A collector of unlikely careers
I’ve never been good at picking one thing.
Over the years I’ve been a floral designer, an actor, a director, a cabaret singer, a tarot reader, a restaurant critic, a feng shui consultant, a performing arts presenter, and a wine buyer. I’ve lived in eight states and worked in nearly twenty. Some of those careers overlapped. A few of them probably shouldn’t have. Every one of them taught me something I still use.
What ties them together is curiosity. I follow a thing until I understand it, then I follow the next thing. That habit made for an unusual resume and a genuinely full life.
These days I write and I speak, and I spend a good deal of happy time at a table for one. My book, Eating Adverbs, grew out of all of it, years of learning to enjoy my own company and build a life on my own terms.
On being a flâneur
I call myself a flâneur, and people usually ask what that means. A flâneur is a person of leisure, deliberately aimless, who wanders the streets and soaks in the city. It isn’t laziness. It’s paying attention. The best things in my life, the ideas, the meals, the conversations, a few of the careers, tended to arrive when I left room for them.
A daily practice
I’ve written down five things I’m grateful for every morning since 2011. It’s a small habit, and it has shaped how I see almost everything.
A few pictures
Here’s some of the life: on a stage, at a table, and out wandering.
