pictures11

Pictures

For My Ladies

“Hey, Sean. You done for the day?” Brian asks.

Sean nods up at him. He’s crouched next to McGee’s desk, packing up a bit of his stuff, and ready to go home. Just has to get out of wardrobe, back into his own clothing, half an hour drive, and he’s home for the night.

“Just about,” he gestures to the jeans, button down, and jacket. McJobWear. “You?”

“Still one more scene.” Brian checks his watch. “Probably an hour from now. David and Mark are shooting. Got to make up for party time.”

Sean nods; he knows all about that. Yeah, parties are nice and all, but the show still has to get shot in eight days, so that means early mornings and late nights to make up for party-time.

Sean zips up his backpack, and stands up, heading to his trailer. Brian falls into stride behind him. For a bit, they’re just chatting about the day, plans for the evening, current Fallout 4 missions, normal stuff.

Sean gets to his trailer, opening the door, and Brian follows him in, and shuts the door. That’s… especially since he’s heading in there to change and go home for the day… not normal.

“Brian…”

Brian’s just watching him, thinking about something, and Sean, who’s known him for an awfully long time at this point, isn’t sure what.

“You’re a really bad kisser.”

Sean stares at him, appalled, and finally comes out with, “What? Wait! No! I’m… No! What?” After a few seconds of bluster, he gets a full sentence out. “No, I’m not. I know how to kiss!”

Brian raises an eyebrow at him. “Uh huh, so earlier today you were… smelling my hair? Breathing gently on my ear? About to whisper something but forgot? Followed up by, pressing your face against my temple? For like, five seconds? What do you think you were doing? Kissing involves lips moving!” Brian makes a little kissing gesture at Sean.

Sean rolls his eyes, massive bitch face on, and flips him off. “I know how to kiss.”

“I’ve been watching you do this for years. No, you don’t. I thought that was just how you play McGee, and that he doesn’t know how to kiss, but today I got thinking about it, and that’s how you kiss everyone.”

Bitch face slips into disbelief. “You’re thinking about how I kiss people. Kelly’s gonna love that.”

“She’ll forgive me. This is a humanitarian mission, my friend.”

Sean has a very disturbed look on his face. “Brian…”

“You’re thirty-eight-years-old. It’s well past the time you learned how to kiss.”

“Okay, we’re beyond not having this conversation.” Sean turns away from Brian, toward his closet, which is where his clothing is hanging and where he leaves McGee’s for the night. Normally, he’d strip off, get back into his own clothing, even with Brian here, not like they haven’t shared a dressing space before, but now… The idea of that is making him fairly uncomfortable.

“Carrie’ll approve.”

That gets Sean turned around fast.

“She’ll thank me for it.”

“I know how to kiss. I know how to kiss her. Been doing it for more than a decade. Me and her and kissing, we’re just fine.” But, Sean knows that Brian and Kelly are part of Carrie’s group of poker buddies, he knows that Brian’s the only guy in that group, and he knows the girls tend to forget he isn’t one of them, and those conversations can get risqué. And, now he’s wondering what Brian may have heard over the course of those games.

“Even Mark knows that when you kiss someone’s cheek you pucker up.”

“I did the last time I kissed you.”

Maybe there's some pucker, or not.

Brian flashes him an exceptionally doubtful look. Sean might have, but he doesn’t think he did. “Shouldn’t be a one out of three thing. You need help.”

In an extremely cagey sort of way, Sean licks his lips and says, “If I did… What are you suggesting?”

Brian takes a step closer, and Sean takes one back. Brian rolls his eyes a bit. “It’s not like history, Sean, you don’t learn it by reading a book.”

Sean’s eyes close and he licks his lips again before opening them. “So, you’re… offering to teach me?” He licks his lips again. “Um… I should be waking up soon, right? Or Michael’s hiding in the closet with a camera ready to hop out and get the shot?”

Brian shakes his head. “We’re actors. We pretend things all the time. And we practice things we don’t know how to do with each other all the time, too. I’ve done sex scenes, you have, too, and we’ve both definitely done kissing scenes with people other than Kelly or Carrie.”

“With women other than Carrie or Kelly.”

“If you go home and tell Carrie that I told you, you needed to learn how to kiss, and suggested you go learn with Pauley or Emily, we’d both get in trouble. You tell her I helped, and you’ve got all the sex you’ve ever dreamed of for the next week, and someone who’s very enthusiastic about trying out your new skills.”

