June 2012
1 post
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The Streets of LA
- It’s late in the evening as the sun sets over Los Angeles. I’m listening to the city tonight. Living it. Experiencing it. I don’t do this often enough. I wake up, I go to work, I go on to my evening plans. I’m always insulated. There’s always a layer between me and my city.
But tonight, I’m sitting at the corner of Sunset and Highland, waiting for a...
May 2012
9 posts
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Dear Thirteen Year Old Me....
Dear Lynn,
You’re thirteen right now. I’m sorry about that. I really am. It’s hard.
Really.
But you survive. That I can promise you. In fact, I wanted to share a few tips and thoughts in the meantime, just so you make it to 25.
Coffee will always, always be awesome. It will not stunt your growth. You grow up to be...
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Life Updates!
- Friends!
I haven’t forgotten my Halfway Good at a Lot of Things series, don’t worry! There’s just so much to write about these days!
A few things first - check out The Womanhood Project. I absolutely adore these amazing women and am so excited for the future of this project. We would love to hear your thoughts!
I have bright red hair. Finally.
I still have no voice....
I Didn't Say Hello
I was in the same room with him.
We were at the same party. I knew people that he knew. I like to imagine that we even had the same wine to drink. Maybe even one of those amazing little bite-size chocolate tarts that I ate three (3!) of.
My writing hero and I were finally in the same place at the same time. All of those lines about You should never meet your heroes were running through my...
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Happy Resting Day!
This was the text I sent to Laurie this morning - Happy resting day! So, I’d just like to take this moment to announce that I have this whole resting thing figured out, and basically, I’m awesome and —— You can’t hear me. But I’m laughing right now. I couldn’t even type that with a straight face.
I just wanted to see what it felt like to type out...
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Food Blogs and the People at My Table
I’m taking a quick break from my Halfway Good at a Lot of Things series for a confessional moment —
I’m obsessed with food blogs right now.
They’re like crack to this information-crazy foodie girl.
This last week, I made Smitten Kitchen’s raspberry coconut macaroons for the second time, except this time I used fresh apricot juice and lemon zest. And then...
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Imagine - Jonah Lehrer
This. Book. Is. Amazing.
I’ve read it twice in the last week. For anyone looking for inspiration or a massive dose of thinking outside the box, Jonah Lehrer is your guy.
I can’t wait to read his other books.
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Halfway Good at A Lot of Things - Pt. 2
Last week, I started a blog post. I didn’t think it was going to be as intense as it was. But by the end - it was long and awesome. And I want to keep digging in further, because the responses I got back from people pretty much all said the same thing - I thought I was the only one. I needed to hear something like that. I think, as an artist, dealing with these...
April 2012
7 posts
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Halfway Good at A Lot of Things- Pt. 1
Art. Let’s talk about it for a bit.
One of the best things about the world and technology and the grand internets is that art is exploding, everywhere. If you have an idea and a smartphone, your art can meet the glory of YouTube in about ten seconds.
It’s awesome.
Suddenly, brilliant artists in the middle of nowhere who have no label backing them...
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That I May Never Be Comfortable
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach...
Eureka Season Premiere TONIGHT! 9/8c →
You guys! The best season yet of Eureka starts tonight on Syfy! (And I’m not just saying that because I worked on it. Seriously.) Watch out, world!
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Why You Are My Perfect Friend
I wish I was more like her. I wish I was that outgoing. I wish I had her success. Her talent. Her joy. Her hair. I wish I looked like she does. I wish I could do what she does. I wish I was her.
It’s hard to be an LA girl. Really really.
Once you get past the everlasting sun and 80 degrees in February and the crazy creative city… oh wait....
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A Rainy LA Day
It’s a cold and rainy day here in Los Angeles, where memories of a hot sun and breezy “winter” winds of 70 degrees (i.e. the reasons we all moved here) have been relegated to, well, a memory.
I love days like this, days where the weather is cold and bleary and you just crave comfort food. (Olive oil and wine grilled mushrooms and asparagus? Yes...
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The First Day of the Rest of My Life
That’s it. I will never recover. Everything I’ve ever hoped for or wished for - gone! Down the drain! Goodbye, lovely dreams! Hello, cruel world…
(So my inner monologue occasionally swings to the dramatic side of things. Blog confession of the day. So there.)
Have you ever had a moment like that? You put all your chips on the table, dreaming of some future...
March 2012
5 posts
10 tags
A Town Called Eureka
Check it out! Last summer, I was a part of one of the best experiences of my career - Eureka - one of the shows that made me want to be a part of this crazy industry. It was one of those few and far between moments where you actually do want to meet your heroes because they are just that awesome.
(Do yourself a favor and watch it in full-screen too.)
I met some of my...
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Go Buy Yourself a Coloring Book (Or How I Learned...
I’ve been all overly serious lately. It’s Saturday and the sun is shining, and I’m just having one of those days. Today is a decidedly not serious kind of day.
And with that comes my confession to the internets at large: I am the very proud owner of a Winnie the Pooh coloring book. I’ve had it for years. I’ve gone through three boxes of crayons...
