the latest

Hiya folks!  So March has pretty much come and gone without a sighting of The Jones so I thought I'd throw a little content at ya to fill up the middle of your week.  

This past month has been a weird one for me.  If you're someone who is close to me and my family, you know that my Gram passed away early this month.  I had to fly home to be there for the services, and it was an incredibly hard thing for my family and I to go through, made easier by all the kind words, condolences and sandwiches delivered to our house.  

Life feels unfair sometimes.  Death will just never be something that is normal or easy to deal with.  I had to take some time for me, to not worry about posting anything, and focus on what makes me happy, so I can make her proud.  I spent March working harder on my career, picking up shifts at my bar, taking photos when I could, and doing some freelance work for extra money.  It turned out to be quite a wonderful month at the end of it, because I really wanted to make each day count, with a renewed understanding of how precious this life is.

Oh, and then OLENA CAME TO VISIT ME! The reunion was as glorious as you would imagine, and we celebrated her birthday snuggling and eating and exploring and matching like always.  

Jen and I hung out for the first time in what felt like ages.  We gabbed, took photos of each other, walked around Silverlake and ate yummies.  I had so much fun shooting her, as I always do, and I'm pretty proud of the few shots we got!

Birthday time with S and O means adventure time.  This year we chose Laguna Beach for O's 26th.  A town I've been dreaming of visiting since the first time I heard someone say "What happens in Cabo, stays in Cabo."  Guys, I owned the series on DVD.  This was big for me.  You bet your bottom as we drove and walked around town I was screaming things like, "TALAN," and "JESSICA," and of course, "STEPHEN!"

My friend Cat had grown up there, so she suggested a bunch of spots for us to check out, and we took her advice and were very happy about it.  We had lunch at this place called Active Culture, which was absolutely delicious, healthy, and filling.  Then we just walked through town stopping in shops.  It's the cutest little town and everything has Laguna in the name.  

Side note: beach towns are like my absolute favorite things about America.  They're always so quaint and upbeat while simultaneously being laid back, and the locals are always just the most chill, happiest people you could ever meet.  

This is a visual representation of how I feel about ice cream.

We took in the sunset from a place Cat suggested called The Rooftop, and we talked and took photos of one another and drank mojitos and ate snacks.  

This is a visual representation for how I feel about warm brie on a cracker.

I love my best friend, and every day I feel lucky that the universe gave us to each other, but it's days like this one when we are just blissed out on how much fun we have together, that I feel the luckiest.  And with a bond as solid as this one that we travel cross country to take care of, she never feels too far away.  

Welp, that's all I've got for ya this time.  I'm hoping to get more content out there for you, trust me I'm trying!  I think I need to tackle the hurdle of photographing someone I'm not as close to, so that I can feel confident branching out with my photography.  More on that as it unfolds.  
For now I hope if you take nothing else from this, take away the importance of living a fulfilled day to day.  Try and do something each day that makes you really smile from inside.  Life is so precious and we can forget that, with all the things piled on our plate to handle.  Take some time per day, even if it's just five minutes of meditation, or listening to your favorite song, for yourself.  Learn to love the journey, because that's what it's all about.

See you next adventure!

S

Where I'm at

It's been a while since I sat down, put fingers to keyboard and let my stream of consciousness do its thing.  I woke up to a text from one of my best friends about John Mayer's latest release, and I've been listening to it ever since, and now I'm in my happy place and I just felt that itch!

Ya know, today has been a really good day, tacked on to a really good month.  For no reason in particular.  I'm just happy.  There's no reason I should be so happy today.  I woke up with the minor echoes of a hangover, lingering just enough to remind me that I'm not 18 anymore, almost like a warning.  I have to work in three hours, so I can't really do anything that fun with my day, like go hiking with Li and Greg.  I also stepped on an unidentifiable sharp object and now my foot is bleeding, so all of these are things that could amount to a "bad day," but today I chose to laugh at it and keep playing John Mayer on repeat.  

