Relative Induced Reality Check

The holidays provide good markers of personal growth. There's something about reuniting with relatives that click in and out of my life at bi-annual intervals that is very illustrative of my progress or stagnation. The questions they ask are always informed by the responses I doled out 6-months prior.

Q: "How is (insert name of ex)?"
A: Oh, we're not together anymore.

Q: "How is that baseball play going?"
A: Oh, it closed, I'm sorry that you weren't able to make it. Maybe, by the next one I'll be wearing clothes and you can come see it.

Q: "How are you liking LA, I know you were worried about moving down?"
A: I'm liking it a lot better than I expected. It's a big enough place that everyone can find their community if they look hard enough.

Q: "So are you famous yet?"
A: Well, I must be. You seem to know who I am.

Unfortunately I sometimes get asked questions that I don't want to answer… especially when asked by my girlfriend's father.

Q: "How's the acting career going?"
A: There isn't too much union work going on and the students are all on break, so I haven't been out on many auditions. Mostly I've been focusing on training. I'm studying with The Groundlings, it's an improv-based acting program. A lot of really successful people have come through there. I've also been doing a lot of workshops and reading. Actually, I've got a couple interviews lined up and should have commercial representation by the end of January.

I don't know why I always feel so compelled to justify myself in these situations. Maybe it's because the above question translates in my head to: "Alright actor boy, how much longer are you going to call acting a job while dating my daughter?" It's not that the question was asked with any malicious intent, it's that I'm forced to ask myself the question. The whole of affair reminds me of the scene in "Say Anything" where John Cusack's character explains that he wants to be a pro kick boxer.

In other words, the Holidays provide a bit of a reality check. To date, I haven't made any serious inroads to real productions. That is something that I have to own up to. Part of my homework for this weekend is to take an honest look at 2007 and figure out what I feel good about, what I feel bad about, and what I need to change to make 2008 a better, more productive year.

And a note from the editor:
You may have noticed a sharp decline in the number of blog posts you see over the past month, and most dramatically the past couple weeks. Blogging has taken a backseat to my day-jobs and friends and family – I'm hoping to return to a more regular posting schedule in the coming weeks and months.