Must Not Be Idle

I have been trying to get myself to update this for weeks. I was a PA and day player on a vertical film project. It was low budget, but I am told that I will be paid. For that time, I was living out of the Prius I borrowed from my mom. It was nice, especially when we worked long hours, because I could drive to the Planet Fitness closest to the next day's shoot location, then shower and whatever else to get ready for the next day. This helped me to be among the first on set, and also among the last to leave, and I therefore made a great impression with everyone involved.

Then one of the friends I had made through my podcast, in her worry over my safety with car camping, found some friends who had a guest room for me. They have been very kind and accommodating, and I have made sure to be quiet and try to help when I can with their pets (four rabbits and three cats). They are also major cinephiles, so I will sometimes watch things with them that I normally would not on my own. Their birthdays are both at the start of April, so from talking with them, it sounds as though watching their pets while they go to celebrate will be a way to repay them, as I already did the other day for their anniversary.

The same friend who got me that PA gig invited me to the premiere of a film that he had executive produced. So I helped usher people along for the red carpet aspect and made friends with a couple of the people interviewing the actors. One was a nursing student, so now she is listening to my podcast. I was so busy with making sure that the photos and interviews went smoothly that I missed the film itself, so I hung out in the lobby and met some folks who seemed kinda connected? One said that he was grabbing martinis with the head of MGM, another ran the social media for that night's film, and the other kept talking about auditions in the morning, so I assumed she was an actor. Eventually, they found out that I am a contortionist/medical doctor/actor, and the supposed actor turned out to be a casting associate for Rob Lowe's 911 spinoff show who now wanted to connect. It is nice when your social lifelines turn out to work in casting.

My favorite director to work with will be in town this weekend with his family. He is based in Houston now, but had previously been in LA, and will be here while his wife promotes her novel at a few events. So I told him that I would be free to help him as needed.

The day before that premiere, this past Tuesday, I got my first refill of antidepressants in the mail. The fluoxetine at the starting dose of 20 mg per day got my energy levels back to the baseline of the past few years, but then I doubled my dosage with the refill, and I think the difference is notable. I feel a little wired, kind of like how I am on caffeine except without the extra anxiety. I say that knowing that I had gotten coffee in recent past and was frustrated that it did not seem to be hitting. But now I feel that the meds and the caffeine are hitting in such a way that makes me feel like I'm in my early- to mid-twenties with regard to mood. You know, a time before the existential depression that comes with the burden of a doctorate level of medical knowledge could rest upon my cheery head.

I have a few directors to meet with, but I am about to have less going on, and if that trend continues, I need to start going to the open mic that my friend recommended I try. I do not want to be idle. And although I am wary of how my successful comedy friends are not getting acting roles due in part to their busyness, I also need to hone every skill in my toolbelt. Acting? Of course. Standup? Yes. Improv? Every week. Contortionist? Always. Medical doctor? Oh right, that too. And I have done enough stunts that I would really like to have proper stunt training, but I have not had that yet.

Just texted with a director buddy about a short comedy sketch idea, and she sounds game. This is the bright side to everyone being out of work!

Staying in LA

Aaaaand I am in LA. Been here for eight days. I got to meet some friends in real life and got paid to be an extra on set with some funny people. And I got to see friends perform sketch, standup, and improv. Then I attended a soiree mixer thing, and the host of that event asked me if I want to assist him in a film production. So now I am doing that, presumably working as a PA along with a small speaking role.

My original plan had been to alternate between staying in hostels and sleeping in my mom's car ((which I borrowed for the trip), but the car has been so pleasant that apart from the first night, I have continued staying there. I clean up and work out at a gym, then go on my way.

When I walked up to my old manager's office, which is also where we had taken acting classes, it was unfortunately closed. But I emailed him and received a call from him the same day, and I got to pitch myself. He was very friendly and, when he learned that I do comedy, he gave me a pilot to give notes on. As for potential work, he said that the work is "sh*t" and the pay is "sh*t", but we can keep in contact and see what it looks like in a month. So just like what I was told at 12 years old when asking God to speak to me, my manager said, "just wait, be patient."

Another comfort was that a member of my friend's sketch group works in sales for my favorite education resource in med school. What are the odds? When I told my slightly famous standup friend, she responded, "You were meant to be here!"

I adore it here. It is the ultimate vacation. Last night, it rained and I fell asleep to the sound of it pattering on the windows of the car. It was glorious. There is supposed to be a flash flood risk this weekend, so I need to park on hills. Fortunately, this city has a great many of those, along with mountains. I casually drove up one the other day to get my cardio in. Speaking of which, I am not doing enough cardio because wow, the incline kills me so fast. That and it is distanced from the gym, whereas I normally try to hit up both in a row.

Despondent

I used to write these reflections at the end of a given year. This year... I was in a somewhat viral heavy metal music video, two television pilots, and a short film. I also wrote a pilot (which was not good) and a few other scripts (which seem better so far). I have dubbed over a great many foreign films, often playing multiple characters. I also performed one open mic, did my first paid standup show, and another small one. My podcast also got a sponsor, though I just got an email about switching to commission-based work from now on, which I do not love.

Altogether, these are a not insignificant. But they are also not paying bills. But what can I do? I apply for jobs here and there, but do not hear back except for occasional rejections. I started taking antidepressants the day after Christmas, and started feeling increased energy a few days ago, but have yet to feel much of a change in mood or anxiety.

You know what has me feeling this writer's block? Rewrites. I hate rewrites and revisiting work. In the past, I tended to write good first drafts, so I never needed to rewrite very much. But a good screenplay takes like a hundred rewrites, and standup comedy is performing the same stuf over and over with minor tweaks.

Maybe hopping over to LA will provide me with opportunities. 

I stayed in bed for the past few days. I have energy enough now that going to the gym was not so bad, but the motivation to get up and do things has been gone. It is like I have a cold, but without the respiratory aspect. I spend all day scrolling twitter. Even this blog has taken me over a week to write.

Maybe a Drop of Hope

I need to be out of town next Christmas.

Meds are scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

Foreign film dubs today.

Have not been drinking alone. Want escape.

Making myself listen to upbeat music just so I do not immediately drop dead.

Brother is joining us in Costa Rica in February. I think I must cancel my ticket, lest it be a horribly stressful two weeks. Plus, that is historically some of the busiest time in the acting business.

That has me brainstorming more realistically the possibility of a trip to LA for pilot season. And guess what? Now I am not so despondent. I texted my mom about it, and she reminded me that her car can fit a mattress in the back.

Ordered Medication

Well, after I had those depression symptoms for a couple weeks, I asked a friend to prescribe me antidepressants. And I gotta say, just knowing that those are about to ship has been enough to improve my mood. I have been wanting to be on antidepressants for years, not just for the occasional depressive episodes, but for the anxiety. The constant ever-present anxiety. It used to help with performances, still does, but over time, it has had more negative effects than positive.

One of the few things that I have been good about the past couple weeks is practicing guitar. Just as with learning foreign languages or anything else outside my usual wheelhouse, I find that I maintain motivation if I can use it to deliver jokes. In French class, I learned much more slowly because I wanted to write jokes in French. So I would learn just enough vocabulatory and conjugation to say silly things, and this of course did not lead to a broad level of comprehension. For the guitar, I have some jokes that I am writing specifically with the instrument in mind, not just for musical accompaniment, but to use the guitar itself as a prop. All the parts of the buffalo come into play.

Just after I started feeling the depression symptoms, my brother yelled at me. Why? Because I asked him to fix the internet. But now he is scared of wifi waves, so he does not want a strong signal. So he yelled at me about the part of a room that has been used for storage (so it is not clean and tidy), saying that I refuse to clean. I reiterated that I need internet access and that cleaning that up is not an urgent need. He kept yelling and throwing things and was in tears, and I told him I would not talk to him about it when he was acting like this. After that round of verbal abuse, he left, then came back a minute later and apologized, proposing a realistic solution. Then a week later, my other brother blew up the group chat by telling me off for not showing up to family holiday events, and shared that he had been telling people bewildering tales about why I was avoiding them. My narcissister responded with what she knew, about the deeply hurtful superiority and condescension my dad had shown to me when I was fresh with my doctorate. Brother responded with something like, "feelings blah blah blah" and I decided that yeah, I will skip every holiday event I can this season. Narcissister and I then talked about it and meds last night, which was nice!

Not Doing Great

I feel awful.

I need a social life, right? Work?

Every job with decent pay requires years of having already had the job. Entry level jobs pay remarkably little.

