live off the attention

sometimes you cut like one inch off your hairs or something and it necessitates a whole whack of photos being taken of your own self.
I mean, like I ever need an excuse. Classic.


I bought this dress in Saskatoon over the holidays but yesterday was the first time I wore it. Insanely comfortable. I wore something underneath it when I left the house. I can't guarantee that will always be the case.




Mrs. gave me this a couple of weeks ago maybe now. I have yet to sit down and really go through it but it is very lovely. I will forsure be copying images from this for my own herb drawings, but also maybe I will learn about plants and what to do with them. I know so, so little about plants it's really kind of remarkable, especially given how my mum is super interested in horticulture and the house was always filled up with plants when I was a kid. Straight up ignored that shit, yo.
I remember my mum saying that she ignored her mother's gardening as a kid as well (did you say that, Mum, or am I making this up?) and was surprised by her interest in it later in life.
I'm not saying I'm going down that road, and I def still have a blind spot for most plants, but... I'm finding it more appealing, I guess.


I love my Second City class, still. In case you were wondering. It's so hard. Conservatory is so hard. And it's hard to bring in ideas for people to work on or shut down or change. I'm super bossy about what I find funny and what I want to do with my ideas, it's a challenge for me to calm down and trust other people to help or change or work with it.
A good challenge.
I'm trying to learn how to pitch my ideas so that I will be trusted and taken seriously about them. I'm trying to learn how to explain why I think it'll be funny and in what way.
I'm learning how to fight for my ideas and how to let other people work with them.
Hard!
And very interesting.
It's fascinating to me how quickly comedy has become insanely important to me. How did I avoid it for so long? How did I manage to pretend that it wasn't something I was that interested in actually pursing? So silly!
it's the best!
And guess what? I am pretty okay not bad at all really.




what a little pink face I am.

we talked breifly in improv class last night about our insecurities and, man, it's hard to even know where to start!
Good god damn, I'm insecure about everything about myself.
Except maybe... ha, nope, just thought about it for awhile and couldn't think of anything I'm not at least a little tiny bit insecure about.
Even things I know I'm good at like being a good friend or having a good sense of humour.

Anyway, taking photos of myself where I look way better than in real life is all part of that. I get it, I get it. Super self-indulgent. But, there you go.




part of all this self-obsession is maybe also that I can't seem to hold onto a concept of who I am. I find myself mesmerized by people in the subway wondering if that's what I look like, if that's what I sound like or act like. Even though I've seen myself on film lots of times, I can't comprehend how I must look to other people, I can't imagine what they would think of me.


ha, following up that last little ramble with this photo is just great. Look how seriously I can take myself.


I haven't worn this broach yet because I'm scared I'll lose it. It is a particularly lovely one, the leaves are my favourite part.

Okay, I'm going to go to a screening of A Small Thing (short I was in a few years ago) now just to see if there are any compliments that need to be thrown my way. Also to hang out with my bud I never get to see... and hopefully see some other good things.
But mostly for the attention.
I don't know if the photos contained in this entry make it completely clear or not, but I live off attention. Pretty much.

ready reddy

It takes so little to set me off sometimes but, yeah, I'm reactive. In good and bad ways.

I just got this email sent through my acting site with a fake reply email address:

"A Small Thing was just on CBC. You broke my heart. Fantastic performance."

Why the fake email address? I want to be best friends. Or at least have you know that that made my night and make me choke up a bit because it was kind of what I needed to hear. Even though it choked me up.

THEN right after posting that to facebook I checked facebook-mail and got this:

"Hello there. I just watched "A Small Thing" on CBC. I was just about to turn the television off for the night, and then the film came on. I am glad, because I thought it was good, and I thought you were especially good. So I totally creeped the director's name, found the name of the film, found out who you were, and am now creeping to tell you all of this. Anyway, have a pleasant night, keep up the good work, and any other cliche that conveys positive energy towards your acting :) "

Why can't I be on TV every day and have people email me all the time? It hurts my heart and fills me up at the same time.
These dudes are my new favourites.
I'm ready to be a working actor. I'm ready to be really, really good. And successful.


Here's the trailer for Hey, George, which is screening at Worldwide Shorts in June (I'll post the dates/times don't worry).

The director and I are talking next moves, more shorts..
I'm ready to film something.

.

This weekend I worked a concert that was Them Crooked Vultures and opening up for them was Arkells. It was maybe the first time that people I know have played a venue I'm working, and I felt a bit strange about it.
Embarrassed to be working.

Service industry is hard.
In a non-service job you have a boss, maybe a couple of bosses. In service every single customer feels like they are your boss. It's hard not to feel like you're beneath people. Like you're a lower class of person.

I make a stupid amount of money for how much (little) work I do and yet I have to wear an ugly bowling shirt and a name tag and get called "sweetheart" and try to fix everyone's bad moods and cater and pander to asshats.

You know all that.

It was good to see the little buds on stage, though. I was up on 300 so it was a good vantage to see all the people watching them. So funny (and lovely) to watch them singing and playing and leading clap-alongs.
Especially since I don't know if I'd ever even seen them live before, or if I just assumed that I had.

Ha, then I ended up running into both the dudes I (vaguely) know from Arkells as I was leaving (we always close up way before the concert is over). Both just wandering the concourse, wait, no, one was getting his photo taken with fans(!).
Funny because I rarely see co-workers I'm looking for in that giant place, let alone band members who were playing.

It was great, though. I love seeing buds be successful. I assume that's going to be all of us sooner and later, so I'm just getting acclimatised to it...

I ended up at an after-party that wasn't overly-exciting and I didn't see Dave Grohl at all, not once.
But one time (at Edge Fest, remember Edge Fest?) many years ago we sat at the fence and yelled through to the musicians on the other side and Dave Grohl came over and hung with us for a bit.
This was also the day I made bestfriends with Niki, so that means it was the summer before grade 12. Also that day we saw Trevor MacGregor from Treble Charger wandering in the crowd and we were so awestruck that he was there among us and we approached him and at first he denied that it was him but we knew. Pretty funny.
Man, I used to love Treble Charger so hard back then. Before they got shitty.
I still have my signed converse-release Treble Charger single.
Beat that.

links and other merry sport

A couple of links for y'all:

NUMBER ONE:


Kind of a bizarre review, 4 Ns and an arrow but then a couple of pretty negative bits. I know that short is not perfect, but I do think it is kind of original. Oh well, they liked me!!

A Small Thing - trailer from GirlBoy Productions on Vimeo.

I am in great need of someone writing me another wonderful short to star in. Any takers? I need to be the star more often! I'm pretty good!
Should I quit ACTRA and film whatever I want whenever I want?
Probably not since I wouldn't get around to that, either... Hmmmmm
All of this is depressing.


I don't have a problem with anyone who reads this knowing my real last name, I just don't really want people to be able to search me and find this, I'm looking at you, potential employers. Actually, I'm kind of fine with that, too... hmm I dunno.



Matchstick is curious to see what you thought of my blogs about the Macallan tasting that I went to last week, so if you have a moment you can do a survey about it here!!!!

If you are interested in being invited to other Macallan events where you might also get to experience the joy of the ice-ball maker, and you will definitely get to savour some sweet, sweet scotches, you can sign up at www.celebratethemacallan.ca -- not just for Toronto residents, jfyi.


In other news, I need more jobs, so please hire me for some?? (especially if they are to act in movies. thnx.)

it's cold and I'm ready for mittens

Deck and I watched this whole documentary on youtube the other day, Children Underground, about how there are approximately 20,000 street children in Romania.

"Showing the horrendous effects of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's oppressive regime, Edet Belzberg's CHILDREN UNDERGROUND is an unflinchingly brutal, eye-opening work of social commentary. Ceausescu's decision to ban contraception and abortion as a way of increasing the country's work force resulted in a generation of children born into a nearly incomprehensible state of poverty and destitution."





These are the first two videos you can keep clicking through to see the whole thing. Hard to stop watching. It's probably a good thing I watched it with Deck because I probably would have lost it if I watched it on my own. Pretty upsetting.
Really great film, though.



In better news, I now have two phone chargers!
Niki dropped one off for me and then one of my favourite co-workers surprised me with one last night. Nice!


Look, my profile is used on the Small Thing production company website. Neat, hey?

I'm working too much, it feels like there is never enough time in the day. Especially because I want to spend most of it lazing around. Obviously.

what a stupid career idea

Aw, man.
I really want to be an actor. I so badly want to be an actor and get to act and be in things and go to set and learn new skills and develop actual characters and have input and and and and and

I kind of wish I were just in this for the fame, then I could take another avenue, push anything to get fame. But what I really really want and dream of and plan for and expect is to be a working actor. To get to go and work on film sets.
To create and to story-tell.


I feel a pretty big disconnect between who I feel I am and what I look like on film and in pictures. I really don't relate that well to images of me. I know that girl, but I don't really believe it's me.
I feel kind of protective if her more than anything. And a bit judgemental of her. No, mostly protective.
Aw that girl has such a funny gremlin face, aw it's that girl's fat arms again, cute... That girl's high-pitched squeal and bum-chin. I guess I'm familiar to myself and therefore endeared...
Hard to explain. But I guess that's one of the reasons why I'm fine with watching myself and why I am comfortable with my body and looks, because I do not believe it's really me.


You know what else I'd like? I'd like to go to Paris in the fall.
BFF is going to do a semester of school there (luckylucky) and imagine if I could go and visit??
I've never even been out of Canada! Ever!
And I even speak French. Perfect.
I should probably go.
Aaand I should go to England, too. I have relatives over there. My grandparents immigrated from there, it's almost like I have a bit of culture if I think about it.
And I speak English, so, you know.
Makes sense.

I have to make a lot of money starting now, go!

Such, such a busy weekend, I'm a busy bee. Lots of ideas for projects that I want to do. Lots of stress and lots of fun. And now I kind of want to sleep for a few days. Or at least 11 hours...

Also, if you haven't seen A Small Thing and you'd like to see the trailer, it's here: http://www.girlboyproductions.com/trailer.html. In case you were wondering.

I LOVE THE NFB

So, apparently our film, A Small Thing, screened at the National Film Board this week, but I didn't go because I was working. But still, that little film is sure doing great.

Anyway! NFB has put all of its films online!
I thought it was awesome that I could go and watch at the film board, but this is even better!
So many classics from childhood!

Log Driver's Waltz! One of my favourites!



Thanks Nunc Scio for the link!

grindy knee

I used to have really bad knees in highschool. Very bad, sometimes they would sort of catch as I was walking and trip me up a bit. Not too fun.
Now my one knee feels like again. I can only assume it's because I'm growing.
Or I have knee cancer. But gdmn it's hurting. And it's extra, extra annoying because it's only one knee and so it's uneven! And riding my bike makes it worse! And working on my feet makes it worse!
Unghgh.

I'd really like to go as a Hunk for hallowe'en. But I wouldn't know how, really.

TWO PIECES OF VERY EXCITING NEWS FOR YOU:::::

NUMBER ONE:
A Small Thing won best Canadian short film at the ImagineNative festival!
(the screening was fun, btw. Deer came with me as well as other friends and we were glad. And the other films were really quite nice and also heart-breaking in several ways.)

NUMBER TWO:
I'm singing in the choir for Entire Cities on Thursday at the Horseshoe. HOW FUN IS THAT?
(a: VERY FUN)
I'm very nervous guys and not a good singer at all. But I always sing and dance at Entire Cities shows anyway, so it only makes sense. Also scared. Also I want to be a singer in a rock 'n roll band more than most things in this world and this is probably the closest I'll ever come. Also it's kind of funny because lately whenever Deer is singing something I don't know I yell I'M MY BROTHER'S SNAKESKIN MOTHERFUCKER. Which is some of the lyrics I will be singing on Thursday.
I know, right?

I for sure can't clap and sing at the same time. Especially add stomping and disaster!!!

Oh yeah also, I was in the park yesterday and I saw ZOMBIES!
Hundreds and hundreds of zombies! Baby zombies and bride zombies and nurse zombies. Sooo many zombies it was so awesome. Pictures to come.
brainsbrainsbrainsbrains


oh here are some pictures from Friday because I got tooooo messy.











I'm feeling a bit better. Had a horrid meltdown on Friday. Started off with a mini-melt at the house party I was at. Yeah, crying girl at the party. Best idea ever. Also funny when there are people there who recognize you from being off TV.
But it actually wasn't that bad. It was fine. Embarrassing. Whatever.
Life's hard, etc.
Ready to feel really better, soon enough. Christmas season fast approaching. Less than two weeks!!!
Til the offical start of the season, I mean.

Ugh I totally bought an EIGHT DOLLAR magazine. About Christmas. A Martha Stewart magazine. But it is so soososo so so good. I want to make crafts all the livelong day.
And pear cordial. All the livelong day.
Oh long johnson.


OW MY KNEE.

too many caps today. srry.

grindy knee

I used to have really bad knees in highschool. Very bad, sometimes they would sort of catch as I was walking and trip me up a bit. Not too fun.
Now my one knee feels like again. I can only assume it's because I'm growing.
Or I have knee cancer. But gdmn it's hurting. And it's extra, extra annoying because it's only one knee and so it's uneven! And riding my bike makes it worse! And working on my feet makes it worse!
Unghgh.

I'd really like to go as a Hunk for hallowe'en. But I wouldn't know how, really.

TWO PIECES OF VERY EXCITING NEWS FOR YOU:::::

NUMBER ONE:
A Small Thing won best Canadian short film at the ImagineNative festival!
(the screening was fun, btw. Deer came with me as well as other friends and we were glad. And the other films were really quite nice and also heart-breaking in several ways.)

NUMBER TWO:
I'm singing in the choir for Entire Cities on Thursday at the Horseshoe. HOW FUN IS THAT?
(a: VERY FUN)
I'm very nervous guys and not a good singer at all. But I always sing and dance at Entire Cities shows anyway, so it only makes sense. Also scared. Also I want to be a singer in a rock 'n roll band more than most things in this world and this is probably the closest I'll ever come. Also it's kind of funny because lately whenever Deer is singing something I don't know I yell I'M MY BROTHER'S SNAKESKIN MOTHERFUCKER. Which is some of the lyrics I will be singing on Thursday.
I know, right?

I for sure can't clap and sing at the same time. Especially add stomping and disaster!!!

Oh yeah also, I was in the park yesterday and I saw ZOMBIES!
Hundreds and hundreds of zombies! Baby zombies and bride zombies and nurse zombies. Sooo many zombies it was so awesome. Pictures to come.
brainsbrainsbrainsbrains


oh here are some pictures from Friday because I got tooooo messy.











I'm feeling a bit better. Had a horrid meltdown on Friday. Started off with a mini-melt at the house party I was at. Yeah, crying girl at the party. Best idea ever. Also funny when there are people there who recognize you from being off TV.
But it actually wasn't that bad. It was fine. Embarrassing. Whatever.
Life's hard, etc.
Ready to feel really better, soon enough. Christmas season fast approaching. Less than two weeks!!!
Til the offical start of the season, I mean.

Ugh I totally bought an EIGHT DOLLAR magazine. About Christmas. A Martha Stewart magazine. But it is so soososo so so good. I want to make crafts all the livelong day.
And pear cordial. All the livelong day.
Oh long johnson.


OW MY KNEE.

too many caps today. srry.

first time my name is bolded in Now Magazine

A Small Thing (Rating: NNNN) is a solid if conventional work about a young Toronto woman trying to understand the roots of her disconnected emotions. It’s driven by Meredith Mistletoe’s strong performance and Adam Garnet Jones’s fluid direction.

-Now Magazine's review from the ImagineNative Festival


Exciting!

work today for the first time in a week!

My BFF was on the patio at Futures when there was that shooting at that corner the other night. I don't want my friends to get shot. Ever. She said everyone hit the deck.
It's a good thing there weren't more guns because then there could have been stray bullets and it could've been a lot messier. I am not okay with guns.



Shit Dudes!

Forgot to tell you:
The short film I did, A Small Thing, is going to Toronto Film Fest!!!

Beat that.

Also. I can't keep potatoes in the house because they invariably become hashbrowns. And are too delicious not to eat in huge quantities.


Okay. I'm still working my way through all of the cottage photos. I'm trying to make it so it's not a bore festival like when some people make you look through their vay cay photos. There's a tonne of them up on my flickr, if you'd like to get started. Pretty hilar, gotta say.

But instead today I will bring you photos from Friday night, where Dollface was looking beyond beyond beyond like lordy lordy but don't tell her you think so because she already has a fat head. Gross.

Ode to Dollface:








Then some photes of the rest of us.








(hi. you want some? no? I'll eat it all then!)
(I am indeed my mother's daughter. Pretty sure she has a sundress in almost that exact plaid. )


Hey funny funny story for you:

Dudes come in to (veronica) Mars Food where were eating and sit in the booth behind us and immediately start chatting us up. Dollface has a funny expression like "WTF?" we go out for a smoke and she lets us in on how the one dude (instigator of all communique between us) is a dude she met weeks ago who keeps texting her all time trying to get her to hang out. But in real life he failed to recognize her. As my mum said, "most ineffectual stalker, ever."
Best part? He texted her again the next day.. never realizing.

Last night was Carbon Dating Service at Drake. Saskatooners travelling the country in a school-bus. Some of my very favourites. But I was beyond not-feeling-it last night. I just wanted to weep. There is something about seeing people from home where all I want is to impress them. I want to brag and having amazing things to tell them and amaze them, because I live in Toronto... I don't even know.
But this particular group of Saskatooners is umimpressable. They have a weird sort of thing of taking everyone down a notch. It's an odd way of interacting that no matter what makes me feel helpless and like I'm in 10th grade again.
It becomes clearer that I may not be able to live in Saskatoon full-time ever again. Wow that makes me sad. Better get rich.
It was a good show though. For sure. I just wasn't in the mood.


