September 3rd

We found out that the five of us are going to be in a national ad campaign for Levi's Jeans. We had the opportunity to do a photo shoot with Nathaniel Welch. He has shot tons of big time musicians and definitely shot some great stuff. Someone mentioned that this could wind up on billboards and in magazines. Life just keeps getting crazier. J.D.'s birthday -- I didn't know this would be one of my favorite nights at the mansion. It started like this, MiG and I carried the cake to the dining room and prepared for the madness. I knew that a 5-foot cake for 5 people was going to end in destruction. It felt so good to release all our tension and fly off the handle. We had a cake fight, jumped in the pool, showered together, hung out in the hot tub, drank wine and laughed our asses off. Only J.D. could throw such a phenomenal birthday party. Three more weeks left, and I'm doing the best I can. I appreciate all of the support and want you to know how much it is helping me keep my head on straight and focused on going the distance.

We got our fan selected songs, and I'm psyched to have Foo Fighters "Everlong.” We also get to do an original, and I choose my song called "Trees." I wrote the song in New York City after a stressful relationship took a turn for the worse. It was a direct plea for a second chance to renew our love.

Went in with the band and worked on the fans choice song "Everlong." At first I tried it full-on with the band, and I felt like I was getting lost in the chaos of the slamming drums and wailing guitars. I suggested that we try the song with two acoustic guitars (Jim and Rafael) and do some harmony vocals. Then we moved on to working on my original song "Trees"! We tried four or five subtly different versions. Nate and Jim actually came up with some ideas for the arrangement. I was not 100% sold on the final arrangement, and I felt a bit insecure about leaving not completely satisfied.

I worked on the songs for a few hours and felt better about it.

Gabrielle, a tattoo artist, showed up at the Mansion to give us some tattoos. Suzie went first and got a band around her arm. We had come up with the theme of all getting rings somewhere on our body. Jordis and I thought about our tattoo for weeks. Finally Jordis got the idea of getting it on our neck behind our ear, a semi private location on the body. I thought that it would be cool to have my first tattoo on my head. Felt like a bold move for a bold portion of my life. I definitely wanted to document this once in a life experience. I was swimming with Jordis one evening and decided that a circle/ring would be a powerful statement and reminder of our experience here. We are all forever bound together by this experience. I feel so lucky.

I laid down overlooking the LA skyline and the tattoo artist got to work. I was anticipating extreme, mind tingling pain, but it wasn't so terrible. It took 15 minutes, and I was marked for life.