Cuz I Rhyme Tight

I used to read Word Up magazine.

(No, I didn't.)

It's really no secret that I think I'm kiiiiiinda gangsta. Before you have a chance for rebuttal, I'll help you (I'm aware; I just like my delusions):

• I grew up in the middle-class suburbs of Ottawa.
• My dog wears a little tartan coat.
• Clueless is, like, one of my favourite films.
• I like Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" and I'm not sorry.
• I'm into yoga. And lattes.
• Sometimes, I have to use the Urban Dictionary. Like, for real. 

But guys, can I puhhlease get some props for my latest sorta-gangsta gig? I was in a muthafuckin' hip hop video, yo! Canadian hip-hop, but STILL. You can read more here about how any of this is even possible considering the facts above.

Well, this is it:

Directed by the ever-lovely and talented Dan Jardine, pulled together by a cast and crew of some of the awesomest people around, this is the newest vid for Muneshine's track, There is Only Today. Check him out! (Ignore that snarky bit about "Canadian hip-hop". I was being facetious.)

It's been a fairly ridiculous and (almost) completely unattainable goal of mine to dance in a music video. Janet Jackson was my longtime spirit guide. My friend Vivek cast me in the never-released video for one of his tracks, and Sweet Thing pretty much stopped making vids before I could weasel my way into a bit role.

But this finally happened. It's not dancing, I know. And I requested minimal camera time because I felt a bit drag in all of that makeup. Whatevs. I'm close to being "mid-30s" so these kind of opps are rare, amiright?

I also have wardrobe credits on the vid for the Pan Am looks I pulled together for the fly girls (including me)!

ISN'T THIS AWESOME!?

Now I drink champagne when I'm thirst-ay? (Nope again.)

p.s. I will also have you know, in an effort to gain additional gangsta points, that I once lyrically KILLED Bust a Move at Hip Hop Karaoke. Like live DJ, no-bouncing-ball-stylez. Only looked at the lyric sheet once. Wut-wut. That is some hard shit, you guys. Also received a high-five from a HHK veteran with some spot-on Dead Prez rap steez. I haven't been brave enough to return to the stage because it got all profesh somehow, but I could pull out some mean Salt N Pepa lyrics in an emergency. Just so you know.

Side Dish

I can't just do one thing. Maybe I've finally made peace with the fact that I'm not going to be the kind of girl with a "5-year plan" or a "career path". I've been pretty lucky to have jobs (like my current one) that let me do a million different things and appease all of my conflicting interests. It's not that I don't have dreams or goals, it's just that there are a lot of them and I might be shooting around wildly hoping to hit a few.

Imma just gonna do stuff I like.

I guess I'm afraid to not indulge my every whim for fear that my true calling will get missed. It's why I can't say no. It's why I have 5,674,936 hobbies. It's why I come off as flighty, directionless. Maybe, though, my true calling is "DOING AWESOME THINGS". I agonized forevs about choosing one career over another (Should I have pursued journalism? Is corporate retail where I belong?), about what I should have studied in school  (I had the math grades for Engineering but I wanted to design clothes), about how I saw my life in 5, 10, 20 years (panic!).

 { grade 8 // this is clearly not a new problem }

Can't I just dabble in everything? Why isn't that allowed? So, as it turns out: it is. It's a little frowned-upon, but in a city is rife with floaters and dreamers and slashies, I fit in. I romanticize living in the sticks, but I'm pretty at home here with aimless weirdos like me.

On top of being insanely busy at work (but I'm getting an intern! yay!), I've also signed myself up for some pretty big side gigs leading into the holidays. I have to sew my face off for a City of Craft – it's coming up in less than a month. But I haven't even started because of another project that just wrapped up on Sunday.

Thanks to some work I did on some videos for my day job, I made some friends in the movie biz. Heh. Dan was our DOP on a few GelaSkins vids (and he directed my directing, too!). When a personal project came his way – a music vid for his hip-hop artist friend, Muneshine – something possessed him to hire me. As a stylist! Oh boy. I was totally in over my head but I wanted to do an awesome job because getting paid to shop is pretty much my dream (OK, one of seven billion dreams).

I was excited but nervous about the role. My challenge: to outfit 5 girls in the style of 60s-esque stewardesses. On basically no budget. Hey: my look-expensive-while-being-broke superpower is paying off outside of my own closet!

I was also somehow smooth-talked into being "talent". Totally against my will. If you know of my not-so-secret and completely unattainable Broadway aspirations, you are rolling your eyes. But honest: I didn't want to be in the vid. Mostly because I hired 4 mega-babes who completely out-babe me. Seriously, you wanna juxtapose me against teeny dancer bodies and high cheekbones. Crap.

 { sneak peek! photos: shlomi amiga }

Once I have a chance to wade through the photo-aftermath, I'll post some behind-the-scenes eye-candy and my thoughts on make-believe career #5,674,937. Let's manage expectations here, though: it won't be anytime soon. I'm diving straight into sewing while attempting to dodge holiday-ish invites with minimal FOMO and working longer-than-normal hours at my uber-busy day job. Blog neglected again.

See? I have so many side dishes that I don't even have time for my very favourite among them! I would like you to know that I currently have NINE draft posts sitting in the wings. All becoming less relevant and timely the longer I wait. 

I am well-meaning. 

"The road to hell...", yeah?