Inside Man was actually pretty good.

Rain makes me sleepy.

It's Youth Day in Taiwan. Young people don't need anything else dedicated to them.

I took a long walk in the Crosby Farm Nature Area this morning. My dance class was not being held, so I meandered back to the suburbs by way of the Minneapolis and St. Paul parkway road systems. I stopped at the Crosby Farm because I hadn't been there in many years. Everything is still brown, but the birds were out and singing, and I saw a loon (our state bird) for the first time in many years. I stopped and watched it for a while, but approaching dogs made it swim farther from the shore so I moved on. Everything was so peaceful and quiet, except for the planes roaring overhead and the traffic on the highways.

I'm not sure I'm supposed to live in the city. I love it, but I like the quiet of the countryside more than anything else. I feel at home there. Maybe when I retire I'll end up on an old farm outside River Falls, Wisconsin with a big farmhouse and a barn with horses in it. Or maybe I'll spend the rest of my life living hand-to-mouth in a small apartment in the city. Who knows.

I'm wearing going out clothes and a baseball cap. Definitely cleaning.

We had Sunday as our day off this week instead of Monday and I keep thinking today is Wednesday because of it. (In the standard Equity contract, Monday is the designated day off for actors and stage managers.) So it's only Tuesday, and my head says shouldn't be.

We ran through the show last night with full costumes. Some points are really, really tight for a lot of people. I only have one change that makes me sweat, so I'm better off than some folks who have about 30 seconds to completely change. I think those shirts and whatnot should be velcroed and snapped to within an inch of their lives. Velcro forever!

I was going to go to ballet this morning, but I slept and am now cleaning my room instead. It was a ridiculous mess, and still kind of is, but at least you can walk around. Half the problem is that there's nowhere to put anything. I had to squish a one-bedroom apartment-size life into, well, one bedroom. From 600 square feet to about 100. So I'm a little cramped. It's ok: it's motivation.

Celebrate American Diabetes Association Alert Day today by not eating processed sugar.

There's a first time for everything.

I suppose everyone in this biz has to experience being cut out of a film in which they thought they'd have a lot more face time. I have had that experience now, so I can check it off the list. Ok? I'm checking it off the list. Let's not have a repeat of that, ok?

LOL. Happy "Near Miss" Day. I nearly missed actually having a role of some importance in that film.

Happy Memory Day and National Dance Day!

Sunday and Monday were long days. Sunday I shot a short film from 9am to 4:30 in one of the coldest buildings in the world. It had no heat. NO HEAT. In March. In Minnesota. It was actually warmer outside, with snow on the ground, than it was inside. I was wearing my black boots, which look really great, but have no insulation whatsoever. Oh, and did I mention we were supposed to be patrons in an art gallery and thus couldn't be wearing coats? I at least was wearing a sweater. There was another woman who was wearing a sleeveless dress. I felt bad for her. Everyone's noses were red. It'll be interesting to see if you can see our breath in the final version.

After the shoot I went to rehearsal to do a run-through of the show. Our second, and while it was rough, some things were much better than others. We go into tech on Friday. That freaks me out a little.

I'm starting to get some younger folks visiting my website, I think. At two schools now kids have asked if I have a website they can visit. Oh, that reminds me: Mom, if you're reading this, remind me to ask you for those pictures you took of me in my Wilma and Harriet costumes. I want to post them.

I think that's gonna be it for tonight. I have to be all the way across town tomorrow morning. Ciao.

Oh, come on!

I'm having computer issues again. Something I thought would never happen has happened. I got the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH on my Mac. This is the second major problem I've had in less than two months. I have a lot to accomplish and this is really not the time for my computer to go out on me.

It responds when I restart it or put it to sleep, and I can see a menu and everything when I boot from the OS X disc, but as soon as I try to start it up using my regular hard drive, I can't get past the evil blue screen.

Maybe I won't wait for my sister to bring a laptop home with her. Maybe I'll just go to the Apple store, flash my student ID and buy one now, and hopefully I'd be able to pull my data off the old computer. I think if I lost everything FOR A SECOND TIME I'd break down and cry.

Hmpf.

This is a picture of the traffic cam on the highway that I would have taken to my first school this morning:



What's that? You can't see anything? Oh, that's because the air is filled with flying snowflakes and the ground is covered in them, and there are probably some stuck to the camera. Yeah, it's all one color. Yeah, big snowstorm. What's that? I said, "would have taken"? Yeah, the school is rescheduling with me, but only after a call from the company explaining that I'd never make it in time. They still decided not to delay for two hours or cancel classes altogether like the rest of the sensible metro area. In fact, the guy doing Abe Lincoln got all his shows canceled for today, but I still have to go out to another school (in the same district) in about four hours. How fair is that? Not very, friend. Not very.

What's that? I sound bitter? Not at all, not at all. I just don't think it's the smartest thing to make kids and teachers and, oh, guest artists try to get to a school out in the middle of nowhere when there are four inches of snow on the driveway after it was shoveled last night. It's not like schools up here don't have two or three snow days per year to use and most of them (95% I'd say) haven't used any because we've had a ridiculously mild winter or anything like that.

