Mr. Saturday Night, part 2

I have the Natalie Cole version of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” stuck in my head. Mostly because the opening line is “Missed the Saturday dance,” but when I was little, I thought it was “Mis-ter Saturday Night,” and guess who called me the other day? Oh yeah, you know it.

I actually sent a “Dear John” e-mail on Monday. Kind of tacky, but I wasn’t feeling like dealing with a giant freak-out on my hands, and I had every indication that that’s what I would get in person. I did say in the e-mail that the reason I sent it instead of calling was that sometimes things are easier to process that way, and that if he needed to talk, he had my number. I knew he’d call, but I also knew that at least with the e-mail I’d already had my say (since he doesn’t listen in person).

Before I go any further though, I have to explain my phone situation. It’s pretty simple, really: I only give out my cell number. My cell ringer is never on, because I forget to turn it OFF and I don’t want it going off in church, movie theatres, restaurants, dates, etc. I’m from the old school belief that the phone is for MY convenience, not so that everyone else can get hold of me immediately to tell me how they’re stuck in traffic and bored, and what am I doing right now? :P I always tell people that: my phone’s never on, but I always check messages and I always return my calls, although it may take a day (if I don’t check messages till late in the evening).

Now Saturday Night guy (SNG) knows that. I already told him that. And when he asked why I didn’t answer my phone, I told him again. I think I even told him a third time. (I really hate repeating myself, too.) And on Saturday night, when things ended strangely, he called me TWICE on my way home. Left messages both times. I called him back from my driveway, and he asked/accused, “I left you 2 messages. I thought you weren’t picking up because you knew it was me!” AARRGGHH! When I reminded him that my ringer is never on, he asked, “So that’s how it’s always going to be?? That’s just how it is, huh?” I responded that if it was good enough for my FAMILY, it was going to have to be good enough for everyone else. Grrr.

Anyway, I sent the e-mail Monday, and he called and left a message on Tuesday. He left it late, so I figured I’d call him back Wednesday, but forgot that I was supposed to go out with my cousin. So I sent another e-mail Thursday morning, and said I’d try and get hold of him that night.

(Edit: I know I’m being way too nice about this. I really can’t help it. ::::sigh::::)

I called last night, got his machine, left a message. He called me back late. TWICE. Within FIFTEEN minutes. I got the messages as I was getting ready for bed. The first one was an “I got your message” message. The second one was to say that he had unblocked his number, so it should show up in my display. He figured that was why I hadn’t picked up the first time, but now I could see it, so why didn’t I pick up? Luckily for him he answered his own question . . . “Unless . . . I guess maybe your phone isn’t on . . . .” Ding, ding, ding! Tell him what he’s won, Bob!! ARGH!

So I’ll call him back tonight. My grandma’s old Southern manners won’t let me NOT return a call. (Fortunately they don’t prevent me from being snide and sarcastic on my blog! LOL)

Oh, and that first message from Tuesday? The following are some of the gems from that message:

• He thinks he’s trying to teach me something if I want to be taught. He’s trying to help me to be more open.
• He doesn’t dump or abandon people so quickly, thinking he knows them from just one night.
• He knows me better than I know myself. [Especially amusing, considering the statement just above this one.]
• As far as not being able to hold back, move slower, he’s very much a person who respects people’s space – but he’s a man. Not that that means he expects everything to go his way. [WTF?]
• Gave me lots of space: allowed [ALLOWED?] me to tell him he had a big personality.
• Allowed [there’s that word again!] me to decide not to see the movie we were going to.

Actually, that conversation went like this:
Him: I know we just got our food, and we’re having a great conversation, but we should probably go to the movie if we want to make the show.
Me: Ok. Would you rather stay here? I’m not hung up on the movie.
Him: Do YOU want to stay here?
Me: I can do either one; I’m not invested in either one over the other.
Him: Well, let’s stay here, then! Wow, most girls get really hung up on the movie! [Because he’s a member of an LA movie club and so has advance screening tickets for movies that aren’t out yet, which is what we were going to see.]
I’m still not sure how that was MY decision that he ALLOWED me to make.

:::sigh:::: I’ll keep you posted. This is too entertaining not to. :P

Emotional Spelunking and Well-Digging

I read somewhere that if you are an emotional eater, once you start losing weight you will hit certain weights that will be emotional watersheds. The idea behind this is that when you eat for emotional reasons, you’re stuffing your feelings deeper into your psyche instead of releasing them. So when you start losing the weight, you uncover those feelings again, and NOW you have to release them or you won’t lose any more weight. So if you weighed 150 and something traumatic happened, and you dealt with it by eating your way to 175, when you get back down to 150, you’ll have to actually deal with what happened before you’ll get down to 145. (I know it sounds weird. Chalk it up to my cereal-state, energy-medicine philosophy. LOL)

So. I lost 9.3 pounds a while back. I gained about a pound back almost right away, but then stopped. And I haven’t been eating very well, either. So I’m sitting at this weight, and I know there’s something emotional going on. Not only because my weight has stalled – and I mean really stalled: it doesn’t go up when I eat crap, it doesn’t go down when I eat well – but because my head is just constantly buzzing. I feel anxious, I don’t want to sleep even though I’m exhausted, I want to drink myself stupid, I want to eat chips and red vines until I’m sick to my stomach. And God forbid I do anything productive when I DO have time. :P I feel like I don’t have time to exercise and I’m too tired, but why am I too tired? From staying up late, gorging and drinking and reading trashy suspense novels. I could GO TO BED, for God’s sake. But I don’t. I don’t want to.

