Time Traveling Poet

This SciFi lover has been doing some time travel.

I found this poem I wrote in an old 'zine. Enjoy!

May your day be restful and/or productive!

loved, loving and alert #youareloved

Seven and a half Years Later...

She remembers she has a blog.

Wow. Fam. Friends.

So much L.I.F.E. has happened, that instead of trying to give you a summary, I'm just going to jump right into the now, and fill in context as is necessary.

I'm grateful to
A) be alive (praise the Lord),
B) be acting full-time (check out for all the ways you can follow my career), and
C) continue my first foray into independent film/web series making.
(Among'st many other wonderful life-things!)

That's right! This DarkNLovely is combining her skills of poetry, playwrighting, screenwriting, acting, producing, and theatre admin work to create and star in my first web series!

I'm honored and excited about the team that's coming together to bring this original comedy series to life for you. I'll share more details soon, but in the meantime, since it's inspired by a book of poems I wrote, (The Distancia/Imbraccium Poems), here are some nuggets to carry us all through the weekend:

To My Dear Family and Friends
Thank you for sharing your hearts with me
While mine has been breaking
And reshaping itself.
Thank you for picking up the pieces
Too small for me to see
And too big for me to lift alone.
Thank you for being precious.
You are precious to me.

Remember Life
We will
Drown in sorrow
If we forget
To dream
And love

Breathe. Live. Love.

Every 12 months or so....

I remember I have a blog. And I like to write stuff...

More to come...probably later this evening...

Humility, Thy Name is "This Summer"

It's only been two months since my last entry, but so much has happened...
Allow me to process a little and remember WHAT HAPPENED...
(Thanks for the prompt, Mandy :) )
This is going to be a jumbled mess, I think...


Touring "Romeo and Juliet" with Suitcase Shakespeare has been going very well.
We finish up our run at the Bristol Renaissance Faire this weekend (Sep 4-6th).
Come check us out!!

I discovered I still have asthma, but I have an inhaler again,
And my wonderful fellow company members are great at telling me
to SIT DOWN when I'm worked up enough to need it.

I went on a boat for the first time in a long time and didn't throw up.
It was a big boat, and we were inside for long enough for me to forget
that we were on a boat...

I don't like cilantro. But I still love Latin food!!

I am probably allergic to rabbit...meat...yup
Ironic: Rabbit meat garnished with carrots
(It happened. For real. Go to the Girl and the Goat in the west loop----it's shut-your-mouth-and-savour-that-flavour-with-a-"u"-amazing)

I've been listening to the musicals, "In the Heights", "Caroline, or Change", "Boojum!", and "The Color Purple", and the Dinka music we were given during "The Lost Boys of Sudan" at Victory Gardens pretty much non-stop.

A lot of people know me as "Captain Safety"--
but thanks to a wonderful group of brunchin' yoga practitioners,
we now have a whole regiment:
General Caution*
Private Fore-cite
Corporal Punishment
Lef-tenant Right*
Major Withholding

I'm sure there are a couple more I'm forgetting...
*'s have already been assigned/acquired by specific people :)

Oh, and if you haven't seen it already,
I have been honored and humbled to be recognized in this yearly article...
HOT%20NEW%20FACES%3A%20Our%20annual%20picks%20of%2010%20actors%20to%20watch%20for%20on%20Chicago-area%20stages

I wept with joy and humility and sorrow when I read the article,
because I was thinking of all the people who are so proud of me,
and the few that aren't around anymore...and the sacrifices
that have been made by others and by myself so that I can do what I'm doing...
God is GRACIOUS and GOOD. I am undeserving and great full. And God is GRACIOUS and GOOD.

The plants in our sunboxes are growing and sprouting flowers and arms.

My hair is getting really long and loc-ing out awesomely.

I'm going to two weddings really soon and I'm REALLY excited!!!

I am transitioning into a better way to keep track of my schedule
which might include the acquisition of a fancy piece of technology in a couple weeks...

