Hello again, readers. Pull up a chair, take off your boots, and settle down for another instalment of my ramblings. Comfortable? Lovely. Let's begin.
So, another chunk of time has rolled past, and naturally I have spent almost every waking hour of it working, but things are progressing nicely. There were a few moments last week in which I thought that things were not going to go my way, but fortunately everything has sorted itself out marvellously, and I feel extremely lucky, hence the nature of the title of this post.
Around ten days ago, I was in turmoil! Cast your minds back to October 2014. I was working my Halloween scare job and having a lot of fun making people scream, cry, throw up and urinate on themselves. I'm not even joking, I really did that! Anyway, I was working with a lovely man called Ian, who one night mentioned a play to me. I expressed an interest in reading it, and promptly thought nothing more of it. Then earlier this year I received a phone call about it, and I was sent a link to read the script. Lovely. Long story short, I was waiting for a call about an audition for it, but hadn't heard anything for ages. I was just about to give up on it when I received a message from him about it. It was still going ahead, and do I want to be involved? The answer was obviously yes! I asked for the dates as I wasn't sure I had been told, and my plans were building up.
I had planned my birthday party for the same month, and had an uneasy feeling that they might clash. The dates came in. My party was safe. Unfortunately it clashed with an upcoming performance of mine. Arse. I sheepishly rang the director of the show and said that I might not be able to do it, and my heart sank. I'm in a choir, and our upcoming show is an Andrew Lloyd Webber showcase. This in itself makes me delirious with joy, but on top of that I had auditioned for a solo and got one! I had been given one of my favourite Lloyd Webber songs, if not one of my favourite songs ever, and now it might be taken away from me. I was devastated. There was still a slight chance that I could do it, but I wasn't holding out much hope. My father had also gone crazy over it and had told all of his friends, who wanted to come and watch! Gutted was not the word.
By some crazy miracle, the next day I received a message from Ian saying that the dates had to change due to the theatre being double booked. Result! A quick flurry of text messages saying that I was still in resulted in a lot of happy people, and thankfully the show could still go on! Smile back on face, solo still mine, day made!
Last Saturday I travelled a little bit across the country to lovely Leicester, to film my role in my awesome chum Peter's web series, 'News Man'. I still don't really know how I ended up getting a part in it to be honest. I watched episode one, told him I liked it, said I wanted to be in it, and a few months later, there I was! I drove into town to catch the train, and thanks to the awkward teen who was standing in the ticket queue and not actually wanting to buy a ticket, I made it onto the train with a spectacular dive, around ten seconds before departure. I was concerned that I would get told off by Peter for not knowing my lines for the day, and spent the twenty minute journey crammed in between sweaty commuters with my script in my hand, in the attempt to not look like a terrible actor once we started filming.
I met Peter at the station, and we walked to a little park to wait for co-creator Chris to arrive. On the walk there, Peter said something to me that put a smile on my face. He said, "I can't believe I got you!". I asked him what he meant by that, and he said he was so happy that I was going to be a part of News Man. It was incredibly sweet, and the nicest thing that anyone has said about me and acting this year!
Chris arrived, and we walked around the town to our first location, a car park! Who said acting wasn't glamorous?!? Shooting began, and we cracked on with the day at speed. I believe we did more than was scheduled for the day which was fabulous, and there was glorious sunshine, which made the day even better. We finished up, had a couple of drinks, before Peter walked me back to the train station, where I managed to catch the train once again with seconds to spare. I got home and collapsed into bed thoroughly exhausted and ridiculously sunburned. Yay.
Sunday brought with it another jam packed day; park working followed by a choir rehearsal followed by a staff meeting followed by a staff meal. I pushed the boat out and bought a hideously overpriced glass of wine, but my god it was worth it! Time to face another week!
The usual stuff happened, working all days, working most nights, plus I had a meeting with Ian about the upcoming play. We selected our ideal dates for it, and things began to slip into place. I arranged my next day of filming on News Man, got more Neverland costumes ordered, and felt very accomplished. My actors are working their socks off, and making me very proud indeed, they even brought tears to my eyes in a totally good way!
I also handed in my notice to my cleaning job(!) and made a big decision that will take place this summer. That's all I'm saying for now, but it seems that everything happens for a reason, and even though things might look as if they might not go in my favour, they seem to sort themselves out nicely.
