Lucky So and So

Studiomuppets!

Studiomates + Muppets = Studiomuppets (or S’muppets for short).

It’s one of my fondest hopes to one day be walking down the street and pass a Muppet… on his way to work, or band practice, or where ever Muppets like to go. And upon seeing this Muppet, I simply smile and nod because passing a Muppet is NO BIG DEAL. They’re just here, among us. I believe with Muppets around, we would never run out of friendship, acceptance, music, laughter, or color. That’s the kind of world I want to live in.

The closest I’ve come to this, thus far, is to encourage my friends to dress as if they were Muppets. These are photos from the Friday before Halloween (or “Halloween Beer Friday” in Studiomates terms). The fact that I’m friends with people willing to so readily pretend to be Muppets means I must already live in a world where some pretty serious awesomeness abounds.

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What Makes A Beer Friday?

The original equation went something like,
beer + studiomates + friday = x

Over time, the equation has morphed into something more like,
beer (bottles + growlers + kegs) + studiomates + great friends (neighbors + colleagues + clients + kids + out-of-towners) + video games (rocking + singing + dancing) + theme (costume + craft + movie) + friday = x

In both instances, x = Beer Friday, and while the equation may have, um, expanded over the past year, the heart of the matter is still very much the same. All that’s really necessary to the success of the formula is to get amazing people in a shared space with a shared motive of relaxing and having a good time. That’s really what our co-working space Studiomates is all about.

Now on to this particular, most recent, December 3rd Beer Friday…

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Dressing Up Like My Hero: Kermit the Frog

He’s honest, humble and kind; he looks out for his friends and sticks up for the little guy. You could have blue fur, yellow feathers or giant gold teeth, and Kermit is still going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Oh yeah, and he believes in the power of rainbows.

Here’s how to make a Kermit outfit:

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Where Do Rainbow Princesses Come From?

When a Daddy Rainbow loves a Mommy Rainbow very much, their creativity has the special power to form a Double Rainbow! Add just the right amount of time and magic, and that’s how you get a Rainbow Princess. And maybe, just maybe, if all the circumstances are right, you might even wind up with an adorable Pot of Gold on your hands.

How amazing are my friends the Rainbow Family? Thank you, Tina, Gary, Ella and Tilo, for being such a colorful role model for how wonderfully fun a family can be. Thank you, Ella (and Tina) for asking me to help create this Rainbow Princess costume. And thank you, Erin Sparling, for photographing what I think amounts to the coolest family portrait ever.

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The Rainbow Princess Experiment

When I first heard that 4-year-old Ella Joy wanted to be a “Rainbow Princess” for Halloween, my heart skipped a beat. A whole holiday based on candy and costumes is already almost more than I can bear. Adding rainbows to the mix? I actually had a moment where I wondered if there might be too much beauty in the world. (Cue floating plastic bag.) I was so honored that Tina asked me to help bring her daughter’s incredibly insightful concept to life. But I’d never made a costume for anyone other than myself, and I’d never attempted a sewing project without my mom by my side providing step-by-step, dummy-proof instructions that I still sometimes manage to screw up. Would this be a disaster? How could I live with myself if I disappointed such a special little lady!?

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Pretty Little Heads

We formed our band on Friday, wrote a song and rehearsed on Saturday, and by Sunday we were performing at the Knitting Factory. That’s the power of Ladies’ Rock Camp!

What an amazing, exhausting, exhilarating three days! I learned to play the guitar, got to hang out with fifty full-of-life women, and was consistently overwhelmed by the creativity and talent of my bandmates. The icing on the lady rock cake was that while I was on guitar, one of my best friends since eighth grade was on bass. How lucky am I to have a friend like Laura: a friend who’s willing to fly 1,300 miles to spend a weekend living out a teenage fantasy with me? Our lead singer, Courtney, and drummer, Casson, are women whose accomplishments and fearlessness make them two of my role models. The four of us together? Unstoppable. We will forevermore be Pretty Little Heads.

Here is our soon to be number one single, complete with choreography…

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Rainbow Song and Dance for Mom

The numbers five, six, seven and eight, in that order, are very special to me. They evoke the sound of a needle crackling as it drops onto a record, the scent of sweaty lycra in a gym bag, and the sight of my mom front and center in a packed auditorium using her right hand to balance some sort of massive recording device and her left to point towards an exaggerated smile on her face.

Between the ages of 18 months and 18 years, I attended weekly dance classes. According to my rough calculations, that’s more than 1,000 hours of ballet, jazz, and tap, but more to the point, that’s more than FIFTY recital costumes. Sure, the teachers got to choose the costumes for the group numbers, but if you signed up for a solo or duet, which of course my sister and I always did, you got to choose your own attire. Somehow I talked the teachers into letting me borrow the costume catalogs so I could take my time contemplating exactly what concoction of spandex and sequins truly embodied Billy Ocean’s Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car. If I couldn’t find a ready-made match, my mom and I would set to work, and after a few magical evenings in her sewing room, we’d emerge with a perfectly customized costume.

For an Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini routine, when Wal-Mart failed to yield suitable dotted fabric, my mom and I painted our own dots onto yellow satin. Then there were leotards, ears and tails, all made out of pink faux fur, so my sister and I could realize our vision of the Pink Panther theme song. And in case you’re wondering, for Billy Ocean, I decided on a shiny magenta unitard with royal blue leg warmers, briefs and a headband. There were many, many others, and I remember each and every one. The little voice inside my head is saying, “Wait a minute, this is all making perfect sense!” Maybe I love costumes like Billy loves the lady drivers because more than simple self expression, devising a costume reminds me of a special time in my life when I got to collaborate with my mom.

Not all kids get to go to dance lessons. Not all moms are willing to carpool to them, and pay for them, and sew costumes only to have to sit through four-hour recitals because of them. Mine was. For that and about a million other reasons, I’m thankful. So this note reads…

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My Favorite Quote, Possibly Ever

I dressed as a crazy Bingo Babe to compete in 826NYC’s awesome Dueling Bingo Tournament. Lots of people gave me high fives for my attire, but the highlight of my evening (aside from when Mike Myers handed me the pink curler that had fallen out of my granny wig) had to be when our caller, the fabulous Eric Gilliland, asserted upon my exclamation of “BINGO!”...

“See that everybody?
Wear a costume and you win.”

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Bingo Babe

I’m participating in a BINGO tourney to raise money for 826NYC to help kids with creative writing. Well, if you want to know the truth, I’m doing it to play bingo with my awesome rainbow buddy Liz Danzico, but the fact that I’m raising money for such a great cause leaves my insides feeling all warm and fuzzy. Of course that meant I needed to run next door to Neighborhoodies and customize a t-shirt especially for the event. So I might as well throw on my Bea Arthur wig, leopard scarf, lucky earrings and Vegas visor, right?

Dress Your Pirate in Stars and Stripes

Everyone who knows me knows I’ll use any excuse to dress in a theme, so who’s surprised that I dressed myself like a flag for Independence Day? Ummm, no one. My starry skirt came from a trip to a thrift shop in Columbus, Mississippi. It was originally a floor-length affair until I gathered it like Fourth of July bunting and pinned it in place using two pairs of old-lady-looking earrings. The “look” is completed by a pair of leg warmers that I cut from a striped t-shirt and a red white and blue goblet that I can only imagine had some kind of crazy past life. Maybe it was the bandana plus all the stripes, but I somehow ended up looking like a patriotic pirate. Perfect for playing Rock Band and drinking “Beergaritas” with a my studiomates at Skylar and Josh’s awesome party!

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