Actor in a Strange Land

I am an actor.

I say that to myself everyday to remind me of what I 'really' do when I'm slapping stamps on boxes of supplements at my day job like a mindless doozer set on repeat. Then again, there are worse jobs.

I work in a small ayurvedic clinic and spa with about eight other people. I'm the one that puts products in boxes every morning; I'm the shipping girl. I'm also a full time student at Happy-Hippie Buddhist University pursuing a degree in everything that will likely get me nowhere. So, how does an actor act like an actor in Boulder, Colorado? In short, she doesn't.

I went to a public performing arts high school over a decade ago and then gave up the stage because of marriage, homeownership, and just plain burn-out. That is, until I ended up divorced, broke and wandering about three years ago. I wandered to Flagstaff, Arizona, which coaxed me to New York City--the land of quiet desperation, broken dreams, and 26,400,000 lbs of garbage daily. It was instant loathing on my part.

Before my stint in New York City, I'd passed through Vancouver, BC during a major film festival and braved the Hollywood star tour in Los Angeles (did you know Julie Andrews lives next door to P Diddy?! ...or was it 50 Cent?...). Though all these cities are cosmopolitan, cultural meccas of North America (and, most importantly, film industry leaders), I refuse to live in any of them. I'd rather live far away from people and get my cultural edification via the interwebs.

Sure, sure. People will insist that New York and the other big cities are full of fodder for actors who are keen to observe human behavior, blah-dee-blah-dee-blah. This is a false pretense. New York and other metropolitan areas are great fodder for comedians and photographers who long to exploit the little person dressed as Michael Jackson moonwalking down the subway car trailing his duet partner, the 7 ft tall tranny Dolly Parton impersonator. But, unless you are playing either of these characters in the Next Big NYU Student Film, it's just another thing to try to be too cool to laugh at.

Well, here I am now on the front range at the foothills of the Rocky Mountians. I wake up to sunshine 300 days of the year. I ride my bicycle everywhere. And yes, I hug trees. I'm happy having a yard. I'm happy going hiking in the summer. I'm happy making snow forts in the winter. I'm happy falling asleep to the sound of crickets and I'm happy to see more than 5 stars on any given night. I'm just happy here in ways that I can never be in a city. So what's the problem?

Boulder, CO is an amazing town if you want to be a sponsored cyclist or an Olympic skier. Not so much if you long to make movies and actually get paid for it. Heck, I'm not asking to be a famous actor or anything. It's just, you know, a paycheck would be nice.

So, to come full circle, what does it mean to be an actor without an outlet? And how long can a person try for the highly-improbable-nigh-impossible before she throws in the towel altogether? How long can a poor, car-less, thirty-something undergraduate student continue to delude herself into believing she'll be an actress when she grows up? I guess I'll find out.