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Current Music: Anthem-Leonard Cohen-Greatest Hits Disc 2

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She didn't have a library card. That's the part that sunk in, despite the fact that her credit cards and her favorite wallet were gone now, too, and she would have to call and get replacements for all her insurance cards. The stamps were gone, and that check from her aunt too.

But the library card stuck in her mind. She'd been on her way to the Harold Washington Library, massive orange-brown building crowned with outrageous green bronze wings and swirls, when she noticed the wallet was missing. She had to backtrack to the cafe and leave a note in case anyone found it, and then back to the office where she had interviewed to call and check that she hadn't lost it there.

The interviewer let her in, confused, and very nice about it- she let her go back in the interview room and helped check around. They even let her borrow a computer to get the numbers for her banks and credit union and the Chicago police department. She let her out of the office again with a sympathetic smile and promised to call in a week about the position.

She spent the afternoon pacing the plaza around Calder's Flamingo while bankers also cooed and hushed over her and asked if a $2389.56 charge at Bloomingdales was hers? That cleared it up- stolen, not lost. She was miserable and hungry. She couldn't buy lunch like she had planned. It was a warmer day in April, but it was April in Chicago. She'd been standing in the cold for two and half hours now while a cop on the phone congratulated her on not having more than two credit cards.

Her CTA card in a side pocket had escaped- she could take the train home. She had her iPod, she could listen to music. Her phone in a side pocket was fine. Her Kindle in her tote was still there, she could read. But she didn't have a library card. She couldn't go and get the Royko book from the library now, and she'd been trying to find it as an ebook for a week already. It didn't exist. And stealing a library card was just so petty.

She'd had a library card since she was eight, living at the old house in Rhode Island with the public library built out of rough stone that always seemed to swelter or freeze. The first paper card she'd had with the bar code on the back let her take out 10 books at a time. She'd never really bothered to leave the children's section of that library, which had seemed so massive to her back then. The weekly stack of books varied, and eventually even that library card was put aside for one to another library in another state, to be replaced by a college ID that doubled for her course books. Until she got to Chicago and had to sign the back of another chunky piece of plastic for the public library system, and she was in.

It just seemed so pointless, stealing a library card- the credit cards she could understand, and she'd really only lost a couple hours of time with the police and the banks. And the license could be sold and used for underage club goers. The wallet even, which was her favorite by far and a considered choice, to finally put out more money than she needed on something nice and sturdy and matched her purse. She could understand stealing the wallet.

But stealing her library card? For access to books that were already free. For the first little bit of adult responsibility that even little children get to have, that basic right to get out into the world and know things and learn and to have conversations with adults that were not family or parents. For that duty to keep safe library books because they didn't just belong to you, they belonged to everyone, and it was so important that they belong to everyone that towns built buildings and hired staff to make sure everyone could get them. For that security that said even if the internet failed and she never got a job, she could still get things to read. She'd still be a person.

She felt the loss of the credit cards as the loss of a convenience. She felt the loss of the library card like she'd walked into her childhood home to find her bedroom was gone.

Current Music: Anthem-Leonard Cohen-Greatest Hits Disc 2

Melissa McEwan, may I cordially request that be permitted I have your awesome babies?

"I don't know how many times in how many different ways I can say this: Lecturing marginalized people on the ways in which they need to make privileged people more comfortable is not just failing to be a good ally; it is deeply hostile behavior that centers the comfort of the already-privileged. Maintaining one's comfort cannot be an objective of someone keen to shed hir privilege."

-Melissa McEwan
Go and read the rest of her post here: And Then This Happened. (Part umptyone of the ongoing documentation of movement atheism being jerks to women.)

Current Music: Anthem-Leonard Cohen-Greatest Hits Disc 2

Revamping the Resume, and "I Need a Chair."

Sterile proficiency is the hallmark of revamping my resume. It's not a creative task- in fact, it's a task that requires a certain inflexible uniformity, an awareness of the norms ands strict adherence to them. It's a miserable, soul grinding task. It's the skill of making oneself unobjectionable.