Still writing poetry. I think I have about thirty pages now. I have some up on my facebook page.

I'm rambling now. And I should be sleeping. Well, that's the same as always.

"It's time to call it a day--DAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!" LC

The Infamous Online Survey

I was looking at some old "who are you?" online surveys and questioners I filled out, and here are my favorite responses:

Where would you want to retire?
--I'm gonna retire??

Favorite time of day?
--The quiet parts of the day.


(Tell 25 things about you that you don't think people know)

1) I once thought I could fight "middle child syndrome" until I found myself hoping up and down in the middle of a parking lot, as a sophomore in college saying to my older sibs "guys!! Pay attention to me!!"...yeah, I suck at that.

2) I think "Wicked" the musical would have been worth my seeing it more than once if it followed the book instead of trying to be "family friendly"

3) I love Jesus. I love theatre. I love chicago.

4) If you've ever been adopted by my family as an honorary Sheppard--you always will be!!

5) I write about violent things to help me try to understand why they happen or how I might deal with them--not because I'm morbid.

6) I would eat pizza everyday if it wouldn't start to make me feel like a ball of immovable grease...or make me allergic to dairy...

7) I would dye my hair red if I wasn't an actor.

8) I want to be a stunt and a classical actor when I grow up.

9) I may call them names, but I'd lay down my life for my family and friends.

10) I have a quarterstaff who's name is Cervantes...after the Spanish writer of the 16th century...

11) I'm an Elizabethan and Spanish Golden Age history nerd!

11) I think Lope de Vega and Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz could rival Shakespeare pretty equally.

12) I. Love. Snow.

13) I like vampires but am terrified of zombies...even though they're almost the same thing...

14) I believe in demons and angels but not ghosts--when you're dead, you go upstairs or downstairs, you don't hang out in the living room...

15) I believe in good and inexpensive Theatre--There's a lot of it in Chicago!! chicagoplays.com/hottix.org

16) I make up words like Shakespeare--though he's still better at it (even though he's dead)

17) I want a First Folio for my next birthday.

18) Almost moved to NY to go to a fencing school...almost moved to CA to go to Commedia school...

19) I'm almost too shy to be an actor...

20) I'm remembering how judgemental I am and trying to fight it with humility...Feel free to call me out!!!

21) I enjoyed living alone, but I need to have roommates, or a husband...the first I have and they're lovely, the latter I'd like whenever the Lord sees fit to send him my way...

22) I've only dated a few times in all of my life, either cuz I was crazy and busy, folks were afraid I'd stage combat them, or they were being jerks...or, rationally, we just weren't supposed to be together...

23) I finished my first full-length play last year after 9ish versions, 3 readings, and baby's first copyright.

24) Doesn't. Like. Boats. (Baby doesn't know how to swim...)

25) I'll be 30 soon but still feels like a kid...maybe cuz I still look like a kid...




It's like looking back through a time-warp...I suggest everyone check out your old writing. See if what you thought then is what you think now and where you've changed...

Start of a Brand New Blog...

Hello Hello!

After spending about 20mins trying to remember the password to my college email address (which has been deactivated for almost three years) in order to access my very first blog, "Mix Tape" (and failing terribly), I have decided to begin anew--

A monologue in "The Colored Museum," a play brilliantly written by George C. Wolfe, states,

"I am not who I was ten years ago. I am not who I was ten minutes ago. I am all that and then some."

My last post to "Mix Tape" was on Sunday, December 10, 2006, shortly after the funeral of my grandfather...So much has happened since then. So much has changed me. So much has reminded me of who I am and always will be. So much MORE has and continues to inspire me to achieve and challenge me to discover who I am becoming.

So what do I want to do with this blog?
Offer a way for me to catalog this journey with quotes and stories and pictures and poems I learn and write and live and love along the way.

Feel free to join me as I write part of my story,
And Feel free to write your own story. You're the best one to do the job.