AM shows me Park Slope’s gang sign: Baby Mafia

took my bewbies to Washington Square park and met up with Crystal

watching Ash play videogames

showing off my Joker chucks

But the best part of this week was speaking at GEMS, where I was able to share my story with young women looking for mentors, as well as with many other women in media who are now a part of my network.

Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) is the only organization in New York State specifically designed to serve girls and young women who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking. GEMS was founded in 1998 by Rachel Lloyd, a young woman who had been commercially sexually exploited as a teenager.

GEMS has helped hundreds of young women and girls, ages 12–24, who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. GEMS provides young women with empathetic, consistent support and viable opportunities for positive change.

Many thanks once again to Alexandra Roxo, who invited me to participate and made a great film called “Mary Marie” that I saw at NEWFEST this year.

In some ways, I’ve allowed my iPhone to make me lazy about my photography But it still brings me a lot of joy to take pics in any form…

Street scenes…

New role at my job…

Fun with friends…

My Mobay, Jamaica adventure with Rosedawg from June 29 – July 4…

Food and goodies…

I am blessed. Sometimes I find myself feeling guilty for feeling guilty about it. Silly, right? I’ve worked hard to achieve what I have in my life, but it still saddens and confuses me why I continue to be so fortunate while others suffer.

I look at the similar histories of disenfranchised groups all over the world, and the common thing seems to be lack of empathy. If you can’t relate to your fellow man, it’s very easy to not see them as worthy of your attention, understanding, and support.

So as someone who self-identifies as a Woman, Artist, Chicana, Queer, Feminist, Tech-lover, Filmmaker, Activist, and Human Being, I try to approach people in life with the same understanding and empathy that I would want to receive. I don’t always get it right and I often hurt people by accident. I’m not perfect. But I keep trying to nurture my understanding of the textures in life, within people. Some of the most subtle qualities can be the most beautiful and life-changing.

I am promising myself that I am going to start blogging everyday. I’ve never committed to daily posts on The Lair before so I’m a little nervous. But writing solely for myself makes me feel really good, so I’m going to give it a try because you never know what could come from it.

Friends and family in my life have encouraged me to write more for myself, so I’m going to take their support and turn that into something positive here on The Lair.
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If you’re curious about some of the ways that I have chosen to give back this year, here are some examples:

- Donating to teachers through Donorschoose.org

- Giving my time and resources to my grassroots non-profit, the POC Zine Project

- Training to be a foster parent through You Gotta Believe! (adopting a teen next year)

I have learned so much about myself through these three experiences. Looking back, I would say that my personal form of activism over the years has been the biggest source of knowledge and resources for me. Helping others has made me who I am today (professionally and personally).

“Things are not always as they seem; the first appearance deceives many.” – Phaedrus, a Roman poet

When I first moved to New York from California in 2004, some unwanted baggage managed to come along with me; my many fears, self-loathing, and a sense of disconnect from the world. Luckily, my personality compels me to attack my fears head-on even if I am feeling hopeless, so I was able to put myself out there and network, find work, and eventually feel comfortable with calling NYC my home.

But I’ve since realized that, in the process of overcoming so much culture shock and repressed fear, an unhealthy part of me continued to approach everything like a situated that needed to be attacked.

That attitude narrowed my world view. To everyone around me, I did my best to present this “Self” who had everything together and was relentlessly ambitious. But inside, I was always secretly on guard, waiting for something terrible to happen. I didn’t really trust myself and – by extension – anyone else. I always saw the worst in people and in myself. It was exhausting and I’m surprised I’ve achieved as much as I did with that lens tainting everything & everyone around me, including my own family and significant others.

Now, as I mentally kick-off the countdown to my 30th birthday in September, I’m happy to realize that I am finally able to look at a person or a situation and see beyond the surface. The things that once triggered fear or anger rarely do so anymore. And when they do, I can step back and not give those negative feelings the fuel they require to eat me alive. I put my attention elsewhere, and the feelings subside.

