One and the Same

I'm having blogger guilt.

I want to post a lot more than I am right now.

And I am accepting the time-space reality of the super-juicy creative life I have now and that I'm actually not home with my trusty Mac much.

I want to say THANK YOU to you for reading, for commenting, for continuing to visit here even though posts are semi-scarce. I promise there will come a day when I'm here a lot. I have big plans for this little blog.

THANK YOU readers for being the awesome people you are. It means so much to me that you're here.

What I can tell you for today is that I'll be away this weekend with the man on our one weekend trip this summer. I am onstage for all the others, but we're going to make up for it in the fall when we take some kind of big trip.......I'm planning on packing a pink boa in case I feel like doing a spontaneous strip tease.

I mentioned this a week or so ago, but I really believe there's a deep beautiful link between wanting to make a baby and all the creative work that has come into my life. The space of baby-making is about so much surrender and uncertainty. I can't see or hear or sense how my body is changing on the inside. I am doing all I can for her, feeding her well, giving her supplements, having her poked with needles on a weekly basis. I am meditating, praying, journaling, and doing practices that ground me in her rather than always being so in my head. And yet, still the body does what the body does in its own mysterious and wonderful way, and I get to surrender to that. The minute I try to control it or figure it out I just get scared. That happened a week or so ago; I was convinced I wasn't going to have a period, that I'd backslid, and then it happened. Even with my fear, it happened. Big celebration over here as you can imagine.

Creative work, artistry, is so much about the same things. Overthinking is anathema. Control is deadly. And trying to organize when the breakthroughs will happen or how long the process is supposed to take or if it'll be approved by someone else kills the very energy we need to bring the projects to fruition. And sometimes there's fear. And even if there's fear, it doesn't mean the miracle isn't right around the corner.

I've been blessed with now not 2 but 3 amazing jobs right in a row. Roles so good I'd get down on my knees and eat dirt to play them. I can't say with any authority why this is happening now. Why suddenly I'm being given these parts. But I feel very taken care of by the Universe. I know that I have been asking of myself to bring the same sense of openness and surrender into auditions that I have into my relationship with my body. I know I've been focusing more on being in the room, rather than trying to do something spectacular. I know I've been living more in my body--and asking that of myself as an actress in order to support my body's health and happiness---and less in my head.

Though a pregnancy hasn't shown up yet, unbelievable fulfillment in this creative area of my life has. I believe it's all the same energy, so when the time is right the creation of my baby will happen too. It's a really wonderful feeling. And it's what I'm choosing to believe.

So I'll see you next week; I doubt I'll be here before we take off. Happy so-far-summer.

photo by Andy Goldsworthy who always knows how to capture a mystery. If that makes any sense.

Husband Appreciation Day, Part 1

As I mentioned earlier this week, my husband Sky is a very patient man. He's more than patient. He's loving, hilarious, brilliant, sensitive and grounded in who he is. Part of Who He Is is Someone Who Likes Having Me Around. Part of Who I Am is Liking to Be Around Him. My theatre schedule is a little tough on us right now. These days I'm at rehearsal weekday nights and weekend days which is exactly when he's home. During the day he's working his tail off. We miss each other a lot--literally and emotionally. However, it's not forever and it's for a beautiful reason: I'm doing a gorgeous play at a time when I can. If the babymaking goes as planned, we both know there's going to be a good long time where I'm not doing back-to-back plays; there will be periods of time when I don't do any plays at all. And rehearsals are the toughest: once the play opens (this one runs 3 nights and one afternoon a week) the hours are considerably less. So for the next few weeks we're hanging in there with each other and making the hours we are together count.

I also want to talk about---and I'm going to in a different post---the relationship between creative work (the play) and creating a baby. They're SO connected. But later on that.....

Part of my commitment to Sky this summer is making our time together extra-juicy-special. If that means I might hop over to his office in the middle of the day, or humor him by staying in bed a little later (one of the hardest things for me! I am so awake in the morning), or make him romantic dinner on a Monday. Who says date night can't be Monday? This past week, as part of weekly Husband Appreciation Day, I replicated, for the second time, one of our favorite dishes on this earth: the chopped salad from Mozza.

