7:16 pm - Tues 11.11.2008
Jim Is Busting Out All Over

(Just finished my latest "Weight Watchers" entry and am still feeling "chatty", so here we are...)

Starting on a good note, I recently got another residual check for the Yellow Pages commercial, netting a little under $500 (I've never actually seen the commercial and don't know anyone who has, but apparently it's running somewhere from time to time, so "Yay!").

I also (finally!) received my session fee for the first day's shooting on the infomercial - for a little under $500.

Speaking of the infomercial, shooting the new stuff on Saturday was a snap - I got there ("There" being the Director's home in Beverly Hills) at 10 a.m., and was done by noon.

When things got started, I don't think we did more than three takes of anything (I don't know if that means I was just that good, or they just didn't care that much, or what, but I'm going to choose to believe the former).

If/when you see the infomercial, you'll be seeing more of me than either of us would probably prefer; my stuff was shot in and around the director's pool, which meant I was shirtless a good portion of the time.

When I learned, a day or two before the shoot, that that was going to be the case, I wasn't exactly thrilled (In fact, you could say I was the exact opposite of "thrilled") - I've been extremely sensitive about taking my shirt off in public ever since puberty struck, and struck hard, when I was 5 or 6 years old (I wasn't known as "The Wolf Boy Of Martinsburg, W.VA" for nothing).

But as I've told people, and as I'm sure I've said in here more than once - Being a middle-aged, funny-looking white guy, the time was going to come, sooner or later, as an actor, when I'd have to do a scene without my shirt on, just so the audience could have a horrified laugh at my character's expense ("EWWWW...look at that middle-aged, funny-looking white guy with no shirt on! Gross...!").

And as I told Cary earlier today, when it came down to actually doing it, it was like getting in the pool - At first you think "Oh @#!! It's cold!", and then in a moment or two you get used to it, and you're just in the pool - No big deal.

And I'll probably feel that way till I see the completed infomercial (When I'll say "EWWW...look at that middle-aged, funny-looking white guy with no shirt on! Gross...!").

(I did console myself a bit by thinking, "Well, at least this didn't happen 75 pounds ago...".)

Depending on who you ask, "Innovations" is either the most fun you can have with your clothes on, or certified Hell on Earth.

I found it somewhere in between - they feed you, which is nice, you get some free swag, which is cool, and you get paid for your time, (Five and a half hours), but it is something of an "endurance event", to be sure (Even the friggin' Oscars don't run five-and-a-half hours!).

I started pretty strong, initially enjoying the newness of the experience, but ran out of gas as things went on; they really love their awards, and I just got tired of applauding for people I didn't know, who had won awards for things I didn't care about (Though I was pleased for the people I did know who won awards for achievement of some kind or another).

But now that I've experienced "Innovations" in all its glory and splendor, if I'm still with Weight Watchers by this time next year, I may need to figure out some way to not go.

Most times, I either can't actually go when I "feel the urge", or I do go, but don't feel I've completely "evacuated".

But worse than that (And that kind of sucks all by itself), I'm positive that, in spite of Dr W's examination (Where he pronounced me hernia-free), I have myself a pretty good-sized hernia.

All I know is, if it hurts like a hernia, and when it's hurting, you can actually reach down and feel a bulge in your abdomen where there hasn't been one before, like a hernia...then it's probably a hernia.

So I'm back at Dr W's tomorrow morning, to see where we go from here.

I'm guessing "where we go from here" is going to be to surgery (Since, far as I know, they haven't come up with a "hernia repair pill" yet).

There are numerous reasons I'm not very happy about the idea of surgery, but at this juncture, it kind of feels inevitable, and I'm just going to have to deal with it, and hope for the best outcome possible.

Well, there's a million other things I could write about, but I guess I don't have to write about all of them tonite.

Or at least not right now.

I think I'm going to see what's on the telly, and maybe come back to this a little later...

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