Our Past Lives

I've been a voice actor for 12 years now and each morning I wake up and walk into my studio, I know this is where I am meant to be. However, like most of today's voice actors this was not my first job.

In fact, if you've been a voice actor longer than say, 10 years, chances are you had never even heard of voice over until you were already doing it! It's become so much more main stream recently (thanks to amazing voices like Don LaFontaine, Joe Cipriano, Melissa Disney, Beau Weaver, and so many more!) that I often receive e-mails from children who one day hope to grow up and be a voice actor!

Last week, my dog became very ill with an unusual infection. Over the weekend, we had to make two separate trips to the emergency vet to get her some relief from the pain and put her on the road to healing. I'm thankful to say she has improved drastically, and we are nearly out of the woods. Since I'm a firm believer that the power of prayer and positive thoughts can work wonders, I turned to my friends and fellow voice actors to send healing thoughts for my little girl. (I don't have kids yet, so I'm guilty of treating my dog as if she was my baby!)

I was not one bit surprised by the kind e-mails and messages I received wishing Macy a speedy recovery (the voice acting community is incredibly generous). However, I was surprised by an e-mail I received from my friend, September Day Leach. As it turns out, September was a vet tech before she was a voice actor- and she offered to answer any questions I might have! Well, I sent her Macy's lab results- and she offered not only her thoughts- but some very practical things I could do to make Macy more comfortable (For instance- did you know that keeping the food bowl elevated helps prevent stomach pain?? It really does!)

I can't thank September enough for offering to help- she was (and is) an enormous comfort!

So, all of this got me thinking about 'past lives', A.K.A.: the things we did before we became voice actors. For me, my career began in radio. I spent 11 years co-hosting a variety of shows before moving to full-time VO. Prior to that, I leased apartments, worked as a waitress (boy was I terrible at that one!), taught TaeKwon-Do to children, and was a Sonic Carhop. Oh- I also taught an in-line skating class once, and dappled in ESL.

If you have a moment, I would love to hear what you did in your 'past life'! Maybe it's a job you still do in addition to voice over- or maybe it's something you still can't believe you ever did.

Feel free to leave a comment!

And again, thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. Yeah, she's just a dog- but she's the best little dog I've ever known!

Oh- and as a quick side note...I promised recently that I would post pictures of my new studio soon. I still plan to- but I'm waiting on my ISDN line to be installed and my new studio rack. Then- there will be many photos :)