Yay. Sold an extra bag I bought, so I’m putting the money toward another camera. I’d been eyeing it for several months now. Looking at it in the catalog like a kid at Christmas.

I have a couple bookings. They’re not reading this, but thanks!

Got a report from my doctor up at Stanford. Surprised by the doctor’s less than hopeful summary. The trial treatment did not go well. I thought it was psychologically difficult, but hoped it helped physically since I was a “good patient” as far as compliance. Numbers skyrocketed way past “severe” and caused problems with breathing after I took off the mask. We tried different masks and different settings. The numbers were bad all around and no REM sleep at all. Some people swear by it. I know. But heavens sakes, it should go without saying that not every body is the same. Ever hear the saying, when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. Even my doctor knows that and he’s the one with the hammer. That said, they’re gonna try to thump me on the head to see if it works.

I keep saying, Why don’t you put things back the way god/evolution/or whatever had me and see if maybe I work okay. It’s like taking a spark plug outta a car and then wondering why it doesn’t work quite the same, then doing everything else except put the damn thing back in place. What do they say? “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing. . . after they’ve tried everything else.”

Had to talk to the guild about a contract issue. I see what’s looking to see a s*** storm in the making and want to prevent it from becoming a real one. And this would be a doozie. “Legal action,” “precedent,” “trades all over it.” It would be a mess for everyone involved and is honestly unnecessary. Because it doesn’t save anyone anything. Really. I’m sometimes the one who says, “If you do it right, it’ll cost you less than fighting to do it this ‘creative’ way.” For both actors and signatories. Politics. So often very unnecessary politics.

I’m having trouble with the F chord.

Looking at the strings, I can’t believe I changed them myself. Not bad for a first timer. (It’s a 3/4 classical guitar.) I just memorized taking the string off, how it was looped, then put the new one on to match the others. I have video of me doing it somewhere. Have to look for it.

You know, I think the action is just too high. I should take it into the shop. Except I’m afraid they’re gonna laugh at how crappy a guitar it is.

No, it really is. It’s meant to be a cheap kid’s guitar.

Someone once told me, they like seeing images with text instead of just a block of words. Hang on.

*

So, here’s a screencap from a video of me trying to play “I’ll Follow the Sun.”

So, there’s the crappy guitar. Which I do like. It’s just for fun after all. And mostly because I don’t have the dough for a piano. Which I would be very picky about.

Huh. I find this photo oddly at home since I’ve already washed my face and brushed my teeth and am ready for bed. But I’m also too lazy to set up for a proper shoot. Lazy trumps awkward. I couldn’t even black&white it since the photo quality is for crap from the laptop. I’ve obviously started being slightly less. . . caring about what goes up. And you can see old sides (audition scripts) in the background. I. . . uh. . . I color on the back of old sides. My way of recycling. For writers/producers, I wonder if that’s slightly disheartening. That’d be like hearing someone colors on the back of my headshots.

Glendale. Summer afternoon. Hole in the wall taco joint.

“There a cute baby staring at me.”

“Do you want more salsa?”

“That baby’s staring at me like I’m a Martian.”

“I don’t think that’s why the baby’s staring at you—”

He’s convinced that babies and animals are attracted to me because my face is empirically attractive because of symmetry and contrast. I’m not sure where he picked up this “scientific” factoid.

Anyway, she was looking at me from my uglier side. More likely fascinated by how deformed I am.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” I whispered. I turned my head slowly.

She looked to be about 9 or 10 months old. Sitting in her stroller while her mom waited for the family’s order of tacos. She had her face turned to the side, fixed straight on me. Her father on the other side of the table and her older brother, about 2 years old, fussed around her, trying to tease her, which seemed an older brother thing to do.

“Angelina!” he said, dangling keys in front of her. “Angelina!”

Her eyes followed him for an annoyed moment, then she returned to a contented stare, at me, with her huge brown eyes.

I pulled out my iPhone and pretended not to notice. This went on for almost ten minutes.

“Hey, is there something funny about how I look today?” I asked. I’d been feeling ugly this past year, so I just assume everyone sees it.

“No. I don’t think that’s why she’s staring at you, maybe it’s a good thing, did you consider that—”

“She’s still staring,” I whispered in my fake terror voice. I was reading for a Disney casting associate a few hours ago. I was in slightly melodramatic frame of mind.

Her mom came back with food. The brother kept teasing her, and succeeded in getting her to cry. Her mother then pulled her out and placed her on the table next to her. All this time, between interruptions, the little girl still stole glances at me.

