Our Story of stories

How I met Anthony is a moment that I'll never forget. As it must be with you!

Ours was a blaringly sunny day at the romantic setting of the Salton Sea.

Let me back track a bit to put you in my shoes. A friend and I had ridden our motorcycles up to Yosemite for camping for 5 days. It was the beginning of April and pretty warm in the San Diego area, but fairly chilly at night. What the heck, it's spring break and we may as well give it a go!

By the time we get out of L.A. we both had on as much clothing as humanly possible to fit beneath our gear. Did this deter us? Heck no!! We ride for hours. Taking food and gas breaks, a few random stretch breaks, but we'd burned a day in L.A. already, so we only had a few days to camp and then ride back before school and work.

Get up there at around 11P.M. to find, oh look! Snow!! The gates are closed, however and we're not about to dive back down the mountain to find camp grounds. So we push our bikes down this dirt trail and leave them at the top of this slope, where we bed down on the ice with 1 tarp and our sleeping bags that were not meant for anything under oh, 60*F? Not funny.

Let's say after falling into the lake, having soaking wet shoes, nearly being blown by horrendous winds into the center divider, making the trip back to a friend's house at 2AM. for a photoshoot that she wanted to drag me on to model with her at 5:30AM, doing laundry while showering and catching maybe 2 hours of sleep?

I was looking my best for this photoshoot... the day before my birthday.

Now, Salton Sea. This smelly, dead sea filled with trash, bird poop and a rotting building we shot in. The theme? Sort of psycho killers/Mad Max-esque.

I was looking the absolute best I ever had:




Anthony walked up out of a the building and all I saw was tall, handsome goodness... who thinks he's way too cute. He had on these huge orange-ish sunglasses, his camera strapped to his back, his jeans were tattered and he is breezes by without so much as a glance, or a hello.

And then two motorcycles are pushed into my view.

Alright, I can admit, I asked about him, talked my friend's ear off about how cute he was (just as she was to me about another guy there), and sort of stalked him around the area. Seeing if he'd take my picture. He did at one point, but it felt like he was playing the tough, quiet guy. Hard to get. And I was down for the challenge!

Lunch break and he disappeared for an hour or two. Minor bummer, but with 10 models and 7-8 photographers, it was bound to happen. After exclaiming that something was "Epic", I went gracefully out of the trailer with one step to get another boca burger and fell straight to the ground. The boots of my heels hooked the stair and down I went like a bag of lead onto my knees. And who should be walking up to witness this? Anthony. Holding another model in his arms.

Game over! I thought. He's one of those tall, handsome guys who only likes short women! Just my luck. Getting up, I slinked away and prayed he didn't see me/wouldn't remember my pathetic attempts to woo him.

His good friend was also shooting that day. He mentioned to MY good friend that he was interested, just shy and having a bad day. My friend mentioned that I was interested and that we should all grab dinner that night.



Excitedly, he and I began talking after the troops reported back to base. He jumped in the car with us to head for food, but had to stay behind to shut down the trailer and clean up.

Needless to say he missed dinner. It's surely over now. I barely even knew his name. I'll never hear back or get his number now!

But, Ta-Da!! My awesome and amazing friend spoke to another photographer and made sure to pass along my number to him. If he was indeed interested.

The next day, I get a phone call.



And that's that. Romance, packed with action, knives, guns, drug lords, photography, good friends, and a one of a kind love.

This is our story. Tell us yours!

Snow Day

Today was a romp through the snow! A mis-adventure of trekking through snow up to my kneecaps in inappropriate clothing. Being 5'10", that's some pretty deep stuff!

Alright, so next time we dare to venture into degrees below 50*F we will bring oh, I don't know. Gloves? Hats? Thicker coats? Shoes that don't let in water to soak our lovely San Diego cotton socks? Yeah. That sounds grand. =]

Otherwise, it was a lovely time! The snow was crisp and white! The pinecones thorny and painful. =[ Be warned! Pinecones buried in snow are not meant to be picked up! =P

I snapped off some images on our new camera! The lovely Holga. <3 Only, taking it out of the trunk of the car, the back slipped off and exposed my film! =[ Boo! Ah well, I wound a frame and headed onward! Shooting to my hearts content until the film sounded like it was being torn apart, signaling the end of the roll. ;]

No snowballs were thrown today, but they were planned. Thought about. Itched to be! In fact, a tree met the misfortune of my snow ball as I hurled it against it's bark after a very sad look from boyo. Today was an off day, but it was beautiful.

It's days like today, when coffee is spilled, french presses are broken, e-mails are received but not from the right people, and sadness peeps it's head around the corner that I have to remember, this empathy, this tangle of emotion, it's not his or mine. It's ours. My off day will influence his, and visa versa.

So what happened?!

Well, dear readers, after an hour and almost losing our fingers (Oh no's!) we opted to cut the adventure short, headed gloomily home. A favorite song of mine by Chris Ayers sings "Sadness is real, but it's scared of the light".

When we got home, I turned on most of the lights, jumped into the kitchen, turned on some music and filled the house with the smells of cooking; ham and beef, vegetables and... vegetables. =]

I danced like an idiot and did everything I could to make boyo smile. Forget for a minute what was bothering him. In truth, he is the beat that keeps me going. Every smile I forget, he remembers. Tonight was my time to return the favor.

"Baby, Darlin'. You're the world to me."

Sunday Spent Away

Anthony here.  I had two very important things to do today.

1. Taxi-man for my better half to her place of gainful employment.
2. Don't blow anything up.

I decided to head to Balboa Park's Botanical Garden, thinking that if I was surrounded by cool green plants and peaceful (read: Quiet!) plants slowly making themselves fat and happy on the recent rains in the area, I would have little ammunition to blow anything up with, and even less desire to do so.  I must know myself pretty well, because I didn't have any urge to do anything more than take pictures.*

(*I don't condone nor endorse any sort of blowing up of anything.  Unless you're talking about giant bubble-wrap.)

So here is what I came back with.  Sorry there aren't more people, it seemed everyone either had little kids along, or were in large family groups and I'm not big on interrupting family time to try and sneak in some headshots or something for my own gain.  Especially since we're in a fairly major and popular tourist destination.  I also don't take pictures of random people unless I get a chance to talk with them first.

So, a successful Sunday for me.  We even got in a good cook session, a birthday party for her aunt, and had a couple nice beers with the dinner we made for the birthday party crew.  Bulgogi, I had a black ale, and she had a red rice ale that definitely had hints of it's shared lineage with sake.  Quite a fine day.

Undeserving

I don't deserve her.  I try to serve her and (the resultant) us as best I know how.  Most days, that's just making sure I'm available when she is home, and doing the little things that I hope get noticed. But that's not enough some days, those days when work didn't go well. When the commute seemed longer than it ever has before. When the car took it upon itself to wipe out the entire day's earnings. When it's not a beautiful San Diego day to ride the motorcycle on.

But, I look to see where she is.  I whistle as I walk, and sometimes she finds me first.  I'm sure it's partly for her own kicks, and partly just to see if I take notice.  I do.

I don't deserve her, and she doesn't deserve my odd moments either, but I'll keep trying to be better and hoping that she doesn't wake up one day and agree with me.  I need her.  I want her.  I bask in her presence, and await her return as soon as she walks (or skips) away.

She is my beautiful.

~Kelby and Julian~

As stated below by my love, it was quite the day on Friday. =] We had an epic photoshoot with Kelby and Julian and in the midst of the action, our keys jumped ship! Thank goodness for kindness, spare keys and friends!


Onto the shoot! Kelby was such a sweetheart, but she had a strong kick to her! (That a girl!) Kind and confident, she rocked the shoot. Not to mention Mr.Cool, Julian. =] While the quieter of the group, when he did pipe up, we were all laughing!










Such a great time. =] Thank you both so much!

Friday...

Last night, while falling asleep with my darling and wonderful girlfriend, I could have sworn it was early Tuesday morning, after a difficult Monday at work that left me wondering where all my coffee went, and why my head hurt so badly.


Let me explain:


First, we've been out of readily edible (I love those two words together, I just discovered!) food in the house for about a week now.  We've gone shopping in that time at least twice, and both times had to juggle bags in our arms between the two of us to get in the apartment.  It wasn't a problem of having nothing to eat, but stuff that actually went together in a better fashion than dark chocolate gelato with vodka sauce and sweet pickles.  I will admit, I have not tried that combination, but the pickles may just pull it all together.


So we've been scrounging and finally improving our technique on the Julia Child method of French omelettes, but my tolerance, nay, my propensity for butter and eggs can only be satiated for so long before I want to chew on un-cooked lasagna noodles and drink gallons of water to get away from the delicious richness of it all.  We have been scrounging and improvising.  We've been eating less at home, and usually driving somewhere having our sit-down meal of the day together on the freeway at 65mph.


Secondly, we make it to the photoshoot scheduled at Lake Hodges after running around all morning on errands and missions, and promptly lose the keys to the car in the beautiful grass, or somewhere on the trail, or wherever it might have gone.  So the shoot went well, until we realized we had lost the keys, and we lost more light than I liked in looking for them and freaking out a bit, but I feel we did quite well overall.  Working on being personable and talking through the camera, which I keep making excuses about why I'm terrible at it.  Chelse is a huge help here, she picks up right when I start thinking too much about the images or potential issues with the gear.


What follows, to finish the day, is a 50 square mile loop to a friend's house, in-depth conversation with a 3-year-old, and then drinks to forget the rest of the mess.


It's time to get serious, so serious we shall be: