10:02 PM - Mon 10.23.17
Seeking A Passionate Engagement

(Drinking a small bottle of Coke Zero...reminding me of when I went to school in Georgia - It was 5th or 6th grade, and there was a vending machine that dispensed very small glass bottles of Coke, I think for a quarter, but maybe just 10 cents. Anyway...)

This has been a shit day, which is on no one but me. I haven't made much happen.

But if I'd washed my car like I told myself I was gonna do today, done the dishes (Which are pretty disgusting), and done laundry, I'm still not sure I wouldn't be right where I am, feeling the way I'm feeling.

Even Zumba sucked - I was unfocused and low-energy, made mistakes all over the place, and (This is something that's been bothering me for awhile now) I only managed to "dance" for a few moments at a time (There's a difference between "doing the moves" and "dancing" - One of my goals with Zumba has been to get to get to the point where I look like I'm performing in a 50-minute long dance recital.)

But instead of feeling like a "dancer", what popped into my head immediately after class was over was "I'm actually getting worse with practice...!".

But as I just reported on Facebook a moment ago, while the day has sucked the big one, "At least I was finally able to get that haircut I've been jonesing for..." (My last real haircut was back in...April, I think? In the time since, I've had a few light trims on-set, to clean me up a little for the show, but as a bald guy, I look my best with my remaining hair shorter than I've been able to have it most of the year).

(And the haircut happened because I didn't book that last commercial callback, so..."Yay!"?)

But the day was a shit day...and not, I don't think, because "I didn't get anything done" (Cause I've had more productive days that still left me feeling depressed and dissatisfied), but because I wasn't really "engaged" in anything.

I don't find anything I do truly engaging, truth to tell.

I need to either 1) Act more, because that's the only thing I have any real passion for, or 2) Find some other things I can feel passionate about as well, whatever they might be (Maybe work on doing this better, for example).

(Got back from Zumba a short time ago - Happily, I felt better about it than Monday's session...)

A week or two ago, I had dinner with my friend Liz, who I'm friends with on Facebook, but who I hadn't seen IRL in quite some time.

(While my life is pretty much the same as the last time we were together, her life has taken a fairly big turn. But that's her story to tell, and not mine...)

At one point, I was, I don't know, pissing and moaning about how I'm not really "acting", and should be doing theater, etc, and she suggested we see some theater in LA, to help me figure out what theater or theaters I would like to eventually get involved with.

So Sunday night we saw the Deaf West production of Our Town at the Pasadena Playhouse (She lives in Pasadena, while I've been there two or three times in the 16 years I've lived in LA).

It was a great production - I've never seen a Deaf West show, so that was pretty cool all by itself, but beyond that, it reminded me that I like the show, I like live theater, and I used to really like performing on stage.

And while I'm never going to become a Deaf West company member (Finding the prospect of learning lots of lines pretty scary all by itself, I can't see adding signing to the mix), so it didn't really fit our "mission statement" of going to theater to see what companies I'd like to try and get in with, it did "whet my appetite" to actually act again, and particularly in a sexy venue like the Pasadena Playhouse (As I watched Jane Kaczmarek in the role of The Stage Manager, both enjoying her work and finding the role way more frightening than I did when I was younger - Have I mentioned that, after 17-plus years out of the game, I'm now pretty nervous about managing a stage role with a lot of lines? - I couldn't help but imagine myself in the role, terrifying line-load and all).

Liz sprung for my ticket, which I didn't really look at till we'd parted company and I was headed home on the Metro - It was $72, which left me both embarrassed that I'd let her pay for me, and stressed that this mission of seeing a lot of theater to find out where I'd want to insinuate myself as an actor is going to break the bank (I can't let her pay all the time, clearly, and as an actor, it is tax-deductible...but by the same token, as I've said more than once recently, I'm still managing to make it in LA after all this time in part because I don't go anywhere or do anything - For example, I blanch at going to movies I can't see at the cheap theaters in Los Feliz, where matinees are $6.50).

(Hopefully, there will be deals and cheap hole-in-the-all theaters and such in our theatrical future...at least until I'm booking so many commercial and TV jobs it won't be an issue.)

Shame on me, but early on, I felt a certain remove from the story - Weinstein was disgusting, and I felt bad for the women involved, but I didn't feel a visceral, personal connection to the story - till the #metoo Facebook campaign showing me (And many other clueless men) that this issue had personally touched way more women we know than we'd ever imagined.

(Reading the entries on Facebook, I found myself driven to despair, thinking "Is there any woman I know this hasn't happened to...?".)

I was thinking earlier that it was kind of like when people (white liberal people) started responding to a "wave" of unarmed black men being shot and killed by police with horror and dismay, while black people said "Where have you been? This didn't just start happening - This is the world we live in".

I've wanted to write about it, but frankly, I've been afraid - Afraid to offend, afraid to come off clueless and classless, afraid I would somehow manage to do the thing I'm so good at doing - Making something that isn't about me at all...about me.

I probably will write about this more, because it's been on my mind a lot...but for now, as it's gotten late, I'm going to get myself to bed at a semi-reasonable hour, so I can try and have a reasonably productive, fulfilling, not totally depressing day tomorrow.

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