the big reveal...in more ways than one

Ready for the truthiness? Yeah you are!

1) Even though I'm definitely a tomboy, I still put a lot of care into my appearance by doing my hair and makeup every day and making sure I always look my cutest. Hey, being a tomboy doesn't mean you have to dress like a guy :)

Lie. Total lie. Most of you called me on it too. Is it that obvious? Gah. At any rate, I'm not sure if it's laziness or having my priorities set straight, but I only wear makeup and do my hair for auditions. Life is too short to spend thirty seconds on some pokey-wand thing for my eyelashes and don't even get me started on curling or flat-ironing my hair. My daily wardrobe is a lot like this: tank top or t-shirt, sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers or flip-flops, and a pony-tail to finish it off. On Sundays when I go to church I take extra special care not to wear any clothing with holes in it, which is in itself exhausting to find in my closet. Holes in the clothing is like free air-conditioning. Plus I am more apt to get free coffee when my jeans have holes in them, not because my cute factor suddenly got upped to twelve but because I honestly think the Starbucks people think I'm homeless.

2) I went to modeling school when I was in junior high school, competed in modeling contests and shows, and even landed myself a modeling agent at one point. I also took professional acting classes as a kid at a renowned professional theater company in Southern California.

True! My parents, in a desperate attempt to teach me how to be a girl (it only backfired), enrolled me in a modeling school and I even had an agent at some point, who probably hoped (silly agent!) that one day I would be taller than 5'4". Not so. At any rate, as these things happen in the industry, my modeling agent stole money from her clients and skipped town back to New Zealand, but not before my mother tracked her down two hours before the flight and demanded our money back. My agent gave the money back to my mother, terrified. (This is why my mother is a bad-ass.) And I took professional acting classes at South Coast Repertory, a wonderful theater down in Orange County.

3) I worked retail once in LA and had Drew Carey as a customer. I asked him for his autograph - on his credit card slip. I had no idea who he was, but I did make him laugh really hard. I only found out it was him after he left the store.

True! Lemme explain this one - TV Drew Carey does not look like Real Life Drew Carey, nor had I ever watched a single episode of whatever show he was on. So this tall guy with NO glasses comes in and buys some books, I ask for his autograph on his credit card receipt, he laughs like it's the funniest thing he's heard all day, then meanders out the store. Another employee bee-lines for me and says, "Is he the first celebrity you've seen here?" And I say, "Oh, that wasn't a celebrity, I ask all the customers for their 'autograph' on their credit card receipts." She gives me a funny look and says, "No, that was Drew Carey." At which point my forehead wrinkles and I say, "I think I've heard of him. Doesn't he have his own TV show?"

4) I was a theater technician at my college, both during the school year and the summertime. I worked in the shop building sets, painting scenery, hanging lights from thirty feet above the stage, and did running crew as well for most of the productions.

True! I wandered into the theater tech shop the first semester in college and they didn't get rid of me for four years. They even started paying me.

5) I consider myself fairly fearless, but I hate roller-coasters. They scare the crap out of me!

Lie. I love roller-coasters! They're fun :)

6) I hate snakes. I can deal with spiders, cockroaches, bees, hornets, lizards, whatever...but snakes are gross.

Lie. I'm fine with snakes (my mother is terrified). I still remember 10th grade Chem class where someone brought in a beautiful boa constrictor and I volunteered to hold it and let it wrap itself around my entire body. It was gorgeous. I am, however, not a fan of cockroaches. At ALL. And bees make me a little nervous.

So there you have it. Three truths, three lies, no hard feelings. Everyone had great guesses and I loved all the comments.

But one comment in particular got my attention, from my blogger-friend Bathwater, who noted, quite correctly, "And the other adventure you are making us wait about.......hmmmmm?"

Which is that I haven't yet shown you guys the design for the tattoo I'm getting on Saturday!

