It's really who you are inside.

Since I haven't yet fallen asleep, I'm still within my deadline.  2/2. Go me.

What happens when you are totally stoked for the first day of Spring Break with your daughter and then remember you have an audition?  New schedule.  No writing.  That's about it.

My thoughts today are about someone I grew up with for a short time.  Someone I went to school with, who will remain unnamed.  Anyway, the point of this is probably guilt, but also it's realizing and forgiving myself for being too young & inexperienced to articulate at the time why things happened the way they did.

I went to school with a girl who had a disability.  It was fine.  She had difficulties with speech, was in a wheelchair, and struggled to fit in and find real friends.  That stuff didn't bother me one bit.  I was always okay with people however they were made - in fact, that should be present tense.  I am okay with everyone.

Because it was school, and kids are cruel, and I don't like mean people anyway, I made a special point of making this girl feel a part of things.  I would volunteer to be her partner in class.   I would sit with her at lunch.  I would go out of my way to include her in all the groups, stand up for her when kids got nasty, and just do my bit like everyone should.  Not that she deserved special treatment, but she just deserved to not feel left out, like we all deserve regardless.

Anyway, after a few months of this, I started to realize something awful.   She wasn't a nice person.  Disability or not, she was unkind.  Her favourite thing to do was to belittle others and make fun of people behind their backs.  Granted, maybe she was acting out - maybe she was repeating what she had experienced or wanted to beat them to it, but all the same, she was mean.  Not only that, she stole.  She'd take things (remember, this was school) like someone's favourite eraser and then claim it was always hers and argue to keep it - even going so far as to hide it in a vice-like grip - when everyone already knew it wasn't.  She had nothing nice to contribute. She was very intelligent and would laugh at people who gave wrong answers and talk down to them to their faces, telling them they were just "too stupid" to know.

I was a bit shocked and totally flummoxed.  My immature schoolgirl brain didn't know what to do with this one, so I picked avoidance.  I just stopped volunteering to be her partner.  I stopped sitting with her at lunch.  I stopped making contact at all because I didn't know how to deal with a situation like that.  I knew it looked like I was cutting her off.  I was.  Her Teacher Aide even asked me to start hanging out with her again, but I refused, and I was greeted with such hostility by this grown-up, who probably thought now that I was a bully.  But I wasn't.  I didn't say or do anything against her.  I just cut her off.  Which, in retrospect, was pretty mean without explanation, but the whole situation was so awkward for a girl like me at that age.

She moved away within that year (nothing to do with her school treatment) and then it was easier.  I didn't feel the pull of guilt when I avoided her eye contact when the teacher asked us to choose partners or the bell rang for lunch.

Now that I'm grown, I can easily find what I should've said.  But back then, I felt trapped. A victim of my good intentions.  "No good deed goes unpunished", as they say.

A person is a person, no matter what body they've been put into, no matter what hardships, no matter what strife, tortures, good fortune &/or luck they've had along the way.  And it really is what's inside that counts.  If she had been kind, friendly, or even non-committal, I would've carried on for the rest of our school year.  The fact that she was cruel, cutting and even a bold thief did not become suddenly forgiven because of her disabilities.  What a strange little life lesson to learn.  I wonder sometimes what happened to her.  Did she ever become a warm person?  Was it all due to the way she had been treated up until then?  Was there a turning point for her?

How strange to think that sometimes the people who appear to need help and reassurance the most, might actually be the ones we need rescuing from.  It really is what's inside that counts.  I hope she is somewhere, just like me, a little older and wiser and looking back at that time with a much clearer eye, and a loving heart.

Told ya so.

Remember when I said I was going to try to post regularly on a blog?  Hahaha.

Anyway, I'm setting myself a goal to write a blog post a day (unreachable? WHATEVER) for the next month at least, because I am trying to revamp my writing skills.  I honestly don't care if anyone reads it - I just need to be accountable so I can force myself to get back to what I've always loved, writing.  In at least one form.  More to come.

Having said that, I have to admit that a blog post A DAY is a bit daunting, so I apologize in advance for my topics and also the inane-ness that may suddenly enter the electric ether.

