i’m a tar heel born (but a bulldog bred.)

so one of my readers told me they think i’m really slacking as of late and that i should post something every single day

um, really?

i hardly think the general public (or whoever is actually reading this) cares to know what i do on a day-by-day basis.

and if you do, well then hot damn fell free to call me. i’ll gladly talk to you about how i drove a somewhat staggering 200 miles a few days ago just to take 5 photographs, or how i went to see a movie the day after that, or how at some point during the week i played angry birds until i almost cried.

[angry birds gives me iPhone rage. it makes me want to break things. mostly the iPhone. but i keep playing it and it keeps proving to be the best time waster of all time while elevating my typically non-existent blood pressure to a level probably deserving of some form of mediation. like xanax.]

yeah right.

in other my-week-is-not-always-off-the-charts-exciting news . . .

i traded my georgia bulldog red & black for a little home turf carolina blue and found myself sitting with behind jim nantz and john thompson at the UNC / Kentucky elite 8 game.

on a total whim.

and by whim i mean at 4:00pm i was sans shower, wearing gym shorts and sneakers, sitting in my living room watching some rerun of a 48 Hours Mystery.

by the 5:05pm tip off, me and danger diamond dave were being escorted to our 2nd row center court seats (which we scored because we “looked the part,” which apparently means we looked like real carolina fans. unlike the various d-bags trying to assume an allegiance to a school they don’t know anything about.)

i think it was the headband that really sealed the deal.

 

 

[why are we pointing.]

and then, well, why not round out the weekend with a completely unnecessary but equally inviting stop at the gaslight for beers that i will select by how intrigued i am by their name.

now don’t get me wrong, “flemish bruin” had me on the edge of my seat. but with an alcohol content more than 3 times that of an average beer, “triple 7’s” down right peaked my curiosity.

and then it peaked a totally awesome hangover.

and made me thankful for self-employment.

monday was one of those days. you know, the kind where mac&cheese for breakfast not only makes sense, but is about as important as gatorade and a good ol’ molecular combination of hydrogen and oxygen.

but i’m talking about the fake kind, friends. think kraft. think powder. think none of that homemade shit that actually requires (eek) baking or real live ingredients.

family size?

sure, why not.

i mean why eat 3 serving sizes when you can go for the jugular and eat 6?

[okay, so i didn’t actually consume the disproportionate family size. but i would have. and let’s get real about these portion sizes. i mean unless you live amongst a pack of birds, what family of 4+ is satisfied with sharing one of these boxes? kraft should reevaluate their clientele and quit lying to everyone. only anorexic families would classify one of these boxes as adequate split between multiple bodies and anorexic people don’t eat kraft mac&cheese.]

i also had sugar cookies for dinner. they were in easter shapes, so that was exciting. and i washed them back with a leftover piece of pizza that really rounded off the day quite nicely.

[back off, you know exactly what kind of day this was. you’ve all had one and if you haven’t, then you’re doing something wrong.]

nothing an hour (or two) long run can’t undo.

which felt  a m a z i n g  in the way that i sort of never wanted to end.

except that i did because it was on a treadmill and treadmills are boring.

dear summer: bring it.

happy four month birthday, tripp. this borders right around stupid.

what was intended to be another celebratory “around the world” video for erin ashley and the birth of her first-born (which happened 4 months ago), turned into a nonsensical display of nothing.

as per usual.

i want to go to oxford and beat the hell out of some crabs.

one of the perks that comes along with my career of choice is that i sometimes get to live (albeit temporarily) in little corners of the world that i otherwise would probably never even pass through. it’s also the primary reason i don’t have any pets.

there was the stint in the catskills. and a month or two in saint louis. and those (somewhat dreaded) summer months in the phoenix oven when i wished i was a camel. or dead.

and there was oxford, maryland.

