The Skinny

Let’s catch up. It’s been a couple minutes since we’ve done this.

My tight five;

The gig

  • Never stop learning; I picked up another skill, painting on silicon. Enjoy this sneak peek from the set of ZIMBY. An editorial feature for SLEEK magazine and other shoots like this keep my muscles strong and feet nimble as I navigate on location shooting.

The muse

  • The singular Isabella Blake-Thomas and I have teamed up. I look forward to what’s ahead and our collaboration.

The horizon

  • I’ve booked projects for the latter half of 2024…however, the hustle never f*cking ends. As a friend pointed out just this afternoon, there are no laurels resting on ME. I am ready for the projects you are crewing up, I’m the assistant you’ve been looking for, and the one-off when extra hands are required. I’m a multi-hyphenate so hit me up. Tits up!

The inspiration

The deep breath

  • Aside from my fondness for fiction, I recently read How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman. Buy me a pint and we can discuss it’s fun facts. Speaking of my ancestral homeland, I’m learning Scottish Gaelic on Duolingo. I can pronounce, “Tha Irn Bru?” (Do you have Irn-Bru?). It’s a popular Scottish drink. I’ve never had it. I’m a gin girl myself and wouldn’t kick a single malt scotch out of bed either.

one last thing…

The soundtrack

  • A 14+ hour mix I made of the best songs off all my other playlists is with me wherever I go. But if you made me choose my heavy rotation at this moment, it would be a battle between Dolly Parton and Eminem. Both are classic AF IMHO. Fight me.

The logo says it all; Have kit, Will Travel. Now let’s get to work, shall we?

Hope Springs Eternal - see what I did there?

Why do we believe? With ferocity, we throw our intention to fate and trust that the universe will cant its whim in our direction and that somehow we have earned the virtue or paid some cost that now affords us what is ours rightly to reap as a reward or our due.

Is belief our trust, or our hubris? How does our belief outweigh someone else’s on a karmic scale? Are we fooling ourselves?

Is belief baseless optimism?

today is the day

this is my year

i earned this one

Did you though?

You did. Why not you? Why you? It is that arbitrary. Fate is chance as much as it is destiny. You worked for it, true. But based on who you know and where you are standing at that precise moment when the lightning strikes, it is your turn. This should both liberate you and help to unwind you from the concocted axle of what you believe you are owed.

The fact remains that you are owed nothing. No one is.

Hope is preferable. I hope. I choose you and me every day. Every damn day. At my core, I am not a cynic. Whereas believing is based on acceptance, hope’s roots are in expectation and desire. There’s momentum there. Navigation. A map, though the path is circuitous. A requirement for participation and not passivity.

Vernal Equinox is a tipping point. A shift in the seasons. Depending on where you are standing, it’s getting warmer or cooler. The barometer’s reading has changed. Wherever you are, I hope you are well and it’s working out for you. I hope to see you on set soon, even if I’m only allowed to take pics of my kicks.

Transference in Equinox

A shortcut to mushrooms. Sitting in a kitchen garden in the Scottish Highlands I was struck by a few truths. One, the nasturtium’s peppery flavor is best savored under an overcast sky like a secret shared by close friends. Two, digging one’s hands in the dirt half a world away from home still feels like a homecoming, even if you are ass over teakettle. Three, listening to the bee’s lullaby, breathing in the loamy earth, while dozing on the gravel path is time that can never be construed as not well spent.


This is where I found myself drifting for a few days whenever I could during a trip to my family’s origins. What was years of, “telling old stories, singing songs that make me think about where I came from” became eleven days of transference.

Wild mushrooms at Clava Cairns

The Autumnal Equinox is upon us. The time when the world (Northern Hemisphere) is beginning to turn inward and hunker down for winter. The long sleep. But many of us has been in a place of stasis. Waiting to get back to work. We are over the “rest”, aren’t we? We have lived through the long hot summer and it’s been lean for a while. We have had time to consider what we want and what it’s worth to us. Big players and small are working together to make it happen. I love pie, ask anyone. But this industry of mine is not pie. There’s enough to go around for all of us to have our own slice. Enough for me is not less for you, and vise versa.

