A sensible rant, but with restraint

On any given weekend night, in any given medium to larger metropolis you will find the people packed in. Into where you ask? Is it meetinghouses? Is it quiet coffee nooks? Is it their living rooms? Not so much. They are packed into the swankiest bar they know of.

Don't judge me for this. I was just in a bar less than 10 minutes ago. This whole culture is so unfamiliar to me that I literally felt like I walked into a space ship populated by aliens sizing me up to see what I'm made of. Here is what I feel. My voice hurts from talking over the pumping loud music. I saw about 6 friends, most of whom I have not seen for months. As I hugged them and said hello and started the conversation, I couldn't help but think it: is this the best place for me to catch up with these people.


Its dark. Its crowded. Its HELLA loud. People are out looking wealthy and happy, even if they are not. They are tipsy from drink. Although I am so grateful to have seen my friends all in one place I can't help but wish I could have been able to see all of them in another context. I know its too much to wish for to have us all meet at a metaphorical campfire and read some Poe while we cuddle, reminisce and roast marshmallows (again, metaphor).

What is it with these bars? What is it that brings these people together from an anthropological standpoint? Historically places like the well or the watering hole become places where people gather. Everyone needs water, right? Everyone needs it every day. What does the swanky bar offer that can be compared to the watering hole. Is it the alcohol? Is it the ability to see and be seen? Is it the opportunity to be a part of a community of like minded people? I am really asking.

The other thing I want to know is this: am I missing something? Are bars the bees knees and I am just missing the boat? My one hunch is that if I drank alcohol more frequently I would probably understand more the appeal of the bar atmosphere. But would that be a good thing?

One remnant of my mormon past is that I am not a frequent imbiber of alcoholic beverages. I'm really not against it in moderation, honestly. I just am not convinced that moderation is what is being practiced here. Am I being judgy? I'm looking for comments.

The Best Romantic Comedy

Last Chance Harvey. I just saw this film with Constantine tonight. I have to say, it was one of the just simply best movies I have seen in a while. Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. Amazing. That is all I am going to say. Go see it, it is great. They are just such titans of acting.. so truthful, sincere, subtle, and real. When you see it, call me so we can discuss it.

Gay is the new black

I wasn't as devastated as some LGBT people were about the passing of prop 8 in California. As I have said a million times, I truly don't know what in the world the YES on 8 side is trying to accomplish when gay marriage is already legal in MA and now CT. Particularly from the mormon standpoint. The LDS church is worldwide church! Why fight so hard in California when 2 other states already allow gay marriage, not to mention Canada, several countries in Europe etc. Are the souls of the people living in those states and countries not worth protecting against the evil that gay marriage will bring upon them? Why fight in California and not elsewhere? Or, as Elle Woods would say.. "Why now? Why this sperm?"

I suppose I wasn't devastated because I feel that marriage equality is inevitable. I have heard many people say that history is on our side, and as someone's T-shirt read at a rally I recently attended:


Today I read this press release:

(San Francisco, CA, January 15, 2009)—Today, hundreds of religious organizations, civil rights groups, and labor unions, along with numerous California municipal governments, bar associations, and leading legal scholars collectively urged the California Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8.

It followed:

In a brief filed on January 14, 2009, the California Council of Churches and other religious leaders and faith organizations representing millions of members discussed the harm Proposition 8 poses to religious minorities.

“Proposition 8 poses a grave threat to religious freedom,” said Rev. Rick Schlosser, Executive Director of the California Council of Churches. “If the Court permits same-sex couples to be deprived of equal protection by a simple majority vote, religious minorities could be denied equal protection as well—a terrible injustice in a nation founded by people who emigrated to escape religious persecution. If the Court permits Proposition 8 to take effect, religious discrimination similarly could be written into California's Constitution.”


