QUIET PLEASE, I'M TRYING TO SLEEP

I keep thinking about how I wish I'd started blogging a few years ago. When my life was interesting. When I first got divorced and decided to try to make a go of it in the film industry. I wonder if you can blog historically? Write about stuff like it's happening now but actually it happened a few years back.

Like the time I was in Toronto to film exterior shots of Blood Ties and I was staying in the swank Sutton Place Hotel. I was trying to get on with the 5 hours sleep I get per night when I am working but the people in the next room were watching a hockey game and kept cheering loudly every time I started to drop off. I squinted at the alarm; 1:40 a.m. I got really annoyed. Inconsiderate sots. After a particularly loud round of cheers I slammed back the covers, flicked on the lamp and grabbed up the complimentary house coat. I shrugged it on as I marched to the door. I opened it slowly and put my head out into the hallway, no one there... good. I stepped out into the hall and as I faltered, trying to get up the courage to bang on their door and ask them to quiet down, I stepped too far out and let go of the door. It shut with a loud click. It was the sort that locked automatically At that exact second I realized I didn't have the card key. Arrrgh! I looked down at my pyjama clad legs showing below the hem of the housecoat that ended at my knees to the fuzzy blue striped socks on my feet. I ran my hand through hair that I just knew was sticking up in about 50 different directions. I was going to have to ride the elevator down to the lobby and ask for a key. Looking like this. At night. DOUBLE Arrrgh!!! I decided to get on with it before someone came out of their room and found me standing there, and slunk down the hall. On the ride to the lobby I made up my mind that the only way to save face was to just march up to the desk and act as if serving someone looking like a raving lunatic from a B movie horror flick was something they did every night, and if not then get used to it. I think it worked because I didn't notice any looks of horror from the staff, but then, thinking back, I don't think I made eye contact. And it was a swank hotel so I imagine they are trained to keep their looks of horror for after the guest walks away. I got the key, complained about the noise, was assured it would be taken care of 'ma'am', then turned and tried not to run back to the elevator. I prayed no one would be in it, and was thankful for small mercies when I had it to myself. I got back in my room with very little of my dignity still intact, walked past the mirror without looking because I didn't want to know, sank back into bed and flicked off the lamp with a sigh of relief. A few moments later I heard a knock on a door out in the hall, a door opening, muffled voices, and the click of a door closing. The tv next door went quieter and there was only one loud cheer sometime after that, just after I drifted off. I yelled 'SHUT UP' and then I slept.

The next day I was recounting the story to some of the guys who sit in 'video village' with me. The DIT (Digital Image Technologist) laughed that embarrassed sort of laugh. "Ummm... that was me." "What do you mean that was you? You were making all that noise? You are in the room beside me?" "Uhhh... I guess so because we had a guy come to the door and ask us to keep it down because we were keeping the guest beside us awake." "Well I wish I had bloody well known that last night. I would have just banged on your door myself instead of having to go down to the lobby. YOU could have called someone to come up and bring me a key. And what were you thinking, making that kind of noise so late at night. And when do you sleep?" "You yelled shut up." Oh. Right. I forgot I did that.

TURKEY NECK

Lately, when I sit with dear friends and have a visit, I find myself looking at their necks.  It seems that anything a woman can do to hold back the ravages of time on her face do not translate well, or at all, to the neck.  I have noticed this for years.  Most actresses over 50 wear high necked outfits or drape a scarf not so casually around the throat to disguise this fact.  (Of course, not all do this.  Some are brave enough to wear a devil-may-care attitude rather than the filmy scarf but they are a rarity.  Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep come to mind).  So now that I am 50 and most of my friends are a few years older than I am, I find myself casting furtive glances down to their necks every now and then to see just how long I may have before my neck collapses into a mass of crepey wrinkles.  From the looks of things, about 6 years.  I better start a collection of pretty scarves in preparation.