Also, I hate men in cafes. Not that I don't hate men in other circumstances. But in cafes it becomes obvious: men lack social graces. Women are cordial: Pardon me. Would you mind...? may I sit here? The subjunctive and the conditional abound, and all in all the pressure of other people's mind is gently soothed away by a clear signal: I mean no harm. Men are blunt: I need another chair. Is this space free? Not the slightest energy put into being anything than large and present and taking up as much space as they feel is their due.

I'm being harsh. There are plenty of thoughtful, gentle men and even traditional gentlemen who do not impose themselves unnecessarily on others.

But shit on a cinderblock, if you're going to ask for the other chair sitting empty at my table, could you please bother to do better than, "I need a chair." I don't care if you need a chair. I don't know you. I am unmoved by you. You are breaking my attention for the thing I am doing and offer no acknowledgment of that fact, much less an apology for the imposition.

Do better.

Note: Yes, I have encountered rude women. They are farther between by far than men. Women are generally obliged to apologize for our existence in a way men are not, and so "I'm sorry" comes to our lips far more readily in situations where it's even slightly called for. Rude women are generally specific and pointed in their rudeness, rather than blundering.

Current Music: Anthem-Leonard Cohen-Greatest Hits Disc 2

On slash and gender identity and Will Smith and God, I love my friends.

My friend Tolkienista and I just had an interesting conversation about slash and sexuality and whether or not it’s okay for slash authors (many of whom, if not all, are white cisfemale authors writing about cismen having sex with other cismen.)

I’m a white cisfemale bisexual woman living in large city, for the sake of this conversation. Tolkienista’s a friend of mine from grad school, and also a white gay cisgender man.

Tolkienista’s blog can be found here. http://tolkienista.wordpress.com/

On the Editing: I have marked the majority of my edits with [content changed brackets] to indicate changes. Places where […] is marked indicate spots were non-relevant or confusing bits of conversation happened- mostly going, “Oh, yeah, right, I see what you mean” etc etc, and I have removed them for the sake of flow. Other unmarked corrections for grammar and spelling occurred.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Tolkienista
I am wondering, for a moment, about slash. Because I just read a long tumblr thing from a woman who was sort of blistering about the HRC logos and then talks about being into writing slash.

Kitewithfish
Which she should be- [HRC] are kind of problematic in their complete domination of the discussion about gay rights

Tolkienista
No, I get that
[…]

Tolkienista
And I am just suddenly wondering about the ethical dimension of imagining and writing about the sexual experience of someone who is not "your people," in a very narrowly defined sense of the term.

Also, I think people are wrong when they say that the HRC dominates discussion of gay rights. I actually think that gay rights began to move forward a bit in the past five years as the HRC's rights-centric, steady-as-she-goes approach stopped being as popular among rank-and-file

But they are right when they say that the HRC is awful

so I consider it a wash.

Kitewithfish
I think there's something to be said for the problems of slash being an extension of patriarchal systems of thought

In that most of the authors are women, righting about sexual experiences in which there are no women.

And most of them DON'T go anywhere NEAR the gay issues properly
( Keep reading! )

Current Music: Anthem-Leonard Cohen-Greatest Hits Disc 2

My word, Easter was dreary

Since my fall from ordination, which had its very first crappy anniversary a few weeks ago, I have been pretty dissatisfied with church. Specifically, I haven't been even going to church, even tho I now live pretty far from the church that burned my ass not that long ago.

So, for the first time in my life, the season of this year have not been measured in the contraction of space and time predetermined by the church's holy calendar. I've been free of the crushing sadness of going to church, where I invariably sit back judging the priest on what I would have done in their place, but I also have been unmoored. I grew up behind the scenes of parish life, with a clear understanding of the power struggles and personal vendettas that go into being mired in the fallen world of physical being while striving to build a community whose foundations have been laid in eternity. People are people, and so there will be squabbles and snarls and someone will throw up in the plant pot. Without the smell of incense, my nose is uncalibrated. Without the stained glass windows, my eyes feel strange to themselves. (And how perfect a metaphor, that even the windows are stained as we are with the imperfections that make us glorious and give us identity.)

