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.

Rolling the dice

Lately I've been feeling a little blocked. I made the conscious decision a year ago to take time off from producing new work while I worked on myself. It has been wonderful. I've gone inward a lot, made some really self-nurturing decisions, and seen a lot of beauty. And now that some time has passed, and I feel more in touch with certain aspects of myself I am ready to pick up some old projects again. 

Since coming back to Los Angeles this fall though, I have felt a bit paralyzed. I haven't exactly known where to put my energy when confronted with all the ideas in my head. So what to do?  How to choose?  Luckily a friend reminded me of a fun method to get around this: roll the dice!

So, I made a list of 20 things I can think of to do. Everything is on there; physical activities, chores, paperwork, artistic projects, meditations. Anything that will aid me in my desire to take something out of my head and make it real for other people too.

Then, because I am a nerd and a have one of these, I roll a 20-sided die. 

Then I have to do whatever number I roll. As if!  Inevitably, no matter what I roll, my first reaction is "I don't want to do that!" So I don't do it...yet. 

Take Friday for example: I rolled a 2. Painting ❤️. I have two large canvases I'm working on at the moment, but not a great workspace. I've never worked this large in my space, and I don't have an easel, and I end up in a different spot each time, wedged around my desk behind my couch. As I pondered this, I was inspired to rearrange my living room, which was number 18 on the list. So I completely reorganized my space, including vacuuming behind things I moved and dusting etc. It took half the day, but I LOVE the way my space feels. My desk faces the window and the front door now, and I have enough room to hula hoop to my hearts delight when I want to. So later that evening, when I felt ready to paint, my space was ready for me. 

I like using this method because it feels like a game. I tend to change things up a lot, and this helps manage that. And I almost always find that by the end of the day I've done more than one item on my list. You could use a regular 6 sided die (d6) if you want, or d8, d12, whatever ya got.  (You've wandered down the role playing path once or twice, haven't you?) 

Rolling the dice (die) is working for me right now. I'm sure I will get bored with it eventually, but hopefully then I'll find some other way to keep myself having fun. That's the trick I think, keep making it a game, keep having fun. 

Taking another pass

Yesterday for my 33rd birthday my friends and I adventured to Deep Creek Hot Springs. I'd say hike, but honestly it was more than that. Being our first time there, we didn't know what to expect, and ended up taking an intense route. 

Taking the intense route kind of seems like the theme of the last year, or even longer, maybe since the last time I posted, over 18 months ago. Maybe that's the theme of my adult life. Up until a few days ago I wasn't feeling too great about turning 33. 32 was an incredibly difficult year. I experienced my worst bout of depression, and came face to face with some life long patterns and habits that were no longer serving me. Luckily I have an amazing support system of friends and family, and I got through it. I did a lot of inward looking last year. 

In these past few weeks though, coming up to the anniversary of my birth, circling back around to all the expectations I had for the year, versus the reality of what I experienced, I haven't been that stoked. Even though I have tried my best to divorce myself from "shoulds", from ideas of what I am "supposed" to have achieved by this time in my life, it's difficult when faced with a birthday not to hold that measuring stick up and find myself falling short. 

Recently though, I went to a great talk about creativity by artist Dave Zaboski. He talked about his keys to creativity, and how he has used them to keep from getting blocked. The thing he said that resonated the most strongly with me is that artists iterate. Artists take a pass at an idea, and then, in the event that the product of their efforts doesn't match the desired outcome, they circle back around. To illustrate this idea Dave drew a spiral, indicating that each time we take a pass at an idea we come closer to our goal.   

I love this. The notion of the spiral as a function of the way we cycle through experiences in our lives is not new to me, but I had never quite thought of it this way. I like the idea that if I try something and it doesn't work out, when I give it another shot I'm not going back to the beginning, rather I am continuing around the spiral, closing in on my goal, making a smaller revolution on the way in there. 

