Doughnuts help me lose weight!!!!

I love those crazy diet taglines! But this one, for me, is 100% true.  I am a sugar whore. I live and breathe and die for sugar indulgences! Sometimes I eat dinner just so I have a reason to eat dessert! I went abroad to Germany one college summer and gained 30 lbs in 3 months because I was so depressed  that I found comfort in eating 8-10 chocolate bars a day.  After a nervous breakdown and some psychiatric help I now have my sugar addiction fairly under control.  Since having my son, which cost me an unfortunate 80 LBS (50 down and 30 more to go) I have reinstituted my doughnut diet.  I love doughnuts.  Each time I drive by a doughnut shop in Los Angeles my mouth waters, dreaming of what kind of delicious chocolate covered concoction they have in there, but I resist and never stop because I know that on every Sunday I can indulge.  That is IF and only IF I met my fitness goals for the week.  I don’t have crazy fitness goals like working out two times a day everyday or even working out one time a day, my fitness goal is simply to run about 20-30 minutes three times a week.  If I did that then on Sunday I get to go and get a yummy doughnut at anyone of the doughnut shops I drive by every week.  This is a great motivator for sugar whores like me! On Monday when I dread putting on my sneakers and hitting the pavement I just think about the way that deep fried dough melts in my mouth.  On Wednesday when I just don’t want to go outside I think about those chocolate frosting remnants that I like to lick from my lips when the doughnut is done.  On Friday when my legs are just too doggone tired I know that in just two days I’ll get to savor one yummy sweet delicious doughnut and in no time my run is done!  This week, Nehe was sick.  He is my training partner, daily we go walking, him riding in his comfy, gliding BOB.  MWF we run and he is the best coach as he cries if I walk.  It’s almost as if he too wants to taste that doughnut on his lips on Sunday  (I let him indulge in a yummy doughnut hole).  But this week, we couldn’t run and therefore I don’t get my Sunday doughnut and therefore I am sad.  But I know that on Monday morning (tomorrow!) I will have no trouble putting on my shoes and pounding the pavement because I will want my doughnut next Sunday for sure.   Since instituting this plan I have lost another 5 lbs, and that was the last time I checked the scale.  I know its been more because I can feel the difference but I avoid the scale because sometimes the numbers can me discouraging.   My husband noticing and my waist bands proving looser is ENcouraging.  Yes, doughnuts help me lose weight and that is no lie.

Alrighty UPS Man, I got it.

Yesterday I had to take three boxes of toys, each weighing about twenty pounds to the UPS  store to send to Miami Florida, next stop Haiti.  I was happy to serve my husband in this way and support his upcoming charity event.  Though the thought of carrying in three 20lb boxes of toys and a 30lb toddler into the store concerned me, I knew it had to be done.  I loaded the car during nap.  Then loaded the babe and headed to UPS.  Pulled my car up. Parked. Left car running with clear view of son, prayed to god no one would call police.  Walked 5 feet from car to UPS door, dropped off package number one, walked 5 feet back to car for package number 2, back to UPS door, back to car, back to UPS door, back to car for baby.  Then walked into UPS door with baby and three big packages staring at me at the door.  Two, TWO UPS clerks watched me.  With my babe on one hip I used the other half of my body to push each package the 5 feet up to the desk, three times.  Again, the two clerks watched me.  I set Nehe down, lifted one package on to the counter, wrangled Nehe back to my hip.  "I'd like to send this to Miami" "Fill this out"  I held down the paper with my one free hand as best I could and filled in the deets.  Package 1 done, put son down, pick up package 2, son back on hip. Clerk applies sticker. Repeat for package 3. When I was all done, I said "Thankyou" to which the clerk said "Alrighty".  ALRIGHTY?? YEah thats right you better not say YOUR WELCOME because you gave me no service of any kind! You just stood and watched me struggle with boxes and a baby!  I know that just because I had a baby I shouldn't expect special treatment, but I have a baby I should get special treatment, especially if there are NO other customers in the store!  I'd also understand if there was only one clerk, maybe you have to stay behing the desk for security reasons or at least to answer the phone, but there were two!

Alrighty UPS, guess the next time I 'll be lugging my boxes and my baby to FEDEX.

"I'll take a side of self pity please. . ."

The computer is a weapon of self hate.  Nothing makes my post baby #1 body feel fatter than reading actor breakdowns:
"Skinny"
"Skinny"
"Bikini Body"
"Modelsque but real"
"Real but skinny"
"skinny""Skinny!""SKINNY"

And nothing makes my recently miscarried mental state feel more depressed than FaceBook post after Facebook post of friend's cute newborn babies, pregnancy annoncements, weekly pregnancy photlos and "twins".

Envy is a dish best served with a side of self pity.

Get over yourself Dara.

