josie

I've never owned an automatic. My first car was a piece of crap but flashy (for its time and to 16 year old me) Mustang and it's been Subaru Imprezas since then. My mother taught me well. She only had to give up driving manual because of knee problems. I didn't mind it in traffic too much until I'd snapped my leg. It's all healed and such but it gets... cranky with a lot of clutch work. Especially when I'm in heels.

Either a really big useless old hilarious brightly colored pickup from the 70s or a little also useless old Citroen 2cv because they're hilarious. I love cars that show their age. Shiny restorations are beautiful, but mine- I'd leave some character on it as long as it wasn't dangerous (rusted out frames/chassis). Not purposeful, like a rat rod, but one that shows its life. Course... If we're talking total extravagance... I'm going 1930-32 Bugatti. Or a Dusenberg. Or a fleet of Packards and Pierce Arrows.

2014 stock manual subaru impreza. Barebones rattletrap. The way I like it. Nothing fancy. I have an aux jack- the height of luxury. I love stickshift. That is until my new commute... stop go stop go stop go stop go I'm gonna have absolutely SHREDDED calves. Someday hopefully in the distant far away future I will inherit Fred, my father's 1929 Model A Ford. Fred is a factory original. The engine still turns over. I love Fred. I grew up taking rides in the rumble seat and learning about basic simple engines and such and how not to break your arm on a crankshaft. When Fred is mine, if my father hasn't had time to fix 'er up in retirement (he's almost 73 and still working), I will carry that torch. Fred will be my baby.

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One friend is in remission, which is good. Another friend just discovered she has late stage ovarian. I have watched more than a few friends of mine in their late 20s early 30s fight either breast or ovarian cancer. Not to mention all the other illnesses- I donate to a new Gofundme nearly weekly since everyone's insurance is crap and they're broke from student loans. As if illness isn't enough, my friends have to face the shame of begging their other non-wealthy friends and family to avoid bankruptcy. But that's another lengthy rant that tinges political and thus I will avoid it here. It's led me down a lot of dark paths of thinking and a heavy cloud of fear. And wondering what thing we do in modern times that we'll look at in 50 years with horror akin to lead face powder in Elizabethan times and radium paint in the early 20th. As Derrico said above, live your life, guys. To the others in here facing medical problems, my thoughts are with you.

This is easily the third or fourth time I've seen this exact interaction on this site and I live for it

Yeah. It's so scary. OKC wasn't even part of the high risk area 15 hours ago. When you see it expand into that area, that's where the really big scary stuff happens. They just issued the first tornado watches for the panhandle... and they're all accompanied by PDS- Particularly Dangerous Situation.. you just don't see that said unless they're serious. 3pm is gonna be the big spinup start time I think. Usually the hottest part of the day. Then it'll get a lot worse early evening. I'm live streaming WKTV news 9- OKC- and there's a lady asking the storm chasers if she's safe since she's in a motel with no storm shelter... "where we are now between 3 pm and later tonight is a prime spot for something to happen, please stay tuned and if you can you may want to get out of the area"... The only saving grace is the temps are relatively low throughout the area- can help keep the violence down. I hope.

Hope so. Been a rough few days for tornado alley people, but you guys are used to it. They're cancelling schools/activities left and right in the OKC area. Amazing. I guess after the Moore twister took out some schools they're taking that precaution. I feel for anyone flying through there as well- the turbulence reports are wicked. The flight lines are gapping all over the place as a result. Fascinating to watch- glad I'm not a part of it.

As an art person whose biggest freelance client is patches... this is what I would do. Contrast. Also, be a cheeky way to keep hopes down and then bam, royal blue... As a Sabres fan... my hopes aren't high.

I saw something where Emilia Clarke was saying that playing Dany was so important to her as she survived a couple of brain embolisms during the first season or two and she found strength in the character. And when she read the script as to what happens in the end with King's Landing and all she just totally lost it, so upset, asking her family if they'd hate her for it.

