Ugh

Non-stop!

I'm just going going going. I went to Vegas to relax because I knew once I got back to the East Coast it was going to be insane. Probably won't be updating for the next few days. So here's where I've been and where I'm headed over the next 4 days.

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Tuesday 8am - woke up to hit the Blackjack table one last time before heading to the airport. I'm pretty low stakes so $100 at a time is thrilling enough for me. Was up to $300. Then went down to $15 remaining. Then went all-in. Won. And let it ride. Twice. Somehow got back up to $125. Then left, happy to have made $25, enough for a "free" breakfast.

Tuesday 11am - boarded my flight from Vegas to JFK

Stefan Gordy, lead singer of LMFAO was sitting in-front and across from me.




Tuesday 7pm - landed back in JFK.

When we landed and stood up to collect our bags LMFAO-guy commented on my height and we chatted. He's nice. And looks like he had just walked off his music video set - pink shorts, neon shoes, white-rimmed glasses, zebra fanny pack (with stuffed zebra-head attached), guitar/keyboard/accordion instrument thingy. Did you know his dad or grandpa or something founded MoTown Records? I found that to be slightly disappointing. Whatever.

Tuesday 9pm - sushi-making w/ roommate Kayvon and gf Justine. Homemade sushi is tasty. Sometimes. Note to self: Smoked Salmon does not belong in sushi.

Tuesday 9pm-2am - Photo-editing mania, built a new website (www.KristyKwanEvents.com) for KristyKwan (she's a wedding planner now, I'm lending her pretty photos until she has enough from weddings of her own, hire her!)

Wednesday 9am - Met w/ a potential client. Booked the job. I think.

Wednesday 11am - Photoshoot for super-talented 9-year-old kid represented by Innovative Artists. He'll be famous some day.

Wednesday 1pm - Loaded up car, grabbed coffee and a sandwich, and set off for Boston.

Wednesday 5:30pm - Just arrived in Boston.



So here I am sitting in Starbucks near Harvard Square getting some work done before meeting up with Boston peeps for dinner. The next few days will continue to be a whirlwind.

Thursday 12 noon - Photoshoot for some kid in here in Boston.

Thursday 7pm - Meeting w/ potential Boston bride

Thursday 8pm - dinner with Danald!



Friday 8am - Wake up to drive to Providence to get an oil-change and shoot a wedding.

Friday 9am - Arrive in Providence. Oil change.



Friday 11am - Wedding shoot for Levi & Daniela. All day.

Friday/Saturday midnight - Wedding concludes. Head to Dad's house to take a nap.

Saturday 9am - leave Providence to drive down to Jersey Shore for playtime with Katie, Megoon, Semmes, DK2, etc

Saturday 2pm-ish - Arrive in Jersey Shore. PartyTime!



Sunday 8am - leave Jersey Shore to drive to Upstate New York for Irene & Jon's Wedding.

Sunday 10am - arrive in Garrison, NY



Sunday 12 noon - Wedding! All-day.

Sunday/Monday midnight-ish - Wedding concludes. Drive back to NYC

Monday 11am - Photoshoot #1

Monday 3pm - Photo consultation with potential client

Monday 4pm - Photoshoot #2

Monday 8pm - Photo consultation with another potential client

Monday 9pm - SLEEP. FOREVER. Or at least until 10 am because I have a 10:30am shoot Tuesday.

Wheeeeeewwwwww....

5-7 years ago when I was playing WoW or watching TV in my pajamas from morning til night and the highlight of my day was fashioning a do-rag out of underwear I prayed that I would someday be this busy, so I'm not complaining.

I AM excited, however, to eventually hire a full-time assistant/bag-carrier/driver though.

Maybe next year...

Vegas

Erik is now my best friend forever in Vegas.

He too enjoys nice things, fancy foods, and playing too much blackjack.



Last time I was in Vegas, E introduced me to his friend Mona who is the front desk bosslady at the Hard Rock Hotel. As such she was able to hook me up with a fancy suite at the hotel since they were not even close to being at full capacity on a Sunday/Monday night.



I just looove this suite.



It has a pretty bathroom...



A great view of the pool...



And a RAIN SHOWER.

LOOOOOVES A RAIN SHOWER.



When I landed in Vegas, I checked into the Hard Rock on Facebook, and my friend Pav happened to be in town also and contacted me.

Pav I met through Felix and Vitri because he is one of Vitri's besties from college.

He had been just raced in a little road race from San Diego to Vegas for his giant brother Adam's (also 6'7") 21st birthday.



We had an epic meat-filled dinner at Fogo De Chao.

LOOOOVES a fellow giant.



(Pav is also getting married next fall and I trying with all my might to score that wedding gig.)

Also we hit up downtown with Erik and gambled our faces off over the past two days.



Day one was good. I was up about $550.

Day two was terrible. I played poker and got the crappiest hands all day, eventually losing about $200... then played some blackjacks and lost another hundo...so I'm still up for the trip...but it doesn't feel as awesome as it did last night...

Anyhoo...back to NYC in the morning!

LA!

My trips to LA are always a whirlwind, and that's the way I like it.

Fun, efficient, delicious.

THURSDAY

I arrived on Thursday morning off the redeye and picked up my rental and headed straight to West Hollywood to grab a scrumptious CurryBrunch with Kristy, Kelli, and Matt.



Then that evening I met up with Jesse and friends for some dancing...




FRIDAY

The next morning I lunched with Danny...




And then had an afternoon shoot at the Hotel Bel-Air.

We lunched in the new Wolfgang Puck restaurant right in the hotel and saw Wolfgang himself circulating to greet VIP guests like Les Moonves, CEO of CBS.

Food was amazing.

My friend/client wanted pretty editorial-style photos, so he had rented out the Oprah Suite. (The suite Oprah regularly stays in whenever she's in town.) It was pretttttyyyy nice.



It had its own outdoor courtyard with Jacuzzi...



And two lovely bedrooms.



We shot multiple setups all throughout the suite.



And I can't show you any official photos from the shoot, except maybe this one, of one of our pretty extras.



SATURDAY

I met up with AnnieAli to chat with her about her wedding next summer and to force her to nail down a date so I could be sure to be there to shoot it. (Already have 3 weekends in September 2013 booked up.) And Diana and Jason joined as well. We brunched over at Comme Ça on Melrose. And the Salmon Tartare was HEAVENLY.

It was a salmon-dill-caper-cremefraiche mixture sitting on top of a what was basically a giant tater tot.



SOOOO DELICIOUS

We all had foodbabies after.



Then I met up with Amanda and Michael to do their engagement shoot finally.

(Mr. and the future Mrs. Prince are quite the power couple, with her being full-time on-air talent, him being Mr. Guess-Man, and their new restaurant opening in a couple weeks, it's been hard to pin them both down for an afternoon.)

But the pictures came out amazing.



SUNDAY

The great thing about Delta Diamond is I can book the latest and cheapest flight, and then switch my flight the day-of for free.

I happened to wake up at 4am. (Probably from excitement.) So I drove straight to the airport and jumped on the 7am flight.

I just love Vegas. Every time I'm back I'm just filled with happy thoughts and memories of the best weekend of my life.

So I'm here for the next 48 hours for a couple days of relaxation, poker, and eatparties before my double-header wedding weekend back on the East Coast.

Wheee!

Toothless dream

I had a dream last night that all my teeth fell out and all I was left with were bloody baby teeth. And I had a date in an hour. With Ricky Martin. Eeeeek!!!

(We saw Evita last night. Ricky was fantastic. The lady who played Eva was THE WORST. She was a chihuahua. Never have I longed for the singing and acting ability of Madonna so.)

-- Post From My iPhone

It Gets Better / E&A and TGA

Did you hear director Tony Scott (Top Gun, Days of Thunder, etc) just jumped off a bridge and killed himself, like HOURS ago?

Eeeek.

What brings such an accomplished man, with a FAMILY, to do such a thing?

Well. It got me thinking about suicide and how awful it is. And I was surfing around the internets and came upon this advertisement for Google Chrome featuring the It Gets Better campaign. It's old, but I'd never seen it. And it made me cry a little.



I was a little obsessed with the It Gets Better Project when it first started because I thought it was such a great thing, and that it was going to save so many young lives.

I, like many other people in my shoes, went through a period of depression long ago and thought often about removing myself from the world. I don't think I've ever really told anyone.

But a lot of this happened freshman year of college. Winter of freshman year, right before I started coming out to people, was probably when it was the worst.

And who knows. Had the right supportive people not been there when I needed them most, things might not have worked out for me. So that's one of the huge reasons why I'm eternally grateful for the amazing friends in my life.

I'd make my own It Gets Better video, but while I'm not camera-shy, I AM video-shy. So consider this an It Gets Better testimonial. Life gets SO much better. Anyone who reads through this blog a little bit can see how great life can be.

If you're a random teenager and you've stumbled upon this blog and you're thinking about killing yourself, DON'T! Being a teenager is rough. And awful. And awkward. And even though the awkwardness may never end, the awfulness will. You are not alone. You will find your people. You will find your place in the world. And the world will offer you so much more than it does now. IT GETS BETTER!

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Anyway I was thinking about how much I love life today because I did a photoshoot for my newest best friends Evan and Addison. (I know, I know, I have 30 best friends already. Whatever. I'm greedy.)



Evan and Addison are both 6'4" and co-founded the Tall Gay Agenda, which is the organization of gay giants 6'2" and taller (though most are 6'4" and taller) that I've been spending a good deal of my time with these days. TGA has changed my life completely and I just LOVE having tall gay friends!





E & A are just the nicest, tallest, sweetest, most wonderful, and beautiful boys. And they are married. To each other!

They got married at their ranch in Texas a couple of years ago, which is before I met them unfortunately. Back then they didn't know any good photographers...so their wedding pictures are slightly less-than epic (though still super cute, simply because THEY are super cute.)



So I took them out for a photo shoot today, two years after the fact, (A) to expand my portfolio to include gay weddings and (B) to get them the wedding/relationship photos that they and any friend of mine should have / have had. After all, what they've done for me and my fellow giants is pretty much priceless.

Life is so great. I just can't wait to someday get gay-married.



Thank you Evan and Addison!

You guys are so amazing and inspirational!

Your pictures should be billboard for It Gets Better.

J'Adore Morgan Freeman

Weird dream / A Conlix Pup Cometh

I had a dream the other night that The Infamous Laku (Laura/Taku) got engaged and that they threw a surprise engagement party at an abandoned Barnes and Noble and they showed up wearing matching blue one-piece bunny pajamas with those little feet attached. And everyone kind of clapped hesitantly like "a-whaaaaat..." except me and Kristen because we were jumping up and down hooting and hollering. Oh and Connie because she was just kind of cringing quietly in a corner trying not to throw up.

Anyway. I woke up and was sad to discover that none of the above had happened.

Except for the Connie part. She is probably cringing quietly somewhere trying not to throw up.

Why?

Because she is PREGGO!!!!!!!!!



SO happy for a Conlix!

I keep telling them that in the grand Bhandari tradition of naming the firstborn a hybrid of the two parents' names (Felix's sister Vitri = Vijay & Trini), they should just go ahead and name the child Conlix.

Travel Drama!

So on Thursday at 4pm Denver time I arrived at my flight to fly back from Denver to LGA direct so that I could prepare for the wedding I had to shoot in Rhode Island on Friday.

But after they had already begun the boarding process, the gate received word of some crazy storm in New York CANCELLED the flight. Literally they had to pull the first class cabin off the plane after we had already boarded.

EEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!!!!!

So I found myself stuck in Denver Airport. And the only flight they could get me on was one that left the next morning - Friday at 6am from Denver to NYC. Which meant that I would leave Denver at 9am East Coast time. Which meant I wouldn't LAND until 1pm. After which I would have to DRIVE from NYC to RI (a four hour drive if I was lucky) which would put me in RI at 5pm at the EARLIEST. Which was AFTER the wedding ceremony would have already concluded. EEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!

My worst nightmare come to life.

Unacceptable.

So I ran through the airport to the next Delta flight to Atlanta. I figured if I could at least get on a flight to Atlanta, I could stay there overnight and then get on the first morning flight from Atlanta to NYC which would then give me barely enough time to land and drive to RI.

Here's where my airline status came in handy for once.

Almost all flights to the east coast had been canceled or delayed due to storms. All through the airport there stood lines of angry passengers try to sort out new travel arrangements or get onto existing flights.

I looked on the monitors and ran over to the next available flight for Atlanta. The line was at least 50 people deeo and the flight was delayed 3 hours anyway. Then I looked and there was another flight that was currently boarding, and there was a line at the counter for people trying to get on standby but both the ticket agents were busy boarding the flight.

So I lined up with the passengers already boarding and slipped the gate agent a $20 and quickly told him, "My flight to NYC got cancelled, I'm a Diamond, I just need to get on the standby list so that I can get on this flight." As soon as he finished boarding the confirmed passengers, he got me on the standby list. And because I was a Diamond AND had a same-day flight disruption I jumped ahead of everyone on the standby list and got one of two remaining seats on the flight.

Then once I was on the flight, it turned out someone in first class had missed the flight and so I inherited his seat as well. Woo!

I landed in Atlanta at midnight. Slept in the airport like a homeless person and then took a 6am flight back to NYC. Landed around 8:30am. Picked up my car and cameras. And drove straight to RI and made it just in time for hair and makeup and a whole new group of bridesmaids to fall in love with me.



Woo!



Whenever I'm traveling for weddings I already plan to be where I need to be at least a day in advance just in case sh*t like this happens...but after this experience maybe I should change it to TWO days!

Aurora, Colorado

On my way to Denver Airport this morning, I passed signs for Aurora, site of the senseless movie-theater massacre a couple of weeks ago.

The little all-American town is less than fifteen minutes from Denver airport, so I wanted to go to see for myself and pay my respects at the makeshift memorial that had been put together by family, friends, and community-members of the victims.

Just approaching the exit for Aurora, I felt a really ominous dreadful feeling. I'm sure Colorado-ans will be unable to drive anywhere near or past the town without remembering what happened here for years to come.



The theater has been complete shut down and fenced off.



Directly across from it sits a mall that looks like any mall you could find in any town in America.



The town features familiar chain stores like Target, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, The Container Store etc etc, which just serves to remind you that this tragedy really could have happened anywhere.

On an empty corner facing the theater, a memorial to the victims had been built.






All the media coverage of the event kind of annoys me because so much of it focuses on the crazy ass who committed the crime, and rarely ever do they focus on the actual victims who perished.

Walking through the memorial was a striking reminder that in tragedies like this each number making up the "body count" is an individual life, and the loss of each and every one of these lives affects the tens and hundreds of people close to them.



It's all just really really sad. Yet another reminder that life can be over in the blink of an eye and the stupid stuff we worry about or put up with just isn't that important.