So, What Are You Up To Now?

This: blogging.  Sitting in my parents' house, applying for numerous jobs, my mind is numbing and I need a non-theater outlet.  So, in addition to (now complete) yard work, cleaning of rooms, and eating, I've decided to get back to blogging.  This distraction **should** expand something other than my waistline.

But, we'll see. 

Life hasn't been good lately (though, if you were to ask me to my face, I'd smile and say the exact opposite).  No one wants to be unemployed; no one wants to be unemployed after earning a masters and spending almost 1/10 of a million dollars on two years of study - and no one wants to hear about it; but: I am unemployed.  I try to dupe my doubt by viewing this as a transition period, a period where I debrief after two years of people telling me what I am and what I am not.  I am a dramaturg, I am not an actor;  I am a good reviser, I am not a good writer; I am a theater person; I am not normal.  Still, the doubts as to whether I've wasted my time, effort, and money persist. 

If I have learned anything since March, it is this: I am not a writer.  I stink at writing.  I am no good.  This blog helps remedy this dilemma (a dramaturg who cannot write effectively cannot serve his theater effectively) by giving me a place to practice.  Joziu lets me write without criticism -- except my own.  I need to be more critical of what I create.  It must be perfect.

I've never been very good at revising my own words.  I know what I want to say, and trying to make it clear to others confounds me.  I often get caught-up in an idea, scrutinizing something small.  Usually it only adds time to my process; but, sometimes, it distracts me from a gaping flaw.  (Well, perhaps it's not gaping, but it's a flaw nonetheless, and things must be perfect at this point in the game - I'm competing with others for the piddly few jobs on the market).  Flaws like: spelling "theatre" when it should be "theater," or neglecting to remove a lingering "the" when revising.  It's the small stuff; but, now is the time to sweat it.

Sweating over it, though, clouds my mind.  I obsess over the syntax and mechanics that I an self-conscious of (because I am grammatically challenged), and neglect "big-picture" stuff.  Like is what I am writing enjoyable; or, am I paying close-enough attention to all of the details.  I think the corrective to this problem comes in stopping.  I must stop the writing for a minute - at least the theater writing.  So, I'm taking on some diversions, some projects that break-up my routine so that I can be a little more sharp when I sit down in front of my laptop.

Today I begin some extra work for a big theater in town, helping out with some research that should keep my mind active.  I'm also going to reaffirm my commitment to the gym, and to having a social life.  I don't have a life, and I need one.  Lives are important, both professional and personal.

For the past two years, under the ultra-high stress and pressure of "The Institute," I've repeatedly neglected myself.  I suffered personally from this neglect - becoming depressed, doing unhealthy things, being a spiteful sad-sack.  Its time for a purgative, something to cleanse me of all the critical professor voices that have wandered into parts of my mind where they don't belong.  I need to put things in perspective.

SO, as I continue to apply for job upon job upon job, I'm going to make myself better.  Better revisions, better exerce the mind, body, and soul through work, workouts, and workin' it with friends, better perspective.  I need to: life is more than a career; but, you cannot have a life without a career.  Right now I'm mostly work, all stress, and much doubt.  I need balance.