Sean knows enough about Carrie to suspect that Brian’s dead right about that, and that she’d want pictures, too. And he’s certain, by how Brian’s talking about it, that Kelly’s in the same boat. He bites his lip. Then he opens his closet door, but Michael isn’t hiding in there. His trailer doesn’t have open windows (though he double checks to make sure the blinds are tight) and… he checks the bathroom, too, also empty.

“It’s not a prank,” Brian says, as Sean’s eyeballing the space under his sofa. Michael’s a pretty big guy and there’s not a lot of room under there, but…

“It sounds like the set up for a prank.”

“Well, given what you’re doing, if it was a prank, we’d have already won. Just get over here.”

Sean steps forward, hesitantly, and looks like he’s about to bolt back at any second.

“Kissing, Sean, not amateur eyeball surgery. This won’t hurt.”

Sean doesn’t look convinced. He does inch a tad closer.

“It also doesn’t work from two feet away.” Brian steps into his personal space, and this time Sean doesn’t move back.

“This is going to be all over the internet by tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Really, not a prank. Lesson one, when kissing your lips should move.” And with that Brian leans in, and up a little, puckers up, and lays a brief, soft, kiss on Sean.

Who is still as a board. A petrified board. A petrified board buried deep in the ground. In concrete.

Brian leans back. “Which part of ‘move’ was unclear?”

“I’m still trying to figure out how I agreed to this.”

“Probably because you know you need it. Good God, man, I’ve seen corpses more lively than you when it comes to kissing.”

“Like you’ve seen a real corpse!”

“I did when I went to visit the LA Morgue for training.”

“Right. You did. Shit.”

Brian takes both of Sean’s shoulders in his hands and leans in again, until he’s an inch from Sean, noses a hair apart. “Lips move.”

Sean can feel his breath against his lips, and this time, in some perverse, male gonna-prove-this-guy-wrong sort of sense, he closes the kiss and his lips are moving, little puckering pecks, his ‘screen kiss’ because he’s not about to kiss Brian the way he kisses Carrie, and until Brian pulls back and begins to laugh, he thought he had been doing pretty well.

“Your dick’s even longer than your fingers, isn’t it?” Brian says when he finishes laughing. “Carrie’s got to see something in you, and it certainly isn’t how you kiss.”

“Fuck you; we’re done.” Sean starts to step back, but Brian’s fingers tighten on his shoulders.

“Oh please, if I get gentle and encouraging, this is not me helping you out, it’s… A seduction or something, and that’s not what either of us, or our wives, are looking for. Okay… Just stay still…”

That makes a hell of a lot of sense to Sean, because if this is anything other than one friend helping another, then it crosses a line and goes from weird to bugfuck insane, so, he stays still.

“That little pucker thing,” Brian does pucker up and give Sean a peck. “This is hello, or happy to see you, or what you do with the kids or a buddy.” He does it again and again and again, repeating back what Sean was doing to him. “That’s… I don’t know what that is. I’m not sure I’ve ever done that.”

Sean rolls his eyes again, but keeps staying still.

“Okay.” This time Brian starts with that little peck, and then he gently rubs his lips over Sean’s. Just a light little brush. “Just saying, hi, but that’s for someone you want to know better, or already know better and want to make sure she’s happy about it.” He tries that brush again, and another little peck, just to Sean’s bottom lip, before adding a gentle suck. “Add a little nibble to that, and you’re well into, ‘You and me and a bottle of wine time after the kids are asleep?’” And then he demonstrates. “Okay, do it back.”

Sean doesn’t look thrilled, but… Even with Brian doing it, it feels nice, and it would probably feel a hell of a lot better with Carrie, and he’ll admit he doesn’t do much with his teeth and that is kind of interesting, and, she might like that, so… He starts with the brush, and then a peck, and another peck, a little suck, and… Brian didn’t do it, but he doesn’t want to look like he’s entirely clueless, so… he adds a little lick to go with the finishing nibble.

When he pulls back, with a smirk, Brian shoves his shoulder. “So, you aren’t totally clueless!”

Sean shoves him back. “Not fourteen, you know?”

“Uh huh. You kiss like it.”

