On the Brink, No Less

A Quick Jaunt Across the Atlantic...

Thu, 03 May 2012 14:08:40 -0400

Like I said… 2012- TOO BIG!

I am so excited to announce my next project, and ways you can help! Over the past few months I’ve become involved in my dear friend Alex’s fledgling production company, and her vision for the way art and media can be used in stronger ways.

[Insert Name] Productions is geared toward enabling and empowering the stories that live within us all to be told in bright, bold ways through film and media.

I am honored to be directing [Insert Name]’s first production “The Salon”, which follows the story of Germain de Stael, a bold and precocious woman of vision in 18th Century France, discovered through the eyes of a contemporary 20-something young woman who is just looking for some story that will renew her hope.

The best part of all… we are filming IN FRANCE! IN 2 MONTHS!

There is a lot of sheer insanity around this production- it is a crazy vision we have to raise the money we need in such a considerably short amount of time. We believe in this story so much though, and the vision we have for the company and the message it brings. Besides, I only ever work in crazy terms… it’s the only way to roll ;)

So how can you help? You can spread the message of this ambitious vision. And you can donate to the cause. We’ve set up a Kickstarter HERE where you can donate and watch our progress. Send all your prayers and good vibes out for our additional grants and sponsorships to come in.

I can’t wait to meet you all in France this summer… because I know I will be there :)

Thank you again, for your continued support and love. It means the world!

Juls

Please visit [Insert Name] for more info.

Hustlin', Moving & Shaking, a Very Travel-y Season

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:47:00 -0400

A friend and I joked at our New Year’s Party that the theme of the year was “2012 is TOO Big”

…oh man, we didn’t realize what we were getting into by saying that.

2012 has certainly proven “too big”. But things getting bigger just mean you have to get better, and I’m all about that.

I’ve had a constant stream of work and projects since 1/1/2012 and I’ve tried to be constantly grateful, but sometimes in the hustle and bustle you lose sight of it all. What used to be just a dream has now become the daily work… It’s like in the midst of my stress one day I woke up and realized I was actually living what I daydreamed about 2 years ago

So thank YOU. Thank you for supporting, thank you for listening. And thank you to the Creator and Meaning behind it all… for being blessed, but also for being reminded to be humble, and to be a hustler.

Up next: APOCALYPTOUR! I am directing this tour again, which Im honored to do. The SPACE tour felt like the most impossible thing I’d ever been asked to do. Thank goodness I work with such bad-ass people. Now we’re doing it again, only this time coming directly off of Holy Musical Batman… no rest for the ambitious.

I am the kind of person who is constantly demanding more of myself, for better or worse. This tour I am determined to top what we did last time. The music so far is INCREDIBLE (Thank goodness for our music director Clark). New songs that we dont typically do, and so many new arrangements. We’re pushing the dance and choreo to be sharper and more exciting, and we’re adding new cast members and even a whole storyline. The world may be approaching doomsday (Apocalypse, anyone?) but maybe Team StarKid and the StarKid community can change that.

I’m throwing in a deal: For every venue that we sell-out between now and May 9th (the day we leave) I will dye a streak of purple into my hair. We’ve got one already (Philly) so it looks like I’ll be adding some purple to my world within the next week or so. Will there be more? We’ll see?

If you’d like to come out and see our labor of love and blood and sweat and tears, checkout the page below for dates, times, and ticket info.

http://teamstarkid.com/apocalyptour.html

You guys rock so much! Hope to see you in a city near you in May/ June!

Juls

Thoughts On Staying Open and Honest w/ So Many People Watching

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 01:11:52 -0400

I started this tumblr AGES ago. The summer between graduating college and moving to New York. I started it literally just because I wanted a place to write. Writing became my creative outlet at the time because I could do it whenever and wherever. I had no idea then the “culture” the surrounded tumblr… I just wanted a blog.

Now this little place has come to feel more like a place for feelings, a group to talk to, and though public, just a little quiter than many other places I could share my feelings.

In these past couple of years I’ve gained quite a larger audience on here, on twitter, online in general. Life has changed immensely, and its AWESOME dont get me wrong! The hard thing for me has been learning the fine balance of how honest and direct I can be with you all. I’ve always been a person that wanted to know everyone… and know them deeply. I’ve always craved to be known completely and deeply by people. I like the raw, real, inner stuff in people. I think that’s the beautiful stuff. I think people are beautiful and have beautiful stories to tell- stories of joys and sorrows and victories and losses.

