Fashionably Late

A month ago, almost to the day, while I was still high on the dopamine rush of going live with Fear No More, I messaged my sister, Jenny Peyton at Flyleaf Media asking if she'd be up for staging a photoshoot "at some point."

Once the date is set, I'm usually raring to go, but until it's officially slapped on the calendar, carved into stone, and sealed using an ancient blood pact ritual, I tend to be vague about timing for a few reasons:

1. Availability for her amidst her packed and chaotic schedule;

2. Needing time on my end to build the habit of posting weekly blogs on here along with maintaining my other work habits;

3. A tendency to procrastinate on making commitments with other people, even if I'm looking forward to the activity;

4. A desire to compare a time others mention to my schedule to gauge whether I feel it's too soon or comfortable for me. Which I suppose means I like having the final say and giving my stamp of approval instead of the other way around. Huh. I never considered that until now. The power of introspection.

To prepare for the photoshoot, Jenny requested that I gather some inspiration photos for the types of poses or styles I want to execute. Despite giving a proper, "Yessir, ma'am, sir, Sis," I tacked that onto a later to-do list. After all, we hadn't set the date yet, so I had time. Plenty of time. Bucket loads of time. Besides, I had sessions to transcribe and journals to write and notes to transfer and workouts to--gracious, is it May already?

9:00 Monday, I'm walking on the treadmill working off the previous night's pizza binge when I hear the ping from a notification and discover a message from Jenny.

"This coming Friday might be a good day to get photos. Shows it being partly cloudy and a cooler temp."

In reference to # 4 above, a shot of panic jumpstarted my brain. What? Friday? This week? Isn't that too soon? Do I have the materials I want? I'll have to reprioritize my current work load and risk falling behind. Do I have other commitments that day? No, I don't think so...

"Sounds good to me!" I replied two hours later, sweating bullets and grinning nervously to myself.

I already owned a decent mask worthy enough for a photoshoot, given the style I wanted to wear. It would limit me to a more steampunk aesthetic, and I was hoping to add to my collection and acquire other masks that would either hide my face more or add a different sort of flair to the photos. I just did not anticipate a 4-day window to procure them. My bad. But now I know to not procrastinate for next time! We'll see if my future self has learned from the lesson.

I warned Jenny that if she wanted to take any photos outside, which I anticipated she might, to be prepared to be accosted by gnats. They've been horrendous this year from the very start of spring, and I expect it to only worsen until fall. Little did I know that gnats wouldn't be the problem this time around, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We've half a week to cover before then.

Wednesday afternoon after my workout, I pulled all potential candidates for outfits from my wardrobe and picked through them, combining pieces here and there that I thought might work well with the mask I had, sending them as ideas to Jenny to hear her input. I just needed a couple extra garments. My pants, while not sagging, are looser now and don't play well with corsets, so I had to buy a new pair so I wouldn't have to hike them up or worry about how they creased in unflattering ways.

Ladies and gents and everyone in between, I am proud to declare that I can wear pants in the single digits now, 8s instead of 12s. Never thought I would see the day where I could even put on a pair of my sister's pants and strut around in them comfortably. Power pose:

Wait, no, that's not...

You know what, it's fine.

By Friday, I had a couple of ideas in mind for poses I wanted to try, but it wasn't until that morning that I jotted those and some others down to run by Jenny when she arrived.

• Cane draped across shoulders

• Cane resting on knees, leaning forward

• Legs crossed, hands cupped on cane's ornament

• Pocket watch open but looking at some distant future

• Bowing, cane angled away from me at my side

• Sitting, one leg tucked against chest, resting chin on hands on cane ornament

• Sitting, elbows on legs, hands clasped

We visited for a while during lunch, but eventually I gutted my wardrobe again, collected some possible props, and we began.

When I'd first asked her to do a photoshoot, I told Jenny that I wanted to keep part or most of my face hidden. Naturally, I automatically assumed that meant wearing the mask the whole time, but oh, how limited I was in my thinking! Why wear only a mask when your fiancé has a steampunk nautilus sculpture you can use instead?

Jenny had fun puzzling together different angles and props and poses to keep my face hidden, and it proved an interesting challenge for the first half of the photo shoot.

Some shenanigans may have also ensued.

(I was actually looking for the He-Man Meme, but Evil-Lyn works just as well, if not better)

The second half of the photoshoot we staged in the park, since the weather was gorgeous and the humidity was at a minimum. A smattering of fluffy clouds blocked the sunlight's intensity without dowsing the world in a blanket of gray. It was perfect.

The only problem?

No, not the gnats. Not this time.

The mosquitos.

They were on us as soon as we stepped out of the car and harassed us until we packed up and scrammed. We couldn't go more than two shots without finding one of the little bloodsuckers on our exposed skin. It seems so obvious in hindsight that we should have brought bug spray, but I didn't think to use it for mosquitos since it never works against the gnats. Oh well. At least we got some good shots in, and that just means we'll have some poses saved for next time.

(They're hard to see because of how small they are, but they're little kunai-like knives, though flatter. I thought of it afterward, but I should have held them in between my fingers.)

Jenny will be editing the photos over the course of the next week or so, but she was kind enough to send a handful to me ahead of time for the sake of my blog. It'll be interesting to see how they go from the raw photos I have here to the edited ones I receive. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm also excited for the next photoshoot, because I enjoy having an excuse to show off my fancier pieces~

This Week's Other Notable Accomplishments

• Edited Efial's journal for Day 2 of the First World; posted it on our Pathfinder group's server

• Wrote, edited, & posted Efial's journal for Day 3 of the First World on our Pathfinder group's server: 2,235 words

  • Got into a flow with writing! As much as I enjoy writing, getting into a flow never happens like it does for drawing

• Started grouping certain workout moves into supersets after trying it once as an experiment for lower body day; knocking out my least favorite moves faster? Heck yeah.

• Transcribed Session 85: 9,614 (excluding 2 combat encounters and 1 hazard encounter)

• Imported the notes into The Goblin's Notebook for Session 85 in an attempt to keep up and work backwards

• Continued working on notes for the 6th of Nudon, a day that spanned multiple sessions

• Got a haircut Tuesday in preparation for the photoshoot

• Switched internet providers, so technicians came on Wednesday to hook up the new internet

• Walkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalk....
  

This week's obligatory cat pic: Mura