Blah, ran a short film evening at the local theatre last Tuesday… Blah, it was really successful, blah, more people came than went to the main feature. We had sixty, they had just over forty for both screenings… blah blah blah… It was awesome.
So, next day, the theater calls me and asks if I’d like to make a short film for them, a paying gig, to honor someone who’s receiving an honor… I do have my own equipment don’t I? Sure… I call around and find some one who does…
Thursday I meet with the theater boss and plan some of the film. Did I mention the stupid b’s at the shipping company lost all my paintings? Well, they did. It’s an insurance claim now. I decide to spend the money on lighting kit.
Friday, I go to a big facility company in Farmington Hills and choose lights. I buy some gels and say I’ll place an order. Can I try some things out? Sure. I borrow lights for free.
The weekend is all phone calls. By Monday, I have a camera assistant with his own topoftherange camcorder. The Canon XL1s no less. We go filming.
Tuesday, there’s no filming. Laura and I go sit in the INS/BCIS office of manyacronyms and wait. We wait and wait. We join a line to get a number which tells us how to wait. We wait some more. Eventually, we are allowed to file our papers with the official guy. Except we aren’t. He gives a load of them back and asks for the originals of our birth certificates and marriage certificate and other crap. Other crap which they already actually have because if they didn’t we wouldn’t be there, would we? So we have to come home. But he says I can have a work permit the next day.
We call the lawyer who we are paying big bucks to tell us how to file all this stuff and she gets unamused and tells us to go back. The official guy gets unamused too and tells us she’s got it wrong. Come back next day. We don’t need half the forms she’s given us and we need this this and this.
So today we go back. And we wait. But he sees us. And he fills out the stuff. And instead of it being 45 to 60 days to get an appointment for change of resident status–like the genius well-paid lawyer said–it’s more than 100 days. But I can have a work permit. So we wait. And we wait. We wait nearly three freaking hours.
Laura speaks to the counter clerk who says she’ll tell the woman. But she doesn’t. I speak to the other counter clerk, who says oh dear she’ll tell the woman. But she doesn’t because she doesn’t even take my name. Eventually I see the woman who has been dealing with work permits. Oh, and she’s got my paperwork. But not an appointment letter so she didn’t know I was there. She takes my photo and gives me a card and we go.
There’s some more filming and later there’s some vodka and later still, whisky. The theater owner from above says I can use his cabin for filming and I meet half the theatrical people of Ann Arbor. It’s a long day. It’s a fast week. Lots is done. I didn’t mention landscape architects or radon tests or selling my mother’s house either did I? But maybe I will sometime.
Time. It clutches like a whore. Falls wanking to the floor. His script is you and me. Boy.
Time, it moves so fast. And yet, it doesn’t really move at all does it? My nails need cutting and I’ve met nearly all the major players in Ann Arbor’s performing arts community. I’ve even been in a house that has a study bigger than my old flat in St Albans. Which is nice. And I can work! And I will soon have some nice lights. And [you know, stuff]. Oh, and this year, I’m a BlueJays fan and we have tickets. Yay!
radon tests – what are they?
did you write this blog immediately after consumption of the vodka and whiskey? perhaps if we consume large amounts of alcohol it will all become clear – we will let you know later. obviously you are preoccupied by house purchasing and all, though not sure what exactly.
good luck
You’re bored of writing your blog now, aren’t you?
Well spare a thought for us folk whose lives aren’t interesting enough to even thing about contemplating starting a blog.
Spare a thought for us folk whose mundane lives are made interesting only by reading your blog and by imagining us living your life.
Spare a thought for us.
Hare and tortoise.
meep meep.
Radon tests are, uhm, for measuring radon gas. I think. That sounds right. There was the equivalent of a moral panic a few years back about radon, which is a radioactive gas that seems to cause lung cancer after years of exposure. Something about decaying uranium(?) in the soil. All homes have to get tested for it, so they can employ radon mitigation procedures (whatever those are) if the levels are too high.
The public service announcement spots on TV were really scary. They’d show a woman playing with her kids around the house and then stop the film and show an x-ray image of the family with a loud blaring noise. Scared me half to death. I thought we were being attacked from the ground. Which I guess we are.