So, here I am on my birthday - still in my 30s! - but getting close, and I'm starting with my first post in FOREVER.  And since I really don't have a topic in mind, I'll just write about what's happening: joy.

j o y !

(maybe that should be in caps)

Spring has sprung, and well, spring rocks.  I am finding joy in the most surprising places, and also, just kinda letting myself love everything, which is pretty great.  This morning, I was thinking about how much stress people cause for themselves trying to BE something.  BE whatever it is that you are.  Because we decide somewhere along the line that certain things are more important than other things (and this can be as mundane as your freakin' hair colour!  C'mon people!) we are constantly afraid that we're not measuring up, or that our achievements fall short.  Or that our failures should be embarrassing to us.  But guess what?  When you stop caring about all that - it really doesn't matter anymore and you're kinda always happy.  I remember being a super nerdy straight-A student, and almost being destroyed by getting a B (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?) on a test once.  Honestly, I didn't want to answer when people asked me what I got.  I prepped myself for the inevitable, "Are you serious?" responses and the elation in others at my failure.. what a huge unnecessary stress I put on my own self.  If I'd just embraced the B, and didn't try to hide it, or change it, or make some excuse for it, I would've been just fine.  And so that's how I am about everything now.  It took a long time to get that way.  But secrets will kind of destroy you.  (Unless you're contractually bound, then technically it's not really your secret and it's temporary anyways.)  So after years of trying to figure that out, I think I finally have, for the most part.  Sometimes, I screw up.  But I OWN that.  So I encourage you to embrace every moment, hide none of them, and as they say - the truth will set you free.  So cool.  Cool cool cool.

And in that spirit, I am embracing the fact that this blog is lame and hasn't had a post in forever, just as I predicted.  I'm not ashamed or embarrassed or even anything, just writing one now and you know what?

I told ya so.

I Still Believe...

And now, here I am, watching the wedding of Will & Kate, and catching up on my blog. It seems appropriate. I hadn't planned to watch the wedding at all. In fact, I'm exhausted. It's been a long day. My little dog is not well - probably not going to recover - so it's been a trying and tiring day, emotionally. I was sitting here, worried, fretting, looking for some sort of distraction, and naturally, the TV led me to the wedding.

I am a hopeless romantic. You'd think that I might have a bitterness in me towards romance, but I don't. I love it. I am much more cautious, but I still believe. I think fairytales exist, and should exist, and fairytale romances can be real if both partners want them to be. We create our reality, right?

When Kylie was 1 year old, and I had relaxed a little emotionally, I started to seriously think about trying to date again. I sincerely want a home and family of my own, and more children - and would gladly sacrifice all other things for that.

Fate is amazing. It led my boyfriend and me to each other. Is that ridiculously romantic? Everything happens for a reason, even the stuff we think is terrible at the time. I have no regrets, and I have no ill feeling at all towards my ex. Sure, I was angry at the time, but not anymore. Everyone has their own path to take, ours crossed for a moment, and then when it was time, our paths continued in different directions. And then my path crossed someone else's.

My fiance and I come from similar relationship backgrounds. He, too, is divorced, and for the same reasons. We have trust issues. But we also understand each other when that happens. And things are looking up - the trust is growing all the time. Kylie adores him, and he adores her. We struggle. We work through and we heal each other. We are complete opposites, which means we help balance each other, and we also drive each other nuts sometimes. But we understand this, and we sincerely want to be better people and support each other. We make each other laugh. We pick each other up, and we hold each other's hands.

Fairytales are amazing. They are filled with romance and "Happily Ever Afters", but they are not without conflict. A princess who is almost murdered by her step-mother for her beauty, a step-mother who makes a slave of her step-daughter, a girl locked in a tower by a witch as revenge against her parents, and a sleeping spell cast on a princess by a jealous fairy... just to mention a few. Besides teaching us that there is a "Happily Ever After" (which I'm not bitter or smart enough yet to give up on), I think they teach us that we don't struggle alone or for naught: that everyone has a challenge to get through before they are rewarded with contentment, even princesses. And that it may take a while to get there, but it does come, and not without effort. I dunno. It's late and I'm exhausted. I hope it's true. It would be terrible if you struggled for nothing. And you can't be happy unless you let yourself be happy. If you're always frustrated, angry, upset or sad, what kind of person do you think you might be? So choose to be happy. And I choose to still believe in fairytales. So there.

Barbie.

As a kid, I had one favourite toy. Barbies. I played with them until I was 14. I'm not ashamed to admit that. In fact, part of the reason I love the Sims games so much is because they remind me of playing Barbies. I actually describe them as "Barbies for adults". Oh, and I still play the Sims.

I had a lot of Barbies. I kept them all, too, for my future daughter (who knew I'd have a daughter?), and my dad moved them into his shed when I turned 30. I can't imagine why. He and my brother's godfather built me the most amazing Barbie house when I was a kid that occupied most of the space in my room. It was huge... and AWESOME! Unfortunately, it was also brown. My mom informed these two guys that although brown was a great colour for a real house, it wasn't really that great for a little girl's dollhouse, so they repainted it fire engine red (since that was the only "girl" colour that could cover the dark brown). My friends from that time STILL ask me if I have that house when we reconnect. We spent a lot of hours sitting in front of it. I would even decorate it with mini Christmas lights and cotton ball snow ever winter. And I had mini jack o'lanterns... oh, the memories!

Unfortunately, we found out that squirrels and raccoons really like Barbies too, especially when they are in sheds. My beautiful Barbie house and all my toys were unceremoniously chewed up and are no more. But I'm sure that house made a great squirrel or raccoon house too. Why not? My cat used to sleep in it. She'd pull the Barbies out of the beds by their feet and sleep in the Barbie beds in the dollhouse. I wish I had a picture of that. I'm still sad that I don't get to pass on all of my Barbie collection to Kylie, but I've been "re-collecting" it from craigslist and my sister-in-law has some pieces too, so it's rebuilding.

In any case, I got a call one day from my voice over agent saying that I had an audition for the voice of Barbie. It was pretty exciting! And it was only the first of many. I auditioned, and auditioned and auditioned... I read with different people, I got lots of direction and feedback and I tried to give them what they wanted. Then they saw more people for Barbie, and I pretty much figured it had moved on. And then I got another call, did some MORE reads for it, got more notes and feedback, and waited to hear. It was down to 2 people and it was also one day before the official recording start date and I still hadn't heard anything. I got the call later that afternoon that I had booked the job. How exciting - and how terrifying! I was going to get to record a Barbie movie! And I started tomorrow!

What a thrill. Since then, I've been privileged to record a lot of things for Barbie and it is quite possibly my favourite thing yet. And it records here in Vancouver so I can be with my daughter. I got to take Kylie to a movie theatre and watch both "A Fashion Fairytale" and "A Fairy Secret" with my little girl in my arms. I've had so many lovely emails and letters and comments from Barbie fans. I've had one or two not so nice ones too, as I am the second Barbie voice (sadly, some people blame me for that, and also seem to think that I write the movies), but I just auditioned for a job and was lucky enough to book it. Thankfully, the nice people have far outnumbered the not - something for which I am grateful.

I've also done commercials, other cartoons, jingles and more session singing. Doing voice overs is a dream job for me - regular hours (not nights and weekends), time with my daughter and a way to support her, and lots of creative fun! What people may not know about voice over, especially cartoons, is that we do many, many takes, and although the "best" or "most appropriate" take usually is the one used, we do get to play too and try many versions of the same lines.

Plus, you can wear whatever you want and you don't need make-up.

Another Millie... and another Millie... and Broadway Edge.

So what now? It was going to be incredibly difficult to keep performing. Especially since I was now based in Vancouver again. Shows in Vancouver might work...

I had done some theatre in Vancouver before I left, so I had a lot of friends and acquaintances from my time then. I started to do local theatre.

I did Millie again at Theatre Under the Stars in Vancouver.

And I did it again in the role of Miss Dorothy at the Gateway Theatre.

I'd now played Meg in 3 different companies of Phantom, Eponine in 3 different companies of Les Miz, Millie in 2 different companies and Miss Dorothy in 2 other companies of Thoroughly Modern Millie. These shows were getting pretty familiar!

I was asked to do some teaching, and I did. It was amazingly what I needed for my creative side. I enjoyed it. I was inspired. My family and friends encouraged me to open my own studio for Musical Theatre. Before I knew it, through a very zig-zagged course, I had my own school: Broadway Edge Studio. My brother designed the logo. And it has been a learning process in so many ways, besides a teaching one, and continues to be one.

And I also called up my old agent from Vancouver and started doing voiceovers again. I did some commercials and a whole lot of auditions...

Starting Over. Les Miz & Millie again.

The brightest spot in my life was my 4 month old baby girl. She was my saviour in a lot of ways. Without her, I would've gone on in blissful ignorance. And without her, I might have completely collapsed. Because of her, I didn't have time to mourn. A good thing in some ways, a bad thing in others, but it forced me to keep moving at a time I could've stopped completely. She needed me.

I have to admit, I did get angry at first, and I did go a little bonkers. I wasn't totally with it. I started reaching out to people. I started hiding from the world. I switched between both ideas. I went through the stages of grief. Some of it was easy because I felt that the person I married never really existed. Some of it was difficult, because the person I married never really existed. There was a lot of confusion, and sleep-deprivation didn't help.

Every morning I woke up to a smiling face, and my instincts as a mom said to give her one back - so I did. We had fun. I made homemade baby food. We played games. I spoiled her ridiculously because I never wanted her to feel a lack of anything. I worried about her growing up. I felt part of me hurt inside when I read her stories about "mommy & daddy" or saw that on tv. I wondered what it would be like for her. I wished things were better for her. But things were great. She had Grandma and Grandpa and Mommy all together, and her Aunt and Uncle and all sorts of family and friends.

My friends are amazing. Again, I have the most amazing friends. They sent me so much love and support. And they shared their stories with me and their personal struggles, and a lot of them came from single parent homes and turned out to be the most wonderful people I knew, so I knew Kylie would be fine. She was clever and smart and growing and surrounded by love. Tonnes of love.

I threw myself into motherhood. And then sometimes I was incredibly alone. I felt abandoned, even with all my family and friends around me. I also pined for the dreams of family and home and contentment I had always wanted. They seemed impossible now.

As for work, I had no idea what to do. I couldn't imagine going back to New York with a 4 month old, finding a nanny, trying to get a job and doing it alone, with no savings to work with. My agents were very supportive - they kept submitting for me and I flew to New York and LA and auditioned for a few things, but none of it panned out. I wasn't very focused either. I wasn't sure how I would manage it if I actually DID land a job somewhere and had to make a new home with a baby by myself. I focused on Kylie mostly, and I'm glad I did. I made a decision to just be her mom.

When Kylie was just a year old, I was asked to do Les Miserables again in St. Louis with some of my old castmates. My mom agreed to come with me - and it was only for 3 weeks, so we did it. It felt good to perform. It felt good to earn a paycheque. But it felt strange to leave my little girl in a strange corporate apartment with my poor mom dragged along for the ride. Kylie is a great traveler and real adventurer, so she loved the trips. She adapted quickly, and as long as she had Mommy and Grandma, she was happy. And the Backyardigans.

Kylie in the Rehearsal Studio in St. Louis.

Shortly after that, I went down to San Diego to do Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Welk Theatre for 4 months. Mom came too. We drove down with Kylie and stayed at a Holiday Inn for 4 months with a 14 month old. We went to Disneyland a lot. Kylie had her first Halloween Trick or Treating experience in a hotel hallway, but she knew the fellow Millie cast members' doors she knocked on. She was spoiled rotten again.

Kylie's hotel home for 4 months.

I came back to Vancouver with a little bit of money in the bank again, and a more realistic picture of a performing career as a mom. Grandma wasn't going to come with me and become my live-in nanny. This was going to be very hard. I was going to have to find a new way to do this.

Home Again - and the Unraveling of Everything.

There were a lot of things that happened now. I was learning to be a mother. I was learning who this baby was that now depended on me. I was learning who my husband was.

Kylie was wonderful. Maybe I look back at it with rose-coloured glasses, but she was a pretty great baby. She was (IS!) high maintenance, but she was (IS!) good-tempered. Everything about taking care of her I loved.

