Emerald City Expatriate

( *names have been changed) There’s a movie scene that’s been stuck in my head this week.  It’s the part from Baz Luhrman’s “Moulin Rouge” when Jim Broadbent’s character is promising Nicole Kidman’s “A real show, in a real theater, with a real audience.  And you'll be... ” Kidman looks straight into the camera with her sparkling blue eyes and breathes: “A real actress.” I have been cast in a professional production at a premier contemporary theater in the DePaul neighborhood.  The director is a SAG member who’s done shows all over the city and has a national ESPN commercial on the air right now.  (He was also my teacher for an acting class I took a few months ago, and that’s how I got invited to his audition.) Actors get a stipend (not a salary or an hourly wage), but I told my friends and family that the amount of money wasn’t the point.  The fact that, for the next few months, I can say I am a working actress in Chicago is worth more to me than a whole year's sa

“I’ve traveled the world and the seven seas Everybody’s looking for something Some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you.” Three things you do not do on a first date: 1.   Do not get drunk.  2.  Do not get sad and talk about your ex. 3.  Do not go home with that person. After a hysterical performance by the Improvised Shakespeare Company at the iO Theater (“Wrigleyville Douchebags!” in the style of William Shakespeare), my date and I sat in Mullen’s on Clark and talked back and forth about what we did for a living. Actually, he did most of the talking.  Which is fine.  The Thrilling Exploits of Megan, the Former Junior College Spin Doctor-turned-Waitress are few.  He, on the other hand, writes national TV ads for a big-time agency downtown and lives in the Gold Coast.  Or so he says. “Every time I see one of my Kmart ads, I think, ‘Ugh.  I could do so much better than this,’” he muttered between swallows of his fourth beer. “You w

(written September 2012) On a drive back to Chicago from Missouri, I was station-surfing and came across a religious talk program.  I didn’t listen very long because the deep, measured voices tend to make me sleepy, but I did tune in long enough to hear the preacher say “Remember: Expectations are nothing more than premeditated resentments.” For me, the timing of this was interesting.  Over the course of the weekend, throughout different conversations with friends, family members and friends-of -the-family,  I had done some thinking about expectations:  self-expectations, expectations of loved ones, and the expectations we have of other people and situations. We have expectations of what our lives will be like, and the people in our lives also have their own expectations of us.  My dad used to say to me when I was a teen: “You need to get your priorities straight.”  After I while I started to wonder if he really meant MY priorities, or the priorities that he had set for me.