Fact #363: Be honest, be brave

That's going to be my mantra for the next two years.

In just a little over a month, I'll be starting classes in my MFA program. It's gonna be crazy and wonderful and intense. I can't even quite imagine yet how it'll feel to be knee-deep in the program. But as long as I hold onto those things, as long as I remember to bring them back when they start to slip away, I think I'll be a-ok.

It's easy to hide. It's easy to bluff or fake your way. It's hard to be open, accountable, honest. It's scary. But it's how you get to the good stuff.

So when things get challenging and I just want to lock myself in my house and eat froyo all day and never come out, these are the words I'll give myself:

Be honest, be brave. 


Til tomorrow!

Fact #348: More space

It's another post about space, folks. Deal with it.

This afternoon (after being as productive as I could reasonably expect myself to be in one day) I curled up on the couch to watch last night's episode of So You Think You Can Dance. And then this dance made me cry.



Aaaah! Tears! Emotions!

I love words and language, and I'm a little shy -- so I sometimes wonder why I didn't gravitate more towards writing than acting. (Not that you can't do both, 'cause you can.) But I think the reason I picked acting, why I love it so much, why I do it even when it makes me feel like I might barf, is because of things like that dance.

Because of bodies in space and what they can communicate.

Sometimes it's bigger than words.

(So why didn't I become a dancer instead of an actor? Well, I do still think language is pretty awesome. Also, have you seen me dance??)


Til tomorrow!

Fact #343: You learn something new every day

For example, last night I went to a play and learned a whole bunch of stuff I didn't know about the Lindbergh baby and one of the prime suspects in the case, Violet Sharp.

If you live in Pittsburgh, go see this show! Do it. It's a fascinating story, and some really lovely work by the actors.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #332: Play with me!

A few years ago I was in a production of Mr. Marmalade in Chicago. I played a little girl named Lucy, who has a somewhat strange imaginary friend named Mr. Marmalade. It was one of my favorite roles so far, and one of my favorite shows. And not just because I got to wear a tutu.

It was just an amazing challenge to get into a 4-year-old head space. To find it in my mind and body. It's easy to play youth or old age with exaggerated physicality, but to find the truth in the actions is harder. I did a lot of yoga during rehearsals and perfected my deep squat, a move you see kids do all the time but most adults wouldn't even attempt for fear of blowing out both their knees.

(I don't know this kid.)

One of my favorite parts of the show was a funny little ritual that developed between me and Marz Timms, the actor playing Mr. Marmalade. The set for the show was very simple, a series of oversize blocks that were moved around to suggest different furniture pieces. Every night before the house opened, I'd go onstage to warm up and stretch. I'd do my regular stretches, then I'd start playing around on the set, moving around on it like a kid would.

And Marz would always come play with me.

He'd chase me all around the set and I'd shriek and giggle and try to run away or crawl up on the blocks to safety.

I loved that game. It got the two of us in the same head space for the show. It connected us. And the best part was, I never said, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we did our warm up together? Maybe you pretend to chase me, and I'll pretend to run away." It just happened. And it was so much fun!

Marz is a stand up comedian in Chicago, a super talented guy, and way cooler than me. He could just as easily have done his own warm up or rolled his eyes at my ridiculous antics. But he didn't. He got up and played with me. And I think that's super awesome.

I like playing.

See? I'm having so much fun!

Til tomorrow!

Fact #315: Sundays

Growing up, this was always one of my favorite things about Sundays:

I think Bill Watterson is a genius, and he's one of my personal heroes.

What he created is brilliant. It's funny, silly, and goofy. It's irreverent. It's innocent. It's so intelligent. It's meaningful. It's from the heart. It speaks to my soul.

And he never sold it out. He respected his own work, he championed his art form, and he quit when he was done. It takes incredible integrity as an artist to do that. How many of us have run something good into the ground because we were afraid to let it go when it was done?

This is long, but very worth the read.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLED
Bill Watterson
Kenyon College Commencement
May 20, 1990

I have a recurring dream about Kenyon. In it, I’m walking to the post-office on the way to my first class at the start of the school year. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don’t have my schedule memorized, and I’m not sure which classes I’m taking, or where exactly I’m supposed to be going.

As I walk up the steps to the post-office, I realize I don’t have my box key, and in fact, I can’t remember what my box number is. I’m certain that everyone I know has written me a letter, but I can’t get them. I get more flustered and annoyed by the minute. I head back to Middle Path, racking my brains and asking myself, “How many more years until I graduate? …Wait, didn’t I graduate already?? How old AM I?” Then I wake up.

