Monthly Archives: February 2013

No Guarantees (or A Lesson From “2 Broke Girls”)

Posted on February 28, 2013 | 1 comment

The episode of “2 Broke Girls” that aired this Monday was the episode that my mom, my aunt, and I saw being filmed at the taping we went to. And it reminded me of a truth in the entertainment industry: even if you book the job, you never know if your work will ever be seen.

There are always little cuts made to a TV show after they are done taping. Some things need to be cut for time, some things need to be cut due to Standards and Practices, and some things are cut out because they just don’t work in the storyline any more. I’ve always known this reality. TV shows don’t try to hide it. In fact, you can normally see deleted scenes on the DVD extras of a TV show or movie.

But for this particular episode of “2 Broke Girls”, 2 guest star actors had their parts completely cut out. They were both extremely funny, and one of them had an eating gag, which I can related to due to my experience with pizza on the set of this show (yup, that’s me at the end).

But there must have been some reason that that scene had to be cut out of the final product. After watching the episode, I’m not sure what they could have cut in other scenes to include it.

But I can only imagine how sad it was for those actors to see the episode and find out that they were not in it. I’m sure they told their friends and family to watch it. And I know that if it was me, my friends and family would all be watching to see me (they’ve done that sometimes when I’ve done background).

But this is the way that things are in this industry. There are no certainties for anything. You are never guaranteed the audition, the callback, the job, making the cut. I’m still nervous that I might get cut out of the music video that I shot recently. Until that video is released, I’m going to be worried about it.

But those actors who were cut out of the episode were still able to spend a week doing what they loved (and they still got paid in case you were worried about that). And I’m sure after the initial disappointment they were still happy that they got to be chosen to be a part of the show and work a dream job for that week.

I guess part of having no guarantees on anything is making sure that you are grateful for every step that you are given. Be grateful for all the auditions and callbacks even if you didn’t get the job. There are a ton of people who would love to have been given “just” an audition.

I know that I still need to work on being grateful for all the steps that I get to take,  and this was a good reminder for me to stay in a gracious mindset.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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The Fear of Missing Out (or The Power of No)

Posted on February 27, 2013 | Comments Off on The Fear of Missing Out (or The Power of No)

For a long time, if someone invited me to something or asked me to help them out, I’d say yes pretty much any time.

You need someone to take you to the airport? Of course.

You’re birthday party is coming up and need a designated driver? Not a problem.

You want me in your student film? Totally!

If there was a party or event on a night that I wasn’t out-of-town, I was there. Part of the reason was because after my friendship with my college best friend ended, I realized that I was lacking a bit in Los Angeles friends. So I went outside of my comfort zone to try to meet new people.

And I’m super grateful I did that, because I have an amazing group of friends now, most of whom I met at various parties and events.

I don’t know if it’s an actor thing that I’m always saying yes to things. You never know who might be at that event that could be the person who changes your career or knows of the perfect part for you. It does happen. I met my agents because of a co-worker I met when I did Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios in 2007. If I didn’t do HHN, I doubt I would have my agents (who I absolutely love!).

But lately I’ve been trying to take back some power and say no to opportunities that don’t exactly fit me or my schedule. For example, this past Monday was the LA Actor Tweetup. I love going to the tweetups, and I’ve pretty much never missed one.

However, this Monday I was working until 8:30 and on work nights I try to be in bed by 11:30. By the time I would have gotten to the tweetup, I would have only spent about 30 minutes there before I would have gone home so I could eat a late dinner.

Could I have done that? Sure. But I really didn’t feel like going in to say hello just to have to say goodbye a few minutes later. So I went straight home from work, had my late dinner, and was in bed when I was hoping to be.

As far as acting jobs go, I’ve pretty much said sure to all that have been offered to me. My agents are aware of things I’m not really willing to do (nudity and shave my head are the two main ones), so I’m not auditioning for things that I would necessarily have a problem with. The only acting job I have turned down was for a webseries that I self-submitted on. At the audition, I put my agents’ contact information down instead of my own, and when the director called to book me, he was very furious that he had to go through my agents. When I finally talked to him, he said the only way he would still book me is if I didn’t tell my agents I was working on this and to give him my personal phone number and address.

Obviously a ton of red flags went up with that, so I turned down the job (I think my agents called him back and said that I suddenly had to join the union so I was unable to book non-union any more).

I’m trying not to think about who I might have met at the tweeup this week and what I missed out on. There is plenty of other events in the future that I know I’ll go to. And it did kind of feel good to say no to something when I really didn’t feel like going.

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Hollywood Superbowl (or Where I Was For The Oscars)

Posted on February 26, 2013 | 1 comment

Oscar Sunday is pretty much a holiday here in LA. And as a holiday, you want to spend it with those you love at some sort of gathering.

