Lifestyle

Lifestyle

Minimum Money, Maximum Joy

My latest family travel video is over on The Scenic Route

Now that my son has started kindergarten (! Granted, it's "transitional kindergarten," but STILL), I see a day in the not-so-distant future when we won't just be able to pack up and go whenever the mood strikes us. Very soon, we'll be beholden to school schedules and sports practices and et cetera et cetera, so we've been trying to take advantage of every opportunity to just haul off to wherever. Coming up we have a me-plus-kids trip to see Kendrick's family in Ohio, an all-four-of-us press trip to New Orleans, and a trip to Kentucky to meet with a client that I'm taking Indy on so we can get some just-us-two time.

Buuuuut I think you already know that one of my absolute favorite places to sneak off to for a few days is Los Angeles (specifically Francesca's couch in Los Angeles; thank you Francesca). Which is where I shot this video about some of the ways we make all this travel happen - which includes accidental cameos from everyone mentioned in this post (because that's what happens when you film videos at your best friend's dining room table; thank you Francesca).

Lifestyle

Do They Hand Out Leashes At The Entrance? (And Other Questions About Disneyland)

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We're going to Disneyland in a few days - the trip is Kendrick's birthday present - and I need help please, because my head is full of visions of panicking, overheated children who must sit on our shoulders and/or heads in four-hour-long lines and who  end up eating so much cotton candy that, in the throes of a madcap sugar high, they end up physically levitating off of the It's A Small World ride. I'm also picturing accidentally parking on the Disney equivalent of Mars, and ending up accidentally boarding a shuttle that just goes around and around and around and eventually lets us off at, like, the airport. And fifty-dollar hot dogs; picturing lots of those.

I am SO EXCITED about this trip, in case that wasn't clear from my first paragraph. Kendrick's never been to Disneyland; I've only been as a four-year-old (which I don't remember) and as a jaded adult, and I'm dying at the idea of watching Indy and Goldie experience it for the first time. (Indy has heard tell of some show where you get to actually use the - real! actual! - Force, and is freaking out about it, and my daughter, when asked if she'd like to meet Princess Aurora, declared, "No. I'M Princess Aurora." Okay, then.)

Anxiety

On The Road (Again)

st louis television shoot on set

That's a wrap on St. Louis!

I've spent a ton of time this summer with my cohost for the project I'm working on. Together we drag suitcases down hotel corridors, crawl into Suburbans for five seconds of sweet, sweet air conditioning, and commiserate over our mutual dislike of the straight-from-a-box scrambled eggs that hotel chains all over the country offer up in their "delicious! complimentary! breakfast bar!" We also talk and talk and talk, because that's what you do when you're hanging around on a set all day.

My cohost is more of a veteran of television work (and the associated travel schedule) than I am, so I've been picking his brain for hints about what life will look like should our project continue beyond this summer - basically, should our show get picked up for series and should neither of us get replaced (something I won't know for a couple of months at least). I ask question after question...but whenever I hear his descriptions of "life on the road" I feel my heart rate speed up. He talks about evenings spent perched on top of washing machines in Holiday Inn basements because you're fresh out of clean clothing. About waking up and not being entirely sure what city you're in. About weeks going by without a single glimpse of home. These words don't just "bum me out" - they put me into pure fight or flight mode.

Lifestyle

Links & Love & Stuff

Virginia Heffernan's Magic and Loss

OK. You have to read that book pictured up there. Have to. Erin sent it to me a couple of weeks ago with a note saying that I had to read it immediately, and she was right: I started reading it on the plane to St. Louis, and then could not stop. You know how everyone (myself included) is constantly bemoaning how we live in an increasingly online - and thus disconnected - world? Magic and Loss suggests that the Internet isn't an abandonment of cultural and social traditions, or even "progress"...it's just, very simply, what happened next. Virginia Heffernan's explorations of everything from "hyperlexia" (I have it; so do you) to the poetry of Twitter are must-reads. So seriously: go read this. It's going to change how you see...well, your life.

I've mentioned the brand before, but I still cannot get over how obsessed I am with Mociun jewelry. The rings are obviously their star pieces (oooooo this one), but please look at these earrings. They're like the perfect wear everywhere, every day pair...with a twist. Loooooove.

This video of a bunch of 12-year-old boys consoling a team they beat in a soccer tournament is BEAUTIFUL. (Kids Show Us How To Have Compassion in Victory, via Now This.)


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