Flashback Friday

HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY, DANNY!!!!!!!!!

My sister, Jenny, had Danny 12 years ago today and from that moment he has been one of the most special people in my life. I missed being at the birth because I was at church camp- Camp Christian, but I remember the moment that I found out that he had come into the world like it was yesterday. We were all sitting in the mess hall and one of the camp counselors got up to make the announcement. I was so proud to hear that my big sister had just given birth to a healthy baby boy named Daniel Robert. I started to cry and everyone congratulated me as if I had just had a baby. I had to wait three days before I would meet him, but it didn't take long for us to become fast friends. I was also lucky and proud to be chosen to be his Godmother. Danny's dad is a firefighter and worked a lot of 24 hour shifts. Lucky for me, I think, because Jenny spent a lot of time at home with mom and me. Danny was a snuggler and loved to be held and I loved to hold him. As he got older, he and I would play all the time. I know it's probably "not cool" for a twelve year old to admit to his friends that he still plays with his crazy Aunt Jodi, but he does. We always have a helluva time, too! When I left Ohio to follow my dream in NYC, the two hardest people to leave were Danny and his brother Jake. Danny fell asleep in my arms (at Red Lobster) the night before I left and it was so hard to let go. When I put him in the car I bawled like a baby. I knew that by leaving them I wasn't going to get to see them all that often and it meant they would grow up without me. Well, grow up they have. Danny is one year from being a teenager and Jake is almost a whole decade and they are both fine young men that I am sure will turn out to be even finer adults.This was in 2003 either Thanksgiving or Christmas (I can't remember which), but I was tired from the flight and these two little guys decided to hang with Aunt Jodi even though she was too tired to play.

This was my sister's family vacation to NYC. We were outside Castle Clinton waiting to go to Ellis Island. Me and Danny (pictured), Jake behind the lens (a budding photographer).

This is Danny at his 11th Birthday Party!

Danny, I hope you have a fabulous birthday and know that I would love to be there to watch you make a wish and blow out those candles. Just know that on many birthdays when I was young, I wished that I would come to NYC to follow my dream and it happened. You can make your dreams come true, too. Dream big, and today wish big! I love you!

What a Day, what a show!

So, I went to see Company on Broadway today at the matinee. WOW!!! I am so sad that it is closing this weekend. What a gem, and it won the Tony award for Best Musical Revival (2007). If you happened to catch the Tony's, Raul Esparza, who plays Bobby, sang "Being Alive." I was told in all my musical theatre acting classes that the reason people sing in musicals is because the stakes are so high within the world of the show that the character has no other way of expressing how they feel but to sing. His performance in the show was nothing short of stellar and showed that concept better than I could possibly explain it. It truly is the reason I love musical theatre, because when it's done right it moves you, sends chills down your spine, and makes you think. I was crying before he plunked the first note of the song on the piano. The story is of five married couples and three single women in NYC who are all part of Bobby's life. It is the exploration of love, sex, and commitment from Bobby's perspective. All the actors are also the orchestra in this production which adds an interesting element. The song "Being Alive" is the final song culminating all that Bobby has learned and yearned for in love. I think the brilliant lyrics speak for themselves (and I encourage you to buy the album, because the lyrics are really only half of the inspiration. The music adds another dimension.
"Being Alive" music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Someone to hold you too close
Someone to hurt you too deep
Someone to sit in your chair
To ruin your sleep…

Someone to need you too much
Someone to know you too well
Someone to pull you up short
To put you through hell…

Someone you have to let in
Someone whose feelings you spare
Someone who, like it or not
Will want you to share a little, a lot…

Someone to crowd you with love
Someone to force you to care
Someone to make you come through
Who’ll always be there
As frightened as you of being alive.
Being alive, being alive,
Being alive.

Somebody hold me too close,
Somebody hurt me too deep,
Somebody sit in my chair
And ruin my sleep
And make me aware of being alive,
Being alive.

Somebody need me too much,
Somebody know me too well,
Somebody pull me up short
And put me through hell
And give me support for being alive,
Make me alive, make me alive.
Make me confused, mock me with praise,
Let me be used, vary my days.

But alone is alone not alive!
Somebody crowd me with love,
Somebody force me to care,
Somebody let me come through,
I'll always be there as frightened as you,
To help us survive being alive,
Being alive,
Being alive!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Laundry on a hot day is not fun to do. I'd rather be at the beach.

