bravo

So I have this issue every year... the new Top Chef season starts and I find myself resenting the cast for not being the cast the previous season whom I truly loved with all my heart and would jump in front of buses for. However with the familiar guidance of Tom, Padma and Gale I learn to admire, respect and finally love the new contestants as though it was my first Top Chef experience. Well, I don't know what it is, but it's just not happening this year! They're all too competitive, mean, manipulative, and not too entertaining. It's ruining the whole Top Chef experience which, now that LOST has ended, is my major thing to look forward to on a consistent basis. However! Thankfully this year, Bravo has done it again and has provided television for me where I can choose my favorites and hate people who I've never actually met. Has anyone been watching Work of Art? It's on Wednesday nights after Bravo and it is quickly becoming the show I look forward to on Wednesday nights. As good as it is though the fact that it's about artists in NYC pours salt directly into an open wound that I try most of the time, to ignore. It's very strange to believe in one thing so strongly your entire life and then to one day realize what it really means. I spent 22 years of my life defining myself as an actor. I was so sure of it. I still love acting and wish I could do it all the time. When I was beginning my senior year I remember when my mentor, Dr. Wortendyke were sitting in his office talking. He was telling me how good I was, blah blah and that there was going to come a time where I would have to make a choice. I was having complications of relationships at the time and he was trying to convince me to just be single and concentrate on acting. He told me I would have to choose whether I wanted to be loved my millions or just by one. I admit, that I didn't really understand what he meant at the time but I'm pretty sure I get it now. If I really wanted to be a successful, working actor then thats the only thing I could do. Forget planning a wedding. Going on a honeymoon. Deciding to have children and figuring out how the hell a lesbian couple is really supposed to go about doing that. Being pregnant, being supportive and attentive during my wife's pregnancy, standing under the Christmas Tree with a video camera to catch the look on my kid's face the first time they see what Santa can do..... being able to make Santa do what I want him to do for my kid.... teaching my kid how to throw a baseball..pick out their outfit for the first day of middle school...etc. All these things don't fit into the life of an an actor working 7 hours at their restaurant during the day and going to rehearsal for a show their getting paid for for 5 hours that night. I'd rather the love of one person. Well...maybe two or three. :) It's just hard now sometimes to to forget that I love acting so much. I can do community theatre but I think for Rach and I, something that will always bother us and get in the way of making big life decisions is that one question that we've used to define our goals since we could even think.... "Can I make it?" I think its really hard for us that now we'll never know. But now the question means something different. I wish we had years and years of training on how to live normal lives! For now, we're enjoying playing middle ground. Our life will always be an adventure, but its an adventure with each other instead of with millions. I think I like it better that way anyway. -lj