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

surfacing for air

Hey kids! I'm back! (::cue Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"::)

I hope you've all been well while I've been away... it was a stressful couple weeks but I'm through the worst of it and I'm back to blogging and catching up on everyone else's blogs, HUZZAH.

First and most importantly, a big huge thank you to all of you commenters who trusted me enough to be super honest about the crappy people that are sucking your energy away from you. I am constantly kind of humbled and ever so slightly terrified by how much you guys open up to me and I'm trying my damnedest to be worthy of your trust. I know it's not easy out there with a universe full of clueless people sometimes but I can say, since I pride myself on getting to know just about every one of you, that you are all so strong and kick-ass. It might be hard right now (it still is for me) but I really believe it's gonna get better. So thanks for all your comments that made me laugh, tear up, or really think. You guys are the freakin' coolest.

Second and only slightly less importantly, great white sharks do not attack kayaks very often, for those of you who were worried when you saw that photo in my last post (you can read the full story of that photograph here, no, it's not fake).

And now for the FastPass version of what I was up to while I was away:

1) Celebrated my 200th blog post (I vaguely remember giving my cat my password to blogspot, while face-down on the kitchen floor)

2) Celebrated my birthday - my friends threw a picnic party for me in the park and it was lovely - the highlight was meeting my best friend's two new dogs and Krista's gorgeously adorable little girl, Finn (and seeing Krista for the first time in, oh, five years?)

3) consumed an unnatural amount of red velvet and cream cheese concoctions, including red velvet frozen yogurt, red velvet cupcakes, and a red velvet and cream cheese cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory

4) Was bitten on the face by a kitten while I was trying to use the toilet (no, I'm not making that up)

5) Hit someone in the back of the head with a blueberry that I accidentally launched off my plate at a party (sadly, also not making that up)

6) Tried to carry the neighbor's cat into my mom's house, not realizing it was, in fact, NOT my mother's cat

7) Have been secretly rooting for the Boston Celtics to win the NBA Championship (shhh, don't tell any of my LA partners in crime!)

8) Received "YOU ARE A DOUCHE" business cards for me to leave on cars clearly parked by idiots from this lovely girl as a surprise birthday present

9) Opened up a book given to me by aforementioned best friend only to be facing the poem that has followed me around for the past several years and pops up when I need it most

10) Cooked this with a few minor tweaks (I took out the bacon and smothered the toast with goat cheese) and didn't burn down the apartment OR poison my boyfriend

11) Received some very cool blog awards from Robin at Your Daily Dose, Heather from The Dream Machine, and Tricia over at Talespinning - thank you ladies, I will pass these along shortly!

12) considered tossing the book I'm reading for my Sci-Fi book club across the room

13) Have been playing this album over and over again as my summer chill-out album, particularly tracks 1, 4, and 9

14) Saw a BMW delivering Pizza Hut pizza (how LA is that??)

15) Bought this and this for myself with some birthday money.



k, off to catch up on your lives! ::hugs!!::

birthday layers

Today is my oldest brother's birthday. I've got two older brothers, so I'm the baby, and the only girl, and before you think yup, she was a brat may I also ask that you add tomboy to that mental picture. So I'm a brat tomboy, which should explain a lot. Rest assured that if I ever break my hand punching someone's face, I'm gonna pitch a fit.

Growing up, whatever my brothers did, said, wore, or listened to, I desperately wanted to as well. I grew up wearing black and refusing to wear skirts and listening to heavy metal music and rocking out to Anthrax, Metallica, and Motley Crue, and then as my brothers' tastes varied as they got into college, I started getting into Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc. Come to think of it, I STILL wear black and refuse to wear skirts and am still listening to all those bands. Hmmm...

Anyways, both my brothers are amazing guys, honest and direct, hilarious and stubborn, hard-working and incredibly talented (one is an 3D effects animator, the other focuses on graphics. I can't even draw a stick figure very well). I look up to both of them very much, but here's the thing...I don't know them very well.

Oh, it's not for lack of trying, I promise. But there's a bit of an age gap, and I'm, well, a girl, and I've got my own stuff going on in LA. But most of all, there's a little bit of distance because that's how we were raised. And this isn't going to turn into a post about my crappy childhood, because this isn't a blog where I dump that stuff on you guys. But I will say, of all the things that make me the most heartbroken about how the three of us were raised, you know, besides the physical abuse and stuff, is the fact that my father pitted the three of us against each other. We were taught that our siblings were never our allies -- they were our competition, our threats, and it was made very clear that there was only so much love to go around and that we had to compete for it.

Fuck that. And I hardly ever swear on this blog so you can get how pissed off this makes me.

Anyways, I'm steering this post in the wrong direction, as I'm trying to make it lighthearted and instead heading really quickly towards an Epic Fail on that one. Because the point is, of all of this, of everything that I am saying here:

If you really, truly want to get to know someone, check out their wish list on Amazon.com.

We had asked my brother a while back to get us a list of stuff he wanted for his birthday, since we usually try to celebrate it on Thanksgiving because that's the date closest to his birthday when we're all gathered around the same onion dip, and lo and behold, Sunday night an email appears in our in-boxes with a link to birthday bro's Amazon wish list. And I'm scrolling through it, noticing the usual stuff, like some Godsmack albums and Pink Floyd posters and Boston Bruins gear, and then there's the Salvador Dali print of Swans Reflecting Elephants WAIT WHAT?

And there is it, both Swans Reflecting Elephants and Van Gogh's Starry Night, on his wish list. And I know my brother is incredibly intelligent but I'm still like, How does he even know who Dali is? In my entire not-that-long life we have never had a single conversation where he expressed interest in any type of art that was created long before computers, in the dark age of paint and brushes and women who weren't the size of starving Abercrombie and Fitch models.

And as someone who loves art (in a pedestrian, hey that looks familiar, must be whats-his-name kind of way) this absolutely blows me away.

But then I think about it - isn't my Pink Floyd, Boston Bruins, Battlestar Galactica and Godsmack loving brother allowed to have layers, just like me? I wouldn't want someone to look at the things I like and assume I don't know a Jackson Pollack from a Monet. Or that I'm just some air-headed blond who doesn't know the difference between Picasso and LOL Cats.

It got me thinking - what else don't I know about him? What else will I find out about my brother, if we just keep talking, if I don't let my busy life and my brat tomboy persona and the past get in the way?

So happy birthday, big brother. Here's to keeping people on their toes, and never, ever apologizing for being yourself. Your talent and your drive make me so incredibly proud to be your little sis.

And can I borrow that Godsmack album sometime?