Currently writing from my flight back to LA from Louisiana. The past 2 months I have spent approximately 2 days in LA- I’ve gotta say, its been a crazy 2 months but I’ve loved them and it kinda feels weird heading back and knowing I’ll be back there for a while (although who am I kidding, I am already planning another trip out of town in a couple months from now, haha)
I was in Louisiana for 3 and a half weeks and even though in the grand scheme of things that doesn’t seem too long, it really made me realize some things and it was such a nice entry back into the states and work after my month off traveling around from Florida to/throughout Europe. I guess I can start off why I went there in the first place...as we all know Aaron is one of my best friends and he had been there working for a couple months on a movie...I had wrapped my show before going to Europe and didn’t have anything lined up for when I got back, and he had always said that I should come and visit him and maybe even work on his show since they could always use more help. So when I was on my train to Dublin when I was in Ireland I booked my one way flight to Baton Rouge and I guess the rest was history. I got there right as they were staffing up a second unit so the timing ended up working out very well! Although it was great that I was able to go there and just end up basically working staff on this movie until something else came up, it was the people and Louisiana that really have made it sad for me to go. I was able to meet and work with a lot of really great people who I will miss working with. This AD staff made me laugh every.single.day. They were so great. Yea, at the end of it I was dying to get out of there cause it was hot and dusty and frustrating and they had too many PAs sometimes so I felt useless, but at the end of the day, it was a job I will always remember and be grateful for, for it let me experience Louisiana and the people in it. My favorite part of the 3.5 weeks there were the times we weren’t working (obviously) and why I would’ve stayed there longer if I could. Where I was staying was a log cabin-like house on a lake in the woods. If this doesn’t say Amy I don’t know what does. That alone made me like it there. I spent most of my time sharing a room with Aaron and since he basically lives in every state/country other than LA, it was so nice to be able to spend this time with him. You know when you have a best friend but don’t get to see them that much and then you get to spend some time with them and the whole time you’re thinking...I have really missed this person, I’m glad I’m here and I’m glad they are here and you remember how good it is to have them in your life? This whole trip was like that. I am now making a clause in our friendship we can’t go however many months without being in the same city (...Aaron I’m working up a draft now, I’ll mail it to you for review) My first full day there we decided spur of the moment to take a quick (2.5 hour?) drive to New Orleans to get dinner as a good welcoming to Louisiana even though we had a 430am call time the next day. We had nights in Baton Rouge with the other PAs going to dinners and seeing a movie and another New Orleans weekend where we ate our way through town and gosh darn it I wish I would’ve had at least 1 more weekend for 1 more adventure. One day we had a later call time for work so we took a quick canoe trip around the lake before going in. We took late night walks around the neighborhood and sweated walking around at midnight because it just never seems to get cool there. We went over to the other PA house to hang out and had a bridge party on their cool bridge in the woods draped in outdoor lights while we sat around and listened to music and tried home made apple pie moonshine. It was just always a good time. I learned Arabic every day driving home from work! People would text me and ask me….are you still in Louisiana?? When are you coming back? What are you doing there? Is there anything there other than NOLA?? Are you excited to go back to LA? And to answer all of those questions- well, read the above paragraph. Why would I not be loving it here and want to get back to LA? Everyday I would drive on small town roads with green trees covering my drive and I would pass open fields and see beautiful sunsets and come home to a view of a lake from the kitchen sink and I could sit on a swing we had on our porch (we had porch swing!). Basically this is what I have learned- I do not have to live in Los Angeles. Yea, I missed some of the people and some of my friends and I missed mosaic, but for the most part, I wasn’t really looking forward to leaving and going back to LA. I had missed the woods and open spaces and dark nights where you can actually see the stars and no traffic. It was all very comforting. As much as I can’t really fathom right now moving from LA, because honestly that is where all my contacts and jobs are currently, I could totally see myself spending less and less time there. It’s always a struggle because I would like to be based out of LA still...which is I guess an expensive thing to do cause like, rent….but the closer I get to getting my days for the DGA, I’ll have to start growing my contacts out of town to get 3rd area days and being outside of southern california is just that.
Anyway, I know this has been a super long update and I don’t expect anyone to read it or have made it this far, I am really just keeping myself occupied on this flight and using this word document as a way to process and vocalize some of my recent thoughts. As I mentioned before I am heading back to LA to start another job, which starts prep on Friday and then we start filming Monday the 10th. It’s for a new tv show that will be a half hour comedy and we will be filming until November 20th and supposedly there will be 3 hiatus weeks spread throughout, which is really cool!! (*see previous comment about me already planning another trip in a couple months, haha) I’ll be running base camp again which is what I was actually just talking with Aaron about when I was in Louisiana how I would like to run base camp again for a show and then low and behold a couple days later I got a text to run base for this show, haha. I really like the second AD that texted me and turns out I know the 2nd 2nd as well and I really like him too so, it should be a good show. Anyway, so that’s what I’ll be up to the next few months. Thanks for taking the time to keep up with me and see what’s going on in my world. Hope everyone else has a great rest of their week.
