Tag Archives: friends

Celebrating A Friend’s Birthday (or Not Letting Feeling Gross Stop Me From Being Social)

Posted on July 24, 2018 | Comments Off on Celebrating A Friend’s Birthday (or Not Letting Feeling Gross Stop Me From Being Social)

I’ve been pretty good about not letting my recurring nausea get me down too much. I still do my workouts, even if I have to do a ton of modifications in order to get them done. And sometimes I can barely do the workout, but I figure doing something is better than doing nothing. I’ve felt like this for the last year and a half (since I started having the nausea issues) and it’s never been something I’ve thought twice about. And I’ve never had issues with working when I feel sick either. It does help that I work from home and I can work from my bed if necessary.

Even though I am good with maintaining my workout schedule and not asking for time off work, I am not always dealing with my nausea in the best way. Obviously when I’m sick all day and it’s one of the brutal days I don’t expect to be able to do anything. But even when it’s only mild I have used it as an excuse from time to time. And that’s something that I really shouldn’t be doing because it can isolate me 50% of the time. I need to work on pushing myself to do more when I’m not feeling totally perfect and this past weekend gave me a good opportunity to do that.

My friend Marie was having a small birthday gathering at her house. She’s done this for the past few years but I’ve never been able to make it before. Sometimes I have had to work and sometimes I had a previous commitment that prevented me from going. But this year I happened to be free that afternoon/evening and I wanted to make sure I showed up.

Her birthday gathering was an all-day movie marathon. I knew I couldn’t be there for the first few movies because I had work and my workout, but I was determined to make it for at least a little bit of time in the afternoon. I was having a nausea day and after my workout ended up taking a nap to try to make myself feel better. Unfortunately I wasn’t doing that much better after my nap but I just told myself that I had to push through. I took my medications that can help (they weren’t really helping this day but it was better than nothing) and told myself that I was going to make an appearance and could always go home after being there for a little bit.

Besides wanting to celebrate Marie’s birthday with her, I had a little extra motivation to go. They just adopted a dog and I wanted to meet her! She’s a cute little puppy that was rescued from Thailand so she’s a bit skittish. But she was getting more comfortable in her new home so it was ok for people to come over to see her.

I got to the party while one movie was just ending so I headed to their backyard to just hang out and chat with the friends who were there. And when the movie ended and people came out to join us, I was having a good time talking to people even though I just saw many of them a few weeks ago for the 4th of July. But like I always say, I love just spending time with these friends and I’m grateful for any opportunity I get to see them.

When the next movie was starting, I debated about going in to watch it. But I still wasn’t feeling great and was thinking about leaving soon so I decided to stay in the backyard being social. Some of my friends wanted to take my phone to swipe on dating apps so that ended up being entertainment for a bunch of us. And of course we were all watching the new puppy and seeing all the fun things that she was doing.

I ended up staying at the party much longer than I thought I would. I probably stayed a little bit too long because I was feeling really nauseous on my drive home and was worried I’d need to get off the freeway so I could be sick. Fortunately, that didn’t happen and I made it home without any incidents. But it did make me much more aware of the signs my body gives me when the nausea is about to take a bad turn.

While this wasn’t the most active thing to do, it still was something that in the past I would not go to because of how I was feeling. But I’ve been more and more open with my friends regarding the nausea so they are all very understanding. If a wave of nausea hits me and I just have to breathe to let it pass, they understand and don’t freak out or overreact. I need to remember this more often because I use my fear of how my friends will treat me as a reason to stay home when I feel sick.

I know that it’s going to take some time to get into the habit of not letting my nausea stop me from being social, but I’m glad I had an opportunity to try it out and prove to myself that I can do it. And of course I’m still hoping that in the near future I will figure out some plan that will make my nausea go away and no longer be an issue for me.

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Default ThumbnailBeing Social and Nauseous (or Taking Some Inspiration From My Workouts) Default ThumbnailOver Scheduled In The Best Way (of Taking Time For My Friends) Default ThumbnailHappy Birthday Rayshell (or I Love Casual Hangouts!) Default ThumbnailHow I Spent My Actual Birthday (or Friends, Friends, and More Friends) Default ThumbnailA Special Birthday For A Special Friend (or Celebrating A “College” Friend) Default ThumbnailA Birthday Brunch (or Celebrating With Some Fabulous Ladies)

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

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A Friend-Filled Fourth (or Just Enjoying Being Around Awesome People)

Posted on July 6, 2018 | 1 comment

As you might have been able to tell from my post on the 4th of July, I was having some mixed feelings about celebrating. A lot of people I knew felt the same way and I think many people had the same conflicting feeling about what they should do and what would feel almost disrespectful. Even though I had that feeling, my friends were hosting their 4th of July BBQ on the 4th (instead of doing it the weekend before) and I knew I’d be going there for sure.

