Another magical day in the land of Los Angeles.

I met L at a party a few weeks ago. L is an established actor in his forties. The type of actor who, if I told you his name, you wouldn't know him, but if I told you what he'd been in, you'd say, "Oh, yeah. That guy."
L and I met for coffee yesterday so I could pick his brain about how to get my foot in the door. Just keep doing what I'm doing, was his basic advice. But L is also opening up a management company with another guy. He says they would be willing to audition me, and that I should get together a stack of head shots and resumes and drop them off with him when next I happen to find myself in Hollywood so he can distribute them to some of his contacts. "I like you," he told me, "and I'll help you any way I can." Always a nice thing to hear for someone in my position.

Afterward, while pulling out of a parking lot, a man crossed in front of my car on the sidewalk. He smiled at me and I reciprocated. This was an in, apparently, and he proceeded to come over to my window and insist that he was a swami (he pulled out a row of beads from under his shirt) and asked me if he could tell me my fortune, free of charge. I reluctantly agreed and, mace in hand, parked my car and sat on the sidewalk with him. He told me I'd been working for the past few years very hard, but with little results. He said this would change, that 2009 was the year in which I would make a breakthrough; I would be lucky. He then asked for money for the poor (free of charge). I had a dollar, so I gave it to him. He asked for more money for the poor. I showed him that that was all the money I had in my wallet, to which he graciously offered to escort me to an ATM machine.
I rudely declined. He told me that an ex-boyfriend had taken sexual advantage of me and put "bad voodoo" in my food. He offered to show me the bad voodoo. I told him I had to get to a meeting, so he pulled a "lucky stone" from his pocket, blew on it, and gave it to me. We shook hands and went our merry ways.

Later, I signed up with a group called The Actor's Network, or TAN for short. They are a group recommended to me by another actor I know, and supposedly they teach you how to be aggressive in the business part of the industry. How to market yourself, network, all the crap I'm really bad at. They have a little office in Studio City and don't promote themselves at all, started and currently still run by a working actor (who was on the X-Files, yay!). Their business is entirely based on word of mouth, which makes me a little less weary. Anywho, I'm giving them a shot.

I went to the gym, gymed until I felt the burn, and passed out at home. Wash, rinse, repeat.