30 Days of Turning 30: Day 30

How did I get here already? I came up with the idea for 30 Days of Turning 30 all the way back in April, but did not mention it to that many people until just before the first of June arrived. Most people suggested I make sort of a mini bucket list so that I would know beforehand what I would be doing each day for the thirty day duration. I considered it, but then decided that with my incredibly unpredictable work schedule, it just was not feasible. And then half the fun this month became waking up every morning wondering what I might do or what might happen. The blog originally was meant to simply detail each day, just a record of what I had done, where I had done it and tag people who happened to be present. But I had a lunch with an old friend of mine just before the month of June began which altered my thinking about how to write the accounts of each day. We were talking about the next film project that I want to put together which involves a great deal of her personal life. And I thought, what courage she has to want to share her story on film. Which made me think about memoirs and what a popular book genre it is because someone tells a personal story that others can relate to and instantly a connection is made. For example, any female who has NOT read FIVE MEN WHO BROKE MY HEART by Susan Shapiro is totally missing out. (And Susan has written and published quite a few other books, just as funny, just as relatable, just as wonderful-look her up, you won't be sorry). But the point is that Susan, or my friend Emily or anyone who shares moments of their reality is willing to allow the world take a peek into their lives, whether it is heroic, disastrous, messy, organized, pain-filled or enlightened. Or all of the above. To me, that felt like the best way to complete 30 Days of Turning 30, to not just check items off of a list, but to share a little bit of my life with everyone who was reading about it. So I hope that besides accomplishing thirty things I had never tried before, I did not put anyone to sleep! For Day 30 I felt compelled to do something fun that again pushed my limits when it comes to my fear of heights. I had conquered parasailing, rode in a helicopter smaller than a Smartcar and CONSIDERED skydiving. Even considering is a big deal for me. Just so we're clear. But I decided that I would spend Day 30 going ziplining in upstate New York. There is a place called Big Bear Ziplines in Hyde Park, New York and I reserved myself a spot on their 2PM tour. On my tour was a lovely couple who had also never tried ziplining before and shared my concerns about heights and falling which bonded us immediately. Our tour guides Rebecca and Kathryn were safe, knowledgeable and just showed us all a great time on each zipline, taking our nervousness into account, especially on the last zipline, totaling 1400 feet in length, reaching up to speeds of 35mph. On the first zipline, I made the mistake of not trusting my harness and trying to hold my weight with my hands the entire way which resulted in some very sore forearms. For the second one, Rebecca and Kathryn reminded me to trust the harness would hold me and just fly down the line. Which I did. And that was when I fell in love with ziplining. Every line was so much fun, as were the Tarzan vines that you use to swing down to the ground at certain points on the course. It is all I can talk about and I am already rounding up a group of people to go back to Big Bear, so I can do it again. I want to thank the whole staff at Big Bear for an amazing Day 30 and having the patience to deal with my nervous anxiety when I climbed up to each zipline platform. I do not know if I can honestly say I've totally conquered my fear of heights, but I am pretty sure that after all the height-related activities this month, I could be on my way. Maybe in time for 40 Days of Turning 40?? I guess we'll see.... :-)