Mozza is the restaurant that took LA by storm a couple of years ago when Nancy Silverton and Mario Battali teamed up. Located on a corner that saw restaurant after restaurant fail over the years, that corner is now one of the hottest in LA. And everything you've heard is true: it is f-ing delicious. And whenever we go no matter what else we get we always get the chopped salad no meat. It's a take, I'm convinced, on a greek salad as it's full of peperoncinis and oregano. Like the porcinis from last post, the ingredients are simple and the result is amazing. I made it a couple weeks ago and it was good; I made it this week and it was great. Couple little tweaks and a late-night trip to Mozza for one more tasting and I'm pretty close. I don't know what red wine vinegar they use and I'm going to ask because that's definitely a difference. As does macerating the onions and going heavier on the herbs than I initially thought. It takes barely any time to put together so there's more time for hanging out with hubby. I served this with some vinegar and chile roasted cauliflower, some good bread, and a plum torte I overcooked when I got distracted on a phone call. Oops.

Sky, if you happen to be reading this, thank you for sticking by me and I love you.

My Version of the Chopped Salad from Mozza Vegetarian Style

1/2 head iceberg lettuce

1/2 small head radicchio

can of garbanzo beans (I'm sure they use dried; oh well)

handful of peperoncini, sliced thin

few slices good provolone cheese, cut into small squares or rectangles

couple handfuls of good-quality cherry tomatoes, halved if on the bigger side

red onion, sliced very thin (you decide how much)

plenty of dried oregano

fresh or dried thyme

red wine vinegar

little lemon juice

great olive oil

pinch of sugar

salt and pepper

Macerate the onion slices in some red wine vinegar and a little salt for at least 5 minutes and up to an hour.

Slice the lettuce and radicchio then chop so your greens are a pretty uniform, small size: like very short ribbon fragments. Place in large salad bowl

Toss in most of the can of garbanzos and the peperoncinis.

Make the dressing: whisk red wine vinegar with a little lemon juice, salt, pepper, sugar and the oregano and thyme. Slowly drizzle in olive oil, whisking as you add. Taste for preference: dressing should be tangy but not cloyingly so.

Add dressing to the greens, etc. Mix in cherry tomatoes and provolone by hand. Taste for seasoning: salt, pepper, herbs, peperoncinis. Add as necessary.

Mix all together and top with a sprinkling of dried oregano.

Keep playing with proportions til you create the version you love. And next time you're on the corner of Highland and Melrose in LA, stop in and try the real thing.

The Only Early Summer Salad you Need

I'm in another show. YAY!

Which means I cook dinner twice a week: Sundays after rehearsal and Mondays which I have off. My husband is a very patient man.

Sunday nights I get home close to 8, so unless we're having a Barcelona night and eating at 11--which is great but on a Sunday after a long week not so much---I keep it simple. Easy to do here in SoCal where the farmers markets are so crazy bountiful in summer (ok all year) that throwing a few ingredients on a plate and having it taste amazing is eeeeasy.

On Saturday the mushroom guy had fresh porcinis. I'm used to cooking with dried, so I asked him what he'd do with a fresh porcini and voila: the easiest most delicious delectable summer salad I could dream of. How much of all these ingredients is up to you---go heavy on what you love, go light where you want. You really can't go wrong. And I say splurge on the really good parmesan and use your best olive oil--with ingredients this simple you'll taste the difference.

Fresh Porcini Salad with Arugula and Parmesan

plenty of good arugula or other peppery green

fresh porcini mushroom, very thinly sliced

Parmesan cheese, shaved into thin slices

lemon

olive oil

sea salt and freshly ground pepper

After washing and drying greens, toss with a little lemon juice and a little olive oil. Plate the greens and top with shaved Parmesan and sliced porcinis. Drizzle a little more olive oil; season with a tiny bit of salt and pepper. You're done.

I served this first then we had a barley/lentil pilaf that cooked in one pot while we ate this. Sky swooned. Literally. And I didn't think guys could swoon.

