I've had a bit of an epiphany, and I like it.

I watched the Oscars Sunday night, as I have every year for as long as I can remember. Every year I watch and bemoan the fact that I'm not there. And then it hits me. Why am I not trying to get there?

Acting is all I have ever wanted to do, since I was very little. At the age of eight I decided I would move to California, and when I was eighteen, I did so for six months. It was a horrible experience, but I did get a teensy bit of acting done, and I loved the place itself. Wouldn't give it up for anything, and I'd do it again in a second. Only I would do it right. Yet this dream I've had for roughly 20 years is just not happening. I've done one real paid acting job in the past couple years, plus a couple unpaid, and I know I can do more than this. My paid acting job, a commercial for the Chicago Tribune, aired during the Oscars last year and I was so convinced it was a sign. And I did nothing about it. I got close, yeah, had the money set aside for headshots and then I got sick. (No joking. Really sick. Myofascial pain disorder. It's like TMJ, but worse. It actually got me fired from a job for too many absences.)

So I'm changing that. Since Sunday night, I've been so determined I scare myself. I've gone around getting numbers, making calls, finding out who I need to see for what... Moving isn't on my list of priorities right now, but in time, sure. I'll start out here, see what happens. And it better freaking happen.

I have gone off the deep end, ladies and gentlemen. Maybe I can blame it on the influx of caffeine into my system, but my brain has been on this creative overload. Everyone at work is coming down sick, and I, with my very strong believe in mind over matter, am literally the only one not sick. I think I'm sucking the energy off of everyone else. Yesterday was basically me bouncing around the office and coming up with stories about how Cousin Itt, tired of being made fun of for a condition he could do nothing about, went on a homicidal rampage, and so on. At one point I was compared to the damn Buffybot. ("Of course I missed you. You're Friend Kevin. You're very nice.")

Today? Not much better. Spent most of the morning alternating between fighting off this nasty ass flu and bashing my damn muse over the head with her own Lucky Special Stick. And this afternoon, my hyperness spread. With the bosses gone and my coworker Gretchen working up front today, I was on the phone with a client's answering machine and there's Gretchen, making this ungodly noise. I'm covering my ears and can still hear her. So now this poor client has me on their machine all "Hi, this is < giggle > Natalie. I'm < giggle > < cough > calling to give you your < giggle >... I'm calling to... < giggle > I'm very sorry about this." I get off the phone and she's all excited, saying, "Did I sound like Chewbacca?" which just got everyone in earshot trying to make Wookiee noises. Very surreal.

I also need to curse Nick. < curses Nick > Ever hear of a band called Guster? They're a really awesome band that he got me started on about a year ago, and since then Nick has gotten their three CD's. Well, it occurred to me a couple weeks ago that almost every song on Goldfly and Lost and Gone Forever were absolutely perfect for one of my original characters that I write. So he purposely gives me his newest procurement of Parachute to listen to in the hopes that my muse will start thwapping me with the damn stick. Maybe I shouldn't have started reading the lyrics sheet in front of him...

And yes, I am aware that I end these things in the lamest way possible.

I am a Geek.

I make no qualms about this. Two of my earliest memories are A) watching the Star Wars trilogy, and B) watching the V miniseries and reenacting the eps with my Barbies the next day. I went through this period where I hated scifi, didn't get it, and then when I was about fourteen, I saw Star Wars again with my Harrison Ford radar on and decided that this was the best damn genre around because it involved cute guys with laser guns, and therefore, we had some Bad Boy Syndrome going. Anyway, I'm a geek, my muses absolutely love writing scifi now, and lately it's all I read. (Damn you, Lois McMaster Bujold. I blame the reading part on you.) I am horribly addicted to Farscape and by the way, I just got to see that new preview today. I spazzed. It looks pretty.

When the Star Wars trailer came out, I bounced around for days. I taped it, watched with my jaw dropped open and giggling like a little kid, and I have since watched it at least twenty times. (Told you I was a geek.) And today my brother Nick and I dragged ourselves out of the house to go to the 1:40 showing of Ice Age specifically just to see the trailer. Of course, the 1:40 was sold out, so we had to buy tickets for the 3:10 and come back. Which we did, only to discover that everyone in town with kids under the age of 10 had beat us there.

Note to George Lucas: Please, PLEASE stop putting your trailers before kids' movies. I can't take much more. I was happy to sit through Monsters, Inc., but even then I had to deal with screechy children.

Don't get me wrong, I love kids. Just not in a movie theater. Nick and I got stuck in the third row of the theater, all the way on the end, surrounded by kids whose parents didn't seem to notice the annoyed glares from every non-parent over the age of 14. Of which there were about four, by the way, but that's beside the point. I sat through previews for kids movies just for that last trailer that had me spazzing and wishing to any higher power that would listen that it would be May 16 already. Oh, and the movie wasn't too good, either. Nick and I kept leaning over to each other and quoting Eddie Izzard through the whole thing. Because we're all about the traumatization of little children. Hey, it's gonna happen sooner or later, we might as well have fun with it, right?

Told you I was a geek. I also told you these were random thoughts. What? Don't look at me like that.

All right, so since everyone in the world seems to have one of these things, I have decided to jump off the bridge along with everyone else because it looks like fun. And I decided to make it public, so that anyone can see it. Why? No idea. Just one of those wacky things I do, or something.


Anyway. This is basically just me being able to talk about me in a public forum, which really, is something I am very good at. My name is Natalie, I'm 21, work in data entry, and wish that I was on a movie set somewhere. I'm living at home because I'm trying to get on a movie set somewhere, although I'm getting to the point where if I don't move out, I will have to resort to something desperate, like moving into a cardboard box in the backyard and having all my mail forwarded there. Don't put that past me.



And on to the psychosis...