Cat's Kitchen

I spent the day on Saturday doing a photo shoot for the website we're creating for The Last Bridge. The prep and planning leading up to it reminded me of many creative adventures I've had over the years when I had to ask friends and family to lend their time, homes, money and other props and goods. I guess I have a little of that Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland spirit in me where I tend to get enthusiastic about putting on a show. In this case it is bringing aspects of the book to life.

The concept is to provide a little more insight into my main character by showing you the contents of her purse. The purse is on a table, the table is in the kitchen of her childhood home. Sounds easy, right?

Wrong. The kitchen had to have a window over the sink, a door, old cabinets and a farmhouse feel. It needed to be located within the tri-state area and the owner needed to be open to letting us come in and shoot. Oh and we needed to find the kitchen in less than three weeks.

Enter, Larry. My friend Donna's retired downstairs neighbor and lovable pack rat. After sending out an email blast to friends we got some nibbles but none had ALL the elements. Then one morning while brushing my teeth I saw Larry's kitchen in my mind and realized he had it all. We just needed to convince him. That was Donna's job.

Once we had the kitchen Rose (my web designer) and I divided up the prop load. I got to work recreating the bag of legal documents Cat carries around -- including creating some fake medical tests, an old deed and birth certificates. (Thank you Internet!) Rose made a map tracing the route from New York to my imaginary town (see photo) and she even got her boyfriend Dave to represent the father's handwriting.

My friend Gwyn wrote the notes from Diana. Catherine recreated my mother's notes and I kept my terrible penmanship out of it. My friend Wileen gave me some help on places to find a kitchen and reminded me not to forget to feed my crew. Gina scouted a few locations out East and Denise offered me Craig's kitchen (and Craig let her!)

Best of all a young artist named Christopher Carrasco brought Cat's sketches to life -- they are sooo cool.

After we moved everything in Larry's kitchen, we created our "tableau." As I watched Rose shoot, I realized the items on the table spilling out of Cat's purse said as much about me as they did about her. I had another one of those weird moments when I realized I made Cat up and she was not going to talk through that door and ask me what the F*ck I was doing with her stuff.

If she had, I would have certainly taken her to Mama's which is where we ended the day with bowls of pasta and REALLY good garlic knots. Larry said he would let us use his kitchen any time we wanted.

Flippin for Avatars

Thanks to my niece Caroline I'm hooked on creating avatars of myself. Last weekend she turned me on to this site where you can make your own character from South Park. I don't watch South Park religiously but still, I've been Simpsonized so it only seemed right.

A weird thing happens in the process of designing your own avatar. You have to make decisions about how you look. While not all the hairstyles match yours you have to find the one that best approximates you. Body type, eyes, mouth, all those physical features force you to decide if your nose is more like a button or a snout or your body is more round or narrow. While in principal it seems like it would be depressing it is actually fun. Let's face it cartoon characters are so much more forgiving in looks than people.

Once you pick your body and features, clothing your avatar is another trip. Again, you have to approximate, so you find the outfit that best shows your style. Which begs the question as you are clicking past peasant blouses and tank tops, what is my style? (Hint: black in anything is usually my first choice.) I find myself taking the fashion options quite seriously. I guess one should pay some attention to it, unlike me, my avatar is stuck with this outfit for as long as they thrive in cyberspace.

And then there are the accessories. "You've got to add your iPhone," Caroline told me. Emily, my other niece agreed. It's funny that they saw that as an essential accessory for me but I don't use my phone that often and I certainly don't carry it around. I do love it and allow them to jam it up every chance they get so maybe that's why.

The best part of creating my South Park avatar was the slogan I put across my shirt, "I rock." I did it to make my nieces laugh (and they did while rolling their eyes at my lame attempt at coolness -- they don't get it that being uncool is cool.) I would never wear a shirt like that in real life, would never walk around with my cell phone in my hand either but as a character from South Park, that's how I roll and I like it like that.

I have moments of worry when I think of how easy it is becoming to create so many alternate "personas" on the web. The assumption is that we create different identities to cover up our truth, I'm not so sure of that. What if our "whole self" is really a bunch of little selves? And what if each little self could be represented as an avatar? How many would I need to best represent myself? (I'm thinking the number is somewhere between 8 and 50.)

I know, I could get a little nuts with this. I recently got a web cam and made a short video of myself as a shark singing happy birthday to a friend. I looked and sounded good as an animated shark. Who knew?

The possibilities may be endless but the undeniable truth is that whether you run into me on the street or catch me here on the flip side...it's still me. If you doubt that I'll morph into a butt kicking ninja to set you straight.