Self-Love 101: Deciding Which Friends Are Worth It

If you're having trouble deciding if your friends are worth keeping or not, try writing a hypothetical, not-to-be-published classified ad as if you were seeking all new friends. What would you be looking for? What traits would you specify not wanting? Don't get ridiculously, no-one-would-fit-this-bill specific, the goal is to make sure you have quality, compatible people in your life...not isolate yourself completely. This exercise also helps you figure out what you bring to the table in terms of quality and compatibility; arguably this is even more important. SO mine would go something like this:

Vegan bibliophiliac lesbian with a passion for anything European or vintage seeks interesting, kind GLBT-loving friends for spontaneous adventures, long talks about nothing, and lots of laughter. I am loyal, intelligent, and incredibly loving; the kind of friend you can tell anything too, the kind of person who helps old ladies cross the road and brakes for animals. That being said, I am still full of laughter and adventure and am seeking friends of the same ilk; kind but kooky, smart but silly, compassionately passionate. I will bake you cookies if you front dinner, and I will always let you look through things I need rid of before I sell them. E-mail me back using your favorite band as the subject line; even if I hate them, I just make make you art/postcards/etc. with their lyrics embedded. Who knows?

The ad opens with what I put out into the atmosphere as being interested in. The second part states what is the most important to me to in other people and what I actually bring to the table. The final parts break the ice further and act as a blueprint for how the friendship would ideally play out. It leaves a lot open to interpretation, but the most important things would be there. Now...go back and look over it. This is the hard part. Are your friends accepting of the things you like (notice it's not mandatory that they like them, only that they partially make up who you are)? Are they the kind of friend and person you want to be around? Are you putting the things into the relationships that you claim? Are they reciprocating? If you answered no to very many of these questions...it may be time to shop for new friends.

Wishing you each people in your lives that bring you peace, passion, and love.

P.S. Feel free to leave your own ad in the comment section!
P.P.S. Special shout outs to my friends who I know for a fact read my blog and fit this bill You know who you are.

Newly Afraid of Your Make-Up?

A few weeks ago, I, like many other newsreaders and blogfans woke up to some shocking articles and info about how terrible American market make-up and toiletries are. Among the top offenders? Deodorant, shampoo, and anything that goes near your eyes. Accompanying these long lists of all of the terrible ways trying to look good may have the total opposite effect in the long run (not to mention hike up our internal toxicity levels), are long and often expensive lists of how to purify.

Let's get real. Most of us aren't millionaires. Importing actually organic shampoo from Australia is just not an option. Additionally, a lot of them are really time consuming and make the presumption that we spend very little time actually interacting with people who care how we look. Now, I am a huge advocate for self-love, not giving a crap what other people think, etc. I also know how unrealistic it is to tell you not to shampoo for a week while you're job hunting. So here are my natural beauty tips for real women, with real lives, on real budgets.

1) Drink lots of water. Toxins taken in in any way will be pumped out if you are genuinely hydrated.
2) Aluminum-free deodorant. I like Lush's Sandalwood and Lemon. It's more expensive than your speed-stick, and comes in a weird brick that you just rub on yourself but it's worth it. It works, and the sandalwood is more calming than baby-powder or whatever you buy in the drug store.
3)Sea Salt water spray as a multi-purpose (skin, hair, etc.) moisturizer. Stores will seriously try to sell you expensive, fancy bottles of it...but all you really need to do is grind up some sea salt in water, and put in a BPA-free spray bottle.
4) Read the ingredients. I went through my medicine cabinet, and a lot of stuff was already chemical-free enough that I felt fine using it. Just like food, know what you're putting on your pores.
5) Use less. Conditioner and mascara should be for the ends of your hair and lashes only. If they never touch your skin or eyes...the aren't doing very much harm. Shampoo (even with long hair)is best with a nickel-sized and then lather it up as much as humanly possible. RINSE THOROUGHLY.
6) If you use a lot of make-up, wash your face every single night...but your face wash is maybe where you should splurge on something chemical free. I have a friend who gave me a scent-free exfoliating all-natural soap...so I use it...and I only use a little bit...and my face looks better than it ever has.
7) Eat right. Your don't need stuff to make your hair or fingernails shiny if you're getting enough Vitamin E. You don't need a ton of make-up if you're getting enough water. Etc. Etc. (There are exceptions, but for the most part these things are true).
8) Use a washcloth/loofah/etc. that's going to slough away dead skin (which is where a lot of the toxins end up).

SO there you go...pretty simple, and actually cheaper than your current beauty regime. Let me know your best tips for keeping your epidermis toxin-free!

Peace, passion, and love.

The Triumphant Return of My Weekly Dose of Gratitude

Between being sick, busy, and/or a total emo brat, I haven't posted my normal "Thursday Thankfulness" column in far too long, and you know what? I um...kind of missed it. I think in those emo-brat days I needed this blog the most and didn't realize it. I am back though...and ready to share with you those things that evoked peace, passion, and love within me this week.

Thinks That Inspired Peace:

*My roommate finally ponying up my (quite) belated birthday present; a DVD of Meet the Robinsons. Such a great movie, but believe it or not the gift has a story behind it and it was actually quite a thoughtful gift.
*Closing an entire season. Yes, it's been a teensy bit rough for this half of the season, and yes, I still have a ton of work to do. But I did it. I made a season. And however it ended, now it's on to season two, and there is definitely a sense of calm about that.
*I season two that I know I will be continually inspired by.
*Visits from two of my favorite people in the entire world...and visits we had a complete blast during.
*Walks along the Stone-Arch-Bridge. (Check out the rockin' photo from the bridge that I took last year at the top of this entry)
*The cast of our final show of this season. They gave hilarious and touching performances, and it was a wonderful run.

Things that Evoked Passion:

*The Northern Spark festival; a festival of light, art, and my aforementioned out of town friends getting really silly. We "made friends" with other groups by snapping photos with them unwittingly. We climbed into tiny houses. We ate junk food, drank beer, and took spontaneous trips all over the Twin Cities.OH, and somewhere along the way I ate the best vegan cupcake of my life.
*Poetry by Maya Angelou and William Butler Yeats.
*Seeing different out of town guests expand their traditional Southern horizons by agreeing to see art they normally wouldn't, reading about other cultures, and eating at restaurants that normally "aren't their thing".
*Realizing that even while my heart is breaking, I would still rather be downtrodden but know that I am capable of love than to be completely cynical and unfeeling.
*Owning up to my guilty pleasure obsession with lomography.

Things I Just Plain Loved:

*Cheating on my diet TWICE in one week. Definitely not going to make a habit out of it...but it just felt right with the roomie's fam in town.
*Discovering this band while on a seemingly ordinary walk at Father Hennepin Park.
*Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris; I wasn't expecting him to indulge in a fairy tale...but am so glad that he did!
*My first trip to the Mall of America since living in Minnesota. I took the roommate's family and we really did it up! Amusement park, the aquarium (with the Jellyfish exhibit, which I adored), and getting almost all the way through all four floors.
*Playing Cranium...and this hilarious moment where my Cranium partner drew the Creative Cat during a Cloodle, instead of the actual hint.
*Scattergories. Always.

Something that's been all over the blogosphere lately bears mentioning too, as it has in turn inspired peace, passion, and love in lots of places: the idea of true, genuine compliments. Real compliments. Compliments about the souls of those you love, and not their shoes. Compliments about their personality, their business savvy, their aura. I challenged my Facebook friends to deeply, passionately, selflessly compliment someone that they never have or haven't in awhile and I did the same. Some really great things came out of it and so I want to continue the challenge indefinitely to everyone on my blog. You love that people that you love for a reason, and it's not because their purse is your favorite color. Tell them why it is. You'll be glad you did (and so will they).

Wishing you each peace, passion, and love on this lovely, breezy Thursday.

Major Gadfly Announcements!

Thanks for Helping to Make Our First Season a Success!


Thanks to supporters like you, Gadfly feels confident to charge ahead with
our plans for a second season! This season we've chosen to streamline some
things, and delve deeper into others. You'll see smaller cast sizes but more
opportunity for involvement. You'll see the cozy spaces you know and love,
but with fewer set pieces in them (for the most part). You will see more
work you've never heard of and edgier work that you may have heard of. We've
done all of this in part for fiscal reasons, but in part so we can focus on
the things most important to us; hiring quality artists and technicians,
becoming better Gadflies for the GLBT community, for women, and for art in
general. So what exactly is next?!


