I found myself pained by the dilemma this caused: during the second half of the filming dates I was scheduled to visit my family in San Diego, and introduce my beau of 1.25 years to my California Parents. Plane tickets were purchased, rental car was reserved, lodging was secured, and California Parents were counting down the days.

Either the vacation with my far-off folks had to be shelved, or the possibility of filming had to be shelved. There was no room for compromise.

Turns out the braces-in-my-faces ended up making the decision for me. I was told that the movie was set in the mid-60s. I was aware that the casting director was calling me in based on my headshots – both of which feature a closed mouth. On purpose. I hated my teeth when those were taken, and had every intention of getting braces. I now have those braces (just eight more months to go – thank god). I can’t imagine that braces in a movie would be a big deal, except for the fact that the braces I have today were not invented until 1972. NINETEEN SEVENTY-FREAKING-TWO. I would have walked onto the set with a giant anachronism epoxied to my face. I shared that with my agent, who then politely declined with the casting director on my behalf.

Ahhhh, braces – fixing my teeth, and fixing my dilemmas. While I hate dilemmas, I still hate the braces more.

Meanwhile, I was called back into Undertone Music to voice incomprehensible conversations for Pixar-style animated coffee cups, the dots on top of “i”s, and bouncy balls. There were three people observing and engineering the session, and at one point I actually had them in tears from laughter – they tweaked pitches for a few of the spots, so I threw in seemingly appropriate references to Baby Jessica and making out with a jar of mayonnaise. For some reason those didn’t make it into the final product. Curious.

And now for the gritty of all this nitty: I’ve been putting off writing about any of the good news for many, many days because I’ve been far too busy panicking. It’s hard to write anything more than “GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” when one is consumed with panic. I am, and for two weeks have been, in a perpetual state of sheer terror over where my next paycheck is coming from. My show at The Children’s Theatre closes this Sunday afternoon, and I don’t have any confirmed work coming down the pipeline. Up until now I have been a responsible girl with my ducks (oh, how I love ducks) neatly in a row. Now the ducks are hither and yon. Nothing is more disarming than a paddling of wayward ducks.

I signed up with a temp agency this week and had a meeting/paperwork-marathon with them today – hopefully that will generate some temporary income – I’m also filing for unemployment on Monday. Seriously, unemployment. Me. What the hell? Oy. The whole concept makes me feel sick to my stomach – not having a solidified plan to make sure my basic needs are met makes me feel irresponsible, careless, and immature. Granted, I could easily return to the full-time corporate/desk-jobby world that I once ruled, but I am not ready to do that just yet. I want to take a low-stress, no-obligation job that I can leave at any time to take stage, voice-over, or commercial gigs. I’m determined to remain available to opportunities because I’ve short-changed myself via benefits-paralysis for years now. It’s time to do things my way. Hey, ducks! You come here. RIGHT NOW!