Hello, buds and budettes.

It's Friday, and I'm getting ready to skip town so I can be closer to the bus that loads tomorrow morning at 8:15 for the polytet. I won't be back till late Sunday, so I thought I'd send something into the ether to last me the weekend.

It's an odd thing, actually. I have this disk. This A-drive disk that I store blogs on that I've written at work, or written parts of at work, or, like my creepy "dead client" blog, written some of and decided to bail on before they're over. Yesterday I found this disk in my purse, and put it into the drive of the computer here at TheCompanyIWorkFor - which is a distinct no-no, according to the corporate weasels - to see what all was on it. And there was a file I couldn't place. It was called "I'm Fine."

I opened up the file and read it. I distinctly remember writing it, I distinctly remember the experience it's about and what I was thinking at the time. But I didn't remember it ever being a blog. I looked back to the beginning of the new Betland and didn't see it. I looked back through the old blog and didn't see it. Then it hit me. I'd written it during the Big Blog Block of 2003. It was one I tried to publish that went into the netherworld. It made me wonder how many others I wrote that disappeared into this netherworld - the "Pleasure Island" for blogs.

So I decided today's entry would be that blog, written October 2d. Only last month, and yet emotionally, a long, long time ago. It's nothing monumental, nothing really even that good, but when I re-read it, I can just remember exactly how I felt when I wrote it. How I felt when I was waiting there in the hospital. I don't know, I just felt a kind of affinity for it. So here it is.

I'm Ready For My Close-Up, Mr DeMille

I had to have some medical tests done today. I had to have vials of blood extracted from my body. And during this experience, a thought was present.

I think I'd make a good actress.

It's not the first time I've thought it. I actually went to class play auditions when I was in high school. Only when it came time to pick a part and read for it, I chickened out and went to sign up for a "backstage" committee. So long Sara Bernhardt, hello, Eve Harrington.

I'm good at memorization. I remember lines of dialogue from movies, lyrics of songs, and even pieces of conversations vividly. I read well. I like to put emotions and voices to dialogue in reading. I even "cast" my books. When reading a book, I cast the parts, and as I read what's before me, I turn it into a movie in my mind. That may be why it takes me so long to read anything - I'm trying to get everything just right for the movie in my head. (This last thing can also come back to bite you in the ass when the book you've lovingly casted and directed becomes a shitty motion picture with a bunch of jerks in all the roles.)

There are but a few small things holding me back. Let's see, between the fact that I hate seeing images of myself, and my, well, non-beauty, and that it's terribly uncomfortable for me to be in front of people, maybe an actor's life is not for me. Well, a real actor, anyway.

I still act, though. Of sorts.

I don't think I'd be revealing any big secrets here if I said I've been teetering on the edge of total collapse lately. My mind's a racetrack of self-defeating, despairing, and downright evil thoughts. And yet to the outside world, well, most of it, anyway, I'm a smiling, laughing, happy old fool. "As happy as if she had good sense," my friend says.

I've always been able to do this, at least since I've been an adult. I do it very well at work, smile through the chewings out, friendly and caring while still thinking about the $900 hospital bill and the lawyer's office, making happy small talk with people while thinking about family illness, or death, or loneliness. I don't know, maybe that's not so much a me-intensive trait.

That's the thought my mind rested upon at the bloodletting.

I have to go to the hospital for the tests. There's always a longish wait, in with all walks of life, the rich, poor, infirmed, elderly, kids, teens, the washed and the unwashed of our little area here. I always go in alone, with a book, am polite to the lab people, wait my turn, smile at people, and adopt a happy face. A happy face that belies my thinking behind the mask of that book.

Today I found myself furtively glancing around at the other people waiting. Most stared blankly up at the TV suspended from the ceiling. It was "I Love Lucy," but no one seemed to be smiling. Some looked around for magazines, others talked to a loved one accompanying them. I watched the hospital volunteers behind the desk. The lab workers busily scurrying around.

"Are they like me?" I wondered. "Do they hide as well? And what would I find behind the blank faces, the business-like ones? Worry? Despair? Crises of faith? Hope?"

I guess we'll never know.

I finally got inside to get my blood drawn. It took three needle sticks and two lab techs to get a good flowing vein. They kept telling me to turn my head while they stuck me, but I cheerfully said, "No, I gotta watch." And I do. That's why I hate shots in the ass. If there's a needle going into my body, I gotta see it go in. The third stick, when they kept moving the needle in and out and around, trying to get a vein, pressing over top of the needle with a lab tech's finger, got to be a little painful. They apologized. "No, that's OK, I'm still all right," I said, getting shaky and irritated and pale. They finally moved to the right spot and the blood shot out into the vial. The two vials, actually.

One gauze square and band-aid and a short wait later, I got to start home. On the way out I saw a client from the office. We exchanged pleasantries. "Hello, and how are you?"

"Oh, I'm fiiiiiiiine," I said in my hick accent.

"I'm fiiiiiiiine," I lied.

I'd like to thank the Academy....