Welcome to Lauren-Blair Donovan’s Blog
Heya. I’m Lauren-Blair Donovan and this is my website! I’m a comedian/writer/actress/puppeteer living in Los Angeles, CA. It was important to me to have a website with a blog feature for many reasons. So much of our online life is overly curated and overly polarized. I wanted a space to do deeper dives than your general drive by social media posts in hopes that some of my lived experiences resonate with some of you all. Plus too many people in real life have cut me off when trying to share said lived experiences (I’m a comedian for a reason…) so I love me a space where nobody can interrupt me, gaslight my feelings/lived experiences, or give tone-deaf advice I didn’t ask for. Below are the experiences I want to share with y’all going forward!
Grief and CPTSD
Some topics are kind of a bummer, like the death of my parents and all of my related thoughts on grieving, why we’re so afraid to talk about death as a society, and what we can do to fix how we approach conversations about death and heavy emotions. I had a YouTube video essay series on this very topic, but for various reasons I’ve decided to move it to a strictly written medium over here.
Adding on to my accidental sad girl reputation, I’ll also be speaking about my experiences with learning that I have Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and all of the varying nuances and life changing information I’ve had to learn about in that process. Even if you haven’t had a life changing loss or you don’t have CPTSD I think there’s things I have to say about both that are relatable to most people- and either or it’s good to learn about other people’s lived experiences so please stick around!
Is Weed Influencing a Thing? If not, I’m inventing it!
On a way more fun note, in my healing journey I’ve explored cannabis through most of it’s forms, (like THC, CBD, and CBG) and have a lot of thoughts on what works well, what doesn’t, and where any limitations lay with this plant. Too often people who love weed claim it’s a miracle drug, which it can be, but it isn’t a one sized fits all medicine. Upon trying to research it myself I found super clinical studies on it using jargon I did not know first hand OR it was just products being promoted by the brand with limited information about what it can and cannot do. I’ve spoken to several people who are curious about weed now that it’s legal but feel intimated about walking into a dispensary not really knowing what they are looking for. Since I had to explore this all for myself firsthand, it seemed like an obvious fit to include what my experiences (good and bad) have been with weed when trying to use it to sleep, calm down, escape my mind, build back an absent appetite, and so forth in a way that hopefully provides some middle ground for people who are curious.
Los Angeles, Show Business, Friendship, and Pop Culture
And perhaps somewhere in the middle of being a tragic figure I never asked to be and the fun that can happen while getting high, I intend to discuss friendship (friends are so important but we never talk about the complexities of friendship in culture the way we do family or romantic relationships), random things in pop culture/media and how they infiltrate our sense of selves, as well as what it’s really like to live in LA while trying to eek out a career in show business. The LA series will hardly be a “how to make it in Hollywood” series because hell, I’m still trying to figure that out myself, but a series on keeping your mental health in check in an industry that’s by default pretty insane as well as debunking some myths about Los Angeles in general. If any of this intrigues you I hope you stick around and come back to read the more nitty gritty things I have to say on these subjects.
Other Factoids and General Background Info
Since this is an introduction post, here’s some other random factoids about me in case you’re curious.
Show Business Background
I’ve been trained at Upright Citizens Brigade for both sketch and improv, The Groundlings for improv, and The Second City Hollywood for puppetry and some other random niches of comedy ranging from physical comedy to accents and dialects.
Learning to puppeteer was a near lifelong dream come true as when I was eleven years old I decided my career objective was to become the next Jim Henson. Spoiler alert: everyone thought I was weird for wanting that, but I guess I showed them when five years ago that dream started to come true, thanks to a Jim Henson Studios alum (shoutout to the lovely Amie Enriquez) teaching a puppeteering class at Second City Hollywood. I’m in the middle of relaunching my former stage show, Buzzkill Blvd (from the “before times” of course) for TikTok and YouTube. My fourteen hand/rod monster humanoid puppets all star in the project, along with a rotating cast of humans, in a Sesame Street-for-adults-with-an-emotional-intelligence-bent. Exact launch date TBA but tune back here and on my socials to stay updated!
I’ve been apart of a few web series from varying sides of the camera (writing, puppeteering, acting, etc) but I have an unscripted series called Creepy and Kooky Cali Vlog where a special guest each episodes joins me in a famous cemetery (or other creepy and/or kooky landmark) in Los Angeles. We find the graves of the stars and try to normalize a conversation around death and loss…but in a fun way! Other projects are coming but I now know better than to promote too much before anything is released as too often things fall apart of get delayed. But stay tuned!
Some drive by facts:
I’m originally from the Philly side of Pennsylvania, but have also lived in Florida and Colorado before landing in California.
I’ve been obsessed with Sonic Youth, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Andrew WK for all of my adult life. Currently- while I’ve always been a fan of these genres- I’m on a huge deep dive kick of dark wave/post punk/goth music as well as old school blues/soul/Motown from the 1960s and 1970s.
My favorite movies are My Girl, Tommy Boy, Virgin Suicides, Boogie Nights, and Ghost World. Fantasia is my favorite Disney movie. I also love awesomely bad movies like Showgirls and making my friends watch movies like this is my love language.
Favorite television shows are Soap, Mad Men, Freaks and Geeks, Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23 (such an underrated and hilarious gem), The Office, Daria, New Girl, and the “which one is not like the other” of this list…I got weirdly into One Tree Hill. I’m also a fan of most classic sitcoms, whether we’re talking mid century ones, like I Love Lucy, or ones from the 90s, like Boy Meets World. (I’m living for Pod Meets World and I highly recommend it, for what it’s worth.) I’m currently watching Check it out! With Dr Steve Brule and I’m dying from laughing so hard at John C Riley calling so many men “hunks.”
My dog, Lady Grimaldi, goes with me almost everywhere as my support animal and in training PSA dog. (The training is….going. We’ll see what happens…) But she’s an adorable Italian Greyhound mix hailing from a Palm Springs animal shelter. If you follow me on social media you will without a doubt see her firmly planted in my lap in many, many, many photos. And since I get asked this a lot, her name is a homage to Grace Kelly, aka Princess Grace, the 1950s Academy Award winning actress who became princess of Monaco- and the royal family’s last name is Grimaldi. Tell me you found a less basic way to name your dog after your favorite actress without telling me you found a less basic way to name your dog after your favorite actress.
Please. do. not. call. me. Lauren. It’s Lauren-Blair or just Blair. Maybe one day I’ll elaborate but for now, please and thanks :)
My pronouns are she/her, but I strongly prefer She-Devil and Her Majesty, thank you very much.
Okay, I think I overloaded you with enough Lauren-Blair for now! Please come back again, and if you wish, here’s a link of various social media etc you can support me on and get updates through! Thank you in advance!