Decisions, decisions

I'm in a meeting (I spend the better part of my life in meetings) but I feel the pull to write. Maybe I should adopt a motto: Never let work interfere with blogging.

A Girl is in rehearsals for a theater production and I was able to watch them run through the second act yesterday. I doubt A Girl understands how lucky she is to be working with professional, experienced actors within an established theater company. There is so much "small" theater out there but there are few such established companies and very, very few good roles for children. She is one lucky kid.

As I was watching the actors yesterday, it struck me that several of them are supporting families while working as actors. (Well, most of them have "day" jobs - as teachers of theater or other theater-related activities. But they work pretty regularly as actors.) This particular ensemble has been around for 20 years - it started when the founders were in college together and many of the founding members are still regularly involved. That's some serious dedication.

As I watched them work I thought how lucky they are that they can pursue their passion. For the most part, they don't have to go to an office (and sit in unending and very boring meetings about the accounting treatment of various investment products). They get to do fun stuff like play different characters, learn a new dialect, and perform for an audience.

But the reality is that I don't have to sit in those meetings either. I'm free to pursue my passion, too. I'm also free to tell my family that we can't afford our mortgage or school tuition. Because for most actors (and people in the arts generally), that's what it means to pursue your passion. It means you give up what you can get from a more practical (but far less creative) job as a lawyer or accountant. Although I didn't think about it this way at the time, when I decided to leave the commercial production industry to go to law school, I made the decision to take a more practical road. I didn't do it because anyone was telling me I had to. My parents were as supportive as anyone could hope for. I just didn't have it in me to live in a studio apartment smaller than a postage stamp any longer. I was at the point where I would have needed to work freelance in order to move ahead and I couldn't see myself living job to job.

I'm sure my husband will agree (probably a little too whole-heartedly) that I often don't use a very good decision-making process. I'm a "wing it" person who makes emotional decisions which drives him nuts because he's a logical planner. (Before I continue, let me fully acknowledge for the record that going the "planner" route is generally far more successful than going the "wing it" route.) I bring this up because many of my life decisions - including leaving a creative job for law school - were not very well considered. It was an emotional decision brought on by fear and by the high level of comfort I thought I had with what it meant to be a lawyer. My dad was a lawyer. My mom was a legal secretary. All my friends' parents were lawyers (or doctors or accountants). I knew what to expect from going to an office every day. I knew that I would be able to afford the lifestyle I grew up with. I didn't know what to expect working freelance as a production coordinator except that if I didn't work regularly I would have a hard time paying rent.

I'm not saying I made the wrong decision. Maybe if I had thought about it a bit more and considered all my options, I still would have decided to go to law school. But I wouldn't then look back (as I sometimes do) and wonder what the hell I was thinking.

One thing that A Girl will have is an understanding of what it means financially to be an actor. And to give credit where credit is due - this was my husband's idea. He has explained to her that most actors (particularly those in theater) don't make enough money from acting to support themselves and that they have to do other things (wait tables, do TV commercials, have a regular day job) so they can pay the rent. She's learned that to be a successful actor it takes a combination of talent, hard work and luck. Too many people think that if they're talented, they'll be successful but the world is full of talented, but unemployed, actors. Even hard work doesn't get you very far if you aren't talented AND if you aren't lucky enough to get the right opportunities.

My husband and I believe that it's important to encourage our kids to follow their dreams but it's also important to help them understand the realities of certain career/life choices. I had unrealistic expectations of a career in the arts and when things didn't turn out as I thought they would, I cut and run. I'm not complaining - I have a really good life. But there is a part of me that wishes I would have had the guts to stick with a more creative career path. Whatever our girls decide about their careers, I hope their decisions are made based on a reasoned analysis of their numerous options and not based on illogical and hormone-driven emotion.

In other words, I hope they take after their father.

Thrursday Thirteen - Cincinnati version

1. I'm sitting in a conference room with a view. Thank God because there are few things worse than a windowless conference room. The bad thing about most business travel is that you don't get to see the places you travel. At least I feel like I'm able to enjoy something real about Cincinnati even if it is just a small view through a window.

2. The office building I'm in appears to have been dropped into the middle of a residential neighborhood. I'm used to views of high rises so this is a nice change of pace.

3. In the rain, most of the trees still look mostly green but there is one lone tree that is defiantly dark red.

4. If I was an architecture buff, I could tell you the style of the homes in the neighborhood across the street. On the right ride are older houses that look kind of like farm houses but without the farms.

5. On the left side the houses are all nearly identical brick rectangles. The only difference appears to be the color of the brick. Some are light brown, some are dark. I live in a high rise and those things tend to be the epitome of cookie cutter. And here I am wrinkling my nose at cookie cutter houses.

6. I'm clearly a hypocrite.

7. I can see a church steeple over the trees not too far in the distance. Beyond that are tree covered hills rising in the mist. It's very peaceful.

8. But I'm in a conference room listening to a relatively boring discussion about option trading strategies. I'm trying to look like in taking detailed notes of the meeting.

9. I wonder if anyone even imagines that I'm actually blogging. I also wonder if many of them even know what a blog is.

10. We had dinner last night in a private room at The Phoenix. It's actually called a "gentleman's club" which just generally cracks me up. If it wasn't so archaic, I'd be offended.

11. Just in case you were wondering, there were no lap dances. It's not that kind of a gentleman's club.

12. The meeting's almost over. Now they're talking about legal issues which is my thing. That just means I don't have to work as hard to listen while I try to think about what I'm writing.

13. Now that the meeting's over, I can eat lunch and look out the window. And I don't have to be surreptitious about it.