But, what if?

When I was in high school, living in Bend, my mom worked in the emergency room of the only hospital in town. Early one evening, a call came in on the nurse hotline and she was the one who answered. The man on the other line briskly stated that he was a very famous actor and had fallen while running out in Eastern Oregon. He demanded that the best plastic surgeon that the hospital had come in and fix the cut that he had sustained on his face. My mom scoffed and told the actor that the plastic surgeon would not come in to work on demand.

"Miss," he said. "I am W.H. (keep reading and you may figure it out, if you follow actors and local theater) Do you know who I am?"

"Sir, I don't care who you are," my mom replied. "The doctor is off and, I'm telling you, she's not going to come in."

"I'm going to fly in, and when I get there, you'll see who I am, then you'll feel silly for not believing me." The actor hung up the phone and my mom moved on to other things.

Several hours later, sure enough, W.H. walked into the emergency room and as my mom attended to him and introduced herself, the actor asked, "do you believe me now?"

"I never doubted you were who you said you were," she said. "But this is Bend, Oregon, not Hollywood, and the 'best' doctors don't rush in to work when another doctor is already on duty." The two were considerate to each other, but it was a bit tense for awhile. They eventually began to talk more freely and my mom told W.H. that her daughter wanted to be an actor. His suggestion was to take acting classes (I don't recall what else he said). I couldn't believe he was there and she hadn't called me.

By the time he left, the two were able to laugh with each other, and he later sent a bouquet of flowers and a letter of thanks, which my mom let me have (and I still have). It was quite a memorable experience for the both of them.

Fast forward several years. I am living in Portland, going to PSU. Me and a friend of mine that I had met in the New Play Development class, chat during a break between classes. We haven't seen each other in awhile. Turns out, he's just been cast in an upcoming play at ART, with none other than W.H. I am absolutely thrilled for P.W. What an amazing opportunity! And I had nearly forgotten of my mom's experience with W.H. but something in our conversation triggered the story and I told it to P.W. He said that W.H hurt mentioned that he had property in Eastern Oregon, but had never said anything about ever getting hurt.

I knew it would be pushing it to ask him if there was any way that I could somehow meet W.H. I never asked, but I still wish I would have. If for no other reason then to say, "hey, remember when you went to the hospital in Bend and you had that bitchy nurse? That was my mom!"

I went to see the play. Waited for P.W. after the show. Spoke with him for a bit. Wanted to wait longer to see if I could catch W.H., but didn't want to seem like a star struck fan, waiting with nothing to do, never to see him leave, so I left.

Fast forward a month or so after seeing the play. My mom and I were visiting some friends and somehow it comes up that W.H. was in a play in Portland. My mom recalls her experience with the actor to our friends and at the end of it she adds, "yeah, he told me to send his secretary a letter about Aislinn and he would see what he could do."

"What!" I bolted up right. "You never told me that? Did he really?"

"Yeah, but I just thought he was saying that to be nice. I didn't think he would ever follow up with it."

"But, mom!" I was shocked and distraught. "What if he did? We'll never know." I was so upset. W.H. gave my mom his secretary's information and said to send her a letter. Sure, I see my mom's point. He's a famous actor and incredibly busy and he most likely wouldn't have followed up. But, what if he had?

But, what if?

Love,
Aislinn

A Quarter of a Century

Last night at acting class, one of our youngest students was performing an improv and she made a comment of feeling so old, at the ripe young age of 20. Now, I'm only 25, but her comment tickled me and I couldn't help but giggle for some reason. Then I heard giggles from behind me and looked back to see that nearly everyone else was tickled by her comment too. Then I became even more tickled that most of us found her comment funny.

We're a pretty young class, most of us are in our mid to late twenties, but I had a sense of feeling old because the young actress felt old at 20. And that's why I first snickered because, in her world, then, I'm old even though I'm actually quite young. But at the same time it made me appreciate the age that I'm at and where I'm at in life.

Turning 25 this year, I had a lot of people ask me if I was depressed about it. I wasn't depressed at all and didn't even understand why they would ask that. Then, I mentioned it to my best friend who turned 25 a couple weeks before me and she said that indeed, she was depressed about it. She was a quarter of a century old and it made her realize all of the things that she has not yet accomplished.

