Sickly Languid Sunday

Spending a very quiet night at the hotel, and I am battling a case of the sniffles.  Lori has a sweet friend visiting from Australia, and he gave me some magical "down undah" cold meds. 

In between sips of ginger tea, there's been lots of time to google all sorts of fun things: 

• Cabins in Big Bear
• Perfect Black Suede Oxfords
• A new set of Wheels
• 1940s Hairstyles (complete with bangs)
• New Specs that remind me of Anna Karina (The Waldo!)
• Anna Karina (Perhaps the only lady to give Audrey a run for her money)
• Maria Taylor shares my birthday!
• The song we're learning in ukulele class makes me happy and sad
• Kierkegaard

Have a lovely evening, y'all!

Cat and Puppy

Happy

I think the universe is trying to test me today.

It's nine o'clock on a Sunday night, and I received an outside phone call (a.k.a. from a non-guest, not even staying in the hotel) asking for a barber, right now, for his boss.  Ten minutes later, another gentleman called asking what I had to do to get an acoustic guitar in his room by tonight.

Le Sigh.

Earlier this afternoon, I was snapped at for something I had done according to standard procedure.  This was immediately followed by me sobbing alone in the bell closet.

Rough day.

These are the times that lead me to daydreaming about working with small animals or children.

Or running away to Italy.

It can get overwhelming sometimes.  And perhaps other people deal with these things differently...better...than I do.  They can keep a positive outlook, and never struggle with the Chicken Little mentality.  And I try to be cognizant, I really do.  Just a slight tweak, a shift in thinking that reminds me of all I have to be grateful for.  Most of the time it works, and I come out on the other side, still a touch sad, but ready to keep on keepin' on.

I was ready to count this day as one of those unsalvageable, just no good, roll up like a burrito in my comforter when I get home days.

And then my sweet friend brought me a bottle of wine and a chocolate bar.  I'm tempted to crack it open right now at the desk but that is so not standard procedure.

Moving onward, here's to dancing and practicing that ukulele and being kind to others and being kind to myself and listening to music and maybe making some music and falling back in love with acting and traveling and exploring the possibility of teaching or dogwalking or anything else that might bring more happy days than not.

The Couple

"Do you ever, like, put off going to bed?  Like not because the day was so awesome or anything but because you can't deal with all the things waiting for you tomorrow?"

"Hmm.  No, I can't say that I have."

"Oh.  What's wrong with me then?"

Nothing.  It's not all about you.  I promise.
  
"Well, anyways, tonight was totally like that 'Romeo and Juliet' movie, like at that party when they're in that bathroom all wanting to do it because they see each other through the fish tank and then he grabs her arm and they're running running running?  I saw this guy tonight and he totally looked like someone I know, but, like, less broken?  Like younger and handsome.  And I kept staring at him and he kept pursing his lips, watching the party.  Then I kept staring at his mouth.  He didn't grab my arm though.  He didn't really pay me any mind.  Now that I think about it, it wasn't like 'Romeo and Juliet' at all." 

"Did you ever see the Zeffirelli film?"

"Um, no."

Can't say that that surprises me. 

"Alrighty,  I love you.  Going to sleep.  Turn out the lights before you come to bed, will you?"

"Will do."

Cornucopia...Corn-o-wha?

Well friends, Thanksgiving is next week and I'm feeling pretty grateful; how about you?

Which got me thinking of all the festive things we learned about in grade school, my favorite being:

Turkey Hands...I'm just gonna wait while y'all click on that.  Impressive huh?  I especially like the turkey hands on chest t-shirt and this little class project:

Some teacher must have been reading Fifty Shades of Grey during recess and felt inspired to create this masterpiece.

I also remember discussing the Cornucopia every November, as if it were a totally natural, commonplace thing:

2nd Grader:

We decorated our cornucopias today.  Have you even heard of them before?

