Blogs

White musk scents to try

Is Chinese musk the same as white musk? I've seen it used several times and wasn't sure. So these are white musks, golden musks, and musks of indeterminate color. Dragon's Musk (with 5, one is bound to be white!) Aeval (I didn't like this one the first time, but white musk warrants a re-try) Black Pearl Fae Lampades (sensual musk could be white) Lurid Ode on Melancholy Zephyr Death on a Pale Horse The Bow and Crown of Conquest The Great Sword of War (Yeah, it's red musk, but it sounds so perfect.) Bluebeard (I'm pretty sure I tried and disliked this one) Imp (not white musk, but golden musk sounds so lovely!) Kitsune-tsuki Kuang Shi Villain (citrus musk) Grandmother of Ghosts Pietho (warm musk probably isn't white, but it sounds pretty) Queen Mab (Chinese musk) Thanatopsis (pine, juniper and musk... yeah, those first two scare me. This is way low on my list.) Cordelia (Chinese musk- this has all my favourite things in it.) Juliet Oberon (orchid too!) Endymion (tried once already) Psyche Vicomte de Valmont Berenice (if I can find some!) Usher (as above) Mantis (golden again, but sounds lovely) Fallen (golden musk) Aglaea (musk type isn't specified [except 'bright'], but sounds like it could be white) Euterpe Urania Zorya Bengal (skin musk) I think that's all, for now!

July 29, 2006

Epiphany and other thoughts

I think I just figured out a note I love! Finally! I mean, I know there are blends that work well on me, but I've never been able to really truly single out a note... and that note is white musk. I tested Katharina just now, and it was a little sharp going on, but then I noticed that it has white musk in it, and so does Whitechapel, so I figured that maybe it would dry down differently on me- and half an hour later, it smells fantastic. It's the same musk- I can actually pick it out. That is freaking awesome. I need to lose weight. This is not an epiphany, obviously (the white musk thing was the epiphany). It's just... incredibly important to me. I was explaining this to one of my bridesmaids earlier this week. I want to go out with my husband, and have people look at us and think: "What is that girl doing with that guy?" Here's why: I think he deserves that. I want to make people sit up and take notice of him. Please don't take that to mean I'm putting down his appearance; I'm very attracted to him. I just know that he doesn't have the physical appearance to match his heart- and trust me, if his phsyical appearance really did correspond to his heart, angels would weep and traffic would stop and there would be no more war and he'd be able to turn tap water into Shub Niggurath (the BPAL blend, not the Lovecraftian critter, because that would be seriously freaky- can you imagine? He'd have to get special glasses or something, because otherwise he'd unleash this terror onto the world... but yeah, getting off the subject here...) with a piercing glance and.... yeah. All that stuff. He's that special. He deserves someone fantastic.

July 29, 2006

Shiva's Blog

My Wishlist

I'm now in Alto, NM Wishlist 5mL Cathedral Dorian Dublin Embalming Fluid Samhain 06 Snake Oil IMPS Al Azif Anahata, Death Cap, Dublin, Eclipse, Euphrosyne, Luperci, Montressor, NEMESIS Snake Oil Sri Lanka, Terpsichore, The bow and the crown of conquest, Tombstone, Tzadikim Nistarim, Zephyr, Any TAL decants Chakra decants I like dark, sweet, heavy, resiny, incensy, some patchouli, creamy, vanilla, foody scents. I dislike florals, although when well blended, sometimes they're okay. See my "top ten" list for examples. Fruits are frequently doable. yay bpal! I am not so much into perfume anymore. I am WAY into knitting, so if you have yarn you want to swap for perfume, that would work well. I'm also in need of body cream, as I am freshly moved into a very dry environment. I also would consider swapping for bath products, like bubble bath, bath bombs, etc.

shivashiva

July 29, 2006

Friday afternoon!

Hells bells, there are a number of very thoughtful new entries over here on Blog Island. Not me. I could try to follow suit, but there is very little in the way of profound thought in my brain today. My excuse? It's Friday afternoon! Here's something to do! Get yo' pimp name here homey hunny! http://www.playerappreciate.com/pimphandle.asp Big Playah valentina Flava

July 28, 2006

Birdsongs

Back into the water ...

Another day, another attempt at a blog ... I keep thinking bloggy thoughts lately and then end up surfing away all my internet time. As it turns out, sharing a house with my boyfriend, best friend, & brother was The Worst Idea Ever. Pfui. Nobody gets along, and it is all very tense. And they all complain to me about each other instead of talking directly. Except for Chrissy, who apparently hates everybody now because we're all too noisy. C'est la vie ... I am trying to embrace positive thoughts. For instance, I totaled my car in June during the move (it was a nice four months of car-ownership ), but the house we're renting is two minutes walk from the bus stop, and by extreme good luck the bus route that runs nearby is the one that curves around & goes right by my workplace. Also, the bus is airconditioned, where the car was not, and I have forty minutes each way to read, so I've been going through books like mad recently. See? All positive. This morning I dug through my to-try imp box and found Baghdad. There's the saffron note that works so well on me in Underpants! Days off are perfect for imp testing - I sit around & drink coffee while enjoying some new fragrance, and by the time I'm ready to shower & get all gussied up for the day, it's worn off & I can decide what known scent I'm in the mood for.

spanishviolet

July 28, 2006

This Old Snark

Maturity

There are so-called "young souls" and "old souls" and all the souls in between. Snarky has often surmised that she possesses a "middle aged soul" - old enough to know better (she entered her teenaged years with a deep breath and a "well, here goes nuthin'") but still young enough to make all the same stupid mistakes (oh, it went alright). Her best friend has a teenaged soul. She is impulsive, headstrong, and unable to take the right path until she has exhausted all the wrong ones. Snarky used to refer to her as her "Drama Friend" (we all have at least one of those, even if we are typically the DF in our relationships), often with a bit of condescending affection/scorn (weird how some friendships are so close to antagonistic symbiosis). Last night Snarky was on the phone with her friend for over two hours - most of it was spent with DF venting and unloading and Snarky listening. Two years ago such a conversation would leave Snarky exhausted and resentful. It would make The Mister grouchy for stolen time. And worst of all: nothing would have changed for her friend. But today, Snarky feels fine. Rested, even. It's not that Snarky has disconnected herself from her friend and doesn't care about what she is going through (in short, two words: "emotional incest" Snarky always learns new terms/concepts from her acquaintances that open her eyes and make her extremely grateful for her own dull and boring existance that does not require the aid of therapy speak in order to be defined) it is that Snarky finally had an a-HA moment a few crises ago and realized that in order to be a good friend, she didn't have to live through the experience with those friends. She could just listen and observe and support. Small epiphany as far as epiphanies go (surely "brightly colored mushrooms are bad for the eatings" ranks higher) but an important one for Snarky, who used to be an empathetic walking open wound for everyone. And The Mister was really quite OK with not having a wife for two hours. The Snarks are cultivating an appreciation for the concept of "alone time" and have experienced the added bonus of more enriched "together time" for it. Best of all, Snarky's best friend has really broken through to some new, exciting territory. Of course right now it's scary and overwhelming, but she's calmer now and is finally, finally able to really work toward something better. So, Snarky feels compelled to give a small for emotional maturity both for herself and for her friend. Snarky always knew she would finally begin to feel more comfortable in her skin (on the personal, bodily level as well as the larger socio-political sphere) in her thirties and is relieved to see that bit of middle-aged soul prognostication come true. But she will try very hard not to pull a muscle patting herself on the back about it.

darkitysnark

July 28, 2006

Check out my boss-repelling aura.

Oh. My. God. My boss called me in to her office this morning to tell me she just put in her two weeks notice. I'm happy for her, she's going to a larger insurance company where there's more upward potential for her (she's already the senior actuary in our little division) But dude, again? I first came on board with this company last September. I was brought on to work for a guy who was crazy smart. Unfortunately, his work style did not mesh super-well with the rest of the office. He ended up jumping ship this past spring to go be the chief actuary at another small company. I wasn't too bummed out, since I ended up wotking for *his* boss, who was also a super-actuary She's the one who quit today. This is even more familiar, because when I first got hired out of school at the big consulting firm I worked for in San Francisco, I got hired by seriously one of the most brilliant actuaries I have ever met, and worked directly under him for the coolest 6 months ever. Then he got headhunted away to be chief actuary at a big insurance company. After that, I ended up working for a couple of mediocre-by-comparison managers who totally didn't inspire me, but at least they didn't quit (Well, one of them did, almost right after I did - that would explain why he was so happy for me!) Part of me has gotten into the habit of thinking (is it me? Do they hate having me work for them so much? But you know, that's really just not it. Somehow, thanks to good interview skills, good luck, whatever, I have managed to maneuver myself into these great positions. Even 6 months working under a mega-egg-brain is so much more educational than 3 yars working for someone who's just average. Unfortunately, having a mega-egg-brain opens a lot of doors, and those are the kind of people getting chief-actuary-type jobs thrown at them. And until i get to management-level, I won't be reporting directly to chief-actuary-level people. I guess the only thing to do is keep doing what I'm doing now, maneuvering myself to work for managers who are right on that susp, to learn as much as I can right now.

