josie

:beer: cheers to all! i didn't get a chance to say something in the CT thread to qwk, but those were some touching/solid posts. Best to you, qwk.

Here here! Beards! I'm honestly surprised how much I've fallen in love with SJ over the last couple of years. Despite their "choking" failures, I guess I've never watched a team that just seemed so... fun? They're just so good and goofy and a joy to watch. They have this marvelous underdog feel despite being a very strong team. I love Jumbo Joe, I love Burns, I love Pavelski. I'll be cheering hard for the Shorks this year.

I'm just kind of a mess. I've struggled with body image issues since I was about 12. I'd been an underweight kid because of my heart problem, then one day, I woke up a lot bigger than everyone else around me. I became the butt of jokes, bullying, stalking. Notes in my locker, websites made about me. "Oh honey, it must be tough to be the big one" from people's mothers. So self deprecation seemed to be the best option and I usually padded it with humor. Throw in some stuff at home, a couple abusive relationships/cheating, and whenever I lose control, as I have lately with my job situation, I fall back into going nuts about this ol' husk that carries me around. "If I can't even maintain a slim body/be polished like seemingly everyone else I know, then how the hell am I going to pull off getting a job/holding it down?" It makes NO sense. It's irrational as hell. I know, I know. I could blame the media, but it's really just me, my experiences, my upbringing. Every person has their crazy, and this shallow one is mine. I've tried to focus on getting stronger/ tougher. I can hang with the guys in hockey, I can hold a full grown woman upside down with my bare hands. Trying to look at my body as a machine rather than a piece of art. I'll never be the ideal, willowy, effortless beauty that inspires art, but I can be a bada$$ and have a lot of fun doing so. I greatly fear ever having children because I am afraid I'll pass it on, as my mother did to me. I realize confidence is what makes a person beautiful, but for some reason I've never been able to find it. I don't mean to fish for compliments. I just get so angry with myself that it bubbles over and makes EVERYONE miserable. I'm sorry. Buy d4rk a beer if you see him, he somehow puts up with my rage inducing whining.

Failed at almost everything in terms of aerial stuff this week, I think the stress and humidity is getting to me. Did a run tonight, have to retrain myself to not baby my bad leg or my other hip starts hurting. Yayyy. Sweat so much I had gnats drowning on my forehead! So glamorous. Anyways, I did get one thing right today on trapeze. Sorry, no bike in this picture haha : Now it's time to take a long bath and watch some friggin' hockey!

haha I drank that when I was up there. Not bad. Had some good pints at the Brewhouse in Whistler, too, which had the most beautiful server I've ever met. My friend and I often talk of the legend of Gary and the poutine and beer he brought us... Sorry d4rk.

Sorry :blush: haha I played for about 15 years, competed, nearly went to college for it. I never appreciated it until I quit, and now I miss it dearly. One of those things, I was forced into it rather against my will in my mother's ceaseless desire to turn her daughters into Jane Austen characters. Along with a decent tub, a decent piano is one of my "selfish things I greatly want" in our future little house someday. It's definitely worth learning. My father is self taught, even built a harpsichord on his own that I'll probably inherit someday. If you can play piano, you can really understand any instrument/music.

We've got one of those at my parents' home too, it was my grandmother's! My friend here at work built one and has been in a couple of ukulele groups. d4rk, you want strings, we've got strings, no strings attached.

Come home with me, I'm sure my mum would be glad to see her violin in good hands. She played many many years, both concert and folk fiddling. She was the fiddler on many roofs in many plays in her day :)

2 Rochester bars (Good Luck, which is across the street and where my boss enjoys spending a good 500 bucks a week at) and Founding Fathers made this list! If I move to Buffalo, you'll find me at FF quite often, I think. http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/bars/a44780/best-bars-in-america/

Haha yes. I hope my actual job search is the same- I'm entering into it with sh!t self esteem, expecting the absolute worst, but if it's like the shopping, I'll get what I need immediately and end up leaving with better than I expected and a bit more confidence. I'm apparently 2-3 sizes smaller than I expected too, which doesn't hurt. Bio- one of the outfits I bought was from there. Navy pants, jacket, coral top, matching coral belt. Got some black pants from two other stores, another random shirt, now all I need are shoes with a slightly taller heel or else deal with hemming. Getting my hair fixed next Wednesday, augmenting my portfolio more, learning how to write a g.d. cover letter, then doing this. Some company in Buffalo's gotta want me, right? Well, maybe not with all this neurosis :P

Aw duuuude. First of all, I'm really super glad everything's ok, as evidenced by the awesome thread yesterday. And yes...those things are awful. After my heart surgery, like a week later, we were at a restaurant when my mom just happened to run her hand down my back and found another that I had somehow missed in the shower, and laying on the bed, etc. I'd had so many of the damn things. But as bad as that was, I can't imagine it with swaths of manly hairs in the way. No real complaints for once, just trying to ignore the voices in my head telling me my work isn't going to be good enough. So instead I'm spending the next week just making a ton of logos hopefully. I want this job, dammit. I want to do everything I can so if they turn me down, I know it wasn't from lack of trying.

Yeah, this is my dilemma. My current workplace... I swear half the people here don't bathe regularly. I get made fun of for dressing nice. I wore a conservative, polished dress to the interview and was told in the interview "oh don't ever dress like that again, goodness, relax". After five years, I've forgotten what it means to dress up between casual and special occasion. I'll try a suit, I just worry I'm not built for it. I guess this is more what I meant. I just worry as an artist, wearing mostly black will lose me points. Thanks for all the tips, everyone. This may take me a few weeks, but I'm dead set on figuring it out before I dare start applying.

No, the shirt would be higher, I wouldn't risk showing cleavage. I have to find a blazer somewhere between the suitjacket I own that's almost too stuffy and that. I have to find pants that don't make me look like a sack of potatoes. In short, I'm just not built for this stuff. I'm not looking at Fortune 500 companies. Other girls I know who've been interviewing lately have told me to wear cropped pants, flats, nice blouse, cardigan. Apparently that's what they wore when they got their jobs. But they're tall, thin, just have that look. I do not. They look chic and casual, I'd just ... well, not look good. I don't know. My self esteem is in the toilet anyways thanks to all of this, trying to find pants that fit is not going to help. I'm just not a classy looking person. This is going to be terribly difficult for me. I figured it was worth getting a male opinion, since that's who counts in the end anyways.

I think we're thinking of the same thing but different names haha Pantsuit to me is a bad pastel boxy dealio that only Hillary and middle aged women wear. I was thinking more this: but that's more a blazer/cardigan with nice pants. Same difference or too casual? Women's wear: where there's just too many damn names for the same damn thing. Sorry to derail this onto "jo doesn't know how to dress nicely unless it involves a 1940s pinup dress"

Do they even make pantsuits for women under 40??? I've got a couple HBIC (head b!tch in charge) blazers. Just need some nice pants and a colorful polished shirt and that'll do it, then. And low heels that aren't scuffed to hell. I could use a new face and hair too. Well, crap.

Mm yes. I am also on the gin train. I find I very rarely order anything else these days. A few friends of mine just released their own gin- I have no idea if it's any good, but I'll probably buy a bottle in support soon. http://www.mashandgrape.com/products/desgin

While we're on job interview stuff- anyone have any tips for interviews, particularly as a woman? Do I wear pants? A dress? I'm going shopping after work today to see if I can bolster my closet a little- I'm very much a retro dress style girl, and that just doesn't feel appropriate for a job interview. I guess I'm thinking nice pants, low heels, nice top, nothing flashy. I've really never had to do this before, but I'm hoping in the next couple of months I can pull something off and move to Buffalo. I'm looking at jobs in the sports/art crossover area, and I guess I feel I should look like an athlete or something. I don't know. This is all so daunting.

Now, if they had said "disappeared from radar" then I'd understand that use. I guess it's a softer way of saying "everyone died in a fireball of twisted metal and screaming babies".

Weave n Chz- good luck, guys. I'm in a tech hell. Spent all night last night trying to get my imac to work. Spent all day at work trying to get my work imac to work. Two days ago, my home imac, my phone, and my laptop all bricked within the span of about 2 hours. I think I'm pulling through but it's eating into my precious freelance time before I start the rejection I mean application process. God I'm terrified. No one out there wants my skills. I gotta crash course an entire major in videography and such to even feel like I have a snowball's chance in hell. Why the hell did I choose art as a career. I'm an idiot.

Ah, so it's my fault? Forgot that was my job. haha whatever, you boys get back to your arguing. I'm not taking sides. Since d4rk lives in a different city, he can give himself some attention :P

:cry:

:w00t:

One of my college roommates was a food photographer. As in, those delicious looking photos you see in ads/on menus. You've probably heard stories about McD's painting their buns and tomatoes to look more appetizing, assistants melting the cheese just so with heat guns.. it's all so true, and more. I came home to a cereal shoot one day on our kitchen table. Well, milk doesn't have the right... sculpting.... consistency. So she was instructed to use a certain brand of men's shampoo! There were strings hanging from the ceiling suspending cereal for that perfect motion shot... She was always trying to trick the other housemates and I into eating her delectable looking reference subjects. Ice cream, for instance. It is best photographed when made entirely out of lard and confectioner's sugar with food coloring, so it holds together/doesn't melt during the shoot. Unless you're a place like Friendly's, for example- then you have to use your own product. Those photo studios have sub zero freezers on set and three minute long shooting windows. I learned a lot from her... and now I never look at food photog and go "oh god yum". I laugh at photographers hand "grill marking" steaks in skillets and impaling bananas on armatures. But yeah, it's amazing how much effort it takes to make food look "good". At least professionally haha

Ahoy! Well, this isn't really the thread, but I guess you could say I broke a sweat workin' on it. Here it is a bit bigger. as far as workouts go, hey, I finally got an aerial split tonight! I was starting to lose it by the time this horribly flattering photo was taken. Woof. Right foot still doesn't point fully, but it's come a long way in a few months.

I love air shows. Something I love about where we live- we have a pond, and it's surprisingly photogenic for an apartment complex.