yet another book I am in, but this time by choice!

Comment now » // May 29th, 2009

So I have been on a lot of book covers in my life and in a few books as well, but never by choice.  This time, I am in a book by choice and it’s something I can be proud of!

This past Fall, I had the awesome opportunity to be in the new Hooping book by Christabel Zamor and Ariane Conrad.  I was chosen to demonstrate some of the many moves pictured in the book and to also be in the DVD included with it!  It was a whole lot of fun and I was honored to be a part of it all.  The book is beautifully done with all kinds of information on the history of hooping, how it can change your life, bios of different hoopers and of course a ton of moves you can learn.  The DVD is a good workout with some basic moves.

You can buy the book here, come to the launch party in SF here, find more out about the book here and see if Christabel is coming to your city on her book tour here.

the everywhere girl diaries

1 Comment » // May 14th, 2009

I am *uber* excited to announce the upcoming Everywhere Girl Diaries!  I know that some of you probably have no idea about this whole Everywhere Girl thing, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t feel like explaining it right now.  So either check out a few posts here, here, and here, google “the everywhere girl”, check out the urban dictionary definition (Jennifer Chandra was my stage name when I was an actor in L.A.), or just ask me about it the next time you see me!  It’s a funny story.

Anyway, so I started The Everywhere Girl Blog a few years ago in response to all the hubbub that was going on, but really haven’t kept it up too much.  It always felt a little odd making it my personal blog, so I finally started this one and now have really let that one go.

But in swoops my mom, to save the day!  My mom is a writer, and an excellent one at that, so she decided that she wanted to start writing little short stories about all the adventures of EWG.  So that is what is going to start happening…you can check it more out about it here.  Be sure to subscribe to the feed or check back every week for the new posts…cuz let me tell you, you wil not want to miss these…my mom is amazing!  I am soooo excited about reading them myself since I have no idea what she is going to do!

57 years ago today…

Comment now » // May 1st, 2009

my fabulous father was born.  Happy Birthday Dad, I miss you more than I can ever explain.

Randy Lee Anderson 5/1/1952 – 1/6/2000

1 year ago today…

3 Comments » // April 30th, 2009

I found out that I got into UC Berkeley.  And here I am, a year later, finishing up my first year with finals and papers abound.  It’s been a wonderful year and I am so very grateful for the opportunity to be able to go to such an incredible university and to be able to live in the Bay Area and meet so many quality people at school and through hooping. 

Here is the video I shot of myself about 20 minutes after I found out…I was buzzing with excitment!  It’s funny to hear myself talking about working at VZW since I got “fired” a week later because they found out I would be leaving in the fall for UCB.  Yeah, like I was going to choose working at Verizon over going to fucking Berkeley…sheesh!  (I got unemployment out of it too, so it really worked out well for me).  I also of course have completely different hair, as usual.  Enjoy!

9 years ago today…

2 Comments » // April 29th, 2009

we spread my father’s ashes in the San Francisco Bay.  It’s actually illegal to do that, but we were able to charter a boat where the captain said he would “look the other way”.  My father lived in San Francisco for many years of his life, and next to Maui, it was his most favorite place in the world.   So before he passed he let his partner, Don, know that he wanted his ashed spread either in Maui or the bay…we chose the bay because we decided to have a celebration and it was easier for everyone to get to considering most of his friends still lived in the Bay Area.

The celebration was made up mostly of old friends of my father’s…the only real family was me…but his friends were his family.  I had actually never met several of his friends because when he lived in SF I was very young…so I was meeting some of them for the very first time after hearing amazing and hilarious stories about all of them.  There were also a few of his closest friends whom I knew very well from hanging out with them over the years.  We all met at a place called The Metro on the corner of Market and Castro, which unfortunately is not there anymore.  I loved that place!  It was a karaoke bar and a Chinese restaurant…some of the best Chinese food I had ever had as a matter of fact.  Anyway, when I got there with Don, I actually walked in a ahead of him while he parked the car…so I walked into the place and all of a sudden heard gasps and cries from a table on the side of the room.  I heard one of them say “Oh my God, if that isn’t Randy’s daughter…wow” or something to that effect.  Basically they all came up and gave me a big hug and everyone started crying.  These were all people I had never met, but they knew me instantly because I looked like my dad so much.  It killed me and I started crying too.

The celebration of my father’s life began there…with everyone buying me drinks so that I ended up getting drunk and singing karaoke all night for a bunch of gay men and lesbians…mostly Madonna and Bette songs….it was awesome.

The next day was the day we spread his ashes.  We got on the boat and took it out to an area just west of Yerba Buena Island and south of the Bay Bridge.  We each had a helium filled balloon that had a little card attached to it.  We all wrote in our little cards something to my dad or whatever we felt was important…we kept that to ourselves so I don’t know what other people wrote.  In fact, I don’t even remember what I wrote and it doesn’t even matter.  We then had a little sharing moment where we each said something about him.  There were about 30 of us on the boat and the stories were pretty incredible.

When it got to Don he ended up telling a few stories (he was my dad’s partner for 20 years), but the one I remember the most is the one about when i found out my father was gay.  He told how I had freaked out and was very confused.  You see, it was my mom who told me and my father wasn’t around (I was 12 and they had been divorced since I was a baby), although he had planned on telling me in person, a moment came along and my mom had to go with it and tell me then without him there.  Anyway, so I was very confused about the whole thing and ended up asking my mom if because my father was gay, did that mean I was gay too?  My mom’s response is Don’s favorite part of the story.  My mom replied to me, “well no honey, but if you are that’s ok too”.  Yeah, Don and I agree that my mom is the best mom ever.

So after sharing fun stories about my dad, Don and I took the bag of ashes and began to spread them out in the bay over the boat.  By the way, has anyone else ever spread ashes before?  Wow, it’s a little surreal.  My dad was 6’4″, so the bag was pretty damn heavy!  When my mom, my aunt and I spread my grandma’s ashes, it was a lot lighter.  As Don and I were spreading his ashes, everyone was releasing the balloons into the air and we released ours as soon as we were done.  Here comes the incredible part, which I have a picture of somewhere.  These balloons were all filled with helium.  But as they were being released, about half of them stayed on the water right over where my father’s ashes had just been spread.  They stayed like that for a very long time…like I don’t know how long because they were still like that 30 minutes later when  we left…yeah some went into the air and floated far, far away…but half hovered just above the water in this one spot.  It still gives me chills even thinking about it.  Maybe there is some sort of scientific explanation for it, but I don’t care…it was crazy.  I have pictures, but they are downstairs in my giant picture bin that is nagging at me to be organized…one of my many life projects that overwhelms me.

So yeah, that’s the story of the spreading of my father’s ashes in the Bay.  We had all talked about how we would come back every year and do a thing, but as you all know, life gets busy.  This is the first year that I have lived in the Bay Area during this anniversary…I almost drove over the bridge today to celebrate, but it’s not like I could have stopped…plus I think about him every single time I drive over it anyway.