Thanks, Bathwater, for the reminder :)

So without further ado, here's the tattoo I'm getting:

My friend Robert, who is a professional calligrapher, scripted the word for me. Entheos has three meanings, all of which I am absolutely in love with:

a) The Greek word entheos literally means "God within."

b) Entheos is the root word for our English word "enthusiasm," which I have in spades.

c) The American mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote that entheos is the suppositional opposite of entropy. Entropy is the theory that everything is moving towards chaos; entheos is the theory that everything is moving towards God.

How could I NOT get this word on my body??

So have a great weekend everyone...and think of me squirming in my chair, getting a tattoo and trying to be a tough girl. Once it's all healed on my body I will definitely be showing you guys pictures :)

truthiness

Okay, so sometime in the last two weeks when I wasn't blogging I got tagged not once, but twice, for the same award. It looks like this:


And it comes with the homework assignment that I have to write 6 things about myself, some of them true, at least one of them not so true, then let you guys guess in the comments section (only if you want to) what is and isn't accurate, and finally I'll reveal the truth in another post later this week. Oh, and I also have to tag seven people to do the same, if they are willing and able. :) Phew. Sounds like a lot of hard work, no?

Since I haven't done one of these "facts all about me" posts in a while, (I tend to lean more towards raconteur-style blogging, I like to think - maybe that's why I got a Creative Writing award?) and it's Monday and everyone's screaming at each other like five year old children over every single internet forum about the Health Care bill that passed, I thought: why not avoid all topical, political, and personal debate today and just blab on about myself for a post? Well, why not indeed.

Ergo:

1) Even though I'm definitely a tomboy, I still put a lot of care into my appearance by doing my hair and makeup every day and making sure I always look my cutest. Hey, being a tomboy doesn't mean you have to dress like a guy :)

2) I went to modeling school when I was in junior high school, competed in modeling contests and shows, and even landed myself a modeling agent at one point. I also took professional acting classes as a kid at a renowned professional theater company in Southern California.

3) I worked retail once in LA and had Drew Carey as a customer. I asked him for his autograph - on his credit card slip. I had no idea who he was, but I did make him laugh really hard. I only found out it was him after he left the store.

4) I was a theater technician at my college, both during the school year and the summertime. I worked in the shop building sets, painting scenery, hanging lights from thirty feet above the stage, and did running crew as well for most of the productions.

5) I consider myself fairly fearless, but I hate roller-coasters. They scare the crap out of me!

6) I hate snakes. I can deal with spiders, cockroaches, bees, hornets, lizards, whatever...but snakes are gross.

K, so that's it! Feel free to play along and post six facts about yourself on your own blogs, or take the time to guess which facts about me you think are true in my comments section. I tag:

Happy Hour...Somewhere, because she cracks me up

A Polar Bear's Love Song, because she's my bestest friend

The Struggling Actress, because I can't wait to see what she comes up

James Gang in Kearney, because he needs an award that isn't pink and frilly on his page and I'd love to learn more about him and his family

Jeans Friday, because I love her sense of humor, hilarious stories about her dad, and how open she is with her heart

Okie over at Cucullus non facit monachum, because he loves Latin as much as I do and is a true creative writer

and Clarity over at Clarity in Wonderland, because we've never met and she's still my British bff who offers me Cadbury Creme eggs and a good listening ear in a crisis, even as she is going through her own grieving. Clarity - I'll let you know in December if I'm going through withdrawal and need any creme eggs. In the meantime, darling, if there is anything I can do for you...just let me know. ::Hugs::

So that's it!

Oh, and many, many thanks to the two lovely bloggers who passed along the award to me: B. Nagel, whose creative and anecdotal writing is simply amazing (check out one of his short stories here) and Robin, who blogs every single day, leaves the kindest comments on my posts, and is so compellingly honest and direct in her writing style (like in this post)- it just blows me away.

Go and check out B.'s and Robin's facts if you have the time, too!

Happy (completely politics-free!) rest of your Monday!

"I've got friends/in all the right places..."

My blog title, while being an oft-used phrase, is also a lyric from one of two songs that I'm totally obsessed with, appropriately titled I've Got Friends, by Manchester Orchestra. You can find it here, just so it can get stuck in your head too. Yeah, you're welcome. The other song I'm obsessed with is what I would describe as the perfect spring/summer pick-me-up-but-in-a-chill-kind-of-way song. It's not getting a ton of radio play, which I like because while video killed the radio star, radio has a way of killing almost every song I like by playing it 40.times.a.freakin.day.

Not cool, radio.

So here's the second song, Sweet Disposition, by The Temper Trap, off the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack. Please, do yourself a favor if you're able to - turn it up loud. And get ready to be obsessed. Or to leave me a comment and tell me I have crappy taste in music. Whichever.

Anyways, the blog post title came from how damn nifty all of you are. I wanted to say thanks for all your lovely comments over the past few weeks as life keeps punching me in the back of the head (not cool, life) but knowing that you guys are out there and being supportive and awesome and that some of you are going through similar shite helps a lot. You really have no idea how much you guys make my day.

This is a bit belated but I've got some specific gratitude to offer up to some bloggers that have shown me some extra love over the past few weeks - first a quick thank you!! to Anne and Carissa, both of whom sent me very cool items of lust from giveaways that I had won from them. Anne painted a cute little canvas square with flowers and a shooting star and decorated it with glitter, and then included a box of Sweethearts candy for me to get addicted to, (my favorite, Anne!) and Carissa sent me a bucketload of awesome stuff from Etsy, including a desktop calendar from this amazing photographer. Seriously, staring at these photos all day makes my happiness scale almost explode. Carissa, thank you again.

I also got awards from two bloggers that I am in awe of: Darcy and Jonas. Darcy writes with a striking honesty and humor that simply blows me away and makes me rethink why the hell I blog in the first place. Her candor and her willingness to look life straight in the eye just completely inspires me, so when she gave me the Best Blogger award, all I could do was humbly sneak off into a corner and try to convince myself that maybe I actually deserved it. A couple weeks later, I'm still not convinced, but here it is in all its glory:

And the second part of the award asks that I name 15(!) new blogs that I enjoy. Which I'll leave for another day because this is getting long-winded already.

Jonas is also an incredible writer - if you haven't checked him out yet...how do I say this? He writes a very fine line between fact and fiction and lets his readers choose to parse out what is truth and what is not... I have a feeling that Jonas might be a bit of a trickster/scoundrel in real life and I gotta tell you, I don't think I mind that one bit.

So thanks, everyone :) I feel very loved on the blogosphere.

And to spread that love...I know it's not much, but I updated my blog roll so that it's pretty much up to speed with what blogs I'm following and loving right now. As I am starting to get more followers (hi guys! I'm so excited to meet you all and read your blogs!) I want more than anything for visitors and new followers to get a sense of my fabulous taste in other people's blogs and go check them out. I love reading your guys' posts and I've been slacking on promoting y'all properly until now. So sorry about that, but better late than never, right?

Have a wonderful rest of your week, everyone!

PS I also want to thank my bestie Radical Bradacal and one of my newest favorite bloggers, B. Nagel, for playing along and posting images of what makes them happy. Thanks guys! I loved them :)

oof.

So I got sick on Wednesday...the kind of sick where you need to sleep for fourteen hours, then you wake up and think, "Wow, that was exhausting. I think I need a nap after all that sleep." So I kind of took the rest of the week off from life.

Now that it's Monday I'm doing slightly better and disgustingly far behind on everything... blogging, reading blogs, eating solid food, paying my bills, push-ups, checking email... you know, the important stuff. So I'll keep this blog post short(er) as I write another promised post and make a small correction to my last post.

As you might note, my last blog post was awarding my guy blogger buds one of the most effeminate blogger awards out there. I was given the award by Kris, who then kindly mentioned as a comment in my post that she'd actually given me TWO awards, the other one being the much more manly Sugar Doll Award.

