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11:30 pm - Tues 9.26.2012
Personal Requests To The Universe

Personal Requests To "The Universe" - 1. Make People Quit Stealing My Shit, And, 2. More/Better Acting Work.


Hey, remember how I said that, as a precursor to seeing if I was an actual writer, I'd "have to actually write more - a lot more"?

Well, clearly you're remembering wrong - I never said that.

I deny everything.

(In any case...)

It's been an "interesting" period of time, to say the least.

Last Wednesday, I found out that someone had gotten hold of my debit card number - along with the pin - and had themselves a week-long ATM party (It started on 9/11 - I got stung to the tune of around $4000; by the time the credit union stopped the fun, my checking account was down to less than $600).

The most interesting part of the whole thing to me was seeing what the guy who constantly frets about things that might happen does when something bad actually does happen.

I only found out on Weds because I tried to use my card at a convenience store (Between WW meetings) and it wouldn't work.

I blew that off - "Must be their card machine...", I thought to myself - but then I got a call from my Doctor's office in the afternoon about a payment I'd sent in the mail (It hadn't gone through, so they were double checking to see if the number was right. So I gave them the number, and it still didn't work. That's when I thought, "Okay, something's wrong here...", and called my credit union).

When I found out what had happened - The credit union had eventually "frozen" my card because of the "unusual activity" - I felt strangely blank (I was going to say "strangely calm", but that implies some preternatural sense that "everything was going to be okay", and I'm pretty sure that wasn't what was going on in my head).

Maybe it was so outside my experience I didn't know how to respond; I didn't know how much trouble I was in, exactly (And, oddly enough, I didn't ask when on the phone with the credit union, apparently just being content to be told what I needed to do next.

I did start harboring some anxious thoughts later - Not being sure how things worked, in terms of my getting my money back, I worried what would happen if that money was just gone, or even gone for a lengthy period of time as things "got worked out" - but I'm happy to report that, as of this writing, I have a replacement card, and I "have been made whole" once more (I was surprised at how quickly this all got worked out - I'd been told the replacement card could take "a week to ten days", but I actually got it in yesterday's mail).

Because of the amount, the credit union required I file a police report, which I thought would be relatively easy - certainly easier than dealing with the credit union - but ended up necessitating multiple trips to the police station (While dealing with the credit union, on the other hand, was "easy-peasy").

I've certainly had things stolen from me before - I have a "laundry list" of items stolen since living in LA (Car batteries, hub caps, registration tags, a couple sets of bike lights, a couple of of the bikes themselves, etc...not to mention being assaulted on Xmas Eve some years back)- but this felt much more serious (Okay, the assault felt pretty "serious" at the time, but you know what I mean).

It's interesting, too, at my advanced age, with what's happened already, that I'm still capable of being almost startled when I get a reminder like this that "bad people are out there" waiting to take advantage of me and steal what little I have.

But when I was slipping into a little bit of a funk over this thought, it actually struck me that, while I've had more stolen from me since living in LA the past 11 years than in my entire life prior to LA - I haven't documented this, but pretty sure it's true - it's still a small number of bad experiences, a number dwarfed by all the positive interactions I have with people all the time.

(Okay, that might be easier to say now than if someone had stolen thousands of dollars from me and I never got it back, but still...)

And then on Sunday, I apparently still had that "steal my shit" sign on my back, because I had my bike lights stolen...again (Watching the Emmy Awards at a friend's apartment, I parked my bike behind a locked gate, in an area my friend suggested was secure and little-traveled by his fellow apartment-dwellers...but apparently it wasn't "secure" or "little traveled" enough). But it was my own damned fault - how many times do you need to have your bike lights stolen before you take them off your bike and put them in your pocket every single time you go anywhere?

Anyway, the "takeaway" here? I was relieved the big theft didn't end up being as big a deal as it could have been.

____________________

Weds 9/26/12 (7:51 am)

For what's supposed to be "the busy time of year", it's not been all that busy for me so far - I had four auditions last month, and three this month - but since I've had the three auditions this month in a week's time, and I'm shooting my second third-season episode of Shameless tomorrow, it feels like there's been a veritable flood of "acting stuff" happening.

I hope it's "the start of something big", because...well, because I always want "acting stuff" to be happening, and I'm not going to be a happy camper if I end the year having booked only one new gig (That would be NCIS).

(The "stats": Last year I booked three gigs - one of which was Austin & Ally, leading to two more appearances on the show that season; in addition, I shot three second-season episodes of Shameless. In 2010, I booked a record seven gigs, including my first episode of Shameless.)

(4:07 pm)

Whenever I have an acting gig, I get a "fill" if it happens on a day I work at WW, whether I think I need to or not, because, 1) You never know, and, 2) The last thing I want to do after shooting a commercial or tv show is "go to my day job".

So when I got word the Shameless shoot was on Thursday, I called and got a "fill" for my Thursday evening WW meeting in West LA, even though I didn't imagine I'd really need to.

Turns out I needed to - The shoot's tomorrow afternoon (My calls have typically been in the mornings, and I've typically been out by mid-morning/early-afternoon; I was so sure this one would be no different that I was halfway thinking about asking my friend Howard if he wanted to see a movie in the afternoon).

Anyway...

Regarding "acting stuff" - Something I think is interesting (And suggests I may be better at doing my own PR than I've given myself credit for) is that people think I audition/work as an actor a lot more than I do.

I think there are various and sundry reasons for that - like how much I report on "acting stuff" on Facebook - but when people are telling me I'm "on fire" or that I "work all the time" when, after tomorrow, I'll have worked a total of three days so far this year, suggests to me that people have a pretty skewed view of my "success".

(But to be fair, so do I, just "in the other direction".)

Well, I want to write more, but I think I've taxed your patience enough...

 

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