Good Actor Week!

Sometimes the stars and planets align here in LA and you get to enjoy an awesome actor week. I had such a week this month. Not only did I get to shoot a short film, I went to the Ovation Awards where I walked the red carpet and was surprised to discover that I am actually a part of a really great theater community. There was a good deal of unexpected recognition of my work (and of myself) that, I am almost loathe to admit, REALLY felt validating.

It can be embarrassing to admit that you need outside validation. We should be able to find within ourselves whatever it is that makes us continue. That said, there is nothing like the rush of a stranger coming up to you and saying "I saw you in xyz and you were amazing!" It's kind of awesome, especially when said person is a bigwig in an industry in which you still feel like an outsider.

photo credit: Ryan Miller

Big Breakin' , produced by Twistville, shot Jan.14-17. It was a BLAST. What happens when a community center dance class is given the opportunity to audition for a big music video? Chaos of the best kind. Throw in a teacher with ties to Paula Abdul, a rival group of dancers and a bunch of "semi-pros" trying to get in on the teacher's connections and you have a situation rife with conflict. Mattio Martinez was our fantastic director and Mike Esperanza our wonderful choreographer. I look forward to working with both of them again!


Finally, I had a breakthrough in my constant struggle to understand my family dynamic, and I was able to achieve that through acting as well. While working through a scene in class, my wonderful coach (Richard Seyd) complimented me on my ability to stay strong and not back down in the face of what were pretty strong views coming at me. I did a good job with it and felt as if I had held my ground. On the drive home I suddenly realized that this standing of my ground was why my family found me so "bitchy" and hard to deal with on this last trip to the compound. I've spent my entire life swallowing my opinions and feelings around them, so when I actually spoke up this time around, I was being a bitch and selfish. The challenge now lies in how to deal with that. I do not want a repeat of this last visit. It was no fun for anyone, yet I do want to hold onto my sense of self. I need to find a way to do so without getting in the face of people who don't want to change. It will be a challenge for sure, but one that I think, going in with knowledge and self-awareness, I can meet.

New Year

I started a post while visiting my family entitled patience, about trying to hold onto my sense of self and soul while with my family under stressful circumstances. I abandoned the post much like I abandoned myself while there. I had a pretty horrid trip to my family compound (yes, my sister's house is like a compound) over the holidays and am still trying to recover, both emotionally and even more importantly, spiritually. I feel a little broken, and incredibly sad, as my own inability to handle things made the trip much worse than it needed to be. This new year is not starting out with the bang that I would have liked. I'm beginning in a place of digging out, of trying to gain some equilibrium. I wanted to send out a newsletter listing a new TV role and maybe a movie. Instead I am reading other actors' newsletters and Facebook updates, feeling jealous and small. Not attractive. I am working on patience, on tolerance and on a various host of other attributes which should help me become a better person and move me beyond the paralyzing inertia that all of this self hatred engenders.

So, in that vein, I've been looking at the various ways that people re-invent in the new year, which to be real, is just another date on the calender. "100 Days of Excellence" is one that I liked, but what happens after the 100 days? Do all of the resolutions and re-arranging of one's life really elicit change? I have such rituals to start each year; a new dream board, a new journal, a quiet evening deciding what I want to accomplish. I should have listed the accomplishments of 2010, as there were many of which I am proud. I should have set the stage for even more this year. However, I skipped all of the familiar routines this year, spending New Year's Eve watching "The Good Wife", then going to sleep early. Maybe I should have stuck to the ritual, but it seems as if there must be some other thing that will set this year apart, make it really fly. Or, maybe there isn't. January 1 is simply a date on the calender. Nothing more and it is all a game, this yearly reinvention that just leads up back to ourselves, flaws and all.....

I don't really have a close for this post...which might be good. Inspiration is in an unfinished sentence, story or song....I'm leaving room open for inspiration.

Fear

I didn't know how to title this post, but the emotion that keeps catching me unawares is fear. Fear of the future, of the unknown, but even more than that, of the known. Fear of returning to the awful time that my dad was dying of pancreatic cancer. The repeating chorus in my head just keeps saying, "I can't."

My mom is currently in the hospital. She broke her leg. I should say, more accurately, that her leg broke. She did nothing traumatic to it, her femur simply snapped in half. The femur. The strongest bone in the body. That is not supposed to happen. So, when something completely inexplicable happens, where does your mind go? Mine, perhaps after lots of doomsday practice, goes to the darkest place possible. The tests, so far, indicate otherwise. A CT scan of suspicious spots came back negative, the surgeon said that the bone looks, aside from the fact of it being in two pieces rather than one, healthy. A biopsy was taken and we don't yet know the results, but all indications are that it will come back clean as well.

That said, my body is tense with dread. I am terrified that we are already at that place where all of these horrid decisions are going to have to be made. And the less mature and less generous parts of me are jealous. Jealous that my sister is there and will get the saint award for helping her through this horrid time. ( I seem to forget that I received no such award when I was there for my parents when my dad was dying. And really, who would want it? That time was awful.) I also feel sad, and left out and frustrated. I don't want my information second hand. I need to be in on the meetings and the decisions and the day to day of it all. My controlling type AAA personality can't handle the distance and the fact that she is in charge of everything. My younger sister is making the decisions that neither of us want, but that I should be making.

There is also the fact that my mom is in a lot of pain. A lot. Breaking your femur, then having it put back together with rods and screws, is incredibly painful. Even under normal circumstances, my mom does not handle pain well. She doesn't know how to communicate with doctors, saying that it is all off the chart rather than setting a base and moving from there. This eventually makes even the most patient of them ignore her. It makes us ignore her. And I think it contributed to the misdiagnosis of this injury. She went the doctor a few days prior to the critical break and he sent her home. There are few things more heartbreaking than seeing someone in unbearable pain. Especially someone that you love. My relationship with my mother is complicated and messed up, but I would never wish upon her or anyone else the type of pain that she has been tortured with over the last several days. The doctors seem to have it under control now, but it has been difficult. And talk about the guilt.

Speaking of guilt, a few days prior to our world rearranging, my sister and niece were out shopping. Mention was make of Chanukah dinner and my niece asked if there would be "a lot of presents and gilt (meaning gelt)." The response was "I don't know about presents, but yes, guilt will be there in abundance." If we only knew.....

Thanksgiving Day (plus an awesome review!!)

I've been looking forward to this day for weeks now, my first day with no commitments in MONTHS! Literally. I lasted until noon being lazy and solo then escaped to the gym. Now I'm back in my fairy cottage, contemplating the rest of the day.

Thanksgiving is a hard day for me--my former crazy and current shy and slightly neurotic selves combine, waking up to a day that sits on me, loaded with possible pitfalls. I've yet to negotiate this day well in public, and usually find I fare best staying home, away from family drama and well meaning but honestly, clueless friends. It's not a perfect solution. I often feel lonely and like a social misfit, but I find that preferable to being triggered by the layers of food and family and all. It's cowardly I admit; self preservation often can be. It usually upsets people when you say you are spending the day alone. It's almost unpatriotic, certainly not "normal." They take it personally, which it isn't. It's just my way of holding on to what keeps me sane. Routine, work and solitude.

I do take the day to recognize what has changed in my life; what keeps the crazy in check. I have a lot to be grateful for this year. I love my work: dancing, teaching, performing, choreographing! All of it is so fantastic. We got our second awesome review for The Limitations of Genetic Technology. Backstage West lists us as a critic's pick! Read it here. How awesome is that?? Two big hits in a row. I also have a few great teaching jobs. I love love love my kids at the Performing Arts Center. I am finding my way with the kids at Gabriella Charter School, finding new ways each day to reach them and inspire them. Some days are better than others, but it's definitely something to be excited about. My beautiful little muses at Centre Stage Dance both inspire me and give me more and more confidence as a choreographer. I have some truly awesome friends. Awesome. And my tiny little family is pretty cool too. There is a long way to go in making this life actually one that works, but I'm so far from where I was just a few years ago that life is mostly good.

And that's where I'm at this Thanksgiving. Grateful for what is there and hopeful that there is more.....

Global Cytodynamics: Make People Younger

Global Cytodynamics: Make People Stronger

Global Cytodynamics: Our Product Is People