10:14 am - 10.06.2011
One Hour

Doing something a little different today - Set my alarm for one hour, and I'm going to write till it goes off - because I've gotta do something to "shake things up" on the journal front.

Anyway...No auditions so far this week, but you know how I feel about that (hint: I don't like it), so moving on...

Something else I don't like, that's entirely unrelated to acting, is that I've developed an unhappy habit of getting up at night and eating.

It's been going on for awhile now - I'll seem to "get it under control", then suddenly I'm eating a dozen or more points during the time I should be sleeping (Which is another reason to wish I were sleeping better).

It makes life much harder than it needs to be, and I don't like that I've handed myself a new thing to feel stressed and anxious about.

(This could be an entry entirely about this issue - It's really been bothering me - but since I haven't come up with any ready solutions, I'd just be crying about how stressed out I feel about it and flirting with being angry at myself for "letting it happen", so once again, moving on...)

(15 minutes in, and I already took a break to check my email. But anyway...)

This - what I'm doing right now - is actually part of my effort to "take advantage" of my free time a little more.

I'm probably never going to be a "ball of fire" in terms of getting things done, but with the end of my two therapy groups on Mondays, it struck me that I have an entire day with nothing to do except see movies with Howard, and get things done.

Thursdays are another day that's pretty open, barring auditions and such (I have nothing till my WW meeting in West LA at 5:45).

So far today, I've taken out the trash, done the dishes, written the check for the WW "open hours" shift I did yesterday...and watched the two hour block of ABC comedies I recorded last night (I know - that last thing doesn't much sound like "getting something done". But odd as it sounds, I get stressed if/when shows start stacking up on my dvr).

This is important to me, because it's become, over time, something I've let myself become very frustrated and stressed about, which is crazy.

(The problem, basically, is that I've fallen out of doing this as often as I used to, when I actually need it more than ever. And, maybe because I'm not doing it as often as I used to, I feel like when I do write, I'm not writing very well.)

Again, this entry could be entirely about this, because as I said, I've let it become a real "issue".

But it's actually pretty simple - I've got the time to do this, so it's really a question of giving myself that time and "getting out of my own way" (By, for example, not worrying what the three or four of you still reading this will think of me if/when I write what's really on my mind.

Two things I wanted to write about that I haven't as of yet:

Thing #1:

What people often want to know, when I talk about/write about working with famous folks (Like John Cleese, or Nathan Fillion, or most recently, William H. Macy), is "Were they nice?".

I've thought about that a lot when thinking about Shameless, because Bill Macy wasn't particularly "nice".

Don't get me wrong, he wasn't "mean" or "dismissive" or anything negative, he just wasn't overwhelmingly warm and friendly.

But you know what my "take-away" from that was? That's okay.

If he were a dick - which he was not - then I'd have an issue or two - but otherwise, I don't think he should be required to act like we're going to be best buddies.

It might sound obvious, but it was something of a revelation to me; I'm still pretty new at working with famous people, and I really did go in with a black-and-white sense of how they would behave toward me.

(Now, since I'm a recurring character on the show, I'm not ruling out becoming "best buddies" with Bill Macy...but it hasn't happened yet.)

Thing #2:

On my first episode of the Disney show, I met Rico Rodriguez ("Manny" on Modern Family).

(His sister is on the show, and he was hanging out on the set.)

When he first saw me, he complimented me on my "Spiderman" shirt (It's a pretty cool shirt, if I do say so myself).

I was pretty psyched to meet him, cause I like Modern Family, and kid or not, he's really good on the show.

Got through the day, and when we wrapped, I saw him in his sister's dressing room, and couldn't help myself - I became a "fan".

There's nothing inherently wrong with being a "fan", and approaching someone respectfully and complimenting them on their work (I hope to have "fans" someday myself).

But in this context - being a working actor on a set - it's just not good (And I have to be honest - I didn't just say "I enjoy your work on the show". I kinda gushed a bit).

As I've told people after the fact, I heard him go into a "patter" I've done myself, back in community theater days, and felt embarrassed that I'd turned myself from a "peer" into a "fan".

Again, nothing wrong with fans, or with being a fan - But on a set, I'm looking to be a "peer".

Even if that "peer" is eleven years old.

And my time is up.

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