Probably for the past 10 years, I’ve always spent it at a party at my friend Marie‘s house. And her parties are always awesome!

First of all, it’s a costume party. You are supposed to come dressed as a character from a movie in the past year.

I’ve had some great costumes in the past.

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I’ve been Edna from “The Incredibles”. No capes!!

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I’ve been a drunk bridesmaid from “Wedding Crashers”.

I’ve also had some not-so-great costumes. One year, I just wore jeans and a top, and on one pockets I had a bunch of pictures of international destinations and on the other pocket I had a bunch of different sorority letters (I was the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”).

This year, I didn’t have a fabulous costume, but it wasn’t horrible either.

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I was a citizen of The Capitol from “The Hunger Games”. And yes, that is my wig from The Color Run.

Marie (and her husband Chris) really do a great job throwing this party. They have a red carpet.

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And two different screening areas. One is in the living room around the tv and in that room, it is considered the chatty room. The other is in the garage where they project the show on a wall. In the garage, that’s where the serious watchers watch (and that includes me).

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Overall, I think the show was pretty good. I didn’t love Seth MacFarlane as a host, but I was expecting it to be much worse. The opening was way too long (if that was cut down it might have ended almost on time).

I didn’t do too great with guessing the winners. I got 16 right, but I guessed a few of the major categories incorrectly (I picked Tommy Lee Jones for supporting actor and Steven Spielberg as director). I thought all the speeches were pretty amazing, especially Ben Affleck. I loved the end of his speech.

He said, “It doesn’t matter how you get knocked down in life; that’s going to happen. All that matters is you’ve got to get up”. That advice is great for an acting career, and even better for life in general.

After the show ended (just over 3 1/2 hours later), I headed home where I got my stuff together to prepare for my last week of work for a while.

Thanks again to the hosts, Marie and Chris, for throwing another awesome party!

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And in case you are wondering, Marie is dressed as Lincoln, Vampire Hunter and Chris is Fix-It Felix.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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Oscar Prep (or A Hollywood Adventure)

Posted on February 25, 2013 | Comments Off on Oscar Prep (or A Hollywood Adventure)

This past Friday, I was done with work at 1pm, so my friend Kate and I decided to take a bit of an adventure and go to Hollywood and Highland to see all the prep work being done for the Oscars.

There were a ton of streets closed in the area, so we tried taking the Expo Line (light rail) to the Red Line (subway) to get there.

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On the map, we went from one end of the light blue line to connect to the red line and got off at the Hollywood/Highland stop.

The light rail wasn’t bad. I had taken it once before with my dad. But I had never taken the subway in LA before. It wasn’t bad, but it was really crowded. On the ride out, Kate and I both ended up standing (it was like a core workout when the subway stopped and started). But it took 50 minutes to get from my place to Hollywood, which isn’t too bad.

Once we got off the subway, we checked out the prep going on on Hollywood Blvd.

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It was pretty crazy. And while we were walking down the street, we ran into my friend Daniel (who works for a show that tapes right where the Oscar prep was going on), and he told us to go into the lobby of the Dolby Theater. You were able to walk on the red carpet (while it was cover by plastic).

So we headed straight over there, and I have to admit, it was pretty awesome!

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(the last picture shows the red carpet under the layers of plastic)

Kate and I were people watching for a while. There were a couple of categories of people. Those who were regular tourists, those who wanted to see where the Oscars were happening, those who were working for the event and were just trying to get stuff done, those who just wanted to shop at the Hollywood and Highland center, and then the oddballs (included 3 Spidermen and a woman dressed as an astronaut with a white wig).

After checking things out for a bit, we headed back down to the subway (the station was pretty cool looking), and headed home.

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Seeing everything in person really made me even more excited to watch the show this year! And being in that environment had such an exciting energy that it made me smile for a couple of days.

Tomorrow’s post will be my recap of the award show (and showing off my costume from my friend’s party!).

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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Scheduling Without A Schedule (or Hoping To Make The Most of My Unemployment)

Posted on February 22, 2013 | 3 comments

Less than a week to go before my unemployment starts. I’m preparing to get to do some really fun things while I’m not working 6 days a week like go to San Diego to visit my grandparents, take advantage of my Disneyland pass, and of course focus on my acting career as much of the day as possible.

But I really want to make sure I keep a schedule even on days where I have nothing planned. Right now, I get up at the same time 7 days a week (that’s supposed to be good for your sleep) and I know that if I’m not doing something by a certain time I’ll be running late. I know when I wash my hair before work, if I don’t start to blow dry it by 10:30 I won’t have enough time to do everything I want to do before leaving for work.