I was turned down for ordination in Lent, and it feels in some way as if this year has been an unending Lent, a penitent season to a child who does not understand her sins, and thus cannot understand to repent for them. Until she understands that is not her sins, but those against her from which she has to heal.

I went to Ash Wednesday this year. You are dust, and to dust you shall return. I feel the truth of that in the base carbon of my own body and in my achy feet and in my tired eyes.

But I did not go to Easter this year, because I do not feel myself resurrected.

Current Music: Anthem-Leonard Cohen-Greatest Hits Disc 2

Misery and the Alotment of Chores in the Coming Years.

My back hurts and my eyes will not unsquint on command anymore. The soapy water is cooling on my stomach where it was pressed against the sink, and I now get to sit down, blessedly, but the situation is quite frankly less than ideal. I hate doing dishes before bed.

Evening is the time for rest, for the burdens of the day to be put momentarily aside in favor of company. Doing dishes is a solitary task- I frankly shoo away people who want to come and visit with me while I'm doing the dishes. It's rough soapy honest work that lends itself to introspection and a good tune. It is not time for chatting. Evening is time for chatting, and I've just done the dishes in the evening for the first time in several years. The contrast has left me dissatisfied and chafed and a bit damp around the waist.

The Gentleman and I have reached a new compact- chores have been allotted and a timeline assigned, which means both our work for this week has just escalated, as well as for next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. It's daunting to have this all stretched out in front of me, ad infinitum, but that's the thing about marriages. There are times when they stretch out in front of you and point towards as much infinity as either of you are going to get, and that's kind of a dark place, to be honest.

To see your life measured out in fortnightly floor washes, knowing that at some point, you won't be washing the same floor anymore, and eventually, you won't be keeping track of the stretch on GoogleDocs anymore, that first the place where you both live will change around you and the tools you use to measure it will shift and stretch as well around the little patch of eternity that you both have laid out in front of you. Because the compact between you will outlast the buildings around you, the cells in your hand, the knees you cushion on a folded towel against the hard floor, will outlast eventually both of you in all your components, and everything in you except the will to keep it going.

It's the humble eternity that measures out the end of you and me and both of us together. Someday we will both be dust, and in the time remaining to us, we'll commit to spending some of it on our knees washing the floor, making the place we live in now a fit place.

Current Music: Anthem-Leonard Cohen-Greatest Hits Disc 2

A Terrible Start to the Morning...

I was having a brief conversation with the Gentleman, and he wouldn't look at me, and he said he was leaving me and getting back together with an old girlfriend, [Christina]. Then he left.

So I was left in our apartment without any money, because he's the one with the job and he had just... left. And I wanted to get in touch with him, but I kept getting distracted. The apartment building had turned into a gutted multistory slum, populated with people having sex in public stairwells and generally being scary in the shadows of the concrete remaining. At least one character from 'The Wire' was there, and being extra snarly.

I kept wandering through it and thinking, I should get in touch with the Gentleman, it's been a day. Where will I get enough money to live on? Then something would happen and I would forget to call him. Whenever I thought of calling him, it was laced through with this numb disbelief that it's been two days, why haven't I called him? Why am I not worried about calling him?

Except that somehow I knew he was not there and would not answer and would not look me in the eye, and that was completely wrong. Even if he did break up with me, he would take my call and help me get out of a scary slum because he is a nice person. So I was both aware of how out of character he was acting, and still completely not phased by it because it was a dream and reality is never quite set.

Then I somehow got out of the dream-slum and into a fancy restaurant set up for a banquet, only I was dressed in rags and the hostess was calling my name like a teacher calling attendance. There was a big tufted chair waiting for me next to my mom and she was mad at me for being late but everything else seemed rather dreamy.

When I sat down, I saw that down at the far end of the table in a party dress was the woman that the Gentleman was leaving me for. And she sat there glaring at me all the way down the table. The Gentleman was not there and I still was terribly upset that he was avoiding me, and still kind of half-sleepily recognized that he was behaving completely out of character.

