Tuesday, March 20, 2007
qualifiers.
i am having a hard time saying the words: we are moving to L.A. but we are. i gave my official yes to UCL@ last week. still sort of choking on it when it comes to the sharing.
i'm not sure why. maybe part of it is that for a long time, "i'm moving to L.A." had this very specific meaning attached to it, about moving to L.A. to be an actron and the associated struggle. and i'm actually moving there to be something else, which maybe puts me further away from the actron stuff than ever before. at least september through june.
maybe also that i'm worried about the monkey. my gut (or my pessimism; choose your own adventure) tells me that this is going to be a frustrating transition. he wasn't that satisfied with his new york progress, and he jumped into a nice situation with an automatic agent here, thanks to a friend's recommendation. that might not happen in the new place. and as much as i know he'd be sort of offended at being classified this way, he's done almost nothing but musicals since we got here. the on-camera work is going to be a lot different. it's a big change. it's a tough row to hoe.
there's even other crap: feeling some academic exhaustion, and corresponding anxiety about signing on for four more years; the prospect of a cross-country move right after the wedding (either one of those things is enough for a summer, and both in rapid succession sounds like a sure-fire way to keep losing my hair); being sort of scared to count on it until i've signed something, even though it would be really weird if something fell through after this much assurance.
i think most of it, though, is what made me be so closed-mouthed about moving to new york during my last seattle days. i don't want to be written off. i don't want it to be over before it's over. i can't believe i'm hesitant to let the long, gross, pee-smelling marathon that is new york be over, but it's no fun living anywhere as a short-timer, with one foot out the door. i don't want it all to happen quite yet. moving to california means having a plan about how it's going to proceed and i don't have a plan. except for the list of things i want to do in this city before i leave it, which is disconcertingly long. and some of them i'm just going to have to give up, like cheap flights to puerto rico and sledding in the park.
on a good day, though, i'm amazed it all came together so well. the one other city where the monkey feels like he has a shot at making a living the way he wants to, the one program that promised four years of labor instead of five or six, the one that's chaired by a feminist theatre scholar with a particular interest in the digital . . . and with full tuition and fees plus fellowship support.
so, i'm unsticking the hesitance: we're moving to L.A. and i have every intention of making a success of it.
i'm not sure why. maybe part of it is that for a long time, "i'm moving to L.A." had this very specific meaning attached to it, about moving to L.A. to be an actron and the associated struggle. and i'm actually moving there to be something else, which maybe puts me further away from the actron stuff than ever before. at least september through june.
maybe also that i'm worried about the monkey. my gut (or my pessimism; choose your own adventure) tells me that this is going to be a frustrating transition. he wasn't that satisfied with his new york progress, and he jumped into a nice situation with an automatic agent here, thanks to a friend's recommendation. that might not happen in the new place. and as much as i know he'd be sort of offended at being classified this way, he's done almost nothing but musicals since we got here. the on-camera work is going to be a lot different. it's a big change. it's a tough row to hoe.
there's even other crap: feeling some academic exhaustion, and corresponding anxiety about signing on for four more years; the prospect of a cross-country move right after the wedding (either one of those things is enough for a summer, and both in rapid succession sounds like a sure-fire way to keep losing my hair); being sort of scared to count on it until i've signed something, even though it would be really weird if something fell through after this much assurance.
i think most of it, though, is what made me be so closed-mouthed about moving to new york during my last seattle days. i don't want to be written off. i don't want it to be over before it's over. i can't believe i'm hesitant to let the long, gross, pee-smelling marathon that is new york be over, but it's no fun living anywhere as a short-timer, with one foot out the door. i don't want it all to happen quite yet. moving to california means having a plan about how it's going to proceed and i don't have a plan. except for the list of things i want to do in this city before i leave it, which is disconcertingly long. and some of them i'm just going to have to give up, like cheap flights to puerto rico and sledding in the park.
on a good day, though, i'm amazed it all came together so well. the one other city where the monkey feels like he has a shot at making a living the way he wants to, the one program that promised four years of labor instead of five or six, the one that's chaired by a feminist theatre scholar with a particular interest in the digital . . . and with full tuition and fees plus fellowship support.
so, i'm unsticking the hesitance: we're moving to L.A. and i have every intention of making a success of it.
