There is no doubt in my mind that as we get older, the years get shorter. But man!! Time sure flies by when you are having fun, and that I definitely did in 2009!
To on a recap, to sum up 2009… it was probably the most eventful year of my career, and the best one at that! I have done more this past year then I have in the full 7 years that I have been modeling! And it feels awesome to say that I have reached a milestone in my career.
In 2009, I started my year off with a Royal Caribbean Cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. I visited Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Haiti - ironically today they were hit with an earthquake - which sort of was a blessing in disguise for them if you will, because they were dirt poor to begin with. They definitely needed help and now they will get it! That was a sad place to visit, definitely reality check for me. I sort of felt like an asshole getting off of this big giant luxurious ship and stepping out on to this run down piece of land fenced off and guarded with men holding AK-47s and behind them, starving children. Makes you really think about what you have and what you take for granted.
I got back to my reality 9 days later and went back to the daily grind again, awaiting my next vacation - the Dominican Republic!
February flew by fast and March came around and there I found myself standing at the edge of a mountain on Dominican Republic’s north coast at private villa, (Villa Castellamonte) with the owner, who would soon turn out to become a great friend and a trip with an amazingly cultural experience. I had gone down to DR on a trip with models and photographers to participate in a “Patriot Girls” photo shoot; an organization created to benefit the troops, veterans, and wounded warriors, later to be expanded to benefit fall police & fire and their families. The trip in and of itself should have been a reality TV show. The shit that went on down there was definitely insane, and insane is an understatement! Between love, hate, fights, cattiness, bickering and even a death, it seemed to be the most out of control vacation I had ever been on, yet it will be the most memorable one that I have ever participated in.
While I was down in the Dominican Republic, I had heard that back at home, a friend of mine passed away - Charles “Mask” Lewis of TapouT - the reality TV show that I starred on back the year before. **I will reference what happened while I was there in another blog, see “Messages From Above”**
After another long trip out of the country, I came back to reality, April flew by and an opportunity was presented to me that I grabbed right away. I thought it was something cool at the time, and it only landed me in some hot water and a whole lot of drama! And THAT was the Lingerie Football League. It was fun at the time, for the first month or so that I was involved… and then I started to see that things weren’t working out for me and after all the press I got, I decided to quit in June…They had moved New England’s team and created a NYC team and asked me to make the switch and I couldn’t support myself on my own dime and after several trips to NYC, I just threw in my towel and said “hey this is not for me”. I don’t have any hard feelings for anyone in the league who plays, I just have issues with the way it was run. It was an amazing idea if it had been executed properly. But that’s just my opinion. But hey, thanks for the PR that I got… my face went all over the world!
About a month after that things got really hot. The internet was buzzing about me, and my name started showing up on sports blogs and newspapers all over the world. I closed one door only to have another door opened, and that door was the best door I have ever walked through in my life!!!!!! And the coolest at that! I will never forget that day!
It was a hot summer morning in July about 7am. I sleep with my phone under my pillow so my pillow began buzzing and buzzing and it wouldn’t stop, so I answered it. It was my sister. Usually when I talk to my older sister she’s screaming at me about something so at this point I was pretty pissed off thinking that I was about to get myself into some deep shit over something stupid that I had probably said months earlier. Sisterly love, ya know?
Well… to my surprise she couldn’t even get the sentence out of her mouth and just said “call my husband”. I thought “um why??? what did I do now?!” So I called him… and he said “Did you check your email??” and I said “No dude i’m sleepin’ why do I need to check my email” and he said “Get up right now and check your email. So now I was like “OHH THIS BETTER BE GOOD.”
Ha - I opened my email and I started screaming at him thinking he was playing a joke on me and woke me up for no reason…. and then I scrolled down. The shock set in for a second… “Am I really looking at this right now??? Is this real??”
