...filling you in (on the week just gone)

After my weekly meeting with Dr Cohen, I've learnt to judge the start of the week as 11am on Fridays.

So, in my mind, I've just completely missed blogging for a near whole week. And it's not like there's been anything to write about.

Hang on, start again, the grammar and sentence structure of the above was shocking. Plus, it's also a lie. Didn't I review the Wall of Death less than seven days ago?

Hmm. Anyway, it's been one of those weeks....

For a start, S L Bartlett has gone pack to work on placements, this time, on ward something at the RAHospital in Paisley. So the evenings for me are as househusband, running a bath, cooking dinner, loading the dishie and preparing the breakfast for the next day. I've been quite inventive with dinner. I say inventive, I mean inventive for me, as I'm no cook if truth be told. The menu for the last week read: Korma, rice and naans on Monday.Tuesday was breaded haddock, sweetcorn, peas, carrots, runner beans and oven chips. Then breaded chicken breasts, beans, lots of with chips again. On S L's day off, she did the honours with a roast dinner, similar to what I once wrote about, posts ago. Then last night, I made err, a err, what did I make? Of course, Spag-bol served with garlic bread and cheese to flavour. How did I forget that?

Moving away from the kitchen, I also had my second acting lesson. These lessons are only an hour and a half but I do think they're meant to work as snap-shots for the week.
On the first week, I was nervous and somehow managed to be in the right frame of mind. I'll write about this lesson in full later. The second lesson, apart from the group warm up, was reading from a script, in this case, scenes two and three from the Glass Menagerie.
Oh, reading out loud. This is the one thing that could scupper my future as an actor. I never read books as a child, just car magazines, and even then, between paragraphs, I'd look at the glossy images, so it was never sustained reading. More like short bursts and only in my head. Post internet though, reading is second nature. If I can't read to myself now, after more than 10 years of surfing the thingy-sphere, then I don't know. So, reading. Out load can't be that different to quietly; to yourself, right?
No, it's a completely different beast. Two beasts in fact. The added process of voicing the words whilst reading ahead becomes a duo-core process. Luckily, I somehow, without training past the age of eight or nine, can do it. Yes it's not faultless, in truth it's often a complete farce, but in places, I can do it well enough to add the third process in reading as an actor; to live the lines. What cheese I know, but it's a needed level of working. So, yeah, good. I do think I give the impression of an illiterate bumpkin but by the end of the second lesson; after less than three hours, I was acting with a script. A little bit Joey Tribbiani in posture and Grant Mitchell levels of woodenness maybe, but I am holding a script in one hand (and being a tea-pot with the other). There are two things of note however, one good, one bad. Good, in scene three, it is between Tom and his mother (err, Laura, or is that his sister's name), Paul Fortuna, the teach, told us to read in male/female pairs and read the opposite parts first, as in, I read as Mother and the female read Tom. Then swap. It really, really helped me. Hearing what I was meant to say minutes before I was going to read and say it. Like linguaphone for actors. If only I could have done it well for my partner for the lesson. God, I wasn't brilliant help but luckily, she was straight out of school and a Drama Higher. I'm guessing this as we didn't have time to greet before the read-thru. Second, bad, was the more into it I became, the more I couldn't see the script for my shouting. I seem to shake, but hey, I'm getting into it and since when has projecting your voice been a bad thing for actors?

Anyway. I'm proud of myself for going in the first place!
I, on Monday, grew a bloody great big coldsore on my face. On my lip, not as before, coming out of my nose like a perma-bogey. I would have missed it for this alone. Then, with an hour before the lesson, I was really tired, like exhausted. It had been building all week and by Wednesday evening I could barely get up off the sofa. Again, this would have been enough to put me off. Thirdly, traffic was shocking and with S L at work, I was driving myself. Hitting the M8 at a near standstill, I thought, I getting off and going back home. I then thought, sod it, I'll drive as far as I can to the UKTS until 6 and see if I'll be too late to creep in. Fourthly, I had local anaesthetic for a filling and as I had a snack before I left, my face became more dead, more anaesthetised. Gosh, How I'm I going do anything with a stroke-like smile? But in the end, I got there with 10 minutes to spare, even after finding a space to park around the corner, and although I had half eaten my bottom lip, which was a bloody mess and my coldsore looked like a entity in it's own right, I was getting out of my slumber. Maybe it was my driving in rush-hour or maybe it was my drive to get there in the first place. Beyond my usual self-induced panicky reluctance, the want to become more than I am at the moment; go beyond where I am now; to be better!

More maybe I just really want to. You know, be an actor and stuff or summink or nuffing.

It is also of note, I was early for all appointments, lessons and things that week. Getting there early ain't that bad after all!

...24 and leaking bogies...

