I spent yesterday fielding calls from agents. You'd think this would be good, right?
Agent A puts me on hold for a gig on Tuesday.
Agent B comes along and asks if I'd be available for a Tues/Wed/Thurs job.
I call and bug Agent A, wait around for about an hour and discover I've been "released" for Tuesday, so now I am actually available.
While waiting for that job to come through, Agent C calls and asks could I work a gig on Wednesday.
So I start harassing Agent B to find out if the Tues/Wed/Thurs job came through.
The dust has settled and the answer is that after all that frantic phoning, I've been released from all three jobs. As in, I didn't book any of them.
I've noticed an odd convergence is happening regarding this blog. It's being read by people who could feasibly feature in it. Now, as a general rule, that very phenomenon is the reason I kept a blog and didn't tell anyone it was here for a long time. I remember very clearly telling a new aquaintance about the blog and later realizing that I had effectively nixed writing about her. (And trust me, she would have been an interesting subject.)
But when I headed off to NY this summer, I thought - perfect! Here's a time and place where no one knows I'm writing about them, as long as I keep my mouth shut about it to them. Hurrah! The shackles were off and I was free to bitch and moan, and what's more, there were people reading! True, I was probably only up to about 10, maybe 15 readers, but still, that's heady stuff for a girl whose page was once written with the sole intent of amusing and provoking the one person who knew it existed. That's an increase of 1500%!
I think. My math is rusty.
However, now I am back in my daily life, and the cat is out of the bag, but I am interacting with people who could read the blog. It was satisfying this summer to attempt to be polite and then unleash all my cattiness for the blog, but when the people you want to be snarky about can look up what you said about them, you are no longer even attempting to be polite.
It's quite a bind for a good southern girl. Here I am, politely waiting for certain family characters to die in order not to offend them when I write about them and make a fortune, but if I keep chattering on about my daily life on the blog, I'm potentially offending those with whom I live and work. It's troubling. I see why people turn to fiction. Or even, *ahem*, completely unintelligible obsfucation of the insanely quotidian nature of their lives. (You know, they make it sound elaborate when it's just boring.)
But I'm off the subject. Or am I? See, I could be talking about someone who is actually reading the blog right now! It could be YOU!
It probably isn't, though. You had to look up "quotidian", didn't you?
Maybe that's the solution...I should be snarky to people right to their faces.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
Beyond my means
The street I now live on is swanky. This condo is not entirely swanky - it's fairly modest, though very confortable and well fitted out. But the street itself has big masions and outrageous implications of wealth. This weekend, someone had a valet stand outside their house for their private party. How convenient. Apparently, George Bush had lunch with someone on the street last week when he was in town.
I am, clearly, living beyond my own income.
Also, I am grumpy and ill at ease. The weather makes me long for other times and places, and I get mired in nostaglia. But with no specific project on the horizon, I'm discouraged. I went to an audition last night, which was great, and have been doing a series of commercial ones, but no actual work has turned up yet. It's nice to have a rest, but now I'd like to get back to doing the things I love.
Which means I really should get out of my pajamas before noon, right?
I am, clearly, living beyond my own income.
Also, I am grumpy and ill at ease. The weather makes me long for other times and places, and I get mired in nostaglia. But with no specific project on the horizon, I'm discouraged. I went to an audition last night, which was great, and have been doing a series of commercial ones, but no actual work has turned up yet. It's nice to have a rest, but now I'd like to get back to doing the things I love.
Which means I really should get out of my pajamas before noon, right?
Monday, October 09, 2006
Strange
So, I must admit I'm something of a stalker. I get obsessed about certain people or details, and I hunt them down, without malice.
There's some stalking in my past. I'm not proud of it, but it makes a good story. A week ago I was at my 10-year college reunion - enjoyable, and less strewn with emotional land mines than I might have guessed. I saw a friend I haven't seen in all of the ten years, and who I have wanted to see, because I felt she would appreciate the fact that I fell madly in love with an ex-boyfriend of hers and...well, there's stalking involved, but I won't get into that. (Becky knows this story...)
Last weekend, I told my college friend that story, and it was so strange...in the story was a person in whom I had invested much emotion and thought, and no matter how you looked at it, I had been completely wrong to do so, clearly obsessive and pretty wacky. I did finally move on from thinking about him, but a few years ago I tried to get in touch with a bunch of friends I'd lost track of, and he was one of them. I googled his name, got what I think was a current office address and sent a letter in a batch of about 40 letters. (To 40 different people - I didn't send him 40 letters. That WOULD be crazy.) I never heard anything from him, but the google revealed that we actually lived in the same city. Maybe. His office was here, I didn't try to find a home address. I wasn't surprised he didn't respond - I did not come off well in the story, and in his place, I'm not sure I would have responded to someone like myself. But I kept thinking someday we'd run into each other.
Well, telling that story brought it up in my mind and I googled anew today. He's working in St. Louis (ironic), and he's done quite well and he looks...washed out and drab. Jowly. Seeing that face, I can't escape the fact that I don't know him at all, that he has pretty much been a fictional character in my life. It's like being released from captivity, a captivity that kept me safe. I'm sure he's very happy...no, I'm not sure of that, how can I be? But I hope he's happy, and not sad or drab or washed out.
Not that I was that attractive in them, but I sure am glad that the most recent photos of me online are in flamboyant red wigs. I prefer looking puffy and overmadeup to drab.
