Finally, a week off!

I'll be taking a week off from work the week after Easter, and I really cannot wait. I'm very, very excited. I plan on getting a lot of work done, shooting things if I can get the resources, sleeping in, hanging out late, spending a lot of time with people without worrying about waking up at 6:00 the next day.

I'm also going to be getting new headshots done since I was lucky enough to find someone who can do a full 2-hour package for just $200. (They usually go for at the very least $300-$600, and while it might be wise to spend the money and invest, it's a freaking recession. This is what I can do. The portfolio looks good to me and I can definitely swing $200 for this much of a package. Here's to hoping my skin stays clear. But once I get these done, provided they don't suck like my last headshots did (word of advice: don't get headshots done the day before a presidential election if Bush is running for re-election), I can finally start going on auditions. That scares me, but in a good way.

My acting class ends next week, so this means I can finally get back to the gym and get back to writing! (Until I start the SNL writing class for which I am on the waiting list. Holy crap, am I looking forward to that!)

Good things are happening!

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I am going to have to be a basketball fan now.

At no time in my entire life have I ever been good at sports. Only this year did I finally grasp and become excited about football. (Don't even start me on the Giants winning the Super Bowl...I almost tattooed XLII on my person in celebration.) But even for years, I will almost always sit down and watch a basketball game. The stats make me a little dizzy and I'm in it mostly for the lean arms, but after watching Kobe Bryant and Team USA beat down everyone in its path at the Olympics, I may seriously have to pick a team and follow them.

Like football, watching basketball is as entertaining as watching an amazing ensemble of actors play off each other to tell a story. Something I'm picking up in acting class is "playing a scene to win." Currently, I'm in a scene in which I think I win, but I ultimately am quite a huge loser. But when my scene partner and I are up there watching, listening and waiting for the other, it feels exhilarating and crazy. I have to think that players on basketball and football teams have to do the same exact thing - watch, listen and wait. Then react. There's an awareness of the outside without connecting to things external to you and your team. While my scene partner and I are both playing to win and one of us loses, we are both competing for the same goal - telling the damn story the way it bloody well should be. The same way a sports team is competing to top their opponent. It's awesome. I don't get it from baseball as much, but I do get it from hockey. I definitely don't get it from golf. I really can't take golf.

Sounds like I just discovered the freaking thing, doesn't it? Welcome to Earth, Jamie. By the way - it's a sphere.

But it's official: I love basketball. I may never, ever, ever be able to play it and I may never learn the stats, but in the meantime, I'm going to sit back and watch some amazing teamwork. And sets of arms. (I'm talking to you, Dwight Howard.)

He's 23. It's wrong...

Also, I have the same birthday as this awesome fellow, Dwyane Wade:



Go USA!

But I really hope this means I don't have to be a Knicks fan. I'm a New Yorker all the way, everyday, but the Knicks just suck. Maybe I'll just be a Knicks fan because Madison Square Garden is so convenient, and after all these years as a non-jock nerd/dumpee, maybe I should just be used to rejection and defeat. What do you think? Help! I can't make a decision!

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I have changed quite a bit since high school.

So, my acting class is getting interesting. Moving beyond just repeating each other, now we're adding activities, or rather very difficult tasks, that may direct our focus from our scene partners elsewhere. Last night, I was not the one performing the task; it was up to me to observe her behavior and respond. Except after doing it the typical way (with me coming into the scene with the intent to borrow an item), I was told (without my partner's knowledge) that not only did I loan her $100 (which she knew about), but she also boinked my (imaginary) boyfriend.

A digression: Having a boyfriend is so low on my priority list right now that I couldn't even come up with a guy's name, any guy's name, when asked "What's his name?" I honestly came up completely blank. So they decided on Jack for me. I'd like to think that in this little parallel, imaginary universe, my boyfriend was Jack Hodgins from "Bones." Years ago, I used to name imaginary boyfriends (in writing, lies, etc.) TJ after my first real, serious crush. Ironically, Josck Hodgins is played by TJ Thyne. And yet in my imaginary world, which I created myself, he still fucked me over.

Anyway, the scene got really heated. I've acted before, even though it was just a matter of knowing my lines and saying them with some semblance of feeling. But I know what it's like to get in a zone while performing. I've also been in one-acts that feature a lot of escalating tension which result in a bit of an outburst. But this was way beyond that. Five more minutes and I would have been crying, for real. My blood was boiling. Why? Because I got fucked over last summer. I wasn't cheated on as much as I was expediently replaced. By a skank. And I never got to yell at her. This scene was my chance to ring her figurative neck. It was awesome.

So thanks, asshole, for treating me like shit and seeing the skank. It will make for some really emotional acting for me.

ETA: Due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e., life), I wrote this one over the course of a couple of days, so my title doesn't make sense. I had meant to go into how shy I was in school, how much of a passive nerd I was then, and how I'm not one now. Point being, you grow up and learn to stop caring what other people think, and some of us grow up and want to provoke other people to feel certain things. That's why I'm a writer and why I'm trying to be an actress. I hope I'll get to do both, but right now, I'm glad I'm the person I'd wanted to be ten years ago. (For the most part.) Peace.

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Sound advice: Don't use your teeth as a vice.

For my acting class, a Meisner class, we were asked to complete a task to be completed while doing the "repetition exercise." In that exercise, you're repeating whatever your scene partner says until something happens. And if that sounds vague, it should. To those of us Type A personalities who analyze, adhere to logic and yearn to go back and edit ourselves, the repetition exercise is designed to break us of our somewhat compulsive habits and teach us to live moment to moment and put 100% of our focus on everything besides us, mostly our scene partner. For example, if my scene partner says my flip flops look sloppy, I would say "Fuck you," and then he or she would say, "Someone is testy today." The point is, each line makes progress; we don't stay focused on my sloppy-ass flip flops. You know, like a real live conversation - it moves.

This week, we added a task. I decided to bring in an Erector Set. I have little patience for tiny, tiny pieces and hate doing things that need to be precise because I rarely get it right on the first try. I was told there was nothing at stake in building a thingie from an Erector set, but I honestly think I learned that it's very hard to focus on something intricate while trying to acknowledge someone else in the scene. And I also am insistent when it comes to finishing a task with a clear result. I was seriously considering leaving the room once I was done to finish what I started, but alas, my incompleted project still sits in the box at home.

Anyway, one of the more frustrating things was using what I had in front of me and nothing else. So I used my front teeth as a vice. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I'm not as damaged as Jim Carrey's famous chip above, but it's sharp and annoying, and I will have to get my big English teeth fixed. It's subtle, I don't think I'll need a cap, but still. Stupid.

Other than that, acting is fun. And I'm more resourceful than I thought.

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