I recently had been getting down on myself for feeling bummed out again because I thought I should be "better". I felt like I had to start all the way over to feel happy again. But now I'm looking at it a little differently. It's not that I'm going all the way back to where I was last year at this time, heartbroken and sick and pretty lost; now I'm just taking another pass at it. I'm not starting completely over, I'm circling around the spiral again, closing in more quickly or concisely this time on the ultimate goal of happiness and self-awareness. 

Our hike yesterday took about an hour and fifteen minutes down to the springs, which seemed long and steep. Our hike out took about two hours, finished in the dark, and seemed never ending. We had to stop to rest multiple times. But it was so worth it. It was one of my most unique and cherished birthdays ever. And I would not have had that experience, or even the idea to do that, if I hadn't gone through this last year.  And now I'm feeling pretty great. Ultimately I still have the same challenges in my life-I still have to figure out how to achieve my goals, I still have to clearly define those goals, and support myself while I do it, but I remember a little more clearly that the journey is more important than the destination. I saw so many gorgeous variations of the sky yesterday. The hot spring was the midpoint of the journey, it was not even the end of the adventure.  

I'm the spirit of the spiral, in the spirit of enjoying the journey, I'm taking another pass at some things, including blogging. I'm a little rusty at the moment, but I trust the process. Happy fucking birthday to me!

Great Feelings ideas and storyboards

As promised, here are the drawings I made for my Great Feelings video. The first sketches are the initial ideas I had during my first brainstorming session.  (Remember: the challenge was to create a one minute video on your device of choice, with the theme Great Feelings, and elements drawn from a hat. The elements I drew were tree bark, and mirror.). Following the sketches are my storyboard; the inspiration for which came to me totally visually, in one large download. 

So often the things we say to ourselves in the mirror.  I struggle with this to the extent that I wrote a reminder on my bedroom mirror a while back: "I love myself".  Most likely everyone can identify with experiencing very great feelings, both positive and negative, while looking in the mirror.  And what if even natural, inanimate objects felt the same way?  Does a piece of tree bark which it had smoother skin?

From there, I was inspired by an Instagram account I stumbled across called Heal Yourself, Skeletor.  Most of the affirmations spoken by my two characters were found there.

Mike and Lindsay

The first names I remember really liking - you know for my babydolls or imaginary playmates or maybe my persona in a game of pretend - were Mike, Lindsay, and Michelle.  Something about those mid-alphabet consonants just did it for me.  I think I liked Michelle because it sounded exotic to me; like the beach.  You know: Mi-shell.

One of my earliest memories is being out in the garden with my mom while she weeded the flower bed outside our playroom.  I remember trundling around the lawn pulling a red wagon after me.  The wagon was heavy and bigger than me and hard to pull.  It was filled with blocks - undoubtedly the sawed-off ends of two by fours from one of my dad's myriad projects.

Every so often I'd check in with my mom.  Any worms she found during her gardening she put aside for me.  Every time I made another round I put them in the wagon.  But first I had a big decision to make: what to name the worms?  Mike and Lindsay, obviously.  

I probably had like 25 worms in there by the end.  Once I took out all the wood blocks (which was probably a strenuous task for my little baby arms) and faced all those worms I had a dilemma - who was Mike and who was Lindsay?  How do you tell boy worms apart from girl worms?

I don't know why none of those worms were named Michelle.  Maybe they weren't exotic enough...

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!

A Collaboration

Jeremy and I collaborated with our friend, makeup artist Vyvy Tran, on this mermaid inspired photo shoot.  I haven't quite known how to share these photos, because they are evocative.  However I love them, and want to share them with you.

Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga

All right folks, hold on to your seats, cause I've got some news for you!  Chatty Cathy is coming to life!  

That's right - I'm preparing to film my next short: "Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga".  I am so excited about this project that I may wet myself.  It's scary and exciting at the same time; I'm taking this very modest little short that I wrote almost a year ago and turning it into a short film for the web.  "Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga" (CCGY) is a more ambitious undertaking than my last short, Chugging Gone Wrong for many reasons: it's longer, I have to rent a yoga studio to shoot at, I'm using union actors so I have to go through the union, and it's also dearer to my heart.  I'm lucky though, because I have some really dear friends helping me to produce it.  

The funds I need to produce this short are modest, but I've decided to use Kickstarter to raise funds for my project.  Kickstarter describes itself as, "a funding platform for creative projects".  Basically, I set up a page for my project with a financial goal, and then offer various rewards if people donate.  My goal is $250 (like I said, modest), but I'm hoping to raise more.  The catch with Kickstarter is that if you don't meet your goal, you don't get the money and no one is charged.  So I wanted to start with a small attainable number that I knew I could reach.  If you visit the Kickstarter page you can take a look at all this information, and donate yourself.

It's hard for me to tell you everything about this short concisely, because I've been working on it for so long. It was born out of this blog, and my journey over these past two years, and my love of yoga.  Making Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga wouldn't be possible without you, Readers, and so I want to thank you.  And I also want to give you the opportunity to be part of my process.  If you can find just $5 to donate, it would make a world of difference to me, and then you can see for yourself what happens when your awkward heroine (me) ventures into the world of yoga.

In case you didn't get it above, here's the link to the Kickstarter page.  Please check it out and share it:

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?

Will the Real Hipster Please Stand Up! A guest post by Neil Stevens

The hipsters are coming!  You cannot avoid it, they are seemingly everywhere.  No not the hipsters themselves.  But people bitching about hipsters.

Log into Facebook, fire up your Twitter account, peruse some disingenuous Huffpo headline, or stand near a group of people at your favorite watering hole and you will hear it.  Yes, America loves to hate “hipsters”.   In fact they have surpassed the Jersey Shore self proclaimed “guidos” as our favorite demographic of people to hate.

Who are these hipsters? Living in Los Feliz on the border of Silverlake, recently voted by Forbes Magazine as the hippest hipster neighborhood in America, I would think to be awash with swaths of these overdressed, pompus, Groucho-looking  hipsters.  Yet I am not sure I have ever met one.

Of course no hipster would ever actually admit to being one, because that would be well, really unhip. But even alleged hipsters seem to also hate hipsters. If so many people are complaining about them, where are they?  And more importantly, how do we know they are a real hipster?

Therein lies the source of the problem. Ask anyone to identify a hipster and you will receive a hundred different responses. A hipster is a bearded man with skinny jeans, a skully cap, and way too thick rimmed glasses who plays kickball on Saturdays. No wait, a hipster is an unemployed pseudo-intellectual, living on their parent’s dole, using their film theory degree from Portland State to create finger paintings to hang at the local coffee shop. Better yet! A hipster is a self absorbed, holier than thou craven delighted to mock all typical conventions of “normal folk”, while pledging allegiance to no conventions whatsoever (except the denial of all conventions of course).

It’s almost as if “hipster” has become a kind of blanket insult for “things I don’t like”. A projection of people’s anxieties, often centered on appearance, class, or attitude.  If there is one thing we love to do as a society, it is to collectively hate a group of people and NOT feel guilty about it.  And hipsters offer a perfect target. 

Unlike say Mormons or Scientologists, a couple other groups we love to mock, the so called hipster celebrates non conformity and therefore has no central command to defend themselves.  There are no hipster meetups (Yo La Tengo concerts notwithstanding) or dues paying members. They do not have a spokesperson nor a board of directors, though if they did I am sure Fred Armisen and Wes Anderson would be invited.

If you ask me who the hipsters are, I have my own definition.   I say, people who make fun of hipsters are the real hipsters. That’s right. I mean seriously, what is more “hipsterish” than a group of people standing around making sarcastic remarks and labeling others whom live a different lifestyle from their own?  Are they not castigating the behavior of hipsters by adopting that very same behavior?

