Grounding and expanding

My weekend was domestic and mundane, lots of taking care of business, from buying much-needed new bras at 40% off at Macy's to attending my first Weight Watchers meeting today to finally getting a pair of Born walking shoes so that I can protect my feet as I walk for miles around the city.  Despite the somewhat shocking outflow of cash that accompanied these activities, it felt good and grounding to do all these things (except during a few overstimulated moments at Macy's where I seriously thought I was gonna lose it in the midst of the racks and racks of on-sale clothing - the experience of shopping there, and what it brought up around materialism, money, and identity, may actually merit a blog post in and of itself).

In some ways, though, my domestic weekend felt way too limited, too anonymous somehow. I've given up on the idea of dating for the moment, but I'm feeling the need to be engaged in a larger context / dialogue, which is ironic given that i live in this giant city. It's a tricky balance: in order to feel sane and settled here, you have to, as my roommate says, "make it a small town," which I'm doing more and more as i learn the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, commune with my dog park friends, etc., find the best coffee shops to sit and work at, but I need/want to expand the world I'm part of here, and I need/want to do it in two ways:

1) By doing service work - in a creative way. Either through a senior center or a youth center or a vets organization: volunteer to teach/lead some kind of writing project. Could be an interview project like the ipod project in which LGBT youth interview elders in the community, or something more personal. But I need to get engaged in this way.

2) By expanding my connection with/to other writers and artists. How do I do this, and why? And is what I really want to expand my own creative activity, i.e. write more? Which comes first, the work or the connections? The work, of course: that's the heart of it. But there's symbiosis between the two. And I don't want to work in isolation, and I don't necessarily want to just write as my creative outlet. I just finished a big article project and am about to take on a bunch more grantwriting for my theatre job and health/expository writing for another job. What I feel the urge to do, more than ever right now, is some kind of performance that includes writing. Which makes me think: I should take an improv class at Upright Citizens Brigade or the Neo-Futurists. Or a film class. And I should do that this week.

But now, I should go to bed.