Charming

Crafting is good. Star Wars is good.

Slender Man is horrifying.

Incase You Were Unaware...

I do makeup tutorials (amongst other things) on YouTube.

I've gotten myself into a series that is somehow less daunting than reading the book series that the ideas for these looks came from.

There are five books in the A Song Of Ice And Fire series, and all of them are about 1,000 pages long. Last spring, I got super excited and ordered them all and then when they arrived and I realized that I had to read an adult book series, it was kind of terrifying. But they're amazing and devastating and fantasy-ish, so it was all fine and I got through it.

After that, a 'Great Houses of Westeros' makeup series can't be too bad... right?

The Great Houses are:

      Lannister, Greyjoy, Tyrell, Stark, Baratheon, Martell, Tully, Arryn, and Targaryen.

Wait... really, is that all? It is! How exciting. That means that today, since I filmed Baratheon, I'm over the hump! I only have four left! On the even brighter side, I have a good idea of what I want to do for Martell, Arryn, and Tully, I'm still a little unsure of Targaryen.

I'm trying to make all the looks both relatively wearable and yet still clearly inspired by their respective houses. Of course, wearable is entirely subjective. For instance, apparently some people think hot yoga shorts aren't wearable outside of hot yoga classes. How strange.

Anyway, I thought I'd post the first three looks of this series as... they're the first three I have up on YouTube.

Matching Tattoos and Death

I have a friend in New Zealand who had a friend in Ireland. I got a matching tattoo with my friend in New Zealand. She got the same matching tattoo with her friend in Ireland (and other people). Her Irish friend had a brain tumor and was dying. He's been dying for a long time, I think, but he's just now actually died and it made me really sad because even though I've never met or talked to him, I had the same tattoo as him and we were connected a bit. He must have been awesome to be friends with Jess, though. So I guess it's also sadness for a missed opportunity to be friends with him.

I Am Not Tan.

People love to tell me how tan I am. Or, here in England, they say I'm 'tanned'. Which is even more irritating as it comes with the presumption that this is not my natural skin colour. I appear to be Caucasian, so I must just be a white person who had gotten 'tanned'. 

How fucking racist. 

If anyone is at all aware of the MAC foundation system, most white people are somewhere around NW10 - NW20. Which is pale skin with a pink undertone. My winter shade is NC35. That's yellow-tone and of the medium variety, and that's what colour I am all over. It's my dead of winter default. (But Jordan, it's summer!) yes, and I'm a fucking vampire. I am pale. 

People think I'm being ridiculous when I say that. You're not pale! You're tan! No. I am pale. I'm so fucking pale, people think I'm white. But I'm not. I mean, I'm partly white, but so is Obama and you don't see people calling him white, do you? 

But anyway, people say I'm tan like its a compliment. Like pasty white is the default and my skin needed to be changed from the 'normal' white by the sun. Nope. Wrong. Rude. Racist. 

It seems like such a small thing, probably. But I find it so offensive. Like, let me get an actual tan, and then you can compliment me on that. Until then, you can go fuck yourself. 

Ducks!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I haven't read the book. 

I'm sad I didn't read it before seeing the movie. 

It's okay, I've just ordered it, so it's on it's way with 3 other books. 

I never understood why people were always quoting that one line. If you've ever heard of the book, you'll know the one I mean. 

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite." 

I didn't understand. 

But now I do. I've had those moments. They're the ones that don't even seem that important at the time but will stay with you forever. You will always remember how you felt and what the air smelled like and how wide your friends were smiling. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about a boy his freshman year of high school. He doesn't have any friends and he was in the mental hospital for a while, I think. His best friend shot himself the spring before. 

So he makes friends with a group of seniors. 

I think I had more friends that were above me in grade than in my own, so I know how thy feels. To have all your friends so happy and excited to leave and you're stuck behind for a few more years. 

I wish I had read the book when I was still in high school. It seems like it would have been so important. It's still important, of course. It's just not happening to me anymore and when it was, I think I took it for granted that I was always going to have friends like that and life was always going to be just like high school. 

In some ways, it's so much better, in others it's worse. 

The good outweighs the bad. 

In Terms Of Psychological Abuse...

If I were maliciously ignoring someone on purpose in order to fuck with their head, that would definitely be psychological abuse.

