ANNOUNCEMENT, ANNOUNCEMENT.

It is with extreme excitement and gratitude that I can finally tell you all that I will be originating the role of "Annalee Ainsley" in the world premiere of Laura Schellhardt's stunning new play Auctioning The Ainsleys this summer at TheatreWorks in California.

I AM BEYOND THRILLED. I AM BEYOND ECSTATIC. I AM BEYOND GRATEFUL.

I was fortunate enough to workshop this show last summer at the New Works Festival at TheatreWorks, which marked the beginning of my love affair with this play, the playwright, and the director. I just feel so incredibly lucky to be able to revisit this role with such a wildly creative team and to be the first person to bring her to life on stage! Plus, I will get to be at home and see my family for 8 weeks. I am over the moon.

You can read more about the show here, in this excerpt from Playbill.com's announcement of the theatre's season:

"Auctioning the Ainsleys by Laura Schellhardt. "The bids come fast and furious as a family of professional auctioneers puts its heart, its heritage, and even its darkest secrets on the block in this fascinating comic drama... With a brilliant flair for mystery, language, and laughter, one of America’s hottest young playwrights explores what happens when what we own becomes more important than who we are." (July 14-Aug. 8 in Palo Alto)."

I LIKE THESE.

We all know that I have been hurting hard for some sunshine and, now that the forecast calls for less disgusting and more warmth, I can't help but think about summer and light and open spaces and swimming and how, someday, I will own my own house out in the country somewhere.

I stumbled across the following photos on various blogs and thought I'd share them with you.

I would like to be at this lake:

And, I would like to have a small cabin on that lake with a kitchen that maybe looks like this:

With a bright airy room in the farm that I will own near the lake that maybe looks like this*:

And my pantry will look like this:

Actually, I am completely and totally obsessed with this entire house.

OH MY LORD I WANT IT.

Mom - you will really like their house. Check it out.

More to come on my virtual vacation land home...I like this game.

*I particularly liked this because of the stuffed elephant on the bed. One of my most sacred possessions is an old stuffed elephant that used to be long to my Dad when he was a kid and it looks strikingly similar to the one in this photograph. There is something so sweet to me about a little stuffed elephant...so sweet.

WEATHAH SCHMETHAH.

I just looked at the forecast and it said, "43 degrees and disgusting."

I was all, AMEN TO THAT! FINALLY! SOMEBODY IS CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK! OR CALLING THE WEATHER WACK!

Upon second reading I realized that it really said, "43 degrees and gusting."

I guess that's what I get for hating the rain and having 2.75 glasses of red wine at Scooter's Faux Passover dinner and eating too many cookies.

How To Hug A Baby If You're A Dog.

How To Hug A Baby If You’re A Dog

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WHOA BABY.

I have no idea why, but last night when I was having pre-bedtime downtime I decided to instantly stream this documentary on Netflix:

For whatever reason, I thought maybe I would watch part of it and then fall asleep...

NO SUCH LUCK.

HOLY LORD THERE WAS A LOT OF BIRTH AND INFORMATION GOIN' ON IN THAT THERE DOCUMENTARY.

WOWZA.

The film explores childbirth in the United States and brings to light many issues with the way our health care system currently deals with the birthing process. It was thought provoking, to say the least, and I actually think they did quite an excellent job providing information from both sides of the argument. They explore home births, midwifery, doulas, c-sections, and pretty much everything across the birthing board.

And, they show a lot of births. I had forgotten how much stuff goes on when a woman has to push a human being out of her ladybits. It is a BIG DEAL and, I repeat, there is a LOT GOING ON.

I recommend watching this, but I recommend doing so when you are going to have time to stay awake and process what you've just watched as opposed to having to sit in your bed with the lights off and ponder all the information you just downloaded about babies and life and nature and pain and babies and pushing things out of you and pain...by yourself.

MUTE MUFFIN 'SPLOSION.

What do you do on a day when you're losing your voice, you have to sing on stage that night, so you can't talk to anyone for hours and hours in order to try and keep it together, a la the show must go on?

You bake copious amounts of pumpkin spice muffins and then put them in your mouth so you don't speak.

You make your roommate eat them, too.

This seems like a good compromise; I think it makes perfect sense for me to eat a lot of baked goods. If I can't talk all day, I might as well reward my kisser with a treat and, hopefully, my voice will be rested for my show that starts in 7 hours.

That is 7 more hours of not talking. What am I going to do for the next 7 hours?

