Too Much to Blog About!

Do you ever experience things throughout your day, and tuck it away, thinking, I'll blog about that later? And then wham! A week goes by! Well, heck! The holidays especially tend to be that way. I still feel like it's Halloween! There have been so many marvelous treats! Or maybe it's just that wonderful sense of generosity that is the undercurrent of this time of year. Whatever it is, I love it!

Thanksgiving was lovely and I hope yours was as well. I spent it with my sweetie in the Big Apple with our NY crew.

(L-R: my honey, Rob, Michael, Carl and Ataman)

I also made lots of calls to my family on the West Coast, so I was there in spirit.

Then Rob and I went shopping this weekend, running around from The Lower East Side to The Village. I had to laugh because we crossed Delancey Street twice, and I was reminded of my favorite movie as a kid, "Crossing Delancey." It's a wonderful story by Susan Sandler who also wrote the play, and it's about a young woman trying to find herself and love in Manhattan.

There's a side story in the film that one of her suitors tells her. He's Sam, the Pickle Man, and he talks about how his grandfather never crossed Delancey (thus referring to how sectionalized New Yorkers can get - we don't do it on purpose, we just get comfortable). But one day his hat is blown across the street and he is forced to chase it, thus Crossing Delancey. Of course, this changes his life, as I believe he meets his true love when he buys a new hat. And this is only the side-story! But it's about making changes that are good for ourselves, trying on a "new hat" and I really love that.

Interestingly enough, I've been making some changes myself recently. I got a sassy haircut that makes me feel like a million bucks and booked a photo session with Ben Strothmann, who had taken such wonderful pictures for The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun. Ben and I found each other on Facebook and I discovered that in the midst of his own acting work, he also does headshot photography. He's photographed a gazillion Broadway stars like Laura Bell Bundy, Sierra Boggess, Donna McKechnie, Cheyenne Jackson, and so many more marvelous artists!

I've been wanting to get new pics for a while since some of the casting folks I've met recently have said they felt there was more to me than meets the eye where my headshots were concerned, so when I noticed Ben was doing headshot sessions, I jumped at the chance to work with him.

He works with an incredible makeup artist named Alexis Velez, who has such a great understanding of the industry and that "you want to look like yourself but yourself at your best."I certainly felt fabulous after my makeup session with her. She didn't pile it on - I felt like I was hardly wearing anything aside from a sense of pizazz - and the result was WONDERFUL!

Then Ben started taking pictures. I have never had SO MUCH FUN while getting my headshots taken. I couldn't stop laughing! It was like being with an old friend - we just chatted away. And he would show me the pics on his digicam, so I could see how things were developing, and it was SO COOL! I cannot recommend him enough! He is so amazingly affordable which is so rare, and he's even doing a $99 hour-long special right now, which is a steal considering how talented he is! Seriously I feel like I won the lottery with Ben! So if you need new pics, definitely contact him! :)