2. I have someone coming to look at my old living room furniture. I've had it stacked in my bedroom since my new stuff came and I'm tired of looking at it. It really was quite an accomplishment for me to have bought new furniture

this is my desk and bookcases from Crate and Barrel

my fold out couch and adorable chair from Jennifer Convertibles (not pictured- love seat)

3. The Jennifer Convertibles website is the most underdeveloped website I think I've seen. No shopping online, no paying your bills. It's basically a place to find a store and to browse through a catalogue. They really need to join this century, especially because their products are so good.

4. I finished God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I really enjoyed it, but it took me a long time to come to a place where I could. He seemed extremely condescending to the idea of faith through half the book. But I really enjoyed the second half where he took a close look at morality and where it comes from and dissected religion's negative affect on morality. Anyway, I highly recommend it. I think it's important to be fluent in both sides of an argument before coming to conclusions. He also recommends fluency in the Bible because of its impact on the world in not only religion, but also in art and literature. I have to say that a greater understanding of the Bible really would have helped in my Shakespeare classes in college.

5. I am going to be part of a psychological study at Columbia University. I once participated when I was a teenager in a study that my mom played a part in setting up and I remember it being kind of fun and interesting. I had to take a psychological bubble test once honestly and then a second time I had to pretend as if I was hiding something. This Columbia study includes an MRI and a Petscan which I've never done before so that should be interesting.

6. It's the type of day that sitting in one spot causes a lot of sweat. (Accuweather says it's 95 degrees with the humidity at 42%- I suppose it could be worse).

7. There is no "degree" symbol on the keyboard. I wonder why?

8. The Kent State (my Alma Mater) building for Math and Computer Science's roof is the sine wave from trigonometry. I was always very good at math and particularly loved trig. It's strange to observe a loss of knowledge. I'm going to find a way to relearn this.

9. Alma Mater: I decided to look up it's etymology. It is from Latin meaning "nourishing mother" I also found one that said the Latin was "fostering mother." I think we need to instill in children and young adults this concept before they graduate. I think students would be less disrespectful of their teachers and institutions if they thought about it as a place where they receive maternal nourishment.

10. I could not find a video of the Dialogue Series with John Edwards, but you can download the interview portion with Brian Lehrer from WNYC. On this page it says "Listen to entire show." Click on this link to hear it or download the podcast to your ipod. Below is a short video clip which the John Edwards campaign put together from his opening speech. I am very disappointed how difficult it was to locate this program in its entirety.

John Edwards - The Cooper Union (excerpts)

This is so short and I really think that John Edwards's campaign would really benefit by posting the entire evening for everyone who was not there to watch.

Notes on the Weekend

First, the weekend, as most normal people experience it, is a new phenomenon for me. Because I am an actress and find myself waiting tables when I'm not acting, I haven't had the opportunity to really understand the joy of the weekend. While doing shows my weekend consists of Sunday evening, Monday, and Tuesday afternoon. I can never complain because I get to do what I love, but I have thought that it might be difficult to do normal people things while maintaining this schedule (insert family here!?). While waiting tables, the majority of the money comes in on the weekend and most restaurants don't allow you every weekend off. I'm going to have a hard time going back to that life, I think, because this weekend was a ton of fun! Friday kind of started with the blahs. I was exhausted from 4 auditions and the Dialogue Series with John Edwards on Thursday and then another audition followed by a long lunch on Friday with Jazmin. So, Friday night I stayed home and watched movies by myself. My Uncle Joe recommended Being There. It is a Peter Sellers movie from 1979. And, Uncle Joe, you were right it was good. I also watched Where Words Prevail which Odelle gave me because he saw it and thought I would enjoy it (I know, he's good!). It is a documentary of Cicely Berry who is the voice coach for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Saturday morning Mere and I woke up had some coffee and a chat and decided to go to breakfast at IHOP at the bright and early time of 1PM (It was brunch). We shopped and tried on clothes at a really fun store called Mandee's. Neither of us bought anything, but we did enjoy trying on ridiculous outfits and laughing at them. Odelle picked me up later that afternoon and we headed to Brooklyn to Rollerblade. I LEARNED TO SKATE BACKWARD!!!! I know all caps seems a little juvenile, but it has been one of those things that has remained illusive to me ever since I was young and my mom would take the four of us to Rocky's Skating Rink. My mom was such a good skater and I could never go backward like her, and now I can! It's kind of like dancing the Rumba!

