10 Years Later...

I'm watching this 9/11 - 10 Years Later thing on CBS and reliving September 11, 2001.



I don't cry much but it is making me tear up a little.



Crazy.

It seems like yesterday. I remember leaving a typical boring psych class and a girl named Arielle running up to us screaming "someone just knocked over the Pentagon!" and thinking she was an idiot. Then I ran into Kathryn and we saw a group of 30 people huddled around a car with its doors all open blasting the radio so that people on the street could hear what was going on. As soon as they said a second plane hit the towers we ran into a classroom where 50 people were gathered around a tv watching the news.

It's crazy to think there are kids entering college this year that were too young to really comprehend what was going on in the world that day 10 years ago.

I'll always remember the images from those days.

It affected me a lot then. And now that I live in the city, relatively close to ground zero, I can't even imagine what it must of been like for people in the city.

I'm lucky to not have known anyone who actually died on September 11th. Though I do know people who were there who didn't die. And of course for that I'm grateful.

I feel for all the people who lost their lives and their loved ones so senselessly on that day - on a day that started out like any normal day. And it reminds me why I try to live each day to its fullest and appreciate what I have and am doing now, because everything can be gone in an instant.

I've been looking through a ton of photos on Time.com and Life and CNN and these are some that are some of the most powerful ones for me.










The new 9/11 memorial fountain opens to the public tomorrow. I'm going straight there when I get home.





These days everyone's memories just focus on the towers blowing up. I found this cool movie montage that celebrates the 30 years the towers stood standing.



I was probably 10 years old the one time I visited the towers with my family. I don't remember if we ever went to the top. I think maybe we wanted to but there was too long a line or something so we didn't. But I remember the cab driver who took us there was the friendliest cab driver I'd ever met and he had a collection of little flair buttons like the ones servers wear at TGI Fridays or Applebees covering the inside of the roof of his cab and I thought they were sooooo cool so he gave me one of them that said "I <3 NY" and my dad gave him a $20 tip.**

I lost that button very soon after like the idiot child that I was...but I will always remember...



**Actually my dad giving ANYONE a $20 tip seems very out of character so it was probably a $2 tip which in my ten-year-old mind was an unfathomable amount of money and so I probably just remember it as $20.

San Franceeeeesco!

I landed in SF and quickly found myself in front of a big steaming pile of tofu.



Well look who it is...it's Teebags again!!!



Yes I saw Teebags less than a week ago in NYC, but if you've been following our lives long enough you know that we're kiiiind of unpredictable and hop on airplanes like they're the cross-town bus and sometimes we end up in India or Argentina or sometimes it's just a quick transcontinental flight (two movies and a power-nap) to California.

Tee went to Seattle to kill some time while I was in New Orleans (post coming up soon), and then we landed in SF around the same time.

So this amazing restaurant we came to is called Eiji.

Their speciality dish is this soft tofu that they make themselves and you spoon it into your little bowl and then put all these condiments on it to flavor it.



I normally hate tofu but this is SO GOOD.



The sushi ain't bad either.



After lunch Tee went off to do more shopping.



And I popped into my long-lost friend Jasper's new place on Dolores Park. He has an amazing view.



These next few days will be pretty busy with Peter & Michelle's Wedding but will update again soon!

30 hour layover in NYC

Home sweet NYC...

I popped back into New York around midnight on Monday for two quick photoshoots yesterday and to see my trainer. (She gets really mad at me if I don't see her once every week.)

On my flight into La Guardia from Nola we passed right over midtown and the view was pretty spectacular. I wish I had had my pro-cam on me to take a great night shot.



Shoots went well.

One of my clients, Justin, is this really talented 11-year-old who already been on a ton of stuff like The Wire and Modern Family.

His parents wanted him to have a cute Disney look.



As well as an "urban" look. He took direction amazingly well.



It was POURING out yesterday.

You can't tell though, right?

Normally I would have cancelled the shoot, but he and his parents flew in from South Carolina, so we had to make it work.

Speaking of South Carolina, I'm back at the airport now headed to San Francisco to photograph my buddy Peter Smathers's wedding. (You'll remember him from our Smathers & Branson shoot that we did in South Carolina a few months ago.)

New Orleans!!!

OK, so flashback a week and a half to New Orleans.

I arrived and was greeted by Semmes and Katie and their new neighborhood fancypizzaplace.



On the menu was a Muffalletta Martini.

For those of you who don't know, a muffalletta is a sandwich made of a million different kinds of salami and olives and capers and all these other deliciously weird ingredients.

The description of the Muffalletta Martini was vodka infused with cured meats and olives...I don't know, I was feeling adventureful.



It was NOT delicious. It tasted like the meatjuice that collects when you leave cold cuts in the fridge for too long.

The MEATBALL appetizer, however, was heaven.



As were the stuffed figs.



And the sausage pizza.



The day after, Semmes and Katie flew off to celebrate their anniversary in Barcelona. They left me and Jesse to protect their house and dance around like girls in their bedroom.



Deckydance kicked off with an open bar at the W hotel.



Jesse's buddies from San Diego had come along and were super fun.






Normally the streets of deckydance are packed with people. But this year, because of Tropical Storm Lee it POURED and a lot of people stayed indoors. That's not going to stop us from making fun out of nothing though!

We were getting 3-for-1 drinks at Krazy Korner and the rain was spilling out of these spouts on the edge of the roof, so much so that if you held a cup up to the water, it would fill up in a matter of seconds. So we started filling up our drink cups with rainwater and dumping them on people's umbrellas and faces as they walked by. (They were getting drenched anyway.)



A couple people called us assholes.



But the laughs were worth it.



We also danced around on the street shaking our asses at homo-haters.



On our second night. The rain let up a tiny bit and the streets filled with people.



Jesse is SUPER popular and ended up having visiting girlfriends as well. They were super fun.



On of the funniest moments of the night was when a bunch of us noticed a dancer changing out on a adjoining rooftop and Jesse ran over to get a look and smashed his head into the window, thinking it was open.







Because of the weather, a lot of events ended up getting cancelled. We spent daytime most days recovering and watching Disney movies. Literally we'd go to Blockbuster every day and ONLY choose movies out of the 99 cent Kids section.



We'd also drive by this ghetto looking place Danny's every day which we thought was hilarious because they can't make up their frickin' minds what to serve...



On our last night, Jesse's friend Kristin invited her boyfriend Trevor out, and he is officially the most open-minded straight person I've ever met in my life.



He even happily mingled with daddies!




I caught glimpses of Khalil and some of my other NOLA buddies just a few times over the course of the weekend.



Mostly we played with Jesse's insane friends.



On this last night the girls literally danced and jumped around in the street and at the bars with their titties hanging out.



It was one of the funniest things I have seen in my life. NOLA just brings out the best in people.




Jesse also got sling-shotted across the bar by his underwear.



I miss NOLA!

New Orleans!

I'm in NOLA with Jesse for Southern Decadence!

It's been pouring non-stop for the past few days, but it is still an amazing party of course. And even though the streets are not nearly as crowded as years past (understatement) we are having fun pouring water on people from the balconies. Yay!




I'm also obsessed with this new David Guetta song "Without You" featuring Usher. Can't wait for the dance remix. I think it's going to be big. You can't help but feel happy and dancey when the chorus kicks in.