[okay, i’ve already lied. i had actually spent a lot of time in and around oxford during my growing up years, so this was not actually a new-to-me location. the chesapeake bay was home to many sailing weekends and oxford was usually port base. that or annapolis. but i didn’t realize it was the same place when, many years later, i was called to go down and shoot a movie there. whatever. you get the point.]

i spent i think close to 4 months living there. and it was awesome. like summer camp for adults.

situated on the eastern shore of maryland, oxford is this rare gem of a place that defines the meaning of sitting-on-the-dock-of-the-bay . . . otis redding, eat your heart out . . . or maybe oxford was your inspiration and in that case, i’ll eat my heart out and you go on collecting those residuals. even though you haven’t been alive for 44 years. which is a bummer.

there are about a hundred reasons to like this little waterfront town and like it a lot. me and Small Pants (who was my assistant on the film and who i affectionately call Small Pants because her name quite literally translates into small.pants) always threaten to go down there (but never do) and relive the glory days that were “filmmaking 101” (because for a lot of us this was our first feature film experience and we hadn’t a friggin’ clue what we were doing, but somehow got away with it in large part because we were doe-eyed and knew exactly when to flirt with who in order to get around looking like idiots who were playing with fire. which we also did . . . literally. there is something wildly amusing about lighting a match and spraying a can of hair spray over the flame. instant blow torch. i can’t in good conscious recommend that you do this, but it provided hours of entertainment during the “hurry up and wait” portions of the day. and when we ran out of hair spray, we would climb a roof. any roof. until we discovered that the producers had zero problem firing people for climbing roofs in the middle of a shoot day. so we stopped doing that and went back to makeshift blow-torching . . . . . . there is a lot of down time on a film set, people. a.lot.of.down.time.)

over the months, we created this initiation ritual of sorts where anytime a new crew member got to town, we would take them to schooner’s and eat crabs in true maryland fashion. with bibs. and mallets. and 10-ounce budweisers.

[and then we realized we didn’t really need to wait for anyone to come to town, we could do this every day. and justify it.]

with summer on the horizon (i’m ignoring the fact that it snowed this morning), i think it’s time that i honor my vow of getting back to the shore. and i’m packing Small Pants and maybe some small pants. ha.

and i want to sit by the docks and wait for the watermen to bring in the crabs that i will later beat over the head in the kindest and most respectful postmortem way i know how.

help. i don’t know what you’re talking about.

i’m in the middle of trying to close a multi-million dollar movie deal.

sweet?

yes.

but here’s the problem . . .

since the invention of text messaging, we have all but absolved the need to do business by means of real communication.

you know, the kind that uses words.

[and how dare anyone request a face-to-face. i mean, what?]

i have spent the better part of the last few weeks trying to decode text messages which are RIDDLED with typos and misprints and grammatical fuckups and symbols which mean nothing to no one.

and honestly?

i haven’t a f*&%ing clue what anyone is talking about anymore.

PICK UP THE PHONE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

[and i bet this old school samsung flip-phone doesn’t unintentionally 3-way call randomly selected people in my address book in-the-middle-of-the-night-by-accident (who i haven’t talked to in a decade or more. awkward.) because it’s not a product of apple and sure to ruin my day at some point or another. nope. bet it doesn’t do that.]

can you just call me?

otherwise, you keep on sending me hieroglyphics and i’ll keep on assuming you are on drugs, or drunk, or uneducated, or lazy, or blind.

the weekend starts whenever you say it does.

who says you have to wait until friday to dance on your coffee table?

try it out on a wednesday or thursday and let me know how out of sorts you feel.

[you won’t.]

an unstoppable plug.

the 30:30:30 gig (officially titled “The Unstoppable Tour”) has exited the grueling post-production process and has finally been brought to air. i haven’t stopped by ESPN that much (or at all) this week, but i’m told it’s been all over the place. it is also being uploaded online, one episode per day, and can been seen at:

The Unstoppable Tour

truth be told, as light and airy as the episodes are in actuality, watching them (for me) is a teensy bit heavy. the good kind of heavy, but heavy nonetheless.

and this isn’t really all that surprising. trust me. this is a feeling i’ve grown quite familiar with over the years of pouring my soul into something, seeing it come to fruition, being incredibly proud of it, having it change a small (or big) piece of me, and then realizing it was so very good . . . but it’s over. sort of like watching home videos from your favorite vacation ever and then realizing you aren’t there anymore but you’d really like to be.

the end of some jobs are difficult. for one reason or another. i sat in my car and cried my eyes out the day i had to put my final wrap on Half Nelson. it was the most perfect job i’d had up to that point and it had set a bar that i feared my way-too-young career would never reach again. and it scared me. had i already tapped out in my early 20s???

this one was different. there aren’t words for the amount of uninhibited exploration and soul searching that was done in those 35 days. it was probably similar to the experience of hiking the Appalachian Trail, solo, but better. and there are likely only a couple of people who even have the vaguest idea of what i’m talking about. and really maybe only one.

i walk away from a lot of productions and disconnect from them in the amount of time it takes for me to pay the parking attendant who’s been watching over my car for the previous 16 hours.

