The Final Countdown

Suddenly, I leave for Japan tomorrow.

For the last few months, it's been a thing (in my head) that happens "in a while."  Three months, a couple months, a few weeks - then, somehow, it jumped straight to "Wow, this is really happening SOON."

I'm mostly packed - I think/hope, and haven't forgotten anything critical.  Probably.  I'm trusting that my new employers have a good plan for getting us all settled in and trained, since they've been organized so far.  I keep telling myself to just be patient with all the nonsense at the airport - and then again at the airport on the other end.  I (mostly) know my lines.

Our apartment here feels like home.  We have routines, spots we prefer to sit on the couch, art on the walls.  It isn't quite done, but it's done enough.  It's the reference point from which I calculate distance and travel time now.

What will I miss most?

The weird balancing act of being a scrappy looking-for-work actor:  Scouring audition listings for worthwhile projects, the weird roller-coaster of hope and disappointment, the little frustrations and delights of every show or film that seem SO SIGNIFICANT, the times I run into an old friend at an audition or a rehearsal.

Our cats' weird personalities:  Savini, who just wants me to stay still so he can clamber into my lap, fall asleep, and drool all over my hands.  Isi, who will happily grumble and chirp her way through an entire conversation, and loves to burrow under the blankets at 6 AM.  Calamity, who's still kitten-fascinated by the world, and wants to climb everything and chase everything and run from everything, and so, so gentle.

Simple times with my wife:  slouching around in our bathrobes with coffee in the morning, separately checking our email and assorted websites before getting on with the day.  Scrounging Netflix for a hopefully-good movie, and knowing we'll have pretty much exactly the same reaction to whatever we find.  Walking to the park for some lazy reading in the sun.

The familiar, I suppose.  Super secret about me which will surprise nobody:  I don't like new things.

This year will either get me over that forever, or drive me so crazy that I'll spend the rest of my life at home, only eating frozen pizza and tortilla chips, watching old Star Trek on Netflix.  We'll see.

California Dreaming

This past Wednesday evening, we turned south at Barstow, and before too long, we hit the long downhill stretch of freeway - seemed like ten or fifteen miles of downhill.  The sun was just starting to set, and our introduction to our new home city came with a magenta sky and lights beginning to come on in the valley below us.

We'd been driving for three days, staying in cheapo motels, gradually wearing down our humanity in the way that only long travel seems to do.  The cats had become resigned to their new itinerant life, and mainly slumped around in the backseat, stress-numb and travel sick.  Our car had served amazingly well on this trip - no hint of any issues (I suspect it was as glad as we were to be leaving Chicago winter).

And then we were here.

Everything here looks to me like those scrabbly little vacation towns along the gulf coast of Florida. 
Franchise businesses are scattered among local independents, and everything's sun-bleached, dusty, and a little home-made looking.  It all feels so, so spread out - there's really not much within walking distance of our apartment, whereas in Chicago, it was only the last couple years that I even felt it necessary to have a car.

So it's different.

We've been errand-running like crazy, trying to fill in all the gaps, trying to remember what exactly is still on the way (95% of our stuff will be arriving next week), trying not to exhaust ourselves.  It's a strange in-between time, when we don't really live here yet, but don't live anywhere else.  Neither Kitten nor I has a real job at the moment - I have prep work and lines to learn, and she's submitting for auditions, but nothing regular to act as a foundation, a ground wire, as ballast to keep us steady in the midst of all this.

Tonight we get to go out and see people other than each other for a bit.  It'll be good.  It'll be tiring.  Neither of us is fantastic at small talk, and we're going to be around a couple (one?) people we've worked with but don't really know, and an unknown number of strangers.  We'll see.

This weekend we can catch our breath a bit and get to know our new city a little.  I hope it likes us.