Tag Archives: Women in Film

Finally Back To Brunch (or The First Mentoring Group Meeting In Over A Year)

Posted on June 29, 2021 | Comments Off

For the past few years, having meetings with my WIF mentoring group has been a regular part of my life. We have changed the frequency of the meetings over the years, but we have been meeting up regularly since 2015. I’m always so proud of our group for being able to maintain our meetings even after the official mentoring circle time ended. And while there are a few members of our group who aren’t a part of it anymore, a majority of us have stayed connected and we have 6 of us who have been regularly there since the beginning.

In 2020, we had one of our brunches. It was right before everything shut down. I don’t think any of us could have imagined what was going to happen in a few weeks. I know we were all aware of what was happening, but it felt like it was on the other side of the world and wouldn’t come here. But of course, we know now that it did come here and we’ve been dealing with this for over a year now.

We talked about having a meeting over Zoom, but we never ended up making that happen. I think all of us were feeling a bit burned out on Zoom, so we didn’t want to do it. As much as we wanted to connect, we didn’t make it happen. Also, I know for myself, I had nothing to really update the group about.

But earlier this year, we agreed we wanted to see each other again and start our brunches. We wanted to wait until we were all vaccinated, just to keep things as safe as possible. And finally, 16 months after our last brunch, we got together this past weekend.

Almost everyone could make it, so that was nice. We used to do our brunches at a restaurant, but we wanted to wait until restaurants were a bit safer. So one member of the group offered to host. That’s how the group started, so it seemed fitting that the restart of the group would be the same way.

It was a really hot morning, but we were able to be in the shade so it wasn’t too bad. And I was just so happy to get to see everyone again! I just wanted to catch up with everyone, even if it was more of a social catch-up than a career one.

But we still went around the group to discuss what we’ve been able to accomplish in the past year. Some people had more than others, but that’s ok. Honestly, I’m just glad we are all ok. One member of the group had gotten COVID, but she didn’t have too severe of a case and she is fine now. But I know how lucky we are that everyone is safe and healthy.

And I did share the few career-related things I had to update everyone on. I have had auditions during the shutdown and I have gotten better at self-taping. I also have a way to do voiceover auditions now, and I didn’t do those before. And I shared some of the struggles I had while isolated and not being able to be around others. It was nice to share those things with a group that understood how I felt and was completely supportive of me.

We had a longer brunch than normal. Partially because we hadn’t seen each other in a while and partially because we weren’t at a restaurant and felt like we needed to leave. I’m so happy we did this. I missed all of these women so much and I missed the support of the group and the special bond we have with each other. And I needed time around friends, and this was the biggest group of friends I’ve been around in a long time.

We are hopefully now back on track with our regular meetings. We might not be back at a restaurant for a bit longer, but we will find ways to meet regularly. Maybe we will just rotate from one house to another. Maybe we will find a park or other public space. We don’t know how we will meet up just yet, but we know we will meet.

I’ve said so many times how special this group is. And showing how we didn’t let a pandemic stop us just proves it even more.

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Tagged acting, brunch, friends, mentoring, Women in Film

Finally Seeing My Mentoring Group Again (or Our First Brunch Of 2020)

Posted on February 25, 2020 | Comments Off

The last brunch meeting I had with my mentoring group was quite a while ago. I know that we decided to not meet as often because it was getting tough for the group to plan, but I don’t think we ever thought we would have 5 months between brunches. Part of this was due to the holidays and we knew that it would be very difficult to meet when so many of us were out of town or celebrating certain holidays.

Even though I am the organizer of our brunches, nobody blamed me for taking so long to schedule the one we had this past weekend. Everything understood that we were really busy and that we would see each other eventually. And we did consider trying to meet in January, but when we all shared our availability it was best to meet this last Sunday.

And I’m glad that we waited because we did get all 6 of us together for brunch! It’s not easy to mind a day and time that all 6 of us are free, but somehow we did it! I don’t remember the last time we were all there, and I think we all forgot about how crowded our brunch table could be with 6 people instead of 4 or 5. We sat in one of our usual booths, but we did have to squish together a bit to make it work. But that was fine because we did want to be able to hear what each other was sharing and saying.

