NEXT!

Transition time again. I was just next door at "The Business Of Show," writing about the end of the Vero Beach era, cross-fading into the beginning of the St. Cloud era. I was recalling the last show we worked on for the Vero Beach Theatre Guild, and how little I cared about it. We were in motion to move, and this show, Once More With Feeling, was just an obligation to check off the list before we left to begin our new lives together. Since then we've moved into three places in St. Cloud over nine years, one house in Orlando for another nine years, two places in Middlesex County, Massachusetts for four years and now in Albuquerque for nearly a year.

The beginning of this week was momentous. On Monday, the search committees for the three congregations with whom Carmen has been in pre-candidate status lo these many weeks all made their announcements that Carmen was their first choice. So she had to officially accept one and officially turn down two before she would clear me to make it public knowledge. Before she gave me the okay, she posted on Facebook that we are going to Meadville, in western Pennsylvania in April to meet the congregation and almost certainly get voted in as newly called minister and her wife. At last we have a destination.

Anyway, as I was writing about not really caring about the show in '87, I was not really caring about what I was writing. I wonder if it's the "short timer" mode kicking in, or whether I don't believe anybody gives a flying fig about "The Business of Show." As much as I've enjoyed writing it, I've been writing it primarily because my fan club said YES to another Jim Emerson series of ramblings. If nobody is reading it, I'm not writing it. I've got at least another thirteen years, most of it working as a professional set builder, to add to the seven years already posted. I may get fired up over it again, but right at this moment, I'm not that interested.

So I'm happy about Meadville. The salary is good and the cost of living is the lowest of the three. I don't know what the employment picture looks like there, but it can't be a whole lot worse than here. We will be there for a good long while, so maybe I'll have a place to set up a home shop - maybe get that sliding compound mitre saw I've been dreaming of... start designing, building and marketing some games and other wacky stuff.

Meanwhile, I might have some local employment at Albuquerque Little Theatre for as long as it takes to build a two-story set with a balcony and a curved grand staircase for The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. I'm going down there tomorrow to clean the shop after the Plaza Suite strike, and to ascertain how things are going in the design and budgeting realms of the scene shop. I think I'll be in a good place emotionally for it. It's a short term gig, and I'm a short term guy.