there's a change in the air...

Anyone got any amazing plans for New Year's Eve? I always go one of two ways: either I'm in a super low-key mood (i.e. be in pj's by 9 am and have a Die Hard marathon) or I'm up for some serious partying. And I never know which one I'm gonna feel like until the week of. Sometimes it's fun being a Gemini.

So this year I was all about the high-maintenance, way-too-many-people-in-my-comfort-zone kind of New Year's... so Benni and I are joining two of my closest friends for, are you ready for this much awesome?

A Flogging Molly concert. Tonight. To ring in the new year.

I KNOW, right?

We'll be partying at The Wiltern as they "Flog in the New Year" and we've got pit tickets so I'm bringing my A-game and my combat boots. And leaving my really expensive camera at home.

And did I mention the opening act for Flogging Molly is a Johnny Cash cover band? Excuse me while I die and go to music heaven.

So I hope that each and every one of you has a safe and wonderful New Year's celebration and I'll meet y'all back here when it's 2010.

Happy New Year!!

Christmas by the pictures

As promised... all the pictures fit to print :)

This is what we stared at for an hour and a half as we taxied at the airport. ::Sigh::

Alice's Tea Cup - where even the Mad Hatter can hang up his hat.

Picture of the four of us - me, Benni, Mike, and Kat (Benni's awesome sister)

FAO Schwarz in NYC - build your very own legless Muppet!

The entirely way too horrifying tutu aisle at FAO Schwarz. Was not ready for this.

Lifesize Batman made out of Legos = nerdgasm.

The famous FAO Schwarz keyboard you can play with your feet.

Star light, star bright...

Horse drawn carriage, anyone?

Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree...

Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in all its glory...

Empire State Building under the lights of Macy's

South Jersey: two things you couldn't get away from - cats and snow.

Shiny!

So them's my pictures. Hope you all had wonderful holidays and have some exciting plans for New Year's Eve!

Christmas by the numbers

Today you'll get the math; tomorrow you'll get the pictures, I promise :)


Number of inches it had snowed when our plane arrived in Newark, NJ: 18 inches

Number of hours it took us to get off the plane after we landed in Newark because the doors were frozen shut on the airport terminal: 1 1/2 hours

Number of trains we had to take to get to a station where Benni's sister could pick us up because the roads weren't paved through to the airport: 2 trains

Number of hours total that it took us, after landing in Newark, to get to Benni's sister's house which was a thirty minute drive: 5 hours. Our plane landed at 9:50 pm. We arrived at her place at approximately 3 am.

Number of pictures I took when we went into New York City later that week: approximately 4 million (or so it felt like) pictures

Cups of tea consumed at Alice's Tea Cup, an Alice in Wonderland themed tea house that we went to for dinner in NYC: 4 1/2 cups (I had the decaf Irish blend...SO yummy)

Cups of hot chocolate consumed on the trip, in total: (including Starbucks and WaWa): 4 cups

Number of pictures I took of just the TREE in Rockefeller Center: 15 pictures

Number of trains we took to meet Benni's parents in Philadelphia: 4 trains (yes, we are aware that we re-enacted Planes, Trains, and Automobiles this Christmas)

Number of times Benni tried to convince me that Cheez Whiz is the ONLY acceptable cheese to get on my Philly Cheese Steak at Pat's: 8 times

Number of times I actually ordered Cheez Whiz on my cheese steak at Pat's: 0 times.

Number of times the guy behind the counter made fun of me for NOT ordering Cheez Whiz on my sandwich: 1 (PS Benni got Cheez Whiz on his...and yes, it was better. Don't ask me HOW or WHY, it just WAS.)

Amount of time it took to drive from Philadelphia to South Jersey, where Benni's parents live: 1 hour

Number of times I almost slipped and landed on my ass because of all the snow and ice at Benni's parents' place: 23 times

Number of cats currently living at Benni's parents' house: 7 (8 if you count the stray that they feed but it refuses to come inside their home)

Number of cat scratches I have from staying at Benni's parents' house with 7 cats: 1 scratch, just above my right eyebrow as a kitten aimed for my hair wispies and instead sliced open my forehead.

Number of times Benni told me that he was getting me a Snuggie for Christmas after I made fun of it on The Big Bang Theory: 5 times

Number of Snuggie's I now currently own thanks to a smart-ass boyfriend: 1

Number of days I plan on listening to nothing but Benni's Remastered Beatles albums, all of which he got for Christmas: approximately 82 days

Number of Dunkin Donuts munchkins I can fit into my mouth at one time: approximately 3 1/2

Number of hours we spent in security at the airport heading back to LA because of course we had to travel two days after some idiot terrorist sews explosives into his underwear and takes a flight to Detroit (seriously: who does that??): 1 hour

Number of hours our flight was delayed heading back to LA: 2 hours

One beautiful, adventurous Christmas: priceless.

I hope all of you had some lovely holidays - I'm gonna spend this week catching up on your blogs and I can't wait to hear all your stories :)

I believe...

...that Tay over at Totally Tay asked me to guest post over at her blog about what I believe...and that it's been an insane last couple days (I haven't gone to bed before 3 am since landing at the snow-covered Newark airport Saturday night) so I didn't get a chance to post about it until right about now.

Got lots to cover, lots to talk about, lots of pictures to share, and lots of blogs I can't wait to catch up on. But that'll have to wait until it's not 1 am EST and I have to catch a train in seven hours to head down to South Jersey. Also, did everyone else know the East Coast is really cold during the wintertime? And that when it snows, it SNOWS? And that trying to make a snowman while wearing fingerless gloves isn't actually the best idea? And that Avatar is actually what would happen if they combined FernGully with Dances with Wolves and threw in a little Braveheart?

Anyways...go check out Tay's wonderful blog, feel free to leave some love on my guest post as well as everyone else's, say hi to Tay for me, and have yourself a merry little four days before Christmas.

lights and buzz

So what is everyone doing for the holidays? You guys going out of town anywhere, or staying in? (My friend Joe used the phrase stay-cation and I had to restrain myself from smacking him. I have a firm belief that words like stay-cation and convo and 'rents [short for the word parents] firmly belong to the 14 and younger crowd.)

I am so incredibly excited - I am heading out to the East Coast and I get to finally see New York at Christmastime! It's been on my to-do list forever, so Benni and I are flying into New Jersey, spending a couple days commuting into New York to see how much the city lights up during the holidays, and then spending Christmas with his family in South New Jersey. Squeee!

Posting next week will be light (however, I am guest-posting over at Tay's early next week...hey, all the cool kids are doing it) but I'll make sure to take tons of photographs of the city (my New York girl Kris says that's allowed as long as I'm not obnoxious about it) and I'll post them when I get back.

Benni was asking me the other day what I was the most excited about for our trip - was it seeing New York during Christmas, the possibility of snow on Christmas day, scarfing down Dunkin' Donuts, all of the above?

And I had to really think about it, because I grew up on the East Coast but never saw New York at Christmastime so there's a bit of nostalgia blended with a really big fat sense of adventure, but I also think that what can really define the holidays is the people you spend them with.

I've met most of Benni's family before, albeit under less-than ideal circumstances, when, waaaaay back in July for Benni's birthday, I was making my first trip out to meet everyone...and Benni's father fell 20 feet through a roof two days before I showed up, ending up in the hospital for 12 days. (You can read my posts about it here and here; Benni's take on it is also a very worthy read.) So by the time I arrived, everyone was in full Chaos Mode and somewhat less concerned with bonding with me over our mutual love of Battlestar Galactica.

On day five of me being in New Jersey, the last full day I was there, I was finally allowed to meet Benni's father, after having spent the last four days reading Margaret Atwood in the hospital lobby, alone for hours while various family members attended to him. Benni's father was heavily medicated, weak, exhausted, bruised and battered when I walked into the room, so I wasn't quite sure what I should do or say.

And then of course there's my smart-ass factor. Keep in mind that when someone is raised in a household of violence, as I was, I find the sick and twisted incredibly hilarious. Hi, coping mechanism, party of one. So yes, I have a very strong sardonic edge to me, which trumps my edit button quite frequently.

And that smart-ass factor, the one that I rely on so often to just get me through life without crying, made me say, instead of something NORMAL and polite, like, "Hi, lovely to meet you, I'm so sorry for your accident," something so completely inappropriate that I still can't believe it.

I waved hi and said, quite literally, the first thing that popped into my head:

"So I hear you do your own stunts."

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

But Benni's dad just grinned while the nurse glared at me. Benni just shook his head, like, Yep, that's my little social retard, isn't she adorable, and to this day Benni's dad remembers meeting me in the hospital when he doesn't remember much else, so I like to think I make an impression. Or that maybe the drugs had been wearing off.

When it finally hit me what I was the most excited about for our trip, I called Benni.

"I got it," I said. "I know what I'm the most excited about."

"Yeah?" Benni said. "Is it the big tree in Rockefeller Center?"

"Nope." I said. "I'm excited that I get to meet your father when his brain isn't on drugs."

Happy Holidays, everyone! :)

You made my best friend cry!

...and I cried a little too.

You guys really are way too good to me. Thank you so much, everyone, for your kind words and support regarding yesterday's post, and for those of you who donated, Alyssa is making you a mix CD and I'm making you something special as well, so please email me your mailing addresses to cliftontracy(at) gmail(dot)com. (Apparently when you use the actual words "at" and "dot" it throws spammers. Who knew?)

I'll keep this post short (for once) and catch up with you guys tomorrow or Thursday. In the meantime...here's Alyssa's blog post with her take on it. She's a much better writer than I am and she quotes Shakespeare a lot more. :)

Hugs to each of you and thank you, every single one of you, again, for all the ways in which you make me really damn happy to have started this blog in the first place. I'm telling Santa to put you all on the Nice list (unless you WANT to be on the naughty list...sometimes you get better presents that way).

::HUGS::

dear best friend,

Alyssa and I met my sophomore year of college during summer theater. Back in those days nobody in the theater department at my college would cast for me for anything and I frequently got pulled into the offices of well-meaning professors telling me to choose another profession. I came across as shy and uncertain, they were looking for "star quality" and were fairly confident I'd never make it as an actor. But that's a blog for some other time.

Alyssa's father was my professor and and the only one who ever believed in me, for which I'm still utterly grateful, and his daughter was dutifully volunteering for ushering or concessions or whatever odd job he'd talked her into. I saw her out the window, this girl, and I sort of fell in love right there on the spot. I don't know any other way to say it, but sometimes when you meet someone you know almost immediately that you want that person in your life for the rest of it and you want to get started as soon as possible, and I saw Alyssa outside that window and I knew her. I can't explain, but when we finally said hi to each other it wasn't a "nice to meet you" greeting, it was a "I know you! I've known you before and I'll know you again and thank god we found each other this time around because we've got twenty-plus years to catch up on!" kind of greeting. Luckily, Alyssa felt the exact same way.

So we became best friends, right there on the spot. And we have remained so ever since; we have never stopped laughing and talking and emailing and phoning and texting and being bluntly honest and having life-changing conversations at 2 am and crying in each other's arms when life sucks and having each others' backs when the shit hits the fan. There aren't too many days that go by where I am not completely and wholly thankful to the universe for bringing us together for yet another life to share.

And right now, my best friend is hurting, and there is not much I can do about it. First and foremost, Alyssa works for one of the most renowned Shakespeare companies in the United States for the pure love of it - finances are tight and she is paid a very small stipend on a weekly basis while working up to 18 hour days through the week and weekend to help get shows off the ground. A lot of the time, Alyssa is going out into schools in Massachusetts and directing kids in Shakespeare productions. It's a huge emotional reward with not a lot of monetary payoff, as theaters are hurting right now financially.

Here's the other thing: Alyssa is in love. With a wonderful, adorable elf-like girl named Liz who might even be able to quote Buffy better than I do, and unfortunately Liz lives in Canada. And all Alyssa wants, as Alyssa's family is spending the holiday in London without her, is to be able to spend Christmas in Canada with the girl she loves.

So she asked her friends who were going to get her Christmas gifts to instead contribute to a "Christmas in Canada" fund so she can afford to buy a plane ticket, and I convinced her to set up a paypal account. And I've been trying desperately to get my friends and family and everyone I've ever met to contribute as well, even if it's just $5, because it might not seem like $5 goes a long way, but when ten people decide to contribute $5, trust me. It goes a long way.

And on top of everything else, I just found out that Alyssa had to put the family dog, Lady, to sleep last week (you can read Alyssa's incredibly heartfelt posts about it here and here). Lady, the family dog of fifteen years, was recently diagnosed with lymph node cancer, and her body had been showing signs of slowing down and functioning less and less.

So here's my letter to my best friend.

dear best friend,

I love you. I hate feeling powerless when I see you hurting, when I see you missing the ones you love and grieving, knowing that there is not much that I can say or do to fix any of it. I'm not always really good at not wanting to fix it and I feel bad that I don't live closer so that I can't come and pick you up and take you out for a bacon cheeseburger and a strong hot chocolate. I wish I could promise that you'll get to see your girl on Christmas Day, or that I know that things are going to be alright, or that I know that one day you'll see Lady again, but we both know I can't promise those things.

What I can tell you, and promise you, is that you are loved, so incredibly fiercely, by your best friend up in LA, and I'm never going to stop trying to show you how much I adore you or trying to help you have the best life possible, because yes, it is what you deserve. You deserve so much happiness after everything you do and give to others. And I am so proud to be your friend, to know you and have your back and know that you adore me and have my back. It means the world to me.

Love,

your best friend Tracy.

UPDATE: See Alyssa's comment below (she's Radical Bradical). Whether you donated money or simply offered your amazing kindness and support of this post, I thank each and every one of you - you helped send my best friend to Canada with your love. It's all about you, guys :) And I am humbled and grateful beyond words to know each of you.