GUT CHECK TIME - 2017 Goals Progress Report

GUT CHECK TIME!

100 days left of 2017. How close am I to achieving my goals set for 2017, keeping in mind the absolute shit-show this year has been? Not an excuse, merely a bigger obstacle than I anticipated.

Physical

- Lose 30 lbs (5%) - This remains the white whale (pun intended). I've lost 5lbs. I am shooting for at least 10 more before 2018

- Do full splits on both sides (50%) - I can do full on the right. Left is taking her time. Hip trouble is not helping, but dancing every day totally is

- Full headstand w/o the wall (5%) - I can lean my body against the wall. This is still possible before the end of the year though!

- 6 halfs and 3 fulls (10%) - not nearly enough races this year. However, I have New Mexico in Oct, a 5k this weekend and at least 3 more 5ks before the end of the year. Will most likely get another half in there as well now that the weather is gorgeous

- Run/walk 2017 miles (64%) - I am on track to complete this one!

Money

- Pay down $20k (15%) - I'm chipping away at this. Still have 5 years of debt ahead of me, but at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

- Build emergency fund (6%) - I have $400 in savings. More than I've had in the past. Less than ideal.

Travel

- SDCC for full 4 days (50%) I was able to go out for 2 days and it was wonderful

- 2 new marathon states (50%) I'll get NM done but probably not a second state

- See family 4 times (50%) January show and 4th of July celebrations! Will see them in Nov and December

Career

- Book shows consistently (100%!) I have worked my butt off and have booked a show every month in 2017 so far. My career is moving forward!

- $5k in income (100%!) I thought I set a too lofty of a goal here. But I set it and I achieved it! It feels good to be validated!

- Get an agent (0%) This is still on going. I need an agent so I can make more money and quit my "day job", allowing me to be a full time entertainer. I know it's possible!

Looks like I have some work to do! #LetsDoThis

Playing Cards With The Timing Gods

A good comedienne knows the power of good timing. The perfect pause, the well placed eye roll, the deadpan comeback that throws the waiter off their daily specials monologue. There’s an art to making people laugh and a lot of it has to do with timing. In life, however, most timing is completely out of our control and even the best comic can get thrown.

When my sister was pregnant with nephew #1 I was living in NYC with the man I thought I was going to marry. He obviously didn’t understand that and left me with our studio apartment and the new cat. I was lost, heartbroken and seriously pissed at the world. Then I realized that without boyfriend baggage I was free to live wherever I wanted, including going home and taking care of my sister and the baby. Score- Amie: 1 Timing: 0

When my dad got sick I had just started working at Disney Studios. I hated the job. I loved the company, but hated the job. I wanted a way out but I knew that I had to stick it out, make money and at least enjoy the perks of the job. Timing Gods had given me a stable position to make and save money but all I saw was the opportunity to go home and take care of my father. Score- Amie: 2 Timing: 0

When I needed to quit my job because I was going to kill myself if I didn’t, I quit without anything lined up, without any savings in the bank and without a plan. I just quit. No work came for over a month. I started to panic a little and dipped into money I probably shouldn’t have touched. But I was happy. I loved not working at a desk. I loved being the person who loved all of her life, not hating any of it. The timing was horrible for me to quit, especially when you factor in an unemployment rate of 12% here in California. But it was the best decision I have made in a really long time. Amie: 3 Timing: 0

I seem to do pretty well with my timing in career and with family. I drop everything for these two things. Good jobs have come because I simply was in the right place at the right time. Good parts have been given to me because I had put my time in and the opportunity came when I was ready for them. The Timing Gods, while not always at my pace, have worked well for me when it comes to people I meet and my career.

I also applaud their often witty sense of humor, displayed perfectly the week I bought my new car and three days later got into grad school in England.

In relationships, however, I might have pissed off the Gods of Time. Bad timing is so often a reason people don’t work out, and I have been on the receiving end of a wide range of timing-blamed excuses.

“It’s just not the right time for us.”
“I see us together, in our 60’s. You don’t mind waiting, right?”
“If I had met you three months/days/weeks ago this might have worked.”
“If only I had met you before I met my wife/girlfriend.”
“It’s a really busy time in my life and I can’t date anyone right now.”
“I really like you, but my gf gets home soon and I owe it to us to try and make that work.”
“I wish I was 10 years older.”

I have had my share of relationships ending, or not even beginning, because of bad timing. And as I become more and more single every day, it causes me to think that maybe the various hourglasses in my life are actually working together.

