Introduction

As an undergrad, I studied gender, sexuality, and fine arts in congruence with each other in a self-designed major. After graduating, I dabbled in paper-pushing and various service jobs before settling in a career as a waitress/barista for a couple years. I saved some money, learned to sew and machine knit, and traveled to India before finally deciding to go back to school for fashion design.

I am in love with a beautiful and amazing Sagittarius queer boi who has turned my life upside down. His decision to move to L.A. was largely inspirational to my move here, knowing that before this, Los Angeles was perhaps the LAST place I would ever choose to move. He has an awesome job as a manny for a famous celesbian, who, like the planets, seems to be sort of orbiting around our ripening adulthoods, nourishing idealism in our hearts and warming the seats for our up-and-coming-ness. We live in her 400 sq. ft. guest house, (in which the tub is in the kitchen, the toilet is in the curtained closet area) with three parakeets and two ancient cats. It works, somehow. I think it's the skylights and the many-thread-count sheets...and all the LOVE.

I am a Cancer sun sign with a Scorpio Ascendant and a Libra moon. I believe this combination of planetary influences is at least partially responsible for my over-emotive passion, drive, and destructive inability to make a decision, or to see anything as black and white. (Hence the combo-major in college, wide-spread yet unfocused talents, queer sexual and gender preferences, and the hours it takes for me to pick out an outfit.) Merely making the decision to go back to school for something so specific as fashion design is something I am deeply proud of.

I have been here for one month, which has given me enough time to totally freak out before finally starting to feel kind of at home. The culture shock is considerable, but subtle...except for those moments when I find myself surrounded by models draped in money and pumped surgically with success, or when I realize I am have been jogging (yes JOGGING) for ten minutes and have passed nearly ten health-supplement stores.

I began school last week and everything about it has been exciting and inspiring. I love my teachers, my mentors, the few classmates I've interacted with so far, and I find myself already doing the homework before it's been assigned to me, palms sweating all over my sketches, or notebooks, or muslin. This industry is a roaring beast and I feel like a teeny-tiny lion tamer with far too much (or too little?) confidence. Aside from any complaining I might be doing about my experiences here thus far, I am so excited about life I can hardly stand it. I can't wait for NOW to be happening...you know?!