I’ve been taking a beginning drawing class on Monday evenings at the adult education center where I teach crochet. This past Monday, for some reason I was in the crankiest mood ever, totally hulking out. So I decided to skip class and go home to hide under my comforter instead. On the bus ride home, I glanced at the open Metro the woman next to me was reading and caught a blurb about fashion designer and winner of the first season of Project Runway, Jay McCarroll. I totally love this dude, personality- and design-wise, and often watch a youtube of his Project Runway Bryant Park show to cheer myself up. Since I’m just coming out of hermit-Christina mode (see this post) after a dark winter, I had no idea that 1. there was a documentary about Jay McCarroll, 2. it was playing the 2008 Independent Film Festival of Boston, 3. Jay McCarroll and the directors would be doing a Q&A after the screening that night.

Now I am the reigning champ of making up excuses in order to avoid leaving the house unless totally necessary (like in order to prevent starvation). But somehow I caught a second wind, shoved some tofu scrambler in my grill when I got home and left the house for David Square. Go me.

Eleven Minutes follows Jay through a year where he designs and shows his first line, Transport. Contrary to the illusion that Project Runway creates that you win and suddenly become <Heidi Klum voiceover> “America’s next top designnnnnner” </HKVO>, Eleven Minutes attempts to give you the real deal about what goes into a fledgling designer’s first line. McCarroll has talent, charisma and humor coming out of all sorts of orifices. I could have sat there and watched two more hours worth of Jay-vision. You can’t help but want everything to go smoothly for Jay through the film (it does and it doesn’t)! But there wouldn’t be an interesting film in the mix if everything did go smoothly for him though. Eleven Minutes is a love letter to the creative process and all the highs and lows that go with it. He is able to pull off a really cohesive and beautiful show of his line, but doesn’t get the sales that he was hoping for. (P.S. it was absolutely terrifying to see what it’s like to navigate an industry I may be peripherally involved in some day.)

After the film there was a Q&A with directors Michael Selditch and Rob Tate and McCarroll, who met during Project Jay, a one hour special for Bravo on what Jay was up to after his PR win. I got some okay pictures of Jay, but none of the directors, who were both wearing really excellent Jay designed items. Jay McCarroll has a line coming out this fall on QVC. Sizes of items will range from XS to 3X!!

So there are two Christina Kara’s. And now I’m not talking about myself and NYC-based wedding dress designer, Christina Kara. I’m referring to the two sides of the Somerville-based amateur craft broad, Christina Kara. AKA me. One part is busy-Christina. She has a demanding full-time job in a joint department of a New England health insurance company and a prestigious medical university that rhymes with Smarvard. Then she has a fun part-time job she recently began as a coffee/sandwich lady at True Grounds. She also teaches people some of the crafts she knows how to do. These things take up time! Then there is hermit-Christina. When she is not working, she is often found laying in her luxurious bed, watching episodes of TV shows on her laptop and drifting in and out of sleep, thinking about all the things she SHOULD be doing instead of being a lazy fuck. Her best friend… Okay, I’m going to switch away from talking about myself in third-person because it’s clumsy. My bestie, J Silk, was visiting last weekend and I couldn’t even force myself to clean up the disgusting tableau of sloth and self-loathing that is my bed. Thick books about handspinning and fiber/color theory are piled upon a tower of Ms. and Selvedege magazines. This pile was contagious and had spread onto the side of the bed where I don’t sleep. On top of the magazines was an empty cup of vegetable soup, a dirty spoon, an empty muffin cup, and the tinfoil from two tacos I had for dinner from Olecito the night before. Laying suspiciously near that stuff were two vibrators (not just 1, but 2!!!) in a sea of muffin crumbs and my laptop. To the untrained eye, the person that sleeps in this war zone spends the majority of their time eating sloppily, masturbating to internet pornography and laying in their own filth. But I’m not really like that! I swear. I just hadn’t been able to bring myself to clean up the weeks of life detritus that had built up. So I showed Jess the appalling scene, we had a good laugh and then quickly cleaned it up while she settled in. Since then I’ve resolved to stop eating in bed, to spend less time paralyzed by the fear of failure and start taking my prescribed antidepressants more regularly in order to murder hermit-Christina. I hope this leads to more posts!