She moved to Seattle straight out of high school, didn't go to college, got married and had her first son when she was 22 and now, at 25 with two kids, she's trying to go to college and part of her wishes she would have done things differently. But, I think it's all in the way you view it. I went to college straight out of high school, worked in real estate at the same time, and had my degree by 24 (not to mention 7 years of real estate experience). Yes, that is a great accomplishment, but I didn't have much of a life...I studied and worked all the time. I didn't get to travel and I don't feel like I had the time to do any true soul searching. I don't have any beautiful children to add subtance to my world. But, I'm not depressed about that at all. Everyone has their own path to take. I might have an English degree, but my best friend has two beautiful little boys...which is better? That's all in the eye of the beholder.

The one thing that I worry about with my age is acting. I had a friend who went to film school and moved to L.A., worked on the set of The West Wing, and rubbed elbows with some well connected people. His wife is a model and she was auditioning and trying to get an agent. He told me how they altered her drivers license to make her age younger because once you reach a certain age as a woman, it's tough to break into Hollywood. He told me for years that I should get my butt down to L.A. while I was still young enough, but I wanted to finish college. Now that I'm 25, I have this fear that I'm too old to make it now, which is a silly fear. It's silly because I'm still pretty darn young and also because I never truly wanted to move to Hollywood and try to "make it."

Anyhow, in that moment last night, after T's comment about her age, I felt a kinship to my "older" classmates and the memory of it stuck with me all day. I appreciated that they, on some level, felt the same way that I did. I cherished it for the thought provoking moment that it was.

Love,
Aislinn

The Weight is Lifting

I'm trying not to feel guilty. The Principle Broker, the "main man", of our real estate office is being cut back to working half the time that he is right now, which also means he'll now get half the pay, and this is because I finally got tired of him and his work habits and went to a member on the board of directors and spilled.

Now, this man, B, is a wonderful man; he has the most explosive (in a good way) energy of anyone I've ever met. And he's straight forward, in a loving way. He gets you to open up about dark areas of your life (in a good way) and helps you to come to the light about them. He once told me, after I explained a situation I was having with Neil, that I was being an asshole and that I needed to apologize to Neil, and myself, for being such. Now, I love that. I was being an asshole and he called me on it. I feel blessed to have that in my work environment.

What started getting to me, though, was that B wasn't getting to files in a timely manner, which makes me backed up. He was asking me to do legal research. He's asking me to pull statistics together for him for our company. He asks me to try to recruit new agents. He would take files out of the office and I'd have to track him down and go get files from him that needed attention (and, of course, in this business, real estate is often treated as life or death...even though most agents will joke that it's not like they're performing brain surgery) and the list goes on. I don't mind doing the things that he asked me (well, most of the time), but what I started to notice was that he was hardly in the office...he would miss time scheduled for him to review files and he would flake on meetings with me that he requested we have.

Then, I found out that all the things that he's been asking me to do are actually in his job description, not mine, and he kept pawning them off on me (on top of a whole other list of things that I do). But the real kicker for me was that he's getting paid a good salary to do his work but he's not doing it...and to top that off, the board didn't' want to hire a Managing Broker (which would take over a lot of his responsibilities) because they feared that they couldn't afford one and that they wouldn't have enough to do. So, when I heard that (and after he pawned a bunch of work off on me so he could go to his nephew-in-law's birthday party), I finally scheduled a meeting with the board member. And she was close to shocked. She knew that he was flailing but she didn't realize that E, the marketing coordinator, and I were doing a lot of his work, nor did she stop to think of how we are affected by his work habits.

The next day, she took action. She met with the board (B was out of town) and they discussed it. Just like I thought, no one knew what was going on. I was pulled aside by two other board members that day who questioned me about it. Then, two of the board members met with the company's accountant and they have a plan to present to B tomorrow that will, as I said before, cut his work load and pay by half.

So, normally, I would be feeling really guilty. I don't want B to think that we amassed an army behind his back to overthrow him. But, B's actually been wanting to cut back and doesn't mind getting a pay cut (according to the board member that I met with). So, that's why I'm trying not to feel guilty. I am, though, puzzled as to why, if that's so, has it taken so long to take action, which in turn, has made work for E and I quite hectic and overwhelming at times. The latter aspect is in the past, though, and I'm just glad that shifts are happening for the greater good of the company.