July 28, 2006

Zippity-do-dah!

Yes, today I am in a tank top and a skort. The tank top is one with a retro Wonder Woman design on it, but it's distressed-faded looking, so the image of the Amazon doesn't jump right out at you. Most of my coworkers are used to my Wonder Woman fixation, although there are plenty of people who don't know me, who look upon my shirt with great curiosity. Or maybe it's just stupid men who will use anything as an excuse to look at a woman's chest, even one equipped with my middlers. When I went into Meadowlark coffee this morning, the only people sitting outside were three relatively normal young women. No mullets. Maybe Wednesdays are Mullet Mornings at Meadowlark? You show up with a mullet and get your lattes at half-price? I'll have to ask them if that's the case. I must now discuss a particularly annoying word pronunciation idiosyncrasy. I tend to wince at most odd pronunciations/mispronunciations, but some just drive me batty. One is when the word Buddha is pronounced "Beyoo-dah." I always think of "zippity-do-dah!" Then I get into associations with Zippy the Pinhead and the Buddha. I can just see a cartoon frame of Zippy saying: "Zippity-do-dah, I'm the Be-yoo-dah!" And then there's the word emu, denoting the large, flightless ostrich-like bird. It can be pronounced either e-mou or e-meu, but whenever I hear e-meu, it annoys me. This is no doubt due to my provincial preference for the e-mou version, because at times, my accent comes dangerously close to bordering upon the Scandinavian/German influenced "Fargo" accent, as in: "Ya, fer sure, that was an e-meu runnin' across the road, Margie. Where'd ya think he was goin'?" I'm sure that somehow I could weave together an idea about a Coen Brothers movie that would include emus, Zippy the Pinhead, Buddha, mullets and Wonder Woman. But it's lunchtime and I don't want to. However, I'll close with the thought that I'm pretty sure if he were around today, the Buddha would just call himself "The Dude."

July 27, 2006

Forum Updates and News

Nothing can stop this

Always wanting to improve the process of how the updates are done (so to avoid massive amounts of downtime), we tried something new this time. It worked out pretty well - we were down for.. well, I'm not particularly sure how long we were down. I was working on some tweaks to our mod center when it went down, and the upgrade happening meant I couldn't continue, so I ended up running errands and by the time I got back (about 45 minutes later), it was all up and running. Much better than the six hours plus of downtime the last time we did a major upgrade!! In other forum notes, we ended up switching the link engine software code, because what we originally purchased was not as integrated with invision as it claimed to be, and it turned out to be incredibly difficult to get it to work. And I say that as someone who had to entirely rewrite how the swaps feedback integration worked (though, part of that is because we had a double-integration going on; instead of just having an integrated log-in, I also had to tie in the "items being reviewed" into the forum). We just have a little bit more to do with it before we'll put it up as live, mostly procedural issues. Completely unrelated: I don't believe I mentioned it here, but we did have a small hiccup a few weeks ago -- some corrupted tables. Thanks to our "lessons learned" from last March, instead of being down for two weeks, it was dealt with so quickly that I doubt many people even noticed the downtime. And now I must jump in the shower so I can head to work! Ta. Entry Title: Love (Side note: of all the bootlegs, this studio demo is probably one of my favorites. Once they move everything to iTunes, you should totally try it out.)

ipb

July 27, 2006

Wedding

Here we are!

July 26, 2006

Diva overload

Today I decided to put on some Monster Bait Underpants because I hadn't worn it in a while, and then I put a touch of Bengal over the top. This blend could be called "Panties on Fire." Hell yeah! That "hell yeah" reminds me -- because the t-shirts you buy at Bob Schneider's concerts have that on the front -- Bob has a new recording coming out on August 8! Ah, something to live for! Bob can set my panties on fire, I tell ya. Plus I really do like his music. I decided to get all dressed up this morning because I was having one of those days that, when all else fails, be a diva. On the way into work, I decided to stop at my favorite locally-owned coffee house (this town is big into non-franchise coffee houses) called Meadowlark. There's outdoor seating for the smokers and people who generally just want to hang around outdoors, and often there's a real blend of denizens at the outside tables. I've seen residents of a nearby halfway house for mental health center clients sitting at one table and a stockbroker sitting at the next table. This morning it was a group of characters that I've never seen before at the outdoor table. They were unique. I walked past them and one of them, who had a mullet and was wearing a "Got Milk?" t-shirt, looked at me and said: "Wow, baby!" I walked into Meadowlark and the barrista behind the counter looked at me and said: "You're so fancy today!" I think I may have diva-ed myself to excess... It's going to be a skort and a black tank top tomorrow!