They're Alive!

Remember how I was swooning over The Bird and the Bee a couple of months ago? Their Hall&Oates cover album became my preshow music for Dinner With Friends, by the way. Cate, who was the other woman in the show with me, and I got ritualistic about it, and whatever else we were listening to, we had to listen to a bit of that before the stage manager called "places". Then one day Patrick, one of the guys in the show, was listening to some beautiful, doo-woppy sounding music in his dressing room. My ears perked up, I inquired, and was told it was this rad band called The Living Sisters. I downloaded immediately only to learn as I did that one of the 3 lovely ladies in this trio is Inara George. She's one half of the Bird and the Bee. And she definitely gets a place in the Inspiring Women category.

THEN joy of joys I realized another member of the band is Eleni Mandell who I was obsessed with several years ago, and in a crime of musical irresponsibility, have not followed for a while. I just logged onto her site and seriously, go, listen, get hooked. She has this sexy, sometimes sinister voice that always made me feel like a bad-ass capable of doing anything--anything--I wanted to do. The song "He Thinks He's in Love" is one of my top ten favorite songs ever.

photo property of Veronique Messier

She wears amazing clothes to boot. They all do.

And the 3rd member is Becky Stark, who I haven't had the pleasure of knowing as much about but she is the singer for Lavender Diamond, which I have certainly heard on KCRW and remember thinking "what a gorgeous voice". Definitely some research happening on them this weekend. See what happens when you bring 3 talented girls together? It's like exponentially satisfying--you get, y'know, 6 new things to listen to.

Here they are as The Living Sisters, courtesy of their myspace page. How could they be anything but great if they look like that?

Living Sisters are exactly the kind of music I love for summer: relaxed, easy, lyrics to sing along to while the front door is open and you're sitting on the porch with a mint julep.

I've opted to share this one with you because it's one of my favorites of theirs but this is a remix! Which means if you love their voices, go to the album and hear the original one which slays me; but now you have a bonus track I got from that same myspace page!

How Glad I Am (Greyboy Allstars Remix) by The Living Sisters

Happy listening.

Windy

I've wanted to write about this for a while. On NPR a couple of weeks ago I caught the tail end of a story that made me go "HUH?!" out loud in my car. A story about a woman obsessed with a plastic bag that got caught in a tree near her work over TWO YEARS AGO. The woman is Kathy Frederick, and the woman's blog (not only about the bag though that has lots of entries) is The Junk Drawer. I called my house and left myself a message on my home machine (my favorite way of reminding myself to do something) to get on the NPR site and investigate further.

The bag got away from a shopper a couple of years ago (whole story told through an imaginined interview with the bag), got caught in the branches of a tree near Kathy's work, and since then she has celebrated the anniversaries of it being there with birthday cake for the whole office, posted videos of it blowing in the fall leaves or on winter bare branches, written haikus about it, rolled out a contest about who can guess when it will come down (day, month, year), and developed a huge following on Facebook.

photo from The Junk Drawer

I am intrigued by how many people are following Windy. I'm in love with the idea that Kathy embraced something which could be seen as annoying, seen as ugly, and made a celebration out of it. Of course she could figure out a way to get it out of the tree, but she wants to see how long it takes to come down on its own---observing divine timing and the elements in action as it were. Practicing less control.

I like that she's taken it and turned it into a reverent game. Like in life when something is plaguing us or nagging at us or repeating itself over and over in our brains perhaps to our frustration--- to then frame it like a game; to have a sense of humor about it; and from there to see that the persistent thing that felt maybe negative in some way is actually an opportunity to practice a change in perspective. It's making us think differently, or act differently, or just practice more acceptance less resistance.

I also like that she has accepted the bag for what it is, not judging it for the circumstances around it. Yes, plastic bags suck. Just the fact that it hasn't disintegrated in the tree for 2 years can make one weep at the thought of the landfills. But there the bag is, and rather than throwing a fit at the bag (which let's be honest would do how much good?) she's making lemonade out of lemons.