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An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Yes, it’s everywhere right now. I know that. But with good reason. Watch it. Let it in. Don’t just glaze over. Watch and engage.
“There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
I’m writing to you tonight from Los Angeles, California, where I spent my day at my job that I am completely crazy about. I work in television. I am one of what? A...
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Because I Want to Defend You
I have often been asked if Christopher defended me because he was my close friend. The truth is that he became my close friend because he wanted to defend me.
- Salman Rushdie, discussing the genesis of his friendship with Christopher Hitchens
These two men became close friends despite their polarized views of all things God, and what an interesting way to look at the world. How much...
February 2012
11 posts
8 tags
The Artist
Yes, I’m reposting a blog from November. But in honor of the Oscars this evening - here it is again. Go see The Artist. Right now. :)
I can’t fully express how stunningly beautiful this film is.
The Artist premiered at Cannes in May (with Jean Dujardin taking home Best Actor there). I had the joy of seeing it last night, followed up by a Q&A with writer/director Michel...
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God Eats Pad Thai - Part 2
A few years ago, I wrote a novella, God Eats Pad Thai. Just for me, just to put words to a story that had been floating through my life for the last several months. I wanted to write a story of what might happen if God actually showed up on someone’s doorstep to explain himself. We ask him often enough…
This week and next, I’m sharing...
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“… the truth is that I was enough of myself. I was never meant to be her or him...”
– Excerpt from my essay (via thewomanhoodproject)
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God Eats Pad Thai - Part 1
A few years ago, I wrote a novella, God Eats Pad Thai. Just for me, just to put words to a story that had been floating through my life for the last several months. I wanted to write a story of God actually showing up on someone’s doorstep to answer every question they’d ever had face-to-face. Some of it was based on my own life. Some of...
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We Are That Kind of Human
One of the primary laws of human life is that you become like what you worship; what’s more, you reflect what you worship not only back to the object itself but also outward to the world around.
- N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope
Every so often, I read something that just kind of stops me in my tracks and makes me consider the way my life is put...
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ART - The Pasadena Playhouse
I think I’ve had a wee bit of a crush on Bradley Whitford since his Josh Lyman days. Let’s just get that out of the way.
Art is in the middle of a short run at The Pasadena Playhouse (this delightful little venue we haven’t had a chance to go to before), starring Bradley Whitford, Michael O’Keefe and Roger Bart. Yasmina Reza’s play about three...
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Life Changes... All the Time. And Then Again.
As many of my friends can attest, when I start a new show (yay!), I pretty much disappear into a little bubble for a few weeks. I’m doing good if I manage to let my parents know I’m alive, let alone anyone else. This post is partially about that. And partially not. But let’s start there.
Hi everyone. I am alive. Alive and well, actually.
Everything changes so quickly...
January 2012
11 posts
11 tags
That September and Our Stories
9/11.
Where do you even begin? Is there even anything that can be said, ten years down the road, that hasn’t already been repeated ad infinitum? We know the stories already. But maybe that’s the point.
For the first few years, 9/11 influenced movies and television from a close distance. We never really said it out loud. There were very few direct mentions of...
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Improv Class (Why I'm Not an Actress)
“Want to come to my first class with me?”
It was an easy question from my best friend. Of course I wanted to come to her first class of the semester. I’d sit quietly in the back and observe, listening in as her acting professor taught brilliantly. I’d take notes in my little journal and enjoy being a part of this moment of her life.
The last thing I expected was that...
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The Best Surprise
I just drove across the country with my best friend Laurie. Along the way, we surprised one of our other best friends, Cheryl, who knew that Laurie was coming, but not me. The look on her face when I walked through her door was priceless. I so wish my phone had not been dead at that moment, otherwise I absolutely would have had video.
It’s such a credit to my friends...
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Music, Empathy and a Child of the 90's
When I was younger, I didn’t really give a second thought to how much music can influence a person. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to change my radio over to whatever music I could find. I was stuck with our local inspirational station, or if I was lucky, our oldies station, where the Beach Boys were about as risque as it got.
Complicating...
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The Importance of Being Inspired
Imagine that first twinge of inspiration. Think about it. I know you’ve been there. A road before you was muddled, and is now clear. The questions you’ve fought through suddenly have answers, a way through you’d never seen before. This is the beauty of inspiration.
I don’t know anyone who would pass up a chance to be inspired, whether...
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December 2011
13 posts
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Dancing in Defiance
“It’s a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it. Below it and around it. Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror...
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Halfway out of the Dark
There’s something in the air this time of year. Twinkly lights edging every window, a puff of cold air whispering Hope and Go get some hot chocolate, rather than the horrific Why on God’s green earth is it this freaking cold? that somehow visits in January and February.
I love that every year ends with celebrations. Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s...
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WatchMy city… The beautiful place I call home.
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The Peculiar Imperfections of a Marshmallow
Homemade marshmallows are kind of ugly. They’re weird and sticky and somehow seem to be smarter than everyone. Because for as careful as you are, it still doesn’t matter. Sugar that’s 240 degrees will burn in a heartbeat, gluing itself to you with its sticky little talons. You will end up with massive strings of melted sugar and corn syrup stretching...