Love IS Louder

Hey friends. So, there have been some disturbing things going on in this world and it makes my heart hurt. 

As of late, there has been a terrible epidemic of gay teens killing themselves because of bullying. It is so awful to see such hatred amongst teens and kids. I remember how hard it was to be a teenager; that is why I always say that I would never want to go back to my teen years. When I was a teenager we didn't have things like Facebook and Twitter to use as a means for communication. It was hard enough to be a teenager who could hear people talking about you or reading on someone's blog. Now in addition to all of that, you can see it in so many forms of social media and in real life. I feel like it is hard enough to be a teenager; you don't know who you are yet, and you're developing and not really knowing what is going on. You don't need to be made fun of for those reasons. 

I went to a performing arts high school. As a result, I went to school with a handful of gay and bi-sexual students. I was friends with these people and they were no different than the rest of us. I know that there was ridicule but nothing was worse than seeing many of the students being forced out by our school's administration. Isn't that horrible? I mean, how can we expect students to be tolerant if the adults in positions of power aren't tolerant? It's heartbreaking and disgusting. 

Moving on to college, I went to a school that had many gay and bi-sexual students. Emerson College was voted as the #1 school for GLBT students by the Princeton Review and with good reason. Emerson is a wonderful, open minded campus full of people who are committed to making this world a more compassionate place. 

This past weekend, ArtsEmerson produced a production of The Laramie Project. The Laramie Project tells the story of Matthew Shepard, who was brutally murdered because he was gay. It happened over ten years ago now but the story is still terribly relevant. After Matthew's death Fred Phelps and the members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested his funeral and the press coverage of the trial because of Matthew's homosexuality. As a result, Matthew's friends, lead by Romaine Patterson created a group called Angel Action to peacefully counter protest the members of Westboro. It was a beautiful display of people coming together for a common reason. When Westboro found out that ArtsEmerson was producing this production, they formed to stage a protest against the production. Upon hearing this Emerson students came together to form their own Angel Action. They staged a peaceful protest in the Boston Common, coming together to show that love is always going to be more powerful that hate. 

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the protest in Boston, I am so proud to be a member of the Emerson community. I think that we need to show the world that love really is stronger than hate. It is terrible that we still live in a world where people are discriminated against because of who they are. I want everyone to to come together and show the world that love is always going to be stronger than hate. Let's take a stand friends. There is no better time than now.

Birthday Reflections

So last week I celebrated my 24th birthday. I do have to say I'm still not 100% comfortable with the idea of being 24 but I couldn't really stop it either. Turning 24 just reminds me that I'm getting older. And getting older is really scary. No one prepares you for this point in your life. Sometimes I feel like a bird thrown out of the nest with no map or instruction booklet. It freaks me out. But I can say, I learned a lot during my 23rd year; about life and about myself.

When I turned 23, I had yet to know what true heartbreak felt like. I was about to find out. It sent me to a dark lonely place but I figured out how to get back from there. And if I hadn't had the heartbreak, I wouldn't have opened myself back up to love. On my 23rd birthday I didn't wish for love to find me but it did and I'm glad. 23 brought me love. I learned how to open myself up to another person completely, share my heart with them and allow them to share theirs with me. I am head over heels in a way that I wasn't before. In a way that I don't think I could have appreciated a year ago. But now I'm ready.

I already knew that I had a group of people I could count on whenever I needed them. Not just my family but the family I created. And this year proved very truly who those people are. I also learned that I can be a shitty friend and the people who really care won't care about the shitty times and focus on the good ones. I've realized that sometimes people come in and out of our lives when we don't expect it. And there is always a reason for that. Sometimes you grow apart and that's okay. Sometimes you grow closer together and that's okay too. Everyone has a time in your life but they can't have it all the time.

I've also decided that I'm going to use 24 as a fresh start. I will approach my mid-twenties with a new frame of mind. I must figure out the tools I need to create my own destiny. I will diligently work to achieve what I want from my life, even if it means supplying myself with the most basic levels of information to get to the next part of my life. I will no longer sit idly by and let my life pass me by.

Most importantly I learned with 23 and continue with 24 is to live my life with my heart and mind open. I will take each day as it comes and I will embrace every minute of my life for the ways it will teach me and change me. I will love with every fiber of my being and I will fight for what I believe in. And that is the only way to grow.

