MY GRANDMA WOKE UP!!!!! i wish it had been while i was in taiwan, but the good news is that she’s conscious, she can speak and move her arms, but she’s pretty out of it. she needs dialysis every couple days, but she’s breathing on her own. talk about a tough cookie at age 93. maybe we can squeeze a few more good years out of her. it’s hard to say. but at least my family gets to hang with her some more.
OK folks, if any of you care to watch it, the episode of Brothers and Sisters that I worked on airs THIS COMING SUNDAY at 10pm on ABC! Apparently they used a clip of my scene in last week’s “Next week on Brothers & Sisters….” commercial they always play at the end of an episode. Sweet! I’m excited, because once it airs, my IMDb credit will appear. Yay! So….if you see it, let me know what you think? I dunno if i’ll catch it sunday…i don’t get cable…haha. But i’m getting the episode taped by a video editing company so that I can use the footage for my reel. Neato.
it has been seven days since i returned from taiwan and i’m still feeling a little outta wack. working late nights doesn’t help the cause, since i get home after 2am and i’m still amped. so i guess i’ll share these sleepless nights with you muthers. so, since i’m on a video posting trend, i want to share the short film that i shot with some classmates from Lesly Kahn & Co, this acting studio i studied at last year. The lady who started the school, none other than Lesly Kahn, decided to hold a film festival competition of sorts for her birthday. We had about three weeks to come up with an idea and shoot it, but there were rules.
1. Film should be no longer than 3 min.
2. Everyone in the class must have a speaking role.
3. No person with professional experience editing, directing, writing, or producing may do those jobs.
4. The story must have a beginning, middle, and end.
5. There should be a twist at the end.
There were a few more, but these are the big ones. Anyway, it took us a week to decide what my class was going to do. I pitched an idea, and another dude pitched an idea. The class chose mine! Wohoo! So, I had a story framed out, but we needed to write a script. There were two guys in my class who were really excited to participate in shit. Nick Lusk, and Jason Williams. The three of us wrote the script together off of my outline. While shooting, Nick and I set up pretty much all the shots and lighting, although we did sometimes have help from our classmates. We also directed a majority of it, and did all the editing. Jason also helped quite a bit.
All in all, I proudly had a big hand in making this little short happen in about two weeks time and I am very happy with the end result. So…..here it is! Oh, and in case you were wondering–yes, the photo that i use as a header for my blog is from the shoot.
if you want to compare it to any of the other films made by other classes, HERE is a link to those. We lost to one of LESLY’s OWN CLASSES. the one called “monday night class” when you go to the link. Favoritism anyone?
This looks fucking rad and I can’t wait until it comes out. March 6th I believe.
Oh yeah, i found this on YOUTUBE today. it’s my pizza hut commercial that I shot before the holidays. I think it’s airing in parts of the country. Let me know if you see it on TV! You can’t even really tell which one is me, but i’m one of the pizza hut kids…haha. reeeaal classy.
i’m back! got home on friday and proceeded to go to my day er, night job bartending at the hotel cafe. what was i thinking??? exhaustion aside, i made some much needed cash.
before i go about my usual routine, i want to post a few pictures from my trip. this little one on the left here was me dicking around outside my grandma’s house. during our last trip into the country, we visited my mom’s cousin’s house. he has 6 daughters and one son, several of whom are married with children. all of these adults were milling about, but they mostly speak taiwanese so i have a hard time communicating with them, plus the big culture clash. i’m the “american cousin” and noone really knows how to interact with me very well.
at one point one of the little kids comes and asks me to go outside to play with the dog. i go out there and these five kids ranging from the ages of 5-9 start playing with me and we run to the elementary school close by. it was by far the most fun part of the trip. i didn’t worry about not being able to answer any questions or if my chinese was ok. we just played…like kids! once again–like i was a child again! they loved when i took their pictures, so i took a bunch. i just want to share a few. the last one is my favorite–you can already see their individual personalities…so cool!
i’m still in taiwan, spending some family time with my bro and the ‘rents. in many ways, it’s like i’m home in north carolina or something. rather than trying to go into taipei every opportunity like i did the last two years i visited taiwan, we’ve just been hanging a lot at home watching movies on the english channels. it’s a sign of the times when 3/4 of us are glued to our laptops. but even my mom gets skype calls from her friends in NC. pretty funny if you think about it.
something struck me today, while i rode in the backseat to freaking costco of all places…haha. mom was driving, dad was in the passenger seat, and as i took in the scenery it dawned on me how i felt just like a kid again. i was riding with mom and dad while they talked about stuff in chinese. being here, i can’t really do anything on my own. i mean, i can speak mandarin conversationally, but i can’t read or write it. it would be really hard to navigate anywhere beyond taipei city. so it occurred to me how much i felt like a child. so dependent on my parents for EVERYTHING.
in a way, i’m totally realizing a fantasy that i conjured around christmastime–partly why i decided to stop drinking and smoking–of reverting to a youthful sobriety, where life experiences were all i got drunk on. i wanted this because i can remember an intensity of passion and belief i had in myself and all my dreams when i was a kid. i’m not saying i was free of insecurities and self-consciousness when i was young–far from it. but along with those things, i also had this unwavering belief in myself and my dreams. and i dreamt BIG. HUGE.
somewhere in between then and now, i sold myself short a little bit. i had to convince myself of what i could accomplish instead of just KNOWING it. i know now that it’s partly because i found out how much i DIDN’T know about the business, and didn’t know HOW to go after what i believed in. it’s also partly because i just got rusty and out of practice. the good thing is that it’s shifted again. i know what i want, i know what i can do, and i know that i will do it.