3rd Grader:

Duh, we made like fifty cornucopias in first grade and twenty in second.  We've moved on to bigger and better things this year.

2nd Grader :

Like what?

3rd Grader:

Like Pilgrim hats.  And Indian headdresses.

Yes indeed, we have moved on to bigger and better Thanksgiving things such as eating, drinking, tryptophan, and more eating.

But I can't for the life of me remember what a cornucopia is or what it represents.

Googling "cornucopia thanksgiving" provided several magical 1-800 Flowers arrangement pics, and then what I was hoping to find:

Also known as the horn of plenty, it's from way way way back when, but we really associate it with Thanksgiving.

But that was all I found.

Wasn't it a gift or something from the natives?

Googled "cornucopia thanksgiving gift indians" and found this:

No one knows when the first Thanksgiving truly was, and apparently the cornucopia has just been hanging out as the symbol for that holiday.  All I can discern is that it comes from ancient Greece where it would have been made from a goat's horn, and nowadays is typically a basket, full of squash and other seasonal veggie bounty. 

Perhaps that's why I couldn't remember the significance of the cornucopia.

It's simply a centerpiece.

And just for that, I'm gonna make one this year.  Happy Tofurky day!

Jelly Bean Dinner

Short and sweet:  I ate jelly beans (Trader Joe's "real fruit" brand) for breakfast and dinner.  Rough day.  Which got me to thinkin'...Can one subsist entirely on candy?  And if so, for how long?

The answer, my friends, is blowin' in the internet winds:

My Week of Eating Nothing But Candy (!)

You're welcome.

The Elevator

The lady went to pay for her appointment at reception.

She tapped a red nail on the desk, then brought it up to tuck a cotton candy wisp of blonde hair back into her bun.

Yet again, she had to remind the male secretary the amount she should be charged.  It was sliding-scale, and perhaps she should feel bad about how little she paid, but she often watched him taking money from other patients and she was paying far more than most.

This is fair, she thought, with a little jerk of her head.

She eyed the secretary as he swiped the card; he seemed to sense this and fumbled when handing her a pen.

He's always staring up at me from that chair, she thought.  Examining her face whenever she walks up to him to pay.  As if he takes pleasure in the fact that she'd likely cried for an hour straight.  Pervert.  He probably gets paid in free therapy.  Seems too incompetent to hold an actual paying job.

The transaction was complete and she click-clacked into the hallway. 

See ya next week, Slob-o.

Pressing a red nail to the elevator button, the doors immediately opened and two men scurried off.  She wondered where the lift had come from; wasn't this the lowest level?

Stepping in, she realized another guy was still on.  He hit floor 3 and she checked to see that L was lit up. 

They began their ascent.  The guy looked at the lady.  Her pale skin flushed with the realization that her sunglasses were in the car.  Her eyes must look like all hell.

"What's on that floor? LL?" he asked.  "I've always wondered."

She turned and focused her gaze, really looked right into his face.  She had crazy wobbly anime eyes, she felt it.

"A counseling center," she said, more forcefully than she had meant to.

He leaned back and looked at the ceiling, processing what that really meant.  "Ah," he said.

The doors opened and he wished her a good day. 

She responded in kind, and as she click-clacked out the door, a strange thing happened.  She truly wished for that, felt that it might be attainable.

A good day.

When you first get to LA

You buy a Thomas Guide.

At least, that was the case up until a couple of years ago.  On the first page of every How to Be an Actor (a.k.a. Waitress) in LA book were two instructions:

1. Get thee to the Sam French
2. Pick up a Thomas Guide

So I popped into a bookstore, purchased a Not For Tourists (NFT, LA 2006 edition; did they stop making those too?) and my spiral-bound, twenty pound Thomas Guide.