There's some stalking in my past. I'm not proud of it, but it makes a good story. A week ago I was at my 10-year college reunion - enjoyable, and less strewn with emotional land mines than I might have guessed. I saw a friend I haven't seen in all of the ten years, and who I have wanted to see, because I felt she would appreciate the fact that I fell madly in love with an ex-boyfriend of hers and...well, there's stalking involved, but I won't get into that. (Becky knows this story...)
Last weekend, I told my college friend that story, and it was so strange...in the story was a person in whom I had invested much emotion and thought, and no matter how you looked at it, I had been completely wrong to do so, clearly obsessive and pretty wacky. I did finally move on from thinking about him, but a few years ago I tried to get in touch with a bunch of friends I'd lost track of, and he was one of them. I googled his name, got what I think was a current office address and sent a letter in a batch of about 40 letters. (To 40 different people - I didn't send him 40 letters. That WOULD be crazy.) I never heard anything from him, but the google revealed that we actually lived in the same city. Maybe. His office was here, I didn't try to find a home address. I wasn't surprised he didn't respond - I did not come off well in the story, and in his place, I'm not sure I would have responded to someone like myself. But I kept thinking someday we'd run into each other.
Well, telling that story brought it up in my mind and I googled anew today. He's working in St. Louis (ironic), and he's done quite well and he looks...washed out and drab. Jowly. Seeing that face, I can't escape the fact that I don't know him at all, that he has pretty much been a fictional character in my life. It's like being released from captivity, a captivity that kept me safe. I'm sure he's very happy...no, I'm not sure of that, how can I be? But I hope he's happy, and not sad or drab or washed out.
Not that I was that attractive in them, but I sure am glad that the most recent photos of me online are in flamboyant red wigs. I prefer looking puffy and overmadeup to drab.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
I don't advise
....moving via Red Ryder wagon. Oh, sure, they're festive, sturdy, and well-wheeled, but to drag your belongings across three blocks (one the treacherous dog-leg from Larabee to Willow - rich people cars will mow you down) using a children's wagon is a labor-intensive, if quaint, way of getting boxes from point A to point B.
Sadly, it takes lots of trips, and pulling four boxes in a wagon is hard on the arm muscles. (Four is about the limit for a Red Ryder load. Any more and they fall off.)
I'm tired of moving, and I've only barely started. I suppose I feel as if I've been moving since January, when I left my apartment of 3 and a half years. It still feels weird not to go back to Cornelia, although there isn't any there there, as it's been gutted for condos. 3 and 1/2 years is a big commitment for me - it felt like home.
So in January I moved out of there, to house-sit. Then I ended up moving out of the house-sit early (February) to live in a back-room, keeping most of my things in boxes. Then I spent the summer away, with one car load of stuff that I loaded myself, added to over the months, and then re-loaded myself to get back to Chicago. Now, after five weeks out of a suitcase, I am finally moving my boxes into my next living space.
Except it isn't mine. It's another house-sitting situation. Which is great but I'm getting antsy for something that is mine.
Have I mentioned I hate money? I should tell you that although I don't regret being an actor, there are days when I would like to haul off and slap every man, woman, or child who professes to be jealous of my pursuit of an artistic career and then trots off to the house they own, or perhaps drives there in a working vehicle they own, or, really worst yet, buys me dinner because they make more money than I do. I can EAT, people, I just can't make a down payment on a condo right now! Geez!
Regret is a luxury of those who have earned enough money to sit down and rest.
I should start replying, Wow, it's funny you say you wish you'd followed your dream, because I really wish I'd sold out and had a pension plan in place right now! Well, you might not feel artistically fulfilled but your insurance will cover the therapy to talk it through, don't you think?
Sadly, it takes lots of trips, and pulling four boxes in a wagon is hard on the arm muscles. (Four is about the limit for a Red Ryder load. Any more and they fall off.)
I'm tired of moving, and I've only barely started. I suppose I feel as if I've been moving since January, when I left my apartment of 3 and a half years. It still feels weird not to go back to Cornelia, although there isn't any there there, as it's been gutted for condos. 3 and 1/2 years is a big commitment for me - it felt like home.
So in January I moved out of there, to house-sit. Then I ended up moving out of the house-sit early (February) to live in a back-room, keeping most of my things in boxes. Then I spent the summer away, with one car load of stuff that I loaded myself, added to over the months, and then re-loaded myself to get back to Chicago. Now, after five weeks out of a suitcase, I am finally moving my boxes into my next living space.
Except it isn't mine. It's another house-sitting situation. Which is great but I'm getting antsy for something that is mine.
Have I mentioned I hate money? I should tell you that although I don't regret being an actor, there are days when I would like to haul off and slap every man, woman, or child who professes to be jealous of my pursuit of an artistic career and then trots off to the house they own, or perhaps drives there in a working vehicle they own, or, really worst yet, buys me dinner because they make more money than I do. I can EAT, people, I just can't make a down payment on a condo right now! Geez!
Regret is a luxury of those who have earned enough money to sit down and rest.
I should start replying, Wow, it's funny you say you wish you'd followed your dream, because I really wish I'd sold out and had a pension plan in place right now! Well, you might not feel artistically fulfilled but your insurance will cover the therapy to talk it through, don't you think?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)