Glamour Is a Tuesday at 2 PM: One Week, Unedited
Photo: Barcex, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
People assume my life is one long montage set to a Lizzo song. So this week, I kept an actual diary. Unedited. Here's what seven days of "the life" really looks like.
Monday: The Red Carpet (and the 40 Minutes Before It)
6:00 AM — Wake up in a hotel in Los Angeles. Stare at the ceiling. Remember I'm here for a premiere, not a vacation.
9:00 AM — glam call. Three hours in the chair. The makeup artist, Rosa, is the only person alive who's seen my bare face and my tax documents in the same week.
6:30 PM — Carpet time. Flashbulbs, someone yelling my name, a journalist asking about a project I can't talk about yet. I give my best "excited but coy" face approximately forty times.
9:45 PM — Back at the hotel. Room service. Face mask. Asleep by 10:30 like a 65-year-old. Glamour, baby.
Tuesday: The Administrative Empire
Here's what nobody tells you about being your own brand: you are also your own accounting department, HR, and IT support.
I spent six hours today on email, contracts, and a two-hour call with my manager about Q3 brand deals. I was on hold with my health insurance provider for 55 minutes. At one point I ate a protein bar standing in front of my open fridge, which I believe is legally required in this profession.
The highlight? Signing a deal I'm genuinely thrilled about. The lowlight? Realizing I'd signed it with a pen that was out of ink, so my "signature" is a ghost scribble on a PDF somewhere.
Wednesday: Laundry Day, But Make It Content
Filmed a sponsored video today. It took four hours to shoot 60 seconds of footage because I kept saying "amazing" in different tones. Afterward, I did three loads of laundry while the footage exported.
That's the gig. For every shiny deliverable, there's a mountain of towels that someone — and that someone is me — has to fold.
Thursday: The Middle of the Week Vortex
Honestly? Thursday is a blur. Voiceover session in the morning, a podcast interview in the afternoon where the host asked me my "rise and grind" secret (I said sleep, they seemed disappointed), and a 45-minute argument with my printer that I lost.
Ordered Thai food. Watched an entire season of a reality show. No notes.
Friday: Cereal Over the Sink, But Make It Self-Care
No shoot today. I slept until 9:30, went to my favorite coffee spot in sweats, and got recognized exactly once by a very sweet barista-in-training who told me my videos "helped her get through high school." I nearly cried into my oat milk latte in the middle of a Friday morning in a strip mall. This job is absurd and I love it.
Evening: cereal. Over the sink. Pajama pants since 4 PM. Peak living.
Saturday and Sunday: The Whiplash Weekend
Saturday: charity event, then a dinner where I networked for four hours and came home hoarse from talking.
Sunday: nothing. Gloriously, deliberately nothing. Walked Junie. Called my mom. Meal prepped like I'm a person who has their life together.
The Real Takeaway
If you're wondering whether the life is glamorous: sometimes, genuinely yes. If you're wondering whether it's also admin emails, laundry, and holding your phone on speaker while an insurance company plays hold music at you: also yes, constantly.
The trick isn't chasing the red carpet moments. It's learning to enjoy the cereal-over-the-sink moments just as much. Otherwise you spend your whole life waiting for a montage that never actually plays.
