1:57 pm - FRI 6/21/02
You can't lose what you never had

Feeling lots of irrational, angry, upset thoughts over the past two days. Trying to reason with myself--"Your life is no different now than it was before..."--but it's really not working.

Tried to communicate with Jane, but once again, it didn't really work out for me.

I'm just angry and hurt and irrational, and I should just let myself be angry and hurt and irrational for awhile (The trouble, as I said to Jane when I tried chatting with her earlier today, is that she's the person I'd normally be talking to about something like this. So I feel all messed-up inside, and on top of that, cut off from the one person who usually talks me down off my little emotional ledge).

She "warned" Jennifer about our conversation. And I have had some very angry thoughts and...uncharitable sentiments I've been tempted to express to Jennifer, but I'm not going to. After all, what would be the point? She can't help that she's not attracted to me, and the fact that she's used me through the years just to make herself feel better really means I should feel more sorry for her than angry. I mean, if you need me to prop you up, that's a pretty sad fucking comment on your life.

And in time, I will probably be able to see it that way...but not today.

I'm wrestling with a lot of anger at myself about this stuff, which I haven't really addresssed.

Logically, I know I didn't do anything wrong here, but when I feel bad, more often than not, I will also end up feeling very angry at myself--For being stupidly optimistic, for being weak--Why didn't I ever say to Jennifer, when she was suggesting that she'd do me in a heartbeat, "You know, Jennifer, I haven't been in a relationship, or had sex, in years. If you're just fucking with me, you should stop it right now"?--and for letting something that's essentially meaningless (See the title of this entry) tear me up inside.

Nothing is any different than it was two days ago.

But it feels different. I feel different.

_______________________________________

In happier news, at "The Business of Acting" event at the bookstore Wednesday, the guy looked at my current headshot and pronounced it "very good".

And I basically knew that already--hence my enthusiasm in a previous entry--but it was gratifying to get a second, professional opinion to that effect (Interesting comment he made--I showed him both my newest headshot and my previous one, and he said it was obvious in the new picture that I was "in a better place" in my life).

He wasn't quite as enthusiastic about my resume. He suggested a number of changes--Some of which I've already made; The resume I showed him was one before Cary's recent update--but on the positive side, it wasn't like he declared it a disaster either.

In terms of what he said during his talk, I think the most interesting thing he had to say was that he "doesn't believe" in mass-mailings.

That's been a big source of frustration to me out here--the fact that no one thinks mass-mailings actually work, but not knowing what else to do, and not really being able to afford to do it anyway--so it was another gratifying point, to have something I suspected to be the case being verified by someone "in the business".

So what's the alternative to sending out mass-mailings, hoping that someone somewhere will see something they like in your headshot and/or resume?

In a word--CONNECTIONS.

You have to get out there, meet people, and make those meetings mean something. You have to keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities, and "connections" are basically additional sets of eyes and ears.

I might have some deficits--I have been massively aware of them these past two days--but I am personable, and I do have talent, two things that mean I really ought to be able to get something going out here. I just have to be a little more industrious--Okay, maybe a lot more industrious--and smarter about how to get myself "out there".

Which brings us to our next bit of news; On Monday night, I'm going to be attending a "new member" meeting of the Circle X Theater Company.

I don't really know much about them, truth-to-tell. Jonathan (The actor I met through Cary), e-mailed me suggesting that getting in a company might be the way to go, in terms of getting to act and meet people, and said that Circle X was a good group to be involved with.

I was initially ambivalent--The point of coming out here was to get away from doing theater for free in my spare time, and I have no interest at all in doing tech--but I'm getting over that. I have to find a way to actually act out here, and I need to make more friends and have more potential connections, and that's not going to happen as I sit alone in my apartment day after day.

Well, I just dropped $161 dollars at the DMV--$22 of which were fines for being late, and were completely avoidable--and I wanted to cry when the lady told me the total, so the last thing I'm feeling right now is "flush", but I stayed in my apartment all day yesterday, and it really contributed to my present misery, so money or not, I'm going out. Fuck it!

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