it's all in the lyrics..

i know i mentioned her yesterday, but this song is on repeat in my head today. the lyrics are hitting home for some strange reason.

Love Song by Sara Bareilles

Head under water,
And they tell me to breathe easy for a while.
The breathing gets harder, even I know that.

You made room for me but it’s too soon to see,
If I’m happy in your hands.
I’m unusually hard to hold on to.

Blank stares at blank pages.
No easy way to say this.
You mean well, but you make this hard on me.

I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you asked for it,
'Cause you need one, you see.
I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you tell me it's,
Make or breaking this.
If you’re on your way,
I'm not gonna write you to stay.
If all you have is leaving,
I’m gonna need a better reason to write you a love song today.
Today.

I learned the hard way,
That they all say things you want to hear.
My heavy heart sinks deep down under you,
And your twisted words, your help just hurts.
You are not what I thought you were.
Hello to high and dry.

Convinced me to please you.
Made me think that I need this too.
I’m trying to let you hear me as I am.

I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you asked for it,
'Cause you need one, you see.
I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you tell me it's,
Make or breaking this.
If you’re on your way,
I'm not gonna write you to stay.
If all you have is leaving,
I’m gonna need a better reason to write you a love song today.

Promise me you'll leave the light on,
To help me see with daylight, my guide, gone.
'Cause I believe there's a way you can love me because I say,

I won't write you a love song,
'Cause you asked for it,
'Cause you need one you see.
I'm not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you tell me it's make or breaking this.
Is that why you wanted a love song,
'Cause you asked for it,
'Cause you need one you see.
I’m not gonna write you a love song,
'Cause you tell me it's make or breaking this.
If you’re on your way,
I’m not gonna write you to stay.
If your heart is nowhere in it,
I don’t want it for a minute.
Babe, I’ll walk the seven seas when I believe that there's a reason to,
Write you a love song today.
Today.

....

and really, if i was any kind of a friend, i'd take a picture of myself dancing around my bedroom with these massive headphones on, singing my ASS off.
maybe next time.

i'm not going to write you a love song...

whatever song is playing on the radio is repeating that line over and over again... i like it. according to itunes, her name is sara bareilles... and i'm hooked. great voice.

anyway... yesterday, i did just what i said that i would do. i went home after work, i did laundry, i cleaned, and i cried. it's amazing sometimes that even the simplist things can be so cathartic.

happy holidays

i spent almost the entirety of a holiday party sitting on the floor playing memory and coloring holiday pictures with a five year old little girl yesterday. leave it to me to find the most engaging person at a party and monopolize them in the corner.

as it so happens, i had an amazing time. being five... really? there's nothing better.

happy holidays!!

cuz we're the boys of rock and roll...

i spoke to a friend from seattle on the phone last night, and he was just getting home from taking his kids to the movies - the new chipmunk movie to be exact. and although i outwardly mocked him (just a teense) just going to see it in the first place (such things are obviously excused when you have children), i started thinking about the original chipmunk adventure movie from the 80s... the one that i LOVED as a 10 year old spaz.

i was laying in bed last night singing old chipmunk adventure songs, surfing netflix, and adding that movie to my queue. and then of course i moved it up to the top of the list... because i want to watch it tomorrow or the next day. i'm laughing at myself even now.

how can i remember WORD for WORD some of the songs from this movie, and yet forget so many other things? utterly bizarre.



i guess you know what i'll be doing tomorrow. so so awesome.

the nature of the beast...

oddly enough, one of the major (inside my head) reasons that i wanted to get away from seattle was my discomfort with the general laxness and flakiness of its residents. a very bizarre element of the seattle mellow spirit i suppose, but one that drives me absolutely bonkers.

so it goes without saying, that when i agreed to bring all of my camera gear back to seattle over the holidays and promised to book a few shoots for friends and acquaintances that were in need of my services, i figured that it would be a good way to pay off the cost of going there. as of today, five out of the six paid shoots that i booked have flaked and/or backed out for various reasons. am i pissed off? of course. am i surprised??... obviously not. so i'm sort of just sitting here, shaking my head at my computer screen. it's the nature of the beast, so what did i expect.

i have zero problems with flakiness in new york. where people are sooooo busy and in their own world and have no time to linger over the good things. and yet, when it comes to commitments, they are ON it.

an interesting dynamic, to be sure.

new years resolutions... in advance

arranged a little happy hour action with some girlfriends after work yesterday. we met at bar veloce in chelsea, and sat at the bar. i was determined to unwind from a slightly wretched couple of days at work, and enjoy some delicious fromage e vino. that was several differents languages, but who cares.

i had three glasses of wine. normally, three glasses of wine wouldn't really phase me, but there were/are extenuating circumstances: 1) i drink less than i used to, 2) i hadn't really eaten a whole lot yesterday and 3) i didn't LIKE any of the wine that i was drinking/had been recommended, so i kept ordering more determined to enjoy at least one entire glass. not so much.

i am in a massive pinot noir phase... and have been for a few years. i'll obviously drink other wines, and have been exploring my tolerance of white wines (tolerance OF, meaning enjoyment of, not consumption thank you)... but i'm mostly a pinot drinker. anyway, i kept telling the bartender that i wanted something in the pinot noir range that wasn't oaky or smoky, with not toooo long a finish, and general berry overtones. either their wine list just isn't that awesome, or dude didn't know what he was talking about. he did have lovely eyeglasses though. so he's got that going for him which is nice. regardless, i was beyond tipsy by the time i got home. whoops.

i've decided that i'm going to do a massive alcohol detox after the new year. my body is just ready for it. even the one off glasses of wine aren't necessary... my heart doesn't need it. i can stand to drop a few more pounds anyway, and the ole bod needs all the help it can get. this is about 75% what i've been gearing up to do anyway, but i've just start dating a man who is in the middle of a six month detox, and am now 25% additionally encouraged by the general feedback that he's been giving about the process. so that'll be a good new year's resolution i think.

i'll be in seattle for an 'alter ego' themed new years party, and will officially bring out NINA one more time... and then put her immediately to rest. now i must brainstorm good nina outfits. i love dress up. just saying.

excellent exfoliation

i am 29 years old. for the most, i never get pegged as 29... even from coworkers that usually see the more serious side of me (and yes, thank you very much, i do have one). and i think i know why...

i was just checking to see if any of the salad that i've just eaten ended up in my teeth, and i noticed that the skin on my chin was flaking off...revealing a lovely new layer of fresh skin.

makeouts are the greatest exfoliant... forget anti-aging creams, just give me a good smooch with a man that can grow a beard baby!

what do you do?

what do you do when a man looks you in the face and says that you remind him of a young hot meryl streep and caroline bisset kennedy?

you kiss him... that's what you do.

it's that kind of week...

where i see a ton of movies (apparently)... this is actually fine by me, because i don't have a movie watching partner in crime now that jacob has left new york. now that he's in town, we're seeing our movies.

last night was JUNO:



quite easily one of the most adorably quirky movies that i've ever seen. ellen page is brilliant! go. see. now.

last night my shoulder was attacked by a poltergeist. i have no idea what happened. i'd just gotten back from putting a load of laundry into the washing machine, came back to my room and continued on with the editing of some photos, and all of a sudden my shoulder really started to hurt. sting almost. so i looked over my left shoulder and six evenly spaced cuts appeared on my shoulder... about two inches long each. it hurt sooooo badly, so i grabbed my tubes of whatevers and started figuring out what to put on it because i couldn't find my neosporin. so jacob said that the hydrocortisone was the right choice. wrong. stinging fiasco. wrong choice.

i finally found the neosporin and shelacked myself up with it, but HOW i got the aforementioned injury, the world may never know.

what day of the week is it? i've lost track...

i saw this movie last night:



holy not what i was expecting. and in an attempt to NOT ruin this film for you in any way, i'll just say. wow. and please go see it, so we can talk about it over the weekend. Javier Bardem is genius in his role as a menacing and completely insane murderer.

jacob is in town on his way back to seattle from europe. and after arriving at my house at about 1am from the airport, he proceeded to snore the living BAJEEZUS out of the night. needless to say, i didn't sleep well and am slurping down coffee like it's "insert cheeky metaphor here".

enjoy your day, i have to go make an attempt at planning a holiday lunch for my boss and some coworkers. woot woot!

you would figure..

i mean really, you would figure.

yesterday was an utterly lovely day. i worked out, i took a long shower and even had the presence of mind to take care of myself, i had a healthy lunch, i read an amazing manuscript, i watched sports, i drank tea.

so it stands to reason that 1) i'm so sore in weird places that i can barely raise my arms and walking is a little bit weird right now and 2) that whatever business i was giving myself in the shower yesterday, albeit fantastic, caused me to lean into the tile a little too hard with my forehead and now i've got a bruise and a small bump up near my hairline.

i mean who DOES that... oh yes, that would be me.

blue water woman

my own lady of shalott:



There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

---

random bits:

a male friend emailed to tell me the good news that one of his friends got engaged towards the end of the week. i thought perhaps that we trying to get me a photo gig, but no... he was telling me because the woman was 31, so there was still hope for me. oddly, this did NOT make me feel very good.

i let my roommate talk me into going to 'urban rebounding' class this morning at the gym. basically it's an hour of jumping up and down on mini trampolines and throwing your arms every which way. i'm tall, so i had to keep my knees bent in order to jump smaller and stay on tempo with everyone else. i shant be taking that class again, although a solid workout and i can feel things beginnging to sore already, my back and knees are killing right now from the impact of it all. bygones.

i spent part of my afternoon at my neighbor's place eating black bean chips and delicious salsa while we watched football. i love football. since i was up until three a.m. this morning reading, i excused myself early today because i'm now so tired.

at this moment (well not THIS moment obv), i'm in bed reading a good book, sipping on sleeptime tea, smelling my favorite candle burn, and listening to the gypsy kings. sometimes gentle perfection is easily attained. if you just look within yourself when you're quiet, it is there.

love.