I'm rooting for her!

It's Thursday night. There are many things I should be doing right now. I should be doing laundry. I should be scanning e-bay looking for games for my thesis. I should be prowling the web looking for gaming geeks to help me with my thesis. I should be writing some deep post or other. And probably most of all, as it is 10 o'clock and I've not slept much this week, I should be going to bed!

What am I doing, though? I've been cruising YouTube. I was going to cruise looking for Battlestar Galactica fan videos, but I caught sight of a "popular video of the day" on the front page of YouTube and am now hooked. I've just spent the last hour with LUCYinLA. She's a 24 year old woman from Texas (woohoo!) who's trying to make it in Hollywood and decided to start her own video blog. I hope she does make it.

I was too much of a coward to try Hollywood or New York when I left school with a BFA in acting in hand. The older I get, I find the more risk averse I become. When I was 18, I would've been all about it - that's probably when I should have done it; forgone college for the coast - but at 23, I was too scared. At 30, I'm too old in film terms to try to launch from the West Coast, but I still suspect I could get something going out here - local voice overs, extras work, bit parts, etc. The thing about acting is: you become a product and you have to market yourself. I know people talk about that, but - and I see it now more than ever, actually working on a show - it's true.

I'm 5'3" blonde and am about 10 lbs heavier than my happy weight. I'm "cute mom," "awkward date," or "rugged pioneer woman" (think Amy Poehler or Jodi Foster, only with boobs and hips) pretty, but not leading lady or classically beautiful. If I wanted to be serious about acting, I'd have to drop at least 20 lbs, visit the salon on at least a monthly basis for all the hairstyling and coloring, facials and waxings and nail jobs. (How much does that add up to? $200-$300/month, maybe?) I'd have to update my headshots - another $1000 right there, and I'd have to get a better wardrobe, say maybe $200/month on new trendy clothes. And, like Lucy in the video suggests, that's all the cosmetic stuff, that doesn't even address the talent portion. I'd probably need to spend a few hundred bucks a quarter on workshops and classes to stay fresh. I'm one of the lowest-maintenance women I've ever known. All that up-keep is annoying to me. On top of that, I'm one of the cheapest, stingiest people I know: spending that amount of money terrifies me to the core, even if and when I have it. But the real truth of the matter is, even though I'm talented, even though I'm pretty - though not nearly as much of either as I was at 18 or 23 - I'm afraid of being laughed off the stage. It's so much safer to be a working shlub in an office who's abandoned her dreams.

I think that's why I like this girl. She's got the chutzpah I lost several years ago. And she still seems like such a down-to-earth person. I've known other actors who are indeed very nice, but have that "business" air to them. Like the ambition to succeed in show business colors their interactions with everyone. For instance, I have no sway in anything and never have, but I've known some whose niceness seems disingenuous, as if they don't want to insult me, just on the off-chance that I may ascend to some power sometime. Like politeness is an insurance policy and not just the standard. This girl, Lucy, puts off the vibe that she'd be nice to you because she likes you - she seems genuinely joyful. I admire her. I'm rooting for her. Watch her blogs. Go to her movies when they come out!