I guess I woke up during the banquet, and of course, the Gentleman was out of bed because his alarm had gone off fifteen minutes before, which I think means that this entire dream took place realtime after he got out of bed and I sleepily noticed it and went back to bed.

So the thing to do was of course crawl out of bed and into the living room and plop myself onto his lap and tell him the whole story about how he'd divorced me in a dream and it was terrible. The woman he was dating in the dream was not someone he's ever dated, and she's married too, but she does have a fairly impressive glare. A whole lot of the feeling associated with the dream felt very much like the whole fiasco last year around this time with a boss who was being fairly terrible and noncommunicative, which came to a boil and resulted in me leaving that informal internship.

And I'm fairly certain this was all triggered by my normal sleepy mind noticing that the Gentleman had gotten out of bed and left, spinning wild fantasies as to why he was not staying when I had never called out for him in real life.

So yeah, I need some freaking tea.

On the cusp of revolution

I am so looking forward to the day when it is taken for granted that there will be an ebook copy of a book available.

We've got such huge gaping chasm of which books can be found as ebooks- either the very old and the very famous which have been preserved and distributed for free through things like Gutenberg, or the newest publications coming out. That's it.

There is such a vast library in human history that will probably never be made into ebooks, because the demand is too small or the text too rare or the effort to convert it is too costly. I'm looking at you, books in Fraktur, incunabula, and those fragile texts that preserve the trade records of tiny German nations. You're probably going to remain obscure and hefty at best.

Wanting an ebook is not a huge deal, right? And if the author of a work is alive and savvy, then maybe someday there will be before the author stops being able to control the use of their works. But for works where the author has died, we're in the waiting period until it enters public domain

As we move on, the major texts are largely becoming available for free online, as long as they are old enough to slip under the copyright laws. And the edge is moving ever closer- there are a lot of books that are coming out this year for free that were under copyright last year, and the list gets bigger every year. As long as someone wants them enough, they can be found.

The problem is, of course, copyright law in the US and the limitations on fair use- other have written about this, better, but I'm just staring down from this mountain of freely available modern novels and even some textbooks, looking back at the vast number of books that were written since, and I just want them in ebook form.

Is it really too much to ask?

(I've been looking for an ebook of Royko's "Boss" - a 1987 book, but the author passed on in 1997, so there are, as far as I can tell, no publicly available ebooks, and might not be any privately available versions, either. But all you need is one person who's willing to share....)

Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.

Pancho Villa's last words are probably apocryphal- getting shot multiple times killed him instantly, and no contemporary account records these last words.

But, damn. Those are some perfect last words. Most of the other recorded last words that I know are remembered because they were pretty damned cool. Voltaire's "Now is not the time to be making enemies." Oscar Wilde- "Either these curtains go or I do." They're someone taking their very last chance to make some kind of impression on the world, to be remembered.

And who knows? Maybe Wilde and Voltaire didn't say anything at all- maybe someone who loved their work just made something up to make sure the legacy stayed.

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." makes a plea to be remembered, to make an impression, even while it squanders that opportunity to make an impression. Aware of his impending death, he stills uses the last thing he can say to ask for another chance to change things, even while he knows he'll never get the chance. It's legacy, and heartbreak, and that horribly human thing we do of knowing that we are screwing up even while we do it.

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I should have known better.

Just when I expected that I knew all the esoteric sexual practices fandom could throw at me: figging.

COMMUNITY these days seems kind of disappointing and bleh? I mean, yay for new episodes! Yay for the show attempting to survive, because the cast of Community have been my happy place for a good while now, but I feel like the last couple episodes have not taken us to any place new or unexpected. And there's been a weird focus on Jeff doing things off screen or being the center of the show in a way that doesn't feel natural at this point in the series' development. Where are the sharp edges?

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Les Militaribles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lZunEARBb6I

Les Miserables ROK Air Force Parody

Honestly, can't even deal.

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blerg

-Bullet points!

-Saw Hunger Games. Deeply impressed.

-Got clawed by cat. Not impressed. Cat phobia continues. Constant vigilance!