[or driving it around the city. i know they do that. like the time i got in my car and the stereo was blaring a latin station i didn’t even know existed and my air conditioning was set on level 6, out of 5 . . . there’s a reason they ask you how long you’re leaving your car in their care as they hand you the ticket and hope you don’t come back so much as a half hour before you said you would.]

but then there are the jobs that sit in my chest for a little while.

like this one.

and i know i am better for them. and smarter. braver. more creative. a better negotiator. a better schmoozer. a faster thinker. but always, always, wanting just a little bit more . . .

[or a lot more. let’s be honest here.]

that is the unspoken curse of working in an industry that is a constant revolving door of the unexpected. matched with a girl who does everything with her heart and is sometimes nostalgic to a fault. but how can i not be, when standing on those very high peaks that sam is standing on in the photo above becomes a part of my responsibility? how can i not think back to the very day i was there, the things i was thinking, the moments i was living, and not have it weigh a little heavy on my chest? i would be crazy. and i would be wrong for this job.

i lead with my heart in absolutely everything that i do.

and these 35 days – and all that took place inside of them – was no exception.

i tried on a variety of titles for this post and none of them worked. so here.

well this gives me something to overanalyze . . .

ignore the fact that we are having way too much fun and probably deserve to be thrown out of the restaurant.

3 nights in bachelorette party mode = detox for an undetermined period of time

plus 1 additional night in atlanta/molly/callie mode = i may not make it out of here alive

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10 of us were coming in from various locations at various times to kick off kristen’s pre-bridal weekend. at almost midnight on thursday, one half of the charleston crowd pulled into the driveway of corbin’s lake house in north georgia.

with enough booze to keep an entire frat house in the bag for about a week or so.

fast forward 15 hours: most of said booze was gone and the patio table umbrella was on the roof of the house.

but not to worry. we still had plenty of male-reproductive-organ straws to go around.

i mean, let’s be honest here. who doesn’t want this lodged in the neck of their corona bottle?

we feted. way too hard and way too long (like we know how to do it any other way). it was so close to college that i almost forgot i ever graduated. on the weekend responsibility list: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

oh yeah, and we have tan lines. TAN LINES, PEOPLE. which can only mean one thing. winter is about to get herself drop-kicked to the curb and the days of overdosing on vitamin D are marching in like a drum line with their pants on fire.

a couple of these classy babes are now my new friends. and i am super stoked about that because they rock my world and bring a whole new meaning to fun-in-the-sun and would-you-like-me-to-haze-you-now-or-later-or-both.

no trip back to the homeland could be complete without a total stranger reminding me how seemingly far way from my roots i may sometimes be.

total stranger on airplane: “so why are you on this flight to atlanta?”

marcy: “i’m going to visit some friends.”

total stranger on airplane: “i figured you were just visiting . . . you don’t sound like you’re from there.”

marcy: “but i lived in georgia for 4 years. and in north carolina for 18 years before that. ”

total stranger on airplane: “oh.”

marcy’s inner dialogue: “DAMMIT, I KNOW!! IT HAS NOT ESCAPED ME THAT I’VE LOST THE CUTE AND CHARMING SOUTHERN ACCENT. THANKS FOR REMINDING ME!!!!!!!!!! and now i hate you, so excuse me while i open this magazine and pretend you don’t exist for the next 2 hours.”

i need rosetta stone for southerners before one more person tells me they would have guessed i was from connecticut. which i’ve only ever been to like 2 times in my life.

do they make that??

the accent (which has apparently all but left me, with the exception of “y’all” and a couple of other variations on words which are a dead giveaway to my upbringing) only comes out in its truest form when i’m overserved or underslept. and definitely when i am both.

then i sound like i might live on a farm and raise goats.

which would be totally awesome.