I arrived right after the party started and there were a few people there. We were all sitting in the shade since it was hot and we all were having the same feelings. In a way, it helped to be around people who were feeling the same since I didn’t have to feel like a total downer for not being in a celebratory mood. While we did try to not talk politics too much, it did come up and we were trying to keep the conversation more toward actions steps we can take and not just complaining about the situation.

Once more people showed up, the party started to be more social and more like all the other parties they throw. There was a ton of food (I made Drunk Fruit again) and the BBQ was going with hot dogs, veggie dogs, and corn on the cob. It was a good classic summer BBQ and that’s exactly what I needed to have in my life, even if I was hesitant about being in a celebratory mood.

And of course, I had to get my friends together for our traditional photo. 4 years ago we took a photo while running through the sprinklers. Even though the sprinklers haven’t been on since that party, we have recreated that photo every year. We did 2 runs through the lawn just being silly and ridiculous, and we got some really great photos like this one.

But I went with a different photo that fit a bit better into the collage I was making to celebrate 5 years of taking this photo.

It’s a silly thing that we do, but I think all 4 of us agree that this photo is something that makes us happy. After I make the collage I show the others and I can tell that seeing all the photos together over the years makes them smile as much as I do. We’ve all agreed that this tradition can’t end anytime soon and we want to make it at least to 10 years of photos. We are halfway there already!

I spent most of the party trying to move around and talk to as many of my friends there as possible. Since I don’t see many of them outside of these parties, I want to take advantage of the time I do have with them. And I think that’s how everyone else feels too. The time at the parties always feels special and a bit precious because it’s a time we are all together and can just relax around each other. For me, celebrating the holidays I celebrate at these parties is all about the people I get to be around. It’s the most important thing to me and I’m glad I have so many amazing people to be with on these days.

The entire day people had been setting off fireworks, but you can’t see anything until it gets dark (I don’t understand why people are setting them off at 11am). Once the sun went down, we started noticing the various fireworks shows that were happening all around us. You could look almost any direction and see fireworks in the sky. Several people went up on the roof, but I stuck with being on the ground this year.

One day I’ll learn how to take better pictures of fireworks, but until then I am grateful to friends who can take awesome photos and are willing to let me use them on here.

I ended up staying at the party later than I was planning on doing. When I was trying to say goodbye to people, I just kept getting into more intense conversations and it took me about 45 minutes from the time I said I was going to leave until I was walking out to my car. But that’s ok. I was still out of there at a decent time before too many people were leaving parties and being on the road. And I was home a bit later than I would have liked, but I still got enough sleep before having to get up for work the next morning.

The next party with my friends should be toward the end of the summer and I know that there is a chance I won’t get to see many of these friends until then. As much as we all want to see each other more often, between living far apart (by LA standards since in rush hour some of these friends live 2.5 hours from me) and all having busy lives, we know that it’s not necessarily going to happen. But that’s what makes these parties so important and special to me. This is a time that we set aside in our crazy schedules to come together and have fun. This isn’t something that everyone gets to experience and I’m so lucky that I have a group like these friends who appreciate it as much as I do.

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Default Thumbnail4th Of July On The 1st (or Another Awesome Party With Friends) Default Thumbnail4th Of July Weekend (or An Early Holiday) Default ThumbnailA Special Birthday For A Special Friend (or Celebrating A “College” Friend) Default ThumbnailEnjoying The Gala (or Having An Awesome Friend Date) Default ThumbnailA Friend Filled Afternoon/Evening At Disneyland (or Missing Some Ride Pictures) Default ThumbnailUnion Working Holiday Party (or Just Enjoying Being Around Good People)

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Finding Time For Friends (or Busting Out Of My Routine)

Posted on June 22, 2018 | Comments Off on Finding Time For Friends (or Busting Out Of My Routine)

This is a problem I’ve mentioned before on here, but I know that I’ve been neglecting some of my friendships lately. It’s not really anyone’s fault, time is limited for a lot of us and we just don’t think about scheduling time for each other. I’ve also said how social media has given me a false sense of seeing my friends more recently than I really have. And it’s true that it does because sometimes I’ll look at my calendar and realize that almost a year has passed since seeing a friend when I feel like I am up to date on their life.