However, if I am studiously avoiding a person because I cannot bear even the thought of them looking at my face. If the idea of being in the same room as them makes my hyperventilate. If I genuinely cannot handle their presence... that is not psychologically abusing said person.

That is just me retaining my sanity.

Because I honestly, genuinely want to say 10,000 horrible things to that person.

I want to shout at him and spit in his face and smash all of his possessions into splinters. I want to rant and rage and scream that he is not fucking Job. My entire being is not a trial on him. He is not the centre of the whole fucking universe - IN FACT, MOST PEOPLE DON'T GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT HIM BECAUSE HE IS VILE AND ANNOYING AND COMPLAINS AND SPREADS MISERY LIKE THE PLAGUE. He is not a fucking character in the bible (which is fictional, BY THE WAY) and his 'god' is not real.

I want to unleash such fury at him that he'll never speak again. To me. About me. To anyone. About anything.

I desperately want to punch him in the fucking face for eating my food and not replacing it.

HOWEVER, I don't do any of these things.

Because I cannot fucking deal with his presence. So I hide.

And he calls me hiding 'psychological abuse'.

He likes to make every little thing about himself, so instead of realizing that he is actually, literally, genuinely unbearable, he accuses me of being malicious.

Dipshit.

Misunderstood

When I was 16, my school did Les Miserables for the spring musical. 

My therapist asked me who my favourite character was. Obviously, I said Javert. Because really, what other choice is there? Come on. My therapist seemed concerned that I liked the 'villain'. 

But the thing is, Javert isn't the villain. He's not even morally ambiguous. He's definitely ignorant, though. He is a character who sees only in black and white, and since Val Jean broke the law (and then continued to do so by breaking his parole and then lying about his identity for years as well as running from the law after he had been caught), Javert sees him as a criminal who has proven he cannot change and will continue to break the law and should probably suffer the consequences of his actions. 

Having said that, Javert is most certainly the main antagonist of the piece as most of the story involves a conflict between him and Val Jean, who is obviously the protagonist of the story. 

But anyway, Javert is clearly misunderstood by anyone who would call him the 'bad guy'. The man is a police officer who is simply going above and beyond the call of duty to get his job done well. 

Let us also talk about Jaime Lannister. 

I love Jaime.

And yet people seem to really hate him. 

It might be his incestuous relationship with his twin sister, the fact that he's a bit of a snot, that he killed the king he was sworn to protect, or perhaps it is that he pushed a child out of a tower window. 

None of these things actually bother me. I can't remember if they ever did, to be honest. But I think it was after he lost his hand that I started to absolutely adore him. 

Let'a first look at that incest. Is it gross? I dunno. I mean. They're twins, so it seems a bit more like masturbation, really. They're also a pair of consenting adults and although I suppose it sort of icks people out, I don't see anything really morally wrong with it. To be honest, I'd have no big issue having sex with my own twin brother - if I had one, that is. I mean, aside from the fact that it would be cheating, which I wouldn't do. So yeah. I see it as kind of the same thing as eating dead people to survive when stranded in the Andes or whatever. Possibly gross, definitely frowned upon, but not actually a bad thing to do. 

As for him being a snot, it's funny. He's funny and sarcastic and annoyed. It's just that he's cocky because he really is that good at sword fighting. He's the youngest man ever chosen to be a member of the kingsguard. He was knighted in battle by The Sword of the Morning when he was fifteen. He's from the richest family in the seven kingdoms. He's beautiful. Why wouldn't he be cocky? Also he's really over everyone's bullshit and has been for years. 

I don't think anyone outside of series characters really care that he broke an oath and killed the king. But in the event that anyone uses that against him, he killed Aerys because he'd had wildfire stashed under all of King's Landing and was going to set the entire city on fire rather than let it be taken by Robert Baratheon. So Jaime killed the king to save about 500,000 people, and then didn't tell anyone about it because Ned Stark was the first person to find him and Ned didn't care for his excuses. 

As for pushing a six year old out of a window, that boy caught he and his sister committing treason. By which I mean they were having sex. So pushing a kid out of a window in reaction to brig caught having sex is definitely a fucked up thing to do. But it was also being caught in a treasonous act. So pushing a kid out of a window so that you, your sisterlover, and her three bastard children she had that are kind of yours, aren't executed for treason is really something else. So... Yeah it wasn't a good thing that he pushed Bran out a window, but it was certainly understandable. 

