Unhappy Hour, or How I Find Myself Waving a Sword in My Living Room on a Monday Night

Sometimes I want to step back and take a snapshot of my life so that I can look back later and have a good laugh.  Just a few minutes ago I was holding this aloft, wondering what my neighbors must think.

I'll skip telling you why I have the sword (it's an art model thing) and get straight to what I was doing before that.  See, I'm reading this great book by my favorite astrologer, the esteemed Rob Brezsny of Free Will Astrology, called "Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia - How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings".  It's sort of an irreverent, spiritual, comedic self-help workbook with a lot of fun exercises designed to shake you out of whatever state you're in, and open up or let go.  

So far, there's one exercise I really like:  Unhappy Hour!  Surprise!  60 Minutes of dwelling and reveling and going to the depths of whatever is making us unhappy, really getting down into the muck.  There's a place for mourning and moaning and groaning, or complaining or being unhappy and frustrated, or what the fuck ever.  To be healthy and happy individuals, we need to acknowledge and feel our feelings, rather than trying to pretend they don't exist.  Life is not a constant ticker tape parade riding on top of a tiger.  At some point the parade is going to come to a halt, and the tiger will in fact eat you.  Sometimes life sucks.  Enter Unhappy Hour.

Now I'm not trying to complain about my hard knock life.  I've got it really good, I feel very blessed. But I am human, and there were a couple things eating at me tonight.  My instinct was to try to find someone (anyone) to hang out with, so I knew I needed to do exactly the opposite.  Shun people!  Hang out with myself and feel that shit!  

Making up my own version of Unhappy Hour on the fly, I turned on my altar lights and lit some sage.  As I lit it I chanted a silly mantra to myself, and fanned the smoke over myself with my ceremonial broom (because urban witchezzz, DUH), continuing to chant and rotated slowly.  Then I smudged my apartment, dramatically bewailing anything, no matter how slight, that I could think of that wasn't going my way in that moment.  

I laughed the whole time I did this, and I had to reach for my creative woes as I ran out of real ones.  I had done this once before, a couple weeks ago, and got a little more oomph from it.  That time I laid on the floor listening to Liszt and managed to squeeze out a few tears.  Both times, once I gave myself over to feeling my emotions without requiring that they be okay, I became calm almost immediately.

In this instance, once I finished smudging the house I thought I should practice with my sword a bit.  I keep it next to the altar, on the opposite side from the broom (because warrior priestess.  Duh).  Eventually I'll start posing with the sword for some costume gigs, but first I need to build up the muscle groups.  It was super fun though, I held some very short poses, and felt like Jaime Lannister.  And I wouldn't even have noticed the sword there if I hadn't been giving myself over to Unhappy Hour.  And if anyone can see in, hopefully they're entertained by the woman with the sword and the broom.

I encourage you to give Unhappy Hour a try.  If something is bothering, allow yourself to feel it, really.  Dedicate some time, even just a few minutes, to wallow in your sadness, or what have you.  The first time I only made it for twenty minutes, and this time only like five.  And now I'm done wallowing until the next Unhappy Hour, whenever I decide that is.  Now I can just do something productive.

Like write a blogpost.

New Years Numbers

   What a crazy fucking year 2015 has been.  This has been my most difficult, and most exceptional year.  Emotionally I have gone into the fire and through the maze, and I still don't know if I'm out.  And at the same time, in terms of career and overall life experiences I have traveled places physically and made connections I had no idea were in my immediate realm of experiences.

It would be impossible for me to qualify or properly categorize 2015, but I'm going to try my damnedest.  Because looking at 2015, the things that stand out to me are the numbers.  The numbers that keep floating to the surface of my mind are

33 and 142

That's my current age and weight.  As a model/performer/actor/creative woman/personality I feel a lot of pressure not to age, and to stay thin.  And although I clearly am thin, I often run into this dumb stereotype about my weight and/or dress size.  When I tell people my weight they most often seem surprised, their guess is often 15-20 pounds lighter.  Likewise people often assume I'm five years younger than I am.  Part of me doesn't mind, but part of me minds a lot.  

