When I began this emotional and spiritual journey 6 weeks ago, I always envisioned that there would be ups and downs.  I promised myself that I would not measure the successes or failures by money, fame or popularity, but by the feelings of life, energy, and most importantly passion.  My dream was to finally wake up every morning with a challenge, a purpose, and doing something that I truly love, which is being an entertainer.  I am changing every aspect of my life (personal and professional), and with any change there is a great deal of uncertainty and risk, but I felt that I was finally ready to move forward with this adventure, and go after exactly what I wanted.  Since News Years Day, when I made this choice, I have felt nothing but excitement and the want to attack every day as if it’s my last to make this dream a reality.  I am a risk-taker, and a transient, and was looking forward to the new adventures that lay ahead.

While celebrating Fierce Farrah’s birthday this past Friday at G Lounge (Happy birthday wishes again baby!!!), I ran into my good friend, Studio 54, whom I hadn’t seen in a while.  We caught up on his new business venture, as well as what direction my life and this blog were taking.  I asked him for honest feedback on this site, and for the most part he was very positive.  Then though he shared some of his worries and concerns about how open I was being about my life, and “how it may come back to haunt me”  I felt an emotion at that moment that I had refused to let materialize; FEAR.  The fear that I was feeling wasn’t around whether or not I was happy making the choice to act and model full time, but around whether I was making the right choices in “branding” myself as a product.  I have attempted to be as honest with all of you about every aspect of my life, and I felt that I wanted people to “live” the journey with me as if it were them.  But was I hurting my own success while telling this story?  The conversation with Studio made me think about the aspect of this move that I had refused to think about, the business aspect.  I live my life on a whim, and rarely think about whether my actions will hurt or help my image and branding potential.  For me, it’s about the experience, and as long as I am not hurting anyone and having fun, then I am willing to go for it.  Studio has an amazing marketing mind and business sense, and to hear these thoughts, sent shivers down my spine.

I became so frazzled that I had to exit the club, and headed to Kinko’s at 2AM to jump on the computer and re-read all of my posts and see if I was being too cliché’ in my writing and change what I was doing or the direction I was taking.  I stayed up most of the night thinking, and worrying that I was doing all the wrong things, and analyzing every step I was taking.  Was I being too open?  Was I painting a picture of myself that destroyed how I looked and what I can accomplish?  Every thought that you can imagine thinking, I thought about that night looking for answers.

Then finally around 6AM, I started watching Good Will Hunting on HBO, and the scene where Robin Williams and Matt Damon are sitting on the park bench was on, and finally the answer came.  Williams tells Damon that he sat up the whole night after their first session thinking about the comments Damon had made about his wife, and their relationship, while looking at a painting in Williams’ office.  Williams then realizes that Damon’s character was full of crap, and that you can only speak about something after living and experiencing it.  He says that if he were to ask him about the Sistine Chapel, Damon would probably talk about an art book, or if he asked him about love, he would probably quote Shakespeare.  I had asked Studio 54 to tell me what I should be doing, but how can I when it’s not something he has ever done before in the way that I am doing it?

I realized at that moment there was no “right” answer or direction to this journey,  and that even though this is a business, and I should be very strategic in the choices that I make,  I would be compromising who I am, and all of the reasons that I am doing this for by listening to other people.  Although I consider Studio 54 a very good friend, I am not him, and he is not the one going through this journey, so I must stay true to my vision, and my values and not deviate from what I feel is “what I want to do and communicate”.  I then fell into a deep sleep for the next 3 hours…

My learning here is that I will experience a bevy of emotions and question many of the choices that I will be making, but in the end it is the journey that will dictate the message and the results, not other people.  We spend too much time worrying about what other people think, and what other people say that we lose focus on what’s most important, listening to ourselves.  The last 15 years of my life, I have done everything that others have wanted from me, and somehow the path Arthur needed to take was lost.  It is time to listen to myself, and move forward with my instincts and do this my way at any cost.  It is the only way that I can look back and have no regrets.

Later that day, I met Radio Babe and Ivanka Paris for a business meeting, and Radio Babe and I decided to head up to New York to do something different and get away from Philly.  I am considering moving to NYC momentarily to give myself access to a larger market, so I am exploring how I can manage duel residences, both here and there.  It is a difficult thought process to move to a city where I will essentially be a number, a nobody, and I am scared that I will not be able to maintain the same support system that I have built here.  Radio Babe keeps telling me that both she and everyone else will be there for me no matter what zip code I’m in, but we all know it’s just not the same.  I’m extremely scared, and also excited about potentially moving there, but I feel that NYC is where the action is and where I need to be moving forward.  Its difficult switching from being a big fish in a small pond to the opposite end of the extreme, and I do not want to get lost in the shuffle in the Big Apple, but I am ultimately having trouble seeing another solution. 

Once we arrived in NYC, we went to Mercer Kitchen in Soho (one of my favorite haunts) grabbed an awesome dinner, and had some hilarious conversations.  We talked about everything from relationships to politics to hate sex, and I can tell you that if it wasn’t so loud in the restaurant, I could have videotaped it, and not had to write a blog today because of all the material that was discussed.  Radio Babe’s friend Christine, who joined us, must think I am the biggest and horniest jerk-off on Earth.  We did not stop laughing for a couple hours.

We proceeded to stop in my friend, Schuster’s place, and relax, although the girls ended up almost not going out because of how tired they were, and we headed to my favorite lounge in NYC named 1Oak.  For those of you who have never had the pleasure of partying there, imagine an ultra-exclusive lounge in Chelsea, with a celebrity doorman named Binn (always has a scowl, and doesn’t care if you are a celeb or athlete, you can easily wait outside for 20+ minutes if he feels like it), and every hot celebrity, model and athlete gracing 5 feet past you trying to get the best table for bottle service.  It’s an experience all to itself. I love going there because I can listen to the hottest hip-hop music and meet beautiful women while simultaneously networking and creating material for the blog.

Luckily, Binn now recognizes me, and when we went to the front of the line outside, he slid Radio Babe, Christine and I into the club, and the party began.  We drank all night, and somehow all three of us found people to hang out with. Radio Babe was accosted by some guy who claimed he was the creator of some revolutionary video game software, and kept offering to buy us drinks.  He was an incredibly nerdy guy, and I have found that when people brag as hard as he was about their successes, they are usually failures or trust fund children (although we googled him on the way home from the city, and he was totally legit; go figure). I told him that the only way that he could continue to talk to Radio Babe was to buy me and her drinks, and he did!!! He probably spent at least $200-$300 on us, and it was great using someone the way my friends and I are usually used by women.  My next life I am coming back as a hot woman so I can spend 75 years manipulating men and ruining their lives.

I on the other hand ended up meeting up with a model that I had met in Philadelphia 5 years ago at The Walnut Room in Rittenhouse Square.  She is gorgeous, and totally my type, and when I met her at The Walnut Room after breaking up with The EX, I asked for her number and she kept blowing me off for at least 3 months so we never ended up going out.  I recently reconnected with her, and we decided to meet up in NYC on Saturday night, but in the back of my mind, I doubted that she would show, and blow me off again. I told Radio Babe that life is karma, and that after how she had played me years ago, it was my turn to return the favor, so I would totally ignore her, and play hard to get. This would in turn make her want me more, and lead to something fun….

Well, she did show, hung out, and I thought that she was all about me, but then somewhere throughout the night, I realized that she had left my company, and started talking to another guy, and by the end of the night leaving with him.  My strategy couldn’t have backfired any worse, and now I am probably somewhere in the “Friend Zone” with her.  Note to self: do not try and exact emotional revenge on women who are gorgeous and you want to hang out and potentially sleep with.

We ended up leaving 1oak jumping in a cab, and heading back to my friend’s house, where from what I was told, I asked for a barrage of hair massages, and a back rub.  We woke up the next morning, and went to Pastis in the meat packing district for brunch, and then heading home to lick our drunken wounds.  Overall it was a great weekend that truly symbolized the ups and downs that will be experienced during this adventure over the next three years. Here are some pictures from the last couple nights, and check out Phillychitchat.com where my blog is being discussed.