A satirical guide to managing your time when publishing a website, assuming that you aren't someone who does this for a living:

1. Estimate the amount of time that it will take to publish your site.
2. Triple that amount.
3. Go on facebook and bitch about how long this is taking.
   
4. Take the high road and swallow your bile when your web designer friend comments that you should have hired her to do it instead.
5. Resolve to enact your revenge when said web designer friend is looking for someone to proofread her resume.
6. Get back to work, slacker.
7. Add another 17 minutes.
8. Consider calling your web designer friend.
   
9. Check your bank account.  Cry. 
10. Add 30 minutes. 
11. It's time to PUBLISH! You are a rock star who can do anything. 
12. Realize that clicking the Publish button just led you to seven more steps and you maybe can't do this at all.
13. Add anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes depending on your blood sugar level.
14. Ok, I think this is the last step.
15. No it isn't, because the site won't really go live for up to 48 hours while the whole domain name syncing thing happens. But there's nothing you can do about it now. So, yay?

The end.  Or is it?

I'm trying to redefine my relationship with the idea of networking. It's so easy for me to jump into thinking of it as something kind of icky and (as an introvert) completely exhausting. 

Also, I'm kind of terrible at it. At one point, I would have considered this a point of pride, part of my romanticized self-image as a cowgirl who doesn't need no help from nobody, an authentic independent spirit who doesn't play by the rules, etc., etc., add your own image here. Trying to make a life as an artist and freelancing as an editor to pay the rent has turned that attitude around right away. But I'm starting to realize that networking is not only necessary, it's also really very satisfying, even for an introvert like me.  Here's why:

• Every single thing that I do works better if there is someone else involved. I don't always need collaborators, but I do need other humans be present and occasionally listening to help me keep myself on track and give the work a life outside my own head. 
• Helping to connect people is really very satisfying. Seriously, it's fun to help! Especially when I'm helping more than one person at once and with very little effort on my part! Having a network means that I can sometimes be that connector when someone needs a hand. And it reminds me that it's ok for me to ask other people for help too. They usually don't mind at all.
• I know amazing people who are doing some damn cool things. Going out into the world and talking to them about what they're passionate about isn't a chore--it's a privilege! 

Listen, I'm still not great at this networking thing. I'm awkward and kind of shy in most social situations. For me, talking to strangers, and thinking of myself as someone who has something of value to offer them, will probably never come naturally to me. But I'm working on it because I'm learning to see it as more than a necessary evil.

When I was a 16-year-old actor wannabe, I tried out for a community theater production of Brighton Beach Memoirs.  It was probably my first not-for-school audition and to say it didn't go well is an understatement. It barely went at all. 

There was one role in my age range: Nora, the beautiful dancer/cousin/lust object of the main character. I have never been the ingenue type and even if genius acting had spewed from my soul, I probably still would not have been seriously considered for the role. I was a rather intense, overweight teenager and I was, quite simply, not the Nora type. But I wasn't even given the chance. They asked me to read for the 20-years-older-than-me part of Blanche--while my prettier, thinner peers all read for Nora--and dismissed as quickly as possible.

Obviously, I was never going to be cast as Blanche either. The role was out of my age range and way out of my emotional range. But for some reason, the auditors decided it was more plausible to see me fail as a middle-aged widow with two teenaged daughters rather than as a pretty young woman. And this is one of those moments, had I been less in love with the whole ideal of THE THEATRE (and at this point, I really had no idea what I was getting into), that I might have given up. I might have decided that I just wasn't pretty enough and stopped there or channeled my bossy older sister energy into becoming a kick-ass stage manager.

But I kept going.  I got training.  I got experience.  It took many years before I was even comfortable at auditions and even now they are an elusive beast: sometimes horrible and demeaning, sometimes fun and free, oftentimes just "ok."

Flash forward more than 20 years to about a month ago, when I had the best audition of my life. It was a standard "two contrasting monologues" for the season of a company I've never worked for.  My first piece (contemporary, serious) was something I'd done before, but something kicked in while I was performing: a new unexpected and genuine moment of emotion. And then I launched into my second (classical, comic) piece, one that I was using for the first time. I'd been nervous and excited about this one. I'm still an overweight actor and physical courage and abandon came late to me: but the role demanded it.  I threw my body around.  I rolled on the floor. I used my embarrassing center of gravity to my advantage and it was fun!  

The auditors were super nice and encouraging, but that can happen even when you suck. Still, I left feeling like I'd done everything that I could do. A week later, I got a call offering me a job. The role: Blanche in Brighton Beach Memoirs.*

There are so many lessons that I take away from this, and this post is already getting too long, so I'll sum up. For myself and other dreamers: be fearless. I mean, yes, have fear if you must. But please don't let fear--of not being right, of not being cute, of not being enough--stop you.  Fail. Fail big. And stumble into your successes with grace and good humor. For the gatekeepers of others' dreams: give the weird kids a chance. They might surprise you. And even if they don't, do you really want to be the reason that someone gave up?

*See my Actor page for more details.