If Chris hadn’t left me I wouldn’t have gone home and spent those first three months with my nephew, establishing a bond stronger than I could have wished for. Heartbroken Amie: 0 Timing: 1

If ________________ (insert name of various boys I tried to date and they gave me variations of “no thank you, it’s not the right time for me”) hadn’t said that and ultimately left me alone with my tears and frustration, I wouldn’t have been able to stand in front of the last man to leave and say “I understand and I’m okay with it” and move on. Heartbroken Amie: 0 Timing: 2

If I wasn’t currently (still) single I wouldn’t have the absolute freedom to head to England, fully ready and open for whatever comes. Heartbroken Amie: 0 Timing: 3

So it seems we’re at a tie, the Timing Gods and I. Maybe that’s why I feel anxious. Maybe that’s why I feel unsettled. It’s a time-out while both teams wait for the next move to see where to play their hand. I’m okay with a tie, considering the cards I’m playing next have me heading off on an adventure with no known finish line.

And since I’ll be 8 hours ahead of my life here in LA, I’ll have a head start.

Not always to build a resume

When we’re in college, actors are told to do as many shows as possible to learn from different directors and to fill our resume. We take parts as trees, maids, zoo animals, and 3rd statue from the left in an effort to get parts under our belt. We play shows in small black box theaters that seat 45 and large houses that seat 3,000. We do shows in high school auditoriums and under makeshift tents. All to make us look more marketable to casting directors because we have a diverse skill set.

I have pounded the pavement in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Las Vegas and New York. I have played, amongother things, a drunk sex-a-holic in a hole-in-the-wall theater in NYC where they passed out beer to the audience during the show. I’ve played a catholic nun on a temporary stage in the cafeteria of a Jewish Temple. I’ve done shows where I provided my own costume, shoes, make-up and sound system. I’ve worked hard to build a resume that, little by little, is something to be proud of.

I do large productions to meet the people and move my career forward. This is part of networking and marketing yourself as an actor. You have to play the big houses in order to get bigger paychecks and meet the people who will hire you, and pay you, again. I take the smaller roles in the larger production companies because they are a leg up in the industry. I work the small theaters as leads to get a leg up in the heart of theater.

Driving home from rehearsal last night, after a day that started with me willing to shave my head if it meant I didn't have to out of bed, I realized that we also do shows to heal ourselves. We work on characters and their problems as we work on ourselves. We study histories and relationships while we study our own. Taking on a character doesn’t mean just our resumes get fluffed. Our lives get a little reboot every time we step into the skin of another being.

Even when she is a show-girl bird who leaves her baby with an elephant.

A Job or A Calling

Last night I went to the Employee Recognition Awards dinner for the hospital. I worked it, actually, but I still got to see the people and watch them be recognized for their length of service. One woman has been working here for 45 years.

45 YEARS!!!

Continuously. She took her maternity leave for her five children, but always came back. She plugs along in the lab every day, comes to work religiously and makes the most of her time here. She has been working here longer than I can even wrap my head around.

It, or course, gave me pause. Next month I will celebrate my one year working at this desk. I was a temp for 10 months and now I am an actual employee. A week from today I get benefits. $50 every paycheck goes into my retirement account. I pay a lot more in taxes because I’m in a different income bracket, making me actually earn less than I did as a temp even though I make more hourly. That’s messed up! But it’s a job and I come here 40+ hours a week and I do work and I go home. I don’t take the stress home with me and I don’t worry about the hospital when I’m not here. I don’t have a blackberry to keep track of me and I don’t take projects home. I am an hourly employee who spends her time wondering what else is out there.

Watching people last night who have worked here 15, 20, 15 even 35 years started to make me think. Do I have it all wrong? Is the point of a job just to show up? I know with unemployment so I high I should be thankful I have a job. Am I am. I truly am. But there is a deep rooted need in me to do more. To make more of my life. To succeed more. Is that the wrong way to look at things? Am I supposed to just be thankful for what I have and keep chugging away? Am I not supposed to strive? Not supposed to try? Not supposed to look behind every corner for the next better thing?

I started to day dream about what my life would look like if I just did this job. I didn’t audition, I didn’t send out resumes, I didn’t go online every day and look for another job. I just did this one. What would I become? Would I still be Amie? Or is part of what makes me “amie” that struggle to be better? Would I eventually find peace? Or would I eventually eat a 9mm? I watched everyone last night look so happy with where they work and what they do. For some it is a job and for others it is their calling.

I guess the question is, when do you just sit thankfully with your job and when do you continue the search for your calling?