Having that sort of schedule really helps to keep my day moving. I don’t have time to sit on my butt and read or watch tv as long as I’d like. And I don’t want to be doing that while I’m unemployed either. I need to maximize those hours of the day.

I’m not exactly sure how I will do this, so I’m open to suggestions. I know that I’ll keep my alarm schedule the same so I won’t be sleeping away the day. I’m trying to plan at least 1 time sensitive activity every day that I’m unemployed. It might be something like going to Disneyland, seeing a speaker at The Actors’ Network or Women in Film, or even just meeting a friend for lunch or dinner.

That way, I’ll have something to use as a finish line so I can work backwards and schedule all the other things I want to do (like maybe take more than 1 class a week at SoulCycle).

I’m also looking into seeing if I can get some writing jobs. I’m currently contributing to The Pet Matchmaker (it doesn’t pay but it’s great experience), and I’ve just found another blog that I want to be a contributor for as well. Maybe I can find a way to get some paid writing gigs and I could use that money to help pay down my credit card debit.

Anything is possible, I just have to make sure I don’t get lazy with all the free time.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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Having Something To Celebrate (or Another Bodega Happy Hour)

Posted on February 21, 2013 | Comments Off on Having Something To Celebrate (or Another Bodega Happy Hour)

Yesterday, my friend Rayshell and I had a happy hour hangout. We hadn’t seen each other in forever (I’m pretty sure the last time was at her New Year’s party). And since it was my early day at work, a happy hour adventure fit in perfectly with our schedules.

We met at Bodega, which is right down the street from my work and one of my favorite happy hour spots.

And it worked out perfectly to meet up today, because I had something to celebrate.

After all the craziness at my work with not shutting down like we thought we would, it was finally decided that we were going to have a temporary shut down in March. So as of right now (and this will probably change 100 times), next Thursday is my last day at my current day job until possibly sometime in April.

I’m so beyond excited for this! I will be filing for unemployment benefits so I will have a little money to get me through this time, and I’m hoping to get some substitute teaching jobs next month as well.

So after I told Rayshell my fun news, we got down to ordering some great happy hour foods!

We had the bruschetta (which is one of my favorite things at Bodega).

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And we also split the grilled cheese and bbq sliders based on the recommendation of our server, Wade. He was totally right on the recommendations (and decided to be in this picture of our food).

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Overall, it was another wonderful happy hour adventure with a wonderful friend.

Now I get to spend the next week preparing for my unemployment. This includes getting my paperwork filed for my benefits, trying to see if there are any substitute teaching jobs at my old job for me, and cleaning out my desk at work (I am a post-it fiend and need to start tossing some out).

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Work

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Customer Service After The Fact (or An Update to My Experience At Performance Bike)

Posted on February 20, 2013 | 2 comments

I had previously written how poorly my friend and I were treated at Performance Bike. I was so shocked by the behavior of that employee, and I was not afraid to share it.

After writing that post, I tweeted at Performance Bike again. They asked me to email them explaining what happened, and I just sent them the link to that blog post.

Well, they clearly weren’t happy that I put that out there. The next morning, I had an email from the retail marketing coordinator asking if someone could call me to talk to me about what happened. I was fine with that so I emailed back my phone number.

Within about an hour, the district manager called me. His name is Chris, and he was extremely nice and wanted to hear the entire story of what happened. So I spared no details.

Chris explained to me that he has worked for Performance Bike for years and was shocked to hear what happened to me and my friend. He asked for a description of the employee helping us and the date and time we were there.

And finally, he offered me a gift card that would pretty much cover the cost of cycling shoes for me! I was super grateful, but I wanted to make sure my friend could get shoes too. So he split the gift card (and added a little extra) so we would each have over half of the cost of our shoes covered by the gift card!

As soon as I got off the phone with Chris, I called my friend and made sure she didn’t get her shoes already. She was so surprised that Performance Bike was doing something so nice for us!

And last week, I got 2 of these in the mail.

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Just as I was about to buy my shoes online (and have them shipped to the store for free), my dad emailed me. He got an email from Performance Bike with a promo code for $20 off of $100. So between the promo code and my gift card, I paid about 1/3 of what I was expecting to pay for both my shoes and cleats!

Unfortunately, the shoes are backordered for about a month, so I’ll have to continue to rent shoes at SoulCycle for a while. But I’m super excited to have my own cycling shoes very soon!

Thank you again to Performance Bike and Chris for going above and beyond to make sure that they didn’t lose me, my friend, or my dad as customers. It was not expected at all, but much appreciated!

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Posted in Fitness, Saving, Shopping

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Feeling Like I’m Home (or My Return To Spinning)

Posted on February 19, 2013 | Comments Off on Feeling Like I’m Home (or My Return To Spinning)

On Saturday, I finally got to take another spin class at SoulCycle. I had missed going for a while because I was feeling under the weather, then had my audition and music video shoot, and then had family in town.

I ended up also having Saturday off of work (my boss wanted a 3 day weekend like “normal” people), and I noticed that my favorite instructor, Sal, had a 1pm class that day!

So that’s the class I went to.

It was a bit more full than I’m used to seeing it, but I did reserve a bike in the first row in the corner where I like (so I don’t feel claustrophobic). It’s still a little scary riding in the first row because I still can’t do all the standing up work on the bike yet.

I was also a little scared because this was my first spin class without my friend coming with me.

But all my fears disappeared as soon as I got inside. Sal was at the front desk area and as soon as he saw me, he had a huge smile on his face and said hello. He asked me about my friend and commented that I wasn’t on my usual bike for his class.

Just knowing that I’ve made that sort of impression on a spin instructor is so amazing to me. I love that I’m starting to get excited to see the people there and not being nervous for a tough workout.

This spin class was pretty tough for me. I had lost some momentum from not being there for about 2 weeks plus my back and butt are still bruised from falling down the stairs.

But I did manage to convince Sal to be in my post class picture this time!
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I’m planning on going back again this weekend on Saturday in case any of you readers want to check out the workout!

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Changes (or I’m Sorry If You Had Trouble Finding The Blog)

Posted on February 18, 2013 | 1 comment

This past weekend, I spent quite a bit of time working on this blog.

I know you might not see it, but I took a huge step. I went from being hosted on WordPress to being self-hosted (technically hosted by BlueHost).

I know not everything is exactly what it used to be, and I’m working on getting all you email subscribers subscribed on here without you having to do anything, but over the next few days hopefully this blog will look just like my old one!

I have to give a huge thank you to Brian Janes who sat with with while I worked on the transfer and answered my million dumb questions.

But the main thing for all you readers to know is now when you want to come to my blog, all you have to type is www.findingmyinnerbombshell.com (I’m working on getting the old WordPress site to transfer, but it seems a little glitchy at times).

I’m really excited for this change. Mainly because I can start customizing things on here a lot more than I could before. As soon as the music video I was in is released, I can hopefully imbed it in here so you won’t have to click on a link.

Sorry for the short post today. I spent so much time sitting at my computer that I need a bit of a break today. I have an unexpected day off from work (which I wasn’t happy about because I could use the money), so I’m hoping to go on some sort of adventure outdoors.

I might just end up at the beach and read in the sand for a while. Something fun to help me recharge my batteries and get ready to kick some butt in the next few days!

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Being a Graceful Klutz (or Why I’m Black and Blue)

Posted on February 15, 2013 | Comments Off on Being a Graceful Klutz (or Why I’m Black and Blue)

For my entire life, I’ve been a klutz and I’ve bruised easily. Not necessarily the best combination.

If someone hugs me too hard, I might have bruises on my back. If I sleep with my hand under my face, I will normally wake up with a bruise on my check.

Because of how easily I bruise (and because clothing can’t cover everything), I’ve gotten used to using tattoo coverup makeup to cover any bruises that will draw attention. I used to use makeup from Urban Decay, but I’m out of that so I’m thinking of trying this concealer from Sephora next.

The accidental bruises are a little funny. Sometimes I’ll see a bruise and be so confused on how I got them.

But lately, I’ve gotten some bruises that I can pinpoint to the exact minute I got them.

When I was at Disneyland, one of the rides we went on was the Matterhorn. The bobsleds had been redone since my last visit, plus my mom really wanted to go on it. So we tried it out. The new seats are not comfortable and have no padding at all! My butt hurt so much, but to keep myself steady during the ride, I gripped the seat in front of me with my knees. So now the insides of my knees have funny bruises on them.

And then yesterday when I was leaving work, I had a pretty bad spill. The steps outside of the trailer I work in were slick because of all the fog. I didn’t notice that and even holding on to the handrail couldn’t save me. I fell down 4 stairs.

I give myself 10 points for the fall. It was pretty awesome. My boss saw it happen and came running over to me. I said I was in a bit of pain but ok, but once I got home and evaluated my injuries a bit more, I noticed how badly I fell.

My right arm is scraped up from the metal steps. It looks like an animal scratched me. I also hit my head at some point so I have a bruise on the back of my head near my ear. And worst of all is my right hip. Of course most of the impact would be there (this is the hip that was operated on). I have a big bruise on both my leg and back around my hip. Fortunately, all of those injuries will be covered up by clothes (maybe not my arm when I go to spin class, but that’s ok).

I try to be a graceful person, but my klutziness just comes out at times. Maybe my gracefulness doesn’t come from not being a klutz, but how I handle myself after a klutzy incident.

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