The Day after Christmas

Today is supposed to be a big downer, right? Well, so far it's pretty good. I am taking a vacation day from my vacation. Vegas was great and I miss it already. I also had two really good flights (sorry to all my friends who were delayed, I was very fortunate) which makes me brave about flying more...which makes me try to find ways to travel more often. So another trip to Vegas soon? Maybe.

She (in the tradition of assigning gender pronouns to a city) was good to me this Christmas. I came home with some money and many Christmas gifts from my awesome parents. In fact, I am currently killing time writing this while waiting for my new iPod to sync. In addition to gifts, I brought home some memories (I know, gross). We visited the Ethel M's chocolate factory, saw a lot of Christmas lights and saw The Beatles Love at the Mirage. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen. First time with the Cirque du Soleil, and now I get it. When we got into the theatre, my first impression was, "Oh, this will be like a live action Pink Floyd laser light show." While that is a pale, lame way to put it...it's kind of true. I'd like to see more Cirque du Soleil shows, but I doubt they will be as amazing as when set to the Beatles. Those kids were good.

So I'm home now, drinking some seasonally appropriate peppermint coffee, playing with my new Christmas toys and preparing for a show in St. Charles tonight. We had such a good audience last week, I hope things are as good tonight. I love my cast, I love the original stuff we have in the show. It's only been a few weeks, but I'll miss it when we're done.

Before we opened presents. The tree and the train.

The carnage after.

The big drive-through light display.

Our pre-Christmas Christmas dinner.

The obligatory mirror photo in the lobby of Love.
One of the amazing reliefs (this may or may not be the correct art term) in Most Holy Redeemer Church, a Catholic church on the strip where we went to Christmas vigil.

From the church we walked across the street and had dinner at the Luxor. Next time I go to Vegas, I want to stay here. Anyone want to go?

Before I go, let's play one year ago today: I was in Honduras. The end.

Vivaaaaa...You get it.

Vegas. It's nice here. Got in early yesterday morning and ran the rest of the day on roughly 2 hours of sleep and two additional hours of day. It's great to be "home." As I was approaching the gate at McCarran, I called to tell my parents, who were waiting at the baggage claim, that I was on the ground. To which my father responds, "peppermint mocha or gingersnap latte?" Merry Christmas, Natalie! Time to be a spoiled 12 year-old again. I'll take it. (if you're dying to know, I chose gingersnap)

Tonight: going to see The Beatles' Love. It's the one show in Vegas I've really wanted to see for a while and never been. There will also undoubtedly be blackjack involved. Let's hope I do better than I was doing in Detroit.

Happy Holidays!

Immaterial

Christmas, right?

Last year I was on the ship, which clearly made things weird for Christmas tradition. I found my way around it and managed to eek out some ritual. This year for many reasons I just don't feel like participating in any Christmas traditions. Reasons I am comfortable sharing:

• I live in a studio that will not accomodate a three-dimensional tree.


• I am day-jobless, so I don't want to spend money on temporary items.


• I have enough stuff in my tiny space already without a bunch of red and green crap.


• I have less than the secular holiday spirit (see above "red and green crap").

An ex-bf of mine liked to point out that I am materialistic. Yes, I idenitify alot with things. Advent calendars and wreaths and trees equal Christmas. Baskets and bunnies equal Easter. Stargazer lilies equal love. I moved so much growing up and never had a real "home" that the things became the only constants. Yeah, yeah, my family too...but to a transient 9 year old, a pink inflatable Easter bunny has a little more imprinting power. Of course as a grown up, I realize that as sure as the Grinch's heart grew three sizes, Christmas will come without ribbons, tags, packages, boxes or bags.

Doesn't mean I don't love this stuff.

Meredith and I had the best day ever at Williams-Sonoma and Trader Joe's. I'll be baking this week. Happy holidays, everyone.

Time Out

Blogging happens when I should be doing more pressing things. Tonight that thing is learning my lines. I'll get there.

In the meantime, I'll comment on my great weekend. Friday: The Violet Hour. If you live in Chicago, you should take the time to jaunt out to Wicker Park and experience this place. It's beautiful and blue and dim and warm and pretentious and expensive...all of which make me very happy in moderation. So maybe that's not the glowing review that will motivate you to go, but do yourself a favor one night. It's near the corner of Damen and Milwaukee. Tracey and Megan took Meredith and I there for a belated birthday celebration. It was nice to be back with these ladies, since our respective careers keep us apart so often. Also, we got to sit next to a creepy guy who was there alone and eventually struck up a conversation with a couple near us about how he would be hitting a strip club (alone) later. Charming.

