What is this thing?

I haven’t had any kind of blog-device for years.  At least not since I was an eighteen year old moody, atheistic, philosophy-major living in Dallas, TX, so bear with me here.  For those of you not immediately repulsed by that sentence, I salute you on giving me a little more time to try not to repel you.

I am coming back to blogging not because I live in Brooklyn and feel like the only way to fit in is to be on tumblr, nor because I am in need of a place to vomit out complaints about the world and how I know better (see above comment about my last blog…eek!).  I’m here because I feel like I have some information that people might actually find useful.

I came to this realization over the last weeks when I’ve helped out friends using what I thought was common knowledge (ie. how to rid yourself of fruit flies, do fun nailpolish, call a foul in basketball, understand what the Higgs-boson actually is…), and have since discovered that it is most certainly not. I was raised in a family of exceptionally strong women who know how to do just about everything.  (I hate myself a little for what I’m about to do, but…) This quote from Ashley Judd actually does express the way women in my family are, and it is one of my favorite descriptions of women in my home state:

Sure, girls from New York, they are tough.  And girls from Georgia, they are sweet.  But those born-and-bred feisty Kentucky girls, they are the ones you have to look out for.  We have sugar and fire in our blood.  We can ride a horse, be a debutante, throw a left hook, and tell you the entire UK line-up all while making sweet tea.  And if we have an opinion, you get to know it.  We’re both the pride and downfall of the Bluegrass.

I think I like that quote so much because it’s true.  Take me as an example.  I am a huge football, basketball, and hockey fan.  I love having fabulous nail polish and do all kinds of fun styles on my nails.  I speak French.  I know what a carburetor is, where it’s located in my car, and how to tell if something’s wrong with it.  I love fashion.  I am the biggest sci-fi and fantasy nerd around most of the time.  I love shopping.  I read voraciously. I have more than a passing knowledge of particle physics, filmmaking, art history, the history of Ancient Greece and Rome, Arthurian myth, psychology, and philosophy.  I have a cocktail party level of knowledge about a lot more than that.  I make art with several different mediums.  I watched all of America’s Next Top Model—that’s right, even season 18, yes it is still going on.  I volunteer in political campaigns.  I’ve designed several websites and have a rudimentary html coding vocabulary.  I am an actor who works in film and on the stage.  I am a producer.  I am a nanny.  I am a writer.  That all sounds really pretentious.  I can also promise you that I am truly not pretentious.  Nor am I mean.  Nor am I ego-centric enough to think that there will be very many people reading this.

The only things I truly hate are willful ignorance and ignorant hatred.  Those are both choices. And they are choices to be closed off to portions of a truly incredible world and I can’t understand how anyone could do that.  They also tend to be traits in assholes, so there’s that.
Anyway, I’m here to post little thoughts and tips on a lot of topics.  I hope you’ll come along for the ride.