as I did. Squirrels……. Outside. Catch....and release.....

He then said….I caught over 20 in a month! 

Somehow he has helped me feel like the less crazy one. Which is really hard to do. But there it is. 

Cough Drops, Calories and Camels

How many calories in a pencil? It really is a reasonable question. For a Jennifer.   

So I’m in a country where women stay mostly inside and definitely don’t go for runs. So fear of weight gain definitely a concern. How to stay small? No food seems to be a first rate contender. I think I can make it on one meal a day. I’m sure I can. That has to be less than 1000 calories right? So how is it going you might ask? Well, I can tell you that today after eating 15 cough drops out of shear pain of starvation, I suddenly considered the calories they might be? F I thought! I could be killing my diet with these cough drops! So I grabbed the bag and looked on the back. guess what? Nothing about nutrition. None. Why?
I was perplexed. I looked on the front, and then back again on the back. Where are the nutrition facts? Why did they forget them? BC Jennifer!!!! THESE ARE NOT FOOD!!!!! THEY ARE MEDICINE!! They also don’t post calories on Advil bottles, or shampoo, or on pencils. I wonder if I am the only one ever to check? On cough drops I mean. 

No calorie pencil......probably. 

There’s a camel in the room

So what’s it like when you are in a country that has never seen a white person? Well. I suppose it might be the same if you are in a country that has never seen a dark person. And if you are dark. BC if you are white in a white country….then well we’d have nothing to talk about. Unless I guess if the white person was wearing clown clothes and yelling something about the lack of nutrition facts on packs of crayons. Then….probably we'd have something to talk about. So back to white in dark country. What’s it like.

So basically its kind of like if you were in the arctic and suddenly a camel appeared. And you had not been drinking. No drugs. No starvation with only cough drops to keep you alive. None of that shit. Just normal day, Wheaties for breakfast and nice stroll outside. When bang! A camel. What would you do? Well I suppose if you had your iphone I would wager you’d saddle up next to it (given it appeared friendly and looked relaxed and all) and take a photo. Post it on FB. Check it out everyone! I’m not drunk. And there is a camel in the snow today! First to report! That…..is what it's like. Well.... not for the camel. Bc the camel doesn’t have a phone. Or he shouldn’t have a phone. I hope he doesn’t have a phone. I wonder if he has a cough drop?

It's for you.

It’s all perspective ;)

So you need to shoot on location. And the location is Hawaii. Yayyyyyy!!!!! And you have 250 dollars for a week. Boooooooo!!!!!!!! Well, Can it be done?  Of course!

Step one. Place to sleep. Air BNB now offers EVERYTHING! In Oahu I actually found available: a hammock, a van and a couch. I choose couch. J Seems doable. Safe. Eh???? What is safe? Could safe include living with drug dealers? Well sure! Probably. Maybe. Maybe?

Maybe it will be ok because they are FEMALE drug dealers? I am certain that increases the safety factor loads! Yeah…....ok I know. Alright.

So we are living with drug dealers.  Correction, I am living with drug dealers You are not. Hopefully J. And safety for me  is… Comme ci, comme ça. So how did I know? How did I know they were drug dealers? Oh! Well…my tips were a) all the dried “oregano” covering the counters in the bathroom.

Wiki: How to dry "Oregeno"

b) The large number of blind dates who came to meet the landlords across the week, and c) The interesting phone calls yelling “its good stuff. Just take it from her! Just buy it man!“ But in their defense, they were incredibly well spoken and knew all the best remote places to get good film shots. J

How much does a light kit weigh?

I am off for multiple interviews. And this time not on rivers or boats or …or on rivers or boats. Or on rivers ………or on boats.  In other words…inside.  Hmm. Interesting this space called inside. Where light looks absolutely crap! Bummer. What to do? Read…..read …..read ……..Lights! Yayyyy!!!! Problem solved. How do they work? Youtube video……..Youtube video…….Youtube video. Great! Seems they have cords and switches and you can add gels and diffusers and place them about and so on and so forth. Make everyone pretty.  :) Cool!

Oh the wheels will make it easy...I am certain. 

Go to pick up light kit. Pause.

Pause more.

Apparently lights…and the things that hold lights. Are well. Definitely bigger than a backpack. Yep. And to be steady, they apparently need to weigh a fing ton. Sigh. One man band happy dancing? One man band ….Sucks. :(

My film professor then tells me “Jennifer…how the hell can you do interviews without a full crew?” 

I am incredulous! Who the F needs all these people? Pussies. Crews are for people who try to get their friends paid. Seriously. How do I know? BC I have fing done it…tons now. Solo. And guess what? I guarantee you would not know the difference between one man band and ten person crew. Promise. I will prove. Pussies.

Ok. Tough girl. Now….what about that light kit? How you gonna get that from here…..to there? Pause.

Pause more.

Well…… if I put the extension cords around my neck, backpack on back, tripod on back, and the kit has wheels…Strain….umpf….grunt….strain…ugh….IT…..CAN……BE…….DONE!!!!! I am horse! I am horse! I am …horse in pain.

So off I go! Roll through building, roll to parking lot. Next step. Oh. Now must get into car. Weight : 200lbs. Length 3.5 feet. Pause.

Aha! Leverage. Thank you physics! Done! 

