Life Left to Live

HOORAY!!  NO WORK AGAIN BECAUSE A LIFE-TAKING, FLOOD-CAUSING, DEVASTATING HURRICANE!!! I NEED to work. I am bummed about these missed days. Work aside, I also dislike being idle for so long. I feel too young and anxious and life-loving to be stuck at home.

Life can be cut really short, but if you're lucky (and close to me in age) you might have 60+ years to go!  60! You know how much life that is to live?! I'm not one to judge how you decide to spend the rest of your possibly REALLY long life ahead though. I am however, confident that complaining and being lazy are not the happiest & healthiest ways to bide your time. I'm also incredibly turned off by young people that are really stuck in their ways. Like when their daily habits read like the movie Groundhog Day. It's so uneventful to me! It's 2012, conventional life is harder and harder to define and even more difficult depending on where you live but I think people born of the same generation are even clashing in their beliefs.

I feel like so many my age, woman more so (I'll say it!) are ungrateful, know it alls. It's almost like a bunch of you took the feminist movement the wrong way or something and think the world owes you something. That now all of a sudden, a "successful" woman is allowed to set the standard and can put the rest down seems to be leading a lot of you to complete asshole-dom.

I'm also really turned off by how woman talk about men these days. Specifically, I find lots of women unattractive once I've heard them spew a few "I think he should"s over a meal.  Am I wrong? I feel such a lack in self-reflection amongst my ladies.  Everyone is out to blame rather than co-evolve while I'm all about 50/50 with most things (yes, I'm a Libra.).

While writing this, I saw my friend Bex's post on her Facebook and it was another thing that has recently crossed my mind. She wrote: "We ALL have willpower... it's how and why we do everything that we do. Now, what are you willing yourself to do today? Is it your will to be positive and healthy or lazy and apathetic? Is it your will to move toward joy or toward mediocrity?" She preceded this by explaining our skewed definition of willpower and how we only seem to use it as example of what we are depriving ourselves of. I know that I take an active role in being who I want to be. Concerning myself with things that really matter and trying my best not to whine about most things really. I don't think I'm always right, but I strive to be rational.

Ugh, I'm all over the place with this post it's the PMS I swear. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm so over people not taking responsibility for the type of person they are or want to become. They're convinced at such a young age that they've got it all figured out and the rest of the world needs to catch up.  It makes me uncomfortable when someone sets their self in stone so soon. I worry about them. While I worry I'm also annoyed. Get over yourself.

This is so much garbage, does any of it even make sense? hahah FML!

Ciao for now,

TT

E is for Enough Crying Already!

I had one of the best weekends I've had in a long time, but it was also super emotional. I'm not sure of exactly what it was, but there was a bajillion thoughts going through my head. I was crying pretty uncontrollably come Saturday afternoon. It was so bizarre. I was so overcome with all sorts of feelings that they demanded physical manifestation. I'm such a cry baby :(

I finally got to see my BFF I grew up with. Only this visit I met her almost 7 month old baby. I fell in love instantly and looked at my friend in an entirely new way. I cannot believe some of my best friends are moms. It's unreal. I had to say goodbye after an hour or so and during our goodbye hug I had that feeling of not wanting to let go. The second I closed the door to the house behind me, tears flooded my eyes. I think it was a mixture of missing my old friends, feeling like I'm way behind in life, and  overall just wondering what the fuck I was going to do. After a minute or so I had to calm down, I was heading to my parents' house and they're all up in my face.

I played it cool until I went upstairs to shower (everyone knows that's the best place to cry because the water washes it all away and soothes your red face ha!). A blend of fear, sadness, heaping spoonfuls of self-loathing, and a pinch of anger were in that shower with me. I was enraged with the universe.  I didn't understand how I got so far across the street from my friends.

That night I headed further into South Jerz for a girl's (and 1 boy) night. Some of us spilled some pretty big beans that we hadn't shared out loud yet and yet again I was crying (while of course laughing at myself saying "SEEEE! I CAN'T STOP!") In a drunken cry fest mode, I actually asked my friend out loud "Damnit, do I have to move back to NJ?" (To which, LP calmly replied, "I think you do."). While I have NO intention to soberly do this, it was even crossing my mind on the drive down. I felt, on that day, that I was missing out on so much. Too much. That I missed my friends, and that feeling of simplicity and comfort I had in the burbs of my hometown. In reality, at this time, I have no desire to move back. And I know if I did I would sit in my room night after night feeling like I had thrown everything I wanted out the window and for nothing.

While my friends' lives move on I have this feeling like I have to be there. Well, I don't. I think all of us just need to know that we are only a couple (if that) hours away physically, and only a 1 second phone call. I'm not far behind anyone being single and childless, I'm just on a different road for now. I don't think any of us really know where we're going, but it's nice to be in this life and figuring it out together.

Ciao for now,

TT

Dream Hotel

I was standing outside the Dream Hotel on 10th Ave a few weeks ago when a handsome older gentleman walked by and sorta gave me the once over. I figured his scrunched face was more about his distaste for my pink hair and less about the left over sun peeking through the buildings. I was wrong.

 When he came back around the corner I figured he lived close by (he does), but when he approached me I wasn't sure what he was gonna say..."I have to tell you, I love your hair, and your pale skin, with the black [dress] and the tattoos. I'm a photographer currently working on portraits focusing on the profile and I would love to shoot you if you're interested." He quickly opened his iPad case and showed me some of his work. A few portraits that looked painted (which I love photos like this) and then some beautiful body shots that come to find out are of escorts. These statuesque abs and booty shots were so beautiful, I said yes and introduced myself. He asked what I did and he was even more excited. I gave him my card and finally our schedules worked out and we shot on Sunday at his home studio.
This is his favorite so far. I remember him saying "fix your hair it's going flat" so in a very sarcastic, faux sexy way I fluffed it up and said "like this?" in my breathy voice. LOOK AT THAT JAWLINE hahah Just sayin.

I'm actually glad he wanted to do some black on black shots. I too have come to love my pale skin and it's contrast against the dark. Especially with the pink hair for added effect. I don't love this pic, but I get it. Did you notice my beauty mark? I had laughingly said "aw man I forgot my mole" after we wrapped the day and he said where do you usually wear it and I informed him that it changes, but pointed to my cheek. Well, thank you post production, I look like a totally different person!

While chatting post-shoot he was telling me about how he's gone through this total shift from artsy still life or architecture to portraits. The more he shoots people the more apparent it becomes (which I totally agree) that he is meant to have a person in front of his camera. He told me how fascinated he is by people, to which I quickly shouted out "ME TOO!" I confessed my love for biographies and how inspired I was by people more than anything else in the world. The good in them and the bad.  I was proud of him when he told me that he was finally getting more confident in just going up to someone he found interesting and asking to take their picture, sometimes right then and there. He had this beautiful shot of an old woman sitting in a cafe whose hair was perfectly sculpted resembling the Sydney Opera House. No lie. That picture will be in a book someday. Good thing that's his bill paying job: publishing, editing, "essentially I put together coffee table books".  You can check out more of Tom's work here. Too bad for you I got to see some of the good stuff not on his site yet!!

I just started reading Clara Bow's biography by David Stenn (Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild) that I got a birthday present from my friend KB. It's already so sad, her childhood was much less than desirable to say the least. I was crying on the subway. I'm so corny haha I'm just getting into the beginning of her career though. Also, it's a first edition hardback from the 80s that she paid a few cents for at a yard sale...total score!! I had no idea Clara was from Brooklyn. It's pretty amazing to hear the mention of some streets at the turn of the century that I actually walk down today and how she worked at Nathan's hotdog stand for 1 day only. Crazy right?!

Well, I'm off to work. I interviewed for this great opportunity for a 2 month project but I didn't get it. I'm sorta not surprised and could understand why they went with someone else but it would have been a really great job to be a part of. Oh well, what can I do except keep trudgin' along!

Ciao for now,

TT

So what now?

I went to LA, I turned 29, Meat My Friends is over...

LA ruled, being 29 is fantastic, Meat My Friends was a phenom show (IT WAS AMAZING!! Shout outs to  Evelyn Vinyl, Francine, Foxy Vermouth & Dottie Dynamo. ALSO I had a childhood friend from the band Airplane Noise play some tunes to start the night and it was perfect). My friends showed up from NJ and that is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS a great feeling and the audience in general was an enthusiastic group of people as usual. Producing a show is always the fuel I need to keep going.

Soooo, what now?
I applied to a few jobs & castings, my mom hooked me up with some awesome finds from Torrid (I get 95% of my jeans there), AND I'm working on a few productions (PHILLY, WE'RE COMING FOR YA!).  Now that some things have settled, I'm looking forward to having more time - thanks to 1 less job, no thanks to less money - to focus creatively and really push myself to be an entertainer. I've been toying with joke writing although I don't seem to be good at it. What I MUST train myself to do though, is write everything down. Like most people I'll have a light bulb moment and then before I know it, it's gone! Dust! Mental dust.

I read Joan River's latest book I Hate Everyone...Starting with Me and got so inspired (I've yet to see the documentary but I'm getting my copy soon). She is so raw & fearless in her comedy. Insult comic extraordinaire. No one is safe in that book! My fave rant of hers? Short and sweet:

I hate narcissists. They never talk about me.

On that note I'm outta here! I'm feeling inclined to talk about lazy people with preachy, big ideas. An object at rest stays at rest, freak!

Ciao for now,

TT