May 5, 2008

I went to yoga on the Upper West Side and it was terrific. Then I headed to Columbia for the graduate screen writing class. I also decided to get some exercise and walk 20 minutes to the train station.

I ran into a director I worked with 2 or 3 years ago, it was fun to talk to her. She talked about a documentary she worked on and how it changed her life. It was nice to chat to her about it because she was really touched by her subject matter and I could tell she worked very hard on it. I look forward to seeing it.

While I sat in the Dodge Hall cafe, a guy approached me about being in his thesis film. We’ll see. If he doesn’t mind me being 6 months pregnant. Actually, one of the students from the class asked if I would audition for his student film as well and I would really like to be part of it if he is cool with a big round woman. Again, we’ll see.

I still haven’t recovered from the cold I got last week, so I’m going to try and take it easy. When I got home, my nose and throat were really bothering me and I was exhausted.

Benefits of Yoga

I wrote 2 pages on the train going to my yoga class today.
I FINALLY signed up for yoga and it was a lot more strenuous than the last class and I was pretty pooped.

I met a friend for lunch at Green Symphony, the most expensive health food deli style restaurant. The food is addictive, but over priced.

I came home, cleaned up, took a nap and cooked.

April 15, 2008 - 15 Weeks

The weather was gorgeous out today. Bright, sunny and glorious.

I had a meeting scheduled a meeting with my coach and a writer/director I might work with.

Then my brother and I went to visit The French Culinary Institute. That place rocks! He’s thinking of enrolling and we had a tour of the facilities. I hate cooking but it temporarily made me want to become a chef.

I met with my buddy, SC and we had coffee at Starbuck’s. We’re planning to meet Thursday to write.

First gig of the year…

I booked a job as one of those folks from the Verizon Network.  When I booked the job I wasn’t eager to do it because I had a feeling it would painful.  As it turns out, I was booked as a “principal”, not an extra and the others I met were professional, working actors.  There were some 200 extras, but we got out of there before the poor crew had to coordinate with them.  

I met a lovely woman, who is an actress and also a perfusionist (she operates a machine which helps stabilize heart patients while they get cardiac surgery, no joke!) and her personality was so funny and energetic that it was a real joy to meet her. Her stories about her career were hilarious and she was a really smart woman who knew where she was going. I liked her because she really set her life up so that she could earn a living while pursuing her acting career.

We all dressed up as Verizon workers and we ALL had to wear Dickies pants. My pants were not fitting me because of my growing belly, but the wardrobe guy said to use them because they fit length-wise and he would split the back to make them fit. He had to split them quit a bit and it was then I decided that I would tell my commercial print agent I was going to go away for a little while. Sitting around, uncomfortable for hours isn’t like it was when I was not pregnant. It feels terrible. And I’ve learned that’s what a lot of acting/modeling is: sitting around in uncomfortable rooms for hours, waiting for your shot.

After the eight hour work day, I got home and fell asleep at 7:00. J asked if I could cook vegetables but I refused to get out of bed.

NY1 & Chelsea Market

I visited my friend who works at NY1. She was so awesome to give me a thorough tour of her work site. We even walked into the area where the anchor was and my friend said: “Hello!” and then the anchor went right into her set.

We made plans to have dinner in April.

Some interesting facts:

-I hadn’t realized Chelsea market was the sacred site of where the Oreo cookie was created.

-The series “Oz” used to be shot there.

-Google is moving into the building and taking the flower shop in the Chelsea Market as their childcare center.

Afterwards, I moseyed downstairs to Ann’s bakery where I bought a baguette.

Hippo Birdie To Me

My birthday was insane, totally partied like crazy. Right. A totally sober birthday.

Friday

I fell asleep at 8:00.

Saturday

We went to vegetarian dim sum at my favorite restaurant. Afterwards, we went to the nature conservatory around where we live. We saw some prairie dogs, snakes, rabbits and lizards. Then we walked around and saw birds and listened to them sing. I had been dying to go there for a while and was psyched to walk around.

We went home and watched No Country For Old Men. It was an amazing movie up until the end. I was scratching my head like: “WTF?”.

Sunday
We went to Brooklyn to have brunch at Bubby’s, my FAVORITE brunch place. J ordered the fried oyster sandwich. I ate oatmeal with strawberries and bananas which was yummy.