Next…parking garage in downtown DC. In heels (of course).  And guess what? No elevator. Nope. None. Nope. Pause. Fuck! …..FUCK! Ok. Must man up. I am mother fucking one man band. Not a Pussie! Not! Ramp one…..ramp two…..ugh…….ramp……..three…. sit. Rest. Lay down. Rest more. It is cold here. And people are staring. F! Ok. Get Up!

That was the easy one. Interview number two: garage three blocks away.  Homeless man got in my way and begged from me. FROM ME????? Really? Me? Can’t you see I am a horse in pain? What horses in pain have money?

Doris understood. I love Doris. 

Interview Number three: navigate two kitchens and multiple hallways, dodge crystal and even more pricey…elite of DC. Eek.

Most frequent comment: What instrument are you playing?....... Instrument??? INSTRUMENT???  THIS IS A MF LIGHT KIT MFER! I am one man mf band! Not some……some…..stop it. Jennifer. Stop it! Musicians are fine people. Who also have really heavy things to carry and must therefore be respected.

Sigh…yeah. God bless the musicians. And the one man bands. I lay down now. 

Heels? Jennifer Don’t!!!!

So this documentary is VERY different from the last one in many ways. One is that I have to dress up for this one.

I have to interview folks that are…well…….the kind of folks that probably don’t wear umm…like flip flops and cutoffs?…or sweats? Ever. I think that is probably accurate. Or maybe never a snuggy! Yes! These are people that will never wear a snuggy!

So when interviewing them, I can’t wear a snuggy either. Thank GOD! :)

But then the problem is that dressing up to me as a girl means heels. I know I am all f’ed up

Exhibit A: Zero sneakers. 

from my culture and Vogue magazine and too many episodes (ok every episode) of Sex and the City….but I just can’t fathom any outfit of a non-jean non-snuggy sort without heels. Just looks like I gave up after my knees.

While I have this belief set….the problem is….I usually am wearing jeans and therefore never get the chance to wear heels. And because I am not used to them, I have never really learned how to walk in them and I simply look drunk…..lost. Drunklost. And while I am many times these things. I am not during interviews.

First fun Jennifer shoe fact: I actually fall out of heels. I have no idea how that happens. Every time it happens I think about this. And how much I need to pay attention next time so I can learn from it. But I am always caught by surprise.  The kind of surprise you might have when a bicycle runs over you from behind. Like…..What? Or if  cat fell from the sky. Or a rhinocerous. Yes! A rhinoceros! Like that. Never expected that. Never. Caught me totally off guard. That ……rhino.

Then. I think I have the weight shift all wrong. For boys reading, basically in heels you are walking on your toes. But…you can shift to the heel. And wrong or right….I think I do this more than toes. Problem I just learned this week. If you then walk into grass…and you are a heel weight bearer....you sink.

Exhibit B:
Evidence of "Grass Walking" by a Jennifer

Which is also I think probably interesting to watch. Probably. This is how my interview started with my fifth non snuggy wearer of this week. He came out to help me get my gear from my car. And that is where it began. I walked into grass…and sank. Instantly becoming about 4 inches shorter. I then….DID IT AGAIN! F. And then ……I DID IT AGAIN. He wanted to get away from me. I could tell.

Ok. Going off to great start. We get inside. I set up my tripod and nearly trip over it. Why? Because heels are long and pointy and while shoes usually are facing with the soles looking down at the earth, not me apparently. Apparently I tend to walk with them pointed out and therefore with heels I have these "catch stuff and trip Jennifer" parts. The man I am interviewing then actually asks if I would like to take the heels off. It is that obvious. I ….say no. 
:( F. 

I then must go downstairs to get another item….three more steps and I tumble. I caught myself as quietly as possible. But as I was falling…. I have found that when you fall or are in an accident (happens to me a lot) you would think that any thoughts during would happen really fast…no time to think. That is WRONG! You have time to think A LOT! And it can be pretty detailed. So when I know I am going down, I usually accept it fairly well, and then I begin to think. This time I thought. F. For a while.

Trouble with a capital T!.... Aka …..Jennifer .....;)

So……Yeah. I am supposed to be making film one. And I am. Editing. A lot.  So much so that I have made sure I have the key to all the edit suites on campus because I know for sure my mac will die at some point.

Don't worry! I got it covered! 

And then WTF do I do? Hmm. Accept the biggest film ever. To do. Now. Why? Sigh. Because it is the biggest film ever. I asked for it. I begged for it. Why?..... Biggest film ever.  Did I think…it would be hard to do two at once? Did I think…I wonder if any one EVER does two at once?

I know the answer to this question. Because…when my film professor started to figure out I might be doing this, he told me all I needed to know by the look on his face and I immediately explained (AKA LIED) to him “Don’t worry, I just am doing one interview now. Just one.” So now each time I come to borrow a light kit….from the department…(so far 10 times) I have worked extremely hard to keep out of his view. I think he knows. I think he says nothing because this train wreck is highly entertaining to watch.

BUT! For all of you who are the slightest bit concerned (and all of you should be) Don’t forget: Who the F nearly on a whim got a camera, visas, shots and a plane ticket and jumped through the looking glass before into a challenge that seemed impossible?

Yeah I know. Now you see the problem. Well, Here’s to trouble! :)