There's a Robert Earl Keen song I love where he comes home to his hometown bar and everyone's there, and everything feels so right. I think the song is actually about heaven. The B3 Organ line alone backs up my theory, but I won't get into that now. Tonight, I got a little bit of heaven with my acting class, of all the unlikely things.
I came to LA pretty burnt out on acting, which is pretty sad considering how little of it I participated in since college. There was just something about actors that made me tired and unhappy, because so many of them were tired and unhappy. It made me feel like that would be my destiny- to be sad and shriveled, mean and petty, and most of all, extremely needy. This is the nightmare scenario, and I don't mean to cast any kind of aspersions on the wonderful actors I've been lucky to meet and work with in my time. But we in the performing arts know the kind I'm talking about, and they just drained all the joy out of me for some time.
Tonight, and really every Monday for the past six weeks, I've been exposed to something different. For that span of time, I've had the sheer joy to watch actors of varying levels of skill and experience come together to learn and grow by attacking their work and tuning in to repressed feelings that brim beneath the surface waiting to burst out. There is not one person out of a maxed out class of 24 people that I don't want to work with or lose from this class, so much fun has it been watching their growth.
And the best of all was after class tonight, when all but just four or five of us went out for a drink and a burger afterwards. We sat and talked and complimented each other for our bravery and daring and really meant it. No one was BS-ing anybody. There was more love in the room than I could almost stand.
It really does feel so good, feeling good again.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Moving Day
Nothing in my life has made me feel like a bigger failure than getting up early on a Thursday to move apartments by myself. Not only was I leaving the place I called home for my first five months in LA because I could no longer afford it, I had no one I could call to help me move. There are only a handful of people I know well enough to call in such a favor, and they all either have day jobs or are on mission trips to Kenya or whatever good people do with their time while I'm moping over where to fit all my books in my tiny new room.
That feeling passed, thank God, when I made the decision to actually unpack everything at once upon arriving at my new digs and making it into my own space. I still need wall decorations, but it's my room now, and all is right with the world. I even got random phone calls from friends tonight who need me to do some on-camera work, and my boss called to see if I was available to go on a seven week tour all over the country catering a scotch tasting event. Also, I went to my make-up acting class and had a great time working on a scene. It was supposed to be a guy-girl scene, but through a comical mix-up I had to play an alcoholic doctor trying to convince my estranged husband not to leave me. Good times.
Now if you will excuse me, I have to do some writing for which I will actually be paid. Nothing succeeds like success, am I right? Suck it, failure!
That feeling passed, thank God, when I made the decision to actually unpack everything at once upon arriving at my new digs and making it into my own space. I still need wall decorations, but it's my room now, and all is right with the world. I even got random phone calls from friends tonight who need me to do some on-camera work, and my boss called to see if I was available to go on a seven week tour all over the country catering a scotch tasting event. Also, I went to my make-up acting class and had a great time working on a scene. It was supposed to be a guy-girl scene, but through a comical mix-up I had to play an alcoholic doctor trying to convince my estranged husband not to leave me. Good times.
Now if you will excuse me, I have to do some writing for which I will actually be paid. Nothing succeeds like success, am I right? Suck it, failure!
Monday, May 24, 2010
LOST Thoughts
It's late and I've been working since six this morning, but if I don't blog about the LOST series finale, then I may as well hang up my keyboard and become, I don't know, an accountant or something.
I believe in no spoilers, so I'll wait a few days before going in depth into the episode and the series. I will say I saw the end from early on in the episode, but rather than being put off, I was so overjoyed that this was the route the creators decided to take, that I could barely sit still from the excitement and emotion.
It was nearly flawless. It was maybe the closest to truth that network television could ever hope to get. A little bit of heaven broke through, and millions of people got to share it.
There's a saying that my improv teacher drills into students: suggestion is opening, opening is form, the end is in the beginning. A fitting description of the series, for sure.
I believe in no spoilers, so I'll wait a few days before going in depth into the episode and the series. I will say I saw the end from early on in the episode, but rather than being put off, I was so overjoyed that this was the route the creators decided to take, that I could barely sit still from the excitement and emotion.
It was nearly flawless. It was maybe the closest to truth that network television could ever hope to get. A little bit of heaven broke through, and millions of people got to share it.
There's a saying that my improv teacher drills into students: suggestion is opening, opening is form, the end is in the beginning. A fitting description of the series, for sure.
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