I grew up in Massachusetts and realized that in all my time here I had never gone to see the ice sculptures in person at Copley Plaza in Boston on New Years Eve. I decided it was about time I did! Here are some of the sculptures in all their glory:

Goodbye, 2012!

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year!

2012 was a great year for me both personally and professionally
but
it was hard for the positive to not be overshadowed when something horrible happened at the end of October:

my aunt died tragically/suddenly after being hit by a car, then being in a coma, then being taken off life support...

I had never dealt with something like that before.
Yes, I've had family pass away in the past but not in such an out of nowhere fashion. I had never been in a situation where I went to a hospital and talked to someone in a coma and wondered if they could actually hear me...

It's given me a different perspective on a lot of things and reminded me what is really important. Which is what I guess happens to all of us when we lose someone.

Life is short. Live it. Don't wait to do things. Make them happen. Let the people in your life know how much they mean to you. What other cliche line can I throw in here?

You get the point! :-)

Anyway,I hope you all had a fab 2012 and that 2013 is even better!

Tonight I headlined at Southern New Hampshire University.

I loved these interesting/random statues that were in front of the building I performed at:

There ended being a good turn out of lovely laughing/attentive students:

Thanks to all of the brave souls who attended! :-)

I donate blood for the 1st time today

and

didn't pass out!

Yay!

Over the last year or so the union(AFTRA) I was a member of due to past appearances on tv combined with the other union(SAG). Because of this, I am now a member of both.

I always associated SAG to be more of a union for hardcore thespian types. So I love that I am in it now.

Every once in a blue moon I get asked to audition for a part in a movie but it's VERY rare. For some reason I was asked to audition for 2 movies over the last month. Which clearly must be a sign that the world is ending! ;-)

In all honestly I think I ALWAYS display my acting ability at these auditions I've been too but not when I read the lines from the script. I think it's more from when I show up and "act" like I'm not surprised that I was invited to the audition. :-)

Have a nice Labor Day weekend, everyone!
I'm going to be doing a 25k(15 mile) race on Labor Day in Gloucester. I'm really excited to do it because I don't get out to Gloucester often and part of the course goes through Rockport(which I've never been to). I'm a little worried about it too because there are a bunch of hills in it. I'm pretty sure I've trained properly to handle all of it but hoping the hills factor doesn't slow me down too much. 
We'll see...I imagine I won't embarrass myself TOO much! ;-)

I use these things to clean my glasses:

I keep an absurd supply of them in my pocketbook
and
whenever I open my pocketbook they have a tendency to fall out and land on the floor.
Whenever this happens I always feel the need to hold them up and announce to everyone in the room, I use them to clean my glasses!

Because I think if someone were to look quick at these packets they might mistake them for condoms.
I just want to make it clear to everyone in the room that I am over prepared to clean my glasses not over prepared for something else...

This morning when I was walking home from jogging, 
a dog ran at me then jumped on me and tried to grab my bottled water out of my hand.

Do dogs normally do that? 

I don't think they do, but a moment later the dog's owner came running after him and yelled,

Rocky! Leave her alone! That's her bottled water!

When I was a kid I had a dog named Snowball and she would have NEVER ran and jumped on people and tried to grab drinks out of their hand. Why?
Because:
a) I always walked her with a leash
and
b) SNOWBALL HAD CLASS!

I was waiting at a bus stop the other day.
A guy was standing next to me and waiting too.
An older woman(I'd guess she was in her 80's or 90's) was driving  but stopped when she got to us and yelled out her window, 

Do you two want a ride?

Me and the guy both said, No.

When she drove away, I looked at the guy and said, 
Who the hell does that?!

Then he said, 
That was nice of her.

Then we stood there in silence waiting for the bus.

This morning I went to Stop and Shop at about 7am because I was out of blueberries. I'm not complaining. I'm just stating the facts: it was 7am-ish and I was buying blueberries.

Believe it or not there was actually a line to wait in because other people had decided they needed to buy things at 7am-ish too. How dare they! The guy in front of me in line saw that all I was buying was my blueberries and said, "That's all you're getting? You can cut me in line. Go ahead!".

So I did.

