So how thrilled was I to get an invite to a 40th birthday with 8 other couples, sans their kids and mine, in a pretty city none of us live in to stay in a rented McMansion. Ah, to dream of three long days of eating more than just what is left on the kitchen counter. And the chance to sleep past 6:45am.
But when my Smartphone is also flashing an enormous number of texts and missed calls, I brace myself further; as I have learned the hard way that this usually means someone I love is in trouble. Or worse. So when I recently woke to 27 phone messages, 58 texts and 70 emails, I got down on the floor in panic. I scrolled through the phone numbers first, searching for my mothers – knowing she would give it to me straight.
In her newly released book, Kissing Outside the Lines, actress and writer Diane Farr (Californication, Rescue Me, Numb3rs) offers a witty and heartfelt look at the impact others — even family and friends — can have on an interracial relationship.
Diane Farr is a Caucasian woman who fell in love with and married a Korean-American man. Like many others in biracial and multiracial families, Farr sometimes encounters discrimination, hurtful comments and prying questions. We had the opportunity to talk to … [Read More at SheKnows.com]
Especially for those brides and grooms like myself, who’s future in-laws didn’t quite see them as up to par for their child or their family. Wedding planning is already tough with all of your time, money and ego stretched to the limit, but if one of your parents is trying to stop the whole shebang from happening, engagement can become the final stage of your relationship.
So here are the basic facts, sort of as they happened, before they become part of each candidates foreign policy agenda tonight. Or even if you don’t watch the debates and a babysitter mentions the film or the rioting at preschool pick up. Because Mom’s may not have enough time to read a paper from cover to cover like a babysitter would (or be able to stay awake through it because we don’t sleep as much) but that doesn’t mean you should be be left in the dark.
Or so I thought until one sunny evening in Anchorage when I finished work at 11pm and the sky was still bright. I was dreaming of scrambled eggs. When my food server asked for my meat preference to go along with the eggs, “Reindeer sausage” just came off my tongue as if I had been eating it all my life.
I don’t maintain a regular Facebook page, just a fan page, so maybe I’m missing the point of Mark Zuckerberg’s epic empire because I don’t get to see all the good news about people I’ve lost touch with. Even if I did, I’m still not sure the chance for a midnight snack of happy hyperbole would be a good enough reason to check in before going to bed.
I’m usually the only one who posts on my fan page; people really only talk about me if they “Like” me. In and of itself, this screams that something must be wrong with me and every other artist who needs a page on the Internet to keep a running count of people willing to call themselves “followers.”
Getting through airport security with a stroller, a car seat, a diaper bag, my own gear and a squirmy toddler may be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. The second hardest thing is taking that toddler onto an airplane for several hours where both passengers and airline employees act like my kid is ruining their lives.
After more trial and error than one woman and her therapist should ever have to bear, I’ve learned that flying with a young family is like a team sport- winning is all about the preplan! Don’t spend hours worrying about how you will manage it. Instead, spend hours buying, borrowing and then packing the following:
Usually, anyway.
Except in the recent exchange when Barack responded to a comment made about Mitt’s wife. “There is no tougher job than being a mom” is not a phrase that our man in the oval office coined. However, Obama’s repeating of it kinda made me dry heave.
As a mother I can say from the experience of sometimes working in the home and sometimes working outside of it– motherhood is not even close to the toughest job.
I’ve put in much more than the 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell suggests would make you an expert in any field – including the field of job interviewing – so perhaps my fellow underemployed Americans would appreciate a professional actor’s (read: continual interviewee’s) tips about keeping your confidence intact when hustling for work, as auditions are tougher than you might think.
An audition is actually the delivery of a full performance – without the benefit of props, costume, professional hair styling or make up. Or pay. It also must be delivered while balancing ten pages of script and seeming like your not just pretending while you are performing alongside someone who is just pretending as they just a hired “reader.” All this is done in front of a firing squad of hiring types who openly judge me as I pour my heart out with someone else’s words – which could easily crush your confidence.
Yet, that is not the spirit crushing part of my job interview. That’s just the “art” part.
Actress and author Diane Farr’s new book, Kissing Outside the Lines, charts the personal and political challenges of entering an interracial marriage. This week in GOOD’s video series, What Do You Love, Farr takes us on a tour of the small stuff. Here are 10 little things she loves:
1 when the babysitter walks in the door
2 seeing the freeway is empty
3 exhaling on the purple yoga mat
4 any class but coach
5 finding my man’s hand in my sleep under the covers
6 being included
7 being cooked for
8 seven hours of sleep in a row
9 my first day in a new place
10 holding my little ones’ hands in mine
The Numb3rs star pens a hilarious memoir about the challenges that await a mixed-race couple.
Love may conquer all, but that doesn’t make it any easier to win over strict Korean parents. In Kissing Outside the Lines, actress Diane Farr tells the humorous take of dating her histand-to-be, marketing executive Seung Yong Chung, sharing her own creative methods (like hiring a “cultural attache”) and those of 20 mixed race and religious couples across the country. Now a mom of three, Diane, 42, talks to Star about her successful struggle.
Q: We all know you as an actress. When did you start writing?
The writing was born from filling in the times between acting gigs. I hated sitting around waiting for someone to give me a job. Over 15 years I just got better at it.
Q: How difficult was your courtship, exactly?
Mine is a very traditional Korean story. My husband’s parents sent relatives to meet me one at a time until there were enough approvals. By the time I met them they couldn’t have been kinder, but I was never unaware that the process was their doing.
Q: How did you handle it?
As my husband said, disliking your child’s choice of mate is part of the process in an Asian family. It sort of became a game – a game I wanted to win.
Q: What will readers take away from the book?
You just have to keep showing up and being the person you are because most of this is fear of the unknown. A change of heart takes time.
Diane Farr
Character: Jill Robinson, is a Grad Student/Teacher’s Assistant who meets Hank while having dinner at The Deanery. They end up going at it on top of the Dean’s desk in his home.
Background: Diane Farr has written two books. The first, The Girl Code, was published in 2001 and has been translated into 7 languages. Her most recent book, Kissing Outside the Lines was published in May 2011 and is a comical memoir on her path to an interracial marriage. Farr also writes for a number of American magazines and has an internationally syndicated newspaper column for the International Herald Tribune. Diane was a co-host of Loveline on MTV for 200 episodes, and made guest appearances on The Drew Carey Show, Arli$$ and CSI. She portrayed the recurring role of Amy DeLuca, mother to series co-star Majandra Delfino’s character Maria, on The WB’s and later UPN’s Roswell. She also played Maddie Hudson on The WB’s Like Family. Diane appeared in the cast of Rescue Me, playing a firefighter for two seasons. She left Rescue Me to star as FBI agent Megan Reeves on the CBS crime drama
Numb3rs.
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The Numb3rs vet, who guest starred on CSI: Miami in October, will appear in an upcoming Season 4 episode of The Mentalist, TVLine has learned exclusively.
Mentalist Scoop: Morena Baccarin Teases Her ‘Juicy’ Encore
Farr will play Amy Barron, a Type-A, business-minded owner of a small winery in North California. Joining the actress in the outing are Bonnie Somerville (Cashmere Mafia, NYPD Blue) as Amy’s friend/business partner, who is accused of murder, and Kathryn Joosten (Desperate Housewives) as the murder victim’s neighbor.
True Blood‘s James Frain rounds out the crowded guest cast.
The episode is slated to air during February sweeps.





