kill me now

They say — “Timing is everything” but when is it gonna to be my time? The right time? Time to cash a paycheck?  Booking a job is like an oasis – it seems like it’s right there in front of me…like I’m on the verge. But when I get closer it just vaporizes into a cloud of disappointment. I feel like I’m constantly letting down the people who care about me — the ones who believe in me… it totally sucks.

I keep trying to —

Optimisticize myself

Work hard

Hone my craft

Network

Buck up

Self-motivate

Keep the door open

Find The Funny

Keep The Faith

Make lemonade

But frankly I feel –

Discouraged

Pessimistic

Frustrated

Like a failure

Sad

Mad

Bad

Blue

Euuuuu

Ugh!

I need to get over myself…

Uhm… I need to book a job!

Liked that? Check out:

• CASTING DIRECTORS: Connecting or Not?
• GOSSIPS: Fanning the Fire
• Communication Gap

What’s the meaning of MEANIES in our lives? We’ve all got ‘em. What do we do with them?

Mine is Briana the Bitch (the frenemy from hell) a resident in my ER who tells anyone who’ll listen not to trust me because I’m a “Man Eater!” Briana is stuck in the past. She may have a high IQ, but socially she’s still stuck in high school. Move on, girl, it’s 2011. Life doesn’t have to be AWKWARD! for the rest of our lives. Does it?

Today I hear about an even worse MEANIE from “Hottie,” an out-of-work TV Actress whose name I can’t divulge.  Hottie’s long-term Acting Coach, “Pushy” just turned into the DEVIL (the meanest of MEANIES!)

After the boundary-less Pushy’d wormed her way into Hottie’s professional and personal life, acting like her Coach/Mom/BFF/Therapist, she pushed Hottie too far when she told her to break up with her boyfriend.

“ENUFF! Hottie said, ” I’m going to break up with YOU instead!”

So Pushy, like a scorned lover, goes ballistic with 24/7 over-the-top, calls, texts and emails. Hottie blocks her. And Pushy takes it up several notches. She spreads RUMORS throughout the Industry that Hottie’s no longer acting because she had a NERVOUS BREAKDOWN! (F@#k!)

I ask Hottie if she’s gonna sue Pushy or at the very least have some hotshot Entertainment Attorney write a cease-and-desist, but Hottie doesn’t want to fan Pushy’s fire.  Hottie’s Manager says she’ll  “manage the situation.” So Hottie’s gonna take the HIGH ROAD. She’s focusing on being an Awesome Actress and getting LOTS OF WORK so she can prove Pushy wrong!

THE GOSSIP MEANIES IN OUR LIVES

Are they Insensitive or insane?

On medication or should they be?

Narcissistic or Nuts?

IS IT BETTER TO ENGAGE OR IGNORE?

Is their GOSSIP destructive or do others see it as “DRAMA?”

Gossip Meanies mess with our heads, our reputations and our ability to focus on what’s important.  Avoiding the DRAMA might be the best way to deal with these HEARSAY HUSSIES!

People seem turned-off by DRAMA these day, anyway.  TV Dramas are getting cancelled all over the place and COMEDIES are where it’s at.

So let’s all try to FIND THE FUNNY when it comes to the Meanies in our lives. If we can laugh at these LOSERS  the PATHETIC PUSHIES  of the world will lose their POWER!

(What Meanies mess with your life? What do you plan do about it?)

Liked that? Check out:

• Finding our Way (with a little help from our friends)
• APPRECIATION Goes A Long Way
• Programming My LIfe

not the time to cop an attitude

Are you Half-Full?

My mom was (even to the end). And she really-really tried to pass her look-on-the-bright-sideness to me.  I thought about her A LOT on Friday…

Lucky or Unlucky, depending on how you look at it.

It’s a typical I’ve-planned-too-many-things-Friday when I realize traffic isn’t cooperating. The thing is, since they started construction on the 405 (which seems like for.ever ago) there’s no way to know how long it’ll take to go anywhere in this city! I get up early and head to the Westside, because I’m addicted to Steve Ross’s classes at Maha Yoga and the juice cleanses from Pressed Juicery at 26^th & San Vicente.

