Into the fire

Well, this is it, kids.  I'm down to my last dollar.  My literal last dollar.  I've been spending an awful lot of time agonizing about what I was going to do once I got to this point, but you know what?  It's not really all that different from anything else I've done so far.

I had my dad ask me if I wanted to be talked up for a 70k-salary job that I'm not really qualified for, if I would just move back to Detroit, and I basically said that A) I'm still more concerned for my mental health than I am my monetary situation, and B) they'll take my body out of Chicago before I leave this city.

Seventy thousand dollars is so much money it almost makes me want to vomit at the thought of how extravagant that is.  Maybe I still have issues determining my self-worth, but I really don't think I'm qualified to make too much more than twenty, regardless of what I'm doing.  Do people really live on more than that?  And what are you supposed to do with it all? 

I'm down to my last dollar, and I'm still sitting in a coffeeshop, editing photos and wondering how I stumbled into working with such wonderful (and unreasonably attractive) actors. 

Is it just me?  Probably. Image (C) Me.  Duh.

I'm sitting in a coffeeshop, paying for my coffee with laundry quarters, and somehow, I'm still managing to fangirl over how stupid cute the gent on the right is.  I didn't think so when we started rehearsals, but people grow on you.  We're finishing up tech and opening the show this coming weekend, and it's been really strange to work on another Equity production.  I didn't think I'd find myself doing Equity theater again, but here we are.

I'm down to my last dollar, and I am going to be fine.  This isn't going to kill me.  The universe provides. 

Writing without a net

One of the few things I am exceptionally disciplined about is writing.  Unlike pretty much everything else, I get up and write when I'm sick, when I'm depressed, when I'm so busy with other things my head might explode.  I drabble on the train, I journal in coffeeshops, I slip quotes and soundbytes in between rehearsal reports and line notes. 

The kicker, of course, is that writing really is the last thing I do purely for the joy of it.  I don't write to make money.  I don't receive monetary compensation of any kind for the vast majority of the work I do. 

Like this place, a lot of it is journalling.  Mental check-ins.  Some of it is focused on organizing and crystallizing my purpose for the day, week, month, what-have-you.  And... A lot of it is fanfiction. 

Judge away.  I'll wait. 

Unfortunately for you, dear readers few and far-between, the stuff I write is good.  It's... GOOD.  I write fanfiction to lay the smackdown on other stories, to proverbially 'show them how it's done'.  Well... That's not WHY I write them.  I write them because I have crushes on Ben Linus and MacGyver and the only satisfaction I can get is to weave my own little proxy into their universe.  But it's no secret that writing is the one skill I possess that has been honed and shaped by years of gradual practice.  Somehow, impatient, perfectionist Megan (Raven?) allowed a hobby to survive that was, in the beginning, just as rough and awful and blatantly self-insertient and sensationalist as everyone else, and slowly weeded out the awful bits and polished in a sense of style. 

One of the things I plan on doing with this little blog is making regular updates that involve segments of my fanfiction.  Barf, I know.  If you're not a fan of MacGyver, or LOST, or Person of Interest, or Star Trek... too bad.  Feel free to skip 'em.  But they'll probably be a weekly thing, aggregated under "writing without a net"

So get used to it.  First up will be the oldest story I dare share with a public audience.  Between Two Fires.  The first story I ever began writing, put down, walked away for literally years, came back, picked up, dusted off, and realized I could still work with. That's what you get to look forward to.

Adventure time

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, about what's going to happen to me come Fall.  I'm (obviously) not going back to school this year (I wasn't accepted to the program I applied to, but we'll go for it again next year).  Kenneth has told me over and over again that I need to get out of Provision, and I know he's right.  I know he is.  But, somehow, I keep thinking that maybe I'd stick around for a couple extra months, which would suck me into another season, which would keep me there another year.  And I really just don't think I can take it. 

The thought of searching for another day job is enough to give me fits of anxiety.  It's really the last thing I want to do.  I don't want to admit defeat and crawl home, I don't want a new day job, my whole plan for Singing Raven is hackneyed by lack of time, money, energy, everything.  And I don't want it to be.  Somehow, when other people decide that they're going to make something happen, they do it.  They find the resources.  They find the place that will nurture them and get them moving on the right path. 

I want to do that.  I want to find that way.  I want to figure out how to finance it, and where to go, and just fucking DO. IT. ALREADY.  Because I'm tired of being someone else's doormat. 