July 26, 2006

Diplomatka

Got my order

After being carried from the Midwest to South Central (Asia), I nearly lost my order when Schwig's housekeeper threw it in the trash. Luckily it was salvaged before garbage pick-up. But it made it. I ordered large bottles of Queen of Sheba, Lady MacBeth, Persephone, Lolita and Embalming Fluid. There were also about 7 imps thrown in for free. I got Embalming Fluid smell unsniffed, but it turned out well: a little piney-limey on first application, but then it dried down to Body Shoppe's grapeseed soap. Not bad. However, the imps I am not to sure about: it seems that many of them seem like 1980's Coty imposters (Emeraude, anyone?). Perhaps the new scents are retro, but they do not seem as innovative as the ones rolled out two years ago when there seemed not to be such a frenzy to put out new scents. Not to offend, but this is my opinion. That's why I keep ordering the old standbys over and over.

Confection

July 26, 2006

Diplomatka

Jesus Christ has got Seoul

There is a place for proselytizing (arguably). Kabul, Afghanistan is not it. That whistling sound you will hear will be rockets heading for the Kabul Olympic Stadium: Potential For Riots/Demonstrations - Kabul. Institute of Asian Culture and Development (IACD) intend to despatch up to 2,000 South Korean nationals who have already been granted visas to enter Afghanistan. At least 60+ are already in country and the remainder are expected over the next week. Their aim is to hold Christian religious gatherings, the first at the Kabul Olympic stadium followed by a 5 km 'peace march' through Kabul on or around 5 Aug 06. They then plan to extend their religious activities to Mazar, Herat, Kandahar and Bamyan 7 Aug onwards. The IACD will initially be 'camping out' at the Kabul Olympic stadium. • Most security and NGO actors are taking the threat from these marches as potentially extremely serious as they could easily trigger a violent backlash from elements of the local community.

Confection

July 26, 2006

Godwin's Law the 2nd

Godwin's Law says whoever invokes Nazis/Hitler in an argument first loses. In addition to this, a friend and I decided today that if, in the course of an internet argument someone declares their authorativeness based on being a member of MENSA, they also automatically lose.

July 26, 2006

Candy-O

I have on a new layering adventure today; I bought a bottle of Bengal from chappiti on the forum (BTW, check out her avatar, I love it). While I really love Bengal, (or why would I have a bottle of it?), it tends to light up on my body for a bit. By that I mean, the cinnamon bark makes my skin flush rosy red for a brief time. So this morning I put down a nice layer of O (kind of like a paint primer) and then put Bengal over it. Yummy! Since I think Bengal smells like redhot candies over musk, and O smells, well, like O, I'm calling this blend Candy-O. That name is stolen from the title of an album by The Cars, which had this cover: And now, for a brief aside: A friend called me and told me to turn on the Today show, because they were doing a shoe fashion show. Naturally, the Shoe Whore-Foot Fetishist turned it on right away. I just finished watching it. They were doing very close close-ups of each model's feet, and ARRGGHH! One of the models had on a pair of open-toe, slingback shoes and SHE HAD CRUSTY HEELS! OK, I know it was a big closeup, but I shudder to think how it looked on HDTV. I probably would have vomited. And who picked her to model shoes? Why didn't they put her in a pair of closed-back shoes? And if you had even 1 hour's notice that you had to sub for someone as a shoe model, would you at least do a little buffing and shining? Arrggh!!! At least I didn't see any French Manicures on the toenails, thank goodness. I would have screamed so loud that I would have frightened my coworkers. Ahem, sorry to anyone who was eating as they read this. You probably had a hard time swallowing.