So I’m trying to figure out what it is that I’m supposed to be learning here. I’m wondering if I’m just in serious hand-to-hand, take-no-prisoners, fight-dirty, kick-‘em-in-the-balls combat with my inner saboteur. And I know that part of me comes out when I’m making changes that are good for me. It’s afraid of succeeding, you know. It’s the part of me that thinks, “If I don’t try, I’ll never fail” is a BRILLIANT life strategy! :P And then I eat too much and drink too much and stay up too late so that the next day I’m tired and sick and unable to accomplish anything. Even meditating seems too hard, and all that’s required of me for that is to SIT STILL!!! SITTING STILL SHOULD NOT BE TOO HARD!!!! What sense does THAT make? “I’m too tired to sit still.” WTF??? ::::rolls eyes::::

But last night I had the last 2 glasses of an expensive bottle of wine and the last of my baked chips. I’m now officially out of all the substances that I use to medicate myself, and I’m also conveniently broke for the next two weeks. I never thought I’d be glad to be broke, but in this case, I’m thanking God, lemme tell ya! Enforced discipline! LOL

So now I’m getting ready to gut it out for at least the next week or so, because that's about how long it will take to go through the REALLY insane period. The second week should get a little easier. I hope. I know from old experience that I’m about to become a crazy person, though; my mind is trying to run from itself, and I have nothing to medicate with, so I’ll be totally insane for a while here. I’m going to live in the “well.”

I heard someone speak once who was talking about wells in the Bible as metaphors for dark times. She pointed out several different types of wells, but the one that sticks with me right now is the dug well. Meaning a well you dug yourself into. And the thing that’s so complex and really wonderful about a dug well is that the very behaviors you used to dig your well are the things you are going to have to heal in order to get out of the well.

I wish I could say that I’m just sitting here in my well, but frankly at the moment, I’m just trying to stop digging deeper! I don’t think I’ve gotten to the sitting still part yet. LOL

I heard something else from that same speaker. She was talking about something that equated the shedding of a snake’s skin, the transformation of the snake, to our own transformation. And the interesting thing is that when a snake sheds its skin, it goes through a period where it’s not only raw, but it’s blind. It can’t see. And she was saying that we go through a period like that, too. And we get so scared that instead of sitting still and being willing to go through the blindness, we run around trying to “look cute. Instead of sitting in our well, getting our nourishment from the water, we’re out there selling lemonade! Giving away the very thing we need to heal!” Because we’re afraid to be blind. We don’t want to be alone in the dark of the well. But that’s the very thing we need to be doing in order to heal.

::::sigh::::

Well . . . this post was longer than I intended originally, and it probably meanders like nobody’s business. But it helped me clarify some of my own thoughts and that was kind of what I needed. So be advised that the next few posts may be the rantings of a crazy person, sitting in a well. Blind.

(I HATE this part. Can’t I just have my lesson NOW? Isn’t there an online course for this? LOL)

Always meet them for coffee first

Busy and stressed and tired. Story of my life lately. Even when I’m excited about stuff I’m busy and stressed and tired! What is THAT about?? LOL

I didn’t go in to work on Saturday morning like I was supposed to; I had a date the night before that ran late, and between that and the all-nighter I pulled last Wednesday, I was beat. I didn’t even wake up till 11, and usually I’m awake by 7:30, even on the weekends, and even without an alarm. :P So I went in to work for a few hours on Sunday and made it up that way. ::::sigh::::

In other news, I met a really cool guy off one of those dating sites. Hard to believe I know, but true! Ha! He lives about 40 minutes away from me, which I didn’t realize at the time we started talking though, and I do wish we lived closer. Once a week is about all we’re ever going to see each other unless he’s willing to drive to me during the week. Weekends we can switch off, but during the week I just don’t have time to make the drive. :P So we’ll see how it goes. He’s a good guy, and I like talking with him and spending time with him, but a lot of people want to see the person they’re dating more than once a week! LOL

So he and I got together on Friday night, and then I had another date on Saturday night, which didn’t go nearly as well. I actually thought about cancelling the Saturday night date, just because things had gotten a little intense with the Friday night guy, and I’m not someone who enjoys dating multiple guys at once. But I’d made the commitment, and figured I’d go and see how it went.

So this is the story of Saturday Night Guy, and why you should always meet blind dates for coffee first.

Ahem. First off, let me say that now I remember why I don’t date other actors. We are too high-maintenance. I include myself in that; I know I’m a high-maintenance person to date. And I know that 2 high-maintenance people (which means almost all actors) should NOT date each other. But . . . we had talked on the phone a few times, and although he seemed a little intense and hyper, our conversations were good. And I didn’t get any weird, “I’m-a-violent-psycho” vibe, and my “crazy radar” is better than most people’s. He was a little intense and hyper, like I said, but he didn’t seem dangerous.

So I left on Saturday about 6, and as I got on the freeway at 6:15 (I was supposed to meet him at his place between 6:30 and 7), I remembered that I was supposed to call him when I left. Oops. So I called and said I was getting on the freeway and should be there in about 15 minutes. No problem, he says. Sure enough, I call in to his apartment at 6:30 or so, and he’s all flustered. “I didn’t think you’d get here so fast. [I said 15 minutes, right? Right.] I haven’t even showered or anything . . . um, I’ll buzz you in, and if you don’t mind waiting downstairs, I’ll hurry up and get ready.” So he buzzes me in, meets me outside his apartment, and I size him up and figure if he tries anything, I can take him.

