The view from my hotel room this AM

:o)

Moonlighting? Daylighting??

I told you all that I picked up a production gig - well, I am working from home right now (instead of driving way across the city to go into a production office everyday) and LOVING it.  I am SO much more productive at home because I can completely structure my day the way I need to, I'm in comfy clothes (today's work uniform was a tank top, short sweatpants, and fuzzy slippers), and I don't start my day with road rage.  One of the people with whom I correspond is across the pond with a 10-hour time difference between us, so I (being a night-owl anyway) can talk with him at midnight or 1AM my time, and not feel the least bit guilty about the time I take in the middle of the day to run an errand or go to an audition.  As long as the work gets done (which it ALWAYS does), it's win-win.

Speaking of auditions (did you like that segue?) I had a commercial callback today.  Without naming names, let me get you up to speed:

Last week I went to an audition at a casting office where the people are very, very nice, but they have cats and dogs on the premises and as soon as you walk in the door, it's evident that they don't do a good job of cleaning the place.  It actually smells like cats OUTSIDE of the building.  I walk in and it's just a matter of minutes before I can feel floating cat hairs land on my face.  My allergies are such that I take medicine everyday, but this place always sets them off, even if I take double the amount of meds I'm supposed to take AND use my asthma inhaler.  And I never get to go in and audition right away - there's always a significant delay, so by the time I get into the audition room, I'm a sneezy, itchy, swollen, wheezy mess.  (Having one's pets at work is a great perk, but please, PLEASE take extra pains to keep the place clean.)  I've been auditioning at this place periodically for at least 3 years, and I have never gotten a callback (probably because by the time I get in front of the camera, one eye is puffy and my nose is running) - until today.

I went into the initial audition with an attitude, mad because I didn't feel like dealing with the symptoms of being in that office.  There was food on the table in the audition room and I thought to myself "If this audition requires me to eat, I might as well just leave now."  No way I'm ingesting anything prepared there.  Thankfully, it was just a prop, and sure enough I got in my car and scratched all the way home.  Once I got home, I took my dress off, balled it up, and threw it (and I do mean THREW it) into the "dry clean" pile in my closet.  I was disgusted.  All of that for a commercial and I knew I wasn't going to get a callback.

So... last night I got the callback call!  Callbacks were being held in a different location, far from where I live, but I would rather make that drive 3 times in a row than go to that nasty office again!  I hadn't written down what I wore to the audition (actors are supposed to wear the same thing to the callback), so I really had to look at my calendar and re-trace my steps.  Oh no!  The dress was in the dirty clothes, and had animal hair on it.  It was about 10PM by then, so it wasn't like I could run it to the dry cleaners... so I pulled that dirty dress out of the heap, sprayed it lightly with Febreeze, and hung it from one of my cabinets.  I got grossed out everytime I walked past it, didn't want to handle it too much, and I certainly didn't want to put that nasty thing on but I took it in my car, put it on to audition, and took it off in my car as soon as the audition was done.  Yuck.

Back at home, I showered immediately, put my tank top & sweats back on, grabbed my laptop, and got back to my 'other' job.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think the audition went all that well.

I'll be heading out of town soon because the show (production gig) I'm working on shoots in Chicago.  I've booked out with my reps for that time, so they can't really send me on any other auditions before I go because anything I would audition for right now would shoot during the time when I'm due to be gone.

Maybe the change in scenery is just what I need.


--Nicole

Back Away From The Scalpel.

Is it just me or are women more unhappy with themselves these days?  I don't know if I encounter it more often because I'm in La La Land and working in showbiz, or if it's like this EVERYWHERE, but if I have to hear one more woman talk about needing plastic surgery, how something about her body is inherently wrong, or lying about her age, I might have to take to my bed for awhile.  I just can't.

What is this foolishness??  And is it just me or is it getting worse?  As we have more options (i.e. products and procedures), we seem to feel like we have to take advantage of them (which makes advertisers & manufacturers happy) But are we really taking advantage of them, or are they taking advantage of us?  And this obsession with "looking younger" - why is that even desirable?  At 37, I'm never going to look 22 again - I'm only going to look like I'm TRYING to look like I'm 22, which is far worse than just being the best 37 I can be!  I do understand how caring for ourselves can keep us healthy and lift our spirits, but why are we trying to look younger when even the youngest among us are getting older?  How about just looking like our best selves?  Can't we do that?  Or do we have to ask permission?  (Lots of questions, I know.)

