I Know Alyssa Jones

I had just returned from a month long-cross country road trip with my girlfriend when I stumbled upon Julie’s iliveheresf website. (I had three days off to kill and I fully planned on spending them glued to my Mac, reading photo blogs, and absorbing as much inspiration as humanly possible.) I remember scrolling through the posts, turning to my girlfriend and yelling, “why the fuck didn’t I think of this?!”  I spent the next hour reading the stories and watching the slide shows.  All the stories were surprisingly, and I never use this word, touching….and I think that’s about the moment I found the PARTICIPATE button. Normally, when the opportunity to participate in some sort of art/photo project, usually via Craigslist, arises I get really excited..and then too nervous to actually follow through.  I consider myself a fairly outgoing and friendly person, but there is something about meeting someone off the Internet, that scares the shit out of me.  It’s not like I think they’re going to murder me, or anything like that, I’m just more afraid of that first, really awkward, five minutes…because it usually goes like this:

Me: Hi I’m Alyssa, nice to meet you.

Other awkward human: Hi Melissa, its nice to meet you too.

Me: No, it’s Alyssa..like Alyssa Milano.

Other awkward human: Oh, is it A-L-Y or A-L-I

Me: It’s A-L-Y

Other awkward human: Oh! My friend’s uncle’s brother’s nextdoor neighbor’s, three doors down’s daughter’s best friend is named Alyssa, with the A-L-Y.

Me: Great.

And that’s usually the point in the conversation where I make a joke, it fails, and I run away crying, calling my mommy from my Walgreens flip phone.  

Anyway, I pushed my anxiety aside and decided that I need to man the fuck up, so I emailed Julie.  I told her a little bit about myself, that I was also a photographer, and that I did porn photography (I like to throw that in sometimes because it sounds cool, it’s true of course, but it sounds way cooler than it actually is).  About five minutes went by and then I got Julie’s reply.  Super fast.  She asked me to write my story, and since one of my favorite things to do is talk about myself, it didn’t take me long before it was spell checked, and flying through the interweb, and into Julie’s inbox. (You can read my iliveheresf story, if you haven’t already..here) Another 5 minutes passed, a few more emails were exchanged, and the date was set.

In case you thought otherwise, dykes take just as long, if not longer, to get ready as more feminine girls do. I have to do things like; make sure my lesbian sideburns are perfectly straight, fluff my faux hawk, pick out my favorite sports bra, put on enough makeup to make a difference, but not enough to make it noticeable.  Believe me, it’s tough. And once I’m finally dressed I have to run my outfit by my girlfriend AND my straight best friend/roommate.  Two opinions are crucial. Anyhow, the morning of my shoot was a typical morning for me until I had to choose my outfit.  Half of me wanted to wear something really obnoxious (I have this really decorated military school jacket-thing I got at a thrift store when I was 18, which I’ve never worn in public), but the other half was worried about coming across, in photos, as an ULTRA DOUCHY HIPSTER DYKE, (ya know..versus the only slightly douchy hipster dyke I really am).  So after a lot of thought, and advice from the girlfriend, I went with my SF 49ers sweatshirt, regular ass-pants, and my wingtips.  Stylish, but subtle. As I was winking at myself in the mirror, my phone went off, it was Julie.

I wasn’t sure what to expect as I walked down the stairs to let Julie into my apt building.  Was she going to be a 19 year old mission dwelling hipster?  Would she be easily offended by my “sense of humor”?  I was pleasantly surprised when she turned out to be neither. 

We walked through my closet sized apartment, which was a disgusting mess, up to my roof, down to this park (I can never remember the god damn name), and pretty much all around Lower Nob Hill.  During our shoot, I learned that Julie and I had a lot in common, she even laughed at a few of my jokes, which were probably horrible because I get nervous in front of new people.  After my shoot was over, I walked up the hill, back up to my apartment, inspired and excited. 

As the months went by, I still followed the iliveheresf project religiously. (It’s through iliveheresf that I learned about Tenderblog, MissionMission, Caliber, and CoffeePencilKnife.  Now I follow so many god damn blogs, I have no time to work on my own.) Here are some of my favorite iliveheresf stories, in case you were wondering:

-Jose-Luis

-Elia

-Michelle Tea

-Stuart

On another side note, I saw Stuart a few times during the show but I was too shy to talk to him. He looked dashing in his mismatched dressysuitness, too cute. 

But I digress (i’ve always wanted to write that..), as the opening reception date got closer I, along with a million others im sure, offered to help Julie with the setup at SOMArts. I had a really fun time pinning stuff, climbing up and down the ladder, and attempting to organize the wall of smaller portraits with @Tenderblog (yeah, I wrote that in twitter language..go on and hate)  I even got to talk a little bit with Chris Rusak, one of the collaborating artists for iliveheresf.  The best part of setting up? (besides wearing the tool belt) Watching Justin Hoover, the SOMArts curator and gallery director, drive a FUCKING MUNI SHELTER into the gallery.  Yeah, you read that shit right.  

I was SUPER FUCKING EXCITED to see how everything was going to be setup the night of the show, and I was definitely not disappointed.  I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was too busy trying to be a social butterfly and doing a shitty job of trying to recognize all the others who participated in the project. 

And of course, this is a picture of me, with a picture of me. 

So, to make a long blog short, GO SEE THE SHOW. It’s at SOMArts until 11/30. Seriously. Go. Now. I’ll even go with you if you want. 

Id like to take a moment (Im doing that thing where you take your hat off, put your head down, and close your eyes..kind of like praying, but dont pray..) to thank Julie for letting me be a part of this AMAZING project.  You have been a huge inspiration to me and I am so excited to see where this crazy photographyness takes you!  I know we’ll keep in touch, because I wont give you any other choice, and now you can never leave San Francisco. 

….Okay im done, GO SEE THE SHOW!