Moonlighting? Daylighting??

I told you all that I picked up a production gig - well, I am working from home right now (instead of driving way across the city to go into a production office everyday) and LOVING it.  I am SO much more productive at home because I can completely structure my day the way I need to, I'm in comfy clothes (today's work uniform was a tank top, short sweatpants, and fuzzy slippers), and I don't start my day with road rage.  One of the people with whom I correspond is across the pond with a 10-hour time difference between us, so I (being a night-owl anyway) can talk with him at midnight or 1AM my time, and not feel the least bit guilty about the time I take in the middle of the day to run an errand or go to an audition.  As long as the work gets done (which it ALWAYS does), it's win-win.

Speaking of auditions (did you like that segue?) I had a commercial callback today.  Without naming names, let me get you up to speed:

Last week I went to an audition at a casting office where the people are very, very nice, but they have cats and dogs on the premises and as soon as you walk in the door, it's evident that they don't do a good job of cleaning the place.  It actually smells like cats OUTSIDE of the building.  I walk in and it's just a matter of minutes before I can feel floating cat hairs land on my face.  My allergies are such that I take medicine everyday, but this place always sets them off, even if I take double the amount of meds I'm supposed to take AND use my asthma inhaler.  And I never get to go in and audition right away - there's always a significant delay, so by the time I get into the audition room, I'm a sneezy, itchy, swollen, wheezy mess.  (Having one's pets at work is a great perk, but please, PLEASE take extra pains to keep the place clean.)  I've been auditioning at this place periodically for at least 3 years, and I have never gotten a callback (probably because by the time I get in front of the camera, one eye is puffy and my nose is running) - until today.

I went into the initial audition with an attitude, mad because I didn't feel like dealing with the symptoms of being in that office.  There was food on the table in the audition room and I thought to myself "If this audition requires me to eat, I might as well just leave now."  No way I'm ingesting anything prepared there.  Thankfully, it was just a prop, and sure enough I got in my car and scratched all the way home.  Once I got home, I took my dress off, balled it up, and threw it (and I do mean THREW it) into the "dry clean" pile in my closet.  I was disgusted.  All of that for a commercial and I knew I wasn't going to get a callback.

So... last night I got the callback call!  Callbacks were being held in a different location, far from where I live, but I would rather make that drive 3 times in a row than go to that nasty office again!  I hadn't written down what I wore to the audition (actors are supposed to wear the same thing to the callback), so I really had to look at my calendar and re-trace my steps.  Oh no!  The dress was in the dirty clothes, and had animal hair on it.  It was about 10PM by then, so it wasn't like I could run it to the dry cleaners... so I pulled that dirty dress out of the heap, sprayed it lightly with Febreeze, and hung it from one of my cabinets.  I got grossed out everytime I walked past it, didn't want to handle it too much, and I certainly didn't want to put that nasty thing on but I took it in my car, put it on to audition, and took it off in my car as soon as the audition was done.  Yuck.

Back at home, I showered immediately, put my tank top & sweats back on, grabbed my laptop, and got back to my 'other' job.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think the audition went all that well.

I'll be heading out of town soon because the show (production gig) I'm working on shoots in Chicago.  I've booked out with my reps for that time, so they can't really send me on any other auditions before I go because anything I would audition for right now would shoot during the time when I'm due to be gone.

Maybe the change in scenery is just what I need.


--Nicole