Warhead On Legs

( 日本語 )

By the time I'm bored with Japanese and have moved on to something else everyone is going to know what a few certain basic characters mean. Just from the cut text.

Also kind of glad that I thought to go back and fix a kanji from one thing to another. That could have gotten confusing on review.

Oogh. Wheezing less, but still constricted and kind of wheezing. Do not want. Still. Need to figure out if I'm going to be on my own tonight or not. Fortunately the boy is online.

I did, at least, get a fair bit of wicking done today, although writing the things I actually need to write is still going slow. Not impossibly slow, but getting to the point where I need to look at myself askance and then buckle down. This irks me. It is irksome. Fortunately I think most of the majorly upsetting shows are both done for the season and have now moved to different nights again, so I won't end up getting hammered by a double dose of either "this sucks goats and it shouldn't" or "A;KJHGAD;KGHJSDGFJHSDFGHDFGE" Which will be good. Still need to catch up on the rest of TV. Still need to finish Prison Break.

I'm not even sure what to think of Prison Break so far. I find it very hard to keep my attention on the screen when I'm watching it, and at the same time I find myself going "Noooo! Does he die? I don't want him to die, he can't die! He's got a family to go home to! Sucre you fucking moron! T-BAG DON'T YOU TOUCH THAT KID I WILL NUT YOU WITH A RUSTY DULL RAZOR BLADE." Ahem. Which is an odd reaction to have to a show that can't seem to hold your physical attention, or something. Maybe it's a train wreck. I can't look at it but I can't look away either.

Anyway, ( Spoilers? Ish? ) Oh. And Not!Lisbon is the BIGGEST IDIOT EVER OH MY GOD WOMAN. And the only other good-aligned main female irritates me. Haven't figured out why. On the other hand, this is a show that follows six to eight people coming out of a men's prison so I'm not entirely surprised. And on the third hand, where's my shows happening in women's prisons, dawg?

Anyway. I'm on disc 2 of Season 2 right now, and ... we'll see. I can't remember what the episode title was, though. More as that develops?

( 日本語 )

Various and sundry things going through my head right now, not the least of which is, hey, dumbass. Switch the keyboard back to English before you try to write a journal entry. Ahem. If you ever find yourself getting random comments from me in other alphabets, that’s why. Or with z’s where y’s should be, etc. Also going through my head right now is an overwhelming urge for sushi. I’m hungry.

But apart from that I’m also thinking about what I’ve been doing lately. Primping myself up. Making myself up. Playing with hair and face and nails and decorating myself to an extent I haven’t done regularly since at least before I turned sixteen. And even then when I did it it was more for shock value, play makeup, dressing like a demented black and white clown rather than subtle, every day makeup. Makeup to be wild rather than be beautifully dramatic. Partly it was me trying to be a rebel and partly it was that my mother and my grandmother both, who raised me, never had a use for makeup. Not that they said it was a symbol of women’s slavery to standards of beauty and expectations of men, nor that they said I was beautiful enough without it (although they did) or anything else. They just never bothered with it. So I never learned. None of my girlfriends or female relatives bothered with it either, except that we used it for the stage. So I never learned.

And now I’m learning. At thirty, which kind of amuses me because it’s supposed to be such a milestone birthday, and maybe this is a milestone. Learning how to conform to Western society’s idea of what people should do to be beautiful. Or, learning how to do the last few bits of it. Finally.

The funny thing was, I was doing fine without it. People were flirting with me without it. People hit on me, I got dates, I’ve never really wanted for the opportunity to be with someone even long-term-relationship status nonwithstanding. Dude, I’ve been eyed up by celebrities I have a crush on. If that doesn’t tell you that you have some kind of beauty or attractiveness, what would? But there’s always been this nagging feeling that, this is something I should know how to do. Maybe just because in some jobs there’s the expectation that most people would wear it, maybe because I do like to fancy up occasionally and have never been able to on my own. Maybe just because it’s a skill set that’s not among my arsenal of many and it irritates me that I don’t have it. When thousands, millions of women who are stupider than I am do. Now that I think about it like that, that probably really irritated me. I’m smart, I’m clever, I can learn real fast, etc, and I never was able to learn how to do this thing that many, many people who aren’t so clever can do. And I never wanted to admit that I didn’t know how (ignorance is not stupidity, people, say it with me because sometimes I need to remember this too) so I never bothered to learn.

Well, now I’m learning. And I’m practicing. And I will get really fucking good at it, because I have that capability and potential. I just have to exercise it.

