giving thanks

So it's taken me a bit of time to play catch up with everything going on and make it back here to this blog, as evidenced by the fact that today is my one month wedding anniversary. And now that the wedding is over and people can't ask about it, the two things they DO ask are: "So how's married life?" and "When are you having babies?"

Fun.

Our wedding photographer left the day after our wedding for the East Coast and promptly got waylaid by Hurricane Sandy, so we're still waiting on photos (I'm not complaining - some people lost their HOMES. I can deal with wedding photo delay for as long as need be.) But we do have one thing to share - a video made my adorable and ridiculously talented husband, who's an editor, so he can do this kind of stuff in his sleep. It's a montage of all our photobooth photos, shot by Open Air Photobooth (we recommend them 100% for any type of party - they were terrific) and edited to the song we opened our reception with, right after our first dance - Pink's Raise Your Glass.

So enjoy the video, and please know that I'm grateful for all the love and support you guys have shown me this year - in my ups and downs and wayward trips sideways as I contemplated life, love, wedding planning, hiding under the blankets, and everything in between. I couldn't be more grateful for this little blogging community I have and I'm so grateful for every one of you. If I don't comment more on your blogs, it's not because I'm not reading them or that I don't love catching up on your life, because I do, and if I don't blog more, it's not because I have nothing to say - sometimes it's the exact opposite.

And while I'm on a gratitude kick, right now I'm grateful for my friends, my family, my husband, my health, my happiness, my job, a roof over my head, shoes on my feet, food in my fridge, electricity in my apartment, a car that works, a phone that works, and about three million other things. I am truly so, so blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

5...4...3...2...1

5 events I am totally looking forward to in the next few weeks:

5. Houdini exhibit at the Skirball

4. Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA

3. Mother's Day picnic on Sunday with the family

2. Going to Magic Mountain

1. My friend Anthony's comic book signing next Wednesday

(yes, I'm aware most of those events were definitely nerdy in nature)

4 things I recently bought and I could not BE happier:

4. I'm not a purse person, having bought exactly two in my life, but here's the purse I just bought and I am in LOVE. I never thought I'd like an inanimate object so much in my life.

3. These four Beatles prints. They are gorgeous, and I find it hilarious how clearly they show just how useless Ringo Starr really was to the Beatles. Benni and I found album frames at a craft store and hung them up in our dining room, over our record player (Vinyl FTW!)

2. Tank tops from Target. They are $8 and they go with everything. I don't think I need to explain this one much more...

1. $1.29 daffodils from Trader Joe's. How many times can you say that something you spent a $1.29 on made you blissfully happy for an entire week? But flowers just do that.

3 of the best things I have read lately:

3. The Happiness Hypothesis - amazing, incredible, very non-new Agey, very practical and scientific exploration of happiness. Best book I've read in a very long time.

2. A Short History of Nearly Everything - hysterical, makes science absolutely fascinating, and makes you giddy just to be alive.

1. This commencement speech by David Foster Wallace, which is heartrendingly beautiful and inspiring and I try to read at least once a week. (It's floating around the internet under the title This is Water)

2 books I WANT to read so badly:

2. The Good Book: A Humanist Bible

1. Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

1 funny story about LA:

I'm sitting in my car in downtown Hollywood, waiting for the light to turn green, when a homeless man carrying a sign that says "Love One Another" ambles over to my open window. I'm not going to be rude, and I have a strict policy of treating homeless people like humans, so I smile as he comes up to my car.
"Excuse me, ma'am, do you have a hundred dollars you could spare?" he asks, eyes kind and smiling. I burst out laughing. Surely he knows how ridiculous this is, right?
"No," I said. "I'm sorry. I have no hundred dollar bills to give you today."
"That's okay," he says, still grinning. "I'll take a fifty if you have one."
Again, I crack up. "Nope, no fifty's either."
He shuffles from foot to foot and pretends to look confused. "How about a gift card to Best Buy?" he asks. By this time we're both laughing.
I look him straight in the eye and tell him, "Man, if I had a Best Buy gift card to give you, I honestly would."
"Next time," he says, and we fist bump, and all the other people in all the other cars can see me laughing and are rolling down their windows to give him money and the sun is shining and life, life my friends, is very, very good.

straighten up and fly right

It's morning. You're running late, again. You always do this, don't you? Hit the snooze button fifteen times, let the alarm clock play alternative music intermittently for over an hour. But you're tired, of course you're tired. You didn't sleep again last night. Same as the night before. And the night before that. The nightmares, the anxiety, the fact that your brain never stops racing, the fact that your body stops breathing when the anxiety gets too bad and you wake up, panicked, gulping for air that you don't even let yourself breathe.

