9:19 AM - 8.28.24
A "Nutritiously" Well-Balanced Day
If I'd started this a little earlier, I would have been speculating on whether I'd get a final delivery from the food program I've been on through the city (Or is it LA county? From someplace, anyway) for the past however many months.

(I received a notice maybe two months ago that the program would end in August, but I couldn't remember if it had said "the end of August" or had given a specific date.)

But happily, I just got said final delivery, which I'm going to add to the pleasantries this day promises to offer (I'm a little sad about the end of the program - I was embarrassed to start on it, but in truth, it has been helpful - but it seems like something that might start up again. And in the interim, I'm not too worried about keeping myself fed - this service was most helpful in providing balanced meals and portion control, both occasionally challenging issues for me, but I'm not going to go hungry without it. Anyway...)

Calling Jane R. shortly (Another of the aforementioned "pleasantries" today is offering), so I'm not going to finish this in one sitting, no matter how fast I write. But fortunately, I'm not on a deadline here.

I was expecting today to be nice even before my last food delivery and scheduling the call with Jane because I have my weekly drawing class at GenSpace this afternoon at 1:00, then a commercial callback at 3:15 (To my chagrin, I did not get a callback from the thing last week - this callback is from the audition I had on Monday - so pretty quick "turnaround time" on this one, which I like. And it's another thing with a mystery celebrity in the lead, so that's somewhat intriguing - I have not interacted with many celebrities commercially. The only ones on my resume, that I recall, are John Cleese and Jonah Hill. But anyway...).

I didn't realize Labor Day was this coming Monday until I tried to sign up for one of my GenSpace classes then.

As I've said before, Monday holidays like this mean absolutely nothing to me - I don't think I've ever worked a job where I got paid on Labor Day, for example - so all it means to me is a day with no GenSpace and no auditions, so I'll be left to my own devices in terms of keeping myself entertained.

But speaking of "entertainment", I've gotta call a certain somebody...

Well, I'm happy to report the rest of my day lived up to expectations...

The call with Jane was a delight - lots of laughs - and drawing class was a lot of fun, even if I made kind of a mess of my attempts at a couple drops of water, then a glass half-full of the stuff (But they are worthy subjects to work on. And the class showed me the plusses of using grayscale paper, which means I'm going to have to go to Blick sometime soon).

While I dawdled a bit after drawing, I didn't go to Ross like I thought about doing, but instead, just drove slowly to the audition, parking at what's now my "usual spot", about a two-and-a-half block walk from the place.

By the time I got there and got around to signing in, it was about 15 minutes before my time, which I thought was fine (We had been instructed beforehand to take extra care to be punctual, since the director had specifically paired up actors he wanted to see together. So while I didn't want to be late, I also didn't want to be too early, and make life more difficult for them).

Waited for a while, then got paired up with my two new actor friends - Malik and Susan - and was told we'd be the next one's up.

...which is when I found out we'd be auditioning with a different spot than the first time (I swear, the receptionist didn't say anything, I didn't see any scripts on the desk, nothing. I'm just sayin', a head's-up might have been nice).

But we had time to go over it a couple times, and the three of us sort of "bonded" in the process.

Then we were ushered into the room, and I have to say, it was quite a pleasant experience - The Director was remoting in, there was a Reader there to do our mystery celebrity's lines (Casting warned us not to go in and try to "guess" who the celebrity is - "They're really not enjoying that", he said, "In fact, it's kind of bumming them out"), and they had two cameras going.

Can't say much about the particulars - we all signed NDAs - but after figuring out how they wanted to shoot the thing, they had us do the new spot a couple times.

Then we went back to the original spot, and we did that a couple times (They also switched the characters Malik and I were reading, so we both had a chance to do each one).

Then the director, who had been quite pleasant, said it was "fun" that our characters had "become friends" over their experience in the commercial (Shades of the experience we'd just had IRL minutes before), and we were sent on our way.

Turned out, Malik and Susan knew each other. And they had worked with the Director before, who seemed like a "nice version" of a Director I've worked with a couple times (Both very much about actors keeping things "small" and "real". But their guy was "an actor's director", while my guy was a little "testy" at times, though not really with me).

After we said our goodbyes (Malik and I exchanging info), I went to my car, then after a brief inner debate, decided to go to Ralphs to get some Cherry Coke Zero since I was out (There's a time in LA when you kinda don't want to drive if you don't have to, and I didn't strictly "have to"...but I wanted my "sodies").

(This turned out to be a tactical blunder - less about traffic, and more about too much "impulse buying" in my desire to "celebrate" the callback - but at this writing, I'm done eating for the day, and I was only about 180 calories over my budget, so I did less harm than I thought I was going to.)

So that was my day.

As I told Jane when we spoke, I thought it would be "a nutritionally balanced day"...and so it was - I had (And am currently having) "Jim time", between Jane and GenSpace I had "social time" (And learned a bit), and with the callback, I had "career/work time".

(I was going to add "going to Ralphs" to the list, but I'm not sure I did myself a lot of favors there when it comes to actual "nutrition". Though I did pick up some actual food, like strawberries and blueberries, so I'm going to call it a "draw'.)

As I was getting to this point in my writing, it struck me that something interesting happened recently that I haven't addressed in here yet.

But I'm tired, and I think I've written enough for today.

Till next time...

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