I laughed out loud when Kathy admitted on NPR that this story could make her sound like a nut job. I think it's great to sound like a nut job once in a while, especially if the qualifications for sounding like a nut job are that you speak up loudly for something you love.

What I got reminded of in listening to Kathy is everything is not as it seems. Something can look like a curse, someone can look like an enemy, and with a little willingness and openness that thing or person or situation could turn out to be a hidden blessing or best friend. I'm grateful for unexpected reminders that our idiosyncrasies are what make us unique and admirable: I, for one, would not have thought to make a shrine to a plastic bag. That Kathy did has me looking all over my life for what I can show more appreciation for more.

Dollface

Can we discuss for a minute how gorgeous Ms. Dolly is in this picture?

The play closes this weekend which is tragic--it's been such an amazing (and SHORT) run; however, that will leave me with a little more time for blogging which I look forward to.

In the meantime I came across these photos of Dolly Parton on Oprah's website and I was stunned by how amazing she looks in them.

In the name of women celebrating other women (as opposed to being jealous, threatened, insecure over which I, for one, can get sometimes) I think I might have to make a habit of posting beautiful, talented, brilliant women here once in a while. Feel free to send me your faves.

Happy Weekend!

They're Singing our Song

That's a street in the city where I grew up. Thinking I need a trip back there in the next year--it's been a while, my husband has never seen it, and I don't know--maybe it's the play I'm doing which has so much in it about making choices in life and in love---I feel like I want to be back where I was a kid and had no idea what the life ahead was going to deliver---all its miracles and all its mudslides.

I've been listening to music I loved when I was 11, 12, 13, 14.....digging out old CDs, downloading stuff I only have on cassettes from itunes. When a song comes on, it's like I'm launched back to listening to it then----remember the room I was in, or the friends' car, remember the weather. You know. We all do this. Can't help it. I don't remember exactly what I'd think about when I listened, but I know exactly how I felt, and that age there was a lot of longing and a lot of dreaming. I don't know exactly what I was longing for, and I don't remember all the dreams. I know I thought I'd have an Oscar by now:) And simultaneously there's the 2 decades of life layered onto whatever memory is there. So it almost feels like there are 2 of me listening and 2 of me going on the trip of the song.

I hadn't told my sister any of this, but in good sibling telepathy she sent me in the mail a CD of the first Indigo Girls album from 1989. 21 freaking years ago! So how old are they now....? Anyway.

She sent it to me and I listened--it's been a long time. I knew every lyric and I was that little kid and me now all at once and it's that bizarre existential feeling you all know: how was that 21 years ago? And somehow I got from there to here and it's been beautiful and it's been long....but 21 years long? No. I can't quantify the time but it's not 21 years. Couldn't be.

I think it's a good thing to be bittersweet sometimes. To half smile and half tear up about life going by. Makes us appreciate it, no? It's a half-sunny, half-cloudy day here and I'm listening to Willie Nelson singing sad songs so maybe that's what this mood is.....

Back to the Indigos. They wrote some pretty amazing lyrics. I am a sucker for a good lyric. I can sit down and just read Leonard Cohen's no music needed that guy is so good. This song I really love. I'm not putting all the words here---just a couple verses that got me then and get me now. This is so the world of the play I've been living in for weeks; YES it's influencing my life. How could it not. What would be the point of doing art if it didn't get under the skin? So take a gander and maybe stroll on over to itunes on your next cloudy day to dig through those songs you've forgotten you love so much.

pieces of "Love's Recovery" by the Indigo Girls

There I am in younger days, star gazing,
Painting picture perfect maps of how my life and love would be
Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection
My compass, faith in love's perfection
I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen
Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together
Left each other one by one in search of fairer weather
And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love's recovery.

Oh how I wish I were a trinity, so if I lost a part of me
I'd still have two of the same to live
But nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal, as specks of dust we're universal
To let this love survive would be the greatest gift we could give
Tell all the friends who think they're so together
That these are ghosts and mirages, these thoughts of fairer weather
Though it's storming out I feel safe within the arms of love's discovery

Sigh.