The commute's not too bad this morning, sometimes it can take over an hour to drive down Santa Monica Blvd from one side of town to the other, with you sitting in the car, trying to not wonder how much the stop and go traffic is gleefully murdering your car's engine, trying not to get hit by SUV's full of one person, reading their iPhone and steering with the hand holding their latte, who ends up swerving in and out of your lane. You try not to think nasty thoughts about people who can't be bothered to just focus on driving. You try to appreciate the fact that the radio is playing the same ten songs it always plays. You try to appreciate the fact that your iPod plays the same ten albums it always plays because you don't have enough money to buy new music, because any extra money you're earning these days is going towards filling your gas tank to get you to your job that gives you the money to fill your gas tank so you can get to your job. Because life is cyclical like that.

Work is okay, nothing special, you sit in front of a computer all day long and do what it is you do, the sort of menial task you get paid well for but it's not like you majored in it college and want to do it for the rest of your life. The window view is nice, your boss is kind and not that demanding and lets you play Pandora in the background, the clients are polite and respectful and things could be a lot worse, you could be one of 14 million unemployed Americans who would kill for your job, but you still wish you were out there, auditioning for acting roles and feeling like you were actually getting somewhere with the career you actually want, the thing you DID major in college for. But then you remember that you've still got time, there's always time, and things can change in a day out here in bright and sunny Los Angeles.

You get home, and your cat, whom you swore was a cat when you adopted it, has turned into a dog, a whiny, needy dog that shrieks if you don't pet it immediately, and you think to yourself, I swear I thought cats were supposed to ignore you, and your boyfriend, your wonderful, sweet, kind boyfriend is already making dinner, even though he's made dinner the last eight nights and it's probably been your turn to make dinner for at least a month now. He's making dinner, and he's twirling around in the kitchen doing eight things at once, and you drop your stuff and come into the kitchen and he stops whatever he's doing (unless he's carrying something hot to the sink) and pulls you into his strong arms and he smells like home and everything you've ever loved, and the cat twirls between the feet of the two of you and begs for food. Because she's actually a dog.

You sit on the couch, eating another amazing dinner compiled mainly from random things your boyfriend found in the fridge (you do not have this gift, alas) and you wrap your fingers around his as you both watch a funny television show that takes your mind off of the fact that your career isn't where you would like it to be, and the late afternoon sunlight dips through the window and hits at just such an angle that it feels like you are actually witnessing a memory or a photograph being created before your very eyes, and you look over at this boy, who makes you so completely and fully happy, and you look at the food sitting in front of you, that you had enough money for in your checking account when you bought it, and you look at the apartment that you love and have decorated with love, and you look at the cat that is now ignoring you as all good cats should do, and your heart fills with warmth and love about how every single thing in your life is amazing, even though it wasn't a particularly amazing day, because you realize just how truly loved you really are, and something expands in your lungs, and it's hope, hope that things will get even better, hope for the future, hope, hope is the thing with feathers, hope floats, hope springs eternal, hope hope hope hope hope....

balancing act

These are the words I'm forcing myself to write.

I have not written a post in the last couple weeks because I literally had no idea what to write about. It's not that there's nothing going on in my life. There's actually tons. Producer session callbacks for major tv shows, hanging out with friends, throwing a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower for friends who are set to have their first baby any day now, a second semester of American Sign Language that I'm taking, events, trips, surprises... you name it, it's been happening, and I've been high on life. I've been so deliriously happy and grateful.

And yet.

I can't help but feel so saddened by the events that are going on in the world. Earthquakes, tsunami's, floods, drought... from Haiti to New Zealand to Australia to Japan...

What right do I have to post about my little life when there is so much loss and sadness in the world? What right do I have to be happy with my Stuff and my Things when I go to bed at night and when I wake up the next morning there are ten thousand less people on this planet?

It seems like there is a huge lack of balance in the world right now. And because of that, I've been feeling unbalanced in my own life. I swing from joyous about my own life to discouraged about others. And I have been trying to share my "wealth" with others, in the form of money donated, time and energy spent, gratitude and graciousness towards others expressed... but everything still feels so extreme and out of balance.

What on earth could I possibly blog about that could make whatever I have to say anything less than trivial?

Just this: that balance is achieved, one step at a time, not through guilt at the blessings we have, nor ingratitude of them, not through ignorance of what is happening to others, nor journalistic voyeurism, but through love. Love of each other, across oceans and tectonic plates and political parties and religious beliefs. And it is right, when we have been feeling lack, to receive joy and love into our lives, to celebrate. And it is right, when we have an abundance of joy and love in our lives, to share it with others, across oceans and tectonic plates and political parties and religious beliefs.

The sentences above is the only tiny, humble thing I have to offer right now to those of you who read my blog. I hope it is enough.

"I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."

Balance. Pure and simple. And loving.

2011...

I have to say, I'm digging this year so far. Lots of things have kept me busy lately, but they are all good and productive and I am on fire these days (Details to follow in future blog posts.) Fist bump, indeed! (Thank you to everyone who gave me one for my last blog post. Each and every single proverbial fist bump kept me grinning like an idiot throughout this month.)

I usually do two posts for each new year - one looking back on the previous year, and one reflecting on the changes I want to make for the new year. Last year, for my 2010 post, I wrote about a dream I had - a dream where I was going to start putting myself first, before anyone else, for my own health and safety. And I think I can say, with total pride, that I accomplished that goal in 2010. I slayed dragons and I saved people, but I always saved myself first - I always made sure I was safe. Because at the time, last year, I was surrounded by people who didn't give a damn whether or not I could swim, and just kept trying to drag me under.

No more.

So, with that goal accomplished and some of those people neatly kicked to the curb (or at least fenced in more properly), what do I do with 2011?

2011, my friends - is the year I Get Happy.

Now, I'm not talking about The Secret (apologies to any of you who really enjoy The Secret - I do not) because I don't need Crap. I don't need Stuff. My main interest every day is finding more of the happiness that already exists within me - and then being able to express it outwardly towards others. I don't need a new job, or more money. My Get Happy isn't a wishlist of all the things I feel I'm lacking. It's a list of all the qualities I want to express more, it's a list of simple, free, easy, joyful things I want to accomplish and do with the people I love, and it's an examination of the things I do - those pesky patterns of behavior - that keep me from being happy and how to kick the ever-living crap out of those patterns.

I'm so excited, guys. You have no idea. I know 2011 is going to be amazing because I'm determined, no matter what happens outside myself, to feel grateful, confident, loving, and more relaxed.

Let's DO THIS THING!

(photo credit: I got it from here)

what gratitude looks like

Benni and I hosted my family for Thanksgiving this year. It was Benni's first turkey (I'm a pro, having hosted about four Thanksgivings now) and he was so worried, and I kept saying, baby, it's not that hard to cook a turkey. Just baste, and everything will be fine.

Are you ready to get basted, turkey??

And it turned out fine. Better than fine, actually. (The vegetables we roasted underneath the turkey made it smell AMAZING.)

After dinner we all watched some football, and then I decided to have a Gingerbread House competition. I had purchased two gingerbread house kits from Bed Bath and Beyond the evening before (the woman at the counter: "How cute! Are these for the kids?" Me: "No, they're to keep my parents occupied so they don't ask me why I'm not married." I love talking to total strangers so much). And my family peeled themselves away from the television and worked hard. We separated into two teams, and my brother Scott was deemed Judge and Executioner of the Gingerbread House Contest. (When you put things in caps it makes it sound more official.)

Here's Val, my cousin Tom's girlfriend, concentrating hard.

Here's Team One's Gingerbread House! (Team One consisted of: Benni, my mom, Val, and Tom.)

Here's my aunt Darlyne and my brother Jeff working hard on Team Two's Gingerbread House (Team Two consisted of: me, my aunt, and my brother Jeff.)

Jeff puts the finishing touches on our Gingerbread House. He created the frosting "icicles" by using a wooden skewer to drag them down. Can you tell he's the artist in the family?

Here's Team Two's finished house! (I think ours is pretty awesome.)

Scott decided it was a tie. But I just think that's because he doesn't want to jeopardize his chances at getting Christmas presents.

Two houses, both alike in Gingerbread, in fair Burbank, where we lay our scene... The required family photo behind the two houses. Left to right: Benni, Me, Aunt Darlyne, Jeff, Scott, my mom, Tom, and Val.

Of course, we never really do things the same way everyone else does. So, just in case you were wondering about me... yes. The Weird is genetic. I was born that way.

**********************

And finally, to move on to the holidays... Lori over at Lori Times Five makes the cutest little coffee cup sleeves ever. She knits them and then sews on different plants that represent qualities like courage, and compassion. (Her Etsy store is here.) She calls them Green Sleeves and I sort of fell in love (not that I don't already adore Lori - she's beautiful, inside and out, and takes breathtaking photographs and is the owner of the world's CUTEST DOG) when I first saw them so I had to buy a couple to hand out as gifts to my coffee-loving friends.

So when I got my very own Green Sleeve over the Thanksgiving holiday (along with everyone else's), the first thing I did was rush out to our neighborhood Starbucks with Benni and ask that he take a picture that I could send back to Lori.

So Lori, this is for you... thank you, a hundred times over, for making my day every time I get my hot chocolate fix. :)

And yes, I did get whipped cream up my nose in order for Benni to get this shot. Because I'm professional like that.

Love to you all,
Tracy

Take from me these myths

Myth #1) When you get sick for almost two weeks, missing a full week of work (with no sick pay, ouch) , you are being punished.

I am the worst sick person in the world, and it's not because I whine. It's because I'm guilty. I am guilty for whatever sins I have committed to make me sick in the first place; I am guilty because I am not getting better right away; I am guilty of not being a productive person while being sick; and I feel guilty because I am no longer a Useful Person while lying exhausted and beaten in bed. If I have one obsession, it's with Being Useful. Every day, when I wake up, I ask God for two things: to make me more useful, and to help me love my neighbor better. Being sick makes me feel like a failure of a human being. And this drives the people who are trying to take care of me absolutely nuts as I try to do chores, errands, and work while being sick.

Myth #2) When you put yourself out there for others, it comes back to bite you in the ass.

Right before I got sick last week I had something happen in my life where a big mistake was made - and the harder I tried to fix it, the worse it became. Ever have that happen to you? You feel like you can't win for trying, so why bother caring? This mistake came from me doing someone else a pretty big favor that ended by blowing up in my face - and I walked around for a good week with the bitter taste of no good deed goes unpunished in my jaw and my fists. I was so tempted to take my love away from the rest of the world in some weird act of revenge, and sit there smugly and watch as the world collapsed in on itself the second I wasn't around to fix everything and keep loving it into existence every morning. Which brings me to myth #3:

Myth #3) You are the center of the universe.

Your love will not fix everything; your failures will not break everything. Everyday the world spins madly on and we screw up and apologize and then screw up again and as much as we think that we have a deep effect on what happens to those who around us - we don't. Our friends and family function and cope and survive and breathe and love with or without us making things better or worse for them, and some days this knowledge is a crime and sometimes it's a gift. When I say there is only a limited amount of what you can do you can take that as freedom or you can take it as a jail sentence. But either way it's true - because it's both.

Myth #4) You shouldn't be grateful.

There are two camps that the ungrateful fall into; luckily, being the overachiever that I am, I swing from one to the other in order to partake in them both (high five!). The first group thinks I have no right to be grateful; gratitude is a mockery at the unhappiness and misfortune of others. When the rest of the world is miserable, who are we to be happy? Doesn't our happiness take away from others? And, laden with shame, we lay down our happiness and wallow in the ingratitude of guilt.

