Pennsylvania

Polaroid: Funktionhaus, Baltimore, MD

Philadelphia, PA

Started off my time in Pennsylvania hanging out with Ivy Lee and Greg Gardner.

In addition to being a glamour nude model [Penthouse, etc.] and talented fine art photographer, Ivy's exceptionally organized and runs awesome glamour and art photography meetups for which she recruits traveling models such as yours truly.

We ate, drank, watched Interstellar, laughed at her cat's shenanigans, and I went on a late-night Cinnabon eating spree [gross]. The next day was an exhausting one; I clambered all over the ruins of a house from the late 1700's, including getting up a ladder into a small crawlspace towards the top of the chimney. Lots of fun, but I was definitely sore the next day.

In Philadelphia proper, I spent a couple days riding all over the city with a couple of awesome ragamuffins whom I stayed with in south Philly. We found a hidden hippie haven renegade campsite overlooking a park, pulled over for craft beer pit stops by the water, swam in the Wissahickon, asphyxiated in the dense crowd of people hanging out by the river's Harbor Park [stuffed with vendors, hammocks, a roller rink], meandered amidst the Mütter Museum's morbid medical oddities, sat on the ground in focus-mode as a gourmet ice cream tasting flight melted all over my leg [flavors included Everything Bagel and Buttered Popcorn]. No photos exist from this period of running amok, as my phone was dead and I was too busy tooling around with anti-car-anarcho-syndicalist-cycle-punks to bother with taking photos, anyhow.

Then I was transferred over to my next hosts, in west Philly. Different-and-equally-awesome vibe, more of a polyamorous academic crew. The last couple days have been mellow and have largely revolved around conversation and food. Ate a squillion grilled veggies upon my arrival, then sat atop a roof shooting the shit with my new hosts and their neighbors as the sun set and unexpected fireworks popped up over the treetops. Went with a friend of a friend to Charlie Was a Sinner, a craft cocktail bar where the bartender obliged me by inventing new cocktails according to my preferences of the moment, and topped off with basil gelato. 

Figure model and artist Katie Marie came by and we hung out on the little "porch" ledge underneath the 4th story window of the Spruce Goose [the group house where I'm currently staying] as the soggy air crescendoed to what felt like a rolling boil [thankfully the heat burst into a small thunderstorm in the evening which has made the heat slightly more tolerable].

It's kind of blowing my mind that this trip is 3/4 of the way done...now that the end is kind of in sight, I'm trying my best to remain present and not think in countdown terms, but exciting summer prospects in Reno are calling my name [i.e., as much as I told myself I wouldn't be part of a Burning Man project this year, or even go to the Burn at all...I'm going to be on crew for the Mazu project that's come from Taiwan via the Dream Community...it's an amazing project being run by an amazing crew, which includes many of the people I love and miss most in this world...along my travels I've met many people whom I adore, but very few whom I miss and whose absence I really feel].

Photo: Robert Moran, Brookhaven, PA

North Carolina [Durham through Outer Banks]

Art: Noisenest, Durham, NC

Norfolk, VA

Many people, shoots, soul-searching-solo-stints, and harrowing holy-shit-I'm-going-to-die-today experiences later...and I'm behind on the whole blogging-updates-thing, still. [Also, still have a few cards I haven't mailed out. However, if you DID receive one, please let me know...trying to keep a head count to make sure mail's getting where it's supposed to].

This is going to be another compensatory here-I-don't-have-time-to-write-about-all-that's-happened-but-have-some-photos-instead posts, for the most part.

Everyone I meet keeps joking that I should just write a retrospective book. Wild on a bicycle. Ha. [Incidentally, I just finished reading Wild this morning.] 

Which sounds ridiculous to me, because the most essential, formative, hilarious, beautiful, exciting, monumental parts of this trip are the ones that I don't feel remotely inclined to publicize—certainly not for a long, long time. I think that's just how life is, at least if you're living a good one. Sadly, y’all have not been made privy to the very best parts of all this.

But I'll give you a little something, context-wise, before passing out from exhaustion now that I've made it to Virginia. Which, over the last couple days, I kind of thought would never happen.