Saturday was shows and more shows. CSz 4 Kidz and the 10pm show, both of which were adequate (not the best descriptor, but there it is). I saw Listen Kid at the Skybox, starring the incomparable Jon Colby and Tamara Nolte. I could've watched Tamara dance in a wheel chair all night long. The night was capped by the best Karl show I have ever played in. It was seriously some of the most fun I've had on that stage in general, which is saying a lot. I'm very thankful that these guys invite me to play...you know, when the shows go well. Jokes!

Today, another CSz show and lunch with the lovely Gillian B. It truly is nice to be home.

A note on being unemployed, especially this time of year: I barely know what day it is, except that the weekends are painfully crowd-ridden. I've really learned to appreciate the blessing of weekdays. No crowded stores, no wait for brunch, less people on the train between rush hours. Monday has become my favorite day of the week. Some of you hate me for saying that. But you can hate me all you like while you swim in paychecks and health insurance all Scrooge McDuck-style. Our grasses are different shades of green.

Return of Saturn

I'm 28.

One year ago I wrote a blog aboard the NCL Spirit "on the eve of my 27th year." That day was unique...it was my first, and possibly only, birthday spent living on a cruise ship. Here we are a year later, and I write again from a bed in front of a TV in something very much like my ship cabin, a studio apartment. My 27th year has turned out to be the hardest, worst, most challenging, most exciting, most fun, best, saddest, happiest and craziest year of my life so far. I've been in and out of Chicago, which has made me love it that much more. It's always been good to come home. I got to see my family a couple of times, which is as at least once more than I tend to see them in a year. Some relationships have ended, some have begun, some have evolved to a place I would've never expected. I'm working as an actor now, and while I don't know how long I can keep eating and paying rent this way, it has not escaped me how blessed I am that I am doing something that I care about more than anything else. Most people don't get to say that their work is also their life, and maybe they don't want to. But I can, and I do. The one thing that has really changed this year is that I don't have one person to go to anymore. Since I was 15 years old, I have always had that one person. That person you tell stupid things to, say goodnight to, think of when you wake up, yell at because you know they'll understand and forgive. That person is gone. But I've been understudying the role. My put-ins have been rough, but I'm getting better.

Here's to my 28th year.

Holiday

First Thanksgiving in Chicago...

And it started like this. Thanks to the Baron family, I have adopted the tradition of watching the Macy's parade with some hot cocoa and a candy cane. It was a delight. I completed my morning by going to the gym then coming home to bake my pie...only to discover that my oven is no longer in working order, and thus I had to deconstruct it and take it to Tamara's to bake. Oh boy.

Nothing like a broken oven to remind you who you are really thankful for.

And speaking of thankful...Sara created an awesome Thanksgiving dinner for a lot of people. She was amazing. There was a lot going on in the Wolf-berg kitchen.

Tamara found her own spot in the house.

Brooke, where's Josh?? Oh, there he is!

Josh, stop it. Tamara is sad over there on the southbound platform.

And thus ended my first Thanksgiving in Chicago. No biological family, no significant other. Just me and cocoa and pie and a lot of really good friends. Thanks.

Meanwhile, back at CSz...

Back at home... Martin, our captain.

Ben, enjoying ridiculously awesome pumpkin butterscotch cookies (aka God's Gift to Natalie) courtesy of Melissa Cathcart.

I'm just happy to be back.

We had a really fun show, good audience, good notes and some hangout time after. It was a little hard not to be driving down Grand River Ave tonight, not to be seeing how long Nixon's Fault would be drawn out or if the audience would be too conservative for Scandalous. It was definitely a different Wednesday night. I was nervous I would spontaneously break into sketch. But instead I got to play a puppy and a waterboy who likened getting onto the hockey team to being pushed out of a womb. Oh the magic of improv.

Tomorrow: cocoa, Macy's Parade, turkey and pumpkin pie! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

Although tomorrow night is our last official show, I have a feeling our last "real" shows were tonight. Saturdays have been the best every week. We had a decent first house and a pretty kickass second house. Great set...Nancy and Kevin (our redheads) were on fire. Coincidence? Probably not.Oh man, I was really phoning it in tonight. Huh??? Get it??? YES!

After the show we went bowling. Marke killed us. Just killed us. This is his strike face. This really got to Rob.Despite battling me for worst bowler of the night, Kevin still managed to be a rockstar.I kept leaving one pin standing. WHY??

I can't believe we're down to our last show. I have one more night in Novi and then back to Chicago and real life. I've had such an amazing time here. Of course it'll be nice to be home. Just new again. Again.