I could go on forever about characters that are seen as 'bad', but that would take hours. So I'll just say that Stannis, Melisandre, and probably Jorah are also very misunderstood. 

But if you ever get the idea that Euron Greyjoy is probably not a good person: you're definitely right and I'm pretty sure he's the closest the series has to an actual villain. (See also: Roose Bolton, Walder Frey, Ramsay Snow)

NOBODY LIKES YOU WHEN YOU'RE TWENTY-THREE

ohgodhelp. my birthday is in like 3 weeks :(

LARP!

Last weekend, I went down to Derby (it's pronounced darby) with some friends. We went to a field by a lake (it was the lawns of some really big nice 'estate') and set up tents.

And then, we dressed up in armor and used foam weapons to hit each other.

LARPing stands for live action role playing. SO basically, you make up a character, and then you act as that character with everyone else. And sometimes there's huge melee battles against monsters.

And it's really fun.

REALLY. FUN.

















So basically that's what really huge geeks do on long holiday weekends. :)

I had the best of times!

Spoilers!!!

The funniest part about having read all of A Song of Ice and Fire, is all of the cute little theories my sweet summer child friends come up with. I mean the ones who only watch Game of Thrones. 

Things like, "does Tywin disown Jaime when he finds out about his hand being cut off?" Well darling, aside from the fact that Jaime is Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (which means Tywin isn't really in a position to disown him anyway, as Jaime cannot inherit anything ever), Tywin doesn't really have much time to think about Jaime what with the ~trial~ and all. And then Tyrion murders him while he's having a shit. Soooo. 

"Does life get better for Daenerys?" Oh god. You don't even know about the dragons yet. 

I like that people are expecting Robb to survive the season. Nope. The Red Wedding. It's coming. Soon. Soon. Soon. 

People seem not to have caught on to the lesson Ned taught us in the first season/book. Ie: main characters die! A lot! 

Robert, Eddard, Joffrey, Tywin, Robb, Catelyn, Balon, Podrick, etc. etc. etc.

If you're expecting someone to last: they won't. Not going to happen. 

Also it's cute how much people hate Melisandre at this point. Before she burns The Lord of Bones instead of Mance. Also silly silly people who trust Petyr Baelish. He is the closest thing this series has to an actual villain. All the other characters you guys think are pure evil (aside from Euron Greyjoy, who is possibly end game big bad and hasn't been introduced yet) are grey characters! They're like normal people. Not awful evils. And it's hilarious how many of you don't even suspect the Boltons at this point. 

How It's Made

How It's Made is probably my favourite show ever. 

I used to watch it while I was doing my makeup to go out places and I would always get stuck watching it and I'd be late. 

It's amazing how many episodes there are. You would think that by now, I'd have seen all of them, but the other day I saw one on foam swords and right now I'm watching how sticky buns are made for the first time. 

And now I'm hungry. Mmmmmmm. 

GYM!

Yesterday, for the first time since I joined the Y as a preteen, I joined a gym!

Which is exciting. 

I've not really been to many gyms before, but the one I joined seems to be really, really cool. I'm pretty sure it's got multiple pools, a sauna, and then the workout room. 

They give you an electronic key, and when you get there, you stick it into a machine and sign in. If you like, they can program different workouts for you to follow and they'll tell you which machines to go on and how long to use them for. If not, you just do whatever you want. 

Each machine has a keyhole and all the cardio machines have a big screen at the front of them with an ipod/iphone dock. You stick your key into the machine and it records your exercising as well and tells you things on the screen. Another thing about the screen is that you can watch TV on them if you like. Once you switch machines and put your key back into the next machine, it'll go back to whatever TV show you were watching. (additionally, if you want, you can plug your ipod/iphone in and it'll come up with all your music and shows and whatever you've got on there.) Also, the cardio machines, with the exception of the treadmills, have internet browsers on them, which is also really awesome. 

So yeah. I joined a really awesome gym!

Another good thing about it, is that it's right downtown just a few blocks away from the train station. So I can walk down the road from my house to the train station, catch the train into town, and walk just a few more blocks to the gym! 

I think, in the two weeks I've been back in England, I've taken the train way more times than I took it the last 6 months I was here. I'm getting a lot more comfortable with it, which is nice, but we took the bus into town yesterday and that rather freaked me out since I've always been way more comfortable with streetcars and subways and lightrails than I ever was with busses. 

Anyway, I'm super happy and excited to be here. 

Club Dancing and Anxieties

I like going out dancing. It's probably one of my favourite activities.

I do this sober for several reasons, mostly because I don't drink, but also because if I danced while drunk, I'd probably throw up everywhere. (Actually I almost definitely wouldn't and I never have, but I'd be worried about it, which would make me anxious to the point of nausea. So just no.)

People tell me they love going out dancing, but that they can only do it while they're drunk. Also that they drink as a sort of 'social lubricant' so they feel more comfortable talking to people.

I literally cannot comprehend either of these things. Mostly because I'm fucking autistic and my brain is a feedback loop and I literally only understand what I relate to.

But. The reason I don't understand, is because I guess I just don't give a shit what anyone thinks. As long as it's true, that is.

Like, if you assume I'm Italian or something, I'll be pissed off because I'm not fucking Italian. Not that there is anything at all wrong with being Italian - there isn't. I'd be way more irritated at being called Italian than if someone called me a dirty Jew. Because I am a Jew and if you think that's a bad thing, that's your problem, and I don't care because I like being a Jew.

How this relates to dancing, is that I I'm dancing, I'm having fun doing it. And if I'm meaning to dance like an idiot, it's because I find it amusing and don't care if people think I'm stupid for it. Besides. People at clubs watching me dance like an idiot are drunk and won't remember later/are dancing like idiots themselves. (The difference being that I'm doing it on purpose, and they're drunk)

And as to the whole, 'it's easier to talk to people when I've had alcohol' thing... Whyyyyyy??? If you go to a bar and talk to people, they're drinking and they'll assume you are too and that's basically the same thing since you can pretty much get away with saying/doing anything ridiculous in that case.

It's a beautiful thing, not caring.

Except I do care about some things.

Like not throwing up ever. Also not having anyone else throw up near me. The second is slightly more important than the first.

Unfortunately for me, being anxious makes me nauseated. And being nauseated makes me anxious. And then sometimes, I get anxious from worrying about maybe getting nauseated, which then makes me nauseated.

Fun story: I've never had food poisoning and the last time I threw up was July 2010 (Whatever I ate was not good. I barfed in a toilet at my friends house while wearing her Optimus Prime shirt). Before that, it was November 2008 (I had the stomach flu and barfed all over my mom's bed. Fun.) before that, it was probably 2001, perhaps earlier. I barfed grape Gatorade onto my parents' bed. Yum. I no longer enjoy grape Gatorade.

I can list off pretty much every time I've ever thrown up. I might be missing a few times from when I was a kid, but I definitely remember 11 times. I don't think that's a lot, but I think the fact that I'm that disturbed that I remember all of them is rather telling.

In addition to remembering these times, I also remember at least 12 panic attacks I've had from people around me either throwing up, or being about to throw up.

People always think its funny, and then I can't breathe or move or stop crying and its really not all that funny anymore. They don't think it's that serious, and then it happens.

That makes me anxious, too. The idea of a panic attack.

Someone tried to tell me once that I wasn't having a panic attack. I wanted to punch her in the face. But fighting makes me anxious too.

Anyway. I think it's funny when people tell me I'm brave for doing something they're afraid to do. You cannot be brave if you aren't afraid. Shaving my head and dancing and wearing crazy clothes is not brave when I do it. It's a lack of fear and its self expression. I'm not afraid of myself.

For me, going out to eat at a restaurant is brave of me because they make me anxious and afraid.

Once Upon A Surgery

I was reading something just now about what 'actually' happens when a patient wakes up after surgery. I literally have no way to know if any of it is actually true. I mean. I assume it is?

It's not that I've never had surgery; I have.

Apparently I woke up in the OR with a tube down my trachea and probably started talking just after it was removed. I was definitely talking on my way out of the OR and into the recovery room at which point I told the nurse that my pain was at a three and they put me on some sort of narcotic IV painkiller. No idea which one.

Not that I actually remember any of this happening. I don't. At all. Not even a little bit.

To my memory, the anesthetist injected a 'mild anti-anxiety' medicine in my IV drip, told me about it, and then I got a mask put over my face. The next thing I remember is being in the recovery room and crying. Not sure why I was crying. I suspect I was either that happy, or the lady in the bed next to me threw up and I was having a panic attack. I remember up to a few minutes after that, then there's a missing section and the next thing I remember is that it was snack time and when I was done eating I got to go home.

