Just over a year ago my 1993 Volvo kicked the bucket. I wasn’t terribly sad. I hated that car from day one. Apparently it hated me right back. The first month I had it the radiator blew cracking a gasket head and doing 3 grand in damage. For the next three years that car spent more time parked than running. When it was working it inhaled gas like Tony Montana. While the large trunk might have been appealing to border running coyotes, it didn’t do much for the single girl searching for parking in Los Angeles. The best thing about that car were the seats and the sound system. Had it not felt like I was driving a lazy-boy I would have gotten rid of it sooner. So after it sputtered to a hot death at the top of my hill my neighbors and I pushed it into a parking spot where it sat for two months until I made the call and donated it to charity. Since the death of the Volvo I have done my best with a bike and the limited public transportation offered by the city of Los Angeles. I have also had to burden friends with endless requests for rides and as you know I already have difficulty maintaining friends so this certainly hasn’t helped. I believe that though many people now enjoy my calmer, more optimistic (for me) demeanor, they are tired of being my unpaid taxi driver. There is a strain that while unspoken I definitely feel, so I gave up on trips to Trader Joe’s and almost every late night event months back. In the last year the dogs and I have gone on less than 5 hikes, which was once a daily routine. Now our...

It’s 10am and I’m standing in the glare of California’s unforgiving sun. My delicate epidermis glistens as it cooks to a cancerous brown. The lamp post supporting my back displays a Metro sign informing would be riders that the 78, 79 & 378 buses all stop here. There is no bench. There is no shade. There is only the sun, the pole and the wait. At 10 a.m., I am already late for my first political protest. I’ve spent years shaking my head at the government. In coffee shop conversations I have fought for the masses. Online, I spread news articles and amusingly honest memes. Yet never have I gathered to shake the peoples fist. As our Rome falls, and the rubble lands on the backs of the populace, I felt it was time to stand up and yell. I want to yell at the 1% riding off into a future of greater economic prosperity and the banks that continue pushing them forward. I want to scream in the face of my “for the people by the people” government that refuses to end Bush-era tax cuts and take greater measures to help level the playing field. I am desperate to bring back the middle class, because at only 33, I don’t like the prospect of a life toiling from paycheck to paycheck. So I stand waiting for a bus to transport me from my low income neighborhood of Lincoln Heights to Los Angeles modest downtown where myself and an unknown number will gather for the beginning of Occupy L.A.. Unless you only get news from major media outlets you have probably heard of Occupy Wall Street, the protest that began in New York three weeks ago with a few hundred angry students that has...

Last weekend, Night Mother opened, bringing seven months of work to light. This weekend those seven months came to a quiet end with the closing of the show. It was a great experience, invaluable lessons learned and all that business. While it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it was exactly what I needed. The family came in from Michigan, in fact I saw old familiar faces that had been missing for too long. And for the first time since I graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC, 2001, I have actually ACTED. Imagine that. For years now I have been telling people, “No really. I CAN act!” But I haven’t been given a chance to really display the talent I continue to profess I have. So I got the idea to produce my own play. Why the hell not? I grew up doing mostly small theatre, I figured it couldn’t be that difficult to pull off a little show here. So I picked a two woman piece I have wanted to perform in since I first worked on it over 10 years ago, Night Mother, and off I went. A terribly unorganized often self destructive chick with a dream, to produce and star in a play. That’s it. Over the past seven months I have been tested in ways I certainly didn’t expect and still more ways I did. From losing my original co-star, to the director losing her home and our constant search for free rehearsal space I was pushed. Rehearsals became a wonderful escape from the building tensions in and around the show. My new found patience was tested time and again when it became clear that my hand picked director freaked out over all things great and small....