My fears don’t rule me anymore, I see them for what they are: just ghosts from the past. I can tell myself, “This is nothing worth stressing out all day over. I will not let these old thoughts and feelings drag me down.” Everyday it gets easier to do this.

After I moved to New York, I did try many things to improve my way of thinking. I stopped believing in God, a being who I already thought I had a contentious relationship with thanks to confusing messages during childhood. I read works by Sartre and other thought leaders. I tried Landmark Education. I tried meditation and yoga. I started believing in the God in all of us and starting talking to that collective spirit. From all of these experiences, I was able to acquire some helpful insights, but ultimately all the insights in the world were not going to help me until I was ready to change.

I can’t pinpoint the moment I decided to “change,” or how I did it, but it happened. It was a culmination of baby steps. I think the important part was that I truly WANTED to transform my life and my attitude, but I just didn’t know how to achieve that. My desire I think and my constant thoughts of transformation acted as kind of a lighthouse while I drifted along, picking my way through my issues.

So here I am. A work in progress. The best side-affect of changing how I think about things is that I am now able to find extraordinary beauty and lessons everywhere I turn. It’s really up to me to choose another way, another perspective.

Knowing that I have this incredible power over myself and my actions is a small but life-transforming baby step into a world where I could finally relax. I can breathe. And I can give myself permission to love who I’ve become and the progress I’ve made.

These days, I am able to find peace and happiness with an ease that wasn’t possible in my early 20s. The more I am grateful for what I have and pass on support to others, the more blessings come into my life.

I’m not a self-help guru, this is just a note I’m putting in a bottle and throwing out into the Internet sea. I hope if you find it and are feeling hopeless that this helps you in some way.

Yes, life is a struggle. Life is not easy. And often there are things that happen to us that our out of our control, particularly when we are children. These decisions made by others can cast shadows over our own sense of empowerment and choice. We can get so accustomed to our victimhood, thrust upon us at vulnerable stages in our lives, that we start to think that what people did to us makes us who we are. But it doesn’t. I define my life. Not my job, or my family, or the media I consume. I do.

If I’m bent on being miserable, I will be miserable. If I want to smile, I can find a person or experience that will draw one out of me. If I want to isolate myself from friends and feel alone, there are things I can do to ensure that happens. If I want to forgive myself and others, I can. It’s all a choice. But the quality of my life increases by leaps and bounds when I choose to approach life from a place of love and trust. I know what it feels like to approach it from fear and anger, and that wasn’t working for me.

This new way works for me so much better.

Don’t let your fear of the unknown keep you from experiencing the abundance you deserve. You have permission to start over every time you blink. You could start over right now if you wanted to. What would be the first thing you would change?

If I may be so bold to advise you, my suggestion is that you give yourself permission to surprise yourself. What you are truly capable of could astonish you.

Besides being a “Star Wars” fan in general, I love the way the artist (Ron Wiggins) composed this painting. While describing it to a friend, I explained that it has a lot of personable, intimate qualities. You may not be able to tell from this photo, but the Storm Trooper isn’t just a faceless soldier — he (or she) is a person with feelings and desires. The eyes have a lot of emotion. The painting hints (in a stylized way) that the Storm Trooper is reaching out, presumably holding a weapon. But it also (from certain angles) looks like he’s reaching out for someone to take his hand.

I keep this work of art in my home office because it helps me to manage my frustration when I’m dealing with people who seem like they are blindly taking orders and passing on misinformation to me. I sometimes forget the struggles that others go through, and how sometimes it is easier just to do what you’re told, even when you know it’s wrong. I look at the painting and remember that sometimes the one doling out pain and anguish is going through plenty of it too.

In this painting, what I see is a Storm Trooper who is perhaps rethinking his or her identity and life path. He or she appears mid-transition. Perhaps this Storm Trooper is tired of blindly following commands. He’s alone, reaching out, considering what it might be like to live life in service of him (or her)self, not some oppressive force.

He’s thinking about freeing himself.

I am already addicted to several free apps, but not surprisingly two of my favorites are photo sharing communities: Instagram and Piictu.

Instagram photo from last night

Instagram, the app with the cool filters that has a fan in Snoop Dogg and is being used by businesses of all sizes to promote their products and services, has been around longer than Piictu.

photo via CSS Lounge Flickr

Similar to it’s more established competition, Piictu allows users to follow (subscribe) to topics created by the community. It’s not a hashtag in the way that Instagram operates; users post a topic and people add to the thread.

In this first iteration, Piictu has very limited features. It doesn’t offer filter options the way that Instagram does and it’s default home page has three tabs called “following,” “popular,” and “latest.” This is really lame if you’re someone who likes to explore.

Instagram also doesn’t offer a search bar, but there is a way around that; beyond the cool filters, the big win that Instagram definitely has over Piictu is that if a photo has more than one hashtag on it, you can view more photos by clicking those hasthags.

It’s so easy and addictive to follow Instagram feeds of specific kinds of photos through hashtags. Below are some photos I’ve taken to add to their respective thread. Try to guess what they are called!

Piictu unfortunately won’t let you search for specific keywords and you can’t search by hashtag. You’re really limited to those three “following,” “popular,” and “latest” categories so if you want to view a topic that’s really obscure and not ranking in those categories, it probably means it doesn’t exist.

Right now I prefer Instagram over Piictu because not only can you find more photos, there are more social integrations. I can send a photo from Instagram to Twitter, Facebook, via email, and my Flickr at the same time. Often there are photos that I want to archive in my Flickr, so I like the different sharing options. Piictu only lets you send your photos to Facebook or Twitter – no Flickr.

Delicious-looking (and edited) photo of BLT that I archived in Flickr via Instagram

Since I now have 16G of space on this new phone, I have plenty of room to play with my three photo apps (all I feel like using for now). And even though it’s not as feature-friendly as it’s predecessor, Piictu has proven to be a good time suck when I’m waiting for friends in random places like parks or at cafes. I can’t link to those Piictu topics from here since you need the app to participate but a few that I of my recent favorites are called “anything red,” “girls faces,” and “lighters.”

What are some of your favorite photo apps? Are there any new ones that you are having fun using? Share in the comments

At Elle’s first Thanksgiving last fall, she spent hours pushing her little cart around, charming everyone to burst into spontaneous “oohs” and “ahhhs.” While the rest of the family dined at the adults table, I was on the floor documenting some serious ‘tude.

Elle is part Jewish, Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch, and 100% awesome.

Corvida

Mystery Feet and Fellow

Julia

Win

Win and my drawing of Win

Riley

I have several cards full of photos that I haven’t gone through yet… I am luxuriating in exploring them at my own pace.

Sometimes being an adult isn’t very fun. There are moments when I forget that I’ve ever felt as happy as I look in this ridiculous photo, age 5, rockin’ a giant sombrero.

…Luckily, I have this pic around to remind me that I am indeed capable of experiencing crazy amounts of amazing, joyous, unbridled exuberance (and in possession of lots of great memories). I am incredibly blessed and even when I’m not feeling so hot or so lucky, deep down I am aware of how fortunate I am.

I am in the mood to see amaaazing “when I was little” pictures of my friends. Post a link in the comments… if you dare. ^_^

Priorities.

I took this pic of a small wheatepasted poster with my Blackberry Storm. I was walking through Williamsburg in 2008, having a conversation with a friend about the recession and gentrification. I laughed when I saw the sign because it seemed to sum up a lot of angst that was being expressed by young people who were forced to leave Brooklyn for financial reasons. This topic – hipsters moving back home – was explored in a recent New York Times article as well. I suspect that this is why they included my submission.

This is my second mobile photo that the New York Times has used. The first time was for a post about Twitter in the City Room Blog.

I am pretty geeked about the whole thing!