-Saw new Community episode! Deeply impressed by show's ability to shove itself up its own ass.

-Spent some of this day working on job acquisition. Feeling better now.

-This week has all the holidays.

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Decaf teas?

In which I rise from a grave of unfinished posts!

Firstly, does anyone have a good recommendation for a tasty non caffeinated tea? It's too cold and miserable in my hometown to forego an evening cuppa, and I can't deal with caffeine late in the day. Peppermint has been a favorite, chamomile is a distant second- I appreciate a good herbal blend but I wouldn't be against a decaf blend that's truly decaf.

Secondly, still job searching. Boo.

Thirdly, I've been mainlining Spartacus:Blood and Sand and Extraneous Differently Named Seasons and Elementary.

Spartacus has a real gift for sexy naked men and more violence than I care for- I kept up with it because there was good press about it's treatment of same-sex romance. On that front, it's not delivering as much as I would like, but after a season and a half, I am surprised to discover that the character development for the supporting cast impresses me- there's really only one character of a cast of a dozen or so getting regular screentime who doesn't have some backstory and development. Mind you, he's an Arab (Syrian) villain who is also rapey, sooooooooooo. There's a problem I saw coming from the writers. But ancient Rome is portrayed as convincingly will of POC's, and I'm holding out for the rest of the season to redeem itself. I was holding out for a well-costumed period piece, and Spartacus is delivering nicely.

But, dammit, I get caught up on certain weird things. Like, the main cast has men who are circumcised when it doesn't make sense for their cultural background. And. Well, that tells you a lot about what kind of show it has been, ne? :) And how the ancient Romans are waaaaaaay less conflicted about oral sex than they were in real life- it's an odd hangup to the modern mind.

Elementary is best enjoyed when I stop trying to mentally compare it to the modern BBC Sherlock adaptation. Lucy Liu is a WONDERFUL Watson and interesting and has a convincing emotional life, and while there Sherlock is not as blindingly clever, he also seem to be shaping up to be intelligent and clever enough to make me think that he's a real detective rather than a deus ex machina. There were a few rough episodes at the start, but the show's hit its stride by episode 6 or 7. I do think that a case can be made that Watson, in both shows, is the main character, but I think that the balance of the BBC show favors Sherlock more as a brilliant mind, and that the America adaptation favors Watson..... but I'm still chewing on it.

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fandom

Buffy plot bunny- Royal AU

So, once upon a time in a fairly modern alternate universe,
Into every generation is born a slayer, one girl in all the world, the chosen one, who will lead her kingdom in to peace and prosperity with the dueling powers of the Californians kingdoms.

Regent Giles, sent from the Council on Kingship, is the appointed tutor and steward of the small kingdom of Summerlands, ruling justly while also preparing Her Royal Highness Buffy of the House of Summers, princess and lady of battle, to be a just ruler and queen. Raised in a normal household and illegitimate, Buffy didn't know her father until he died without an heir, leaving her as the last in the line of Summers and stuck in a life she does't want. She enters the court to meet Count Alexander of Harris, the bumbling son of a defunct noble family with pretensions to lost grandeur and power, and Lady Willow, the daughter of a recently established noble family (one of the first Jewish families appointed to nobility by the late king) and a powerful witch in her own right, tho she could stand to get out of the house more rather than training so much.

blarg blarg- ruling is the burden, instead of being a slayer...

The Summerlands are menaced by the Aurelian Dynasty, a longstanding territory ruled by the Vampires of the Aurelieus clan. In the war, the anti-human Master and his childe, Darla. This leaves Angel, the Vampire with a soul, trying to sort out the local squabbling and keep his kingdom from turning into a bloodbath. The bad kind. The main problems are Drusilla and Spike. Drusilla is a political tool and can never be trusted to rule on her own, but her visions are valuable to Angel. Spike, however, is a menace. He's rowdy as hell since Drusilla dumped him, makes a complete mess of Angel's poor planning for political reasons, and generally is a Problem for Angel to deal with.

Angel can't wait to get rid of him, and since he's not the official heir to Aurelieus with Drusilla live, Angel can wed Spike, and his gobs of vampiric lucre, off to a high ranking noble in the Summerlands to make the peace treaty stick.

Giles thinks it's lamentable but necessary, Willow is aghast, Buffy is just glad it's not HER, and Xander is mostly trying to get over the fact that his father knew he was gay the whole time.

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nailart

Purple Nails and Cover Up

So, I painted my nails this light purple color.I don't know the name of this shade, but it's one of Orly's Mani Mini collection, and it's a nice light purple, but a very true purple- not lilac or lavender or something. (The pinky nail gives you the best idea of the realy color, and it's rather translucent.)

I like the color, but I found that it was a bit TOO sheer- two coats still left it kind of streaky, and it didn't build up. I was left with short cartoonishly purple nails that reminded me TOO much of a certain kid's show dinosaur. A nice color to have, but a little childish when I was finished thinking about it.

So I covered it up!

I've had several polishes that I wanted to test for their sheerness in the past, and now I had my chance. Here's the verdict.

Pinky- Sephora by OPI's Rumba Romance, a very fine bronze glitter in clear polish that actually layers really nicely. It's pretty translucent, and the color just reeks of sophistication. It layered rather nicely over the purple.

Ring finger- essie's limo-scene, a rather sheer pinky white. This is the most whiplash I've had from a nail polish purchase recently. In the bottle, this color looks white. Like, honest blank white. In the pictures on essie's website, it's PINK! Pale, but indubitably pink. Really, really annoying, because I was not looking for a sheer clear pink, I wanted WHITE. As you can see, it layers very translucently over the purple, and it's not a bad effect overall, but not what I wanted at all. It's not pink, and it's not white, and while it's kind of a nice neutral sheer color, I really was not looking for a nice neutral sheer color when I bought this.

Kind people, do you have a good solid white polish that goes on solid true white?

Middle finger: essie's no place like chrome- a totally solid chrome silver. I love this color, I would wear it all the time if it weren't such a statement color. The purple was GONE under this, and it proved exactly how not sheer this color was.

Index finger: Sephora by OPI's What's a tire jack?- solid black. It doesn't come across, but this is only the slightest bit sheer. As in, it's a different and deeper black than it would have been over a plain nail, and it's kind of nice. Overall, tho, it went on a nice dark solid black and it's great.

Thumb- essie's a cut above- metallic pink glitter in a clear polish. This glitter polish is such a strange beast! It can look completely cheesy, like in this picture, or really really sophisticated over a neutral beige that I have. I applied two coats to get a nice even distribution of the glitter. This actually makes a really good fast drying topcoat, and I'm in love. It just makes me really pleased when I can get the distribution right. The glitter varies in size from a nice chunk to the size of a pencil point, and it really just adds a lot to the final distribution of color. I'm in love.

The only think I don't love about "a cut above" is the removal- getting glitter off usually takes more polish remover than otherwise, and it sticks like made. I often end up having to scrape at the remaining glitter with a cuticle pusher and discarding the remains.

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nailart

Nails again- Basic Red

Basic RED on shorter nails

Nail polish: Sephora by OPI - High Maintenance (opaque bright orange red), $9.50 at Sephora**

This is the first time I have trimmed my nails this short in a long while, and I went with a very basic and classic color to highlight the shape and length of them. Compared to the last two, this is very simple, and I picked it to let myself get used to the idea that short nails can also be classy and glamorous.

I have been trying to grow my nails out for several months now- basically since July. I've had a long history as a nailbiter, more due to boredom and the way having any nail growth at all felt ~weird~ and wrong to someone used to having no nails at all beyond the nailbed itself. I wasn't really able to think about growing out my nails until this summer, because I felt like I never had the time to learn how to do this properly.

I got my nails done professionally for a big giant event this summer (in fact, I got them done about three times in the course of womanly bonding and prep for the actual day of the event) and I found it really, really helpful! *

But because my nail polish use started as a means to master my quest for Longer, Less-Bitten Nails, I really didn't like to cut them at all. I filed and shaped them (squarish for one experiment, very oval for the French Manicure experiment in last post), but I really let them grow out, and it worked really well!

The nail beds, which were formerly quite far down on my finger from all my abuse, have slowly moved their way back up the finger to something that looks more normal for most people. My nails are growing stronger because they have a stronger base, and they break less.

So today, I decided that my long nails had accomplished their task for now, and I filed my nails down a fair bit. Not quite to the quick, because that is still rather far down on my nails, but just enough that I can now make a real good punching fist without stabbing through my palms.

I have to say that I like the look of longer nails better on my hands- it's rather elegant and I think it makes my rather small hands look a big more proportionate.

But they are getting in the way of my personal life, so for now, I will be experimenting with shorter nails and how to make them look awesome without growing them out longer than I can handle.

( *Digression: ON THE USEFULNESS OF PROFESSIONAL MANICURES: )

**I'm going to try and make sure to post where you can buy this polishes in the future, especially for things that are not basic drugstore brands in the US.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

NAIL MYTH SURVEY: In the comments, darlings.

My darling husband says that filing one's nails, as opposed to cutting them with clippers, makes the nail grow back thicker and stronger.

Have any of you heard of this story? Do you put any truth to it? Comment below!

I've never heard of it and I think this is bullshit on the level of saying that shaving your legs makes the hair grow back thicker- it cuts off the tapered part of the hair and makes it more rough to the touch, but shaving cannot change the genetically determined level of hairiness of your legs.

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nailart

Nail post! EDIT: PHOTOS

I bought myself a little nail art kit from Sephora last week and I've been having some fun with it. The set includes a fiddly little brush and a dotting tool with two tips, so I've been able to do some more difficult nail project that had escaped me before.

The first experiment:
dotty marks in beige and fuscia on a black nailbed.

dotty marks in beige and fuscia on a black nailbed.

EDIT: PIC: https://picasaweb.google.com/103507499686215769412/Nails#5795608151078336978

Polishes: Sephora by OPI: What's a Tire Jack (opaque black), Leotard Optional (opaque mocha beige - I did not write this color description!), It's All About Me! (opaque muted hot pink)

Technique: Base coat, two coats of black. Then I brushed a small amount of the beige into a plastic spoon and dipped the small point of the dotting tool into it, and started on my nails. I tried to leave the tip of the nail mostly plain and focus on more dots closer to the base of the nail. I tried to do a fair few dots per nail, and to scatter them in a pleasingly random way. I let them dry for a bit, while I washed the dotting tool tip with polish remover to clean it. Next I did the hot pink, and frankly, it's not very opaque. It was very washed out on the black, so I tried to layer it over the beige- that was the only way I could see it very clearly against the black. After that dried, I did a second time round with the beige and wrapped it all up in a top coat.

The second experiment

a french manicure with silver tips and a little bit of stray nail polish

a french manicure with silver tips and a little bit of stray nail polish

EDIT: PIC: https://picasaweb.google.com/103507499686215769412/Nails#5795608166896870418

Polishes: Essie's Blanc (sheer white), Essie's No Place Like Chrome (silver metallic)

This is based off Lisa Eldridge's video with a professional nail artist doing "The New French Manicure". Her notes and descriptions are much much better than I could put together, so please head over to her video.

Original(ish) fic: Hope it Gives you Hell

If you find a man that's worth and damn and treats you well,
then he's a fool,
it's just as well,
Hope it gives you hell.

The last few months had been hell. The tours, the late nights, the constant travel were bad enough before she realized, no, she couldn't keep up with the band. The thrill of being backstage faded when it was where you were every single night, when she just wanted to sleep some nights without having to worry about whether one of the other guys was going to try bringing someone back to the bus and forget which bunk she was in.

Dammit, she'd been trying. Her degree was done and his band as suddenly huge, so it had seemed like a good plan, a great adventure even, to follow him around the country on their first big tour. She'd missed him the first time, and he'd come back with a fucking tattoo on his neck, and it. was. fine. Because for the first time he was really incredibly happy. The work was so important to him, and he was just bursting with energy. They'd recorded the next CD in a two-week blur and he'd written eight more songs for the one after, and some of them were really, really good.

