josie

This is precisely why I don't want kids. But I'll probably have to at some point. Wine was good- took a long bath, drank a few glasses, no hangover today. A+ in my book.

Taught my last class tonight. Might be the last class period, if I move to Buffalo. I had to give a negative speech addressing some of the problems this class had this semester. It wasn't easy for me. So I bought a decent bottle of Cab Sauv and am drinking it until my feelings numb.

Here's more! My family's beloved rust bucket Fred, a 1929 Model A Ford I hope to inherit and restore. New Orleans last September And this is Lavender, being all goofy a couple years ago. When she came to our rescue, she was severely underweight, scared, abused, and generally on death's doorstep. She had been an Amish driving horse before we bought her from the killpen. She was adopted out not long after these photos. Sadly, those owners fell upon misfortune and Lavender is back with us at the barn.

Tornadoes- I have a lot of family in Murfreesboro/Woodbury which is southeast of Nashville in a bit more mountainous area. Well, mountainous by my NW Ohio standards, anyways. In my lifetime, they've had a LOT of warnings, but only 3 to 4 touchdowns that did damage, and never more than a shed knocked down, more likely from straight line winds than a twister itself. But, the weather patterns do hike up that north easterly pattern and skim by Nashville. Floods and the occasional tornado aren't a big enough reason to not give it a shot. I'd say watch weather.gov for Nashville the next couple weeks- this is spring, it's the most active season- you'll get a good feel for what you're dealing with. Just watch the skies if it's predicted, have a bug out bag/tornado kit, a basement or storm shelter handy. You'll feel it if it's going to happen. Areas that have many of them are pretty blasé about them unless it's a really bad situation, and then they're usually well prepared. Oh, and don't live in a trailer park. Twisters LOVE those things :P

It is one of the rare pieces of legislation that emotionally charges me so much that I lose rational thought. I work with multiple transgender students. I have learned so much this semester about their identities, their struggles. While before this experience I would've been disgusted by HB2, now it just enrages me. It's nonsensical. It's hate mongering. It's born out of fear of "others" and discrimination is its child. It smacks of inequality and sexism and jumped up bigotry with a hefty dash of sanctimonious pearl clutching. I can't even argue about it, it makes me so mad. My brain gets fuzzy and numb. This must be how all my friends who post extreme vitriol on facebook and don't accept counter arguments feel all the time!

I'm loving Burn the Witch too. I have yet to hear the rest of the new album, but I love driving/working to this song. There's snippets of other old songs in there like recurring themes/old memory threads that get cut abruptly- I don't know, I really like this one. Also, my, Thom is aging.

No problems whatsoever! I think the second part depends on what kind of person you are. If you're me, you want to know every single little thing they're doing, as detailed and scientific as possible, so you feel a sense of control. You may be someone who absolutely wants zero information. Either way, where I had it done, they gave me a valium to calm me down (which didn't really do anything) while they did pre procedure stuff. During the surgery itself (less than ten minutes total), a nurse was rubbing my shoulder while they talked me through it. I had a heavy heated blanket too- it's optional, I took it. Comfort, psychological- v. important to me in a medical setting. Lots of verbal encouragement, but the nurse's hand squeezing my shoulder was strangely calming. I am really glad she was there. It's not pleasant, I won't lie. It's not really painful either- you focus on relaxing and following directions and remind yourself that it's over really soon. And then you sit up on the table and can see. It's bonkers. The next few hours aren't too fun, some people it's better, they just take another valium and sleep. I couldn't sleep. But by that evening I could see and the pain was mostly gone. Next day, good as new. I changed majors due to my disgust of eye surgery (medical illustration to regular illustration). It horrifies me. I cannot watch it. I cannot listen to people talk about it. I put off Lasik for years. It wasn't too bad. And it has been worth every penny, every single day since. If you have any questions or want gory(er) details, just PM me!

haha semantics. I have special glasses that are supposed to help my eyes with glare since I stare at screens a good 12-18 hours a day. Just got back from an eye doc appointment- I'm seeing 20/15. Had my eyes lasered back in October. I've been grateful for it every day since. Donated the rest of my Restasis- that was pricey, I know someone needs it.

I have many of Sainte Chapelle, but this one always felt special in that awe of higher power sort of way. Giverny- Monet's home aaand d4rk requested I post one of my neverending series of "Carter Powell Looking at Things" This is in Geneseo

I have still never had them.

