1:36 pm - Sat 10/30/04
To Be A More AUTHENTIC \"Me\"

Fri 10/29/04 (1:23 p.m.)

Was thinking recently that I ought to start each entry with at least one thing I'm happy about.

So here goes.

1) Got junk mail from Amnesty International yesterday...with free mailing labels. Woo-hoo!

2) The new GM is off to some big GM meeting (This will be Day 3 of a big 3-day GM extravaganza). So the mood at the store tonite will likely be more relaxed than it's been.

3) Found out a short time ago that they haven't started calling people on that lottery for cheap apartments. They're not calling people till the 30th (The same person who told me about it initially received the list of people whose names�Or numbers--were drawn, and she said she'd slip it under my door later so I could see if I'm on it). So who knows? Maybe I'll end the year in cheap new digs in West Hollywood.

4) Joan Of Arcadia is on tonite (It's nice to have something to watch when I get home from work. And since I work nights, I can add to my "happy list" that "I'm very happy I have a vcr").

5) Checked LA Casting, and found out the Advantix thing, while not paying as much as I'd like, would actually be two spots (They're paying $700 per spot. It didn't say anything about a buyout). If I were to get it, and it aired here in L.A., that would be two chances I'd have to have a tv casting director see me and want to call me in for something).

This isn't a thing to be happy about today, specifically, but I recently put in to take a couple of personal days next month, for a "four-day weekend". I don't have money to actually do anything, but I'm sure I'll figure out some way to amuse myself here in L.A. (And it may be "amusing" enough to just not be at work!).

Sat 10/30/04 (11:53 a.m.)

Not feeling good...

My upper back and shoulders are really sore, for some reason. And my body's doing that thing it does, where I get up, am still too tired to do anything, lay back down, get up a couple hours later, still feeling like shit (Can't motivate myself to do anything, even normally enjoyable stuff), lay back down, get up,...and I feel like I could do that all through the day, if I didn't have to force my tired, aching body to go to work.

And I don't know if my physical complaints are the cause or not, but I'm feeling pretty low emotionally as well.

This part of my week can be tough, for sure.

As I rode my bike home from work last night, I recall thinking that the day had been another in a long line of "disposable days"--Nothing that bad happened, nothing that good happened�and while that's sometimes all I ask out of the workday (That it not make me angry or upset me in some way), there's another part of me that rebels against week after week of days where the best I can say is "Well that wasn't too painful...".

So, oftentimes, when I get depressed as I have to start the work week, it's not because work is so uncomfortable or unpleasant�though sometimes it is�but because it's so much...nothingness. Day after day of meaningless activity that does nothing for me and leaves me no better off than when I started (Actually, it maybe leaves me a little worse off�I just lost another day that might have been spent doing something, doing anything, more meaningful and/or pleasurable).

And I know it's not helpful for me to think this way, to see the commercial thing as the "Deus ex Machina" that's going to rescue me in the end, but I know that another reason Fridays tend to be depressing is that I rarely get called by JS on a Friday (It happens occasionally, for an audition on Monday, but it's rare).

(1:01 p.m.)

Just got back up from doing laundry...
Down in the laundry room, my brain was going a mile a minute, connecting this thing to that thing, and that thing to the other. And that's what frustrates me about my writing�It can't keep up. From brain to fingers to keyboard, substantial amounts of... well, something, gets lost.

But anyway...

I'm leery of writing about work being "meaningless", because where that often leads me is casting about for something outside of work that is "meaningful", and beyond whatever "meaning" I derive from auditioning for commercials (When it goes well, I do feel better about things), there really isn't anything.

Not. One. Thing.

And thus the "spiral" begins...

Lately, I've had this drumbeat in my head again, about Diaryland, that goes like this:

write better, write better, write better, write better...

(Just checked my email�Nothing. I notice that I tend to get very little email over the weekend, as people go off to do things that real people do on their real weekends, and my "work week" begins.Which is another reason the beginning of my "work week" tends to be...challenging�I gets to feeling pretty lonesome. But anyway...)

When I first started hearing the "Write Better" drumbeat, I didn't quite know what it meant: Be more creative? Be funnier? What?

But now I do know what the "drumbeat" means. It means "Be more authentically �you'".

I wonder, from time to time, exactly why I went online with my journal.

There's a contradiction in my online writing that I find interesting: I often hesitate to write about my feelings about things "outside myself"�movies I like, the current political situation, things in the news, etc�because I think "Why the hell would anyone care what I think about anything?", but at the same time, I trot out details of my personal life with the expectation that you'll be fascinated.

(Blah blah blah...is it just the sleep apnea talking, or am I starting to babble? And are you as bored as you could possibly be yet, or should I drone on...?)

My point, if I have one, is that a big chunk of my dissatisfaction�with Borders, with my personal life, with Diaryland, etc�is that anyone could be doing it.

It ain't "me".

So, how do I start living a life that actually reflects "me"?

I guess I'm kinda/sorta doing it, trying to anyway, in a couple of ways�Diaryland probably comes closest, and the fact that I finally roused myself enough to come out here and at least try to be a professional actor�but I want more.

I just want more.

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