I don’t believe makeup is necessary for beauty. I wouldn’t say I never have, but I definitely didn’t grow up with the assumption that a woman is neither dressed nor beautiful without a little color on her face. Starting around maybe my late teens to early twenties I did start realizing that beauty and attractiveness don’t solely have to do with your physicality; there’s an attitude element involved as well. Both the attitude that makes you hold your head up and your back straight and the attitude that says yeah, I’m here. I look like this. I’m comfortable with this.

It took me a while to figure it out and even longer to figure it out strongly enough to implement it. Beauty has the most to do with figuring out what works for you, and what your strengths and advantages are, and playing it up to the hilt. It’s that simple. And there’s still no shame in not knowing it. Or not knowing what your strengths are. That’s why we try, we try different things until we figure out what makes us shine, and then we do them. What makes us shine and what makes us happy, and really, those two things are often the same. When we’re happy, we’re beautiful. We know we’re beautiful or we’re just not thinking about it, we’re too busy being happy. And people like happy people. Trufax. So if you’re happy, you’ll be attractive to others too.

Makeup and hair care and a pretty hair style and a pretty frock and absolutely kickass highlights (yes, this still thrills me) can help you feel beautiful. And really, there’s nothing wrong with that. Even just being clean can help you feel beautiful, as anyone else who’s put in a sixteen hour day of lifting, carrying, packing, unpacking, and shit like that, and gone home to have a shower and change into non-sweaty soft clothes can tell you. Or, you know, anyone who’s done anything like that. What makes you feel confident, and happy, and beautiful, and self assured. Be it makeup and hair care, a quick shower, a good solid pair of boots, a very fine hat. What makes you feel good about yourself.

So, I’m doing this to add on a skill set that previously eluded me and irritated me with its elusiveness. I’m doing this to correct a mistake made in pride years ago. And because getting all painted amuses me. And because yes, it makes me feel beautiful. And it feels good to know how. I’ve been cracking some jokes about being a real live girl at last but, really? I was a woman long before this. And knowing it is what makes me a grown-up woman, or a beautiful woman, or even a beautiful girl. Not being able to put on eye makeup without looking like a clown. Not even being able to speak six different languages or write 10,000 words in a day or recite pi or sew a dress or cook a meal, none of that makes me a grown-up or a real live girl. Knowing who I am and what I am, and that it’s okay to be who and what I am and in fact it’s pretty damn kickass, that’s what makes me a real live girl. The rest, it’s just window dressing. Shiny, pretty, sparkly window dressing. And sometimes goopy. And tricky to work with. Stupid stuff.

( Russian )

Oogh. Still didn't get nearly as much writing done as I wanted to this week. Got some world building done and a shitton of cleaning done, and I need to remind myself that that's just as valid. When did I get to putting so much stock in having my word count that high? Oi. Bad Jag. No overblown ego for you.

Actually, along those lines, adjusting my writing schedule to what I can get done today. Which... actually isn't that much adjusting. Huh. Okay then! I feel way better about that, now.

I do need to get some decent amount of sleep, though, and I have no idea how I'm going to manage that. I know part of it this past week is because I've been trying to cram a full week of writing, cleaning, and work into the days that just don't have enough time for that, and that makes it hard. On the plus side, tonight is for cleaning. Hell, today may be for going home early and then cleaning, if I can manage it. And then, since I don't have game, tonight is for cleaning and the weekend is for sleeping in and writing and sewing. This actually ought to be a fairly relaxing weekend. I hope. It would make it my first relaxing weekend in a while. But I made a fair bit of headway on the cleaning even ahead of this weekend, so that ought to make things easier.

My god, Supernatural... didn't quite redeem itself for the absolute shite of the last many episodes, but it actually made me feel as though people could write the boys again. Still have no idea what's up with the angels, but... I kind of feel like, not being raised Christian or having any such background, it's less personal to me? The entire Halloween episode with their constant butchering of Samhain-as-demon-name and everything else grated like steel wool on skin, and maybe that's how people are feeling about the angels-and-demons thing. If so, gods, I'm so sorry. Considering that's going on so much longer, but last night's episode? Thank god. That's my boys, a strong showing from Sam and an actual arc from Dean instead of a puddle of whiny, asinine goo. An actual arc from a point of despair to a point of, well, clawing his way up, but hey.

Also, Misha was badass. And hot. But Misha's always hot.

This weekend will probably also be a weekend of finishing Carnivale, or at least the Tommy Dolan episodes, because Robert Knepper has migrated to looking like T-Bag from Prison Break in my head, and as hot as that is, it's not Laedecker. But it is hot. And there needs to be more of it, a lot more. And he reminds me of someone I wrote (other than Johnny, yes) in some way but I can't think of who, now.

Also, I think one of my characters in the Martine novel is going to wind up having a bigger role than I expected/scripted him to have. Whoops. Three guesses, those of you who are reading, which character it is. The first two probably don't count.