Let me just talk about John Mayer for one second.  Okay so before Battle Studies, I'll be honest, I didn't get his whole thing.  I thought John Mayer was just an artist like Train and U2, put on the earth for parents everywhere to have something to listen to on their way to Costco.  (Except for you mom, thanks for listening to The Cure and Peter Paul and Mary.  Dad, I'm talking to you.  STEP AWAY FROM THE ABBA ALBUM.)  I thought he was just a shallow pop artist with cookie cutter songs.  And then Battle Studies came out.  I was a freshman in college, which is a weird time in a person's life.  I was going through a lot of things, falling in love, getting hurt, making friends, getting betrayed, making bad decisions, making drunk decisions, drinking too much and counteracting with heavy exercise, eating lots of circle pizza, skipping class, having snow ball fights, and trying to figure out how to make Miriam Mills believe I was killing a fucking imaginary pig.  He put Battle Studies out and it was like I suddenly had a soundtrack.  That album brought my best friends and I together, it made me appreciate his artistry, it burned its spot into my heart, and to this day still acts as a mirror of my former self.  I've been a loyal fan ever since and the new wave of music he just put out is so good it gives me the fuzzies. 

Listening to him this morning put me in the greatest mood and it made my mind start racing about where I'm at right now.  I'm entering this period of my life where I'm incredibly aware of my behaviors and my patterns and my motivations for action.  I may not always be making the best decisions, or reacting the correct way, but I am getting much better at being able to determine why I do what I do, why I think the way I think, and why I feel the way I feel, and that is so important for growth.  I'm starting to really love who I am.  I've always loved myself, I've always rooted for myself, been on my team (because if you're not on your own team how the hell is anyone else supposed to join in?) but of course, over the course of 25 years, I've been mad at myself, disgusted at myself, annoyed at myself, and judged by myself.  I'm reaching this point, where all of that is really kind of fading.  I still wish I was better in social situations, I wish I weren't so skeptical of men, and I wish I could control my temper in my vehicle.  But these are things I'm working through with the help of amazing friends and family and I'm really admiring who I'm becoming.  

Your 20's are weird, y'all.  Such a beautiful but weird period of self discovery, and experimentation, and vulnerability.  I'm gonna be selfish for a minute and talk about being selfish for a minute because let's face it this is my blog and I'll be damned if Trump takes away freedom of speech, too.  Probably the most important lesson I've learned in 2017, though the surface of this year has barely been scratched, is the vitality of selfishness.  There's a fine line between being selfish and being an asshole, and learning that line is necessary.  I know there are so many people in the world like me who've felt afraid to be selfish because how that may affect others.  That is just wasted fear.  I have wasted too much time in my life worrying about how everybody else around me feels instead of worrying about how I feel.  I've learned this year that speaking your truth, no matter what comes next, is the best possible thing you can do for yourself.  It has helped all of my relationships so much.  I've done some pretty scary truth-telling in the last two months, some so scary that just the thought of it made me physically ill.  But I'm better for it, and not for nothing but it feels pretty good to walk through life without the baggage I'd been carrying for years.  

I don't know, you guys, I'm just really happy with the way life is going for me right now.  I feel a new confidence and contentment with who I'm becoming, and focusing less on the way my body and face looks, and more about the way my soul comes across, and I feel so much more fulfilled.  

And because I can't leave you without some type of visual representation for what's been going on, here's some photos I've taken recently!

We went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market and didn't buy much but we did a lot of people watching and laughing so it was a solid day if you ask me. 

I hiked once in February and took enough photos to not hike until like April! Huzzah!

And then Jen turned 26, her dad came to visit and made us all pizza and everything was beautiful.

That's all I got here on The Jones today!  Go forth and have a beautiful weekend you silly geese!

Xo

one month down

The first month of 2017 comes to a close.  For me, specifically, there has been some good, some bad, and a whole lot of avoiding long statuses on Facebook.  I am getting settled in my first actual Los Angeles home(!!!), getting back into the audition game, and for the first time since moving here, it really feels like my life is starting to come together.  I know in the months to come I am going to be taking lots of photos of the views from my windows, but this was the first:

I am living in Silverlake now, which, for those unfamiliar with Los Angeles, is an area in East LA where I feel I very much so belong.  It reminds me so much of Brooklyn with its abundance of boutiques, vegan restaurants, artisanal cafes, small businesses, and hipsters.  The dream for the past 2+ years that I've been a California resident has been to find a home here, specifically in this neighborhood, and to have that come true is surreal. 

While waiting for my roommate to arrive, there were many days in my new apartment that felt less than comfortable, to say the least.  I couldn't get power, electricity, or gas for the first four days, so I was bouncing from hotel room to hotel room with O and Austin.  Once all services were finally turned on and I could finally start unpacking, O and Austin left and I was alone in an unfurnished and cluttered apartment that looked more like an episode of Hoarders than a home.  I also live across from a man who is getting evicted, and I'm pretty convinced the reason is because he smokes crack and maybe also possibly deals which I know is not what my mom wants to hear but also I kind of love it because it feels like I'm really roughing it and living on the edge and I think that makes me cool.  Anywho, sleeping alone in here was starting to make me just a little nervous, and my wonderful friends Cat and Tom opened their home to me while they were on vacation, and I can't express my gratitude to them enough.  They let me sleep in their guest bedroom, left a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge, and freshly baked breakfast bars in the freezer.  That's friendship. 

January has proven to be a slow month as far as photography goes, which I hope is understandable, being I had a huge life change and all, but I was able to get out once with my Pami (that's Pam to you) and photograph her all over Echo Park for a little while in between errands and ramen. 

Pam is a newer friend of mine who I work with, and I just love this little cherub so much.  I am definitely the mom in this relationship, but she is such a delight and I tell her all the time how she keeps me young.  Taking photos of friends is always the simplest thing, because I feel like I can get to their comfort level so much easier, and we can have so much fun while shooting, but it wasn't until after this shoot that I finally started to feel like I was ready to photograph anyone!

Here's to hoping January 2017 brought about the end of California's drought! It rained for what felt like two weeks straight, but in reality was probably, oh I don't know, about three days?  I'm talking like, April in New Jersey rain.  I'm talking like, all day, every day, big ass raindrops kind of rain.  Ya know, the kind of rain no one in Los Angeles knows how to deal with? So for those days, I did my absolute best to stay indoors and off the roads.  Olena and Austin had come back for just a few days to gather up the rest of their stuff and start their gypsy life on the road, and when they left, the weight of my all-by-myself-ness really set in.  I spent most of January really just waiting for Lianne to get here.

Cat and Tom are also fairly new friends of mine who I've come to know through my serving job, and they've quickly become part of my framily (if you're new here, that's my coined term for friends who feel like family and family who feel like friends).  The pair of them are easily two of the most thoughtful, loving, and welcoming people I've met here, but more than that, they are goofy and a shit-ton of fun to be around, and I feel so lucky that they think of me as a friend.

Probably the most fun I've had so far in 2017 is the night that Cat, Tom, our friend Alex, and I had tickets to see The Chainsmokers at Universal Studios.  With one low ticket price, we got access into the entire park, free booze, free food, and 4 hours of amusement park exploration.  Guys.  Free alcoholic butterbeer in Harry Potter World after hours.....does it get better?  
No.  The answer is no.

More than anything, the nights I remember most actually have nothing to do with where and when.  My favorite nights are those spent with good-hearted people that make you happy, and this night was among the best.  I truly felt like I had an emotional hangover the next day because of how happy I was the previous night.  Genuine people are hard to find in this town, so I'm holding on to these guys whether they like it or not. 

The specific dates are escaping me, because this month has really been a bit of a blur, but Lianne finally got here and I am so excited!  Every day we've been trying to do at least one big productive task, and honestly our home is really starting to come together!
 
We just hosted a dear friend of ours, Gab, a fellow Rider Bronc, who came to visit from Chicago!  It was so good to spend time with her.  Life post-graduation is weird, but it's really cool when all your friends start making moves and doing shit with their lives and you get to be really proud and happy for them.  It's an exciting thing to witness.  Having her here was the perfect christening for Lianne's and my home (which we are still accepting name suggestions for), and the only photo I have of proof is us at the Farmer's Market with no makeup but the biggest smiles we could make.

Just three little Jersey meatballs who love each other.

The other day Li and I headed downtown to check out a moving sale, and while we didn't buy anything, I took so many photos of the views from the roof.  I felt like I dreamt it up.  Downtown LA, regardless of how dangerous it can be, is seriously a fever dream backdrop for me.  If, for some reason, I had to pick one setting to take photos of/in for the rest of my life, it would without hesitation be a bustling urban city with high rise buildings and people from all walks of life.  

February is here, and it is the shortest month of the year so I am challenging myself to get as much done as is humanly possible!  I have a few photoshoots in the works, lots of breakdowns to submit my headshot and resume to, and a home to finish furnishing! 

La La Land is still with me, and while the film ripped my heart open, I was also affected in a way I've never been from a piece of art.  I am recharged, I am motivated, I am validated, and I am ready.  

I am so excited for this year.

xo