RARRRGH! Whew. I'm okay.

Since this is a research quest (and because I've been spending too much time lollygagging beside the pool/Pacific) summer reading is requisite. And besides the guilty pleasure (I Was Told There'd Be Cake, by Sloane Crosley, about- what else?-New York) it's all been about the business.

1. How to Sell Yourself as an Actor by K Callan: This is the actress who played superman's mom on "Lois & Clark," wouldn't you listen to the woman who sewed clark kent his zesty man o' steel outfit? No, seriously, I love her books. She says things like, "Don't panic. Plan!" I love alliteration.

2. An Actor's Guide: Your First Year in Hollywood by Michael Nicholas: My sister bought me this book when we were at that giant bookstore in Portland last August. It has a big star on the front. I bend the cover back when I'm reading it. (I hate that I do that. I think it's part of this ashamed thing we all do, like when people ask your profession of choice, and you apologetically say in a little voice, "I'm...an actor?" I pride myself on being a Gryffindor, but I act like a real squib sometimes. Goal #1: Stop apologizing.)

And the one that pulled me out of my two-day freakout funk:
3. How to Act & Eat at the Same Time by Tom Logan: I saw it at Samuel French the other day, and then I saw it again at B & N, and felt like...I need more books. I'm going to drive across country in October with an entire Toyota Matrix full of self-help literature.

He says stuff like, "Don't apologize" and "Don't beg" and "There's no logic to the casting process." He also says stuff like, "Just realize that an audition is a special time you've set aside to humiliate yourself," as well as "It's your attitude that could be the most important factor in your success." Huh. Novel idea. (Goal #2: Confidence! ) No, but really, what I liked about the book is that it reminded me this business is difficult for everyone, actors, directors, writers, producers. We all just want to work. Unfortunately, sometimes the desire to search out why the hell that other girl who looks exactly like me except with an overbite got cast in that crappy webisode when they LOVED me and told me they'd definitely be calling me and I saw her last spring in a festival of one-acts written by convicts and she sucked!!?@! makes you go a little crazy and you end up eating a bag of Whole Foods yogurt raisins in bed while reading that scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (you know which one, it involved a muggle-utilization of a shovel) for the twelfth time and crying a little.

Hrm.

I just had a whole long discussion with the tech guy today about computers and web design and actors and musicians and Los Angeles and marketing, and he came up with this brilliant assessment of the success of any business:

1. Acquisition (Of clients, a roster of casting directors who know your work, directors who love you, regional theaters that love hiring you every spring season, etc.)
2. Maintenance (Keeping them. Continuing the circle of love. Making them happy.)

Easy enough, right? The freakout is over. It's like candy binges. In the moment, it's like you're never going to stop eating candy, you are a sugar monster raaawwr moooreeee sugaaaar! And then it's over. And you feel like crap. And then you eat a carrot, and life goes on.

In other news, I now have an audition on Tuesday for something which I swore never to involve myself in: a zombie play. I've even previously scuttled past zombie movies, but you know...a girl's gotta start somewhere.

Crazy? Yes, possibly. A Moron? Let's hope not!

Today marks the second day of Teresa's Freakout during Operation Los Angeles Go-See. Why the 48-hour meltdown, tdawg? Because I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. I'll be blogging in list form today, because my brain is like a puddle of ooze in a parking spot outside the Kardashian's store.

WHY I WANT TO MOVE TO LA:
1. I'm burnt-out, lazy, and unmotivated in New York.
2. I hate being next door to NYU. It makes me feel like I'm still 18, naive, and stupid.
3. I want to work in film & television. Apparently, that stuff grows like cactus out here.
4. My bff's live out here and say everything's better.
5. My man is out here. Most of the time. While he's not in law school in Northern California.
6. My career needs a boost.

WHY I HATE LA:
1. Constant sunshine is making me feel nauseous.
2. Smog.
3. Traffic.
4. Driving everywhere.
5. My man's 1981 white volvo has no air conditioning. This brings me to:
6. Heat. It's a DESERT.

WHY I LOVE LA:
1. The mountains.
2. The Pacific.
3. The fact that it's different than any other place I've ever lived before and it makes me feel invigorated and excited about acting again.
4. There's more work for my type.
5. I haven't been getting hired for theater work. I look like I'm 12, and in the past year I've accomplished most of my goals commercially, and none of my theatrical ones.

WHY I MISS NYC:
What do I miss? I've been out of there for 2 weeks, and what do I miss? My east midtown comfy cozy apartment. Riding on buses. Crossing Avenues. Ess-a bagel. Getting drunk and getting a cab home at 3 am for $9. Seeing the whole city on one subway map, and knowing I could get from Hoboken to Astoria in less than 45 minutes. Walking down 2nd avenue as the sun sets and ending up in the east village. Feeling like I know what I'm doing.

Ah. The crux of it! Ah HA! What I really miss is feeling like I'm at home. Sure, I start to daydream about McDougal and getting cupcakes at Magnolia, because I've done that before. I know exactly what the street looks like and how the overly-sugared cupcakes taste because it's all been done. I'm freaking out because I have...7 friends in LA. I have no agent. I am having a difficult time equating the neighborhoods in LA to their dopplegangers in New York ("Okay, so if Los Feliz is Brooklyn, is Inglewood like SoHo?").

Two mornings in a row now, I have woken up, looked out the window at the hugest blue sky I could ever imagine, and said, "This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever done."

