After decades of writing code and attending meetings about meetings, I finally escaped to become an actor. Turns out bringing characters to life is a lot more fulfilling than bringing software to life—though both require surprising amounts of coffee and patience.

I grew tired of the constant acquisition and downsizing cycle and left the tech world in search of the job stability and financial security of acting.

When I'm not on stage, I'm a classically trained French pastry chef who makes bean-to-bar chocolate. I traded writing lines of code for grinding nibs into 70% dark chocolate. My friends say I have trouble committing to a career path. I say I'm just collecting skills for the zombie apocalypse—coding, acting, and making chocolate seem like a solid survival trio.

I also played guitar in a Memphis-based garage punk band called The Angel Sluts for 20 years. Nothing makes my former colleagues more confused than seeing their old software developer jumping around on stage in a dress.

Is this the most traditional path to acting? God no. But who wants traditional? I've lived enough lives to know that the best characters come with some history, and boy, do I have some stories.

"It's never too late to become who you might have been... though your knees might disagree." — George Eliot