birds fly, they don't think twice, they simply spread their wings, the sunshines it

The more I think about it, the more certain I am that I want to go to England. If only for a few months... when will I ever get the chance again?! I mean to go there and work and earn money. Because I can't manage a leisure-trip. I'm an actor, for God's sake. I'm consigning myself to a life of poverty. Happy poverty, to be sure, but poverty nonetheless. So I've convinced myself that I'll never get across the pond if I don't do it NOW, RIGHT NOW, NOWNOWNOWNOWNOW!

I also want to take a year away from the theatre... not necessarily refraining from acting... if there's a theatre in London that I could work in, that would be sort of cool... but I'd like to take a step back and consider my options. Right now, if I stay in America, I go back to Iowa City (which obviously is not the most dynamic career move) or I go to Chicago and start auditioning. And I don't particularly care for city life... and it feels like a rat race awaits me there. I hate how competitive things are. I just want to do theatre because I love to do it, and be with people who love it too, but it seems so sweaty and desperate lately. Maybe Iowa City is the only place where theatre is elegant and purposeful, and sweat and desperation coats the theatres of everyplace else. Maybe there was sweat and desperation there, too, and I just didn't smell it for some reason. I don't know, I thought getting an M.F.A. would present me with somewhere to go... because I didn't know what to do or where to go next... but things still seem unclear to me.

Plus, I've been noodling with the book lately, and the whole first volume takes place in England, and what kind of a writer writes a whole BOOK about England and then doesn't go. No kind! The thing about the book is that I have been blessed, blessed I tell you, with the entire plot already on a platter. It's complete. And I think it's really compelling; all the people that I've told it to seem genuinely interested and impressed with it... although this group is mainly comprised of family members. Maybe I should try it out on some people who think I'm an idiot, just to make sure.

I've been looking at places to stay on line and there are TONS of places where I can flop and live like a bedouin, which is how I like it. Also, it gives me an excuse to sell all my crap before I leave Normal (I can't believe I live in a town called Normal, I am so mediocre). I hate moving and I've done it once a year for the past six years. So I'm going to SELL IT ALL!

I am having vague doubts about my sanity. After all, who is 32-years-old and selling all of their stuff to move to England? That's weird of me, right? I just... I didn't do ANYTHING in my twenties. Except move to Iowa. Which is not that crazy, really. It was crazy for me, but not for normal people. My early twenties were safe, to excess. I just wanted to make money for some reason, that was my primary goal in life. I was very scared of not having money (we had Not Had Money when I was a kid, and it was pretty stressful), so I took stupid jobs and worked with people who were bored sick also and put plenty of money in the bank, but was nagged by constant ennui. Ennui in the shower, ennui in traffic, ennui at lunchtime, ennui as I fell asleep at night. I remember one night that I made myself a Healthy Choice frozen dinner, one of several that I would have that week, and as I was looking down at the little pile of reheated mess in the plastic tub, the unfilled hours before inevitable sleep yawning before me, unfilled and (it seemed to me) unfillable, I thought "I should try to eat this without using my hands, that might break up the evening a little." I was financially comfortable, but bored... so, SO bored.

Finally, I came to and decided to make some firm decisions about what to do with my life. I wanted to make whatever decisions I made based on the principle of making a good and interesting life for myself. And I wanted to challenge myself. So finding a good artistic outlet became a priority, and that's how I found theatre. It's still satisfying (though right now, quite frankly, a little much), but there is definitely a way for it to become really silly and mundane. In Iowa, it was elegant, purposeful art, a healthy ambition, but it's becoming a commodified thing in my life, and that's gross. Hedshots are irritating, weight loss is objectifying, typing myself is STUPID. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I must keep the art part of it sacred, and not let myself descend into the sweaty desperate mess of the rat race. If I am to keep making decisions based on the principle of living a good and interesting life... well, the rat race is definitely wrong.

So England it is!