I wonder how many times I’ve used that title… Anyway, this is a loooooonnnnnng stoplight if it turns red as you are coming up to it so there was plenty of time to dredge my iPhone outta my pocket and get this crappy pic. We’ve had a LOT of dreary weather lately but very little of the S-word and what little we did get was laced with ice. Winter isn’t even half over. We’ll get more!

Yesterday’s lunch restaurant was in a shopping plaza that also has TarJay, Office Max, and Joann Fabrics. I haven’t been there in years but I used to go there ALL THE TIME! I have never been much of a TarJay shopper but I was in there fairly frequently back in the day. Joann’s? Yes yes yes, back when I was doing beadwork and quilt-type stuff. Office Max? Sometimes a couple times a day. Oh man, “running” YAG? Constantly making copies of handouts to parents or play programs or play tickets or postcards for the next audition and more. I used to have a color theme for each play. Red Balloon was red of course, Dandelion Wine? You guessed it. But others were more subtle. I am blessed with a low level of synesthesia and colors often match up with “things” for me (letters, numbers, whatever).

Disclaimer: I did not “run” YAG. Sue ran YAG. I tried to make the trains run on time. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not.

I greatly appreciated her artistic GENIUS (yes, really) at theatre and teaching young people in that art. And even adults sometimes. Like meeeee. She pulled me in to play the flute once and I rose to the occasion by beginning with an old French virtuoso solo piece I studied in college and riffing off from there. Yes, I actually improvised, not my usual talent. I have played in the Lydia Mendelssohn theatre as part of a large pit orchestra on a few occasions and being a one-person band was pretty dern cool in that familiar old pit.

Alas, working with/for an artist can also be frustrating and eventually I got to the point that I burned out. It is the only job I have ever burned out on. I was paid but it was a stipend and very very very little money although that was okay for a while. When I quit that “job” I had no idea what would be next. I was taking community college web design/development classes at the time but I did not expect that I would ever be hired at the kind of job I have now. And that first year after I quit YAG was as hard as all getout. My classes had ended and my dad and brother had died and I had no play production to keep me busy. And yet somehow, here I am…

It was kinda funny meeting up with old YAG folks for a while. They would ask what I was doing and when I told them “systems analyst/online banking biz”, they would sometimes take a step back like, really? You have a “real” job? Yes. Yes I do. I love these people ANYWAY! Really. I often feel amazed at myself that I have such a loverly little career. One that didn’t exist when I went to college. Have you ever heard of “Imposter Syndrome”? Then again, it’s an at will company and you never know when the next Black Thursday will come around and yank you.

G’night, KW

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