20 Years of Sadness (or Still Angry after 20 Years)

Last night I saw the Smashing Pumpkins for the fourth time, Billy for the 6th or 7th. It was at the Chicago Theatre, and I entered into it with more than a little trepidation. I was so afraid it would let me down somehow, that the current incarnation of the Pumpkins would not stack up to the original lineup, who I never really got to see. The first and second time I saw them Filter's drummer was sitting in for the rehabbing Jimmy Chamberlin, and the third time Melissa was in for D'Arcy. So when Vinnie and I had dinner at nearby Elephant & Castle and they were playing the Greatest Hits album, my anxiety mounted.

Spoiler alert: they did not disappoint me.

The set list (which I kept wanting to call a running order) was awesome. Going from Siva to Mayonaise to Tonight Tonight...I lost my mind. I loved that they threw in Eye and the surprise favorite song of the night for me, a mesmerizing rendition of The End is the Beginning is the End. The audience turned a little when the encore was a bare performance of We Only Come Out at Night featuring kazoos. I loved it, and I loved that the show ended on Billy getting a little soap-boxy and following through on his promise not to "do what people want" and play another song. Look, it's f-ing Billy Corgan. He's been accused of being a controlling d-bag when it comes to his music and I have all the respect in the world for him to do what he wants onstage. I couldn't believe it when I heard people waiting for the train after the show say "If they had just played two more songs"..."If he hadn't talked so much." Really? How long have you been a Pumpkins fan? The tour is called 20 Years of Sadness...not Reunion Tour of Greatest Hits for Money. Yes, Billy got a bit snarky at the end. And he definitely teased us with the possibility of more music. But that's who he is. If you want to hear a cold set of songs, stay at home and make a playlist. I wanted to see Billy. And I did.

I stole this picture from the internet since I didn't get anything great with my phone...

For the record, Billy came out for the first song wearing this crazy white gown with a giant gold headdress thing. Standard. The rest of the show he wore the above...a long white skirt with a white ZERO t-shirt. He certainly is, as he asserted several times, a heavy metal machine.

Billy's been with me at every twist and turn of my angsty adolescence up through my current angsty young adulthood. SP has been my favorite band since I was 14. My first boyfriend gifted me with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness as well as the Aeroplane Flies High boxset. When I moved to Chicago I thought, "Hm, maybe I'll see Billy Corgan one day." And less than two months after my move there he was, sitting along the wall in the Second City ETC, about ten people away from me. He's a landmark for me. Last night was no different.

Few things settle into my soul the way these guys do. Thanks, SP.

Thank you, Vinnie, for making sure we got these tickets.

Home in 4 days.

Pretty

I got to see this this morning...

Of course it's only pretty if it doesn't interfere with our drive to Chicago tonight.

And last week Meredith and I had a fancy business lunch at the Walnut Room in Macy's (formerly Marshall Fields).

Everything's coming up Christmas. It's not even Thanksgiving. Or my birthday! But I don't mind. I love the holidays, so I will not cringe when I hear Christmas music playing in stores already.

One week left in Novi. I can't believe it.

The Thing about Family

Hi mom and dad and Amy and Nancy and grandma and Pete and Jerry and Lisa and Bryan and Andrew. This is about family. But not you guys. Just wanted to say hi and thank you for being my blood family.

This is about my other families. My show families. My friend families. There is a saying that is sewn on pillows and printed on picture frames out there that goes "Friends are the family we choose for ourselves." While that's very true, more often than not the people who have become my extended families have been chosen for me. This year I've been more than blessed to have a few of them.

First and foremost, my Spirit family. James, Shawn, Katy, Tab and Peter. These guys were my world for 19 weeks all over North America. They had my back before every show and the other 23 hours of every day (cue Peter: guh-rossssss). Katy loved napping with Law & Order in the background. Tabetha loved eating beans for breakfast like a real Canadian, and she loved bringing them back to our cabin so as to avoid the Raffles crowd. Shawn loved chocolate ice cream and laying by the pool. James loved our regular breakfast table, girls, gossip and Bill Murray movies. Peter loved walking the line between benevolent and belligerent, pouring his angst into various artwork and White Russians. I loved every minute I spent with them, especially our family dinners every Sunday to reset and prepare for another cruise. Sound too adorable to be true? Yep. It was.

