A Loving Union

  Saturday was my cousin Jessica's wedding reception, her and her now-husband Chris (they've been together 10-odd years and I love him) are finally hitched! Daniel escorted me as my hot date and I found it extremely pleasing that he looks so dashing in a suit - complete with suspenders, hubba hubba.
They had a nice video of the real wedding which took place in Punta Cana, a splendidly pleasant DJ named Christian, an actual Candy Bar, and of course at the end of the night - in true classy nature - the bride was a drunken mess who loved her life more than anything.
Daniel was a charming gentleman the entire night, we had an abundance of intimate laughs - most of which took place during his requested song Hello by Lionel Richie. There also happened to be a University Mathematics Graduation party going on next door, filled to the brim with orientals (not to be prejudice in the slightest, but I didn't see one white person) who all looked exceptionally fabulous in their party dresses and gowns. Naturally, Daniel peeked into their party, ran back over to grab me (while not wearing shoes) and dragged me onto their dance floor for a little bit of inebriated, obnoxious and explicit gyrating for less than a full song before sprinting to a table, grabbing a rose, handing it off to me and jetting back to our own party where the bartender was happily waiting.

There was a sandcastle

This is my Oma looking fabulous in her sparkle gown.

'Nuff said.

   On our way out we grabbed more candy, souvenir shot glasses, and the top of the wedding cake that nobody touched because they forgot to place out a knife. The ride home was used for telling terribly inappropriate jokes and upon apartment arrival we got cozy and silly with Photobooth:

How Terrible It Is, To Love Something Death Can Touch.

Hi, I miss you. I love you. Where are you? Why aren't you here? Do you miss me? I hope you're okay. I hope you're fantastic. I hope it didn't hurt. I hope it didn't hurt too much. Please smile at me one more time. Please. I hope you aren't in pain wherever you are. I wish you could talk. I wish I could feel you around me. I wish I could feel your embrace. Were you scared? Were you thankful? Do you feel regret? Do you feel cheated? Do you even feel? Do you know how much I love you? Did I ever tell you enough? I talk to you sometimes. You're beautiful. I wish you still existed. Hi, I miss you.

  I've been thinking about you consistently for the past hour or so, and then I got caught up in that concept. For as long - or as short, or as well, as I knew you was the result of the amount of time I spend thinking of you now that you're gone. I don't think about you every minute, every hour, or even every day. But I think about you. It comes and goes because time passes with each tick of the second hand and aches like the pulse behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls and I grit down and bear it.
Someone thinks about you every single day. Someone thinks about you multiple times every single day. How much time did they spend with you? How little time? How well did they know you? Should I be jealous that someone knew you better than I did if they consumed less of your presence? Should I be angry that I don't think about you more often? That's absurd.
I just want to turn the corner and feel my heart swell when I get to see your smile in flesh and colour. When I get to embrace you and stroke your wig-less boy hair and for a moment know that you are safe. And it wouldn't matter - all the questions, all the things I want to say but haven't been able to, all of the chances that were taken away for you to be a part of my life. I would be lost in the safety net.

  Hi Tamarra, I miss you.

Nothing Like Good Food, Good Wine and a Bad Girl.

  I've been in such a fluster I entirely forgot to show the delicious meal my lad made from scratch two-ish weeks ago (of course now I'm craving it, but I'm a sucker for any seafood).

Pan-seared Haddock covered in a white wine pan sauce with ham and pea soup, and a little bit of the wine in a glass.
Mmm.

Going crazy, need delicious substance.

Change Is Coming Around You

  My cousin (my 2nd cousin's wife, so - does that make her my step-2nd-cousin?) Christen is a beautiful folk/ballad singer, and she had a show tonight at The Little Bean Café. It just so happens to be a few blocks away from my house yet I had never been there before, it was quite large for a coffee shop but maintained that cozy and romantic vibe. However, it's been a bit of a chilly day so my aunt said she would pick me up since it wasn't out of her way and we immediately ran in for hot drinks (while making them 'Irish').
  We chatted with fellow friendly coffee-drinkers and grabbed a table to chit-chat with each other at. The opening girl began her set and I thought her voice was lovely (until Christen's set), but we grabbed some cards and played a few games of euchre while gabbing and enjoying the sounds flowing around the room.
  You can check out samples of her songs at http://www.christenzuch.com/music.htm

  Oh and decided that I need to get a job so the boy and I can go out more often because spending a few days in my apartment lead to the following atrocity:

Basically the epitome of our existence.

Early Life Crisis

  I have been entirely too stressed as of lately. My anxiety has been tested, pushed to its limits and I'm both physically and emotionally exhausted from it. Not that I want to get too detailed - especially via internet - but my mum has been going through yet another stressful patch and I worry about her so intently. Nonetheless, I am weighing my current options:

- Go for my work interview.

