I was born in 1988 in New Orleans, Louisiana. When most people think of Louisiana, they'll talk about Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, the French Quarter... truth be told, I don't remember any of that. Well, no, that's not true. I have some fond memories from later in life at the French Quarter, but from the early years, nada, zip, zero, zilch. My family moved to Houston when I was two years old. We went back frequently of course - often several times a year - to visit family and friends... but I have no recollection of ever living there. When people comment on my being "from" New Orleans, my first thought is "Oh, you've been to Mimi's house too?"
This would probably be a good time to tell you I always wanted to be a veterinarian. My whole life, veterinary school was the plan... until high school biology. After that, I decided to take a less nauseating track.
My brother and I used to compete at everything when we were younger... poking wars, solving puzzles, you name it. It was the never-ending sibling rivalry between us that led me into the realm of advertising in the first place. When I was ten years old, my older brother created his very own website. Not to be outdone, I set out to create one of my own. At the time I didn't realize help sites or "For Dummies" books existed; I taught myself HTML in the only way I knew how: by Viewing Source on various websites of increasing complexity, then copying and pasting individual lines of code into Notepad to see what they did. My brother never created a website again; my site, however, was only the first of many to come. I am now proficient with HTML, CSS, and Java, not to mention Photoshop, InDesign, and Dreamweaver (though I much prefer to code my websites by hand). I'm also working on teaching myself to use MySQL and PHP, all thanks to the humble beginnings of a jealous and overly determined ten year old. Not that I had much of a ten year old mentality to begin with, I must admit.
I think I've been 30 since I was 13. That's when I realized it: working with horses, at 13 years old, in preparation for my pending future as a veterinarian. I had been coming to this ranch for at least a year at the time when someone asked me if I was legal. The question startled me like crazy at the time, but hasn't phased me much since. I just never came off as a teenager, I'm told. Which is good. Teenagers come off pretty badly, I hear. I suppose I'm due for a midlife crisis soon.
I was always shy growing up. In my eighth grade year, I got a solo for the school choir's Christmas concert and managed not to tell my parents about it. To this day they're convinced I was scheming. In all truth it just didn't occur to me to mention it. On the home video, you can still see my father jump when I start singing, captured for all eternity. In high school, I started color guard and theatre, and absolutely lived to perform in front of the crowd. As it turns out, I'm not so shy any more.
Unfortunately, choir didn't last. I still enjoy singing and do so often, when the sun is shining and I'm in a good mood, but choir is no longer part of the picture. Color guard, however, is. I'm currently in my seventh year of guard, and I'm bruised and abused to prove it. Seven years of dancing, rolling on the ground, tossing things in the air and hoping to God they don't hurt too bad on the way back down. I love it though. I can now lay claim to two state championship medals, one seventh place national finish, and two trips to world championships. It's always a good feeling to point at yourself in the DVD you paid $60 for. Good stuff. I think it's safe to say I'm done competing now, though... seven years was plenty. More recently I've taken up teaching my peers, which is just as rewarding... but I must admit, I miss the performance. At what other time in my life will I ever have an excuse to improv a nonexistant solo across the floor to retrieve a stray saber? Alas, a shame.
In place of color guard, I've recently taken up costuming, as you can see for yourself in my portfolio... primarily CATS costuming, though I have taken a stab at a few others as well. (Not a very good stab. My sewing ability is lamentable.) I fell in love with CATS at age ten and became ridiculously obsessed - not only do I know every character's name (most of which are never actually named in the show), I know every word to every song and every step to every dance... at least I used to. I've forgotten a lot. Yes, I know. You're not the first to call me crazy. But I'm improvising a lifelong dream here. When I was 11 years old I set a goal to one day play the goofy kitten Etcetera in a live production of CATS. Given my ever-so-far from ballerinalike build and graceless dancing abilities, I'm sating myself with costuming. Which, coincidentally, is a lot of fun... even if it does mean squeezing into spandex. I promise to start some sort of diet, as a favor to humanity. Each of my costumes costs somewhere in the range of $300 to complete, is hand-painted and hand-sewn, with homemade leather collars, crepe wool wigs, and yarn warmers and tail. They take months of hard work and sweat, force me to eat more ramen than I would ever admit to, and then get worn once. And I'm okay with that.
Of course, my old passtimes still remain. Although I have been lacking the time required to create a new website, I continue to maintain those which I already had and to help others with their Photoshop-, HTML- and CSS-related woes. I take pleasure in the occasional pencil sketch, though I no longer keep a thorough sketchbook or get my successes plastered on the refrigerator door. I still love to sing and dance, and make time to go to the theatre as often as I can. I still love the sunlight, despite seeing less and less of it these days. As a whole... I still love to create, or to take pleasure in the inspired creations of others... and for this reason I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that I'm in the right place.