I don’t think any of us believed that it had been 5 months since we had been together because it didn’t really seem that long ago. But we did all have lots of things to share and I loved hearing all of the updates everyone had.

And this time, I finally had quite a few things to share with the group. The last brunch we had was before the union convention, so I shared about that and how I have been going as an observer to the local board meetings. Even though I had shared things about past conventions, being an observer at the board meetings is something new and it was fun getting to share what I could about those.

And the last brunch we had was also before I finished writing the first draft of my book! They all knew I was trying to write a book about online dating, but I don’t think I had shared with them how I changed the concept of the book and I know they didn’t know that I had finished writing my first draft. I think they all loved the new idea of how I organized my stories and they all thought the book would be something that should be published and could sell quite a bit. I’m glad they all felt that way because I’m feeling that way about the book too. None of them have published a book so they didn’t have referrals to literary agents or had specific advice for the next steps, but they were really encouraging with what I need to do next and I know that if they think of someone who could help me that they will connect me to them.

Everyone else had lots of news to share. Some things were good and some weren’t as good. But everyone had progress that they had made in their lives and careers since the last time we were together. And making progress and not getting stuck is the key to this industry because it’s so easy to get frustrated and not keep pushing ahead. If you get a rejection, that’s not a dead end. You have to find another way to make it happen. That’s what all of us reminded each other because there are so many things that we could believe was the end of the road when it’s just a detour we need to get around.

As always, hearing everyone being so encouraging to others is such a huge benefit I get out of this group. It’s not easy to find people who not only understand the process you are going through but help you stay positive and working toward your goals. I always say how incredibly lucky I am to have this mentoring group, and I really can’t express how grateful I am for these women. We’ve been supporting each other for so long and it has benefitted my life so much. And I know that I will continue to get so many good things out of this group because I don’t see an end to our support. This has become such an important part of my life and I really look forward to seeing the successes we each have in our futures. I know it will happen, it’s just a matter of time.

We are still trying to meet 3-4 times a year so we have somewhat regular meetings. I feel pretty certain that we will find a way to meet up at least 2 more times this year. But hopefully, we can get in that last meeting so we are able to meet up once a quarter. But no matter how long it takes before we all can be together again, I know it will be amazing when we see each other and that I will leave our brunch feeling inspired and ready to get to work!

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Tagged acting, brunch, friends, mentoring, Women in Film

Finally Having Our Brunch (or Almost All The Mentees Together Again)

Posted on September 19, 2019 | Comments Off

I am the one who organizes the meetings/brunches for my mentoring group. I used to be very on top of organizing them, but as the years have gone on I have gotten a bit worse at coordinating. Fortunately, the group understands that things come up and that’s why we have stopped doing our brunches every other month and now try to do them 3 or 4 times a year. But I still feel a bit guilty when our brunches are overdue and I haven’t been able to coordinate it.

This time, the brunch would have happened right in the middle of the election, so I knew it was going to have to be pushed back. Everyone else had conflicts in August, so that delay was for the best. When we were trying to figure out what dates would work in September, there was one date that seemed to work for almost all of us. So it was easy to pick which date we would end up meeting. We ended up having 5 out of the 6 people in our group there that day.

We went to our usual brunch place, Rush St., which has been a good place for us to meet over the years. But it is a sports bar/restaurant, and since it is football season there were a lot of people inside watching the game. We had a reservation for the group and they were able to seat us on the patio, so it was much quieter for us. We usually sit outside, so it was also a nice change from our routine and we got to enjoy the nice day we were having.

As our meetings usually go, we all went around and took turns sharing what we had been up to since our last meeting. Since it had been a while, we all had a lot to share. We don’t always share work-related things as the group has become close friends. But a lot of things we shared were about our careers. And as always, I was so inspired hearing what everyone else had been up to. It’s so interesting to be able to watch someone’s career grow over the years and see what is behind the idea of an overnight success story.