I'm fine with it. I think expectations were tempered by the last season or so, so to be a little miffed/disappointed didn't feel as contrasted. Bran is your typical fantasy novel king. He has The Sight, he's just, he has no need for glory, pretty solid choice. In the books (god i hate even typing that but here I am) there's a lot of foreshadowing now that I think about it. You're reminded constantly he'll never be king because he's got older brothers... but you're also constantly told about his namesakes, Bran the Builder, Bran of the Bloody Blade, Bran the Breaker... Brandon is the OG Stark King name and is deeply steeped in the Old Gods and creation of the 7 kingdoms- great catalysts. (Saw someone on the twitters going on about how his name is so lackluster compared to "Aegon" or other Valyrian sounding names). But if you don't get his backstory and character building like you do in the books, I totally see why folks feel like he was shoved into the slot. They pretty much ignored him for a whole season or so and now the audience has little to no affinity for the guy, so it doesn't go down well. The more I think about it, there were lots of little details that peeve me. Ashes turn to snow, ok.. then... no snow. Sunny. Fine. Ok... Arya on the white horse, this gorgeous apocryphal moment... then NOWHERE in this episode. You even see her wandering around shell-shook, but no horse. And to think I had a tweet about her being Azor Ahai go modestly viral over that... for NOTHING! My internet points! Lot of clunks and awk to get to the final point. Also still mad how they did the Ironborn- my favs in the book. Violent (yet oddly progressive) Viking pirates, steeped in legend and magic. Asha... eh. Definitely not what I envisioned. But Euron.. he's this eldritch horror summoning wizard pirate demon, a great magician, terrifying, evil incarnate, an eyepatch covering a jet black magical eye, a strong beast of a man, a Kraken in human form... legitimately a final boss for any wannabe King or Queen. And we got fuccboi swagger Euron the sleezemuffin. Which is MUCH more what Theon was supposed to be like (pre Reek). And if you're gonna have my second favorite character of the whole thing, lovable big woman loving kissed by fire Tormund Giantsbane, a beastly man who loves Jon as a brother.... WHY DIDN'T HE HAVE ANY LINES? Meaningful looks? Just. Yup. There he be. Bah. Eh whatever. I wanna re-read the books now. I like delving into the GoT wiki. Lots of stuff there. It was a fun multiple year show, it was gorgeous, and I hope GRRM finishes that damn book soon.

So.. I'm a weather and tornado nerd and the predictions for today are the scariest I have ever seen. You don't often see High Risk on the severe outlook maps, let alone that large an area and for as long lasting as they're saying. I'm seeing storm chasers I respect call for Oklahoma to suspend turnpike tolls today in case people get trapped (these things often hit around rush hour). Even the maps for the El Reno and massive Moore tornadoes didn't look like this. So if we have any sabrespacers or their friends/fam in those areas... stay safe, folks, I'm thinking about you today.

I have an aerial show tomorrow. Great, but I managed to get slammed in the head with a trapeze bar last night so now I have a giant bump/bruise and mild concussion... hooray... it's burlesque themed and it's not easy to attempt to be attractive when you're dizzy and rockin' a black and purple goose-egg on your forehead... but after tomorrow, I'm free... I'm free... and then we move. Holy hell it's stressful up in here.

If anyone is interested there is a fund up- for every 10 dollars donated a child will get a backpack full of $100 worth of school supplies. Del Reid has more info on his twitter. Make a note of it being #PANCHOSPACK in his memory. link is here: http://www.theteachersdesk.org/donate/

Ok totally unrelated but I’m on mobile and I fat thumbed/had a scrolling lag and I think I hit the flag icon on someone (1st page). I don’t know what that means and I can’t find it again- so if you got a warning or something weird I’m so sorry and if you know how to undo it, please do. Anyway, continue.

If things don’t go well we have lots of Nightmare on Elm Street gifs to utilize for our haunted dreams of better days. but I think this could be interesting, at least!