No, not bitter at all.

Guh.

Three different places to be today. Three shows, then a shoot, then rehearsal. I feel like someone's punched me in the eyes.

Time for bed.

Panic Day? What kind of a holiday is that?

A Word to the Wise or, Navel Gazing Never Hurt Anyone

Never, ever Google one's classmates unless one is having an exceptionally high self-esteem day.

It's not that I'm not proud of them, or feeling a bit of pride because I knew them at one point in time, it just makes my accomplishments seem...smaller. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, but I didn't get nominated for a British Theatregoer's Choice Award. Then again, I didn't go to RADA, either.

Well, in any case, it turns up that fire under my buns just a tad bit more. Time to get movin'.

A few minutes later...

I'm editing this because some more thoughts popped into my head as I read review after review that praised my classmate.

As an actor it can be difficult to stifle your envy. You're constantly in competition with everyone in your field who looks like you, and, on a broader scale, people who look nothing like you. Often you're in competition with your friends, and that's really hard. So it's a constant battle not to let envy consume you. It's also a constant battle to keep pushing yourself.

I ponder the formula for success all the time, and one factor that's repeated in many cases is access to monetary resources. A good number of film actors are there because they grew up in a family or with a patron who would support them monetarily while they pursued their career. Those families and patrons also knew people. They had connections who had power, and those connections gave those people a leg up. They still had to work hard to get any lasting success, though. Money isn't everything, no, but it gives you a gigantic, glittery foot in the door. My friends who are doing really well and doing what they want at a fairly young age all come from money.

I try to remember that I don't have that extra oomph, that gilded foot in the door to get me started. (In fact I have quite a few strikes against me: a gift of biology.) Everything I accomplish will have to be through my own sacrifices and sweat. That's not a bad thing, and when I have reached my goals I'll be all the more proud because I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. However I still wonder if lacking the extra resources is going to keep me from getting as high as I want to. I try to stay positive and say "when" not "if", but the doubt doesn't go away. And my nightmare is getting stuck just making ends meet, never getting ahead, that even if I do work as hard as I possibly can there's no getting over or around, and I'll have died having sacrificed all the things that make life comfortable, and all for nothing.

I know that's not going to happen. But that doesn't make the doubt go away.

It's my day: Unique Names Day.

Girl Scout cookies arrived yesterday. This can only end in tears. And stomach aches.

It's my night off. I think I dreamed last night about writing this entry. Must be the guilt of not having written anything for ages. Well, last week was my busiest week so far this year, so Thursday and Friday fell by the wayside.

I don't have much to write about, other than I have a new favorite song. Listening to it makes me happy. Check it out. (If you don't have RealPlayer, look Feist up on iTunes.)

Remember the Alamo! (Today's the anniversary of its fall.)

I didn't do anything for Mardi Gras.

It's March! I'm sure people all over the United States are breathing a sigh of relief today: "Phew! February's over. Now we can stop talking about black people for another 11 months. Thank goodness."

Anyway. On Monday I had my first four-show day in a long time. It was really, really hard. But I got through it, as I knew I would. The only mishap was that I had a hanging toenail and I tried to take it off. This was about 15 seconds before I was supposed to go out for my third show. I pulled really hard and, yep - you guessed it - ripped off way too much toenail. It started to bleed, but I didn't think it would be that bad. Well, about a minute later my left foot starts to feel slimy. I take off my shoes for the portion of the show when I'm a little girl, and realize I'm leaving bloody footprints all over the floor. When I sat on the table, my toe actually dripped blood. It was, um, horrible, and I really hoped that the kids in the front row weren't too distracted by my hideous, bloody foot.

On Tuesday I had a much better day. Making it through Monday made me realize that I can, in fact, make it, and Tuesdays shows were cake. Part of what made it great was that I was performing for about 50% black students. Anyone who's been to Minnesota knows how rare that is in most communities. When I can look out and see black children, it really comes home to me that I'm telling these kids a part of their history, and I can see that they're taking it in and absorbing it. Or at least I hope they are.

You know what I've realized also? All schools have a vibe. There are schools that have a really depressed and negative vibe, there are schools that have a positive encouraging vibe, and there are schools where something's weird, but I can't really tell what it is. I've come to realize that the way a school feels is dependent partly on its leadership. I've been places where the principal was disrespectful and overbearing, so the students and teachers behaved in a way that reflected his attitude. I've been in schools where I know the principal wants only the best for her students and isn't wishy-washy about expecting them to perform at that level, and those schools are bright, energetic, interesting places. I've been in probably 300 schools over the last few years and it's always a pleasure to be somewhere with a good leader. You can feel it when you walk in the door.

Only one more four-show day left. Ever. I have no idea why they decided to pack them all into one week, but it'll be nice to get this week over with. Woo! Time to go to Target.

Happy Beer Day from Iceland! (I keep picking Iceland for my holidays. Can you tell I want to go there?) Oh yes, it's also Lent. Are you giving anything up?