Unsolicited Advice

I have just been on one of the weirdest job interviews I've ever done. Not, like, procedurally; I've been on some that were much stranger in that regard. Like that time I signed up with a temp agency, and they sent me on precisely one interview where the hiring manager and I were having two entirely different conversations and didn't realize it until we compared papers and realized that the agency had "reformatted" my résumé beyond all recognition. Seemed pointless to continue after that. He told me -- and I am not making this up -- that I was way too smart to be there(? smart people need temp gigs too, buddy) and tried to get me into publishing. Which is one of the places I ended up anyway, just not at an office that expected me to show up at 9 in the morning. No, this one was strange mainly due to content. He was aiming to hire an assistant for a circus act he's developing, and that always leads you to ask some interesting questions. "Are you aiming t

I think I have finally put my finger on why I am so weirded out by my success as a dancer: I am 37 years old, and this is the first time I can remember anyone actually caring whether I quit. Don't get me wrong, I had support. We were pretty well off while I was growing up. If I evinced any interest in anything that was even remotely educational -- including arts education -- my parents promptly forked out for whatever I needed to do it. They may have been lacking in other respects, but they were always brilliant at throwing money at things. On the other hand, nobody ever cared if I abandoned one of those things. Nobody. Ever. Or if they did, they were careful not to voice it. It was just never spoken of again. It was so consistent that not only did I not consult my parents any of the times I changed my major in college, I don't think I even bothered to tell them. In some cases, this was because the relevant authority figures had trouble remembering to pay actual attention

Wow. I've gotten really bad at this updating thing. Time management, as a concept, is getting slippery. It's not so much work-life balance; artistic work tends to become your life. That's fine. This is what I did with myself when I had way too much time on my hands and I thought I should at least try to do something. I still seem to be enjoying it, so at least I'm doing the correct thing with my life now. Maestra has started making comments to the effect that it, "maybe would be better with flamenco shoes," big polite smile! Maestra is originally from Japan, and I have spent way more time translating Japanese-person English to American than I ever have translating Japanese to English. I know perfectly well that this means " please go buy the proper equipment now", with an undertone of "I think you could be good at this if you had the chance to do it right". I have no way to do that, because I can't afford any of it. The main reason