Night Mother has made it to opening week. While this is a relief, I am certainly not stress free. My shoulders are tight bundles of knots serving to immobilize my neck.  Food has become more of the frenemy it always was; I have a fridge full of fruits & vegetables yet my trash can is full of colorful burger joint sacks. I haven’t called him yet, but soon I’m going to beg my landlord to ignore that fact that I will be paying rent at the end of this month in order to finance the show. And I’m worried about my co-star actually having her lines memorized.  Today is Sunday, we open on Friday. The week of opening is commonly known as tech week, theatre folks however lovingly refer to this as Hell Week. These are the nights of endless rehearsals stretching late, as light and sound cues are set up and run over and over. Costumers make changes and last minute repairs. Prop masters fill in little details while replacing broken or missing props for the show. Directors try to let go, trusting the long rehearsal process to pay off as Stage Managers take over. Actors scramble to be where they are needed at any given time, while still working out the emotions of the character and hoping not to forget those damn lines. Producers pay bills and send out more invitations while making last minute phone calls.  All this happens in one week, the same week that a group of people will hopefully materialize, at about the same time on the same day, to form an audience. I have never been more scared of a tech week in my life. To be honest though, it’s not the tech week I am scared about, it’s the...

Just where has Nerd in Transition been? She has been commuting from downtown Los Angeles to downtown Long Beach five days a week, traveling two hours each way on our cities brilliantly engineered mass transit system. The reason for this oft repeated time suck? Free rehearsal space in Long Beach. As you may know from a long ago blogumn I wrote, I took it upon myself to produce a version of the play Night Mother. I picked a director I have known for a few years, yet never worked with, approached her about coming on board with me and she said yes. We cast the Mother role, I took the daughter role, and rehearsals started. Halfway through the woman playing the Mother dropped out. Looking at this as an welcome opportunity I pushed the show dates back from June to September, recast the mother role and started rehearsals back up a month later. This is the first time I have produced anything. It’s kinda a big deal. Aside from the obvious career push and artistic actor fulfilment performing in this particular show could provide, my reasons for taking on the producer role go much deeper. I have a horribly destructive habit of starting things and not finishing them. So I decided that the next step up in my period of transition would be to take on a rather large project and see it through to the end as the leader. I also have a wonderfully constructive habit of attacking a problem head on. Such as the time I decided to conquer my fear of singing in front of people by performing the National Anthem in the middle of a roller derby track surrounded by almost 2000 people. The way I saw it by producing...

Originally published 02/24/11 I’m back on the wagon. That’s right I fell off again. I spent December through most of February stoned. It started slowly with me trying to control my smoking only to quickly spiral down into my full on addiction again. Thankfully I had set up some safety traps along the way that helped stop the cycle early. When I started drinking shakes as a way to lose weight it was just that, a way to lose weight, but what I was really signing up for wasn’t the shakes, it was the personal coach. Each week I send in my food log and each Monday Krissy and I talk on the phone for about half an hour. Her focus is my diet and exercise and that is the way it should be, yet my focus is the complete package. Forcing myself to admit to my negative eating behaviors, many of which are intensified through smoking weed, gave me reason to start exercising control over what goes in my mouth.  In order to do that I had to stop smoking. Without even realizing it Krissy has become an unwitting make-shift sponsor. While working from home may seem like a stoners dream, it has been a part of my addiction nightmare. It’s easy to let my addiction convince me that I can mange a full time internet job from home while being stoned all day. Yet it  was only after I got multiple angry emails and IM’s from my boss that I realized I cannot be high and expect to accomplish a very simple job. If I want to hold on to my health care and regular paycheck I had to let go of the joint. Friendship is already a difficult endeavor for me,...

Looking back on it, last year felt like I went through a divorce from the Derby Dolls. My reasons for retiring were simple; let my body heal from 6 years of solid physical abuse and really attack my acting career. Well I did heal, I also gained 50pds, and I started making career moves such as classes and ramping up networking. I also took on a whole host of negative behaviors holding me back from a good life and good friendships. It was a difficult year, but now it is starting to pay off. First a little bragging, I have been dieting and exercising and am down 20pds, with 5 inches missing from my hips. I’m starting to look like an athlete again, which makes me feel gorgeous. That extra bit of confidence is making it much easier to walk into casting workshops filled with the scary skinny 20 year olds. Though we no longer compete for the same roles, sitting in those rooms while being scanned up and down as the “fat girl” by ignorant judgemental eyes is never easy. It does help to know that I could break any of them with a swift swing from my Ass of Doom. This weight loss comes at the perfect time. With all the networking and class taking, people in the industry are starting to know of Kelly’s existence, which is great because previously only ka-BOOM had made a name for herself and it was “Roller Derby Bad Ass Who’s Also Kind of a Pain in the Ass”. That’s a terrible name and not who I am as an actor. This weekend I was busy running from one actor-related activity after another. Some were te mundane like getting ink to print photo’s and an audition...

