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Sometimes i feel like my life is a video game--things seem to be at the mercy of snotty nosed teenager that is too busy trying to get my avatar to jump over magical rainbows to snatch lofty gold coins that might add up to a free life than actually get me to the next level of the game--one step forward and two steps back. (Maybe I shouldn't have said a snotty-nosed teenager--i doubt God would like being compared to such a creature...)

"hot dogs can last up to 20 years in landfills" (and obviously i meant 'expiration'...)

I have been working on a number of blog posts over the past few weeks with amazing titles like: 50lbs, 10 miles & 20 flights of stairs (what it was like moving every 1-6 weeks in Manhattan), Dress Pants or was it Dress & Pants? (my response to 'wear pants to church day' and correct misunderstandings of my post about the subject), 6 ways to eat 6 hotdogs in 6 days (cleaning out my fridge in new york made me eat worse than when i was in college), Pin This! (how Pintrest got me a job offer, even though my personal account only has zero followers),  and last but not least--Diplomas, Old People Jobs & Shoebox Living (how 2013 is going to be my year with a move to NYC to live in my own studio and go to a big person job with benefits and everything).

But alas none of those have graced the blogsphere.

Three weeks ago i was sure this was going to be my year. My NYC boss sat me down the day before i left and offered me a full time job because she liked how i handled the business's Pintrest account and she found me very resilient from all my bouncing around the city. Needless to say she was impressed with me. The next week i was back in Utah and successfully cleaning out my closet and getting ready to move. The New Year came and i made one resolution: to spend the 12 months of the year getting back into prime shape so that i can be 125 while i'm 25. Things were looking good, i was going to look good and my career/living were looking good.

Then three weeks went by without the boss calling me to give me the official offer,
       weeks thinking i was moving next month so most of my things stayed in boxes,
              with my boxes staying the photo lab that is detached from my brother's house where i am squatting...

reunited after 4 months.

Now fast-forward to this past Wednesday.

Milo loves that i live with levi because, well, Milo and i love the same thing: sleep (i have always been that weird kid that gets 8-10 hours of sleep every single night). We went to bed around 10 but then at midnight, after a series of attempts by Milo to wake me up, i took him out to pee. In my delirious state i let him out, talked to levi for a minute, and then went back to bed. Levi then yells up at me "You need to come outside right now." To someone who loves sleep as much as me this was one of the worst sentences.

Turns out the next sentence was going to be even more awful...

"The photo lab is full of water, you need to come out now!"

This, is of course, the same photo lab where i have been storing a majority of my belongings in anticipation of moving 3,000 miles. I put on some shoes and a sweatshirt and ran out of the house to fish out my boxes of belonging. The night was abnormally warm, turns out the teens feel like 40 when it has been in the negatives, and all i saw was water cascading from the lab over the driveway--I failed to notice sheets of ice that lined the driveway under the newly formed puddles. As i deliriously ran towards the open door of the lab i hit a sheet of ice and instantly was on the ground wallowing in inches of ice cold water. Spinning like a turtle i turned my body towards the door and kept going.

Within a matter of minutes levi and i were wet from mid calf down and were tossing boxes to each other from my side of the lab. Soon the garage was filled with every towel from the house sprawled out along the floor with the contents of my boxes strewn on them. For the most part all the boxes that were sitting in 5 inches of water contained books which swelled so much that it was impossible to pull the books from the box and instead we had to rip and cut the boxes apart. When levi had first gone into the lab he had fumbled to turn on the lights (they were behind my boxes with a space for your arm to fit which wasn't so hard to do when water wasn't pouring out the door...) and knocked a few things down in the process but at least he was able to grab the top box which was full of the only full set of magazines that my dad was in.

all my friends are dead

For the next few hours we ripped boxes apart, moved stacks of boxes from the lab to the garage, found all spare towels in the house, changed our icy socks and shoes, washed a load of clothes from a suitcase that filled with water, and levi put the wet/dry vac to work. By 4am both of us were thoroughly exhausted.                                    

my dad built this airplane which landed him on the cover of numerous magazines.

The next morning i was able to asess the damage and start the claim with insurance.

50+ kids books
30+ novels
20 cookbooks
20+ cooking magazines
1 Kate Spade purse
1 vintage suitcase
a few textbooks
a couple antique books
and a dozen irreplaceable books (mostly stuff from my dad) met their demise in a cold watery grave.

