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an r&b and hip-hop head, an alternative/grunge and punk lover, a beavis & butthead (and daria) addict, a tommy hil and nautica consumer, a huge advocate of handball and public nyc parks, a rocker of a black bugaboo columbia jacket, a drinker of the finest st. ides special brew and liquors around all by 14, a super nintendo gamer nerd, a misfits addict, a graphic designer, a web designer, a super-sneaker-out-of-the-houser, a great kisser, a roamer of queens in general, a bay terrace mallrat, a thief kleptomaniac, a greenwich village dweller, a make-out slut, a smoker of pot, an adopted latina, a stoop dweller, a total hard ass, a pin cushion (i’ve had like, 11 piercings), a mosher, a friend of vampires, an MTV offices regular, a raver, a lover of anything with synth in it, a mild drug user (e), a cam girl, a blogger, a saucony’s/vans girl, an awesome girlfriend to few, a frequent MTA rider, a south-bronx dweller, a ska-loving skanker, a chick magnet, a  bouncing souls show regular, a high school graduate, a video store clerk/manager, a jackass addict, an ikea addict, a tony hawk pro skater pro, an aimless whitestone stroller, a myspace fan, a graffiti lover, a sparks drinker, a roommate, a loner, a restaurant manager, a toughlover<3, a pet owner, a traveler, a glassjaw addict, a camper, a wifey, a guest list dweller, a mistress, a canvas for a few tattoo artists, a full-time website developer, someone with multi-colour hair, a brooklyn resident, a ranger fan (again<3), a tweeter, and most importantly a (self-destructively/overly loyal) good friend… etc.

which leaves me feeling like i love how all over the place i’ve been, good and bad.
i’ve also been realizing as i get older that NYC is really fucking tiny. and the older i get, the closer the social circles are linked.
(this has been proven many times in the last year…)

when i met her,  from day one, we just clicked.  ideas flowed, we wanted to do things… this was before this cat was even in the picture. we sat there for hours chit chatting away and even though we had a website that was “coming soon” for a straight year… we launched it.

when i met jes five years ago, the whole situation was via my ex who did graff…  or at least the way that i found her, he didn’t know her personally…  anyhow, seeing and hearing about nyc writers that he liked got me into graff…  he really liked writers that used characters, like a one icon deal, like jes’s j-heart.  long story short, jes was confused with someone else that we knew with (almost) the same name and i started checking out her shit on myspace (RIP).  i was looking at all of her fills and i fell in love.  i remember one of the first pictures i ever used for a contact table – which is still one of my favorites – is why i started talking to her – it was adorable (below).  it was a collabo between her and bob will reign.

i was instantly hooked.

since moving to ridgewood and living closer to her, we’ve become closer this year than we’ve ever been before…  this year she’s had to deal with a bunch of personal (dude) bullshit that’s been annoying me.

i’m good friends with jes and i think it would be weird if i didn’t get sparked up and pissed by things she’s dealing with…  i really don’t want to sit here acting like a three year old talking shit about him online, but i’m kinda pissed off at the entire situation with her former bf in general. especially when he tries to take all the credit for her company and/or building it up. (yes, he did actually whine about this.)

getting off that path for a second, because it isn’t the worlds business… i believe a good, general life practice is not talking shit about your ex’s (well okay, maybe just their inadequate body parts,  hehehehehe).  but what i mean by “talk shit” especially, is bashing what you supported and loved about that person while you were with them.  you can’t erase history, especially by verbally bashing the shit out of it.  we all learn from our own mistakes… just take it, and keep it moving…

more specifically, the point of this post wasn’t to talk shit about him… but to really just state that jes shines on her own, and she has since the day i met her.  i have had so much faith in her and her brand since it even rolled off of our lips  (pre-him days)…  she’s doing just fine, and not riding on the coat tails of any other artists, especially someone she devoted three years of (recently-proved pointless) love to.  i’m super proud of her and everywhere we go – events, parties, etc. all dig her…  not because of some dude who thinks he built toughlove (he may have been a big help in certain aspects, but he was never the foundation), but because she’s the person still rolling with it – and still overflowing with ideas.

we haven’t fallen apart without you yet, and i assure you that we won’t.

…i didn’t know i was going to be on the show with jes, i thought it was just gonna be her being interviewed while sheena and i were just chillin’ out watching… but we got in on it toughlove team styles<3 spoke our minds, sheena and i got way too many laughs in and jes made me laugh with her spitfire self. ♥

along with my creepers/moccasins – i think these are going to be lined up for me as well…

i need another pair of plaid vans so badly – i miss mine
i had a pair of old skools that sort of looked like the above, but they were…  well…  old skools, lol – with white laces and a white vans stripe…  they were my favorite.   i even bought them like three times over a period of almost ten years to ensure i’d always have a pair!  …then like an idiot, i wore them on a snow day and they got a little musty.  i can’t remember if sophies mother threw them out or if i threw them out because of it.  either way, by then, vans had stopped making them and it has left me heart broken.

one of the only pictures i have of them: (and you can barely see them…)

late last night when i was walking into TGIF’s on austin street, i focused in on a chick that was leaving wearing a Tough Love Grimey Glamour shirt… i was like fuck yeaaaaaaaahh!<3 at first she kinda looked at me the like uh, what? so i pointed at her shirt... i was trying not to sound like a total weirdo, going up to a random girl and telling her what brand of shirt she was wearing, i introduced myself as the webmaster of toughlovenyc.com… i think that helped, lol.

so… i totally live in a box and i go to the same places all the time and never pay attention to my surroundings when i’m out (always in la la land), so this was rather exciting for me …it’s cool to see girls out there wearing my girl’s brand. makes me happy… i remember five years ago when we were just in talks about all of this. reality strikes! love it.

figured i’d share my little tough love moment<3

either way, go check out both of those websites. sheena always has crazy inspiring/creepy/art-driven posts – great stuff. glad we met…

the beauty of the internet<3

i work between the manhattan and brooklyn bridges, if you didn’t know… it’s gorgeous down there in the park, so i figured it’d be a good place to just chill out for a while… it was a gorgeous spring day out today, glad we got to enjoy it before we start sweating our nyc balls off…

we got some starbucks, walked around dumbo for a few, and then we went to brooklyn bridge park… chilled out for a while, were talking… TLNYC CREATIVE BRAINSTORMING… and as jes took this picture on the left (dont mind my fat arm? lol), one of my bosses walked over to say hi, lol… we got to see his son charlie and his wife, we chatted for a few and then they went to a birthday party in the park. it’s funny i bumped into him, i’m usually never in dumbo on the weekends since i frequent it so often during the week

so we sat there for a while shooting-the-shit, and then decided to hike up to the heights… here are some pics i took

(click the thumbnails, people!)

i had a creative epiphany to make this just now while cleaning out my iphone photos… i was having fun with my super cool iphone app that takes multiple shots at once last time i was with jes and edited it into this.

hope she likes it<3 :B

so this is the black wall. the purple side hasn’t been finished yet – no sneak peeks!
this has a short wall in the back like 5/6 feet wide and goes a little longer to the right of the picture where you can’t see.

i love it. it doesn’t make my apartment feel smaller either, which is what i was afraid of.
even my landlord liked it

thanks again jes and rob for all of your help! (GO BUY SHIRTS FROM THEM!!!!!! – they are two creatively brilliant minded friends of mine<3)

ALMOST THERE!