In the next few months, I have some trips planned. I am looking forward to getting away for several reasons. I feel like I need to replenish and renew myself. Not like Ramona Singer. But I've been on this hamster wheel of trying to get to the top of the TV food chain for eight years now. That's the better part of a decade of my life! And priorities change. I always was afraid to change my approach to things because I always felt, "If I change something now, I might be on the brink of greatness!" It's the stubborn Aquarian in me who wants to make a MARK on the world, but doesn't want to move things around in order to do things. I'm at my best when I think like an individual. It's when I try to be like everyone else that I get into trouble because I'm a creature who operates best when he's being different. That's just the way it works for me. And it's sometimes hard to trust that when everyone else is doing everything a certain way. But I'm singular. I'm not like everyone else. It's against my nature.
Here's my little recap on the trips I have planned and what I want to get from them:
Sequoia National Forest - I'm going away this weekend with The Drummer on our first trip out of town. That is wild! We've been dating for a little over three weeks and now it's time to test this theory outside of the lab. I booked us a little apartment on a ranch for three nights. He's taking care of everything else. I like that feeling of us taking each other away. I've got the lodging covered. And he can get us up there and I won't have to take my wallet out the rest of the time. I'm super into that. We're romancing each other. It's important for each person to feel what it feels like to romance and then be romanced. It's not the same if you're splitting everything at every juncture. There's my little bit of relationship advice.
I'm excited to get out of town. I think the drive will be lovely and the company will certainly be good. I'm looking forward to getting to know him more during the course of the weekend. I just am looking forward to it being the two of us. I feel like I can relax around him. I don't have to worry about what he'll do or what he'll say or that he'll judge the place that we're staying at. We've also talked about this being a good time for us to relax and let go. When you're away, your inhibitions lower and you feel freer to do things. Those things can include drinking, smoking pot, laughing really hard...and other things.
I think the sex is going to be amazing. Not that I'm trying to put too much pressure on anything. But it's our opportunity to have time together and that's really a wonderful thing. There has been so much going on with my parents lately that I just need some time to release it and it's been hard to do, even with writing being a distraction. So this will be a form of cleansing for myself as well. It's a kind of cleansing that I need to wash away all of the anxiety of the past several weeks of dealing with my Dad's health. I need to get focused on the task at hand. And that task is really launching my career as a playwright and TV writer in a proper way. There have been too many distractions--too many ways I have allowed myself to get distracted. Unfortunately, my need to take care of others has usurped my career ambitions and my need to be creatively fulfilled as an artist. That need is no longer more important than my need to be fulfilled. I can have both, but just with different percentages of importance. The creativity has to take precedence for me. That being said, The Drummer, also inspires me because he has made that choice to make his life's work a priority. We don't spend every waking moment together, but that doesn't mean that when we are together we are 100 percent about each other and can't stop talking or kissing or having sex. It's pretty intense. And I like that kind of balance and focus.
We talked about this last night. Balance is not about watering down. Balance is about enjoying every possible thing you can. It's about having an abundance of many things in life. It does not mean mediocre or half way. It means all the way in more ways than just one. One thing does not take more importance in life at the expense of other things. And I hadn't heard it articulated quite that way before until our conversation last night. That's the philosophy I believe in. And an all of nothing mentality does not work for me. So this weekend is about luxuriating in each other and hiking and cooking and drinking great wine and laughing and making silly faces and doing silly voices and just rejoicing in what we've experienced in the last three weeks. We're taking things moment to moment.
Portland in September - Portland is a silly I've been in love with for a very long time. I lived there out of college and now my brother and his family live there. I always knew that I wouldn't live in Portland again, but that I wasn't done with it. It was a time where I was taking a bit of a break from the intensity of college and was again reinventing myself. I ran an after school arts education program and had a very distinct view of life there. Then the next year I worked for a huge advertising agency and got a completely different view of life in Portland.