But the truth of the matter is, there are no real hipsters. Sure, there are unemployed art students, people who wear scarves in the Spring, people who wear rimmed glasses with perfect vision and drink PBR, people who ride retro bicycles and eat only artisanal foods, and people who smoke American Spirits and use Kickstarter to fund their indie film project. And yes, if these people move to your neighborhood the price of rent and kale will probably be going up.  But I am sure there is something about your own lifestyle that just screams HIPSTER in the eyes of someone else.

In that way, since there are no real hipsters, there is also a little bit of hipster in all of us. So I say embrace it!  It’s really not so bad.  There are worse things in the world than getting together to play Parcheezi and discuss how Twin Peaks is the best TV series ever. Not that we own TV’s of course.

 --Neil Stevens

Now that I brewed this weird drink what the heck do I do with it?

My homebrewed kombucha has been fermenting on my counter for just over a week.  Now it's ready to be decanted into smaller bottles for flavoring and additional fermentation.

Most people would use a gallon jar, but I had a vase, so there it is.
You can see the mother floating sideways there - gnarly, right?

Each time you brew your kombucha a new baby SCOBY will form on top.

Tasty, right?  (As if a bacterial process could really look tasty...)
I need to remove the baby in order to pour off my brew.

If you needed any confirmation of my weirdness, just check out that manic gleam in my eyes (and ignore the circles underneath them).  That's what excitement looks like.

  Yeah, that's SpaceCat on my shirt.  Jealous?

But wait!

Every experience is improved with the proper wardrobe!

Mad scientist at work:

I'm adding blueberry juice to my glass jars before I add the tea.

You just don't mess with a mad scientist.

Recipes online suggested adding fruit juice and/or cut up pieces of dried fruit.
  Ever one to use what's on hand, I decided to add fresh pomegranate seeds in addition to blueberry juice.

Pomegranates are a sign of new beginnings.

Fitting that I should include it in my new endeavor, then, right?

They also play a prominent role in mythology...

Oh Hades!  I'll stay here in the underworld forever!  Swoon

Now that I've added my flavorings I can actually pour the tea....

How on earth am I supposed to pour that tea into those jars?
How do I get around the baby?!?!

Before touching the SCOBY, be sure to wipe your clean hands with vinegar to remove any oils or soap residue that might contaminate it.

I'm not sure if the blue nail polish is truly sanitary, but it greatly enhanced my mental preparedness

All the containers used in kombucha preparation should be glass (ideally) or hard plastic.  Metal interferes with the SCOBY and will keep it from doing it's thing

 (that's a scientific term).

That ceramic bowl is waiting to cradle my little baby.
  If I can ever get it out....

Sometimes you have to overcome your fear of the slimy and gross and just go for it.

Remember the haunted houses of your childhood?
  Sticking your hands in dishes of strange substances while blindfolded...
  The texture of SCOBY is something like that.

Eeeeew!

I grew this under a towel on my counter!

Meet: SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria & Yeast)

I currently have this baby in a tupperware at the back of my fridge, in case my original mother becomes compromised.
If I want to use it I'll have to bring it back to room temperature, because they go dormant when regfrigerated.

That's pomegranate juice on my face...  And scoby juice on my fingers.

New headshot?

Now I'm finally ready to pour my kombucha tea into my jars:

Pourin' the brew.

Ready for its airtight lid

Looks... frothy.

Pouring in action

The kombucha mother lurks just below the surface of the tea, unable to escape.
Like a crocodile lying in wait for a sweet baby elephant.

 Now I'll let them ferment for a few more days before I refrigerate them.

I varied the amounts of juice added to see what tastes best.

A veritable rainbow of digestive health.
  Yummmm.

