I remember getting ready for school when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. My whole family was watching the news as I went about my daily routine. My step-mom and my dad sitting in my step-mom’s mother’s room, on the sofa, just still and quiet. My dad tried to tell me that we were watching history, but it didn’t register with me. I was young. I remember so vividly watching the second plane hit. Damn. I never thought I would see a plane crash. I was in the 9th grade.

I went to school and everyone was talking about it in every one of my classes. The teachers were asking us how we felt, if we were okay, what we were doing when it happened. They told us this was history happening. There they went again, those adults with the history speech.

I’m not a very emotional person, but I grieve for those who grieve. The feeling of loss is so awful and something I identify with so well, my heart broke in two when I finally understood what had happened. I will always think of the families that lost someone ten years ago today.

I was 14 years old and I was getting ready for school when the first plane hit. Where were you and what were you doing September 11, 2001?

Right after I graduated from cosmetology school (oh ps, I graduated from cosmetology school), I went to my cousin’s bachelorette party. Natalie and I used to be really, really close, but since we live so far apart now, it’s really hard to stay in touch and hang out like we used to. So anyway, I went to this dinner a week before the wedding and ended up being a bridesmaid. I scrambled to find a grey dress, which as it turns out I owned one, and I also ended up doing Natalie’s hair. I love her so much, if I could, I would drive to her everyday and do her hair in pretty braids. Her wedding was beautiful and Tyler is so amazing to her. So glad I could be there.

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”
-Chuck Close

So the new freshman class started at school on Monday. That means I’m officially in the homestretch! Longest year of my life.

I’ve been so busy lately; it’s exhausting. I had a shoot with Penelope’s Vintage on Monday. It was easy and as awesome as always. I adore Chanelle and everything she does. She’s such a cool person to work with on a regular basis.

I shot with a Zivity Model from Oakland, Lisa Price, on Sunday. I wanted to go to Ink n Iron, but I didn’t fully decide what I wanted to do until it was too late. It didn’t turn out so bad though because the pictures came out awesome.

Other than that, I have no news to report on. Travis and I had a lunch outside a couple days ago and I stole some shots of Holly (the dog) and the garden at his parents house. I also have a wedding on Saturday so be on the look out for images from that.

So many things are changing right now; changing with the seasons I guess. I feel better now, more than ever. I am building up my empire and I made my new year’s resolution to take names. I’ve been working so hard.

Nicole and Moonie moved out of their room at the ranch. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. On one hand, I got some sweet shots at the ranch, the locations and props there just can’t be compared with anywhere else, but on the other hand, it was sort of a crutch and I didn’t really like having other people around while I’m shooting with a model. I owe a lot to the ranch, it helped me develop a style all my own and definitely appreciate that, but that chapter in my photography life is definitely closed.

Recently I had some shots on national television. Such a cool feeling to see your work on tv like that. I don’t know how many people watched the premier episode of TLC’s NY Ink, but 81,000 people are fans on facebook and that’s pretty huge, if you ask me. Alysha Nett, a model and friend that I’ve shot many time now, was on the first episode of NY Ink and they showed a few pictures that I took of her. I was SO STOKED. Seriously, I can’t even give words to how excited I was when it dawned on me what was going on. So cool.

I’ve had a couple other cool features pop up too. I was featured on Juxtapoz Magazine’s website and also on Ink Butter. I know it’s not print or anything, but I remember reading Juxtapoz when I was like 15 and thinking that everything in it was so amazing and now I’m on their website. It’s crazy and I love it. I just feel fortunate lately. I’m still pretty darn poor, but I feel fortunate nonetheless.

I’m sooooo close to being done with school. I’m 1200 hours deep in this thing and I can’t wait to be done. I’ve never done anything in my life so draining on a daily basis. I’ve worked full time for a long, long time now and nothing has ever compared to this. Who would have thought, huh? I have 400 hours left and when it’s all said and done, I will definitely know that i earned that stupid license. Cosmetology school is definitely not something that I ever thought would be a challenge. I guess they showed me.

Noteworthy things in my life lately:

• new (best) friends. I ‘m looking at the girls night girls right now.
• LOTS of shooting. especially coming up next month
• officially halfway through school. Thank god
• I shot the every15minutes.com event in Simi Valley this year. Mostly BTS. pretty gnarly stuff.
• Trav’s grandma is pretty sick right now. My house is under construction. I feel like no one’s head in on straight, but that’s okay.
• I been drinking a lot of wine. I’ve been drinking a lot of wine while in bathtubs.
• When I’m not drinking wine, I’m drinking coffee. Can never have too many vices, right?
• I think Doli has cat diabetes. Travis and I were watching Cats 101 and Doli has all the symptoms. :/
• I did a charity set for Zivity. It should be up by the end of the week and Pia and I are donating everything we make from the set to Japan. “Support the far east, yo.”

Okay. enough words. Here’s some pictures. Bts, girl time, you know, whatever.

BTS Hattie Watson: shot by serena and nicole

BTS Mynxii and my butt crack: crack shot by Fae O’Moonie

BTS: my life

Sneak Peak: Something like a Phenomenon

BTS: every 15 minutes

I’m moving soon. My dad quit his job and as a result my family is moving out of state. Travis and I are staying in Simi and moving in with my friend’s cousin, Randy (who is awesome, btw), but we can’t take Doli with us because Randy has a husky-wolf mix named Kobe that is bigger than a great dane and will probably eat Doli. We’ll be renting a house instead of an apartment, which is nice so once we’re settled in, we’re going to look into getting a dog of our own. I’m already sad about losing Doli because I’ve had her for so long and she makes me happy; it sucks that I’ll rarely be able to visit her. Although, to be honest, I’ll probably never visit my parents.

I hate updating on school. It’s boring, I know. But here are some things about school that aren’t boring. #1 Old ladies like to tip us in scratchers. That is totally awesome. Very thrilling tip. #2 I can do whatever I want to my dollheads and my teachers will always tell me it’s creative and looks good. This is awesome because it keeps me entertained and I can’t literally have the worst weave in the school, but add a funky cut or color and BAM! instant amazing hairstyle. #3 I can give girls 70′s hairstyles/blowouts all day long and everyone loves it. Fuck yeah, 70′s hair. Also, if anyone wants to buy me the rose blowout serum pictured above, please do. I want it. It smells SOOO good and the very first ingredient on the bottle is rose water. hell yeah.

I’ve been busting my ass shooting lately. I’ve shot for some publications (that I’m keeping on the DL until further notice), a latex designer and Penelope’s Vintage, and a ridiculous amount of Zivity sets. I’ve been shooting with:

Alysha Nett

Hattie Watson

Mynxii White & Fae

And I have more shoots coming up with Amy Fries, Mynxii again, Jaime  Doe, and Bridget Blonde. Hopefully Serena can do makeup for my shoots comng up because she’s done it for the last few and she seriously does such an amazing job. I mean it when I say that if you need makeup done for anything, HIRE HER because she’s fucking kills it at what she does. The latex designer I shot for was Abigail Greydanus. Her latex is so, so beautiful and I’m stoked to shoot it again. And the icing on the cake is that Abigail is sooo nice. She bought us pizza after our last shoot! Pizza!!!

Speaking of food, I’ve had the WORST diet lately. I pretty much only drink coffee and wine. Sometimes water, but definitely not as much as I should. I have like no money at all so I have been eating lots of top ramen and $5 pizzas. The best meal I’ve had in like a month was the food that Mynxii cooked when we had our last girls night. She made eggplant Parmesan and it was soo amazing. I can’t wait for our next girls night tomorrow. <3 I’ll have to bring like koolaid or something since Mynxii gave up alcohol. I’ll have to think of something awesome. I adore you, Mynxii.

Anyway, here’s some behind the scenes shots from my recent shoots. Enjoy!

There’s not really a lot to say. I’ve been in school for about 500 hours now. Only 1100 more to go. It definitely gets easier each week, but it was never really hard to begin with. My blowouts and updos aren’t really great, but my haircuts and waxing make up for it. I’m over credits on a lot of things already and figured out that if I don’t miss anymore time, I can be done with all my credits and graduating in May/June. Not too shabby.

I’ve been trying to hang out with friends more, but my schedule is wonky so it makes it hard. I miss them though. It felt nice to get out for a little while over Thanksgiving break recently. Hopefully I can fill my Christmas break with love too.

Travis got his tires slashed at work the other day. It’s really upsetting because it’s almost retarded how nice he is so we don’t even have a guess as to who did it. I’m hoping they have someone on the security cameras at work. When we went to have the tire fixed yesterday, they found the knife broken off in the tire. It was like 8 inches long and had a really dull tip so I’m pretty amazed that anyone did this to him. Someone put a lot of work into fucking up his tires. :/ Speaking of cars, mine broke down in front of school the other day. It sucked, but travis and I got it working pretty easily. It turns out that I just ran out of gas. My bad. XD

Not much else to say except Trav’s birthday is tomorrow (the big 2-6) and Christmas is in a week so I’ve been busting my butt shooting to buy some decent gifts. I’m not expecting much for Christmas this year since I didn’t get much for my birthday, but if you’re feeling generous, here is the wishlist I made for my parents.

I’ll try to get back to updating more, but if I don’t update before then, have a Merry Christmas and Kick Ass New Year!