A first

I tore the first page out of the tiny orange New Testament Bible that the Evangelicals pass out on street corners. Full of dew and age, it's sat in the pocket of my Volvo door for years. The first page described the truth and worth of The Word of God. I ripped it in half and used it to roll for the first time.

"It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter. Here Paradise is restored. Heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed."

It said on the inside, covered by my first shredded buds. How befitting.

Hotel/Office Facial Scrub

It's getting on to winter, and my skin gets horrifically dry and flaky. But so many moisturizers also make me oily and get pimples. It's a constant problem. So when I found myself in a hotel in Derby, UK the other weekend, I had to improvise. I made up this facial scrub/mask from things they often provide in hotel rooms, and also in your office's coffee area, so you can have a quick and simple treatment whenever!


In my hotel, I took one of the little cups they provide, put in a squirt of moisturizer (you can use one you already have or if the hotel provides you with some, use that), the leaves from a complimentary tea bag, half and half milk from one of the complimentary milk jiggers, two complimentary packets of sugar, and I put in a bit of yoghurt leftover from breakfast. Mixing these together, I laid it all over my face (except for the eyes) as a mask.


The moisturizing cream helps it keep from running. The tea leaves pull out a lot of impurities in your skin as well as oil, and provides a more even complexion. The milk helps add nutrients and moisture, as well as the yoghurt if you choose to use it.


So then I waited about ten minutes to let it work its magic. And as I washed it off, I rubbed it in, using the rough tea leaves and sugar as a scrub, getting rid of blackheads and dead skin.


I have to say, this recipe definitely made my complexion much nicer and my skin very smooth, but it did not considerably help my dry skin, because five minutes later some dry patches were still noticeable. I would recommend for those with similar skin difficulty to put on some face moisturizer after doing the mask/scrub.


But overall a very good plan for that little treatment on the go or if you really need a little something in the middle of your workday!

London

Hello again, interwebs!

I have not written to you in ever so long. Probably because I didn't think much of my life was interesting enough for a blog post. But things are picking up, so I thought I would share.

After finishing my BA in Dramatic Arts at Centre College, I made the bold choice to have a legal marriage and move to London, UK to be with my incredible man, Jofre. Also to be in London, amongst the buzz of European theatre and multicultural wonder would be mind-blowing. I came to work in London theatre, to find a company that I could call home and be happy to go to work in the mornings and work late at night to prepare for a show.

But life doesn't quite work the way we'd like.

Aaaand I'll edit this later since I have to go back to work. Such is office life.

Mustachedness - Day 7

Sunday: The Hollywood

Mustachedness - Day 6

Saturday: The Grandpa

Mustachedness - Day 5

Friday: The Sheriff

Mustachedness - Day 4

I have been remiss and failed to update on the day every day. Therefore, I will do catchup posts all tonight. Yes, there are pictures of all of them.

Thursday: The Weasel

Mustachedness - Day 3

Hello hello!

Today's most excellent lipskin cover-up is called "The Bruiser" and is quite menacing. Although, I must say its fluffiness causes it to appear a bit Groucho Marx-ish. Today I did not see many people out and about, so the only reactions I received were from friends, therefore they simply said "Very nice" and "What's this one called?" Perhaps some more luck tomorrow.

BUT this posting does not come without a good anecdote.

Last night, after an exhaustive but epical painting experience with many friends, a few of us went to the local Huddle House to fill up. This was about 1:30 in the morning, and giggles were high and mighty. A couple of them hadn't seen yesterday's 'stache, so they asked to see. I pulled it out and unfortunately it fell on the floor... sticky side down... "NOOOO!!!!" I yelled to the fluorescent heavens! [Note: Do not ever, under any circumstances, place anything that has touched the floor of a Huddle House to your face. Just sayin'] But never fear! I put it in a most perfect location:

Mustachedness - Day 2

Today's nosetickler is called "The Square," most likely because it's rectangular-ish. But no, I'm not Hitler, much to the disappointment of many friends who were itching to salute me, palms-down. Sitting in Victorian Characters class, the perfect place to wear a mustache. We shall see how things go. At least it more readily matches my hair color!

3 Hours A Day Keep Boring at Bay

So after my first day as a mustached woman, I discovered a few very interesting things:

1.) Breathing through your nose causes the adhesive to wear away from your sweating upper lip (them things are warm!!!).

2.) You can only be brave enough for a certain period of time because,

3.) People are INCREDIBLY uncomfortable when you do something strange. After walking through campus, sitting in class and getting food at the Grill, I realized that people would notice the mustache and then purposefully look away. They didn't want to see it because it was weird. Of the hundred or so people who saw me today, I got two "Like your mustache"-es, one "Why are you wearing a mustache?" and one three-minute-long stare.

My point was to see how people could or could not take me seriously, but instead I uncovered a truth about our society: we do not want to see what we don't want/expect.

Therefore because of discomfort and lack of extra glue, I am only going to wear my appointed flavor-saver for three hours a day, beginning when I leave my room. Tomorrow's soup-catcher is entitled, "The Square."

Mustachedness - Day 1

Hello friends and fellow mustache lovers!

In my great quest for drama in our everyday lives, I am embarking on a week-long adventure of mustachedness to bring strangeness and wonder to those around me. This week of performance art involves very few technical requirements: me, and a mustache - to be precise, seven different mustaches!

