Hello (20)12, Hello (20)13, Hello Love or How I Catch Y'all Up On Over Three Weeks Of My Life

Where to begin? The past two weeks have been pretty crazy. I guess I should tell you how the end of tour turned out.

Santa's Workshop was just down the street of our last performance venue. It was a photo opportunity that couldn't be passed up.

     I’m not going to lie; performing a show at 3:00 when I had to be on a plane at 5:30 was very stressful. Not to mention the fact that I had to bow and immediately run off stage and change out of my fat suit as quickly as humanly (elfly?) possible and jump into a car with a man whom I had just met to rush me to the airport 20 minutes away and make my flight. But Bruce turned out to be such an interesting, wonderful person. He told me how he had performed for decades in Chicago as an opera singer and actor we had a lot to talk about: the fact that we both know Ed Sobel, family acceptance of our life/career choices, tough audiences, and how ultimately rewarding this job is. I had just met this man but I hugged him several times before rushing down to security screening. I just found out that I am on the next touring show so hopefully I will bump into him again. Sometimes you meet the sweetest people only for the shortest amount of time but the impression they leave on you is lasting. 

     I arrived in Philadelphia around 11:30 pm. I was exhausted but so happy to be home and see my parents. The puppies’ greeting me was also a particularly high point. Once I get my hands on the HD version of that video I will share it here.

Christmas Eve Day with my family is traditionally spent seeing the light show at Macy’s in Center City, followed by the walk-through Christmas Carol, complete with old-school 3 foot tall animatronic characters telling the story of that ol' miser Ebenezer Scrooge. I’ve seen this thing so many times it has somewhat lost it’s luster. But my Mom loves it and she has been coming since the 60s and I can suffer through a long line to make her Christmas a little happier. My bestie Joey was able to meet up with us so we had some fun to lighten the mood. 

Yay we're in line for A Christmas Carol!

Boo.... this line is WAY too long and we are WAY too old to be waiting this long.

Just couldn't escape it.

This is me having flashbacks of having to read Great Expectations in 9th grade English. 7 pages describing a chair? Not cool, CD... NOT COOL.

My mom wanted my picture with this illustration. So she got one.

We ended the afternoon with lunch at the Hard Rock (another unfortunate tradition) and shopped around Reading Terminal Market before retiring home.

     Christmas Morning was fun. I was the last one up (sorry!) so I was holding up the present-opening but tension soon dissipated as everyone started getting gifts. The first present I opened was a paper cutter and I was thrilled. Now I can easily cut my resumes to fit my headshots! Other favorites from Santa include a bike helmet, bike pump, allergy medicine, instyler hair curling system, and $50 in gift cards to TJ Maxx, so I can wander for hours and decide how best to spend my money. Santa was good to me this year!

     The day after Christmas my mother and I went to NYC with my aunt, her daughter, and her daughter’s friend. The plan was to wait in line at TKTS and see what show we could get tickets for. Bumped into my love Heather in Penn Station! She was doing the same thing with her family. Unfortunately we didn’t end up getting tickets to the same show. She got Peter And The Starcatcher (dang-it!) and we ended up seeing Nice Work If You Can Get It. Now, I was not expecting to like this show. But I actually thoroughly enjoyed it! I spent a lot of time doing classical musical theatre comedy in college and my one professor taught me everything I know about the genre. Watching these A-List Broadway actors (Matt Broderick, Kelli O’Hara, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Judy Kaye and others) was like a master class in physical and musical comedy. After just closing a show where I employed a lot of my comedy training, I felt both appreciative of the excellence in the art I was seeing in front of me and also confident that I had done a similarly good job of the same in my last show. I have not always been the most confident actor. I have never gotten a lead in anything before. But I am becoming more and more confident in the skill-set that I do have, and you can’t put a price on that in a world where the odds are so stacked up against you. You have to find your niche in this market, and I think I’m starting to finally do that.

Temple Buddies!

      After the show we trudged through a freezing rain/snow mix to visit the NBC store and get out picture next to the tree in Rockefeller Center. I arranged to bump into Nathan there and he had a chance to tell me about what life has really been like trying to do the NYC actor thing these past few months. Nathan said it is scary, and hard, but it is also exciting and promising and worth it to be pursuing what you want to do. I still am timid about moving but hopefully I will have a more formulated plan about where I want to go next in a few months from now.

The rest of the break flew buy. I got to spend some quality puppy time, visit with several friends whom I had missed dearly in my months down South. I got to see a comedy variety show in Philly, grab drinks with my girls, coffee with an old friend, and connect with a relatively new friend (albeit too briefly) at a Christmas Eve shindig. 

All the girls spooning.

Celebrating my Grandma's nth Birthday!

Snugglin with Mila on the couch.

Coffee with my former professor and spirit guide.

Typical. 

So much judgement. All the time.

She was being particularly snuggly. I think she knew I was leaving in the am.

    When I was sitting on the plane home recovering from a slight panic attack and through a one-beer haze I actually felt very calm and hopeful about what Little Rock has in store for me for the next 8ish months. What going back down here means. First and foremost, it means a job. It means a reason to wake up every morning. It means making the best out of sometimes less-than-perfect situations. Thinking on my feet. Being creative. Performing. When things aren't ideal and you keep going and clawing your way through it... that is being alive. I think there is a strange comfort in that. I've been in rehearsal for a few days now and I am excited for what is to come. I'll be here, taking care of my apartment and my body, prepping for UPTAS and just generally working on ME.