One Fish Two Fish, and Bella's Closeup

This is a special post. It is in this post that I introduce you to a new blog, the brainchild of a person very close to me, with whom I will soon be collaborating on some new creative projects. Everyone, please meet One Fish Two Fish, the blog of Sloan Taylor, a very dear friend and, yes, family member of mine.Sloan has experienced roughly as many personal changes as I have in the past year or so. Right around the time I moved here, Sloan was happily (or, rather, unhappily) ensconced in the pre-med program at Loyola University, with a very carefully plotted future laid out in front of her, involving MCATs and wart freezing. (Mmm.) Then one day she had a revelation. Med school was someone else's dream, and her heart cried out for an artistic future. Specifically, that of a writer and filmmaker.

Of course, I'd been stewing in my own juices back home in Indiana, happily bored and running the business I'd started in college, thinking about moving to Chicago for reasons of comedy and creativity. I had no firm plan, and no idea of how to get where wanted to be, but I knew I had to change. I was consumed with thoughts of a similar swerve into completely unknown territory.

Long story slightly shorter, here we are now, both in Chicago, proceeding on parallel paths of creative development. She's helped me adjust to city life, introduced me to the pleasures of the Lake Side Trail, the Chicago Botanic Garden, laughed and played and chilled out with me. And now we're collaborating.

So be warned - when Sloan writes about short film projects and talks about "Homicidal roommates, mysterious mitochondria, and ass-less chaps," she's talking about things I will be participating in. (Although, fortunately for you, not the chaps part.) Ever wanted to see me making an idiot of myself in short comedy films? Here's your chance.

I know, I can't believe it, either. I've said all along that I'm a writer with no desire to perform, and, truly, the thought of stepping onstage like so many of my new comedy friends makes my knees knock with a Richter-like intensity, but I can't deny that as I've been working my way through the writing program at Second City, and becoming immersed in comedy through The Bastion, I've been suffering from an unscratched itch. I need to see my words take on other forms, and work out creative ideas in a fuller scope.

And since I'm not in a position to cast actors, and all I have to work with at the moment is Sloan, her camera, and a few assorted friends, here we go. Sloan plans to document her evolution as a filmmaker online from the very beginning. If you start reading her now, you're going to track the artistic blossoming of someone with tremendous potential, who I know is going to make a beautiful creative contribution to this world. She's that kind of person - she grew up a Montessori kid in a house with no tv, and tons of art and science. I think it's going to be amazing for those of you who decide to follow her on her adventure, as she explains the trials and tribulations of heeding the call of becoming an artist.

So watch this space. And watch her space. And let's see where all of this is going. Hooray!