The Weight of the Bad

What happened on Friday has shaken me.

I am a fierce optimist. I search for the kindness, the beauty, the love in everything around me. I rarely have a hard time finding it.

I have believed, for quite some time now, that the world is equal parts darkness and light. There is much suffering in the world, to be sure. But I have believed that out of great suffering comes great compassion. You can choose to focus on the worst parts of the world, or focus on the best. You can be bogged down by the horrors of humanity, or fight to heal them. I have always chosen the latter.

Of all the tragedies I've heard of in the news, none has ever hit me as hard as this. I know terrible things happen every day. I know many parts of the world are no strangers to senseless violence against children. I know.

But I can't stop thinking about these kids. I can't stop thinking about how scared they must have been, how much they must have wanted their moms and dads. I can't stop thinking about the teachers. I can't stop thinking about the parents. I can't stop thinking about the lucky ones - the parents who, upon finding out their children were among the survivors, must have then felt the sickening guilt knowing their relief meant another parent had lost their child. The little, little, little kids who escaped, but had to run past the bodies of their teachers and friends. I can't stop thinking about Ryan and Peter Lanza.

As I was driving to perform in my show Friday night, I heard on the radio a candlelight vigil was taking place in front of the White House. Once my show ended, I drove over there as fast as I could. I knew, at 11:30 at night, there was very little chance it was still going on. I couldn't quite put my finger on why I so desperately wanted to be there, as I sped down I-95. Looking back, I think I just felt so helpless, and wanted to find some way to show everyone affected by this that I supported them.

By the time I got to the White House, no one was there, save for a few tourists taking pictures. As I walked back to my car, I saw a truck parked about 20 yards away from me. It had a large "Merry Christmas" sign over it, which made me smile. As I got closer, I realized it was a Westboro Baptist truck. It was covered in pictures and words - you know the kind, I'm not going to describe them - but I will say that they were significantly more gruesome and violent than I've seen before.

I quite literally felt like I had been punched in the stomach. My emotions did a rapid 180 from desolate to furious. I rarely react to anything with aggression, but I looked at those messages and thought, "If someone gets out of that truck and tries to say something to me, I am going to lose my shit". I was preparing what I would say - something along the lines of them being what is wrong with the world, and what the fuck could possibly possess them to spread this message of hate when a bunch of fucking CHILDREN are lying shot to pieces in a classroom tonight - but there was no one in the truck. So I got in my car, and I listened to the news, and I cried the whole way home.

I realized, after this, that even though I have said evil is balanced by good in this world, I did not believe it. I subconsciously have thought that good is the more powerful force in this world. That love is always stronger than hate, stronger than despair, stronger than destruction.

I don't know that I believe that now.

 I still believe that love is immensely powerful. I keep scanning the news, searching for stories of bravery and kindness. And I'm finding them. The compassion of humanity is not letting me down.

But I think, before now, I have underestimated the ugliness of the world. I don't think I fully appreciated how hard it is to focus on the joy. This isn't my tragedy, these aren't my kids, these teachers aren't my sisters or friends. But something in this has hit me very, very hard.

The solution here isn't to abandon optimism. I believe now, more than ever, that the only way to fight despair is with love. And I think we should remember, as best we can, that as much as we may disagree with each other, we are all reacting to the pain of this. The people fighting vehemently for gun control, the people who feel that it is disrespectful to those grieving to talk politics, even Mike Huckabee who thinks prayer in schools is the answer - everyone is struggling to find a solution to this tragedy the best way they know how. We can disagree and argue with each other, certainly - that's how we stand up and fight for what we believe - but I think we should try to find a way to do so with the understanding that most people are hurting over this, and trying to do what they think is best.

We have to keep loving. We have to keep caring. We have to keep helping, crying, working, searching every day for the good. Because there is a lot of bad out there, and it is going to take everything we have to fight it.