I’m also a bit lazy with some of my friendships because other ones have hangouts that are pretty much built into my schedule. I see my friends who go to musicals with me once a month and those are in my calendar way in advance. Some of the musicals scheduled are over a year away but I know I’ll be seeing my friends then. It was also this way with my friends that I work out with, but that changed since my workout schedule changed. So some of my workout friends I haven’t seen in a long time.

I’ve tried to make conscious efforts in the past to fix this and I’m in a phase of life where I’m doing that again. I’ve got a pretty good routine going on with what I do from week to week. But I need to change that in order to see my friends. This week was a pretty decent one for me to do that because other things in my life weren’t taking up time. I’m even doing an afternoon workout today in order to see my workout friends again! And I went to a movie with another friend after work one afternoon this week. I usually don’t do that, but I wanted to see this friend and I wanted to see the movie so it was a perfect plan.

Since this is an ongoing problem for me, I was trying to think about why it was hitting me so hard right now. And then I realized that there was another routine of mine that was different too. It’s been a slow transition, but I’m not on social media as often as I used to. I used to see everything on Facebook. I would sort my posts in chronological order so I knew when I was caught up. But over the course of the past month or two, I haven’t had the time or desire to check out social medial as often. Now I just look at the top posts out-of-order and scroll for a bit before I move on.

Since I’m doing that, I’m not feeling as connected to my friends’ lives as I was before. I know I’m missing out on things online and that’s pushing me to feel like I want to see people in person. that’s a good thing since online relationships aren’t as strong as in person ones and I know I need to be better about seeing people in person. If this is the motivation that is getting me to see more people in person, then I guess it’s a good thing. I don’t see myself being on social media significantly more in the future just because of my life and how things are taking up time. So if I want this feeling to go away I have to make an effort to see people in person.

I think the other thing that has been making me feel this way is how much I’ve been relying on my friends lately. Life has taken a lot of weird turns lately and I have been asking more and more often for support from my friends. I usually try to be strong and don’t want to bother people asking for help. But I know now that it’s not a bother to ask and that it really is something that I need. And I’ve been asking for help and receiving it which has been amazing.

I’m sure things will ebb and flow with friendships just like with everything else in my life. When things get crazier and my schedule is more packed, I’ll end up neglecting some friendships again. And when I have the time to be reflective and think about what is happening, I’ll make more efforts to stay in touch with people. I’m just grateful that my friends have the same issues that I do and none of them hold it against me when it’s been months since I’ve seen them.

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Default ThumbnailMore Friends More Fun (or Still Building My Social Circle) Default ThumbnailRemembering To See My Friends (or Actually Scheduling Hangouts) Default ThumbnailFeeling Understood (or The Relief Of Shared Problems) Default ThumbnailFinding A Social Life Where I Can (or Virtual Parties and Distance Hangouts) Default ThumbnailMaking Friends As An Adult (or Am I Weird?) Default ThumbnailBusting Out Of A Funk (or Controlling My Happiness)

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A Night At The Bowl (or Combining Several Of My Favorite Things)

Posted on May 29, 2018 | 2 comments

The Hollywood Bowl doesn’t officially open for the season for a few more weeks, but when it’s not the regular season they do still have lease events. I don’t usually go to the lease events, but when I see something I’m interested in I try to get tickets. So when I heard that they would be doing a screening of “Beauty And The Beast” with live orchestration and singers, I knew that would be a fun event to go to. And of course, I asked my Disney friends if they wanted to come with me and they did! When you mix Disney, musicals, and going to the Bowl you know it’s going to be a great time!

I was in charge of getting our show tickets and found seats in the first row of a section in the very back. I don’t mind sitting in the back but getting seats at the front of a section are the best! You have a concrete barrier in front of you that is perfect to use as a table for the food you bring with you. And we all got lots of random food to have a pretty epic picnic there!

We took the Bowl bus to get there, but because we are used to going on weekdays when there is rush hour traffic we got to the Bowl before it was open! We waited outside the security area for a little while before they started letting people in. This was the first time I got there before we could go in and it was a nice change from feeling rushed to get to our seats. We had to go all the way to the top to get to our section, but they had a few different photo spots and we found one that didn’t have a line so we took advantage of that.

When we got to our section, we were all so surprised about how empty it looked! I’ve never seen it look so empty unless I’m there when they don’t have a show and it was nice not feeling squished as we got to our seats and sat down.

We had over an hour before the show started so we took our time getting out all the food we brought for the picnic and enjoying the food. We had way more than what we needed, but it was all so delicious! We had various types of chips and garlic dip, goat cheese, olives, fruit, veggies, and desserts. We tried to only take out a few things at a time, but we ended up just stacking most things on the barrier in front of us so we could all pick and choose what we wanted. It ended up being perfect and we were all just so happy sitting back, enjoying the food, having good conversation, and getting excited for the show to start.

This show was similar to how “The Little Mermaid” Live was done. The movie played but the orchestra on stage played all the music. And whenever there was a song they had celebrity singers playing the various characters. But what was different and really amazing with this show was how they utilized the venue. There is a border around the stage area and they did projection mapping on that area that matched what was on screen in the movie.

It was so fun to see what they added around the stage and it really did add to the movie. It was just a nice special touch that made this event even more unique that it normally is. This is already one of my favorite Disney movies and getting to watch it in this setting was awesome. And whenever they had the celebrities singing it was even better!

There were a lot of fun and different touches that they did with the songs. You could tell that the cast had a lot of fun and since there are different puns and double entendres they were taking advantage of that. There were a few added jokes that I missed, but all the ones that I caught were funny.

While I’ve seen the movie recently, for some reason I thought there were more songs and the movie was longer. When intermission happened I was pretty surprised that we were already halfway through the movie. And there weren’t as many times that the singers were out and singing live. There were still a lot of times to get to watch the singers and have it be more than just a screening of a movie, but it was much less than I expected. It’s not a bad thing, just something that surprised me (and my friends agreed).

When the show was done, it was the typical madhouse to get down to the area where the buses get us. There is a time limit to how long you can take to get to the buses, but I have yet to miss one. And the worst case is that we miss it and get an Uber or Lyft to take us back to where we parked our cars at the bus pickup. But even with all the crowds and making a stop to go to the bathroom before getting to the bus, we were there with plenty of time.

I don’t have any other tickets for the Bowl yet this summer, but I’m hoping I’ll make it back to at least one or two shows this summer. There are so many times I just get tickets last-minute and I think I need to do that more often. I have lots of evenings free and I could go get a cheap ticket to watch one of the jazz or classical shows. It’s just something different in my routine that makes an evening feel a bit more special.

But I’m glad I made it out for this show because it was a really great night out and helped to get me to feel more like me. I’m slowly busting out of this funk that I’m in (more on that later this week) and I’m glad that I had this show to help out with that!

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Continuing To Get Back To Me (I Needed My Hair Done!)

Posted on May 23, 2018 | 1 comment

It had been a very long time since I had my hair done. I’m not always the best about remembering to get it done as often as I’d like, but I’m usually pretty good about going at least every 3 months (in an idea world, it would be done every 4-6 weeks). But somehow I let over 5 months go by without getting my hair cut and colored and I knew I needed to fix that.

I also knew that I wanted to work on feeling more like myself after being sick. I still wasn’t totally better, but I know making myself look more like me at my best does help me feel better. There’s also something about feeling like you are pampering yourself a bit to help make you feel a bit less sick. I had gotten my eyebrows done earlier in the week and getting my hair done was just completing my transformation from being super sick to being me.

I’m lucky that my hairstylist is a good friend of mine. While she started first as my hairstylist, I now look at her as friend first and stylist second. But that also means that when I see her to have her do my hair it ends up being a lot of gossip and catch up time. I like that and I’m always at her house (where she does my hair) for several hours since we just end up spending a lot of time hanging out after she’s done with my hair.

I went into getting my hair done not really looking my best. I had washed my hair after my workout, but I didn’t put any product in it and didn’t bother to dry it. I just threw it up in a clip to let it air dry while I worked. There was no need to do anything to it since it was going to get done (but it needed to be clean). My before pictures are always with super frizzy hair looking a bit crazy, but you can also see how long it had gotten!

The ends were getting very scraggily and it needed to be cut and refreshed. But more importantly it needed to be colored! My hair has been going gray since I was about 20, but it used to just be a few gray hairs here and there. Now, it’s probably over 10% gray. And in my dark hair, it totally shows! I do have a product I can use to help cover the gray hair between getting it done, but I forget to use it from time to time and I hate how much my gray hair sticks out! The process of going gray has been getting quicker and quicker and I’m hoping it slows down soon. But I know in reality that it’s probably just going to keep getting more gray at a more rapid pace.

