I've needed a little bit of support lately and I've gotten it. Just about every day, I'm getting an email from a family member or friend who I may not have talked to in a long time, just offering kind words of encouragement and support. I can't even begin to tell you how good that feels. It's like my own blanket of fleecy angels descending on me and holding me and keeping me safe and warm and loved.

I feel very blessed right now. Thank you to my wonderful, beautiful family and friends for being there when I need you.

In my ongoing attempts to learn to love my body, I worked out last night in my underwear and a tank top. Granted, they are what the kids call "boy shorts," so they look like I'm wearing hot pants, but still. And don't worry - I worked out in the privacy of my own living room, away from the windows so I'm pretty sure nobody saw me, but it was a big deal for me. I don't normally show that much leg. And it's weird - yesterday was lower body conditioning and I got to watch my muscles work since they were, you know, exposed. I learned a couple of very important things about myself from doing this:

1) I have AMAZING quads. Seriously. My quads are huge. I could probably lift a truck with these puppies. I keep doing squats in the hopes they will help shape my rear end, but I'm really seeing the benefits in my quads. They are something to be proud of.

2) I really like it when my apartment is warm enough for me to just wear underwear and a tank top.

3) If I ever decide to wear shorts again, they should be of the short-short variety because I have great legs and any other length cuts them off funny.

4) If I ever have to play a hooker or an escort or a call girl, they should have me wear boy shorts for any scenes involving lingerie. Boy shorts actually make my butt look cute and pert. I never thought I'd have a pert butt, but in boy shorts, I do.

Please join us again next week for part two in this ongoing series, "What I Learned By Hanging Out in a Belly Shirt For an Afternoon."

I know what my life is supposed to be. It is supposed to be passion and love and fury and anger and fire and tears and laughter so loud it shakes the mountains. It is supposed to be glory and heartache and triumph and turmoil and beauty as far as the eye can see. It is supposed to be magnificent.

But those things don't often happen in the real world. At least not for me. The closest I get is a laugh so loud it disturbs dogs in a three-mile radius. The real world is censored and muted and safe. There's nothing wrong with that. It is censored and muted and safe for a reason - so that we can all function in it and carry on the usual business of being alive. Nobody would be able to do their jobs if they felt the anguish of Hamlet every time someone did them wrong. Nobody would eat if they felt the passion of Juliet as she drank the vial of poison. The world would cease to function if everyone walked around experiencing the world as intensely as characters in books and plays and movies do.

But I want to. I want to feel everything that intensely. I want to live that fully. I want to experience every aspect of the human condition the way they experience it on stage and screen. I don't like to do things halfway. I don't like to be missing out. And in so many ways, I'm missing out already. I'll never marry my high school sweetheart because I didn't have one. I'll never have the four day Vegas marriage because I'm too smart for that now. I'll never even know what it's like to grow up in another country because I only get the one childhood. I'm tired of missing out. I'm tired of capped emotions. I want to live the life that the characters on the screen do.

I know, I sound like a crackpot. I know I can't live that way all of the time. But if I am one of the characters on the stage, I can live that way for a very short time. I can scream and weep and leap for joy boil with rage and love with my whole heart until my body aches. I can experience...everything.

I know what my life is supposed to be. I know what my life is supposed to be and it is not supposed to be this. I know what my life is supposed to be. Please, oh please, oh please let me get there one day.

I know I've probably said it before, but I feel the need to say it again. I love cooking. I really love cooking. I love having warm, healthy, nurturing food in my house. I love working with different textures and spices and flavors and styles. It's fun. I wish I had someone to cook for more often, though, because as much fun as it is to make a big batch of chili, it would probably be more fun if I wasn't the only one eating it for a week and a half.

Today, I made Chile sin Carne al Mole (or something like that - it's chili that uses molasses, cocoa powder, seitan, and pinto beans) from "Vegan with a Vengeance" and I made braised curried tofu with peas from an iPhone app cookbook I found. So tasty. SO tasty. It was the first time I cooked with coconut milk (the curried tofu) and the first time I cooked with seitan (the chili). And my house smells good and things are warm and it's just the kind of food that makes you feel like you're doing your body a favor by eating it.

I also feel the need to give a little shout-out to my sister-in-law. She is an amazing cook, and she cooks with no fear. It doesn't matter how complicated the recipe is, or what kinds of things are in it, she'll give it a shot if it sounds tasty. And it always turns out beautifully. I think, in a strange way, I started cooking more interesting things because of her. And, she and my brother have been instrumental in my cultivation of the cooking habit because they have supplied me with many a lovely gadget to make things easier, and one of the greatest cookbooks ever written (the Veganomicon). So thank you for inspiring me to cook and giving me the confidence to make things like braised curried tofu with peas. I don't think I would have even looked at the recipe twice a few years ago, but now - it's super crazy easy, super crazy tasty, and probably something I would make again. So thanks for that.

Yay good food!

So I'm doing this exercise boot camp thing through this website and on paper, it doesn't sound that hard. There is a workout video every day that is ten minutes long - maximum - and you're supposed to get 30 minutes of cardio exercise in five days a week. So far, I have kept up with all of the exercising. The eating bit has kind of gone down the tubes, in large part because I haven't shopped in a long time. But the exercising is surprisingly kicking my ass. Then again, I'm also doing the 100 push-up, 200 sit-up and 200 squats challenges. And I can see my "saddlebags" going away. My butt is actually taking on a really nice shape. It's still larger than your average starlet, but it's taking on a nice shape. And my arms - I'm getting some nice arm definition. I'm not saying I'm turning into a gym monkey or a female body builder or anything, but I'm starting to get a really nice body. I've got really solid legs, too.

But right now, after biking for 30 minutes at 14 miles per hour, and doing the 5-minute upper body video twice, I'm exhausted. I'm sore and tired and really thirsty, so I should probably put the computer down and go get some water. Being in good shape takes a lot of work.

Three days into 2010 and my heat isn't working properly. Woo hoo!

I feel like I should look back on the last decade and take stock and make resolutions and all that kind of stuff like so many people are doing, but I also have a feeling it would make me sad. I wanted something major to happen in the aughts so that I could say, "We got married in aught-six and had our first child in aught-eight," or something like that. But I didn't get married and I didn't have a child. I did buy a car. I moved into an apartment by myself. I got (was given) a cat who I fell completely in love with (over time). I fell completely in love with my niece. I made two friends that I don't know what I would do without them. I changed jobs. I became a musician and then became not a musician. I joined and left a theater company. I shaved my head. I became vegan. I cried a lot. I laughed a lot. I was an extra in two major motion pictures. I went to Europe.

I was thinking last night that I'm ready to start really living. REALLY living. And I don't think that sitting behind a desk all day, five days a week, is really living. I hope that some of the events of the coming year will start to push me along the path to really living. That is my resolution for 2010 - to start really living every day the best I can, even if it means turning off the phone and the computer and doing what I want to do for an entire day. I did a lot of things in the last decade, but I also missed out on a lot of things. I want to make sure that in this next decade, I take every opportunity I can get my hands on, even if it means taking chances that might just be me making a fool of myself.

I also want to grow a bit of an ego this year, just in respect to my performance abilities. I tend to think that I'm decent. I want to get to a place where I think I'm great.

But first things first. I need to eat breakfast and clean my house and do laundry and start on day one of my January bootcamp. Simple, easy attainable goals. It's the best way to get things done.

Happy New Year, everybody!