Now i sit in levi's family room surrounded by books that are still damp at the core and it turns out that while books possess one of my favorite smells--100 books drying in your family room posses a very terrible smell. This was not the worst thing to happen. Losing 100 books is better than losing a dozen magazines of my dads. Loosing 100 books is better than loosing my camera. Losing 100 books is better than loosing everything from all my boxes in storage. and the list goes on and on.

The thing that does suck is that i was only storing things in the lab because i thought i was moving cross country. Two days after staying up all night rescuing my belongings i finally received an email (not even a phone call) from my nyc boss saying that they have to pull their job offer because it turns out they can't afford to hire me.

i am pretty sure you should check such information before you offer a job.

Now i am almost 25 (this friday!), don't know where i am living (and might have to move in with my mom), am STILL living out of boxes/suitcases for the 6th month in a row, don't know how much of a job i have in utah, and am driving my nephew's car because i can't afford my own. i.am.awesome.

but on the plus side, i finally have the most expensive piece of paper of my life thus far, worth a whopping $32,971.58 (plus books and project cost of course) AND i haven't eaten any hot dogs in three weeks.

point of this story: if i told you i was moving to nyc next month and you could visit anytime because i was getting my own apartment, you might want to rethink your next vacation to visit.

second point of this story: i have been too preoccupied with life to think of something fun to do to celebrate my birthday. At this rate i will probably rent a car since that seems to be the only cool thing that comes with 25. BUT i am still accepting ideas for better options.

2,480 shake shack burgers

By 9:44 last tuesday night i was wasted. All of my belongings were packed, or gingerly shoved into reusable shopping bags, and i was trying to lighten my moving load by eating the biggest bowl of Golden Grahams with an exorbitant amount of milk. My feet were filthy, my head was throbbing, i was unable to process anymore emotions, and soon i had to lug all my belongings 0.6 miles to the couch i would be inhabiting, on and off, for the next two weeks. Utterly exhausted and eating cereal on the nasty floor should make it clear how i feel about my current situation--it blows.

i took this on the bus a week ago, now just image the rain as tears on my face and you get the picture.

Last monday i was doing what i seem to do most mondays, ride the bus back from philadelphia to new york (i love new york but i also love that for the first time ever i live within a few hours of my sister and her family). Have you even been that person on a bus crying hysterically to the point where there is no need to hide it because everyone knows that it is you? yeah, me neither, well until monday. 

Part way through my torturious journey, my brother called to talk to me about our taxes. We own a small business together and our last accountant wasn't the best or brightest so levi recently kicked him to the curb and hired a competent one. The only problem with this scenario is that because of things that the old accountant did and advised us to do, we needed to revise our taxes for the last three years. I knew about this and had set aside some money for our favorite holiday, October 15th--the tax extension deadline. Little did we know that my savings would be about $12,000 (just savings, i had some other cash squirreled away in clocks and the like) shy of what just i owed. After one conversation with my brother i went from having enough money to live in nyc for the next few months and buy a decent car to take home, to being completely and utterly broke. All my liquid cash is gone. My grant for my internship is gone. My savings are gone. Now, for the first time ever, i am in debt. 

Do you know what $16,000 can buy?

lets try some different categories of my favorite things:

camera equipment:

-Canon 5D Mark III  $3,199

-Canon 50mm 1.2 L Series lens $1439

-Canon 85mm 1.2 L Series lens $1999

-Canon Speedlight 600EX-RT flash $557

-Profoto Studio Lighting Kit $3280

-Manfrotto Tripod $599

-MacBook Pro with Retina Display $2799

Total: $13,872

Kate Spade:

-purse $498

-dresses $398, $478, $448, $398

-coat $698

-colored jeans (in all six colors obviously) 6x$198

And that was only $4,106, that means there is almost $12000 left for 10 more purses, 12 pairs of shoes, and one more coat. So basically a total kick ass new wardrobe (you know, if i switched out a few purses for things like pants and shirts...)

Cars:

which is a lot newer than the Ford Escape i was planning on buying

or 2,000 bottles of Essie nail polish.

or 1,067 Costco chocolate cakes

or 941 Statue of Liberty cruises

or 2,480 Shake Shack burgers

or probably almost a whole baby on the black market.

or it can pay uncle sam so that he doesn't want you anymore.

After my crying subsided on the bus i transfered to the subway to head to my apartment where my check books lay dorment. Over the next few hours i went to two FedEx locations, printed $107 worth of tax forms--you know, $0.50 seems really reasonable for a b&w print, FedEx, along with your $0.30 a minute computer fee...--ran (literally) 8 blocks to the post office, ran to the drug store for tape, skipped every other stair as I lunged back to the post office, stuffed ten envelopes, wrote six checks, sealed everything nice and tight and said good bye to (most) of my assets. You'd think my night would end there, i mean the clock was abut to toll midnight, but no, since i got kicked out of my apartment i couldn't just go home, i had to then go to my friend's house to get her spare key so that i could move onto her couch the following day. 

saying good-bye to the studio

By the time my golden graham-eating-on-the-floor evening had transpired the following day, i was exhausted, still homeless, and very angry at stupid connie who kicked me out of my sublet. Needless to say i was a bit (am still slightly) a hott mess. But hott mess or not, i still needed to get it together and move all my crap--which has seemed to grow exponentially since i thought i would be in a studio for 4 months. I now hate hangers, food bought at costco, full size sheets, you know, all the finer things in life i like when i don't have to move them around the city in the larger-than-life blue Ikea bags. 

And this is how all my belongings migrated back .6 miles to where they came from only 36 days ago. Back along the same street, past the same cathedral  next to the same homeless man--who when he heard me talking to my sister on the phone about wearing dresses to work said, "God bless you!" (he must think i have nice legs, which obviously is true)--and finally pass the gaggle of rats that inhabit 109th street. When i first did this trip moving to the subleased studio (i walked this part of manhattan 7 times going to and from with my stuff) i walked because i had nothing better to do and i didn't want to draw attention from the co-op with a taxi, this time i was just feeling too poor to hail a cab. But when you have a friend that is willing to drag two bags and you can fit: your camera bag, shoulder bag, larger-than-life ikea bag, and hat on your frame and STILL managed to drag a suitcase that is 4 feet tall with all your food strapped to the back, why not just walk?

and that brings me to the present.

i still have a reeses problem... but i did mangage to fit all this in that green bag and strap it to my suitcase. win.

i am currently sleeping on a very comfortable couch in my friends room because she is very kind. But because i have vistors coming to the city i also spend time in sketchy hotels in Brooklyn and a friend's studio in Harlem. But those, those times are for a different post. But i will tell you that they involve christmas hams, trains so loud you can hear them in the shower, fish heads, duvet covers finagled into window sills, oh and Ricky Martin.

**and if this post worries you, don't be. I am not homeless in the sense of being on the street, i just don't have a place to call my own, and i have a thing called a credit card (and a loan from my business) so i am fine. I might not have any spare change for the next year, or a bed to call my own or the next two months, but i think i can survive that.**

my secret (night) life

I have always been adamant that i am not a night person, yet ironically, i think that is when i am most entertaining. As i have mentioned before in terrors in the night, i have a problem with sleep walking/talking/dancing. Nothing has changed, i've still been sleep walking lately, but a new dimension has been added--incredibly vivid and rememberable dreams.

For an entire week i woke up each morning being able to recount dreams in their entirety. Or i woke up acting out my dream, like searching my house for my new baby niece nora (i came to with the light on and me throwing my clothes out of the hamper, sure she was under there). The dreams seemed to last for hours, not just seconds. The best two dreams are as follows:

'dave and nishelle's carnival wedding'

There i was, standing in an elevator minding my own business. Suddenly the door slides open and Adam Clayton waltzed in and started chatting it up with me. Dazed by running into a member of U2--months after they came to salt lake none-the-less--i continued on my way to my apartment, which had morphed into a combination of Seven Peak waterpark meets the Riverwoods shopping center meets Carriage Cove apartments. It was pretty sweet.











Walking around the complex to my stairs i noticed something was out of place. There stood the edge and bono assembling and test riding a ferris wheel for my friend's wedding. "Oh hey, i just saw adam clayton the elevator, what a small world." I can't remember much else about our conversation other than that they also made some humorous good natured jabs at me. We chatted for a few minutes, i didn't want to be that creepy lingering fan, so up the stairs i went to my apartment.

(Alas, paul mccartney wasn't in my dream, but i decided to throw him in for good measure. Next time i will ask him to make an appearance since he seems to be pals with U2, which after my dream practically makes me best friends with him too...)

I went upstair to tell my friends about the down-to-earth rockstars that i had just met and we got carried away playing games and singing. All the sudden i got a text from dave that made me remember why i had gone upstairs.

text: 'hey, i thought you would be out here finding the perfect angel to photograph us when we came out!'




Oh crap.

I was hired to be the photographer at dave and nishelle's wedding. I had gotten carried away reenacting my U2 encounter that i forgot to watch the time to walk down to the temple to photograph them when they walked out. With that i flew down three flights of stairs with camera equipment hanging from every limb. Once i hit the ferris wheel i ran face first into two of my friends, also wedding guest. By then the lights of the carnival were in full swing and music and churros filled the air. After about three seconds of discussing with them what our plan of attack should be for the evening, i totally forgot about my job as main photographer.

After dinner and many rounds of milk bottle toss i realized my blunder. I sat up in my bed, woken by fear and guilt. I instantly thought 'well someone had to have been there with a camera, i am sure that they got some photos...' my heart was racing and i was debating what to text back to dave, 'um sorry you paid me to take photos and i decided to win a giant bear from a carny instead...'

luckily, right before i reaching for my phone to text dave, i realized it was a dream.

this is how i image dave would look if his wedding photographer was at the wedding and forgot to take a single photo...

i know i should stop sleeping with my phone near by bed, it might start getting weird...


i was going to write about my other awesome dream where i ransacked a chinese sweat shop that mass produced counterfeit banana republic luxe credit cards, slapped a woman in the face, stole a baby, ran through a waterpark, witnessed the baby turn into a frog, and then walked home in the clear since i couldn't get charged with kidnapping because there wasn't a baby as proof anymore. Now that i think about it, maybe i should have told that story in entirety instead. But i will tell you one thing, finding photos of local scenery and celebrities is much easier than finding images of babies morphing into frogs. I would know, i tried...

363/365

this time last year i decided that i was actually going to make a new years resolution. this was big. this was huge. don't get me wrong, i make goals, i tend to write them in dry erase on my bathroom mirror and erase them as i knock them out of the park- but new year's resolutions, not my thing.


but last year i decided that i would wear makeup everyday for one year and make it my new year's resolution.

see, proof i wear makeup.

you see, i sell high end cosmetics for a living. i can tell you the shade name, retail price, shipping weight, our price, and a decent description of every item that we carry. don't worry that we have over 600 listings on ebay, over 50 shades of lip gloss alone. i am pretty good at cosmetics, however, wearing them and knowing how to wear them is something else...



i like clothes and accessories. i am known for my extensive banana republic wardrobe and amazing assortment of stilettos. i always know what i was going to wear, but i never put much thought into my hair or makeup. i decided this should change.

i figured out how to photograph my crazy eye, don't include it! (oh, but i did leave in my scar from eye surgery) thank you banana, for this eye covering fedora for $3.74

now that it is december 31st, 2010, i can officially say that i succeeded at my first ever new year's resolution. i wore some form of makeup everyday (except for the two days i spent in lake powell) of 2010. and since it is the last day of the year, i decided to go out with a bang. i am wearing mascara (and it is not sunday), and i even added in a few smashbox false lashes.

there is a reason i rarely do self portraits, it just doesn't work for me... modeling that is...

so how do i feel it turned out? i think it went pretty well. i actually had a short lived romance and went on dates with a few other guys this year. that blows my semi annual dates of years past out of the water. i guess boys do like makeup, so stop lying that you like it when girls don't wear it.

cookie says...

Needless to say, lately i have been a stressed out basket case.

I have this great fear that i am a lazy person, then i think about my day and realize that is a crazy idea.

I have become somewhat of a workaholic the last year or so. It isn't rare for me to spend over 9 hours a day at work. Heck, last week I worked 9, 10, and 11 hour days plus my other two normal 8ish hour days and a few hours on saturday. Most likely that equals 50 hours of work.

i am a cosmetic selling rockstar.

But here is the dilemma, i have about a billion other things to do besides work. Among other things, i am applying to the bfa photography program in exactly 12 days and THAT should be my top priority. I have been somewhat frustrated with my portfolio and my major in general which has made this nearly impossible to work on. And what is my coping mechanism for stress? avoid it like the plaque, (hence all the work), and clean. Well, I have committed to working half days and my house is quite clean (there are even two fresh flower arrangements and my bathroom drawers and closest are organized and cleaned out) i guess that means that i don't have any excuses and i have to start creating.

i talked to my sister last week and vented about life, life-it kinda sucks at the moment, and she told me i needed some r&r and should fly out to the east coast (i have this great thing called a delta airlines voucher that is itching to be used). She also said that if i don't go on a vacation that i need to go to a spa or something and relax.

i guess the fortune cookie gods thought the same thing:

i texted this to jenny,

jenny: "listen to the cookie!"

me: "i always listen to cookies"

jenny: 'me too. they are the only tasty treats i trust. donuts always get me into trouble."

and that is why i call her when i am annoyed with life.

the end.

and by end i mean back to that portfolio that is looming over my head...