well it has certainly been a while. since my last post i graduated from Moore with a BFA in illustration, began my burlesque career, and net my future husband whom i will be marrying later this year. gonna do my best to get back into chronicling my adventures. sorry for the absence

wrote this a few days ago

i miss writing. but i miss it in the sense that when i have no one who can discuss logically with me, i always have the pen and paper, the keyboard. when there is no other who i can feel connected to, i can lose myself with in the lines of the page. i've been doing a bit of introspective thinking lately. sometimes i wonder if i should have been a writer instead. what does spirituality mean to me? it is not Spirituality in the sense of a god, a heaven, and an afterlife. it is more a state of being i think. i have been having a tough time defining it. perhaps i can unravel it with in these pages. i think my spirituality stems out of my own self-awareness, which in and of itself solidifies my disbelief in god, because i am the answer to myself. not an invisible concept.

a rather personal post for some one close.

things are moving faster than i can hold on to. the speed of it all is exhilarating after being idle for so long. your laugh lifts me up. your kiss warms my skin. just let go. just let go. unsure. insecurity plagues me. i hate that i have to think. plagued with conciousness. doomed to analyze. chained to this ever changing awareness. much fear behind my eyes. the result of all his lies. wanting to believe again. to mend my broken faith. exhault me. lift me up again. you do it every day. mending the pieces of a broken psyche. bit by bit. brick by brick. tear down these walls and build a palace from the rubble. so that i can spend a long, long time looking in those eyes. so i can spend such a long time right there by your side. i'll be the bonnie to your clyde. the sanctum where you can hide. wash away these sins together. side by side. so i can spend forever looking in those eyes.

im so fuckin over today. im done. checked out. finished. knocked out. kaput. ive been done with today since last night. i hate wednesdays. i have 12 hours of class. i mean, i set my schedule and all, but jesus christ. my alarm went off an hour late. i was late to class today. then i thought i had the right paper to draw on. nope. had to go and buy some. fucking awesome. didnt actually get to start drawing until 930ish. i managed to get a damn good drawing out but fuck. it was a two week drawing and i only got one week in on it cause i missed all my fucking classes for tyra last week. so im sitting in fucking world history right now surrounded by ignorant assholes. i went on my break to grab a snack at the corner store. tried to take money out but you can only take out 20 dollar intervals. i dont have 20 bux in my account. so i walk 2 more blocks to the wawa. mind you i only have 15 minutes here. i take money out there. awesome. then i see that the line is all the way around the fucking store! so i decide to walk back to the corner store and guy stuff there. its on my way back. cool.... some where in the 2 blocks between wawa and the other place, i dropped my fucking money..... what the fuck?! so now, not only do i not have food (ate nothing but coffee all day as i forgot to bring shit with me) but i dont have any money to get home tonight. i have to bum two bucks from some one and then borrow money from mom tomorrow..... fml. i hate this shit. im pissed at my job because theyre not scheduling me. i have to go job hunting next week. argh!!!!! i never have any fucking money. im so tired of this bullshit. im over it. im so tempted to go back to stripping. i made bank. i dont give a shit any more. i just want a fucking cig and im out and i dont have money to get more.... i may be over reacting but god damn some days i just wanna blow my god damn brains out

::signing off::

the tyra show

Okay so… since every one and their mother has been asking me about the tyra show (literally… my friend’s moms are asking me), here’s how it all went down. Alison and I took the train up to NYC Tuesday night. Had an awesome time on the train. We sat in the café car and played really obnoxious music haha. Cleared out the car except for the conductors who were hanging out with us the whole time. They told me I look like Abby from NCIS or what ever that show is. So we finally get to the hotel, drop our stuff, get cleaned up and decide to hit up a bar for a wee bit. Yeah…. That was a great idea. Haha I had a liiiitttllleee too much to drink. What evs. The hotel beds were so freaking comfy, I slept great and woke up feeling awesome any way.
So we meet up with Jasmine, the lady thingy from the show, at about 745 am, and walk to the station (its only about a block and a half away). Sadly, they made us turn in our cameras and phones so if any of you were wondering why I didn’t text you excitedly, that would be why. So then we had to go through wardrobe and makeup and all that jazz. I had to put so much make up on, I looked like a death rock drag queen (so kinda like high school haha). E then proceded to hang out for like…. 3 hours. Ugh. The entire time were hanging out doing nothing, im getting grumpier and grumpier because I started thinking about how this is just another example of me doing what makes me happy and being told I need to change it. I mean… I knew all this going in and when I agreed to do it, but still. It wears on you. When every one is looking at your pictures or checking out your shit and laughing or just acting so amazed… I dunno. It wears on you. Al I wanted to do was talk to mom and tyler. It kidna sucked.
So they started the show with Alison who was playing my “normal” friend who is “tired of me always dressing so crazy and tired of the looks we get when we go out” blah blah blah. They start to show some of my crazier pictures to the audience and all I can hear are bad oohs and ahhs and it really pissed me off. I looked at the oother people back stage and was like “it’s just like high school all over again”. So then I came out on stage and talked with tyra for a little bit. She asked me some questions and what not. Then went and sat in this chair with the hair guy (mike) and the maeup guy (sam). They were easily my favorite part of the entire experience. I love them to death. So yeah… they talked a bit on stage about some products that could help and talked a little about what they were going to do to me. It was cute. Tyra took my fake lashes off haha.
I then get rushed back stage where they have about 20 minutes to do my make over haha. Mike is trying to do my hair while sam’s assistant was taking my old makeup off. Jesus it was crazy. so yeah. Gave me a cute outfit. Did some loose curls all betty page style. Cut my bangs (☹) but its okay cause they looks super cute. So then they brought me back on stage. Alison’s jaw dropped and every one in the crowd was cheering and shit. It was kinda cool.
So after all that went down, they drove us to a salon at 6th and Madison. Eiji. It was sooooo cool. That is where Mike works. So he colored my hair and fixed up my bangs a little. We had such a cool time hanging out with him. They let us leave all our stuff (and there was a lot of it) at the salon while Alison and I went and got some dinner. We went to this amaaaazing restaurant called Tao. It was sooo delicious. Then we walked through FAO Shwartz for a bit, then we went back home. We were exhausted by the time we got home. Holy crap.
So that’s what happened. No, I don’t know when its going to air yet, so quit asking me! Lol.

recap of last night's show

so. tyler and i went to see anti-flag at the troc last night. it was, for lack of a better word, awesome. 4 opening bands (menzingers, star fucking hipsters, cancer bats, aiden). didnt care too much about all that. but before a-f played, i had a chance to talk to their manager about a family friend of mine who had produced their last album. he had asked them to take this picture for me --->


so when i was talking to their manager (i think his name was jesse, but it was loud), he reaches down and hands me a copy of "bright lights of america" on vinyl! after thanking him many many times, tyler and i squeezed our way up against the barrier for their set. it was a relatively short set compared to some of the ones ive seen them do before. their encore consisted of almost entirely clash songs- guns of brixton, should i stay or should i go, i faught the law. durring their last song, the crew started passing pat's drums into the crowd, then pat jumped down and began playing drums from the center of the crowd, right next to where we were standing. right after that, a mic stand and chris's bass were handed down, followed by chris! they finished their set in the middle of the audience. chris had his back pressed right aginst me. it was amazing and i love that the guys are cool enough to do stuff like that. they're all very humble people. i managed to snap some photos with my phone-

so the set ended and tyler and i hung around for a bit. im realy glad we did. i went up to pat and asked him if he remembered taking that picture. he did and he gave me a huge hug and signed my record. i then went up and asked justin sane if he remembered and he also gave me a huge hug after yelling "nikki!" he told us to hang around for a bit while he finished saying good bye to people and signing other people's stuff. after every one else was gone, he took us back stage and had the chris' sign the record also, saying any friend of tony's is a friend of theirs. they were extremely friendly, humble, and polite. all in all it was a pretty fantastic night.

also, things with tyler and me are pretty fantastic. it's really awesome to have a guy who doesnt give a shit when i talk to another guy, or start a fight when we're out, or act like a complete child. he's really great. he manes me really happy, and i hope it stays like that for a long time ;)

::signing off::

city-wide tragedy

so its been a week of complete ups and downs. things with me and chi didnt work out, but im not too upset about that. we just didnt have any chemistry. but a few days after that, my friend tyler (who i have had a crush on for a long time) asked me on a date. so im really giddy about that. he makes me smile even when hes not with me. he makes me forget about phil in the best way. dont know what we're doing yet, but no matter what we will have a good time. we've both hinted at a relationship, which im totally okay with.

then comes the down side to the week. i was informed last night that a friend of mine, J Rivet, passed away. i'm not sure what happened. i dont have that information yet. its a shocking piece of news either way. he was one of the most talented, most real people ive ever met. he never worried about the bullshit in life. he just wanted to have fun and he was always nice to every one. he was one of the most intelligent people in this fucking city. this really is a great loss. part of me wants to look at this with a completely platonic, socratic mind. i keep telling myself he has ascended into the greater, ideal mind, which is where he probably belongs as he was always very philosopihcal. he is with in all of us now. the other part of me cant stop crying. its difficult to lose any one. at the end of the day, all we can do is remember fondly th times we shared. i just regret that i did not have more time with him before he left. between me going off the grid, and him moving to maryland, i hadnt seen him in well over a year. i regret this with all my heart now. every time i saw him, he made me feel wanted. he did this with every one. he was an amazing human being, and philadelphia is suffering today.

we love you. we miss you. we will always remember you
R.I.P. J Rivet

::signing off::