This past week I turned 33. As an actress living in LA announcing my age should be a big no-no, but there are certain insecurities I refuse to give in to. My age has never bothered me, it’s the recognition of the day that bothers me. My life is comprised of many a bad birthday party, or lack there of, I should say. As an adult I’ve gotten so cynical about my birthday that sometimes I let it go unnoticed. That was my plan for this year, that plan failed. As May approached I thought only of this particular day when my Mother would bring it up. I decided to focus on my production and watch as the day slipped by unnoticed but for the Facebook birthday wishes. When my actress suddenly bailed on the show I took a step back to reevaluate the production. You will be pleased to know that I am going forward with the play, but have pushed the dates back to September. This decision left me with free time in May and no distraction from the impending birthday. My first impluse was to lock the cottage down and go into full on hermit mode; buy myself a bag of weed, a cake , some ice cream and answer only my Mother’s phone call. I would of course respond on Facebook with the disingenuous mass “thank you” post regarding the disingenuous mass “Happy Birthday!” posts sure to flood in. My second impluse was to test all the work I have been putting into friendship the past year and see if anybody wanted to celebrate my life with me. Starting small I sent out personal invites to a select group of people. In the past I have made the mistake of...

You may have noticed that Nerd in Transition has been missing the last couple weeks. There are two reasons for this, both entirely my fault thereby within my control. 1. Though this blogumn uses the word transition in the title, when I get into a comfy routine I am very slow to change, so when my deadline was pushed up to 6pm the Sunday before publishing from 10pm the night before, I dragged may feet. 2. I have been extra busy working on a theatrical production of ‘Night Mother in the capacity of actor AND producer. This is the first time I have undertaken producing, so this is a big deal to me and today the first bomb dropped. After spending the past year removing myself from the world of roller derby by immersing myself in the world of struggling Hollywood actor I came to a decision this past December. In an effort to kick start both my career and lost passion for acting I would produce and star in a production of ‘Night Mother. In case you aren’t familiar with what happens in this 90 minute two woman play here’S a basic description: It’s a mother/daughter pair and within the first 10 pages the grown daughter tells her aging mother that she is going to commit suicide at the end of the evening. And away we go! It’s a great play, won a Pulitzer Prize in ‘82. I was first introduced to it ten years ago and have been waiting for the right time to perform in it — well I feel the time is now. With no production in sight and not wanting to risk losing it on an audition I decided to play big girl and produce my own version of...

Oh but I do love riding my bike around the town. It took a little work to make the bike comfortable, but now that the basics have been handled I’ve been discovering LA outside the car. With the help of two big wheels, a few shifting gears and a camera in my phone I’ve managed to experience and capture some unique sights. It’s easy to pin-point the day everything clicked into place for me and this bike. Two weeks ago I had my first appointment with a life coach. I wasn’t exactly sure what a life coach did until I started seeing one and after one appointment I’m still not entirely certain. It seems like I am now paying someone to hold my hand and kick my ass at the same time. That’s fine, I’m cool with that, obviously I need some pushing to make changes in my life, or simply follow through on what I intend to do. What I was not fully prepared for was the depth to which my life coach would start digging from day one to find out not only what my goals were, but what it is that is stopping me from achieving them. By the time I left my emotions were one tumbling mess that I had to work through. Charged with emotional energy I jumped on my bike and peddled home. Starting at Pico & Fairfax I headed East towards Downtown. There was 13 miles between her front door and mine so I told myself I would ride until I was tired or until I got home whichever came first. What happened was that I found myself on Wilshire passing one interesting site after the next all while working through the thoughts tumbling about my mind....

