When I first saw RENT ten or so years ago on Broadway, I was, to put it mildly, underwhelmed.

Jonathan Larson's opus is too kinetic for the static staging it received at the Neiderlander Theatre.

So I was pleasantly reintroduced the show at the opening night of the film version tonight. The musical is really much better suited to film.

With most of the original cast reprising the roles that made them famous (in some circles), the characters were realistic. Despite an unfortunate resemblance to a John Tesh video during "What You Own," the bohemian vibe was entirely credible.

I haven't lived anything close to a bohemian lifestyle in quite some time. The couple of months I did weren't exactly pleasant, though not necessarily as a factor of bohemia and more a part of the drama going on in my life at the time.

That aside, I've always been a little envious of those who could be credibly considered bohemians. They've tossed convention aside and create communities of intellectuals and artists who see the world from a perspective altogether shunned by many of the circles I frequent (willingly and not).

Besides my envy, which is superficial, bohemians elevate my guilt. I know guilt is not useful, but I'm Jewish so it's inescapable.

So even though I like to believe that I'm doing world-changing work, I have to ask myself what I've done lately to that end. I work for a professional, corporately-structured-though-non-profit organization. We do provide some vital services, but we do very little to change the status quo.

My volunteer work is much the same. I don't actually do much to make the world a better place. And it kills me. I've lost my connection to my activist spirit.

I'm more bourgeois than I've ever been, which is really saying something given my middle-class upbringing and private college education. I really don't enjoy it. I don't really know how to be anything else in Tucson though. Tucson has a way of shutting activists down or forcing us into a professional culture that is by definition anti-activist.

I know there's a Bohemia here, but I've never felt as welcomed in it as I have elsewhere. Besides, my neuroses about earning a living and even my preconceived notion of what "living" is have prevented me from taking risks in even approaching Bohemia.

Being an activist requires a certain amount of risk. I haven't taken any real risks in years, artistically, intellectually or socially. I wasn't always quite this risk-averse. I used to embrace the fringes; now I hardly even recognize them. I need to start making some changes.

I'm going to start every day asking myself how I plan to change the world that day and end the day asking myself if I did anything during the day to ease someone else's suffering or challenge their oppression.

It's not much, but it's a start. I hope it will help me find myself again.

Until then, at least I'll have la vie boheme.