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8:32 pm - Sat 10.01.2011
A Week (Mostly) Without Acting

A Week (Mostly) Without Acting

As I begin this entry, I keep wanting to say "Nothing happened on the acting front this week".

But that's not actually true; I had a commercial audition Wednesday afternoon.

So what I should say is, "Nothing terribly exciting happened on the acting front this week".

The commercial audition just didn't "work" for me, for reasons I don't want to get into right now, cause I don't want to get myself depressed about it all over again (It's tough when I have that really-not-good feeling about an audition, because I want to hit every audition like gangbusters - and I'm particularly keen on booking a commercial right now - but what can you do? It happens, and you have to just move on).

So if acting stuff didn't really happen this week, what did?

Monday

For the past couple months, it's been "Mental Health Mondays", with my being in, not one, but two therapy groups (In the morning, it was a 20-week-long group centered around REBT - Rational Emotional Behavioral Therapy - and in the evening, the "relationships" group I've been in for the past two years).

They both came to an end on Monday.

In the days leading up to the end, I worried, because whatever the two groups were supposed to be about, for me, they've largely been about "social contact" - other than Weight Watchers meetings and going to the movies with Howard, the groups have been my only regular human contact - and I wondered how I was going to "fill the void".

But I've adjusted to the idea.

One way the "void" might be "filled" is by making friends of some of the group members; emails were exchanged, and people have accepted Facebook "friend requests", so there's at least the possibility of things happening on that front.

Beyond that, it might be nice to have one unscheduled day in my week (I have Weight Watchers meetings six days a week at this point).

And, while the future of the clinic might be in doubt (Due to budget concerns), there's at least a possibility of new groups starting up a couple months from now, which I could choose to be involved in (One that Javier has done before involving "Attachments" sounds particularly intriguing).

So this may just be "a break in the action".

But in any case, I will survive.

Speaking of "movies with Howard", we saw Moneyball on Monday - in between my Groups, as we've often done - and we both liked it a lot.

(Aaron Sorkin was one of the screenwriters, and his writing is, in a nutshell, exactly why I've always wanted to be an actor - So someone smarter and funnier than I could ever hope to be would give me great things to say, and I could pretend I thought of them.)

I also got a plant on Monday.

(This was a gift from the leader of my evening Group.)

To be honest, being gift-ed with a plant made me feel anxious - I'm not a "plant guy", you see (I don't know how much water is not enough...or too much. Or how much sun it needs. And assuming it survives and, miracle of miracles, actually grows, I don't know how one properly "re-pots" a plant).

But it was a gift, so what does one do?

And even though it's just a plant, I still don't want to kill it, so I've been trying to be "attentive"; my apartment doesn't get a lot of sun exposure, for example - which is fine for me, cause I'm a vampire, but not so good for a living thing like this plant - so I've been leaving it out by a window on the third floor lobby for most of the day.

Tuesday

Had three Weight Watchers meetings; In addition to the two I usually do in the morning/early afternoon, I worked another one in the evening, as "extra staffing" for the big Dr Oz promotion (He's doing a weight-loss contest that involves getting an initial weigh-in at Weight Watchers).

I'd let myself fret about this Dr Oz business - because Corporate made it sound like we were going to be over-run with Dr Oz people (And, by extension, new enrollments) - but thus far, the crazy rush that was anticipated has failed to materialize, and things have mostly been quite manageable.

Wednesday

I was able to work my two regular Weight Watchers meetings (On Tuesday, I'd gotten a text about a commercial audition early Wednesday afternoon, and debated/worried whether I needed a fill for my second meeting).

That I'm now feeling anxious over missing too many Weight Watchers meetings due to auditions/bookings has me thinking my priorities might be slightly out-of-whack (I missed eight Weight Watchers meetings while shooting two episodes of the Disney show this month; clearly, I was making more money doing the tv show, but I just became "full-time" at Weight Watchers, and keeping that status depends on the number of meetings I work each quarter).

I was able to scoot from the second meeting early enough to make my audition without a problem (In part, because we were "staffed up" due to Dr Oz).

I still don't want to get into why the commercial audition left me feeling deflated, dispirited, defeated, and depressed - I don't want this entry to become an entry about that - but it boiled down to really wanting to book a commercial (It would be a huge help financially), then having the audition just not feel very good (Not the type of thing I've ever booked in the past - I'm not an "Everyman" - not a funny spot, and not a good feeling in the casting office; had the impression they'd screwed up logistically and wanted to blame the actors for it, and it was definitely affecting the "vibe").

