On the Twenty-Eighth Day of Christ*&^%$

On the Twenty-Eighth Day of Christ*&^%$, TIZ reveals to you...

28 Pictures of 2012... (Believe you me, there are plenty of Baxter.  I will not apologize.  If he weren't so damn photogenic, there wouldn't be so many damn pictures.)

Victoria Soto's Sister (Photo by Jessica Hill)

No explanation needed (Thanks, Kieran)

Hipster Belle in a Little Town 16 years later (Wig courtesy of Elias John Ruperto)

David Finds a New Home 

David Prepares for Sandy

Sandy Baby Causes Misery (Photo by Gav)

Yes!

Sunrise for Christianne (photo courtesy of Jeanie)

Titanic...so proud of this (photo and partner, Philip Hoffman)

Pain Free Misery removal

Nana circa 1942

Poppy the Morning After His First Date with Nana

Yes! (courtesy of someone...can't remember)

The Dog I Met

Saying Goodbye to the Humane Society

The Dog I Got

And the Lion shall lie down with the Lamb (Photo by DKA)

Love story (Photo by DKA  

The Original...Blackie Tisdale

Baxter Crosses the Hammonasset (Photo courtesy of Brother Bob)

Don't Should on Me

Broadway Debut and Broadway Rebut

Enough Said

Baxter to Queen's Bishop 4

Enough Said

Baxter Photobomber (Photo Courtesy of AS)

Motoring

Old Habits Die Hard (photo on right by Ron Rinaldi)

On the Twenty-Seventh Day of Christ*&^%$, TiZ reveals to you...

Twenty-seven quotes from 2012...

Gifted doesn't mean giving it away for free. --Christianne Tisdale

Everyone deserves a second chance...maybe.  Third and fourth chances...rarely. --Christianne Tisdale

For people like us sometimes the only thing we really own is our dignity, and when I grow old I would like to have as much as Mrs. Matthew Murphy across the street.  --Neil Simon

i imagine that yes is the only living thing.--e. e. cummings

Grace, It's Christmas, for goodness sake.  Think about the Baby Jesus: up there in that tower, letting his hair down so that the three wise men can climb up and spin the dreidel and see if there are six more weeks of winter.
--Karen Walker from Will and Grace

The first step towards the solution of any problem is optimism.- John Baines

Mary Magdalene, where you at, bitch? --Galileroy...on Key and Peele

wherever you are, be all there.--Jim Elliot

Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with.--John Wanamaker

...and a writer without confidence is like a metaphor without something to compare itself to.--Neil Simon

It's all about people, people!--Christianne Tisdale

For the first time in the history of media, those that are able to consume the  media are also able to create it. That's a powerful (and thus frightening) choice.--Seth Godin

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.--Gail Sheehy

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The artist is not a special kind of person; rather each person is a special kind of artist.--Ananda Coomaraswamy

Last night as I lay sleeping I dreamt that there was a beehive here inside my heart and the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from all my failures.--Machado de Assis

Don't be defeatist, dear.  It's very middle class.--The Dowager Countess

Always associate yourself with those that know more than you do, who do it better than you, who see more clearly than you.--Dwight D. Eisenhower 
A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.--Pioneer Girls Leaders' Handbook

Self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.--Joan Didion

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.--Oscar Wilde 

If the angel deigns to come, it will be because you have convinced him, not by tears, but by your humble resolve to be always beginning: to be a beginner.--Rainer Maria Rilke

There is no room for should.  There is and is not.  There's doing or not doing. Commitment or none at all.  There is no room for anything in between. Definitely not should.--Christianne Tisdale

We are here on earth to help others.  What the others are here for, I have no idea.--W.H. Auden

We believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if we could.--William James

The more you complain, the more you complain.--Christianne Tisdale

Do less...allow more.--Anonymous (but heard from Julie Reiber Bennett)

Twenty-Sixth Day of Christ*&^%$

Bonus Question:

Why do so many of you, to my eternal gratitude and appreciation,  read these?

On the Twenty-Sixth Day of Christ*&^%$

On the Twenty-Sixth Day of Christ*&^%$, TiZ reveals to you...

Twenty-Six questions of 2012...

Why has mental health care stayed in the Reagan administration?

Why do people want to bring the economy back to the Reagan administration?

Why does it take a tragedy like Newtown for people to rise up?  (Not like the shepherds and follow.   But lead.)