I found this to be extremely ironic. One of the things I heard most frequently from members of the LDS church regarding the legality of gay marriage was that marriage equality would eventually diminish the rights of certain religious groups. Particularly those religions who refused to perform gay marriages in their temples and churches. In fact, this was one of the main highlights on the official church video featuring Elder Bednar about prop 8 and why mormons should fall in line and be FOR prop 8. Whether purposeful or not, this was not true. The May overturn of the previously existing gay marriage ban in California clearly stated that no religious organization would be forced to perform gay marriages. The overturn protected the first amendment rights of religions as well as those of queer people wishing to wed their beloved partners of choice. To lead religious people to believe that their rights were in jeopardy was effective, but blatantly dishonest. It is particularly sad to think that this information was available to anyone who wanted to find it. It was not hidden in piles of rhetoric or lawyer-ese. It was clearly stated in the court report.

What is again ironic is that by using a majority vote in California, certain groups were able to remove the rights of a minority group. That is what happened. Um, doesn't that scare churches more than gay marriage??! A mere 51% can take away your right to whatever they choose to take away. Isn't that scary? Particularly the LDS church that has been often so repressed and persecuted. How could they willingly stifle another minority group? How could they forget what it is like to be told that what they believe to be the truth is something abhorrent to a more powerful group of people? Is this what the church wants to do with their growing reputation in America that they have worked so hard to build up? And again.. WHAT DOES IT GIVE THEM? The nebulous but ever-ubiquitous "destruction of the traditional family" has been warded off I suppose. But again I have to wonder, is the world falling apart in Massachusetts? Is it falling apart in Canada? Is the Netherlands a present day inferno; devoid of righteousness?

I have a very good friend who is a convert to the church who called me to ask for my advice. She said to me that all her coworkers were giving her a very hard time about her faith, as well as her stance on proposition 8. She said, "I am actually not opposed to gay marriage, but I just can't stand by and let my religious freedoms become jeopardized." I was like, HUH? Is that what people have been telling you is going to happen if prop 8 doesn't pass? I felt bad for her as a convert especially being put in that position. She was told things that were not true and that made no logical sense, yet made to feel that she had to either support them or go against a loving Heavenly Father. One of my brothers was placed in a similar situation. He felt he had to choose to either support me or support God. God won. But did he? DID HE? (S.D. that's for you)

I don't know how this particular situation will play out. I do believe, however, in that principle called KARMA, or in mormon-ese, the law of the harvest. I'd be more afraid of that than the disintegration of the fiber of society, especially if you are sowing seeds of intolerance and using less than the truth to become more powerful in the world. I can't judge the church leaders who made these decisions, because I don't understand their motives in the least. I do feel though that no one can stop the tide of love and acceptance that is washing over this earth. Not even a "hallowed hand" can. This is our fate as human beings-- to learn all the lessons that will help us to realize the truth: we are all one. We are all connected.

Is this pretty?

I'm thinking of getting it for a special someone for her birthday.

Doesn't this model kind of look like Michelle Pfeiffer?

Life and Death

Today around 3pm a bird flew into an airplane engine shortly after it left la guardia airport. The pilot told the people on the plane that they should brace themselves: the plane was going to crash. Less than 20 seconds later, the plane hit the water. Because of the quick response from Ferry Boats, ambulances, firemen and police officers, not a single person died. There were 155 people on the plane, including 2 infant children. Even in the freezing waters of the Husdon, the response was fast enough to get everyone out of the water and to safety. The pilot was truly the hero, from choosing to land in a place where help would be readily accessible, to executing what is literally a miracle landing. It makes me cry to think of the terror that those people must've experienced knowing that they were going to crash. One young man said that he was clutching hands with the strangers next to him, and all he heard around him were people praying for their lives. Can you imaging what those 15 seconds must've been like? EVERYONE LIVED. EVERYONE SURVIVED TO LIVE MORE OF THEIR LIVES. What an impact I think it would make to face death like that and walk away still given the opportunity to stay here. I think it would forever change a person's outlook.




When I was 15 years old my mom was driving all my siblings and me up to Utah for the summer. While driving through Colorado we ran into a terrible storm. Though conditions were quickly deteriorating, my mom decided that we should keep going and try to outrun the storm. After about a half hour, the small hail balls were starting to get larger and larger until they were nearly reaching the size of tennis balls, and were hitting our van with a lot of impact. Fearing that these oversized hail balls might break our windows or damage the van, my mom decided to follow suit with several other cars on the freeway, and seek shelter under an overpass. We watched in horror as the sky blackened, the rain worsened, and the winds increased. Our panic began to rise collectively as the van started to quiver like a leaf in the wind. It felt like we were going to be picked up and carelessly tossed by the storm. Suddenly all the windows of our van imploded and smashed to bits. We started screaming. My mom cried out for us to hide under the seats and under the sleeping bags and blankets that were laying about the van. I remember that my sister Karen, who was a toddler at the time, ended up with me under the back seat. She was screaming at the top of her lungs and struggling to get out from under the sleeping bag I was using to protect us. I was doing my best to keep her under the covers to protect her, but she was fighting me to get out. She didn't understand what was going on, and was terrified. Eventually, I let her out from under the sleeping bag, thinking that maybe if she looked out of the broken windows and saw the storm, she would understand. As we both came out of the sleeping bag and looked outside, we saw a huge black funnel cloud passing less than a few miles away. It was wreaking havoc on everything in its path, and it was SO CLOSE to us. At that moment I realized that I was going to die. I pulled Karen back under the covers and I just sat in that moment. I said to myself, "so this is what it feels like to die" In that moment I also remember thinking of all the things I had hoped I would get to do in my life, and how none of that would happen now. I always thought I would live a long life, and I accepted in that moment that I had been wrong. I was going to die at 15. This was my new reality, my new truth.

Somehow, the winds slowed down eventually. I was still alive. No one in my family was injured. Shortly, rescue teams came to see if we were hurt. I remember they gave us blankets. We ended up driving into town with all of our windows (including the windshield) broken. All the hotels were full, so we stayed in the lobby of a hotel along with what seemed like hundreds of other people who had been in the tornado. I remember that night vividly. The dark room we were in, all the people there, the hard floor, the thin worn carpet.

I think this experience profoundly affected my life. Facing death changes you.. or to put it a different way, Tai from Clueless says, "when you're about to die, suddenly things become really clear." It's true. I will forever be grateful to still be here. And I think I will forever feel so much for people like those in the plane crash today. I think I maybe understand a little of what it feels like to be saved.

The 2 week reading

The official website is up-- albeit sparce, its HERE!

Its very exciting. We only had a few hours of rehearsal today, but we learned quite a bit of music. To be honest its not clear at this point how involved the ensemble is going to be! So far there are only 3 songs for us, the opening, the finale, and a few aaahhhs here and there. The music we learned is GORGEOUS though. I really like it. Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth are doing this reading, but who knows if they will continue on. No official casting has been announced yet as far as the the one production that is scheduled, which is in Chicago this coming fall. So we will see. In this economy there are no guarantees, heck there are no guarantees in showbiz no matter WHAT the economy is like. But nonetheless its VERY exciting for me to be part of something like this. I am totally thrilled and excited to see what the experience holds.. and in less than 2 weeks I will be flying off to chicago to start the Mary Poppins tour. Thats my life right now.. I basically haven't done A THING since august except travel and audition.. but now I'm finally working again.

To say that I am grateful would be an understatement.

First day of School

Today I went down and picked up my script and score for the Addams Family workshop. It starts tomorrow. Is it lame that I picked out my first day of school outfit already? I even got a haircut today. Does anyone else do this on the first day of a new job?

New Coat

Constantine is always thinking of ways to improve my wardrobe. I swear, everything nice that I own was a gift from him. Apparently I am in DIRE need of coats.. because last year he got me this marc jacobs coat..



And this year he got me a Moncler-- a beautifully lavish coat and certainly one I would probably never know to buy. (Based in Paris, Moncler was the original creator of the goose down ski jacket in the 1960s. Today, they are so hard to find that they are basically unicorns and are highly coveted by editors at Elle and fashionistas alike! Go ME!)



Constantine clearly has a thing for shiny coats. You like???

One of my favorite poems from Childhood

I dim.
I dim.
I have no doubt
If someone blew-
I would go out.

I did not.
I must be brighter
Than I thought


--Carol Lynn Pearson

I believe this

Right to Dream

I have this little known Mariah song in my head right now. Its called, "Right to Dream" and its from her newest venture into film, Tennessee. It played last year at the Tribeca Film Festival if I'm not mistaken. She plays a battered housewife/aspiring singer who joins 2 other nomadic hopefuls on a journey that would change them all. I haven't seen this movie yet, but I definitely will. After Mariah's foray into the phantasmagorical Glitter, well how could I not.



I, like Mariah, have a right to dream. I used to want to live in all of these different foreign countries for a year. I wanted to live for a year in Paris, a year in Beijing, a year in Berlin, a year in Moscow, a year in Rome, and maybe a year in Buenos Aires. I just feel drawn to the idea of experiencing a different world from my own American one. I really created this dream after my mission, when I saw what a soul stretching experience it was for me to live in Mexico for 2 years (I'm goin' to Mexico with my baby ain't NOBODY can take that joy from me..). When I got home I decided I wanted to learn new languages and get to experience new cultures and ideas. My dream really started to take shape when I was cast in an english language production of 42nd Street in Moscow, Russia that was supposed to last 14 months. It was subsequently shortened to 4, but at least I got to live there..

Lately life has caused me to shelf this dream of living abroad. Until this week. This week I finally saw the recent film La Vie En Rose starring the incandescent oscar-winning Marion Cotillard. I particularly love her final song in the movie. Its so triumphant. In any case, it's not perhaps the type of movie that one might expect to inspire such a "dream-revival" as this, for me this movie carried the soul of Paris the way someone in the movie says Edith Piaf's voice does. I want to work on my French again. I want to live in Paris for a year. I want to wear a beret. I want to sing "Viens Jusqu'a moi" while walking through the Tuilleries.

I have a right to dream. Don't I?

Oy vey

I always do this. You guys. What's up with not posting for like 6 months and then doing 3 in one day. What's up with life?

veiled imagination

Isn't it strange when life just randomly leads you into meaningful experiences? Is it stranger when life does it twice? About 4 years ago I went through this phase where I'd go onto the village voice website and find free talkbacks, table readings, book presentations, Nuyorican Poetry slams, you name it. During that time I stumbled into a Barnes and Noble on a snowy day to Azar Nafisi's discussion of her acclaimed book "Reading Lolita in Tehran". This fascinating piece of non-fiction takes place in Tehran, Iran and tells the story of a female literature professor (Nafisi) and several hand picked female students and their experience of reading and discussing forbidden western books in the Islamic Republic of Iran. They read Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, One Thousand and One Nights, Daisy Miller, and of course Nabokov's Lolita just to name a few. But they didn't just read them. They lived parts of their lives through the books that they were not allowed to live in public. They were forced to hide behind the veil. The issue of veiling in Iranian society is a running theme in the book. In Nafisi's words: "My constant obsession with the veil had made me buy a very wide black robe with kimonolike sleeves, wide and long. I had gotten to the habit of withdrawing my hands into the sleeves and pretending that I had no hands."

Yesterday my friend Craig called and said that he was sitting next to a sign in Barnes and Noble near Lincoln Center stating that Nafisi had written a new book, Things I've Been Silent About. He said she was having a discussion there at 7:30 that evening. It was fate. Azar and I back together again after nearly 4 years.. it just felt right.

I had forgotten this about Ms. Nafisi, but I remembered it the second she began talking about her new book. This woman doesn't stand up and say, "Here's my book. It's about this. I hope you read it." She stoop up and opened a window of light and knowledge to the room. She said so many amazing things I felt like I needed to stop and try to store the information but I felt that if I did I would lose the new information still flying toward me. I do remember how she talked about the way people in the US tend to view Iran and Iraq. She said when Americans hear the words, "Iran" or "Iraq", they think of Saddam, Al Qaeda, Kuwait, illegal arms sales, the twin towers, the veil, and extremists hiding in caves. I wish I could remember exactly what she said, but it was something like this: Iran as we know it used to be ancient Persia. Yet no one thinks of (she named 4-5 persian poets I've never heard of). Iraq used to be Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. Yet no one thinks of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. She then went on to say that minimizing Iran and Iraq to those recent stereotypes is the same as minimizing Europe to the Holocaust. It is like minimizing America to slavery.

Finally she talked about what she saw as an antidote to this black and white thinking: imagination. Expand your mind. Explore the possibilities of your world-- even the impossibilities. "Keep reading," she said. This from a woman who was living in a country where she couldn't legally read most western books until she left in 1997. Her words seemed so poignant to me.

Keep reading.

I wish I could make my thoughts more cohesive right now. I felt so moved and so impressed by her ideas. They were at once thought-provoking, powerful, and surprising in their clarity. My friend Craig and I just looked at one another after the talk as if to say, "Wow. We were so lucky to hear her talk tonight."

it starts with the truth

I always love Oprah. I live for her no matter what, but ESPECIALLY right now. Oprah just "came out" to the world with a recent revelation that was both shocking and not. She told the world that she was embarrassed and ashamed because she gained back all the weight that she had painstakingly lost over the previous several years.

Oprah is a huge advocate for telling the truth and letting the cards fall. As part of getting herself and all her viewers back on track she has been doing a fantastic "Best Life" series all week.

Yesterday my favorite financial guru, Suze "jackets" Orman was on to help with the "money day" of the best life week. She starts the episode talking about telling the truth about your financial life. She says that the biggest problem people have is spiraling debt caused by living outside of their means, and also because they are living dishonest lives financially. She tells the audience that she has tallied their collective credit card debt-- which amounts to a whopping 2.25 million dollars. She then asks them all to lean over to their neighbors and each tell the absolute truth about how much debt he/she currently owes to credit card companies.

Suze and Oprah then lay out a 2009 action plan for these tough economic times. As part of that action plan, Suze has released a new book, which can be downloaded for free until next Thursday.

I'm just all about this right now. This idea that telling the truth and letting the cards fall is not a new one, but it is just as cathartic and important as it ever was. Telling the truth about who we are financially, emotionally, spiritually, even sexually and engaging in unabashed HONESTY with those we love is more important than ever.

I'm onboard Oprah. Count me in.

inspired

I have a hard time blogging. I was talking to a good friend the other day and he asked me, have you read this girl's blog lately, have you read that guy's blog lately. I said no. Then he said, "no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to make you a blog person."

But today I feel inspired. This is not a new years resolution. Not that those aren't wonderful. This just isn't one.

I saw a dear friend on new years eve in Denver. She is a fellow actor, and is working on a US touring production. Reconnecting with her on new years eve was so special to me, and I think to her as well. We felt such a kinship and connection even though it has been nearly a year since we last sat down and talked in person. I decided I would visit her blog and hear more of her internal monologue. I felt so inspired.

One of her posts was called love love love. She says that she needed to feel loved, so she called out to the universe and asked for it. Then she goes on to tell the ways in which the universe answered her. They were simple beautiful ways in which she was reassured-- yes. You are loved. You are not alone. I love what she said at the end of the post:



"love love love. i feel it. i feel loved.


i guess all i had to do was ask. that wasn't so hard.


thanks for answering my request. i won't hesitate to ask again."

Nor will I. Thank you for being a good example to me.