29/11/2001 - 8:16 p.m.

From this angle, the landscape blurs.

The show is cast, with me in it! Yea! Really. I mean, I know this is what I've wanted, and it's really great and I do get to be in a show hooray hurrah, but I also know exactly the type of part it was. I call it "the sympathy part", it's what you get when you've auditioned for every last show for the past four years and have yet to have been given a character with a first name- or even a name at all.

Phoebe admits that's what she did when she had a part she wasn't sure about casting, which after Abbie called up and said she couldn't do the show- is what she had. She started with overlooked seniors, and when she ran out of them, went to the juniors. Seniority and pity. To no one's surprise then, the cast is me, Andy, Tricia, Alyssa, and Rachel. However, I'm glad it's us. If it were a different case, I wouldn't really want to be in it- not with a cast that small. Of course, if it were a different cast, I wouldn't have been in it. I know that.

Really though, I am glad. Fact is, I'm not in the show because I'm fantastic, it's because someone else let it be my turn. So, yeah, good for the people who give their congrats, and it is appreciated, but, in my case, I know as well as anyone who doesn't want to give false comments that I really am not anything more than a competent actress with potential. I can memorise lines and blocking fairly well, write murderously good character sketches (who knows better about writing lies about people than me?), and put my trust in a director that what they're doing is right- which is a lot more than I could say for other actors out there. (Most of you have read my opinions on that, so I won't start again.)

Well, what's rich, is all the crap Maria likes to give me- "you always say that you suck, and you don't, and you shouldn't", well, Miss Maria, have you listened to yourself come competition time? You and Lauren work up those fantastic duet scenes, and every year I get sure that you're gonna get some judge who'll be subjective to you, but you get fantastic ratings. You not only go on about how horrible it all is, but you go on about how much you hate acting.

My opinons on vegetarianism- I had to mention 'em at some point, right? If we hadn't bred and domesticated the cows to eat, we wouldn't have them in the first place, it's just that simple. Same with anything you buy in a grocery store, all those vegetables; selectively grown by mating the best kinds of plants together to get really mutant varieties that we wouldn't have otherwise. Some types of vegetables have gone extinct because we have stopped eating them- you don't see anyone with a fund to "Save the broccoli", though, do we?

I have very little compassion for death and starvation. It happens. We can't stop it. Such is the way of the world, life goes on. I do not believe in world peace. It will never happen. It sounds good on paper, but in spite of all of your idealism, it will not practically work. I mean, take utopia, it means 'perfection', but it also means 'nothing'. Take basic equality- it sounds good, but people, I'm sorry, there is no such thing as perfect equality that will also result in perfect tolerance. It's not who we are, it's not who we can ever be- not in this lifetime. Why should we want that anyway? That's not adaptation, that's deliberate adjustment, wiping out all and any forms of acceptance to make us all the same, so we have nothing to be accepting of. I love Lennon's Imagine, but I also see the distinct problems.

To bring up Sept., that's what I learned- shit happens. They give you statistics that say that like, ten people die every second, and twelve are born. (Don't quote those numbers, though the birth rate is still higher than the death rate.) OK, so people are dying, and that's not a good thing, but they can't live forever, and we're overpopulated anyway.

People are murdered everyday, but most of us only care when it's related to us. People notice the "war on terrorism" as it stands in this country, but are they taking any notice of the war in the Congo, where people are dying every day from terrorism? They just go, oh, no, I didn't know about that, oops. I don't see anyone taking up news time to go on about that. People are so ignorant- US military troops are stationed all over the world, and they don't realise. Wars are going on all over, but they don't care if they don't get affected.

So, part of the way I live my life; eat meat, the cow died so you might live; "you can't please everyone so you've got to please yourself"; everyone has beleifs, and you can point out the reasons that they're wrong and you're right, but, well, in the end, they're a different person than you; live life the way you want, and you shouldn't listen to everybody in the universe to tell you what to think- only decide what you think based on your reactions to that universe. Now, the second to last I'm working on, and that last one, people don't think is a good life moral (Mr. Holcomb). Give me a better one, then, it won't matter.