A Starving Artist Meets a Lull.

So, I signed.

It felt great.  It felt really really stupid great.  And right.  And I walked out of that office, and it was ninety-seven ridiculous degrees outside and I had sweat and iced coffee seeping out of my pores and felt gross and sticky and like I was melting into a puddle of pasty white girl around my flip flops.

And clearly--clearly--I just didn't even sort of care.

I was so OFFICIAL.  Like ALL of a sudden.  The world kicked ass and I was suddenly kicking so much ass in it--kick ass!!!!!

And then, over the next seven days, I had like six auditions and a big fat meeting with a big fat agency that went so so super well--well enough that they said "Freelance with me?"  and I of course went GREAT!!!  and then there I was AGAIN!  Ninety-seven degrees outside, parading around in blissful disgustingly sweaty Anthropologie-clad post-sex-like oblivion as if I owned the freaking city.

Because I felt like it!!!!!  I felt like I did!!!!

THIS, I thought, THIS is what my life is about to become and it's AMAZING!!!  THINGS ARE SOOOOOO HAPPENINGGGGGGG!!!!!

...

In two weeks, I have had three auditions.

Three.

Two weeks.

I have only been signed for four weeks, and suddenly, I'm like No.  No.  What have I done wrong?!  (Somehow, having any number of auditions can be "wrong" all of a sudden...fine...).  This can't be right at all.  This is not what it was looking like.  Originally.

I signed.

And I cut my hair.  (Two inches...)

But...we promised.  Like, we're contracted now, and that means that we're supposed to be doing lots of stuff and lots of auditioning like all of the time!  Right?  Doesn't it?... 

...So...

And we as actors do that stupid thing.  That stupid thing that's only meant to be nice and just, like, conversation, but always turns into making someone ultimately feel...dumb:

"So, what have you been up to?  Have you been working on anything lately?"

Always.  Whenever you see someone out, at an audition, at a bar, wherever, when it's clearly been awhile:  "So, got anything cool lined up?  Staying busy?"

And you're not doing it to be a dick (...I'm not anyway...), but you're doing it just to chat.  And to give them the opportunity to say "Actually, YEAH, I have been!"  Which is great.

It is.

...

It's great when they've been staying busy--and aren't represented by the same person that you are, and aren't going on four times the auditions as you are per week, and haven't booked like five things in the past month and a half. 

When they are and have been...ok no.  No.  Still great--just, kinda, maddening.  A little.

(...A lot.)

BUT!  Different paths, different people. 

OK.  You are 5'10" and gorgeous and a buck-three.  I'm...not.  And that's fine!  Our markets are just...different.  That's all.  That's why.  ...Right?  Right.

And youuuuu arrrrrrrrre forty.  And ethnic-looking and gorgeous.  Again, I'm not.  So...there's that.

But...


But.  Goddammit please tell me that I'm still doing ok.  Please tell me that in this two weeks of quiet that there hasn't suddenly been some kind of "What the shit are we doing kidding ourselves with this girl?!" that's come over my manager.  Or this new agency.  Or this OTHER agency.  That's just impossible, right?

RIGHT?!

...

And in my brain, wayyyy in the back, I know that it's just my neuroses that's been doing all of the talking.  That stupid panic and neuroticism that comes over you when you want something so badly to just fucking work in your favor.  I know this.

I know that I had plenty of weeks of quiet before I was signed.  And it was never a problem then.  I never questioned then whether it was the breakdowns or my lack of talent that was making for a quiet week.  For real--for REAL:  WHY should it be a problem now?!

(Fact:  ...Goddamn I use a lot of caps and underlininess when I'm feeling emphatic.  Hmph...).


So, yes.  I've been feeling Yikes-like.

I finally finally finally got together with a sweet lovely dear friend today who I've been playing tag with for weeks, and immediately following a guessing game as to the name of his soon-to-be-born daughter (Cordelia?..."Awww, cute name.  Nope." ... Ivy? ..."Cute.  Two syllables, yeah. ...Nope."  ... ...Moses? ... "Ooooooh...."), we launched into this whole discussion.  And:

"No."
What?
"No.  It's fine, Angela, you're totally fine."
No!  But...no.  I don't know.
"Yessss you do."
Guhhhhhhhhhhhh.
"Angela, I've lived here for seven years and I never've gone out on like six auditions a week.  That's crazy!  If I got two, that was good."
...OK...
"Aaaaaaaand you're still a baby."
...
WHAT?!  NO!
"Girl!  Have you even been here for two years yet?"
...Next month.
"And you've done anything already?!  You're fine."  

And that is a very very very nice thing to say, and I honestly forget that I'm almost still kinda new-ish, and I do forget that Oh yeah, I totally have done stuff because I am 100% impatient with myself and an embarrassing gross kind of perfectionist where I feel like I need to be able to do absolutely everything absolutely all of the time and all at once.  And well.

...I don't cut myself any slack all that often.  I potentially should.

And I swear to you, I was so so thoroughly aware a freaking month ago of that whole concept that everything is just supposed to happen in its Time.  In due Time.  When it's ready, when it's yours, it'll happen.  In Time, I knew that.

But.  Goddammit.

You sign this piece of paper--and that's really all it is, paper--and it's all of a sudden as if Time is not the thing that matters anymore.

But Results sure do.  A lot.

...Which is just crazy, right?
 
Because Results for who?  Who exactly is it that I think that I have to prove myself to anymore, anyway?  If I've freelanced, if I've booked, if I've signed...

...

.