8:33 pm - Weds 1.20.2010
I'm An Actor

It's been raining for the past couple days, and I guess it's supposed to continue for at least the next couple days.

Since I'm a bike rider, I'm not big on rainy days, as a rule.

But beyond issues of personal comfort and convenience, it's hard to get on the "rain is good" bandwagon out here, because it seems like, whenever it rains in LA, things immediately go to hell - The mudslides start, the streets flood, a good chunk of the time there are power outtages, things slow to a crawl on the freeway...

I know we need water, but somehow, it always feels like it isn't really supposed to rain out here.

Anyway...it's been raining most of the time for the past couple days, but I've mostly missed it so far (In terms of being caught outside on my bicycle). So "yay!" on that front.

And I don't have anywhere I have to be until a WW meeting tomorrow night, so "yay!" on that front as well (Mostly - but more on that in a moment...).

And at present, I'm in a warm apartment, with a decently stocked fridge, with "my stories" being recorded on the dvr, so in the here-and-now, it's okay being me.

It's funny - As soon as I wrote "...in the here-and-now, it's okay being me", I had the strongest urge to write about my money anxieties, the fact that the year has gotten off to a slow start audition-wise, etc.

So let me just get this out of the way - If I really want to worry, there are certainly things to worry about.

But I want to, if possible, stay with that "right-now-everything's-okay" vibe...

Under the heading "Every Little Bit Helps", I've (at least temporarily) gotten back my Tuesday morning WW meeting; thanks to new enrollments, attendance has gone up enough to justify a second Receptionist - a.k.a. "Yours Truly".

I filled in for someone on Monday, and have two more "fills" scheduled for next week. And next month, I've volunteered to work three Saturday-afternoon "open-houses".

(I would have volunteered for all four of the open-houses, but that's typically when I have my therapy session with Bette, which I didn't want to give up. So I "split the difference" - I'm doing the first three open-houses, and seeing Bette twice during the month, on a Wednesday, then again on that last Saturday.)

I could "go negative", bemoaning how "it's not enough", picking up these extra WW meetings (cause it's not), but that's not the point...or, at least, it shouldn't always be the point - The "point" is that I'm taking the opportunities that are presenting themselves.

So "Yay!" me.

I sometimes get (very) stressed over the fact that WW doesn't cover the bills, and in all likelihood, will never cover the bills.

But here's the thing - I don't want it to...not really.

If I were working enough meetings to "make a living" through WW (A number of meetings I don't think is logistically possible), I'd still be stressed and unhappy, it would just be a different flavor of "stressed and unhappy":

I thought I'd be happy if my "straight job" covered my monthly bills, but now that I'm full-time at Weight Watchers, I don't feel like an "Actor" anymore - I'm just a "Weight Watchers Receptionist". And it's screwing me up when I do have auditions, because I'm so tired, and so stressed from always having to find a WW "fill" every time I get a call from Brett or JS, that I'm not doing my best when I get in the room.

(Or something along those lines...)

I like the amount of WW in my life right now (With the understanding that I'd prefer not having to work a regular job at all). It gives me something to do, I'm "out in the world", doing something that I genuinely think is worth doing, without it dominating my life and sapping my energies, and taking away from what I'm "really out here to do" (And it motivates me to maintain my weight loss).

It's interesting to consider that I am, in a bizarre way, "living my dream"; one of the things I've wanted for myself, for pretty much all my adult life, was that my life not be all about my shitty, dead-end job.

And it hasn't been, not for awhile now.

That "dream" has had a pretty hefty price tag, in terms of sometimes crushing amounts of stress. But be that as it may, it's important to realize/remind myself that I chose this.

I don't have everything I want. Sometimes I don't think I even have very much of what I want.

But I have something that's pretty important, though it's been easy for me to overlook, or dismiss - I really don't think of myself anymore as a guy who works a dead-end job and has nothing else going on.

In Michigan, I used to get depressed, thinking, "I call myself an 'Actor', but I'm really just a bookstore clerk".

I don't feel that way anymore.

I'm an Actor.

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