The Last Day.

So, yesterday was the last day of the impromptu short film shoot, and today was my last full day in New York. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon, and knowing myself and my screwed up sleeping patterns, I'll wake up only moments before I need to be in the cab on my way to JFK. I hope I'm wrong, though - I need to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and buy another suitcase before I can even start packing! (I suppose I did get a little bit of shopping done, after all...)

I had such great plans for today, but it all ended in disaster. Due to the fact that I am a woman and every single month I nearly bleed to death and pass out from the cramps and the nausea, I spent my last day in the best city in the world throwing up in public on Union Square. Absolutely fabulous, this time of the month. Love it.

It's now almost midnight and I'm still in pain, lying in bed with an awesome book as a pretty decent distraction, trying not to be too disappointed about how much has gone wrong for me this trip. (I mean, health-wise. Heatstroke, flu, flu, flu, and then a few days of menstrual cramps to top the whole thing off.) But I know, it could have been so much worse. And I still had a terrific time! Can't wait to come back, hopefully next year - preferrably in the spring or fall. Yeah, I'm picky like that.

But what I wanted to do now was not complain about my feminine pains - I wanted to take you with me on our last day of shooting!

While I was at Starbucks having breakfast, I got a text from Ronnie, asking me to meet him and Emiliano at the New York Public Library on 40th street and 5th avenue. I ran home to change into my by now ludicrously sweaty and stained film clothes - worn day and night for four days straight - and then jumped into a cab.

We're here! Hmm. The sign says "Library Way". In case you were wondering.

 

I can't help but thinking it's a little bit funny that the United States is such a young country. Like... wow, a hundred years? Really? That's awesome. I mean, the house we live in back home is one hundred and ten years old, but... yeah. Awesome. Still.

I sat down on the steps outside the library and waited. And waited. And waited. Yeah, the boys were late - what a huge surprise! - so I entertained myself by... taking photos of tall buildings. Lots and lots and lots of photos of lots and lots and lots of tall buildings.

I told you - LOTS of photos of buildings. Are you bored now? Yeah, I was, too. But most of all, I was starting to feel worried. Because I suddenly realized that the weird feeling I'd had in my stomach all day could be nothing but initial menstrual cramps, which meant the whole night's shoot was at risk.

At last! My partners in crime, not a minute too soon.
"Wow", Ronnie said. "You really like that outfit, don't you? Not buying into that whole 'we should change our clothes now and again'-myth, huh?"
I assured him that I found him hilarious, then announced that I needed to go find a pharmacy and that they should make sure to dig up the best locations while I was gone.

I'm so grateful that there's a pharmacy or drug store on each and every corner in this amazing city. I found one by Grand Central Station, grabbed the two packs that looked most hardcore - with words like multi-symptom and complete relief you can't go wrong - and ran back to the library. (Umm, yeah, perhaps I should mention that I paid for the pills. Or... maybe you got that.)

Running past the train station, I couldn't help but hear that annoying Gossip Girl recap voice in my head: "You'll never believe what's on Gossip Girl... someone saw Serena getting off a train at Grand Central!". 

I took the painkillers on the street while hurrying back, and as usual when I have to take medicin in public, I was afraid people would think I'm a junkie who's addicted to pills. Yep. I'm that geeky.

On my way back from the pharmacy, I passed an H&M store, and in the corner of my eye I noticed a very familiar face. It was a portrait of the incredibly talented photographer Rockie Nolan (blog/lookbook) - one of the first people whose style and photography I fell in love with on via Lookbook.nu, years and years ago. Turns out she's one of the winners of the H&M Your Art Here competition - talk about well deserved! YAY ROCKIE!
Oh, right, maybe I should get back to the library...

 

Hello there fellas making funny faces, glad to see you're in a good mood and ready to shoot!

Then, I wandered around the bookshelves, searched through the books for clues, ran up and down some stairs... and other, eh, film-related stuff. When we had what we needed, we took a cab to the Brooklyn Bridge for the second last scene. I found it all breathtakingly beautiful: the skyline, the water, the setting sun.

Say hi to mr Emiliano Pinto from Santa Fe in Argentina, our excellent (and adorable!) director of photography and new dear friend!

...aaaand right about here, my iphone battery died. Which means I can't take you with me to where we shot our last scene, at the reggae bar Bembe in Williamsburg; nor can I bring you to our celebratory dinner at Jones (the same place we went to this time, remember?). But I can tell you that we were all extremely relieved to have gotten through the past four days without any greater mishaps, and positively extatic over how amazing Emiliano's footage turned out! He truly is a wiz behind the camera. (YES, Ronnie, you're super important, too. Without you we would have had no story, no script, no locations, no production schedule; I would have had no clue what to do and Emi wouldn't have known what to shoot. But you know that.) 

