I Just Don't Listen

I realized something about myself yesterday, I just don't listen sometimes... I'm gonna back track a little to explain how this revelation came about.

First, a tangent. I was driving up to La La Land yesterday, when traffic came to a stop. I was right around the same place I got stuck the other day, so I'm thinking, what? another live grenade on the side of the road? seriously? As I inched forward, I saw tire marks and a black vehicle on the shoulder with its front, right fender caved in. Traffic started picking up again as I noticed a woman standing by the car with a little boy at her side, holding a baby. As I passed them, I realized its my friend, Katie, with her little boy, Jackson and baby girl, Ruby!!!! OMG!!!! By this time I was already past her and couldn't turn around. I didn't have her number or her husband's so I, frantically, started calling everyone I know who knows her. Finally, my husband got a hold of her husband to discover that he was already on his way up to get her and that no one was hurt. Phewwww! What an unexpected thing to see!

Tangent over. As I mentioned before, I went up to LA for an audition yesterday. It was for the morning after pill... A slew of beer commercial auditions, and now the morning after pill. Seriously people, what am I projecting???? Anyway, I got up there and checked in with the casting director. We all got brought into a room where they explained what they wanted us to do for this audition. We were paired up and instructed to sit on a couch next to our partner. We were then told to "act natural" and chat with each other about ourselves. They stressed that we should try not to look at each other and face the camera as much as possible. If we did look at each other, we were told to look at the tip of the other person's nose so as not upstage ourselves. Sounds natural, right? Oh, and we were told to talk about ourselves but not about acting in anyway... So I'm supposed to talk to a complete stranger about myself and the only thing we have in common is the very thing we're not supposed to talk about. We're not allowed to look at each other but still act "warm" and "natural." Hum...

I got paired up with a really nice girl. While we waited for our turn, we chatted about various things such as weddings, hair, clothes etc. However, when we were called into the room, all I could think about was what I wasn't supposed to do. As a result I wanted to talk about acting, be negative and turn completely towards my partner and away from the camera. Panic!!! Instead of listening to what this girl was saying to me and responding like a normal person, I completely blocked her out and just continued to chuckle unnaturally and say uh huh... She was sitting there searching for things to say and I was just laughing like a fool and going uh huh and oh yeah? Wow! I was such a bad audition partner!!!! All I had to do was listen and respond. It could have been so easy! I guess they'll be no emergency contraceptive commercial in my future.

At the end of the audition I felt kinda stupid, but my audition buddy was really nice. I thought, I may not have booked a job, but I did make a new friend, which is not easy to do. We exchanged information and went on our way. I felt happy driving home. I love meeting new and interesting people and I'm always happy to make a new friend in LA... Cut to later that evening, I received a text message from my new friend asking me if I would be interested in coming to learn about Buddhism... oh no... My new friend is an evangelistic Buddhist! I have no problem entertaining different ideas and philosophies, just seems a little soon in the friendship to be converting folks, ya know. Is she a crazy? Were there signs? I think there were but I just didn't listen...