Girly Girls and Tomboys

I'm still trying to decide whether to keep blogging. It seems a bit narcissistic and I'm not sure I want my thoughts archived for just anyone to read. Some friends have encouraged me to keep writing though, so here goes.

A lot of people told me it was crazy risky to head for an unknown future in Hollywood. Maybe they were right, based on some of the advice I've been getting.

So I've been advised to look more "Hollywood" - closer to how directors would cast me. 

The problem is my outside says "girly girl" - not just any girly girl, the PERKY one - but my inside still screams tomboy.  Don't let my curves and sweet demeanor fool you.

I was such a tomboy growing up that I'd charge girls a nickel for "protection" on the grade school playground.  For five cents, I'd threaten the boys with boxing moves my dad taught me if they tried to peek under the girls' dresses to see their underpants.

I was pretty intimidating. So strong and fast and TALL (early growth spurt) that our sixth grade teacher even gave me my own gym class along with her son. Brett and I were the biggest kids in school; teachers were afraid we might accidentally maim the other kids kicking a soccer ball or tackling them.

My self-image apparently remains rooted back on the playground (though I haven't threatened to beat anyone up. lately).  

Still, my acting coach is encouraging me to work on the girly stuff.  You know: wearing more makeup; slapping extensions in the hair; wearing more form-fitting clothes - the kind of stuff that matters immensely in Hollywood.  

And so I'm reminded of a viewer's advice at my first TV job. She'd written a note on a Kleenex saying: "Honey, blot your lips!"  

So here I am in Hollywood. Finally blotting.

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Concealed Evidence

Funny how your past intrudes into your present in the most awkward ways. This post might seem morbid but it's not meant to be; in my heart is something redemptive but I can't fully articulate it.

Recently I was with some friends from college and we started talking about the Yale grad student who was found murdered in a campus lab. The murder at a sister Ivy League school left us speculating on a motive and whether the attack was premeditated.

"The killer would have come up with a better plan to get rid of the body if he had planned it," I spoke up. "He would have known blood stains are hard to clean."

Awkward silence. You could tell everyone was trying to figure out why I knew so much about hiding dead bodies.

As a crime reporter, I had spent hundreds of hours at murder scenes, talked to countless homicide detectives, interviewed dozens of victims' families. I was the first journalist invited into a Parents of Murdered Children meeting after covering a story about a girl whose body was found ditched along a California highway. She'd met the wrong person...

Back to the conversation about the Yale victim. She had been working on cutting edge medical research; she was getting married in a few days. 

As our group sat 3,000 miles away discussing her fate, it struck me that maybe there's a reason I've spent so much time covering horrific crimes. I don't know what it is yet but maybe there's something redemptive in those places of darkness.

Concealed evidence. 

Maybe our pasts hold clues about our destiny until we're ready to step into something greater.

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Blot Your Lips!

Photo:  Melran. Etsy

"Blot Your Lips!" is about living life beautifully - hearts set ablaze. Words. Images. Inspiration.  It's also about chasing an impossible dream that took me from a small Bible Belt town to Hollywood.

The name, "Blot Your Lips!" came from my first TV job fresh out of journalism school.  I was hired as a reporter at a midwestern NBC affiliate that was surrounded by cornfields. Really. 

On slow news days - when a tornado didn't rip through a mobile home park or a freight train derail - I would catch up on notes from viewers with our evening anchor, Pam. 

One viewer wanted to make sure she got our attention.  She had mailed a crisply-folded white Kleenex with these words written on it in bold, red marker: "Honey, blot your lips!"  Below the words, she had demonstrated the perfect blotting technique.

Instead of throwing the note away, Pam pinned it up on our newsroom  bulletin board. She wanted to keep it as a reminder to check each other's makeup and hair before we went on air.  Our station was too small to afford stylists so we were on our own.

Some nights we would simply ask each other, "Blot?"  It was our code for, "Do I look ok?"

Pam taught me that we don't have to be enemies even if we're competing for the same spotlight. And she taught me how to stay beautiful even when people do ugly things to pull you down.

I hope she kept that Kleenex. And I hope here you will find words, images, inspiration that set your heart ablaze.

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