Discipline

I am finding it very hard to stay disciplined out here.  For the moment, no car and no job, so everything is a little easy-breezy and then you look at the clock and the whole day is gone.  It's difficult to believe it's not perpetual summer break.  I have to make lists every morning of what I need to do, and somehow those lists stay long no matter how many items I knock out.

Here's some big items I did knock out:

1.* Go to the Actor's Work Program and get help finding a job.  This is one of the best resources I have found and I wish I had known about it sooner.  The Actor's Fund (amazing in itself) has an offshoot that specializes in career development.  The operation in NYC is absolutely top notch, I can't say enough things about how professional and smart everyone was when I went a few months ago during the run of Agent G.  In LA, the rigor of the program remains to be seen, but I went to orientation and my first workshop, and I am underway.  In NYC, the AWP felt like a sanctuary in Times Square where you could go and it was open and friendly, people are buzzing around and there's a computer lab.  In LA, the offices are in the SAG building and the layout makes you feel really uncomfortable.  You have to wait in an anteroom and then you get shuttled into a conference room where you can't see anything but a secret, anonymous hallway.  Everything seems to be behind a closed door.  As if you don't spend enough time alone out here, brawp.

2.  Get Health Insurance.  There is a great blog I mentioned a while ago (that has been priceless) called New Yorker in LA which directed me to the ehealthinsurance.com website.  After a week of back and forth and researching, I am now on a Kaiser Permanente HMO plan that should work.  Big ups to Mom and Dad for helping with that.

3.  Get a Library Card.  This one I've wanted to do but was intimidated by the application requirements I saw online, when in fact they're super chill about giving you one.   I should have known.  There's two really nice library branches within walking distance, Cahuenga and Los Feliz.  Very excited to try them out.  Kate and I got our cards together and took out materials the same day.  She said, "I think I found my new favorite plaaaaaace," because there are so many crazy characters walking the stacks.  Absolutely fascinating, unusual people.  One was a guy who seemed to be talking to himself about the "order you had to go in", which was apparently Dog, Rabbit, Snake, Bear.  You could not go Snake, Bear, Rabbit, Dog.  Hmm.

*So get a job and get a car where the actual numbers one and two, but those are going to take a touch longer than I thought.  I remain optimistic.  I have a number of great people who came out here before I did who are in my corner and it's making a big difference.

There's a great line in Malick's The Thin Red Line (one of my all time favorite movies) where Nick Nolte says to John Cusack, "From now on you don't have to tell me that you agree with me or that you think I'm right.  Ever.  We'll just accept it as given."  Find acting work is kind of an uber-number one, or super-objective, so we'll take that goal as given.  It's running underneath everything else I do.