Poop Shute

Meg and I have had a very bad year. One nasty thing after another. We were pushed and tested, but we faced it together.

Now the worst has happened. The rug has been pulled out from under me. Whatever comes next, I am facing it alone. I can't breath. I can't sleep. A thousand thoughts and feelings are constantly screaming through my head and pounding through my stomach. I have never felt so helpless and scared.

What do I do now?

Sometimes between my bouts of hysteria I have spells of rational lucidity. Sometimes some of them are productive. I think now is one of those times. I realize things such as the following.

Over the past year I have started to lose my passion for performance. Acting as a profession seems to not be what I really want afterall. This is something I have told nobody, but has been a long time in coming. My options have generally been one of two:

1 Do a show that I hate and don't believe in so that I can get paid.
2 Find a show I love and give it away for free, because the good work hardly ever pays.

In the past year I have worked on four shows, two of which I was proud of and were unpaid and two of which I did not enjoy and paid pretty well. So my choice is between artistic fulfillment and a paycheck? That sucks. I want both, dammit. I have decided to give myself a little break from the stage to see if I can be happy doing something else. Maybe I'll focus more on training... at a new gym, because Gold's management sucks.

As it happens, I may have an opportunity to have a more stable job when I get home. I am in contact with a friend at Valley Youth Theatre who says there may be a spot for me making $30,000 per year. It will be good to have steady work for a while, and still in theatre no less. Again, it won't be work I love (kids shows never have much meat to them) but the kids are always fun when I've worked there in the past. Who knows I may end up loving it. If not, I can always move on again later...

The lucidity is beginning to wash away again.

Frustrated. Confused.

COMMENTS:

What am I to read between the lines here? I don't like the way it appears...
Josh 07.26.06 - 6:37 pm

Isn't Meg in Arizona and Joey in Ohio?
ed 07.26.06 - 7:27 pm

"Whatever comes next, I am facing it alone."
Alone. Long term alone. Can I get any clearer than that?
Joey 07.27.06 - 3:30 pm

:-(
Josh 07.27.06 - 4:34 pm

Ugh. Stupid haloscan ate the second half of my message...
Call me when you are somewhere with cell reception if you want to talk. I'm always here if you need me.
Josh 07.27.06 - 4:35 pm

The people that helped train us in theatre when we were kids were some of the most important people in my life.
It doesn't always pay the best, and you can't hit the kids (except for the occasional stage combat training "accident") but there is honor in that path.
Guillermo 07.29.06 - 1:16 am

And you can't forget the prospect of deafening them with pyrotechnics. God I miss that...
Josh 07.29.06 - 5:37 am

Good old Repperts
Jess 07.30.06 - 12:43 pm

If you need an open ear, you got one.
If you stop acting then I will hunt you down and slap you. Hard.
Brando 08.04.06 - 2:19 am