The Blessing of Boredom

When I was a kid, I spent the better part of the school year yearning for summer to come back around. This usually happened around the second week in September. When that last bell rang and we were unleashed on the suburbs, I felt pure freedom.

Yet, around the second week of summer, that freedom was usually coupled with pure boredom. This was heightened by the fact that television was strictly rationed in my house and I didn't have Nintendo. At the time, I resented the fact that EVERYBODY else got to watch the Simpsons and B-horror-films and play Duck Hunt, but from where I sit now, I thank God for that boredom.

While I was suffering, I learned to entertain myself. Little did I know it, but I was getting some hardcore basic training for my creativity. After I had spent my excessive ADHD energy playing outside or swimming at the pool, My mom would take me to the library and I would take out dozens of books. I murdered reading lists, and devoured as many mystery and fantasy novels I could get my hands on. Nancy Drew, Harriet the Spy, a Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the Martian Chronicles, A Prayer for Own Meany. Books that involved people and places light-years from my own existence, or kids just like me that got the chance to leave suburbia and go on an extraordinary adventure.

Even though I didn't have movies or TV or video games to watch visually, reading allowed my imagination to create its cinematic experience inside my mind. Being read to aloud was even better because my eyes didn't have to do any work and my mind was free to fly.

It was in these moments that my skills as both a writer and an actress were being carved. I lived vicariously through every character in those books. I saw different worlds and different times through their eyes, learned their motivations and points of views, and understood on a deep level people who were sometimes vastly different than myself. Now when I have to create characters that are different from me, I can just go back into the stores of people in my memory and pull up those vicarious experiences to use as the core of my existence.

I recently watched an interview with British Director Edgar Wright, who directed Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Wright discussed his unique perspective when he said, "growing up in Somerset, England, while it was very idyllic and rural and beautiful, it was also very boring. Being a fantasizing teenager, I would frequently stare out the window and imagine all sorts of car chases and explosives." Now he is making millions of dollars creating all of those scenes that were rooted in these daydreams he had when he probably thought he was dying of boredom.

I was working on a shoot yesterday. It was a political rally and I was a political aide listening to a politician make a speech. It was all extemporaneous speaking, so we never knew what was coming, and at one point while outlining his imaginary platform, Mr. Cheesy Politician announced that he would be instigating a year-round school year. No more summer.

I was supposed to be a sycophant to this man, and it required ALL of my acting chops not to speak out in opposition to this blasphemy. School is important for some things. In an ideal world, school is a small microcosm of our society and it socializes us. We learn to play well with others in an organized setting. We learn to respect authority. We learn tools to help us navigate the world. We learn the story of our world, so we can understand where we come from so we know where we're headed. We make life-long friendships. We learn how to handle mean girls and bullies. We learn about things like sex and drugs from our peers instead of our parents. I could go on about the value of school, despite my own love/hate relationship with the academic system.

However, for creative people, in most cases, school is a place where our imagination is caged. We must stay at our desks and pay attention, even after the point has been made and received, when our brains really want to travel to distant lands and dream up characters or our bodies need to dance and move or our voices need to sing or our hands need to tinker with old computer parts.

Some of the names that will go down in history as the greatest innovators of our time: Einstein, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, the Beatles, even Mark Zuckerberg...these people didn't make their contributions as part of a school project. They made them by having the quiet moments to hear the inspiration and then the time to follow the spark.

The more school there is, the more standardized it becomes, the less freedom the creativity has to exercise its muscles. It doesn't help that schools across the country are cutting the arts out of the curriculum altogether. This could have vast societal consequences: less innovation, a stagnation in the arts, and a rise in reality TV.

Don't get me wrong, I love movies. LOVE them. And, as for T.V., I watch Modern Family religiously. I can even get into video games. But, if I had never had those long stretches of boredom in my youth without every moment being filled with external sensory stimulation, I may never even have realized what my mind was capable of.

Thankfully, now that I'm an adult, at least in terms of my age, I've come to realize that boredom is just alerting us to the gift of nothing to do but dream.

Being in the Now at Runyon Canyon Yoga

Yesterday morning, despite the imposing white clouds blanketing Los Angeles, a symptom of the infamous June Gloom, I dragged myself out of bed and headed up the street to Runyon Canyon, a beautiful park with a couple loops that take you up to one of two peaks, overlooking a vast stretch from sea to mountains and the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area.

