here’s what.

sometimes my job sucks. and sometimes it rocks.

today, well, it rocks.

since i was still of mix-tape and beeper age (although i never actually had a beeper but really wanted one. and once got left with my friend katherine’s beeper and enjoyed an awesome 12-hour period of feeling extra cool), i have wanted to make movies. or be a part of them. and never for the fame and red carpets and shoulder-rubbing with people who make an obscene amount of money pretending to be someone else. because i can do that on a bi-daily basis. for free.

no, i actually kinda like walking to the bodega for some neosporin knowing that not one person i pass has any clue who i am. or even cares.

but i always wanted the movies.

so i did it.

and it hasn’t been an easy road.

i’ve been beat up, spit out, and yelled at to the point of tears and vomit.

[and also applauded. i don’t forget the applause. it keeps me grounded and secure]

but i’ve met the most amazing people, sometimes simply by knocking on the door to their shanty-town-hole-in-the-wall-project-apartment and being invited in for coffee. or conversation. or skepticism. always skepticism. (until i turn on the southern charm and they realize i am not there to rob them blind)

i get paid to meet people and invite myself into their lives. and while i (twice) did this while simultaneously hearing gunshots 20 yards away, i always left a little different than when i walked in.

tougher. smarter. much much smarter.

i spent a lot of time at the start of my career being shipped out to random new-to-me towns where i knew no one and nothing. they gave me a map and a rental car and said “go.”

and i went. i always went.

but it took its toll . . . on my mind, body, spirit, relationship.

so i eased up. a lot.

i cut back on the insanity, the absurdity, even the good times of working overnights and then watching the sunrise with a collection of people who were the only people in the world who could honestly rationalize why we were all there watching the sunrise when “normalcy” said we should be sleeping.

screw normalcy.

so i’m going back out. bigger than the 6 months on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. harder than the “sorry, we ran out of water” time spent in Phoenix … in july … (which probably warranted some sort of labor union law suit). stranger than the bout spent in St. Louis (which is arguably the weirdest city i’ve ever inhabited, even if it was only temporary).

and if wifi is on my side . . . i will blog about it.

or at least take a ton of photos and upload them on faceboook.

this is going to be nuts.

mark my word.