Headed from Charlotte to Durham, where I worked with Noisenest, Aureole, Bman, J Clarke. All awesome folks. I spent a lot of time running around with a flashlight in a creepy warehouse basement full of broken dolls and stuffed animals.

Photo: Aureole, Durham, NC

Photo: BmanPhotos, Clemmons, NC

From there, went to Beaufort, NC, and stayed with Kevin [remember lady-Kevin-in-Florida?] at her new adorable little beachy-1800's-house-with-dolphins-for-neighbors there. We originally met at the Everglades Hostel in southern Florida for a night...then randomly bumped into each other on the street in St. Augustine a couple weeks later while I was engaged in an outwardly-zipped-up-but-under-the-surface-pretty-emotional parting with someone I’d grown really fond of fairly quickly [he then left me with her, and as he drove off Kevin mused, “Honey, you must leave a trail of broken hearts in your wake,” on which I offer you no commentary]. Serendipity, boom boom.

Kevin and I went out in the morning on my rest day in town, though the pouring rain sent her back home. I spent a day wandering around aimlessly in the rain on foot, singing and enjoying how ghostly the town appeared, off-season and on an off-weather day. I wound up on a dock, doing yoga, and then after assuring myself that Kevin's house [i.e., a warm shower and a bed] were within quick-sprinting distance of the dock, I impulsively jumped into the cold water, fully-clothed. 

But instead of running to Kevin's house once I climbed back out, I laid out on the dock and enjoyed a brief period of the numb chill, knowing it wasn't too cold. A bit of rain, a bit of a breeze, some muted sunshine peeking through to offer reprieve. 

On what's been such a socially dense trip, I'd almost forgotten how high I get off slow chunks of solitude [granted, those come on a bike, too—but since I've started pushing myself to do longer days, I'm often just distracted by how much my ass hurts].

Went out on my own at night for some food, and [after I elbowed off some rather aggressively chauvinistic drunk military bros] wound up befriending Jim, the only other non-local at the one open diner [we picked one another out instantly as fellow aliens in what was otherwise a rather homogenized social scene]. Jim's been steering his boat along the Great Loop since his retirement a year ago, and we hung out and swapped travel stories for hours aboard his thirty-foot catamaran. 

From there I rode the ferry to Ocracoke on the Outer Banks, and for the next couple nights I mostly kept to myself, wanting to continue the trend of solitude I'd recently felt inclined towards. People often tried to stop me as I pedaled past, beseeching me with offers of hospitality or meals or drinks or rides, usually with open-hearted generosity [though with obnoxious and condescending persistence in one or two cases] but I'd smile and decline and continue. It felt important to put myself in a bubble for a couple days, for some reason [maybe because all the southern hospitality was keeping me perpetually drunk and I really needed to detox], and the Outer Banks felt like the perfect place to do it. Besides the single-serving friends I made for a few minutes at a time while on the ferries between islands, or when stopping to eat, I kept to myself.

I ninja-camped along the way in hidden spots. I read on the beach. I found a seven-foot dead mama shark, her baby still in amniotic fluid. Beautiful and incredible and sad.

In other news, I've been pushing myself harder than ever. Riding longer miles [at one point I my map lied to me and directed me to a road that doesn't actually exist...which turned into a 45-mile mistake when I had to backtrack], through the worst headwinds of the trip, for consecutive days. Rode over a bridge during sunset rush hour that wound up having no shoulder and rather aggressive traffic, and thought I was going to die. Heh. Whoops. Won't get any rest till Richmond. Oy.

And I'm going to have to take a couple days to recalibrate my appearance before commencing with Virginia or DMV shoots. These last days have inevitably left me with saddle sores [owww] and dark tan lines, despite sunscreen and so on. Which I'm sure most clients would not be very excited about. So that'll delay things by a bit.

But on the bright side, I've got some awesome Warm Showers hosts lined up for Virginia that I'm really excited to stay with [good change-up from the ninja camping, as exciting as that is]. Whoo!

Art: Noisenest, Durham, NC

Charlotte!

Charlotte, NC

Goodbye to my hosts from Conway, SC, with a celebratory flight:

Been falling in love with North Carolina. Knew I would, but damn. Charlotte, in particular, has one of my favorite places from this trip [I'd like to spend more time in Asheville, too, but, alas, I only had a couple days there...one good shoot, and one pretty hardcore miscommunication that I am trying not to be too disgruntled about].

Aaaand spent a good amount of time hanging out with [and modeling alongside] fellow model Brennan, who is an utter fucking riot and magical human. Definitely want to see more of her. 8]

Haven't had much leftover time or energy to write proper blog posts, but take that as a testament that I'm having a good fucking time.

PS: Anyone who sees this who contributed before my trip began [meaning before March]...I've sent most of you cards [still got a few left to send out, been staggering], but please let me know whether or not you've gotten mail from me! Slightly paranoid that not all of it has made it where it needs to go; don't want to blow off anyone!

Jax to Amelia Island

Levitating. Photo: Mer soleil, Big talbot island, fl

Got way behind due to a combination of having-no-Internet-or-power and being-swept-up-by-the-Everything. So I've chunked up my missing time into a few time-release posts, to keep each post relatively digestible.

Blitzkrieg recap. So, North Florida was mainly characterized by modeling work.

1. Unexpectedly got hired for a gig writing copy for a start-up website preparing for launch, specifically because of my pertinent modeling and traveling experience. Wrote out project details on the back of a greasy paper place mat in a pizzeria, where I kept getting the stink eye from old couples because I was still tarted up to the nines in a skimpy black not-really-quite-a-dress dress from my morning's shoot. 

2. Shot with Norseman Photographic, who is exceptionally generous and delightfully irreverent, and gave me a parting gift of "two glass bottles of water from my home country of Norway...granted, I got them down the street". He also indulged me by pulling over and letting me clamber around the silly giant vehicle pictured below on our way to the actual shoot location.

3. Attended BikeSmut at ZenCog bike shop in Jax. A bike-related pornographic film screening. Not only was it exactly what it probably sounds like, but far more. Hilarious. Awesome. Rode with a bunch of hooligans to Shantytown afterwards, a crusty dive bar where I felt right at home.

Photo: Nothing Butt Naked, Jacksonville Beach, FL

4. Spent two days shooting with Kyle, Nothing Butt Naked [delightfully cheeseball glamour, if you couldn’t tell from the name], and had an absolute blast. Popping water balloons, lying in caskets, drowning in Jaeger shot[glasse]s, playing with a snow machine and eight-foot-long spider-finger-things [knew that rock climber grip strength would come in handy someday], admiring the wild owl living in the backyard who was just slightly too far to get a photo of, going to the most excitable restaurant in the world [I did mean to use "excitable", yes]. 

5. Spent a couple days with Mer Soleil on Amelia Island. Received a tailwind-optimizing [if I ever get a tailwind] fairy gift in the mail from my buddy Rachel in California [pictured at the bottom of this post]. Wore hotel slippers all over town. Ate at Gilbert's, a new restaurant on Amelia Island opened by some celebrity chef that's sort of a cutesy spin on soul food. Drank IPAs and danced around to the guttural thrum of a superlative sound system.

6. Received a momentous compliment when Jay, a photographer from Naples, contacted me asking if I had any short-notice availability...and wound up driving from Naples to Fernandina Beach and back in one day, just to shoot with me for two hours. That's about twelve hours or so of driving. As an additional honor, I was the first model he's ever hired [so far he's made part-time income shooting senior portraits, family portraits, a couple weddings, etc]. Pretty damn flattering, especially given the abundance of models in the Miami area. 

7. Last Florida shoot was with Krystal Rose, a badass photographer-and-sometimes-model who felt like a real kindred spirit. We wandered around Amelia Island afterwards and then hung out in a saltwater hot tub. Rough life.

8. Saw the mysterious billboard [no fine print to indicate a sponsor/organization/business] pictured above immediately upon crossing the border to Georgia. Laughed uncontrollably for about ten minutes. 

Photos: Mer Soleil, Big Talbot Island, FL

Anthropological Upshot of Being a Ham

Photo: David Arran, Miami, FL

Plantation, FL

My mornings at Henry and David's house in Miami were relaxing and lazily fluctuated between easy conversation and solitarily sitting in the sun, drinking too much coffee, watching the dogs stare dolefully at me, watching the cat almost choke on a live lizard, and working on a bit of tan line reduction for the sake of my upcoming shoots.

On Day 9, Rumi came to pick me up for my first modeling job of the trip [not to mention my first ever shoot in Florida] at a Weston condo for a laid-back half day of portraits, figure work, glamour shots, and painting references [I even got to read his new Alan Watts book for a few minutes of more candid/unrehearsed portraiture—nothing like getting to read a good book on the job]. We'd previously worked together twice in the DMV area and I hadn't seen him for a couple years. We discussed our mutual inability to understand golf, Madagascar, prohibiting oneself from aspiring to one's dreams out of fear or guilt, and in between changing locations and lighting set-ups I flipped through a couple books containing photos he'd taken in Cuba.

Photo: David Arran, Miami, FL

One of my favorite aspects of this job isn't the modeling itself—it's the spectrum of people I get to meet and briefly connect with in a one-on-one setting. A photographer can be anyone from a straight-up professional photographer [and, even then, they might make a living as a fashion photographer, a stock photographer, a wedding photographer, a glamour nude photographer, or shooting senior portraits...] to an art student [and then, that might be a young precocious art student, or it might be someone who's recently immigrated or left a more conventional career with dreams of being an artist], and retired hobbyists from all manner of professions and backgrounds. 

The interaction is ephemeral, and sort of "outside" of society [particularly during a nude shoot, which is an rather unconventional way to first meet someone], so oftentimes conversation quickly transcends stifled small talk. On drives to shoot locations, or while changing lights, or while taking breaks to re-up on coffee or Calories or change outfits, talk gets real, quickly, between people who might never cross paths otherwise. 

Modeling ensures me a life richly furnished with other people's stories: hilarious, tragic, intimate, extraordinary, and taboo. Survival stories, existential woes, forgotten dreams, marriage gripes. I've left shoots with new books on everything from quantum physics to the history of skepticism. I've left them with beadwork from Panama and cigars from the Dominican Republic and homemade wine and contacts for seasonal jobs in Antarctica. And my shoots often involve being privy to the unique perks of different people's lives and jobs: I've gotten to drive heavy machinery, smash a car, and wield oxyacetylene torches; I've gotten to hang out in eye-bogglingly fancy high-security establishments, pretending to be similarly pristine and decadent...but keenly aware of how long ago I last washed my hair in reality; I've gotten to crawl through secret tunnels and storage vaults in giant museums and take a bird's-eye peek down at dinosaur skeletons from above; I've been immersed in an intentional living community in the mountains, where I was dressed up as Disney princesses. All because of modeling.

It's an aspect to being a freelance traveling model that's rarely discussed but, for me, randomness and anthropological interest are key highlights of this job. Learning about different lives.

On my last day in Miami, Henry took me J. Wakefield Brewing, which just opened up in Wynwood. Fanfuckingtastic beer! Went home for my shoot with David [and we let Henry photograph me, too; he scuba dives and does awesome underwater photography but this was his first time photographing a nude model], who then took me out to dinner, gave me a parting gift of a few small bottles of scotch, and passed me off to his awesome partner Sarah who is now hosting me in Plantation. Today Sarah's been at work and I've had a mellow solitary day in of reading [Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino], catching up on emails, and hanging out in her pool.

I've been so well cared for by good people on this entire trip, and these last few days in particular have been so easygoing...I'm quite spoiled. Where'd all the brutal, validating struggle and turmoil I'm supposed to be undergoing disappear to? 8P

Anyway, these few days of modeling and relaxing have been a good little holiday from sweating and pedaling and sleeping-behind-random-buildings, but the riding will be resuming pretty soon and my next cluster of gigs aren't till Jacksonville!