I wait downstairs while it takes him 40 minutes to get ready. FORTY minutes. No joke. Now, I’m a girl, and even I can shower, fix my hair and put my makeup on in less than 40 if I have to. And he’s got a shaved head and NO makeup!! WTF takes 40 minutes?? Especially since he was the one that had said, “between 6:30 and 7:00.” By the time he was ready to go, it was almost 7:30! But I wasn’t that worried about it at the time; lord knows I’ve been a pain in the ass like that on occasion, so I shrugged it off. Except that he kept saying, “Don’t be mad. I know you’re mad. Don’t be mad.” I finally told him I wasn’t mad, but that if he kept harping on it I was going to GET mad! LOL

When he finally gets downstairs, he hands me a CD that he just burned for me. Now. First of all, we had already had a conversation on the phone about how I’m just not comfortable accepting things from people I don’t know well. And by “people I don’t know well” I mean “people who are not my family or VERY close friends.” So I’m a little taken aback. Plus, he just burned it. Which means that while I’m waiting downstairs for him to get ready for dinner (and I’m starved, because I haven’t eaten yet), he’s burning a CD!!!! Seriously, if you’re that late, forget the CD. Just get dressed and let’s go! Geez, again. PLUS, burning a CD has always struck me as one of those things that you do for people whose music tastes you know pretty well, when you want to show them that you’ve spent some time thinking about them. It just seemed a little weird for a first meeting. I dunno. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who’s that neurotic about it, but since we’d TALKED about it already, I was kind of weirded out.

So we go to dinner. And the intense hyper-ness that I’d noticed on the phone and thought was just due to nerves or wanting to make a good first impression? SO much worse in person. Plus he kept touching me. Nothing sexual, but much friendlier than a first date. Really, when was the last time you walked to a date’s car on a first date, and he reaches out, puts his arm around you and then hugs you in really close? Not some flirty little hug that says, “Hey, you’re really cute, and I’m glad to meet you,” either. I’m talking a close, tight hug that says, “Hey, I just switched deodorants, bury your face in my armpit and tell me what you think!”

Anyway, the rest of the date pretty much continued along those lines. He said as we went into dinner, “I don’t think you like me,” and I answered, “No, it’s not that; you’re just a little overwhelming in person, and we’re both trying to find our balance.” Maybe that wasn’t the most tactful thing to say, but since what I really wanted to say was, “Get OFF me, for God’s sake!” I thought I showed remarkable restraint! LOL Over dinner he told me (rather dramatically) that I had hurt his feelings when I said he was overwhelming: “I’ve heard that before, but I thought I could be MYSELF with you!” ::::sigh:::: He also interrupted me every few minutes (on the rare occasions that I got a word in edgewise), psychoanalyzed me to death (incorrectly most of the time), and asked me the same questions more than once because he hadn’t listened when I answered them the first 3 times. Grrr.

He finally stopped grabbing me at dinner (after I told him flat out to lay off), although as we left, he made it a point to tell me every 2 minutes, “I’d put my arm around you now, but you said not to.” “I really want to kiss you, but I know you want your space.” “I’d hold your hand, but you said no, so I won’t.” EVERY. TWO. MINUTES. I think he said something along those lines at least 3 times before we even got back to the car.

(He even said, “I know women sometimes think I seem desperate, but I’m not.” LOL Actually though, I don’t think he was desperate; I think he was NEEDY. Desperate will date anyone because they’re afraid to be alone; needy won’t date just anyone, but when they do date someone, they’ll suck the life right out of you because they feel like life has “done them wrong” and they need someone to lean on. That’s been my experience, anyway: desperate = lonely. Needy = victim.)

After dinner we went to his local hang-out and had a drink. I only finished about half my drink, and I didn’t leave it sitting around. Too many alarm bells going off at that point. None that screamed, “Danger! Run!” but a few that quietly chimed, “Be careful . . . something’s not right.” You know that feeling? When something’s just a little . . . off, and you can’t quite put your finger on it, and you can totally rationalize how it’s all in your head?

We got back to his parking complex and got out of the car. I said I had to work the next day (which I did), and said I should probably get going. He was all set to have me up to the apartment, even telling me, “You’re just afraid to make out with me!” WTF? How OLD is this guy? (Mid-forties, just fyi.) Um, no, but it’s late, and I have to get up in 6 hours. (And hey, way to assume, buddy! It’s a first date! How do you know I even KISS on the first date, let alone “make oout???”) Gotta go.

So he swoops in to kiss me goodnight – I don’t move my head away in time, and so WHAM! I get kissed. Now, we’ve all been kissed. There’s a whole rhythm to it. And I think it’s fairly common sense that you don’t go in for that first kiss and immediately shove your tongue into someone’s TONSILS, for God’s sake!! Ew, ew, ew, ew!! Well, I backed off like I’d been hit with a baseball (which was kind of how it felt), and hustled back to my car. As I’m going, he’s calling, “See, you’re just afraid of our chemistry! I know you felt it, too!”

Holy fuck. “I know you felt it, too.” When he said that, it was the first time I actually got a little scared (as opposed to worried or concerned). I think we’ve all met those guys. The guys who you know on some level would wind up raping you and thinking it was consensual. That was TOTALLY the vibe I got off that. And even though I knew I could take him, it’s still not a situation you want to be in to begin with. So I got the hell out of there and thanked God I’d dodged that bullet.

I have to admit that I’m surprised I didn’t pick up on the “crazy” factor faster, though. I’m usually pretty on top of that. That’s what I get for not insisting on meeting for coffee before having a “real date.” If I had met him in person (for coffee), I wouldn’t have gone out with him again (for dinner). ::::sigh::::

So back to my tried-and-true coffee dates (aka “crazy” screenings,) and the guys who don’t like it can bite me. But not literally. LOL

On the other hand, I’ll be seeing FRIDAY night guy again later this week! Woo-hoo!




AMENDMENT:
This whole thing just made me think of that scene in the movie "Tootsie" where Dustin Hoffman is live on air playing the head nurse at a hospital. S/he's talking to Geena Davis about the lecherous doctor on staff who just grabbed Davis, and Hoffman (in a genteel Southern accent) is saying something like, "You know, I'm just going to get every nurse on this floor a cattle prod so they can carry it around and when he tries anything they can just zap him in his you-know-what! [Picks up phone] Hello, operator? Can you get me the listings for farm equipment?"

LOL

Busier and busier - with an almost-agent!

Geez, things have been busy!

Over the weekend my mom came to visit, so that was cool – we got to spend some time together, hanging out.

Sunday was mostly spent doing laundry and that kind of stuff.

Monday I was at work at 6am, because I had a production job on a film shoot out of town the next two days and had to leave by 3 Monday afternoon. So I worked 6-3 and then drove down to Temecula to have a belated Father’s Day with the family.

Tuesday and Wednesday I worked on an industrial shoot, which was so easy and low-key. God, that was nice. I really like the people who work these shoots. It’s a husband and wife who run their own production company: she directs, and he shoots. They’re such cool people – no one screams or yells, they always feed us well and they always pay us well. This time they rented a motor home so that we had someplace to go during lunch (often, the corporation being filmed lends us a conference room, but it’s not the same).

Anyway, I got back late last night, and as I was getting ready for bed, there was another one of those GIANT FUCKING BLACK SPIDERS on the ceiling above my bed! Took me half an hour to chase it down to a reachable spot and catch it. I took it outside, went back upstairs, brushed my teeth and was getting ready to turn out the light when I saw ANOTHER ONE in almost EXACTLY the same spot! And this one was bigger. So after another half hour, I got that one out, but when I went back upstairs, I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in the bed! So I ended up staying up all night on the computer. :P

I was a little tired today, needless to say. ::::sigh::::

I’ve been taking this commercial acting class, and I really like it. I had planned on taking the advanced classes too, and I was asking the teacher if he’d take a look at my agency mailing list and let me know what he thought. I also wanted to know if I could submit with HIS agency, which is relatively new, but is starting to book some good jobs. Well, come to find out if I take the advanced class (which I was already planning on doing, anyway), I automatically am offered a contract with his agency!

At first I thought it sounded a little sketchy, so I Googled him and his agency, but everything’s legit. He did make the comment that the reason he took all his advanced students in was because A) since his agency is small, he doesn’t have too many of any one “look” yet, and B) he figures that if he’s trained you, he knows you have the skill to book the jobs. You don’t HAVE to take the class to be represented, though; he represents people who have just come in and auditioned, too (which made me feel better).

Sooooooo . . . . one way or another, I have a commercial agent at the end of July! Which was on my list of goals!!! Wheeeeeeee! ::::happy dance, happy dance::::

I lost 9.3 POUNDS!!!!!

::::happy dance, happy dance:::: Woo-hoo! I’m losing weight! Even a little bit! Yay! (If I had that cool dancing smiley icon, I’d put it here! So just imagine it, rocking out!)

Of course, what’s a little success without a little sabotage, right? So I came home from my meeting the other night and pretty much ate ALL my extra (flex) points for the week. And what I didn’t eat that night, I finished off last night. Plus two. Meh.

BUT . . . I keep reminding myself that one or even two nights of OOPS! isn’t going to put all that weight back on me. At least not right away. So now I’m trying to stay within my daily points the rest of the week. That part kind of sucks, because Friday and Saturday nights are the nights when I hang out with my friends (unless I just decide to go to bed. I’m exciting like that.). It’s harder to stay within your points when you’re all sitting around drinking and eating. :P On the plus side, though, my friends are actors, too, so we’re all weight-conscious. So I can say, “Nah, I’m trying to drop some weight,” and rather than give me a hard time about it, they say, “Oh, yeah, I totally understand. I should watch mine, too. Why don’t we all eat veggies and hummus instead of chips?” And then I feel all happy, because I still feel like part of the gang!

That’s a little weird, isn’t it? That I feel like if I just abstain from the chips, I’m somehow on the outside? ::::sigh:::: I’m working on that . . . .

(Hey, you know what? I lost 9.3 POUNDS!!!!!! ::::happy dance, happy dance:::)

I think that I feel weird about not eating because we’re a bunch of girls, and consciously or unconsciously, in this culture we equate food with love. If someone feeds you, they love you. And when you turn down food, people feel personally slighted, as though you’ve declined not just their food, but their love too. Especially stuff that comes from family: just TRY turning down Great Aunt Mabel and see what happens! LOL

(Hey, you know what? I lost 9.3 POUNDS!!!!!! ::::happy dance, happy dance::::)

And I have this compulsive need to be liked and approved of, at least by people that *I* like and approve of. I read somewhere that everyone has an inner child, but that there are different types of inner children. There are abandoned children, nature children, magical children, eternal children, and on and on. I’m an abandoned one, at least internally. I never experienced familial abandonment, but I was HATED in school, and it really affected me. So now I’m always looking for familial relationships with my friends, my co-workers, etc. When I lived in San Diego, I TURNED DOWN auditions because my workplace “needed me.” It didn’t; I just didn’t want to be disapproved of.

So I think that’s where the insecurity around not eating with my friends comes from. In fact, I usually eat MORE than other people, because hey, food is love, right? And I love you guys! Let me prove it by eating WAY more than I should!

God, I’m a dork sometimes! LOL

(But, you know what? I lost 9.3 POUNDS!!!!! ::::happy dance, happy dance::::)

Chaos reigns

I haven’t felt like writing the last few days. Things have been not just busy, but totally chaotic. Last night I think 90% of the chaos finally resolved, but I’ve been so stressed out and anxious that when I realized it’s mostly (almost) over, I just felt sick. Does that make sense? When you’re busy as hell, and you know you’re tired and stressed and overworked, but the busy-ness just keeps coming and you HAVE to deal with it. So you push yourself and push yourself and push yourself, and finally, when it’s all over you go to bed thinking, “Thank God, I made it.” But sometime in the night your body says, “You need REST, bitch!” and the next morning you’re sick as a dog.

Today I feel sick as a dog. I don’t actually have a virus or anything as far as I can tell, but my stomach is upset, my head aches and I’m just generally exhausted. :P FOOD even sounds gross, and lemme tell ya, if I don’t want to eat, I’m in a bad way! LOL

See, I’ve been staying with my grandma for the last year. They have a huge house, but they also have 10 kids, so it’s usually a full house. It’s a rare weekend when someone isn’t visiting. I had actually found someplace new to live (in Brentwood, which is a nice area), so when termites invaded the room I’d been staying in, I just moved my stuff up to my grandma’s room (temporarily, I thought). (Grandma’s sick and can’t climb stairs, so the kids converted the living room into a bedroom for her – she hates it, as you can imagine, and I think they’re going to move her upstairs again at the urging of hospice. Thank God.) Three months later, I’m still in Grandma’s room, and the room I was supposed to rent is still not ready. The guy wanted to fix it up: new paint, new carpet, add some shelves, etc. That was cool with me, but I didn’t figure it would take longer than 6 weeks at the outside, since he had a couple of guys working for him. Well, as of last Saturday, the room has been painted. Period. The rest of the house looks great: repainted, cleaned out, new curtains, etc. But the room I’m supposed to rent? Not ready.

So over the weekend I started looking again. I didn’t really want to pay more than $350, simply because I’m trying to pay off some credit cards and on top of that, the business end of acting is expensive (pictures, envelopes, postage to mail them out, etc.). I’d also like to be able to take an acting class or two, and the cheap ones run about $200 a month. So I figured if I kept my rent low, I could get the other stuff done without freaking out about how I was going to make rent. In the last week I’ve seen several places, ranging from a really nice house in a crack-den part of town to a relatively safe neighborhood with a creepy homeowner (with whom I’d be sharing a bathroom). It’s been crazy; some days I’ve gotten off work and seen 2 or 3 places afterward.

On top of that, I’m trying like hell to get my headshots mailed out to agencies, so I can get an agent. It’s been completely chaotic.

The other night I was talking to my dad though, and we started talking about the possibility of staying in Grandma’s house and paying rent for one of the nicer rooms upstairs. I’d have a nice room, a private bath, space in the kitchen, washer / dryer in the house, all that jazz. It’s a beautiful neighborhood, with shopping and restaurants nearby. So I think I’m going to do that. I’ll pay them $300 a month, and although the downside is that I’m still in Grandma’s house, the upside is all of the above. I don’t think I’m going to find anything this nice for $300, and the family needs the money (medical bills), so it’ll work out well for everyone.

And once I get my agent, I’m working to get a national commercial before Christmas. At that point, I’ll move out but I’ll be able to afford my own apartment. It might just be a studio, but it’ll be my own space! I can’t wait for that. ::::wistful sigh:::: (I used to have a townhouse in San Diego, and although the rent was high enough that I was always stressed about how I was going to afford groceries, it was SO nice to have my own space; I miss it a LOT. I even liked living by myself.)

So it has been really chaotic, but it looks like it’s finally going to start calming down. Whew. Now I just have to not get sick from the emotional letdown.

How to look thinner in pictures!

I think Blogger must have a limit on the number of pictures you can post per, um, post. I keep getting this far and then it won't let me upload any more. So to see the non-round-face pictures, scroll back down to the headshots a few posts below. :)

That said, take a look at those pictures in the "Little Help Here" post. If you have anything resembling a double chin, or even just a wimpy jaw line (I've got a little bit of a double chin, myself), the first thing you want to do is think about stretching the back of your neck really long, and dropping your shoulder blades down into your back. As you do that, your chin will automatically drop down just a little bit. At that angle, your neck looks longer, but you still look like you have a little bit of a double chin, so move your whole head forward - NOT down, but FORWARD, toward the camera. Imagine your chin sitting on a table, and slide it along that table. It also helps if you turn your head slightly to the side: it creates a stronger jawline, visually speaking. If you look at the blue "Little Help Here" picture, you can see how tight the muscles in my neck are, from doing exactly that: This definitely takes some practice before you stop looking like a reject from the psycho ward, but it's TOTALLY worth it

As a contrast, here are a couple of pictures where I forgot to hold my head properly - see the round face?

A pink one:



And a (VERY round) blue one (note the NOT tight neck muscles - I turned my head, but didn't elongate my neck or drop my shoulders):


So hold your head at an angle, drop your chin, stretch the BACK of your neck, drop your shoulder blades and slide your head forward a little. When you feel totally uncomfortable and unnatural, congratulations! That's it! LOL

Now on to full-body shots. The same head rules apply, but now you also have to deal with the rest of your body. :P When someone is taking your picture, stand with your torso directly to the camera, but angle your lower half about 45 degrees and put one foot in front of the other. The angle does two things: one, it visually gives you more of a waist, since you're turning at the waist, and two, the foot-in-front-of-the-other technique (a time-honored Hollywood pose; Renee Zellweger can't NOT do it!) creates a visually slimming line through your hips and thighs. See?