At 8:00 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Donna DeCoster leads a half hour meditation before teaching her 8:45 yoga class. You can visit her site, linked above, or friend her on facebook.

It had been a while since I had just sat still with myself without any distractions and the life of an actor trying to start a career and make ends meet can make any sane person, well...crazy. Meditation is a way to observe all of thoughts racing through your head, acknowledge them, and let them pass you by, like ships on the sea or butterflies in the sky. It's a cleansing that few people take advantage of in our information-bombarded society.

So, I got to the green field nestled in the bottom of the canyon, off to the left if you enter the gate on Fuller, two blocks north of Franklin, and set down my mat and sat. Donna led us in a little stretch and started us off, but then our half hour began and all of us were still and silent.

It took a minute to find a position that I could hold for longer than a few seconds. I felt my muscles shaking, as for all the working out that I do, I rarely stay in a cross legged seated position, or Siddhasana, if you want to go all Sanskrit. Finally, I was ready.

My tactic for staying present in the moment was based on sensory awareness. Specifically, I listened to the sounds, taking each one uniquely as it came. I was amused when I noticed that it was like being blind and watching a movie with surround sound. It's funny that my way of relating to nature was by paralleling it to something technological. I heard birds calling to each other, one in one ear, one on the other-side. I heard pieces of conversations and I longed to hear the rest of them, but that was not being in the moment, so I had to let them pass by. When I had observed the sounds and tactile stimuli, I turned my attention inward, to the observer, to the self. I separated myself from all that was around me, from my thoughts of responsibility and recollection, things that put me in either the future or the past, taking me away from the Now. Eckhart Tolle is a wonderful philosopher that discusses different spiritual paths and talks about how, no matter what religion or spirituality you call your own, being present is the key to contentment and peace. Indeed, I felt peace and calm that I had not experienced in sometime.

Before I knew it, Donna was gently calling us out of our meditations. When we were all back into reality, she asked us to share. Many people talked about the difficulties of sitting and being present. At least we're not alone in our restlessness. One girl was very organized in her dealings with her thoughts. As she had a thought, she categorized it as either a past or future dwelling, and visualized her past thoughts passing her by her left shoulder, and her future thoughts by her right as she imagined herself staying between the buoys in the present. Donna said the sharing is her favorite part because hearing other peoples' techniques can help us find new ways to connect with ourselves.

After meditation, many more people came out with their mats and we started a yoga practice. There are several donation-based yoga classes held each day. The teachers are very different, some teach a very fast flow, which can be a great cardio work-out. Donna teaches a Vinyasa, which connects movement to breath, that is a beautiful balance of strength-building and relaxation. She goes at a nice pace, fast enough to work up a light sweat, but slow enough that you can explore your edge and go deep into your body, feeling every tight spot in your muscles and connective tissue and work out of it.

Donna has a radiance that permeates the space and her light seems to ignite the light in others. I felt so cleansed and alive when I was done. I knew my own light was shining brightly too, as I got a big Namaste and hug from another yogi that I had never met before. Doing yoga on the uneven terrain of the green is wonderful practice for developing balance. Afterall, that's what our bodies are designed to do. Sometimes with the shoes we wear and our flat pavement and floors, our bodies don't have to use those balancing muscles and they get a little rusty. The fresh air and sensory variety cleanse the lungs and activate different parts of the brain. Being surrounded by green is proven to have a calming effect on people.

One of my favorite quotes is this:

"Having spent the better part of my life trying either to relive the past or experience the future before it arrives, I have come to believe that in between these two extremes is peace."-anonymous

Getting a good meditation and yoga practice in in the morning is one of the best ways to recharge the battery so you can be productive and avoid being overwhelmed by the daily grind. And what better way than in a gorgeous outdoor setting with a wonderful group of people. You can even get your cardio in afterwards with a hike up the mountain.

You can find more information about Runyon Canyon Yoga by joining their facebook page at:

Namaste :)

Be who you are and be that well.

I recently had a chance to visit my grandparents, Tutu and Grandpa, who live in Pennsylvania and whom I get to see about once a year. These two people are probably the greatest role-models I know. A doctor and nurse duo, their romance was and is something of a fairytale. Honestly, having that to live up to is more of a gauntlet for any of my prospective suitors than the influence Disney movies have had on my hopelessly romantic notions.

