Crazy, Sexy Diet--Day 2

I was too hungry and angry to write a blog post yesterday. The first three days of this diet are ROUGH, but this time I'm actually totally fine right now, on the evening of the second day!

A little bit about Crazy, Sexy Diet (CSD from now on, peeps): created by Kris Carr, an amazing woman who has been fighting an incurable cancer for over 10 years, it is a vegan, gluten-free, plant-based diet. (CSD is also a no booze detox!) What I (and my bestie Chelsey) are doing is the 21-day detox adventure. Yes, "adventure" is what it's called in the book but it takes a few days for it to feel that way!

Before anyone (especially you, Ma) tells me I don't need to lose weight, please note that I am not doing this to lose weight. Not that it's any of your bid-nass! (I'm so sassy.) I'm doing the detox because I have felt tired, unmotivated, depressed, and just generally icky lately and doing this detox in the past has made me feel super happy, healthy, postive, and at peace. If you have never heard of Kris Carr or CSD, I suggest you take a look at crazysexylife.com. It's not just about food. It's meditation, maintenance, fitness, and overall peace.

I'm writing about this in my blog for a few reasons:

1. It makes me feel amazing to do this detox and I want you to feel amazing too.
2. It holds my lazy ass accountable.
3. I like sharing new recipes, products, etc that make me feel healthy and inspired.

The biggest draw of this diet for me is the disease/cancer prevention aspect. As someone who has a family history riddled with cancer (this day and age, who doesn't?) and has had a few scares herself, I want to do all I can to prevent disease by paying attention to what I put in my body.

I tried a new green protein powder today. It's fantastic. Raw, gluten free, vegan, sugar free and chock full of vitamins, protein, probiotics, EVERYTHING. Here is the link:

Amazing Grass - Amazing Meal (Vanilla Chai Infusion)

This is a recipe of Chelsey's from another powder: protein powder, 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk, 1/2 cup of coconut water, teaspoon of macca powder, teaspoon of flaxseed oil, 1 banana, and blend that baby up with about 6 ice cubes and you have yourself a delicious treat! It completely quenched my hunger AND my sweets cravings. Plus, I feel energized and focused.

Cheers! (Excuse my "first thing in the morning look.")

Haters Gonna Hate

Actors can be real assholes. It's usually rooted in deep insecurity, which causes them to feel like they have to screw someone else over to make it in this business.

Here's the thing: if you have the luck to make an amazing career for yourself, it doesn't have to be at someone else's expense. In fact, the only way I want to make it is surrounded by people I love an respect.

I'll never be like Kirsten. (Pronounced Keer-stin.) I'm sure there are other lovely Kirsten's out there, but this one was, as the Duchess call, a hater.  

The ladies of Duchess Riot have been having great luck lately due to the success of our show at the Comedy Central stage. I'm so grateful for that, and I know the best is yet to come. However, it seems the more success that comes your way, the more haters you acquire. Yesterday, a few of us were called in for an audition at Paramount. Five Duchesses, one non-duchess, one role. We were all called at the same time, and we were chatting while waiting in the lobby area.

"Do you all, like, know each other or something?" Kirsten asks.

"Yes! I'm Suzanne," Suzanne extends her hand to Kirsten and she tentatively shakes Suzanne's hand while looking at her like she has leprosy.

"We're all in the same comedy group." Katie says.

"Oh, where does your little comedy group perform?" (This sentence was said so patronizingly, it was palpable.)

"Comedy Central asked us to perform at their stage a couple of weeks ago. That's actually how we all ended up here. LOTS of casting directors and industry attended." I said, with a smile because pretty much the only time I'll brag is when I'm faced with a condescending twat who is trying to tear me down.

"Oh. So, what are you going to do when one of you gets this part and the others don't?"

Did I mention this chick was a HATER?

"Be really excited for that girl and go celebrate with drinks!" Dione said.

"Right. Well you better make the girl who gets it PAY for the drinks. Can you even drink? You all look like you are sixteen." woofed Kirsten.



First of all, Kirsten, telling a group of actresses they all look super young is NOT an insult. Second, you suck. And the one thing we have learned as a group, is that we are going to have sucky haters, and we will kill them with kindness. (But I WILL blog about you later, as an example of the kind of actor I will never be.)

Go ahead and believe that we were naive and didn't notice you were being condescending. Laugh at us for all waiting for every Duchess to get in and out of the room, so we could walk out together. Tell yourself that if one of us books something and the other doesn't that we would be anything less than THRILLED for each other. It's not going to change the fact that we love each other and celebrate each other's successes. And trust me, Kirsten, we got a LOT of success coming our way.

Wet n' Wild

In an attempt to be fit and active, I hopped on board at my local gym when they offered a discounted rate for a yearly membership. I was spending WAY too much going to Cardio Barre and I wanted some variety. My friend Dione (a fellow Duchess) joined as well so we could take classes together. After a couple of weeks of Zumba classes, it was time to shake it up! This morning, I got a text from Dione saying, "Let's try the water aerobics class at 9:30!" Awesome! Here's what I was picturing:

Maybe a little of this:

I mean, who doesn't need a hand with pool noodles? Those things are so hard to manage! Water aerobics is the premise for the Magic Mike sequel right?