He seemed like a great guy. ***** cancer. I like that he hoped for in lieu of flowers, people would donate backpacks full of school supplies. He had fame thrust upon him and he only used it for good. I will happily donate to a fund or charity in his name. Find the good in it, for there is little good in illness. But i won’t deny the media circus surrounding him has felt ghoulish and unsettling at times. You can’t and shouldn’t brand suffering, use it as glue. But I guess that’s the risk any public tragic story will have. There were just a lot of times it felt exploitative to me- fine line between inspiring and exploitative. I hope the media leaves his family alone. The last few days of people updating every gory detail of his days felt wrong. It’ll be hard to find peace with reporters in their faces.

I had buttermilk biscuits with marmalade at Toutant last Friday to celebrate our anniversary and yeah... those things are worthy of their own national holiday. I need to learn how to make them right and not just chuck the Pillsbury ones in the oven...

I love me some Tormund. Him and Hound are my favs. God. What if she has Jamie's baby... not like they were likely using condoms... Lannister Tarth, gold and sapphire. Wow I really kinda hate that. Course, by the same logic, Arya could be carrying a Baratheon. I guess as someone who isn't into the whole idea of having kids, neither of those make me happy but... I could see it. Yeah Dany as conqueror- yep. Dothraki were known as merciless hordes. The Unsullied are essentially robotic death machines who do what their leader says (Daenerys). Why everyone was so shocked pikachu face about this amuses me. They said Cersei would rule over a kingdom of ashes if that's what it took but wellp.. it's Dany. Ashes look like snow, lots of symbolism of her bringing the endless winter... I'm actually enjoying all of that (lots of hiroshima/pompeii/911 feel to this last one, now we go into the post apocalypse). It's all still largely about the human condition to me- there will not be a happy ending because humanity is essentially flying by the seat of its pants. And the people really upset about that... well, this is the wrong series for them.

Yeah we gotta tie back in the other starks and asha (yara)... I feel like Sansa's gonna be more important here soon. I saw an idea that her and Tyrion, since they're still married most likely, take the throne, not a love match but a "well someone's gotta do it" sort of thing. Irony being everyone kills for the damn throne and it ends up being a "you take it. no you. no YOU." No clue. Honestly, speculation just kinda makes me queasy, I wanna see what they do, and then if GRRM changes the book ending due to crowd reactions haha

1) maybe not, they'll be tribal a.f. as they were before any great unifications because that's often how history goes... 2) Not sure- there's some deep magic there that's yet to come out I think 3) Dany either gets murdered or kills herself... otherwise no idea. I heard that an alternate ending to this episode was Arya taking Jamie's face and dying in the hold after killing Cersei... but she lives. 4) Maybe. But Jon can control dragons too.. so it'll be like that scene in Air Bud where the baddy and the good guy are trying to get the dog to come to one of them... 5) Hound is dead and I honestly don't care anymore. My 2 main takeaways: 1) for seasons folks have been screaming for blood/torching King's Landing. It happens and they're all ? So I enjoy showing us how ***** up the viewers are. Because war is awful, good guys aren't often good to a fault, and villains don't always deserve epic deaths. And those scenes made me feel super panicky and awful, much like the battle for winterfell- which I also really enjoyed. 2) in the books (yes I know but I swear I'm not saying this to be an annoying neckbeard) Dany is like 12-13 years old at the start. So by this point she'd be late teens maybe? I felt it was heavily implied that the madness developed in late teens/early twenties much like schizophrenia (for example). GRRM set it up as a long fuse situation. As someone who lived in fear of that exact thing until I made it into my late 20s, it really stuck out to me. It was done in the show but maybe not to the same extent. Sometimes it's a tipping point you need- in her it was fear, isolation, and when the city surrendered and the cityfolks weren't chanting hosanna in her name and loving her like other smallfolk had... bam. I wish they'd done a better job with this, personally. But also, a lot of viewers were totally into thinking she was some perfect white savior paragon of virtue (lots of projection here- people I know be like "oh i would totally be mother of dragons and become the beloved leader of a super tough horde! live laugh love!")... so I kinda like the duality. I've never been a fan of Dany, books or show. Partly because the actress has two expressions, and I just never liked the character's setup.