Feeling mellow after class and carrot-coconut juice I figure I’ve got plenty of time to make it to my Acting Class in West Hollywood. WRONG!  Heading east, there’s gridlock everywhere. Sunset’s backed-up. Wilshire’s backed-up. So I end up driving through the residential streets – meaning stop sign to stop sign —  through Westwood, then Beverly Hills — and that’s where I realize I’m running out of time. So I  sorta scoot through one intersection, forgetting to yield to the guy in the truck to my left. Oops! Two blocks and multiple flashing-lights later I get BUSTED!

As the tallish, good-looking Bev Hills cop approaches, I blurt out –

I know exactly what I did!

Surprisingly, he comes back with –

Well I don’t think you did it intentionally so I’m going to give you a warning ticket for the yield issue, but a correctable ticket since your brake light’s out.

(Whaaaa? My brake light’s out ?) But actually, I’m so effing relieved I won’t have to deal with Traffic School that I thank him and ask him what that means. He says I just need to go to any Police Station for an inspection after I get the brake light fixed.

After class instead of procrastinating like I usually do, I go to the Hollywood Toyota dealer and get my Pruis brake light replaced. Then I go to the Police Station in West Hollywood for my inspection… But when I go to pay my $15.00 inspection fee, the cops there start laughing because their computer system’s down so they can’t charge me. Yesss!

On my way home, I call Niles (don’t worry, I use hands-free) and playback my story. He tells me I should stop and buy a lottery ticket on the way home, since it’s apparently my LUCKY day.

Would you call it LUCKY or UNLUCKY?  Depends, right? Mom would say “LUCKY”  but for as for me — well um,  I’m still working on my Half-Fullness. Ahahaha…

Liked that? Check out:

• Braving TV’s Pilot Season
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• Hollywood Flip: Staying Focused

Yikes!

OMG! Welcome to my –

N I G H T M A R E !

It’s an EMERGENCY SITUATION

Tonight in Triage –

• A high maintenance celeb panic-attacking
• A screamy-meemy breaking my eardrums
• A flu-inflicted boy leaving a very gaseous trail
• A foreigner with his infected toe oozing out of his socks
• A moany mommy in labor with a freaked-out baby daddy
• A hungry homeless man begging for a hot meal
• An oldie-but-definitely-not-goodie barfing
• A super cute paramedic rolling in a bloody GSW
• A cocky gynecologist making me chaperone his pelvic exam (Euuu!)
• A bitchy resident making it her job to torture me
• Charlayne, my supervisor giving me the evil eye

I thought I’d gotten better about handling things, but gross bodily fluids don’t work for me.

Get me some wine and a midnight yoga class, stat!

CODE whatever!

Just get me outta there!

Liked that? Check out:

• Annoying Accidents
• Resolutions Revisited
• FEELING CONFLICTED: ER Volunteer

find the funny even when it hurts

Before my 1:00 shift today I thought I could squeeze in a mani|pedi. (Wrong!) I was excited to look my best for my meeting tonight at Craigs with a up-and-coming Writer/Director. Apparently I miscalculated.

Upsettingly, the whole process took longer than usual (How would I know Nail Spa Lane would be busy on a Monday?) Realizing I was LATE, I ran through the alley, and hopped over a planter, but my flip flop got caught on the ledge and I landed face-down on the pavement. OUCH!

A sweet parking lot attendant helped me up and asked me if I was okay in Spanish (at least I think that’s what he said.) Everything ached as I limped away in total embarrassment. When I got to my car I cringed as I looked into the rear-view mirror because the right side of my face was reddish and swollen. Still I had hope.

When I got to the ER, Anthony the Triage Nurse took one look and was actually nice to me for once.

My trip down “Ungraceful Lane”  got me:

• A skinned right knee
• A bruised left leg
• A sprained right foot
• A bruised right shoulder
• A cut above my right eyebrow
• A swollen, scraped cheek
• the beginning of  (s#@t!) a black eye

Thankfully nothing was broken. I didn’t need stitches by my eye.  My hot E.R.Doc showed me his best bedside manner —  cleaning my wounds, bandaging my knee, wrapping my foot for support.  He slipped me some extra cold packs (sooo romantic – ahaha!) and told my supervisor Charlayne that I needed to have a few days off to recuperate.