I'm not even prepared to wait for fall.  I don't want to think that way anymore.  I don't want to sit here at the desk that's never been mine, and look at the clock and think... once this next show is over...

I'm having such a hard time realizing that I don't have all the answers.  I'm not magically imbued with everything I need to succeed.  It's not a bad thing.  It's just that... I need other people.  I need other people for SO many reasons.  Even if it's just to drag me out of the house long enough to notice that there's a help wanted sign in my neighborhood, that I might not have to make this crazy commute every day.  Or to tell me about some nifty free seminar, or book recommendation, or place to go to ask for information.  I don't have eyes everywhere in the universe.  I can't be in every corner of the city at once to see these things.  But other people can see them, and my friendship with them can make their accessibility so much easier. 

As absurd as it sounds, I've been neglecting the one rule I thought was obvious to me from the start.  It's WHO, not WHAT you know. 

I'm not dead. I promise!

Things have gotten very busy here for me, and by that I mean:
~I had a bunch of performances all in a row for which I was crazy behind in finishing costumes/choreography/what-have-you.
~THEN it was almost time for me to go on my mini-tour seeing Rammstein.
~THEN I saw them.  In Chicago.  And Detroit.  On the rail.
~THEN (well, not really THEN, more like WHILE I WAS DOING THAT...) I got into the coveted afterparty in Chicago, a surprisingly chill deal wherein I did a little dancing, got Richard Z K to sign my ticket, was TWO FEET from Paul Landers, but all I had in me to say was a lame hello, and generally behaved like a socially inept dweeb.  BUT I GOT IN.  Baby steps. Schneider was also there, but he was pretty preoccupied with some other chick, and since I was busy being awkward turtle I figured I'd just avoid that whole situation.  (not like "PREOCCUPIED" preoccupied.  But he was talking to her, and I was just sort of orbiting them all like some sort of awkward-feeling asteroid (Or Pluto, perhaps?  It has to be awkward not really being a planet anymore.), so.  Yeah.)
~and NOW I'm staring down the barrel of four performances in the next two weeks, four in June, and four in July, not to mention the start of rehearsals for Lebowski (BECAUSE WE'RE DOING THAT AGAIN THIS YEAR.  WHEE!), plus PUDDLE and the Windy City Burlesque Fest, and all the prep work that I have to do for THOSE things, and... Urgh.

So... Busy.  busybusybusy.  But it's good busy. 

P.S.  Paul Landers is wonderful.  I have such a crush it's shameful.  I couldn't say a damn thing to him because I was afraid of sounding like a weirdo.  It was like being in high school all over again, except we're grown adults and there's no reason I should feel that way around ANYONE anymore, particularly someone I might never see again. 

P.P.S

See?

It's a big 'ole life update.

Whee!

So. A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. A few weeks ago, I was super gung-ho about going back to school. I was going to do another Bachelors' for Fashion Design and Photography. Now... I'm not.

And before you go all "why's she so wishy-washy?" I'll fill you in on my logic.

Last weekend, Columbia college had their annual open house. I went, because I wanted to get the scoop on their programs. The first thing I learned: I fucking love Columbia. Their facilities are amazing, and I would kill to have access to their darkrooms.

The second thing I learned: That I'm WAY more excited about the possibility of shooting and developing my photography than I ever was about fashion.
It's one thing to be fashion-conscious, and to have an interest in the way clothes are constructed, and it's another thing altogether to be thrown into a fashion program.
On the other hand, I got really excited when I could smell the photo chemicals. It was a very familiar atmosphere. And it reminded me why I do stupid shit like compulsively buy cameras, and why I spent a summer afternoon hosing 20 year old darkroom equipment off in my backyard. I really love the process of creating a photograph. I love shooting film and digital equally, but when it comes to physical prints, I prefer traditional printing methods hands-down. If you shoot digitally and print digitally, the whole process is mechanized, and I think there is a coldness to that. But if you print in a darkroom, and your hands are in the chemicals and the paper's in the chemicals and everything is stewing together, you made that thing out of love and human touch, and it becomes a very vital, living object. It becomes a part of you, and you are a part of the art.

