Just When I Needed London, London Is Coming To Me

W+K12 has kept me busy. In October I only had 4 days officially off (including weekends). The last 2 weeks of the month I worked 177 hours. Yep, that's a month's equivalent in half the time. But it was all worth it, maybe. It's advertising, and you do what you have to do, even if that includes working yourself to it's maximum limits.

There's something very strange thinking you worked a 90 hour week, ending it by working till 7am on a Monday morning.

To top things off, life has been complicated. There's no need to go into details, but sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and often it's something you've never had to face before. Strangely, I feel hopeful. Am I being a dumb girl? Maybe. Do I care? Not really. I've learned that when you work yourself to the max, you have to hold onto the things that make you the happiest, no matter what. It comes down to talking and convincing and figuring out if everything and that lifestyle, for a while, will be worth it. Currently, I'm leaning to it being so. Maybe later on, not so much. But I can only talk for the present, and that is that!!

In the midst of working copious amounts, I was still able to celebrate Halloween. O.k., only because WK had a massive Halloween party. But we still had the opportunity to dress up and have a little fun. The family even came to do some trick 'or' treating and hang out with me. Believe it or not, there was a massive live cobra. The dude thought it would be cool to randomly take it off the table and put in on the ground by my 7 year old cousin and I. We thought differently.

Transforming into a cracked porcelain doll in the bathroom with Rachel and Beth. Photo courtesy of Andrea.
W+K Halloween photo booth with my 2 favorite ladies: Jess and Beth.

W+K Halloween photo booth with Rachel and Riswold's mom.
Beth, Manu, Jess and I. Yep, we're pretty awesome.
Anyways, tomorrow a good girlfriend from London is coming to visit me for a week. I'm stoked. I've been needing to get out of town and having her here will be awesome, especially since I'm actually taking some time off work (Thursday afternoon and Friday) so we can go to Seattle to see her family and celebrate me turning another year older. Yep, I've definitely been itching to get away, so hopefully this trip will fight the urge to hop on a plane and flee. Think good thoughts of me going to LA for Christmas and New Years. I need some sun and warmth and good company.

Mon Amie La Rose

My heart hurts.



On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Me l'a dit ce matin
A l'aurore je suis née
Baptisée de rosée
Je me suis épanouie
Heureuse et amoureuse
Aux rayons du soleil
Me suis fermée la nuit
Me suis réveillée vieille

Pourtant j'étais très belle
Oui j'étais la plus belle
Des fleurs de ton jardin

On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Me l'a dit ce matin
Vois le dieu qui m'a faite
Me fait courber la tête
Et je sens que je tombe
Et je sens que je tombe
Mon cœur est presque nu
J'ai le pied dans la tombe
Déjà je ne suis plus

Tu m'admirais hier
Et je serai poussière
Pour toujours demain.

On est bien peu de chose
Et mon amie la rose
Est morte ce matin
La lune cette nuit
A veillé mon amie
Moi en rêve j'ai vu
Eblouissante et nue
Son âme qui dansait
Bien au-delà des nues
Et qui me souriait

Crois celui qui peut croire
Moi, j'ai besoin d'espoir
Sinon je ne suis rien

Ou bien si peu de chose
C'est mon amie la rose
Qui l'a dit hier matin

Chorus 1
We are truly insignificant
And that's what my friend the rose
Told me this morning

Verse 1:
I was born at dawn
Baptised in dew
I blossomed
In the rays of the sun
Happy and in love
I closed my petals at night
And when I awoke I was old.
Yet I had been beautiful
Yes, I was the most beautiful
Of all the flowers in your garden

Chorus 1

Verse 2
See, the God that made me
Now makes me bow my head
And I feel I'm falling
And I feel I'm falling
My heart is almost bare
I have a foot in my grave
Already I am nothing
You admired me only yesterday
And I shall be dust
Forever, tomorrow

Chorus 2:
We are truly insignificant
And my friend the rose
Died this morning

Verse 3
Last night the moon
Kept vigil over my friend
And in a dream I saw
Her soul, dancing
Dazzling and naked,
Above the heavens,
Smiling on me.
Let those who can, believe
But I need Hope
Or else I am nothing

repeat chorus & verse 2

12 Get's Blown

So I've been shit about updating this thing since 12 started. Life's been busy. Wordstock, 12's first major client/project is out in the public and you can read/see all about it on the 12 blog.

Anyways, I'll give details at a later date. To tie you over, here's a post I worked on with the lovely Jess that we posted on 12's blog today. Enjoy!


A little while back we decided to make ourselves some debatably legitimate student IDs. They're still not finished because Wordstock typically prevents us from doing anything that isn't red or helvetica or a giant sandwich. Thor and Mike did find the time to snap some photos of us while we were getting blown in the face by what is apparently called an "air bazooka."



Manu

Carson

Beth

Jess

Mike

Rachel

Zech

Michelle

Beatrice

Andrea

Casey

Jamie

Thor

Jim

Joe

Byron

Jinnina

W+K12.6 The Beginning

W+K12.6 has agreed to be filmed for the year. He's a little video of the first 2 days of the newest class, put together by Aaron Rose.

Jaguar

There's something beautiful about enjoying sitting in a car for hours and just driving wherever you let the wind take you. It's lovely.

Riswold Mind Fuck

For those of you who don't know who Jim Riswold is, well, you better fucking learn. He's pretty much thee ad god/guru. And most likely, you've liked/seen a lot of his work (i.e. t.v. commercials for Nike. Remember "I am Tiger Woods"?) over the past 20 or so years. Yes, Riswold is my new leader, mentor and teacher, and he makes me nervous as all hell. It's also not because he's brilliant (which of course he is). But rather, there's just something about him that I connect with. He makes me stumble over my words, crawl within myself so I loose all train of relative thought and scares the crap out of me in a good way. At our second presentation he interrupted me when it was my turn, for a salute to me speaking (I said nothing in the first meeting), which turned into me turning bright red and him calling me out for that too. It made me turn even more red. Although, everyone said I didn't look that bad. HA! Anyways, Riswold can read me. More than most. He knows how to fuck with my mind. And when you're constantly going on 3-5 hours of sleep a night (for almost 2 weeks straight), hardly having time to eat anything but power bars, drinking loads of coffee, constantly questioning yourself and why you're at the biggest damn ad agency in PDX, a little fucking around can have a big effect. Yes, that totally happened today. Thanks Riswold. One day I'll 'fucking' be able to talk to you.

My Life Is Officially Over, Outside of 12

Today was/is the first day of 12 at W+K. Fucking fantastic!!! I woke up at 6am with only a few hours of sleep under my belt. I thought no big deal. Man was I wrong. ZB and I got to the office a little before 9am, and currently, it's 11:20pm and we're still at the office working on our first project that is due for a presentation tomorrow morning at 10am. I'll be lucky if I can go home to shower and change clothes. Wishing it was likely, but it's highly doubtful.

Anyways, my first day/night has been spent with the 12 odd making some killer music after making a life size animal made of cardboard, paper mache and filled with goodies. It's pretty much amazing.

This just in from @dontgetbored "Stop putting your fingers in the cake I'm baking. Go write a classic novel."

Yes, this is my new life. Photo shoots with important photographers, free beer at the office, no sleep and hardly anytime to eat, a second and newer laptop, Riswold's morning greetings of "Fuck You" and beautiful people everywhere. Yes, I love my life. Can I stay at WK forever?!?