11:17 pm - Mon 1.12.2009
Moving Forward

Once again, laziness and fatigue lead me to post this portion of my latest email to Jane, saving me the effort of basically writing about it all over again:

I'm basically okay at this point, health-wise, pretty close to completely recovered from surgery (There's nothing I need to do that I can't do), with no other out-of-the-ordinary physical complaints to complain about.

At Jen and Molly's last night, talk turned at one point to "Gran Torino"; some people basically said Clint was great, but all the other acting in the movie sucked, and I defended our girl Ahney - I thought she was spunky and smart and fun, and had great chemistry with The Squinty Eyed One.

I think she'll probably get some play from the movie, but it seems like long odds on her making a big impression beyond "Gran Torino".

Speaking of acting...I've been pretty envious of my ACG "peers". A number of my friends are getting out of the gate very quickly in the new year, with auditions and bookings (Molly - who runs ACG - booked a co-star on "Criminal Minds", Tammy just shot a part on a Dick Wolf pilot called "Lost And Found", and Jennifer C. - another Jennifer I'm in love with - just went in for a producer session on "Cold Case"), while Yours Truly has gotten exactly zip. Zero. Bupkiss.

But my turn's coming.

I'd just like it to come a little QUICKER.

But I'm doing what I can while I'm waiting - Getting my headshot situation in order (I'll be picking up the new ones tomorrow afternoon), re-doing my resume (Which meant figuring out how to format it on my own, which wasn't as hard as I'd feared - Molly had typed up the one I'd been using for quite awhile), and signing up, when the time comes, for that improv class.

I recently had an exchange of emails with the AD on the John Cleese infomercial - They're not going to use the stuff that was shot that second day (With me in the pool), so as I joked with JS, my dignity and America's retinas have been spared...for now (That was extra stuff they shot because their run-time was short, but it was deemed too "confusing", so they're just going to have Cleese come back and be funny for another five minutes).

Anyway, they're going to send me a DVD with that footage on it (I asked for it, in the event there's something I want there for a reel), and of course, the stuff where I'm on screen with JC. But the infomercial won't be running for awhile yet, since they've yet to re-shoot the chock-full-of-Cleese ending.

The Coldstone thing goes on...and on (Where I'm supposed to have gotten paid because my commercial aired on their website after the contract had expired). To my frustration, I feel like it's "small potatoes" to everyone ELSE involved (JS, Coldstone, and SAG), but pretty "BIG potatoes" to ME - My getting that check means financial disaster is kept at bay for another month or two.

(I called my contact person at SAG late last week - haven't heard back from her - and JS emailed the Coldstone person again this afternoon, to basically see what the deal is. So hopefully, before too long - as things stand, I have maybe another three months worth of funds in the bank - I'll be hugging that $1700 check to my bosom, before running off to the bank, giggling like a little schoolgirl.)

On another financial front...Earlier today, I got called to fill a Weight Watchers meeting on Saturday, so at this point, I'm up to at least 23 meetings this month (For a point of reference - "Full Time" starts at 11 meetings a week, or 27 hours).

As I suggested in my last "Diaryland", I long for the day when, if someone asks me what I do for a living, I can just say "I"m an actor" (Without prefacing it with "Well, I work at ______...but I'm REALLY an actor"). But till that glorious day arrives, I could do worse than working at Weight Watchers.

(At this point, all I really want is for the bills to get paid, so I can keep the cable-watching, high-speed-internet-enjoying, pbj-eating lifestyle to which I've become accustomed.)

Reading over what I wrote, it's not really true that "all I really want is for the bills to get paid"; I want the bills to get paid, with room to spare, via booking gigs.

But right now, I'll take what I can get - That's closer to the truth of the matter.

Well, I could have had a more productive day, I guess, but I did better than usual, and I feel good about that (I think because I had a "To Do" list for today in my head).

It does help to have an idea of at least a couple things I want to get done in a day, preferably the night before; I won't typically get to everything, even if it is just "a couple of things", but it's pretty much guaranteed I'll get something done I wouldn't have attended to otherwise.

The other thing I think is going to be helpful to keep in my head is the idea of making sure I do things, every day, the move me forward in important areas of my life - Financial/Career Concerns, Physical Health, Social Interaction, Creative Satisfaction, etc.

If I make a point of hitting as many of those as I can in a given day, and in general, "taking stock" of how I'm using my time, I think I'll be happier with myself, and with my life, than I have been.

Today I cleared off my kitchen table (A much bigger, grosser deal than it sounds, involving a lot of dead roaches, roach droppings, and more spiders than I've ever seen at one time). Then I swept the kitchen and dining room floor, and threw out some trash that had collected for...well, let's just say a very long time.

And I went for a walk (Not a super-long walk, but enough of a walk), which was probably most notable for the fact that I was doing it in the daytime; I'm trying to "change things up" by not always walking at night, for various reasons.

And as I said in my email to Jane, I re-did my resume, which felt like a very big deal (That turned out to be no deal at all, really); Molly had formatted it for me a long time ago, and I'd had a copy of it in WordPerfect forever, till I had to reboot my system because of a virus (Since then, I've made copies of copies of copies).

Anyway, I'd been convinced that re-doing it myself (Since I needed to make some changes) would cause me to weep and gnash my teeth in frustration. But while there were a few little "hiccups" as I figured out what I was doing, it was not that hard.

And now I have a resume that tells potential employers I'm in SAG and AFTRA, and that lists a new film credit (I decided to list that "glorified extra" thing I did this past year - in a movie called Off Hollywood - because they credited me as a "principal" after all, and because the "Film" section of my resume looks pretty sad)

So anyway, I felt good about that; like getting my new headshots, I once again found myself thinking, "Okay, I'm getting my new 'calling card' together...so somebody call me already!".

And socially, I chatted with Katie H., a Michigan transplant who lives out here now, earlier this evening (And I may meet up with her in the next week or so for a drink).

Anyway, long story short, I do feel that, in a couple small ways, I "moved myself forward" in a couple areas today.

So yay me.

And now I'm going to move myself towards my bed, because I'm working a fairly early Weight Watchers meeting tomorrow...

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