So, I've got three more weeks of working 7 days a week, 5 performances in rehearsal, 2 plays being written, News Man being filmed, plus another film due to be shot in August. I suppose I'd only moan if I had nothing to do!
Nxxx
Natalie's Nugget: I got to drag Peter around the floor during News Man filming, to get a better performance out of him. I think I broke him. But we all have to suffer for our art! ;)
Sunday 26 April 2015
Wednesday 15 April 2015
Identity crisis...
Some people think that being an actor is really cool. Myself included. In what other job do you get to dress up in different clothes and pretend to be someone else for a while and nobody judges you? I'm not going to lie, getting paid to do it is also a perk!
I was working today (sadly not acting) and I was pondering life (as I so often do) and was wondering if I'm actually the person that I want to be.
I probably had these thoughts due to an upcoming birthday that means my age will begin with a 3 rather than a lovely 2, but I think some it comes from observation.
I tend to people watch quite a bit, mainly to see if I can pick up on any mannerisms people might have, or interesting characteristics that I can use in my acting/writing work.
In the acting game you have to be realistic. I know what I look like. If I see a casting for 'beautiful female' I don't apply. This isn't a cry for attention, I know that I'm far from being the prettiest, skinniest, cleverest girl out there, it's fact. I'm never going to get cast as the stunning female lead opposite my future husband, Ewan McGregor, I'll just be the frumpy sister, but hey, someone's got to do it!
But I can't change my face. Well, I could, but I'd need a bucket load of cash, probably given to me by a millionaire husband that I'm not pretty enough to attract, and so the circle goes on.
I digress...
I did some people watching whilst at work and in town today. (I observed people from behind my sunglasses, I didn't want people to think I was staring!) I went about my business thinking about who I am and what I was doing, and what I could do to change.
A colleague at work over the weekend had asked me how I was getting on with my search for happiness (see previous post) and I had to admit that my search had stopped. And I had annoyed myself. I did really well for the month of March, then as soon as April rolled around I fell back into my bad habit ways and ended up not going on at least three social events that I had had planned for a while. I let myself get swamped with work again and I was really angry with myself.
As I was walking around town, I began to wonder what people would think of me if they did the same as me and people watched me. I know I shouldn't, but I do make assumptions about people from what I see, and the thought of someone doing the same to me made me think.
There I was, a 29 year old woman, walking around in tartan trousers, sipping a mint chocolate milkshake, and getting excited about going to see S Club 7 on tour in a months time. Am I weird?
All the cool kids are walking around with perfect fashion sense, clutching their Costa coffees, have impeccable makeup, and seemingly perfect lives.
I work every day under the sun and constantly look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards because I don't have time to look in a mirror.
What if I want to be the cool 60 year old woman with pink hair who listens to opera all day? Why do I find coffee so revolting? Why do I always have to be the one whose friends steal their phone and text boys on it trying to get me a date because I'm too tragic to sort out a love life on my own?
I wandered about for a bit wondering how I could change my life around to start being one of the cool people. Sometimes you don't want to be the clown any more. Sometimes you just want to be taken seriously.
I got home and sat in the sunshine in the garden and began making props for my show and slowly things seeped into my head about what some very lovely people have said to me recently.
I teach a lot of children, and some parents tell me how much their children love my lessons. I've had messages from them telling me how I inspire them, how much they look up to me, and how they want to be like me when they grow up. And that's pretty awesome.
Most of the kids that I teach don't know anything about me. They don't care that the smell of coffee being brewed makes me want to throw up, they don't know about all of the other jobs that I do, they don't care that I'm single, fighting with my weight, or that I have truly terrible hair right now. They care that I care about them, and making them into amazing little actors.
And that's how it should be. Every time I receive one of those messages from a parent it makes me cry. Because life is cruel, and people aren't nice, and when you get that message, sometimes that's the nicest thing that has happened to you in a very long while, and it's nice to be appreciated.
So who cares if I drink milkshakes instead of vile coffees? Who cares that I'm going to see one of the greatest pop bands of all time in a few weeks? Who cares that I'm squidgy and average looking and can't control my hair most days? I don't care. I'm actually doing alright. And if kids can look up to me, being the crazy nut job that I am, then that's amazing. Because I shouldn't follow the pack, I am who I am and if you don't like it you can stick it!
Here's to the underdogs.
Nxxx
Thursday 2 April 2015
Natalie and the search for happiness...
