Working actor. Noun.
1. A performer who is paid for their work and gets enough work that performing is their full time job.
2. An actor who is unable to support themselves with their art and thus has to work another job (called a "day job").

I aspire to the first but am currently doing the second. I hope one day to be able to wake up to the beautiful stage or film set that is my work.

Sure, some days I'll be more in love with it that others, but isn't that what any romance is like?

But before I can get to this (hopefully) lifelong commitment, I have to go through the grueling process of endless auditions.

Auditions are like online dating. First you have to get the perfect photo. For actors, headshots can run as much as $500. If you're lucky, you have a friend with a fancy HD camera who'll take your picture in exchange for buying them dinner, since you're both broke artists.

Or you can just take a bunch of mirror selfies and crop your phone out. It really just depends on how much effort you want to put in this.

After that you have to set up your profile. You want the people reading it to know about fun stuff you've done in the past, but you leave out that one show you did two years ago that was just a little too avant garde and no one saw it anyway.

Then you send yourself out into the world. Your information is being sent to everyone and every audition notice. You schedule an appointment for this here, and you schedule another one for that there.

So you've got yourself a date - I mean audition! Awesome. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

First you get yourself all dressed up. But not too dressed up, you don't want to look like you're trying too hard.

And you also want to make sure you look like your pictures.

Then you spend some time preparing what you're going to say. Avoid awkward pauses at all cost.

This is when you start to get nervous. What if they don't like what I'm wearing? What if I say something wrong? You obsess and obsess until you finally see them.

After it's all over, you would think you'd calm down. But no. It only gets worse. You spend HOURS wondering whether or not it went well. What about that one thing I said? Did they notice that I tripped over my words a little? I bet I looked like a total idiot.

Then you wait by the phone to see if they contact you saying they want to see you again.

But you go do it all over again because one day you'll it'll all come together and you'll live happily ever after. So for all you actors out there