Her pediatrician was running a lot of tests on her. His office was walking distance from my apartment, but he lost her blood tests (she needed blood tests?) and they had to be redone, and then he requested more. I was getting nervous. I switched to another pediatrician who confirmed what I had suspected. He liked to run tests for money. I longed for Canada and my family doctor.

My husband was American and I was Canadian with a work permit, but not a Green Card, so we applied when we got engaged. It was right after 9/11, so the process was extremely elongated and confused and nobody knew exactly what was going on with immigration. The name changed from the INS to The Department of Homeland Security, and I jumped through a lot of hoops. We finally received our "Green Card Appointment Notice" 4 years later for a week after Kylie was born at 7am. Pretty early! Thank goodness I had a baby.

A Green Card Appointment is where a married couple is interviewed by someone at the INS/Dept. of HS to confirm the marriage is legit and not for immigration purposes. You have to bring in your bank statements that prove you have joint accounts, joint utility bills (who has joint utility bills?), and photos of your wedding and yourselves together in different casual settings to prove you actually are married. All of our finances were communal.

The night before our Green Card Appointment, my husband didn't come home from work. I knew he had a recruiting event, so I figured he'd be home around 9pm. He didn't show up until 4am actually, and he was drunk. I was confused. He wasn't a drinker. It was very strange behaviour, especially since my mom was still with us helping out. He immediately started going through files to get our paperwork together, and didn't have much to say about where he had been except that "everyone wanted to buy me a drink to celebrate my new daughter's birth." Weird.

We went to the appointment and he reeked of liquor. I was totally confused and kind of upset. Anyway, we did the interview and a few weeks later I got my green card. I guess a slightly tiffed couple is more realistic than a lovey-dovey one after 7 years. Ha!

Stranger things happened, and if I ever write a real memoir, it will have a lot more detail than this blog, but one day he came home and said we should move back to Vancouver as soon as we can. I was surprised. We had a lease, he had a job, we had a new baby - but he went ahead and gave notice and arranged for the apartment to go and told me to set about selling our furniture on craigslist. I did. We packed up and got our plane tickets and it all seemed very surreal and very quick. My husband was planning to come back to Vancouver with us this first time, but he couldn't leave work that soon (again, why are we moving right now?), so he was going to return, work another month and then finally join us for good after that. I was totally confused. But I was also sleep-deprived and taking care of a 1 month old baby.

Around this same time, there was the shoe bomber - remember him? So two days before we were supposed to fly out, the new security measures went into effect. No liquids. No anything. We were moving back to Vancouver with a baby, 2 dogs, 2 cats and all of our things and this was looking pretty difficult. Thankfully, the airline understood, refunded us our tickets and we rented a car.

The drive was awkward and silent. There was something wrong and very strange. I remember driving through Chicago and I can still picture the high rise building I was looking at when he told me, very casually, as if he had already told me, that he'd be coming back to Vancouver in 3 months, at the end of the year. Now I was starting to get angry. I asked him why he didn't tell me that before we left, and why we were moving if he wasn't coming for another 3 months? Didn't he want to see his baby growing up? He was going to miss all of her infanthood. We could've just stayed in New York until he was finished with work. He just stuck to his guns and told me that this was better because he could get a cheap place to stay and bank all the rest of his salary for the transition to Vancouver. It all seemed very odd.

We got to Vancouver, and I was so happy to see my parents and my home! We had what was packed into the car, and my husband was going to go back to NYC and pack up the rest of the furniture and baby gear into a POD which would come to my parents' place in the next month. It was the first week of August, and Kylie was 2 months old. He stayed a week and went back to New York.

I started to get emails from him about staying another year in New York. They were offering him all kinds of benefits and bonuses if he would stay. I told him that Kylie & I should move back there then, and he always refused, saying he could bank more money for us this way and we should stay with my parents. I worried about him missing the first year of his daughter's life. He promised to fly back once a month. It just wasn't right.

I loved being home though. There was grass, and parks. Vancouver in August is fantastic - the weather is gorgeous, the food is amazing, and it was BBQs and reunions and family and comfort. My friends and family threw me a baby shower. I love Kylie's face in this picture - she is really unimpressed by the hat. At 2 months old, she already had personality galore. Kylie was doing well and my family doctor was her doctor now. Things were great - except that we didn't have the 3rd member of our family with us.