- Work full-time for a month or so.

- Get a small one-bedroom apartment or find a roommate and get a nicely sized two-bedroom.

OR

- Stay living at home.

- Save money for school despite my education fund.

- Go insane.

  Alas! I have had a break-through with future plans for the time being, ignoring the fact that I change my goals on a fairly regular basis. However, my mum was a very high-esteemed hair dresser and she used to get so fed up with me wailing at her when I was young that she wasn't doing my hair the way I wanted that she taught me how to do it myself. So I've been teaching myself how to work with hair (after many failed practice runs on my own poor head) for about 8 years and it has become second nature to me. Now of course all of my friends and their friends and family come to me to get free hair cuts/dye jobs, and I wonder to myself, "Why am I not getting paid to do this?".
  As I am naturally one of the most indecisive people I know, I have not been able to simply look through school programs or take tests to see what I would be best at and say, "This is it! This is what I want to do," without considering a dozen other options at the same time. Of course this contributes to my anxiety where I feel my feet are nailed to the floor and I can't move in any direction without fear of regret. The conclusion I came to was this: I will go to aesthetics school, which is only about 9 months (my city has 3 of the best aesthetics schools in Canada), after which I could get a job in a salon doing both hair and make-up. Hopefully at that point I will have some sort of better idea as to what I want to take in university (right now I'm leaning toward international law but that could change in 5 years or 5 minutes) and be making money just in case the current funding I have isn't enough.
  This is a good plan right? This will be a trade I can have for the rest of my life, because who knows when or if things will ever get tough - I'll always have a back-up safety net.

Kate's prom make-up (it went so nicely with her dress but I'm lacking more photos!)

She was so insistent that the curls wouldn't hold with her thin, pin-straight hair.

Up-dooo

They held.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are some of the stupid things I did with my hair, but the really embarrassing ones are staying hidden.

BLEACHED2SHIT

THE BOY CUT

THE UNDERCUT

THE UNDERCUT - RACING STRIPES EDITION

THE TUCKED MULLET

Slopped

  Today I sent in an application to the modeling agency my mother went to in her youth because she's been bantering me about it for the past 2 years - we'll see how that goes.

  This is unfortunately just a quick update of a poorly slopped-together outfit, but I was asked for a bit of a tutorial on how to do an intense eye/cat-flick. I was silly and forgot to take step-by-step photos but so I hope my descriptions prove helpful!

black over-sized tank - Old Navy, asphalt high waisted skirt - Joe Fresh,
black hoop belt - Stolen from mama's closet, platform zipper shoes - Aldo

1. Prep your face however you like best, but keep it basic and even-toned.
2. Take your concealer and put it on an eyebrow brush/clean mascara brush and work it through.
3. I used concealer on my lips because they're naturally rosey and I only wanted my eyes to be the focus.
4. Use a pale cream or grey for the base colour of your eye going from lash line to just above your natural crease as well as your lower lash line.
5. Take a rounded shadow brush and use a few shades darker cream/grey to work into your crease for smooth transition.
6. Take a small shadow brush and slowly build from the outer corner of your lash line out and back in again to your crease - don't go as far in as step 5.
7. Take a thin angled brush and follow your lash line to create a sharper edge.
8. **Optional: Use the same brush to follow your lower lash line 1/2-3/4 of the way in.
9. **Optional: Use the same brush again to follow the outer corner of your lower lash line and create a V shape the same length as step 8.
10. If necessary, use a liquid liner/whatever preference you have and sharpen the bold lines then add your mascara!

**Sidenote: you can stop at step 7 and just add mascara to your upper lashes only as I obviously dramatized my look more than I would for normally going out.

And voila!

Rose

  I spent a lovely late weekend with the boy, filled to the brim with marathons of LOST, conversation, laughter and understanding. Oh, and sushi - Sushi Sushi Sushi.
We made our way to downtown to visit a cozy little Japanese place named Ye's which has a simplistic and warm atmosphere. Though it is not the best I have ever tasted (not to be discrediting them on the flip-side), it is relatively the closest and takes but a simple 5 minute walk. He ordered tea and watched my face as the aroma entered my nostrils and my brain pre-registered what the flavour would undoubtedly be and to my own satisfaction - I still do not condone that tea is a pleasant beverage. He ordered rice, tempura shrimp and spicy crispy salmon rolls (a mutual favourite) while I got a little indulgent off the All You Can Eat menu. Stuffing myself silly with edemame that were perfectly salted, tempura vegetables/crab/scallops, along with two servings of my own spicy crispy salmon rolls and other sashimi pieces. I made an attempt at BBQ eel but could not psych myself into the task after looking at the creature (scale-y and blue tinged, blegh!), then when we finished we snuck some extra rolls into a take out container to save for later.
  The Sunday-Wednesday duration had its ups and downs, but we came to such a comfortable understanding from the get-go that set the mood for the rest to follow, I felt the sweet relinquished the sour and now find myself quite content and prepared for what I can only classify as Life.
  Prior to the visit I promised to upload some tutorial/'look'-based photos after I was loosely geisha inspired by the dark clothing combined with an alabaster demeanor/burst of colour, which are now here and waiting speculation! Forgive the low-quality as I no longer own a tripod or remote and had to compensate.