I discovered at the fantastic little hippie store in Lexington, KY, SQecial Media, a week's supply of self-adhesive 'staches including the following lip caterpillars:

Monday: The Hero

Tuesday: The Square

Wednesday: The Bruiser

Thursday: The Weasel

Friday: The Sheriff

Saturday: The Grandpa

Sunday: The Hollywood

As today is Monday, I've begun my week as The Hero, proudly supporting facial hair everywhere (but mostly on the face), fighting crime against bald upper lips!

This piece should certainly question how seriously we take ourselves. More to come.

LOVE,

~Vivian

I miss the man

I miss the man whose clothes I wish I could fold.

His shirts and socks and boxer briefs,

the softness of his black tees and trou.

I miss the man whose stains and holes I can forgive.

I wish I could miss missing him.

Old

An old soul and young eyes.

What more could one ask for?

World peace, clean sheets, something to eat.

Clean water.

Someone to tell you, and you, 'I love you.'

To look in the mirror and empathize with what you see

and not hate it. Just accept it.

I want you to want something.

I don't care what you believe, for God's or anyone else's sake,

just believe it. Just believe it.

I want you to be angry. I want you to be opressed.

I will opress you if I have to, just to make you feel.

Just to make you think.

You're not thinking.

Pieces

Mara Jade is coming along slowly but surely. I've made the white hood, bought a black tank top with brass chain and zipper, Dom is working on goggles, I am in the process of painting my laser gun, and have a decent idea of how to make the lightsaber backpack. I even found at the incredible Starvation Army an effing amazing dark brown leather trenchcoat complete with genuine distress. It's awesome, I must say. Now for riding pants, boots, shin/kneeguards, a thigh holster, gauntlets and the lightsaber itself.

Below is my Photoshop-colored version of the costume, which gives a better sense of the thing as a whole. Enjoy!

PDA

I must say how incredibly happy it makes me to see lovely young couples in the throws of passion. But seriously, if you are in a social situation in which you would normally be talkative, energetic and entertaining/enjoyable company, you should NOT - repeat NOT - be sitting on a couch for hours with your mate trying to subtly touch and kiss one another. This is SO boring for the rest of the company and is annoying to those who are single and those not with their significant other. So please be courteous. If you must be passionate, it is encouraged in short bursts. Instead of concentrating on the soft curve of her thigh/buttocks try to make conversation, crack a joke or in general be part of the group.

Steampunk Mara Jade

Yeah, went on a bit of an insanity trip today. Sitting at my computer an hour before my Victorian Characters class, thinking, "Should I read the book that I'm really far behind in? Or should I start sketching this costume?" I, with shagrin, must confess that I chose the latter... and then took the sketch to class and kept drawing. Yeah yeah yeah... I didn't pay a lot of attention, but in my defense I had nothing to say as I hadn't read the material for the day... admittedly because I sketched instead of reading. An infinite cycle.

ANYWAY I'll stop rambling and get back to the point. The lovely, time-consuming, distracting sketch that I sketched was my inspired idea of a steampunk Mara Jade costume.

I had been thinking of making a Mara Jade costume to wear to Celebration V, and to enter the 501st Legion, but had never put the plan in motion. But in my imaginings of the costume, I collected a lot of image research that I pulled from for this design.

Well, long and short, here's the design and a few bits and bobs that will appear somewhere in it.

Steampunk

I love the idea of Steampunk, and if only I had the money I would be seriously into costuming this stuff! Victorian garb is so sexy and intricate and gorgeous! Not to mention the sci-fi aspect, which tickles my fancy to no end. I believe I have found the answer to my long-difficult query as to how-on-earth make/find steampunk objet d'art "for cheap" : How-To

By Googling "How To Steampunk" I stumbled over this site (above) and others. Woohoo! Brass goggles, here I come! Next will be a bustle made of scraps!

Blogging and language

I heard somewhere that blogging is really about a stream of consciousness. It's not meant to be a well thought out, well-structured or developed essay. It's not a novel. It's not a work of art. Hell, it's not even a fully cohesive thought if we're going for stream of consciousness. If so, then aren't we just spiraling further and further into the sespitt of modern cultural loss of intelligence? By this I refer to our current use of the English language.

Seriously, do people ever think about how disgusting their use of language is nowadays? Text messages using numbers for letters and sometimes whole words. And not to forget the complete loss of concept of capitalization (unless the author is A.) excited B.) screaming or C.) retarded). "Are you coming to the party tonight? It's going to be amazing!" becomes "r u cumin 2 da prty 2nite? its gunna b AMZING!!!!" 

Really? REALLY? Have we sunk so low? Has the English language become so abominable that we refuse to acknowledge any of its fundamental rules?

Psychologists and psychobiologists have conducted studies for years on the cognitive developmental nature of language. Language is inherent. Its nature is imbedded in our biological makeup; we as humans have innate functions to create and use language. Numerous studies of children's comprehension of their elders and their reactions to the languages they hear have concluded that language is not simply learned via mimic, but it is part of our natural processes to develop language in the first place. So what does this mean? Language is incredibly important.

And because it is important, shouldn't it be respected? And because it should be respected, shouldn't we follow the rules of this highly developed language and utilize the incredibly beautiful and complex vocabulary and syntax with which we have been gifted?

I end this pseudo-rant in the words of Henry Higgins