'A Good Day'

After signing up for every job site and writing several ads on Craig's list, I finally got a job! I've been working for a couple of weeks now, and it has to be one of the most amazing jobs for a writer I've ever had. I'm a dispatcher and an assistant for a man that owns an art gallery in Australia. I know, strange. This is what I do. I take packages of art supplies that are sent to me and I mail them to customers, I wire money, and I shop! My instructions come via e-mail and the U.S. mail. It usually takes me two or three hours and I'm done! I do have to keep meticulous records, but most of that is done through receipts and e-mail correspondence. So, I'm making a living, can start paying off my debt, and can still feed my theatre and music habit. Although I plan on staying in Phoenix for awhile, this job can be done from any city in the U.S., so I'm once again mobile.

More news. My spring, summer, and fall plans include small rural tours in the state of Utah and possibly some other western states. I'll move back to Boulder in the Spring, and do weekends throughout the state. I'm working with a management company (and Julie) to help me do this, and I'm really excited about it. With this job, by the spring, I should be able to buy a van to help facilitate this tour, and get back some of the other items I had to sell during the dark poor days of last winter in Austin. I've started to create an inventory of everything I need to take on the road. This includes some minimal furniture pieces, lighting and sound equipment, a projector, props, furniture, etc. The evolution of the show is becoming clearer. If this job continues to work out, I'll be able to keep it throughout the year, even if I need to drive to Cedar City each week.

Last night, I did my 'gig' at The Paisley Violin, (I play every Thursday from 4 – 6 for a happy hour) and next Friday night, I'm performing my show, 'Bohemian Cowboy' at The Paisley so that I can once again get it video-taped. So, it's back to rehearsals for me. I've already started doing my nighttime process of re-memorizing, although I've noticed that this time going through the lines is much easier, the repetition of doing the show so many times is starting to pay off. In addition to all of this, I have the playwriting workshop on Saturdays, and this Sunday, I've organized a jam session with five musicians, to explore the possibilities of creating a band. I know, this sounds like a lot going on, but believe it or not, I feel like the pace is a really easy one. Think of it as a forty or fifty hour work week, only it's doing everything I love to do.

I'm also working with someone in Utah, (I'll keep her name anonymously unless she doesn't mind that I use it) to do direct marketing of my script, 'Charlie Foster, a play about theatre and swimming'. Charlie Foster is a script that is published with Anchorage Press and now Dramatic Publishing, and is fast paced one act play about high school. Because the publishing company doesn't do any direct marketing, I've written a letter to educators and Cheryl helped me create a PDF file of the script, and Julie takes the letter and the script and is systematically sending out the script to high schools across America, starting with Utah. This way, they can read the script without having to pay for ordering it, and can send off for the books and royalty from the publishing company if they decide they want to produce it. We've already received a great comment back from a high school in Southern Utah, a very good sign. It will take some time to see the results of this endeavor, but I think it's going to really pay off.

What else. I'm having a great time living here with my brother, Gary, and we are getting to know each other in a way we haven't done before. Gary has been more than generous, giving me a room and making me laugh each night. We both love to cook, so we have been having a great time inventing things to eat, (we had borscht for Christmas dinner). As things are beginning to 'shape up' I'm finding the heaviness I felt when I first came back to Phoenix lifting, and am excited and comfortable being here. Tonight, Gary and I are going out on the First Friday Art Walk, the first one I've been to here in over three years. It's also been great to be around my mother, and the great conversations that she is always able to ignite. I'm still estranged with all my sisters, but I'm finding myself completely open to resolving our conflicts, (if they are).

I also miss Diana, but I'm at a loss at how to fix it, even though I've explored several possibilities of doing so. I wish things had gone differently, but I have to keep moving forward. I suppose I'm not an easy man to be in a relationship with, I think much of it is because I'm still ensconced in a bohemian lifestyle that doesn't really make a girl feel to secure. If she does ever read this, however, I want her to know what a wonderful person she is, and how very fortunate I was to have the time with her that I did. Perhaps in the future, our hostilities will subside, and we can be friends again. One of the most exciting things about Diana was her writing talent, and I thought it was something that could have been powerfully binding in our relationship, but we didn't get that far. Keep writing, Diana, you are really good at it. I think eventually, things will make more sense for both of us. Passion can sometimes be blinding, and as it is with most things, as time passes things make more sense. The irony is that so often when they do make sense, it's too late to recover what was lost.

One of the important things I'm learning as I get older, as cliché as it sounds, is that there will always be good days and bad days, and that if one can seize the good ones and savor them, one can get through the bad ones much easier. Further, if one can get a string of good days going, the rotten ones seem fewer, and the pain doesn't seem as intense. Today is a very good day, so much like that day in elementary school, when I was taking that rock collection of my Grandfather's to 'show and tell', I couldn't sleep the night before because I was so excited. I'm excited today, and so very hopeful…