In this first picture, it doesn't totally look like my hips are angled, even though they are. You can kind of tell though, because my shirt is pulling across my chest at an odd angle.

In this (lower) one, I was leaning against a fence, making the pose a little harder to pull off, but it didn't wind up looking COMPLETELY stupid. Although it does look a little uncomfortable. Oops:

Oh, well. What are you gonna do? LOL

So there it is, in a nutshell. Definitely practice before you attend the next big family gathering, though. Otherwise instead of everyone telling you how photogenic you are, they'll all be asking what the hell you were DOING in that picture! LOL

Posing skinny

Still can't post pictures. I got halfway through and blogger crashed on me. :P I'll try again later. ::::sigh::::

"Deep Thoughts" (No, really.)

Anyone remember those? "Deep Thoughts" by Jack Handy? I think it was an old SNL joke . . .

Triple-posting today. I have a lot on my mind, and it’s not all connected. So 2 posts, plus pictures later.

Just FYI: if you are a member of a 12-step group, you might want to skip this post. I have some things I need to vent about, and you won’t like them one bit. (And yes, I have extensive experience with these groups, so I know whereof I speak.) There is also some God stuff in here, although I’m not necessarily Christian, and I don’t care if you are or not. Everybody’s got their own path, so if you’re an atheist or a pagan or an evangelical and it’s working for you, good for you! Really. I’m not being sarcastic, although I know that’s hard to believe. ;) What is that disclaimer they put on DVD interviews? “The opinions expressed herein are solely the opinions of the people interviewed and do not represent the opinions of Big Movie Company in any way.” Or something like that. Same principle.

Anyway . . .

I’m pretty sure I’m an alcoholic. If I’m not, I’m well on my way. And I know why: as hard as I’ve been trying to deal with the emotions behind the food issues, I’m not really trying as hard as I should be. So I’ve been in the process of swapping one addiction (food or the lack thereof) for another (drinking). I guess I could be a skinny lush, but since more than one or two drinks generally trigger a binge, I won’t be skinny; I’ll be a fat lush, and in that case I might as well just stick to the bingeing! LOL

I’ve already been through therapy. I’ve already been to the OA (Overeaters Anonymous) meetings, and there are a LOT of people in my family who are part of AA. I know what my problems are intellectually and intellectually I know how to fix them. I wish it were that easy. :P

Here’s my thing with 12-step groups: I think they’re a great tool, but not the whole answer. It’s like needing to cross a river: the 12-step group is the boat that helps you across, but at some point, in order to move on with your life, you have to GET OUT OF THE BOAT. If you want to cross the river, you can’t just stay in the boat, bobbing around forever. In a way, a 12-step group can become an addiction in itself (in my experience).

I really started feeling this way when I went to OA. The whole idea that I was sick and could never get well just didn’t sit right with me. I could see the sickness, but not the “no cure.” And those people were nuts (so much for my “no judgment” resolution! LOL). They’d plan out what they were going to eat the next day, and if for their 3PM snack they had an apple instead of the pickle they had planned, that was BAD and OUT OF CONTROL. Frankly, that didn’t seem all that different from my anorexic attitudes in college. I went to a few meetings in a few different places, but just didn’t see how continuing to beat myself up, telling myself I was a sick victim and exercising freakish control attitudes were going to help me.

I think trying to apply the principle of a 12-step group to eating is tough though, because in AA or NA you “just” cut the substance out of your life. I guess you can do that with food too, but anorexia isn’t really something to aspire to. :P So you can’t just hide from the addiction to food. You have to face it head on, stare it down, dig deep into the dark well of your unconscious and clean it out, dragging all the detritus into the light of day to be examined and discarded. That’s how you heal. Not by hiding. Not by swapping one addiction for another.

Did you know that 90% of “recovering” alcoholics have what is clinically considered an addiction to sugar? And that in many ways, sugar does the same thing to your brain chemicals that alcohol does? That’s not the kind of recovery I want: swapping sugar for alcohol or alcohol for food or whatever for whatever-else. YOU’RE STILL HIDING FROM YOUR PROBLEMS. I’m tired of hiding.

So I’m not going to AA. I DON’T believe that I can never regain control of my behavior. I DON’T believe that treating the symptom of drinking will make the problem of hiding go away. I DON’T believe that I am sick, a victim of circumstance, a “poor baby” who is misunderstood by the world. I DON’T BELIEVE IT. I CHOSE THIS. I CAN CHOOSE SOMETHING ELSE.

Now. I know that not all AA people feel this way. I don’t believe that when Bill W and Dr. Bob started the program that they meant it to become a banner for victimhood. I think that used sensibly and responsibly and with a willingness to examine your inner life it can be a great thing. But 99% of the AA and OA people I know (I don’t know any NAs, so I can’t speak of them) have embraced their victimhood with a passion. I DON’T WANT TO BE A VICTIM.

So with that in mind . . .

I’ve been going to this church. (I swear this is not a tangent, although it may take me a while to tie it back into alcoholism and food. Bear with me.) It’s a Religious Science church, which is NOT Christian Science or Scientology. RS actually came out of the teachings of Thoreau and Emerson, as distilled by Ernest Holmes. (This is where I TOTALLY fit in with the Cereal State! LOL) The basic tenets are:

• We are not “children” of God. We are MANIFESTATIONS of God.
• As manifestations of God, we all have the potential to become Buddhas and Christs – it just depends on how much work you’re willing to do.
• Since God is everywhere, omnipresent and omni-active, God is WITHIN us as well as outside us. We are part of God and God is part of us.
  
• Our purpose in life is to overcome our egos and allow God to live as us, through us, which means that we are to become windows of peace, love, gratitude and forgiveness. (Think Dalai Lama, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham, Krishna, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, etc)
  
• Heaven and Hell are states of mind: Heaven is when you live in the peace and awareness of God, and Hell is when you allow your ego, your judgment, your fears to block the flow of God and create stagnation in your life.
  
• ALL the religions have the same basic ideas and as such are equally valid: Love everyone. Practice radical forgiveness. Be grateful. Don’t judge anyone.

There’s plenty more (as in any religion), but you get the general idea.

So I’ve been listening to a lot of these sermons on CD. And I know that all my bingeing and hiding and drinking and running away is due to the fact that I am TERRIFIED. Of what, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s everything. I’m afraid of failing, because what will I do then? I’m afraid of succeeding, because everyone will expect so much more from me and what if I can’t do it and I fail? I’m afraid of losing my excuses: “I don’t have an agent because I don’t weigh 12 pounds.” I’m simultaneously terrified of losing my victimhood and sick of living with it. I’m afraid of the voices in my head telling me I’m not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, blond enough, tall enough, young enough, self-disciplined enough, strong enough, tan enough. Sometimes I just want to mainline a bottle of wine and 2 pints of ice cream just to make them SHUT UP. Sometimes I do mainline a bottle of wine and 2 pints of ice cream for just that reason. But the next morning they’re always back, and with new ammo, because NOW I’ve had a bottle of wine and 2 pints of ice cream! Now I’m REALLY not thin enough, self-disciplined enough or strong enough.

I had been meditating and doing yoga regularly, and I was doing better. I was listening to a sermon every day and it was getting easier to remember that all those fears and voices are just the panicked, dying cries of an ego. The ego, you know, doesn’t understand the difference between transformation and annihilation. So when you try to transform, it gets scared. I was doing well, though, because I would hear those voices and I was getting to a point where I could deal with them calmly, knowing what they were and that it was ok to be panicked and scared. Knowing that I didn’t have to hide from them.

Then I started “losing weight.” For me, that is my ego’s foot in the door. The drive to be something different than myself, to be something better, something ELSE just activates all those panicked voices, and I forget that those voices are transitory. I lost sight of having more energy and being ok with my body the way it was, NO MATTER WHAT. As soon as I lost sight of that, ironically, I stopped losing weight. Funny how that works. Real funny. Ha . . . Ha. :P

So it’s time to take a deep breath and remember that drinking and plowing through ice cream are simply responses to fear. Various fears that basically boil down to one: what if I’m not good enough the way I am? And then I have to remember that if I am a manifestation of God, a unique and divine way that God is expressing itself on the planet, then I AM ALWAYS GOOD ENOUGH. I just have to be willing to sit in stillness and listen and remember. (The Reverend at my church likes to say, “Remember to remember!” LOL)

So I have a list of circumstantial goals at home on my bathroom mirror: when I want an agent by, when I want my union card by, that kind of stuff. But I have to remember to include goals like meditating every day and reading something that’s good for my soul every day. I’m learning to juggle my internal development with my external development; I can do one or the other, but both is tough. Obviously it has to be done though, because doing one at a time hasn’t worked very well so far; they’re too interconnected.

And I know from experience that if I do that inner work, the addictions fall away. It’s weird. And when I stop doing the inner work, about 2 weeks later I’m back to the addictions. Not just addictions to substances, either - addictions to attitudes, too. I get caught up in judgment and victimization really fast.

So . . . inner work. Meditate every day and read or listen to something good for my soul every day. I can do this. I have to do this. The alternatives aren’t pretty.

I need some sleep

Triple-posting today. I have a lot on my mind, and it’s not all connected. So 2 posts, plus pictures later.

I am so tired. My uncle and his wife were in CA (actually ARE in CA until noon today), and I really wanted a chance to see them. They live in Georgia, but both their families are out here. When Aunt K married Uncle M, she told him that the only way she was moving to GA was if they flew out here every year for her birthday because there are multiple late May/early June birthdays in her family, and every year they have a HUGE bash. So that’s what they do. :)

So they flew out for her party on Sunday and then went to my parents’ house Monday. They fly out of LAX today. Originally I wasn’t going to get a chance to see them, but my uncle has cancer and although he still looks good and is functioning, none of the treatments are working. He has a rare type of thyroid cancer for which the prognosis is 5 years at the outside (he’s at 4 ½ now), and the survival rate is zero. Yup, you read it right: zero. No one in the medical literature who has ever had this cancer has beaten it. No one. Ever. Soooooo . . . he’s been doing a lot of alternative stuff (which is a whole ‘nother story), but the bottom line is that he probably won’t make it. (Unless he makes some radical changes that he doesn’t want to make, which is part of the “whole ‘nother” story. I’m a little bitter about that, and trying really hard to remember that it’s his life, and they are his choices. Some days I do better than other days.)

So he and his wife were visiting my parents and I decided yesterday to leave work a little early, drive down for dinner and drive back. (My parents are about an hour and half from where I live.) So I left around 3, got into the area by 4:30 (missed traffic! Woo-hoo!), picked up birthday cards for my aunt & uncle and went home for dinner. I had planned on leaving around 8:00, figuring that would put me home by half-past nine, and I could still get a good night’s sleep. I was finally getting ready to leave at 8:30 when my mom (bless her heart) chirped, “Tell M & K about your commercial class and working!” Honestly, I LOVE my mom and we usually get along really well, but at that moment I could have shot her. I did not want to be driving home at 10:00 and then try and get to work this morning by 7:00. Not. Enough. Sleep. :P But what was I going to do? It seemed rude to say, “Nope! Gotta run!” since M & K are here from GA and oh, I don’t know, HE’S DYING (probably). So I stayed for a while and we all talked, and I left about 9:30. Got home by 11, asleep by 12, up again at 5:30. I’ll be napping today. (I better never have kids; I’d have to kill them just to get some sleep! LOL)

Blogspot hates me

Ok, I was going to post about how to look thinner in pictures, but for some reason my example pictures (the good and the bad! LOL) aren't uploading tonight. :P I'll try again tomorrow.

In the meantime, I went to Disneyland on Friday for my birthday, and I got the most wicked case of heat exhaustion I've had in a long time. I'm prone to overheating, so I'm usually pretty careful, but my body has definitely NOT adapted yet to the summer weather we're suddenly getting. So by 4:00 I was dragging. I left early, around 8, and STILL had trouble making it home. The headache finally went away last night, but I'm still tired. I keep drinking juice and Gatorade, but it's definitely slower going than usual. On the other hand, I'm not at all hungry, so this ought to be a great weigh-in week! (I'm kidding, I'm kidding.)

Anyway, I'm going to bed. I'll try again with those pictures tomorrow. :)

Little help here

Ok, so my birthday was yesterday (woo-hoo!) and although I could give two shits about my age, Hollywood feels differently. So I have (almost) decided to start lying about it. With that in mind, I have my headshots above (and by "headshots" I mean pictures. Get your mind out of the gutter! ;D). The one in pink is my main shot that I am sending out to agencies; the one in blue is the backup shot, so when they ask me, "Do you have a different look?" I can say, "Why, yes. Yes, I do. " Please take a look at them and WITHOUT CHECKING MY REAL AGE tell me how old you think I might be. Please don't worry about offending me; you won't, even if you guess older. I just want to know how much younger (if at all) I can claim to be. :)

Thanks in advance!

And please excuse any spelling or grammar errors; it's late and I've had a couple of drinks with my sister. (Hey lay off, it's my damn birthday! ;D)

Online dating in the cereal state

I once heard someone refer to CA as the cereal state. Why? Because it’s full of fruits, nuts and flakes. Unfortunately, as much as I love my home state, I think the joke is true.

A while back I decided to try online dating. Now THERE’S an experience, kids. One that will make your standards so low so fast that someone who can use proper punctuation and has all his limbs attached to the right body parts suddenly looks like Brad Pitt with Einstein’s brain!! ::::sigh::::

I signed up for a couple of free online dating sites, but a while back I went on hiatus. My schedule had gotten to the point that I just didn’t have more than one or two free evenings in a month, and most people would like to date someone at least a LITTLE more often than that. But I left my profiles up because on one site I had some friends in the forums and on another site there were all these entertaining tests you could take to kill time. However, as soon as I posted that I was no longer dating, men started coming out of the woodwork! Seriously, my inbox messages tripled. It was ridiculous.

Most of them I politely decline with a rote message along the lines of, "Thanks for the message, but as you can see in my profile, my schedule is really busy and I just don't have time to date anyone at the moment." The really vulgar ones I just delete, but the rest I answer. I figure it's just good manners. About half of them just boggle my mind, though. I usually answer politely, all the while wondering, "What the HELL were you thinking when you wrote that??"

So for the sake of my own frustration, here are six of the most entertaining messages I've gotten so far:

Number six:

"do you have webcam?"

Ummmm, I’m gonna go with NO on that one. Definitely. Definitely NO.


Number five:

"my email is xxxxxxxxx@somespamsite.com send me an email and i’ll send u sum pix"

Another one for the “Oh, HELL, no!” pile. Cock pictures, anyone?


Number four:

"Hi."

That’s it. No other info. No questions that I could answer to start a conversation, even if I were so inclined. Geez.


Number three (after I politely turned him down):

"Believe it or not I actually designed my profile here mainly to draw attention to my main profile on MySpace.com, where some of my writing is hosted. Not my screenplays, mainly musings about Life & LOVE and Wisdom of The Ancient Ones. And perhaps, not looking a little deeper at my profile may not have been such a smart move."

Wow, I really let a catch slip through my fingers! Um, the "Wisdom of The Ancient Ones?" Is he a Scientologist? And here's what you really want to do to someone who has just politely declined your advances: tell them they're dumb. And that you didn't even INTEND to get a date when you signed up on a dating site and SENT ME AN E-MAIL!! Yeah, that'll show me. Lordy.


Number two:

"Hi, I see from your profile that you are intellegent. I too, am very smart. I enjoy quoting Shakesphere and reading poetry. You definitely don’t want to get into a debate with me, though! No offense, kiddo, but you’d be in way over your head! "

Where do I begin? In 5 sentences he manages to misspell Shakespeare and intelligent (that one always slays me), and insult me! What is it with the patronization (is that even a word)? The mind reels.


And my all-time favorite:

"WoW! U R SEXXXXXXXY!!!!!! aM I UR tYpE?? WoULd LoVe It If I wErE!!! WhAt Do YoU tHiNk? Am I HOT???? oR NOT????"

After I politely said thanks, but I’m not dating at all, he replied:

"Hm. busy schedule, I understand. But we r both adults with certain NEEDS, and I was wondering if u might want to meet and get to know 1 another on ANOTHER LEVEL, if you know what I mean?"

Subtle, don’t you think? Me, too. At least he StOpPeD wRiTiNg LiKe ThiS!!!!!


Kill me now.