Some Updates

I'm back from yet another trip to Precept in Chattanooga, TN. This time around was a study of Ezekiel (part 1... ch 1-32). It was intense and difficult and informative and incredible. I love going down there.

I'm back in New York now. Modeling work is at a halt. The schools don't do much in the summer and the artists I usually work one-on-one with are all busy with other projects. I've got a little something--another Jesus painting--lined up for August, a little school thing for evenings September, and a full-blown religious painting in October. I'll have to go to Connecticut for that one but it should be interesting. In November and December evenings will be devoted almost entirely to A Christmas Carol.

So the current scarcity means I'm looking in earnest for more part-time work. With previous office experience being the most easily marketable batch of skills I have, it's unfortunately not not as easy to convince employers that just because I have hair all over my head doesn't mean I can't WORK. Guys like me are stuck doing hippie work. I'll probably swing by Trader Joe's this afternoon and pick up an application. A friend at a video game news blog company sent my resume to her boss. Maybe that'll lead to something.

I feel like transitioning. Maybe it's just the old 3-5 year itch from growing up in an always-moving military family. But I feel like I'm ready to try new things. Maybe put the acting stuff on the side for a few years and go back to school. Get an IT degree or something and have a job where I can make rent and enjoy just being me without the stress of having to worry that I'm throwing away an acting career.

I know, I know. I've already put the acting career on the side, according to outside observers. I've spent the couple of years making an unexpected career out of being a figure model at New York art schools. But in my head I haven't put it away. In my head, I've been nervous, I've been stressed, I've not been able to shake the feeling that I'm failing every time I say "Yes" to another modeling gig. I've so enjoyed being away from the audition culture, being able to do what I want to do, look how I want to look, away from the fear, away from the constant rejection, away from being sized up all the time...

But the enjoyment of all these things is ruined when the "Acting Thing" rears its head. My stomach tightens. My pulse increases. "Enjoy your freedom while it lasts because next year you have to audition for soap operas and get your career back on track" casts a shadow over it all. Maybe for someone more self-assured, less wrapped up in nuance and detail of the intricacies of life, it makes no difference.

But I'm not like that. I'm an ISFJ. I'm the Little Old Lady of personality types. Everything is felt, everything is remembered, everything is stored away, but worst of all, everything matters. Things aren't so easily discarded. As the helpless, dependent "baby" of the family, what I want, what I really really want out of life, is to just be able to KNOW and IDENTIFY with some degree of certainty, is who Forky is and what Forky wants. That's it. Maybe that's why I don't have dreams. I don't have career plans. I don't have a 5 year goal. I don't have high hopes of starting a big family or becoming famous or whatever.

I guess, to some extent, that's a dilemma everybody faces. They just don't think about it so much.

Or maybe I'm just another of the 30-something indecisive man-boys that are so prevalent these days.

Whoa. Sorry for getting all deep on this post. How about we end on a silly note?