Have you ever experienced that feeling of rightness?  The absolute certainty of knowing you are on the correct path?  In the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, the gunslinger Roland and his companions often speak about being on the path of the beam.  In that world it's something they can actually see reflected in the movement of the clouds and the way the grass lays in their path; nevertheless I think it's an apt analogy.  More than ever before in my life I feel attuned to minute signs; tiny details that confirm and illuminate the road I'm traveling.  I suppose this is a product of my quest to be present, to really get to know myself.  Certainly I have been working to remove those things that are detrimental to my mental/physical/emotional health, and to give myself those things that feed my imagination/drive/sense of purpose.

I recently quit my job of five years.  As far as restaurant jobs go it was a good gig.  The shifts were rarely more than five or six hours and the money was good.  I had coworkers who had been there for twelve, fifteen, even twenty years in some cases.  And I see why.  Under the right circumstances it can provide a very comfortable living.  I wasn't happy though.  It used to be that I felt really secure and competent and grateful to be there, but that hasn't been the case in a while.  And that attitude was noticed.  I was faced with a glass ceiling, and I didn't feel like my voice would be heard.  So I didn't say anything.  So now I had these awful feelings festering inside me, and it was noticed.  Who wants someone working for them like that?  No one.

It's really difficult to try to tell this part of the story in a concise way, and also without offending people I care about.  I want to talk about how frustrating my work situation was.  How I felt completely unappreciated, so I stopped doing my best.  Not consciously, but nevertheless I got reprimanded.  It was a big eye-opener.  Because I'm a really smart, capable person.  And there's no reason why I shouldn't excel at whatever I set my mind to.  And at the same time, I realized that I'm not going to let some asshole hold me hostage.  I don't owe them anything.  I gave them four Christmases.  I gave them every Friday and Saturday night for five years.  And I deserve to have my good work acknowledged.

It was psychically draining.  It was leeching all the joy and creativity out of me.  At this time in my life when I am harboring a new and delicate thing (myself, as an artist) I need to protect myself.  The world is changing faster than I can possibly process.  MY world is changing, I mean.  Turning thirty was standing out as a giant billboard in my head.  It felt imperative that my thirtieth birthday not coincide with the start of my sixth year at a snobby corporate restaurant.

So I quit.  I'm not proud of the manner of my quitting.  I know that the prudent thing to do would have been to give two weeks notice and leave on good terms with a reference.  But something came up-something big.  And then this voice in my gut spoke up clearly and said, "What are you waiting for?  There's no other time than now.  You'll never have this decision to make over, on the cusp of your thirtieth birthday.  Stop putting life off and instead live it now.  Thus it was that on the day I had intended to give my two weeks notice I instead told them I wasn't coming in that night, and that I wasn't coming back.

It was terrifying.  And exhilarating.  I truly cannot go back.  And I have no regrets.  I experienced this sense of certainty as though I were driving down the road, with the highway unfolding steadily before me.  To either side the landscape is barren, marked only by outcroppings of boulders and sagebrush and dull, dusty desert.  But the sky where I'm heading is so so clear.  Clearer than I can ever remember.  I drive down that highway watching tiny mirages resolve themselves from shimmering water into asphalt in front of me, and I'm driving straight towards a mountain.  Towards my destiny.  Climbing in elevation and the air gets crisp and cold and before I know it I'm standing at the edge of a vast canyon that seems to continue for ever.  And something inside me just lets go.

SpaceCat's Thanksgiving Adventure

The last time I left Zaphod at home for a few days he was pissed. I came home to find sweaters pushed of my shelves, all the jewelry knocked off my bureau, and all the cupboards open. I guess I can't blame him. If I got left at home for four days, missing out on fun and new sites, locked in the apartment by myself with one visitor and feeding per day I would be upset too. It makes me feel guilty, because this little guy is my number one. He had been there for me through some seriously hard times. He brings me joy and helps me appreciate the little moments. He's my muse. It's not fair to continually go off and leave him. And I haven't even gotten into the guilt accrued by constantly asking friends to watch him.

So you'd think I would decide to curtail my traveling, or at least keep it short. I however, like the genius I am, went and booked a Tuesday to Tuesday ticket home for Thanksgiving. It was a lot cheaper, and it's my birthday, and I have a new baby niece. Once I got to thinking about logistics though I saw the flaw in my plan: what about Zaphod?!?

So I did the obvious thing and decided to take him with me. I mean, I don't see the traveling stopping anytime soon. And maybe he would like to go with me. People take their dogs all over the place. Bond villains travel with cats. And how about the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp-that old lady totally brought them visiting with her. Anyway, the only way to find out is to do it, right?

So here we are at the airport. Zaphod is keeping up a steady rate of low unhappy meows, and I have a little bit of pee on my jeans.

Yeah, he peed. Horrifying, right? I gave him kitty herbal sedatives, but I guess that's just not adequate considering the mortal terror of an airport. Burbank airport, btw. If I was flying out of LAX this wouldn't be an option. But do you remember your first time in an airport? Overwhelming! And if you were a little kid it's entirely possible that you peed yourself.

Even worse though, is that as soon as I went into the family bathroom to destinkify myself he immediately shit in the carrier. It's like as soon as he realized we were alone and that I had the ability to clean it up he just let it go. I understand though; I hate to fly before pooping.

Luckily my carrier is all nylon, and all comes apart, so I was able to tidy up pretty nicely. While I was doing that Zaphod crouched miserable behind my backpack, taking full advantage of the echo effect of all the tile. I'm sure anyone passing by must have wondered exactly what manner of family was making use of the private bathroom. No apologies though.

Twenty minutes later as I stood in line to board as I almost bailed. I smelled like cat pee (hopefully not too strongly, but can you really answer that objectively when you're in the middle of the smell?), Zaphod was unsuccessfully suppressing hysteria , and I had a connection both ways (awesome planning, right). This trip really wasn't planned with a feline traveling companion in mind. Admittedly, I'll be staying in the welcoming environment of the house I grew up in for a week, but is that enough to offset the stressful situation this was shaping up to be?

Once we were in the air, though, Zaphod calmed down. That or it was just too noisy to hear him. And this far, through all this, I think I'm finding something. "You gotta do what you gotta do," I stoically quipped to the gate agent who checked us in. And that's true. I don't need to explain myself, or to apologize for our smell. Airports are weird public places. Traveling puts us in the strange position of sharing our quirks and bodily functions with strangers directly next to us. I imagine this must be similar to what traveling with small children is like. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've found myself seated in the middle of baby central. Last time I flew I eve found myself holding a toddler while his mother gathered herself between flights. She was completely unapologetic, and so will I be.

I don't know if I'll travel with Z again, it will depend on the rest of the trip. But we're halfway done. And you can be sure I'll let you know how it goes.

I want to wear that on my face.

I can always tell I'm avoiding something when I find myself frantically tied up in a meaningless task.  Like that time recently when I sidestepped down the beauty aisle at CVS searching for blue mascara.  I pored over those beauty displays obsessively, looking for real untinted unapologetic blue mascara.  I was sure they'd have it, but unfortunately amongst the 10,000 tubes of eyelash tinting goo the closest it got was sapphire black.  I'm sorry, but that's not blue.  It might be tinted, but it's still black.  It's like saying Zaphod's vomit was greenish-yellow.  Although it had a greenish cast to it, my cat's barf was still primarily classified as yellow.  And I didn't want something that almost blue - I wanted authentic honest blue.

         During this search  I chafed against the marketing bein used on me (surprise).  Who are these people telling me that this product is for blue eyes and that one is for brown eyes?  Yeah yeah yeah, some corporate beauty expert got paid a billion dollars to do a color analysis in order to make generic stipulations as to what products I should use.  You might be right, but nevertheless, I like those colors, and I want to wear them on my face.  After twenty minutes of probing those murky depths I was no nearer either to finding blue mascara or changing the global marketing strategies of Revlon and et al.  Moreover, I was avoiding actual important business (though what that was, for the life of me I can't remember.  Priorities - hah).  So I threw in the towel and picked up the item I was actually stopping to purchase: black mascara (I know - ridiculous).  Then I went on my merry way.

     Imagine my surprise that evening when I went to put away my new mascara.  The tube in my hand was blue.  Not sapphire black, not tinted whatever, royal blue.  Electric, honest to god, unmistakable blue.  I swear, I looked at every single mascara they sold at that drugstore - I searched every aisle that sold makeup, and looked at every one.  And there it was in my hand - exactly what I wanted.  And I had completely given up; just when I no longer had any attachment to the idea of wearing blue mascara that day, I found that I could.  That's called manifestation.  It's a powerful phenomena.  Call it what you will (coincidence, subconscious, chance, inattention, whatever), I call it magic.

    That turned out to be my last day working at the restaurant.  It was time for me to leave.  As things roll on ever faster I determined that a change was necessary.  It had been made clear to me at my place of work that if I was no longer happy there I shouldn't be there, so I left.  I have no regrets about that.  It's a pretty scary change, but let me never look back to see that I sacrificed possibility to fear.  I'm not getting any younger, and I'm as free as I'll ever be.  The time to change is now.

     So rather than focusing on the things I don't want; rather than chafing against a suit that doesn't fit; rather than pouring my energy into an unworthy vessel I have decided to redirect my attention.  This power of manifestation, of calling my life to me is a wonderful gift, and I don't want to waste it.  Besides, if I never try to make it in my chosen industry, how will I ever know what would've happened?  Maybe what I've been looking for has been in my hand this entire time and I've been too distracted to see it.  Or maybe, now that I've let go of something that wasn't serving me, I'll have room to pick up what I do actually want.

Chatty Cathy and the Hairy Pits - or, Now it Gets Real

There's a lot in the media these days about young women, how we sexualize them, how we encourage them to embrace a confusing saint/slut dichotomy, how they're being stalked by creepers from Reddit, how they're committing suicide due to online bullying, etc.  These things are part of a larger theme I've been exploring for well over a year now: my body, my rights, how society views these things, the puritanical nature of our culture.

I have a new man in my life.  He's amazing.  I feel very happy - blessed even - to have met him.  I found myself having a discussion with him this week about body hair.  I would like to apologize in advance to my more conservative readers here, not because I actually need to, but because my culturally implanted hangups tell me I should:  I'm about to be real.  I'm going to talk about an adult relationship in the 21st century.  Anyway, I found myself talking to my lover about body hair; telling him that I swing between the hemispheres of hippy with unshaven legs versus well-groomed and totally depilated lady.  Being the understanding person he is, my lover replied, "I know that bodies grow hair."

Hair distribution of a woman versus a man...
Why isn't waxing being sold to dudes?
Economically it seems a lot more profitable...

This conversation has continued to float around my head though.  Honestly it wasn't really a necessary talk; I couldn't be in a relationship with someone who would maintain crazy expectations about how I choose to style my body hair.  But that doesn't change the fact that the thought was there.  Just the fact of the thought's existence is quite interesting to me.  And then I read an article that stirred things around further; about the expectation of young women to be sexy but not sexual (known as The Paris Paradox).

My relationship with my body is a rocky thing.  My gluten intolerance causes a constant awareness of what I'm putting into my body and how it makes my belly feel.  My industry constantly reminds me to think about my size.  Every day as I look through casting breakdowns series of figures run through my head: my sizes, the sizes they want from actresses and models, height/weight ratios, bra sizes, ass/hips/waist/bust measurements, jean sizes, etc.  Every day I look through casting notices that specify body types and stereotypes, and I try to figure out where I fit into those stereotypes based on how I look and how that reflects who I am.

There were a few years when I didn't shave my armpits.  Even today, it's common for me to go a few weeks without shaving in the winter months.  What's the point?  No one's going to see my bare legs or armpits in January.  But for two years in the middle of college I didn't shave my pits at all  (I did shave my legs -because I liked it). Honestly, it never even occurred to me that not shaving was an option until I met one of my dearest college friends.  She was a women's studies major, and the first real feminist I ever knew.  She had hairy armpits when we met in our freshman year in New Orleans.  She worked as a camp counselor in the summer, and she described how she'd answer the questions of the girls in her group by telling them that they had a choice in the matter, that they didn't have to shave if they didn't want to.  She said she liked serving as an alternative example for them.  This idea blew my mind.  Seriously.  The only thought process I remember having about body hair was after an incident in sixth grade, when I was probably just starting puberty (and so awkward and unsure), and this jerky boy made fun of me for having hairy legs.  I don't think I'd even gotten my period at that point, but what conclusions do you think I reached?

My pits were less hairy than Julia's.  And everyone LOVES her, right?

So I grew my pit hair.  And I liked it.  I found my armpit hair sexy.  I'm not a super hairy person; my hair is sort of a light brown, and I can go a few days without shaving my legs without it being a big deal.  My armpit hair was mild compared to some women.  Nevertheless, I cannot tell you how many times it was suggested that I was lesbian or bi because I chose not to conform to society's idea of how I should groom my body hair.  In fairness, I also got a lot of positive comments and support, but those aren't the ones that stand out, unfortunately.

I'm didn't feel insulted at being called lesbian or bi, I felt insulted that those qualities should be considered insults, or okay to use to tease me and put me down.  Here's the thing.  Once you know me, I'm pretty open about my sexuality (I'm really hanging it all out tonight).   If you know me at all, you won't be surprised to hear that I am very comfortable with the idea of fluid sexuality.  Yes - I'm with a man.  Yes - I will probably end up with a man for my life partner.  But that doesn't change the fact that I'm also attracted to women.  And to have this tender, shy part of myself ridiculed felt bad, even if it was done unknowingly.

I sometimes do things that other people consider far out.  I know that putting myself out here, exposed for the world, I need to be prepared to defend my differences.  Nevertheless, being made fun of for a choice I made for myself about my body, having that choice be construed as homosexual, which was in turn construed as either negative or okay to poke fun at - made me feel bad.  It upset me.  And it continues to do so.

When I go to the grocery store I am bombarded with images of women on magazine covers, enticing me learn Giada's secret to staying trim.  The only thing I ever thought about Giada De Laurentis' looks before was that her smile was frighteningly wide, but suddenly I find myself wondering how indeed she stays so skinny.  And there's that word: skinny.  Just look at what we're selling women with that word: SkinnyGirl cocktails - so you can get drunk but not fat,  skinny margaritas - order this in an actual bar, where they don't sell those bullshit mixers, skinny jeans - they make you feel so fat you need to get drunk on "low-fat" cocktails.  All around me I feel pressure from society to conform to a perfect image of perfect woman.  It's bad in LA.  I don't think I worried this much about how I look before moving here.  But that doesn't change the fact that these issues and worries are everywhere.  And no matter what you may say, I just don't see the same strictures about external looks being placed on men.

I guess what I'm asking for here is for all of us to stop perpetuating this mindset.  We need to learn to see the beauty inside people even when they look different from us.  We need to applaud people for making healthy choices and being honest to their true selves.  We need to teach our daughters that what's inside their brains hearts is more important than the exterior of their bodies.  We need to allow a little more grace, to the people around us, and most of all to ourselves.

I want my choices about my body to be mine.  I want to be able to go out into the world and not worry about how I look, or that I'll be judged for it.  Call me naive, or call me weak-willed for allowing this psychic noise to disturb me.  Or, if you like, chastise me for being honest about the things that worry me, even when this means opening up a lot of extremely personal parts of myself to the potential judgments of others.  Or maybe you'll have a totally different reaction: if so, please share it respectfully.  But before you do so, I urge you to take on honest look at yourself, and make the brave choice.  I've put my heart out here on my sleeve; maybe you can too.