Why does it take two hurricanes in little more than a year for some people to at least consider global weirdening?

Why does the word "weird" not follow the "i before e" rule?

Where's my other sock?

Where's my other sock?

For Christmas, why did we choose a tree that is shaped like a triangle?

What keeps me from selling a stock when it increases in value 1500%?

How did the national debt get to .(It ain't me...I ain't gots the debt.)

How did the federal deficit reach $1.1 trillion?

Why do Apple products crash just far enough before a new product comes out that one is incapable of waiting?

Why did Christmas become about consumerism?

When did Christmas become about consumerism?

Why is Baxter paper trained outside but not inside?

Why is there always one crazy ass bitch in a church choir?

Why can't people get along?

Why do people take things so personally?

Why do summer colds happen?  Especially to me?  

Why didn't some people get that the second half of the above question is a joke?

Why does hair look like crap for months and then GORGEOUS the day before you get it chopped off?

How can people abuse and abandon animals?

Why can't there be a church service where no one has sinned and no one is dependent on GoD to forgive and wash them clean of that sinning?

Why does Baxter pee and poop on all Houses of Worship? (First answer is that I let him but I don't encourage or "good boy" him for it.  Yet he insists.)

Why are so many people not so swell at apologizing?

Where's my other sock?

On the Twenty-Fifth Day of Christ&^%$

My
Expression
Runs
Round
You,

Clawing
Happily,
Running
Inward,
Shouting
Tiz
My
Ass,
Sunshine.

How
Are
Pen
Pals,
Year-end?

Now
Enter
World.

Your
Everything
Aims
Rightly.

On the Twenty-Fourth Day of Christ*&^%$

On the Twenty-Fourth Day of Christ*&^%$, TiZ reveals to you...

24 Game Changers in Her World...


Newtown

Hurricane Sandy

The Flooding of Penfield Road

Christmas in my own home

Recording for Ahrens and Flaherty

Renovating Nana's House

Selling Nana's House

Pouring over and picking and choosing what stays in the family

Writing the Story of Nana for Mother's Day

Trodding the Broadway boards again

Acing it

On a Clear Day closing so soon

36 weeks of work

Finding the ending for the play

Finding the key for the book

Getting rid of a third of my possessions

The web series 

Three months of no singing

The musical ONCE

The final dress of the workshop presentation of FLY

Never again having to fear, "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose."

The incredible kindness of friends

The incredible kindness of strangers

and last but not least

BAXTER!

On the Twenty-Third Day of Christ*&^%$

On the Twenty-Third Day of Christ*&^%$

I may have finally learned to listen to who people say they are (through words and actions), hear them and believe them.

I used to believe people were who I wished them to be.

I used to believe people were who they wished themselves to be.

These were not easy lessons for me to learn.

I found myself in a bar the other night and everywhere I looked were people I loved.

I found myself in a bar the other night and everywhere I looked were people who loved me.

Everywhere I looked, our backs were covered.

I just maybe mighta been thrown out of that bar.

I, of course, went all limp and smiley.

I have saved for MANY years for a present to myself.

I hope to be able to give myself this present soon.

I am trying not to become desperately anxious about this present.

Despite the fact I'm singing in church, I can't say all of that "I have sinned and I am not worthy" stuff.  Nope. Nope. Nope.

I'm beginning to own my own talent.

I had a major casting director recently say I was like Sally Field on camera with an innate sweetness...

To which I responded, "Me?  Well, YAY ME!"

Nothing I like less than a humble brag.

Wait...there is something...a colleague who hangs her panties from the shelf at my eye level.  THAT I like less.

And noisy gum popping.  GAH!

And misplacing my keys constantly.

I've recently started cheering myself by saying, "YAY ME" when I leave my keys in the right place.

Not much I like more than the smell of a warm dog.

To be exact, MY warm dog.

On the Twenty-Second Day of Christ*&^%$

On the Twenty-Second Day of Christ*&^%$, TiZ reveals to you...

Life's cheer that I am, I never needed/wanted to be a cheerleader in the classical sense.

Drawing attention to yourself instead of to the team, to me, didn't make sense.  And if you're wearing skirts that short AND glitter lip gloss, believe you me, you're trying to draw attention to yourself.

I think I'm lucky I didn't grow up pretty or popular.

I'm sure you already do, but believe you me, I was not pretty or popular.

