pet peeve #3709.1: having to be up

early for a morning commitment that takes about, oh, an hour or so - then having six idle hours before your next scheduled errand. it seems to me that wasting time should always be a conscious decision, rather than a default: if i can't jam-pack my day with efficiency, i resent being made to stand at attention and watch the hours go by.

one of many reasons dance class at university was a constant source of anguish. who makes chronically hung over college students do strenuous physical exercise at 8:30 am?! and worse yet, who gives them a schedule gap of six hours between that an a late afternoon lecture class?!?

i tried to alternate which of the two classes i skipped each week. needless to say, i wasn't a superstar in my dance class - but preferred taking the rap to the embarrassment of being asleep in the auditorium during history of the musical theatre.

time is, time was, time's past. i'm four years out of college; i just directed a complex full-length show that i'm intensely proud of (and that i truly wish my lovely history of musical theatre prof could've made it to - and stayed awake during, hypocrite that i am). maybe things are actually finally, dare i say it, going well for me. all things considered. maybe. it is certainly becoming easier to use the term self-employed rather than unemployed, though it still feels like a little bit of a lie, considering that the emphasis on "employed" suggests i'm making a living.

am i making a living? well, i'm alive. so, there's that. and i almost have rent for the month that's almost over. so... there's that. and i just landed a two-week salaried gig teching the atlantic fringe festival. aha! there is that, too.

there's something undeniably exciting about looking no further than next week. poverty, schmoverty. i wanted to do exactly what i'm doing right now: work on projects that excite me, live a less extravagant lifestyle (well... i didn't so much WANT this as realized i probably SHOULD), stay open to casual work when it came along, and lookie here: three out of three. teching the fringe, indeed. what do i know about teching? not a thing. learning experience! challenge! being able to cover rent for next month! possibly even getting out of overdraft for as much as a week! glorious.

today, i feel hopeful, and even with the darkness of less predictable matters ahead, life is good to me right now. it's probably important to acknowledge that when i can, so i am, and you be my witness: thanks, life, for not fucking me over right this second.

now, i knock on wood. i can't be superstitious enough about these things. who would've thought?

before i get awfully silly, let's go back to what i was talking about in the first place: being up too early when all you need to do happens late, and how i'm not pissed about it for once. my day so far has consisted of having coffee with a friend, solidifying the aforementioned job, and blogging on my porch in the late august sun.

it is on these, all too rare, occasions that i think being awake and functional in the morning isn't so bad... not so bad at all.

fin.