It looks like this:

So I sort of unintentionally gave all my guy friends two really, really pink awards. Let it never be said that I don't serve up huge heapings of irony with my blog. Anyways, boys, there you go. You're all Sugar Dolls, doesn't that make you feel tough? Hmmm?

Also, I finally get a chance to blog about the Winter SoCal Blogger's Brunch, thrown by this amazing girl. I've mentioned before how awesome I think Dionne is - she does all her own illustrations for her adorable blogs, hosts incredible giveaways with the coolest stuff (I once won a Peacock teacup from her), cooks insanely amazing-looking food and has a heart of pure gold.

Dionne decided to throw a Winter SoCal Blogger's Brunch just after New Year's for some Southern Cali bloggers at one of my favorite cafes in all of LA, then made sure our table was covered in beautiful decorations, provided hand-made notebooks and place settings for us, and gave each of us a huge goody bag of hand-made stuff from a ton of Etsy sellers. (You can see all the cool stuff we got here). My friend Kristy (of "lying bitch" fame) and I went and got to meet some great people - including Carissa, Maggi, and Ashley, three of my new favorite bloggers.

Here's a picture of us:

From left to right: Maggi, Dionne, Me, Carissa, Ashley, and Kristy. Yay!

We all had a blast so all I can really say is thank you, again, Dionne, for hosting such a fantastic event. I look forward to the next one and I'm so glad I added three more SoCal bloggers to my wolf pack! (If you don't know what movie that last line references, don't ask.)

I'll be blogging more throughout the week as I get back on my feet. Have a wonderful Monday!

first things first...

...the ever awesome Kris over at Behold the Metatron gave me a Kreativ Blogger award. How cool is that?

It looks like this:

Kris resides in New York, has tons of inside tips about the coolest city that never sleeps, and posts recipes involving cheese and pasta that make me drool. I have a feeling that if we met in real life we'd get along famously.

Anyways, the rules are to post ten "interesting" things about myself and then pass along this award to ten other bloggers, so I thought I'd play nice and follow the rules for once. Kris, thank you so much for this - very sweet and kind of you and I'm glad you are enjoying my blog.

1) One of my goals in life, once I get the time and money, is to go back to school and get a Master's degree in Divinity.

2) I was all set to go to school in Santa Cruz (northern California) and study marine biology until I met an actual marine biologist. She said 95% of the job is staring at a computer screen and analyzing data. I said no thanks, I'll go to SeaWorld instead. And while we're at it, I'll get my degree in Acting.

3) I have been working on writing my first feature length film script for over two years now. I'm currently revising my second draft. This is the year I'm going to finish it, if only because I have friends who have sat me down and told me, very firmly, that this is the year I'm going to finish it.

4) I stay friends with my exes. Of the guys I've dated in the past, three of them read this blog, as does the guy I'm currently with. They all suck at leaving me comments (aHEM) but it's okay because I know they adore me. I adore them too.

5) I believe that everyone has at least three minor superpowers. Two of mine are: a) I always know, without having to check and even before fully stepping into one, if a bathroom stall is out of toilet paper. I don't know HOW I developed this power but it freakin' ROCKS. b) I get involved a lot in strangers' lives because people come up to me constantly and just start conversations. My friends don't believe it until they see it, but old people, young people, middle aged people, homeless people, wealthy people... people of all types just come up to me and start talking about whatever is on their minds and I just nod and smile and my friends look at me, like, Does she know this person? No, no I do not know this person. But I'm glad to meet them!

6) My idea of hell would be: forced to run on a treadmill at a gym with all glass windows for walls on a busy street corner while watching some obnoxious dating reality show on the high-def television. While Megan Fox cooked cabbage on the treadmill next to mine and read People Magazine out loud. With her voice.

7) I will gladly trap and gently release all spiders that come into the apartment, I have dug my hands into buckets of dirt and come up gleeful with fingers crawling in worms, I will step on cockroaches for other people, if my friends had pet tarantulas I would cuddle and pet them, crickets and grasshoppers amuse me to no end, and if you put me in a mansion with ONE bee or hornet I would lose my freakin' MIND in abject and utter terror.

8) I was born at home, on my own bed, in a small town in New Hampshire.

9) I write poetry. No, I will not make any of you read it. It's trite and emo, much like my Tweets.

10) I have been studying martial arts since I was sixteen. I have a first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and have also studied boxing, White Dragon style Kung Fu, and Escrima, which is Filipino sword and knife fighting. I am proficient in nunchucks, escrima sticks, knives, and I'm okay with a bow staff and a handgun. If killer bees take over the planet I'm screwed.


And now for the tagging... just for a change, and because there's not as many male bloggers out there, I'm gonna tag some of my guy blogger buddies. Go check 'em out - all of these guys are smart, funny, creative, and pretty damn cool.

1) First up is my real-life buddy Anthony. He's a talented as hell artist and you should check out what he can draw. This piece of his is my favorite, and if you like Flight of the Conchords, I think you'll like it too.

2) Dave is all sorts of awesome...and his family is a-dor-able. Go say hi!

3) Des always comes up with the best quotes and pictures to get us all thinking. I love his blog and always look forward to seeing what he's gonna come up with next.

4) My favorite librarian since Henry DeTamble is B.Nagel. I don't even think I know his first name but B. is a fantastic writer and can keep up with my sarcasm fairly well. I approve.

5) Jonas is my favorite. But don't tell him, k? :)

6) Scrap Cat and The Mr. Pillow is a bit of a wild-card... he doesn't blog nearly enough for my liking and he's a little unorthodox in his story telling but I think he's fantastic just the same...can't go wrong with a Neil Gaiman fan!

7) Best photographer I know. If you like photography blogs, keep an eye on Mark...he's my roommate's brother and has more talent with a camera than I will ever have in my entire life. Not.Fair.

8) One of the most politically curious and knowledgeable guys I know. And I don't get to see him nearly as often as I'd like to in real life, which bums me out. He gives the best hugs.

9) This guy cracks me up. Particularly this post. Warning: you might die laughing.

10) Oh, and that boy I adore happens to have a blog of his most very own as well. Too bad I can't guilt him into posting more... OH WAIT.


PS I'm sorry, guys, that this award looks all frilly, so feel free to copy and paste Angelina Jolie's half naked body draped all over it. But let's keep it tasteful, okay??

New Year's Eve...belatedly.

I'm way behind on all your blogs so I'm gonna spend the day trying to catch up reading all about your resolutions and news for 2010 and how you guys all spent your New Year's Eve. In the meantime, here's some New Year's pics...the concert was INCREDIBLE and Flogging Molly played for a little over two hours...they started their set at 10:30 pm, took a break at 11:58 pm to ring in the new year with a punk version of Auld Lang Syne, then played for another half hour afterwards. Brilliant. Easily one of the best New Year's celebrations I've ever had.

One of the opening acts, With a Bible and a Gun, a Johnny Cash tribute band. They were amazing and got their start playing in prisons all over the country.

The Flogging Molly pirate ship! YAR!

The crowd was definitely ready for Flogging Molly that night.

Bridget on whistle, lead singer Dave King on guitar. (psst - they're married! And they're so adorable!)

Dave owns the stage.

Oh look, mosh pit! Only saw two major injuries, though, so it was a very polite mosh pit.

During the New Year's countdown break...

One of many, many New Year's Eve smooches.

So much for the afterglow...happy 2010 everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's Eve celebration...I've got tons to blog about over the next few weeks, including my 2009 highlights, a very special 2009 Heroes and Villains post, a blog award from my favorite New Yorker that I need to pass along, and a SoCal Blogger's Brunch I attended over the weekend that this lovely girl hosted.

So please stay tuned. 2010 is already kicking ass!

PS Benni took all the photos :)

spreading the love, aka Did You Just Call My Hot Chocolate a Bastard?

Do you guys know how much I love you?

I really, really do.

You all say the kindest, coolest things on my blog, so much so that while I was hanging out with my friend Kristy last night on our Hot Chocolate Crawl (more on that later) she said, "Your followers always say the nicest things on your blog. Sometimes it makes me want to leave a comment that just says 'You Lying Bitch.'"

Which I believe she has before, isn't that charming? So if you see a totally sarcastic comment here or there on my blog, believe it or not, it's usually one of my real life friends. Feel free to return the favor and visit their blogs and call them lying bitches as well. (Just a friendly suggestion!)

Anyways, I'm in the mood to spread the love because over the last couple weeks I've been getting a lot of love. I'll start with one of my favorite bloggers, Nichole, over at littlebrownpen. She takes incredible photographs of her adorable family, she finds the cutest stuff on Etsy (my addiction) and is one of the most genuinely kind and funny people I've had the pleasure of following. And a few weeks ago she blogged about being in Vermont and picking up gifts for family and friends and like a total jerk I left a comment that was all, "That's awesome, wish I could be on your gift list!" or something to that effect.

Next thing I know I've got an email from her that's asking for my mailing address and a short explanation that says she's engaging in some random acts of kindness.

And last week, a small package from Little Brown Pen arrived. When I opened it up, I saw this:


And what Nichole did was take photos while she was in Paris of individual numbers and letters, then print out photos of each and make an adjustable calendar out of it. Like this:


And I'd seen this on her website (you can check out the direct Etsy link here) and I'd been yearning and pining to find a way to make room in my budget for this...

And instead she sent it to me for free. For being a smartass.

Nichole, je t'aime.

So if you like what you see and want to own one of your most very own, last I saw, she had three left on her Etsy site....

And next up is my darling Clarity, who is my British counterpart. We have way too many things in common and I think if we ever actually sat down to tea together we probably wouldn't leave until they elected a new Queen. Also, Clarity can make the bed and blog at the same time, a feat which I liken alongside dodging bullets and having x-ray vision.

So Clarity gave me the Kreative Blogger award,

(it looks like this)

...and I'm supposed to pass it along, for whatever that means to y'all. And I'd like to pass it along to my aforementioned You Lying Bitch friend Kristy, because she is another one of those incredible writers who needs to blog more ("I only write when I'm inspired," she said. "Then be inspired MORE," I said) and takes words and turns them into poetry in a way that I fear I will never be able to - her words fly off the page and burn little paper hearts into your skin and the back of your neck. It's incredible, her writing, so please, go check her out, and maybe if she has more followers she'll feel pressured to write more.

I am also giving this award to my blogger friend (whom I will get to meet in person in January) Dionne, who not only writes incredible posts but also does all her own illustrations to match each of her posts, and she takes amazing photos, AND she makes the most amazing food ever. So she already has globs of followers, for good reason, but if you haven't checked out her blog, please do so, because she's a wonderful human being, amazing and kind, and when I asked her for her recipes she friended me on Facebook so I could find them.

You don't get any cuter than that.

As for our Hot Chocolate Crawl: when you don't drink alcohol you have to come up with creative ways to hang out with people (no, designated driving does NOT count) so I came up with a Hot Chocolate Crawl for Kristy, myself, and Benni, because Kristy had not met Benni yet and since I'd known her since college her approval was crucial.

So we hopped from one place to the next practically making ourselves sick on all the chocolate and getting into loud political and social discussions until almost 1 in the morning, because that's the kind of friends I keep around. Rest assured that the other patrons of this place know how I feel now about Michael Vick and health care and whether it's possible to have true democracy if you have more than nine people in a room. And it was around 9 pm at our first stop here that Benni had a White Hot Chocolate and called Kristy's Vanilla Hot Chocolate a bastardization between regular Hot Chocolate and White Hot Chocolate and Kristy said, "Did you just call my hot chocolate a bastard?"

And then I turned to her and said, "I am SO naming my next blog that." And then she called me a lying bitch.