When I was 13 (a roooooooough age for me), I asked Nana if I was pretty.

She said, "I think so.  But it's going to take the rest of the world awhile to realize it."

My mother was rigorously honest.

My mother was strangely kind.

I ate comfort food for an entire year after Nana died.

I'm amazed I'm not the size of a house.

I AM the size of the tool shed out back.

I've lost my 40 year battle with cholesterol.

I was a test bunny for Yale New Haven Hospital when I was 9.

They kept me from eating butter, peanut butter, eggs and whole milk.

Skim milk tastes like SHIT when you're 9.

I don't drink milk to this day.

But I can take a stick like a pro.

I finally had my last two wisdom teeth removed.

I've paid more for Baxter's healthcare this year than my own.

I happily lose hours walking my ridiculous mutt.

I caught the mouse, since Baxter considered it his new toy.

I used a humane trap (just don't have the heart for the other) and now Baxter's new toy lives on Upper Park Avenue.

On the Twenty-First Day of Christ*&^%$

On the Twenty-First Day of Christ*&^%$, TiZ reveals to you...

I go all limp and smiley when people get aggressive.

Sometimes I don't notice when situations are rocky.

I appear happy go lucky.

The above have kept me out of a lot of trouble.

I might maybe kinda sorta in a happy fairy sorta way be an instigator.

Who, me?

I plan ferociously.

I let it all go.

Yearly I attend the Mike Errico Holiday Show. Amazeballs.

Yearly I receive a Holiday Omen.

Last year I was unable to attend due to my short-lived Broadway show so a friend graciously gave me his broken omen.  Borrowed omen?  Broken omen?  Never again.

This year's omen is a Mead Wide Ruled Composition Book.

I cannot wait to see what we write.

Things look and feel much better today than they have in a while. And the world is still here.

Wayne LaPierre scares the crap out of me. Perhaps this is what the Mayans meant.

Rarely do I have just one thing go bad.  I have a shit pile.

It has winnowed down to a tiny poo pile.

Dear old friends offer dear perspective.

If I don't have something to say, I don't speak.

I recently played a character who said, "I am sorry you feel unloved and I will do everything I can to change it...except apologize for it.  I am tired of apologizing."

I understood this character.

On the Twentieth Day

On the Twentieth Day, TiZ names 20 reasons for reform in gun control and mental health policy...

Charlotte Bacon, Feb. 22, 2006

Daniel Barden, Sept. 25, 2005

Olivia Engel, July 18, 2006

Josephine Gay, Dec. 11, 2005

Ana M. Marquez-Greene, April 4, 2006

Dylan Hockley, March 8, 2006

Madeleine F. Hsu, July 10, 2006

Catherine V. Hubbard, June 8, 2006

Chase Kowalski, Oct. 31, 2005

Jesse Lewis, June 30, 2006

James Mattioli, March 22, 2006

Grace McDonnell, Nov. 4, 2005

Emilie Parker, May 12, 2006

Jack Pinto, May 6, 2006

Noah Pozner, Nov. 20, 2006

Caroline Previdi, Sept. 7, 2006

Jessica Rekos, May 10, 2006

Avielle Richman, Oct. 17, 2006

Benjamin Wheeler, Sept. 12, 2006

Allison N. Wyatt, July 3, 2006

On the Nineteenth Day of Christ*&^%$

On the Nineteenth Day of Christ*&^%$, TiZ reveals to you...

The Christmas Tree is dressed.

I have had my own tree maybe six times in my own home.

I have beautiful ornaments.

I do not have the heart to cut down trees (plus Bax might pee on it), so I have a fakey.

A creature was stirring...it was a mouse.

I ran after it with a cast iron skillet.

I spend Tuesday evenings listening to online dharma talks with David Nichtern.

Nothing says Christmas like beautiful gluten-free scones from Robert's Random Writings. Thank you!!!

I don't think phone conversations should last more than ten minutes.

I own a ukelin.

I just found a YouTube video that explains how to play it and tune it and I'm gonna.

I've given away more books than many people have owned.

I think books are for sharing.

I do not have much but I have treasures and I love it when people ask to see them, DKA.

I bought a pair of thigh high books two years ago exclaiming, "I may be too old for these, but I want a pair before I die."

Boots I have too much of.

I'm not house proud, I'm a house moron. 

I'm working at it.

I find an unmade bed at this age tragic.