Being in Brooklyn made me realize how much I really like the area. There are cool, young people there, not quite the same where I live. My neighborhood is a bit different, people maybe a bit more conventional. I don’t really have much in common with people in my ‘hood.

Beautiful birthday flowers

Tonight: Ming Dynasty

Click here to see the band’s site designed by Joshua Davis. If I’m not puking, I’m there!

Eight weeks and still chugging…

 It takes ALL of my focus and strength to get out the door these days. Between fatigue and being naseuos I struggle to not throw myself on the bed and take a nap. Last night J was paged and that always wakes me up and screws with my sleep. 

Today I was meeting with a modeling agency and I couldn’t get a read from the agent. She wasn’t friendly or unfriendly, but she sent me out right after our meeting. Since I was in Ktown, I called S or B to see if they wanted to have lunch but one was out on a set and the other was on the way to a go see. I went to the go-see and then decided to head downtown to the casting director for the feature.

It is FREEZING today. The CD is in Chinatown and there are no coffee shops to chill out and relax. I wandered around freezing my ass off before going to the audition. I got there extra early andI rehearsed it over and over by myself before going in. I made sure that I wasn’t going to fumble on lines or do beginning actor audition mistakes. I also wanted to make sure that I was very specific about who I was talking to, who I was and what I wanted. When I got there it turned out I knew an actress who was assisting with the casting. We met years before when we worked on a random job as event keychain assemblers. She is feisty and a really hard worker. I told her I had seen her commercial and her 30 Rock Episode and it was really cool that I was running into her. It was really nice, I felt I was really in the moment, steady and good.I felt I really did the best I could. 

Tomorrow I have another audition for a feature where I would play another sexy kind of character. I find it pretty funny because I don’t think of myself as sexy, mostly funny, bossy, goody and opinionated. I lamented this to my actress friends and she looked at me, nearly rolling her eyes and very calmly said: “I’m only going to say this one time to you…you are sexy. Get over it.” That’s pretty funny. 

I feel pretty wiped out, and always just a little sick to my stomach. However, I feel much better than I did a week ago, thank god. I was really depressed that I would be feeling sick for months and months. It’s abated a bit so I feel so grateful for that. It’s funny because since I “quit” the day job, all of these opportunities started popping up all over the place, it’s pretty cool. I had a fear that I would be sitting at home crying myself asleep at home…but I really believe that more and more interesting projects are coming my way. 

For the first time in my life, I have a little belly. I’m wearing one of my favorite shirts which is form fitting and shows off my figure really well. That includes my new pregnant chest but then also includes the little uncomfortable belly. I don’t mind actually. Just a change I noticed. And how tight everything is feeling. 

Vague Worries…

I have not officially made my own business out of my acting career. But more and more I’ve been in the mindset that I have an entreprenuership, I am a small business owner. I do mailings to let agents and casting directors know about me, I remind playwrights of my existence, I write and shoot my own material. I admit being pregnant has thrown me for a loop.

Now I don’t know my head from my ass let alone remember that I have a monologue to memorize. Because of my fog, I really need to buckle down even more and be very specific about my goals. One thing I wanted to figure out is whether I should get “another” career to sustain me…this is something I’m always struggling with. I feel that if I get another career it will take me away from this one. I welcome being a mom and taking time away from work….I think… Also, do I want to do maternity wear modeling?? Who the hell knows. Good thing I’m meeting up with my coach.

God, this makes me laugh because these are the “problems” that I’m dealing with.

Easy Come Easy Go

I decided to turn off Adium on my computer today. The result is that I am focused and my concentration isn’t broken nearly as much as it is when IM is one. My very close friends I can count on my hand. My buddy list is bloated and unwieldy. There is nothing wrong with these folks. But I find that the talk is often idle chat, time wasting and sometimes, due to misunderstanding, argument inducing. Many people are acquaintences who I probably wouldn’t keep in touch with if they weren’t on my list.

When I’m not on IM, I am in more tune with my body and feeling. Putting IM on means that I don’t want to concentrate, I want to coast through the day. This is not good at all. It means my attention is away from things like maintaining my acting career or writing a new page in my script.