The second group feels that with gratitude comes settling. If we're grateful for the crappy job we have, we will never be inspired to find a better job, one that actually helps us fulfill our purpose and use our talents to their highest ability. If we're grateful for our romantic partner no matter how small their tokens of love, we will never declare that perhaps we could do better and move onto a relationship that is mutually fulfilling and blessed. To be constantly unsatisfied with what we do have is to be ambitious; to be grateful for the small crumbs that have been thrown our way is to settle into the mediocrity that will become our lives.

Except gratitude is the path where things grow. Health is gratitude expressed (the gratitude that I have knowing that no matter how I'm feeling or how much I'm accomplishing, my love is always useful), love is gratitude expressed (the gratitude that I have knowing that when I do something kind for someone else, no matter how it turns out, I made that effort and gesture with the best of intentions), true wealth is gratitude expressed (the gratitude that I have knowing that being grateful only opens doors and opportunities and doesn't close any of them). Everything we live and breathe is gratitude being expressed.

Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I'm feeling much better and I'll be back next week.

desperate acts of magic

So I kind of stole this post title from the name of a low-budget film that's auditioning actors right now. I saw it in my email alerts that notify me which projects are "right" for me on a casting website and then saw that the girl they wanted to cast needs to be in her 40's (um, not me) and be able to juggle chainsaws on fire and other cool stuff like that. Also not me.

But I liked the phrase, and I opened up my blog today and couldn't think of anything to write about, as things are kind of quiet in my head today, so I figured a good title might help. How many of you guys do that? Do you ever think, if I could just have a really great title, or opening line, I could muscle through everything else? If things start out perfect, it'll do all the work itself from here on out...

Of course, life doesn't really work that way. Life is never hitting the top of a mountain and then putting it on cruise control as you sail down, windows lowered, music blasting as your hair whips around your face and you grin into the sunshine. Life is a steady, uphill climb with a sometimes crappy view, not to mention the fact that you spend about half of it studying various rocks and leaves and wondering if you haven't been in This.Exact.Place before. Many, many times before.

My life continues on with its challenges, just as it does in everyone else's. I'm very happy with my tattoo, although it's now in the itchy phase and that's driving me nuts; I'm going to be in a Steampunk-themed wedding on Saturday where I get to fulfill my lifelong dream of wearing combat boots with a dress to a wedding; and my Easter celebration with my family on Sunday was, in a word, perfect. It started off as a sort of wish-list that we all made of how we have always wanted the holiday to be: my middle older brother wanted to dye Easter eggs, my cousin wanted to have an Easter Egg hunt, I wanted to give everyone Easter baskets. So here we are, this pack of weird grown ups with messy childhoods, creating perfect memories when we are in our twenties and thirties and fifties. Life may be uphill but it doesn't mean that at any moment you can't branch off to the side and create something beautiful that you may have missed the first time around.

The problems I spoke of way back when I took a blogging break are still very present; it's just that my attitude toward them has shifted. I'm never going to have a life without problems; that's absurd and honestly, more than a little boring. So instead of whining about them I just adjusted and made room for them in my life and pushed a little more love their way. Because there isn't much that can be done to fix these kinds of problems, and lord knows I'm a fixer. I'm a first degree fixer that takes my hammer and nails to my own and everyone else's problems and hammers away until I'm exhausted and there is nothing left for me to do. And when I'm told that I can't fix it...that I can't fix someone's finances, or get someone a job, or bring someone's pet back...

or (::deep breath::) find a cure for someone's cancer...

Well. Anyways. Desperate acts of magic are in order, I suppose. And while I remain an optimist, while I believe in a universal intelligence that my particular belief system calls God, who is loving and good and kind... I'm long past thinking that the universe owes anybody anything. So the desperate acts of magic don't include me bargaining with any higher power or asking for favors. My acts of magic come from sitting down in the middle of the chaos and continuing to laugh and smile and breathe and eat cheeseburgers. It's our unbreakable, unflinching human spirit with the capacity to find joy in the smallest of things in life, even amidst the darkness, that is the real magic. And if I have a choice, which I do...

I'm gonna choose to do that one.

Someone who knows all too well what I'm going through gave me a poem last week by one of my favorite poets, Rumi. It's been folded up carefully and sitting in my back pocket for a week, giving me grace and strength when I had none left to give:

Rumi - Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all.
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

"Meet them at the door laughing" - this is what I am doing. Magic indeed.

"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 :)

Valentine's Day: A Survival Guide

It's that time of year again, kids! It's that holiday that is supposed to be spontaneous, romantic, thoughtful, and sweet... and usually ends up being e) none of the above. After all, if everyone is celebrating being in a relationship on the Exact.Same.Day as you are, what's spontaneous or romantic about that? It's like someone running up to you and screaming, four inches from your face, Be romantic! Be spontaneous! Be loving! Right now! ALONG WITH 12 MILLION OTHER PEOPLE.

Not exactly the most sentimental of ways to spend a day telling someone you love them.

So let's face it, whether you're single, married, engaged, dating, on the rocks, on the mend, or in a nunnery, Valentine's Day becomes weird and forced and expensive and weighed down with a bunch of expectations that you didn't even know you had until the day arrived and the other girls at the office got flowers but you didn't. So I wrote up a Valentine's Day survival guide, because it IS possible to enjoy this holiday, and divided it into four sections. 1) Guys, single; 2) guys, attached; 3) girls, single; 4) girls, attached.

You're welcome.

GUYS:

Single: You are the luckiest man on the face of the planet. You don't have to buy flowers, take your partner out to a restaurant or make her/him some amazing dessert that took four hours of research and a ten-store hunt for something called chocolate bark, you can just sit at home and watch A-Team re-runs and laugh at all those poor fools who are marching to the beat of everyone else's high-maintenance drum and know that you were spared another year of having unrealistic ideas of romance and sentimentality forced upon you by society. In fact, this is the best night of the entire damn year to call up all your other single guy friends, go out for really messy barbecue, then come back and play Halo 3 with them until 2 in the morning. One day you will be in a relationship, and that's fine, but it's not today, and being single should be enjoyed and you should not be made to feel guilty about it. You're a rock star.

Attached: You are the luckiest man on the face of the planet. You get to spend today with the person you have chosen to be with and instead of falling for cheap commercialism or trite traditions, you have an opportunity to be totally creative with expressing your love for the girl/guy you are with. What's a more fantastic way to be romantic than to take a day to celebrate the truly unique relationship you have with a truly unique person and do something different than 98% of the rest of the world does? Just because this holiday was forced upon you doesn't mean you have to dial it in and do what everyone else does. You don't let the world tell you how to be in a relationship or be romantic any other day of the year, do you? So damn the man and plan a hike somewhere romantic, go kayaking, cook souffles together or have a Back to the Future marathon with chinese food. It's YOUR day. Don't let anyone else tell you how you should be in love.

Girls:

Single: You are the luckiest woman on the face of the planet. Oh sure, for single girls, Valentine's Day is supposed to be a day or mourning, maybe even guilt. After all, you're supposed to be in a relationship, because that's how you value your worth, right? I mean, if you're not dating someone, are you even alive?? Yeah, well, screw that B.S. You and I both know that being a single girl in an attached world is freakin' awesome sometimes. Stay out as late as you want - you don't have to call anyone to check in. Watch the other girls fight over who got the best flowers, who went to the best restaurant, and who got what expensive jewelry - and watch other girls try to measure their worth against each other by using the age-old methods of competition and cattiness. Hang out with your other single friends (girls or guys) and play laser tag or pool or just hang out at home and watch Quantum Leap re-runs and eat pizza. You're not in a relationship because you have chosen not to settle and be in a relationship that makes you unhappy, and that's pretty damn awesome in a world of lonely people looking to be together for the pure, simple fact that they are terrified of being alone. You're not one of them - how cool is that?

Girls, attached: You are the luckiest woman on the planet. You're in a happy, healthy relationship, and you get to spend a day feeling completely in love and not apologizing for it. But be careful not to make Valentine's Day all about your partner working his/her ass off to make you happy - this is not your day to just be a pretty, pretty princess who expects the significant other you're dating to psychically guess exactly what feels romantic to you. Get off your in-love butt and get involved. Plan out the day with your loved ones, tell them what makes you feel loved and special and for the love of God ask them what makes them feel loved or special. This is a mutual holiday, I don't see any of those Hallmark cards referring to Valentine's Day as The Day Where the Girl Sits Upon a Pedestal and Waits For Her Partner to Make Her Happy. Take responsibility for your happiness and be engaged in making it a wonderful day for the both of you. You are 50% percent of a partnership that's being celebrated on Valentine's Day, not 100%.


So there you have it - single, dating, guy, or girl - you too can have a sane and perfectly happy Valentine's Day. Leave your expectations at the door and bring your A-game in terms of creativity, thoughtfulness, and gratitude for where you are in life on this holiday. If you're single, you might be married by this time next year; if you're married, you might be single by this time next year. Never envy other people for where they are in relationships; just be where you are, knowing that the choices you've made have lead you to this and it's the best place for you to be, and always be loving towards yourself.


PS Also, and I am 100% serious about this, if you were raised by a single mother who is still single and will probably not get any flowers this holiday, you send that incredible woman flowers (NICE flowers, and to her work, so she can brag about how awesome her kids are to her co-workers) and you thank her for being a superhero.

I'm not kidding. Do it.

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.

giving thanks

“Herein lies the well of life; let us laugh and let us sing for in truth we are blessed by everything.” - Isadora James

Sometimes, when I am stressed, I take a very deep breath and let the air fill every single inch of my lungs and then I am able to find myself deeply affected and moved by how beautiful the world really is. In reality nothing has changed, but when I breathe I find myself looking at the world differently. Time slows and where once there was impatience and frustration in my heart, I look again and find grace. There is enough, there is always enough; enough time to do all the things I want to do, enough love so that I don't have to worry about competing for it with others, enough space to move around in, even if it doesn't always feel like it in Los Angeles. Enough supply to help me get through each day without feeling lack, enough challenges to keep my mind and body working hard, enough meaning in what I do, even in the smallest of actions, so that I am able to move confidently through this world, knowing that I have a purpose.

When I inhale and exhale and follow my breath as it moves through my body, uncurling and relaxing muscles I didn't even know were tense, I suddenly feel very small, but not in a bad way. My body has made room for all the little surprises and small moments of happiness that flitted my way during the day, the ones I brushed off impatiently because I had different expectations or didn't want to be bothered with such tiny acts of kindness. I am aware, almost simultaneously, of how unimportant I am, and how much I have to offer to this world.

I think this is the nature of gratitude as well. It helps me make room in my busy life, it stills the pointless noise in my head and refocuses me; it reminds me that my drama is unimportant but my love for others is more needed than ever.


Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone.

gratitude- and a really big YAY!!

K, so I realized shortly after publishing my slightly-longer-than-necessary autobiography that I forgot to include two important things:

a) if I were in charge of the world I also would have gone back in time and adopted out Adolf Hitler to a lovely hippie Canadian family; and

b) I don't take a single second of my life thus far for granted. Every moment, every memory, good or bad, has all lead up to me becoming the person I am today, and I wouldn't change any of that for the world. So I apologize if I came across as bragging or that I didn't appreciate how lucky and blessed I feel I've been, because not a day goes by that I don't appreciate all the friends I've made, all the adventures I've been on, and all the adversity in my life that has made me stronger.

Just wanted to clear that up :)

Also, two more notes of gratitude (the last one with an added large helping of HELL YEAH!) that I neglected to mention earlier:

First of all, a huge THANK YOU to Dionne over at City of Dionne for hosting a fantastic giveaway that I won! If you guys haven't checked out Dionne's blog, it's about twelves shades of adorable - Dionne does all her own illustrations and photographs for her blog topics, hosts incredibly awesome giveaways (like the one I won - a delightful little peacock teacup in my favorite color, how cute is that??) and is an all-around generally freakin' cool girl.

So Dionne, I'm sorry that my gratitude is a little belated, but thank you so much for your generosity, kindness, unfailing support of other bloggers, and very sweet comments. You officially rock (not that we didn't already know that).

and finally, I am so excited to tell you guys:

The web-series I'm in, Hell Froze Over, won its first award at its very first festival!!!!!

Yup, this weekend HFO premiered at the New York Television Festival with over 50 other applicants, and we won the Outside the Box Award!! (how more appropriate can you get?)

We are so excited that all the hard work for Season One of Hell Froze Over paid off at the festival, so keep your fingers crossed that this means people will be interested in financing a second season of the show :)

YAY!!!