Well, she started crying again at some point, refusing to eat. I looked over and frowned. She looked back. If a gasp could be a look. She hiccuped out a bit of a cry and I waved at her. Her face puckered with delighted. I laughed and she squirmed around. It was funny seeing her cute chubby face, with tears still in her eyes, just absolutely thrilled that I was paying attention to her. Ha, I don’t think any guy has been that happy to see me.

I was this close to playing peek-a-boo, but the person sitting across from me was already feeling this was unusual behavior interacting with strange babies and her mom looked slightly irritated. I mean, I’d probably be if I were her, too.

Ah, but I couldn’t help it. I kind of leaned my head to the side, as if I were hiding “behind” her mom, and she copied me, nearly falling off the table, before throwing her head back giggling. Her mom tried to stuff some food inbetween her smiles when she could. And the baby at least kind of chewed, but seeing her grin with bits of onion and cilantro all over her chin just made me laugh more, which made her laugh more. All the while, her family and my date are eating their food and minding their own business like normal people.

I guess troublemakers can spot each other early in life :-)

I was told that there’s a cat in this area that likes snuggling up to my car. Weird! I still miss my Long Beach light grey cheshire cat. Funny one, that one. And funny that I miss it, when it wasn’t really mine. Just a stray.

What’s with the stray cats liking being around me and my cars?

My friend has a cat that doesn’t care one way or another when I visit, so it seems a stray cat thing.

Maybe I smell delicious to them! (Again, very much about the food, so I imagine everything else is, too.)

Woke up feeling tired. After my ballet warmup, I noticed a quarter sized bruise on my knee, out of nowhere. I looked at it, then poked it. Huh. It hurt. But it didn’t hurt on its own, you know, as it would if I had hit it on something.

Thinking about going to a casting director workshop tomorrow. She works on Sonny with a Chance, a Disney show. An actor at the agency was saying I really should try to give it another go if I can afford it. Said I should aim for the teen market. Hadn’t he heard? If you’re not twelve, it’s over! :-)

Was looking for something different to try tonight. Went to a place in Silverlake, Gingergrass. Saw it in a copy of Angeleno while waiting to audition.

Took half an hour to get our food. Wasn’t terrible. But I wouldn’t go again. Waiter was nice enough, but overextended. Too expensive, $8.50 for a small bowl of pho, and the spring rolls were maybe the size of overgrown tater tots. The shrimp chips were stale, which would be no big deal, except everything was slightly off in its taste, quality.

Looked it up and found it had pretty bad reviews overall.

Have a headache. Since I got my retainer off, don’t usually get headaches anymore. Hit me right after I got in the shower. Funny to lather the shampoo with that kind of headache. Felt like I was touching my brain. Ew.

Oh, back to where I found the restaurant. I don’t mind eating at home, but when I go out, I hate the “Where do you want to eat?” question argument. Because it almost always escalates into a non-sexy argument. So, I was leafing through this magazine and thought, huh, where are the cheaper places here I can try.

I was eating oatmeal in a white paper non-WMA cup (they took away the logo-ed ones) and another girl asked, “What are you reading?”

“About food.”

“You’re eating and you’re reading about food?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re my kinda girl.”

I was going to say, My boyfriend calls me fatty! with the sort of glee that one usually reserves for My boyfriend calls me pretty! but I think they would have been appalled and not appreciated the inherent affection of our complicated relationship.

Anyway, it’s true. I can start planning my next meal while I’m eating, which if not a real fatty, probably makes me a fatty brain in a skinny body. I met some casting assistant at Disney and after the normal questions about getting in the door, immediately asked for food recommendations in the Bay area. Priorities.

Sunset and Vine. There was a crowd of news vans and people gathered on each side of Vine. A helicopter hovered above.

One group was literally where I stood trying to get that car accident sorted out, just to the side of the Chase bank. What was there?

It was one of Mr. Jackson’s stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I remember looking down at those stars while I rushed to copy that insurance information, dealing with that skeevy guy.

It really is a strange town in some ways. Very ordinary in others.

I guess it’s good there’s a physical place for those fans to gather. The Walk can be a little rundown or, to my mind, sad. But it’s fitting that the stars are not commemorative of something as ephemeral as a body. Nor as finite as birth and death.

Listening to Dr. Strangelove, on the TV, and coloring. Which is funny considering the subject matter I’m working on is on the other spectrum. “Cute” or quaint. Putting it together as. . . um. . . animation, but along the lines of the Velveteen Rabbit thing I did.

Talked to another divison of Stanford’s hospital system. I can’t believe this is such a hassle. My mom asked what the next step was. I said, by the time the medical field gets it’s act together on this, I’ll have been long gone. I’m not being acutely morbid. I mean, we all will.

The title was meant to be literal and ironic.

I test my clothes.

I ended up buying the shirt and jeans on the list. Those above. The jeans were less than $30.