America's Next Top Models

While in NYC, Heather and I decided to do an impromptu photo shoot in our hotel room to showoff our new threads. Having watched every season of America's Next Top Model, I knew we had to focus on our body angles and smiling with our eyes.

And now, our portfolio.

The Dollhouse Saga... also Why I Was Accused of Being a Hoarder

Back in July, in the throes of unemployment and with entirely too much time on my hands, I started thinking about Halloween. And then I started thinking about my party. And then I started thinking about a dollhouse theme. And then I went on Ebay, bought a dollhouse, and officially bit off more than I could chew.

I thought, oh I'll just glue it all together and it'll be easy. Nope.
I started gluing door adornments together. Then I glued windows together. Then I realized I should be painting all these things before I assemble them because painting them once assembled would be impossible... unless I was miniature. So I went to buy stain and paint and proceeded to step 2.
Which is when I realized, holy crap, building a dollhouse is H.A.R.D. First I had to give myself a crash course in dollhouse building language, which is a lot of RPs and Gs and numbers on wood pieces that fall apart and make you wonder if it was a 4 or an 8. Then I had to look at these strange drawings and squeeze my brain into knowing what partition 1 is and how exactly is should line up with slat 97.
After I got the thing mostly built, or at least built enough that I could tell what was going on, I was just about to burn out on the Dollhouse Saga of 2009. I wanted to get to the fun part of decorating it with cute miniature things, but no. Instead it was time to decide if I wanted lighting. And if I wanted lighting, I had to know where I wanted it so that I could then make sure that my flooring or wall covering would cover it... if I lived long enough to get to the part of putting in flooring and wall covering.

I had to splice electrical wires together to make them longer and magically keep everything from short circuiting. I learned about transformers and power strips and found some very adorable blogs by people who have made several dollhouses and are still not institutionalized!
Finding my fellow miniaturists gave me a good little push, but rather than work on finishing the inside of the house, painting and wallpapering and carpeting, I decided to do some siding work. Mainly because I realized I had none of the supplies necessary to do the flooring or wallpapering work I needed to do -- except painting. I could have painted but painting meant laying on the floor with my face mashed into the ground and getting hand cramps from trying to paint miniature inside spaces.

So, instead of heading to Hobby Lobby, which I discovered is a social destination for Pentecostals, I started gluing down some creep siding. It was colorful and came with an instant gratification factor that was necessary at that point.
You see that? You see that workspace up there. Well, it just so happens that the corner of our living room started looking like this right when the A&E show Hoarders debuted. Mack and I would watch Hoarders and look over at that corner and I had to swear to him that it was a craft project for Halloween and NOT a compulsion that would take over our lives. At least not for forever.

After the siding, I got to build the porch, and the porch was fun... once I consulted to dollhouse translation dictionary to discover what a porch roof was called.
The last major hurdle to building the house was putting on the third floor walls and dormer windows. That required a magic trick using wet paper towels and finger muscles I didn't know I had. But once that was all done, it was finally finished!
Almost. (Look, I warned you this was a saga.)

With the outside finished, it was time to look inside. I had to furnish my house. Which meant I had to go back on Ebay and look for beds and chairs and tables and couches and art and books and a Ouija board and a crystal ball and a microscope and tarot cards and plants and magical money to fall out of the sky to pay for all of this crap that I got addicted to because it was miniature and cute.

While I waited for the furniture to arrive, I set to work hiding electrical cables underneath door moldings and carpet and wallpaper. Good miniaturists take care to cut out little channels to recess their wires. I just put electrical tape over mine to create a ramp up and down from the bump they cause.

And then, when the goodies arrived, it was time to finish my vision. To make the dollhouse I'd dreamed of come to life. To see the fruits of my labor. To finally make tiny dolls commit suicide.
And with that, the saga comes to an end... until next year.

Soul Hide & Seek

Yesterday was just one of those days.

I was as bored as a human being could get, bored as most schoolkids will be in the next two weeks. I tried everything to stave it off -- hanging artwork, sweeping the floor, doing the laundry, washing the dishes --but for some reason I made it through all of those tasks before 2.

I haven't felt this way since summers in middle school. Which means I need to get going with something. At this point, anything.

The trouble is, I have toooooo many options. I can do the job I was trained to do, the version I've been doing for the last decade, or I can do something brand new. Something where the industry isn't collapsing under itself. Something skill based and exciting and valuable.

Fortunately, I am smart enough that I really do believe I could do anything if given a couple weeks to get the hang of it. If all I did for 40 hours a week was practice brain surgery, I could probably learn how to do it. But it's this competency that's got me completely stuck.

Being ablt to do anything I want has completely overwhelmed me and sucked the directional wind right out of me.

I have an OCD knack for organization that, when coupled with an inability to leave things undone, could set me up to be a successful personal organizer. I could apprentice a professional, learn the trade, and then market myself and launch a career in organizing. And it's gross that I like organizing, but I do and I'm really good at it, so this could be a quick and easy gig for me.

I also love photography and could return to photographing weddings and engagements and births. I mean, I like photographing staged crime scenes and naked ladies too, but when it comes to making money for photography, there's nothing quite like being a central part of the most important events of people's lives. Being a photographer at weddings and births is like winning front row seats to a Happiness Parade. But since my camera was snatched, I'm sort of in limbo with pursuing that and I feel like I need some better gear to really capture the potential I see in my head.

The creativity that comes with photography and the attention to details that comes with organizing could also be parlayed into a career as an event planner. I love, love, love parties, especially those with themes and interesting menus and understated activities. And I love bringing people together to share experiences. But does my annual kick ass drunk fest Halloween party qualify me to be an event planner? Do people really pay other people to plan events for them?

I'm also thinking about nursing, which would require me to go back to school. I like the hours and the pay and the international need and that it's skill based and patient forward, but I worked at an old folks home for 11 days and had to quit or shoot myself in the face before I hit age 50. I just couldn't stand the depression that comes with caring for other people -- the happy 100-year-old who was full of life one day and then getting her leg amputated the next or the 700-pound 30-year-old who couldn't leave her bed. My mother-in-law is an amazing nurse, and at points in her career she's kept a heart beating with her bare hands, worked as an educator training other nurses and managed an emergency room in Los Angeles, where the nutjobs go to die. Also, she makes bank and you can be a traveling nurse and make bonus bank. And when Mr. T is a doctor, it'd be nice to work at the hospital with him to keep all those skeevy I-wanna-marry-a-doctor whore nurses at bay. But, there's that whole people gross me out and boogers make me puke kind of thing. Do you get over that?

Back to school sounds kind of awesome. I loved being a student and learning new things and being a part of an intellectually stimulated collection of people. But if not nursing, what else could I do? The thought of getting a Masters in communication makes me want to slit my wrists, and the other academic pursuits I'm interested in -- graphic design or web design -- I can learn through $85 classes at community college. If I go back to school, it won't be until Fall 2010, so oh my god what do I do until then?

I'm not qualified enough to teach fire spinning.

There's no guarantee that I'll be in this position again in my lifetime -- having my bills paid, having all the time in the world -- so I feel like if I want to write something of consequence, now is the time to try it. I'd love to tell stories, to capture the details as brightly as they are in my head, to make minutia matter, but I have zero confidence for actually doing it. If living in Los Angeles taught me anything it's that no one is discovered for their "talent"... some people just work a crapload harder at the things they're interested in. Am I too lazy to be a writer? Probably. I'm also torn between being funny and being bone cuttingly desperate, so my words are having a bit of an identity crisis these days too.

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. What should I do with my life??? What color is this damn parachute I'm wearing?!!