7:43 PM - Fri 5.05.17
Singing The Friday Blues

(Hmmm...have been thinking I had a great deal to say, but suddenly I sit down to write, and...nothing.)

As happens pretty much every Friday, I'm kinda depressed.

I feel quite out-of-sync with the rest of the world in that regard - Where the average person with the average job looks forward to the weekend, it just bums me out.

Why?

1) Because it means another week has gone by, and little or nothing happened (Though I did have a commercial audition yesterday. And it was actually sort of fun, so that was nice).

2) Because, in spite of myself, I spend every Friday hoping I'll get a call for an audition on Monday...which almost never happens. Which means the earliest any acting thing could happen is Tuesday. It's probably not the healthiest way to think, but the weekend just feels like "a waste of time" - Nothing's gonna happen, and given the choice, I'd rather there be at least the chance of something happening.

3) Because I actually work more over the weekend than I do during the week (Something I actively wanted for years, so "be careful what you wish for"). And I have to get up earlier on the weekend than I do anytime during the week, which leaves me feeling dopey and dazed when I'm done working (Particularly on Saturday, for some reason), so the days are, by and large, ruined.

4) Because the idea of "the weekend" versus what my actual weekend is like depresses me (I could elaborate, but it already feels like this has gone on too long).

So I've pretty much always got that going on - and I can't seem to figure out how not to feel that way - but I'm also "crashing" after the excitement of my recent big developments.

Two weeks since getting the new theatrical agent, and...nothing.

It's a bit much to expect things to completely turn around in two weeks - and now's a "slow time" for the biz in general (The "busy time" for the biz passed me by this year...and last year...and the year before...).

But it does play up the fact that this is just a new agent, not a magician or a genie or whatever-the-fuck. He doesn't have any special powers to make casting people want me if they don't fucking want me.

But again, I'm getting a little ahead of myself - For now, as I'm not getting auditions, I can console myself by thinking "Well nobody's getting auditions right now, Jim...".

(To be honest, I do have some other "concerns", but they're arguably picayune, and I definitely could be blowing them out of proportion because I'm feeling a little down, and am so eager for any sign that things are "happening" again...which so far hasn't presented itself.)

Still enjoying my new teeth, but after the teeth...and the head-shot session...and putting pictures on Actors Access...and putting pictures on LA Casting, it struck me that "I've sunk a good chunk into this project, and the only steady money coming in is my shitty job at Weight Watchers" (A clarification here - In this context, I'm defining "shitty job" strictly as "a job where you cannot make enough to live on". Other than that - which is a big "other", I grant you - it's a nice job).

Still living in uncertainty about Shameless, whether that means not knowing if I'm still a part of the show - I probably am - or just not knowing when I'll be a part of the show again.

An odd disappointment I'm feeling around the show...

After the strip-club scene in Season 6, I signed up at the Y a week later - As I told myself and anyone who would listen at the time, I was determined that, if I am required to be naked for the show ever again, it will probably still be embarrassing...but at least not quite as embarrassing.

Then - in a development that was oddly disappointing - there was no point in Season 7 where I was required to humiliate myself (Season 7, in my mind, lacked any standout "Kermit" moments...unless you maybe want to count my being on the side of common sense in the vaccine debate - It wasn't particularly funny, but nice to have Kermit presented as "the voice of reason" )

But as Season 8 is about to start - I assume with "Kermit" in tow - it strikes me that, after a year of Zumba 3-4 times a week, I'm pretty much right where I was when I had to "strip down for my art" (i.e. a good 35 lbs overweight).

Cause, eight or nine years into Weight Watchers, I still eat too fucking much, and I haven't done any weight-bearing exercise since a brief stint with planking and push-ups (That lasted till I hurt my shoulder after sampling a strength-training class at the Y, and overdoing it).

So it would be just as embarrassing to be naked now as it was then, because I'm as ashamed of my body as ever (Though I have a hard time imagining a scenario where I'm once again nearly naked with the female series regulars and a bunch of extras. Next time - if there is a next time - I kind of envision a horrifically awkward one-on-one sex scene).

(It just hit me that I'm like one of those people who smoke till they need a tracheotomy...then just keep smoking through the hole in their throat. It's a little discouraging, to say the least.)

But it strikes me, as it struck my therapist on Tuesday, that I have been especially proactive lately, what with getting the work done on my teeth, and inviting people to lunch on my birthday.

So while it seems unlikely, it's not out of the realm of possibility that I'll work my way into being proactive about actually doing something to change my body - Like doing some weight-bearing exercise, and not eating all the fucking time (What would I, realistically, want my body to look like? When I think about it, pretty much the same as my new teeth - I want it to look like I just naturally have a nice body. Actually, being skinny - particularly in character-acting terms - would be okay as will. But not being a sloppy-looking mess with a gut. And perhaps this is self-serving of me, since I'm a lazy guy, but I don't think there's any percentage in me being really muscular either, if that were even possible - On the contrary, I think it would just look really weird. But anyway...).

It's stupid, but I'm nervous about lunch on my birthday.

I don't know what I'm afraid of - That I'll be boring, that we won't have anything to say to each other, that it'll be awkward somehow?

It's weird, this social anxiety of mine - When was the last time I was among people I know and like, and was completely at a loss for words?

It'll be fine. Dare I say, really fun even?

Probably going to Dennys (At Josh's suggestion, since they offer a free Grand Slam Breakfast on one's birthday. And his recent experience at a Dennys compared favorably to House of Pies, which is where I was thinking we'd go).

But wherever we go, right now I've got to go to bed.

My action-packed weekend beckons...

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