And then there’s LA

Song:

Keren Ann: My Name is Trouble

 

Quote:

“Sanity and Happiness are an impossible combination.”  -- Mark Twain.

 

Pictures, Stories, and Even a Home Video at the end:

I love LA.  I lived in Hollywood for six years while I was going to UCLA and teaching in South Central.  Many of my friends still live there and I visit a few times a year.  Every single time I go there I think, “Why do I not live here?”

Reason 1 to move to LA:

Alex.  J’adore Alex.  Alex and I met the first day I moved to LA when I was 19.  She and I were single in LA together and even roommates for a while.  We’ve traveled together, gotten in huge fights, had kids around the same times, we went to UCLA together, we are just old good friends.  We bring out the best (and the worst) in each other, but we speak the same language, understand the gospel the same way, and have the same priorities: raising kids.  There are a million ways I could sing the praise of Alex (she is an excellent relationship consultant, 75% of what I know about fashion and art comes from Ms. Alex, she’s a great mom) but mostly she’s just a great human being and dear friend and effortlessly cool. She lives in the OC, but we won’t hold that against her because she’ll make the trek up to Hwood for whatever fun is happening.  Alex is a maven: she knows what’s next with art and fashion and I’m continuously impressed by her.

Reason 2:  Fun things going on All The Time.

I feel alive in LA.  There’s always tons of activities and events and people to meet and places to go.  Every time I go there I run out of time before I run out of things to do.  I’m dying to see the Kubrick exhibit at LACMA, I love going to Santee Alley in the Fashion District Downtown for cheap stuff, there are Art shows, and Japan town, my favorite Doherty Mansion to visit, Wi Spa to be scarred by (that deserves it’s own post), and Runyon Canyon to hike. 

 

Four people I love at the Wi Spa.  Some of my LA LDS crowd.  Not a normal one in the bunch. 

At Doherty Mansion

Doherty Mansion in the Hills above Beverly Hills.  Favorite place with my friend of 12 years Nathan.

Santee Alley buying weapons for my boys.

   

World of Leggings?  Oh, yes.  Down with pants!  I

Reason 3:  The Church might be more true there.  (True-er?  Truer?)

Last time I was in LA I attended a ward where the Relief Society President had purple hair.  Lots of the people who go to church are converts and people who have wandered and comeback.  They’re a band of freaks and I love them.  They wear their issues and their doubts on their sleeves and they are stronger for it.  I fit in.

Sitting in the exact seat where I met my first husband (Houdini – because he can magically make himself and money disappear).

Reason 4:  These people.  Some of the most interesting, kind, hilarious and good people I am fortunate to know live in LA.  I want my kids to know them and be raised around their eccentricities and talents.  Fashion designers, artists, filmmakers, creative types.  Also, my sister Val and Alina who have “real” jobs.

   

 

Reason 5:  It would be great to be raised in LA.  I think my kids would really benefit from being raised in this type of urban environment.  The drawbacks are the quality of schools and the smaller primary.  I’m a firm believer in parental education levels determining children’s ability, regardless of early academic environment.  And as far as a smaller primary and smaller influence of LDS children, that just presents different religious challenges and it doesn’t deter me.  I think my kids would dig that diverse environment.

Rocking out at the tempting Temp.

On one of our LA adventures June 2011 making a music video with Brett.

This was the outcome:  My Punkrock Kids

Fashionista

Song:

 

Icona Pop: I DON’T CARE, I LOVE IT

“You're on a different road, I'm in the milky way
You want me down on earth, but I am up in space”

Scripture:  Link below.

Pictures and Story:

I am SO LUCKY to have a little girl who loves to be fabulous.  Mimi dresses herself and the concoctions she invents often blow my mind with their awesomeness.  I let her wear whatever she wants and she rarely disappoints. If you’re going to have a girl it’s a huge bonus that she’s the girliest of frilly pink skirt-wearing rockin’ girls.  Would I still love a tomboy?  I guess I never have to find out! 

Sequin pants with a tulle skirt and a homemade flower crown.

   

White fur coat and chucks.

Working orange into the rotation, topped with a bit of cheetah.

  

Rock n’ roll matching leather jackets for the three minions.

 

Little fur vest shrug goes with everything.

 

Oh, and then there’s Easter.  Easter requires a full on gown.  We went to the fabric store where she picked out the pattern and the fabrics.  I made the bodice but then handed it over to the master seamstress Pam.  What, your kid doesn’t hunt for eggs in a ball gown?

 

Mimi dressed me this day.  Fur vest inspired by Game of Thrones.  You have to be brave to wear a big hairy vest.  Mimi said I rocked it, but I have some doubt.

 

 

I love it most when we both happen to be dressed rad on the same day. Pictures ensue.

 

This picture perfectly represents mine and Mims’s relationship these days.  We are in sync.  On Saturday morning Mimi and I cuddled on the couch and listened to Elaine Dalton’s talk about mothers and daughters.  And I died of joy.

Having my little Mimi in my life is living giggling fashionista proof that God loves me.

La Brisa Photography Family Pictures

It’s one thing to get fabulous pictures taken in Hawaii by a professional sweetheart photographer, it’s another one entirely to have somebody write something like THIS about me:

Click here:

Something that makes me smile ear to ear.

http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-c-family-joy-session-hawaii-b.html

Go click through.  And then go to Hawaii and have B take your pictures.

Thank you La Brisa Photography!

(they have photographers all over the US and will fly to your location.)

And this is the fabulous Ms. B. 

Going Somewhere?

I put Judejude to bed hours ago, all snug in his jammies. I went in to check on him and he's fast asleep fully clothed, with shoes on.

SLC March 2013: Adult Version

Song:

Imagine Dragons’ Radioactive

Scripture:

Doctrine and Covenants 45:70

And it shall be said among the wicked: Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.

Picture and Stories:

So we went to Utah to see if we could hang there.  Could the minions and I possibly build a new life in that freaky state?  I have never lived in Utah and never even considered it as a place I might consider to consider. 

But then I got into some Law Schools out there.  There and in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City. 

I thought when I applied to law school I would be magically guided into exactly where to go and what to do.  Fortunately or unfortunately I now have far too many doors open and I have no idea which one to walk through.  It’s the paradox of choice.  I’m paralyzed. 

The U of U was having an open house and it was around Spring Break time for my kids, so Salt Lake City became the first location scouted.

Being a Californian I have been conditioned to be skeptical about Utah.  Everybody says that they love it and how great it is for families and how Salt Lake City is way different than the weirdness I always experience in Provo. 

So without much pressure from my friends and family (I wish they would pressure me more … actually I wish they would just make these decisions for me altogether) I went with an open mind.  Here are our adult exploits.

Activity 1:  NIYA Model Management.  My BFF Dead Body friend Niya started a boutique modeling agency in SLC last year.  It’s taken off!  She has a shared studio office in downtown SLC.  I’ve been doing some of the internal communications from home and helping style photo shoots, so it was great to actually be IN the office and working with all the people I’ve talked to via email etc.  While there we interviewed for a new intern (we still haven’t filled that position, so if you know someone who is a social media whiz kid, tell them to email me lenore.management@gmail.com), we helped a photographer who was in town from Beijing with a photo shoot she’d scheduled, did open calls on Friday for new potential models, and basically attempted to talk Niya off many panic ledges.  She’s a machine and she does way too much.  I’m the Gayle to her Oprah.  We were stacking up meetings three per night, it was kind of extreme.

Niya permanently glued to her Mac. 

 

Activity 2:  Jory’s for comfort food.  It’s good to have a friend who is a real live foodie chef.  He’s food obsessed and loves cooking for other people.  Such a gem.

Activity 3:  Visiting with Niya’s brother Steve.  His lovely daughters watched the kids while we ate very exotic BBQ in Draper. 

 

 

Activity 3:  We had a mixer for all the photographers, makeup artists, advertising people, models, and everybody else we’ve been working with at the agency.  It was like hanging out with giants.  I’m 5’6” so I never feel short, but when I’m around this group I feel like a total runt.  Most of them were head and shoulders taller than me.  I think this may have been a secret ploy by Niya to get me to come work with her in Utah… and maybe it’s working.  She wants me to ramp up and run the men’s division.  Not that hard of a sell…  (Major thank you to cousin Anna and fam for letting my minions sleep over.  It was their highlight seeing their “Utah cousins”.)

Activity 4:  Niya got a text from the lead singer of Imagine Dragons saying that they’d left comp’d tickets at Will Call for three of us.  Yeah, that’s kind of a rockstar perk of being in the fashion industry.  Free tickets to a sold out show?  Yes, thank you!

While at Imagine Dragons I ran into my friend Paul Duane who was shooting the show.  Shooting the show … and us.  It was like having our own personal photographer. www.paulduane.net  Unfortunately I am not photogenic.  He went through most of my pics and my discomfort is obvious.  I was raised to think that getting your picture taken was silly and embarrassing and thus I am severely camera shy and awkward.  That’s why most of my pictures of myself are pulling faces or taken by a child.  I hate pictures of myself, but blogging kind of requires them.

Niya said I have to participate in photos for press.  Flattering, but still I cannot vogue to save my life.

A Paul Duane shot of the Imagine Dragons dude.  Apparently he is my second cousin, which is totally irrelevant.  His mom is my mom’s close friend and cousin, so pretty much that means I am famous.  Ha.

 

This tyrannosaur came with us.  Dville roots run deep.  Once a Danvillian always family.

This shot is pretty much an accurate representation of style I love right now.

Activity 5:  Seeing old friends.  Bobb (actually Robb, but that name is too cool for this nerd) is one of my oldest friends with whom I traveled to Spain a hundred years ago.  He was part of the Brett/Devin/Alex gang in LA ten years ago.  Also met lots of new friends who feel like old friends already.

I can’t help it, I adore this picture.  This was 10 years ago in Barcelona.  Bobb, Alex (holy abs, Al) Brett, me Dev.  You guys all love it when I blog about you.

Activity 6:  The Revolv magazine launch party.  Somehow we got on the SLC circuit of where-it’s-at parties.  Where are the young interesting people hanging out in Salt Lake?  Here.  It’s hipster, yep, in every sense of the word.  Please don’t tell them I have multiple degrees, children, a minivan, health insurance, and I don’t drink (let alone drink Pabst Blue Ribbon).  I’m a poser hipster.  Is that worse?  Perhaps.  But to their credit, these are some of the most creative people I’ve met in a long time so I enjoy these see and be seen parties with all their ironic facial hair.

 

The great Paul Duane up to his lady-legs.  He rocks nylons and heels and he’s okay with that.

Activity 7:  Visit Gogol Gardens and find a lovely rock arch that would serve nicely as a wedding canopy.  Have my new FRIEND (yeah, DB, you hate that.  What are you going to do about it?) perform a faux equality ceremony.  (No, we are not that way.  We are nice, righteous LDS women just having a laugh).

 

And that is how Niya got me to see Salt Lake City in a new light.  We did a lot of totally fun activities that I don’t have access to in my current location.  There are people my age-ish and who have similar family situations.  I liked the people.  There was plenty to do.  I’m officially considering moving to Salt Lake City in the summer.

Stuff I Like this Week

Song:

Santigold: Disparate Youth.

Stuff I like this week, in no particular order:

Art by Niya Tumblr

Cloud dress.  Want.  Reminds me of Prince's cloud suit.

Iconographic photography.

Jude's "vampire cape"

Mimi eating frozen peas as an afternoon snack.

Sweettarts, except the green ones are poisonous.

I spent hours on this this week, thinking there was something else I should have been doing but unable to remember what it was.  Only got one side finished.

Mexican television costumes.  No idea what's going on here, but it is great.

Jesus breakdancing.

Pink bubble dress.  I'd wear it, though perhaps ditch the pink dunce cap.

Safety dance.

The millions of kid selfies I find on my iphone.