Auditions: The Good, The Bad...The FUGLY

I don't know what happened...I was beaming with confidence, my hair was just right, I had brushed my teeth and was wearing my blue power blouse that shows the world I'm a star.  Then...I walked into the audition room.

And bombed.

It was as if I just stepped off a farm in Omaha (no offense...are there even farms in omaha?) and decided today, two minutes before my audition that I wanted to be an actress.

What happened in there??  That's all my brain could ask as I walked out the door and got in my car.  It was an out of body experience.  Now, I know many other actors have experienced the ultimate, 'I nailed that audition!  Bam!  I was so freaking prepared, there's no way I didnt get that part!'  and I'm sure many have experienced the, 'Eh, I could've done better.'  But please, please, please, tell me I'm not the only one that just experienced:

Camera Op: 'Please slate your name.'
Me: 'Hi, I'm Colleen Irene Boag, I'm about to be your worst auditioning nightmare.'
Camera Op: 'Have you ever used our product before.'
Me: 'Hell no!  Thank God!  I hope I never have to!'
Camera Op: 'Ok...great.  Go ahead when you're ready.'

(Inner monologue) Ok...say the lines, get them right, no, that's not the line, oh shoot, i'm just reading right of the paper, crap, I'm supposed to be holding a cat?!?!?!  Should I mime it?  Sure, why the hell not!  Let's bend out of frame and pick up an imaginary cat and pretend to be petting it with my eyes completely down and not even a quick look up so the camera can see how they sparkle!  Great!  F-ed up that line, who cares, two more lines, just keep going, my eyes are darting everywhere, why are my eyes darting everywhere, do not apologize for sucking even though this is the most suck I've ever felt in an audition room, oh dear Lord, I should've just stayed in bed this morning and not...I'm done.

'Thanks.'

'Uh...thank you!  Have a good day!'

I walked out of that building as fast as I possibly could and wanted to just run and hide under the biggest rock I could find.   Ok.  Time to dive back into commercial class.  That was an ultimate train wreck.

(disclaimer: i didn't actually cry after the audition...

i'm just actually a good actress, believe it or not)

Here's hoping that auditions are like life...when you've hit rock bottom, there's no way to go but up.  On to the next!  Oy.

Flights are How Much?!?!??!

Is anyone else getting overwhelmed by the gas prices these days??  Yikes!  I'm always happy when I'm able to walk somewhere and save .011 gallon of gas, so I don't have to visit that horrifying gas station, spend $25 and only see the needle go up to a quarter tank.  Ugh.

I believe this is directly affecting the price of flights as well.  This year has already been a challenging one navigating the discount, cheap flight websites almost every day to plan for a hefty number of trips I'm taking this year.

I'm very excited to be taking these trips, don't get me wrong.  I'm visiting Vegas, I'm flying home to visit my new nephew, baby John, I'm flying internationally to Italy to be in my best friends wedding!  It's all fabulously exciting and very much worth my time, but my bank account keeps frowning at me...

As a 'starving artist', I find these prices to be even more daunting.  All things I want to do and I will end up doing, even if it means months of raman noodles and no cable ;).  Whatever happened to the days of discount travel sites actually offering discounts??  I've been searching for cheap flights on hotwire, orbitz, priceline, etc, and it seems to me that the prices they spit out are what you would pay if you were going to the airline site itself.  I miss the 'good old days'...am I actually old enough to say that?

It's so funny when I reminisce about 'back in the day' when I would stop at the gas pump on my way back from senior year classes and I'd sift around the floor and seats of my mazda 323 hatchback and find about $2 worth of change.  I'd walk inside to the clerk, "$2 on number 4 please", and I'd have a decent amount of gas to get me through the week.  Heaven.

Well, prices are rising...so I hope minimum wage gets on board soon enough, or I book that next big Tim Burton film and get a chance to pay my entire family's gas for a few years!

Got any secret good advice on how to save money on flights or at the pump??  Let me know!

Ooh, for those of you with smartphones, there's an app called 'Gas Buddy' and it tells you the price of the gas in the area you are so you can find the cheapest.  At least you may only spend $4.60 as opposed to $4.89  ;)