Yeah.... that shop in particular with the handsy piece of ***** was like that sometimes. It's like he felt he had to impress people with his edgy choices. Had a motorcycle (piece of crap that was dripping oil) in the front window. Nah bro. Pretty sure that's a questionable health code violation... My friend wanted to get out for years. Then I go to other shops and it's professional and chill and I'm like... oh. Yeah. That guy was a piece of crap. Tattoo shops don't HAVE to be that way. (also side note- he'd draw out the design with marker and it would look super good. then he'd ink.. and it just looked like crap. Always amazed me- his roughs were actually kinda gorgeous and his finals were awful). My other friend who tats in Rochester used to be that way too. Got my first tattoo with him- you pick a VHS out of his mini Blockbuster- I think we were watching Pet Sematery. I used to partially own the "studio" as my painting nook/threw art shows there (cheese and wine? hell no. cheap pizza and genny cuz we're broke!). We were in the Hungerford. But I'd walk in and I could hear the grindcore metal two floors down depending on his client that day haha He's at Atomic Roc Tattoo in the village gate now- the owner of that shop is effing talented (Laura I think?). He's getting back into it/getting his touch back after a couple years off. Unique stuff, though. Neat guy.

She's my bestie. She did my cicada/peonies up top. Anyone at White Tiger is pretty good. Just don't go to Voodoo Monkey. She used to work there- I'm actually not sure they're still open- old boss got in major deep ***** for assaulting lone female clients. In Buffalo I recommend SOS (Taylor Heald is just unmatched amazing and is actually opening an art gallery here soon) and Cowpoke. In Ithaca, check out my friend Amy Jiao. She'll only do black/grey work but it's good.

There's a looooot of fools out there! Plenty who assume it's only for edgy punk wannabe kitchen table scratchers who do drugs and say the good lord's name in vain... My mom's like "it's such a shame your friend is wasting her talent, hopefully she'll get a real job someday"... and I'm like, damn, she has health insurance and owns a house and is married and supports all of that and her husband who's kind of a deadbeat in the job dept... yeah, sure mom. Meanwhile I'm over here unmarried and renting because I can't afford any of that and I have 1 full and 2 part time jobs... I will say that many of my friends and now several of my students have become tattoo artists. If you're good (and illustrators usually are) and easy to work with, you can make a really good living. My one friend is making 4x what I am and travels around the world, lives in a huge gorgeous house. She only started a couple years ago- she's just so bloody good at it that she can make the big bucks/be in constant demand for her specific style and designs rather than sit in a shop waiting for walk-ins. That being said.. there are some super sh!tty tattoo artists out there.

Yeah, that brings up a good point- not all tattoo artists are created the same... but if you find one whose work you dig, and you come to them with your ideas, part of the cost/fee is them drawing up ideas for you. Within reason, of course. I think there's a common misconception that you have to come to them with your design all figured out already, or pick a design out of their offered flash. But a good tat artist is more than a glorified permanent tracer and shader- they'll design something that hits the spot and works on whatever part of your body you choose. And they're worth the big money you pay for it, too, depending on what you're getting. Oh god, one of my friends is actually on all those bad tattoo/tattoo fail sites... he has the Linux penguin, a windows and a mac symbol with a celtic symbol made out of cables. It's... really bad. I just found it with a quick google search too... so as long as you didn't do that, you're golden. Same guy has some forearm tats of sysadmin symbols or somesuch and they actually look really good. He learned. Speaking of nerdy tats- one of my really good friends is a nuclear engineer and has a bunch of nuclear related and quantum physics equations up and down his arm. Looks pretty neat. Other arm is Goya's Saturn Devouring his Son and some Japanese demon masks. I love the Goya one. It's done beautifully. But yeah, he says a lot of the PhD super tech genius people he works with are covered in tattoos- I would've thought that was a field you "keep it covered up" for. Guess not!