I, at 33, 6', 142lbs, am not a fragile little twig of a girl.  I am a woman, with muscle and fat and broad shoulders.  I think this is to my advantage: I can sit down comfortably and stay reasonably warm when working nude, plus I have a wide variety of life experiences and training to draw on, allowing me to embody emotion and story on the fly.  Annoyingly, however, I regularly see women shaving off a few years and a few pounds online to seem more desirable.  I, in turn, have participated in it to be competitive.

Well that's it.  I call bullshit.  Lying about my age or my weight to try to get jobs or seem attractive is totally stupid.  I want to empower women to own themselves in full, and that means owning those numbers.  I'm proud of my years on this planet, and I'm proud to take up some space.  

Ultimately, I don't think those are the even the numbers that matter.  Here are some of my favorite numbers from 2015.

highest elevation: 8262 ft, continental Divide, Yellowstone National Park, 12/22/15

lowest elevation: 200 feet below sea level, Death Valley National Park, 4/6/15

states visited: 7 - WA, OR, CA, WY, MO, NV, LA

other countries visited: 1 - Canada
territories: 1 - US Virgin Islands

hot springs visited: 4 - Esalen (three times), Desert Hot Springs, Deep Creek

                                  - Yellowstone (no swimming!)

epic roadtrips: 2

solo truck stop dance parties: 1

mileage on my car: 165,240

weddings attended: 3 - 1 secret wedding on the beach, 1 pagan self-marriage in the woods, 1 very               

                                     short notice in Victoria BC

individuals, workshops, schools, studios, or events worked with: 74

photo shoots in exotic locations: 4

viral videos views: 34,592

new tattoos: 1

Looking at all those numbers, you might think 2015 was nonstop excitement and fun.  But it wasn't.  I have a few really sad numbers, or difficult numbers, that have weighed me down a bit.

lowest weight in 2015: 120lbs

hardest day: 3/4/15

psychiatrist visits: 4

Let's just end that list there, shall we?  I didn't intentionally drop 20 pounds in the end of 2014, but I did.  For the first time since I was a young girl I weighed what people had always guessed.  And I can say categorically that I feel better this way.  Gimme that 22 pounds.  Did you know that women primarily store serotonin in the fat cells around the belly.  Ding ding ding!

So I just want to come out and say it, loud and clear.  I'm 33 years old, and I weigh 142 pounds.  This is a real woman's weight.  My resolution in 2016 is to be honest with myself, to love myself very well, and never to apologize for myself.  2015 was all about those things, and I wouldn't change anything. Let's see what the new year has to bring.

A big week for getting hired

I just got hired at Horsethief BBQ.  It's a new restaurant opening in downtown LA at the Grand Central Market.

  My feelings are mixed about returning to the food service industry.  When I left Parkway in October I felt pretty sure that I never wanted to work in a restaurant again. (I've said that before, and look where it got me.)  I wanted to be only an artist, and to pursue creative jobs.

I feel a little differently now though.  I wouldn't change the past eight months in any way; leaving Parkway Grill was absolutely the right choice.  Taking the space to experiment, explore, and turn my energy whichever way my fancy led was one of the best decisions of my life.  I've had a ball, and I've done a lot!  I got started in the world of art modeling, I filmed two shorts (Chugging Gone Wrong made it into a festival, and Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga is still being edited), and I worked as an art director on an indie feature called The Frontier, among other things.  All that stuff is wonderful, and some of it pays well, but I miss a steady paycheck.

Don't worry!  I'm not turning my back on art for the sake of money!  I'm not giving up!  I'm being honest with myself.  I was lucky enough to have a cushion to lean on all this time, but I don't want to get to a point where there's no cushion left.  I have to be honest with myself and recognize that I'm a better artist when I'm not worried about money all the time.  Working on The Frontier for the past month and a half I've had a regular paycheck, and it's been a huge weight off.  Admittedly, I had no time to create anything, but I had a different sort of mental freedom.

And this job feels different.  For one thing, I am bringing in money doing things I'm passionate about, like modeling and art directing and acting.  (I actually just got hired on Monday to start working at Otis College of Art and Design to model for fashion illustration!)  That gives me the luxury of wanting and asking for part-time hours at Horsethief.  And also: these guys  opening this restaurant are like me!  They're new to what they're doing and they're excited.  They're young and passionate and they have a vision.  They're building something and they asked me to be part of it.  

I suppose I'm the thing that has changed.  Or maybe I'm always changing; that may be the only truly constant factor in life.  All I know is that sometimes I introduce myself as an actor, and sometimes it's model.  Sometimes I call myself an art director, or a figure model, or lately an art model.  Sometimes I'm a street artist, or a designer of tee-shirts.  And much of the time, in my head, it's simply: artist.  Will adding server back onto that list be such a bad thing?  I don't think so.  (Maybe I should call myself a BBQ artist.)  And what have I got to lose?  Nothing.  

Coming soon!  My adventures at the Iggy Pop show with Neil!

In which I pose new questions to myself

I had to cancel a job at Dreamworks this week.

Yeah, that's right, that Dreamworks.  Don't get excited - I didn't book the voice of their next heroine, I was scheduled to be figure modeling.

Yeah, that's right, that figure modeling.  If you were wondering what I have been doing for work since I quit the restaurant, that's your primary answer.  I've also been acting and modeling for regular old photo shoots, you know, with clothes on.  But I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been modeling live in classes at schools and animation studios, sometimes in the nude.

This is kind of a weird thing to admit publicly.  I've certainly never been ashamed of my body, as many (most) of you know.  And perhaps this is part of my quest to accept my body no matter what it look like.

I guess this is about self-love.  The whole thing.  The whole question: what I'm writing about on the micro and the macro level.  I want to love my self fully, whether I'm feeling bloated and sluggish or strong and fit.  I want to love my self fully, up to the point of admitting that figure modeling is way more fun than waiting tables, and I enjoy doing it.

Does that make me an exhibitionist?  I prefer not to go there.  I prefer to think about the fact that I'm joining the ranks of people - particularly women - who worked with and inspired Matisse and Van Gogh and Picasso and Da Vinci and Basquiat and Renoir and Degas and on and on.  (Based on the artists I came up with you can probably guess just how many times I studied Impressionism in French class.)  I've joined a time-honored profession, while doing something creative and challenging.

Because, let me tell you, it's hard.  A figure model need to be comfortable taking off their robe in front of a room full of strangers, and coming up with visually dynamic poses they can hold for as long as 25 minutes.  You'd be surprised what parts of your body can twitch.  A figure model needs the mental focus to observe the twitching of their arm but not to move it.  A figure model needs get over the fact that some people, from some different points of view, may see their genitals.  (You'll notice this entire discussion is neutral-gendered; although I haven't met any, there are male figure models, and I wouldn't want to alienate them.  Also, that way I don't have to write the word vagina in my blog.)  In short, a figure model needs to be fearless.

And fearlessness is what it's all about.  I'm not saying I don't fear anything; fear in the proper dosage is a healthy thing.  I'm just saying that I don't want to live my life based on decisions made from fear.

So why did I cancel the gig?   I'll just say that I wasn't feeling well and leave it at that (I wouldn't want to be gross or anything).  Having to assess my ability to work in that way was a new experience.  Working in a restaurant if I didn't feel well, no matter what my ailment, I'd try to power through the shift.  In this case though, I had to ask myself some serious questions:  Was I physically able to pose for two hours?  Would worrying about being sick affect my ability to do my job well?  Figure modeling has a whole new set of rules.  I haven't explored these waters, and it feels like I'm navigating blind.

So I was bummed not to work at Dreamworks.  But hopefully I'll get more work there - they were very understanding.  And who knows what the future will bring?