Half-Thoughts

A very happy and busy life has been getting in the way of my blogging for the past several months. And that’s just fine, I think. I miss sitting down and forming my thoughts into a semi-choate wordmass, but I will get back to that at some point. For now I just like letting them swirl around in my head, like happy iridescent fish who’ve just been fed.

Anyway, was reading NYROB review of “Boomerang” about the global financial quagmire we’re in. (I’ve yet to read the book, too much on my reading list.) And according to the review the book deals with how the financial crisis played out differently in each country, depending on its moral character. Which plays into a half-formed thought I have, or a few of them, about how a decline in (gasp) morality (ungasp) is part of what has led to our financial undoing. And that decline in personal morality has perhaps followed the decline in organized religion in most of the Western world. (Insofar as organized religion prescribed the ways people were expected and allowed to behave, and most communities’ cohesive religious attitudes formed societies that were self-policing, so this code of ethics was enforced by everyone. The decline of organized religion combined with industrialization thus leading to the dissolution of the sense of community that keeps people acting right.)

Now, far from arguing that we need a return to religion, which I loathe for all its atrocities and hocus pocus nonsensical insistence that everyone abandon logic, I am starting to wonder if what we’re in now is not some kind of proving ground for humanity. Can we move PAST personal morality dictated by supernatural entities and enforced by the mob, to a new kind of personal and collective morality, in which we all act in the ways that best support our society? And to do that, do we have to unglobalize ourselves, and get back to tribes that share core values? Or are there some universal human values that we can agree on? And how many hundreds or thousands of years will it be until we reach that consensus?

But until we reject avarice and irresponsibility and consumption WITHOUT using religion as our reason for doing so, until we just understand that some things are wrong because they make life worse for everybody, I believe things will continue to cycle good/bad (probably with some violence thrown in to get us back to good, before we decline back to bad.) Anyway, that’s today’s half-thought. Maybe some of you will finish digesting it for me, I am on to other things.

Gradient Nails

Finally attempted gradient nails! I don’t think they’re too bad for my first try. There are a lot of different methods for doing this, using sponges and brushes and orange sticks and doing the dark color first and doing the light color first, etc. So I did a base coat of a pale neutral, then a light coat of the pale purple, then a thin stripe of the dark purple, covering the top 3/4 of the nail with a light glitter polish after. I think there’s too much difference between the light and dark here, and the glitter coat is too heavy, I might switch to China Glaze Fairy Dust next time, instead of the OPI DS Coronation. The two purples are also OPI, sorry I don’t have those names with me at the moment.

These look way cooler in motion than they do in a still. I really like them. Kinda creepy and strange with this dark purple.

One Less Set of Footsteps

Trying to rip more of my music to my harddrive, since space is really not a consideration anymore. Can’t believe I have not ripped this album before. Goddamn I love me some Jim Croce. I think he’s wrapped up in all my happiest memories of my mom and spending time with her when I was a kid. Today has been all happy music. That’s a good day.

If that’s the way that you want it, well that’s the way I want it more.

Double Lavender

Wanted to go back to something a little less eye-catching, so this is a cheapy Sally Hansen lavender I picked up at Dierberg’s, with a coat of OPI DS Coronation atop it.

When I got done with this manicure I was putting the lavender away and realized I had an almost identical, but much prettier, lavender from OPI that I’ve never even opened. Oops. Perhaps I need some sort of polish-cataloging app on my phone, so I don’t buy anymore duplicates.

Frostbite Friday

Here’s today’s nail experiment (well, technically yesterday’s)

It’s China Glaze “Frostbite” (bright blue base coat) and OPI “Last Friday Night” (blue glitter top coat)

I like both of these, the blue is insanely bright and hard for me to get used to, and also, it stinks. Or, it stank when I was applying it. Like skunk. I have never had a nail polish smell so foul.

But otherwise kind of fun? I don’t know if I would just wear the blue on its own, it’s kind of costumey. But fun to play with.

Holy Barbie Nails Batman!

So this is my newest flavor. This is two coats of OPI Got a Date To-Knight! and two coats of OPI Teenage Dream (glitter) on top of that. I like this a lot, and it’s much brighter and glittery in person. I will work on capturing glittery nails better. The pink base coat is really thin, and if I was wearing that alone would have taken at least three coats, so I was disappointed in that, but otherwise I really like this combo. I totally do look like I should be driving Barbie’s dream car though, this stuff is distractingly pink and sparkly.