1:21 pm - Thurs 6.21.2012
Shamelessly Good News

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Clearly, it doesn't "work" for me to write an entry over the course of a couple days; each time I go back to it, I find whatever I've written tremendously boring and delete it.

Anyway...

The big news from these parts is that my agent called a short time ago - The Shameless people called, to let her know they want me the second week of August, for my first episode of the coming season!

(She initially joked that they wanted me during the week I'm out-of-town, not realizing I'd find that particular "joke" monumentally un-funny. But moving on...)

I shouldn't think this way, but the first thing that popped into my head when she told me the news was "I'm an Actor again!".

That's something I need to work on, and it's something that's actually addressed in one of the email "casting newsletters" I recently received - If you only think of yourself as being "successful" when you're working, you'll always be stressed and unhappy, cause even very successful actors aren't working most of the time.

But anyway, I'm happy for the confirmation that I'm going back to the show - It'll be fun being back on the set, playing a character I like, and making money acting.

And it's just nice to be wanted.

(I recently read My Seinfeld Year, a Kindle "Single" by Fred Stoller, that likened being a guest-star on tv shows to being a foster child, cycling through various foster homes, feeling like you never really "belong", and wishing that someone would adopt you. As an actor and former foster-child myself, I think it's a pretty good analogy.)

Another thing I thought when I got the news was "I guess I'd better hold off on that haircut..."; I was going to get a haircut before leaving for West Virginia, but now I think I'd better leave it, so I don't look too "clean-cut" when I get on the set - that's not really the Shameless "look" (Besides, if I get there and they then want to cut it for some reason, I get it a free haircut out of the deal!).

(Speaking of "Un-funny jokes" - Just got a text for a commercial audition, for a job that shoots while I'm in West Virginia. Oh well...!)

It's taken a long time for my upcoming "trip" to feel real to me, for some reason.

I haven't gone on a lot of "vacations" since moving to LA, because money's almost always a concern, and for the past couple years - until just this year - I haven't taken a vacation because I didn't have "vacation time" to take (I also have a phobia of missing acting work...which is why I described that text for an audition I can't do as an "un-funny joke").

But beyond it being a rare "vacation", this trip has felt particularly "unreal" because it's something I never really imagined happening.

And unlike a trip back to Lansing to visit Mark and Jane and my friends back there, I don't have much of a "template" for what to expect, or even for what I'd like to have happen, other than a rather generic hope that I have "fun", and that it be "a good experience".

Going back to a "home" I won't recognize, to meet "family" I don't know - It's a novel, once-in-a-lifetime experience, so it's understandable, I guess, that I've had a hard time "getting my head around it".

Probably the best advice I've gotten on the situation, advice I think will help me deal with however the week plays out, was from Tobi, a coworker at Weight Watchers.

She advised me, basically, to think of the week as an opening, that whether it's great or disappointing or somewhere in between, it doesn't mean that's all there's gonna be.

And I think my "advice to myself" isn't bad either - Which is basically, to be as "open" as possible, and have the attitude that, whatever happens, it's going to be interesting.

And I've got more to write about, but I feel the need to attempt a nap, so that'll be all for now.

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