even though i have to find new representation now, during a very challenging time for actors, i am more excited than i have ever been about my career. i am so excited to find an agency on my own–to meet with agents and to pitch myself and my ideas. aack!! i can’t wait to get back to LA!!!
i left for taiwan at 12:10am on wednesday with a 2+ hour layover in seoul, korea. it’s been nice to be with my family, but challenging in other, more emotional ways.
we went to the country and saw grandma yesterday. it was kind of intense. the intensive care unit only opens up visiting for 20 minutes three times a day. we weren’t sure if we’d get there in time for the morning visit, but managed to make it a few minutes late. we walked into these automatic sliding doors and a nurse pointed a little scanner gun to our heads to make sure we had normal body temps. then we had to put on these hospital gown-like shirts. my mom whisked me into my grandma’s room, where she was hooked up to a dialysis. she had tubes sticking all over the place and a breathing mask. the whole experience was kind of frantic. my mom called out to my grandma several times, and her breathing got really labored, but she never woke up. i think the roughest part was that my mom got really emotional…she started to cry, which made me well up too.
then as quickly as we went in, we rushed out so that my brother and my dad could go in, since they only allow 2 people in at a time. it was nuts. i wasn’t even sure what had happened. 20 minutes isn’t enough time, but that’s all intensive care allows.
afterwards, on our way out of the hospital, my mom coerced me into getting some soft serve ice cream with her at the little shop in the hospital. she wanted it because she was really hot…from that frantic visit no doubt. it was kind of cute i guess…a little comfort food to ease some of the stress. my mom was eating hers from the top and the ice cream was dripping on her hands…she was like a little kid and my dad was trying to clean her up and they were bickering back and forth, but laughing at the same time.
i went back with my uncle during the afternoon visiting window, and saw grandma again. she was still unresponsive, but every few minutes her body convulsed in a coughing fit. each time this happened, it seemed like she would just wake up right then, but she didn’t. her body was just reacting on it’s own. the nurses had put her on her side because she was getting bed rashes on her tailbone, and her legs were exposed. her calf muscles were so tiny from atrophy. it was so sad to see her like this. it’s hard to imagine that she’ll recover from this…being 93. the last time she regained consciousness was a week ago, but she was only awake for a few hours.
maybe it was psychosomatic, but the rest of the day i felt sick to my stomach. i also felt short of breath during our three hour drive back to Linko. i couldn’t stop thinking about my grandma coughing, and how it all started with this infection in her lung that was resistent to antibiotics. i got paranoid that i maybe caught something in the hospital, but didn’t say anything. i woke up today though, and felt fine.
my apologies for such a heavy post…but this is what’s going on. i’ve been taking a lot of photos, so i’ll try to post some more later. what i’m grateful for, however, is that i got to see my grandmother at all. and i’m grateful that my family can be here together for chinese new year. this is the first time i’ve spent chinese new year in taiwan with my parents and brother, so this is a special trip.
more to come….
So, yesterday was kind of a rough day in the life of Patty. I mean…not reeeeaaaallly. I have a roof over my head. I have food to eat. I have the clothes on my back (and the stupid amount of clothes in my closet). But as much as I was trying to see all the positives about my “A” agency dropping me, I couldn’t help but get bummed. Fuck, I got BUMMED.
By the way, did I tell you I’m taking a break from the booze and ganja as a new years resolution? Uh…ok, I know I didn’t, it’s my own damn blog. So yeah…I am not shy to say I’m a social drinker and a smoker of green. But it was getting excessive because of my very “relaxed” lifestyle. I mean, I bartend two nights a week, but the rest of my week is open. The great thing is, I pretty much NEVER miss an audition. The bad thing is, I have too much free time sometimes. I have too much free time a LOT of the time. So, my occasional puff puff turned into a much more regular habit. Not only that, but it’s all around me. heh, this is LA, folks. So anyway, I decided that I was going to stop for two whole months. I know what you’re thinking. Two months? That’s it? Hunnies, two months solid of not smoking is pretty damn good in my book. And plus, the point is to change the habit. After the two months is over, it will feel normal to be not smoking. While I was at it, I decided to just not drink too. And actually, it is WAY harder not to drink. Dinner parties with wine and meeting up with people over a drink are choice socialization options in this town. But it feels really good to be clean and I might just stay sober for longer.
ANYWAY, the reason I even went into that is because yesterday after I pounded out my submissions to those agencies (I sent them my photos, resume, and a brief intro message), the sun went down, and it really sank in that I lost my theatrical rep at one of the best agencies in town. FUCK. I was sitting at my desk, starting to feel tired, and MAN, all I wanted to do was smoke a fatty. But I didn’t. It’s just funny…i wanted to escape and not feel shitty. But it would have actually just made me feel shittier in the long run.
Of COURSE I have to end this entry with some decent news. One of the agencies that I wrote, AKA , called me to set up a meeting for next week. They commercially represent Daniel Dae Kim, and Lauren Holly for voice over, plus some young folks that are entering the scene through teeny bopper gigs like Twilight (Rachelle Lefevre) and 90210 (Adam Gregory) commercially as well. I still need to gauge how they are theatrically, but i’m thinking maybe i’ll start looking at my options commercially as well. Who knows! Change is great!!!
Now that I have the meeting, I’m excited again. I’m hoping to get more meetings with other agencies as well. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!
