Further Adieux

Here's how to depart like a clown: Quit your job, and then get laid off two weeks before your scheduled last day.

Ha. Wow. I can't imagine anyone being more prepared to leave than I am, or better personal circumstances in which to be laid off, but it's still the sort of thing that leaves you dazed.

This means I can sell the car sooner, and I spent part of the evening drafting that ad. That'll be a little sad too. I've dreamed of living carless for a long time, but this is the first car I ever actually bought, and she's an old friend. An old and faithful and very tired friend.

Last night we watched Blues Brothers in Grant Park, and that's a fitting farewell to this city. (Maybe more so because the rain got unbearably heavy right around "It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.") When people cheer for the first shot of the skyline, you know you're in a pretty good place. (The shot of Wrigley Field, incidentally, drew mingled cheers and boos. Okay, I can understand being a Sox fan, but surely you're not going to argue that the Cell is superior to Wrigley? I mean...it's just not. It's just not.)

So, anyway. Now I have more time in which to say goodbye to the city, and write, and pack the new duffel bag, and all that. I think that'll wind up being good, really. It's disconcerting, but it'll be good.

I hope this doesn't mean the car is going to crap out right as someone is test-driving it.

Farewell to the Elephant

Struck The Mysterious Elephant this morning. I've said goodbye to a fair number of shows in the Chopin basement. It's odd, the places that come to be centers of your life.

And now that delightful show is gone and so there is really and truly nothing between me and Italy, and oh, oh wow, is it happening soon. Soon enough for me to panic just a bit this afternoon. Soon enough for me to scrub out the fridge and buy a new shower curtain liner in anticipation of subletters. Soon soon. Soon soon soon soon.

Another thing recently gotten out of the way: the possibility of an insanely perfect role in a high-paying show that starts rehearsals the very day I leave. Ah, well. Good to check things off the list.

A rather large departure

Oh my sweet lord, do I have a lot to do.

Haven't done a lot of posting here because I've been busy rehearsing the fantastic new Strange Tree show, and most of my writing energy has gone towards a couple of nonfiction projects. But now the show has opened, the folks at the day job have been informed, and I can announce the next big step:

Two months from today I'm leaving for Italy to study clown at its source--commedia dell'arte at the Accademia dell'arte in Tuscany.

This is the campus:


So, yeah, I'm reasonably certain I'm going to be a different artist, and probably a different person, in December.

I can't wait.