I am learning to love my bicycle. I really have no other choice. The reality of getting a car just gets more and more distant, so I have been putting a little time and money into my cheap craigslist purchase. Not much, yet, just something to make it easier to ride. And ride I have! The first thing to go was the original bike seat. It was small and hard black plastic. The phrase “my butt ate it” wasn’t a metaphor. It has been replaced by a nice wide cushioned seat with springs in the back. It’s even got a cute white with a quilted brown top. Since my frame is red and the quilted seat is white and brown, I am now off on a retro design scheme — well, I will be once I am done with basic maintenance. Next up the speed set handle bars.Sorry but I am too old and too big to be hunched over like Tour de France far. Riding down the street bent over like an old maid, it was a constant battle as to which was going to knock out a front tooth first, my tits or my knees. So goodbye C-shaped speed bars with bad brakes and hello taller, wider street bike handle bars. Currently these are some ugly plain silver handlebars right off the factory floor, but I don’t give a fuck. Riding with a straight back my tits felt perky again, hich in turn makes me feel perky again. So far this is all that I have done to the Red Menace (how’s that for a bike name? yes, no?). My next step will be adding a rack to strap my computer onto and collapsible steel baskets that hook to the back of...

Not too long ago I posted pictures of myself at 213 pds. in shorts and a tank top. It wasn’t pretty. It’s also not something I would do again any time soon. I’d like to tell you that I have been good and patient with my daily diet and exercise regime. I’d like to say I came through the holidays unscathed riding high upon the sugar free wagon! Obviously I did not. I didn’t exercise much in November and altogether stopped in December. This commitment to my sedentary lifestyle persisted through all of January into the second week of February. Being a lifelong athlete and dancer I have a whole list of physical ailments that come from repeated foreign movements and genuine physical abuse. The single most ridiculous question I was asked post roller derby came from a naive 20-something girl. After discussing my various broken bones, pulled muscles, twisted this-and-thats she looked at me and asked, “But your knees are okay, right?” I had trouble responding. Anybody that knows anything about female athletes knows our knees are the first to go. I started having issue’s with mine at 14. Being a 32 year old woman the need for daily exercise is more serious than ever. When I don’t work out my body basically breaks down. Last month my left knee began locking up while I slept, sending lightening rods of pain through my left side and me through the ceiling. For the past week my back has been a cranky old woman. Most recently my knees have started acting like mouthy 4 yr. old brats with the dexterity of the tin man. I’m afraid I’m growing a hump from hunching over a laptop all day. My belly fat has expanded so rapidly that...

Wondering how long it will take me to stop writing 2010 and then having to delete and correct with 2011. So far I’ve made this mistake four weeks and counting. Sad. How are you all doing with this? Other than that, let’s get into my notes re this week at Fierce and Nerdy. 1. Missy’s meditation on the fact that her partner, Raoul only uses cash made me realize that I couldn’t remember the last time I used physical cash other than coins to pay a meter. I hate dealing with it now. I judge (and don’t return to) retailers and restaurants that don’t accept credit cards. Same goes for the coffee shop that charges a $10 minimum to use one. I’ve seriously considered changing doctors, because she’s in one of those cash-only parking structures, and I’m tired of asking my husband for a five every time Betty or I have an appointment (but I won’t because she’s awesome and has a knack for spot-on referrals). I’m just wondering when we’re going to get technology that allows us to transfer money to our friends in an easier manner. For example, a fellow author invited me out to a movie on Wednesday, and got a bucket of popcorn to share and a soda for me. I hadn’t thought to get cash before leaving the house, so I couldn’t pay for my half of the popcorn or the drink. Surely they should come up with an app for that. [Dork Lifestyle: Raoul is so retro] 2. Hey Amy! I’m listening to ONE DAY by David Nicholl’s in the car right now, and you are correct. It rather eerily nails twenties angst and stupidity — so much so, that as a person who both wrote plays and...

