The Eve of My First Commercial Shoot

Every little step along the way of this process, my guard is up, not taking for granted that the next step will come.

The latest example of that came to an end a short while ago, when I (finally) received a call from the production office, telling me my call time for tomorrow.

Even though they said they'd call me Monday to tell me the call time for Tuesday, I was becoming less relaxed as the day progressed without a call. Then, at 4:22 PM, the phone rang. Paraphrasing...

"The call time for Tuesday is 8:00 AM. Be at cast/crew parking by that time, and a shuttle will take you to the shoot."

[JOE EXHALES.]

Now I can get back to the business of relaxing. All weekend, I was relaxed. And why not? I've been invited to this party. They picked me (and 11 other actors) out of the crowd, and think we're the ones to do the best job on this particular job.

That's a nice little confidence booster.

The only reason I stopped being relaxed today was because of the aforementioned anxiety over not receiving a phone call earlier in the day. It had nothing to do with second thoughts about my ability to do the job. As far as that part of it goes, I'm ready to have fun, be myself, and (in golfing terms) "grip it and rip it".

At this exact moment, I'm ready to leave my day job... just for the day, mind you (though I wouldn't mind if the day came when there was enough money in the bank to say goodbye to software engineering again).

But for now, let's focus on this one job.

I'm ready to leave for the day, to begin heading physically and mentally towards that one job. First I've got to buy a pair of jeans (I already bought a "sports fan" shirt at lunch), wash my car, and go give Valentine's cards to my girls. Since I won't be at home on Valentine's day, they're getting their customized Ricky Roach cards a day early.

Juggling _can_ be fun, you know?

(It's just waiting for those phone calls that I have to get used to.)