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.