It’s 6:30 Thursday morning, the day my blogumn comes out. I’m just sitting down to write it. This is an old habit of mine going back to middle school, writing then turning in written assignments at the last moment. This complete lack of planning and disrespect of time touches every aspect of my life. Time management is a foreign, yet intriguing land to me and one I need to explore, maybe settle down in. I have declared that this shall be my best year ever! I believe I came to this decision in the first week of January, as one typically does with yearly sentiments and proclamations. 2010 kinda sucked for me, like it did for most of us, but it was also kinda good for me. Last year I acquired a full time, flexible schedule, work-from-home, benefit-paying internet job. I started building a life without Roller Derby, one refocused on writing and acting goals. In the face of the entire world I journaled about a marijuana addiction, something I am still battling. And my little house exploded from one person/one dog to one person, 3 dogs and 1 cat. Oh and I went completely carless in LA , donating my Volvo to KCRW. Those are the highlights. Determined to  build upon all the foundation laid last year I have put the first phase of improving 2011 into action: get out of the house more. So far it’s been great! For the past three weekends I have been social and active and productive outside my house. No more locking myself away like a hermit. The first weekend away I headed to a wedding at the Madonna Inn up in San Luis Obispo. It was a two night stay, the first I spent in a...

Christmas is fast approaching and I am eager for it’s arrival. Actually I am eager to get on a plane back to the frozen Michigan tundra. I wasn’t able to go home for the last two Christmases and spent my holiday in the open tomb that is an empty Los Angeles. While traffic may be great this one and only time of year, it’s just not enough to make me feel warm and fuzzy. I need cold, snow and my Mother bitching at me while I get drunk with my Dad. Family really is what makes this event so special to me, that and the Church services. I used to love the lead up to Baby Jesus’s birthday bash. The greens hanging around the pews and out in the narthex, the huge tree covered with all white ornaments made by a long grown up youth group, the singing of carols and the weekly lighting of the advent wreath; all of this topped off with a candle lit Christmas Eve service. The religion that accompanied this month was like sugar for my weary soul. This year though I have been struggling with my faith in a very profound way. Before I moved to Lincoln Heights I was living in Venice where I regularly attended a Four Square church. The Four Square movement was founded by Aimee Semple McPherson who I happen to be writing a play about, so I started attending one of her churches to gain a better understanding of the denomination. For two years I walked to a small building in the heart of Venice and subjected myself to the worst kind of religion; fundamentalism. You know what happened? It completely fucked up my relationship with God. This belief system designed to bring...

A couple months ago my car stopped running right as I reached my home. Since that time I have been walking, biking and busing my way around LA. While this is not the first time I have been without wheels in this sprawling city, this was the time when I was most optimistic about our metro system. Even with the bike and the close proximity to the downtown hubs I gotta say; I WANT MY CAR BACK!. Recently I heard a report on NPR about the physical differences of people who live in car dominate neighborhoods vs. people that live in walker friendly area’s. In those neighborhoods where a trip to the bank, post office, grocery store, etc. is made on foot the over-all weight average is 10-15 pounds lighter than the places where people drive. This story came to mind when I realized I would not be sitting pretty in my Volvo for awhile. The hills, mountains and stairs that I have to deal with also excited me a little. Why surely 15 pounds was going to melt right off my body. No longer would there be chaffing between my thighs cause soon enough they wouldn’t be touching. This miracle has not come to pass. Other than being completely over climbing small mountains daily I am also not thrilled with the bike I purchased. The frame is too small, it feels like a battle between my tits and my knee’s as to who’s going to knock out the first tooth. The original seat that came attached to the bike was so tiny my butt literally ate it. I’m not kidding. At first I thought it just sort of felt like the seat was disappearing up my ass, but then one day I wasn’t...

Nothing can kill the feel good buzz of a day spent in productive activity like not being able to sleep. That bliss of heading to bed tired, almost exhausted, smiling at all you’ve accomplished, excited about getting the solid 8 that will ensure you wake well-rested and dream-fed to face the morning sun. All of that snatched away by the dark silence pressing down from the ceiling you are now staring at. This morning I found myself pulling the shades down in a rare move for darkness and the chance to sleep in. It had been a rough night, long with hours filled by the growing desperation to sleep. When the sky began to lighten I began the process of  waking from the groggy rest of the unrested. While I coveted just one more hour, the dogs, hearing me pull the shade, stood and began the dance of the pee-filled bladder. Unable to ignore the licks, paw slaps and constant pacing I dutifully rose, releasing them to the front yard and to the neighborhood. After my trusty, faithful Derby Dog returned I put pants and shoes on to go hunt for the other two, thus truly beginning the day in negative space. That’s right I said two. I currently have three dogs in my little one bedroom house along with a kitten. It’s like my house has exploded with four legs and fur. Derby Dog and McQueen are my landlord-approved animals. The cat and other dog are squatters. I’ve decided to keep the cat, naming her Chow Chow Kitty for her kick ass attitude and need to eat anything she can. The third dog I picked up limping on the side of the road, I call her Trifecta for the broken back leg. Trifecta,...