1. Nap

2. Run

3. Watch more of this

4. EAT MORE MUFFINS

THIS IS HEAVEN.

Beyond lovely. Want to do something like this so badly.

Yours Truly Presents: The Morning Benders "Excuses" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Of course it was done in San Francisco. OF COURSE!

I WISH I HAD BEEN THERE.

I'm digging this band Dawes right now and I saw this video of them covering a well known song, but in the style of the best TV show ever in existence. Seeing that they did this hit me straight in the heart, warmed me into oblivion, and instantly made me fall in love with them.

I would have killed to have been a part of this number. Watch, listen, enjoy, and remember The Wonder Years.

Wonder Years Troubadour from Evan Romoff on Vimeo.

I find this one to be quite a lovely tune. It makes me miss driving around California with the windows down...

ALWAYS CARRY A MAGAZINE or NOW TAKE YOUR CHAIR - NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.

ALSO.

This is my fave new work out song because it not only provides a beat of the most excellent of sorts, but it also touches on all of life's most important topics, ranging from dessert, Reebokin', and NASA, to pimp ships and turning your past into caspers.

Exactly.

Plus, I really love Ne-Yo.

IT IS RAINY AND I CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO HERMAN'S HERMITS.

So, I'm going to make you listen to them, too.

You're welcome. Or, I'm sorry. But, I hope it's you're welcome.

SUNSHINE BURRITO BELLY.

This past week was full of beautiful days and, during my post-malaise haze, I spent a lot of time taking it easy and enjoying the weather...and the joy of being able to eat again.

Translation: I got a burrito every day after work, headed over to the park, and ate it.

This week, visual style:

GOTTA RIDE THIS CHICKEN.

Chicken Limo!

Perhaps I will roll up in this to the Oscars next year.

GROW UP.

Today I woke up to sunshine and blue skies after a week of rain, a sick tummy, and an endless winter. This weather shift has been most welcome and has instantly put me in the mood for spring. I started doing a little research about re-planting my windowsill garden for this year and I stumbled upon a New York Times article from...

April 22, 1894!

You can read the entire article here, but I just wanted to share with you some of my favorite quotes:

"She may have enough growth and bloom to delight her eyes, excite the envy of the women over the way, and lend a suggestion of beauty to that most commonplace of structures, the city house front."

"Any carpenter should be glad to make boxes long and broad enough for the average city window-ledge at 50 cents each; half the money would often be fair pay."

"Gardening is not a difficult art; some of the finest growth in florists' windows have been handled from start to finish by men as heavy of head and hand as the ordinary day laborer, and what such men can learn is within the comprehension of any woman."

"A favorite box-plant of thousands of nice old ladies is the portulacca."

I am very much looking forward to getting my domestic dameness on and planting some fleurs.

WASHING THE ELEPHANT BY BARBARA RAS.

Isn’t it always the heart that wants to wash

the elephant, begging the body to do it

with soap and water, a ladder, hands,

in tree shade big enough for the vast savannas

of your sadness, the strangler fig of your guilt,

the cratered full moon’s light fuelling

the windy spooling memory of elephant?

What if Father Quinn had said, “Of course you’ll recognize

your parents in Heaven,” instead of

“Being one with God will make your mother and father

pointless.” That was back when I was young enough

to love them absolutely though still fear for their place

in Heaven, imagining their souls like sponges full

of something resembling street water after rain.

Still my mother sent me every Saturday to confess,

to wring the sins out of my small baffled soul, and I made up lies

about lying, disobeying, chewing gum in church, to offer them

as carefully as I handed over the knotted handkerchief of coins

to the grocer when my mother sent me for a loaf of Wonder,

Land of Lakes, and two Camels.

If guilt is the damage of childhood, then eros is the fall of adolescence.

Or the fall begins there, and never ends, desire after desire parading

through a lifetime like the Ringling Brothers elephants

made to walk through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel

and down Thirty-fourth Street to the Garden.

So much of our desire like their bulky, shadowy walking

after midnight, exiled from the wild and destined

for a circus with its tawdry gaudiness, its unspoken

pathos.

It takes more than half a century to figure out who they were,

the few real loves-of-your-life, and how much of the rest—

the mad breaking-heart stickiness—falls away, slowly,

unnoticed, the way you lose your taste for things

like popsicles unthinkingly.

