Back in the saddle.

Time for an update... no?

Or a few, for that matter. I have been out in the real world for so long I have totally shirked my virtual responsibilities. I have also realized how family-centric my posts have been of late, so I thought I'd get back to all the other facets of life.

What have I been up to???

I have been working my tail off. That's what. I will be moving into my own apartment this fall. All by myself! Which is slightly intimidating because I've never lived by myself before. I have a sneaking suspicion I am going to love it, but you never know... I am an extrovert after all. But, I have my two lovely cats. And, hopefully, lots of company! Right, girls? (Leese, Julie, Tara, Kristin, Mary, Cassandra... and your handsome cohorts, of course.)

I have to say that I'm lucky, because, for the most part, I love the career path I've chosen for myself. Being a freelance designer in NYC is always an adventure. I get to work with tons of creative, and sometimes notable, people. Every job is different... some are purely graphics related where I get to flex my Adobe muscles. Some require set design for puppets. (They don't teach you how to design puppet scenery in school. They should, considering the vast puppet population of the world.) Some are installation heavy, which means lots of standing on ladders, juggling tools, managing deliveries, and working with great shop or house crews.

During my professional career, I have gotten paid to:

1. Cover Dave Grohl, (Foo Fighters), in tin foil.
2. Create pop-art images of William Shatner, (which he may actually have in his house!)
3. Get very close and personal with a slew of Henson puppets in the windows of Macy's, (and yes, Mrs. Piggy can be pretty high maintenance.)
4. Build a replica of the Nimbus 2000.
5. Paint every nook and cranny of Studio 54 when Cabaret moved in. And let me tell you, Leese and I did some mighty precarious maneuvering to get the dome ceiling touched up!
6. Serve burnt eggs to an actor take after take after take... (sorry Andrew, but the script did call for it!)
7. Watch LL Cool J rehearse without a shirt on... (Ok, not really paid to do that. We were on a break. Really. Come on... do you blame us? Who can get work done when LL's in the building? Um, no really... we were on a break.)
8. Glitterize everything within a 50 ft. radius. (I used to come home with glitter in places you wouldn't believe.)
9. Smuggle plastic shotguns though the Lincoln Tunnel. I was actually stopped by a cop who asked me point blank, "Ma'am, are you carrying any weapons of mass destruction?" What do you say to that when you have a pile of toy guns in the back? "Well, officer, not really weapons of MASS destruction..."

And my number 10. comes from a job that I worked on this summer: installing artifacts into the Ripley's Believe it or Not! Odditorium in Times Square. Yes, folks, I got to personally handle real Jivaro shrunken heads. About 20 of them. I have to admit, they are pretty cool. For me, the term "shrunken head" used to be just a catch phrase for freaky crap. Not anymore. The Jivaro tribes are fascinating! (I'm not going to go into detail here. You'll have to go to Ripley's and see for yourself.) I do have a few pictures, though...And here is me and Catman who was invited for the opening night party along with other interesting Ripley-esque characters.
In any case, the job was a little nuts, because of time constraints and lots of contractors all trying to get everything done at the same time. I know from the pictures it look like I did all that work by myself, but that's only because I haven't found out if I can post pictures of the great people with whom I worked. (Feel free to write in and request an appearance, guys.) The artifact crew was fantastic, pretty much my dream crew, and very good at rolling with the late-night-tight-space sort of punches. If anyone ever needs a good props person, I have several great people to recommend. Hopefully I'll be working with them all again soon.

So, there you go... that's what I was up to for most of May and June. Lots of other things happened during that time, but I'll post a follow up tomorrow. Sleep tight!