Orphaned bat-babies are rescued and given binkies!!! Cute Overload tells all.

this so aptly describes how i feel about my husband:



i'm so wrapped up in him, i don't know which of us is which sometimes. his skin is so familiar, it's almost like it's my own.

love is an interesting thing. i don't want it to be too comfortable, i don't want to be thoughtless of this gift - i want to remember its strangeness and newness and to cherish it in actions and words.

don't be careless of your loved ones. make sure they know how you feel. remember why you love them and remind them why you love them.

Broken Image Photography was on hand last Friday night taking photos of the live performances, so here's a huge quantity of pix for your perusal. i'm astonished by how fat i've gotten! seriously, i knew i'd put on a ton of weight but it's really depressing seeing it all hanging off my limbs and pudging up my face. sigh.




i LOVE this picture! here's what's happening right now:

love songs kept close to my heart
like pretty lies they start
to creep inside and devour my mind
love songs kept close to my heart





( i'll cut the rest to spare you all )

so, overstock.com has the best deals on rugs of anyplace i've found thus far. there are two between which i'm debating and i can't for the life of me decide!

here's one that's more traditional, but more scrolly than flowery and not nearly as busy as most Turkish rug designs, with the added bonus of no brown or orange in the design: clicky

then there's this one, which is a bit cheaper and has purple in it, but is a lot more modern in design (and i can't quite tell what the colors are, exactly - is that plum and brown? eggplant and olive? it only says 'earth tones' in the description): clicky again

the tile looks a heck of a lot more contemporary than our old taupe carpet, so suddenly my pretty black-with-red-antiquing scrolly china cabinet (the red rubbed antiquing is much more visible in person) looks a bit out of place. i'm concerned that adding a modern rug would only serve to make it look worse and that i'd end up buying a new china cabinet in the end. i'd like to avoid this since we've already earmarked all extra money for new bedroom furniture (desperately need to replace our current fake wood veneer hand-me-down dresser and nightstands, even if just with cheap IKEA things).

however, i can't decide if getting the more traditional rug would only serve to add one more thing to the room that would look out of place, or if it would tie things together. my style is "dark, classy eclectic:" i have Chinese and Japanese-inspired decor, along with frilly old-fashioned touches like the china cabinet and ornate silverplate boxes, antique-looking bits and pieces like skeleton key and lock-plate shadowboxes, dark-themed pieces of my own artwork, and standard spooky things like an eggplant velvet couch and black-and-purple drapery.

i believe i can only return those rugs to Overstock if they're unopened, so i don't want to order and then be stuck with something i don't like; how can you tell if a rug is suitable for your room without opening it?

sigh.

this is a horrible photo taken in the morning with no light, so there were only limited color corrections i could make in photoshop (for reference, the wall with the mirror on it is a medium grey; it looks purple in the photo). i'll get a better pic when we've gotten the living room put back together.



for reference, the store's picture of the tile:


hurray for tile!

there will be a rug under the coffee table and that mirror really has to get replaced with some art; the small window needs a curtain and a swag. other than that, living room's pretty much done.

Ganked from agonybliss

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

Look at the list and for each book you've read put a 1, for each book you have seen the movie version of put a 2 and for those you intend to read put a 3.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 1, 2
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 1, 2
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 1, 2
4 Harry Potter series - 1, 2
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 1, 2
( i'll cut the rest to be nice :) )

Because you wanted to see this on your friends page one more time,





Come see us! First live show in months! You'll like it! We'll play lots of songs off the upcoming album! It's only $6!

EDIT: ENTERTAINMENT CENTER IS GONE. THX!


We have an extra entertainment center. Okay, we have two, but one is all beat up and crappy and the other's in pretty good shape.

I've tried selling the nicer one and people are flaking on me, which really drives me crazy, especially when we take time out of our lives and arrange for them to come over and get it and then they decide not to show or even call.

SO.

Anyone local want to buy a black metal entertainment center? We're only asking $25. It's got a ton of storage space. It's in very reasonable condition (a couple dings here and there, nothing too noticeable).

( picture under here )

I would jump for joy if someone wanted to come take it off my hands before Saturday, seeing as how it's in the middle of the living room floor at the moment and we'd have to take it apart to get it upstairs and back out of the way.

And hey, if you wanted the other beat up entertainment center you could just have it for free. I don't have photos of it, but it's your standard black-veneer pressboard thingie with the TV cubby off to the left, glass doors over shelves on the right, and additional open storage underneath the tv/shelf area with a cubby with a door on it. It's seen better days, has candle wax on the top and is a bit saggy, but what do you want for free? No photo of that one.

Save me from living room clutter! Buy my entertainment center!!!

Seamstress extraordinaire kambriel is offering a sale to help fund an unexpected move: her landlord just decided to sell the house she's been renting and she only has until the end of the month to relocate herself and her business. Check out her sale post here and buy her things!

tonight i had a religious experience: i saw the Cure in concert.

the moment the music started i burst into tears, so overwhelmed by the beauty and the pulse of the bass through my feet and the familiar feel of the swirling guitars enveloping me. i cried so many times tonight, laughed, screamed, held my husband's hand. i spent two and a half hours in sheer bliss, feeling like an old friend had welcomed me home and that maybe life is worth living after all. i'll never be able to describe this feeling and i'll never forget it.

kambriel, they played Hot Hot Hot and i thought of our Cure-aoke in the car and wished you were there with me to sing along.

i wrote down the set list as best i could; didn't recognize some of the new stuff and couldn't remember the name of two that i already knew. :/

i leaned against my husband as they played Lovesong, which was the first song we danced to as husband and wife.

Robert's voice was smooth and clear and poignant, more beautiful than the CDs. i was worried because sometimes the live shows (that i've heard recorded anyway) aren't the best.

i just... i have no words. it was amazing.

HAHA!


Monthly Calendar for Robert Smith

more song chart memes

go to www.graphjam.com and amuse yourself. now.

thought it would be a good idea to take some pix of Mister Vincent since we haven't done so in like a year, and i didn't realize the camera was set to Movie Mode.

so here you have me spouting some embarrassing baby talk because i didn't know it was recording sound, and Vincent being cute because that's what he does 24/7:



he loves to play on/near his bed (that's the stripey thing on the floor).

he's doing an excellent job of keeping me company today. he just got a bath and is drying himself by rubbing his little wet sides against my legs.

since it's officially the 13th, i can now say:

Happy birthday kambriel!

you're an absolute treasure and i cherish your friendship. thanks for being born! :)

thanks to everyone who made foundation suggestions. the Rimmel and Revlon were both much too dark/pink for my skin, but i visited Sephora today and came out with a winner (fingers crossed!)...

Cargo brand oil-free foundation in #10! it's super pale, not too pink, oil-free, buildable medium coverage, and only $28 (and you get more than an ounce, so that makes the price even better).

it's really quite pale, so if necessary i can mix it with a little MAC select spf 15 NW15 to make it more work-appropriate.

i had a very depressing foundation search until i found this, let me tell you. Laura Mercier had a pale, yellowish-neutral shade that was lovely but $42, which i just couldn't bear. everything else was way too dark and way too pink. i think i annoyed the poor girl who was leading me through the cosmetic counters at Nordstrom. :/ i actually went all the way through Sephora without finding the Cargo (i guess someone was standing in front of it because i missed their display entirely) but the lovely young man working as a greeter sensed my overwhelming distress and led us right to it. success, maybe!

of course the real test will be wearing it for a couple of days and seeing if it makes me break out or turns odd colors or gets greasy quickly. all of you with nice skin, love it and appreciate it! i didn't know what i had until it was gone - my skin was impeccable until i turned 25 and since then i've been plagued with awful acne and terribly sensitive skin. ugh.

http://sofblackstars.livejournal.com/profile?mode=full
http://xdarkstarx.livejournal.com/profile?mode=full

wtf?

Hey, i'm in need of some help.

I just found out that my foundation, MAC Select SPF 15 in NC15, has been discontinued (they're still making Select SPF 15, just the NC15 shade is gone). I loved the Select SPF 15's medium coverage because it was buildable, applied smoothly, and gave a matte finish without being cakey. I tried the NW15 in that formula, but it's a little too dark.

I went to the MAC counter to investigate my other options, but none of their other formulas work for me (StudioFix fluid's NC15 is too yellow and all other shades are too dark; the new Mineralize line is shimmery; Studio Stick in NC15 is pretty good but gets used up too fast to justify spending that kind of money; StudioFix powder has talc and will make one break out; etc. etc.).

Problem is, i have really really sensitive skin and will break out at the least provocation. i also have really oily skin and desperately need oil-free foundation.

Mineral foundations tend to oxidize strangely on me and/or look patchy and/or look shiny and/or not provide enough coverage.

I have had bad luck looking at drugstore foundation (the last one i tried was L'Oreal True Blend, which was pale enough but made me break out and also was a bit patchy).

I looked at a variety of higher-end lines at Ulta - Smashbox, Studio Gear, Urban Decay, Bloom, Lola, Too Faced - and didn't find a shade pale enough.

So here's what i'm looking for: a foundation that's good for sensitive skin, quite pale, oil-free, matte finish, with buildable coverage. I'll gladly pay around $25 per bottle, which is what i was paying for the MAC, but anything higher than $30 makes me die inside.

Any suggestions? I know i'm being ridiculously picky. :/


crossposted, sorry

on my lunch break at work, but i thought i would hop on to say:

Reliquary's second album, "Path of Hours," will be released June 10, 2008!!!

more later.

well, we're back from our vacation and i'm feeling like i need a vacation to recover from it.

things i did:

~climbed Dunn's River Falls
~snorkeled at a coral reef and at Stingray City
~kissed a wild stingray
~ran away (swam away?) from a freaking huge 5-foot-long eel, omg
~wandered a ruined Mayan city and climbed a pyramid (there are tiny little leaf-nosed bats living in the small temple room at the top)
~ate way too many 5-course fancy dinners
~applied most of a bottle of SPF 70 sunscreen and avoided tanning
~saw comedy performances by Al Katz and Rollin' Jay Moore (good), a magic/comedy performancy by John Ferrentino (okay), and a comedy hypnotism performance by Fernandez (possibly the worst-spent hour of my life)
~sang karaoke with my mom
~enjoyed spending time with my family, who are hilarious and kind-hearted


things i didn't do:

~sleep well
~actually relax at all
~avoid seasickness
~enjoy wearing pants


things i recommend:

~never eat "Chinese" food at the Atlanta airport, as they have apparently only ever seen photos of Chinese food and thus have no idea how to cook it or how it should taste
~if you make an effort to take things like hand sanitizer and tissues with you on a trip, remember to pack them into your purse when you know you're going to need them, instead of leaving them in your stateroom where they do no good at all
~pack a bottle of water or two in your suitcase, as the cruise ship charges $4 for a liter of bottled water
~take advantage of every portrait opportunity on a cruise ship - where else can you get a million portrait sittings for free?

i need help. 

i need to find out where an IP is located. i have the address and i've done a whois so i know it's a Qwest IP address. I've gone to Qwest and they won't give me any more information without a subpoena, obviously. 

any suggestions? this is for a work-related problem but i don't think we're going to end up going to the police since the offense, as far as i can tell at this point, was relatively minor, i.e. no actual stealing or financial skulduggery, just unauthorized and inappropriate entry into a web-interface software system and some deleting of info.

and yeah, i'm fairly sure it wasn't a random hacker, since the actions they took inside the system were extremely specific.