(The month of January is a busy one for Birthdays, I tell ya.)

And today I am celebrating my dear and wonderful friend –

Neylan Gwyneth McBaine.

Actually, I have given her the middle name of Gwyneth because she really doesn’t care for her middle name. I remember when we were young (as in 15 years old or so) trying to tease the desired info out of her,”what is your middle name? tell me, tell me, tell me please!!!” She didn’t tell me for months – which was a big deal because we told each other E V E R Y T H I N G!  Eventually she relented and told me. Personally I think her middle name is a perfectly delightful middle name, but I am not going to tell you what it is. Sorry. She really doesn’t like it and it is her birthday so I am not going to spill the beans. I want this tribute to fill her with joy, not tick her off.

I will tell you why I have chosen this new middle name for her. To me, she is the closest person I’ve got to Gwyneth Paltrow. She is the Gwyneth in my life. She was born and raised in Manhattan across the street from Lincoln Center (Just like Gwyn who was born and raised in NYC).  She is a New Yorker through and through. (Just like Gwyn) Her mom is a beautiful famous opera singer who sang around 400 performances at the MET (just like Gwyn who has a famous mommy). She attended fancy schools, one you might have heard of called Chapin – which is the school that Jackie Kennedy attended. (Gwyn actually attended Chapin’s sister school a few blocks away called Spence – so again, just like Gwyn). Unlike Gwyn, Neylan actually graduated from college – but college is where she met her husband Elliot, who is, in my book, a rock star. (Again like Gwyn who is married to a rock star) She is also the only person I know, with whom I am on a first name basis, who owns a pair of those hip and groovy “booties”, at least I think that is what they are called.

Truly, Ney is cool. She just KNOWS what is going on. For example she knows where to eat, where to go, who is doing what, who is performing where, what the critics said, etc, etc, etc. She reads EVERTYHING, and then get this, she remembers it, calls or emails me and says, “Hey, I think this would be a fun thing to do.” and then I say, ‘Okay! I’m down!” If Neylan is around I know this much: fun will be had! Perhaps I should give her yet another middle name, Adventure – she could be like those Spanish ladies with a million names – Neylan Gwyneth Adventure McBaine.

I am liking it!!

The woman has, what seems to me, an unlimited reservoir of energy. She is constantly on the move. Not only is she reading everything under the sun – she is taking her three daughters (and me when I am lucky) to the museum, or the ballet, or the opera, or to violin lessons, or helping out with the PTA. Once, after returning home from a long journey to Europe, she called me and was wondering if I wanted to go to some far flung place in the city. “Didn’t you just get back from Spain?!?! Aren’t you tired?!?!” I asked innocently. Cricket – cricket. “Nope!”

She was still raring to go.  All I could think was, “Caramba!”

Neylan Gwyneth Adventure Caramba McBaine – ay, ay, ay!!

In combination with this energy of hers is a great brain and massive drive. She likes to accomplish. She likes to have a project. She likes to work hard. May I show you her latest endeavor. It is truly inspiring –

This is something she has been working on for the past few months. It is so neat! I think because Neylan hasn’t ever lived the “typical” Mormon experience – not many LDS peeps are born and raised in Manhattan and own an Armani tuxedo at the age of 15 etc. Neylan has always marched to the beat of her own drum whilst remaining true to the principles of the Gospel. BYU Cougar she is not yet testimony she most definitely has. It bugs her hard core that there are so many misconceptions about our church and so she has done something about it. She has started this website as a place for people to go – both members of our church and those who do not belong to our church but are curious to learn more – to get accurate info about our people. And specifically she wants the world to know about the women of our church.

Just check it out. I DARE you not to be inspired by the goodness of these women. They are all so DIFFERENT and interesting and may I say, fascinating! (Yes I may, this is MY blog). Even when I went to the site to get the logo and the URL I had to tear myself away. “Must write tribute – must not spend the next three hours reading, crying and rejoicing in Neylan’s wonderful labor of love.” I think of this site as the equivalent of a bag of potato chips – you can’t eat just one! At least I cannot read just one. Please, check this out! You won’t be disappointed.

http://www.mormonwomen.com

Neylan and I share a long **history** this means that we have seen it all, peeps! And through ups and downs and all around somehow we have remained friends. I owe this to her. She was the one who held on and kept reaching out to me when for a while I walked away. Because she kept the door open – there could be forgiveness. Thank you for being that brave.

Neylan and I met at a church dance when we were 14. I had spent most of my middle school and high school years lonely. I longed for a friend who would want to do the things I wanted to do, with whom I could share the things that mattered most to me, who would love God the way I did and wanted the same things from life that I wanted. I prayed many prayers for such a friend. And then I met her – in the gym at the Manhattan Chapel.

Oh, the times that were had! There aren’t many people with whom you could share the c0-presidency of the Kenneth Branagh Appreciation society, I can tell you that much.

We had many a sleep over, many a late night chat, many runs through Central Park – singing – yes, we sang, many trips to the theatre – where we met dashing actors who bopped us on our heads with a poster. This would carry on in our later years – meeting dashing actors, that is.

“Sigh no more ladies, Sigh no more!”

But sigh we did, and frequently. These were not sad sighs – they were the sighs that dreams are made of. We were romantics through and through.

No joke. We had fun. Perhaps we would have been laughed to scorn by other mightier cooler types. But we wouldn’t have cared, even if they did, we were too busy swing dancing at Lincoln Center, or reading Shakespeare or watching “A Room with a View”.

Neylan is a very talented concert pianist. I know this because I have heard her play many times. Sometimes I was  in the audience and sometimes in my favorite spot – UNDER the piano. We liked to pretend like she was Chopin and I was George Sands (okay, we were cheesy, but come on! what’s a heart for?!?!) . If you ever get the chance to lie under the piano whilst Neylan plucks the ivories TAKE IT.

