I've had this urge for the past couple of weeks to make a trip to Lake Michigan. This shouldn't seem too difficult since the lake is only ten blocks or so eastward, but the winter does funny things to you, like imposing boundaries on travel beyond going to the CVS to get batteries and toilet paper. I want to go hang out by the lake because it's the closest thing I have to a church. I don't know why I think so. I once told my creative writing instructor my spiritual attachment to Lake Michigan, and she replied, "You know, it's a freshwater lake, so when you dump a body in there it won't float to the top and attract the authorities." So that took the fun out of sitting on the rocks with your ankles in the water.

Body Worlds is coming to Atlanta, or whatever the name there will be; I think it changes according to whether the venue is a science museum or an art museum. I believe, in America anyway, the majority of exhibitors have been science-oriented. I'm talking about the plasticized dead bodies exhibit, of course, if you haven't heard of it by now. The AJC ran an editorial by a local rabbi who objected to the exhibit, basing his argument on the sanctity of the human body which, typically, we show a lot of respect for in our cross-cultural death and burial ceremonies. I've seen the exhibit twice at the Museum of Science & Industry (another location located only ten blocks east which, unfortunately, does not sell batteries or toilet paper), and I can't say approve of these pieces (ha) as any kind of Art. In using the corpse-as-medium, this German guy doesn't really do anything with it that, say, a thirteen year-old boy wouldn't do if he had a few spare bodies to muck around with, ie. posing them playing basketball, shooting an arrow, riding a horse. For the most part, these bodies are treated like extremely pliable action figures. The "art," of course, the process of preserving these dead bodies really is phenomenal, even if the finished product is a bit anti-climactic. The plasticization process makes them appear, well, plastic; it took me a lot of imagination to remind myself that these were once actual people. Kristen of course, being the good student of biology, loved it, and having interned at the Atlanta morgue in high school, was completely impervious to getting the creepies like me (did I mention she cuts up bunny rabbits for pay now?). And it is fascinating, although I got a little bored with all the anatomy lessons, which make up the first half of the exhibit. I don't think it's walking a line between science and art at all, really; it's more like the strangest science fair project you've ever seen.

So I've lost almost all interest in my classes thanks to the sudden demand by the career center that I get a summer internship. So like a monkey I've been scrambling to put together applications and endure interviews for a fellowship which would give me lots of money to perform a slew of possibly thankless job for the summer. I interviewed with a New York law office which has not called me back for a sufficiently long enough length of time. I also have two Chicago theater internships hanging in the balance as we speak. The thing I want to say about this whole process, which has consumed every ounce of energy this quarter, is that we're expected to show absolute interest and devotion to one field. Since I've been applying to both theater and law, I feel super-extra phony, because I've had to construct these two separate narratives about my interests. And I know this is what you do when you apply for jobs and schools and beauracracies that you need to impress, but when you're so immersed in all that it becomes your primary world-view, and you can't help but seeing everything in terms of how it fits in a resume or appears in the eyes of an employer. You forget how much junk, wonderful junk, clutters up your time that isn't easily applicable to anything but itself. Like making weekly trips to the lake, perchance.

I don't know what my career(s) should be because I have no idea what I want out of a career. Is it terribly bourgeouis to assume that you're entitled to a job which is absolutely meaningful and conforms perfectly with your Self? Or is it just childish?

Next quarter: I think I'm taking a clowning class. Also, writing my Fundamentals paper on The Winter's Tale and meta-fiction and showing & telling as modes of knowing (with special guest star Stanley Cavell). Plus I might get to work as an extra in a production here (a Peter Shaffer play...!), and I'll get a staged reading of my Space Pen play here, and I'll still be performing here, and if I don't co-direct the Off-Off revue I'd like to go back to UT and do some genuine theater again. I miss it a lot.