"wherever you go...

... there you are."

one of the g.c.'s favorite taglines from "buckaroo bonzai" -- a much under-appreciated cult flick in both of our opinions.

a good part of my early twenties was spent trampsing around, most of my belongings fitted into my mustang. (except for the worldly goods i frankly had no use for, but my mother insisted i keep. so i did. at her house. ;) up and down the eastern seaboard and back and forth to california, as well as points in between a bunch of times. mom had no end of fits that i'd go for months with no fixed address. when needed, apartments and jobs were usually fairly easy to come by for me, but if nothing panned out, i headed elsewhere.

marriage and kids were no priority. i had no intention of grinding myself dry at the profession indicated by my degree. although i knew my making-ends-meet jobs, albeit entertaining and easily transferrable, were dead-end.

in retrospect, i remain glad for the adventure. i learned to quickly assess situations, judge friend or foe in a blink, make nice with the locals and get by with very little. i've also seen far more of this country than most who live here.

i never felt like i was running, but i do think i was searching. was it the cliche of self? or merely some sense of purpose finally not predetermined by others? transience and geographic fluidity made me light and independent. within just a few years, my head was cleared of *shoulds* and i decided my career path -- highly divergent from their expectations, full of heat and hard work, and a decade before food tv and bravo made the restaurant world fashionable.

whenever i travel, i always get that little pang of "what if i lived here?" touching down recently in san francisco, a city i love, and a mere hour's drive from the american mecca of my passion and profession, i asked myself the question again. painted ladies aside, it's still california, and i know i'm not a good fit. i'll never desire idle chit chat with my bagger at ralph's, nor to pay for an egg-white omelette.

but i'm restless. i'm in an especially painful period of transitions and traumas piling on and pressing down hard. no significant other now keeps me here. i have no children for whom to worry an education. my current job is one that provides far more unhappiness than gratification and my paltry income is keeping me only the barest of above water. yet the simple fact is i live in a very limited market for my chosen and much-loved career.

a colleague who moved here from nyc for her husband, recently confessed that it's been 5 years and she's just now making what she used to make there. and she has 4 programs to run vs. one. i trolled craig's list this morning noodling nyc. (i did find it humorous that they refer to them as "open calls" when seeking servers, lol. all those waiters-who-will-never-become-working-actors must feel somehow assuaged ... lol.) even my slim area of expertise offered openings, and i know with a little digging i could land a potentially superlative gig. my experience and connections are excellent. i'd certainly be forced to downgrade from 1100 sq. ft. to likely half that in living space, and i'm not sure i still retain the patience for the poseurs that stick themselves up full of self-importance on nearly every fine-dining seat in that city... or could actual job satisfaction, a decent wage and future potential vault me past that?

but...

i'll still be *there*, won't i?

stay tuned...