They met while she was in nursing school and he in medical school. They were married a week before my grandfather was to ship out to a tour of duty in the Philippines as an doctor in the Army during the Korean War. They spent their honeymoon driving cross-country to California before she kissed him goodbye, and, then, they didn't see each other for a year. My grandmother took six planes from Buffalo to Philippines and they finally could be together.

They have been inseparable ever since. They had two kids, my uncle and my mom, and settled on a tranquil estate overlooking Lake Erie with a pool and a cabin and an orchard and a garden and tons of trees and places to explore. That place was paradise to us. It was a warm and welcoming home-base for nieces, nephews cousins, grandparents, and friends.

When they decided to sell their home in 2002, I was 18. I was the only kid in any generation that had spent exactly my entire childhood there, and having to say goodbye was one of the most painful losses I've ever endured. Even my own childhood home did not have that effect on me.

But if it was hard for me, I can only imagine how much it hurt my grandmother. And I can only imagine it because she keeps it all inside. Not in an angry way or a trapped way, like we can witness in a lot of people, but a sort of acceptance and faith that the pain is part of a grand plan and we just have to trust it, no matter how bad it hurts.

I recently had a chance to visit my grandparents and spend a precious couple days with them all to myself---for the first time since I was a kid and I got in trouble for convincing them to take me to McDonald's for chicken nugget Happy Meals, which was strictly forbidden by my mom who produced a show called, "The Health Show" on ABC.

We had one big day out while I was there. We went to an award-winning IMAX movie called "Wild Ocean" at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. A few minutes into the film, I heard snoring on both sides of me, but didn't have the heart to wake either one of them. To be fair, my assessment of the film was that it really should have been titled, "Mild Ocean: a Sardine Story."

For lunch, we went to Sara's Diner and sampled curly fries and onion rings and hot dogs and milkshakes. Towering above us was the Blue Streak roller coaster at the Waldameer Amusement Park, where I took my first ride as a kid.

We picked up some donuts at H & K DO Nut Shop--another thing we just don't do when my mom rules the roost.

It was all going pretty well, but I could feel the winds begin to change. My grandfather turned down the country road toward their old house. When my grandmother realized what he was doing, she simply said, "I don't want to go there, Chuck," and when he pressed, she said, "We're not going there."

With that, he turned around. He asked if she'd like to go visit her parents. She said yes. Now, I have always had a major problem with cemeteries. The last time I had to visit one to see one of my relatives, I was 12, and my grandmother had died the year before. I threw a tantrum and refused to get out of the car. But, I wasn't 12 anymore, so I had to suck it up and be a grown-up.

We pulled up on the side of the rode, and immediately the tears began to stream from my eyes. It was literally like there was a faucet on behind my eyeballs that I couldn't turn off. So, I didn't fight it. I just kept my sunglasses on.

My grandmother got out of the car and shuffled, light blue pant suit, purse over forearm, across the grass to the flat twin stones of her mother and father, who had both died before I was born. The way she moved was so peaceful and quiet. She knelt down and touched the stones with her arthritic, but beautifully manicured hands, it was so gentle, almost like a child examining a butterfly.

Then, she began to clear off some weeds and grass clippings that had been scattered across the graves. Although I felt almost crushed by the sadness I could feel coming from her, and certainly couldn't stop my own flow of tears, I knelt down and helped. Though I felt the sadness, I could also feel the love that she had for her parents, felt how much she missed them, but also felt her faith that someday they'd all be together again in a happy place. And at that moment, I felt happy too.

Today, I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine about losing loved ones, and for some reason, even though I've always been a skeptic, I have the same kind of view of death as my grandmother. I miss those that I've lost so deeply and I can't help but cry, but I have faith that their spirits are free and happy and flying. I feel peace in cemeteries, even though it hurts.

Now, I can talk about visiting that cemetery, as well as the cemetery where my grandparents will have their final resting place, which was also part of our Grand Day Out, with almost a giggle. As Charlie Chaplin said, "What is tragedy in a close-up, is comedy in a long-shot." Never did I imagine that after a morning of milkshakes, donuts and movies would end with a visit to two different cemeteries.