Where is Your Heart?

Hello world and thank you Kelly Clarkson for providing me with an easy title. So, here's the new blog! My first request too!! Even though I'm sure this is something I would have written about sooner or later...love. Oh yes, I'm going there. Its time kiddos. It's a new year and time for a new perspective on life yes? Kay, well here goes.

My good friend asked me to write a blog about "love, heartache and pain." Hello! Three words I'm very familiar with. So I put on the Kelly Clarkson (who is also very familiar with these three words) and I'm getting to work.

Now, I'm my very humbled and honest opinion, you can't have good true love without heartache and pain first. I mean, how will you be able to appreciate the good stuff without the bad stuff right? I know this much from experience. Hell, who doesn't? Half of the conversations I have with my girlfriends is about men. The men we love, the men we used to love, the ones we could have loved, the ones we spurned, the ones who spurned us...you get the picture. As singer Willa Ford so brilliantly said "Fuck the men, let's drink to us!" It is so amazing that so much of our lives as women can be marked by the men that were apart of it. 'Sex and the City' is one of my favorite shows and Carrie Bradshaw's life on the show is really marked by her three big relationships: Big, Aiden and the Russian. You know what? I think I'm going to ease into this thrilling look at love by talking about my favorite show.

'Sex and the City' is practically a woman's guide. A handbook for life and love in New York City some may say. I mean, I definitely know a lot of girls who look at their lives through the lens of Carrie and Co. Hell, I do it all the time! First, Carrie has Mr. Big. Big never really goes away though does he? I know the feeling Carrie. The Mr. Big type is the guy who keeps ripping your heart out, pounding it flat with a meat cleaver and handing it back to you. And while you know that he's toxic and no good for you; you also know that he's your destiny so you keep going back for another pounding. Mr. Big serves Carrie her heart on a tray more times than we can keep track of. Calling her his "friend" in front of his mother, not being able to ever tell her she's "The One", marrying the idiot stick figure with no soul (the much younger Natasha), the affair, showing up just as Carrie thinks her life is finally going the way she wants it to (pre-Paris), coming to her rescue, leaving her at the altar (if you haven't seen the movie by now, what the hell are you waiting for?!) and then finally he manages to sit right and fly straight. Should Carrie have stuck around for all of that? No. But she did because Mr. Big was her destiny. But it proves that you have to deal with the bad to get to the good.

I have plenty of girlfriends who have man problems. I mean, what woman doesn't right? But sitting around and talking about it (usually over food or coffee or both) is the only way we can deal with and work through our issues. Now I've heard some seriously cringe worthy stories from my girls. The crazy stalker who called 6 times a day and showed up at my friend's house only to get chased away by her family; the alcoholic drug addict who caused a scene at my friend's place of work, the straight boy who acts gayer than any gay we've ever met (seriously), or better yet, the guy you think is the love of your life who turns out to be gay, the mixed message sender, the commitment phobe, and a sordid amount of other tales that would be pages and pages to tell. My personal favorite is the guy who tells you he loves you but you can't be together so he dates some wholly inappropriate girl (one with some nasal issues) or someone who has something in common with you (like your knack with the sarcastic comments, your wit when armed with a pen or your love for the stage) in a backward, lame attempt to get over you and/or make you ridiculously jealous. This last issue I can speak of from personal experience.

Now the reason I think my friend asked me to write about this subject is because she is dealing with separation anxiety. She is forced to be away from her boyfriend who she cares about more than she'll let on for longer than she'd like and it's killing her. Hence the pain and heartache part of love. It sucks to be apart from the person you love, no matter what the circumstances are for your separation. When you're forced to be away from your love, you don't really feel completely whole. It always feels like something is gnawing away at your insides and you just can't get it to stop. There is a constant dull pain deep down inside of you that no amount of social interaction, chocolate or booze will ever dull. It is truly one of the most unbearable feelings in the world. And yet when you can't change it, you are forced to deal with it. It's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place; there is no happy alternative. It's really just a matter of how long you can stick it out whether it be six months or three years. Again, this I know for personal experience.

The thing is when you begin to picture your life without that person and you can't. I had a friend who said that she knows the man who is her soulmate because there have been times when she's literally wanted to kill him but then in the next moment couldn't imagine her life without him. I had to say that I totally agreed with this statement. Or in a less extreme situation, when you can just imagine being with someone for a long time. Maybe not forever, but for the forseeable future. What do you do when that person is suddenly not there anymore? If it's time, or distance or circumstance that keeps that person away, their absence throws you into a tailspin of how to suddenly deal with your life and where they fit into it. You know that no matter what the circumstance, you aren't giving them up without a fight. Its hard because there will be mornings where you will wake up and ask yourself: "what the hell are you thinking by sticking around?" but others where you can't imagine being any other place, no matter how much it's killing you.

Please let me tell you, it will kill you. That pang you feel in your heart every time you think about him, that incurable dull ache, the dreams that haunt you at night, the moments where you can't stop smiling...its all going to get to you after awhile. The only thing I can say from experience is that it will get easier. You'll learn how to handle the good feelings and the bad. Or if you can't be with him, you'll learn how to get over being without him. You'll still love him of course but you'll be able to keep the thoughts from haunting you and making you want to rip all of the hair out of your head. You'll be able to look at him clearly an objectively again and tell him when he's done something that makes you happy or unhappy. It all comes with time.

And if it doesn't work out and you are forced to sit and put back together the pieces of your broken heart, you can do what another friend used to do. Picture all of your exes singing *NSYNC's "I Want You Back" to you. It will definitely induce a good chuckle.

But I leave you with these last thoughts. Remember, what's meant to be will be and if it wasn't, its because there's something better out there. Love takes time but you can't have great love without great heartbreak, heartache and pain.

History

Hi nobody! I really need to work on promoting this guy more.

So, yesterday January 20th, 2009 was a day that changed history. Barack H. Obama became the 44th president of the United States. He is also the first african american president EVER. As an african american, I can honestly say that this isn't something I thought I'd see this early in my young life, if ever. I thought that there was still too much prejudice in this country for people to see past the color of this brillant man's skin to see that he would really be the best person for the job.

This whole election was definitely one that changed history. I mean, there was so much more at stake than there has been in the past. Not just the war or the economy but both. The person who was to take on the presidency had to be someone strong enough to handle all of that. And to fix the mistakes made by the administration before him. And now I know that some of my friends don't agree with my political views and this isn't going to be a post where that's all I speak about. But now that Barack has been sworn in and is officially official I pause a minute to think about how different things would have been if John McCain had been elected. I really don't think that things would have changed much if at all. The rich would still be rich and the poor would just get poorer. As a member of the poor I would really like to see things change in that capacity. It isn't fair that my parents have to be driven out of the city they've called their home for 50+ years because rents are getting expensive. It isn't fair that I will be paying off student loans until I'm 42 because of the killer interest rates. It shouldn't be that only 5% of the population controlls the wealth. And this is something I really believe that Obama will change. Of course it isn't going to happen in a day, a month, a year, maybe not even 4 years. But I know that he will set the wheels in motion for such a thing to happen.

Why do I know that? Because Barack and Michelle Obama are regular people. They're just like me and my family, except now they have a really swanky address and a lot of power. But they shop at Target and their kids go to public school and Michelle wears clothes from the Ann Taylor Loft and looks just as beautiful in them as she would in Dior. They didn't come from money so they understand what it means to have to fight and struggle just to keep your head above water. They know the uphill battle than me and a lot of my friends are now facing with paying back our student loans, forcing us to live with our parents or to do jobs that we may not want just to be able to pay the bills but be no closer to moving out of their houses no matter how much we want to. They understand what its like to be a student who struggles to find a job in this economy which is damn near impossible. And they care and want to make it better for us. Would McCain? I don't think so, I really don't. I mean he and his wife come from priviledge. I bet their kids didn't have to take out student loans and they have plenty of money to live comfortably.

They have no idea what it's like to have to make a decision like feeding your family or putting gas in your car. They don't know what its like to put off buying something that you need just so that everyone else in your household is taken care of. They don't know that kind of sacrifice which is why I don't think that they would have done what they needed to do to make it better. And as a woman, I would fear for my rights if McCain would have won. Why? Because we wouldn't have any anymore. Obama is going to keep the rights we have like Roe v. Wade and giving us new ones, like help for single mothers who have to take off work if their kid gets sick. He understands the plight of the working class family.

And as I sat on my couch wrapped in a blanket watching him take the oath of office and make his speech, I was proud. Proud because we now have a man in office who will do everything he can to make life better for everyone. A man who doesn't let anyone off the hook for the situations we now find ourselves in as a country. A man who has pride, not just because of who we are and what we've done but because of what we can do and what he will lead us to do in the future. You may not agree with me, but where has that pride been for the last 8 years? Where has any of that responsibility been the last 8 years? Where has that humility been the last 8 years? Surely not in the United States of America. In the past 8 years I've seen arrogance and gluttony, not physical gluttony but monetary gluttony. An abuse of power and people who didn't care about the thousands of innocent lives that were lost under their command. And I don't care what anyone says, that isn't a country to be proud of. How can you be proud of a country that has not only failed its own citizens but has caused devastation all around the world? You can't. At least I can't.

Now I am proud to be an American. I know that the Obama administration will work tirelessly to restore the world's faith in America and its citizens. I know that I sat and watched an eloquent, well spoken and sharply dressed man make a promise. A promise to not only his country and the world but to himself to make this world a better place for future generations. As Sam Cooke said in his famous civil rights anthem 'It's been a long time coming but I know a change is gonna come.' Yes it is Sam. And yes we can America. Land of the free and home of the brave.

Making it on Broadway!

So, there was a contest being run before the holidays through Broadway Space.com with the program Making it On Broadway. Basically if you friended Making it on Broadway, you would be entered to win a free master class during one of their winter intensive programs. Well, I was the lucky winner, and believe me when I say I was lucky. At first I thought that I would only be able to attend one class but once I got to the first class, Jodie Langel, the co-founder and teacher at Making it on Broadway, informed me that I would be able to sit in on all of the master classes for the week.

I attended two of the master classes during this week's intensive one with Roger Bart (who had only finished performing in Young Frankenstein two days before) and one with Andrea Burns, one of the current stars of In The Heights. They were two of the best classes I have ever had the privilege of attending. I absolutely loved observing their two different approaches to working with the actors in the class. Both were very hands-on with the students and answered every question as truthfully as they possibly could. When I asked Roger Bart how he finds the balance between taking a job because it's a paycheck or doing something because of his feelings toward it as an artist, he told us to find the artistry in every role. But if you've been in the chorus making a steady paycheck and you're ready for something more, know when its okay to say "No." And Andrea Burns was also honest about what being an actor feels like. Of recently performing on the Tony's, she was very frank. She knew that the opportunity may never come again so she relished every minute of it, especially when she knew others who got their turn before her.

As for watching them actually work with students they both had very different approaches but both very helpful. Roger Bart was mainly going on his first impressions of a lot of the pieces because he admitted that he's not super savvy on a lot of musical theatre. And his gut reactions were still very honest and very wonderful. You can tell that what he said was appreciated and the kids were not just taking it at face value. I mean, obviously the man knows what he's talking about; he has a Tony. And he's absolutely wonderful as an actor and as a person. I kinda want to be his best friend. Andrea Burns wasn't starkly different but different enough. She asked a lot more questions about the motivation behind the choices that each student made. Watching her work with the students made me feel like I was in college again and that was kind of enjoyable for the moment.

I didn't get the chance to thank Roger because he had his knee drained earlier that afternoon and was in a lot of pain so they kind of rushed him out but I got to thank Andrea and tell her what a treat it was to see her work. Only last night I was singing along with her on my computer and then poof! there she was in front of me! It was kind of epic. I've never gotten to have that kind of experience with a Broadway actor before. Well except for when I met Laura Benanti, but I didn't get to watch her work; I just got to take a picture with her and have her tell me that I was beautiful.

But both classes were absolutely awesome. The intensive is a bit pricey, but from the little sneak peek I got, definitely worth the money you'd be spending! I'm definitely going to save my pennies and sign up for the next one! For more information and to see a list of past professionals that have worked with the program, check out their website here I want to thank Broadway Space and Jodie from Making it on Broadway for giving me such a great opportunity.