1:32 pm - Mon 3.28.2011
My Only Shot

I feel conflicted.

Seeing a movie (Certified Copy) with my friend Howard in a few hours.

This is nice, because we haven't hung out in a few weeks (Also because I don't have Group tonight - which is frequently my only activity on Monday - so without Howard, this would have a long, lonesome day, with me basically just marking time till House and Castle this evening).

Tomorrow, I'm having dinner with my friend Patrick at the French Market.

Again, this is a good thing - We haven't hung out in awhile (Patrick was my "going to movies" friend before Howard. The last time we did anything together was seeing the Wiseman documentary Boxing Gym last year), so it was nice he was motivated to message me on FB a couple days ago to see if I wanted to do something.

So where's the "conflict", you ask?

Well, this is one of the wonders of being me, where the at-least-temporary solution to one problem (Feeling bored and lonely), exacerbates the other problem (Feeling stressed and anxious over not much money coming in).

On the one hand, I don't feel like I have the money to spend on "hanging out", but on the other, I'm dying of loneliness.

But I'm opting to go, in both instances, because as I joked to another friend recently, "That way, if I end up homeless, at least I'll have some nice memories".

While the weather in my head has been pretty grim lately - often matching the actual weather here in LA - I have to acknowledge a few "breaks in the clouds"...

For example, with the additional WW meetings I've gotten in recent months, my monthly income from that arena is actually covering my rent, maybe for the first time since I started at WW.

And this has been a good month for auditions (If you ignore the part where I haven't booked anything yet) - I have my eighth audition tomorrow, and it's a very rare film audition (It's just one line as a "Priest", but Brett said it's a real film - not a SAG "low budget" - with name actors).

And JS just responded to an email I sent him, telling me a "holding fee" for the Budweiser commercial is winging its way toward my mailbox ("Holding fees" guarantee you'll get some money from a commercial, which is fair, since you can't book work for a competing product during the contract period).

It doesn't feel like much in the face of some pretty major concerns ("Dying alone in the gutter", for example)..but at least it's something.

Saw Certified Copy with Howard earlier...

About all I can say for it is that Juliette Binoche is very appealing.

Anyway...

When I expressed my unhappiness on Facebook recently, someone suggested "gratitude" as a possible antidote.

I am grateful for what I have, I really am. I have a roof over my head, food to eat, cable/internet, etc.

In fact, I'm so grateful for those things, it really scares me to think they might go away.

This is just a scary life I've chosen for myself, where I don't know how much money is going to come in when, or if I'm ever going to get beyond the extremely qualified "success" I've enjoyed to date.

You see, I worry about the here-and-now, but beyond that, I worry about a future where acting jobs aren't happening anymore, I have no savings, and thanks to the Republican/Corporate takeover of America, there's no social safety net to catch me.

But what am I going to do? Quit trying to be an actor? And do ?

I don't know how to do anything else, and I don't want to do anything else.

And really, as scary and uncertain as an acting career is, it's the only thing I've ever done where I've made decent money (Okay, I made "decent money" two years out of the past ten, but still).

It feels weird to say, all things considered, but at this point, I think this is my best shot.

My only shot.

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