Tonight, when recounting the tale, I had the urge to jump up and re-enact that scene with my grandmother in the cemetery. I assumed her cute little shuffle, and did just as she has done, kneeling and gently touching the inivisible stones and brushing them off. When I looked over, my friend's eyes were brimming with tears, which shocked me at first, because I thought of it as kind of silly.

But then, I realized, that she was having the same reaction to my representation of my grandmother as I had had when the moment first occurred. I had embodied my grandmother in that moment and had triggered emotion in someone who has never even met her.

And it dawned on me is that that is exactly what we do as actors. When we first get a role, we learn about these characters that have either lived or been created from the imagination of a writer. We observe them or imagine how they move, talk, dream, think, behave.

In these observations, we have these visceral reactions--we feel pain, joy, sorrow, hilarity. We make judgments and choices. Our combinations and interpretations are endless, but the thing that all of our characters have in common is that they are human. Even the monsters and animals in movies and books have aspects of humanity, and that is why we care.

And then, after we've had our cries or our laughs at the expense of these characters, we must stop being the observers and the watchers, and become the observed. Embody the character. Our job is not to make sure the audience feels a certain way about our characters, but to relinquish that choice to the audience. If the viewers believe us, believe what they are seeing, the character will appeal to some aspect of their humanity and they will have a visceral reaction of their own. But, that is out of our hands.

As someone who has always been very aware of peoples' feelings and reactions to my own actions, a problem I've had is being too concerned with whether the audience approves of my interpretation of a character. Whether I'm doing it right.

But I realize that there is no way I could possibly make sure that every audience member had the same reaction to what I was doing, and that trying to somehow control their reaction as a whole or please everyone is just plain stupid.

So, that little moment really made me realize that as actors, we must politely say, "With all due respect, right now, I don't give a damn about what you think. I'm just living my life here. Make of it what you will." Otherwise, our objectives will to be please the audience, rather than to fight for what our character needs and wants and craves. And that is a lose, lose, lose situation for everyone--actor, character, and audience.

As St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of my high school said, "Be who you are, and be that well."

I think he's got something there.

Better Luck Next Time

During my intensive actor training, I had the pleasure of playing some unbelievable characters. Cold-hearted villainesses, widowed queens, champions of the wrongly accused. These women--Lady Anne, Natalya Petrovna, Evelyn from the Shape of Things, to name a few--were complicated, with layers of secrets, motivations and wants. After the gauntlet of emotional jumping jacks and squat-thrusts they put me through at the Academy, I am confident that I can tackle any dramatic challenge that you can throw at me.

So, when I got an invitation to audition for "Sassy/Fun woman who gets excited when she wins money at the Casino table," I was like, piece of cake, right? Let's see. I'm already Sassy/Fun. And, I'm a woman. Uh-oh...I have never won money at a casino table. But, I KNOW I'd be excited if I did!

Homework, Done.

So, I put on my most adorable high-rolling attire and headed to Beverly Hills for the audition. They had made it very clear to me that it was important that I be punctual, as they had chosen me as one of an elite group of Sassy/Fun girls. So, I left super early, which turned out to be a good instinct because traffic on Santa Monica was horrendous. It didn't occur to me just how horrendous til I noticed the driver sitting in the car next to me staring at me and I looked down and realized that I was SLAMMING the edges of my steering wheel to the beat of Santana's "Oye Como Vas." Ok, Breathe in pink, Breathe out blue, Shannon.

Anyway, finally, I got to Nic's Martini Bar, where the audition was being held. I noticed a giant gaggle of women, all of whom looked like they could be right at home on a cruise ship.

My heart sunk. They had said I had been chosen specifically out of THOUSANDS of girls and I had felt, well, special. Now, I felt...NOT special. Ugh.

When the free parking lot was full, I almost considered turning around and heading home. But that is just not my spirit, and besides, I looked adorable. Was I supposed to let that go to waste?

So luckily, I found a meter a few blocks away, put on my sunglasses and my straw floppy Sienna Miller Bo-ho hat, and Walked up North Canon drive. It was kind of cool to see people trying to figure out who I was. I'm nobody, I laughed to myself. Silly people :)

But it was I who felt silly when I got up to the massive throng of women. They looked ridiculous packing themselves up like sardines towards the door of the restaurant. And, now I was one of them.