Cast as “Klutzilla” in my very own HORROR MOVIE –

– I had to (boo hoo) cancel the meeting with the Writer|Director. (My agent said the character he’s looking for is NOT a battered woman!)

Oh well —  guess I’ll go buy some cute dark glasses and start my recuperation at Starbucks.

Living the dream…

Liked that? Check out:

• Hearing Voices or Am I Just Getting a Headache?
• ER: CODE RED – Diet Karma
• APPRECIATION Goes A Long Way

Lisa's smiling, oh yeah!

Yesterday my acting partner, Nick sent me a link to an article Ken Levine wrote during TV Pilot Season last year. It’s fun to read whether you’re in the TV business, trying to be in the TV business or just watch TV.

I texted back –

So funny! Love it for my blog.

Nick’s comeback –

FUNNY?!  It made me cry!

I mean, Nick’s technically right. It’s ultra-depressing that one of the prerequisites of a Hot Girl role is that the producers look for someone “guys wanna f#@k.” And trust me, this is absolutely true. A major TV producer told me that point blank!

And yeah, it’s true you can make it all the way from the first audition with the CD to callbacks with Producers, Directors, coaching for the big “Test” (the moment when your future is decided by a group of people in “the room”) —  and you can do a phenomenal job, have everyone hysterically laughing and then find out that one person just didn’t think you were “the girl.” And like “Candy Land” or “Chutes & Ladders”, you end up back at the beginning of the game and have to start all over.

BUT – what other profession can you think of where every January hundreds of new and amazing job opportunities just suddenly appear? I mean, subscribe to Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com (it’s free and a great way to keep up on the latest in the Industry) and you’ll get announcements every day for the next three months about pilot pick-ups with awesome Directors, Producers and Showrunners behind them and Major Talent attached.

The beginning of Pilot Season always makes me hopeful and excited about POSSIBILITY…

It’s kind of like a new semester in school, where naturally it matters how well you did before, but still you get new teachers who don’t know you and you get to start out fresh. And maybe you went to summer school and pulled your act together or maybe you decided to get yourself in shape – but the point is you get this re-birth opportunity in the TV business that’s really exciting. (Of course the new hot girls and guys get the most attention, but hey, what can you do about that?)

And, yeah – you can get a part, the pilot can get picked up and then the someone’s someone suggests that they recast your part. But still – you’ve been in the game, you’ve gotten paid, you’ve received a credit and there’s always a chance you’ll be recast in something else in June.

It happened to Lisa Kudrow –

She was cast as Roz on “Frasier” and then someone (I won’t say who) decided she should be recast. I’m sure Lisa was devastated, but had that not happened, she would never have been Phoebe on “Friends” and we ALL know how that worked out.

So —  even if the odds are stacked against you, there’s always the chance you’ll get your moment. So it’s really worth giving it everything you’ve got. Right?

You might be like Lisa Kudrow and have the last laugh…. all the way to the BANK!

Now that’s FINDING THE FUNNY big time!

ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Liked that? Check out:

• Actors Keep Track: Pilot Season 2012
• INFOLIST: Oh, the possibilities…
• Resolutions Revisited

• Dropping my iPhone in the toilet (hope that’s not a sign.)

• Setting off the fire alarm in the ER (oops! I was just hungry.)

• Freezing in my audition (this producer I dated and um– avoided was sadly in the room.)

Apparently I’m stuck in the school of life, because I keep learning lots of lessons. Double Ugh!

Hope I’ll graduate soon to the next level, but unfortunately that’ll just mean—

More lessons!

Oh well. Guess I’ll go get this body in shape on a Monday morning run in Runyon Canyon and hope some of the answers inside me reveal themselves ASAP!

Oh– I just realized the new iPhone will be coming out in two weeks. (Yay, the answers are already revealing themselves and I haven’t even put on my running shoes yet.) Ahahaha!