30 Days of Turning 30: Day 29

Today was the day I was sadly moving out of my beach house down in Belmar. I do have a pretty kick-ass tan to show for the month that I spent down here and decided that in between vacuuming and packing up the car, I also had time for a few hours of lazing about on the beach. It was one of those perfect beach days, sun blazing, a good ocean breeze and the water looked like glass, just miles and miles of blue-green glass. And maybe a little brown. It is Jersey after all. In the water there were surfers catching the little baby waves rolling in and further out you could see the stand-up paddle boarders whisking through the water. All month long I had seen the paddle boarders and when I had gone parasailing, the fine folks at Belmar Parasail suggested that I try it as one of my thirty adventures which I had agreed was a terrific idea. But all of a sudden my month had come and gone in what felt like an instant and I had not managed to try paddle boarding. So I picked up the phone and called Summertime Surf School to see if they had any availability for a stand-up paddle boarding lesson that very day. Lucky for me they had a 4:30 PM time slot and off I went. For beginner paddlers, lessons take place in the Shark River inlet, not the ocean due to the shallow depths and lack of waves, so I headed to Neptune City for my lesson. My instructor Colin showed me how to attain balance on the board and the best way to utilize the paddle to cut through the water and before I knew it we were already in the water and paddling away. This is where my lack of grace kicked into high gear. I went from perfect posture on the long board to a small wobble, then an outright shake and finally a face plant right into the Shark River. Immediately I hoisted my soaked self back onto the board, determined to get it right. I managed to find my balance and begin to paddle, with Colin assisting and encouraging me the entire time. Just as I was starting to feel like I had gotten the hang of it and relax a little, I paddled right into someone's fishing line. And then a woman with the formidable stature of a linebacker starting yelling at me from the beach. Oops. But after THAT, I really got settled and we paddled the length of the inlet and back totaling over two miles. It was an amazing workout plus the scenery wasn't too shabby with schools of fish right beneath me and all different species of birds circling above hoping to grab some dinner. The wind was pretty strong against us on the way out, making it necessary to paddle to the point that my arms felt like they might fall off, but the return trip with the wind at our backs was a nice reprieve. My entire body ached at the end of the lesson, but in a good way. In that "I got my ass kicked by a workout" way. If I had my beach house for another month, I guarantee you would find me paddling that inlet every morning. Big thanks to Summertime Surf School for taking a graceless beginner like me and turning me onto an amazing and fun thing to do at the beach besides get a tan and eat slices of pizza the size of my head. And that completes Day 29!
Sidenote: Luckily the linebacker had left by the time I arrived back to shore

30 Days of Turning 30: Day 28

After I lost my job in 2009, I interviewed for many jobs with companies that had the same likeminded philosophy that had sunk the publishing company from which I had just parted ways. It was depressing. And it disgusted me that there were SO many companies run by idiots out there. Which surely explains the resurgence of independently run businesses, I'm sure most of them are extremely bright people that just became disillusioned by the corporate machine. I think that the most interesting interview I experienced deserves a mention here. In the interest of maintaining a level of class that this company did not possess (and also in the interest of NOT being sued) I will not disclose the name of the company but I will say that it resides in Edgewater, New Jersey. They initially called me in about a part time social media consultant position that they were trying to develop but over the course of our conversations realized that I had a solid 5+ years of experience in sales. Successful sales. I could even see the dollar signs form where irises had previously been in the eyes of this company's President. He put me through the ringer of FOUR separate interviews, even sending me out to client meetings with some of his associates. Eventually he gave me a job offer for a sales position, not just verbal but also in writing. It was right before Labor Day weekend and he had given me the "sleep on it, think it over, get back to me on Monday spiel" in the email where the offer letter was attached. The offer letter laid out all the details of my employment package including a salary that was $20,000 less than what I had asserted I had been making at my previous job. I slept on it. I thought it over. I called first thing that Tuesday morning and told him that the salary was not only unacceptable it was also an insult to all the experience and tangible success I had accumulated over the past six years. He backed down and invited me to come back to the office to discuss salary negotiations but also because in the "eleventh hour" (his words) another candidate for the job had emerged and he wanted me to come in one last time for one more interview. Essentially a FIFTH interview. Instead of agreeing, I told him that during my tenure as a headhunter, I had never needed to interview someone more than twice to know if they were a good fit for a position, and my success rate of those people accepting and staying jobs for three or more years was in the ninetieth percent tile. So if he needed a fifth interview after he had ALREADY offered me a job IN WRITING, then perhaps we were not suited for each other and we should both go our separate ways. I remember there was a lot of stammering on his end and long silences as he struggled for an answer, which is when I wished him good luck and said that it sounded like this eleventh hour candidate might be a better fit after all before I ended the call. He called back the next day to see if I might reconsider, but it's just like breaking up with a guy who took you for granted. He may realize in the long run that he messed up a good thing, but it's usually too late for that realization. I felt that I could not work for a company that played that many games in the interview process because that's when everyone is supposed to be on their best behavior, who knows what it would have been like when the masks came off afterward? In addition, I do remember in the first interview we somehow got on the subject of our pets and he laughingly mentioned that he never picks up after his dog. That should have been my clue right then, that this guy was clearly someone who shits all over the place and expects someone else to clean it up. And there is no salary in the world to cover suffering that indiginity. That ridiculous interview came to mind today through my completion of Day 28. In the same way that Google, LinkedIn and Facebook is how employers research potential job candidates, IMDB serves the same purpose for cast and crew alike in the entertainment industry. In a flash people can see what films or television shows you worked on and in what capacity. After today I'm not only going to have a legitimate acting credit, but also a writing, directing and executive producing credit as well. And that's because for the first time ever I have submitted to a film festival. So I supposed Day 28 DOES go hand in hand in with Day 27, but this whole endeavor is full of things I have never done before, therefore I say it counts. And I am so much happier to have a resume with these credits rather than corporate pooper scooper.

30 Days of Turning 30: Day 27

When everyone asks me why I don't get starstruck when working on a set, I think the best answer I can give is that most of the time I really just aspire to have the people I work with view me as a peer. And a peer doesn't ask for pictures or autographs. Plus to be honest, I really find myself more starstruck by directors and DPs than I do by actors and actresses. Having the privilege to go to work and see iconic directors go about their day focused on making a show, commercial or film be the best possible piece it can be is amazing to me. At the Tribeca Film Festival, I had the opportunity to attend a panel where Doug Liman was the guest of honor and he has now risen into my top five favorite directors, not just because of his movies but his fearless attitude when it comes to filming them. When I was running around getting things situated for my first short film, I was operating under the assumption that I was simply the writer and producer with a small (but pivotal) role. But suddenly we were there "on the day" and somehow I ended up directing it as well. It was exhilarating, terrifying and exhausting. And after our two days of shooting while the film was being edited and I would wake up in the middle of the night, panicked that I did a terrible job as a total novice director, I would think about the old adage, when you want something done right, do it yourself. When you're personally invested in the success of anything, no one can do a better job, I really firmly believe that. Do I think I have a future as a director? Not really. But the experience has taught me exactly how focused I want the director to be on the next project that I write and produce. And that he or she really needs to believe in the material and have a vision on how to make it great on film before we can decide to work together. On Day 27, I got to screen and hold in my hands the final edit of a short film that I conceived, wrote, raised money for, casted, rented equipment, hired a crew AND directed for the first time in my life. It was a crazy feeling to see all the work and preparation whittled down to less than twenty minutes on a DVD and I was so proud of my cast and crew for all their hard work and great performances. I want to thank everyone again who donated on Kickstarter and made it possible to create this project. And I want to know...who is ready to work on the next one???!!

30 Days of Turning 30: Day 26

I am a Jersey girl. But let me clarify. I am a non-Snookified Jersey girl. I'm not orange, I don't have ridiculously big hair-although I did have a perm in middle school but c'mon every girl wanted to look like Jennifer Grey-, I don't have fake nails and when I speak most people ask me if I'm from the midwest, not New Jersey. Growing up I was right on the New York state border so I was pretty unaware of the whole NJ guido phenomenon until college. If you put all the kids I went to middle school and high school with together in a room it would have looked like the GAP, J. CREW and TOMMY HILFIGER threw up in there. Most people were preppy not guido. New Jersey has always had a bad rap. We have overpopulation, bad traffic, bad drivers, jughandles, high insurance rates. And then MTV decided to take a group of idiots from everywhere EXCEPT New Jersey, plop them at the shore and make them rich because the viewing public doesn't even watch GOOD television anymore, just trainwreck television. And I could go on about the correlation this all has with intelligence levels but I'm pretty sure I would offend a lot of people. But you'll have to forgive me since I actually WAS on a reality show once I saw behind the scenes what a pile of BS it really is so all reality shows irritate me now. I do have MTV to thank for a wonderful trip to Spain, making some great friends and illuminating the fact that the girls I lived with in college were jealous C U Next Tuesdays, but it pisses me off that I never got a call for any of those damn Real World/Road Rules challenges, I could use a $100,000 pay day too!! And once again I'm off topic. What I'm trying to say about New Jersey is that it has its good points and bad points like anywhere else, but I was very displeased to hear that Chris Christie would NOT be following suit to the landmark decision made in New York about gay marriage. Even though I'm not a true New Yorker, I grew up less than twenty miles outside of it, and no matter where I've ever been in the world when I mention "the city" and people say "which city?" I scoff. Which I think makes me an honorary New Yorker. The legalization of gay marriage made me very happy for all my friends who previously have not been able to have the pleasure of an official nagging wife or husband. And so my Day 26 thing that I was never able to do before, was congratulate many gay couples on their engagements, not just for a civil union, but for an honest-to-goodness-recognized by all to see- marriage.

Congratulations to everyone who got engaged this past weekend!! And New Jersey I'm sorely disappointed in you, hopefully you can catch up to the greatest city in the world one of these days and also pass this law. Until then though, I still have a soft spot for your pork roll.

30 Days of Turning 30: Day 25

A few blogs ago I mentioned an awful ex-boyfriend. What I forgot to mention that he was also the driving force in what made me decide to get a shore house with a group of girls for the very first time when I was twenty-four. We had broken up but worked in the same office building (for different companies) so I had been relegated to having to see him every day of the week except Saturday and Sunday. And it was so awful, half the time I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. My modus operandi has always been to figure out a way to turn a bad situation to my advantage and this was no different. Summer was fast approaching and I needed a distraction. Right out of college I had attempted to gather a group of girls to rent a beachhouse for the summer, but it just wouldn't come together and I had given up. No one wanted to lay out money, even though everyone thought it was a good idea; no one was willing to drive down in the winter to look at places with a realtor. It was always something and I realized it was a pretty hopeless endeavor. Until it occurred to me that instead of trying to get a group of flaky non-committal girls to get a house, I could just look for a group of girls who already had one and needed an extra person. Boom. Problem solved. And that's how I met Cher, Becky, Kerri, Jen, Kristi and eventually JG. And that's also how I ended up having the two best summers of my life. They saved me that first summer. I had totally lost my joie de vivre and by Labor Day that year, I not only had it back, but I felt like an entirely different person. Capable of doing anything. Jen and I bonded that first summer, and I remember that on the day I met her, I already felt as if I had known her a long time. And if I had to describe our relationship to anyone, I'd say it's as if she is the sister I never had and if you can have a friendship soulmate, she would be mine. She and her husband came to visit today and it is a little weird to be down at the beach without her as a rommate or housemate! After dinner we talked about how I had not yet done something for Day 25 and she asked me if I had ever driven a Mini Cooper which is what her husband drives. I had not. So off we went on a little joyride down Ocean Avenue in the Mini Cooper, nicknamed Sir Speedy. It was a fun, peppy little car, but the best part was reminiscing about the summers our whole group of girls use to have together down here and all the shenanigans that occurred. I wouldn't trade those stories for anything. And I think it's hilarious that no matter how many times we all get together and re-tell them, we still laugh so hard we cry. Day 25 was a great day :-)

30 Days of Turning 30: Day 24

I have to admit. Day 24? Kind of weak. After celebrating my birthday, sleeping for maybe about two and a half hours, I was up again and commuting to Brooklyn from the beach in New Jersey. I left a bevy of sleeping beauties in my beach house, and although they all looked so peaceful and sweet with their even breathing and fluttering eyelashes, I still inaudibly cursed them out for being able to maintain their REM cycles while I had to get up for work. (Sorry ladies, I was cranky, don't hold it against me). While at work, I gave everyone the scoop about the auction and the Ta Tas amazing event, but I realized that most people thought that Day 23 was my last day of the blog since it was my actual birthday. I should clarify because although I'm already thirty, June is not yet over and I'm still determined to finish doing thirty things I've never done. I suppose I should have begun seven days prior to June 1st, so that June 23rd WOULD be the last day, but as most of you know I don't do math and that seems math-related so I'm just going to have to be thirty for seven of the things that I do. Deal with it. But Day 24 is not going to go down in the history books my friends. Between my exhaustion and the toll of the long work day, I did something I've never done before. I fell asleep at work. But not just at work, curled up in a corner somewhere, but right ON camera while we were getting ready to film a scene where the two main characters are in bed together. My sleepiness got the better of me and while I was laying in the bed, my eyes slipped closed and that was that. Fortunately I had Daniel next to me to gently give me a wake up shove the third time the Director of Photography asked for me to sit up and I was unresponsive. Pretty much the worst thing a stand-in can do is fall asleep on the job, but the bed was so soft I never had a chance. On the way home from work I felt as if I had short-changed Day 24 and could not really call it a day yet. So as I was passing something that is known as Devil's Tower on the WEIRD NJ website, I decided to make a spontaneous left turn and go drive around it seven times because as the legend says, some kind of ghost will appear. I drove around it seven times. Nothing happened. When I arrived home and looked up Devil's Tower online, it said you were supposed to drive around it seven times BACKWARDS which I definitely did not do. Sigh. Well at least I fell asleep at work.