I went to the Starting Over casting call. (more info: www.startingovertv.com) I woke up really early (7 am!) to eat and get ready to go to it early because I know that my mom can't really drive on the freeway if she doesn't know where she's going. Luckily, I downloaded the directions on how to get there off the internet. :)

I wanted to dress in something that said, "I'm Me!" so I dressed in my favorite t-shirt (it's black with short sleeves and a tribel design on the front) with my long layered fairy black skirt. I got armwarmers and stockings with black and red stripes on them so I wore those with my stilettos that hurt my feet, but they look so pretty!, and my goth make-up. When my mom saw me, she just looked at me and said, "It's you..." I could tell she was thinking, "Oh, shit..."

When we were going over there, I had to tell my mom to go left or right instead of telling her to go on the lane that said where to go because she wasn't looking at the signs. We got lost twice, but this is why we left so early. We left at 8:30 in the morning so that if we did get lost, we'd have enough time to get back on track. (The auditions started at 10 in the morning)

When we got there, the line was curved around the building, but there were only about sixty or seventy people there. I thought there would be only a little bit of people there, and I was glad. The people already had papers to fill their info on, but I had to wait a bit until the producers came out with more. I was number 33.

I went into the building with mom and the producer guy called Damon told us the run-down of the show and the process. The first 10-12 people would go into a conference room and talk in a group about why they want to go on the show and everything, and then they'd call us within 24 hours to tell us that we're going to be on the show. If we didn't get in, they wouldn't call us.

I was looking at all the women trying out and most of them were older and over-weight. There were a few young girls there, and two "alterna-teens" (goth, punk, etc.) that I saw. I sat and waited with mom and we looked at the FAQ sheet for the show, and it said that it couldn't help you if you wanted to be a model, actress, or singer and it probably couldn't help you if you wanted to be published, a writer, a public speaker, or a life coach. (Duh to the life coach shit!) I didn't feel good about my chances when I read that, because I put "to become a published poet" as my goal. But with a little creative writing and crossing out, I changed it to poetry reciter. :p

The auditions were taking about 30-45 minutes in waves of ten. It was 12:45 when I got my chance. One wanted to be a model, one wanted to move on past grief, one wanted to be heard, one wanted to be a comic. When it got to my turn, Damon told me off the bat, "I like your gauntlettes!" and everyone laughed and I said thank you. Then he said, "Is that what they're called?" and I said, "You can call them armwarmers, too." :P I told them my goal was to be able to recite my poetry and to be able to have confidence in myself to recite it in front of an audience because it's so personal to me and because I want to maybe help people with my poetry. Damon, who was really funny and kind, said, "OK, now you know you have to give us a few lines! You can't just leave us hanging here!" so I read them the poem without a name (The Truth), and they said they liked it, and I guess they did. I was so nervous when I read it to them, though! He asked me who I wrote that about and I said, "I wrote that for you!" and everyone laughted! After that, me and mom left, but if we had stayed a bit longer, we would have met Hailey and Lynnel from the show.

We ment to go to Wendy's afterwards because we found one of the times that we got lost, but I couldn't understand how we got there in the first place so we didn't go. We went to In-N-Out instead. :) It was HOT! Then mom let me drive the rest of the way home. That was fun! Then I slept cuz by that time it was, like, 2 or something and I was tired.

I feel good that I had this experience because I know that I wouldn't have felt good about myself if I hadn't. I'm still really surprised that mom agreed to take me, and I asked her about it, and she said she did it because it was something to get me motivated. :) I hope I get picked someday to get on the show. :D

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