He didn't come to visit again until October. And this time, I could tell something was very wrong. He dropped the bomb then. "I'm not in love with you anymore." He went on to tell me that he had met a bartender and he was confused because he wanted to follow through on it. He asked for permission to date other people. I was shell-shocked. And then he was gone, back to New York, without much explanation except that he was confused.

The POD had arrived with our things in it - including our files - so I started to look through them. There were strange charges on the bills, there were phone calls to numbers all over the US, 1-800 numbers and all sorts of strange activity. And then, after some help from friends, conversations with people and conversations with him, it all came to light.

He had been having affairs for quite some time. He was a member of dating services, various other services and the homebody husband that I knew had spent a lot of money at nightclubs, bars, jewelry stores and other establishments. All the time that I had been working on weekends and from 6-12am, he had been partying. All the money was gone from the bank accounts. It was over. And everything was gone.

Almost overnight I went from being a successful actress on Broadway to an unemployed, broke, single-mom living with her parents. Awesome.

Mommyhood.

So for the first time since I was 16, at the age of 29, I wasn't doing anything. Well, I was doing something pretty significant - growing a human being - but I didn't have to leave the house to do it. :)

Of course, being me, I couldn't sit idle too long. I started doing calligraphy. I did wedding invitations for random people in New York and advertised on craigslist. It was going pretty swimmingly too - I was getting referrals - lots of business - and I could sit on my couch and watch tv while I wrote out envelopes. I kinda liked it.

I also auditioned for a bunch of stuff, with my big baby belly. Kind of hilarious. They saw me for "Clara" in Light in the Piazza again, they saw me for "Mary Poppins" in Mary Poppins and asked me when I was due.. haha... I was HUGE then. They saw me for a few other things I can't remember. And I did one of the very first tryout readings for "Sister Act" as Sister Mary Roberts with an 8 month pregnant belly. Pretty awesome to be a pregnant nun. I played a pregnant thug in that too. But most importantly, I got to meet one of my idols, Alan Menken. I did "Tale of Two Cities" again in workshop with a big ol' belly, another workshop or two, and Kylie was basically being built in music.

I was kinda starting to like staying at home, doing readings, working on calligraphy and having my evenings free like normal people. I cooked a lot, I got used to heartburn (okay, I never got used to heartburn), and eventually my ankles started to swell. It was completely comfortable. Except for the big belly.

In a way, I had almost "fallen in" to the business as a teenager, and while I loved what I did, I always longed for home and I've always been a homebody. I was never one for the Opening Night parties, the schmoozing or the attention. I just liked to get home and relax on my couch in my pjs. In fact, I was sort of known for being the last one at the theatre for half hour call and the first one out when the show was done. In Les Mis, I had my routine so down-pat, I could beat the orchestra out of there. :) Don't get me wrong, I love performing, I love dancing, acting & singing - but I've never had any desire to be famous. Unfortunately, that's part of show business! I'm totally with Greta Garbo! That being said, I am a very social gal when I want to be, and even though I usually cocoon myself with a good book or a guitar or my piano, I can chat it up sometimes. Plus, my family is incredibly close. It was weird to be pregnant away from them. Vancouver is the whole other coast and another country away from New York.

My baby was due June 4th, 2006. When I told my dad this, he said "I hope she doesn't come on the 6th!" I didn't even think about it until that moment. Oh, right: 06/06/06. Interesting.

I had some weird things happen when I was pregnant. The strangest of all was that I got a sort of tinnitis in my right ear - where the sound I was hearing in that ear was suddenly lower (and almost underwater sounding) than the rest of the sound in my left ear. I can't really explain it. I couldn't even explain it to my doctor. But my head would ring and I would hear things almost in two vastly different tones, styles and speeds on either side of my head. I tried googling this a lot. If anyone knows what this is - please let me know! It came and went and stopped after I gave birth. Other than that, it was pretty routine.

My husband was not a professional actor. We had met in Ft. Worth, Texas on my 23rd birthday, (remember, St. Patrick's Day! It's always a party somewhere on my birthday!), with the cast of Les Miserables to support us. We were together from that moment on - and had been for 7 years. He joined me on the Les Miz tour and worked concessions and as the chaperone for the child actors. When we moved to New York, he got a regular 9-5 job and I worked from basically 6-12am, so we saw each other for dinner mostly. It was fun to experience a "normal" life while I was home gestating - get on a more typical schedule and have more time together. But that time together led to the discovery of all kinds of things.

I had a 72 hour labour. I was determined to not have a C-Section. I went into labour on June 3rd and said, "Yahoo! She won't be born on the 6th!" But it was not to be - I went to the ER quite a few times in the next few days and never dilated enough to be admitted. Well, they said they could admit me, but that it would definitely be a C-Section birth and if I wanted to go and try walking around Central Park, I might have a natural birth. So every time I went home. At one point, they gave me an ambien because I hadn't slept with the regular contractions in over 2 days and needed the strength to push. The last time I went in, around 1am on June 6th - yup - I had the most excited gypsy cab driver ever. He drove the wrong way down one-way streets and was determined to get me to the hospital! It was kind of adorable. They admitted me this time, saying that we were both getting too tired and no matter what, the baby was coming out. I agreed. Kylie's head was just slightly off-centre on my cervix, which is why I wasn't dilating. Uh oh.

I was exhausted. The nurse said I had two options: I could take an oral sedative and when I woke up, I would be groggy and the baby would be groggy when it was time to push; or I could get an epidural and wake up fine. Pretty obvious choice. The minute I got the epidural it was total relief, and I passed out and didn't wake up again until the late morning. Kylie was born on June 6th at 4:22pm, naturally, thanks to my amazing nurse! She rotated me and had me lay in different positions and told me she would get the baby in the right place so I wouldn't have to have a C-section. To the doctor's amazement, she did! And we're still in touch to this day. What an angel.

The minute I saw my daughter's face, the love I felt just overflowed. I had been so curious to meet her. I just wanted to know who this person was that I felt kicking and hiccuping. And here she was. It was truly a miracle. Motherhood was amazing.

Kylie and I were in the hospital for two days and then released. Everyone was there - mom & dad and my mother-in-law, so we had a nice full house and lots of hands to help. My dad stayed up all night holding Kylie - you couldn't get her out of his arms. It was adorable. She was a great baby, and very, very attached right from day one. She still is. I guess we both are. Of course, all babies are attached to their mothers. I'm just being a typical mom.

Anyway, here's where the story starts to get crazy...

RENT.

So it was back to New York in a whirlwind. And straight into rehearsals for RENT. I was an emergency sub for a Swing who was getting her wisdom teeth out and supposed to be there for only 2 weeks. The cast was wonderful, but so different from the casts I had worked with before. RENT just had its own energy.

Swinging is awesome, so I was happy to do that. And it is kind of hilarious that I was in RENT. And again, it was quite different from anything I'd done before, which made me happy. I think I wrote that in my bio... let me see if I can find it:

"Diana Kaarina played a 19th century ballerina (Meg in Phantom), a 19th century street urchin (Eponine in Les Misérables - final Broadway cast) and a 1920’s debutante (Miss Dorothy in Thoroughly Modern Millie). She’s thrilled to join the current age onstage! Originally from Vancouver, Diana is a songwriter and is working on a pop album."

Well, I WAS working on a pop album. And then I got back to NYC. I covered every female role in the show except for Joanne. I was technically titled the "Mimi/Maureen" swing, but the chances of my going on as Mimi were slim and none. My 2 weeks became a year. I'm not really sure how that happened, but it did. And I went on for every role I was supposed to but Mimi. (Mimi I only did in rehearsals and an understudy concert.) I still have wax on one of my favourite hoodies that won't come out from an understudy rehearsal. I learned that lesson the hard way. Strangely, I don't have many pictures from RENT. I was a Swing so I wasn't in the photo shoots - I think I only have this photo with Jan - after a show!

It was jarring to be home without really prepping for it, but I soon settled back into the NYC lifestyle. Let's be honest here, I am very much a west coast kind of gal. I like to lay back and relax. The quick pace of NYC is great for a little bit, but after a while, I kinda just want to go to Costco.