Sunday Mere and I were supposed to go wait for tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, but we couldn't get it together. There's always next week. Anyway, Odelle wanted to scope out a different place to skate so we went to Manhattan Beach in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. It wasn't good for skating, but we went up and down the street anyway. We sat on the beach for awhile and watched this couple attempt to fly a kite. Odelle commented on the fact that they had bought the kite and that in Jamaica they make their own (kind of like Kite Runner, which is a fabulous book).

So, that brings me to today. OB took the day off from work and we made our own kites and flew them on the beach. It was a ton of fun, a lot of hard work, and a greater accomplishment knowing that the kites were made by us. They looked fabulous and I was so proud of us!! We made the kite with regular printer paper (which we drew pictures on: mine had a picture of a girl's face) and skewers. The tail we made with fabric. We used twine as the kite string. I know I have to get better at bringing my camera with me, I'm sure I would have had great pictures. All in all, it was a fun filled weekend. I'm beginning to understand why weekend is such a glorified word!

Flashback Friday

Since I didn't blog yesterday I thought I would use my Flashback Friday to incorporate what I did yesterday into what I did a year and a half ago. This is a picture of me, John Edwards, and my beautiful friend, the Miss Karrah Tines. We worked at a theatre in Florida whose owner is very influential in Florida politics. He held many rallies, events, and things for different candidates and he was always so kind to allow any of the actors to come free of charge to the events. This event was the second time that I got to meet John Edwards. This particular event was a fundraiser for Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida), who was up for re-election in November 2006. He won handily against Kathleen Harris, who I am sure you all remember from the 2000 voting fiasco. Anyway, Edwards came to the event to throw his support behind Nelson. One thing that has always struck me, besides his obvious good looks, is how charismatic and intelligent this man is. His speaking ability reminds me of Bill Clinton. They also draw from similar beginnings. Clinton was from a town called Hope. His father was killed before he was born and his mother was a nurse. Edwards was born in South Carolina to a millworker (I'm not sure what his mother did?) Both men came from meager beginnings, worked and studied hard and made it to the top and they both use(d) that in their campaigns.

I have to say that I have not decided yet which candidate I'm backing and I don't think I'm going to for some time. I'm not in any rush and I think we would all benefit by taking a moment to breathe and really get to know the candidates. That brings me to what I did last night. I'm not sure if you heard that both Newt Gingrich and the former Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo came together and decided that there needs to be more aggressive debate on the issues with the candidates for president and in the country as a whole. Well, they did and we now have the Cooper Union Dialogue Series. The first candidate to accept an invitation was John Edwards. I would recap for you, but I think it's a better idea for you to either read a transcript or see a video. I am looking for a good copy of it on the internet so that you can also watch. I'll let you know when I've found it. (BTW- I took this photo to the right, I think it's pretty good). I have to say, I like John Edwards. I think he would strengthen any ticket as a vice president, but his lack of experience on foreign relations makes me a little nervous. One weird thing that happened at the debate, completely unrelated to Edwards, was some young adults who happened to be in front of me in line got kicked out. During the question and answer period (the questions were all posed by Brian Lehrer of WNYC), these people decided to start chanting "Impeach Bush, Impeach Bush." One of them was shouting other things as well about the war, but from where I was sitting it was indecipherable. I think there were only three of them and they were just there to be disruptive. And as Brian Lehrer pointed out he wasn't sure why they chose to scream at a bunch of people who probably felt the same way. They were escorted out because they refused to stop disrupting the debate. It was a bit of drama, not necessary, but interesting. Here are a few more photos from the evening.

The Cooper Union founded in 1859 7 East 7th Street NYC

Mario Cuomo outside The Cooper Union

Brian Lehrer and John Edwards during the debate June 21, 2007

Take Action against Hate Crimes

I know not a lot of people read my blog, but maybe there are more of you than I know. Anyway this is an important issue to me and I hope that you not only take the time to watch this short video, but if you agree to send a quick letter to your Senators through the Human Rights Campaign's website http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/fighthate_video You can write your own letter or use the letter they provide. Also by entering your zip code it automatically sends it to the correct representative or in this case Senators.