As I see it, we have to fight for all of us. Those at the top, have to give so those at the bottom can get a piece of the action. Those in the room need to force the door open so others can get a foot in there too. We need more chairs at the table. We have to demand more levels of participation and opportunity.

Dun Telve Broch

A garden isn’t solely fully grown and established plants. It’s various stages of growth throughout. A successful garden requires a multitude of systems to ensure the sustainability of the entire enterprise. We work in a business, but we are all artists in our own right. Without us, the entire system collapses writ large.

The kitchen garden resides on an estate in the Highlands. The name of the land translates to “place of transference” in Gaelic. I met people there that became kin. We told stories and sang songs (and drank). In the middle of the property, there's a California Giant Sequoia. Fitting that my place of birth also has these trees, smells, flowers, and other similar feelings, including the loamy earth. This trip was unexpected and yet the wayfinding made perfect sense. Coming back to LA, I am renewed and refueled with purpose and resolve. We must solve this dilemma of compensation. Tell your story! Sing! I’ll raise a dram to ya - Slàinte Mhath!

Wayfinding in Torridon.

The Dreaming Time

Happy Winter Solstice. Whatever winter festival you celebrate or observe, I hope that you find light and hope in this dark season.

I turned 50 in October. As I approached the end of my first 50 years stomping around on the terra firma, I found myself marking the passage of time with friends and family in interesting ways. For some, the passage of time is a lament. A rending and ceding of youth. For others, it’s a status to be welded with conceit. Not that getting older is a cakewalk, hello menopause. Feeling somewhere in between, I chose to have a croning. This scared ceremony honors elders as wise women and sages. In that ceremony, we marked the passage of time by honoring those that came before us. The lessons we learned and the transformation that only happens through living long enough to bear witness to the profound changes within our bodies, minds, and spirits.

The winter solstice is upon us. The evening of December 21st into December 22nd will be the longest night of the year. With the dawn on December 22nd, the sun will be born anew and another year will begin. It is a moment of stillness and profound power.

This season has never sat well with me. The hustle and bustle is depleting. Don’t get me wrong. I can hustle with the best of them. I am a master mover, to be sure. But the sentiment around this season makes me itchy. Like restless leg syndrome in my spirit, I feel out of control. I don’t like resolutions. Go ahead, fight me on this. I am goal oriented, but I struggle with “a new year, a new me”. What’s so lacking that I would require an overhaul of such magnitude as to be wholly changed on the other side? The goals. The expectations. The emotions. The impossible goal to make the “best ever” holiday. The reminiscing of things best left in the past? Bah humbug!

As I drilled down on this resistance to the flow that surrounds me, I realized that I was in fact out of sync with the natural world. As it turns out, winter is the time for sleep. A time to hunker down and rest. The gathering is done. The lessons learned and wisdom gained require some amount of sifting. When we sleep, not only do we dream, we restore. We process and repair. In the stillness, there is critical work being done. Interrupting that work causes damage at the cellular level. This year’s gift list will include a lie down. A season pass of them.

One thing I love about winter is the lights. Whether candles or strings of lights on trees and houses. I also love bringing nature indoors. The smell of greenery and spices invite me to curl up and get cozy. This year, I will heed the call and do just that. I’m in for some quiet time. I’m going to let in the light and breathe deep. You’re welcome to join me. I’ll see you in 2023, restored and refreshed. Until then, I’ll be dreaming to mark the time.

Winter Solstice Wingnuts

Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year. 

Many of us are collectively holding our breath, waiting for the inevitable light that follows the darkness. 

Between the gloaming and the dawn is where we dream of the possible. The incredible. The out-of-reach thing that we imagine will be within our grasp once we open our eyes. 

This time, we will follow through. We will read the book, attend the seminar, listen to the podcast, organize the space, list the shit out of the situation, and finally reach the place that manifests our best selves.


I call bullshit. When did living simply become so fraught with self-improvement that we made ourselves sicker than we started? 

