As A Shoot Day Approaches

I'm a nerd. 

I know this.  You know this.  I'm a big dork who loves this job.  This week has been an exciting adventure into the next level of my career.  It's my first time on a big show, and I just have to admit it to you if no one else...  I'm stupidly giddy over little things like getting the official call sheet and seeing my name listed under the cast.  Someday, this will be as normal and trivial as getting a phone call or pouring a cup of coffee.

But right now, it's huge.  It's crazy exciting.  It's calls from the 2nd Assistant Director.  It's wardrobe fittings.  It's makeup and hair notes.  It's a fancy call sheet with the logo of a famous show.  It's a one-liner shooting schedule.  It's a DOOD chart with my name on it.  (I didn't even know what a DOOD chart was until I got one.  By the way, it stands for "Day Out of Days" and grids all the characters in the episode and the days they work... But I don't yet know if you pronounce it like "dude" or just say the letters D-O-O-D... hey, I'm new at this.  Stay tuned for an update on that.)

Someday this will all be as routine as brushing my teeth, but right now it's exciting because I'm a nerd and it feels like my first day of school.  When you wear a fresh ribbon in your hair with your best new outfit and the bus driver tells you to settle down in your seat and keep your arms inside the window.  But what they don't understand is, you're finally a sixth grader.  That's, like, so much bigger than being a fifth grader. 

My jeans are pressed and I have my new Spongebob backpack filled with freshly sharpened pencils, crisp notebook paper and a first day of school grin plastered from ear to ear.  Who cares if the big yellow bus doesn't come for another two days.  I'm out here and I'm ready to go because the big day is just around the corner and I can barely keep my feet from wiggling out of my scuff-free, patent leather mary janes.