Blech.

Most definitely sick. Not seriously, of course, like that 100-Day Cold from hell in February, but still, it's annoying.

As for my ambitions/dreams, the main one I focus on is writing. I'd rather be a writer who can act than an actor who writes. If I can make a go of writing, I'll moonlight in actorly stuff, for fun, since I perform almost instinctively, and would enjoy it without having to succumb to the pressures of acting as a profession. Actors are at the mercy of so many nefarious forces, it would be really threatening. Writers have their own bugaboos, but I feel like they're more manageable, and less time-dependent.

For most of my years, I always seemed to look older than I was -- people usually guessed I was about 5 years older than my actual age. Which was great when I was 16 and trying to buy beer (and succeeding -- heh, in retrospect, it was an early part I played: donned my Corvette baseball cap and sleeveless black t-shirt and jeans, and bought myself a case of beer without getting carded. My friends thought I was a rock star, and I couldn't believe I'd pulled it off, either -- I half-expected bumping into a cop while walking out with the beer). When I was 15, 19-year-old girls flirted with me, until they found out how young I was -- the virtues of height, I guess, and a somber bearing. One of them, Paula, said "Too bad you're not 18..." and I was thinking *Aw, come on!!* I'd catch crap from the older guys, who resented when the gals would pay me attention, since I was the baby of our group. This was at a fast-food place where we all worked, back in 1985-86, long, long ago, back when they still had the rust-colored polyester bell-bottomed uniforms. *shudder*

When I was in college, people thought I was a senior, even though I was just a freshman. It had advantages, I guess, womanwise. But at some point, weirdly enough, when I reached my 30s, I caught up with my age. Not like I looked like I was in my 30s forever, but somehow when I reached my 30s, people stopped guessing that I was older than I was. I stabilized. That's good, from an actorly perspective. Hopefully I'll stay in that range for awhile. If not, no problem.

I kind of wasted my 20s, some. I didn't do nearly as much as I wanted to. Did a lot of political stuff, but didn't do as much inner stuff as I'd wanted. That kind of flared up more in my 30s, when it was The Time of Getting Serious. I mean, the 90s were fun -- probably the last fun decade we'll have in America, at the rate things are going.

Anyway, enough on that.