...in front of Paul, of United Casting...

...so today was my sign up to the extras agency. I'd been looking forward to this for ages. This was an integral part of my 'future me' and my recovery from my illness.

So there was a lot riding on this, right?

No, it was just a photo and then me writing a cheque. However, I had to meet two of the three people that founded and run the company. So it was vital I didn't come across as a complete tool or worse, a total f*ckwit. If I'd made the wrong impression with them, why would they want to recommend me to production companies and others things that use extras, like at a, err, a......anyway.

I dressed smart, black tie, light blue shirt, long brown coat. Plus my new 'Mr Men' brogues SL gave me yesterday.

I arrived at 11.30 at reception, for my 11.30 appointment. Hey, that's early for me. Yes I know.

Fill in a form, clothes measurements and contact details mainly.

Luckily for me, they're running late.

Sitting there waiting, other extras came and went. All in order on the list on the greeter's clipboard.

Then, what's this, snotty nose, I've got a snotty nose. Crap, if I touch my nose, it'll go red and my face'll look blotchy for the photograph. But it's all watery snot, err. So with sniffing and the odd wipe with my hand. Plus two sneezes. I was called in...

...all when well, I think. I was funny, I think, confident and not at all like a f*ckwit. I think I wasn't a cock. Anyway, smiles all round, good. Then got up to get my photo taken, took off my coat, stood up, bingo, in one. Nice. No smile, just a blank canvas of a face. My hair wasn't too much of a hedge. Then time to write out the cheque; looking down as I write out....

...a long liquid bogey escaped my nose straight to the ground. I'm giggling as I write this now but at the time, even if Paul didn't see, I said out loud "bogies, err, I've got bogies."
God, what the hell was wrong with my nose, is it fighting for the other side (as in, it's not fighting for me, not that it's homosexual)?
Thankfully, Paul replied with, "like that game kids play, 'bogies', you know?"
No I thought, but well, I'm in a hole, "Oh yeah, bogies. Yeah, kids?"
What a tool, I'm such a tw*t. But then I said, "Oh do you need to see some ID or anything?"
Nice, moving things away from my snot string and my red, red nose.
"Oh yes, well remembered." he said.
Then, that was it, all ends tied up, brilliant. Now get out before my snot monkey tries to escape again, maybe with a sneeze. God, imagine I sneezed on him and snotted everything in sight.
"Right, is that everything?" I said
"Yep, brilliant, we'll be in touch. You OK?" he said with a smile, a friendly smile, not a mocking one.
"Oh, yeah, I just can't believe I said 'ah bogies' to another adult."
"It's OK, it happens all the time." Paul said and 'hmm, only to me, surely?' I thought, but he's more than accommodating, this could have been a nightmare. Paul made sure it wasn't, thanks.
I then said, "I haven't worn this coat in awhile, I must be illurgic to it." with a laugh.
So rubbing my right hand like a loony, I go to shake his out stretched had, "Sorry, the bogies again."

Well, I made an impression.

...using this as a to do list...

...as I can't find my scrap of paper, the one with all things I forgotten to do on it.

all to be done this week, over the week:

• tidy away all the stuff on the breakfast table
• polish the table and rotate the chairs from the sun
• clear my desk, the drawing desk, not just the computer one this time
• do left over laundry from the weekend
• go food shopping; get things for SL's lunch
• clear the coffee table and find a place for blockbusters
• water all the house plants
• spilatify the sittingroom, also rearrange the plugs in the hall too
• take the things & clothes to the charity shop
• change the bedsheets
• get a repeat antihistamine prescription
• send in or drop off the UKTS cheque
• I'm sure there's much, much more
  

...officially on the waiting list

I had a bad Thursday. Couldn't do anything right, couldn't do anything positive.

Then, yesterday, boom.
After a good talk with SL; getting back on the same wavelength (although it was just fine-tuning really), I felt completely focused on how to move forward.

Continuing from the last post, I phoned up UnitedCasting (extras agency), going for a photo and fully registering next week, also I asked about the UKTheatreSchool, who claimed to be linked to them.
Yes, they're real!
They're the one's SL found with the course starting in February.
I phoned them too.
Not only is there a course starting in Feb, the one that started last week, I can still actually join. There has been a couple who dropped out and there wasn't too much to catch up on from week one, so....
....no, they offered but I said that I'm going away in December, which is true and well, I want to get all from this, not just most of it.
Also, after having a bit more of a chat, the 10 week course then has a follow-on for intermediates, another 10 weeks, then there's a LAMBA tested 10 week course after that.
So 30 weeks of acting up. Good
Plus, I'm officially on the RSAMD adult acting class waiting list for October 2010. Good, good.

Now, I'm not too sure, but I'm thinking this post really does need a re-write