While I was having my hair done, we caught up on so many different parts of our lives. Because I post about online dating on here a lot, most of my friends are pretty caught up but they still love hearing the stories in person. And I have to admit that the stories I have are so crazy and interesting. If someone else had my life I’d want to know all about what’s going on! We also talked about her upcoming summer plans since her kids are almost done with school for the year. We’ve always tried to meet up in Tahoe during the summer, but unfortunately I won’t be in Tahoe at the same time as her family. But I have hope that one day our schedules will coordinate.

And while I was getting my hair done I also got to catch up with her kids. I hadn’t seen them in forever either and it’s crazy how much they’ve grown! And both of them were excited to tell me about the things they have been learning in school and how happy they were that school is almost done for the summer. I joked to them that weekends and summers don’t exist for adults and they thought it was funny that my schedule for my job doesn’t change just because it is summer.

Once my hair was done, it looked so amazing!

I had about 3 inches cut off, but it’s still pretty long. My hair grows quickly so I don’t think I cut off more than what grew in the past 5 months. But it feels so much healthier now that the ends are gone and it’s freshly dyed. Since I dye my hair a darker shade, it seems to coat my hair and make it feel a bit thicker (which is good since my hair is so much thinner now compared to how it was when I was younger).

But most importantly is that having my hair done just made me feel better about myself both mentally and physically. Things haven’t been that great for me lately and I needed this silly ego boost. I feel pretty again and not someone who was just sick and dealing with a guy who wasn’t treating me the way I deserve to be treated. While I’m still dealing with both being sick and feeling sad about the guy, at least I look pretty while dealing with it.

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Default ThumbnailTime For A Bit Of A Change (or Getting Chopped) Default ThumbnailGetting A New Look (or Two Attempts To Dye My Hair) Default ThumbnailAt Home Hair (or I Haven’t Done This Since I Was A Teenager) Default ThumbnailCoconut Oil Hair Mask (or Trying A Simple DIY Beauty Trick) Default ThumbnailGetting Pushed Into Changing (or A Story About My Hair) Default ThumbnailAlmost Deja Vu (or Not My Usual Hair Appointment)

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Another Union Working Meeting (or Rolling With The Technical Difficulties)

Posted on May 10, 2018 | Comments Off on Another Union Working Meeting (or Rolling With The Technical Difficulties)

I had another Union Working meeting this week. These meetings are about every other month and I really do look forward to them each time I realize there is another meeting coming up. I’m learning a ton about the union by being at these meetings. They are able to go into detail about things that I didn’t understand before or that the union really can’t discuss. But that’s the benefit to being a group that isn’t union official. We have a ton of people who are board members and on committees so we are getting accurate information. We just don’t have the formalities of being an official union event.

For the past few meetings, I’ve been in charge of running the Facebook Live for the portion of the meeting we can share (there are some things discussed that are only for union members so we don’t make it available online to the public). It’s a pretty easy job for me to do so I’m happy that I can help out and allow the people who run the meeting to focus on much more important things. And I’ve got a pretty decent setup with my iPad, tripod, and tablet holder for my tripod. But as it seems like a lot of things have been for me lately, things just didn’t go as planned this time.

There is no wi-fi for us to use where we hold the meetings, so I have to use a hotspot from my phone. It’s not that difficult to set up usually but I still get to the meetings early to set up everything so I’m ready to start the live video once the meeting begins. But this time, I just couldn’t get my iPad to connect to my phone. I restarted both devices multiple times and it just didn’t want to work. Since the meeting was about to start, I decided I needed to run the video off of my phone. The holder I have on my tripod doesn’t quite fit my phone, but I managed to make it work.

I’ll admit that I was a bit distracted during the meeting because of the technical issues. I was checking my phone to make sure the video was still going and I had to look harder at it to read the comments that people watching were making since it’s a much smaller screen than I’m used to. But I tried to make sure that even though I was distracted more than normal that I was still paying attention so I could get some great information out of the meeting.

The meetings are usually pretty structured evenings. There is an agenda to go over and because there is so much information and so little time they are pretty on top of making sure that we stay on track. I don’t know if this meeting didn’t have as much of an agenda or what but it seemed like a much more casual and conversational meeting. We did cover a lot of information, but there was so much more back and forth conversation between everyone in the room than I’m used to. But it was pretty awesome to watch that happen because you could see the moments when others in the room understood something for the first time.