Instead, Dione and I donned our cute bikini's, grabbed our towels and noodles, and walked in to this:

Those ladies are having too much fun though. It was more like this:

Bad disco music was pumped through the chintzy pool speakers. The young, super fit and enthusiastic instructor was so thrilled to see us. , we were determined to have fun and make the best of it! Everything was great, until I put my foot in the water and it was freezing. That's where I draw the line.

I will accept that my dream of a fun, Vegas pool-party style water aerobics class at my local gym is dead. But I will not accept being cold and wet before 10am. Those bouncing, buoyant grannies are tougher than me, I'll be the first to admit it.

Next class? Spinning! If anyone has gone, can you tell me if it's more like this:

Or like this:

I'd love to have a head's up this time.

What's up?

Well, hi! It's been so long since my last blog that I have to figure out the new set up and format of Blogspot. As if life weren't tough enough, amirite?!

After about six months of dead air, I'm back. Mostly because my mother gets joy from reading my blogs and sharing them with her friends. The other reason is that, as always, I love writing. Any excuse is fine by me.

So, what's up?

For me, a lot! Career, life, EVERYTHING has gotten steadily better and better this year. I can't complain. I do complain, often, but I shouldn't. If we just automatically reached our goals, they wouldn't be as sweet, right? Sure! Let's go with that.

I won a fellowship from Writer's Bootcamp to develop my pilot and have a shot at a development deal at the end of all of it. I am really proud of this. After having a successful reading for my 2 Broke Girls spec at iO West, it's been the first tangible confirmation that I'm headed in the right direction by pursuing the writing side of my career with more tenacity. I'm halfway through my first draft of AmericaLand (my pilot, based on my year in Singapore) and I'm having a BLAST recreating that world.

The other source of ridiculous pride for me lately is my all female comedy group Duchess Riot. We were invited to perform at the Comedy Central Stage, a prestigious step for a comedy group in LA, and sold it out, got a standing ovation, and accolades from many casting directors and industry folks. Missed the show? Not to worry! We were invited BACK to the CCS and also have a few shows a month that you can catch whenever you fancy. www.duchessriot.com

The reason I get such joy from this group is that these ladies have become my closest friends. Yes. Every single one of them. You may say, "A group of 8 women and you ALL get along?! Yeah, right!" and to that I laugh! I say, "Pffft!" Come see a show. You will see 8 chicks who love each other to pieces and come alive when they get to share a stage together. It's the most fun I've had performing in years!

I'll catch you up on more and have stories of me being a total weirdo soon! Subscribe, follow me on twitter (not you Mom,) or FB.

Thanks for reading!
Love!

My F*cking Apartment

Let me preface this blog by saying I am wearing neon orange air traffic control strength earplugs as I type away.

I woke up this morning to 90's electronic rock blaring through the wall my headboard lies against, at 8am, on a Saturday. It's important to note that it is 90's electronic rock because it is the same creepy beat over and over again. No lyrics. No break between songs. Just a continuous string of cacophonous crap pounding through my bedroom for about an hour. I want to bang on the wall and go, "HEY! How 'bout some Tone Loc?! I'd be down for some LLCoolJ, TLC, or Salt n' Peppa if you insist on the 90's but PLEASE put down your glow sitcks!!" When that stopped, my downstairs neighbor, who has the patio in the courtyard of our apartment, started playing with her dog. When I say, "courtyard," I want you to understand that means the area where every sound is has a deafening echo that seeps into each unit whether your windows are open or not. Each of the ground floor apartments has a 10 foot by 10 foot AstroTurf fenced in patio and whatever they choose to do on that patio reverberates through the courtyard for all 4 stories of our apartment building to share. My downstairs neighbor has two gears: playing with her dog, defined as her continuously saying, "GO GIT IT! GO GIT IT!" in a high pitched baby voice while the dog barks, OR her and her boyfriend screaming at the top of their lungs about how much they hate each other while pacing in and out of the apartment, slamming the sliding glass door. At this point, there is unity amongst my neighbors. We all creep over to our windows facing the courtyard and look down at the train wreck that is the 1st floor relationship, with a shared look of, "Here they go again!"

For the past 3 months, my elevator has decided it does not stop on the 2nd or 3rd floor. I happen to live on the 2nd floor so this is an unfortunate turn of events. I got used to using the elevator to go to the 4th floor and then walking down two flights of stairs. There isn't any staircase from the lobby to the apartments so you can't just conveniently take the stairs at your leisure. You have to take the elevator to another floor, then take the stairs. In these 3 months, they have renovated the elevator with new paneling and faux hardwood flooring. It looks absolutely GORGEOUS as it continues to sail past the floors where have of it's tenants live. One day, I accidentally found a loop hole. If you hit the first floor button just as the elevator passes the first floor, it will stop at the second floor!!! The "trick" spread like wildfire! I even had a guy SHOW ME MY OWN TRICK the other day. I proudly said, "Yeah, I invented that." I instantly earned his respect. It was a good day.

The upside is that I have a flippin' amazing room mate who has become a close friend, I own the bedroom furniture I've always wanted and, ya know, I have my own bathroom, so it could be worse.

And in a few years, when I'm sitting, wrapped in a silk robe at my house in the hills, in a chaise on the patio by my infinity pool, I'll miss the high-pitched shrieks of, "GO GIT IT! GO GIT IT!" and the incessant booming of a 90's rave pumping through the wall. I'll feel sad and pout my Chanel glossed lips when my glass elevator stops at the correct floor.

Nope. No, I won't. But I might have less to write about so, today, let's count it as a "win."