THE THREE STOOGES

I am not one to stand on a political soapbox and rant about what I think about current affairs or who is doing what in the government.  Mostly because, half the time, I have no idea what is going on and the other half I couldn't care less.  And before you judge me, I decided long ago that feeling the need to read the daily paper from cover to cover (minus the sports and business sections) and watch the nightly news without fail was causing me no end of anxiety and severely hampering my pursuit of happiness.  I took the advice of a guy (I can't recall his name but he was quite famous for it at the time) advocating reducing stress by not watching the news anymore.  He had other steps, the only one of which I recall was to have a vase or two of fresh flowers in the house at all times.  Anyway, it worked.  I quit reading the paper and watching the news, started buying cut tulips, and my blood pressure dropped and stayed dropped. That is until this past week.

Due to my adopted regime of no news, I had no idea that Steven Harper's Conservative government had introduced some cost saving measures that lit a fire under the opposing parties until a friend tipped me off.  Namely that he was cutting funding for political campaigns.  Gee really?  Whatever was the man thinking?  I mean, we just finished an election that cost us THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS.  The world is in a financial crisis.  It is imperative that we all find ways to tighten our belts.  But heaven FORBID we should stop pouring tax dollars into the coffers of those who need it the least.  Give me a break.

So the soundly whipped Liberals and the posturing NDP's get together and go knocking on the door of the separatist traitors who don't want to be Canadian anymore and decide to form a coalition government and take over.  Claiming that only they know what is good for Canada and the economy and that Steven Harper is incompetent, they don't seem to realize that we all see this for exactly what it is.  A chance to snatch, via dirty tactics, what they so soundly lost in the election.  There is nothing wrong with Harper's ability to handle the finances of this country.  In fact, of all of the G8 nations, ours is the only one running a surplus.  That's right folks, A SURPLUS.  He foresaw this economic crisis and reduced taxes to lighten our load.  He actually knows how to balance a budget yet these three stooges and a handful of liberal supporters are trying to convince us that they can do better.  Ahhh, history says not.

I was so incensed over all of this that I did something I have never done before.  I wrote to all the party leaders as well as my own MP to let them know exactly what I think about this. Following is the letter in it's entirety.

Dear Sir, 

I am writing to you to express my deep concern over the proposed coalition government by the opposing parties.  As a Canadian, I made my choice on voting day.  I chose Steven Harper as my leader, as did enough Canadians to put him in power.  What is happening now is an opportunistic grab by the Liberals and the NDP to put the Conservatives out of leadership.  It is totally and completely unacceptable to me.

Also, as our world grapples with the world wide economic crises and how it is affecting us, LESS spending - not more as the coalition proposes - is vital and therefore I completely agree with the cuts to parties election budgets.  Stop throwing our hard earned dollars around to those who can afford to go without it and spend it on those of us who are suffering from the loss of work due to the economy.  I haven't worked for two months now and face bankruptcy. To see a government continue to spend while the rest of us suffer is unbearable.

KEEP STEVEN HARPER IN POWER.

Sincerely,

Sandra Montgomery

Then, today, after reading online that Bob Rae, the man who wants to succeed that miserable failure Stephan Dion as leader of the Liberals, has stated that he will not vote in favour of any budget the Conservatives bring to parliament come January, I fired this letter off to him.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you because I read of your statement that you will vote against the new budget presented in January regardless of what it contains.  Really?

I am disgusted with your party's desperate grab at leadership.  You lost the election.  Now you see a way to snatch back the power and you are taking it with no regard for what Canadians want.  WE MADE OUR CHOICE AT THE POLLING BOOTH.  If you go ahead with this plan and succeed, I will do everything in my power to raise an army of citizens to oppose you.  I have never been to a rally.  I have never protested anything with more than an email.  But if you do this, you have pushed me across the line from passive Canadian to damn well fed up and furious.  I am sick and tired of political antics and games.  I am DONE with feeling like I have no say other than a vote.  And now your party want to take even that away.  I DON'T THINK SO.

What you don't seem to realize is the younger generation, the people in their 20's, are so fed up with what they see as useless government spending of all our hard earned money on extravagances; are sick and tired of having interest rates rise and fall at the will of some unseen hand; are despairing of ever owning their own homes; are very aware that the rich get richer in times like these while they see the little they have managed to save dwindle away... they are ready to revolt.  So don't think that it can't happen.

