Just In Case You Get It: Taking Chances

[again, the photo is just for emphasis]

"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death." ~James F. Byrne

I often wonder how I survive ~for the most part... You see, the life of a full time theater artist is not really the most lucrative and most secure of all job options out there. You go by project, by paycheck, and by sheer gumption in getting hired.

The rate of how busy I seem to some does not always equate to peso signs flashing on my way to the bank. Sometimes it takes 90 days -a bit of an inside joke there for those of you who get my drift. When it comes to my career as a Production Designer, I earn and I get by... And it doesn't hurt that I know of many other ways to earn from my myriad of skills; which more often that not, still surprise me. And now that the holiday season hath begun, I reckon the Barefoot Baklesa shall be wreaking havoc on them Christmasy things that would do Martha Stewart proud.

I am not beneath common labor; work is work. My upbringing has taught me the value of a hard day's work, and at the crunch, I wouldn't put it past me that I can be found at the battens of a theater if something needs to get done -I like working with my hands. Trust me, sleeping on plywood in an unoccupied tenant space at one of the biggest malls in the country just to catch some sleep during a bloody three-day set-up is already crossed out on my "things to experience" list.

Maybe what I'm getting at here is, everyday we all must take chances and that we must risk it to get to where we want to be.

I take a chance with what I know, with what i can do, with what I feel I must accomplish... And with every little victory, I am better for it.

I could have easily taken a creative job that requires me to be in an office environment, but I have been there and I was never happy. Then there was the job that paid like the money would never run out, but the hours it took meant my life expectancy would be down a decade.

It takes very little for me to say "I'm quite happy where I am" and even less to say "I'm happy I did" -and that's because I took a stab at it, sometimes blindly...

Add to that, "the book" -Oh yes, the book that is taking an eternity to get from chapter three to four in a collective twelve- plus more than nine excursus still waiting to be written. Manuscript due date: December 2010; Major Photography due date: February 2010 -no publisher yet...who knows?



thus spake The Barefoot Baklesa