Creme scarf - Le Chateau, Black loose-layered cardigan - 2nd Hand, 

Shiny embroidered tights - Vintage, Platform peep toe heels - Aldo

I've separated this tutorial into two versions, the first being the following.

Part One:

1. Prep your face by exfoliating all dry skin from both your face and lips - make sure you're well moisturized.

2. Create a base to have the perfect coverage of your entire face, including eyelids, outline of your lips, and extending down your neck. I used Natural FX in E0, Conceal FX in X-Light, and Powder FX in E0 (this is a water-based liquid foundation, concealer and powder).

3. Brush talcum powder over your entire face using a powder brush (this is only necessary for anyone already pale, if you are darker toned, just use a few shades lighter).

4. The blush I used was a gift from my aunt who did not include the box so I am unsure what the name is, but it was a demo line at her spa named Trend and Basic Collection. Use an angled blush brush and begin by heavily applying along the curvature of your cheekbones up to your temples, ending near mid-eyebrow.

5. Using a pure white E/S, cover your entire eye from lash line up to brow, and tear line to upper cheekbone. If you have white liner/mascara I would suggest trying that as well.

6. If you want, add a small bit of your blush-matching lipstick to the center of your lips discreetly, then add a subtle bit of gloss.

To avoid over-crowding your face, choose between adding to your lips or eyes. These are lip examples.

These are eye examples.

 Part Two:

1. Add concealer to your lips to blend them into your face making them more unnoticeable and keeping from drawing away attention from your eyes. Depending on your concealer, add a sealant cote on top of this.

2. Taking a black sharpened pencil create a dotted line for the perfect cat-flick shape.

3. Fill this in (it's ok if it's not perfect).

4. Using a thin angled brush with black E/S (have water near-by for dunking) or liquid liner, carefully overlap these lines with precision.

5. Curl lashes and add mascara to upper lashes only!

Voila!

Blackness, blackness

  Isolation is the only way to retain sanity, solitude is the only true path to growth, comprising oneself to others standards leads to naught but destruction.

  The need to rebuild the fragile pillars of ones mind is incorrectly viewed as misanthropy.

  The mind thinks in too many concentric or vicious circles and at the same time, cul-de-sacs. The universe never stops expanding, and that in itself is incomprehensible - and then that leads to the question, why give us the knowledge to know how shallow the pool of our intelligence is - if it can be called such - that there will always, always be the unknown and the incomprehensible and levels of existence that we can only dream of, that will always elude, a hair-breath away, shielded by an impenetrable glass. The shackles of humanity. It’s mockery, sheer mockery, and God is laughing at me and my ignorance. 

  Years ago a much smaller (hollow recognition that once upon a time there was such a thing as small in the world, instead of too large, too much) girl-child used to cry herself into fits in the early insomnia stages because she could not comprehend that the universe was never-ending. What comes after that? If it ends, what is after that? Blackness, blackness. Comforted eventually by the minds natural dulling and smoothing - the world is a painting, a map, God is the painter. When a human dies, God paints them over. When a natural disaster occurs, God made the mistake of flicking some explosion or tsunami coloured paint - or maybe it was on purpose. God changes the colours for the seasons. This all occurs in a white room and God is a white man with a white beard in a white suit with a palette and paintbrushes, controlling the universe of all his colour, and the room has neither doors nor windows nor any light source but it’s so bright. But what’s outside the room? What comes after that? Blackness, blackness.

  I just want to scream that I despise it all, especially you, and especially me.

Stein Time

I'm already lacking in keeping my newest blogging system up-to-date and it has been irking me desperately!

