Practice and the Industry

Finally, a post about something Industry related!

So it has come to pass that Starz has hired me as a Reader. Calloo-Callay! It's been more than a couple of months since I've been paid to read anything. I've read a couple of things here and there for free, just to keep that part of my brain in fighting trim, but HBO has been silent as the proverbial graveyard and Miramax/Disney has completely changed over their Development department, so they probably don't even have me on file anymore.

So yay! for Starz! I'm gainfully employed again! Hopefully there will be regular work so that I can start thinking about living on my own again (or with a roommate or two). Gah! What a dry spell!

I enjoy Reading, mostly because it actually puts my expensive analytical brain to use in the way it was trained (mostly - it was trained for analyzing historical texts, but this is close enough). I enjoy the time-to-money equation, because I'm really horrendously fast.

Fingers crossed that the invoice-to-paycheck hang-time is minimal.

Back on the subject of Burn Club - hah! didn't think I'd leave it alone, didja? - I have finally gotten my hands on my own practice staves. Well, I've found a pair of baby cheerleader batons that are half the length of real staves, but they're the right diameter to practice with so I can form the callouses. I can get smooth with them and practice every day, and then I can finally light up when I get my own staves.

It was an EPIC quest to find those batons. Since Toys'r'Us closed its brick-and-mortar doors, it's devilish hard to find certain toys. Hardly anyone carries hula hoops, for instance. And batons! OMG, I must have called seventeen different sporting goods, toy stores, costume shops and party supply outlets before I found them (in an Aahs! costume section, in the High School Musical category). I even called the UCLA costume shop, figuring that they might have something for Marching Band. When I said I was looking for something to fit personal needs, the guy on the phone huffily told me that it "wasn't that kind of store" and hung up on me! I think he thought I was a sex worker.

Oh, the humanity. (hah!)

Well, thank you High School Musical. Thank you for my baby practice batons.