House becomes a home?

We've gotten some of the worst of it done, if you don't look in the baby's room. (Thank God the baby isn't here yet, there'd be no room to put her. Him. PC pronouns for imminent but not extant people are even more troubling than those for just plain people.)

And trying to get a house set up and get up to speed on the progress of the Des Moines Social Club is hard. We're meeting lots of people and taking meetings, good stuff I think, but there are no salaries. We're looking for sponsors for a big Halloween event (and trying to plan it at the same time) but the seeds have yet to blossom into fruit. And we are adjusting to a very different life here--the hardest part isn't the culture shock but the uncertainty. Julie and I had both worn pretty comfortable grooves in New York. We were good at what we did and knew what was going on. In part, I think, that was the problem--we were both ready (we thought) for some big changes, but the financial uncertainty of getting a massive arts center off the ground in a town we've been in for 10 days is, well...stressful would be fair, I think. Inadequate but fair.

There's a chance I could get to play Tom Joad in Colorado. Josh Robinson texted me about the opportunity (the previous Tom had to drop out because of a family emergency) and I video'd an audition in iMovie and posted it on Youtube for the director (a friend of Josh's) and the artistic director, for whom I played Aguecheek in 12th Night in the Shenandoah Shakespeare. Tiny little world. I haven't heard, but it would start at the beginning of September, which would be okay by us. Naturally, once you want one of these things it goes another direction, but hey...we'll figure it out.

Send good thoughts.

Love,
M