  I had a friend come to me with an issue, and despite that our closeness dwindled in the wind I took the opportunity to make amends and he gladly accepted.
The realization of how critical it is who I choose to share a connection with became extremely apparent; especially because of my impressionable moods being so easily adaptable to my surroundings.
When surrounded by people with passion and beliefs I become more naturally willing to change my attitude and progress and that's the person I want to be.
I don't know what has come over me the past few days but I couldn't stand the way I was acting. It wasn't myself at all.
I wasn't doing any of the things I wanted to be doing in my daily routines, I was having the hardest time simply performing a charade of acting like myself and felt compromised.
  I've been secretly doing the things I love again, which I'm afraid of telling the people who see me every day and wouldn't want their excitement to spoil the majesty behind it. I've just felt idiotic this week, and hope to never do it again.
The stress of constant restrictions lashed around every thought in my head that can't be expanded onto people because they're not coherent enough for them, which puts great strain on anyone willing to listen to me because I can't formulate my thoughts into words - Incoherent thoughts don't mix well with incoherent people, or vise versa.
The constant surreal moments and fascinations that wouldn't make sense to them leaves me speechless in everyone's presence half the time. Which is why I'm so insistent on being alone often rather than constantly surrounded by people - if I acted otherwise I would drive myself crazy.

  In other news, I'm resisting an urge to start dying my hair again - I want it blonde with lilac, or mint green, or dusty pink, or powder blue, but mainly lilac… Must resist temptation for ruination.
  I've been given a job opportunity in retail at a store I would never shop in, which is disconcerting and somewhat distasteful but I have no more room to be picky - so I must cowboy up and saddle the horse! I find distinct content in my drive toward work ethic, as it somewhat humbles me and gives me purpose.
I also have a scheduled appointment to take part in online courses to further my academic career, which I strangely look forward to as I'm not perspectively ready to apply for university quite yet and I want a broad spectrum of options waiting for me when I am.

  Fully just made ‘biscuits and gravy’ to eat while reading Grapes of Wrath, because I just love for my literary experiences to feel somewhat authentic - If only I had some chewing tobacco.

This is the third time I have made the aforesaid biscuits and gravy and have had to completely modify the recipe to suit my taste-buds - no offense to those who love this Southern fare. Was quite distraught the first time I made them, as the recipe promised me ‘heavens own food’, and it delivered something quite different. But third time's the charm, I’ve turned them into something palatable. My mother combined my efforts into topping it all off with her cure-cancer chicken and vegetable soup, which is filled to the brim with chicken, carrots, onion, leek, green beans, asparagus, and baby potatoes topped with vegetable/cayenne/paprika spices that will knock the devil out of you.  Now to comfort my jangled nerves with some well-read Steinbeck - I have absorbed this book by now, but I am reading it once more, because reading books I know nearly off by heart is soothing, like two duvets in the midst of winter.

Aren't I a perfect shade of decrepit?

Hallow's Eve

  Well, it's my favourite time of year - the end of October, and my most treasured holiday is only days away. As Summer eases away I barely notice until I step outside and there it is, I'm hit by it like a train. That fantastic smell of Autumn - you know what I mean.
The crispness in the air, the moisture, the fermenting leaves on the ground.
Nature at its best.

  I've spent the passed while bouncing around between costume ideas (which is rare for me, I usually have a plan the day after Hallowe'en for next year's outfit).
I've never been one of those girls to run to the Love Shop and grab the lowest cut bust to match the highest cut skirt line, not that I'm here to be judgmental - I just always go for authenticity.
It's the one day (or entire weekend) where I get to play dress up and pretend to be someone so much more compelling and stimulating than myself.
My friend dragged me into the Love Shop to find something, and I looked but I didn't feel comfortable in anything she recommended (she chose to be an officer), and when I tried on an Avatar unitard she gave me a very unimpressed glare.
This year's plans revolved around Milla Jovovich. Originally I wanted to go with her superb outfit in Resident Evil: Extinction though everyone was encouraging me to go with the red dress.
And now I've transfered into the future!

Leeloo - The Fifth Element

  I'll be trimming the wig and dyeing it orange, as well as buying a nude unitard (most likely, I might get feisty and go without it) and purchasing some gauze and/or white electrical tape because unfortunately John Paul Gaultier is not available to make outfits at my beck-and-call as he is for Jovovich.

I'm nothing if not efficient and my mum insists that once my hair grows out I messily dread it.

I've also written a poem/scene/blurb that I hope you enjoy.

'I watch her shutter away from the rain, her skin tightens in response to the chill and her hands gently glide up and down her arms.

She prances into another room escaping the feeling, leaving me alone to notice what mood nature is really in.

It’s somber and dismal - just how I like it.

The light tap tap tap tap tap as the water hits the roof and falls onto the wooden patio, the clarity in the passing vehicles as they ride through miniscule rivers along the streets, the dripping streams running down the bark of the surrounding plant life.

The bitterness hits me now, my skin involuntarily tightens like a blanket pulling itself closer around me and I stare at the goose bumps while running my fingers over them.

I’m reminded of braille and the feeling is similar to a blind man finding his sight again.

I walk to the windows and open all of them, letting the raw, cool, earthy aromas fill my lungs as if it’s the last.

I stand there for a moment before returning to reality, a gentle sigh pours from my lips, “I like the rain,” I say.'

- with that I bid you all adieu!