You successfully pull this stunt and just see what happens in Canada.

Sincerely,

Sandra Montgomery

So there you have it.  I am done with keeping the blood pressure down.  I am hopping mad... furious even, and I won't accept this in the usual polite, passive, Canadian manner.  I plan to attend the rally in Vancouver on Saturday.  I plan to keep on writing to every leader until my voice is heard.  I plan on talking about this to everyone I know.  I am heading into my MP's office tomorrow to talk about exactly what I can do that will make the biggest impact.  I suggest you do the same.  Because it is apparent that voting is NOT enough.  Not as long as there are greedy, opportunistic people in power who think that we are just the ignorant great unwashed and that they can ignore what we clearly said with our votes just a few short weeks ago.   

I AM ONE VOICE BUT TOGETHER WE CAN BECOME A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH.

NOTHING BUT TIME

I think I might go mad. 

I haven't worked for over two months... again.  I am having a love/hate relationship with the film industry and it is complicating my life to no end.  I really love my work and just want to be able to do it.  I actually think I was born for the job (I just wish I had realized that a lot sooner) and now having done it for the past 5 years, it has spoiled me for other work.  I can't stand the thoughts of an office job (unless it's the one I recently applied for at Club Penguin, where my youngest works, because that would be a great job and fits my skill set exactly) but, back to the original thought, I need to work.  If I take a job not in film, then I may as well kiss my film career goodbye and I don't want to do that, I love it way too much.  But I can't stand the uncertainty of it.  Even when I am working on an episodic show that is going to last 5 months or more I am always, in the back of my mind, wondering if I will have another show to go to when this one is over.  So you can imagine that I never get any peace when all I am doing is movies of the week (MOW's) that take three weeks or less to film.  The stress is killing me.  And the lack of work is about to kill my credit rating.

I just moved out of my house.  The house I have rented for the past three years, making it one of the longest I have lived in one place in my whole life.  I loved that house.  It perfectly suited my needs.  I had two spare rooms that my daughters could stay in when they came for visits.  It had a view of the mountains out of the front window, and the kitchen and dining windows faced south so that the room was flooded with sunshine, when the sun shone.  It was a relatively quiet neighbourhood, if you don't count the teens across the way who liked to hang out on the street at 2 am after an almost weekly party and talk (read:yell) for about two hours.  Ugh.  I won't miss that.  My kids are very sad that they won't be coming back to that house ever again.  It felt like home to them and they loved it.  But having worked very little this year the bank account has dwindled down into the over draft and the credit cards are slowly maxing out one by one.  I hung on as long as I could, longer than I should have really, and now I am without home.  A kind friend offered to let me move in with her, into the room her traveling daughter usually sleeps in.  I gratefully accepted and now here I am.

I sat in my new room the other day looking at the few DVDs I brought with me, the one shelf of books, my iPod docking station and my laptop and a horrible thought struck me.  I had just done what I had always been dreading but thought I wouldn't have to face for another 25 or 30 years.  That is, taken the beloved contents of one large house and condensed it all down to what would fit in one room, choosing carefully the things that would keep me occupied and others that I loved.  In other words, the dreaded move into a full care home for the elderly.  I realize this isn't quite that, I will be leaving here in a few months and hopefully to my own condo or suite, but it was a shocking moment all the same.

There is always the hope of  some work in January, but that seems less than likely unless the SAG actors can think with their conscience and not their bank accounts and do the right thing and not go on strike.  The industry has not recovered  from the writers strike yet,  I can't imagine what another one will do to it in this economy.  

Meanwhile am on a mission.  My daughter, as you know, is getting married in February. Yesterday I went out with a friend and my plastic money and looked for a dress to wear to the wedding.  After trying on several hideous concoctions, I found one I loved.  Only problem, the largest size they carried was about an inch short of zipping up the last four inches.  I bought it anyway.  And now I am determined to drop one dress size in the next 6 weeks.  It's not like I have anything else to do.  So I am off to walk on the Fort to Fort Trail at a rapid pace and get the heart rate up and the scale readout down.  Wish me luck.