Smile....

There's a Charlie Chaplin song that goes:

 "Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking.
When there are clouds in the sky
you'll get by.

If you smile through your pain and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through
For you.

Light up your face with gladness,
Hide every trace of sadness.
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying.
You'll find that life is still worthwhile-
If you just smile.

When I was a little girl my mom would sit me down the night before school started and ask me the same question:  What do youwant to be when you grow up?  She would then take whatever answer I gave her and enter it in one of those school memory books, along with a picture from that year and other related items.  Every year since I started school at the age of 5, I told my mother I wanted to be a Great Actress.  Not just an Actress, but a Great Actress.  Now some years I added things like veternarian, obstetrician, etc, but I never wavered on being a Great Actress.

I went to college, majoring in Theatre.  I went to graduate school majoring in acting (I dropped out my second year)  and then moved to Branson to pursue my dream.  It took me three years to get into a show and I thought I had finally started down the road onto making my dreams come true. 

Oh, how wrong I was.

The show I've been in was run by a selfish, corrupt, arrogant bastard who had no respect for his employees and milked everything he could from the people around him for the sole purpose of making himself better.  All that I can deal with.  I mean hello I am an actor.  And this is the streamlined version. 

What I can't deal with is when that self same bastard tells me that I am the problem.  ME.  The person who has lost a job complying to his demands and got into trouble at her other job because of it.  ME.  Not the 18 year old he's most likely screwing (or at least giving a damn good impression of it if he's not) who is too busy broadcasting on Facebook about how much she's drinking in bars/restraunts and then representing the show when she's drunk. Certainly not the same 18 year old whose body odor is so bad that she has made other cast members physcally ill due to the smell or the costumes she has ruined due to her cheap makeup and hair-dye.  It's all my fault.   He told me that the cast, including some of my good friends, had come to him saying that I was the source of all the problems we were having back stage (I didn't even know we were having problems-go figure)

So I told him that I resigned.

That night I cried, because my heart was breaking.  I felt like a failure because I was giving up my dream to stand on my integrity as a professional. I still feel like a failure.  I've cried off and on for the last two weeks and then last night, which was my final performance, I was bawling when I was off stage.   Everyone was really supportive and I was upset with myself for not being able to control my emotions.  I still care about the cast, and the show even if the director is an asshole.

Then one of the cast comes up to me and trys to rip up one side and down the other because I had blocked him from my facebook wall.  His job, apparently, is to troll the facebook pages of the cast members to see if anyone is talking bad about the show/director/cast.  He printed out a conversation that he believes to be about the show and told me that he knew that I and my "group of friends think [we're] so smart. But did [I] really think that blocking [him] from [my] wall would keep [him] from finding things like this out?"  Really?  There are no names, no references to the company in anyway shape or form.  In short there is no way to prove it one way or the other.  Apprently inside jokes between friends are now illeagel and aren't to be posted on Facebook.  

Seriously?

Grow the hell up.  I believe the first amendment allows me the freedom of speech.  If his interpreation is erroneous that is not my fault.  It's not like he'd believe me if I tried to correct it anyway.  The director is so paranoid that someone is going to take away his sinking farther into debt company that he sees theives around every corner.  Puh-lease. He also accused me of working against him.  C'mon man, I'm not stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds me.  But he believes what he believes and that's that.  Whatever.

My point is this.  I followed my dream and thenI had to give it up.  I still want to perform, I just feel alive on stage.  It's my home.  

And I gave it up.

They say that when a door closes another opens.  Well I'm waiting for that other door.  Hell, at this point I'd take a window.      

So excuse me Charlie, I'll smile as my heart is breaking but I'll let the tears come down my cheeks as I do. 

Dad-gum Government

There's a musical called Big River.  In this musical a character sings a song called "Gove'ment" that goes a little something like this:

"...You dad'gum gove'ment you sorry so and so's
You got your damn hands in every pocket of my clothes,...
Oh doncha know, doncha love them sometimes..."

Well I sure as hell don't love the government right now.  I'm 27, single with no kids.  I work multiple jobs to pay my multiple bills that include my GINORMOUS student loans and simple things like electricity, rent, and the ever necassary and price increasing gasoline.  I make less than 30k a year.

So being the responsible adult that I am, I file my taxes.

It's not enough that the government (and the dumbasses running it who have gotten us however many trillion dollars in debt) takes over $100 a pay chack from me for federal income tax but now they want to TAX me for paying my bills.  And the freaking state still claims that I owe THEM money even after I had EXTRA taken out of my paychecks to cover it!   WTF?!?!?!

Here's the story:

I settled a debt I owed by making arraingements with the people I owed the money too.  A portion of the debt was "relieved" or "lowered" if I paid it by a certain date.  I thought "hey! Win win! They get their money, I don't have to pay as much and its all over."  How wrong I was. 

I have been taxed by Good Old Uncle Sam, for the remainder of the debt I didn't pay because it has now been "turned into income"  WTF?!?!?!!?!?

I don't know what I;m doing wrong here.  I only get paid so much money.  I cut out extra's where I can.  I have bills to pay.  I have a roommate.  I request reductions in my student loan payments only to get bitched at by the very people telling me to get the damn payment reduction.

What I don't have are 5 kids and welfare.  When I worked in a bank it would sicken me to have to cash refunds checks with amounts in the thousands for people like that.  People who played the system for all its worth were able to go and buy a new car and go on a shopping spree and have their kids throw temper tantrums about not getting their Hannah Montana wigs while I had to smile, ask them how they wanted their welfare thousands back and then go to lunch and eat my generic brand spagettio's. 

WHERE IS THE FAIRNESS IN THAT?! 

I am barely making ends meet.  My student loans are passed due because I can't afford the payments.  I try to remedy that and I get penalized.  I am at the end of my rope and just feel like crying 90% of the time.  Maybe I should just have a one night stand and get knocked up and push out a couple of kids so that uncle sam can bend over backwards to give me money.  Mama needs a new pair of no boundries.

I mean really?  No system is perfect but really? I just don't understand our tax system or why those who make so much barely have to pay while those who are barely scraping by have to keep paying in. 

America may be the "land of the free and home of the brave" but I'm dying a slow death of stress and starvation while Snooki gets paid 50 grand to show up somewhere.  If I had 50 grand I could pay off part of my student loans.  I don't see 50 grand working 40 hours a week for a year, let alone showing up somewhere.  50 grand is almost twice my annual salary. Its ridiculous. 

What's a girl to do?!

Anger Manifesto

I am an angry person.  I'm also a very confused one.  I don't understand why people are two faced SOB's and why people who have done nothing wrong have to bear the brunt of the blame.  I'm tired of having something I consider fun and to some extent sacred, treated like garbage.  All the while being told that I need to work harder while some one else is allowed to do nothing yet recieve everything.  I'm angry about that.

And by God its my right.

Step One...

Okay, so I've decided to try this blogging thing again.  I had a Xanga, a live journal, all that business but I got bored quickly with all of them.  Perhaps its because I was folding to the huge social pressure of my college peers to share the minutae of my life on a broader platform.  Thank God they've updated facebook enough to do that for me. 

I like to write.  Ramble really.  I write fanfiction, I write smart-aleck reviews of things.  I post my opinions. 

Just so you know what you're getting into if you read this. 

A little about me:

I'm a redhead.  I have long hair.  I used to be a ballet dancer until I hurt my ankle and could no longer support myself on pointe.  I'm an actress.  I sing, karaoke and professionally.  I love television. I love broadway musicals. I love movies.  I am opinionated and tempermental.  I'm lazy and live in a state of organized chaos. 

Happy Readings