About Me
I grew up among beloved coyotes and cholos in Echo Park, Los Angeles, smack in the middle of two dead-end streets. As kids we ruled the streets cause, well, they were dead-ends and back then no one ventured in Echo Park unless they 'had' to. A tomboy, I played football, skated on homemade half-pipes, and tried to chop through bamboo with my hand (not a pleasant experience...). But as I discovered Madonna, the "skirt", and jelly bracelets, I forced the neighborhood boys to improvise musical scenes from Grease 2 ("Let's bowl, let's bowl, let's rock and roll...")(Yikes), and enforced kissing tag. I had friends who were dirt poor and friends who were filthy rich, as in lived in castles with roller rinks. Seriously.
Two weeks before 9th grade we moved to Kingston, Ontario (Canada). Ummmm not cool. But I settled in and learned to love Birkenstocks, camping and snow. After finding out that official school clubs got a page in the yearbook, I started an official "90210 Club" at my high school and was the President. There we were, in between the Chess Club and the Science Society. Years later I was actually the school president - a cool one, I swear (cough-cough). I worked as a camp counselor in NY every summer, teaching kids basketball, photography, arts & crafts and taking them on 3-day canoing/camping trips. And as soon as I graduated and could leave, I did. I went to Toronto for journalism school.
For over a decade I lived in the awesome city, but am now back in LA discovering my roots and soaking up the sun. I've been a writer, columnist, deputy editor, producer, creative director, interior designer (on HGTV), pop culture expert (on MuchMusic), and was once an almost-one-hit-wonder pop star living the dream (er, nightmare) in NYC.
Right now I'm trying to take over the world, slowly but surely. I run my own design company, and am a board member and the Director of Marketing & Events for the great non-profit YPM (www.goYPM.org).
