I Need to Sell Specs to a Blind Man

I just had drinks with a girl I hadn't seen in maybe six years.  We graduated AMDA together and she has since moved on to bigger and better things in the financial world but has not lost her sense of comedy and confidence. She could sell spectacles to a blind man. But more importantly, she is one of the few people on this earth that I've encountered that does not apologize for who she is. She is remarkable.

We were never really friends at school but I had always found her fascinating and beautifully quirky.  However, I had missed just how powerful she is. Here is a woman who knows her strengths and weaknesses.  But then she takes it a step further and knows how to market them.

I admire her and walked away from that conversation feeling so much better than I have in ages. I've known for a long time now just what and who I am. And I have always been fine with it when I was all by me one-zies. But around others, I found myself apologizing or feeling like I imposed who I was on other people just by being me.

I don't have to do that. It slows me down.  What's more, I need to upsell me.  I need to convince blind people that they need to buy my spectacles.  ...that was a metaphor in case you missed it.

She also showed me what it is to take things WAY less seriously. As many of you know, I don't do well with embarrassment or awkwardness. Probably why I don't date much. All those questions of what I say or don't say or if I don't like him or if I do. BAHHHHHHH! Already there's too much thinking.

This friend of mine is a dating fiend. You don't go into it with all that pressure. You go into it with the knowledge that you're going to have a drink and maybe some good conversation. If it bombs, you got a great story later for your memoirs. It's definitely one of those areas that I've not said "YES" to lately.

For me, people are an investment. And it takes a lot for me to invest. But as this lovely lady has reminded me, sometimes good conversation is nice, too. Even if it doesn't go anywhere.

So it's something I'll mull over for a bit. This is the year of YES for career. I've got too much on my plate to get messy and slobbery over man-cubs. But I'm thinking soon it may be time to dust off the ol' killer heels and war paint and have some conversation.

As for said career...

Things have been promising. But still very much on a wing and a prayer. I may be signing an assistant stage management contract for a month this summer where I'll get EMC points. I'm pretty sure I'm teaching musical theatre for a week in WA in July. I'm still shooting a film for a week in June. And I just got to the third round of callbacks for a tour that would start in the fall. I was told that the producer (who's put up Broadway shows) would "probably" want to see me in person.  Now, in showbiz language, "probably" doesn't mean a whole helluva lot.  So I won't count my chickens.  But regardless, they saw 75 people and only called back three.  So I feel pretty damn good.

I also filmed my second NYU film project last week. I'm telling you, I love film. I have no idea if I'm any good.  And to be honest, I don't ever want to watch myself. It's the process that is so great.

I will end up watching myself because I'll have to compile footage for a reel. But once that's done, I doubt I'll ever watch what I'm in ever again, unless forced. Your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. You may think you are the next Meryl Streep and then watch your playbacks and see you are actually a second hand pee-wee herman. Or vice versa. But for me, the end product isn't what I'm after. It's being able to have a connection with the actor or camera, give a variety of different takes, and then letting the director and editor have their merry way with it whilst I gallavant off to the bank.

We'll see how that goes. But the very thought of watching that footage puts acid in my stomach. I want to be good. Because I realize just how much it makes me happy. It's like when you find someone who makes your hands tingle every time they look at you; because they make you so happy, you want desperately to do right by them.

In other news, I've written nearly 36 pages of faff for my novel and I'm enjoying every bit of it. It's probably a bit of rubbish but it is a fantastic release and something wholly unconnected with anything else that's going on. It makes me hope even more that I sign with that EMC ASM job that is in podunk USA so that I'll have plenty of time to write and have quiet.

It's sounding better and better.

Spring lasts about three days here.  The air is already turning and you can smell the heaviness about to descend.  The humidity is coming.  But until then I enjoy my walks to work in the early morning.  I put in my headphones and listen to a little Emeli Sande or Jason Mraz, I pick up my AMny newspaper and do the crossword, I sometimes pick up a coffee roll and coffee from the Coffee Cart guy on 6th ave and 28th st., walk through the haze of weed from the drug dealers on the corner, and then have my five minutes of lovely overcast chilly spring.  I don't know what people are complaining about.  Give me an overcast day with a slight breeze and it's heaven.  It's home.  Makes me miss the Puget Sound, driving with the windows down with the rain dampening my skin as I reach my hand out the window at a stop light.  I miss the early morning walk in London, over the Millenium bridge to the Globe as I listen to Ray Charles and Bob Dylan, the sun just rising over the Thames.  And I miss Scotland.  Music on every corner, the chill to the bones, the history and tradition.  The pride. 
Overcast days are like reminders of when I've felt the most useful, secure, challenged, and loved. 

So I make sure, as I walk up the concrete steps to work that I take a deep breath of that chill, knowing that it won't be there much longer.  The summer is coming, and that's when the real combat begins.