When it was my turn, I mainly shared things about the election. Since most of the group are not actors, they weren’t seeing the stories that I had been seeing every day. So I also filled them in on some of the crazy things that happened as well. I think they were all pretty shocked about how things went and the stories that came out. But at least now being past the election things are a bit funnier and not as stressful for me. I also shared about the little things I had been doing for my career, but they all understood that the election dominated my time and I hadn’t had time to do much else.

Even with all the things we had to share among the group, we still had plenty of time to be silly and socialize. And I think we have found a great way to balance out the point of these meetings and making them more of a hangout. Once we finished going over our individual updates, it just naturally turns into a hangout and it’s so nice that we can do that. And sometimes someone will add a career update or ask for advice while we are doing more socializing, but that’s fine. We have reached a comfort level with each other that we don’t have to feel as strict with how our meetings go. When we started out, we also have more people and we had to make sure that the meetings didn’t last for hours. Now with only 6 of us in the group, it’s easier.

We ended up being at brunch for longer than expected, but I think we all missed each other and we wanted to take advantage of being together. And to have 5 of us at the meeting is hard to coordinate so we wanted to make sure we spent time together. Maybe one day we will be able to figure out a day and time that works out for all of us, but with everyone having such busy lives it’s not easy. But we try our best to make it and it makes me so happy to see everyone else being as committed to maintaining these meetings as I am.

At the rate we’ve been going, I don’t know if we’ll have another brunch before the end of the year. Maybe we could figure something out in December, but it’s so hard with the holidays. So if this is the last mentee meeting of the year, we ended on a high note. And if we have one more, I know it will be just as great as this meeting was.

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Tagged acting, brunch, friends, meeting, mentoring, Women in Film

4 Years Of My Mentoring Circle (or Celebrating With Brunch)

Posted on February 12, 2019 | Comments Off

It’s so crazy to believe, but my current mentoring circle from Women In Film has been meeting for 4 years now! I knew that this group of women was special when we were actually able to meet between our meetings with our mentors, but I had no clue that we’d be able to continue the group after that first year ended. But it turned out that we bonded together as a group a bit more than we bonded with our mentors so it makes sense that we have kept things up.

While we have been meeting for 4 years, things have changed a few times. When we started, we technically met every month since we met with our mentors every other month and then on our own for the alternate months. And when we started meeting on our own after that first year, we continued to meet every other month since that was the routine that we got used to. But as time has gone one, most of us have gotten busier (which is a good thing) and it’s been harder to meet up. So at the end of last year, we decided to change things up so that we now meet every 3 months so we see each other 4 times a year.

Our first meeting of 2019 was this past weekend and we had our traditional brunch at Rush St. which has been our brunch place for a while now. We almost always get one of the booths, and that works perfectly for our group to feel like we have our own little meeting space and not in the middle of a busy restaurant.

When our mentoring group started, we had a few more members than we currently have. But I understand that continuing with the group wasn’t for everyone and that’s pretty much what happened with my first group that never met outside of our few meetings with our mentors. But we still have almost everyone in the group and we work hard to try to make the meetings we have. This time, we were missing 2 people, but I know they tried hard to make it and there were just circumstances that prevented them from being able to be there.

I’ve said in the past few recaps of my brunches with my group that I haven’t had a ton of news to share but I loved hearing what everyone else has been up to. This brunch was the same. My biggest news was about how it is going to be election season soon for SAG-AFTRA and that I’m more involved in my slate than I have in the past. Nothing about that is too exciting, but I know they are important things and something that not everyone is doing. I wish I could tell them amazing news about booking jobs or amazing auditions, but those just aren’t happening for me right now. I’ve had auditions, but they are nothing spectacular or unusual so I don’t really feel like sharing about those.

But as always, everyone else had amazing updates and hearing about them was the highlight of brunch for me. I’ve never really been the type of person to compare my journey to someone else’s, so I can just get joy out of seeing the steps that everyone else has been taking. And they have been doing some really amazing things that have been getting closer to reality. And one of the benefits of being a part of this group for so long is that I have been able to see the long game with everyone’s journey. One member of our group is getting close to the play she has written being on Broadway. And when we started as a group she had just produced a reading in LA and we have been getting updates about readings in NY, finding a producer and director, and now finding investors. It’s so amazing and I couldn’t be happier for her.

