Absurd Customer of the Week

Keep in mind that I work at an Italian restaurant.

TABLE: Do you have anything that ISN'T pasta?
ME: Yes, of--
TABLE: Or soup or salad?
ME: Yes, of course. If you just flip the page, you'll see we have all kinds of seafood, chicken, pork, veal, and steak dishes. What are you in the mood for?

At this point the guest languidly flips the menu pages and wrinkles her nose in disdain. I guess she doesn't care for reading.

TABLE: *SIGH* Do you have lasagna?
ME: Yes, of course.
TABLE: Where is it? I don't see it!
ME: You'll find that on the previous page under Baked Specialties...at the bottom there. The first one on the list?
TABLE: Is the large size really $15.52?
ME: Is that the price listed? (she shows me the menu) Yes. That's the price.
TABLE: That's a weird price.
ME: *shrugs*

The young woman and her mother then converse in a language I don't recognize. Probably Lithuanian or something and they come to a decision.

TABLE: We'll share the large lasagna. We really just came in for dessert anyway.

*HEAD SMACK*

What I don't understand is why they got the lasagna when they didn't want pasta in the first place. Maybe they meant long skinny noodles?

Anyway, those two ladies are officially ABSURD CUSTOMERS OF THE WEEK!

Keeping Me Honest

Besides bitching about waiting tables (and there will be plenty of that, trust me),
the main point of this blog is to KEEP ME HONEST.

This means, it's easy to slack off when there's no one clear path for pursuing a career. There are only about one million ways to go about it. I've heard before that as an actor, you should do at least one thing every day to further your career. That's pretty good advice. It doesn't seem like much, but before you know it, a whole week, a month, a year has gone by and you still haven't done anything except be a waiter.

So this blog is also about me giving updates on what I'm doing as an actor.

Today:

• I slept until 12:30 PM... 
• Perused the Internet (INTERNET FOREVER!!) 
• Got ready for work
• Went to work

Wow. So much accomplished... see why I need this?? At least right now I can say that for the past two months I've been helping monitor an acting class (I get paid to do this, can you believe it?) and soon I'm going to be helping a friend film his short. Six days in the desert and I get to be production coordinator. WOW.

That's not acting. I know. It's production coordinating. OK, it's bitch work. But it's something and my friend needs the help, so there I am. This has been a common thing with me, sadly. I say I'm an actor but you should see my imdb page. *sigh*

I do a lot of favors for people. What can I say? Hopefully, it will all come around in the end.

The good news is that the busier I am, the more productive I am. Back before I got my current waiter job, I spent a year doing extra work and I got NOTHING done. Except rack up that massive debt and become SAG eligible.

So, in closing... I'm hoping that blogging makes me a more productive actor.

Right.

Sleep Schedule

When you live this kind of life- waiting tables, pursuing a dream... Your sleep schedule gets all kinds of screwed up, which makes it difficult to pursue said dream.

Some nights, like last night and tonight and tomorrow night, I end up working pretty late. If I'm closing, I don't get out until close to midnight. By the time I walk to my car, drive home, stomp up four flights of stairs... thirty more minutes have passed. Then I usually decide to change clothes, walk to the nearest grocery/liquor store and buy some booze because I'm so hyped up and stressed out from work that I need to wind down. Now it's 1 AM. Then I make sweet love to that bottle of wine, talk to my poor life partner (LP) whom I never get to see, and by the time I'm feeling like I should go to sleep... it's 3:30 AM.

So that's why I'm waking up past noon every day. That makes it difficult to get things done before I have to rinse and repeat for the next shift. And then...after a couple days of this... I work a few lunch shifts requiring me to get up at 8 AM... just to make things exciting.

And if you work at some kind of 24 hour diner or club or something...don't hate me for whining about this kind of schedule. Yes, I know... you have it FAR worse.

First Post - WOW!

I'm an actor/waiter.  
Yes, I am female and I call myself an actor and a waiter (as opposed to feminizing it all with an "ess").
I have a recurring conversation at work that goes something like this:

TABLE: So... are you from Los Angeles?
ME: No...not originally.
TABLE: Oh. So, what are you doing out here?
ME: (Derisive laugh) I'm sure you can guess. I'm a living cliché.

So there you have it.  I'm trying to live the "big dream" and for the most part, I love it.

P.S.
My title for this first post made me think of this song by Gogol Bordello...
"so you want to be a model? all you have to do is show up... WOW!" 
There's a lot of shit like that in L.A. too

P.P.S.
I really, really love Gogol Bordello. Although, if he came into my restaurant, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to wait on him.