The reason I know what 'probably' happened from when I woke up until I remember is stuff I got told by the nurses. Well. The anesthetist told me I'd wake up with a tube down my throat and to not chew it, so that's how I know that bit. I don't know if I chewed on it or freaked out or gagged when they removed it. The nurse in the recovery room told me if I kept talking I'd make myself sick, which shut me up straight away. That was before the missing bit. She also told me I'd been talking since they brought me out of the OR. I laughed for a solid five minutes when I was asked if my pain was still a 3. I asked when I'd even said that and apparently it was also when I was brought to the recovery room. I don't know if it was the narcs, but the fact that I totally didn't remember that made me laugh so much.

Anyway, hopefully next time I have surgery, I won't be given crazy amnesia drugs and I'll know what it's actually like to wake up from sedation rather than to have Versed wear off.

That Is Mahogany

Sometimes things just aren't right to post on tumblr.

Also, sometimes listening to Gangnam Style on repeat is definitely right.

3am on a Friday is the best time for this.

Maybe. I don't know. I need to write something that isn't batman fanfiction (sup I'm a nerd) and my brain has been turned to scrambled eggs from watching Inception and obsessively looking to see when Cobb is and isn't wearing his wedding ring. (It's actually his totem. Look for it, he only wears it in dreams, that spinning top was Mal's totem, he just uses it to see if he's going crazy or not)

Talking of crazy, I must be. I went and deleted Zoolander from my computer. I need Will Farrell screaming that he feels like he's on crazy pills and that foamy lattes make him farty and bloated. I need this because of reasons.

For the past four days, I've been sat in a room bleeding words out of my fingertips. I haven't been able to bring myself to do anything else. I really do feel like I'm on crazy pills. I went outside like 3 times today because I feel like I'm going fucking insane.

Also, I've watched Warrior like 5 times (not exaggerating) and I cry at the end literally every time. My therapist says I like fictional people more than real ones because actors aren't thinking about and doing five things at a time so I actually understand their body language and stuff. If they're what I understand, why wouldn't I like them better? Of course, BradieCat is an exception to this. Not that I 'get' him at all times, I so don't, but I have magical empathy powers where he is concerned. Clearly this is why I married him.

Since melting my hair off, some of my special friends have arrived. By special friends, I mean wigs. This has led to a lot of time spent staring at myself in mirrors. (I say as if that's at all unusual for me to do all the time. Can't help it. Love my face. Not sorry.)

Also, quick everyone go follow Michael Jordan on twitter. It not actually Michael Jordan, but it's the funniest account since Mark Hoppus had an argument with himself about shrimp and prawns and Australians.

I would say my life sucks and is horrid and vile, but that's not actually true. What it actually is, is that in addition to grudgingly adoring Tom Hardy, I go to sleep at 7am and wake up four hours later. Eeevery fucking day. Today, I fell asleep for four hours in the middle of the living room floor. And then we went grocery shopping and I got...

Tomatoes? I literally have no idea what I got because I'm autistic and my short term memory for shit like that (which doesn't matter as I'll know what I've bought if I look in the fridge) is terrible in an abysmally embarrassing sort of way which makes me feel like a fucking dingbat sometimes.

Can I just talk about Bronson for a sec? Because that movie is weirder and more disturbing than Being John Malkovich. Not that either are bad, but puppets are fucking weird and John Malkovich going down on some lady is something, not unlike Tom Hardy's flaccid wang, I could have happily never, ever seen. Unfortunately, I cannot unsee either of these things and they will forever be burned into my brain. This is the part where I would like to quote Jessie Slaughter's dad, but he never said anything fitting.

I feel like I have brain constipation. I'm trying to write everything else here so I can go back to my story. Because I'm Batman and it feels like yoga.

Oh hm. Apparently I wrote everything else. Sleep sounds like the best plan because its 20 to 4.

Lets crack on, shall we? Tally ho and what not.

Hair Cuts

When I was little, I wasn't really allowed to dye my hair crazy colours, but if I wanted blonde bits or highlights or to cut my hair, I could. I used to get tired of my hair and just cut bits off. I can't remember the last time my parents actually told me what to do with my hair. When my age was in single digits, certainly.

Anyway, my parents didn't get mad at me for changing my hair or for getting new shoes dirty on the playground.

Basically, I don't understand why any parent would care.

~adventures in watching mad men, continue~




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