♥ Life looks so good on you ♥

Dear, it took so long just to feel alright
Remember how to put back the light in my eyes
I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed
Cause you broke all your promises
And now you're back
You don't get to get me back

I'm lost. on the subway in nyc. its the end of a very productive week. so productive ive contemplated leaving austin. oh, but how can i? i guess i can climb any tree in my peter pan boots.....

i shot with some of my favorites. jason paul (photo above), steve v, and richard warren... richard was splendid. really a blast. i was the first model under 5'8" and not with an agency that he had ever worked with. i like that. and when one of your favorite photographers tells you that you have a strikingly gorgeous face, its one of the coolest feelings. i really dont care what a "hot" guy says about my face. that doesnt do anything for me. the reason why this is a cool feeling is because he is an artist, and i just want to be art. and i love his art.
maybe you get it. if you're an artist ;)
when it came to paid gigs, a few photographers told me i was the first model they had paid. but that usually their shoots are very serious and structured. but that when we shot it felt like we were hanging out and they felt like they got better photos that way. im glad i....relax (?) people :)

a favorite part of this trip was boy blue. oh.boy.blue. ♥

I felt you in my legs, before i even met you ♥

but i promised to finish another story first. the taxi driver at the end of my brazil trip.

the "you are very beauty. but you will not find true love" taxi driver. ha.

i get it.

and im not saying im beautiful. but i get it. beauty attracts beauty. beautiful people attract beautiful people. which altho beautiful, are pretty damn insecure usually. jealous too. wtf anyways, you cant be the only pretty person. calm the heck down. youre making yourself less attractive with all that.

anywho. beautiful people hardly find true love. they attract people who see exterior beauty. that dont pay too close attention to the insides. i know this all might sound superficial. but some people will get it. and there are beautiful people with even more beauty on the inside....but they have to find the ones that see it. and like i said beauty attracts beauty. you attract what you are. inspiration. what have you. and i promise you, the most beautiful people, are the ones with inspiration radiating from their breath. i smelled that so much this week.

but really, why go thru all that trouble for someone who is just going to leave you? i dont mean to sound like a debbie downer here. but you could spend that time and energy on seeing the world, changing the world, meeting people that cause you to see it thru different eyes. perspective changers. smile makers. these are the relationships worth building. this is what your energy should be in.

dayum straight.

whats funny is me and my ex (who has understood me the most...--altho this weekend in someone else's company i questioned how difficult i thought this was--... but he is still there for me thru thick and thin) him and i both had this view on relationships. we were best friends and got into a relationship somehow. and of course, proved our theory correct. he is really a bad ass tho. he's traveled the whole world, all 50 states, all 7 continents. just him and his toothbrush. he owns nothing, and is king of being in the now. brilliant. still, we drove each other crazy haha.  there were times we said we'd stay together despite how miserable we made each other, just so we could be together. but we knew better. it goes against our beliefs of living life to its fullest. we dont want to settle for anything less than perfect. so we went back to square one. pen pals just a few times a year, and here we'll stay. 18 forever. but still, if the world were going to end, i know he'd come for me. 

relationships are just silly tho. you feel all crazy over someone, and then you find someone else, and it just seems crazy that you were ever worried over the last one. like in 500 days of summer, he is simply going thru the seasons of love. maybe his feelings for summer were real, maybe they will be real for autumn. but i know once autumn ditches this hopeless romantic...he will find winter etc etc.and i can tell you, it sucks to be the girl that even that 500 days of summer boy turns down. im not saying true love isnt impossible to find or not worth the route it takes to get there. but c'mon, even in fairy tales... cinderella had to walk on broken glass, snow white barely escaped a knife, belle, ariel and sleeping beauty...maybe the moral is to face your fears for love... maybe. but i just find dora the explorer had a little more fun. (ah, maybe i love the whole princess idea sometimes)

i refuse to knee'd you.

i decided in january that i would simply focus on these more beneficial things from above this year rather than any stinking crush. that i would keep southwest airlines as my bf and every child in need being a child of mine, as if i carried them in my own womb. and that this is how it may stay. that my energy and focus would benefit others more than it would have if it had to be shared with someone else.

unless that someone else was just as crazy as me. a searcher. someone who refuses to be content with a ho-hum lifestyle. who is only ok with cutting coupons because it meant that we could afford that amazing trip to south east asia.
i know you cant curl up at night with a plane ticket or the feeling of building a water well for those in need.
it felt good to curl up this weekend tho. yes it do.
the most beautiful boy blue. his life shaded in this hue. blue room. blue v tee. blue skinny jeans. blue guitar. and those beautiful blue eyes that can only compare to the beaches in santa catarina. his stories as sweet as the acai treats in the hot unforgiving eternal sunshine.

"if the only normal people are the ones that you dont know well,
and ive only just met you, then this is REALLY weird..
and that could be a good thing..."

we didnt blues dance. we didnt go to the laundromat. we didnt run the town. we just laid in bed for 36 hours, palms pressed together in conversation. discussing more things than most people share upon first meeting. we didnt even leave to eat, we ordered delivery sushi. twice. after laying in the dark for so long we realized the sun was peaking thru the drapes. sunshine for spotless minds.

thank you, come again

neither of us really know what ourselves look like. i thought i was the only one that sometimes felt like a stranger when photographed. finally hearing those facebook status' come from actual lips. um.... spontaneity on his breath. i kind of felt like i was hanging out with myself, so much that it seemed like i was the only one in the room. even my phone remained dead and not in use for that 36 hours. i might have even had to be somewhere. haha.
of course this doesnt change my mind. because ill still spend the rest of this week in a liberating empty hotel room, content with loneliness, proving to not be lonely at all. thinking only of how to get to korea.
i think i know we would be great together. but the only way this story would make sense, is if we were NOT. so ill only see him thru my binoculars as i make this world my personal sandbox, and he photographs the beautiful people in it. despite what they call us, artists we are. swinging life away. ♥

so there is goodbye. and im writing this on the ny subway. 90% lost, 100% happy. but ill just stay on until i finish this because it feels good to be lost after feeling found. and ill ride this subway until i meet 10 strangers to write about while 3 old men sing motown hits for tips.



.....and then i woke up.
with coffee on my breath and my lucky red oversized flannel on. a metro card in my back pocket and sushi takeout on my bank statement. a cat with feathers instead of hair purring next to me. my nails painted pink, which is weird because i havent painted my nails in years.
who did this?
i dream too much to rest.
but im sure ill find some science to this sleep. ♥ 

oh....ill keep you wild.♥ throw.your.worries.in.
the.air.and.run.with.me. ♥

one of my best friends text me this goodnight story,
and its just too darn smile making material to not
share..."there once was a lil jade bug with a friend
named ____. they had a blasty blast all the time.
jade bug was the coolest hottest bug of all time. ____
was a simple and stupid bird that loved his friend
jadebug. cause she made him feel like he can break thru
the barriers he had had his whole life and finally be
truly connected to someone. jade bug and _____ went
trampoline trespassing while eating ice cream and talking on
their new phones. they have fun anytime they are together
wherever they are. did i mention they are BOTH really good
looking. the end."
thats why he's my best friend. ♥

p.s. my playboy spread came out in the Natural Beauties magazine this month. i look a little weird. or at least it's weird for me to look at. and you can also see me on the cover of Strip Las Vegas next month. ♥so far im in a magazine every month this year, jan-aug. ill bust my hiney to keep it that way :) focus.

focus.







does anyone else listen to kid cudi pandora while they blog?? 

♥ Sometimes i feel like i could hug the whole world all at once ♥

♥ Lokah Samastah Sukinoh Bhavantu ♥

on my last night in africa... i finally realized i was in africa. i was on a motorcycle and i spread my arms out like wings and screamed, "im in africa!!!!" hahaha. the guy driving laughed. but i waited until the very last night. i had been so caught up in my emotions of feeling like i wasnt helping enough people, feeling like i was on a hamster wheel. building schools for children that didnt have shoes to go to the school. but this trip served its purpose to an extent. i have learned for next time. and i have learned for this trip to brazil. i did my best every day while running thru the rainforest for my afternoon jog to shout out, "in in brazil!!!!" sure, there were days i stayed in bed in my yoga pants crying over how hard i felt the guru was on us, over why my mind works the a.d.d way it does, why its so hard to focus in sanskrit class when i want to learn it so badly, why i have such a darn hard time sitting still. but 25 out of the 30 days i'd say, i was jumping and shouting and dancing and singing. :)

and on the last day, i smiled 3 hours straight i realized. then cried. tears.of.pure.joy. this to me is fully living. this experience here in brazil. making new friends that are twice my age but doing the same things and living on the opposite side of the world, learning and unlearning from them, climbing to the top of enchanted mountain to watch a sunrise over the atlantic ocean. 

for this i am blessed. truly.blessed.

i am 99.9% positive i will never be with these people again. but i believe you take a part of each person with you in each relationship you make. even casual ones. that 10%. and it makes you more colorful. in a city like austin you can go to wholefoods and make 3 friends in just an hour. (well i do, you do too right?) so in such a beautiful city i feel that i am always traveling, although home. ♥ i.love.this.life

but i leave brazil with a new family, a new peace, a new practice, a new purrrspective, and a new contentment on the way that i am, and how my mind works. :)

and i am just as ecstatic to go home as i was to arrive, because i am simply in love with life. and i refuse to hide it. ♥

i will miss overhearing conversations that make no sense at all when forced into the english language. haha. so adorable. like on my last day, one table at the ashram, "yes! she threw a live chicken at me!! straight from the coop she did it!" while the table on the left, "well excuse me i will go washa my hands because i played with a butterfly." and on the right, "and you? what do you say to your lover?" .... "we say darling. but this I do not say." ... "you do not say?" ... "no because me i do not have lovers."

i will miss karunya talking to the stars requesting that they heal the wound on her foot, being called jadey, and mirjam my guru telling me i am strong... "you are so much strength. you are really going to do amazing things with your life, i am certain of this. so much strength and purpose in you." this always gave me chills. not because i needed to hear someone say it, but because this is what pumps thru my veins, that i have dharma. purpose. that others will live because i lived. i will change things for them, somehow.

mirjam, she is such an inspiration. she is a relief to all that see her. the perfect example of ahimsa. it's as if she couldn't think an ill thought about a single soul. she is so motherly to any person next to her. talking to everyone as if they were a hurt child. (we all have one inside us anyhow) i cant imagine how loved her actual children must have felt growing up. ha, she even makes dessert seem guiltless. she's the most understanding, compassionate, joyful, and spiritual woman i have ever met.   

and last but not least i will miss being sung to every night and waking up to freshly cut papaya. oh goodness.

but i will still sing "lokah samasta sukinoh bhavantu" every morning with my prayer beads in my hand, and mirjams voice singing it in my heart. and if i wasnt modeling i would probably get this tattooed in sanskrit going down my side, haha. my dharma. that all beings everywhere be happy and free.

on the last day i asked that 61 year old inspirational german woman that i climbed hte mountain with whether or not she had a family. "no... but i wanted 7" i giggled at how adorable she answered this then asked, "but you chose this life instead? with your backpack?" :) grinning because this is where i think i will be. "yes, this is what the universe had for me. the universe did not agree with my womb. because my womb did not trust." she didnt trust anyone enough to have children with them. i wondered if she was sad about this. but she seemed 100% content and happy. i loved watching her dance to the rolling stones, her favorite band, as she swung her head back and forth and smiled from ear to ear. this is joy. contentment. contentment takes away suffering. this is what a yogi calls santosha. ♥

thats why i love the serenity prayer. contentment, yet with desires. its not good to just be content, then you dont grow, you dont pursue. find your balance duh.

at the graduation ceremony we wore white and each took turns laying in the middle of the circle, with candles around us. for a minute and a half everyone in the circle said what they saw in you. as i laid there i repeatedly heard strength, compassion, eyes like the sea, loves her mother, loves children. but what stuck out to me was FOCUSED. haha. in a place where i felt so unfocused. the ceremony was beautiful and no one left with a dry eye. and i am now a certified yoga teacher. :) but this will be more with my life then on my mat. because when we can teach with our actions, then we can change the world. ♥

after leaving the ashram i headed to Rio for the weekend for one last Brazilian hurrah. and i wanted to see carnaval. :) i loved Rio. it was like all my favorite places in one. i loved the locals i met at the sushi bar (brazilians seem to love p.d.a. by the way), the australian lovers i met at the jesus christo statue that were traveling the world together (i also met an australian couple in njjembe forrest while looking for monkeys in uganda as well, i loved both of their stories..) 

all the way up to my exit, i loved my taxi driver to the airport. i got in her front seat and she said, "you have very beauty. but you probably will not find true love." its funny because this sounds confusing, but it made perfect sense to me. so much sense that i have to write a new blog for it. so for now ill close this one. :)

so in closing......

Life is short....do what you love today. Do not waste this moment. Be here now.

♥ Lokah Samastah Sukinoh Bhavantu. ♥

this includes you. be happy and free. tell your family you love them. book/save for a flight. take care of your body, it has taken you so many places and brought you so many opportunities. love yourself. love others. do not get attached. there are too many amazing things you can do instead! the universe has very big ears, speak only what you want to happen in your life. because your days are numbered. so savor every taste life has to offer. even despair. sing to the hurting. have compassion on the suffering. this is your life, this is your moment.

and if nothing else, theres always laughter... and the dance floor.. and especially God. because no matter how bad or good you feel or are doing, He is really all you have when it comes down to it. ♥ that....and your beautiful mind.

today i am still traveling, i am in NY doing some bad ass shoots. "you're still a riddle wrapped up in an enigma" steve says to me as i arrive at his apartment tonight in brooklyn. yep. that's not going to change. :)

I am glad I met you Enchanted Mountain in Garopaba village. you were an effing blast. im sorry i got emotional when confused over sanskrit and trying to focus the mind. you have made me more colorful, my smile brighter, and my dance more exciting. you are a part of my rainbow. ☼ Namaste.