Doldrums

The CT job got canned and now I'm starting another movie on Friday. It's going to be interesting because it's also being funded by the City University of NY and it's an episodic thing about ESL students (English as a Second Language). It's coming at a good time, truthfully because although I have been working on a few things - they havent been anything I care about. (I did 'Wanted' with James McAvoy & a reality show searching for the new Elle Woods on Legally Blonde: The Musical - just day-playing which meant I didn't care about anything - just a pair of hands really)

This new thing might inject a little bit of oomph in my system right now. I always get this way right after a visit to Malaysia and just before it gets super busy. I start questioning everything (am I in the right business, should I move to another country, why are we here etc etc) and it also coincides with tax time...yuck.

Being a freelancer and married to a regular person is murder on the taxes. Hence the onus is on me to sort this out since (a) Mike doesnt really incur any work on taxes and (b) he doesnt have a head for it. I personally like doing taxes and last year we hired an accountant for the first time because it started getting out of hand what with my W2 income on the big jobs, my 1099 income on the small jobs and then my S-Corporation for the other jobs. Plus there are shared accounts with everyone in my entire family all over the world and I'm the only one with a US social security number. It gets complicated.

My friend Z just moved to LA for work. She needed a change and her field of work (reality tv camera operating) is much more prevalent in LA. I think if this talk of a SAG strike continues (yep in June) then I might go visit her and see what happens. Some friends joined the union out there but I'm not really going that route. Reality television is mostly non-union and pays just as well and the union in LA charges $4,000 to join and dues are $800 a year. That's a lot of money for a person who doesn't work out there at all. I would have to work much more out there to justify paying that. Of course you don't just rock up to them and say, 'hey! i'm here!' either. There are criteria like hours on the job, classes to take and all this for someone like me who doesn't even have a single contact out there in the movie/tv business would mean starting all over again. Much better just to put feelers out in the reality world and see what happens. Ideally I want to get a show on the road again. I did 'Trading Spouses' for 3 seasons and it was great. A new town every 9 days, good money and easy work.

Z leaving has also made me sad. I dont have many friends in NYC. They are mostly adopted from Mike's circle. My hours are too long to really cultivate civilian friends and I have no real inclination to hang with film people after work having just seen them for 15 hours stretches at a time. They always end up talking about the business anyway and I hate that. Part of having such a great time at home when I go back is no one asks me about work at all. My family wouldnt have a clue what to ask and if the movie didnt make it out there either in the theatre or on a bootleg dvd then what's there to know?

My sister and her eldest daughter is coming to NYC mid April. I'm looking forward to seeing them - taking them to see 'fuerzabruta' which I've heard is a great show in the vein of 'de la guarda'