i hate new york? or maybe just my career

i'm feeling like i'm on a rollercoaster of career emotions: i'm going to leave theatre completely and become a ???; i'm going to transition to directing; i'm going to continue to take my scene study 'cause i love it, but i'm not going to pursue acting anymore; i'm going to move to the country and learn how to knit; blah, blah, blah

have been seriously thinking about where else i could live and what else i could do. i looked at craigs list for apartments in Seattle. then looked at jobs in LA. (there were a couple of interesting arts education jobs at the Mark Taper Forum/Center Theatre Group) looked at craigslist apartments in LA.

don't really know what to do.

the only two reasons for me to stay in new york are friends and acting.
1) my acting career is stalled and
2) i NEVER SEE MY FRIENDS.

i tried to organize several get-togethers over the summer, someone was always out of town or backing out last minute. have finally organized something but couldn't get everyone (5 of us) in the same room at the same time until Thursday Oct 30. if that doesn't work out we probably won't see each other until January....

so why am i staying here in this miserable place?

this morning i tried to go get some blood work done before work. i left my house at 8:20 for an 8:45 appointment. at 8:45 i was underground being told that "this train is going out of service, please exit the train" and standing on the platform with 400 other people. when i finally arrived for my appointment there were people who still hadn't been seen for their 8:15 appointments. i waited until 9:15 (evil, mean receptionist giving dagger looks to everyone in the room, yelling people's names out) then crossed my name off the list and got on the train again. got to work at 10:00. lovely.

i mean, why do it put up with the meaness and anger? i listen to meditations and soothing "brainwave" music on the train and i still can't calm down. when i feel like i'm really going to explode and the soothing "brainwaves" aren't working i listen to punk instead.

my brilliant niece

Lucy's amazing. and yes, i know, i'm totally biased, and i don't care. i spent last weekend in San Diego for Lucy's b-day. while there i went over to a friend's house and played with her two boys, they were not nearly as interesting. Lucy is just bursting with personality, and she's just a happy and witty and clever and sly and warm and funny little girl! we had tons of fun playing with stickers and playing doctor with stuffed animals and reading books and going to music class. she loves to dance and watch "Pre-School Musical" on Sesame Street!! (an artist on our hands perhaps?) she definitely marches to the beat of her own drummer. she loved my prezzie (wooden vegetables and fruits) and we had fun playing grocery checkout with her new cash register. she quickly learned how to use the credit card. she's so curious how things work (like her engineer Daddy perhaps?)

i was worried that she would be afraid of me given that she really doesn't know me. she was shy and just wanted to observe me at first. but she warmed up eventually and included me in her play. it makes me feel so good when she wants to play with me. i could play all day long!

i love being Aunt Jamie!

back to my first love

i started back in scene study last night with Scott Freeman. i took class with him at The Actor's Center. it was awesome. totally awesome. it really sank in that i'm in a totally different place than i was three years ago. the rest of the class are great actors and beautiful and young. there's a little bit of envy that these young people are so confident and pulled together in a way that i wasn't at that age (24-29ish). however, i don't envy the highs and deep dark lows that they have yet to encounter. i've already gone through all that and it's out of my system. i feel resilient. it's like i've been inoculated.

i'm in a really great place. my basic self-confidence is so much healthier than it was even 6 months ago. i know i can dive deeper into my work, make my work more sophisticated, smarter, scarier, sexier because i'm holding back less. and i'm just starting to become more efficient in my work which helps me to not get so overwhelmed with the amount of work i have to do and helps me to act on impulse instead of acting on analysis.

i felt like i was massaging latent acting muscles and prepping them for a great workout and it felt amazing. the class runs late 6:30 - 10:30pm, but i could have staying there working all night...

first and last speed dating event.

i went to a speed dating event last night with a friend. we left before it started! we got there really early and had drinks at the bar. looking around we soon realized the weird freaks that had gathered at the bar were the other speed daters. so we made a judgement call and decided that our $35 should be chalked up to "learning our lesson" and we left and got beers at a dive bar instead.

awesome.

fucking day jobs

I've been sitting here at this temp job, trying to get hired permenantly and it's stupid. I don't even want the job. I don't want a non-creative job. And if I lived in any other city, I'd be able to live on what an audience developement coordinator, or actor, or stage manager, or marketing assistant makes.

vampires need love too

i can been seen all over the city right now in my "True Blood" print ad - "Support Vampire Rights".

it's exciting! it's also really weird to see my face 5 feet tall. i'm also a little self-conscious about the way i look. but it's an opportunity for me to learn how to deal with this, on a small scale, before it happens on a big scale.

nerve-y

so, i've been emailing with a couple of guys on nerve. one guy seemed really nice, but just bored me to tears. another guy got straight to the point and asked me to meet up for a drink. i appreciated his directness, and figured he must be smart because he knows i'll probably loose interest after a couple of emails. better make plans with me now. so we did. make plans. and he promptly broke them. never. view. again.

then i got an email from a guy who says he's a conceptual artist. kinda seems interesting from his profile. funny, charming, etc etc. he seems tall and robust from his photos and has his hair buzzed really short (to camouflage the receding hairline). one picture is a close up and he's got a beard and is wearing a big fur 'trapper' hat. anyway his email said:

"Subj: I don't have a bare chest in my photos (I'm pretty sure I possess one though)
Hi, thanks for the wink-back (your photos are very charming, by the way). I love your taste in movies. If you ever feel like meeting for cocktails and discussing, you know... "CINEMA," drop me a line."

nice, right? (the bare chest thing is a reference to my profile in which i say "if you are bare chested in any of your profile photos we probably aren't right for each other")

so I wrote back:

"hey, i appreciate that you didn't reveal your bare chest in your photos. you wouldn't believe the idiots who write to me. i'm intrigued by the fur hat you appear to be wearing in your photo. it's funny. you look like a post-punk-russian-eskimo. drinks and discussion would be fun! let's meet up sometime-jamie"

funny right? okay maybe not" anyway he must have not thought it was funny. he hasn't written me back. well, he's missing out, that's all i have to say about that.

also, i had to block two guys from winking or emailing. one kind of stalked me a year ago when i had a different profile name and picture. he's got a picture of his ripped, bare, waxed? chest in his profile. the other guy is 49 years old (and i think that's a lie) and lives in South River, NJ.

oh yikes.