Again, I almost turned around, but they started taking large groups of about 15 in at a time, so again, I was like, ok, I'll stick around for a minute. Ok, 45 minutes.

Finally, it was time to see what was behind door #1.

I filed in with my group of women and we lined up, much in the same way prisoners line up to be executed. The casting assistant immediately ran down the line and picked out all of the shorter, ethnically ambiguous girls, all of them gorgeous, and asked them to go into another line. "I'm looking for a very specific type," she said.

These were the chosen ones who got to go over to the imaginary casino table and cheer about their imaginary winnings. Although, if you think about it, the buy-out was a thousand dollars, so for one lucky girl, it would be a jack-pot of sorts.

But for me, it was the end of the line. I kicked myself for being not ethnically-ambiguous enough. The casting girl, Andrea, did a little "meet-and-greet" for the rest of us, saying "thanks for coming out" to most people, a thinly-veiled consolation prize. She asked a couple people to tell her something about themselves, but when the woman before me launched into her life story, Andrea said, "Um, one sentence, honey."

I had been nervous about that question, so in my head, I scrolled through my entire database of life experience and, I came up with, "I'm from Virginia and I'm a singer," which I held onto for dear life.

Alas, I never got to share my sad story, as Andrea simply asked me for my headshot and told me I had beautiful eyes, before thanking me for coming and kicking my ass to the curb.

Well, luckily that little crumb of superficial encouragement was enough to keep my ego intact, and I exited, giving the well-accessorized mob a wink and a mischievous smile, wishing them luck. I then put back on my dark glasses and floppy hat, and marched, head held high, back to my car, which thankfully, did not have a ticket on it.

Well, the house may have won this one, but in the end, I plan on cracking the nut. :)

"Dare to Suck"

It's mid-June and graduation season is finally coming to a close. This year was a big year for my family. I received my second degree--an AA in Performing Arts from AADA on the exact day that I had received my BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania five years prior. Before you give me a hard time about how divergent those two disciplines are, I must make the argument that Politicians are actors themselves, and a trip to the Capitol building will show you that D.C. is a lot like Hollywood, except people dress all the same and they don't get to play different characters---unless you're someone like John Edwards who managed to play golden boy and villain within the span of 10 years. If you need more of an argument, watch the 8 Part Miniseries, "The Kennedys."

My brother graduated the following week from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a degree in Industrial Design. He says that he was an Art student, not a Smart student, but he was smart enough to know that since he was a kid, he loved drawing and building things, and so he figured that he'd keep doing that.

I was not blessed with such a clear path. To make a long story short: I chose my college pretty much at random. My mom had a crush on the admissions officer and it had a number 4 ranking in U.S. News. I declared Communications to be my major upon entering college, switched to Psychology when that seemed too fluffy, switched to International Relations when there was far to much of a focus on monkeys and rats than people, switched to History when I got a C+ in Micro Economics because I spent the class doing crossword puzzles, and switched to Political Science when my history T.A. heard us talking about current events in the Middle East and said that if what we were talking about didn't happen 50 or more years ago, he didn't want to hear it. And even with Political Science, I had to persuade my advisor to override a few requirements so I could graduate in four years.

Even after all of that, I still managed to graduate cum laude. Yet I felt like a failure. After 4 years, I was even more confused about who I was and where I was going than when I had started.

When they announced our commencement speaker, the vast majority of my school was livid. It was Jodie Foster. To them, she was just some actress. How did being the star of the original Freaky Friday qualify her to speak at our school?

For me, this was a triumph. This woman was a successful actress, director, and producer. A movie is the ultimate storytelling machine, and she has worn every hat. In my heart, I knew that was what I wanted to be when I grew up--all of those things. I had always known, but I was just too scared to tell anyone that for fear of sounding crazy and because the odds seemed impossible.

What struck me most about her speech, and come to think of it, every commencement speech I've heard since, is the overwhelming theme of the importance of failure. Jodie said that she spent the first six months after graduation in bed, eating cheese doodles, and watching re-runs. Even though she had had success as an actress for years, she felt paralyzed by the responsibility of choosing the next step.

In J.K. Rowling's speech to the Harvard graduating class of 2008, she shared that what she feared above all when she entered the world was failure. She made a joke about how, as Harvard grads, they probably were not very familiar with failure, but that it may have been the fear of failure even more than the desire for success that had motivated them to spend their lives avoiding--well, failure. She said that what kids like that thought of as failure, most people might call success!

J.K. said that after she graduated from school, she said she felt like exactly the very thing she had feared the most: the definition of failure. She was poor and had no idea of what ladder she was supposed to be climbing, and she spent all of her free time writing stories in coffee bars. Despite feeling like she had failed at life by not having a great job, she said, that if she had truly succeeded at anything else, the world may never have known Harry Potter and his magical world of witchcraft and wizardry. She said that her failure was actually just the stripping away of the unnecessary, so she could direct all of her energy toward the thing that she felt truly called to.

As I reflect on the time since Summer of 2006, I see miles of failure behind me. Two unsuccessful applications to a government intelligence agency, a mental breakdown followed by a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder, almost a dozen dead-end jobs, 12 different addresses in 5 years, my first time being fired, failed romances.

However, without all of that failure, I wouldn't be where I am right now. If it weren't for my mental breakdown, I probably never would have given my inner artist permission to be sensitive and creative and loud and moody. It took a healthcare professional to tell me that I was a performer and I needed to harness that and that it was OK to put energy into that aspect of my life, not be ashamed of it. Left to my own devices, I would have trapped that performer in a box and buckled down to work in a cubicle or go to law school. I probably would have been pretty good at that job too, but I wouldn't have been happy and, eventually, that breakdown would be inevitable because I was hiding my true self. As Julia Cameron, author of the Artist's Way, I would have remained a shadow artist, desperately wanting to create and contribute my art, but being afraid and not knowing how.

Winnie Holzman, the co-creator of the musical "Wicked" was one of the commencement speakers at my AADA graduation ceremony. After being introduced, she said it was wonderful to hear all those successes, but that there were A LOT of mistakes in her life, and those aren't on her resume. She told us the story about how she was preparing to speak to a room full of wealthy and important people, and just as she got up to speak, she fell on her ass. She said that in that moment, she made the choice not to be mortified and humiliated, but to laugh it off. To her surprise, she felt such warmth from the people in the room and such empathy, that she was no longer nervous. In fact, it was in that moment, she realized that she had created "Wicked" and done so many other amazing things in life by being willing to fall on her ass, pick herself back up again, and laugh it off, always moving forward.

I've fallen on my ass a lot. In some cases, I've fallen all the way back across the country to my childhood home. But all roads have led me back here to Hollywood. I found a school that understood me and gave me the room and the support to test the extent of imagination and the depths of my emotion. I am here with millions of other creative people, fueled by the same undeniable need to express themselves and tell stories. Now, along with all the life-lessons I've learned through my own "failures," I also have the tools and self-awareness to know who I am and where I stand in that community. I'm gonna chalk that one up in the success column.

Michael Conti, the student representative from the RIT school of Imaging Arts and Sciences, my brother's alma mater, summed it up nicely when he passed on the best advice he had received in his undergraduate education,

"My fellow graduates: Dare to Suck!"

The Job Search Blues

I recently graduated from my latest round of higher education after receiving my AA in Performing Arts from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and thus have been on a quest for the coveted/dreaded day job to support my real career as an Actor. As I already have a BA from an Ivy League school, a varied resume across a wide range of industries, and the gift of gab obtained by kissing the Blarney Stone on a family trip to Ireland, this should be a piece of cake, right?

The best part about applying for jobs in the internet age is that everything is online, so you don't even have to leave the house! I can sit in my bed, in my pajamas, with my laptop propped up on my knees. It's all right there. A million job sites, a million jobs, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

And, it's actually kind of fun. The best is when there is a test that vaguely resembles the SAT with a thousand questions that you have to complete in 10 minutes or your computer will explode, which makes it feel like a game.

Then, there's the personality test which asks you questions like, "I have temper tantrums at work: Always, Sometimes, Never, No response." I mean if you say Always, they won't hire you because you're probably crazy. If you say sometimes, at least your honest, but you're still a loose-cannon. If you say never, you're a liar, and if you say No Response, well it's just like when a mobster pleads the 5th when asked point blank if he's put the hit on Sammy the Tuna.

Of course, the only tiny problem, is that half way through the application, I will have another brilliant idea about another job I should I apply to or an undeniable urge to google something. Sometimes, if I'm not careful, I'll realize I have about fifty different windows open, half of them being incomplete job applications and the other half gmail, Twitter, Facebook, and articles about the religious cults, tornadoes, or diet and fitness plans.

As much fun as I have filling out these online applications, as a recovering, often-relapsing Over-Achiever whose "hard work" has, in the past, bordered on self-flagellation, I decided that it was not enough to fill out the applications on line. What kind of initiative does it take to sit on my ass and type my way to carpal tunnel? You can't capture my winning smile in an anonymous, online survey!

So, last week, I put on my best young professional attire, printed out a couple fresh copies of my resume, and headed down the street to the Marriott Renaissance Hotel. I knew I must have looked the part, because one of the guys trying to get me to go on a tour of the Stars' homes told me I must be an C.E.O.

First, I walked right up to the front desk and asked to see the manager about applying for a job at the front desk. She then directed me to a computer in the back of the building. I started applying on the computer, but then realized that I could be doing this from home, and H.R. was closed anyway, so I went home, put on my PJ's, and completed the application there.

Then, yesterday, I decided to go back and drop off my paper resume. I got all yuppied up and marched down there again. This time, the office was open and I smiled and explained that I had applied on-line, but I wanted to to drop off my resume and speak with someone in person.

"I'm sorry, we don't take paper resumes," said John, the young man sitting at the front desk.

I sweetly pressed and asked what the best way to get in front of a human person would be, but John wouldn't budge. He said it's all done through the system and they did nothing in person. After I probed a little bit further into the customer service situation, he admitted that they had already offered the job to others for the positions I was interested in anyway.

Now, I supposed there were some very un-Catholic things I could have done to get myself behind the front desk of the Marriott, but I'm not that kind of girl, so I politely thanked John for his help, and headed on my way. Now, here I sit, laptop on knees, typing away, hoping that another door will open as I fill out a million more questions about dividing fractions, analogies, and how motivated I am by external reward. (Very Motivated, in case your were wondering.)

Who knows when my number will be picked out of the vast cloud of cyberspace? Will anyone be able to sense that star-quality that got me chosen by my 7th grade teachers as Most Likely to Succeed? And if I am chosen because I fit all the requirements, will it even be one of the jobs I really want?

When girls are sitting around a table, talking about the guys we're dating, there is a reason why one of us will get this screwy look on our face and say, "But he was so good on paper!" Yeah, he seemed like the perfect candidate and all of his stats add up, but that spark, that chemistry, it just wasn't there!

Well, when you refuse to allow people to walk in for a job, the same problem applies. Could that be why the turn-over rate is so high? Maybe if you actually paid attention to the people who want the job enough to get off their rear ends and come in, and didn't just sift through hundreds or thousands of online resumes, you might have someone who might stick around a while.

There are no small parts...

When most people hear the word “background” in Hollywood, they roll their eyes. Most actors are actors because they love to be in the spotlight. Background actors, or “extras”, are often compared to furniture. They are an afterthought, and most agents, casting directors, and business-of-acting teachers will caution you to leave any extra work off of your resume. You don’t want to be confused as someone who wants to be a professional extra, which is completely different than a real “actor." Or is it?

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to do background for an independent feature film. It was was a favor to my friend, a casting director who had been given the task of rounding up a gaggle of extras to do unpaid work, not an easy feat in this town. Because it was a favor, it took my ego out of it. As an actor, my ego is about twice the size of that of a normal, person, and bruises like a peach, so it's helpful when I don't have to look out for it all the time.

My roommate and I headed down to location at 5:30 am, where a van was waiting to shuttle us to the first shooting location, a japanese restaurant.

Because we were friends of the casting director, she hooked us up with Featured extra positions: Waitstaff. That basically just means the camera will be pretty close, so you better make sure you got a manicure.

After putting on the pastel-yellow american apparel shirts and black aprons, we were ready to serve. I was chosen to give the menus to the principal actors, take their drink orders, and then deliver their drinks: two coffees and a mimosa. Simple enough right?

