November 22, 2004

Finally, I have the opportunity to write another "Blog" entry. As promised though, this one is going to be a bit different. But first, I have to talk about my weekend back in Virginia. By far, it was the fastest weekend I’ve ever had.

I’m not sure why this always seems to happen and I’ve talked to so many people who agree with me; parents always seem to get nicer things when ALL the children move out of the house. In this case, it's a brand new house! Yeah and it’s HUGE! I couldn’t believe that they’ve been holding out all these years on getting a bigger house. They always used to complain about "oh, we can’t afford that", yeah right! I’ve never really moved before, so this was a big deal to me. I mean I moved from DC to CONN to NY, but that was just me, not our entire family/house. As soon as I got home on Friday night, I walked in, saw the new hardwood floors and had to pull a "risky business". Oh yeah, I slid across an entire room in my socks and LOVED IT! I was like a little kid on Christmas, until I realized rather quickly (mom yelling at me) that there was lots of work to be done. This also happened to be the same weekend that my little nephew was to be baptized, Sunday Afternoon, and we were going to have a house full of company arriving on Saturday night. So pretty much all of Saturday was spent opening boxes, figuring out what was in them and where it all went, getting ready for more furniture and necessities to arrive, and setting up bedrooms for our guests that I had to go pick up. It ended up being a complete blur.

Sunday was more of the same, setting up and getting ready for the baptism (I was the Godfather). After the baptism, all the friends and family went to the golf course "club house " for the reception. Everything was set up beautifully, but I was pretty nervous because I was singing a duet of "The Prayer" (Celine Dion and Andrea Boccelli). Unfortunately, I had to leave right after to make it to the airport in time to fly back and work this morning (Monday). The crazy thing is that I’m actually flying home again tonight to spend Thanksgiving with the family and just relax for the week……phew! At this point, my energy is coming from the coffee and doughnuts. LOL, whatever works I guess!

So now that ya’ll know about my weekend, let’s get to some fun stuff! I was thinking that most people only either know me from the interviews they read in the soap magazines, or if they went to the "GL" fan club weekend or just what they see from the show……not reality! I thought it would be fun to do a mock "Seventeen Magazine" get to know you type of deal. If ya’ll think this would be fun and you enjoy it, GREAT! If you don’t…..well tough, it’s "John’s Journal", LOL! Alright let’s begin…….. next time ;)!

November 8, 2004

It’s Monday morning and I am sending this next entry in from the comforts of my family’s home in Virginia. Man, it feels good to be home! Although this is supposed to be a short vacation for me, my family is also in the process of moving to a new community about ten minutes from our current residence. It’s a nice area; bigger home and it’s situated on an eighteen-hole golf course. But I grew up in this house and I have so many memories of this place. I’m not sure how easy it will be to let this place go and see someone else move into the house that represents my youth. On the up side though, with the holiday season rapidly approaching, I have so many other things to look forward to.

My little nephew (who will be referred to as the "little guy") has his baptism coming up in two weeks and there will be quite a few people coming to see this event. Of course I’m happy to see the "little guy" but yesterday (Sunday the 7th) as soon as I walked in the door from the airport and put my bags down, he was thrust into my hands and proceeded to drool all over my clothes. Now, although I was a bit put off by the sight, babies have a way of getting away with it using the maneuver I’ve come to call the "Smile and gurgle" technique. Yup, the S&G technique works and we’ve all seen it. Babies look at you, smile, and get you all warmed up then gurgle up some crud in their mouth and just let it hang. It wasn’t the most exciting image to come home to, but that's how it goes, I guess. This whole being an uncle thing is a total wake-up call for me, I wasn’t ready for this. Oh, and I can’t forget that my little niece ("little girl") was there too. I wasn’t about to get drooled on twice so I went and found the quietest and darkest room in the house to take just a few minutes to settle in and relax. I will admit though that I am really honored that I will be the Godfather to the "Little Guy". My sister and her husband asked me if I’d do it and if I felt up to being his Godfather? And I said "Um... sure". Something tells me that I didn’t get the full story of exactly what a Godfather has to do…..please fill me in if you know the job requirements, LOL!!!!! So this is what I get to look forward to this week, a whole lot of baby bonding, pre-baptismal stuff, and packing up boxes for the move….fun, fun, fun!

As far as the "Guiding Light" goes, November is going to be a big month for Coop and Lizzie Spaulding. They had us working so much together with the pending danger that’s building with the Spaulding conflict (Phillip mostly). I have to say that watching and working with Grant (Aleksander; Phillip) was such an amazing opportunity for me. His calm and cool delivery of lines and the aura his character gives off is so commanding that it can overwhelm you as a beginning actor. Off screen, he is just one of the nicest and most sincere individuals I’ve ever met. To give an example of this: I was passing by the dressing rooms and he was about to shoot a scene that required some day-players to get a bit physical with him. Now some people would just say, "I’m going to do this action, so just let me control how far we go with it, and just hold on." But Grant asked their input and thoughts about what they felt was natural and then he gave his and they combined the two and rehearsed it several times to really feel it. By the time they got to set and shot it, people couldn’t believe how realistic it looked. That's Grant’s character, he truly cares what you think. I wish that I had the opportunity to work with him some more. If you all have any favorite "Phillip Spaulding/Grant" moments, I’d love to hear about them as well as your thoughts about the whole "Coop and Lizzie" situation (where you’d like to see it go or not go).

All in all, this month is going to be really great as far as the plot of the show. Not just with my character but overall with the building danger that’s being created. The writers are really pumping on full tilt, putting out some great material, I think. I can’t wait to see what happens.

P.S.- thanks for all the Music suggestions; I’m in the process of downloading a few now. I think that my next entry is going to be a bit different, LOL! I’m sure ya’ll will love it. All the best!

Election Day!

IT’S ELECTION DAY 2004 and I hope that everyone is getting out there to do their civic duty and vote! From what I’ve seen and heard on the news, this has to be one of the closest Presidential races in a very long time………not sure HOW long but a while, LOL! I myself am getting ready to head out the door to vote so I must make this a short Blog (sorry ya’ll).

This weekend was just what the Dr. ordered, I’d say. Halloween was pretty crazy up here in the city. As if there aren’t enough freaks (pardon the expression) on a normal daily basis, add the Halloween festivities and then multiply those freaks by like x1000! I personally only went out on Saturday night, but that was all I needed. Scott Bailey (Sandy), Tom Pelphrey (Jonathan), Stephen Martines (Tony) and myself went over to a Halloween bash that was being thrown by Cameron Mathison (Ryan) of “All My Children” at a club down on the Lower West Side. Just to set the stage, let me tell you about the ……um…..interesting costume that both Scott and Tom picked out for us: Baby Blue 70’s disco suits. We all matched. We looked like wedding singers individually, but combined, we were a cheesy band look-a-like! Since I didn’t know about the party, I had no say in what we wore that evening. Anyway, after the CBS/ABC, industry party, a few of us went across the street to another dance club called “Crobar” (a place I had never been to before) where we received some VIP treatment, always a nice thing, and stayed and danced until six in the morning. Now this wasn’t exactly a place that I would go to on a regular basis, but I just needed to let loose a bit and dance to some fast, energetic beats. As for Sunday, I stayed in, got some busy-work done and listened to all the trick-or-treaters outside my building.

To end this blog, I just wanted to say that I’m glad that everyone who has responded to these journal entries has been so interactive with me and given some really good advice when needed. This new lifestyle and profession that I’ve gotten into can be trying at times, so I appreciate ya’ll listening to my ramblings and vents!