Experience is food for the brain. And four years at Kenyon is a rich meal. I suppose it should be no surprise that your brains will probably burp up Kenyon for a long time. And I think the reason I keep having the dream is because its central image is a metaphor for a good part of life: that is, not knowing where you’re going or what you’re doing.

I graduated exactly ten years ago. That doesn’t give me a great deal of experience to speak from, but I’m emboldened by the fact that I can’t remember a bit of MY commencement, and I trust that in half an hour, you won’t remember of yours either.

In the middle of my sophomore year at Kenyon, I decided to paint a copy of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” from the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of my dorm room. By standing on a chair, I could reach the ceiling, and I taped off a section, made a grid, and started to copy the picture from my art history book.

Working with your arm over your head is hard work, so a few of my more ingenious friends rigged up a scaffold for me by stacking two chairs on my bed, and laying the table from the hall lounge across the chairs and over to the top of my closet. By climbing up onto my bed and up the chairs, I could hoist myself onto the table, and lie in relative comfort two feet under my painting. My roommate would then hand up my paints,and I could work for several hours at a stretch.

The picture took me months to do, and in fact, I didn’t finish the work until very near the end of the school year. I wasn’t much of a painter then, but what the work lacked in color sense and technical flourish, it gained in the incongruity of having a High Renaissance masterpiece in a college dorm that had the unmistakable odor of old beer cans and older laundry.

The painting lent an air of cosmic grandeur to my room, and it seemed to put life into a larger perspective. Those boring, flowery English poets didn’t seem quite so important, when right above my head God was transmitting the spark of life to man.

My friends and I liked the finished painting so much in fact, that we decided I should ask permission to do it. As you might expect, the housing director was curious to know why I wanted to paint this elaboratepicture on my ceiling a few weeks before school let out. Well, you don’t get to be a sophomore at Kenyon without learning how to fabricate ideas you never had, but I guess it was obvious that my idea was being proposed retroactively. It ended up that I was allowed to paint the picture, so long as I painted over it and returned the ceiling to normal at the end of the year. And that’s what I did.

Despite the futility of the whole episode, my fondest memories of college are times like these, where things were done out of some inexplicable inner imperative, rather than because the work was demanded. Clearly, I never spent as much time or work on any authorized art project, or any poli-sci paper, as I spent on this one act of vandalism.

It’s surprising how hard we’ll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I’ve learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it’s how important playing is to creativity and happiness.My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year. If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I’ve found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I’ve had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.

We’re not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery-it recharges by running. You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of “just getting by: absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your politics and religion become matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people’s expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury.

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world,you’ll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you’ll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you’ll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems. For me, it’s been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I’ve been amazedat how one ideas leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander.I know a lot about dinosaurs now, and the information has helped me out of quite a few deadlines. A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you’ll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.

So, what’s it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don’t recommend it.

I don’t look back on my first few years out of school with much affection, and if I could have talked to you six months ago, I’d have encouraged you all to flunk some classes and postpone this moment as long as possible. But now it’s too late.

Unfortunately, that was all the advice I really had. When I was sitting where you are, I was one of the lucky few who had a cushy job waiting for me. I’d drawn political cartoons for the Collegian for four years, and the Cincinnati Post had hired me as an editorial cartoonist. All my friends were either dreading the infamous first year of law school, or despondent about their chances of convincing anyone that a history degree had any real application outside of academia.

Boy, was I smug.

As it turned out, my editor instantly regretted his decision to hire me.By the end of the summer, I’d been given notice; by the beginning of winter, I was in an unemployment line; and by the end of my first year away from Kenyon, I was broke and living with my parents again. You can imagine how upset my dad was when he learned that Kenyon doesn’t give refunds.

Watching my career explode on the launchpad caused some soul searching. I eventually admitted that I didn’t have what it takes to be a good political cartoonist, that is, an interest in politics, and  I returned to my first love, comic strips.

For years I got nothing but rejection letters, and I was forced to accept a real job.

A REAL job is a job you hate. I designed car ads and grocery ads in the windowless basement of a convenience store, and I hated every single minute of the 4-1/2 million minutes I worked there. My fellow prisoner sat work were basically concerned about how to punch the time clock at the perfect second where they would earn another 20 cents without doing any work for it.

It was incredible: after every break, the entire staff would stand around in the garage where the time clock was, and wait for that last click. And after my used car needed the head gasket replaced twice, I waited in the garage too.

It’s funny how at Kenyon, you take for granted that the people around you think about more than the last episode of Dynasty. I guess that’s what it means to be in an ivory tower.

Anyway, after a few months at this job, I was starved for some life of the mind that, during my lunch break, I used to read those poli-sci books that I’d somehow never quite finished when I was here. Some of those books were actually kind of interesting. It was a rude shock to see just how empty and robotic life can be when you don’t care about what you’re doing, and the only reason you’re there is to pay the bills.

Thoreau said,

“the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

That’s one of those dumb cocktail quotations that will strike fear in your heart as you get older. Actually, I was leading a life of loud desperation.

When it seemed I would be writing about “Midnite Madness Sale-abrations” for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea.

I tell you all this because it’s worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It’s a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you’ll probably take a few.

I still haven’t drawn the strip as long as it took me to get the job. To endure five years of rejection to get a job requires either a faith in oneself that borders on delusion, or a love of the work. I loved the work.

Drawing comic strips for five years without pay drove home the point that the fun of cartooning wasn’t in the money; it was in the work. This turned out to be an important realization when my break finally came.

Like many people, I found that what I was chasing wasn’t what I caught.I’ve wanted to be a cartoonist since I was old enough to read cartoons,and I never really thought about cartoons as being a business. It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a blood sucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I’d be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions.

To make a business decision, you don’t need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works.

As my comic strip became popular, the pressure to capitalize on that popularity increased to the point where I was spending almost as much time screaming at executives as drawing. Cartoon merchandising is a $12billion dollar a year industry and the syndicate understandably wanted a piece of that pie. But the more I though about what they wanted to do with my creation, the more inconsistent it seemed with the reasons I draw cartoons.

Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you’re really buying into someone else’s system of values, rules and rewards.

The so-called “opportunity” I faced would have meant giving up my individual voice for that of a money-grubbing corporation. It would have meant my purpose in writing was to sell things, not say things. My pride in craft would be sacrificed to the efficiency of mass production and the work of assistants. Authorship would become committee decision. Creativity would become work for pay. Art would turn into commerce. In short, money was supposed to supply all the meaning I’d need.

What the syndicate wanted to do, in other words, was turn my comic strip into everything calculated, empty and robotic that I hated about my old job. They would turn my characters into television hucksters and T-shirt sloganeers and deprive me of characters that actually expressed my own thoughts.

On those terms, I found the offer easy to refuse. Unfortunately, the syndicate also found my refusal easy to refuse, and we’ve been fighting for over three years now. Such is American business, I guess, where the desire for obscene profit mutes any discussion of conscience.

You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires and needs, but if we don’t discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for,we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.

Many of you will be going on to law school, business school, medical school, or other graduate work, and you can expect the kind of starting salary that, with luck, will allow you to pay off your own tuition debts within your own life time.

But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed,and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.

Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it’s going to come in handy all the time.

I think you’ll find that Kenyon touched a deep part of you. These have been formative years. Chances are, at least of your roommates has taught you everything ugly about human nature you ever wanted to know.

With luck, you’ve also had a class that transmitted a spark of insight or interest you’d never had before. Cultivate that interest, and you may find a deeper meaning in your life that feeds your soul and spirit. Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you’ve learned, but in the questions you’ve learned how to ask yourself.

Graduating from Kenyon, I suspect you’ll find yourselves quite well prepared indeed.
I wish you all fulfillment and happiness. Congratulations on your achievement.

Til tomorrow!

Fact #311: Finding balance

This is how I'd like to approach acting --

I'm not performing open heart surgery. I'm not dismantling bombs. I'm not developing greener technology or protecting endangered species or pulling people out of burning buildings.

What I do is not more important than any of those things.

What I do is sometimes very silly.

But it is important.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #299: It's fun being good at stuff

The difficult should become habitual, the habitual, easy, the easy, beautiful. -- S.M. Volonski (from Stanislavski)

It always cracks me up when a massage client says with surprise, "Wow, you found all my knots!" Um, of course I did. I'm a trained professional. 

But when I think about it, that actually means a lot.

I remember a moment early on in my MT training program when the instructor was teaching us how to feel imbalances in the body. I was working on one of my fellow students and he asked me which side of their back was more restricted. I moved my hands around in circles (very much like the Karate Kid practicing his wax on/wax off) then I randomly guessed it was the left side. Honestly, I had no idea.

Well, I do now. After massaging hundreds of people, after working on thousands of muscles, my hands feel things totally differently. I don't even have to think about it consciously, it's second nature now -- your knots are like magnets to my fingers.

That's the fun of getting really good at something. At first it's hard, but you practice and you practice until it's in your bones.  And it becomes easy. Then it becomes something else. It becomes intuitive. It becomes beautiful.

On a not-entirely-unrelated note, I'm so ridiculously, amazingly excited that I get to study acting non-stop for the next two years! (Acting and massage, people. I will always find a way to connect them.)


Til tomorrow!

Fact #262: I don't know what to say about today, again

But luckily, lots of other people say smart things all the time, and I can quote them. Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Til tomorrow.

Fact #257: Yoga times a million

I want to be able to do this when I'm 50.

Actually, I want to be able to do it sooner than that. I mean, I'm not really setting a goal to wake up on my 50th birthday and suddenly, out of nowhere, be able to do this pose. What I'd like is to be able to do it before then, and still do it when I'm 50.

Today was the last day of my 30 day yoga pass at Amazing Yoga. I didn't make it every single day, but I went close to 25 times. And I'm not gonna lie, I feel awesome. Amazing. Bendy and strong. Full of breath.

So now comes the part where I have to get a little more proactive about keeping this amount of yoga in my life. I totally can't afford another monthly pass -- I'm supposed to be saving my dollars for moving expenses. I'm trying to get into their volunteer program, so I could go to one free class a week. And they have some discounted rates for classes with teachers in training.

But the other thing I'm gonna have to do is start doing yoga at home. But, like, really doing it. Doing it with focus and intention, the way I do when I'm at the studio. There are a ton of yoga podcasts of 60 or 90 classes, good ones too. I just need to get out my little mat, find the warmest spot in my house, and do it.

Until I can do scorpion pose.

And when I can do that pose, keep doing it.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #248: That's why

I saw Precious Little at City Theatre this evening. I auditioned for that show a few months ago, so I was already familiar with the story. But seeing it on its feet was so lovely. It was funny and smart and asked questions but didn't beat you over the head with answers.

And it was a great reminder to me: That's why I do this. That's why I keep doing this.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #231: Facing the right way

Some wise words to live by.

"...each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up. All we need to do is stop pounding on the door that just closed, turn around -- which puts the door behind us -- and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our souls. The door closed kept us from entering a room, but what now lies before us is the rest of reality." - Parker J. Palmer

This is a lesson I think I'll have to learn over and over throughout my life. It's in my nature to keep banging on the door. Turn around, Laurel!


Til tomorrow.

Fact #216: Shattering

I like reading. I like language. I think it's magical (that's right, magical!) how simple words arranged in the right order can carry so much meaning and reveal such deep truths. For example, this quote:

Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition.

-- Florida Scott-Maxwell

I love that. It's true, it's poetic, and it explains so succinctly why life is simultaneously wonderful and difficult.

So go ahead, life. Shatter me.

PS. I'm also very interested in being shattered after I die. Because it's earth-friendly, and also it reminds me of that scene from Terminator 2.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #202: I like this

TED Talks are awesome.

As a person (and as an actor) I think this talk is so insightful. And lovely.






Til tomorrow!

Fact #199: I love Calvin and Hobbes

Love love love love love.









Love.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #194: Realism vs Pessimism

I'm a very practical person. Empirical. Logical. I always have been. And that's cool by me.

But there's a point where being realistic crosses the line into being pessimistic. And that's not cool by me.

Realistically, I know that I'm endeavoring to build a career in a field where the odds of making a full-time living are pretty low. Where I'll hear 'no' more often than I'll hear 'yes'. Where I'll sometimes spend more time looking for a job than having one.

And those are facts. They're backed up by hard data and statistics. So I can't fault myself for recognizing the truth. For being practical enough to see that as much as I believe in myself (and I do!), so do the hundreds of other people competing for the same jobs I am. And the honest truth is that not all of us will get the job.

But that's where I have to draw the line between realism and pessimism. Because the other truth is, it's not really about the odds. Or at least, it's not just about them. It's also about the journey. About defining success my own way. It's about finding a way to see the odds, to accept the cold hard truths -- and then open my arms and just smile.

This helps. :)

Til tomorrow!

Fact #182: Punch. Lucy Punch.

As a lady who is an actor, I'll admit that sometimes I'm a harsh judge of other ladies who are actors.

I can watch a male actor and think, "Wow, what a great performance." But watching a woman playing a part that (ostensibly) I could also play, there's an impulse sometimes to think, "Meh, I could do better."

I'm not proud of that, but those are the facts of life.

But the upside is, when I watch an actress whose performance just blows me away, I know she must be really super-duper amazing because her awesomeness has overwhelmed my natural bitchy instincts. Instead of thinking, "Oh, she was all right... I guess," I think, "Holy crap, I wanna be like her!!!"

That's the reaction I had when I watched Dinner for Schmucks the other night. Lucy Punch, a British actress who plays Paul Rudd's stalker, pretty much walked away with every scene she was in.


She was so outrageous and honest and committed and funny and fearless. It was so fun to watch her. The only other thing I've seen her in is Hot Fuzz, but I hope she gets lots more work because she totally deserves it.

Also, her name is Lucy Punch, which is awesome.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #176: Goals vs Resolutions

I wrote a list of all my goals for 2011. There are a lot of them.

Some are pretty easily achievable, some are a lot less so. Some are so silly I barely managed to write them down. Some are pretty much out of my hands -- but I wrote them down anyway because if they do happen, it would be a delicious pleasure to check them off the list.

I made lots of goals but only one resolution. For me, they're two very different things.

Goals = benchmarks. Specific achievements to be reached and surpassed.
Resolutions = day to day changes. A shift in my approach to life.

My resolution for 2011 is to be more active. I don't mean working out more (although I'm about to start training for a spring half marathon, yay!), but being more active in general. In all aspects of my life. Spending a little less time thinking and a little more time doing.

In layman's terms, gettin' shit done.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #134: Get it, grab it

If the purpose of life is to live it . . . then get it, grab it, try and put something positive into it. If fear gets in the way, just push fear back. -- Eddie Izzard

I just finished watching Believe, the documentary about Eddie Izzard. Besides the fact that he's so hilarious that whenever they played clips from his old shows I almost didn't want them to go back to the movie, it's also a really interesting and inspiring story.

I'm a sucker for a good biography. Retrospect is so interesting -- to look back on someone's beginnings, to see the path they took that led them to where they are now.

I'm developing a philosophy of stubbornness. Of hanging on. Of refusing to give up. Of insisting, not necessarily on getting things my way all the time, but on at least trying them my way. And if that doesn't work, redefining my way and trying again.

That's how all the best stories seem to go.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #130: No, DO sweat the small stuff

You know that book, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff?

Well, I'm thinking about writing a spin-off book called, DO Sweat the Small Stuff.

I totally understand the concept of letting go of the things that don't matter. Not getting sucked into a vortex of anger for the rest of the day just because some jerk stole your parking space, not flipping out about some useless object getting broken. . . I get that.

I'd argue, though, that sometimes the little things are worth worrying about, caring about, getting drawn into. If I 'don't sweat the small stuff', I feel like it's a slippery slope to not sweating at all. (Okay, maybe 'sweat' is the wrong word. My whole goal in life is to sweat less. I have an extra strong antiperspirant for just that exact purpose.)

But if you don't sweat the small stuff, can you still savor it? I think I'm okay with worrying about ridiculous little things sometimes -- so long as I also get to be overjoyed and surprised and amazed by other ridiculous little things.

For example, I was on my way to an early rehearsal the other day and looked up to see this.


(That's actually the exact building I was headed to, but it still took me by surprise. It was just stunning, rising out of the fog.)

So I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and took a picture of it. It was a little thing, but it made my day.


Til tomorrow!

Fact #119: We do difficult things because we can

My friend Troy ran the New York City marathon today. I'm so proud of him! He's a crazy powerhouse, he runs like the wind and if they didn't put a finish line in front of him, I'm pretty sure he'd never stop.

I've done three marathons myself (Chicago twice and Fort Collins once). Honestly, I'm not sure I'll ever do another one. At the moment I'm quite content running for fun, doing half marathons and other shorter races. I'm enjoying running with no goals.

But there's nothing quite like a marathon -- for the dedication it takes, the will it takes, the unbelievable feeling of accomplishment to stand beyond the finish line and look back at what you just did.

And it's one of the most incredible ways to experience a city. 26.2 miles covers a lot of ground, a lot of streets and neighborhoods. And you've got nothing else to do but keep moving forward and taking it all in.

En route to Chicago Marathon #2

So.. we'll see. Maybe I've got one or two more marathons up my sleeve. (Or should I say up my pants? Nope, I shouldn't.)

And in the meantime I'm very happy being the loudest and most annoying cheerleader for anyone who takes on this crazy, amazing challenge! Go, Troy, go!


Til tomorrow.