Because I mostly wasn't acting

 

It all started when I told a girl at church that I would help her with a project. By "help" I mean I would let her use my stroller for a video shoot and by "girl" I mean the beautiful hair model that is also a budding and talented producer. Last week she came to church with rich red hair perfectly pinned in spirals and curls on top of her head. Turns out, that was just the remains from her morning shoot where that bun was sandwiched between two Maleficent horns that had long ribbons flowing from them. I saw the pictures and this girl's legit--that's what I'm saying.

So, my job was easy--bring the stroller, let them use the stroller, go home with the stroller, done. Until this morning when she texted me with a "you know this darn Business" kind of message and said that the shoot was rescheduled for tomorrow, model problems to blame and Business, of course, with a capital B. OK, I made that capital stuff up, but you know that's how they mean it! So tomorrow it was. Until I got a text a few minutes later that said, "Still on--you're the model now! See you at 2" and I was like, "Huh?" because really though, if there's one thing I'm not it's a model and if there are two things I'm not, the second would be an actress. I make weird voices behind a video camera and no, just no. And no big deal, I was going to replace that MTV girl.

But there I was, at our designated location after pushing my two screaming children through sidewalks full of slush in weather that I'd rather not even talk about; OK, I'll tell you because this is worth complaint--3 degrees with wind chill, up from -5 this morning when I went to an appointment, oh my life. And have you ever tried to push a double stroller through slush and snow and puddles and people? So we arrived, red-faced and flustered from our walk and we met up with my friend and her friend (also a gorgeous and talented actress) and there I was, thrown on our set of sorts to show my acting chops. And what was my role? I was the frazzled mother pushing a stroller full of stuff trying to catch an elevator while a rude woman rushed to shut the door. And I could have laughed, because shoot guys, that's my life!

In between takes I was handing out treats to the tired and grumpy littles in the stroller and I was telling Talmage to stop making weird, Curious George noises and I was asking Everett if he needed to go potty for the umpteenth time and then she'd say "Action" and I was running like mad screaming for the woman to hold the elevator and if it looked convincing, it was because that frazzled mother thing comes pretty natural to me during New York winters, and somehow when she said "Cut" I thought to myself, oh--was that part of the shoot? Yeah, I don't think it's acting if you're just playing yourself. But let's look at the bright side, I just finished my first gig and I pretty much killed it!