The weight is lifting.

Love,
Aislinn

Woo Hoo!

I heard from Write Around Portland on Tuesday. Dawn, the director, started with the expected dialogue of "well, it was a very difficult decision, especially with having so many applicants..." but then she said that I was definitely in the top group of applicants and asked me to be the alternate, so if one of the eleven chosen for the Summer facilitator training decide not to do it, I'll be the first to take their spot.

The funny thing is that I cross my fingers that someone drops out but I also secretly hope that no one will. It's a lot to take on. Though it is truly something I want and am willing to take on, I don't handle stress well (and I'm easily stressed out) and so adding on WAP training, and then the 10 week workshop, is putting a lot more on my already full plate.

Everything happens the way it should, though. If I get that call, then I'll embrace it and put my all into it. And if I don't get it, then I'll try again for January's training.

I'm just happy that they gave me as much consideration as they did! I'm quite pleased to be the runner up. Woo Hoo!

WAP

I had an interview today to be a workshop facilitator for Write Around Portland. I felt awkward, as is normal for me for any interview, and I fear that my answers weren't as clear and succinct as I'd liked them to be.

And now, I'm battling the feeling of being inferior. I don't know what the other facilitators are like or what they do for a living. I read a story about WAP recently and the facilitator that they spoke of is an editing instructor at Lewis and Clark College. I'm certainly not at that level! I have an English degree, with an emphasis on writing, but that's it! I'm not published, I've never taught a class before (be it writing or anything else) and I've never participated in a writing workshop outside of school. All I know is that I love to write (though I don't write as much as I'd like to) and I want to make a difference in people's lives and help them to make a difference in their own lives.

"I really want to do this!" is a statement that doesn't quite cut it when your up against a large number of applicants. But, it was difficult for me to clearly describe all the reasons I want to volunteer a great deal of my time and energy to an organization that I really believe in.

But if I do get chosen for the facilitator training, will I then be worried that I bit off more than I can chew? I'm already feeling overwhelmed with how full my life is right now, what I am doing squeezing even more commitments in?

It's a challenge, actually, that I'm really looking forward to.

Love,
Aislinn

Seek the Risk

I was talking with a friend, Zach, after acting class tonight. Zach is visiting from North Hollywood, but previously lived in Portland and took Neal's acting class, and we also appeared together in Neal's short film London Calling. I was opening up to him a bit about how I feel like I'm regressing in my talent as an actor. I try to control myself too much, which is basically that I'm afraid to take risks. Zach pitched in, then, and told me a saying that has really helped him (this may not be verbatim): "Fear doesn't exist if there's faith."

That struck a cord in me. I've been worrying that maybe I've "lost" my talent as an actor. But I think it's that I just don't have very much faith in myself as an actor right now. I think that's because I haven't pushed through the limitations that I put on myself, so I feel stuck.

But it seems like a vicious circle. If I had faith in myself than I could commit to pushing myself, taking risks, to get over the fear of losing control. But I don't take risks because I'm afraid to fail, fall flat on my face, be embarrassed, and so on...because I don't have much faith. Which leads to another saying that Zach told me: "to be an actor means to dare to fail." To actually, in a sense, go looking for the failure by seeking the risk.

I think that's why right now, the risk for me, is committing to acting class every month. Just keep pushing on even though there's times when I just want to give up and let it go. I mean, the true risk comes from the work I do in the class, but with the little faith I have in myself right now, it's enough just to make it to class every week sometimes.

Boy, when I type that out, it sounds a bit pathetic...but that's me judging myself...and I need to push through that, too.

Love,
Aislinn

I Haven't Forgotten!

It's been well over a week since I last wrote. Life is getting away with me...so many things happening. Some of which are very worthy to write about, I just can not seem to find the time (or, at times, the will power) to sit down and write.

I've gone out of town for the last three weekends and we're going to be out of town again this weekend for Mother's Day...and possibly the weekend after that to go visit my cousin in Eugene. And every night last week I had something planned after work...sometimes two or three things that I squished into to one evening. Life is full but it's great. I finally had to get the stomach flu to slow down. I just lament that I haven't been able to write more.

But, alas, I haven't forgotten! One of my goals that I created (I spoke of goals in my previous post) is to write more in my blog...so I'll be doing it more soon, by golly!

Love,
Aislinn