Back to Innocence

I saw the french film, Blue is the Warmest Color. I went because my acting coach kept asking me, after I would call her or text her about something completely different, "HAVE YOU SEEN THE MOVIE YET??" This post isn't a review of the movie, which is, in a few words, incredibly long but incredibly raw, sensual, provocative, stimulating and disturbing, and most of all, primal.

There is one sex scene that is reminiscent of porn and goes on for 7 minutes which I HAD NO IDEA about and I went to see it alone so I couldn't turn around and say "can you fucking believe it??" to anyone but myself.

All sex aside, the movie is courageous, daring and brilliant, and what it did for me on a human level was to remind me of  innocence and the lack thereof. Particularly in actors (including me sometimes).

As an actress, I have to remind myself that my loyalty is to the character I play and the realness of that. I'm no fucking Meryl Streep but I do take my acting seriously and I do want to grow and evolve so much that my audience is moved, like I was by the movie, to remember what it means to live, to love, and more importantly, to connect with the innocence of simply being a human just finding her own way. Sometimes (a lot of times) we actors are lured and seduced into the glamour of Hollywood and we forget that 99.9% of the world is living in a world made up of different priorities & experiences.

 Most of the roles we play aren't of actors and we spend so much time pursuing our acting careers and living in isolation (being an actor can be very isolating but that's an entry for another day) that Hollywood is far from the reality of the characters we are trusted to portray. In this town, it's not easy to find intimate relationships or friendships that are about something...or that stretch you into a full person. Blue is the Warmest Color reminded me again (thank God) that's its ok not to know things. That its ok to be curious, it's ok to make mistakes, to fall in love, to not be perfect. It's ok to be ashamed sometimes, to be afraid. It's ok to be young and stupid, to want more, to be angry or persistent, to be vulnerable, to love so desperately and eagerly you beg for love or forgiveness so much so that snot hangs out of your nose as you practically crawl on your hands and knees and beg someone to listen to what's important to you. It's ok to be primal.

Living in Hollywood, one can become terribly disconnected from what makes us who we are and the film reminded me of when I was 13 years old and in love with my eighth grade teacher. To this day it is a taboo subject--a man and a child having a romantic relationship-- but I did and it was something more than dysfunction to me. I was curious and daring and I didn't know better because at that age all you are is instinctual. Last night,  I was reminded about how I've spent so much of my life covering that up and being ashamed of it. As an actress, I can dig deep and use it and be thankful for that difficult time in my life because it's just another story in the sea of human experiences and that is enough to make it mean something profound-- but actress aside, after seeing the film, for the first time in a long time, I was reminded of my innocence in spite of so much life I've lived and so much I've done and I fell back in love with that little girl inside of me who just wanted to feel her heart pulse for another human being. 

Innocence is something we don't have to lose. If you let it,  it can lead you right into the center of your heart. No matter what you've done or where you've been or what you've seen, there is still a part of all of us that longs for the pureness that comes from seeing life through innocent eyes and it's ok to do that in a world that seems to encourage mechanism to keep us from feeling ourselves.  xo

Go shorty, it's ur birfday!

It was my mo' fo' birthday last wednesday. Career wise, I've come a really long way. Started off hating Los Angeles when I moved here at age 22. I was so directionless back then that I would spend my days in bed crying and wandering aimlessly on the streets wondering why I couldn't figure out my life or why I felt so out of control and underneath it all, why I just didn't like myself.  I wanted so badly to be independent & feel myself as full woman with a career, a man, a home, with unstoppable confidence, running things like a boss lady--but I was so far from that. How it all unfolded is an entry for another blog but needless to say, here I AM! Having and experiencing what I longed for in my 20's. It has been a difficult journey of self discovery and acceptance (a journey I'm still on)  but I have been passing the tests and I have been extremely blessed so I think I have done plenty right.

There's so much more I want to accomplish and sometimes I still feel really lost because I honestly feel I don't know how to get there and I worry about a lot of things, but I can't deny that I am so proud of where I am today. I love being a WOMAN and I love expanding. I love the results of faith and hard work. I love that I can demand of myself a life worth living and I love that I go for it. The rest of how everything has come together beautifully is, however, the work of something mightier than me and I will never forget that that infinite power that exists is always present & working not just for me but also for you and for all of creation. I started off with nothing-- no direction, no mentors, no guidance, no one taking me under their wing...just a dream, determination, perserverance and faith and believe me when I say I have self worth issues that are as old as I am, I STILL made it happen. So the moral of the story is.....you don't need to be where you think you need to be to start believing in something and take flight.  xo

The day started off with my girlfriend, Lisa Lovie, surprising me with a bday cake on the set of the movie I'm filming now called SHARON 123. It's a comedy about a geek who starts getting laid and is sleeping with three different Sharons. I play Sharon 2. Anyhoo, Lisa had the cake for me and everyone sang happy bday and I loved every moment of it.  

Here's Lisa. She may hate me for posting this pic. 

Then it was lunch with my girlfriends. 

Then my boo came home with flowers.

Frank took me to my favorite restaurant, Crustacean Beverly Hills, and I ate the food I would ask for if I were about to be executed and asked for my last meal. Garlic noodles and crab (Lawd, Jesus!)

Friday night was my bday party. A game night party at my friend Kiki's house. Frank took care of everything, stellar boyfriend that he is. He had a chef making Mexican food for all 40 of us Mexicans. HA HA. I kid. We weren't all mexican, and I am Puerto Rican. :)

Here's the beautiful Natalie. She's definitely Mexican. lol

Here's the host, KIKI (dominican)

Here's Rachel. (white girl)

Here are my friends, David & Harvey, the singing Selena fanatics. And by Selena, I don't mean Selena Gomez. I mean the biddy biddy bom bom one. The ORIGINAL Selena.

Her!

My friend Stacey Storey got me 3 bday cakes. :) (what? what?...what?)

Here's Stacey. She's real purty.

And we finished the night playing games. Here is a game of reverse charades. Um..it's MUSTACHE! duh!

the end. 

My love of mannequins & statues.

Maybe it's the actress in me who likes to pretend she's someone who can have a conversation or a relationship with an inanimate object. Maybe it's the girl who's comfortable with things that can't talk back or judge me. The one who loves animals and babies for the same reason. Whatever the mental case, I love love love mannequins and statues and inanimate things with a face and I love to throw my adult body all over them. Here's a small sample of some of those "people" I've met. I'm curious to know what your "thing" is?