what the world needs NOW...

Sometimes, okay, oftentimes actually. I feel so deeply the sentiment that "this world is just TOO MUCH for me". Sometimes it's too beautiful, so beautiful it hurts. But often it's just too painful in it's uglyness.

Now, I don't read newspapers. And I haven't watched TV (other than occassionally, when on vacation or at other peoples' homes) in over 8 years! These are choices. Conscious choices that I have made to avoid "the media", as much as humanly possible. Once I changed my homepage on my computer to be the Toronto Star Online, so that every morning when I logged on to the internet I would see the day's headlines. That lasted about a month, maybe.

The thing is, I really don't want to come off like a moron when conversing with others about current events. So I try to stay in the loop via CBC radio, which I listen to every morning (even though "Metro Morning" kind of drives me nuts, especially when that dolt Karen Horseman subs in for Andy Barrie, who at least drives me nuts the way your dorky dad might drive you nuts). But "The Current" and "Sounds Like Canada" are often pretty good shows. But still, I have too many days when I just desperately want to turn the radio off - because some days are just too much for me...

Ever since I took my first History class in high school, I have been obsessed with the question "what will the history books fifty, a hundred, or even 500 years from now, say about the time that I am living in, now?"

Well, it would appear that the signs of our times are the internet and student killing rampages. Oh yeah, and a ridiculous war spearheaded by the ridiculous leader of a bully of a country. Bullying - now there's a trend. World leaders do it on an international scale, and yet we're trying to convince our kids not to be bullies? And we care so much about what's cool, and making money, and celebrating violence and indifference through the music we listen to and the TV shows that that we watch, that we forget to just be nice and love each other. And then we wonder why young people break, how they shatter completely, and go out and hurt others... And our response to their violence is talk of the need for more security (what? more guns you mean?) in schools. Because no one wants to admit what the real problem, or rather the root, of all our problems is...

In my humble opinion, the great, huge, unfathomably large, real problems of our world today, all come down to the fact that we do not know how to love. We are scared, hurt, angry, sad and weak... as nations, individuals, as members of families, as employees, as husbands/wives... and from our weaknesses, and that place where we want and need so badly to be loved, but don't know how to give love, or even ask for the love that we need, comes the defensive. The way to conceal our weaknesses is to take power over others. And sadly, too often, this power comes in the form of violence.

This may seem like an overly simplistic diagnosis of all the problems of the world, but contrary to being simple, I think that to work towards rectifying this problem, to work towards solving this problem of the "lack of love" in our world is actually so impossibly huge, it makes me feel a little hopeless sometimes. Sometimes.

But only sometimes.

I have a little article that was published in NOW Magazine the week of September 11th, 2001, and the title is "I Vow To Steer Fear Towards Love". It was written by Rob Brezny. It has been taped to every mirror, in every home I have lived in since it was published. Lest I ever forget my vow to steer fear towards love, always.

Lest we never forget.

Whatz Good?

Recently, on my MySpace page, some guy who runs the Toronto Rap Project left me a comment that started with "Whatz good?". It totally reminded me of the teens that I worked with last year. I love it. I love being all up on what the kids are saying these days, albeit apparently to the amusement of some of my friends. Yesterday I answered the phone (knowing, of course, that it was one of my best friends, Alison, calling) and said "whaddup" - she promptly burst out laughing and said "I love how you answer the phone like that all the time now. I don't even think that you realise you do it all the time now!" More laughter. Whatever. Itz all good.

So, tonight is our One Night Only Special Engagement in Toronto!!! The Burning Bush show I mean. We were invited to be the show that gets remounted for one night only for the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival Fundraiser at the Diesel Playhouse tonight. If you're kicking 'round the T-dot today, you should look into getting tickets to come see the show - I guarantee you won't regret it! (For tickets, call: 416-966-1062)

So I'm excited. It kinda seems like the perfect way to wrap up this first leg of our "world tour" - to have one last show in our "hometown". And it should be fun.

So I'm excited, but also a little groggy at the moment. I just knocked over my glass of water with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Damn, that sucks. Why was it so hard for me to get out of bed this morning? I don't know... Maybe I partied too hard this weekend...

But it was Thea's book launch party on Friday, so of course I had to party it up big time!!! Oh, it was truly a fantastic night, and I was sooooo proud of my girl. And the book is really good too. You should order it. And read it. And let me know what you think of it. I have a link to the book's myspace page over here on the right, just click the one that says "you WISH you could be her friend".

And yes, I realise that some, super-savvy bloggers, know how to put a link to a website directly in to the body of the text of their blog. Aka HERE. But I don't know how to do that. So get over it, and use the links to the right here. And definitely read Thea's book, it's called The Same Woman, and was published by Invisible Publishing. Tres Cool.

Alright, so I'm still excited for tonight's show, though perhaps a little tired at the thought of this afternoon's tech/dress rehearsal - oh, how I love the last-minute-ness of things! And I'm still a little groggy, but I'm gonna go get dressed and go for a run now. I have a 10k to prepare for now. Oh my.

No, I've never done a 10k before. Or a 5k. Or even any kind of organised run. But something posessed me to say that I was gonna do exactly that. On May 6th. With my friends Eleanor and Alison. But thank you Alan for coming up with the best team name for us, ever...

She's Got Legs

Yesssssss! Alright, that's it for now folks.

Overnout.

Belated Vermont Road Trip Pics

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007:
Me & Sarah in the car on the way to Burlington, Vermont...

First stop, dinner in Montreal where we get complimented on our French speaking skillz - oh yeah!!!

Wednesday Night Arrival! Finally!! We're Here!!! At Robin & Ethan's HOUSE THAT THEY OWN!!! This photo was taken either right before or right after the cat startled me and I spilled an entire glass of red wine on Robin and Ethan's white couch. I had been in their home for less than an hour. Classy.

My Best Friend actually OWNS this house!!!

Robin & Ethan... Have I mentioned that I am a BIG fan of this guy?!

These women have been two of MY BEST FRIENDS for over 10 years now.
And aren't they pretty?!

Clearly I really respect the Easter Holiday... Do you think Robin's friend Erin thinks I'm wierd?

We may be 25 now, but it's not like we're mature...

It's our last night in Burlington and we're out at 80's Dance Night - YESSSSSSS! This photo has a soundtrack... "Ooooh-OH, we're halfway there, ooooh-OH, LIVIN' ON A PRAYER!!!"

And finally,
The first Tim Horton's of the day, just outside of Montreal, as we journey home...

And So It Ends...

until next time!

Thoughts for the Day:

First of all, I've added another website to my links on the right here. It's the website for the Toronto Rap Project. Very cool. Check it out if you have the time.

Second, check out this adorable pic (that I swiped off LaineyGossip.com, to be honest):



The whole reason Robin and Sarah brought up LaineyGossip.com was because during my (first ever) pedicure that I got with the girls while in Burlington, Vermont, I read (also pretty much my first ever) trashy tabloid magazine. Er, I mean, reputable celebrity news magazine...uuuuuh? Anyhow. All I was really interested in was the article about JT's letter to Britney while she was in rehab. As I sat with my feet under the wierd nail polish drying lamp thingie, I proclaimed to Robin, Sarah and anyone else within earshot that I have decided that Justin and Britney will get back together and be true loves one day. He just wants her to get herself together first, and when she's ready, he and his producer have offered to record a song or two with her, to get her career back on track and THEN - boom! It will happen. My girl Brit will be on top again, side by side with Justin, and they will fall back in love, and live happily ever after...

Or not. Who knows. Whatever. As long as one, or both, of them keeps recording those oh-so-danceable tracks, I'm good.

Now my final, and most important, thought for the day is this... I really feel the need to beg of you, my dear readers, and tell your friends too;

THE SIDEWALK IS NOT FOR YOU TO RIDE YOUR BIKE ON!!!

For the love of pete, if you're gonna ride your bike, have the guts to do it on the street. I know it's slightly treacherous, but if you can't hack it - get off the friggin' bike and WALK on the sidewalk like everyone else!

Thank you in advance for your consideration and for spreading the word.

"The Good Life"

I am struggling not to cripple myself with the uncontrollable guilt that I am presently feeling for living what I have come to call "The Good Life". I've been travelling with a theatre job for the last two months, followed by some vacation time with old friends, and now that I'm home in Toronto, I've pretty much just been hanging out with friends, eating, drinking, sleeping and hanging out on the internet. I was out with my friend Mark last night and made some sort of "good life" comment and he sort of scoffed and said "well, I guess that depends on how you define The Good Life". Point taken. I'm not exactly living the way I want to live forever these days... But that's all the more reason to enjoy this un-employed free-for-all of a life while it lasts, no?

Sooooooo, for those "good life" days when you have no major responsibilities, and it isn't quite Spring outside yet so you wanna stay in and loaf around on your computer all day (while you do this, I recommend listening to CBC, or NPR, or your region's equivalent to public radio, so that you can feel justified by your aural exposure to news, and cultural/political/social commentary)... I recommend the following:

Go to www.myheritage.com, and upload a photo of yourself. Do a search to see what celebrities you resemble, based on similarites of specific features like cheekbones, face shape, eye size & shape, mouth size & shape... It's wierd, and slightly disconcerting. And changes depending on what photo you give them to compare with.
For example, based on this photo of me (see below), which I don't really like but the site is sort of picky and you need to a have a headshot-like image of yourself for their scanning needs, MyHeritage.com told me that I most resemble Ashley Tisdale (whoever that is!), coming in second was Halle Berry (ha!), then Sophie Marceau (again, whoever that is), Hilary Swank (%76) and some GUY named Takuya Kimura (what?!?). Also, Kathy Bates and Melanie Griffith came up - oh brother!!



Two more searches, with different photos, turned up another slew of Asian celebrities that I have never heard of, Julianne Moore (%75), Sharon Stone (%75), Alexis Bledel (%74), Kiera Knightley (%68), Gael Garcia Bernal (%68 - hahaha!) and a young-looking Barbara Stanwyck (%74) - cool!

And when you get sick of public radio, go to http://txc.libsyn.com/ and listen to Tom X Chao's peculiar utterance of the day. He is a NYC-based playwright, comedian, performer, whatever... whom I met at the Frigid Festival in NYC earlier this year. He also wrote one of my two favorite shows from the festival, a play called "Can't Get Started". I laugh out loud listening to these random utterances.

If you're craving more mainstream, celebrity-based distractions, check out: www.laineygossip.com Robin and Sarah told me about this Vancouver-based Lainey, who is quite entertaining with her celebrity gossip blog. Also, I think she seems pretty cool, as Sarah tells me that she still volunteers for Covenant House in Vancouver (a safe-house for street youth) and I see that she has donated ad-space to them on her website. I'm not really a celebrity follower, but if you are, check out Lainey!

Finally, if you feel the need to redeem yourself and learn about something important, check out: www.milleniumcampaign.org, to learn about how you can help the world achieve a set of eight time-bound goals to end extreme poverty worldwide by 2015. We are the first generation that have the means to eradicate poverty, so join the campaign!

Alright, I'm gonna go look for a job on Good Work Canada now. And then hit the streets with my resume with the slightly more realistic ambition of finding a serving job for the summer. But first I think I'll google "Ashley Tisdale" because she came up TWICE on my MyHeritage.com celebrity look-alike search.

Preparing for "the good life" to end soon...