I’m baaaack…

Hello Bloggers,

I’m back.  Rested and rejuvenated.  Well, actually, as I wrote that, I realized that I’m not giving a totally accurate picture.  I am rested and rejuvenated, I also am wearing two robes, have the heat cranked up to 78, my hair is soaking wet, and my hands are thick-fingered and are moving slowly and hitting a lot of wrong keys because the cold is still deep into the core of them.

It was a gentle misty rain when we started the five mile hike, but then the skies opened up and soaked us through and through. 

Hold on, I’m going to pour myself another cup of hot tea.  Be right back.

Ah...that’s better.  A nice cup of green tea with a half a teaspoon of sugar.

I’m really cold, but I’m glad I went on the hike as well.  Walking up the mountain with Jenny, talking about life, childhood, our perceptions of ourselves, the rain picking up momentum.  Having to clear off my glasses so I could see the path.  Walking in the rain is not something I would ever think to do.  Like, Yay, it’s raining, lets go for a nice hike.  But the thing is, once you’re wet, you don’t have to worry about getting wet anymore.  Shoulders scrunched up and tucked in, like that will stop the rain from landing on you. 

Have you ever noticed how people do that when it rains?  I catch myself doing it all the time.

But today, when we were hiking in the rain, it was lovely in an odd sort of way.  Sloshing our way up the mountain.  I certainly didn’t have to worry about being jumped by a hot flash.  I would have welcomed one!

And now, I can hear Jenny banging around in her room packing, and it is a comforting feeling, like when we were kids, knowing she’s in the room right next to me.

I’m going to do a little bit in one of those improv movies she does now and then.  She asked me if I would play her sister and I said yes.  It’s odd really.  I have no desire to “act” but when she asked me if I would do it, I remembered when I first came to LA and we took this Acting for The Camera workshop.  I can’t remember what it was called, but it was in the Valley, and we drove to it wearing the fancy Esprit, clothes that our little sister Becky had brought us from the Esprit Factory that she worked at in San Francisco.  Becky could buy things at an enormous discount and believe me, she did.  She’d save up all her paychecks to splurge on us. 

And Becky would arrive in our tiny apartment with the Murphy bed that fell out of a closet into the middle of the living room that was on Normandie Ave right off Hollywood Blvd, with a huge shiny black garbage bag hoisted over her shoulder.  “HO...HO...HO!” She’d bellow in a huge voice, like she was Santa Claus.  While she stomped around our minuscule apartment in exaggerated big man steps, a huge grin on her face.  “HO...HO...HO!” And then when we were almost dizzy with excitement Becky turned that enormous garbage bag upside down, holding it up high, over her head so that all the beautiful, brand new, gorgeous, fashionable Esprit clothes would rain down onto the floor, in every colour under the sun.  And then the excited squeals and shrieks would start and the ohhing and ahhing, Becky standing there, so proud. 

We were certain that we were the luckiest, best dressed girls in the whole of Hollywood. 

So, when Jenny asked me if I would do this film with her, my heart said yes.  Because we had so much fun, acting together in that Film Actors Workshop.  I remember one scene in particular, where we played sisters and were supposed to enter this room, and I can’t remember much about it, except that Jenny had a real good idea, and we did it and it was really funny.  I remember us slinking up to this guy. I don’t remember his name.  Jenny says she ran into him around 10 years ago, John Leveit?  Levin?  Something like that, and he works for ? Saturday Night Live, maybe?  Anyway, he still remembers doing that scene with us.  All of us with stars in our eyes, all of us succeeding.  Odd huh?

I find it really interesting.  Always on my book tours, the question comes up, “Will you ever go back to acting?” “Would you consider returning?” And I always say, “Nah.” And I meant it too.  The only way I could ever foresee doing anything of that sort was if it would help my boy Will get his start.  Then I would.  But I never considered, the Jenny angle.  It never entered my mind. 

How perfect is that?  I took my first acting classes with Jenny and now I’ll finish up, playing her sister, just like the first thing we ever did.  And the good thing is, no pressure.  It’s a little tiny film that nobody will ever see, that all these actors do because apparently, working this way is so much fun.  This will be Jenny’s 3rd or 4th movie with this director.  They shoot the whole thing in three weeks.  A hiccup in regular movie making time.  Two weeks when Will in school, which Will’s dad is stepping in for, so that is wonderful, there will be no interruption of Will’s routine and so Don can come with me because he’s never been to France.  And then we shoot one week in the summer months. 

Which reminds me, my boy, David, has been asked to manage his department because his manager is going away on a trip.  Congratulations Dave!  Wow!  We’re so proud of you.  I have to remember to change the family vacation that we’d planned for that week when I get back.  (Rog and Jim, be expecting an email from me in the next few days to see if it can be done? xo)

Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, March 30, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

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