The title of this post has been lovingly ripped off from a terrible Simon Pegg film that I watched a few weeks ago, 'Hector and the Search For Happiness'. Well, it's a bit unfair to call it terrible as I didn't actually make it all the way to the end. I attempted to watch it over two nights and fell asleep both times. I took that as a sign that I probably shouldn't carry on with it.
The premise of the film was that Simon Peggs character was a psychologist/psychiatrist (I don't know, I fell asleep!)and another character asked him if he was happy. He said no, and promptly went travelling around the world trying to find happiness only to realise that he was happiest back at home with his girlfriend. (I woke up for the last ten seconds and they were together so I'm assuming that's correct! Anyway, don't bother with it!)
Shortly after watching the film I managed to grab a rare afternoon together with my girlfriends and we were chatting our usual nonsense when I brought up the film. Despite being terrible, it got me thinking, and I asked my friends if they were happy. Out of the four of us, only one of us could say yes. I found that incredibly strange because we all seemed happy enough whenever we saw each other. We all met through a mutual hobby but all lead very different lives with completely different careers and life plans. We all click perfectly together and yet none of knew that the others weren't happy.
I now realise it's incredibly selfish of me to think that I've got it worse out of all of us. I'm almost 30, living with my parents , working 7 days a week and with nothing to show for it. I can't afford to move out, and I'm barely using my degree, while I watch my friends coupling off and now having babies, their lives seem so perfect. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, and I feel bad for not picking up on the fact that my friends aren't as happy as they seem. It was also really sad to think that people aren't happy.
I'm a positive person, but my career can get me down quite a bit, especially when there's no career to talk of, and after feeling down for quite some time, I decided that like Hector, I would go in search of happiness. Okay, I wouldn't go half way across the world to find it, I wouldn't do anything different, I'd just try and note the little things in life that made me smile that I normally wouldn't think about.
So, on March 1st, it began. One month of happiness searching would begin. I also decided to take a photograph of the thing that made me smile every day. That lasted two days. Oops.
March 1st was an easy one. I grabbed a handful ofvictims friends, and headed off to Wicksteed Park to help out an old friend with a fundraising event. We all dressed up in costumes and were part of a treasure hunt for children to take part in and win chocolate at the end. It was freezing cold and I had chosen skimpy costumes for most of them, but we all had a fun time, and the kids really enjoyed it, and it was for a totally good cause. Day one, happy, tick.
The next day I was back at the park with my fellow funmaker (yep, that's our job title!) Peter to film some stuff for the park about the lake restoration. Yet again it was freezing cold, but helping out another chum felt good, and we had lunch and a giggle together afterwards which was also good. Tick.
The third of March saw me do a regular good deed, donating a pint of blood. Saving up to three people's lives and getting a free biscuit thrown in can't fail to make you happy. This was going well!
It was also around this time that I decided that I would do something slightly new. When cleaning peoples houses I noticed that a few houses always have fresh flowers in them, so I decided that I would also do this and promptly bought myself vase and some pretty tulips to put in my bedroom. They immediately brightened up the place and brought a smile to my face. And I can say that I have carried this on throughout the whole month and beyond and currently have a vase full of orange lilies standing in my peripheral vision looking lovely. Huzzah!
I'm working so much at the moment, and making a lot of costumes. Sewing chills me out (when things go to plan), and watching all of my creations come to life was exhilarating and definitely added to the tally on my happiness chart.
A week in and I headed off to another eatery with my work husband to plough through more of our to-do list for our show, and once the end was in sight for the day, we celebrated with a giant ice cream sundae. Each. Oops!
As you will have read about in a previous post, the second week of March brought with it StageWrite 2015 in Bedford. It was my first acting job of the year, and as well as getting to work and hang out with a heap of Bedford friends, I made several new ones, and one friend even came all the way over from Kettering to support one night- smile firmly splashed across my face. Two weeks in and my mood was definitely lifted.
Week three brought so much more work, and cancelled plans, but I still squeezed in an outing for a birthday and laughed like a drain all night which is perfect in anyone's books. The end of the week brought me to re-starting my fourth job at Wicksteed. We went in for customer service training so I didn't get to speak to my colleagues much, but seeing everyone back together again warmed the cockles of my heart.
We were nearing the end of the month now, but I wasn't slowing down. Last week brought meetings about upcoming work projects, meeting my brothers new puppy, watching a couple of friends in a production of 'Little Shop of Horrors', work, work, and more work. I had refresher training for the park, and had a fabulous afternoon giggling about with my work boys. I can't say I was looking forward to going back to work, but it's definitely the people that I work with that make it truly brilliant. You know those conversations that make you cry and snort with laughter, and then you try to tell someone else about it and can't say it for laughing again, and the other person just doesn't get it? That. I love those guys.
I get to March 29th and I head down to Oxford to perform some Shakespeare at the Ashmolean Museum. It's a long but enjoyable day, and with friends coming to support, I eat cake afterwards and have a lovely afternoon. Once home, I take part in my parents charity quiz night that raises £400, taking their fundraising total to around £26,000 I think my dad said. Nice work.
I only had two days left of the month and only had work lined up so I didn't know how my happiness tally was going to be kept up, until right at the last minute on Tuesday 31st. Work husband John is currently in Scarborough *waves*, meaning that I was teaching alone. And then I had a phone call from him telling me all about how he was getting on, what he was doing, etc.
He also said how he had been inspired by what he was doing and had ideas for future plans for us to work on. I was delighted! It was brilliant to see someone else getting as fired up about acting stuff like I get when I see/do something exciting, and knowing how each other works will hopefully stand us in good stead to create something spectacular. It was only a week since I had seen him, but to chat was awesome. It was a perfect ending to a good month.
So, what did I learn from my search for happiness, and did I actually find it?
Well yes, I did. And I realised that it's been with me all along, I just haven't noticed it. Yes, I probably work too much, but the people that I work with don't make it seem like work, and I have such a great time with them that time flies and I spend a hell of a lot of time laughing.
I also found happiness in smaller things, like buying myself a new lipstick, or giggling in the back row of choir rehearsals, even in sitting down with a celebratory mug of pink wine after a hectic week. But I found my happiness in the thing that I've known all along. My friends. And helping other people. My friends are the most important people in my life. I will do anything in the world for them, and to see them happy, and I'm going to make more of an effort to try and pick up on any time when they're feeling less than chipper. Everyone deserves happiness.
I hope that more people don't forget about the little things in life that make them smile. Yes, maybe my search did have a crappy ending like Hector, but maybe that's what life is all about, just taking time to forget about everything that stresses you out. Sitting with friends and eating cake. Going out and eating ice cream before you have your dinner. Maybe it's doing something to help others like giving blood, or maybe giving money to that person standing with a charity tin on a freezing cold high street. And maybe it's just the random conversations you have with the weird and wonderful people you work with. Maybe growing beaks on humans really is the future. See, told you you wouldn't get it!
Stay happy,
Nxxx
The premise of the film was that Simon Peggs character was a psychologist/psychiatrist (I don't know, I fell asleep!)and another character asked him if he was happy. He said no, and promptly went travelling around the world trying to find happiness only to realise that he was happiest back at home with his girlfriend. (I woke up for the last ten seconds and they were together so I'm assuming that's correct! Anyway, don't bother with it!)
Shortly after watching the film I managed to grab a rare afternoon together with my girlfriends and we were chatting our usual nonsense when I brought up the film. Despite being terrible, it got me thinking, and I asked my friends if they were happy. Out of the four of us, only one of us could say yes. I found that incredibly strange because we all seemed happy enough whenever we saw each other. We all met through a mutual hobby but all lead very different lives with completely different careers and life plans. We all click perfectly together and yet none of knew that the others weren't happy.
I now realise it's incredibly selfish of me to think that I've got it worse out of all of us. I'm almost 30, living with my parents , working 7 days a week and with nothing to show for it. I can't afford to move out, and I'm barely using my degree, while I watch my friends coupling off and now having babies, their lives seem so perfect. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, and I feel bad for not picking up on the fact that my friends aren't as happy as they seem. It was also really sad to think that people aren't happy.
I'm a positive person, but my career can get me down quite a bit, especially when there's no career to talk of, and after feeling down for quite some time, I decided that like Hector, I would go in search of happiness. Okay, I wouldn't go half way across the world to find it, I wouldn't do anything different, I'd just try and note the little things in life that made me smile that I normally wouldn't think about.
So, on March 1st, it began. One month of happiness searching would begin. I also decided to take a photograph of the thing that made me smile every day. That lasted two days. Oops.
March 1st was an easy one. I grabbed a handful of
The next day I was back at the park with my fellow funmaker (yep, that's our job title!) Peter to film some stuff for the park about the lake restoration. Yet again it was freezing cold, but helping out another chum felt good, and we had lunch and a giggle together afterwards which was also good. Tick.