I'm there. And so are all of my coworkers. I'm having a really hard time maintaining professionalism.

Peace Dome, Hiroshima. A-10 pilot at airshow Miyajima Japan the japan pics i took when i was 14.

I ain't got time for that. Or space. Probably just getting a PS4, because FFVII remake.

Anyone playing Overwatch yet? A lot of my coworkers are lovin' the open beta, and I think it will be the catalyst that brings me to actually buy a console for the first time in twenty years.

Ubkev- those snakes! Awesome! And the puppers are cute too. My downstairs neighbor has a zoo in her apartment. I walked in one day to get the key to catsit for the week and she goes, "here, hold this!" and throws a snake at me. Good thing I love 'em! She has about 6 snakes, 2 bullfrogs, other frogs, gobies, a huuuuuge saltwater tank, freshwater tank, a big tank for mealworms, a couple lizards, aaaaand two cats. And a part draft horse. Not in the apartment of course. Numbers change from time to time as some of her critters uh... naturally select each other... My coworker next to me has a tarantula. She's pretty awesome. We'll let her crawl on our arms and stuff from time to time. The tarantula, not my coworker. And here's my idiot, after a sneezing fit in the window.

This is so neat. Look at all you artistic hockey lovers :) I have yet to buy a nice camera. I try to grab weird angles and good lighting, usually snapping ten of the same thing and choosing from within. I know pretty much nothing about photography. All I know is how to light a subject to do a decent reference shoot for my illustration work. A lot of my friends at RIT were photography majors, and a few of them are wildly successful photojournalists and fashion photogs now. I just know it's really difficult, editing is the paperwork of the art, and I have massive respect for anyone who does it. Until I have a buttload of money lying about to get a nice SLR, iphone pics it is! Keep posting- I love seeing where everyone's been and what they've seen.

Oh man, I have so many, I'll now annoy you all by posting a billion things. This one was a stormy late fall day up at Sodus Point. I have a lot from out west. Our country is incredibly photogenic out there. Here's one from Utah. Most of my favorite photos have stories behind them... I'm not sure how visually stunning a lot of them are. And JJ, that is seriously awesome.

Been in a Magnetic Fields mood. And I'm a sucker for just about anyone singing Heroes.

The smell of spring is so strange for me. On one hand, it's intoxicating and clears some of the dark cobwebs in my head. On the other hand, I always get a swift spike of panic that pierces my chest and stomach. My entire childhood, spring meant to watch the skies for bad weather, tornadoes. So it always brought a pang of fear. Then I moved away, and nearly every important death, surgery, or breakup in my life has been in spring. It's a revolution of a season. Messy, inspiring, cleansing, destructive. I'm always glad when summer arrives.

Cheers! Getting on a train in an hour to go spend the weekend in Toronto with my best friend. Good food, good drinks, some shopping, maybe a concert... Badly needed.

Trapeze this week! Moving up into the next level soon. I think I may actually like it more than hoop. But that may be because I'm at that level where hoop is really starting to get difficult/painful. Trapeze definitely hurts more- the ropes really cut into you on a lot of different moves, and you need a lot more strength to do anything. And man, you cannot have a fear of heights with this one... one slip and you can fall pretty easily.

You're pretty close with the Prodigy, honestly. I don't go clubbing anymore, but if I do, it's the goth club, and that's the kinda stuff they play. I like my dive bars too. Country to metal and nearly everything in between. I'll go to pretty much any concert and enjoy it.

haha yeah, I was kinda like... Oh, a tribute band, right? ...no? Oh. Looks like I'm grabbing an electronica show in Toronto this weekend. Hybrid. I admit I don't know them that well, but I've always liked the late 90s electronica better than the current EDM stuff and they seem to have stuck to their original aesthetic... get to alt out a bit this weekend. If not that, we'll dig up some punk or metal bar and watch some locals scream their heads off.

Gotta keep that school pride going with wins to bring in more students and that sweet, sweet tuition.... which you can hike if you're a prestigious winning sports culture school...

Oh I have a new one! It's kind of humorous I guess. We ran out of TP at work. So, rather than send someone to go get some at Wegmans (five minutes away) or go to Costco (fifteen minutes away), they are ordering it online for pickup at Wegmans. And told us to go across the street to the Village Gate (a shopping center) to use the facilities. Wow.