The Rules for Being Human

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in an informal school called Life.  Each day in this school, you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error. Experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works”.

4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.  You can then go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. “There” is no better than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here,” you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”

7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you either love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to Life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

(Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott)

(What lessons have you learned lately? Share in the comments.)

Liked that? Check out:

• FEELING CONFLICTED: ER Volunteer
• Hearing Voices or Am I Just Getting a Headache?
• Being Stuck

How do YOU see it?

Seems like the world is filled with two kinds of people:
the ones who look at the bright side,
and the ones who acknowledge the dark side.

So are we talking–

Optimists vs. Pessimists or Optimists vs. Realists?

I wonder a lot about this because even though I’m trying to be more “half-full,” I realize positivity doesn’t change the fact that– shit happens. So putting “a spin on it” sometimes works, but  other times seems a little too 1950′s (like Betty, who at the beginning of “Mad Men” pretends like things are okay when they’re SO not.)

On tonight’s ER shift, Mira ( a total “good karma” girl)  brings in her Maga (grandfather) again. I can’t be specific due to Patient Confidentiality, but let’s just say when a body gets old, certain parts stop working and can’t be fixed in a good quality-of-life way.

In general, Mira’s what I’d call a “full-full” person. To her, life is super bright and when it starts to darken she inspirationalizes.

But tonight she just loses it. She breaks down and SOBS!

All I can think to do is hug her — long and hard.  I tell her what a wonderful granddaughter she is and how lucky her Maga is to have her.

When she finally catches her breath and calms down, she says,

I’m lucky too – to have you as my friend on this Eff’d-up night.

I guess tonight we’re both a little bright side/dark side and if I have to find the funny, it’s that the absolutely worst word Mira can come up with is–
“eff’d-up.”

(Are you more bright side or dark side and how does that affect your life? Let me know in the comments.)

Liked that? Check out:

• Monday Morning: Being Human
• Being Stuck
• Part 1: Doctors Say The Dumbest Things

I’m the first to admit that unexpected hotspots can be sizzly, but after last night in the ER, I’m going to be a lot more cautious in that particular creative department, though you’d think I would’ve learned that lesson by now (oops!)

Mira and I are on the verge of signing out, when Anthony and this other male nurse come out of the Treatment area, whispering about two teens who were just brought in. So I pull Mira into the back, where we see Jacob the paramedic (Mira’s crushing on), reporting to the Charge Nurse about the Guy and his Girlfriend lying there on stretchers, with tons of surface cuts and dried blood all over their sweats. They apparently crashed through a glass tabletop while they were doing it. Ouch!

Feeling the Pain In Unexpected Places

The cute Guy looks pretty bad, all stiff and still, probably because it’s too painful to move. His Girlfriend’s cuts aren’t as obvious, but by her squirming, I suspect her glass fragments are going to be tricky to get out and I feel bad for her.

The Girlfriend’s crying and begging the Charge Nurse to NOT call their parents, but they’re obviously under eighteen, so the hospital has to do it. Bummer.

Mira decides to stay and hang because she’s a good person (plus Jacob’s still there). Before I leave, I go up to the girl and tell her that usually when parents get called into the ER for their kids, the ONLY thing they care about is making sure their kids are okay, which calms her a little.

On my way out, I say (and mean it)…

“You’re gonna be okay.”

(Something embarrassing you’re dying to share ? –ahaha!– Say it in the comments.)

Liked that? Check out:

• Annoying Accidents
• Being Stuck
• Hearing Voices or Am I Just Getting a Headache?

My number's missing zeroes

My Facebook Fan Page

Makes me feel a little–

Desperate
Pathetic
Lame
Insane
Psychotic

I don’t get why it’s a good idea to have a Fan Page now at the lowest point of my career–

At least it feels lowest.

Oh no! What if it gets lower than this?

(help save me from total embarrassment and pu-leeze become a fan)

Liked that? Check out:

• Feeling Frustrated
• CASTING DIRECTORS: Connecting or Not?
• IDENTITY CRISIS: Who Am I?