The third of March saw me do a regular good deed, donating a pint of blood. Saving up to three people's lives and getting a free biscuit thrown in can't fail to make you happy. This was going well!
It was also around this time that I decided that I would do something slightly new. When cleaning peoples houses I noticed that a few houses always have fresh flowers in them, so I decided that I would also do this and promptly bought myself vase and some pretty tulips to put in my bedroom. They immediately brightened up the place and brought a smile to my face. And I can say that I have carried this on throughout the whole month and beyond and currently have a vase full of orange lilies standing in my peripheral vision looking lovely. Huzzah!
I'm working so much at the moment, and making a lot of costumes. Sewing chills me out (when things go to plan), and watching all of my creations come to life was exhilarating and definitely added to the tally on my happiness chart.
A week in and I headed off to another eatery with my work husband to plough through more of our to-do list for our show, and once the end was in sight for the day, we celebrated with a giant ice cream sundae. Each. Oops!
As you will have read about in a previous post, the second week of March brought with it StageWrite 2015 in Bedford. It was my first acting job of the year, and as well as getting to work and hang out with a heap of Bedford friends, I made several new ones, and one friend even came all the way over from Kettering to support one night- smile firmly splashed across my face. Two weeks in and my mood was definitely lifted.
Week three brought so much more work, and cancelled plans, but I still squeezed in an outing for a birthday and laughed like a drain all night which is perfect in anyone's books. The end of the week brought me to re-starting my fourth job at Wicksteed. We went in for customer service training so I didn't get to speak to my colleagues much, but seeing everyone back together again warmed the cockles of my heart.
We were nearing the end of the month now, but I wasn't slowing down. Last week brought meetings about upcoming work projects, meeting my brothers new puppy, watching a couple of friends in a production of 'Little Shop of Horrors', work, work, and more work. I had refresher training for the park, and had a fabulous afternoon giggling about with my work boys. I can't say I was looking forward to going back to work, but it's definitely the people that I work with that make it truly brilliant. You know those conversations that make you cry and snort with laughter, and then you try to tell someone else about it and can't say it for laughing again, and the other person just doesn't get it? That. I love those guys.
I get to March 29th and I head down to Oxford to perform some Shakespeare at the Ashmolean Museum. It's a long but enjoyable day, and with friends coming to support, I eat cake afterwards and have a lovely afternoon. Once home, I take part in my parents charity quiz night that raises £400, taking their fundraising total to around £26,000 I think my dad said. Nice work.
I only had two days left of the month and only had work lined up so I didn't know how my happiness tally was going to be kept up, until right at the last minute on Tuesday 31st. Work husband John is currently in Scarborough *waves*, meaning that I was teaching alone. And then I had a phone call from him telling me all about how he was getting on, what he was doing, etc.
He also said how he had been inspired by what he was doing and had ideas for future plans for us to work on. I was delighted! It was brilliant to see someone else getting as fired up about acting stuff like I get when I see/do something exciting, and knowing how each other works will hopefully stand us in good stead to create something spectacular. It was only a week since I had seen him, but to chat was awesome. It was a perfect ending to a good month.
So, what did I learn from my search for happiness, and did I actually find it?
Well yes, I did. And I realised that it's been with me all along, I just haven't noticed it. Yes, I probably work too much, but the people that I work with don't make it seem like work, and I have such a great time with them that time flies and I spend a hell of a lot of time laughing.
I also found happiness in smaller things, like buying myself a new lipstick, or giggling in the back row of choir rehearsals, even in sitting down with a celebratory mug of pink wine after a hectic week. But I found my happiness in the thing that I've known all along. My friends. And helping other people. My friends are the most important people in my life. I will do anything in the world for them, and to see them happy, and I'm going to make more of an effort to try and pick up on any time when they're feeling less than chipper. Everyone deserves happiness.
I hope that more people don't forget about the little things in life that make them smile. Yes, maybe my search did have a crappy ending like Hector, but maybe that's what life is all about, just taking time to forget about everything that stresses you out. Sitting with friends and eating cake. Going out and eating ice cream before you have your dinner. Maybe it's doing something to help others like giving blood, or maybe giving money to that person standing with a charity tin on a freezing cold high street. And maybe it's just the random conversations you have with the weird and wonderful people you work with. Maybe growing beaks on humans really is the future. See, told you you wouldn't get it!
Stay happy,
Nxxx
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