Is Trader Joe's Hiring?

So much makes me angry and yet I try to ignore and forget those unpleasant things. I prefer to think about the impossible as I try to sleep each night. I think about the doorways and passages to hidden worlds. I prefer to dream about the power of heroes and the way home.

I took a class once, at the hippy UCSC campus, University of California at Santa Cruz called "Birth of A Poet". We kept dream journals. I spent a quarter "finding" myself. (My other classes were in pre-med.)  I went back to UCLA. Nothing found, but I did grow. I learned theatre was my calling.

I'm so angry and yet I try to channel my energy into living a good life. This is new. I've spent so much time trying to make money or get enough work-weeks to earn health insurance. Now, all I really want to do is to make a good stress-less life for me and my husband. (Hard to do without "work-weeks".)

I compromise. In my head. I compromise.

I may be done with the theatre world. It has changed so much and the choice I made, so long ago, to stick with regional theatre is compromised. It is not the world I joined with such enthusiasm. It is no longer a world dedicated to the community it serves, but a vehicle for Broadway. (Commercial theater and often without merit beyond entertainment.)

Not me. Not what I wanted to do.

I'm going to go to the smaller venues that answer the local needs. I will make less money, but I will serve my community. I will look to the larger shows that hire me and say "yes." I need the money. Someday... someday I hope to write my own ticket again, but I am now too old in this business.

I don't feel it. I have more stamina than all my 30 something colleagues. I'm better at calling shows than most anyone except Jimmie. I do know how to handle actors except the ones that won't be handled. And for them, the stage managers across the country need the directors to help. (And they don't.)

So.. Does my life in the theatre end because I chose to work regionally? In a way it does. I can't seem to connect with a company.. I'm not very good out here as free-lance. I want a home. Without a home I need to rethink my career.

I wonder if Trader Joe's is hiring.