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9:52 p.m. - SAT 5/12/01 Got home from work around quarter-to-nine tonite ( I worked 10 to 6, but as I was about to punch out, Padric asked if I wanted to stay over for awhile. I DIDN'T, but between my finances and my desire to seem like at least SORT of a good guy, I said ok, and ended up staying until 8. I think his INTENT was for me to shelve, but I ended up spending almost the whole time working "backup" on the registers ). I took the bus home from work--I've bussed to and from work the past two days--and while I was on the bus, I started thinking how much I wanted to write in here. I felt like I had a lot to say, and I knew, because of my schedule, that if I DIDN'T write tonite, I wouldn't have another chance till Monday after work ( Tomorrow, I work 9:30 to 6, then I'm going straight from work to Cary and Kay's. They're taking me out to dinner for my birthday, a couple days early. Then I'm back at work 8 am Monday--I guess I'm scheduled so early to help repair the damage from inventory, which is happening tomorrow--and I work till 4:30. Then I'm off Tuesday and Wednesday ). Anyway, I took the bus home, all hot to write in here, then I got home...and did pretty much everything else I could do on the computer; I checked the various "diaries" I have bookmarked, I looked at Entertainment Weekly Online, I looked at CNN Online, I looked at the Earthlink homepage, I checked out an apartment-hunter website, I looked at porn ( first some nekkid girls from a site I have bookmarked,then some dirty mpegs that are in my temporary internet file ). And it hit me--I was feeling the urge to write in here because I was FEELING a lot of stuff, but when I got home, I suddenly realized the stuff I was feeling was stuff I'm afraid to CONFRONT, and am embarrassed for people to read about in here. I've been trying to build myself up in here, and when I talk to people like Kevin or Chris or Mark and Jane or Cary and Kay, it seems like I'm spending a great deal of time saying something to the effect of, "I'm scared and lonely and frustrated and tired...but I'm sure it's going to work out". And I'm SINCERE and everything--Obviously, I WANT everything to work out--but I'm playing down my bad feelings, taking the edge off them for public consumption, making them palatable. Nobody wants to hear me say what I'm thinking, "I have fucked up. I do not have the energy to do this. I'm here in Los Angeles, and I'm wondering how the fuck I'm going to NOT just get mired in trying to keep alive, while acting becomes something I used to do a long time ago. Acting has NEVER felt so far away in all my life". I've resisted delving fully into my more negative feelings here, for fear of "the downward spiral". And I DON'T want to talk myself into a breakdown here, but I think, as an actor AND a person, I have to give voice to this stuff, if only to be more effectively able to acknowledge it and move on. And I think the most insidous thing I find myself thinking a lot, thinking of Robert Downey and his unhappy celebrity ilk, is that I'm chasing a rather unsatisfying dream, while I get older and grayer and balder and uglier and tireder and deader, and while "real life" passes me by. Robert Downey Jr. is, or WAS, where I would dearly want to be; Talented, good looking, successful, respected. But his demons won't let go of him ( What did he say to that judge--"It's like I've got a gun in my mouth, and I'm discovering I like the taste of metal?" ). I'm NOT Robert Downey Jr--My addictions are less "out there", for one thing--but I look at him, see him having what I want and not being happy, and it tells me that there's obviously more to life than that. But what? Family? I don't have one. A "significant other"? I don't have one. Service to others? Well, I sort of hoped that was going to be a side-effect of the acting thing. God? I don't have one. Love? Money? Political involvement? Stamp collecting? I can't sit here and say "I'm not going to make it", because I don't KNOW that ( I just GOT here, after all! ). But I CAN say that my lack of general energy is going to pose a potentially much more serious problem than it EVER did back in Lansing. Today, when Padric asked me if I wanted to stay later, I just DIDN'T ( It was so evident by my pained expression that Padric immediately said, "You don't HAVE to", whereas I then had to backpedal and go, "Oh no, I was just figuring it out", or something like that ). I had been really looking forward to just going home and spending the evening with my old buddy, Mr IBM Aptiva ( Today was another all-day register extravaganza. It didn't leave me as emotionally distraught as the one time I did it, but I was just exhausted by the end. And concerned about Carpal Tunnel to boot! ). I seem to be moving into a schedule that's around 35 hours a week ( At least last week and this coming week ). Working five days a week, days and nights, suddenly the only days I have available for Appleone are the two days of my "weekend", and while I KNOW I can't work seven days a week, I don't even want to give up ONE of those days off ( If an extra gig were to happen, that might be ANOTHER thing, but there hasn't been much action at Cenex at all lately, let alone anything I'm remotely right for ). I called Appleone yesterday, and asked what I'd been thinking of as "The Big Question": "If I made myself available to you folks full-time, could you keep me busy?" ( I've been wondering if that's what I SHOULD be doing, temping on a full-time basis ). They said no. The companies that contract with them are "nervous" about the economy. They aren't getting enough calls to keep their "regulars" working all the time, let alone someone like me ( Who hasn't established himself as anything but some guy with not exactly "mad skills" in office work ). So it doesn't look like Appleone is going to be my place to run to after I say "Bite me!" to Borders. ( Starting to fade...) It was an odd position for me to be in. Just the IDEA of quitting Borders and doing Appleone full-time had made me feel tremendously anxious, and yet after we had that conversation, I felt even MORE anxious. So much for my "backup plan"... What NOW?
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