Sometimes though, honesty is unpopular, or misunderstood. You can’t count on people understanding your purest and clearest intentions. I’ve always wanted people to know my deepest and truest intentions, which I know to be for good. I make mistakes, I get mad sometimes or I just get misunderstood. Maybe I say the wrong thing or too much (more often too much because I just love to talk!) In the journey of gaining attention as an actress and artist at large, this dirty word of “censorship” has popped up: where do I need to “censor” myself?

I don’t want to have to “censor” myself because I don’t ever want to be something I’m not. In this entertainment field especially things get trickier and trickier as you make the decisions on what you will or will not do. I have lofty aspirations… but I do not want to reach certain points of success and not recognize the face in the mirror. Basically, I just always want people to be able to see my soul, and see that it is good. I know my soul, the spirit in me, is good… great in fact. I am a flawed human, and I judge plenty about myself daily (don’t you worry about that!) but I can humbly say the spark and essence of my being is beautiful because it is of something grander and greater than me.

All of this to say a few things: One, that believe it or not sometimes I forget that anyone is watching. Two, that when I may say too much, or say something controversial I will either apologize if I am in the wrong, or just recognize that perhaps my honesty is misunderstood because how can I ever expect any person to understand all the details and truth that are really at play.

Sometimes things happen that are very painful, and an easy response is humor. But the truth is I’ve had many relationships of all types come and go in my life… and I almost never want to see them go… being left behind is a very painful trigger for me. But I’ve found that when this happens, I’ve grown deeply and been healed by pulling in closer to the other people that I’m left with as well. Life changes, we lose things, but if I stay present with myself and my life, every loss turns into a beautiful new growth and season.

When it’s easy, and when it’s harder than anything else, I can honestly say I try to send love and forgiveness to all people at all times, because that is what my beliefs have taught me to do. Sometimes I’m better at it, sometimes much worse, but if you want to ask me what my core belief about life and humanity and the meaning of it all is it’s this:

Love can conquer all. Forgiveness is necessary in all circumstances. Often the one being healed is actually the forgiver.

So, this is a tumblr-exclusive post. Trust me, I know this is not my private diary I’m writing to right now: it’s you guys. I trust you with my feelings because you’ve changed my life for the better, and because I choose to trust people more often than not.

I hope you all find the ways in your own life that you can stay true and honest to yourself… hold onto your core that you know and believe in. That’s what is going to be left standing when things fall apart. From that core truth, things will fall back together in a new and beautiful way.

All my love,

Juls

Thoughts re: Kony Controversy and Other Concerns for Our Humanity

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 02:10:17 -0500

The social media buzz/talk/debate/screaming match regarding Kony and the Invisible Children viral video over the past 48 hours has been fascinating if nothing else. I think at its core, though, there is a symptom of a deep disease that has been illuminated for us in the proceedings over the past couple of days. Allow me to elaborate, and break it down into the chain of events/facts/opinions I witnessed.

Facts:

-Kony is a bad man, doing terrible things. He should be stopped.

-a video was made, it went viral, and now millions of people know about this man and what he’s doing that may not have a mere 3 days ago.

-Oh and also, it reminded us that Africa is dealing with some crazy shit, something we should probably just set up as an automatic reminder every few weeks… if only to shift things into perspective.

So what happened next? Well, within a few hours of this video gaining momentum, the battle suddenly switched from one of Us Vs Kony to Us Vs Ourselves, as the twittering and facebooking suddenly became about refuting Invisible Children, debating the facts of Kony’s location, and arguing about whether it was trendier to be an optimist or a realist.

“It’s just a trend, in a few days no one’s going to care anymore”. And a self-fulfilling prophecy it became. Suddenly we were all too exhausted with arguing amidst ourselves to even think of continuing the interest in this soul-provoking cause.

(and ps, caring for “trendy“‘s sake is still caring, and thats better than hate I’d say…so there’s that)

I lent my voice to the Invisible Children video by tweeting it that night. I woke up the next morning to controversy and flip-flopped opinions and just so many damn tweets about “This is right! No this is right! No, now it’s this!”. I chose to say nothing, because I was fascinated by watching the whole thing unfold. To me, I started to wonder if the real lesson was in watching how we, the people, reacted.