No, we are not out of the woods of a global pandemic. We are not our best selves. We did not achieve that magnificent thing we were supposed to achieve that would signal our moving onto a higher plane of existence. 


But we did something far more meaningful. We lived. We struggled. We sacrificed. We made mistakes. We learned some lessons. At least I sincerely hope we did. But the point is, we lived. 

This is not about living simply. This is about simply living. Our collective wing nuts got a little too tight over the past year. Remember the conversation we had when we vowed we would not let the crazy creep in once we weren’t locked down? How is that going? We didn’t need to let the crazy creep in because it was already inside of us. Let’s loosen that wing nut again.


Over a bottle of wine last night, I laughed so hard with a soul-deep friend, my sides hurt. A couple weeks ago, I held the hand of someone I love dearly while he slept and I whispered all my hopes into his heart. He and I had made such plans that are all dashed now. I don’t regret any of the work, or the hope, even though the outcome has me bereft. I bought seeds during a rainstorm last week and imagined the colors and smells of my garden. Small things to ground me. Connect me. But nothing having to do with achievement. 


We will never be where we thought we would be or how we thought we might show up once we got there. We will only be. Simply live, my friends. The light is coming. You need not prepare. You’re already ready. Let it be the thing that brings clarity, but cut yourself some slack if you hit the snooze a few times before getting up. 


Merry meet. Merry part. Merry meet again.

Transition from Stasis

The seeds I planted last fall, I’m speaking literally here, are waking. Determined, they reach through the soil for the sun. My neighborhood is filled with the scent of citrus blossoms and I have been imagining gatherings on my patio.

We too, are experiencing Spring. It’s like waking up, groggy, not knowing what to hold onto as real. The stories around me change every day. Loss. Growth. Trauma. Healing. Grief…so much grief. Waiting for the return of things put on hold. Hoping other things never resurface. This is our re-entry moment. This is a moment for radical empathy. Let’s hold space for each other. 

I am struck by the idea of a “new normal”. What was your normal before? Mine was often scheduled down the 15 minute increments. As life is picking up its pace, I am learning to be uncompromising in my need for time. My hands are tingling with excitement but I stay still for a few more moments. I am holding space for myself.

I look forward to reconnecting with you, I look forward to seeing you on set and behind the scenes. I look forward to all the opportunities coming for us all. Don’t we all need to create? Let me hear from you. Let’s collaborate and cooperate. I am holding space for you.


Warmly,

Saida

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Solstice and Transformation

For nine months we have been standing still.  So many things have passed by that should have been, in our hopeful minds, the thing to break the immobility. 

And yet, we are stock-still, grinding through the inertia. 

Perhaps that’s why this Solstice is, at last, when we can see the flicker of light signaling the defeat of the darkness. Not to put too fine a point on it, we are in transition. 

As much as I have greatly enjoyed the levity of all the “fuck you 2020” posts, I am quite ready to leave this year in the past and look to 2021 sans the jaundiced eye of the past nine months. 

No, I didn’t learn a new language, but I do have more skills on my ukulele. I didn’t reach my goal weight, but we did make a habit of daily family walks. We didn’t KonMari our home, but there have been donations and decluttering nonetheless. We have come to terms with our limits and the truth is that good enough, is still good. 

I  mastered a kick ass challah and my garden has never looked better. Through the fear, anger, and depression, I have learned to forgive and practice patience. Mostly with myself. 

In this moment, when we are disconnected, I want to seize upon the thread that ties us together. I have been surrounded by tragedies that have been crushing to bear witness to. Loss of security, job, and life. Friends and family from the front line to the back of the line. None of us is untouched by this collective trauma. 

But isn’t that the unbelievable thing? Us. Together. We. 

We are depleted and we are resilient.

It’s Solstice, and soon another year begins. I sincerely hope we will pull on that thread and feel each other doing the same thing. 

I miss you. I can’t wait to see you. I look forward to creating and collaborating with you. I hope you take care and stay safe. There’s work to do, but maybe this next go around, we can be a little kinder and empathetic. Maybe we can respect the moments of stillness instead of filling the space with things that no longer serve us. Haven’t we at least learned that? We can and should value the we.

Happy Solstice. See you in 2021.

A Kiss of Sun

For some of us, the temps are on the rise again. The days are getting longer we are starting to look forward to days at the beach or at least a little more time in the sun. You already know my opinion on sun exposure. In a word, SUNSCREEN. Still, who doesn't like a little glow? The question is, how to make it look natural. One place to start is in the sun. Take a moment and stand outside. Where does the light naturally fall? I can tell you that under your chin, it does not. As the sun comes down, it will bring light (and eventually, color) to the high planes of your forehead, your cheek bones, your nose, above the your upper lip and the top part of your chin. In other words, the sun shines DOWN and not up. These are the places where you can place a little bronzer and mimic the look of that healthy glow without the unhealthy damage. One of my most useful Makeup Mantras is BLEND, BLEND, BLEND. You can always add more but it can be hard to take away.

Here's how:

1. Apply your make up as you usually would.

2. Choose a small brush. One that is about one to 1 1/2 inches across. The bristles shouldn't be too loose. You need control here and not an all over dusting.

3. Sweep the brush through your bronzer of choice, tap off the excess.

4. Gently apply the color to the aforementioned high planes of your face. Depending on what you are wearing, a hint of bronzer on your shoulders and décolleté can be pretty and alluring, not to mention add to the overall illusion of the glow.

5. Always keep in mind where the sunlight would illuminate and let that be your guide. I like bronzers that have minimal shimmer. Beware of bronzers with titanium dioxide. I say this because they will reflect light and if you have your pictures taken, particularly with a flash, the bounce back from the titanium dioxide can look white.

Now go forth and get your glow on. Even if Mr. Groundhog and Mother Nature are giving us a few more weeks of Spring, we can look like Summer's already here.

Pinch Your Cheeks

My personal makeup kit has five items in it. Aside from the brushes, I have an eyeshadow palette and a highlighter that I love to use when I go out at night. However, if I could have only three items? My concealer, mascara and blush would be my choice. My concealer is more versatile than a foundation as the right moisturizer will adjust the coverage. My mascara, well, that's for obvious reasons although I have had my lashes tinted and if you have a salon you trust, I highly recommend it. Probably my most versatile item is my blush. I have two kinds of blush, cream and powder. For most uses, cream blush lasts longer than a powder that can brush off or transfer. The powder can have a little shimmer and can be placed in various places much like a bronzer. Here's a couple tips on how to apply both.
1. If you are using cream blush, keep in mind that you can add more but it's difficult back off if you went too heavy.
2. Use your fingers to lightly tap the surface of the blush.
3. Smile to find the apples of your cheeks and lightly apply the blush in layers by tapping your finger against the skin. Tip: contrary to what the 80's told us, blush is not a contouring tool. It does not belong in the hollow of your cheek. If you are like me, and blush easily, use that as a guide for application. Blush belongs where the flush shows up on your face.
4. A couple taps of a powder blush on the high planes of the face (cheekbones, above eyebrows, bridge of your nose and upper chin) gives you a nice flush and a little color. Tip: before application, tap off the excess powder.
5. Stop when you see color. A little flush goes a long way. You are going for healthy glow, not heavy color.
As a bonus, try your cream blush as lip color. Stila Convertible Color in Rose and Poppy are my personal favorites. For a powder, I adore Benefit Face powders are Dandelion, Sugar Bomb and Coralista.

Raise Your Brow

Recently, I was asked to make a post about brows. Left to their own devices, my brows tend to grow in a straight line. No arch. No shape. So, what nature didn't give, I create. The trick to a great looking brow is a well maintained arch with a defined, tapered outer end. How to achieve this?
1. Consider the architecture. The start of the brow is at the bridge of the nose (find this point by holding a pencil along the side of your nose bone).
2. The arch is NEVER in the middle. Who needs a rainbow for an eyebrow?
3. The eyebrow should end at the point that is a natural extension of a line drawn form the corner of nose to the corner of the eye. The end of the brow should not, however, end below the start. That makes a droopy eye.
4. To further groom your eyebrow, brush the hair up using either a spoolie brush, lash comb or baby toothbrush. Carefully trim the hair.
5. To accentuate the arch, either use a brush or pencil with a lighter than your skin tone color. You shouldn't be able to see the color but use it as a highlight directly under the arch. This also helps if your grooming is a bit overdue.
How you build that arch is more a matter of taste. I prefer threading as for me, it is less irritating. Most prefer waxing for it's speed. Tweezing in between and small scissors will cover you in between.
A word to the wise, beware spending too much time in front of a magnifying mirror. Take time to step back and check your work. No one will be standing as close as a magnifying mirror. Go easy, because after a while the hair won't grow back.

You're a Shining Star, but you really should blot.

We've all been there. You apply your makeup to a matte perfection, you go out, and a few hours later and your skin resembles an oil slick. You're not a cheese pizza so stop pressing a napkin to your face an expect to get the same result as your favorite slice. The other scenario is the decision to go sans product and what started out as a fresh face is now a shiny, shiny mess. What to do? Several things. First let go of the idea that you will actually manage to pull off a shine free look for hours on end. You skin needs some life to appear, well, living. Matte is for cadavers and editorial shoots. In the way that one size (or shade) does not fit all with your concealer and foundation, you skin should not be a uniform texture. Skin is a breathing beautiful organ, not a sheet of plastic. So what to do?

1. Wash your face before applying makeup. This will remove excess oil and dirt. It will also allow your moisturizer and/or primer to do it's job. Skincare products work better when there is nothing between the product and your skin.

2. Toner, Toner, Toner. Think of this as your skin's reset device. A good toner should render a neutral pH when applied.

3. Properly moisturize and/or prime. Here's where I leave it up to you. You know I love the SPF so my moisturizers tend to have at least SPF 15. If you use a primer, you can use one that is mattifying or oil controlling. Be careful that it doesn't make your skin dry in an overactive attempt to keep the shine at bay. Your skin should not look dried when you finish.

4. Apply makeup (or not). Again, your call. At least your skin is now clean and protected.

5. BLOT it, baby! I love love love face blotting papers. I personally like the kind that do not have powder. Sephora's Film and Blotting Papers come in several varieties. You can't beat the convenience factor here. The best part is that these papers absorb oil, lift dirt & provide a matte finish without covering up your makeup or looking powdery. If you are using a powder to control shine, a word to the wise: water + powder=paste. Powder can cover up makeup and look natural ONLY if you don't use a light hand. The powders purpose is to set your makeup and absorb oils. Be sure to shake off the excess powder and press the puff into the skin lightly. If you use a brush, shake off the excess and gently sweep the brush or use a circular motion to apply. 

Keep in mind that it's easier to layer up than it is to tone down a heavy hand. Until next week, stay cool. We are trying to here in So Cal but most of us are just hoping we don't melt along with our makeup. At least we have blotting papers at the ready!

 

 

Flight School

"Pay attention to everything even when you're not flying. Life will always give you hints and whispers. I'm going to learn how to fly as I jump off the cliff. Cheers." - Nigel Turner

New inspiration from Wonder & Company showed up today. It has me thinking of flight patterns and arrival times. After all, "Have kit, will travel" is not by accident.

I see you

I saw that. You are redoing your undereyes because you have little specks of eye shadow and mascara ruining an otherwise killer look. Here's a couple tips that I use on every job but have been recommending to friends for anytime. When wearing eye makeup, use these simple tips for a look that lasts. One, hydrate under your eye and allow time for any emolient to soak in. Two, use a primer on your lids (Urban Decay and MAC have reliable ones). Three, put shadow and mascara on BEFORE concealor (Shadow Shields are a fantastic tool). Four, use a powder bursh to remove "fall out" under your eye. Five, NOW use concealor. If you put on concealor first, you run the risk of having smudges under your eye as shadow and mascara falls. Avoid the annoying clean up and potentially wrecking your hard work by following these five simple steps.