Lastly, I've spent the last week kind of stewing over and thinking about the next steps for me. Unlike fashion, Photography can be taught effectively outside the collegiate environment. I don't *need* that degree to progress. It's possible to get enough training and build a portfolio, as well as distilling what I want out of the process, either on my own, or without dropping the $70 thousand for another BA. So I'm looking at a certificate program with the Chicago Photography Center. It's pretty close to my house, and the whole program is three thousand. It would shore up my skills in the darkroom after three or four years of not using them, give me a quick and dirty intro to editing and printing digitally, teach me the basics of Photoshop, and afford me a (somewhat more limited than academically offered) range of electives I could take to broaden my expertise.


The only thing missing from that equation is the wealth of 19th century photographic processes that I'm interested in learning. Those, unlike gelatin-silver and digital processes, I will have to learn on my own. Color photography, I might have to seek special instruction in, since it's so damn difficult and precise. (The actual developing and printing process, that is)

So... that's where I'm at. It's a lot less money, and a good bit less time to invest. And if I think getting a degree is still a good idea at the end of it, then I can always apply to an MFA program with my newly updated and condensed portfolio.

Vegetables

Every few years I experience a particularly intense urge to have plants. It mostly comes out of the desire to have a small, fuzzy animal to take care of, but not having the space or funds to support and feed said fuzzy animal at that particular time. So I usually acquire vegetable plants instead.

Soon, the Lincoln Square farmers' market will be starting up again, and I'll have my pick of any number of homegrown seedlings. The question is; what will I keep this year?

Assuming I'll have a job in the next few weeks (because that very much affects what I do with the garden, or even what state I'll be gardening in), I would like to get my usual pot or two of cayenne peppers started up. (They were stupidly allowed to wither last year, thanks to me being dumb and leaving the horticulture to my roommate) But I am thinking I might also want to pick up some heirloom tomatoes (or just tomatoes, period.)

I have been grossly malnourished over the past several months, due to the fact that, well, I have no job. And so, right now, my lack of fresh food is appalling to me. I'm not even sure what I would do with tomatoes, as I don't particularly like them, but I'm sure I can pawn them off on my roommate, or integrate them into *something.*

I would also like to try my hand at growing potatoes, something I have not tried since my family planted one or two as an experiment when I was a child.

Lastly, english peas, as I recall my childhood neighbors having a vine of them in their backyard, and the little neighbor girl and I used to shell and eat them right off the vine many years ago.

Of course, if I had my way, all this would be supplemented with yellow onions, garlic, and corn at the very least, because I adore each of these things. (and my roommate uses a literal head of garlic in every single thing she cooks. Every day. Ever.) But I really, seriously doubt I have the space for any of these things, since our backyard is A) about 12 feet square and B) we have to share it with the upstairs neighbors. Such is life in a city.

The backyard is sunny and wonderful, but not in any of the places I want to dig up and use. So I'll likely be container planting the peppers and tomatoes. I have a spot picked out for a trellis of peas, against the garage, and... god help me if I figure out what to do with these potatoes, but I just kind of want to chuck them in a rubbermaid with some dirt and see what happens.



But, yes. In a fabulously perfect world, I would be blessed with all the bounty I could handle, and I would somehow know exactly what to do with it all. As it stands, I'm using this as experiment number one: Will I actually take care of the green things in my yard? The idea of supplementing my diet (and my wallet!) with food that I've grown myself is awfully attractive, but my resources are woefully thin, and I'm not sure I'm quite ready to take the plunge. But it's now or never, I suppose, if I want to live a little more responsibly, and a little healthier as well.

Monies!

Monies. Something I don't have right now. But. Things are looking up.

I never want to go into too much detail regarding who I might be talking with, or anything like that. They say everyone can read everything on the internet. And even though the chances of anyone pertinent stumbling upon my humble little blog are relatively slim...

Suffice to say that opportunity has been cropping back up here in Chicago. Which is good. I think I'd like to stay in Chicago a little while longer yet. I seem to have quite a bit of unfinished business here, and I'd like to wrap things up nicely before I bid the midwest farewell.

On the other hand, with increased opportunities comes a decrease in sleeping when I'd like to. I've been spoiled with these last few months, sleeping whenever I will. My natural sleep schedule seems to dictate I go to bed at two and get up somewhere around noon. Unfortunately, this is unsuitable to my current, and very much necessary, 9 to 5 lifestyle. One day I'll be able to sleep in blissfully late. But that day is not today. LeSigh.