kerouac says

so, yeah. i don't know.

i find myself not wanting to go to the auditions in the morning. i still get excited when i have a good one, but the prospect of them leaves me sort of cold. mailings, eh. classes, whatever. networking. yawn. if these things are so boring, what exactly am i doing, here?

i was sitting in the backseat of the rental car in new mexico, thinking that the present moment could be happening at any time in the last twenty years. me, in the back, my parents, drives while traveling--i could have been eight or eighteen or it could have been now, on the downward slope to thirty. i read something recently . . . a woman said that we grow up, and then we grow old. my concern is that one of those is fun, and the other is not. i'm hoping i'll reframe before old age sets in.

i still want to go home. home wasn't always so great, either, but i miss something about how i felt inside the life i created. something particular about me that doesn't seem to be true anymore. the monkey thinks a change of venue will help--and no question, it'll be nicer. it wouldn't hurt me to get out of the house and have conversations with people i don't sleep next to, either. and if i think about career-changing graduate programs every day, that's okay. the eight-year-old in the back of the sedan might have wanted to be that, too.

it's been a big month so far.

my grandmother died on monday, her eighty-fifth birthday. she also got a card in the mail from george and laura bush that day, wishing her many happy returns. i suspect this is a lobbying ploy re: his amazingly dumb social security "plan," but my mom said it was cheap paper and burned real good.

we're all so relieved. while i'm sure horror stories get much more horrible, it was becoming increasing excruciating to watch her continue to live with the dementia, amputations, wild crying jags and the not-eating. she's finally done, and i feel this intense gladness, as if something in the world that was wrong finally righted itself. the evening my grandmother died, my mother had just gotten off the phone with me and told my her that i sent my love. mom said her face brightened--it was the last tme she smiled before she died. that part feels nice.

so, anyway. new mexico tomorrow for the funeral, back on saturday. and what i'm coming back to is kind of a giant mess. the closing date for the apartment still isn't set, and it's not looking as likely that we'll be able to get it done in april. since the monkey leaves in mid-may for Paying Acting Work, i am hot to move in asap. you'd think, though, that that would spur me to do some packing. no. i have packed nothing. the best one knows what moves are like and has offered to be my stand-in spouse if the monkey can't be there, which takes the edge off my panic.

also, i'm interviewing for new jobs. also, i'm working from home in my, ahem, spare time on a contract job for google. also, i'm getting ready for my one-woman show next month (the day after the monkey leaves). also, i giant-splurged on an airplane ticket to amsterdam to hitch a ride on the last week of my parents' european vacation because later, when one of them is the one who dies, i want to be able to say that before they did we ate frites and rode bikes and laughed about funny dutch words. i will probably have the five hundred bucks later, and i will probably wish i spent it now.

anyway. this week i'm advocating ice cream bars for everyone young and healthy who can enjoy good-tasting stuff. alive is only good if you use it.

i just wanted to say it before other people did.