10:17 am - Fri 11/25/05
Missing Borders and Dissing ArcLight

(This first bit I wrote before the stuff about shooting my bit on House, but I thought it made for too long an entry, and that way more people would be interested in knowing how the House shoot went. But anyway...)

Tues 11/22/05 (2:31 p.m.)

Feel like I haven�t been writing in here very well lately...

I think one problem is that I�ve been hesitant to say I miss anything about Borders, or to diss anything about ArcLight, for fear the response will be, �Golly, he just can�t be happy anywhere...�.

One anti-ArcLight thing, and I just found this out Sunday�They don�t offer health insurance to the worker-bees.

Afterwards, I wracked my brain, trying to figure out why I thought they did�Did I just assume they would, did I get confused about something I read, or what? It bothers me that I let myself get this far �in� without knowing this really important bit of info (Would it have been a �deal breaker�? I�m not sure. But I should have thought to ask before now).

Even though I was debating at one point whether to sign up for insurance or not, I�d pretty much decided I needed to, so to find out that wasn�t really an option...well, let�s say I had a couple of �dark moments�, where I wondered if I had indeed made a mistake in leaving Borders.

But trying to see �the bright side��That�ll mean more �take home pay�, I might be more able to swing the gym membership at some point (Since it�s about half what I was paying out in health insurance at Borders), and there�s always the possibility I could book a couple good commercial/tv things, and start getting insurance through SAG.

(And ArcLight does offer insurance at the supervisory/managerial level, so I may have to go �up the organization�, whether I want to or not, just so I can make a living wage, without having to worry about illness or injury driving me into bankruptcy.)

But regarding missing Borders or dissing ArcLight�It hit me yesterday, after watching my second free movie since I�ve been at the theater (Good Night And Good Luck), that in one major way, comparing Borders to ArcLight at this point is �apples and oranges�: I had huge �issues� with Borders, to be sure, but at the same time, I knew what I was doing, I had friends there, and in a certain sense, I was comfortable, and those are pretty big things for me (There�s a reason it took me a full year to leave after David�s arrival, when I should have been gone the next week).

I think ArcLight is ultimately going to be a good job for me�insurance issues aside�but right now, it�s the thing I don�t know, the environment I�m not completely comfortable in, and aside from my little group of fellow trainees, I�m still a �stranger in a strange land� there (I haven�t wanted to be a crybaby about it, but I�m been very lonely the past week or so).

If comparisons have to be made�In an over-arching, �Is this better or worse than being at Borders?� sense�It�s only fair that I wait till I know what I�m doing at ArcLight, until I get over the discomfort of feeling unsettled, to then see how I feel.

At this writing, I haven�t gotten called about House, which is theoretically shooting tomorrow.

I want to clear up some possible confusion�Any stress or upset I was feeling about House was entirely over the fact that no one called me about the schedule change; It seems stupid now, but I was really wrestling with a pretty major panic that it was my fault somehow�I�d accidently deleted their message or something, and now they were like �Fuck it! Let�s get on the phone and cast that other guy we liked for the part...�.

In terms of actually doing the job, I�m a little nervous, of course (It would be kind of nutty if I weren�t), but I�m more eager than anything.

There�s no reason this shouldn�t be a great experience; they�ll probably feed me at some point�and you know how much I like that� I�ll get to act a little bit, and I�ll get a check afterwards. Then I get to put the credit on my resume, and I�ll have the fun of seeing myself on TV (And in terms of worrying about �messing up��I�m saying one line, as I basically stand in one spot. And if something goes wrong, they�ll do another take, so what�s there to worry about?).

Even though I got an extra day�s pay out of the deal�And after all the crying you�ve heard me do about money in here, you know how huge that is--I still wish the shoot had happened yesterday, as scheduled, and I was writing right now about the fun day I�d had �on set�.

When I booked the gig, I really liked that the shoot day was on my day off at ArcLight. I thought that was a nice little �grace note� to my happy news--"Icing on the cake", as it were.

And I like icing.

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