My Maine Mini-Fam. Farrell, Sam and Sarah (cameo by Andy). It was only 3 weeks, but you get a crash course in friendship when you climb a mountain with someone. I learned quickly that I hike much more slowly than others. I learned that Sam loathes seafood but loves mini-golf and symbolic spiritual healing. I learned that Sarah lives on her Blackberry and cares as deeply for her friends as she does about who's on the Perez Hilton's homepage (don't be fooled, it's a lot). I learned that Farrell is the most fun to play a scene with but the least fun to climb rough terrain with...because he's part mountain goat.

My current family, for (tear) another 10 days. I've met some really incredible people here in Novi. To call them "funny" or "nice" would be ridiculous. These people are just f-ing awesome. Marke and I share an obsession with our mobile devices and our endless frustration with boys. Kevin and I share an alma mater and an incurable addiction to bits. Jason and I share an excessive love of seasonal dessert items. Quintin and I share several stage kisses each night, thanks to Out of Gas. Rob and I share a lot of car rides and painfully tasteless jokes. Nancy and I share many girly moments and the fear that singing a song about dicks will alienate the conservative old couple in the front row ("Pearl, get your coat!"). Additionally I'm treated to the extended family here of the Detroit improv community. I'm so lucky to get to see other improvisors in their natural habitat, one that isn't Chicago. It's the same and different. Either way I'm so happy to have been a foster child here these past weeks. It will be great to go home, but difficult to leave.

My mother calls my castmates my coworkers. Sure, I work with them. But to an actor that means that you pour your guts out onstage with 4-6 other people nightly in hopes that a room full of dimly lit faces will approve of said guts. Plus you've likely seen those 4-6 people in their underwear. Family.

Word.

I noticed lately I've been good about photos and bad about actual words. I guess I just feel a lot of pressure to say something interesting if I string together more than a few sentences at once. Here goes.

I'm less than two weeks away from being back home in Chicago for good, or at least for the remainder of 2008. I've got 6 shows for Second City to look forward to in that time, which is great since I'm not sure what else to do with my time. I'm thinking I'll finally get to go to the gym as much as I'd like. I'm also looking forward to writing more. Vinnie and I have new ideas for our next show and once the mainstage is up and running we can finally have Anthony back for some guidance.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in my Novi home, on my third cup of coffee, watching MSNBC and listening to the sweet sounds of the in-unit washer and dryer. I'm still in my jammies, which is standard for early afternoon. Rob and I will be running lines soon for a show we're in together upon our Chicago return. I am a bit aglow from last night, since our original cast was back together for the first time in a while. Nancy's return was like climbing back into a warm, familiar bed with a large cup of jasmine tea and my favorite book. Maybe that's not the most high-energy way to look at a comedy show, but wow it felt good to have everyone back together. We missed her so much and are happy to have her back. Leaving this show will be hard. So I'll choose not to think about it now.

These sentences are hard to put together. Next time: pictures.

Yes We...

BARACK OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meredith, my best friend and personal hero, made me her plus one for the election night party in Grant Park. It was NUTS.

Ultimately, we saw what people at home were seeing, just bigger. The stage was far away, but it was still amazing to be there with almost 100,000 friends of Barack.

I was so hopeful! And so was Abby.

I tried so hard to get a picture of CNN saying "Barack Obama Elected President." But there was just too much going on around me.

Meredith and I, post news. It came out of nowhere. Ohio...Virginia...Florida? NO, PRESIDENT!
The closest we got to really seeing them. If you look very closely, there is a tiny Obama and a tiny Biden in the middle.

I imagine that they went backstage after his speech, looked at each other and said, "Holy fuck, we're going to live in the White House!!"

Some friends I had over to watch the election results.

Our new president. He's dreamy.

Visitor 2

My dad! He was here last weekend to see the shows. And he was treated to two slightly different casts.

On Monday we walked into lovely Farmington Hills in the unseasonably warm fall weather. What a delightful fall path. I said it. Enjoy Downtown Farmington! We sure did.

I'm just confused over the historical Methodist Episcopal church. But I'd love to see more fusion churches. Nothing confusing about this. Obviously my father is a Christian ventriloquist.

Thanks for coming, dad!!

Trick or Treats

Bella was so excited for candy!!!! And I am so excited to play a Republican. Although in this neighborhood, I was absolutely not coming off as ironic.

And we're so excited to be doing shows for 30 people! Oh boy. Hey, we had a lot of fun. Happy Halloween, friends.

Happy Halloween!!

Jason, our music director, risked his precious hands to help me get the lid off my pumpkin.

I think Bella was having much more success with her Play-Do Fun Factory than I am with my steel pumpkin.

A pumpkin for change! Ok, I took some shortcuts...but seriously, did I mention how hard this thing was to carve?

Tomorrow: my costume.