"Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly." 

-Morticia Addams

10 Reasons why I love Europe. A picture journal.

(As told by the not-always-so-high quality pictures that I took on my phone--- click to enlarge).

1. The Eiffel Tower

 Failed jumping picture.

2. The views

 Rome (from the hotel)

 Rome (from the hotel)

 Paris (duh)

 From Montmartre (France)

Ruins in Rome

3. Macarons. MA-CA-RONS. (aka: crack)

4. (Because of that last picture) Wine...Cheap delicious Wine.

5. Italian lasagna and pizza. 

6. The art and architecture. 

 At The Louvre (Paris)

 Statue of Nike; The Louvre (Paris)

Paris

Musée de l'Armée (Paris)

 Inside the Louvre (Paris)

 Montmartre, Sacré-Coeur (France)

 Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Italy)

 Vittorio Emanuele II monument (Italy)

 Chiesa di Sant'Agnese (Piazza Navona- Italy)

 Fontana di Piazza Navona (Italy)

 Fontana di Piazza Navona (Italy)

 The Pantheon (Italy)

 Outside of the Colosseum (Italy)

 Inside of the Colosseum (Italy)

 Fontana di Trevi (Italy)

 I had to throw in this one of this street artist sketching me. (Paris)

7. Cobble-stone streets

8. Disneyland Paris

9. Parisian Breakfast

Small, but so delicious your face will want to melt off.

10. This:

xoxo.

I love this person's blog entry.

How I know my wife married the wrong person. <---clickety. 

Why I love acting.

I just feel like I need to get this out.

Acting is my LOVE. My first love (I even met my first boyfriend thanks to an acting, class. Ha!).
Any given day (aka: every day), I sit and daydream about being on set for a major production. Be it a movie, a TV show, a theatrical performance. It literally makes me feel like I want to explode glitter and gumdrops when I think about the possibility of acting full-time. 
No job, no class, no worldly accomplishment has ever made me as happy as acting makes me. 
NOTHING. 

When I'm acting, truly acting, I feel an overwhelming sense of peace and happiness. I'm in my element. 
I have the opportunity this summer to have a small-ish role in a 2-2.5 hour long play.
I get to be/portray a...not-so-likable character, which is terrific for me.
I don't enjoy playing a character that is like me. I just feel like...that's not acting, that's reciting memorized lines.
The actors that get the most recognition are the ones who embody characters that are nothing like themselves--with the exception of Leonardo DiCaprio...give that man an Oscar, PLEASE!!

I cry on the inside for Leonardo, because that man is perfect.

Anyway, when I think about outstanding actors and actresses, I think about people who are willing to get HIDEOUS to allow themselves to genuinely be the characters that they need to be.
I think about Charlize Theron in "Monster." Heavens, that woman looked cray-cray.

Charlize Theron (who is literally a 12 out of 10 on any given day)

Charlize Theron...yes.

And I remember watching "Precious" with Mo'Nique and literally thinking, "Oh my goodness," when I saw her.

Mo'Nique looking fabulous, like the award she's holding.

Mo'Nique looking like she was dragged through a hurricane tied to the back of a horse with 3 legs.

And then there is Christian Bale's absolutely terrifying weight-loss make-under for "The Machinist."

Christian Bale, looking all dashing and Dark Knight-y.

Wut.

I truly, madly, deeply admire these people. I mean, I think versatility in acting is everything.  I would be willing to gain 70 lbs.,  shave my head, and be as torn up as ever. It's about being the character. It's not about being yourself and being superimposed into a movie. That's not what makes a movie memorable. That's not what resonates with people.

Example:

Kim Kardashian on the red carpet.

Kimmy K. in the movie "Temptation" (apparently not playing herself).

Now, I have no issues with Kimmy K. I genuinely think she's gorgeous and she has somehow made an empire out of being pretty much just that. I'm sure she works very hard. However, I don't think I'll be rustling any feathers when I say that I don't see her playing any other role apart from...basically herself. 

Kimmy K. in CSI: NY, playing...not herself. Allegedly.

Anyway, my point has nothing to do with Kim Kardashian, really. But she was a pretty good example of how and why people get type-casted (She actually did a pretty good job in her role in "Temptation"). I just hope that if I make it in the wonderful world of show-business, that I don't get type-casted.

The wonderful thing to me about acting is that you can literally be a thousand different people. The average person doesn't get to live many different lives and experience so many different things. Actors do, however. And when you're really acting, you really feel the way your character would. You can't separate yourself from your character at times and that's what it truly means to be in-character.

I've heard it said that actors have selective Multiple Personality Disorder (now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder). You become another person. 

This may only be interesting to me, but I don't care and this is my blog so your opinion has no value here :)

In conclusion (this is the FCAT standard of writing at work here, people), I cannot wait until I can drop this monotonous, day-to-day work that makes me feel claustrophobic in my own skin.

I hope and pray that one day I can just act my little, brown life away. Acting makes me so happy. It makes me so happy to think that I can just step into someone else's shoes and bring them to life.

I cannot WAIT for my next rehearsal this month and then our debut next month!
I cannot WAIT to hear back from a close, potential connection about auditions!

I cannot WAIT to be finished WAITING.

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible." -T.E Lawrence

xoxo.