Day Jobs.

Yikes. Unintendedly, I apparently freaked my mom out. I guess "What goes around comes around" is a less than spiritual comment here.

When I was camping this weekend, one of the women said she’d used this 23andme site that did genetic mapping and testing. She said she found it to accurately confirm things she knew she had and “labeled” her cousin as her own on the site, so she felt it was reliable when it came to the things she wanted clarity on or might not know. So, on a whim, I looked it up yesterday. Part of it is my own rampant curiosity about my dad’s father’s side of the family, about whom we know nothing (very hush hush, gramma got pregnant at 15 in an Irish Catholic family under-the-rug), so I’d like to know about that fourth of who I am.

Secondly, and importantly for me, my mom’s mother died from Alzheimer’s and I want to know if I have the gene or not. You can get it without the gene, and you can not get it with the gene. But, I’m curious. And a little excited. If I don’t have the gene, I can (and would) worry less; and if I do have the gene, they’re coming up with all kinds of new things people can do these days to stave it off or minimize the effects – and I’d look for more information on stuff like that.

So, in an effort to “share the good news,” I emailed my mom and brother yesterday to let them know about it (though women are more likely than men to get Alz). I got an email back this morning from my mom saying that no matter what to never [BOLD FACE] EVER tell her the results of it.

Yikes. Granted, my mom is a class-A worrier, anxiety-disordered woman on medication, but… yeesh. That obviously wasn’t my intention, to freak her out – I guess I imagined she’d react as I did – “Cool, what can I learn, so that information can be useful in how I lead my life?” … Best laid plans, I suppose.

It’s Friday, so it’s a little rough to go into what I remember of my mom’s parents’ deaths, and what I consider to be and have been “wrong” ways of grieving. And so I won’t do that today. It’s NOMB – None Of My Business.

So, I’ll undeftly switch topics, as I’m uncomfortable. ;)

Yesterday, in reading Tina Fey’s book, I had a sort of realization about “day jobs.” Fey worked at a YMCA for $5/hr in Chicago when she left undergrad. She wanted to take improv classes, so she angled for a job “upstairs” in the office of the YMCA. When she was asked on the interview why she wanted the job, she replied unabashedly, So I can afford improv classes. She got the job, took improv classes, and quit the job less than a year later when she got work with the improv group.

I had my informational interview with my former acting teacher last Friday, and she said nice things like I have “great instincts,” and that "it’s obvious [I] really enjoy it.” She didn’t really give me the “constructive criticism” I was looking to get – areas that I could improve in, and as I was recounting this to my friend last weekend, she said it sounded like I wanted to hear places I could just do X, Y, and Z, so that I could “fix” it, and suddenly everything would fall into place. Yes, give me a set of movable problems, let me fix them, and then let me be free of problems forever. That sounds about right.

So, I didn’t get that. I got what felt like nearly reluctant suggestions. Again, I guess I had expectations. But, I heard that acting classes would be a good idea to continue with. So, yesterday, I looked up the classes at A.C.T. Studio, and their summer program. It’s not very expensive, but surely more than I have now.

And I remembered what Tina Fey had said: she took a job so she could afford to do what she really wanted to do. For SO long I’ve been agonizing over what is my “ideal” job, or what will feed me spiritually, intellectually, and creatively – what one thing would fit all my needs. I don’t feel this way about people, why would I feel this way about work? I don’t expect one person to fulfill all my needs – that’s ridiculous, unfair, and leads to disappointment. So, why should I feel that a job would or ought to do the same.

There’s something in this. It takes a shit ton of the pressure out of whatever job comes to me next. That it is a means to an end. And further, I’m honing in more closely on what I’d want those “ends” to be – what I want my job to afford me to be able to do. Lessons, classes, (acting & music, for now). I’m not sure what this realization will bring me – except that I already feel less internal pressure about “What I’m going to do next.” Chances are (G-d willing!!!!!!) that the job that I get next can afford me the disposable income to take classes like that. Or, rather, the chances don’t have to be there, I can just start angling the satellite dish of my focus in a slightly different direction, picking up on things that I’d dismissed, as they wouldn't “fill me spiritually.”

Like a person, it’s not a job’s … job to fill me spiritually. That’s up to me. That’s up to me to take the kinds of actions that will allow me the freedom from financial worry to do things that do feed me spiritually and creatively. I have a phone call date with another acting friend next week, having been inspired by the new angle of my satellite to be able to continue having these conversations with people.

What comes of it? Who knows. But I feel more open to things, and I’ve noticed that makes a world of difference.

(Sorry, Mom – didn’t mean to freak you out. LU, m.)