Where have I been for the last 2 and a half months?

If there is anyone out there who has been checking this thing with any kind of frequency in the last few months, hoping against hope for a new update on the events of my life, 1) I'm honored and incredibly embarrassed for not having fulfilled your wish sooner, and 2) You really need to get a life. I'm not that interesting!

Since we last left our intrepid college grad in the wilds of New York, a great many events have transpired. My iPhone is now my new favorite toy, and life is in many ways easier because of it (though it has become a bit of an electronic ball-and-chain). I just recently concluded the run of As You Like It at the Secret Theater in Long Island City, Queens--a good experience on the whole and a good first show in New York. Of course, as a result of my extremely self-judgmental nature, there were many aspects of the show for me which I would like to have improved upon...but, to quote Dean Moriarty from Kerouac's On the Road (my current read), "we know time." I also have gotten to see a lot of good theatre this summer--the previously mentioned production of Nocturne, Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park, the current revival of Our Town at the Barrow Street Theater, and a fantastic new play which is sure to blow up and become an off-Broadway hit this season: The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side.

Now that my show has closed, I have made a brief venture back to the Old Dominion. I came back down with my mom (she came to see my show closing weekend, how sweet) and was in Richmond for a few days, and now I am once again in the DC area at my friend Jessica's before returning to New York. However, I will not be in the Big Apple for much longer. If you have not yet heard, I was offered a position as an artist-in-residence at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, where I spent last summer as an acting apprentice, and next week I will begin a 9-month long stint of touring children's shows and teaching school kids theatre.

In some ways I feel bummed about leaving New York for so long and essentially putting active pursuit of my acting career on hold for almost a year, but on the whole I really feel this is a great opportunity to get closer with the BTF family, do something new and challenging (and important!), and ride out the recession before jumping head-first into the insanity of the real world. Plus, I can think of fewer places more beautiful than the Berkshires of western Massachusetts to spend a year of watching the seasons pass--from the colors of fall (sure to be gorgeous from all the rain the Northeast has gotten this summer) through the postcard-worthy winter and into the blooming of spring.

The day came and went for me like most days this year, but I only just now rewatched footage of the 9/11 attacks, and I am thoroughly convinced that it is impossible for anyone who recalls that day to watch the footage without tearing up. That day touched us all in unexplainable ways, but I had a very intense involvement with the events of that day. I knew my uncle had been working in the World Financial Center, not far at all from the World Trade Center, and because I knew he was right in the thick of the chaos I was terribly concerned for him. It was not until later that day, once we received word of his safety, that my family and I learned that his office had since moved into the World Trade Center, and that he was walking into the first tower as the plane hit it, and he saw a fireball explode from the elevator as well as people running around on fire. His company was fortunate enough to have only lost one person in the attacks, but the horror of what he went through that day is more than I can even imagine...more than I care to.

Thinking about things like this--the past, the future--really make you wonder how we go through it all and come out standing on the other side. I think it's best summed up by that great chronicler of the absurdity of our world, Samuel Beckett: "I can't go on, I'll go on."