July 25, 2006

Diplomatka

Listen to the Text

First, I want to point out that one cannot listen to text; conversation or dialogue yes, but you can only read text. Two-way radio training. Since the riots and our office was burned we are all about security. Part of this new initiative is radio training. Yesterday afternoon, my boss came to ask me to come to hand-held radio training. I told her that I had been to radio training last year and that I did not need to sit around for an hour and a half to learn how to hold a walkie talkie upright. “No, this is advanced radio training, you should go.” On the way up the stairs back to my office, I encountered two colleagues: “I hope y’all brought your crack ‘cause this is going to be the most boring shit you have ever encountered”, I warned. The training was held in one of the burned out containers that used to house part of the finance department. Hot is not the word, the temperature was at least 98 farenheit, and without air conditioning the container was like a toaster oven. I sat down and our Afghan IT guy launched into his presentation. The first power point slide was entitled, “What is Communication?”. I just shook my head. This was the same drawn-out remedial bullshit I had to sit through last year. I felt like standing up and saying, “What is communication? I am so happy we are addressing this question. Here I have completed graduate school and worked professionally for five years and I had no idea what the fuck communication was!”, but I restrained myself. It got worse. While the swarm of flies in the room settled on my face, toes and hands and sweat beaded up, the IT guy took ten minutes to talk about all of the different types of communication and specifically, the types of communication we use in our offices (CODAN, VHF radios, e-mail, cellular phones, smoke signals, carrier pigeons). My boss told him to cut to the chase, and was backed-up by the finance manager. So we fast forwarded to the section about “How to Speak Over the Radio”. I swear to god, some of the bulleted points included, “do not shout” and “speak in short sentences”. Then, there were definitions of radio lingo that included, “hello: a greeting”, “out: the conversation is finished” and a stern lecture about not using phrases like “roger, over and out” because they are WRONG and anyone who says them will go to hell. Then we talked about the “wolume” (volume) control and were subjected to more slides sprinkled with misspellings and poor grammar. Finally, my boss put her foot down: “What I need to know is not how to turn on the radio. I need to know if someone breaks into my house at night or if we have another situation like the riots, what do we do?!?” The IT guy sheepishly replied, “I only can give training on how to use the radio. Those systems are to be decided by the Security Specialist.” At that point, I got up and I walked out. Forty minutes of my life lost and two reports to submit. This is my life.

Confection

July 25, 2006

This Old Snark

Grouchy

Just put on a happy face (dammit)! Snarky has been in a three day Very Bad Mood that has been interrupted by bouts of happiness, contentment, and countless uncomfortably sweaty naps. She's sure things will turn around soon, but just wanted everyone to know she's avoided updating her blog in order to minimize the bleed through of her psychic pollution. On a slightly better note, she's really starting to fall in love with her (mangy, crispy, slug-infested) garden. Carry on. (Snarky :heart:s Tim Gunn. Just so you know.)

darkitysnark

July 25, 2006

Cotton Candy thoughts

Not so much that I'm thinking about cotton candy as the level of substance to the thoughts... I was thinking about my name. I just signed a PM "Gracie", even though I've been using "Grace" predominantly. I have also written out a few return labels using the full Gracelyn. It's inevitable that I'll use one more than the others, right? I never shortened my given name, despite it having a very popular nickname (which my mother hated), so I don't know how these things work. It's like having three seperate names! It's almost like playing "pretend" again.

July 25, 2006

Eoywin's Blog

It's just a game!

Todd and I are friends with another married couple, A & J. They are pretty much my only friends thus far in Asheville. We get along with them rather well, and every Sunday night we go to their house to role play. When we started last fall, J was the storyteller. Well, a couple of months ago, A started to run a game. She hadn't really run a campaign before, so we all have tried to cut her some slack. Except J gets pissed at something she does nearly every week she runs. They get into a fight nearly every week. Yesterday, A was busy with my character, because my character ran away from the rest of the group. Well, J was pissed that A didn't ask what he was doing, even though he could have easier said "I'm doing this and this" which is what Todd and I would have done if the scene at the time wasn't focused on our characters. So, J pouted and picked up his gameboy. And then A posted in her lj that she felt like she was the most horrible storyteller ever, because she did badly. Their dramamongering makes me feel like rolling my eyes. They need to realize that it's just a game. Unfortunely, they take these games really seriously! I really need to find some more friends in Asheville, or maybe another game to play in.

Eoywin

July 24, 2006

Sunday night picture madness! Part II

I hit the blog post picture limit again. Damnit. Earlier this week the first morning glory flower opened. I love it! Here's the vine as of today, running off to explore my upstairs neighbor's balcony:

July 24, 2006

Sunday night picture madness!

Here is my lovely tomato... I picked 7 tomatoes off of it today, we ate them with little buffalo mozerellas, fresh basil, and balsamic vinegar. I haven't shown the basil lately, take a look! Here's the other tomato plant, it's turning into a total jungle, it's really taken off since I re-potted it. It's got a bunch of little green tomatoes on it. The peppers are showing no signs at all of ripening: The roses are putting out new buds, I'll have more flowers soon: I think there's as much strawberry foliage outside the pot as inside: