Starting the rounds again

Have taken some active steps in the way to get back into what I was doing before I interrupted my real life for an office job. The job took over a year out of my life, and again it was the disappointment it was meant to be. Politics and bullshit. But I digress.

I started going to the gym. Three times a week, two classes a day for the first two months. My body started to change before my eyes. My body got leaner, lighter, and my clothes were getting loose on me. It felt great to finally do something for myself. I went with two co-workers, and when they didn't go, I made sure to go, or cut myself a break and not ride myself so hard for skipping a couple of days. As the weather got colder, I cut back to twice a week, one class a piece and be on the train before 6:30 to fight the wind and go home.

Soon, family and friends were noticing the change. I was delighted, still am. I had continued to pay my subscriptions to various online acting submission sites, but had dropped off the radar and only occasionally checked in to fellow actors, sending a greeting to let them know I was alive, give a short report that I was still in an office gig trying to save some acting money and then wished them well.

But I miss the gypsy life. I also miss having a regular check. Something has to give. The current job is messing with my pay, and have explained away any increase to a promotion they supposedly had given me. There is no bonus. Yet I continue to do what they want me to do, and have said very little in protest or against them. Because I had a plan. It was not to stay there forever as I had other things, better things, to do.

I realized that the money simply wasn't happening. I was simply seeing the money go out as soon as it came in. Couldn't save any money -- anything that actually accumulated had to go to some other bill or emergency the next month after that. No matter how much I was saving eating at home, not going to movies, not buying anything for months at a time except for necessary toiletries or shoes for work, living a boring life of simply going to work, going to the gym, and going home. Wasn't going to clubs, or catching Broadway shows. My only vice was buying groceries to cook at home and going to the gym.

And I was barely hanging on. I was poor. This was stupid and ridiculous. Bosses couldn't praise me enough for my office skills and work ethic -- yet they weren't going to reward me financially for it. When the opportunity came to work for an incoming new executive, there were so many strings I realized I was merely a puppet, going where they wanted me to go, doing what they wanted done without attitude, nodding and jerking along as I was tied to them.

Frustrated by the latest b.s. being given me by those I had mistakenly thought weren't people I reported to anymore because of the promotion -- the lightbulb went off when my supposed new boss informed me that he actually reported to them, which means he wasn't protected and neither was I...and that meant that this was all an illusion, a charade, some b.s. to placate the new executive in town who had brought in my boss. This was all deemed a 'favor', which put me in a very vulnerable spot. Because that means that this was all yet another way of pushing the ol' office furniture around (meaning me) and that it was nothing personal, I was a work mule, one of their prized ones, and they would have me pinch hit as they saw fit, for as long as they wanted to, I had actually no say in the matter and should have zero expectations as far as any financial reward or recognition for it.

*taking deep breath* Coming to that realization, that this was all an illusion and simply bullshit, suddenly made my mind clear, and I was able to take a deep breath, step back, and assess. I realized I did not want to work this way anymore, and did not want to be anybody's lapdog, doormat, fool or pinch hitter. There was nothing in it for me except for nodding my head, saying "yes ma'am or sir" and bending over with a smile on my face, eagerly awaiting the next order.

Realization. Enlightenment. Clarity. Calm. Joy. In that order is how it came. It all made sense now. I could move forward without any worry or anxiety.

I was no better off now with getting the money together to go union than I was before. Besides the gym progress (oh, and getting a new computer as well, don't forget that!) there was not much more to say that the year had been overly productive on. I hadn't traveled beyond going locally a few times, and that was through extremely good pricing opportunities.

The headshot looks good and is still viable. I may, however, draw up some new looks and find a new program on-line to show my different looks in order to create a comp card to keep the interest going. Will submit/audition for plays, and look into the theater and commercials angle. I know the commercials and ads is where the money is, along with voice over work. Have to figure something out and now I have the energy and clear head to do so.

Will continue to update here. Watched Frida with Selma Hayek as inspiration. Need to go back to Mexico too. 2011 is the year. Feeling giddy and finally....positive.

Finally starting to see some of these shows

I'm ecstatic because I'm starting to see the debut of shows that I actually worked on. It's always exciting to see whether I will pop up or not on camera.

Cupid and Kings debuted. I was a little worried about Kings, where it's been said that the debut came up with miserable ratings. I am hoping things improve with that as I'm already liking the unfurling of the plots going on so far.

Cupid is a remake of a television show of the same name that starred Jeremy Piven, the guy that balked on doing the Mamet Speed the Plow on Broadway. Or puked, whatever, regarding mercury poisoning from his 'diet' of 'supplements' and impossibly LOTS AND LOTS OF sushi or fish.

Now back to the show. So Cupid, played now by Bobby Cannavale, is on Earth, being punished/expelled from Mount Olympus and has to put 100 couples together but it has to be TRUE LOVE for each couple in order to get back to Olympus. In the meantime, he meets cute with a psychiatrist played by Sara Paulson who I LOVED in the movie Down With Love. I guess it's not hard to figure out she's going to be his Psyche (she's a psychiatrist and human, get it?). Also, when she talks to him about Psyche, he says he has no idea about her, never heard of her. She reminds him he fell in love with Psyche, who was human, and that he even married her. Again he draws a blank. So that'll be ... cute.

I looked for myself during the New Year's scene in New York City which is in the beginning of the pilot. During this, a man takes some of the lighting during the countdown to 2009 and reconfigures it to read "I'm here Holly" in order to find a girl he spoke to briefly while working in a bar in Ireland. The girl was a tourist passing through but had made a strong impression on the young man who decided to take all his savings and buy a ticket to America to find her and Cupid helps him to do that. I won't give away the spoiler, but it ends cute, which I think might help this show as long as Bobby and Sara keep it from going too sugary.

For the New Year's scene, I recall it being filmed in Coney Island. They took a group of us to go to the rides, and the bulk of us stayed behind at some parking lot nearby, bundled up with our coats, scarves, hats and New Year's attire of balloons and hats, glasses and whistles, to ring in the New Year. We were told we would then be CGI'd to make a "huge crowd" in Times Square. Times Square would also be CGI'd in. What I found most interesting was the fact that it seems the show CGI'd the breath smoke that appears when one is out in the cold, talking. Since the weather was mild and still warm at the time of filming, we had to wear turtlenecks, boots, sweaters, coats, and pretend we were freezing. After pausing the video and slowing it down several times, I didn't see me. Oh well. The life of an extra.

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Kings has a whole Biblical and political theme about it and is very posh looking and dramatic. I would dare to say it's almost sudsy, like a nighttime soap opera. It's about this man who gets elected "King" (Ian McShane) and his family, along with a young modest soldier who happens to have saved the King's soldier son who had been captured on a brave overnight raid during the war that's going on and inadvertently gets sucked in to the political scene when he would rather go back to the battlefield where the rest of his comrades (and formerly his dad was) are fighting 'for the cause'.

I have yet to see the segments I was in, so I will continue to look out and enjoy the ride.