If you really need to lose weight for health reasons, I'm all for it (healthily), but losing 8 pounds so you can fit into a pair of skinny jeans that weren't designed for your body type anyway is crazy.  Same for getting a breast augmentation because (insert celebrity name here) got one.  Really?  You're getting surgery to look like someone else who has also had surgery?  You're going to let someone cut your nose open or let someone inject a foreign substance into your lips so you can look like what's considered "hot" today?  Really?  Okay, so what happens tomorrow?  You know something new is added to the beauty "to do" list at periodic intervals, right?  Yup.  Just enough to keep us off-kilter and never quite 'right.'

I'm watching this insanity play out all around me, and I feel like the child in the story "The Emperor's New Clothes."  (Anybody else feel me??)

Yes, the pressure to be a certain way goes up in certain situations- being in the entertainment industry is one of those pressure-cookers, but I think it's a universal truth that if we don't take the time and effort to ground ourselves and determine our worth for ourselves, all too many people are willing to determine our worth for us, and it will be to their advantage - not ours.

There is freedom in being our best, beautiful selves, but we have to be sure to define the constitution of beauty for ourselves or we end up not being able to move our foreheads.  And I don't care what anybody says, that is not right.

--Nicole

"To deny your age is to deny that you have survived." --Maya Angelou

I Don't Even Know What To Call This Post.

I keep starting blog posts, then abandoning them.  Now that I know I actually have readers (as opposed to when I first began blogging and wondered if ANYBODY was reading what I wrote), I so want to fill every post with tidbits of inspiration, and enlightenment.  I want to uplift and encourage.  I want each reader to walk away empowered and better for having taken the time to read "Living Truthfully."  I want to be better so that I have better things to share, more insight, and can help us all to be better.

I feel the need to offer more than "I had an audition today, and this is how it went."  That was fine when I first started auditioning, but the process isn't quite as shiny and new anymore & it feels like "me me me me me me I me I me I."  Ugh.  Who wants to to hear that.  Who NEEDS to hear that all the time?  Where's the value in that?  I do enjoy sharing my experiences and learning from the experiences from others, but if there aren't deeper lessons to be learned, it's all just talk.  And there's too much blah blah blah going around everywhere already.

So I haven't been posting.  I've just been alternately living, thinking, and avoiding.  I've been reading other peoples' blogs, examining truths (and in-turn recognizing falsehoods).  There are some really inspirational people* who have a lot to say, but being neither an über-cheerful, always-positive type, nor wanting to come across as a know-it-all, I've been silent.

But it doesn't FEEL right:  this holding back things that I know that I know to be right.  Not asking questions that need to be asked (because real truth will stand up to questioning).

Anything other than expressing what is true feels like wearing my shoes on the wrong feet.  So I'll do more of that, being sure to speak from a place of compassion rather than ego.  The former builds, the latter destroys.

I shot an episode of new FOX show "Sons of Tucson" this past Tuesday.  I played an animal control officer (I am wearing a ton of makeup in a questionable shade in that photo).  The show is a mid-season replacement, so it won't air for awhile.  I'll let you know when, though.

I've been auditioning a lot, including commercial auditions - haven't booked a commercial since July '08!!  I'm making it, but my financial situation needs to change right now, if not sooner.  I have accepted an offer for a production gig that will take me to Chicago.  It doesn't sound like it's going to be too crazy of a job (knock on wood), and I get to go to my hometown plus see my family.  I'm pretty happy, but being broke really sucks.  Really.  It won't be this way always though - the pendulum swings both ways.

Last, but not least, I met fellow actress and blogger Julia Nalbach (left) this past Sunday!  What a truly wonderful and colorful human being!  She came to Los Angeles (all the way from Munich!!) to participate in a program, and we got together at a Starbucks in Burbank.  While participating in the program, she was assigned a roommate - also named Julia (right), and (get this) ALSO from Munich!  The three of us had a good time, chatting, laughing, and sharing, and being loud and silly.  We also met a really nice guy named Jay - a songwriter and professional background actor (I won't tell you how we met him - maybe one of the Julias will).  It was an intimate gathering among new buddies and it was really cool.

I will post more often, and will be back SOON!  I promise.  I've missed y'all.

Hugs (for real),

--Nicole

*Just a few of the people that I find to be inspirational are:

When I Grow Up
Marianne Williamson
HiLife2B
Simply Fearless
The Fluent Self
Zen Habits
White Hot Truth

Real Quick...

Don't have a lot of time right now, but I just wanted to let you know that today, in class, my scene soared.

That's all.

I'm happy now.

--Nicole