Thanking Thankful Thanks

I am thankful for this wonderful home I've made with my best friend. Our apartment is warm and cozy. Our kitchen is full of good smells, our couch is full of blankets and snuggly cats, our lives are full of laughter and sometimes screams of terror (because Ann and I are fucking crazy, if you haven't noticed). My years living here have been some of the happiest of my life, and I know I will miss them long after they are gone.

Not only am I able to support my artistic career with day jobs, but I am able to do so with day jobs that I love. Leasing apartments lets me interact with people (which fills my extroverted little heart with glee), many of whom come from all over the world; helps me give back to the apartment community I love, and provides me with ample down time in between appointments where I can just hang out on my couch and read. Walking dogs seems like a magical wonder-job dreamed up just for me. I've learned so much about dog training and handling. I love when an abused, frightened dog chooses to trust and bond to me; I love the challenge of working with dominant, potentially dangerous dogs and learning to do so without fear. I love the amount of exercise I get every day. I love being outside. I mean, come on. I literally get paid to play with puppies all day.

And - I get to act. I get to be a professional story teller. Nothing on earth makes me feel more alive than getting inside someone else's head and helping others see things from their shoes. I've made people laugh and cry, I've made people love me and hate me, I've been ugly and I've been beautiful, I've been strong and I've been broken. When I was a very little kid, the first thing I remember telling people I wanted to be was an actor. And I grew up, and that's what I did.

I live in an area with a vast array of food choices. I can buy food without GMOs, organic food, vegetarian and vegan food, local food, food straight from the farmer, exotic food from all over the world, high quality ingredients, gluten-free food, dairy alternatives, food made by people who really love food. I love how health-conscious DC is, and I love that there are so many people here who are as passionate about food as I am.

My friends are brilliant and perfect and gorgeous. I've found people who get my weird ass sense of humor and make me laugh until I can't breathe. I have friends who I know will love me at my worst, support me at my weakest, and whom I want to love and support. I have friends I rarely hear from who will send me a sweet message when they know I'm sad, or are just thinking of me, and it brightens my day so much. My friends are intelligent and passionate. They are the kind of people who have been filling up my newsfeed with daily Thanksgiving posts of their own. I have friends of different ages, races, political opinions, spiritual beliefs, socio-economic statuses, cultures, and lifestyles. They make my life richer and they make me better.

I have a father who raised me to believe there was nothing I couldn't do, who taught his daughter about tools and carpentry and campfires and bugs and playing in the dirt just like he would have a son,  who taught me to be brave and strong and to have a sense of honor. I have a mother who is endlessly patient, a careful listener, and an amazingly resilient woman who taught me to love endlessly, to never judge, to value everyone's opinion, to give with everything I have. I have a sister who never tires of sharing deep philosophical Harry Potter conversations with me, who I can call at any time to share one of our hundreds of inside jokes and know she will find it just as hilarious as she did the first time, who stands up for me when I'm too unsure to stand up for myself, who somewhere along the way went from being my annoying little sister to my best friend. I have a grandmother who believes in growth and change even at eighty-seven years of age; who, despite growing up on a North Carolina farm in a time and place of racism and misogyny, voted for Obama because of his stances on women's and gay rights; who is my ultimate inspiration for aging without losing curiosity and joy. I have aunts and uncles and cousins, some who are very similar to me, and some who are very different - but who all find ways to bond and connect with me, and who love and support me.

I have this blog, this little corner of the internet, where I can share my thoughts. Good friends read it, acquaintances I didn't realize still thought of me read it, strangers read it. This blog is quite small in the scheme of the blogisphere, but I am so grateful to all of you who stop by here and check up on my life and thoughts. I can't tell you just how much it means to me.

I live in a country where I can make change happen, by voting with my ballot and my wallet, by protesting, by signing petitions, by sharing my opinions through public social media without fear of arrest or prosecution. There are many place in the world where that is not the case, and I am deeply grateful for this privilege.

I have a skinny orange knock-kneed cat I adopted because I was afraid no one else would, who was unfriendly and aloof for an entire year, who eventually warmed up to me and became a more devoted and loving little pet than I ever could have imagined. I have a very sweet, very stupid, very tiny cat with the softest, most beautiful fur, who runs around and breaks my things and meows nonstop and constantly tries to jump into the dishwasher/fridge/oven and sometimes wakes me up by knocking a lamp on my head, but snuggles right up next to my face every night, and who loves nothing more than being rocked like a baby, carried around my apartment with her head on my shoulder until she purs herself to sleep. I have the most loving little elderly rat who snuggles into my pockets and does his little rat purr as I scratch behind his ears, peeing on me all the while.

I have a healthy, strong, bendy body that can do all sorts of things. It can dance around and run and climb up high and perch (and then be terrified to come down) and stretch and hug and have sex (heh) and see and hear and taste and smell and touch. It is a wonderful vehicle to experience the world through.

I spend most of my life very, very happy. There are so many things that bring me joy. I feel overwhelmed by how much love and beauty exists. There is a lot of bad in this world, but there is so much good. I'm thankful I can see it.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Here's Some Crap I've Been Up To Lately

Since last we spake, I have been involved in 2 theater projects. First, I assistant directed my friend Jason for a short piece of three ten-minute plays. Having no directorial experience whatsoever, I pretty much fell into this position, a la the following:

Jason: Want to be a reader for auditions tonight?
Me: Sure. Why not.

Jason: Want to stick around for callbacks and help me cast?
Me: Sure. Why not.

Jason: That was fun. Want to AD?
Me: I absolutely do not have time to. But sure. Why not.

I had to miss the last week of rehearsals and the one performance due to theater project number two, which was a bummer (missing the rehearsals/show, not working on the 2nd project). Half of the cast was people I'm already friends with, the other half was delightful, and they were all great actors, so all in all the experience was quite marvelous for me.

The second project is a play with Venus Theatre called Claudie Hukill.

It's the first time in a few years since I've worked with a cast of such ranging ages, and I really like it. We've got a cast of good listeners, and I'm loving doing scene work with everyone. I think our chemistry is already strong, and I'm looking forward to digging deeper into our characters' relationships.  Also, working with a smart director is always wonderful, and that is definitely Deb :)

So yeah. If the idea of me desperately trying to speak in a Boston accent while the rest of the cast uses a West Virginian accent sounds amusing to you, you should come see it. 

~*~

I am getting a little crazily excited for Thanksgiving.

Here's the thing. Everyone always shits all over Thanksgiving. Halloween gets so much hype (rightfully so), and Christmas gets even more hype (naturally), but THEN everyone decides they are just SO DAMN EXCITED about Christmas, they steamroll Thanksgiving and bust out the Christmas crap Nov. 1. And I'm aware it's mostly retailers that are responsible for this, but you know a few of you out there allow yourselves a Christmassy thing or two before Black Friday.

There are several major qualms I have with this. First of all, I have OCD (actually though, as in I've been medicated for it) and have many rules about how I think the world should behave. For example, you can begin celebrating Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. And no one celebrates Christmas like me. I go ape-shit on Christmas. I listen to nothing by Christmas music for the entire month, I watch a minimum of three Christmas movies every week, I bake cookies and roast chestnuts, I obsess over Christmas presents, I decorate, I change the lyrics to carols to make them about my pets and sing to them all day around the apartment. It's a little intense. But I wait until the day after Thanksgiving like a FUCKING SANE PERSON. 

Because Thanksgiving is wonderful. I get to spend time with my family (whom I adore), I get to happily think of all the fantastic things in my life that I'm grateful for, I get to enjoy the last bit of autumn, and, best of all, I get to cook for people. (Food is my favorite thing. Cooking is my favorite thing. Cooking for other people is my favorite thing. Nothing makes me happier than showing people I love them by making them tasty food. That, and knitting them scarves.) I have been scouring the internet, my cookbooks, and the absurd number of foodie magazines I hoard collect for the past couple weeks, trying to decide what recipes I want to try out on my family. 

So please. Don't let Christmas be a greedy bitch. Thanksgiving is just the nicest.

~*~

If you don't follow Ann and (her brother) Shawn's blog, Sibling and Charybdis, it is possible that you are an idiot (because they are brilliant and hilarious and you should follow it, duh). It is also possible that you missed this.

And on that note, I am going to go eat some brussels sprouts. Peace out, bitchlets.

Ingrid Michaelson Is My Soul-Twin

The audio and video get a little out of sync at the end, but my new computer is apparently incapable of filming a video correctly... so I'm sorry, internet, but you'll just have to deal. And please pardon the crash at one point. It was Stella doing something terrible. Other than that, enjoy!

How to Hit on Ladies

Winking always gets you sex.

Ask any woman, and she will tell you that walking down the street - especially in a city - attracts a certain number of cat calls. Doesn't seem to matter that much what you're wearing or how you look - if you're a girl, you're going to get some attention. As a professional dog walker who spends about six hours every day walking around the city, I get this a lot. Usually it's just a simple whistle or "Hey sexy", but sometimes you get some particularly creative incidents.

Last week, for example, I was walking a cute little dog named Cinnamon through the suburbs of DC. As I strolled down the street, two men standing about twenty feet apart from each other began to engage in an extremely loud, excruciatingly specific conversation about my various body parts. They spoke to each other and did not acknowledge my presence at all. This went on until I was about halfway down the block from them.

Naturally, this experience left me feeling flattered, respected, and a bit aroused. It got me thinking, though, about all the poor unlucky-in-love schmucks out there going about things entirely the wrong way. Thing is, there are actually gents who think the clear shot to a lady's heart is by "getting to know her" through "conversation" before asking her out on a "date", not shouting at her like she's a stripper on a pole. You know where your crazy antics are getting you, dude? Straight on the fast track to friend zone and celibacy. And so, based on my own experiences, I have decided to lay out a fool-proof, step-by-step guide to bang-city. Observe:

1. Get her attention by whistling or making kissing noises. Women love being beckoned like animals. It shows off your care-giving side.

2. Offer up a "Hey, sexy/baby/gorgeous". I am confident I speak for all females when I say that nothing endears me more to a man than being addressed with a degree of intimacy usually reserved only for people I've already slept with.

3. Compliment her on her appearance. We all know she wants you to. You think she's wearing those yoga pants because they're comfortable? Heck no, techno. Homegirl's practically begging for someone to tell her her butt looks like two cantaloupes squished together.

4. Ask for her number. Because asking someone for their number ten seconds into an interaction always works.

If, for some reason, she's a frigid bitch and didn't give you her number, you now have two options.

5a. "I want to (verb) your (adjective) (noun)." To be fair, the lady just met you. She has yet to be acquainted with the glory that is your mighty sexual man prowess. Inform her. Immediately. Once she knows just what a romantic interlude with you will look like, she won't be able to resist. And don't be afraid to get creative when it comes to verbs. "Go balls deep in" might sound like a mouthful (pun intended), but when used in the right context, the results can be magnificent.

5b. Yell "HEY! I'M TALKING TO YOU!" with as much aggression as you can muster. There's nothing chicks love more than an alpha male. If you've got one who's especially shrewish (and if she's ignoring your advances so far, we are most certainly dealing with a Grade A Femi-Nazi Man-Hating Bitch), nothing is going to make her weak in the knees faster than a man who is willing and ready to put her in her place. Use this step with caution, however. There's always the chance this will backfire and really, genuinely scare the shit out of her - because you're significantly stronger than her, about 50-100 pounds heavier, and you know, rape is a thing.

So there you have it. Stop playing the nice guy card like a little bitch, and get out there and lasso yourself a lady. Happy hunting, gentlemen.

Guest Post from Carolyn @ Full-On Fit!

I recently got an email from the lovely Carolyn asking if I would be interested in having a guest blogger. I said yes, because a) networky stuff is one of my favorite aspects of blogging, and b) her post is about yoga, and we all know I'm hella about yoga. Check out Carolyn's blog Full-On Fit to follow her "journey to find physical, mental and emotional health."

Without further ado, here's Carolyn's post!

A Quest for the Perfect Exercise: How Yoga Enlightened Me

I love to exercise, but nothing had ever made me feel the way I felt when I discovered yoga. The initial experience was so new and exciting that I'll never forget about it for as long as I live. Yeah, it was that memorable. If you've been on the search for an all-encompassing exercise that stimulates mind, body, and soul, listen to how I got involved in this life-changing art.

First, here's a little background on me. I've always been a fairly active and athletic person. My favorite ways to exercise included kickboxing classes and spinning. Classes are great because you are in an environment conducive to working out. You work alongside people just like you who are also trying to find an exciting way to get in shape. Kickboxing is fairly self-explanatory--you practice punch and kick combinations with the guidance of an instructor either in the air or on a heavy bag. Spinning refers to an instructor-led stationary cycling class where music and verbal encouragement are the key forms of motivation to work hard and get fit. While both workout styles offered different aspects that I really enjoyed, I was always interested in trying yoga one day.

So why did I decide to try yoga? I'd been doing plenty of research on it out of pure curiosity and believed that it would offer me more health benefits than both the kickboxing and the spinning. I learned that yoga aided with improvements in three major areas: the immune system, muscle tone, and posture.

Immune System

The breathing aspects of yoga work to strengthen the immune system in a number of ways. The focus on breathing provides the body with proper oxygen for exercise and daily function, while exhalation detoxifies your lungs. Yoga also helps to create a balance in hormone release, decreases the major illness causes of stress and anxiety, and aids in ridding harmful microbes from the body when acupressure points are stimulated.

Muscle Tone

Yoga involves many holds, twists, and bends that all require the muscles to flex and release. Some of these positions force the arms and legs to support the bodyweight for seconds or minutes at a time. All of these movements stimulate muscle growth and aid in burning fat and increasing definition.  Dr. Glen Axelrod of the Center for Orthopedic & Spine Care even claims, “Many professional athletic teams use yoga as an integral part of their training.”

Posture

Improved posture comes with an increase in muscle mass and greater flexibility that results from practicing all the different holds. Poor posture inhibits bloodflow and the proper functioning of organs leading to disease.

After plenty of Web-surfing and article reading, I jumped at the chance to take a yoga class with a friend named Alyssa. Alyssa was already a practitioner of yoga--even though it had only been six months since she began. Regardless, she was far more experienced than I and taught me more than I could've ever have imagined in such a short amount of time. My friend helped me pick out the proper clothing and yoga mat, and she offered many tips that came in very handy during the class. I even learned that shoes weren't required!

After my first session, I was hooked. It was an experience like no other. I was nervous at first since I was a newbie, but everybody was in their own little universe when I entered the room. You could hear the drop of a needle--that's how silent it was. We started with simple breathing, then moved on to basic poses, called asanas, including the mountain and warrior. Even though the poses were difficult and felt awkward at first, I quickly got used to them and had a blast during my first session. I felt sore and out of breath at the end of class, but it was in a very good way. Alyssa was there to support me with smiles and eye contact the whole time.

Since that initial yoga class, I've taken several more and practice at home as well. I already feel stronger, more flexible, more energized, and healthier in general. Yoga is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I'll definitely continue to learn and improve my technique from now on.

http://blog.gaiam.com/blog/3-yoga-moves-to-boost-immunity/

Sing Along Friday

Check out these tunes, cuz I think they're rockin'.

And then this one, because it's my favorite scary music video ever and it's Halloween-time, muhfuckas. If you don't like vulgarity and glorified violence, maybe don't watch it. 

I'm off to pack my weekend full of awesomeness. Do the same, cupcakes.