9:45 pm - 12.24.2012
A Letter To My Mom

Hi Mom -

I�d hoped to get this letter out before your Xmas card, but was having a hard time getting things going. And I didn�t want the card getting to you late, so...here we are.

Speaking of Xmas cards, thank you very much for the lovely card. It meant a lot to me - I�ve been telling everyone �I got a card from my Mom!� - and I was particularly happy you�re glad this happened.

I�m glad we�ve finally met too. I was very nervous about it, but I feel like it worked out really well (Though I have to say - I�m glad you and Tony aren�t BOTH Republicans, cause that would have been hard for me to take!).

I�m sorry to hear Craig isn�t well. I hope by the time you�re reading this he�s doing better, and back home with you for the holidays.

This isn�t typically my favorite time of year, for many reasons, one reason being I just get bored - The business shuts down for the holidays, so there�s no auditions (Which means no chance to get work), and even my favorite tv shows go into re-runs. So at the end of the year, it kind of feels like all I�m doing is just hanging around, waiting for the new year to start so I can �get back to work�.

I don�t typically do very much for Xmas. This year, I sent some cards out, and sent some gift cards to the boys (And a gift to my friend Cary�s son, for whom I�m an honorary �Uncle�), and that was pretty much it.
Often, for Thanksgiving and Xmas I go visit Cary & his wife, who live in Santa Clarita, 40 minutes or so north of LA. But his mother-and-law

moved in with them this year, and she just had knee surgery, so they�re playing down the big holiday thing this year.

So for Thanksgiving, I went out with a friend for Thanksgiving dinner and a movie.

For Xmas, it looks like I�m going to the movies with another friend, then to a dinner party at another mutual friend�s house (If you couldn�t guess, I really LIKE going to the movies. Catching cheap matinees with my friend Howard is the #1 thing I like to do in my spare time, when I�m not just hanging out at home watching tv or playing on the computer).

What are you doing for Xmas (I guess since you won�t be reading this till after Xmas, I should be asking, �What DID you do for Xmas?�)?

You asked me about LA - I�ve been here now for close to 12 years.

I moved here from Michigan, after a friend casually said one day, at lunch, when we were bitching about this and that, �Oh, we�re always going to just complain about our lives and never do anything about it...�. That turned out to be really good motivation TO actually �do something� about my life - Because I�d always wanted to be a professional actor, but was too afraid to really try. And now here I am.

But speaking of acting...I had a small part on a show called �American Horror Story� a few weeks ago, but it was REALLY small - smaller than my part on �NCIS� - and it�s a pretty weird show that I�m guessing wouldn�t be your cup-of-tea (I didn�t try very hard to get anyone to watch it. I didn�t even watch it myself when it was first on, though I later caught it On Demand).

The next thing I�m on that you might enjoy is �Southland�, on TNT.

It�s one scene, and I play a pawnshop owner. I thought it was pretty funny. That�s going to be on in February - I�ll let you know when.

Commercials were the first thing I started doing when I got to LA, in terms of acting. But it took awhile - I was working at a bookstore, and while I was there, I met another actor who had a commercial agent. He agreed to give his agent my headshot and resume, the agent then called me in for an interview, and I was off and running.

Commercials are really important to actors at my level, because it�s the only way you can make any real money - Things like the one-day job on �NCIS� pay well when you get them, but it�s hard to put enough of those together to actually make a living. But book the right commercial, and you can do pretty well, at least well enough that you�re not going to have to worry about paying the rent for awhile.

That�s why I�m worried that, for the first time, I didn�t book a single commercial this past year. I got close - just a few weeks ago, it was down to me and another guy on a commercial, and they went with �the other guy� - but I didn�t quite make it (So wish me luck on booking something early next year!).

(Tony says that he�s a �worrier�, and so are you. So I guess it must be a �family trait�, because I am too.)

Speaking of Tony, that cracked me up, what you wrote in your letter about you and Tony after the election (Telling him to �look in the mirror and see if he didn�t look like a mental patient�). Me and him have tangled at times, first over the election, and more recently, over the killings in Connecticut. I�m disappointed that we don�t agree on much of anything, politically, and I�ve gotten to the point where I�d rather avoid talking about those things than fight about them.

But on the other hand, we like a lot of the same music, and he turned me on to �The Walking Dead�, which I watch now. And I think it�s pretty cool that he plays an instrument - I play around with a couple instruments, but don�t really play anything very well - so we have a couple things in common. And I know, despite our differences, we both get a kick out of having a brother, and each know the other guy is �a good person at heart�.

I enjoyed meeting the boys while I was there. They seem like great kids...but I could see where dealing with the two of them at once would be a lot to deal with! In any case, it�s nice that they get �special time� with you by themselves, without the other brother competing for your attention.

You asked me about the election...Yes, I was VERY happy about the results of the election. But now I�m frustrated that the Republicans are acting like they WON or something, and seem to think the President should go to them with his hand out and get on his knees and beg them to do anything!

The big problem is they have all these extremists on the Far Right, and they just don�t believe in compromise, in working with the other side, at all. But that�s what government IS - If you aren�t willing to budge on anything ever, nothing gets done.

You say you�re �not a good letter writer�, but I think you are. I�m very happy to get your letters, and you can write about anything you want to with me - I�m eager to get to know you better. I love hearing from you.

I know you feel badly about the way things went, having to put me into foster care, but I�m not angry about it at all. The big issue for me, when

I was younger, was that I didn�t understand why this had happened to me. And since I didn�t know why, I made UP reasons - �It must have been because she didn�t love me because I was �bad�...� - because that was the best I could do to �figure things out�.

But as I got older, and learned more about my background (and a little about yours), I realized that sometimes people do the best they can, but bad things still happen. And you tried to give me a chance at something better than what you�d experienced.

And now that I�ve met you, and we�ve gotten a little bit of a chance to talk - and write - I really do see you as being �a good person in a bad situation�, who did her best. I�m not mad at you, I just feel sad that you didn�t get cared for as a child like you should have, and as a result you had to struggle for a long time, basically on your own, to put your life together.

It seems like another thing we have in common - We�re really hard on ourselves. We really shouldn�t be.

I have my issues, like everyone does, but I�m basically doing okay. And you seem to have created a nice life for yourself. So what happened half a century ago? I think we should consider it �water under the bridge�.

Well, I want to get this out in tomorrow�s mail, so I think I�ll say so long, and I look forward to hearing from you when you get the chance.

Love,

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