Last night, after the LYDIA preview, I got on a red-eye from Denver to Boston, Boston to JFK. The problem with the red-eye from Denver is the connection to the East Coast is shorter, so you don’t sleep as long.

On arriving, I took the AirTrain this morning to TriBeCa, showered at my aunt and uncle’s apartment, and went in for a full day of auditions midtown. I rode the 123 to midtown. I met the director at the Tick Tock Diner and got debriefed on the other sessions, and then we were in the audition room for 8 hours. It was an incredible day.

The actors here are just as good as everyone says they’re supposed to be. Being in an audition room blocks from Penn Station, with theater-steeped New York actors, gave me goosebumps.

Then I had dinner with my NY-based family at a German restaurant, and we talked about economics and art and social responsibility, and health care reform. My cousin showed me his samurai and skate videos from high school (he’s studying filmmaking) Tomorrow my uncle, an economist, is going to give me his take on government subsidizing the arts. These are conversations I wouldn’t have, people I wouldn’t get to see, if I weren’t traveling around like this.

I still feel homesickness, like weights in my shoes. But I think if you abandon the idea of an orientation, or a home, or a plot, you don’t feel so disoriented. So I went to bed in Denver and woke up in midtown Manhattan. Neither of them is home to me. The only place that is really starting to feel like home is an airport.

I miss the LYDIA cast and I’m sorry to not be there for opening tomorrow. But I’m lucky to be able to keep moving.