Now I'm going to sleep - I can't believe it took me one and a half hour to put together this post! - and in 14 hours, I'm leaving for the airport. Wish I could have stayed at least another week, but it's true what the sing in the song: you can't always get what you want... And I do want to see my darling katz, oh, if I do. My babies. What if they hate me for leaving them? Or, worse - what if they don't even remember me? The horror. That can't happen. It just can't.

Hope I didn't bore you too much with all these random Hipstamatic photos, I promise they won't be a very commonly occurring feature on the blog - in two days I'll be home and can get back to my daily outfit photos. I must say I'm looking forward to that, and most of all, to never having to wear that disgusting red shirt ever again!

It's a wrap!

Last night, we shot the final scenes and could finally call it a wrap on our short film. I took about a thousand photos with my iphone and will of course show you, but first, I need to go enjoy my last day in New York City!

Filthy filmmaking.

Ronnie took this photo of me on Sunday afternoon, when I was so insanely tired that I'm amazed I even managed not to look completely crosseyed. I'm not sure what he and Emiliano were thinking when they decided that we would start shooting the short film on Saturday at 4 pm, keep going until 4 am, get one hour of sleep and then get back out there. Seriously? One hour?!

If you then take into consideration the fact that I'm still sick with the flu, it might not come as a surprise that I had to cancel Sunday night's scheduled shooting. I simply went to bed (about five minutes after this photo was taken) and refused to get up again. Such a diva, I know! Can't even handle a 36 hour shoot. Pffff.

Luckily, we simply decided to shoot the last scenes on Tuesday instead of Monday, which means that today will be our last day of filming. I'm getting ready right now - or, actually, I'm more like not getting ready. Since my hair is supposed to be filthy and unwashed in the film, I haven't washed it for a week, and with the extreme NYC heat, you can just imagine what it looks like! My scalp is itching like crazy, my legs are covered in bruises, I have blisters all over my feet; it's all very disgusting. A lot of fun, though!

Still alive.

So, we're in the middle of making a beautiful short film. Since we're running all over Brooklyn and Manhattan both day and night (very literally), and we already carry around a film camera, a ton of different lenses, tripods and props, there's no way I can bring my own camera - and, therefor, I have nothing to show you guys. Nada! Niente! You just have to trust me when I say that we're working our butts off, and that the result is going to be pretty amazing.

After three days of constant shooting, we're only one day away from calling it a wrap, and then I will have one last day here in New York City before I go back to Sweden, the countryside, my beloved cats, my life. And in a couple of weeks, I'll start school! But more of that later. I need to sleep for a few hours before we're going back out there. Just wanted to let you all know that I'm very much alive.

Such great heights.

Black suede wedges, Steve Madden. Levi's cutoffs, Urban Outfitters. Red top and blue bag, Forever 21. Black felt hat, Scala, bought at Loehmann's. Lipstick, "Are you red-dy" (oh hahahaha, they're too witty) by Maybelline.

(Photos by me.)

Hey! I'm up! (Knock on wood.) This morning, I didn't just manage to take a shower and get dressed, I could actually spend the day outside. I took the subway down to the Flatiron District, walked over to Union Square and bought a book I've been dying to read at Barnes & Noble, picked up a shirt at Forever 21 that I will need for this weekend's adventures...

Oh, right. I haven't told you! (We've barely had ten minutes of WiFi in the apartment these past few days, so it's been a bit hard for me to communicate with the world. And to read blogs. And to look at pretty shoes online.) My boyfriend and his classmate Emiliano from Argentina have decided to make an impromtu short film this weekend, and well, since they don't know any other wannabe actresses here (not that the city isn't practically overflowing with them, I guess they haven't looked that thoroughly), I'm going to play the only part. And apparently this character needs to be wearing a red shirt, so I took it upon myself to go buy one. (Not the one I'm wearing in the photos.)

Also: For the first time since I came to New York two weeks ago, today I got to take my own outfit photos! I was up on the roof of our building, and even though I was feeling a little bit self-conscious about posing alone on a rooftop, it was still so much better than having other people take my picture.

As it happens, everything I'm wearing was purchased in NYC. What can I say? The shopping here turned out to be all I could hope for, and more! And then I haven't even had the chance to look up any of the many vintage stores, I've just gone through the big chains. But I'm so not complaining - and I don't have the funds to shop more than I've already done, so I honestly hope I won't come upon some irresistable vintage boutique before I leave next Thursday.

The Steve Madden wedges are strangely comfortable, the Levi's cutoffs are by far my favorite denim shorts ever, and this hat reminds me of something the beautiful Zoey B. would wear. So... I like it. The whole ensemble. Even those strange, eh, shoulder holes.

Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I'll feel well enough tomorrow not to let Ronnie and Emi down. Not that I seem to need Oscar-worthy acting skills - I've been told that as long as I show up in my new red shirt, no makeup and my hair in a ponytail, it will all be fine. And that I think I can handle. But just to be sure, Ronnie and I are staying in tonight, ordering pepperoni pizza and watching How I Met Your Mother. Now that's what I call an awesome Friday night.