That is all I am saying about that.

Fast forward to 2010.

Neylan is also a dedicated mother to three beautiful girls. Girls that are loved by me and mine. Having posted about them at length in other places, I won’t go into it too much here. But these girls of hers are top drawer. (Me loves!!)

They are wonderful in the pattern of their own dear mother. Whose birthday I am honored to celebrate and whose friendship I cherish!

Happy birthday, Neylan Gwyneth Adventure Caramba McBaine! I love ya!

Is what your wife is, Mr. E. Smith.

I hope you’re reading this, and if you happen to weep – so be it.

It is now FACT that this is the proper way to deal with an asparagus, so no more mocking your wife and mother-in-law for peeling the stalks.

Because so does Mr. Jean Georges.

BEHOLD!

Photographic proof! The stalk has, most definitely, been peeled.

And may I add that it was the best asparagus I have EVER tasted.

Peel on, Neylan. PEEL ON, I say!

P.S. By the way, thanks for letting your wife spend the monitary equivalent of a weeks worth of groceries on me… no hard feelings okay?

I met Hugh Jackman in the park on Monday.

I know, it sounds crazy. But I did. And I have witnesses.

Just ask Neylan McBaine, or her brother-in-law Quen Smith. Quen was the one who spotted him.

When we realized it was him I pulled out my phone and called my mom. Our exchange went something like this..

Me: Mom, you are not going to believe this, but Hugh Jackman is in the park. He is standing 10 yards away from me.

Mom: NO WAY!

Me: YES WAY!

Mom: We’ll start praying!

Odd, your thinking right? What an odd response. But if you know me well then you will understand why my sister Tess sent out a mass text to my family to ask them to start praying for me.

Let me explain…

It was fitting that Neylan and I were together when we clapped eyes on Mr. Jackman. 18 years ago I read a book about a person who became a hero to me. Neylan read the book too b/c in those days there wasn’t a single thing that we didn’t experience together. She knows ALL about my years and years of loving this book. She loved it with me.

The book was about this darling man, Edward Sheldon.

I get a little emotional just looking at this picture – tied up in his sweet face is so much of youthful longings, my love of things beautiful, my desire to do what is right, and my yearning to understand God’s purpose for me.

Ned was a remarkable human being. He had everything – and I mean the world at his fingertips – and then it was all wrenched away from him. But he refused to be defeated. He chose to love in the face of massive disappointment and rejection and carry on when most of us would have thrown the towel in.

He was born in Chicago in 1918, went to Harvard, had a hit play on Broadway before he’d graduated, was engaged to the “it” girl and beloved by all who knew him b/c he was such a generous, humble, enthusiastic and loving friend. In his late 20’s he was diagnosed with a very rare form or rheumatoid arthritis which left him paralysed and blind.

He spent the next 30 years of his life bedridden. But these years were remarkable years where Ned became the epicenter of American theatre – he influenced EVERYONE from Eugene O’Neill to Helen Hayes.

The person I am most grateful he influenced was a 14 year old girl named Eliza Julia Kelly.

When I was accepted to the masters program at RADA I knew what I wanted my thesis to be about. Ned. So I went to Cambridge, MA with my mom to Harvard’s theatre collection and looked through the boxes of Ned’s personal papers. I saw his handwriting in the margins of his play manuscripts. I’ve done his temple work with the help of my parents and Cameron.

In London my adviser didn’t really understand what I was trying to do. He gave off the vibe that he thought my idea was pretty rummy. It wasn’t hip and groovie, he was more interested in the students who were writing about the globalization of theatre.  He didn’t really know what to do with me and left me to my own devices. The play didn’t work. So I wrote a screen play – not knowing anything about how to write one. This draft pretty much stunk. And for the last seven years I’ve wanted to write a decent screen play about Ned’s life. I have notebooks full of my efforts. Last year, by some miracle, I was accepted into Ela Their’s writing lab. Ela is NY’s best screen writing teacher, and in my opinion one of the best teachers in the whole world, period. Under her inspired tutelage I wrote the first 30 pages of a decent raw draft. Then I had a baby and the project was again put on the back burner.

What does all this have to do with Hugh Jackman?

Well, I realize that I am not alone in thinking he is an incredibly talented actor. He also seems to be a man of integrity and goodness. And to date he is the only one I know of who could play the part of Ned.

So when I saw Hugh in the park, it wasn’t just a moment to brush shoulders with “the sexiest man alive” it was a chance to meet the man who I hope will one day play Ned Sheldon. My family knew this, and so they started praying.

And so I did it, after an hour of pretending not to notice him, I approached him and spoke to him. I told him about Ned and that I was writing a screen play in-between changing diapers. I FELT LIKE A GIGANTIC GOOBER! But I did it to show the Lord that if he was generous enough to line up an opportunity like this I was going to have guts! and I was going to take it! I don’t think it really matters what I said, just that I took the chance to talk to him. Because it really and truly felt like a gift from Heaven.

And Hugh was so kind to me (aka the GIGANTIC GOOBER) and do you want to know the thing that struck me most about him? It was that he was a human being. A regular guy. He may be the top paid actor in Hollywood, a Tony award winner, the host of the Oscars, the star of last weekend’s top grossing film – and I am just a stay at home goober, I mean mom – but the thing we share in common is this – He is God’s son. And I am God’s daughter. And in God’s estimation, we are equal.

Standing next to him in the park I felt that equality.

And I am going to, with God’s help and His perfect grace, write my brother Hugh a stink’n awesome screen play to star in.

And you’re all invited to the screening.

BRING IT!