I finally have my computer back for a few days, I finally can start finishing and uploading old entries from February, and I finally had my audition for the agent yesterday!

Mom was nervous for me, but I wasn't nervous at all. I mean, there was nothing for me to prepare, I would go there and get the sides and work on them there, so since there was nothing that I could do, why be nervous?

This calmness and practicality lasted until I was driving there and suddenly I changed over from "Why be nervous, there's nothing I can do to prepare" to, "Dear God, there's nothing I can do to prepare! I am so nervous!!"

On my way to the agency, I warmed up. Now, I never warm up, I laugh at actors who warm up, but in this case, when all I had to work with was my voice, I thought that I had better do whatever I could, and warming up was the only thing I could do.

I sang, I recited along with radio comercials, I said tongue-twisters, I did everything I could think of.

I wasn't sure about traffic, so I left the house an hour and a half early. There was no traffic, so I got there an hour early.

I had no intention of sitting in the car for that long, so I doubled back and went to Century City to denude the Godiva store of its white chocolate duckies. Which are actually called ivory chicks, but they are vaguely bird-shaped enough to pass for duckies.

I walked into Godiva, but there were no white chocolate duckies, only milk chocolate ones! I asked whether they had any in the back, but they didn't. What they did have were boxes with both white and milk duckies, and they offered to take all of the white ones out.

So I got a bag of about fifteen duckies! Thanks, Godiva girls!

Then I went back to the agency, getting there fifteen minutes early. Which makes me look all on the ball, but not like a lunatic who gets places an hour early.

I was given three pieces of copy to work on, and went out in front of the building and sat on the wall so that I could work on them full-voice. Had I stayed in the lobby, I would have felt like I should keep my voice down, and really the only way to get something like that right is to say it full out.

All three pieces were for straight announcer voices--a store ad, a bank ad and a Brita ad, and I had them down and was going back in, when a guy came out and handed me two more pieces of copy for character voices.

One was a scene from a new cartoon series called Blue Aloha, and it had notes on the top that they wanted to cast improv actors in the roles, that they wanted everyone to be funny. Unfortunately, the lines that were given me for my character were not actually funny. So it was like some sort of test: be funny with these unfunny lines!

The other piece was for a character in a computer game, and as I read the instructions at the top, they said "She takes no nonsense from anyone, she's the kind of person who calls a spade a bloody shovel," which is something that Amanda says. It was an Australian accent piece! I do a great Australian accent!!

And the best bit was that it was clearly written by an Australian writer, so the rhythms were right. When you hear something that's supposed to be Australian written by an American writer, it doesn't sound quite right, and you sort of have to emphasize the accent, but because this was written right, I could do it real.

So I worked on those two, reminded myself of the others, then went back in.

The way this audition for the agency worked was exactly like an audition for an actual job, you go into the booth and read into a microphone and the booth director records you. This booth director was really great, didn't just let me hang myself, he worked with me to make everything sound the best it could.

And it was a good thing, too, because I fell into the trap of trying to make the straight announcer stuff sound too interesting, so after my first take of the Brita ad, he said, "Try to be a little more conversational, you're sounding a little cutesy," so I took out all of the extraneous shit and he liked the second take very much, though he had me record the tag line again to make it clearer and then cut it in.

The second piece I did was the store ad, which he liked the first take of, and then was the bank ad, which he again stopped me from being too cutesy, then cut the first half of my first take together with the second half of my second take to make One Perfect Take.

Then we did the character stuff. He told me that the problem with the Blue Aloha sides was exactly what I thought the problem with the Blue Aloha sides was, that the scene wasn't actually funny, but he wanted me to sound like this actor in That 70's Show who sounds funny with every line she says. I don't watch that show, but I knew what he meant, and I had worked on the piece with that in mind--I had figured a couple of ways to twist a couple of lines.

After I finished, he said that I had done it better than most of the people from their agency that they had sent up for that role. Which was quite a nice thing to hear!

Then I did the Australian piece. He started out by saying that I didn't have to do an Australian accent, but I interrupted him and said, "But I can do it! I teach accents!" He just didn't want to have to suffer through a bad Australian accent, or let alone have something sound stupid on this, my audition tape. But I knew that I could do it probably better than anyone they had, that the dialect stuff is something that will sell me. So I just did an impression of Amanda, and he thought it was great. One take.

So that was that! He was really supportive, I believe that I couldn't have done better, so if they don't want me it won't be because I didn't do the best I could or because the booth director didn't direct me properly or give me a chance to do better takes.

Plus, I have a bag full of white chocolate duckies!

Today's horoscope:
It's high time you told a friend the whole story behind that secret you've been dragging around. Don't feel guilty. What's done is done -- besides, you can't put the past to bed without a decent memorial, now can you?

One year ago today:
("I'm going to be taking off my underwear this time, I just didn't want you to be surprised." "Okay." "Not like it's anything that you haven't seen before." "You're not kidding, I was in the seat during Boys to see everything perfectly!" "But this time you'll be much closer and it'll be better lit!"

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