It’s been a whole year since I got to shoot this incredibly fun commercial in SLOVENIA!

I’m starting to get the “On this Day 1 Year Ago” notifications on my Facebook page.

How do you measure, measure a year?

I also just got back from a fun weekend trip to see RENT at Stratford with some pals, so these two concepts of the passing of the year are at the front of my mind.

September feels like the beginning of the year. More than January. Probably because that’s when we used to go back to school. In the overall theme of this blog; Clown College Confessions – now that I’m no longer in school, but I’m still going abouts trying to make a living as a comedian, it feels necessary to blog about not just the good fun times, like European work-vacations and day-trips to the theatre.

This year has been pretty fucked up. I’m sure I’m not the only person working in the arts to point out the increase in costs of every day things, including interest rates on say… mortgages.., has had a huge impact on life over this past year. My partner Dan and I sold our house. A house that stayed on the market for nine months, every month slowly bleeding us out along the way. We’re temporarily relocated and lucky and grateful for it, but I can’t help thinking about other actors, musicians, writers, comedians out there having a really hard go given the state of everything right now who might not have so welcoming a support system.

Dan and I have both gone back to day-jobs to further fund our, you know, lives… as well as our artistic pursuits. We’re both lucky we’re able to do that too. I would love to know what it’s like to live somewhere where you don’t need to subsidize your artistic life with additional resources though.

I’ve been holding off writing about this for so long. Feeling ashamed for “not having made it” or worse, being a gigantic failure, but I think, maybe this is part of making it in the Canadian sphere of the arts? My company puts on shows, workshops, classes. I perform gigs. I shoot the odd commercial. (My kingdom — or I guess, my temporary kingdom for a TV gig!) It’s not Hollywood (Hollywood’s not Hollywood right now) – but I do get to do what I love. Sometimes.

I also feel weird because I like my new day job. Since going into comedy I felt the need to rebel against any Joe job that wasn’t performing comedy. But it turns out, there are other things in life that *gasp* are even more enjoyable for the soul than a damp comedy club basement. The crunch of stepping on an A-corn for example. Simple, and yet so satisfying.

This year looks a lot different than September of last year. But I think that’s OK. Although, I’d never shy away from another free trip to Europe if that’s ever in the cards again.