I have been trying very hard to change my life. To accomplish the depth of transformation I seek it means I have to change myself including, but not limited to, my behaviors, habits, thoughts, friends, and even appearance. That’s huge. Think about that, if you really set about reinventing and refocusing your entire life. Mull it over for a bit, scary isn’t it? So maybe you’ll understand why I fucked up. As you know one of my biggest battles over the last few months has been my addiction to marijuana. I joined MA for a bit, quit smoking then started then quit then started many times until I finally stopped, went through a lengthy and privately difficult withdrawal period, got in trouble for being so open about the addiction and was almost kicked out of the Dolls and I just about lost my mind. For awhile I turned myself into a bit of a hermit, feeling success may be more probable if I stayed away from any temptation. After some time things got easier and my daily existence  turned from being about NOT doing a something and into finding constructive somethings to do. It was almost smooth sailing. There were times when I was confronted with temptation and turned it down. One day in particular I found myself sitting in front of a bong and a box of weed while waiting on a friend to finish showering. The room was empty and I have the blessing of the owner of the box full of weed to help myself. Tempted my heart started racing and I began to sweat. Instead of sitting and staring at it until I couldn’t help myself I got up and moved both items out of sight, returned to my seat...

About a week and a half ago my car stopped running. It just stopped. There was no sputtering, no gradual slow down, no shaking, the car made it to the top of the mountain that I park it on and stopped right in the middle of the road blocking the only exit and entrance for the entire neighborhood. In all fairness the car had tried to warn me of it’s impending end, yet I had of course chosen to push it onward. For a few months now it’s been slowly sucking the anti-freeze from where it is suppose to go and redirecting it into some unknown and incorrect location in the engine. Make no mistake, this is not a leak. Something else is happening and I don’t know what it is. What I do know is what once was a slow process has sped up and it’s causing any anti-freeze or water I dump in the engine to be misdirected in under a mile which in turn makes the engine overheat. Overheating can lead to cracked radiators,. casket heads, or the abrupt stop and shut down on top of a mountain, blocking a roadway at 4 in the afternoon. Parking can be tricky in my neighborhood, most often one has to back into a spot. I was in  no position to get the car nudged up against the wall. Thankfully on this rare occasion a prime spot was open in front of a house. With the help of some neighbors and a pizza delivery guy we pushed my aging volvo sedan into place. That heavy grey beast has sat in that juicy parking spot for the past week and a half, annoying the guy who always hogs that location and being an eyesore for...

Though NiT goes back beyond my retirement from roller derby it often feels like I didn’t actually begin the process of change until the Monday after the Tough Cookies Saturday night championship win. It was when I woke up sore and hungover with Monday morning coming down that I realized I actually had to move on from the life I had created for myself in LA. That was last December, it’s now September and in the past 10 months things have certainly changed, yet what has stayed the same is almost predictably boring. I say almost because at times it’s not boring, it’s upsetting. I am a dynamic person who divides people down the line between love and hate. The people that know and like me, they just LOVE me. The people that know and don’t like me, they just HATE me. Sometimes I can change those opinions, turning friends to enemies and enemies to friends. This past weekend I was blessed with two wedding invitations to two very different ceremonies. While both of the brides are friends of mine through the organization of the Derby Dolls, their personal commitment to the Dolls and our friendship is perfectly exemplified by the big day itself. Saturday I found myself dreading the evening wedding of Suzy Snakeyes to one Mike Snakeyes, not their Christian or Jewish names. This dread came from the nature of the event. Suzy is completely committed to the Derby Dolls, she sits on boards planning rules and regulations, helps train skaters, gets picked to work with teams she isn’t skating on, was the original captain of the Tough Cookies and just generally devotes all her non-work time to the league. She is also a popular and likable person with many friends to...