Internet at home gets "upgraded" and the signal does not reach upstairs where I work. Brother suddenly decides that he does not want wifi signals physically near him, also upstairs, so he has to throw a tantrum (which involves literally throwing things and yelling), then when I refuse to converse with him in this fashion, he storms out, then later apologizes and offers an actual solution, to which I can agree.

I am already miserable. I cannot find work. Months after I played the role, I finally got the paycheck for my hourly work on the set off this indie show. Will anything come of it? Will anything come of anything?

I want to fly out to LA just for the sake of opportunity, but what will I do there? Sit in a library or coffee shop like I am doing now? Sure I would likely perform a few live comedy shows, but that is it.

I keep trying to pivot. I am bad at screenwriting. Okay, I will work on standup with guitar. I am bad at guitar. Okay, maybe if we dumb down our goals for that. Still frustrated overall.

A cute girl is sitting at the next table over at the library. I used to conjure up a pretend one-sided fake romance with tiny stolen glances, but now? What is the point? My brain cannot handle dating even if I did have a job.

I watch this theologian on TikTok sometimes. Hell as a concept is barely even in the Bible, and largely undefined. Even when Jesus talked about sheol, it was an understanding of the place where everyone goes when they die. Genesis 2-3 is a specific account of creation that was later most likely corrected with Genesis 1. What frustrates me about these things is not the inconsistency. I knew early on that there were inconsistencies. What throws me is that we were taught as if there are basic firm aspects of the Christian faith based in scripture, but on the contrary, they are often based in culture and discussion from centuries after Jesus walked this planet. Give us full context! It is tough to be a Christian when basic aspects of what you were taught were based in nothing but Dante's Inferno. I read that book. As I recall, it is fictional poetry. Also, no such thing as the devil, lucifer, or satan, not as an individual evil entity.

What do I even want anymore? I crave the time between action and cut. So really, what I want is to skip the holidays and go straight to when we shoot this short film next month. And lots of reddit posts said that they got their SXSW rejections last month, so I assume that the indie show I am in did not get its episodic premiere there. I would like a writing partner, to find "my people", but my little community remains quite little, and most within it are not wanting to collaborate more than we currently are.

Is this seasonal depression? Or just a long time between jobs? 

That street interview gig I did? I do not think that they will be using the footage. At least I now know that I can write funny questions.

Also, there is genocide actively happening.

I am so tired and trying to stop drinking (so much). There are people in far worse situations, so complaining feels stupid. But at the same time, someone else's situation being worse does not make mine any better.

I hate this.

A baby was crying at the library. A guy yelled at her to take the baby downstairs. That could have been handled better. There was also a book club that spent a good ten minutes talking loudly after they adjourned. One mentioned how they had hardly talked about the book. I was annoyed, but also jealous.

I am in better physical shape now than I have been for a couple months, but a big part of me wants to skip the gym today and flee somewhere where I can have a social life. My local friends do not invite me over anymore, in large part because I always declined when the pandemic was raging. But I also hesitate because most of them want to talk about normal boring things. Like life. I ALREADY HAVE TO LIVE MINE AND YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT?

Long-term isolation is bad for me. Yet interrupting that isolation costs money. What do I do? What do I do? What is there to do? Keep writing. Keep slowly draining my remaining funds. Keep missing opportunities because I lack representation and do not live in LA or NYC? Oh how I wish I could move to where my people are.

Angry

I was angry yesterday. And today.

Maybe it was that tiktok I saw the other day. Or the new year that threatens to rear its ugly head. But I was reminded of how, for years of hiding away during the height of the pandemic, I would wake up feeling absolutely miserable. And I would look in the mirror, only to be greeted by a bright, shining, youthful face. And I began to despise it. But over that year or two, I think I managed to age myself significantly through my drinking, because eventually, I looked in the mirror and felt like it matched better with how I felt. I no longer resented it.

How stupid and self-destructive. Now I resent the loss of my youth. There is no winning with this brain of mine.

Anger. Anger is what I continue to feel. I used to go out and yell at God when I felt this way. I guess I still can, but it feels kind of rude since I speak to Him so infrequently these days, years.

Years of working hard, investing in the ability to help the less fortunate in the future, tearful nights recognizing how my energy and talents could be so much better used in another context. And now what. Everything costs money. I have not found work, not beyond occasional small gigs.

After writing that, my mood is still sour, but buoyed by watching David Cross's new podcast (with guest Bob Odenkirk).

For the moment, I am able to make myself practice guitar regularly because I am still writing jokes that specifically incorporate the guitar.