First up we are looking for performers, silent auction donations, and
participants for our 2011 fundraiser. Exact date, time, and location are
TBD, but go ahead and sign up/volunteer now! No act is too bizarre or too
ordinary (it may be too large depending on the venue, but we'll help you
scale it down if it is). We want poets, comedians, bands (must be small and
maybe even acoustic), scenes from shows, etc. This is a GREAT opportunity to
strut your stuff for a receptive audience. As this is a benefit, performers
will not be paid, but they will be allowed to bring a guest to the event for
free. The event will be in late July so you've got plenty of time to
prepare. We are also in need of goods, services, and whatever else you've
got for our silent auction! So what is this fundraiser funding?


Well, Our Second Season of Course! This Season We Are Bringing You:

The Good Body by Eve Ensler:
Late September/Early October. Stay tuned for exact info.

Speech and Debate by Stephen Karam
Late November
Lowry Lab Theater
St. Paul MN.
(Exact Dates are determined but not announced quite yet)


Hidden: A Gender by Kate Bornstein
March 8th-18th
The People's Center in Minneapolis


Pomp and Circumstance by Immanuel Elliott and Laurie Beth Fitz
June, 2012.
Location TBD.


Auditions and More!


Auditions for Ensler's The Good Body and Stephen Karam's Speech and Debate will both take place between 6 and 9 P.M. on June 26th and 27th. Please just e-mail us at gadflytheatre@gmail.com sign up! For The Good Body, we need 3 females of varying ethnicities and body types. We feel very strongly about this, all women are encouraged to audition.

For Speech and Debate we need two actors and one plus-sized actress who can play between ages 15 and 18 and one actress who can play in her early thirties. One of the actors needs to be able to play a gay character who is unable (nor does he want) to cover up his sexuality. If you aren't sure you fit into these categories, please help us spread the word!

Payment is TBD and partially based on cut of the house.
All roles are paid a stipend, we just can't promise an amount yet. Again, just
e-mail us to sign up for an audition or inquire about opportunities for
technicians! As always, GLBT artists are especially encouraged to apply.


Stay tuned for an announcement in the next day or two about an opportunity to be
added to our rockin' Board of Directors!

Peace, passion, and love.

Rare Marilyn Monroe Photos

I have, and have always had a giant, ridiculous crush for Marilyn Monroe. In addition to being beautiful, I adore her comedic acting and how honest she was, always. She was also incredibly tenacious and has one of the best rags-to-riches stories that there is. For any fellow fangirls, here is a spread from Life's website of her before she hit it big. They're really cute for actors to look at because a lot of it is her training to become THE Marilyn.

So enjoy!

Peace, love, and passion.

Taking Time for Yourself 101

I write a lot about taking time for yourself, something I've had to train myself to do. One of the best ways to get used to "you time" is making sure that you have a morning and an evening health and hygiene routine, regardless of what's going on in your life that day. I am not a morning person at all, so my nighttime routine is even more important as I tend to skimp on hectic mornings. Once I know I'm settled for the night there's a set of things I do. I condition my hair, I wash my face, I drink green tea and then brush my teeth. I take any vitamin supplements that I feel I need for the day (it changes based on what I ate. I only use the Omega 3 supplement if I don't feel I had enough healthy fat, only take the multi-vitamin if I barely had food, etc.)Do what you need to do to feel beautiful and (more importantly) healthy the next morning. Some evening yoga/stretching/meditation never hurts either. Sometimes I stay up for hours afterwards, sometimes it's the last thing I do. It changes...I recently added moisturizer every other night, sometimes I snack. Sometimes I exfoliate all over.

The important thing when working on your evening regime is that you shouldn't be multi-tasking while you do it (unless 'multi-tasking' means reading for pleasure, or catching up with your favorite show, or noshing on healthy but yummy snacks with your roommate), it should be every night, and the basis of it should be on what makes YOU feel good, healthy, peaceful...in the moment and the next day.

Wishing you each peace, passion, and love.

Suburban Redux Photo Diary

In light of Suburban Redux opening TOMORROW, I am posting some of my favorite shots from the rehearsal and marketing process! Now, note that these are not all meant to be artistic gems...but if they make you laugh or develop a curiosity about the show...well then I am one happy executive director :) Enjoy, and don't forget to check us out at The Lowry Lab in St. Paul starting tomorrow, May 26th at 7:30 P.M. Wishing you each peace, passion, and love.