In The Desert in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

June, 2007 - Chicago, Illinois

I’d finally gotten into a house. I’d been homeless since I arrived in the city in the beginning of May, moving on a whim from Los Angeles after a brief stopover in Sacramento. I’d traveled through Chicago a few times since 2005, doing shows and had friends there that I’d made while I lived in New Orleans. My main reason for moving to Chicago was so I could attend Columbia. I was busting my ass in my Women’s Studies and Music Theory classes, sleeping in random parks in Boystown or staying awake at a sex club all night. I was working two jobs, one at a restaurant off the Red Line and another doing data entry at a legal office in the Loop. I was still doing stand-up shows locally while workshopping a play at Second City. In many ways, it was the culmination of many years of hard work.

My friends ended up not being able to help me find a place, and I’d found myself busier than I’d ever been in my life. It was the hardest period of my life but I kept my positivity around me. It was the first time I’d ever lived with roommates and I didn’t enjoy it because they were all so angry that I was gone all the time.... even though I paid half the rent despite the fact that there were five of us living there.

I was also volunteering at the local Gay & Lesbian Center, the newly opened Center on Halstead. I was simultaneously rubbing elbows with celebrities through Second City (Tina Fey and the like) and politicians through the Center (future President Obama), but I’d long gotten over my need for “people with power” around me. I wanted people who were kind. I wanted people who were nice. None of which I found in Chicago.

September, 2014 - Palm Springs, California

My friend Dave took me along on is vacation because he needed to get himself away from local life for a bit. He also knew that I needed time to get away from my miserable living situation and clear my head because I had to figure out what I was going to do with myself in March.

The dryness of the desert dulled my senses and my pain. I knew that Dave loved me, and to be honest, part of me loved Dave, but I could never bring myself to anything beyond friendship. I’d gotten more comfortable in my skin, something that I forced upon myself the previous year as a kind of social acquisition to turning 30, but I wasn’t quite clear what exactly that kind of triumph was supposed to mean beyond my own selfish reasons.

Dave and I drank and sang and relaxed in the oppressive heat, and I realized that I found some solace by being in the desert. There’s something peaceful about barrenness and brokenness that leads to hard decisions and smart revelations.

July, 2015 - the foothills of the Sierras of Northern California

There are so many things that I could be upset about. But I’m noticing a pattern, whenever I find myself in an emotional desert, amazing things happen in my future. Things come and go, it’s a cycle-like the seasons-and if you pay attention to the cycles, you know that it’s only a matter of time before things turn around.

The situation I’m in is my own fault and so it’s up to my strength and resilience to carry myself through this desert and find something on the other side.