What I’ve come to believe (and hold on to your britches… this might be controversial!) in watching all this unfold is that people deeply want to care about things- but we choose apathy instead. Yes, I do mean choose. We’ve been reshaped and reformed toward apathy, and so it makes it very hard for us to stay focused on caring for something for more than 3.5 seconds. People were excited by this video, this cause brought before them, and most importantly they were excited by its over-arching message: “YOU can make a difference. A lot of little actions CAN make a big change”.

But that amount of excitement and liberation makes us uncomfortable, and everyone got scared and confused and so we decided instead that we should just argue amongst ourselves until the whole conversation dissipates and we don’t have to care anymore.

I am ALL about educating oneself on every angle of an issue, event, especially when lending your voice. But the Kony controversy was not about education… it was about division. A force divided loses power. A people divided are ineffectual. And the greatest mistake we made in the face of this new wave of awareness and activism was to allow ourselves to succumb to division. Now no one cares, and if they do still care the don’t know which “team” they are supposed to care on.

We messed up. We got so distracted with being right, with being on the trendy side of the argument that we forgot where we were supposed to be putting our attention… toward humans across the planet that deserve the same rights and liberties as us.

See, I think this is bigger than Kony. I can’t help but wonder how many other injustices both across the globe and in our own backyards persist far longer than they should because we get so caught up in the red-tape nonsense of whose opinion is more right and who is screaming the loudest.

A video was put out that increased awareness around an issue that needs attention, and also encouraged people to believe that in any area, any issue… they can make a difference. For that, and that alone… it is a good thing.

Do we want to be a people the constantly gives into division for our ego’s sake.. to the point where we are kept in a perpetual state of inactivity and apathy? Do you want to argue for days every time an issue comes up that you think you can add change to, or do you want to believe that your tiny little actions can lead to large shift?

I think if we want a hope for a tomorrow, the apathy has to go… but more importantly the division has to go. We do NOT need to fight and argue about everything. You do NOT need to always be right. I do NOT need to always be right. But I need to care when I see things that stir my soul, that speak to me on that deep level. YOU need to care. WE have to care about what’s going on around us, near and far, and we have to care about what we can do about it, in big and small ways. Invisible Children is something… they are doing something. If you can do it better than get up and do it. Have a better solution? Make it happen. We do have to care. It actually matters a great deal.

Thoughtfully yours,

Julia

Lets Play a Fun Game...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:58:00 -0500

Have you read my book “A Glamorously Unglamorous Life”?

Well Im working on some edits, etc. If you found typos, errors, etc in your reading why don’t you help a sister out and send them to me!

Email homewardwandering@gmail.com with any mistakes you find. You’ll make my life so much easier!

Love you love you love you

Juls

Today's post on Knowyourglow.com by Yours Truly!

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:15:24 -0500

Today's post on Knowyourglow.com by Yours Truly!:

Join the discussion! And If you haven’t already, follow us on twitter and check in on the website regularly!

www.knowyourglow.com

Twitter @glowcogirls

Glow* is my latest project of passion. Its had me so excited...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:31:07 -0500

Glow* is my latest project of passion. Its had me so excited over these past few weeks that I’ve stayed up way too late at night tweaking little things and dreaming of all the things it can and will become! Im honored to have partnered with three of my closest friends, three of the greatest ladies I know, to start this organization.

We’ve been blessed to have found a little community and family of ladies who are awesome, bad-ass inspiring and supportive (to name a few adjectives)… and we decided that everyone deserves that. What’s more… we can all help create that. We can all be rockstars of our own lives, and help others get there too.

So come help us get this thing started! Follow us on twitter @glowcogirls, subscribe on YouTube, “Like” us on facebook, and participate in the conversations that have started over at www.knowyourglow.com . Above all, tell us your stories. This community is for you, for the lonely girl at your school, for the best friend you haven’t even met yet… for all of us. Spread the glow… lets start a revolution of people who are lit from within!

Love

Juls

You Are My Illegitimate Child... what?

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:16:47 -0500

Ok so I’ve come to really love you guys and trust you… so I feel I can let you in on this little secret:

Sometimes, you making dating hard.

I am so proud of my life, proud of what I’m doing, love StarKid, love you guys… but c’mon, we’ve all experienced trying to explain this crazy world to outsiders, right?

I wish I could tell you how many dates I’ve been on where the guy has decided its a fun idea to google me and then… GAH! What is this world? Why are their college pictures of her everywhere? Why does she have so many twitter followers? Who’s this glee kid?!?

So my new theory is that StarKid, and all of you, are my illegitimate child. You were a happy accident and I love you more than life, but you I just cant bring it into the game until a few dates in… and its for everyones protection. No need to scare off the unsuspecting and unassuming gentleman, but also all of you and the whole thing mean too much to me to introduce too early on, you dig?

