Summertime (and the living's easy)

 So some of you were like, stop with the pep talks, give us details about what you did over the summer. And while it took me an absurdly long time to load all the pictures, here you go, kids. Ask and ye shall receive.

In No Particular Order Because the Summer Flew By So I Can't Remember When Things Happened:

Benni and I attended two concerts, Pixar in Concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and Roger Waters live at the LA Coliseum. Both were incredible shows, and we've got one more concert coming up: Florence and the Machine at the Hollywood Bowl the first weekend in October.  SO freakin' excited.

Roger Waters - The Wall - at the LA Coliseum

Pixar in Concert - at the Hollywood Bowl, before the show

Pixar Concert - mid-show. A full orchestra played the scores to every Pixar movie they've made so far (including Brave!)

I got to take a few Fridays off work and instead bum around at the beach...

Zuma Beach - Malibu

Laguna Beach, Orange County

 Sunbathing.

 I celebrated getting another year older and not that much wiser ;)

yummmmmmy

I finished shooting not one but TWO web-series this summer - Hell Froze Over, as the lead actress, and a new web-series called Love-Stupid, where I was the production coordinator and had a two episode arc as an actress on Love-Stupid. Hell Froze Over Season 2 will premiere this fall, so stay tuned!!!

Me hard at work with the clapper on the set of Love-Stupid.

Me...covered in a dirt for a shot of HFO Season 2. You curious yet?!

 We went to the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival to help our friends sell strawberry shortcakes...

I never wanted to see a strawberry again after that day.

...and maybe squeeze in a few rides too.

swings!

And we had our lovely friends throw us an engagement party!

I feel short.

Sunlight and love.

Bridesmaids made of PURE AWESOME - Lira and Stacy.

I continued acting, writing and producing - with two of my favorite people, Lira and April - on a show by, about, and for women - called Our Time of the Month. We perform one show a month, and so far, audience turnout has been fantastic.

Yay!

Dorking it up with April, left, and Lira, on the right.

Benni and I went to San Diego Comic Con again this year - this time with me dressed as Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, and him dressed as Anders. Yes, we're nerds. 

Anders and Starbuck, sittin' in a tree...

The Hulk - made completely out of LEGO's. Awesome!

Now that I got see the Firefly cast in person during a Comic Con panel, I can die happy. From left to right: Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion, Joss Whedon, Summer Glau. SHINY!

I booked a modeling job for DevaCurl - a hair product specifically designed for girls who have curly hair. It was a two day print job in Culver City, and I had a blast - everyone was so friendly and just really fun to work with. I'd shoot again with them any day! I think I'll be on the products themselves as before and after shots.

Before. How about that mustache, am I right??

After. With a lot more makeup and hair product. Oooof.

We mailed our invitations and got a bunch of other wedding-y stuff done, including finishing the favors, the centerpieces, buying wine for the event, making signs and table assignments...phew! We still have a little bit of stuff left to do, but we're in really good shape and way ahead of schedule. Our wedding is children's book themed, so we used a lot of used books for our centerpieces, signs, table assignments, and our guest book. It's not all finished yet but I promise you'll get pictures after the wedding!

invitations

 

Used book stores are our friends.

Paper heart cut-outs for the guest book.

I went camping - twice. Once to Joshua Tree National Park for the Perseid Meteor shower that happened in August, and again last week, when my family and I made our annual trek out to Yosemite National Park for a week. My hiking boots are happy again.

Merced River, Yosemite National Park

 

Half Dome

 

 Sunset in Yosemite

Sunset in the rear-view mirror, Joshua Tree National Park

 And that was my summer not-quite-a-vacation. I'm about to get very busy and go into full wedding mode (the wedding is one month from tomorrow) so you'll have forgive me if I fall off the planet again. But there will be pictures when I get back - OH YES - there will be! 

Hugs,

Tracy

Keep Going

Last week (I know, two posts in one month, look at me overachieving like an overachiever!) I posted about the general emotional state of where I was at, but for some of you (cough cough Bath cough) that's just not good enough, no, you want a laundry list of what I've been up to this summer.

And I was gonna post it too, in all its boring glory (it involves a lot of talking about how hollow books are actually a super pain in the ass to make and I don't recommend anyone ever in the entirety of their life deciding to create THIRTY OF THEM as centerpieces for a wedding, also if I ever see modgepodge or an Xacto knife again before I'm ninety years old it will be too soon) but then I realized that today is September 11th and while I'm not held hostage to the tragedy of it anymore and I do my best to ignore the way it's been politicized by both parties, it felt weird to be like, "Today is September 11th! Here is how my wedding is coming along!"

So instead, I'm posting a poem, and then I'm packing my boots and my swiss army knife and my sleeping bag and my sunblock and an obscene amount of marshmallows and my family into three cars and we are driving up to Yosemite. And everything will be restored and I will take deep breaths and surer steps and yes, I will avoid the Plague Mice and maybe when I come back it won't be 100 degrees in LA and THEN I will post about the boring laundry list of what I've been up to this summer.

Have a wonderful week, everyone.

milk inside | Sarah Wetzel

I wake, having lost track 
of the hours, a woman in the seat 
next to me weeping 
delicately, the thin 
blue current of her shoulders 
almost indistinguishable 
from the shudders of the plane. 
I’m not usually like this, she says, 
shifting eyes from mine 
to the window. I tell her, At times
we are all like this, turning 
to the book in my lap. 
What I want to tell her is
Stop. I’ve grown so impatient 
with misery. In the book, a man 
descends thirty-six thousand feet 
below sea level to stare 
at the deepest spot of the world. 
Through his tiny portal cracking 
under the enormous pressure 
of ocean, he says the snuff-colored 
ooze at the bottom resembles 
a big bowl of milk. We think 
we know misery 
yet can’t speak eloquently 
of even such a visible chasm. 
Inside this plane nothing happens. 
We are hundreds of miles
off course, our shape we recognize 
only by the shadow 
following. The woman stares out 
the window, waiting for something 
that won’t come. She rises 
then sits back down. 
What I mean to tell her is 
Keep going.

semper ad meliora

If you're like me, you thrive off the fight - the kind that brings change. You feed off of it. You don't wish for an easier life; you wish for better walls to climb and wars to kill and people to save. You choose the hard way on purpose, you draw your lines in the ground where people refuse to take a position, and above all, you run towards the fire. You ask the beautiful questions. You like to burn down the barn every once in a while just to see the moon. You take the road less traveled by, you push yourself when others would indulge you, and you know that nothing good comes without a gorgeous, knockdown fight.

It's not because we don't want things to be easy, though, if you're like me. That we wouldn't love to lie down, to sleep through the night, to accept what life drops on our laps with grace and gratitude. To believe that our lives, our homes, our loved ones are untouchable. It's not because we don't want those things.

It's because we don't believe in them. The safe meadows with sunshine streaming down and porches with lemonade... we'd love to stay, it sounds lovely, really, but we've seen too many storms to believe that the calm is anything other than the warning beforehand. We exist in a war zone, and if there is no war to be found, we'll make one ourselves. Just finished building it? Good. Now tear it down. We want to see what's behind that door, over that mountain, inside that holy book. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but at least it lived ten lives first. Every other animal only gets one.

Summer feels like a lie to me - hey baby, it's all good and groovy, let's just chill by the pool, there's nothing to stress about- and when autumn rolls around I'm relieved. Change is coming. The stagnancy I felt during the LA summer will retreat back into the darkness and the part of me that wanted a mighty shove so I could pick myself up off the ground, dust off my bloody knees, and cock my fists thinks finally. Finally. Let's do this.

It is my firm belief that there are two types of people in this world: fighter and healer. You can have a little of both - most somewhat well-adjusted people do - but you pick the way you approach the world and it's either with hands open in acceptance or hands clenched and swinging. The world needs both, and healers don't have it any easier than fighters, in fact I think they have it harder, because everyone's been through storms and it takes a specific kind of courage to sit in that field and believe in its beauty without wondering when the next lightening strike is gonna happen. But fighters have courage of their own, and when their nerve denies them, they go above their nerve.

During the summer, I had nothing to fight for, and so I had nothing to say. Now that autumn is coming, change is in the air, and it feels good. Good, good things are happening, and are going to continue to happen, when I burn down the barn yet again the view will be beautiful.

The healers I keep in my life - and you know who you are - I thank you, again and again, for keeping me balanced and sane and for being in my corner and helping me unclench my fists every once in a while to enjoy the good things that will come and land in my open palms. The labyrinth blows, but I choose it. And, like all of you, I am moving always towards better things, and I'll meet you at the next rest stop.