It was truly indispensable for apartment-hunting.  I'd slam on the brakes somewhere around Koreatown (Craigslist neighborhoods were Greek to me at that point) and the little grid system would help me find my way to each potential dream home's address.  It also assisted later on when I was driving from audition to audition, flipping that massive book back and forth and putting everyone on the streets in grave danger.  Often I'd arrive only to discover I had not allotted enough travel time and wouldn't make my appointment at all.  This is when I'd begin to cry at the steering wheel, smearing my expensive photo paper headshots.  Ah, those were the days.

So where did the big map book go?  Perhaps the advent of GPS and iPhones have rendered them useless?  Did the company fail to get with the times?

I googled "thomas guides" and discovered that they were created by the Thomas brothers, cartographers who started out making little folding maps and guidebooks for California in the 1940s, which paved the way for the beloved atlas books to follow.  They created a unique page-by-page grid system that was adopted by so many throughout the West.  Yellow Pages would list their page and grid locations in their ads, and many Angelenos still remember their childhood home's coordinates. 

Here's what an older page looks like:

So in the back of the guide would be the listing of the street addresses by name and then broken down by number (say, W. Sunset Blvd. 8000-9000) with the page number and coordinates to see exactly where on the page you were headed.

It appears that a few years back Rand McNally and Co. bought Thomas Bros. Maps and that kind of assisted in their decline.  As did several unfortunate CEOs and a whole lotta outsourcing to India.

Some of the guides are still produced today but apparently the quality has diminished.  Sad.  I wish I'd kept mine around, if anything to see what has changed in the years I was away.  But I chucked that twenty pound paperweight on my cross-country drive to New York City. 

At least I've got an iPhone.

Ukulele

Translates to "jumping flea" in English.

This comes from when the tiny instrument was first introduced in Hawaii. Apparently the performer's fingers hopped about the uke with great speed?

I just started weekly ukulele lessons with Lori and am hoping to be playing mine with bed bug fingers in no time!

'Til then, let's watch something adorable, shall we?

Best. Artist. Date. Ever.

Audrey

Before Tapping Came Hambone

Today I'm taking myself on an Artist Date.  For those of you normal peeps, there is a little somethin-somethin us creative types love to read called The Artist's Way. It's basically a 12-Step program to proclaim, "My name is Heather and I am an Artist!"

So each day Julia asks that you write three pages of mind vomit immediately upon waking to get those wheels turning.  She also asks that you take your "Artist Child" on a date once a week.  It has to be something that you'll really enjoy, and you must go alone.

Tonight I'm going on what will likely be one of my favorite Artist Dates since 2007.  Tilly and the Wall are playing LA for the first time in years. They are magical for so many reasons, but I love them mostly because they do something truly badass:  their percussion comes from Tap Dancing.  And stomps and other fun things, but, seriously, tap dancing.

I've been a tapper since before I can remember (really, I was dancing at age 4 and don't recall a thing before I turned 5) and today I realized that I didn't know too much about how tap dancing came to be other than from minstrel shows and some Irish stepdancing (remember Riverdance, and Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance?!)

After doing a bit of googling:  "tap dancing beginnings of" I found a little something called Juba Dance which is also known as Hambone.

Y'all, that's me! 

Heather Anne Moody, initials HAM, college nickname Hambone (thank you Chris Chamblee, Professional Actor) and I've never even realized my namesake is a dance?

Juba originated when American slaves weren't allowed to have drums (out of fear they'd create a secret percussive code) so they worked out some percussion action with own their limbs instead.

Hambone paved the way for one of my greatest joys in life, tapping!

And now to give you an idea of just how amazeballs it can be:

And that, my friends, is Hambone. 

The Studio

It wasn't until she was leaving, walking down the narrow hallway covered in headshots, that she felt it.

Or the absence of it, rather.

She had not been to this studio in four years, since she was dutifully making the audition rounds at her agent's request. Every single time, she'd walk in the door and her chest would tighten. Girls would be tucked into every corner, legs blocking the hall, stretching and chatting.

Cacophonous, she thought now.