So tonight I had a date (completely dreaded it, turned out great) and what do you know, the conversation of twitter comes up and he says: ’I’m not on twitter, seems cool. Do you have many twitter followers?’

“Uh… yeah a few.” Obviously strikes intense curiosity in said gentleman. He persists. And persists… desperate to know what the strange flicker of knowing was on my face.

And thus I explained the theory of the illegitimate children. I think everyone has metaphorical illegitimate childen, and it is in everyone’s best interest that we keep them under wraps until a little bit of trust and understanding is at play. And he accepts. Switching topics, dodged that bullet!

Luckily, I dont think he knows my last name. So I think I’m saved for at least a little bit :)

Hey… you guys rock. Thanks for listening to my post-date rant. I can’t wait to introduce someone to you guys one day, and to this internet community, and to all the love and support you’ve shown us… but easy does it, right? We’ve got to slowly bring people into our silly crazy wonderful world.

Oh, you guys rock.

Juls

I cannot WAIT to raise my sons and daughters to be underdogs....

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 02:52:41 -0500

I cannot WAIT to raise my sons and daughters to be underdogs. The misfits of junior high and high school. By no means am I saying that I wish them the teasing and bullying that comes with that, that which I experienced… but to be honest- underdogs win in the end.

I wish every slightly-nerdy, bullied, lonely kid in primary education could be told and realize that they are probably set up to be the luckiest of them all. Because when you are an underdog you fight. You get tough, you focus your energy on things more important than what you’re wearing and who you are gossiping about… you focus on making things. You focus on what you are passionate about, and what you want to become. You focus on making the world better for the poor underdog kids that have to come behind you

And when you make things, when you change things- you become the most popular and influential people of all time. And you win. Because you change the world, and you do it by being true to yourself.

Here’s to the underdogs. Read up on history and the underdogs almost always win, because they’ve got gumption.

Here’s to the future leaders- they are laughed at now but they’ll be the last to laugh :)

Hey! Hey you! Im here! Remember me?

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:03:23 -0500

Hi loves… thought I’d forgotten about you, didn’t you?

NEVER!

Thing 1: I solemnly swear that I am going to make a concentrated effort to blog more. (and that I’m up to no good)

Thing B: I haven’t stopped writing, in fact many new fun things are in the works ;)

Thing III: I’m trying to get better at linking all my various online widgets and wobbly-gooks (also known as social networking platforms)

So, a few things to update you on:

-From now until January 31st you can get my book “A Glamorously Unglamorous Life” for 30% off at Lulu.com! Just go HERE and enter code SHELFSTOCK305 at checkout. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out! If you have read it, I thank you infinitely!!

-You can now “Like” me on Facebook at my Artist Page . I’ll use this more and more for updates and announcements

-If you don’t already, follow me on Twitter! This is where I love to keep ya’ll informed, but also be goofy and silly and interact with my favorite peeps! (That means you!)

That’s all for now… here’s hoping that 2012 is the year where I get (and remain) super organized and productive and create many fun goobly-gooks and crazy adventures for you all to read and participate in!

All my love,

Juls

Testing testing... is this thing on?

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:26:37 -0500

Testing testing... is this thing on?:

Im back! Thank you for your loyal support and readership, even when I’m not around as much as I’d like.

Be sure to subscribe over at homewardwandering.blogspot.com.

I always love hearing your thoughts, your input, and what you’d like to see me write about.

I don’t say this lightly… I have a lot of love for all of you!

Juls

A Happy Post

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:20:25 -0400

Here’s to the Happiness:

http://homewardwandering.blogspot.com/2011/10/happy-post.html

xoxo

Juls

New Post/ New Blog/ New Life/ I Love You/ Please Read

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:56:37 -0400

LIFE IS HAPPENING!! EXCITING STUFF!!

In the meantime.. check this out:

http://homewardwandering.blogspot.com/2011/09/time-is-never-wasted-i-love-you.html

Subscribe! Because it will mean something one day and I said so!!

Love love always love!

Juls

[ cloud overview | get your own cloud ]This is a Tumblr Cloud I...

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:36:56 -0400

[ cloud overview | get your own cloud ]

This is a Tumblr Cloud I generated from my blog posts between Jul 2008 and Sep 2011 containing my top 20 used words.

Top 1 blogs I reblogged the most: