pledge today!

so we're in the final push of our fundraiser for the new comedy sportz theater here in richmond. click here to go to the kickstarter website. you can see a video that shows you what we're up to and how you can help! even small donations help a lot (you can even pledge $1!). if you pledge $25 we will write your name on the bathroom wall. totally. worth. it.

feel free to also check out our website where you can see my name listed as a player! just remember to hate the game and not the player. that's how that goes, right? it's rare that i get to use that expression. anyway, if we reach our fundraising goal you might even get to see a picture of me on there one day!

thanks friends and we look forward to you laughing at us soon!

unicorny

i have this unicorn at work. dan bought him for me for my brithday. dan and i have this thing about unicorns which started with me giving him this absolutely hideous picture of a cat brush the hair out of a unicorn's eyes. i bought it at a grocery store. it's pretty, uhmm, awesome. so dan bought me this unicorn that when you push it, it says things like 'wheee unicorn power.' it's pretty much amazing and the best gift ever.

i attached the unicorn to my dry erase board at work. this provides hours of fun b/c the unicorn can do or say anything he wants. i'd like to share some of my favorites.

magically delicious

ok so first, i totally should be packing the stuff i need for the wedding on friday since i'm not coming home tomorrow night. but i'm not. i just got out of comedy sportz practice and i have been thinking and now i have things to say. so there you go. i'll sleep when i'm dead. actually i don't know that we will have to sleep when we're dead. i mean i will probably still enjoy sleeping so i might do it but i don't know that i will actually need to sleep. but that wasn't my point.

anyway.

tonight at comedy sportz we were talking about stuff because the theater opens in less than two weeks and i realized that i am extremely, over the top, some times cry about it, passionate about comedy sportz. and i said self, why is that? and now i would like to document why.

when i was in high school i was a dork. a nerd. uncool. whatever. mental picture for you... josie grossie in never been kissed.

bad hygiene, didn't relate to other humans outside my brain, thought tucking in your shirt was a requirement, had about as much self confidence as i did friends. like for real i'm not just saying this. it was bad. any one reading this who knew me freshman / sophomore year is welcome to back me up when i say it was kind of horrific. whatever i own it, that's life.

my junior year of high school i began sitting in for the comedy sportz lunch time practices. i would just sit and watch in amazement as they kids fearlessly just got up and did things. yeah most of the time it was terribly bad but they got up they tried and they carried on.

i never in my life thought i would ever get up and talk in front of people. especially without preparing in advance. please keep in mind that this was during the time period that i was utterly convinced i had a lisp (actually i still think i have one... but enough people have told me i don't that i think it's maybe not noticeable to anyone except me). anyway one afternoon before a game the team wound up randomly being short a person and for who knows what reason i volunteered to play without ever having actually played in a practice. i had been to many practices, knew the games, but had never had the guts to get up and try but no big deal i would love to do that in front of an audience. and out of sheer desperation and maybe the geniusness of mr conacher (our advisor) i was up on the stage that evening.

and i fell in love.

absolutely head over heels in love with making people happy. making them laugh. making them feel connected to me. and that day my life changed. my life changed for ever. and for that there is no amount of money or good words that can pay the debt that i owe to comedy sportz. that day and the months that followed taught me to be my own person. to take ownership for my decisions. to have a voice. to commit. to be who i was going to be, to own it, to love it and to take others there with me.

i doubt that i would have learned that lesson anywhere else. i doubt that i would be even a fraction of who i am today if it wasn't for this organization.

it is my hope that some day i will be able to share that with others. to have others see that this isn't just about a comedy show. it's a way of thinking about yourself, about others and the things that are given to you. it's about building relationships and learning to trust and to commit and to be honest and real. to live a life that is bold and passionate and isn't sitting in a chair watching other's live.

comedy sportz also taught me a very specific lesson that i am extremely passionate about. it can be summed up in two words: FAIL BIG.

those instructors would always tell us to go out there, make mistakes, jump and don't have a plan but try something. if you're gonna do something you might as well fail big and you'll be surprised how more often than not when you go all in it works out. it's improv magic. and you do you know why it's improv magic? because it's also life magic.

life is here waiting for you to step out, take a leap, be passionate and open yourself to possibilities. whenever i'm wondering whether or not i should do something or say something or go somewhere i always remind myself to fail big. because years down the road i want to be able to look back and think of all the amazing things i've seen and done. i want to be able to say i lived in arizona for two years and i bloody hate the desert. or i told some guy that i wanted to date him and he said no thanks. or remember that time i tried to drink a gallon of milk in an hour and it started pouring out my nose instead of going down my throat? do you know what it feels like to vomit half a gallon of liquid?!?

in life if you aren't getting dirty, if you aren't scuffing your knees and and stretching your brain, what are you doing? what's the point? forever i will be grateful for being taught this lesson. and i am grateful for the hand comedy sportz played in molding me into the person i am.

“I realized the point I was trying to push with these two programmed robots was the desire for them to try and figure out what the point of living was…It took these really irrational acts of love to sort of discover them against how they were built…I realized that that’s a perfect metaphor for real life. We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or unconsciously to avoid living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid having relationships with other people. of dealing with the person next to us. That’s why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another. I thought, ‘That’s a perfect amplification of the whole point of the movie.’ I wanted to run with science in a way that would sort of logically project that.”

- Andrew Stanton, director of WALL-E

on that note, i have sent in my resume for a job in la. with comedy sportz. i don't know that i will get it. i don't know what i would do if i did. but i feel like i would closing myself to the lessons that comedy sportz taught me if i didn't try. i know that i will wind up where ever i'm meant to be. part of me would love a new adventure in la... the gypsy part who is dying to move. but part of me knows that i love richmond and that she owns a a very big piece of my heart that i don't know i'm ready to be without. in the meantime, i will be here loving every possible moment i have in this city who brings me daffodils every spring and finding the joy in my journey. i have a ring i wear every day and on it is engraved the saying 'it's not the destination it's the journey' and that's who i am.

in other news i just joined twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ElainaToGo follow me and life will be awesome.

mittens!

so mittens got a tramp stamp.


i'm thinking about getting a matching one.

not really.

anyway, i just think she looks so cute representing the caps.

speaking of the caps, they won tonight which makes for 9 in a row. amazing. here's to hoping they can keep it up.

silly penguins acting all fancy

fun things that happened this weekend:

i ate goat.
i got my eyebrows threaded.
i went to a caps game and they won (they are currently up to 8 in a row).
i got my car washed and now mittens is so happy.
i watched the finale of an idiot abroad (loves it).

next weekend i'm going to hershey. so excited. i am going to be living my dream. i've never been to pennsylvania before so this is going to be a real treat. when i was in fifth grade we had to do a big report on a state. this report ended with all the fifth graders making floats and having a parade for the school. looking back it seems like maybe that was just a way to traumatize us against states that weren't california. i remember this one girl dressed up as a giant michigan. which mostly just looked like her mom wrapped in her blue felt and put a mitten on her head.

i had a pen pal starting in second grade who was from allentown, pa. and so i, of course, selected that great state. i had long since blocked out this memory until today when i started making plans for the hershey trip. and then i remembered the state report. for which i paraded around as a giant hershey kiss. it was pretty much amazing. i'm waiting for my mom to hook me up with some photos. but in the mean time to give you an idea, check this out:


i feel fairly certain that this is the exact pattern that my mom used to make the costume. man, i wish i still had it. how awesome would it be to roll up in hershey all shiny and happy and ready to get my chocolate on in that outfit?!

in fifth grade, i thought that costume was the most amazing thing in the entire world. in fact, i still think it is. it makes me kind of proud that even as dorky as i have been / am i've never been too ashamed to work a hershey kiss costume... or much of anything else, for that matter. remind me one day to tell the story of how we went to winter formal dressed as disney princesses my senior year of high school. we were pretty much the coolest thing to ever happen to that high school, even if no one else knew it.

the hershey bears have a hockey game on saturday evening. there are a total of 4 tickets left for that game so i doubt that we will be attending. such a shame. the bears are the feeder team for the caps and i hear they play a great game. better luck next time.

if anyone has any hershey special requests let me know asap. i'll do what i can to accommodate.

if you haven't heard me say it yet, i think lush is the most best store in the entire universe. i discovered it while i was in maui and my life has never been the same. they make soaps and scrubs and such from organic ingredients. i just love how luxurious and fabulous they feel. if you have a store near you, check it out. my closest stores are in raleigh, nc and washington dc. both of which i have visited. loves it. the workers are always super helpful and nice and willing to answer questions and let you take samples home to try. the smell can be over powering when you first walk in but it's totally worth it.

also, i'm totally obsessed with india these days. there is this fabulous indian restaurant like 2 blocks from my house. the food is just the best! i'm a big fan of their samosas and kheer. anyway, next weekend is holi. i would love to see that.


some day!

buuuuurnur

so it's official, i live in virginia. you may have thought that happened about two years ago. but no, it happened today. i finally got virginia license plates. in my head i had convinced myself that acquiring virginia plates would be the most difficult thing a person could ever do. turns out it was pretty easy.

after the dmv handed me the plates and sent me on my way a friendly 'you're done,' i headed back to work to attach the plates. as i did this i started to get overwhelmed with the realization that i live in virginia. for real i live here.

as that fact sunk in, i did what i do when i feel emotions... dry heave. i don't why this has become the go to reaction over the last couple years. but whenever i feel excited, overwhelmed, stressed out, sleepy, basically anything, i start dry heaving. it's terrible.

i never actually throw up in these situations. i just get really close. i think that is a testament to the power of my brain. good job brain for not letting me throw up several times a day.

my brain also managed to convince that it would be a good idea to get a job at disneyland working on the jungle cruise. sometimes i wonder what happens to me in the night time. because more often than not i wake up in the morning thinking that some totally random thing is the most important thing i've ever thought of. like getting a job at disneyland, bringing my facebook back or going to hershey pennsylvania.

speaking of which, i really want to go to hershey. it's the best idea in the entire world. also i want to go to philly while i'm there.

i'm back on a running kick. good times. that is all.

one last thought. i hate commercials / tv shows that have ugly guys with hot girls. i don't know why but it makes me want to throw a rock at the tv. i think it misleads ugly guys about what they should expect from life.