Flora & Fauna Report: Spring 2015

Central Park, yesterday afternoon

The vernal equinox has finally hit New York, and not a moment too soon. It was a rough winter. Spring is fresh; it is new. As the pile of snow on the corner subsides, it reminds you to look at the steep pile of clothes that has taken up residence in the corner and address it. Well, maybe it doesn’t do that to you, but it does that to me. There are dusty things in my life that are just taking up space at this point, and all of it needs to go.

Everyone's favorite question these days seems to be, "So, what are you working on right now?" I'll get to the good stuff in a minute, but what I've really been up to is a lot of mental and physical housekeeping. I've been working with a health coach for the last couple of months (one of the perks of my day job), and said health coach has been putting me through my paces in terms of getting my mind-body initiative back on track.

In the last week alone, I’ve been to kickboxing, a Bollywood dance class, a trampoline tabata class, spinning, vinyasa yoga, and Bikram. If you, like me, need a class to get your rear in gear and prefer studios to the gym, I cannot recommend Classpass enough. It has even brought dance back into my day-to-day life, and that alone makes me so damned happy, I hardly have the words to express it.

Trampolines & dance barres! I am five years old.

I’m also on something (not at all) fun called the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) for four weeks. I hesitate to call it a cleanse, because cleanses are trendy. My Celiac diagnosis - an autoimmune disease, for those keeping score at home - was not something I'd equate to dancing after midnight with bottle service in the Meatpacking District. That said, I’ve been experiencing some ongoing health issues, and the AIP is a paleo-heavy elimination diet which serves as a kind of divining rod in terms of determining what foods might be triggering certain adverse body responses (the details of which I will spare you).

At the end of four weeks, we will begin the process of slowly reintroducing certain food groups back into my diet, one at a time, to see how my body responds. In the meantime, I’m off coffee, sugar, alcohol, dairy, nightshades, seeds, nuts, grains, legumes, and gluten (obviously). I’m drinking bone broth and juicing for breakfast, eating sauerkraut voluntarily, and brewing my own kombucha.

This is the closest I'm getting to Seamless.

This would probably not be the month to ask me to dinner. But in four weeks, you may buy me either a coffee or a G&T.

In other (arts-related) news:

• I just wrapped up a three-week on-camera class with casting director James Calleri. Highly recommended.
• I just completed a three-week screenwriting intensive with writer/director Imelda O’Reilly. Also highly recommended.
• I recently started working with renowned dialect and accent coach Amy Stoller, and she is fantastic.
• I'm back in rehearsals with director John Hurley for the stage reprisal of Boomerang Theatre Company’s production of Johnna Adams’ verse play LICKSPITTLES, BUTTONHOLERS, AND DAMNED PERNICIOUS GO-BETWEENS. The first production resulted in my being inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame in 2013. This will be a limited run, so mark your calendars now for May 1-17, 2015.

FAQs

What's this blog about, anyway?
That which feeds the creative process - specifically, mine.

Creative, huh? What do you do?
I'm an actor and a writer. And sometimes I dabble in other forms.

So, is the use of "creative" here an adjective or a noun?
Yes.

Is this a food blog?
The nourishment to be chronicled here will be both literal and figurative. Some of it will go in my stomach, but not always.

But you're going to talk about food?
Sometimes.

So it's a food blog.
Only in the regard that sometimes I eat. Sometimes I travel. Sometimes I go to a museum, or go to see a play. Sometimes I beat the crap out of myself at the gym. It's about filling the well. It's about process.

So what's with the gluten-free?
I was diagnosed with something fun called Celiac Disease in 2008. I'll spare you the details. That's what WebMD is for, anyway.

Didn't you used to have another blog?
Yes, I did.

So what is this blog about again?
You'll figure it out. Or maybe you won't. I'm okay with that.