Inside Private Lives

I try not to go see theater in L.A. for various reasons, the biggest one being I am usually very disappointed in the end product and feel like I wasted my money.

On Sunday I got the chance to go see a new show "Inside Private Lives", produced by a friend of a friend, Kristin Stone and this time I left the theater very, very happy.

It's not your usual play (and this is part of why I love it so) - the whole idea behind the show is audience participation. Not your usual type though, the actor presents a 20th-century figure (that they have researched) in a 10 minute monologue. Now, at the end of the monologue (or at the beginning depending on the character and amount of controversy they caused) the audience gets to talk to them, ask them questions, make statements. There is no way I could even convey to you how interesting and fun this was. I was so impressed with the amount of research the actors had done, and how well they had "cast" themselves as the people they portrayed. I left the theater wanting to know more about each and every person I had just watched come alive before me. And to me, that's a ringing endorsement - if you can reach someone and make them want to learn more.

So, their show has been extended through the end of January. Please, please, please take some time and check them out.

So Many Things

I have had so many ideas for posts lately, just no desire to actually sit down and write them. Until I read this.

Which reminded me of the time I got pulled over on my way home from work. I was so freaked out because I had just bought the car, I didn't have complete proof of insurance on me, and I have only been pulled over a couple of times in my life so I still get all nervous and freaked out by it. Plus, I had absolutely no idea why I was being pulled over, well actually, directed to the side of the road by an officer waving a flashlight is more accurate.

So, I sit there and try not to freak out and try to be as nice and helpful as possible. Turns out I had turned right on a "No Right Turn from 4-7pm" street. I apologized to the officer and tried to explain that I didn't usually take this way home, so I wasn't familiar with the streets (which was actually true!). He didn't really care and asked for my information. I handed it over, trying not to cry at the fact that my insurance was already going to go up with my new car and now it was going to go up even more with this ticket and how stupid was I?

Anyway, I sit and wait for the guy to come back with my ticket. As he saunters up, I notice that there is another car in front of me, obviously pulled over for the same reason.

"Well, it looks like your lucky day." The officer explains as he hands back my stuff. "We are being called over to Rancho Park for a suspicious persons call. So I'm not going to give you a ticket, just a verbal warning."

I explode.

"But, can you do me a favor? The guy in front of you is getting a ticket. So can you sit here for a moment after we leave and pretend we ticketed you? I don't want him to get angry."

I am dumbfounded.

"Sure!" I reply. For not giving me a ticket, I could even produce real tears if you would like.

And that is the weirdest traffic non-ticket I have ever received.

Thanks and Giving

The bags are partially packed and we are almost off to visit The Families for Thanksgiving. Hopefully we don't get snowed in or anything, although the forecast calls mostly for rain. Rain and highs in the 40's. The Boyfriend and I are bracing ourselves for freezing our bums off!

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

At the Moment

These are the things that are making me happy right now:

1. It is supposed to snow on Sunday in Washington and we leave Monday night to celebrate Thanksgiving there! An actual Thanksgiving with cold weather and snow. Man, I am excited!

2. Emmitt Smith won "Dancing with the Stars". Man, it's a little sad how happy that makes me. The only other thing I have to say about this show is that if you watched it and didn't walk away thinking what a sweet, humble guy Joey Lawrence was, you are cold and heartless.

3. I bought The Boyfriend 2 presents yesterday, The Muppets Christmas Movie and the Very Merry Trio from Hallmark. You know, the one with the singing/dancing snowman and penguins. It's awesome and he was so surprised! I love surprising people. Especially The Boyfriend because I don't pull it off very often, I get too excited and ruin it. But not this time!

4. The Project is shaping up nicely and I can't wait to show it to everyone.

What a Morning

I go through phases where I am extremely clumsy, dropping things, running into doorways, tripping over absolutely anything. It's very maddening, I get really annoyed at the time.

Anyway, this morning, as I walked in to work and noticed someone had yet again printed out something completely NOT work related on the color printer, the big boss walks by - as in my boss's boss.

I stop him and let him know we are having a big problem with people printing out huge personal things on the color printer that don't need to be in color, and since the toner for the color printer costs a fortune, could we please let everyone know to stop doing this.

I show him the papers I was referring to.

"Oh, these are actually mine." He responds.

I immediately die. I apologize. Then I remind him his assistant is out for the day and I will be covering for her.

I walk into the kitchen and begin describing what just happened to my fellow assistant who is in there getting coffee.

I spill 32 ounces of water on the floor that I had just filled into my waterjug. We both laugh and she very nicely helps me clean it up.

So I had a bit of a rough start today. At least I laughed while it was happening, and I am still laughing.

Relaxing

I can't think of a better way to spend the first Sunday I've had off in I don't know how long (and by off I mean we didn't meet about The Project and we didn't have plans to exercise) than by spending it with a friend I haven't seen in forever.

Especially when said friend is Mom to a very cute 5 month old girl and hanging out means brunch on the porch and good conversation and playing with said 5 month old.

So thanks Laura and Sophie. The Boyfriend and I had a wonderful, wonderful time!

You Know What?

I think I am hooked on this running thing. I bet you never would have guess, right? The new plan is to run every other day (instead of 3 days a week) because I want to get more running under my belt. Practice makes perfect! Or something.

The Boyfriend already has the running thing down way more than I do. He's going further and further every time.

So yeah, we are taking a break from the filming of Life from the Inside, for the holiday season and so that we have time to build a website and marketing ideas and such. It's going to be awesome, I can't wait for people to see it. I am so proud of this, I finally feel like I am getting my act together as to what I want to do with my life. Or, maybe that I am finally growing up.

I don't know, I haven't actually thought that far into it.

On my way back in from lunch, a co-worker stopped me and let me know that she is heading home because she has "plumbing problems" and I laughed and said "Sorry, that's crappy." thinking that she meant womanly plumbing problems.
So imagine my surprise when she continued with, "So I am heading home to wait for the plumber."
It's not that funny in the re-telling, but it was really funny to me at the time.

Like a Baby in a Blanket

Oh yeah! Harass new parents enough, and they will cave in and send you a picture of the new guy in a blanket!

Look! He is smiling - even he knows how cute he is.

Running Complete

So today was our last run of the Couch to 5k Program. It went okay for me. I have definitely improved greatly, but I have not yet run an actual 5k - I'm close, I run about 2 and 3/4 miles in the 30 minutes. Today was hard because I am sore from our shoot this weekend (who knew standing around for 14 hours could make your muscles hurt?) so it was especially painful to run this morning, but I did have a nice breakthrough - there are actual parts of the run I don't remember because I was so lost in thought.

I mean, I had to actually look back and check where I was because I didn't remember a good chunk of one side of the park we run around! That's the first time that has ever happened and it was nice.

Welcome

Welcome to the world Luca! It's about freaking time you showed up.

And can I just tell you that I am plotting already because they have bathed him, which means he already smells like new baby and I am trying to figure out a way for them to bottle his new baby smell and sent it to me?! If we don't get to see him in November I will just freaking sob hysterically because this is the baby I knitted the blanket for, so he will always have a place in my heart - especially since that was the first blanket I have ever made and probably will ever make again. Even though there are no pictures of him IN the blanket yet....(hint, hint) (Yes I know he's only 1 day old - I am a demanding blanket giver).

Anyhoo, a pic of the darling guy.
















Wow, my friend are parents. This is weird. I wonder when they will buy their first minivan?

This means I am old enough for most of my friends to be past getting married and on to having children. Meanwhile, The Boyfriend and I are still laughing and dodging the "When are you two getting married?" question.

Oh well, back to the fun stuff, like your friends having babies you can play with!

Feliz Cumpleaños Luca!

P.S.

See, this is what happens when I decide to dash off a post in my last 10 minutes of work. I forget that I got to celebrate birthdays with Keith and Rachel! They had an awesome bar-b-que (which I love because they always serve the most delicious food!) and I got to SEE THEM, which lately happens way to few and far between for my liking.

We are shooting the second part of our project this coming weekend and things are ramping up. I am very excited about it as it's pretty darn funny and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

And, The Boyfriend and I just booked tickets (courtesy my Dad's never-ending frequent flyer miles) to spend a whirlwind trip visiting family at Thanksgiving. If we get to see everyone we want (I'm looking at you Jared and Tosha - what, too busy planning a birth to return my phone call?!), it should be a very fun, albeit busy, trip.

Quickly

1. I am running faster and better than ever! On Tuesday, I made it all the way around the park to the car! This morning, I made it past the car which roughly means 2.5 miles. Soon, I will be running every damn 5k I can register for!

2. I wish Jared and Tosha's baby would hurry up and get here.

3. I am going to see "Snakes on a Plane" right after work. I hate snakes, but it should be fun.

4. The Boyfriend and I went to Knott Scary Farm with Steve (who is the MOST FUN PERSON EVER to go to KnottScary Farm with!) and I had a blast! Even more fun than last year - which was the first year we had ever been - I don't understand why The Monsters love me, it must be because I scream at the drop of a hat and then laugh maniacally. Really, the only way to enjoy something like that is to completely give yourself over to the fact that people are going to jump at you all night and usually it's fun.

I think that's all for now. I had more stuff to write about, but I can't remember what the heck it was.

Recovering

So as pretty much all of you know by now, we spent all last weekend shooting the beginning of our project. It went amazingly well.

I spent most of this week catching up on sleep and just generally fighting off a general malaize. Oh and also dealing with the fact that L is leaving me for another job. I am so sad that I will not have my silly friend at work anymore, but I am very happy that she will be much more appreciated at her new job than she is here. Well, except that NO ONE will appreciate her afternoon giggles as much as I have. She has saved me from perpetual boredom more often than I can even tell you.

There is not much going on here to write about. We are plugging away at Part 2 of our Project which will film in October. I am so excited about this because I am co-directing with Kathy for this go-round of filming, it should be pretty darn awesome.

And finally a running update. How exciting you say! Well it has definitely been going better. Who would have guessed that running might suck when you are PMS'ing? Gosh!
I have been definitely improving and not beating myself up if I have a bad day of it. I try to enjoy being outside early in the morning and being able to work out with my own thoughts for company. It's quite nice.

Also, thanks for all the encouragement I have been getting - here and in real life. You guys are so sweet to me!

Bubble Wrap

I've had a very odd week.

First, while preparing a costume piece for the upcoming project The Boyfriend and I are working on, I burned the inner part of my right forearm on the iron. The iron I had just used and set down and then decided to try and reach around it to grab something.

Then, I ran the vacuum cleaner over my bare feet and ripped most of the toenail off of my big-toe. The Boyfriend jumped to my rescue and wrapped band-aids around the toe before it could bleed everywhere. I didn't run the next day because my toe was still throbbing.

My teeth on the upper right side have been hurting all week, for what seems like no reason at all. I actually think this is a side effect of my allergies going crazy lately.

To finish the week (so far) while running this morning a bug flew into my mouth and lodged itself in my throat. Coughing wasn't helping, so my body decided to gag. Since I didn't have anything in my stomach I kept gagging until I threw up spit (or something that was not stomach bile because I KNOW what that tastes like).

I threw up twice.

Luckily no one was really around to see this happening, except for some woman walking her dog who walked past me right afterwards and gave me an odd look.

I didn't care.

I did cry at the end of my run because I just feel like I suck at running. I am not progressing as fast as I would like (or at all), so therefore I get really down on myself. I don't want to quit, I just want to be good at it instantly. Is that really too much to ask?

Also, could I please just lose some weight already? And could I whine about more things?

Oh My

I have been feeling quite a bit under the weather lately, so in lieu of posting any real thoughts today, I am going to post pictures of the baby blanket I made for J&T.
















This was my first attempt at something that wasn't a scarf and I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Plus, I thought it would be fitting to give this to the people who actually got me started knitting as they bought me my first set of knitting needles, and the same brand of yarn I used to make the blanket with (it's pretty darn fantastic yarn!).

Now I am off to whine to The Boyfriend about how I feel like crap again. He loves it when I do that. Happy weekend!

Running (Wo)Man

This morning was my 3rd run of the week, which means I have a break until Sunday.

Running is going pretty darn well. I mean, it hurts - right now my right calf is very sore -but I feel so happy and calm and relaxed after running outside (I am such a hippy!) that I completely understand the whole "runners euphoria" thing. I am really getting into this.

Next week will be a whole new adventure as we start the next segment of training and The Boyfriend will not be slowing himself down to keep pace with me. The Dude is just too tall for me to keep up with (at least until I lose some weight!) so I will be on my own starting Sunday.

Yesterday I did a 3 mile walk at lunch with L, and we saw Danny Bonaduce walking with a pack of people, trying very hard to get noticed.

Man, he is a short dude.

Running

So, The Boyfriend and I have decided to start running as a new form of exercise, and a new way for me to avoid the gym as much as possible.

We are doing the Couch to 5k Running Program, with out ultimate goal being able to run 3 miles, 3-4 times a week and lift weights at the gym 2 days a week.

Sunday was our first day and I am happy to report that all went as well as can be expected when you are not a runner (as I am). I am sore today, but I am sore in my stomach area mostly. Which is good because that is where I need a lot of work exercise-wise.

I will keep you updated as to how well I take to this. My father is a runner - he has completed 2 marathons and usually runs 6 miles a day.

Man I hope this running thing is genetic.

So Long, Farewell

Today is Kathy's last day at the office where I also work. I like to believe I am not the reason she is leaving, but who the hell knows, I can be difficult.

Kathy and I met doing extra work on the film "First Daughter." It was my first and only experience doing extra work, but that story is for a later time. It was nice to have someone normal to talk to (normal people were few and far between), and she helped me get through two TERRIBLE nights. The best part was when we realized that Kathy worked at the same place I was going to be interviewing with. So, again, she gave me pointers and was very friendly when I came for my interview.

That was 3 years ago and since I met Kathy she has been my friend, my confidante, my co-star, my co-producer, my co-worker. What else can you say about someone who forwards you obnoxious voice-mails from family members to laugh at? Or buys your Boyfriend a Chafing dish because you tell her that he wants one for his birthday and you won't buy it for him? I mean honestly, who WANTS a chafing dish?

So, even though I am sad that I won't be able to walk 2 feet and talk to her whenever I want to, I will still see her often. Whether she likes it or not.

This is a picture of us on set of our short film "The Social Club". I'm putting this one up because I like this picture of myself. See, difficult.


Photo by Rachel.

Happy Actual 33rd Birthday

So, as some of you may remember, The Boyfriend thought he was turning 33 last year and was pretty unhappy about it.
Well now there is no escaping it - this year HE IS 33! Go and let him know what an old man he is.

I mean, look at him, doesn't he look old?!




And don't I look pretty?!

Sorry, I just like that picture.

Happy birthday, Boyfriend. I hope you have an awesome day. Just try not to break your hip.

Knit

So, I finished my first ever non-scarf knitting project! It is a present, so I have to wait until J&T receive it before I can post any photo's.

In other news, I am knitting another scarf. This one is for the boyfriend. I'm sure he will appreciate it now that it has cooled down below 90 degrees around here.