But I'm telling myself "This, or something better" (A new "audition mantra" of mine)...so I'm guessing the "something better" is right around the corner, cause I'm pretty sure I won't be booking this one.`

After the audition, I had a little down-time at home, then I hopped on my bike and rode to Culver City, to meet up with the nephew of a friend back in Michigan who has moved to LA.

(Cody, the "nephew" in question, wants to work on the production end of the business, which I know next to nothing about. But Amy - my friend, and Cody's aunt - thought he might get something out of chatting with me.)

I feel a little silly in the role of...I don't know what you'd call it - "mentor"? - because I'm still trying to figure shit out myself.

But objectively, I've been in LA for ten years now and "lived to tell about it", so there is that.

And even if I don't always feel it - or feel like it's enough - it's undeniable that I've made progress in those ten years, both in my career goals, and in just being here in LA.

So Cody and I met in Culver City, at a pizza place he suggested, I gave him what I had, and he seemed appreciative.

(I do think it's important to try and help people in this situation when I'm asked, whatever reservations I have about the value of my "insights". I don't have much in the way of physical, practical help to offer, but I can at least do this much, and do what I can to "pay forward" the help I received when I first got here.)

On the way back from Culver City, I came across an unhappy sight, a dead dog lying next to the curb.

It was a Boxer, which somehow made me particularly sad - they're beautiful animals, for one thing, but what also bothered me was that it was clearly a very well cared-for dog, which made me think not just of the poor animal losing its life, but of the owner, or owners, that had lost their pet.

I'd almost driven right up on it before I noticed it. I stopped a little ways past it, driven by two impulses (Three, I guess, if you count "wanting to make sure it was actually dead, and not just hurt". But it was dead) - I felt like there was something I should do somehow (Like, get it off the street), and I found myself wanting to take a picture.

Wanting to take a picture of the dead dog probably sounds a bit macabre, and I didn't do it. But it's something I've thought about before, when coming upon other deceased animals on the road.

I'm not sure I can explain, but I guess what's going on in my head in those moments is some feeling of wanting "attention to be paid". It's sad when an animals life ends lying in the road, with no one to take note, beyond maybe someone like me thinking "Oh, that's sad...".

I don't know. It's weird, I guess, but it doesn't feel weird to me in a morbid, "look at the roadkill" kind-of-way.

Anyway...

Thursday

I was supposed to have lunch with my friend Garet - who had recently helped me out by driving me to an audition when I didn't have a car for a couple days - but he ended up having a conflict, and we rescheduled for Friday.

This was only an "issue" because I'd postponed our first attempted get-together (Due to shooting my second episode of the Disney show). So when I got called on Wednesday about filling in for someone's "open hours" shift at WW on Thursday, I declined, not wanting to postpone lunch with Garet a second time.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "D'oh!".

So nothing really happened on Thursday, beyond my regular Thursday night WW meeting (Which I did with Gail, a fill-in Leader I've never worked with before, because Elaine B. had the night off due to the Jewish holiday).

Friday

Had my regular Friday morning WW meeting, which went fine.

After a series of call/texts, met up with Garet afterward at LaLa, an Argentinian restaurant he likes (That I ended up liking as well, after the fact).

I met Garet when we took standup class together, and I've been impressed that he's taken that ball and ran with it (In a way Yours Truly definitely has not); he's always performing a standup set somewhere, and it sounds like he's starting to get some pretty meaningful opportunities.

We talked for about an hour - about the class (And what we did and didn't get from it), about comedy, our careers, etc - and he invited me to get together to write with him, should I so desire.

(I saw Garet do a set recently, in a group of six or eight stand-ups, and it did start me to wondering if I gave up on stand-up too soon. So even though I'm not sure what, if anything, I have to say as a stand-up, I'm thinking about taking another run at it.)

And that's how my week went.

I'm never going to be totally happy if/when a week goes by without anything meaningful happening on the acting front, because I want/need that shit to be happening.

But that said, this seemed like a pretty good week, all-in-all.

I saw a good movie with my friend Howard, I put myself out to be helpful to a stranger, and I reconnected with someone who's now offered to be my bridge back to stand-up (Which is potentially a very big deal - I've been thinking a lot about what I could do to enhance my career/money-making prospects, and in that context, stand-up doesn't seem like a ridiculous notion).

It'll be interesting to see what the coming week brings...

 

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