OMG I want Baez Sings Dylan to hurry and get onto my computer!

yeah HUH

Fucking Eh.

A review of A Small Thing from the Exclaim Magazine website (and I assume it was published as well?):

Something else that sucks as a teenager is being accused of being emotionally cold and distant by a significant other. In A Small Thing, Margaret is sort of like Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted, only no one hides rotting chicken carcasses under their bed. They do, however, apply defibrillators to a chocolate cake, which is certainly a big plus. The lead, Meredith Mistletoe, is fantastic and should find herself sliding into the Canadian indie scene sometime soon.

Well. That made me smile at least.

more women about town business

Had such, such a good rehearsal yesterday.
Went to the park and ran around and I worked on my end monologue and added some pretty funny (to me) bits. Got really really excited about finally doing a play! I love theatre! I miss theatre!

We rehearse in a park next to a cool church



Last night mum and I went to the cast and crew screening of A Small Thing, which is the short film I did back in November for my friend Adam. It premieres next week at the CFC's worldwide shorts festival - in case you are forgetting.
It was nice to go the screening, which was held at the extremely fancy Spoke Club. My friend, mother, and I all visited the bathrooms on the way out and we all had our own private room (naturally) but as we were coming out, my friend beckoned us into hers to show us the ultra fancy hand-dryer which you put your hands all the way inside. Yeah, we played with that for a bit. Except it was extremely loud and so I'm sure everyone in the fancy dining room heard us white trash horsing around in the bathroom.
Embarrassing.
The thing is, I'm still going to be like that even when I'm extremely rich and famous.
You can only go to Spoke Club if you are a member, and you can only join if you are successful in the arts/media/culture business and if you are invited. And you can't bring your body-guards and entourage inside with you - so don't even try it.

Mum and I walked down this alley/road on our way there. It looked sort of like Montreal. Those new giant recycle bins are eyesores.



I took my mum to dinner at Squirrley's and the server was really baffled at my mother's request for a class of milk. It was pretty good.
Then we went to the movies. We wanted to see Baby Mama but it wasn't playing at that theatre. So we ended up at Narnia.
Hmmm. Yeah, that wasn't a very good. Movie. But I still liked it. I hate battle scenes though, especially un-clever battle scenes. But all of those kids are pretty watchable, especially the little girl who played Lucy, I like her a lot. And the dude who played Peter is pretty babely. Not to mention Caspian himself. Oh, and I think Susan was so pretty and looked so good in chainmail. I want to become a creative anachronist just to be able to dress up like that...
I know these movies are bad, but I still feel some of the magic in them that I did when I read this series as a child.
But only some of it.

We wanted to go see Baby Mama.. maybe we'll try and see that too. But then I got to reading movie reviews today and I'd also really like to see The Stone Angel and And Then She Found Me (even though the reviews said the donor insemination parts are a little absurd and that always gets me...)
I love movies!!
I always forget how much I love movies!

After Prince Caspian it was about 1 a.m. (which is late for old people and for people who hang out with old people because old people leach the energies of the youth just to feed their waning spirits. jk gosh.) so we took the streetcar home instead of walking like we had been all day.






Today my mum is wandering around going to galleries and things that I don't really care about and I am being a selfish host and playing on the computer instead. But I'll go hang out with her later and stuff. So it's fine.

I'm out of my favourite perfume and I don't smell like myself and it's bothering me. I've worn this kind of perfume since 2001 and I'm not going to tell you what it is in case you think maybe you'd also like to smell like delicious baked goods and sugars and then you go and buy it too and then we smell the same and then my one secret weapon for babe-entrapment (jk, I don't even need any weapons because have you even seen me? gd I'm so hot, it's unbelievable, really...........................) would be not so secret anymore.
Okay, fine, you can know.
It's just plain old lemon vanilla from Fruits and Passion. It doesn't matter because it wouldn't smell as good on you anyhow.
It's so nice though.
OMG I'm having a shit fit, I'm looking at their website and it's not listed on there anymore and I'm going to cry for real if they've discontinued it. I needed to stock up!
Oh god I have to go there!

Just a Small Thing

A Small Thing
Starring Meredith R. Mistletoe
Directed and written by Adam Garnet Jones
Premiering at CFC's Worldwide Shorts Festival in Toronto
June 12 (4 p.m.)
&
June 13 (9:15 p.m.)


(Yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayay, etc!)