Cranky Actress Blog

Got a call yesterday for an audition. Yesterday was New Year’s. Have been making cookies, eating cookies and avoiding the artic vortex.

The message says: “Must do a monologue plus sides.” That seems excessive. Can’t they just choose one? My mind was like, “You want me to do what? You want me to go where?”

I’m in the final stage of holiday mode. As an introvert, I need a gradual transition from inside mode to world mode.

There are three stages of holiday head:
Anticipation of holidays. There are days before the official holidays when nothing is happening audition wise, so holiday head has expanded. Sort of extra parenthetical holiday days surrounding the actual holiday days. So the actor’s holiday is a little longer. It’s a nice break. No pressure. No making impressions. No lines to learn. No outfit to pick out.

The second stage is questioning. These are the actual days off, which in the beginning seem so quiet, you ask yourself why you looked forward to this. How many dishes can we dirty in a day? How much chocolate can we eat? Will my husband ever stop asking what are we going to eat for the next meal?
The third stage is acceptance. You settle into a routine something like this:
Wake up. Put on velour lounge outfit. Eat muesli and watch “Morning Joe”. Check email, check Facebook. Play Pathwords. Spend fifteen minutes watching a video of puppies falling asleep on Youtube. Sit on sofa with Grandma’s afghan across lap and read. Surprise! It’s lunchtime already!
The third stage:
After this has gone one for a little while, I don’t want to get out of my velour lounge outfit. I don’t want to put on makeup. I want to just sit on the couch and write. Like I’m doing right now. But if I never leave the house, I will have nothing to write ABOUT. This is a problem.

In the words of a dear friend, “Honey, let’s face it. If we could figure out a way to sit home and get food delivered and watch TV and get paid for it, we’d never leave the fucking house.”

I’m so lucky to have a friend who understands. Don’tcha think?

So I have to go back out into the world now. I have to pick a comedic monologue and an outfit. I have to change my morning routine so it won’t take me four hours to get out of the house. (No more puppies?)

Maybe I’ll start my reintroduction into the world with a trip to Trader Joes- the happy place.