Neil Sends Me Porn

Neil Gaiman writes,

Hey Shan, I was fascinated and delighted by the weird hybrid of art-styles in this Tijuana Bible, but really can't post the link on my site -- it's just too hardcore. So it's yours if you want it: Mutt and Jeff: Historieta (Galante).

Thanks, Neil! You can send me funny porn any day.

Oddly enough, I just sent porn to Warren Ellis the other day, eliciting an "oh my god". Wanna see it, too?

Make Up Test

So last night I attend the girliest of girl events: a Mary Kay party. The Mary Kay lady, Kathy, was very friendly, and didn't even blink when she saw me dressed all in shiny black PVC and sporting teal horns. When I told her I was a Mary Kay virgin, she said, "Well, I'll break you in good tonight."

And that she did! She started us off with some extremely thick hand lotion (about the consistency of a cool stick of butter), followed by some gritty exfoliator and a cleansing lotion. After grinding this into my hands for a while, I rinsed them off, and rubbed in a softer hand cream. This left my hands feeling like girly-girl's hands, removing my metal working, kayaking, and kung fu calluses.

Next, we did something similar to our lips. We were given a white masque to apply, and this dried on and felt rather disturbing. Next, we rinsed it off and rubbed in an exfoliant. I must have been a bit too rambunctious in my application, because my lips were left feeling like I'd been fellating a habanero pepper. We followed this up with a lip balm. Personally, I didn't feel much of a difference before and after (aside from the stinging).

Our faces were next, and one of the lotions given to us had the disturbing consistency of ectoplasm or coagulated semen. Blech. I wanted to make bukkake jokes, but held back in case Kathy wouldn't appreciate the joke. She said something odd, at one point: "the pores on the skin are the largest on your body." The enormous skin pits on the backs of my hands and forearms beg to differ!

She also told us that the reason we should wear foundation is to block these enormous pores so that toxins from the polluted air can't enter our bodies.

Hrm. Whenever I block my pores, I end up with a bouquet of blackheads and whiteheads. At least then my face isn't filled with smog, I guess.

So, pore-blocking foundation went on, creating absolutely no difference in my appearance, whatsoever. Then went on the eye makeup in shades of camo green. The colour combination was called Jungle, but was so subtle as to remain almost invisible. The mascara went on wonderfully, though, and made the only discernable visual alteration.

My verdict is the handcare system is great, and the mascara is nice, but the rest of it was pretty pointless.

At the end of it all, I watched an episode of CSI for the first time. It was the season premier, and I thought it was fairly interesting, if overly-glamourized. The triangulating computer software made me guffaw. It's software of the future--today!

At the end, Gary Sinise has a soliloquy about his wife who died on 9/11. He gives a moving speech about how he although he got rid of everything that reminded him of her, he couldn't throw out a beach ball because it was filled with her breath.

I must admit, my heart almost went pit-a-pat. But after a few beats of silence, I destroyed the mood with my paraphrase: "I just couldn't bear to flush the toilet...."

What is Self-Discovery?

I believe it is the process of learning more about yourself--your body, your mind, and how they interact with one another, with others, and with the environment. The key characteristic of self-discovery is self-awareness. You won't discover anything if you're oblivious. Perhaps the simplest form of self-discovery is visible in babies. As they develop awareness of themselves and their environment, you can watch them suddenly realize they have toes. You can listen to them experimenting with the various sounds they can make. My earliest memory of self-discovery is when, as a toddler, I realized that my body made a buffet of flavours and substances. I experimented with the tastes that came from my nose, ears, belly button, butt, etcetera, and quickly learned what was good and what was disgusting. Aren't kids grand?

Some people have said self-discovery is self-love, but I must disagree. Self-discovery isn't always about realizing you're a hunky-dory person. I think many of the flagellants of the thirteenth century were developing an understanding of themselves through self-mortification. Although there may have been a few narcissists in their midst, weren't exactly primping in the mirror all day, but hating their bodies and living in denial of their flesh.

Self-discovery is a process whereby you have an awareness of your own evolution and devolution. Via evolution, you're aware of developing new skills and coping mechanisms. And via devolution, you come to the often painful realization your skills and characteristics are atrophying. An example of this would be a person understanding they were falling victim to dementia.

For some, self-discovery is a journey. For me, it's more like a swap meet. As I find things out about myself, I can either keep them or trade them in for something else. Re-invention can be key. You can find your weaknesses, and develop ways of getting around them, or ways of turning these weaknesses into strengths. I think a vital part of self-discovery is a healthy body/mind connection. You test your limits, and learn to push those limits back even further. This is one of the reasons I work so hard in my physical pursuits. I want to realize my potential.

Maudlin Modellin'

I didn't get to show off my Hung Gar skills for the drawing class today. The poses were just a bit too long for me to maintain a perfectly still stance. Someday, I'd love to be able to stand in a low horse stance without any shaking for ten minutes or more, but I'm not there yet. So instead, I held a fighting stance for ten minutes, with my left arm extended in front of me, hand closed in a tight fist. By the six-minute mark, my biceps (already sore from yesterday's stability ball class) were screaming at me.

Several of the students were quizzing me about kung fu, and told me they really like drawing me in those stances. I'll try going through a different form every week. Next class, maybe I'll do fook fu. And after that, gung gee. Maybe I'll even do some sword and staff work. We shall see.

Anyhow, when the ten minutes were up, I slapped the hell out of my throbbing left bicep and settled down into an easier pose for a rest.

I'm glad that's over, but I model again first thing in the morning.

I'm Not Sure I Can Make It

Every now and then, I like to read a truly awful book. I find it helps me appreciate the good literature I favour all the more. Last night, I started reading Zach Hughes' Seed of the Gods. This book is astonishingly bad.

Have you heard of Erich Von Daniken's highly successful and very silly Chariots of the Gods: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past? It's actually unfair of me to say this book is very silly, since I've never actually read it, but I have read enough about it to get the gist. In any case, Zach Hughes was inspired by this book, so much so that he sets Seed of the Gods in Von Daniken's universe.

But it really doesn't matter what universe it was set in. Bad writing is bad writing, and this book deserves the MST3K treatment. Check out the following outtakes:

Bud was an easy smiler with a handsome handlebar mustache, bushy eyebrows. He was better looking, she thought, than Elliot Gould and, although not quite as groovy, even more handsome than George Peppard. As she approached him she felt that vast, surging love sweep through her body with a force which caused her step to falter as her mind overflowed with a confusion of nice thoughts: young puppies and clean babies in blue bassinets and rooms with thick red carpets and cozy fireplaces and the smell of broiled steak and baby formula.

Later, we meet up with what appears to be the captain of a flying saucer. Her name is Cele.

She was a woman in a woman's world and one of woman's prerogatives is to be capricious in small matters. A delightful unpredictability was one of the small traits which went into making women superior.

The other small trait is a shapely anything, and luckily for Cele, everything about her is shapely. She often has more than one well-shaped body part in just one page's worth of writing. And if it's not clearly defined as shapely, it's mature:

She reached out a shapely arm and picked up the report left by the rating. It was a confirmation of the latest arrival, without detection or incident, at the planetary base. She sighed. Her mature, firm breast rose and fell under her officer's green blouse.

I don't think I'm going to be able make it all the way through this book. It's too scary.