Couldn't she just be happy for him? Be happy with him?

She's been trying so hard. But the next tour took them both away from home for months, and while she'd met great, amazing people, half of them still didn't remember her name by the end of the run. She was still "The Girlfriend" to a lot of people, and it got old fast. And she'd tried to step up for herself, especially when the other guys in the band had noticed it too, and things got better for a little. But then they went right back to not paying that much attention to her when the stress got too high again.

She knew she had to be her own advocate here. It's not like she got a pre law degree based on sitting down and shutting up in class- she'd fought her way to the top just like the rest of them had in college. But no one had her back here, it seemed, and went she finally got tired of it she could still hear them talking about her in the back of the bus when they thought she was asleep.

So she'd applied for a few internships without asking him his plans, and when one came through, a really good one, a firm with the kind of nonprofit background she'd wanted and a decent family leave policy and a really kickass history in the community, she'd knew she couldn't back down. And they'd kissed goodbye and made promises and tried to call regularly. The next tour went off without her and honestly, it had been really really great, not to have to pack up and leave the world behind.

She knew some of the other guys had fucked around on their girlfriends on tour, and the money had changed the dynamics, for some shitty reason. The other girlfriends (a rotating crew sometimes) tended to put up with it in a way she'd never have done, and while she respected him for that a lot, for not putting her through that, when he'd call and talk to her about the chances he could have taken and didn't, because he loved her, it felt like he wanted to be rewarded for it. It left a bad taste in her mouth- was she supposed to thank him? for not hurting her like that? He was supposed to love her.

She hadn't believed the tabloids that put him in bed with that slender brunette. He called her to beg her to believe him, but she already did, and he acted like it was a great gesture on her part, but really, she just thought the papers were stupid. He seemed almost disappointed that she wasn't angrier, and that felt like a bad sign, but she called it a win.

When he called one evening, she picked it up after fishing her phone out from under a pile of yellow legal pads. He wanted to take a break, and while she was concerned, she was having a blast and she really didn't have the time to hunt him down halfway across the world and find out what about Japan had made him change his mind about them.

It was kind of sad, but he seemed resolved, so she let it go and they'd talk about it when he came home in a few weeks.

Then the next set of photos came out, with a different girl, and there was no mistaking it this time. A reporter called her and asked what was going on, and she told him that they were on a break, and she saw the quote in a follow-up piece on some blog, and that's when she got the second call.

"Why wouldn't you fight for me? Why wouldn't you get mad at me? I'm fucking cheating on you, dammit! Why don't you get mad?" He'd been drunk, and slurring, and the logic was just insane. He'd wanted out, but really he wanted her to fight for him? When he hadn't wanted to even talk about it? When he'd been gone for the better part of two years being a rock star? When he didn't even notice that she couldn't sleep in a bus for another summer?

She hung up and went back to her life, the one where she mattered and people respected her and the people using the insane logic were the ones on the other side of the courtroom, and you could at least try to beat them.

When the single had come out, she hadn't bought it, but the dedication had shown up online in a few hours. "Here's to you, bitch."

Charming.

The song talked about her choosing something else over him, and how he hoped it would torture her later, every time she saw his face, and it just sounded bitter, but it sounded like him. Honestly, it really did sound like him. So she took her phone off the hook for a couple evenings, filtered her email a bit better, and basically ignored it. How many time was he going to pick something else over her and then blame her for it later? She'd lost count. She was done.

And if it went down in pop history that he'd been dumped by her, who was she to care? She knew what happened, and it's not like it was ever going to come up in a job interview.

Entry tags:

Dammit Tumblr

It's becoming clear to me that I'm going to need to start dealing with Tumblr if I want to keep up on my Once Upon A Time fic

Entry tags:

Dammit

I finished "Once Upon A Time" yesterday afternoon.

I've been rewatching since.

I think I'm doomed. Honestly, truly, madly, doomed.

SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE.