Collecting People: Edition #1- Christine Jean Chambers

all photography by Christine Jean Chambers

Collecting people means collecting stories...and possibly building new relationships.

Saturday, June 19, 2010 - I spent the day in Central Park with Christine Jean Chambers.

She is beautiful...Christine is beautiful.

She's a photographer, playwright, and producer (she does a bunch of other things too but they don't start with the letter "p" so I didn't list them).

We met via a set of photos she took at a reading of a mutual friend's work...

when I saw the shots from that reading I liked her instantly. Wanted to know her and wanted her to photograph me. Be careful what you ask for...





On Saturday, Christine spent a lot of time taking photos of me but I didn't feel like I was at a photo shoot. Probably because I wasn't allowed to pose...if you know me you know that concept is foreign to me.





I see camera. I pose. Not on Saturday. I didn't pose, Christine told me stories and I told her stories and we were both collecting. While I blabbed she was collecting with the camera of course.





While she blabbed I was. I was all ears.





She was talking away and I didn't mind at all. This woman has stories, wonderful stories...if you need a photographer, run into her.





If you like to collect stories too, while she is photographing you, ask her about the following: navigating social media, tear ducts, crying, climbing mountains, sitting with a character, older men, time, womanhood, walking, nail polish, corporate America, having something to prove, things/dreams on the ground, timing, sexiness, being comfortable in your body or lattes.
CJC has no problem sharing.

I'm not above a shameless plug...click here to check out more of her work. Look at all of her albums if you have time. It's hard to choose one favorite of the bunch but this one could be mine(at least for the moment).

You can also find Christine Jean Chambers and more of her work by clicking here (6,8, 11, 13 and 15 are my favorite in this set) or by clicking here(I love this entire set...well I happen to love The Game) or if you want to see more of the shots that she took of me click here or fall in love with her by clicking here. Too lazy to click? Then know this:

Christine Jean Chambers is a playwright, photographer, and published author. Her most recent work, Toxic Prayers, was included in the literary magazine Callaloo’s Special Thirtieth Anniversary issue (Johns Hopkins University Press). She received her B.A. in English from the University of Virginia and her M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her plays have been produced in New York City, Virginia, and Pittsburgh, and her photography has been on exhibition at GenArt.

She has served as a Coordinating Producer for the Urbanworld Film Festival. In this role, she produced Urbanworld’s Screenplay Readings Event, hosted by HBO, as well as served as the Script Reader Coordinator for the Screenplay Competition. While at Urbanworld she assisted in developing their Social Media Strategy, and was their Website Producer when they re-launched their site in the Summer of 2008. In the fall of 2008 Christine joined the BET family as an Interactive Media Producer for BET J.

I told you I'm not above a shameless plug...

"Pretty Friday"

"Pretty Friday. That's what we should call it."

-Christine Jean Chambers

Still blogging away...still making myself live out front. MinDog reminds me to make myself live out front. It's getting easier. I must admit the journey, the living, the realizations, the recognition, and the honesty are all less taxing when my self created wall isn't fortified by the fear of being simple and visible.

Scarier too.




...sometimes living out front requires being social...





Sometimes it's better if social is called something else.





Pretty Friday. That's what we WILL call it.




Sometimes it's better to let the photographs do the talking.
all photography by Christine Jean Chambers.

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I had the task of planning the first Pretty Friday. I did okay...actually I over planned. I had us all over the city. The bottom, to the top and then we finished somewhere in the middle. It was fun and of course there were lots of laughs...oh the laughs, the laughs, the laughs. We learned/decided to take a GODESSS moment once a day(definition and more on that later), also we decided that you can body roll to any song... next time a more simple plan...in the meantime grab your friends and have Pretty Friday or Monday or Tuesday...you get my point...if you want to see more of
Christine Jean Chambers'
photographs from our first Pretty Friday click here.

CJC Does It Again...

CJC is a photographer, a storyteller. I'll never forget the day she took these photographs of us. It was so hot, humid, sticky, sunny, and we had a ton of fun...we laughed a lot. Good times! Do you want to know how to find Christine? Click here and check out this post, it includes a brief bio about
Ms. Christine Jean Chambers...she's so FAB!
To see full albums from this shoot click here to view
THE THREE AMIGAS or click here to view WINDOW SEAT.

LOVE!

Deleting Must Haves

(You may want to read these posts to catch up

on the must have list/dating/relationship saga. Maybe begin with this one...or this one, maybe read them all, it's up to you.)

In the middle of preparing to write what was going to be this post I had to stop and send MinDog the following text(I would have called but it was too early to converse):

Metch: I wrote a blog post this morning and while I was writing I was linking old posts within the new post and I realized that a few people on the blog and personally(*via text, email, phone and facebook message- we have many secret followers) have been dying to know what is on my must have list. But at the moment that list is too personal to share even for a gal like me trying to live out front...I decided I could and would write a post about the must haves that I've scratched off the list(*permanently deleted in an attempt to be more open among other things...) ...SON, I was about to start writing it and despite all my recent talk and self patting on the back I realized there are only two things I've scratched off the must have list...and secretly I don't think I've really scratched them off...for real, WHAT AM I GIVING????

And in response to my 5 part crisis text-

MinDog: Ahahaha!! And why are you never asleep?

I sleep. I sleep a lot. I just wake up really early. It's a curse and a blessing. Sleep is not the issue here. I'm talking about one thing and MinDog is laughing and talking about sleep....WHAT THE WHAT? She laughed. MinDog text laughed at my early morning realization.

Later that same day I shared the realization with another friend. I HAVE NOT BEEN MAKING AS MUCH PROGRESS IN THE DELETING MUST HAVES AREA AS I THOUGHT I WAS. To my surprise all my friends knew this. I didn't.

Woe. Woe. Lot's of fake woe.

To make matters worse, I had to come clean and admit that I only scratched one must have off of the list, not two. #6,523- Must wear a suit.

Go ahead and laugh. I like making people laugh.

All joking aside I think this makes me an official MESS. I hang my head in shame...and slyly smirk...and chuckle lightly while tossing my hands in the air and getting back to the business of being open...

*not part of the text message.

photograph by Christine Jean Chambers

FOOLISHNESS!

Bathroom Tale #3

The bathroom is a repeat. Different day. Different storytellers.
Different tale, obviously.
The title of this tale, Sex Is A Weapon. The author, MinDog.
The illustrator, CJC.
The characters, Mindog and Metch, Yasmeen, and CJC.






...things DO look different in black and white.

photography by Christine Jean Chambers

Bathroom Tale #1, Bathroom Tale #2

It Is.

The short red dress. The living in the moment. The trash. The trashcan. The laughter. The photographer. This photo. The city. The carefree spirit. The cars zipping by. The street. The trash in the trashcan. The location we were going to. The witch at the location we had just left. The place we began. The entire night. My life. Our lives. The music. The heels and the flats. Not knowing what tomorrow will bring. The view from here. The vindication. The taxi ride. The taxi driver. People wanting to bite us. The flash. The fountain. The bench. The bags. The announcement. The people we wanted to help but couldn't so we didn't. The single coin in the fountain. The trying to scale a wall of bushes and realizing that was a bad idea. The elevator full of inquiry. The two seconds of jazz. The quick departure. The slow departure. The taxi vs. train debate. The taxi. The train. The phone call. The writing of a blog post. The starting with sunlight and ending with street light. The old man game. The reading/the looking over sides when I should have just gone to sleep. The wonder. The waking up to do most of it again, even if only in my head. The new news and the recap. The shattered glass. The wait.

All of this- life. Combining all of these things is Shitty Fab! It is.

Still don't know what we mean by shitty fab? Click here to find out.

photograph by Christine Jean Chambers

Saturday and Sunday with a Bathroom Tale Included

A recap.

all Saturday photography by Christine Jean Chambers

Saturday had us all over the city. In 13 hours we hit 3 out of five boroughs and did some damage. What's with the dramatic pause? Fine, we did no damage but we did have a festive day/night.

CJC had her camera with her. Does she go anywhere without it? NO. If she doesn't have it with her it's only because the bag that carries all the stuff she needs is too bulky to go with her ball gown and even then she will most likely have it and if she doesn't, she's quick to capture a moment with her mobile phone and make it look like she had the XLBD350064P757321 or whatever her camera's model number is.

That's CJC. All woman. She let me be a fake photographer for a moment. After setting the shot and doing all the stuff a real photographer does. All I had to do was push the button. She even taught me about framing and shutter speed and light. I got it sort of right eventually...I'm gonna stick to acting and pretending I'm a blogger. Real cameras are HEAVY.

T-Bone. Just talking away.

I think this is a fantastic candid.

We were at brunch and don't you know I was giving details about a date I had the night before and the man next to me(I had secretly been gawking at him and smelling him since we arrived, he knew it too - I saw him seeing me see him) decided to chime in. He heard me being me(I'm not so proud of the moment) and asked, "Does it really matter where he took you?" I tried to muster a no but I revealed my true self and said yes. To that answer he asked, "Did you have a good time?" "Yes," I said because I did. "Well that's all that matters," he said. " SHUTUP! SHUT THE BLEEP BLEEP UP," that's what I thought because I knew he was right.

I was annoyed because CJC and T-Bone had just been berating me with the same sentiment and MinDog had done the same on our cross country phone call earlier that morning. I was also annoyed because I was wondering why he didn't ask me out instead of butting into our conversation...in my head my life is so grand and only things that happen in movies happen to me. Not the heartache and pain just the good stuff. For example- in the movie version of my life the guy that I had been smelling(he was also smelling me) turns and says, "Sorry you didn't like where he took you. I can take you somewhere you are guaranteed to like." Then we waltz toward the sunset, never get married, cue music, we travel the world and live happily ever after. Yeah it's corny but so what...bear with me world.

Another fantastic shot. I think T-Bone must have been talking about how shitty fabulous her life is. That's the only subject that can produce a smile like that...

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The Bathroom Tale

We both had headaches and didn't know why.
We paused in the bathroom. Documented the tale.
Decided we needed water and sugar.
Sat down for a while. Stared at people. Listened to some live music.
Popped some Advil. And then proceeded to the 4th floor
to see what we had come to see.

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Saturday. If you want to see more of CJC's photography from this past weekend click here.

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Sunday.

A completely different vibe. No 13 hour outing. No gal pals. I woke up did a bit of research. Went to eat and learn lines by my lonesome. Brandon met me and we had dessert together. He also sang a a snippet from Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical for me...hilarity(can't wait to see it). Came home. Took a nap. Woke up to work on lines again. Checked email. Responded to email. Wrote a wee bit. Solidified lines I learned and watched an additional movie for research.

I know. I know. That is not the meal a woman on a strategic workout plan should be eating but sometimes, some multiple times in a week during the summer months it's gotta happen. The trainer is gonna make me pay! I'm okay with that.

How could I not be? My life is so SHITTY FAB and I LOVE IT!!!

Let The New Year Begin

The best way to start a new year?  Surrounded by love.

For my 12th birthdayI had a gathering with one of my dearest sister friends(Teyonah Parris) and it was all LOVE!

The moment below was captured by another beauty you've already met on this blog.  Ms. Christine Jean Chambers.  

Happy birthday to all the September babies in the world!

Failure, Getting Up…Again, Progress

The allotted amount of time for wallowing in self pity varies. It can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours. It depends on what has you wanting to wallow. That's the agreement between my friends and me. If my mother is involved I get 5 minutes or it may be less and I am told to say prayer and move forward. Sometimes I don't even tell my mother what the deal is because I NEED A FULL 24 HOURS TO WALLOW.


Well, my 24 hours is over. Thanks T-Bone for daintily handling this bout of self pity and checking in with text messages, calls every few hours and trying to get me out of the house. I have put down the ice cream, let go of the fork that was shoveling cake into my mouth, no more super salty crispy bok choy, no more sitting in my room catching up on missed episodes of True Blood and Big Love. It's time to re-enter the world, get back to the gym, say that prayer and move forward.

I have things to do…so nice to have sister friends who keep you in line and make sure you don't pass the 24 hour mark. Life is so SHITTY FAB!

That's T-Bone...always good for a laugh.


Sister friends are a blessing!
Photography by Christine Jean Chambers