GUESS WHAT?!

I GOT A CALLBACK!

that's right, y'all. i got a callback for that sam jackson movie, freedomland. i go back in on monday evening--and this time, everyone will be in the room: the producer scott rudin, the director joe roth, the casting agent...everyone that decides whether or not i get the part. and there will be no callback. no callback and no cameras. (this is where internet movie database comes in real handy...)

wow. i guess that when she told me that i did a great job after i read for her, she really wasn't shining me on.

of course, i can't tell anyone about this. not my friends. definitely not my family. and telling my parents is out of the question. they'd all just wind me up about it and if i didn't get it, everyone would weigh in with their theories and i just don't want to hear any of that. i don't want to hear my little brother the plumber tell me why i didn't get a part in a movie. and i know what my mother would say. she would blame my hair. her long-standing theory is, if i'd straighten my hair, i'd get all the work in the world. and i'd have to beat guys off with a stick. and all would be right in my world. but my theory is, hair matters with black girls but knowing how to act in front of a camera means way more than she can understand. and another thing: if i have to straighten my hair to get a black man's attention (or any man, for that matter), he's just not the one for me.

but i digress.

i'll be reading *surprise, surprise* the same three or four lines that i cold read the first time around. memorizing it won't be a problem. talking myself out of the part, that's the problem. david stopped me in the middle of a nervous rant i was having in the middle of his apartment and said, quite sagely, don't try to get into their heads. don't try to figure out what they want or why they like you. just do what you did before in that room the other day and you'll book it.

no pressure.