And though dailiness may have no place

for the ones who have etched themselves in the laugh lines

and frown lines on the face that’s harder and harder

to claim as your own, often one love-of-your-life

will appear in a dream, arriving

with the weight and certitude of an elephant,

and it’s always the heart that wants to go out and wash

the huge mysteriousness of what they meant, those memories

that have only memories to feed them, and only you to keep them clean.

- Barbara Ras

RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY.

It has been really rainy here, so I figured it would be appropriate to throw up (theme of the week) my most favorite song about, well, the rain.

I have been sickity funkity sickity in the city this past week and have not felt good one little bit. I thought I was on the mend, but that thought was quite a bit premature. I somehow managed to lose about 5 of the old LBs in 6 days as a result of my non-existent appetite and I even had to stay over at my sister's apartment last night because I couldn't make it home. She took excellent care of me, let me watch numerous episodes of our favorite show, and I am attributing my entire recovery to her.

This week has been a good lesson straight from the book of SLOW THE FLAPJACK DOWN, KIDDO. I sometimes forget to do that and this malaise (as Sanchez calls it) has been a good reminder that every once and awhile you just need to put on the brakes and mellow out. I haven't been to the gym in 7 days, which for me is like an eternity, and today when I picked up my laundry and brought it home I thought I was going to pass out.

I am looking forward to not feeling like a weakling, but I am also looking forward to being more mindful about how much I put on my plate.

Here's to a week that has a forecast of sunny skies and no barfing.

WHAT GOOD IS SITTING ALONE IN YOUR ROOM.

TODAY IS LIZA'S BIRTHDAY!!!!

HOW DID I NOT REMEMBER THIS?!?!!?

Happy Birthday to one of the best broads in existence. You know how much I love you.

HOLY MELLOW.

I've really been laying low this week due to my Tuesday pukes; I haven't really wanted to eat anything all week.

New Fad Diet: Stomach Flu!

Yesterday was a little too full with work and teaching, but for the most part I have been doing an A+ job at coming home and going to bed and sleeping for at least 10 hours. I am going to continue this trend tonight and I couldn't be more thrilled.

My bod was wiped! I don't think I realized how tired and worn out I was.

It is rainy and cold and I actually like it because I am home, jammin' in my jammies, and I don't have to go anywhere. The only problem is that I am into season 4 of Friday Night Lights and I am finished with the DVD's that I have and I need to find a way to get the rest of them...

Anyone? Anyone?

YUCKERS.

I'm sick. I have the pukes, but I am at work.

I kind of feel like this, except without the sand or sunshine or vacation time:

This was my horoscope today:

SCORPIO: For weeks you've been challenged in every area of your life. Thankfully you survived the gauntlet and may even score a prize in the process.

GOD I HOPE IT'S RIGHT.

WHAT'S MY PRIZE?! WHAT'S MY PRIZE?!

THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

Appropriate for today and mucho coolio.

THE PRINCE AND THE POOP.

SERIOUSLY?!

The would-be future queen of England had to search through dog poop after her cocker spaniel ate a pair of pricey pearl earrings given to her by Prince William.

Royal girlfriend Kate Middleton loved the antique studs Wills gave her on her 28th birthday, and she was distraught when they went missing from her bedside table, according to the Daily Mail.

"She knew William had spent a lot of money on the earrings and she was embarrassed that she had mislaid them," a friend of Middleton's told the Mail.

Middleton suspected that her beloved dog Otto had chowed down the baubles, and she resorted to walking him several times a day in hope of recovering them.

Otto eventually produced the evidence of his guilt, but the earrings were damaged beyond repair. The prince graciously offered to buy his gal another pair.

"He said the main thing was that Otto was okay," the source told the Mail. "He adores the dog, who's very sweet."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/03/08/2010-03-08_kate_middleton_girlfriend_of_prince_william_had_to_search_through_dogs_poo_after.html#ixzz0hbe5i9K5

DOG TIRED.

The infamous Samson is back and we are both pooped.

What a day! What a week! I love dogs!

SOME GOOD ADVICE FROM MTA.

"Most accidents happen when you are rushing."

- The LED display screen at the Uptown 4/5 at Wall Street when I was running because I thought I was late for something.

HOW DID IT KNOW?!?!?

OH TODAY!

You turned out so much better than I thought you would!

You are sunny and bright outside and your air smells really nice and you canceled something that was stressing me out a widdle bit.

GLORY BE.

I am toasting you with my glass of Pellegrino that has a splendid lemon slice in it! To you, day! To you!

I AM SO REFRESHED.