Well, I was terrified. I've only ever served food publicly once, and I spilled pea-soup on an Armani tux at a Bar mitzvah. What if I spill hot coffee all over the actors and give them all 3rd degree burns and ruin the movie???

But, I am an actor, and not one to turn down a challenge, so I nodded and smiled when given the task. I was really glad that something told me to go to the nail salon earlier this week.

The 2nd Assistant Director, the "extras" director, gave me my cue lines. I had to listen very carefully to make sure that I entered on the right lines. Then he gave me my blocking. Then he changed the cue lines. Then he changed my blocking. About three or four more times. Eventually, he locked it in, and we were almost ready to start shooting.

The first part was easy. I just had to walk over, smile, mentally take their drink orders while passing out the menus. The only thing I had to remember was to make sure to give the "special menu", the only one which had all of the menu items printed, rather than just blank paper, to the person who the camera was on. So, I just had to make sure they were stacked correctly the whole time.

The drinks were another story. Not only was I already a nervous wreck on the inside, but the prop girls didn't let me touch the tray until right before I had to deliver it. I also had to use one hand to uncover the coffee cups right before I delivered them. I was praying to every Saint and deity I could conjure.

I guess it worked because when I finally got to the table, I only shook a tiny bit when I took the first coffee of the tray, and even less with the mimosa, and finished strong with giving the last coffee to the mom. I had managed not to spill a drop!

Then, I did the same thing about a hundred more times and it got smoother and smoother. In fact, about three or four takes into the first scene, the lead actor spilled it all over himself and they had to delay shooting til they steam cleaned his pants and shirt.

The principal actors were so kind and we all interacted and it was different every time. I wasn't an extra! I was a waiter! Just like the other actors weren't actors, they were a mom, a dad, and a daughter with a big dilemma.

No one treated us like we were beneath them. Between takes, Robert Carlyle introduced himself to me as "Bobby," and we joked about how disgusting the prop food started to look.

Everything was going great until the very last set-up of the morning. In the first take, I knocked the mimosa into the coffee cup and splattered O.J. all over the table. And, In the second take, I tripped over this pipe that had been sticking out of the ground that I had managed to avoid for the previous six hours. After that take was over, I went over the grab the menus, and quietly apologized to the director and actors. They all cracked up and asked if I was ok. I felt an incredible warmth permeate the room. I smiled sheepishly and laughed too as I confirmed that I was fine.

Kathleen, playing the mom, came up to me after, and apologized for laughing. I assured her there was no need to apologize. It had warmed my heart to hear that sound. Anytime I can make a whole room of people laugh, I've done my job. Savannah, the daughter, told me that, once, her mom tripped at a restaurant and she started laughing, but then she tried to help her mom up, and ended up tripping too!

And after six hours of endless standing, with no trailer to go back to between takes and no second-team to relieve me during set changes, I was wrapped, and got to enjoy a delicious gourmet japanese lunch.

Later on at the second location, a Korean church parking lot, I was just a lowly non-featured extra and had to wait ten seconds from action and walk across the parking lot.

There were two little Korean children sitting and watching the production, and I sat down next to them. They started bombarding me with questions about the movie and I tried my best to explain about the cameras and the lighting and the crew. Then she asked me, "Is acting hard?" I took a beat before I answered, but then said,

"No. But sometimes grown-ups forget how easy it is."

"Let's say you have to play a firefighter in a movie. You've never done that before, right?"

She nodded

"But you can imagine what it would be like, right?"

She nodded again.

"So you need to imagine what it would be like to be a firefighter, and then you have to actually believe that you have become a firefighter."

She looked at me and said, "Oh my goodness! I can't believe I'm talking to a real actor!"

Then, it occurred to me, doing background doesn't make me less of an actor. I've never been a waiter before, but in that moment I was. I had to worry about the normal things waiters do: smiling and being friendly, passing out menus, remembering drink orders, not spilling the drinks. And then I had to worry about the normal things actors worry about: maintaining focus, listening for my cues, hitting my marks, not spilling the drinks.

I hope that extra work will be a minimal part of my career as an actor, but if an opportunity comes my way and I can take it, I'm not going to turn it down. I get to be on set, listen to the director, watch more experienced actors at work, see how the production functions, flirt with the guys on the crew, and eat free food, why not?