Holiday Cheer!

Myself and my fellow Neptune Young Company-ers have been given two weeks away from each other for the Holidays.

Prior to our break, we were in our 13th week of the tour. Thirteen weeks of two plays, roughly 8 to 10 performances a week [do the math if you like].

I feel like a complete and utter wanker claiming fatigue in a profession such as this, because it's either this, or working at the movie theatre, but the repetition was absolutely killing me. About three weeks ago while I was standing on a stage [and by stage, I mean gym floor], halfway through a scene in Liars with Kim "Kimbo Slice" Parkhill, when I realized I had no idea what I was saying, I was the embodiment of "going through the motions".

This is what some would call a slap in the face.

I had officially encountered my first major pitfall as a young actor: comfort. My lazy ass got comfortable. Closing in on three months into the tour, I had worked myself into a groove, a lazy useless groove that I had to kick because I still had two weeks to go before the big beautiful two week Christmas break.

It was back to the script. Back to reminding myself that acting is work. It is difficult.

I did a lot of homework and reminding myself who I was working with and working for, and what an awesome experience the tour on a whole is. I have a very thick skull, but I think it worked; the thirteenth week was a treat. I heard the children laugh, the birds chirp, the sun shine, and what my fellow actors said to me during our scenes. Hoorah.

One of the crowning achievements of the tour thus far, was from our final day when we were at an elementary school in Dartmouth. After each show, we have a questions and answers period for the students to ask us any questions regarding the show or about being an actor. During this particular Q&A period, an adorable blond haired girl wearing a tie-dye t-shirt raised her hand, and asked the question "Do you guys like graveyards?"... and no, there was nothing involving graveyards or cemetaries in our show. Bizarre.

And then we were on a well deserved break, where we will remain until January 7th.

Alright, let's talk business, what the shit did I get in the name of Jesusmas?

Kristin [the lady with whom I am currently romantically linked], for GlenandKristmas [which we celebrated on the 21st] bought me a 7.2 megapixel digital camera, which I used to document the following...

Here is an un-endearing photo of Kristin.

Collection of Batman action figures that chronicles the Batmen through the ages. From Kristin.

Superbad on DVD and the TV series Long Way Down DVD from Kristin.

I got a chubby!

...get it?

Two books: Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez and The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompsom. From Kristin.

A shirt from the Mother of Kristin Slaney.

This is a non-doctored (swear to Buddha) photo of our cat Lilly (AKA Rosey, Peppy). The devil lives in our cat.

Kristin built a beautiful gingerbread house with no help from anyone! Even though, she wouldn't stop asking for it.

The next day, I hopped on a bus headed to the South Shore where I would spend real-Christmas with the family in Lunenburg/Riverport...

Myself and my niece, Neve. Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm choking her.

$$$ from parents.

Here's a drawing that Neve did, and Vanessa and Curtis brought it to a screen printer and they transferred onto a t-shirt. Awesome.

Expert Bionicle builder.

One satisfied customer.

Myself playing with Neve's Optimus Prime helmet/voice-changer, and gun. It ain't no Optimus Primal, but it will do.

I'm still relaxing down in the South Shore with just under two more weeks of nothing to do to go. I plan to catch up on some good reading, play some Xbox 360, do some writing, and of course, study my scripts for the remaining two weeks left in the tour when we return.

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope all is well.