new boss, new shoes, new business

hi! thought i was due for a new post. it's monday, a new week, and i'm already beat. i worked all this weekend, and i made decent money at noe but i can feel the work i put into it. oy! there's a new manager at the restaurant now, russel, and he seems professional, so far so good. it'll be interesting to see what kind of changes he decided to implement. he seems like he prefers things to run smoothly and efficiently, and i can't argue with that! we've been understaffed this weekend too b/c two bussers are sick and one of our cocktail waitresses had a family emergency... so i pulled double duty on saturday bussing and serving, and triple duty sunday bussing and serving on both sides. but it paid off and i'm happy i was able to help.

today i'm going to get new running shoes, because my current ones are from high school and i can feel the effects now that i run everyday. even on mornings like today after such a full worknight, i know i still need to run because if i let too many days slide i'll feel the effects. i think that level of exercise keeps everything in check, even when it's hard to feel motivated. once i'm running i remember how much i enjoy it and it's worth it :). the only trouble with running every morning is that is sets my day back about an hour and a half, so if i want to run before i actually need to be somewhere i need to get up early. that's nearly impossible after getting home at 2:30 am from a bar. so it's not a perfect system, but i'm feeling healthy.

and this weekend was big because i bought a start-up makeup kit so that i can do free lance makeup artistry on the side. i've had friends ask me to be their makeup artist enough times to know that it's something i can offer to people, and with the tax return there really was no longer an excuse to not make the investment in a palette of foundation colors and some basic shadows and glosses that can work on anyone. (up until now i've asked people to bring their own makeup and i just put it on and make things look good on film). now i can charge for materials and service, and the people having the photoshoot can relax and focus knowing they look good :). i bought a Kehoe palette from Naimie's Beauty Center, the coolest and most legit hair and makeup design supply store in the valley :). my makeup design teacher Alicia from USC showed me the awesomeness of Naimie's, and i'm very greatful for all the insider knowledge they have there. that range of foundations, along with a few eyeshadow colors and some eye pencils and some replacement brushes, pretty much completes what i already owned as far as a makeup kit. the next step is to organize my kit, and organize my business!! so, if anyone needs a makeup artist, i'm your girl :). (and i can do hair too.)

performing for the love of it

so today i just finished performing in devon feldmeth's midterm directing scene, from one of my absolute favorite plays, Brilliant Traces. and it was a joy. i mean, the play has heavy themes, and i know i didn't even begin to fully embrace every deep layer that's in it... but i got close, and we had a great run. there was one moment where the whole "the truth is in the text" stuff REALLY clicked in, where my pain became about the words, nothing in my life as sarah, just my words and my life as rosannah... and i got MAD. like, madness mad. and (my scene partner) trevor's heart broke in front of me, again because of the words... we were so committed!!! and the good work was only just beginning. thank you to devon for directing us so effortlessly into something so cool :). i may have graduated, but there's nothing wrong with going back and working with friends. it's awesome actually!

no one will ever see the piece again, i may never work with the brilliant and talented trevor or devon (i hope that Not to be the case, but still), and only a small room of 15 students witnessed it... how ethereal our work is! but i know that i can jump into that turbo-charge kind of energy, with work and commitment and understanding of text, and the more i do it the more confident i am.

and later tonight i have my acting class... i have a mock audition for a pilot, for a comedic lock-picking badass hyper-intelligent rogue character named melissa. she's AWESOME. but i missed last week and chad says it's a challenge. so we'll see how it goes. i'm just hanging at home, i'm going to practice that, then clean for a bit, then make some dinner, then head over. when i have a life so completely filled to the brim with busy-ness and errands and work and commitments, its weird to come down to a calmer day with more time i have control over... a little peace and quiet is cool, i can get used to this. i know i shouldn't, i love being busy, but this is refreshing.

so, i'm doing my art, i love it and i hope i'm always doing it and that's the big picture, the point to remember. like in jersey boys... it was always about the music. for us... it's always about the stories. and i'm more and more confident about marketing that to other people so they can Use my work to help bring Their art to life!!

so exciting. i'm on the brink of some awesome times, i can feel it.

tax season

so i finally faced taxes... completely painlessly. my friend chad moseley works for a firm and he said he could help me out for a deal... and since i was a student for half the year it was simple. he was typing away into the company's program, and i may never fully comprehend how he did it, but i got the gist and i definitely know how careful i need to be with deductibles for '10.

