What's Next?

Unfortunately in today's world...the question what next often requires months and months and months of planning. So, even though I am up to my eyeballs in work right here in lovely Albuquerque...I need to start planning now for what...exactly...I am going to do next. That's the at least 45,000 dollar a year...preferrably 60-70,000 dollar a year question. Really...next...I'm trying to get paid.

I'm all about the movement...I've given years of my life to building a better more just world...while...almost at the same time...self-destructing over and over and over again...not a pretty cycle at all...let me tell you. Luckily/Horribly for me I am a Virgo/pro-bullshitter/hell of a thespian...and until early 2005...I'd managed to keep most of my self-destruction under wraps. Now I just break down in public where everyone can see. You get a much stronger response that way. I have spent most of this here life of mine living my day time life for other folks...and living a nighttime life of selfish self-hate...hurting plenty of folks in the process. I'm coming to realize more and more that volunteering to come on down to ABQ and do this last stint with YouthAction has been more about an expiation of sins than anything else. As if by multiplying my bags and  bags of issues by guarenteed financial insolvency that I will somehow find a spiritual balance to make up for all the mistakes I've made and the not-so-great things I've done to myself and to others along the way. Instead...I'm just broke.

But now comes one of those golden life moments when you have the choice to make some changes. My time here in ABQ is swiftly coming to a close...and the world is pretty much wide open at this point. I've got a car in half-way decent shape that can carry me to the four corners of the United States (or back to Minnesota)...and now is the time to think very strategically about where I've been, where I want to go, and where I should be in order to best meet my life goals (both those professional ones that have seemed relatively easy...and those personal growth ones that I seem to grab with one hand only to smack that hand with the other one until it lets go). One of the things I have to be super real about this go round is money. I need to find a job that is fullfilling but that also pays. Mama can't keep the student loan man from garnishing his wages forever.

And the other question is how does writing fit into all of this. Writing is my passion. My life goal is to do the writing thing as full time as humanly possible...and do it not as a starving artist...I'm way over that. So...where do I have to be to best position myself to have success as a writer...that will eventually allow me to drop the day gig altogether and pick up the life gig of writing permanently. I really don't want to be in my mid-30s before I've figured out how to write full time. Maybe the play I just finished will help me out with that. I've started sending it out to some folks with some connections...and to some folks that provide great feedback...and I think the play is good. I think it's really good. And I am generally of the school that while others seem to think I have some skill as a writer...once I've written something I find it hard to see what others see that id's my writing as "good." Eternal Dreams is not like that...I read through it and I'm proud of the work I've done...and I look forward to seeing it up on a stage...asap.

Allright. I'm rambling aimlessly today, and I've got some grant research to get through. I guess this entry is just letting folks know that contrary to the image that some folks have of me...I don't know what I'm doing half the time or where I'm going or even where I want to go...I just seem to end up places...randomly...or maybe not so randomly...but I end up there anyway...usually broke...but there ;-).

Comments

[Jason]

easy. come live in DC, work for some nifty nonprofit and write at night. all figured out. or is that is selfish suggestion on my part?