A lot of the discussion was related to the election that will be happening in a little over a year and how things have happened in the past and how things should possibly change for the future. I don’t have a strong opinion on a lot of election related things that were discussed because they were mainly things that were about board members and what is currently being done. But I was glad I could hear both sides of the debate so I could know what is the current situation and what others think is wrong and what it should possibly look like in the future.

And as always with these meetings, we discussed the current commercial contract and the upcoming negotiations. Commercials are changing so much and we want to make sure that our contracts reflect that. Online commercials aren’t super new, but they are new enough that there are so many things in those contracts that weren’t figured out in the past. So to know what situations other actors are encountering at auditions or on set can help us know what we want to negotiate for. It also makes me more aware of some things that I want to look out for when I’m working.

Even though there wasn’t a big agenda for the meeting, the 2 hours that we were there covered a lot of information and discussion. Several people mentioned how conversational everything seemed and that it was a nice change from when it is more of a lecture type meeting. There clearly are times where the discussion needs to be a bit more formal and structured, but it was nice to have something that was a bit more freeform when it can happen.

Our next meeting will be most likely toward the end of June and I’ll try to post on social media about it. While we have had some meetings that are only for union members, most of the time they are open to everyone!

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Default ThumbnailLearning So Much From Union Working (or Getting Ready For Contract Negotiations) Default ThumbnailMore Union Working (or Influencers And Contracts) Default ThumbnailFinal Union Working Meeting For 2017 (or A Commercial Roundtable) Default ThumbnailFirst Union Working Meeting Of 2018 (or Union Strong For All) Default ThumbnailA Low Key Union Working Meeting (or Getting To Fully Focus On What’s Being Said) Default ThumbnailUnion Working (or Connecting With My Fellow Actors)

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School Of Rock (or Just A Good Fun Musical)

Posted on May 8, 2018 | 2 comments

I’ve noticed that the musicals on my calendar are much closer together now (in the next year and a half, I’ve got 15 more musicals scheduled!). So even though it seems like I was just at the Pantages for my last musical, I was there again this weekend for another show! And this time, we were seeing “School of Rock”!

The musical is based on the movie and I’ve seen the movie a bunch of times. I was pretty excited to see how the musical adaptation would be since I was so familiar with the movie. And 2 of the other women in my group were in the same boat as me (1 member of the group has never seen the movie).

We had a quick dinner at Greenleaf before the show (we’ve done Shake Shack a lot lately and wanted to switch it up). I meant to take a photo of my dinner because it was really good but it totally just slipped my mind. But I highly recommend the turkey melt there because it was delicious. And yes, I ordered a turkey melt at a place that is known for salads. But it’s good to know that everything there is good!

We’ve gotten into such a routine with our musicals which I love. We all know what seats we sit in (we always have the same seats) and it just seems so normal and orderly to me. Even though we have season tickets and our shows are always the same time in a run of a show, it seems like we always have different people sitting around us. I thought maybe we’d be seeing the same people each show, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I think the couple sitting next to me has been there in the past, but because there isn’t really consistency with who sits there I could be wrong.

If you aren’t familiar with School of Rock, it’s about a guy who is kicked out of his band and pretends to be a substitute teacher at a fancy private school. He discovers the students in his class have musical talents and he creates a band to try to win a battle of the bands against the band that kicked him out. It’s not a complicated plot and that’s fine with me. I was saying to the group that we have had a lot of serious and heavy musicals and I really wanted something that was just fun and entertaining. And this fit that perfectly!

There were a lot of really great songs (some of which were stuck in our heads after the show) and the performers were great. But the most incredible performers were the kids in the show. There were amazing singers and the band members played their instruments live in the show. To play in front of a big crowd is tough for an adult, and these kids were just amazing! And watching them be so into playing and having fun with the songs was very entertaining! Since I can’t play a musical instrument, I’m always impressed with people who can. And these kids were more talented than most adults I know. I was just in awe watching.

The show is very similar to the movie and the songs from the movie are in the show (but the musical adds so many more songs). I was worried about the friend who hadn’t seen the movie because I didn’t know if I was enjoying the show so much because I love the movie. But she really enjoyed the show too which is a sign of a great show! If you can make people who are familiar with the original material and people who don’t know anything about the show both happy and enjoy it, that’s pretty special.