the return was mindblowing and surprising, again because i was a student. thank you obama, thank you california, and thank you lord almighty. here's another huge leap in the fight to beat the bill monster :). i really really really think i've learned my lesson with credit. with this and what i have saved... it should only be a few months until i can start saving towards supplies for mailings to managers and agents, workshops (once i sense that people are looking for newbies again), classes at a good improv school, and a real savings account so i don't get into the same pickles i've been in this past year. and maybe later on... saving for a makeup kit to start working as a freelance makeup artist. i'll also have to save some for new headshots if an agency signs me and decides i need new ones, which often happens so i hear.

acting. is. expensive. whew! but i can't morally spend on any of these things until i start going on at least some real commercial auditions, and booking something. it'll happen when the time is right, i'm sure. and hopefully that will be sooner than i realize :).

good luck with tax season everyone!

Time to Blog.

i'm sitting in Bricks and Scones, nearing the end of my metered parking... wait, nope, just paid the meter, i'm good to write for a bit. anyway, so i'm here reading blogs like my mom's blog, Dragon's Lair Farm, and Mary Kay Wiles' blog, Wearing Black in Paradise.... and i realize i miss blogging. i had an elaborate and intimate livejournal blog, which is all under lock and key b/c i used it more for journaling, but i loved doing it. it's healthy to write, to write often, and to be a little accountable for your life in a 'what do i have that i'd like to write about?' way.

so here i introduce my blog: dragonflies in LaLaLand. why this title? because i've always resonated with dragonflies, they're beautiful and weird and mythic little bugs, they represent change (an ever present constant in my life), and my parents both use dragons either as a farm title or on guitars... so it's only fitting that i'm the dragonfly. and i live in los angeles, i.e. LaLaLand. this place is nuts. but i like it. i'm a city slicker yet i love the ocean, and i am an actress. so LA it is for me for now, until called elsewhere.

i graduated from USC last June (after a community college summer session), so the past nearly nine months have been wonderful, fantastic and blessed, and yet at many times bone-wearingly challenging. i've learned A Lot. still learning, really, but today i can look back and realize that i've learned alot. i've overcome alot of anxiety and mild depression too, with help from family, friends, and therapists, and staying spiritually well. i'm clearer now, and i hope to stay more positive and healthier and clear. running helps, a healthy regularity to my day helps, and being productive helps. also, i'm so happy for spring & summer to be near, life's always a little easier with sunshine and a beach trip just around the corner.

today was my first day in a long time that i have had entirely to myself, and i needed it for personal reasons (as my dad says, to lick my wounds), so i went to the beach. it was freeeeeezing, but i stuck it out and absorbed everything healing and beautiful about ocean air and sunlight and sand. i can't let myself get sucked into the temptation to do this every free day i have (oh how sweet that would be!!), so i won't, i'll appreciate the chances i get. today has been awesome so far.

what does an average day look like? well, recently i've been waking up, playing a little guitar, going for a jog, then heading over to Chad McCord's Actor Studio, where i am assisting with emails and office tasks as a workstudy situation in order to take classes. i figure if i can't audition this season (for paid work i mean, i'm unrepresented and non union and not a triple threat), i can be in class and get connected with people who Are auditioning and Are in it, so i know what to do when that ball finally starts to roll faster. which i hope and pray it will soon. but trying to push a boulder uphill without the financial backing is impossible. which takes me to my next part of my day, Noe. Noe is the in-house restaurant at the Omni Hotel in downtown, where i was hired back in november b/c my first after college job at Karl Strauss was not helping me keep up with the bill monster. I waitress and cocktail waitress, i work nights, nearly every night actually, with a few nights off here and there which normally i can swiftly fill with a class or a workshop. tonight, for once, i can't. and that's OK. i'm learning to relax and let my schedule be open for unexpected things, like a text from my friend Tayler who's organizing something for tonight.

anyway, that's been my life recently. practice art (music or acting), exercise, office work (insert auditions here), & waitressing (or acting class or casting workshop). around all this i am always working on something, like a scene for my friend Devon Feldmeth's SOT directing class, and sides for Chad McCord's class. so the muscles are staying limber and working. this is good.

it's a lot, really. but it's cool. right now, at this stage, this rhythm is ok, it's balancing and i'm paying off bills. However, if this is my life in five years, come smack me and remind me that i've dreamed of film sets and telling stories for way too long to be here. it's not a rut yet, just a rhythm. i can honestly say i really have no idea where i'll be in five years. maybe teaching, maybe acting full time, maybe writing, or producing, maybe i'll join the circus... i doubt the last one, but who knows where i'll be. and that's ok too. i'll know when i'll know, then there i'll go.

peace & love,
sarah laine.