Experimentation

I moved to New York at 18 for college.  It was the Fall of 1987, I was living in Greenwich Village, and it was before the Rejuvenation Of Manhattan.  In other words, Times Square was still a dump filled with porno movie houses, drug dealers, and prostitutes, and not a Disney logo to be seen.
(Also, you could rent a decent apartment for $1,000/month, which was still out of reach for me & my friends, so we lived in the dorms.)
Naturally, being a drama major, this was precisely where the bulk of my classes were held.  We'd take the A,C, or D train from West 4th St. to Port Authority and walk 4 blocks to the (frankly, dumpy) studios.

It was also the tale-end of the heyday of downtown experimental theater. A heyday that had begun in the 60's, but was slowly petering out, along with 80's crazes like Nouvelle Cuisine and shoulder pads.
In my senior year, I actually started taking classes at the school's Experimental Theater Wing.  It was wacky and fun and annoying and full of goths.  Of course, living in the Village in the 80's/early 90's pretty much guaranteed you would become a goth, so...

After college, I spent the summer in the U.K, performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which has every type of theater imaginable.  Then another few months in New York trying to make a go of it, before moving to the Berkshires and becoming a Shakespeare/Hippie/Grunge type.

Finally, grad school, where anything and everything could (and did) happen.  New stuff, old stuff, experimental stuff, staid stuff.  We did it all.

Then came Los Angeles.  And, well, I've written about THAT ad nauseam.  :)

And along came marriage, kids, a mortgage, and autism.  And I was introduced to a different kind of experimentation; raising kids on the spectrum.  Trying out different therapies and techniques, seeing which ones resonated and which didn't.

And now we're experimenting with medical stuff.  It's only been 3 1/2 days.  We're seeing a difference at home, although not quite as much at school, as of yet.  Less self-injurious behaviors, which is a relief.  She has stopped fighting us quite so much when it comes time to take it.  I really, REALLY hope this works for her!

To quote The Carpenters, we've only just begun.  We have a lot to learn.