I was looking at an email forwarded to me from my brother-in-law that he received from the producers over at Howard TV (Howard Stern). Evidently my brother-in-law nominated me to be the next “Miss Howard TV” back in the beginning of the year and it just so happened that everything was timed perfectly and so I returned that email right away. Within 20 minutes I got that call back and I was headed down to NYC the next day to meet the producers of Howard Stern. That was the cream of the crop for me.
So the next day I went down to NYC with my brother-in-law to meet with the producers and was given the OK to be the next “Miss Howard TV” for the month of August and I was set to go into the studio to do a live interview with Howard on the morning show live from the Sirius building that following Monday. I was SO excited. Ironically something else fell into place. I ended up getting two birds with one stone that day. I ended up shooting with Playboy for the Cyber Club and made NYC’s Top Ten for Playboy Cyber club!!!!
Everything was just starting to become amazing for me. I had gone home, told everyone I was going on Howard Stern and felt like I was on top of my game. Soon I became part of the “Howard family” and I ended up landing a pretty sweet co-hosting gig with my fav Ronnie (Howard’s limo driver) talking about cars! So the next few months I went back and forth to NYC to do a live broadcast on Sirius.
I had reached a milestone in my career. And damn it felt good!
September came rolling around and I released my self produced 2010 HemiGirls calendar & DVD which became a smash hit right away! I raised hundreds of dollars for a local children’s foundation.
But the calendar wasn’t Septembers only excitement…
I went back to school for the first time since I graduated high school. I thought I’d never say this but I loved every minute of it and I am getting ready for the spring semester in a couple of weeks. I am studying criminal justice in hopes of continuing on to law school. But we will see how it all goes. Right now I am just exploring.
October was awesome, it was NYC every couple of weeks, and the most exciting thing of all, I got to go to California with my two besties Kristen & Tony, and I hosted a party for MOPAR Collectors Guide at the legendary Playboy Mansion in Hollywood CA! And not only did I host the party, but I am also to be on one of the up and coming magazine covers for MCG Publishing, which should be out in a couple of months or so!!
- Yep, I got my first magazine cover!
I have been in several magazines and on the cover of calendars and such but never on the cover of a national magazine. So I can’t WAIT for it to come out!!
November was back to business… the holidays were coming, I was rushing around trying to get stuff in order and still traveling to NYC for broadcasts… doing night club appearances and hosting parties. Life was crazy!!
I probably threw up about 134 times throughout the entire year lol that might equal to several bottles of Patron! Thats my drink! lol
December was rough month. It was all down to business… until Cincinnati lol. Kristen got booked in Cincinnati to DJ at a club called “The Rabbit Hole” and it was like the movie “The Hangover” lmao it was an AWESOME time!! We had flown out just minutes before a blizzard hit Boston dumping 2 feet of snow all over New England, and by the time we landed in Cincy, Boston had already gotten 4 inches of snow! By that night, they had a foot almost. It snowed and snowed back at home til 2pm the next day, and by the time we landed back home, the storm had tapered off and we missed the entire thing!!!! It was CRAZY!
We will be laughing about that trip for a long time!
Then Christmas came…..ohhhhh do I really hate Christmas. I just hate the idea of having to buy people shit for one day because some idiot wanted to say it’s Jesus’s Birthday. Sorry but according to astronomers, the location of the north star at the time of his birth would have indicated that it was some time in July. (But that’s another blog for another time).
So Christmas came and went, I grinched my way through it, and held on to New Years awaiting what 2010 would bring me. And like the year before that for the past 4 years, I worked right on into the new year, just as I always do…. and now I am another year older. Oy vey!
So thats pretty much my 2009 in a nutshell… filled with crazy insane moments that will be remembered for the decade. I just can’t WAIT to see what 2010 is going to bring….
And so far, I am starting off right, because on January 23rd, Kristen & I are teaming up to open up a brand new experience in Foxboro MA, and then I am going on another Royal Caribbean Cruise =)
2010 is already cookin!