Thanksgiving in ATX

Last night, our foursquare of roomates, all sat down and had a five minute discussion called: "Thanksgiving .... What does it mean! How shall we celebrate?" The four of us decided that 'Thanksgiving is best spent with all the Old-people-you-love' and without all those Old-people you love, cooking an ten pound turkey is a waste-of-time-and-effort. So Patrick, the roommates, and I are skipping out on the giant bird this year and instead, cooking a bunch of random Turkey related products: Turkey Bacon, Turkey Sausage, maybe Turkey Sandwiches in the evening-time. Hash-browns instead of mashed potatoes. Scrambled eggs instead of Deviled Eggs. Thanksgiving Breakfast! Whooo! Maybe I will even spoil myself with some of that delicious Pumpkin Pie Yogurt (which Titiania mentioned is now being sold at WholeFoodsMarket, mmm)

Tweet-Up Austin

In reality, I make friends incredibly easy - I exude all the personality traits that a friendly person should. I smile. I listen. I care. I make eye contact. I make incredibly lame jokes. Q: Why couldn't the bicycle move? - A: Because it was 'too tired'.... or Q: How much should a polar bear weigh? - A: Enough to break the ice.... (oh they are cliche and horrible)

But it is hard making friends in a city when you rarely leave the house except to workout or eat food - Signed up for volunteer work for PetsAliveAustin, but the orientation is not until tomorrow afternoon - Looked into Meals on Wheels but not enough to dedicate myself to it - I am looking into: reading circles, yoga classes, knitting classes, pole dancing classes, pottery - Also, I keep searching for a part-time job that allows me to create my own schedule (but *that* is proving to be completely impossible. I either have to quit modeling or find something to keep me occupied while Pat works his nine hour days)

Anyways - the other day, while perusing Twitter - I discovered a Tweet-up a few miles from my house! 100+ Austin-ites, uniting together through the Internet tubes, to drink beer and celebrate life! Whoo! Twitter, Twat, Twit-tastic! - Ha. Twitter Party Definition: Where everyone in the room must have conversations under 140 characters in length!

Invited Patrick and the roommates to attend the Tweet-up but they claimed it was going to be a geek-fest. "Come on, the only kind of people that attend things like that are the people who do not have friends.....They only leave their houses to workout and eat food" Selling point! Count me in! Ecstatic that I attended! Met so many wonderful local people from the twitter scene - a solar energy technician, an author, a lovely girl who works at the TV station, a few people who work at UT, a guy who lives completely off raw food, even a journalist who writes about plus-sized modeling attended - While I suck at names, I had a blast. Highly recommend that you check out your local get-togethers. Get out of your house, make some new friends, break into a new scene, promote yourself - Even snagged the name of a really talented editor here in Austin that might be able to help me approach writing a book. Life is good.

Photo Credit: Lee Saxon - New Orleans, Aug 2009

Things to keep in mind

"A lot of the time, we are so focused on the things we want to fix, change and improve that it is a distraction from what we are really here to do. If we look closely, this eats up valuable time and energy that we can never get back. Let this be our focus. The task at hand, for each individual, is to focus - inward not outward. Connecting with our Self, our Light, and make the spiritual journey to freedom. We must reverse every thought, emotion, attitude and belief that traps us. We must purify our thoughts, forgive everything, care about everyone, have a good attitude and choose actions motivated by love. Warm, caring, compassionate, forgiving, friendly - this is what we want to be around. This is what we should become.”

Perrydactyl

Perrydactyl, the kitty that I adopted from Meth-Motel in Dayton Ohio, turned out to be a girl kitty (and is now stuck with the name Perrydactyl for the rest of her life) - She is pretty awesome. Just had her spayed a few weeks ago and she has been adventuring around the front yard - thought I would update with some photos - mostly because she is just so cute and all....

'Ask any question' - Day!

Keep me entertained. I figure that while I sit here, watching boring FinalCutPro tutorials all day - perhaps today can be a day of questions! : ) Ask me anything and I shall answer.....

Taking the month off

Patrick got a job while I was in the UK! He started on Thursday, working full-time for a itty-bitty local distribution company Downtown. Seems to really like it - great hours (9-6), good people, small company, dress down everyday, twice the pay he was making in Cleveland (he loved his job but was only making $7.50 in Ohio)

With that said, for the first time in two years, Patrick is going to have a little extra money in his account and he is covering my rent for this month! Yay! This means I can finally join a gym, get a library card, check out some of the local parks, visit all the wi-fi cafes, find a bookshelf, go thrifty shopping, get to know Austin, hang out with my kitty! Also, I am working through all the custom photo-sets and video-sets that people ordered last month... Finished five of the photo-sets (still not to late to order one), but as for video, I am still watching tutorials for FinalCutPro - I want to learn how to edit video on my Mac before I start turning out videos - give me a week.

E_String, Danny - London, UK

When the 'photographer' FINALLY dropped me off at Erin's place -twas a breath of fresh air in a hot, stuffy, uncomfortable situation - Could care less if she was actually home or not. At that point, I would have gladly curled up on her front steps... in the freezing rain all night...

I was elated to discover that Danny was actually home, though. Never met Danny or Erin before - only heard about them through the modeling grapevine. Erin grew up in Minnesota and modeled all over the US (you can check out her portfolio here.) She met Danny in NYC, married him in California, and moved to the UK to be closer to his family. She is a fantastic model/now-photographer as well and he also incredibly talented with a camera. Since Erin worked with a bunch of people in the industry that I consider close-friends, as soon as I found out that I was headed to the UK, she was the first person that I contacted - Good people tend to attract other good people......

SO happy that I wrote her! First time, since arriving in the UK, that I felt like I belonged somewhere. Erin gave me my own bedroom and took some time off to go sightseeing with me. While I was with the 'photographer' - I had the chance to see some of Kent, the White Cliffs of Dover, The Battle of Britain Museum, the changing of the guard, and Buckingham Palace. Erin, Danny and I stayed closer to home and hit up Trafalgar Square, The National Gallery, Salvages (a fancy fashion-mall full of Runway clothing). Watched movies, ate lots of take-out food, cooked marshmallows in the fireplace, cuddled up with her kitties. Danny brought me tea in bed every day (bless that man!) - Erin made hot ham and cheese sammiches... : ) Both her and Danny took a day to shoot some photos of me. Had a chance to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day on Nov 5th at the Crystal Palace - celebrating treason against Parliament!

In the end, the best time spent in London, UK - was spent shooting with Erin and her Rolliflex - Wait till you see the photos, they are going to be terribly amusing. I title them "Went to London and all I came home with was this lousy dildo..." Hehe - Make use of your props, kids! Make use of them!

Photo Credit: Ed Stringborne Nov 2009 and I did my own makeup! *proud*

Mixed Feelings - London, UK

Been trying to write this blog about London, UK for most of the weekend - Not sure what to say - I did not really have a great time, kind of wish I never went. If you read this blog often, I am sure you have noted that I am a bit too trusting at times. This is a quality that I both despise and cherish. While I do put myself in situations that are uncomfortable... usually, I can stumble through them gracefully. I test myself with them, learn from them - It helps me to understand who I am better - I do take more chances than I probably should and yes, it will probably get me killed someday but I refuse to spend my life living in a world where I need to worry all the time - Most people are good people, if I approached life thinking otherwise - I would not be who I am.

The day that I flew into London, one of blog readers from Becker's blog, picked me up at the airport! He took me out sightseeing and even hired me for the evening. Was his first time shooting a nude model (love working with amateur photographers who are serious about their work). Had a great time, he was sincere and fantastic to work with. Booked me a trendy hotel in downtown Soho, took me out exploring the city - And even though it was "just a bridge," he gave into my pleas to explore the famous Harry Potter Millennium bridge - Saw London bridge, London eye from a distance, grabbed some Bitters at a great little pub on the Thames (pronounced Tims in Britain), ate in China Town, wandered around Piccadilly Circus - You should actually thank him, because I did not take a single touristy photo while I in the UK, these are all his.....

The guy who booked my trip to London picked me up on Friday - I do not want to seem unthankful because I am thankful for the trip - but I spent most of my weekend in constant fear that my plane ticket home would get canceled - Agreed to playboy styled nudes - walked into a situation with strap-on-dildos, a naked photographer in the woods, and a stripped male-model getting caned on the floor... Since I signed a contract saying that I would work with this 'photographer' four hours every day from Friday-Monday evening. Spent most of my freetime sleeping in until Noon, drinking myself into a near coma at the local pubs or reading my books, trying to submerge myself into any other world other than the one I was in. The 'p

hotographer' had a print-out of my limitations, and yet, I found myself being pushed again and again - Acting out perverse fantasies. Either it was total lack of communication on his part or he just enjoyed putting me in an uncomfortable situation...

There was no sex, but it was close - And I felt used and pushed. More than that - I was ANGRY! By Monday, I shut-down completely, barely spoke at the shoot, fell into Sub-Space, kept checking my phone, hoping 6pm would come sooner than it could - I am almost 100% sure that he would have been vindictive enough to cancel my ticket home if I did not follow through with working with him. If I learned anything on this trip, it is that I will absolutely NEVER let a photographer buy my ticket to another country EVER again in my LIFE! Ever. I was on edge every-second I was there - I was terrified.... fucking.... sucks.... balls....

I would love to go into detail about the weekend (it really would make the best blog entry EVER!) - but I am not going to get into it since said 'photographer' reads my blog and he already told me that I should not talk about personal details. I am more than sure that I will get a scathing email just for writing this blog entry - so enjoy it - it might not last long.

Facebook Page

You can now add me on Facebook:

London Andrews

No longer using the clutter-fuck-that-is-myspace. If you need to contact me, these are the sites I frequent often: Blogspot, modelmayhem, twitter, gmail, and facebook (I prefer Mayhem and Gmail for work related emails, though) - Juggling photographers, highschool friends, cousins, fans, naked models doing promo on facebook was both difficult and risky using my real name. Feel free to add the London Facebook page, though - seems that someone even started a fan-page!