Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Blah funky schmeh Aries what?

Last night, I had this brilliant plan of writing an "Epic Tuesday" blog. My friend Lira had a totally Epic Tuesday! Mine was not quite as epic, but it was cool. Good things happened. I wrote an article on Shooter Jennings, and had asked one of Shooter's fans for the free use of a photo for my piece. He graciously agreed, and asked to read my article when it was printed. I sent it to him (after all, it's the least I could do), and this is what he replied with:


Just read your article, and found it very interesting and informational to people who don't know him or his music, thanks for not bashing him for his change in musical style like some others have lately. Great article.
thanks again

Bob M.



Not too shabby, right? I was fairly proud of myself ... especially since this is the first person to read my stuff and give me feedback (on examiner.com - not here) whom I don't know. Don't get me wrong - I am so grateful to have so many supportive people in my life who read what I write AND give me feedback about it. As an Aries, it should be known that I'm a comment whore. We're very enterprising, independent, and courageous people (if I do say so myself); but once we do whatever it is we've been enterprising, independent, and courageous about - we want RECOGNITION. Lots and LOTS of recognition*. It's super great when people we know and love recognize our brilliance. But when people we DON'T know and love leave us comments - it's like a poor kid having Christmas time at a rich kid's house. 


I don't know what that means, but I liked the imagery. 


Anyway. It's an ugly little fact, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the validation I get from people who read my stuff and comment on it. The examiner.com article is great because it's helping me live out my teenager/college freshman fantasy of being a rock journalist for a little-known publication called Rolling Stone. (hey - a girl can dream!) What sucks about it, is that I don't get the kind of traffic I'd like. I was hoping twitter would magically add readership ... but alas ... my twits are being lost in the cyber black hole of social networking. And I only have 10 followers. Four of whom read this blog (which again, I'm SUPER grateful for!). 


Another harsh fact: I suck at networking. It's one of the biggest issues I have with being an actor. While we Aries LOVE the recognition, we don't want to have to fight for it ourselves - we want other people to just naturally recognize how brilliant we are, and then tell everyone they know about us, and then (in our collective dream world) voila! We are an insta-smash! 


Not so, little Aries. Not so. 


Wow. that was a tandem I didn't mean to go on. Sorry.


Anyway - other good things about yesterday - I'm not broke for the first time in over a month. Which means once I pay my bills I'll be able to buy my plane tickets to Calgary. Two months doesn't seem like a long time, but to me, right now, it feels like an eternity. Monkey and I had a nice long chat last night (which always puts me in a better mood), and later I helped my young cousin work out some of the meaning and mayhem of Macbeth over the phone. And after I hung up the phone, I thought, "I'm really good at this. I really am!" And that felt really good.


Another truth about the Aries creatures is that we LOVE being good at things. LOVE. IT. The more competent, helpful, and knowledgeable we are, the more enterprising, independent, and courageous we become. See? It's a cycle. The down-side to this is that we can be really sore losers when we're bad at things - just ask my ex-girlfriend about her attempts to teach me tennis; what a low-point in my development as a human being that was! I won't get into details, but I got so angry with her that I cried. (To my defense, I didn't want to play in the first place, but that's a story for another time....)


I also just accomplished a lot yesterday. I hunted for and found school contacts, I added volunteer dates for SOC on the HandsOn Network, I organized a meeting time and venue for some of my actor friends and I to just start working on things we've always wanted to work on, just to help us all get better and play with one another. I almost helped get a friend a part time job - I was unstoppable yesterday. I was awesome. 


Today is a bit of a different story. Not drastically, not depressingly ... it just is. So I'm entitling today the "Blah funky schmeh Aries what?" 


A cure for the "Blah funy schmeh Aries whats?" is bacon cheeseburgers and shakes with my hetero soul mate


And this (which was, coincidentally, sent to me by my hetero soul mate): 





*Except when it comes to Acting...
--------------------------------------
This blog post is brought to you by: 


OKGO
Bacon cheeseburgers
NHL Trade Deadlines
Air Canada

6 comments:

jennifer from pittsburgh said...

MK went from acting to teaching. Just sayin' ;)
As for the recognition thing...I've yet to meet anyone who writes who doesn't crave positive feedback from total strangers. It's a thing, probably quantifiable on livescience.com or gawker ;)

Robin said...

I agree with Jennifer about the comments thing. All writers appreciate comments. We hunger for them. I, too, am an Aries and I know what you are talking about in terms of the competetiveness and all that. Aries tend to be competetive. They want to be better than everyone else. And they aren't always real good about being humble if they are gifted. The flip side is when Aries is down, Aries is freaking miserable. To this phenomenon in action, take a loop by my page...

Kristin Quinn said...

Hey Aires girl! I'm no stranger but here's me giving you some recognition. BLOG LOVE! Networking takes time to gain a following, but I believe it will happen sooner or later. I find if I type a few key words on twitter and sometimes a random person will start following me. I also refuse to follow someone I know in some capacity unless they follow me. But I guess I'm just selfish like that ;) And speaking of, I haven't seen you tweet lately! But keep it up! More people will recognize your brilliance!!!

Lira Kellerman said...

is the comment thing a fire sign thing or an everyone thing? And THANKS FOR RECOGNIZING ME!!!!

MildlySensational said...

I think it's an everyone craving. At least it applies to this writing-Libra, too! ;)

@HeyJK @HandsOnNetwork said...

HandsOn Network is so grateful for the time you spent organizing projects! Thanks so much!!