I did workshops for a few shows: Liberty Smith for NYMF and Tale of Two Cities a few times, Out of the Hands of Children, Womyn in 3... more that I'm sure are escaping me and I'll probably add later. I auditioned for other things. I did some more voice overs in NYC. I booked a job recording a children's CD. I crocheted a lot. I got the nickname "Crochet MacGyver". That's pretty awesome. I bet if I had some yarn and a crochet hook, I could maybe survive any disaster. Edible yarn...

Anyway, one night when I was on for Maureen, I just couldn't keep my balance. I did the "gotta, gotta, gotta..." thing where she keeps flipping her head in "Over the Moon" and I stood up and was completely disoriented. I was dizzy. Strangely dizzy. I shook it off to maybe an oncoming bug or something. We got to "Take Me or Leave Me" and I almost missed a step on the chair.. I was getting more and more dizzy and couldn't keep my balance for anything. This was getting strange. And that's how I found out I was expecting my daughter.

I did RENT until the end of my first trimester. My boobs got huge. My tummy started to stretch my leather pants. It was hilarious. But Kylie kicked her way through the whole experience.

And then... the whole NEW adventure began...

Thoroughly Modern Millie, Disney & LA...

I came back from Hawaii tanned and a redhead with short hair.

And terrified.

Millie was a dance show! I had just spent 5 1/2 years rotating on a turntable. Uh oh.

My audition process for Millie was pretty painless. I did a lot of calls, I did a work session, I did a few dance auditions, and Rob Ashford laughed at my grab-offs. :) They were pretty balletic, I must admit.

It was another wonderful company. We rehearsed on 42nd Street with the original creatives and they built in some changes to the show on our company. I had to do a lot of dancing. They put me in the opening number, which Miss Dorothy doesn't usually do, because our cast was smaller.

It was a lot of fun going from "the girl who doesn't get the guy" to "the girl who gets all the guys". Eponine was down and dirty and Miss Dorothy was prim and proper. Poverty to wealth, belt to legit soprano, pathos to comedy - you couldn't get more opposite characters than Eponine and Miss Dorothy. I was in acting heaven. Pink acting heaven.

Miss Dorothy was pink incarnate. The original actress in the role was a natural redhead (I think), and I was now an unnatural redhead so everyone wondered if I would also have a long, red curly wig. I didn't. Red still didn't work on me. I was a brunette again, naturally. And I had a cute blonde bob for the opening number. Why do I keep talking about wigs?

Anyway, I made amazing friends again. We teched in Green Bay, opened in Kansas City and we were off. My dresses and costumes were outrageously expensive and gorgeous. I didn't have to wear any dirt. And I got to see a lot of the same cities again for the 3rd time. I got audited by the IRS and had to run back and forth to deal with the INS and Department of Homeland Security while they processed my green card. There was stress and there was glitter.

A year on tour was enough. I had just got married and this quick refresher of touring life was enough for me. I didn't renew at the end of my year and jumped ship in Los Angeles, where I was living with my uncle.

When I was doing Les Miserables, a music attorney had attended the show and asked me if I was interested in singing pop music. He was prepared to set me up with the right people if I wanted to pursue a recording career, and I was just going on tour so I never had a chance to follow through, although I met with a few of them. Now that I was in LA, I contacted him again and he set up some meetings for me there. I started working with a producer there on a demo, but more importantly, I started writing songs again. I had always written songs, even produced a demo of my own on the Les Miserables tour, but now I was focusing on it. It was great - I was really enjoying it!

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I'm a Disney-maniac. I had been an Annual Pass holder for a few years, especially when I was on tour. Anytime I was near a theme park, I was IN the theme park, and it was while I was in LA that I got to do a reading for a Disney musical for their cruise line, Twice Charmed by Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner (shameless plug), and not only that, I got to play my favourite princess, Cinderella! I even got to sing some more demos for them, which I very much enjoyed. But the best part of all is that we did the reading in the theme park studios, and after we were finished for the day, we could just push open the gate and walk into the park. It was the perfect job. Playing Cinderella during the day, and hanging out in Disneyland during the evening. Blissful.

I wasn't in LA very long before I got a call to come back to NYC... and the very next day I was on a plane...