Callback - Schmallback

I’m overweight.  By LA, my own standards and the straight up numbers on the scale, I am over where I should be.  But having embraced this “my child bearing years” I am doing what I can to love my current self and get out there and book some acting jobs.  Course when your tipping the scale on the plusser side, that means you get called in for parts like “overweight but not obese” I kid you not, this was the breakdown for my audition last week.  I hit the audition out of the park.  I was stunningly beautiful AND hilarious.  I left that audition with my head held high, feeling like, I did my best.  At that point it was out of my hands.  Wouldn’t you know the next day I got that lovely call back.  I was over the moon.  Now of course this meant another day where I had to beg for childcare for my currently very attached lil clingon son, shower, do hair AND makeup (all very difficult tasks for a SAHM to achieve), drive to the west-side in rush hour, find parking and walk in the rain to the actual casting office.  Really the audition or callback is the easy part, it’s the everything else that is HARD!!  Or so I thought going in to my callback.  I was so on the day before I expected the callback to be the same!  They had only called back FIVE girls, already my chances were looking pretty good.  Even better considering I have spent most of my LA career on the heavy side of ingénue and now I am on the light side of character so I was looking pretty good compared to my competition.  The women in the waiting room even commented saying I was not fat enough or ugly enough to be there, very similar to the your not skinny enough or pretty enough looks I used to get when I was more ingénue, but skinny girls aren’t kind enough to say it out loud, they just give you that look. . . so I was thinking my chances were pretty doggone good, in a city based on “looks” this callback was looking in my favor.  Until I stepped in the room.  O.M.G. Did I have an off moment.  The director explained the action and we started.  I began with some indicating, followed by failure to follow direction and then wrapped up with your standard overacting.  Take two, I recovered with more indicating followed by a little deer in the headlights.  I left the audition limping from shooting myself in the foot.  When you have a great audition it doesn’t matter what happens next, you did your best, everything else is out of your hands, what the director wants, what the client wants, your hair color, the shape of your nose, are you a good fit with the husband they choose, all things you can’t control, so you have your great audition and put it all to rest.  But when you blow the audition, when you suck so bad you know they can’t even show you to the clients, you can’t let it go.  It haunts you in your sleep.  It haunts you on the scheduled shoot day.  It haunts you when you look at your bank account and remember you blew your chance to make 3k in one day.  It haunts you when you see the commercial on air and realize it coulda been you, but you sucked when it counted.  Sure you’ll get ‘em next time, but you wanted this time.

Hungry

Having been pregnant or breastfeeding for the last 24 months I am struggling with feeling hungry again.  I do not believe in crazy diets, fads, or pills.  Losing weight is simple. Eat Less. Work out more.  I’ve always been an ol’ fashioned calorie counter.  But, like I said the last 24 months I have been sustaining another life in addition to mine so I felt it one hundred percent necessary to eat every time I was hungry and freed my self from the calorie count.  But now, well I have 30LBs of the 80 pregnancy LBs (yeah, that’s right 80, my doc was African ok!) I gained and it’s time to Eat Less.  So, yeah, its time to get reacquainted with the ol’ hungry feeling again.  Damnet.  Wish I was still pregnant. Those 500 or whatever daily extra calories were delish.   

Audtioning is like dating

As a single woman there was nothing I hated more than that question "So. . . are you seeing anyone?".  Because if you are seeing anyone you will more than likely talk about it and if you are NOT then the last thing you want to do is talk about how you are NOT seeing someone.  Its the same for auditioning.  I know that people mean well when they ask "So .  . . have you had any auditions lately" but I'm taking this moment to let you know that that is not an ok thing to ask.  If somebody has auditions going on, they will talk about it, if they don't they need not your salt in the wound.  Its the same for after an audition, if you know someone who has auditioned there is no need to ask "Have you heard about your audition?" or "Did you get that job you went out for?" Chances are if they did they would have told you.  I am not meaning to be snarky or hurtful, just taking this moment to educate friends and family of actors on the proper protocol for audition questions.  I guess I should  say, "struggling actors" if your friends with Brad Pitt or whatever, I am sure you can ask him how his audition went, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have to audition anymore.

Informerical Testimonials and Commerical Auditions - Oh my!

Tuesday was the best day in a long time! It reminded me why I came out to LA! Sure it was just a small informerical shoot but I still had a call time, call sheet, hair and makeup, wardrobe and lots of camera time, so YAY ME!!!  I dropped off lion paw at 7AM in Eagle Rock then jetted over to Studio City, got lost on a canyon road and just barely made my 7:45 Hair and Makeup call.  I felt so pretty getting all done up and I felt fab in front of the camera with the lights beating down, the boom looming over my face, and people looking at me in the monitor. . . if only I could have been anybody but myself! But I played me and raved about the project I had REALLY tried for a WHOLE WEEK!  Then I did some B-Roll demo of the product and was ready to go pick up lion paw and get back to my humdrum life! But no sooner had I gotten in the car to head back to Eagle Rock when my longtime agent called me with a national commerical audition that I was the PERFECT fit for!  I needed to be in WeHo by 5, it was 1:30, I had to pick up baby, go home, get audition attire, do hair and makeup - wait, I just had that done professionally - ok so BONUS, get resume, find an evening babysitter, probably should eat something, ok, I. Can. Do. This.  Luckily I found a friend who would watch him during audition but I had to pick her up in NoHo at 4, I did, she was about 6 minutes late coming to the car, which in adult time is nothing but in baby time its EVERYTHING!!! So the lion paw lost it and screamed all down Laurel Canyon road from Noho to Weho, but I pressed on, pumping him full of rice rusks and plum baby food packets.  Got to the audition location, Hail Mary Full of Grace I found an AWESOME parking space, got lion paw and sitter set up with a stroller and then jetted across the street and up the stairs to my audition.  I stopped, gathered myself, then went in, it was one of those less than 5 minute auditions, the type where you are like, wow I have been prepping for this for 3.5 hours and driving for .75 hr just to walk in for 5 minutes and hope that I have what you want!  But I did it! I did great but I didn't have what they want, but whatever.  Went out grabbed my baby, drove home and collapsed into bed, remembering the days of when juggling a full time job and auditioning was hard thinking about how juggling a babyand auditioning is WAY HARDER! But I keep on keeping on hoping for my next callsheet.