The question is, who the hell has the audacity to be kind at 7am-ish?!

As I was leaving I saw that he was letting a number other people cut him in line as well...

In conclusion, I'm not sure if he was a kind man or a mentally unstable man. In either case, I appreciate it.

Last night I had a nightmare that I was driving down a highway
and
there was a herd of children dressed in bright pink astronaut outfits who were competing in a marathon.
The children were running in the direction of my car.
The nightmare was having to dodge all of them.
I ended up being late for a comedy show as a result(in the dream).
What does it mean?!

It's possible to win...

even if you're not that good...

When I was 14 I played town team basketball in a league called SGBA(Saugus Girls Basketball Association). At some point during the season a shooting contest was held called "The Hot Shot Contest". I ended up coming in third place and as my prize I was given this t-shirt:

It should be noted that the only reason why I came in third place was because on the night of the contest there was a severe snowstorm. As a result, most parents refused to drive their kids to the contest. My father oddly did agree to drive me. When I got there, only 2 other girls had showed up. They came in 1st and 2nd place and I came in...3rd. So basically I won because of a VERY poor turn out.

My t-shirt has become my most worn piece of workout apparel over the years. It was huge on me when I was 14 and still remains huge on me now. No matter how many times I wash it and put it in the dryer, it NEVER shrinks despite allegedly being made of 100% cotton.

So it has become a life goal of mine to make this friggin' t-shirt shrink but I have a feeling it will end up distintegrating before shrinking...

Oh so heavy!

The other day I signed up for a 5k running race. After signing up I noticed that there was a category option one could sign up for called "Athena". To qualify for this category one must weigh 140 lbs or more. I had never heard of such a thing until I saw it after signing up. After looking more into it, I learned that a category like this is set up because to weigh 140 or more is considered heavy and may make it harder for one to run.

I happen to weigh 145. Maybe I should feel insulted that I have qualify for the "heavy" category but oddly I got excited when I found out. Does my being excited about this mean there's something wrong with me?? :-D

Now I regret not actually signing up in that category. What happens if I lose weight and end up weighing less than 140? What happens if I never have the opportunity to run as a "heavy Athena" again?!

I'm filing this under "missed opportunities". I know when I run this race I'll be haunted by the fact that I signed up as a "general runner" rather then "Athena".

Oh the agony!

I'm such a liar.

In my stand-up I have been making claims for quite some time that I never passed the physical fitness test in school during my childhood. Well it turns out that I have(without knowing) been lying to everyone about that. I discovered this when I was digging up some old writing of mine and stumbled across this physical fitness award certificate from when I was in elementary school:

Sorry you guys.

If I discover I've been lying to you about other stuff, I'll be sure to let you know.

From

Val

Happy Summer!

I've been doing a bit of running and every once in awhile I'll participate in a running race as a way to motivate myself to get some exercise and keep on running. The motivation comes from knowing that I'll be running in public amongst people who are far more athletic and faster than me. In keeping up with the running and training for these things though I've actually gotten a little bit faster over the year. In some of the races I participate in there are photographers stationed along the race course taking pictures of everyone. Sometimes they'll send out an email before a race suggesting that you smile when you run by the cameras. I've noticed in friends pictures they have taken the advice and appear to be filled with joy as they run by the camera with a smile on their face. I on the otherhand can honestly say that I have never smiled for the camera instead I seem to always(not on purpose) be making a facial expression that suggests I may be just moments away from keeling over...:-D

Oh well...:-)

Had so much fun doing stand-up tonight at "In a Pig's Eye" in Salem, MA with the hilarious Tony V(thank's to Brian Gordan)!
Here's some of the lovely people who came out to laugh:




It was the first time in quite some time that I've done stand-up in Salem(which happens to be the city I was born in). :-)

I put a clip of my set from Friday 2/3/12 up on youtube. I should have edited a few things out of it, but oh well, give it a watch anyway. It's about 8 minutes long.

Cows!



There was a three or four years period in my life where I was constantly crossing paths with cows(both real and fake) everywhere I went and now it appears to have started up again.
I don't know why but it always me laugh when it happens and I feel the need to take a picture...
Deal with it! :-)