But then...I can't go back. I can't go back to New York, because I daydreamed for 10 months (or more) about leaving it. I was miserable pretending to be a faux-musical-theater actress. I was bored going to my crappy rent-job, getting sucked in, and not being able to just quit. I was burning bridges because I was scared. This is a move not only to find more work, but to find out who I am and what I can do with my life as an actor.

Also, there's an inherent problem with Operation Los Angeles Go-See. While I am conducting some interviews of some working professionals here (ie a playwright, a theater director, an actual working actor friend-of-a-friend, a producer I met at a Tisch Alumni networking event ooh, a friend who just directed a movie, a friend who just directed a music video blablablaaaa) I am not A) auditioning for anything or B) finding an apartment. I'm on a weird research/quasi-vacation. There's nothing worse than being artistically constipated, and I feel like while I'm challenging myself to get a feel for this strange western world, I'm not acting. Actors act. Right? I'm just...researching. I don't want to waste anyone's time by auditioning and then being like "Oh yeah, well, don't take me too seriously, because I'm kind of wasting your time because I don't live here, and I'll be leaving in 5 days and I've signed a contract to shoot this other movie next week so I definitely can't commit to anything sooooo....peace out, boy scout!!!" and then running off to Zuma Beach. Same with the apartment-searching. I don't want to waste anyone's time.

So. The goal for the rest of the week is to continue with the research. Continue with the delving into maps and goal-planning, push on in the reading those actor books and subscribing to the trades and budgeting and working on my plan of attack.

Oh pish. This is maybe the dumbest thing I've ever done.

Pilgrims, Partners and Poo

It seems I’ve somehow orchestrated two weeks in LA as far from reality as possible. After a week of house-sitting in swanky Calabasas (Spanish for “Rich People Live Here.”) (No, just kidding. Spanish for “Pumpkins,” say my sources.) my law-intern boyfriend Josh and I continued on down Route 5 for a weekend retreat with his swanky downtown law firm at the swanky resort, the St. Regis.

Now let me just say, this is the girl that spent her formative years picking sand out of her bathing suit at the Jersey Shore. The coast that defined public beach. Actual excrement has as much chance of washing up beside your sandcastle as the average amount of dead jellyfish. If you’re lucky, they’ll be a hypodermic needle stuck in it. The St. Regis scoffs at the public. They drive their tram car all over it, douse it in noontime mai tai’s, and drop on top a bedtime chocolate wrapped up to look like a butterfly.

Anyway. What matters here is that our heroine, the smell of Jersey and showtunes lingering on her, spent three days with very, very, very, very wealthy people. Most of whom were lawyers. It was like that one black olive that somehow makes it’s unfortunate way to the ranch dressing bin at a salad bar, leaving an inky marinated trail behind it. Fortunately, everyone was warm and welcoming, generous and, on the whole, at least pretended to be interested in an actress amongst their midst.

But then: The Observation. At the culminating sit-down dinner event, when talk stuttered after chatter about equestrian clubs and golf and daughters in law/medical/estrogen-intense private schools, the attention was turned…to me. The black olive. When it was revealed I was the lone actor, The Observation was made by one of the partner’s wives:

“That is a really, really difficult profession. I mean. Really difficult. Good luck with that.”

Aiiiieee! This is about the most obvious thing you could possibly say to me. Even starlets discovered in outlet malls, one hand in the discount panty bin, figure this out. Even Paris Hilton knows this. I KNOW THIS.

While hungover the next day from way too much open bar vodka-love, I lay on our king-size bed and obsessed over The Observation. Why do people feel the need to underline the challenge of my particular profession? They did this in New York too, they probably do it everywhere, but maybe the high concentration of aspiring stars in LA makes People Not in the Business feel they are warranted warning others from joining the fray. But, I mean, I don’t go up to partners in law firms, or neurosurgeons, or janitors or that poor woman who makes ALL the lattes at my Starbucks and offer a sympathetic caution, “You’re doing something really hard. Really. Hard.” Well, YEAH.

Is that a reason to stop doing it? Isn’t that what boy scouts and marching band and contact sports teaches us as children? If we aspire to something challenging, we should go after it. Get better at it, get great. Isn’t that the whole Puritan spirit? Did the pilgrims at Plymouth land on Massachusetts, look around at all those freaking rocks they’d have to plow out of their fields, realize they’d have to make maize into, like, 400 different kinds of oatmeal for the rest of their lives, and probably watch some of their offspring get cholera and die, and then go, “Eh, you know what? Let’s just go back to religious persecution. It looks like living here is gonna be ye olde difficult.”

Well, here I am on the West Coast, a pilgrim from a strange urban land, and I realize I’m committing myself to a difficult profession. Just like I did when I graduated NYU two years ago and found a rent job to support my Reproductions habit, just like I did when I went to NYU in the first place. I have never not known this was a difficult profession, in all ways, but I liken myself to those transplanted Pilgrims, because, like Nathaniel Hawthorne and his kin, I have no choice. I can’t turn around. This is what I am good at, what I can be better at. This is what I choose to do, even though I know it will A) potentially never give me total financial satisfaction or B) ever stop being hard. I know that.

So, I answered the partner’s wife, before taking a big sip of my company-paid Chardonnay, “I’d rather take a challenge than be bored. I’d rather it be hard.”

My career is like the Jersey Shore, if you will. You might have to dodge some needles and poop, but once you swim out far enough, the water feels so good. As good as the water on a private beach on the Pacific.