I forgot to mention during Skypeage with Ilana last night that I decided a couple of days ago to quit meat, booze, and dairy for an indefinite amount of time. As maybe the first friend I knew who was a vegetarian (now practically everybody is), and given that I am practically a carnivore, I can't imagine how I forgot to tell her.
Actually, I haven't been going around announcing it to many people, but perhaps this blog is my way of doing so. I haven't been very disciplined in working out, eating right, all those things we're all supposed to do for ourselves, for the same reasons everybody slacks off even though they know better. I've been busy, haven't had time to think about it...mainly, I've never restricted the kinds of foods I eat because I love food. Why would I want to limit the number of avenues by which I can enjoy flavors if I don't have to?
There have also been myriad body image issues (along with stubborn rebellious reactions to those issues) at play, of course; I've never been skinny, but who says I should have to be? In life, in acting - I may not be what they call "hot," but I'm pretty cute sometimes. Bla bla bla why should I bla bla society something something bla bla bla. Then for the most part, being a short squat non-white actor limits me to character roles, with the occasional director willing to cast me as a lead (which happened every now and then in the Bay Area, and exactly once in New York). I'm not an ingenue, and why should I try to change what I am to try and be so? Character roles are more fun to play, anyway.
But the truth is, I'm not working enough to warrant my being in New York. I want to expand not exactly my range, but the range within people who don't know me, perceive me. Aside from casting dilemmas, I'm a physical actor and I think the best actors, the ones I most admire, are physically adept, too. Not necessarily that they've all got rockin' hot bodies, but that they're ready to go at any moment. Dick van Dyke, Danny Kaye, Geoffrey Rush (and honestly I had no idea about Geoffrey Rush until Exit the King), Don O'Connor; all of them were ready to dance, sing, pratfall, leap, wiggle, flip at a moment's notice. It kept them limber, ready, and open, and not just physically. The physical prepared-for-anything state fed into a mental, improvisational, witty flexibility that led more than anything into producing the kind of work that I'm still poring over via Hulu and Netflix like it's homework.
If the actor is not just somebody trying to skate by on their looks and/or voice, if we think of the actor as an athlete, I've been completely remiss in my training. I'm flexible and I'm fairly strong, but I've definitely been in better shape and had more energy, focus, and drive than I have/do now. I've already said that I'm not in New York to live and be just in life, I'm here to see what's doing in terms of a possible career. I haven't been doing all that's possible to keep my instrument in tune, so what makes me think that anything is going to come, career-wise, as a result of that?
True, I could consider myself "in training" if I just rejoined a gym or invested in some proper footwear so I could go running without destroying what's left of my knees and aggravating my orthopedic problems. The dietary changes I've suddenly decided to make aren't strictly necessary. But the dairy thing is for my voice, to eliminate mucus, and to a lesser extent allergies, and the meat thing is something I've been idly thinking about because of the sustainability of the industry. Eliminating meat, coupled with the booze ban, ought to save me a significant amount of money, which is always a boon these days. And, though this entry may read something like a manifesto, I still haven't gotten militant about it yet. I don't know exactly how long I'll be keeping this up, or how strictly I'll stick to it. I just feel like it's time for something new and I'll keep it up until it does or doesn't do something for me.
There's a social aspect to food that I think I'm looking to affect in a tertiary way, too. So many social interactions revolve around the consumption of food and drink - getting dinner, coffee, having brunch, going for a drink - that a) end up costing lots of money and b) take up a lot of time. Of course we all need social interaction. But of all the times I've gone out for drinks after a show, how many times has it been with people that I really, really, really wanted to see? There's the networking aspect of it, but where has that gotten me so far? Bored with people and frustrated with the lack of kindred spirits. I'm waiting to see what results this little food experiment of mine will yield, but I'm anticipating something of a distillation, where if I do see someone, it will take real effort, and I'll spend less time with people just for the sake of being around people in hopes of some vague, work-related connection. I want more time to work on various projects I've been shoving aside because I've been coming home consistently exhausted every day. By eliminating booze, meat, and dairy, it sounds like I've resigned myself to being boring for an indefinite period of time. But I'm oddly (or maybe not all that oddly) looking forward to it.
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