This was such a nice break from the serious shows we’ve had lately. And our next show will be another serious one. But to have a fun night out with my friends was exactly what I needed after feeling a bit low lately. I needed some laughing, fun, and entertainment to take my mind off of things that are bugging me. And even after leaving the show I continued to be in a better mood. I know I need to keep adding fun things in my life when I have low moments like I was having, and I’m just glad that I had this scheduled during a rough patch of my life.

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Default ThumbnailThe Color Purple (or Such An Empowering Musical) Default ThumbnailAlmost The End Of The Musical Season (or Watching An Audience Fall In Love With An Actor) Default Thumbnail“An American In Paris” (or Not Exactly A Musical) Default ThumbnailA Weird Night In Hollywood (or Another Musical In Our Season) Default ThumbnailHocus Pocus (or Musical #3 For The Week!) Default ThumbnailBurgers And Broadway (or Another Musical)

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A Quick Happy Hour (or Making Myself Be Social)

Posted on April 26, 2018 | Comments Off on A Quick Happy Hour (or Making Myself Be Social)

I know there are times that I write about how I wish I had more fun stuff in my life or how I need to work on doing more when I’m not working. And I’ve gotten pretty good at scheduling stuff and finding things that I like to go to do. But then there are times where I just want to sit on my couch and watch tv. But I know if I just do that, I’ll feel like I’m missing out on something and I’ll regret it later.

This week I RSVPed to go to a happy hour that was hosted by the NextGen Performers committee of SAG-AFTRA. These happy hours are really just a good excuse to get together with awesome, like-minded people and to have fun. There is no agenda for the event, nothing is really scheduled, and everyone is usually in a great mood because there is free food (the key to making lots of actors happy). And I was excited to go because I knew I’d have some friends there and since it can be tough to find time to see them, these events are sometimes they only time we get together.

When I RSVPed for it, I assumed I’d be looking forward to the event. And I was until the day of. It had nothing to do with the event, I just was not feeling up for going out. I was dealing with nausea, I was tired, and I just didn’t feel like getting myself together and being social. But I thought about it and realized that I would regret it if I didn’t go. So I took my time getting dressed and ready and headed over to happy hour.

It helped that it was held at Rush St. which is super close to my house. I would have walked, but I don’t like to walk home in the dark alone so I drove there. But it still was very nice to have it be minutes away so I didn’t really have any excuse not to go and make an appearance. And I was hoping that once I got there, my mood would improve and I would feel better and I would spend a good amount of time there.

Unfortunately for me, my nausea wasn’t going away while I was there. I didn’t have any food because I didn’t know how my body would react to it, but things just weren’t getting better for me. I tried to focus on talking to a few of my friends who were at the event which was fun. We all always have lots of random updates on our lives to share. And many of the people at the happy hour were attending their very first union event so it was fun to talk to them about what other opportunities are out there for them to participate in. I always want to help union members (whether they are new or not) to get more involved if they want to do so. There are a lot of opportunities for members even if they don’t want to be involved in the politics of the union. And some people do want to get involved in the politics and I’m glad I can share my experiences with them so they know what to expect and what they need to do to run for an office.

Even though I was having fun talking with people, while I was there I just kept thinking how I really didn’t feel up for being social. It had nothing to do with the people I was talking to. I think almost anyone can relate to just wanting to be home and by yourself when you don’t feel good. I can’t let this be an excuse for me since I seem to feel nauseous 2 weeks out of each month, but I also don’t want to push my body too hard and then make things worse for me. So after being at happy hour for about an hour, I made my rounds of saying goodbye to my friends and headed back to my car to go home.

I wish I had been able to stay longer because I was having a good time there, but it just wasn’t meant to be. And I was also a bit worried that some of the new people I was meeting might think I was being annoyed by talking to them or something because I know I was a bit distracted. Again, it had nothing to do with who I was talking to. My body was just distracting me. But I think making myself go out to happy hour was the right choice because I did get to have some fun and I never have regrets about going out and having fun.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Union Holiday Celebration (or Being Social And Working Social Media) Default ThumbnailBeing Social Outside Of Workouts (or Making OTF Friends) Default ThumbnailNot Quite Happy Hour (or Making Time For My Friends) Default ThumbnailAnother Meeting of Mentees (Social Hour and Not Business Hour) Default ThumbnailA Happy Hour Mixer (or Being A NextGen Performer) Default ThumbnailHappy Hour and Happiness (or I’m On Another Blog Now)

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A Dapper Day Attempt (or Trying To Make The Best Of An Afternoon)

Posted on April 25, 2018 | Comments Off on A Dapper Day Attempt (or Trying To Make The Best Of An Afternoon)

Disney has lots of unofficial days in the park. I almost never go to these because they are on weekends and I rarely go to Disneyland on a weekend. I have gone to Pin-Up Day once but I haven’t gone back to it since. But of all the unofficial days, Dapper Day is the biggest one for sure. I had never been to the park during Dapper Day and never really had a plan to, but when my Disney friend Michelle asked me if I wanted to go I decided to check it out.

Dapper Day is a day when lots of people go to the park dressed up like they would have dressed when Disneyland opened in 1955. I don’t have a lot of outfits that would fit that idea, but I tried to pull something together that looked a bit more vintage than my usual outfits.

Michelle has a ton of vintage outfits so she had a super cute dress on but I didn’t end up getting a photo of us together. But there is a good reason for that.

We had a bit of a later start getting to Disneyland. I had my brunch in the morning and I headed straight to Michelle’s place and got there around 12:45pm. We were in the car quickly and there wasn’t a ton of traffic getting to Disneyland. We were at the exit for Disneyland in about 45 minutes and saw a line of cars trying to exit. We knew the day would be crowded so seeing a line of cars didn’t surprise us too much. We figured it would move quickly and we would be parking soon.

Then we noticed that we just weren’t moving. 30 minutes passed. An hour passed. And we still weren’t off the freeway. The flyover from the freeway exit to the parking lot was closed so we thought maybe it had to do with cars trying to get through the traffic light. But that didn’t explain it enough. We finally started to get closer to the parking lot entrance, and we noticed some cop cars and an ambulance going by. I still don’t know why they were there, but we were not allowed to go into the parking lot and were being redirected to park at the convention center.

Even once we were on Disney property trying to drive over to the convention center, the traffic was still unbearable. It had been about 3 hours after we got to the freeway exit and it didn’t seem like anything was getting better. And after being in the car for so long, both of us desperately needed to find a bathroom. We were terrified it would take another 2 hours to park, so when we saw the street to the Grand Californian Hotel, we turned and begged them to let us park the car so we could run into the lobby to use the bathroom. Fortunately, they let us do that and then we got back into the car to try to figure out how to get to a parking lot.

Because of how the exit from the hotel went, we couldn’t continue going toward the convention center. And it was so weird because the endless traffic jam that we were caught in was gone and there were no cars on that side of the street. We drove back toward the entrance that we came in and discovered the parking lot was open again! We had to drive a little bit of a loop, but we managed to finally park the car in the parking lot that we attempted to get to about 4.5 hours earlier.

I know that Disney did their best for the crowds that they were dealing with and they may have been a medical emergency that was causing more issues, but we were both feeling a little bit fed up once we were out of the car. Instead of heading straight into the park to see everyone in their Dapper Day outfits, we went to the Mexican restaurant in Downtown Disney to decompress and try to get into a better mood. Fortunately, margaritas and chips helped us and we were in a slightly better mood when we finally headed over to Disneyland.

By the time we were in the park, it was getting close to 6pm and we were already exhausted. But we wanted to try for at least a few rides and we were thinking about trying to stay for the fireworks. Our first ride was Pirates of the Caribbean because it was the last day before the ride went down for a refurbishment. They are changing the bride auction scene and are turning the redhead from that scene into a pirate. So we had to say our goodbye to the redhead.

The ride was as good as it always was and while I love the ride as it is I’m excited to see the changes when it reopens.

After Pirates, we went on the Haunted Mansion since it was located in the same area of the park. We were checking out some of the fun outfits that people were wearing for Dapper Day, but I think both Michelle and I were just kind of feeling done with the day. The long wait in the car while trying to park kind of wore us down and we never recovered from it. So after the Haunted Mansion, we were back on the tram to take us to the parking lot.

We did figure out that technically we were at the park a little bit longer than we spent in the car trying to park, but it’s sad that it was only maybe a 20 minute difference. When we were stuck in the car, we had talked about just giving up and going home, but we were stuck where we couldn’t turn around. I’m glad we didn’t go home and we did manage to get on a few rides, but it was not the best first time going to Dapper Day. If I go again in the future, I’ll make sure I try to get there around the time the park opens so hopefully there won’t be the same parking issue. But to be honest, I’m just happy to go on my random Mondays and don’t know if going on the unofficial days is really my thing.

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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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