She'd tuck her head and push through, all the way to the back entrance, to the parking lot. There she could breathe, stand in the sunshine, and begin to warm her muscles.

She'd see girls she recognized, well, she used to in the beginning. In the beginning she'd usually have someone to pal up with, someone to chat with to take her mind off of her nerves. At the end, she mostly felt older than the other dancers. Out of place.

She would line up to register, hand shaky with self-doubt. Thank them kindly, and pin a number on her chest.

Learning the combination, she used to push right up front and center. Towards the end she'd hang in the back. She was much taller than the other girls. It was fine.

Things got better once she started moving. She'd usually gain a bit of confidence when she sensed she was picking up the steps more quickly than the others. She'd laugh a big full laugh when the director or choreographer would make a joke. Show them how sweet she was, what a joy she'd be to work with.

She would often be called back. She'd walk to her car and phone work, "Hi! I just got a callback! Yay! It's at 3, so I'll just be an hour or so behind. Thank you thank you thank you!"

Always a callback, never a job.

She'd begun to turn down auditions. Tell her agent she had work. The woman didn't get her anyway. Woman, hah, they were probably the same age. Always submitting her for things that she was obviously so wrong for. Waste of time.

And that was it.

She stopped dancing for a few years. Every once in awhile she'd catch something on TV or on YouTube, and her heart would hurt. She'd take a class here and there, and it almost made up for everything else. She'd throw herself into yoga, and because the city was so big, there was always a new-student-month-unlimited-deal she could afford. She'd hop to a different studio when the month ran out. It was almost the same, she thought. More practical, even.

And then she woke up.

She came back.

She was moving at a snail's pace, but moving nonetheless.

Ayurveda

I've recently embarked on a veggie/pescetarian (pescatarian?) diet. Which is magical, except for the headache I've had for a week now.

This morning, head still pounding, I reached for my iPhone to get to the bottom of it.

Well, first I googled "conor oberst girlfriend". Twenty minutes later, still no definitive answer to that one.

On to googling "becoming vegetarian headaches why".

I stumbled upon the Ayurvedic Diet.

From what I understand, Ayurveda is ancient, deals with different energies (water, fire, air, earth, ether), maybe has something to do with Buddhism, and definitely has something to do with Indian medicine. There are three doshas. These little nuggets rule your general constitution, and there are certain things you can eat and do for yourself to keep your dosha happy.

My dosha is Vata. This means I have a small frame, am usually cold, and am often anxious.

Vata is basically the chihuahua of doshas.

Other doshas include Pitta and Kapha. You can find your ruling dosha here at Deepak Chopra's website.

I have enough whoo-whoo sparkle energy crystal magic in my life as it is, but I can get down with something that encourages me to stay warm, eat a bunch of avocado, enjoy my favorite colors and scents (sweet, heavy, and warm, such as vanilla), and be touched often. Boom, done!

And that, my friends, is Ayurveda. Kinda sorta.

Hi, y'all

LA to LA has been marinating in my brain (and floating in internet limbo) for some time now.

After years of Tumblr-ing, I realized I'd created a scrapbook of sorts, and am hoping to make something a little more cohesive here.

But, yikes, blank pages are scary. What could LA to LA be?

My initial thought was to document the exploration of my sexy self. I've come a long way from Lower Alabama (to LA, NY, and back to LA) only to find I'm still hanging on to a lot of Southern hangups.

I decided I'd be a good little concierge and Angeleno and kill the nightlife with my best gal Lori. We'd have a little fashiony-lifestyley blog with pictures to prove that I did indeed lose the Wallabees in favor of rocking that miniskirt.

Then life sort of nudged me into considering all of those deeply ingrained hangups and fears.

It reminded me to be brave.

So here we'll explore all kinds of fun things such as:

• Story Time
• What have we learned today?
• Only in LA
• Only in Alabama
• When I grow up I want to be...

And maybe more. Ready? Good, me too. Let's go.