Rough patch

I think, mostly, that this is just that time I come to every so often, where I can't help but look at my life and despair. Don't get me wrong, I've come a long way in a very short time. Since January, I've realized a lot of things I never would have dreamed possible for me, are in fact feasible. Once I got out of bed, dusted myself off, and looked around at what I could do with all this time I've been blessed with (due in no small part to my utter UNEMPLOYMENT...) I got straight to work making my life as awesome as possible. I went on two professional photoshoots, a dream of mine since High School, watching ANTM and being terribly jealous that I would never be model height.

I'm smack in the middle of rehearsals for my first-ever Equity production. I'm nabbing 12 weeks worth of work toward joining the union that I so desperately want to be a part of one day. And I'm making loads of friends/contacts/what-have-you in the process.

I've done a couple of burlesque shows... Which is something I would be doing anyways, but I really packed them in over the last two months, any time I had a free weekend. I really love being a part of the community.

And, last but not least, I went and reconnected with some folks who I had assumed wouldn't really want to reconnect with me... and to better results than I might have imagined!


And though reaffirming all this to myself here makes me feel a modicum of peace, the terror of my life still nags at the back of my brain. I have NO MONEY. and I have NO JOB. I've gone on three interviews over the course of the last ten days, and NO ONE HAS CALLED ME BACK.

I cannot express how useless, incompetent, and unwanted that makes me feel. I know, logically, that the economy is just in a terrible place, and that I'm lucky to even be getting interviews in the field I've been applying in, considering my experience is nil. But I feel like the Universe at large is just ignoring my plaintive cry. I'm HUNGRY. I buy groceries once a month, I've been cutting back on *what* I eat. I haven't had anything beyond basic staples for months.
I have *needs*. My printer died this month, which means I now have to go to Kinkos and shell out twenty bucks every few days, to print all the paperwork that I *have* to have for my show. My computer's getting older. I need to put gas in my car to even *get* to rehearsal.

And all of this just sounds like whining to me. I feel like I should buck up, tighten my belt, and soldier on, but the fact of the matter is, I get three hundred dollars a month from the state of Illinois, and my rent is twice that.

And I love this city. I don't want to pack up at the end of my show and move home. I don't want to say goodbye to Chicago at the dawn of June, when life is just filtering back into the world, when I can start going to the park again and sitting in the grass and reading. I don't want to go back home and live in the room in the back of my parents' house, and work in retail until I can scrape together enough cash to go somewhere else. This city is full of possibilities for me, and I'm not ready to have to leave them.


I just need the damn universe to throw me a bone.

Still alive

I've been flying rather under the radar lately. Not really intentionally, but I've been quite busy. The usual compliment of job interviews, coupled with some of my first professional photo shoots, a full-time rehearsal schedule, and just a little bit of MacGyver have monopolized my time lately.

Hopefully, the next several days will get me back to some sort of equilibrium, timewise, and I'll be able to fill you in a little more on what's been happening here.