So this Portland trip is one part family. It's important for me to be around for my niece as she gets older. I saw her in December, again in January and after this trip I'll see her again in December for Christmas, which I'll be spending with my brother and his family. As she's getting older, it's important for me to spend more time with her. I can already see that she's got a sense of her body and I want her to get into dance classes as soon as she can. So that's a big priority for me in being there.
The other thing is that I'm going to an arts festival put on by Portland's Institute for Contemporary Art. That is also important. I want to be inspired by things I'm seeing. I've got a dance theatre piece I want to get to work on and it'll be inspiring to see all forms of performance that don't necessarily rely on telling stories through dialogue or a linear story. I feel like I have been so far away from the world of dance and performance art for so long that it will be good to be surrounded by it. I also want to be prepared for this new piece that I'm hoping to workshop on some students if the powers that be let me. It's the perfect thing to bring to a school and have students work on. I'm going to see performers like Taylor Mac and Kyle Abraham, who I've never seen. There's also a whole visual arts component that will be on display the whole time. I want to be fully immersed in art for a week and then come back to my brother's house and write. It will be a full working experience. I can't wait.
I just want to walk around town, see friends I love, see my brother, sister in law and niece who I adore, eat like ridiculously awesome street food, have some great cocktails, work out, do some yoga, see art and be productive. Yes, that's a lot to get into a week, but it's a microcosm of the life I want to live. Minus any romance, but I will get my fill of romance this weekend and in the time leading up to the trip. And afterwards. This time is for me and I couldn't be more excited.
There will also be lots of dancing and laughing during that trip. Including dance parties and some movement classes with my little niece hopefully.
Santa Clara/San Francisco - It's always nice to come back to the old campus and visit. This is where I first started expressing my need to create, so the fact that I will be teaching a Playwriting Seminar and some other Master Class means a lot to me. I love talking to students about what I've done post graduation. I've lived in New York and have lived that part of the dream. I can help clear up some of the mystery around how to make this all happen. I'm also hoping to reconnect with some professors and to maybe take a dance class. That would be super rad.
Then I'm off to San Francisco for the weekend where I hope to see friends and maybe Rita Moreno's new show at Berkeley Rep. I also want to meet up with a woman at a theatre that has read and liked my stuff. And another woman at Berkeley Rep who I've known socially for a while who I really want to introduce to my work. I'm also hoping to do a training session with my friend Bill who does something called Oncore Training and maybe a Naked Yoga SF class. That might be fun too.
Again, another city I used to live in. I'm hoping to drum up enough good will that they invite me back to at least workshop that dance theatre piece I want to work on. But it might be fun to find some more quick master class type things to do. It would be fun to reconnect with the school that started it all for me. And maybe that could lead to other teaching opportunities. I would also like to find a way to bring more dance as a way to tell stories into my life. That's also where I started dancing and telling stories. Now that I've separated them, it would be nice to bring them back together and see what I've learned.
NYC - Seriously, what can I say about New York? But NYC will be the most business like trip of them all. I need to get a theatre agent and NYC will be a part of that. I am also hoping that I can get some meetings with some production companies out there as well. I have friends who are working on TV shows, so some set visits will be in order. I just want to see shows, hustle like hell and try to drum up some work for myself in the Apple. I want desperately to spend more time there, so getting to workshop my plays and do some development will be a really great thing to do.
I'm going to do a workshop of my latest play when I'm out there. And I want to get people interested in what that play is about. I think I have beautiful things to say with my writing and I want those beautiful things to be heard. And if the people in New York theatre think they haven't heard from me enough, then they will certainly hear from me this Fall.
All of these trips are to be productive. They are to drum up interest in my writing, as well as getting me some much needed readings, workshops, productions and gigs. In order to live as a writer, people need to see me as a writer. And without any other agenda that I'm pushing these days, the only way they can see me is as a writer.
Here's to a productive Fall that hits all of the points: personal, professional, passion and perseverance...and finally, pay off!
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