Because this play has been in the works for so long and the finish line seems so close, I think everyone in the group can’t wait to find out that it will be premiering on Broadway. We’ve been joking that we will all have to have a meeting in NY when that happens because of course we all want to be there. And maybe if it happens in a year we can celebrate the start of our 5th year together as a group by seeing the show premiere. But even if that doesn’t happen, it’s so fun to dream about doing that together.

While I would love to have more and better updates when the group meets again in May, I’m not going to worry about it too much. I just have to keep working hard and I know the results will happen eventually. And when they do happen, I don’t doubt that the group will be just as happy for me as I have always been for them with their amazing news!

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, brunch, friends, mentoring, support, Women in Film

Last Mentoring Group Brunch For The Year (or Switching Things Up For Next Year)

Posted on October 31, 2018 | Comments Off

It’s been over 3 years since I started meeting with my current mentoring group. Next year will be 4 years since the first meeting and I love that this group is still going strong! Even though not everyone can go to every meeting we have as a group, we all still support each other whenever we can. We email the group from time to time and know that we can turn to each other if we need advice or help. I’ve said this over and over again, but I am so lucky to have this group of women in my life!

This past weekend we had one of our catchup brunches. It ended up being a smaller group with just 3 of us being able to make it, but with everyone’s crazy schedule we knew that it was going to be tough to get a big group there. We try our best, but we also know that for everyone to be able to attend it would take a miracle. So we try to pick the date that works for the most of us and we do our brunch then. And usually someone can make it to the next brunch so we just get to double up on the update from them the next time.

With it just being 3 of us, we had a quick update time. I had a few things to share this time which was a nice change compared to feeling like I have nothing to share. There’s nothing major happening, but I did have a recent change in my representation. I still have the same agents that I had before, but instead of them being at the same agency they are now split at 2 agencies. This isn’t a huge thing, but it will be the first time I don’t have my agents working at the same agency so there are a few changes I need to be aware of. It’s mainly things like notifying each of them separately when I book out when I’m out of town or making sure the other knows when one gets me an audition. I really don’t think anything else will change, but I guess I’ll find out as time goes on.

The other 2 people at brunch had some fun updates including a new show that one has written and is working on presenting to different networks. She was telling us all about the show and it does sound amazing! I have a feeling other people will be interested in the idea and it has a good chance of being worked on as a pilot. We all know there are so many variables with what happens for a show to get on the air, but just getting it in the works is a huge deal and I really hope that it happens!

While we were at brunch, we were talking about how tough it has been lately for us to find dates that work for a bunch of us. And if we were trying to do every other month like we have been for the past few years, that would make our next brunch in December. I know that it will be impossible to find a date to meet in December because of the holidays and everyone having travel plans. So we knew that the brunch was going to be in January.

But one of the women at the brunch mentioned that since we’ve been struggling to find the time to meet up, maybe it was time to make a change in the attempted frequency of our meetings. Things naturally have just worked out this year to pretty much be a meeting once a quarter. We try for every other month and then it gets pushed back a month. So to do a meeting every 3 months isn’t going to be much of a change. We brought it up to the rest of the group who wasn’t at the meeting and it seems like everyone thinks this is a good idea.

I think it will be nice to have some of the pressure off to try to plan these every other month. Also it will give me more time to have more of an update each time we meet up. I know I don’t have to have a big update every time, but I do like to have something to contribute to the conversation. And it’s a great opportunity to get advice but I can’t get that advice unless I ask for it or have a specific question. So having a bit more time to have things happen in my life will be a good thing for me.

It’s crazy to think that by the time we have our next brunch we will have been meeting for 4 years! That’s such a long time to keep this going but we are all so lucky that we’ve been able to keep it up. I know it’s only possible because everyone else is as motivated as I am about continuing these meetings. And I’m glad that we are just as motivated as we were before as well as being flexible to change things up as we see need to be adjusted.

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Tagged acting, brunch, friends, mentoring, Women in Film

A Belated Brunch (or Just Enjoying Supporting Each Other)

Posted on August 22, 2018 | Comments Off

It has been a while since my last brunch with my mentoring group. This is pretty much my fault since I am the one who organizes these for our group. But I’ve had a lot of things happening in life that have distracted me or just put scheduling this in the back of my mind and not having me take action on it. Fortunately my group understands and everyone is just appreciative that we do these meetings when we can even if they aren’t every other month.

Half of our group was able to meet for brunch this past weekend and I was so glad to get to see everyone. As it has been for a lot of our meetings lately, I knew I wouldn’t have a ton of updates to share with the group. But for me I get just as much from hearing everyone else’s journeys and the advice that they get from everyone else. And sometimes I am able to give advice to someone else that really works as advice for myself as well. Sometimes you don’t know what you need to hear until you hear you say it to a different person.

We had our brunch at Rush St. which really is now our go-to brunch place. We have tried meeting at other places, but they just haven’t worked out for one reason or another. We all love the food and the service is quick and efficient there. Plus, they have booths that can fit the entire group if we are all there and it makes it easy for us to hear each other. It can be noisy, but being in our booth makes the other noise a bit muffled so we can focus on the conversation within the booth.

Since that is our usual brunch location (and I’m there so many other times as well), we all were able to order quickly. I usually get either an omelet or the 2 eggs any way for brunch and I got my 2 poached eggs which were perfect.

When our group started meeting several years ago, we were a bit more organized and worked on giving everyone equal time to talk and get advice. But since we’ve been doing this for so long, things are much more casual. We had been talking about random things before we ordered our food and once we ordered we naturally went into hearing what one person in the group has been up to since our last meeting. And things naturally and easily went from one person to the next.

My update was very limited. I haven’t done much as far as acting work goes in the past few months. I have still been involved in the union and learning as much as I can, but that’s not really an update to my career. I did talk a bit about my book about online dating (more on that another time) and some other things I have been doing that are beyond my day jobs. I know I need to take more control over things and seeing what else I can do, but I know I was in a bit of a slump lately. Between being sick and just feeling off, I haven’t been as motivated as I have been in the past. But I know I need to take some time to myself to see where I can be more proactive with things since I don’t want to just sit and wait for others to have projects for me.

But everyone else had fun things to share. One person has been busy directing lots of projects including a short film for HBO. Another person has been working on a one-woman play she wrote and now it looks like it might end up on Broadway. And another writer in the group has finished a script and has been submitting it to people she knows to get feedback before working on the next draft. And we heard little updates from other members of our group via email that couldn’t make the meeting and everyone seems to be doing so well.

I know that I could be feeling down on myself and feeling like everyone else is making huge strides in their careers and I’m not. But I also know that everyone else has the same struggles that I do and I don’t necessarily know about them. Even I really only share the positive things happening in my life when we are at the meetings. I did share that I had been sick and some health updates, but besides those everything was a positive update. So I can’t compare knowing everything happening in my life with the little bits I know about everyone else’s. And I think our group shares that we all struggle so nobody has to feel like they aren’t doing as much or accomplishing as much as everyone else.

As with all of these brunch meetings, I felt so great while I was there and after leaving. I love having these check-ins and supporting my friends and having them support me. It makes me feel so amazing having such incredible people in my life and I am always so grateful for their advice for me or hearing their advice for someone else.

I’m hoping the next brunch we do won’t be as delayed and I’ve been making efforts to make sure that doesn’t happen. Our next brunch is supposed to be in 2 months and I’ve already sent and email out to the group to see what dates work for everyone. Hopefully we can find a date that works out for all of us and we can all be together in 2 months. But if that doesn’t happen (and there’s a good chance it won’t since we all have crazy lives and schedules), I know that whenever we are able to meet up again it will be just awesome as it always is.

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Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, brunch, friends, mentoring, Women in Film

Another Delayed Brunch (or I Wish I Had More Accomplishments)

Posted on April 24, 2018 | 1 comment

I’ve been doing my meeting with my WIF mentoring group for a few years now. At the beginning we were really good about meeting every other month as a group (when we started, the alternate months were meetings with our mentors). When we were on our own, we still were pretty good about maintaining our every other month meetings and they seemed to be much easier to schedule. But lately, we’ve been having some issues with scheduling which is fine. The reasons have been because everyone is getting very busy with some awesome career stuff, but we are still trying to make an effort. So after a few reschedules recently, we finally had our 2nd brunch of the year this past weekend.

I’ve struggled a bit lately in our brunch meetings with what I have to share with the group. I always feel like I’ve had a lack of progress compared to everyone else, but I also know that it’s not good for me to compare myself to the others. We all are on our own paths and are at different stages in our careers. So there’s really no way I can look at what someone else is doing and compare my accomplishments to theirs. Even so, it was a bit frustrating that I didn’t have really anything related to acting to share with the group this time. I know that the point of our meetings isn’t just for me to share what’s happening in my life but for me to support the others in the group, but there is almost a sense of feeling left out when I don’t have good things to share.

I did share about some craziness that’s been happening with my day jobs and how I’m doing social media management as a side job right now. I know that sometimes I think that there isn’t much happening in my life until I look back at various blog posts, but I think this time there really wasn’t much related to my acting career since the group met back in January. I’ve started to wonder if I haven’t been focusing on it enough, but I know that I’m staying involved in the union and other actor related things with various groups and meetings I’m attending. That counts for something even if I’m not auditioning a lot. I would like to get back into class eventually, but until I’m in a better place financially I can’t afford to do that. But maybe this feeling of left out will help kick my butt into gear into figuring out what else I can do that is not dependent on me having auditions.

Even with my negative feelings about my personal accomplishments, I was so happy to be at our brunch so I could hear about the accomplishments that everyone else had! Because we’ve been meeting for so long, when someone has a big breakthrough it sometimes feels like I’ve had the breakthrough too because we’ve been going on the journey with them. I love getting to hear that someone had an amazing meeting with a producer, is getting financial backing for their project, or that they just had fun on set. I’m not feeling jealous of any of them at all. My feelings of being left out are more to do with my lack of accomplishments and not at all about their successes. I guess if I must have any negative thoughts, I’m glad that they are just a me issue and it’s not about anyone in the group.

The other thing that made me so happy with this past brunch was that we had almost everyone in the group there. We were only missing one person and it felt amazing to have all of us who could make it at brunch. Of course, we all would love it if we all could make it but we know how tough that is with our schedules. But getting to see everyone I did see and seeing how excited they all were to see each other really made me so happy and grateful for the group that we have.

We really are striving to have another meeting in 2 months, but we are also aware that we may need an extra month or two to get everything scheduled. At least we all understand the situation and nobody was upset that we missed having our brunch last month (they are all just grateful that I am willing to schedule and organize our brunches so they continue). And while I can’t control if I have any auditions or bookings before our next meeting, hopefully I can figure out something else to move my career forward that I can share next time.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, brunch, friends, meeting, mentoring, Women in Film

New Year More Brunches (or Awesome Company, Not So Awesome Restaurant Service)

Posted on January 10, 2018 | 1 comment

It’s been a while since I’ve had a brunch hangout with my WIF mentoring group. We’ve been meaning to do one, but with our schedules and the holidays it seemed like we couldn’t find a time that most of us could go. We had to keep putting it off, but we finally found time in January to schedule a brunch so we could have our overdue hangout.

So many of our brunches have been at the same place, but we have been wanting to try a new place. I’m not going to name the place we went to (because I’m not trying to publicly shame them), but we went somewhere new for us that was still pretty close to my house so I was happy about that.

Even though our last brunch was a few months ago, I was pretty limited in what my updates were about. I shared about the SAG-AFTRA convention and how I was getting ready for the upcoming pilot season. And since most of the women in the group are friends with me on Facebook, they have seen some of my random posts about online dating and were asking me about what was happening with that. I used to feel pretty bad about my lack of updates, but I’m more comfortable about it now. I know that I am not in total control of when I will have fun and exciting updates but that when I do everyone in the group will be so excited for me!

But for me, the highlight of our meetings is getting to hear what everyone else has been up to. I think that we all had a bit of a slow time because of the holidays so there weren’t as many updates as normal. But we were all understanding with each other and ended up chatting about more social things than business things.

While our hangout was fun, the brunch part wasn’t as good. We ended up having some pretty bad service. When we arrived, it took a while before we got water (the restaurant maybe had 3 other tables with customers) and then another 30 minutes before we could order. When they brought out the food, they brought everyone’s food but mine at first. I assumed that my food would be coming soon, but after 10 minutes I was still waiting. I told everyone else to start eating, but one of the women in the group got mad and tried to figure out where my food was. Finally they brought it out so we could all eat.

I got the pork belly hash and it was pretty delicious. While we were annoyed by the service, the food was at least pretty good. But the service kept being weird. It took about another 30 minutes from the time they took our empty plates to the time we got our checks. And then I experienced something that was the weirdest service thing.

My bill was about $14 and I put a $20 bill in and expected to get change. I was going to leave some of the change as the tip and when I got my change I took out some money to leave. But then I counted what I had left and it didn’t add up. It took me a minute to realize that the server didn’t take money for the bill. All she did was break my $20 into smaller bills and give it back to me. If I hadn’t noticed that, I would have left only paying a fraction of my bill and not leaving a tip at all. Even with not-so-great service, I still wanted to leave a tip. And if I had underpaid, I would have felt horrible. I’m glad I noticed it before I walked out, but I thought it was so strange.

But even with the odd service issues, the brunch was still a great one. I love getting together with the group and having some time to reflect back on what I’ve done and celebrate everyone else’s victories. I know that the rest of the group feels the same way and it was actually something we talked about at our brunch. We know that most of the mentoring groups don’t meet after their mentoring circle is done or on their own during the year of the mentoring circle. I had that experience in my first group. But with this group, we lucked out because we just clicked. There are 2 members of the original group that don’t participate anymore but a majority of us really do our best to make these brunches.

Even though we missed the last few months of last year, I think we are back on schedule for doing these every other month. We might run into the same problem again at the end of the year with the holidays again, but even if we only meet 4 or 5 times over the year instead of the 6 that we try to that is a lot. And I get so much out of each of these meetings so I will take whatever I can get in a year!

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Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, brunch, friends, mentoring, Women in Film

Another Business Brunch (or A Delayed Mentoring Circle Meeting)

Posted on September 28, 2017 | 1 comment

It’s been a little while since the last brunch for my Women In Film mentoring group. We were supposed to meet in August and had a date set for it, but all of us ended up being busy. Then we scheduled for September and again at the last minute we had to reschedule. But we were finally able to find a date that about half of us could meet this past weekend so we finally had our brunch meeting.

I actually parked right next to one of the other women from the group, so we walked over to the restaurant together. And while we were walking, we were both saying how happy we were that we were finally having this meeting. I think everyone in the group feels the same way I do with that these meetings are awesome. And we have all become friends so while it is a business thing, it’s still a social thing too.

There were 4 of us at the brunch this time and again I felt like I had nothing to tell everyone. Of course, I did have the union election to update everyone on and I was happy to share that I won my delegate seat. And since I had friends who ran and didn’t win a seat, I’m aware more this year than I was before about how lucky I am to be elected. It’s not a guarantee and I do appreciate my fellow union members voting me in. But I think I am extra appreciative this time when I know how much other people wanted to be elected who didn’t get it.

I also had a bit of a health update for everyone with having my next MRI scheduled. It’s coming up next month and then after that I’ll have the meeting with my surgeon. Everyone in my group wants to know what’s happening with me and I promised to tell them all as soon as I knew anything. I know they are all concerned about me and they are all hopeful that I will have news that the tumors shrank and not that I will need surgery.

It’s tough to be ok with such a limited update, but I know why things are this way. I still had to work to get back into things after thinking I was going to need surgery. I spent a lot of the summer working on my personal life and not my professional life. And the election took up a lot of my time as well. But I think that things are getting closer to normal now so I’m hoping that when we meet again that I will have a more substantial update.

But for me, I get so much more out of hearing what everyone else has to say. I love to hear how everyone else is succeeding in their career and it always inspires me. Even though we are all at different levels of our careers, seeing how people have progressed over the few years we have been meeting. One member of our group has been talking about a play that she wanted to try to get produced in New York since pretty much we started meeting. We’ve been loving her updates over the years and this time she announced that she has producers interested in helping her put the show on either on Broadway or in an off-Broadway theater! That’s amazing!

Hearing the other journeys gives me hope that being persistent and always working will pay off for me eventually. I know that an overnight success story isn’t reality (they say overnight success takes 10 years), but it can be tough trying to be patient. But knowing how others have made huge leaps over time keeps me motivated and makes me feel like I am doing the right thing. Even if my updates for the group are minor, there is always forward progress in my life and I do need to focus on that.

But besides the inspiration that I get from everyone else, I’m always just incredibly grateful for these brunches because of the friendships that I’ve formed out of this group. I know I say this almost every time I write about our meetings, but every time I meet with the group I feel even more grateful. It’s not easy to make new friends as an adult and even harder to make friends in the entertainment industry without one person worried that the other is trying to be friends for some other motive. But with this group, we are all in it to support each other and to get support when needed. Having such a pure and honest friendship is rare and special. And I’m always reminded how lucky I am each brunch we have.

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Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, brunch, friends, meeting, mentoring, Women in Film

Brunch Celebration (or Everyone Has Awesome News)

Posted on June 21, 2017 | 1 comment

I had my WIF mentee brunch this past weekend and it was awesome. I always look forward to our brunch meetings and I know that I’m so lucky that my group has been able to maintain these hangouts as long as we have. So many of my other friends have not continued meeting with their groups after the official year ended (just like my first group), so I know we have a special group when almost all of us are continuing to be dedicated to the group.

As usual, we met at Rush St. for brunch. Almost all of us live so close to Culver City, so it’s pretty convenient. I was originally planning on walking over, but we have a heat wave right now and I didn’t want to be super sweaty so I drove. It does make me feel a bit silly driving when it’s so close, but I also knew that walking in that heat wouldn’t be good for me. But it is nice that it was only like 5 minutes in my car to get there so I didn’t have to hurry over.

It’s been tough for us to find a time that all of us can meet, so we go with when the most of us can make it. This time, 4 of us could be there (we were missing 3). We got one of the booths we normally get and we tried to figure out our food quickly so we could order. I got an omelet, which is what I usually have. They are really good omelets and I love the tater tots that come with it!

And for this meeting, everyone seemed to have some pretty amazing news! My news is all stuff that I’ve talked about on here. Mainly that I didn’t need to have surgery (our last brunch was before I would have had surgery) and how I’ve been really busy trying to get back to normal life. Everyone totally understood how it might take some time for me to get back to usual and that right now is a bit of a slow time for auditions. It’s nice that they get it so that I don’t have to explain my lack of news to them. But obviously not needing surgery was huge news to share!

Another member of the group is working on getting investors for a play she wrote. It’s got a really great chance to be on Broadway and we are all so happy for her. She had meetings in New York since our last meeting and she was sharing all the amazing feedback that she got. I really hope that her show gets the investors she needs because she has been working so hard on this script for so long!

But what I think was the most excited news at our brunch was one of the women in the group announcing her engagement! I’ve met her fiancée before and I’m so happy for her! Of course, we all wanted to know all the details of the proposal and what she’s started to plan for the wedding. And I told her I wanted to go wedding dress shopping with her (I have so much fun helping friends find their wedding dress). I think that she and I are going to go shopping soon so that will be really fun!

So much of our brunch was social talk and not about our careers. But that’s how it almost always is now and that’s one of the things I love so much about our brunch meetings. When we started our meetings, it felt so much more official and I was nervous I wouldn’t have enough to share with everyone. I would feel pressure to figure out what I could say and I didn’t want to bring too much of my personal life in since nobody else was doing that. But now, our meetings are more about just supporting each other in any part of our lives that we want. We support each other through crazy stuff and fun stuff and it’s all equally important to everyone.

I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to do more stuff so I can share it with the group, but I’m glad that nobody seemed to mind that my update wasn’t that much acting related stuff. And hopefully when we have our next meeting in August I’ll have way more fun stuff to share and everyone else will just keep on having amazing news in their lives too!

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Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, brunch, friends, mentoring, Women in Film

Tag Archives: Women in Film

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