Another eye roll. This time… This time Sean pulls him closer and really goes for it. The way he kisses Carrie, not screen kisses. He gets his hand behind Brian’s head, fingers twined in his hair, pulls it back just a bit, and then notices that he doesn’t have to lift Brian up or hunch down, which is kind of nice, and gently licks over his bottom lip. Licks his own lip as well, so everything is wet and slick, and gently slides over Brian’s lips, then he gets his tongue into play, slipping it over Brian’s lip, gently easing between his lips, little in out motions. Not too deep, he’s not looking for tonsil hockey here, just setting the scene for later… Well, if this was Carrie he would be, right now he’s not sure what the hell he’s doing, other than maybe trying to prove he can kiss. From there he moves to a lighter touch, more of that gentle, wet slide, and a bit of sucking on his lower lip. Usually at this point in the dance, he goes passive for a while and Carrie leads, and Brian reads kissing well enough to get that, so he moves in with more of his own technique, more smooth slide and sharp little nibbles, which Sean is definitely thinking of adding to his own mix of moves, though he’s not sure what he’d say to Carrie if she asks about it.

It’s a good kiss. He’s actually really liking the suck, nibble combo Brian’s working on his bottom lip, which is when the thing, the thing he tries to avoid at work, which is why he avoids kissing scenes or does them badly, and hopes the camera is well-angled to hide it, happens.

And Brian isn’t wrong. It is longer than his fingers, at least after a bit of good kissing, and he prefers not to poke his co-workers with it.

So, Sean breaks away, and he is perversely proud to see Brian follow him back for an inch and is a bit flushed once he gets the ‘we’re not kissing anymore’ message.

“I can kiss.”

Brian holds up his hands. “I stand corrected. So, what were you doing earlier? Smelling my hair?”

Sean shrugs and rolls his eyes. “Being affectionate. They said be happy and affectionate, so I was happy and affectionate. Just… I like kissing, so when I’m on set, I don’t. Usually the camera’s in place to cover and it’s easier to do it badly than to not like it, and… I don’t know how you do it, but when I’m being McGee, I’m McGee. Slip into him and his life, makes for more genuine responses. But, you know, Margo’s not really Delilah, and she doesn’t want me poking her in the hip, and I don’t want to do be doing that, either. First off it’s fucking creepy, and second of all, I’m not married to her.”

Brian nods at that. He’s had some situations along those lines over the last few years. Though, most of the time, he doesn’t merge into his character the way Sean’s talking about. When he’s had sex scenes, he’s doing his job, and that keeps things toned down nicely.

There’s a knock on the door to Sean’s trailer, and the voice of… Sean’s not sure, he’s a new runner, calls out, “Is Brian in there?”

“Yeah. Ready for me?”

“Yes.”

“There in five.” He looks to Sean. “And I’m back on.”

Sean nods to him. Brian nods back, and heads off with a little goodbye wave.

As he leaves, Sean’s still not sure what the hell happened, but he’s suspicious that there had to have been a bet involved in that somewhere.

  

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine: Firefly Review

Mal: Well look at this. Seems we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, Sir.

--Firefly: Safe

So, this is news to precisely no one who's ever met me in person, but I'm kind of (read: completely) a geek. And well, if you are going to dangle an ultra-shiny duochrome (really multi-chrome, this baby's got lots of colors) in front of my geek besotted eyes, and call it Firefly, I'm going to have a positive reaction.

And if it's super-duper pretty, and awfully long lasting on top of that, well, there's gonna be squeeing.

There was indeed squeeing at the Raist household when I got this baby on my hands.

Two coats got slightly-translucent true-to-bottle color. And, in a pinch, one coat would have done it. This is awfully well pigmented. The colors range from pink to copper to gold to green. Pink and gold did their best to hide, only coming out when the light was exactly right, while copper and green were the dominant shades.

Same polish, different angles, so cool.

Pictures are great, but for this video is better. Bear in mind, since this is a wear test, I'm not wearing a top coat on this. That mirror shine is straight from the bottle.

Right after I put it on:

Twenty-four hours:

Tiny bit of tip wear.

Forty-eight hours:

Tiny bit more, and it's more visible in the pic than real life.

That was after the dreaded long, hot shower test, which has slain many a fine polish. For some reason, my fingernail flex and move a lot when they get too warm, and this plays havoc on my polishes. But not Firefly, it just rolled with it.

Seventy-two hours:

This is after the most strenuous thing I do with my hands these days, breaking down primal cuts of meat into individual portions. This means lots and lots of hand washing with, yet again, more steaming hot water. Plus, since I was turning full sirloins into steaks, that also means a lot of careful scrubbing of the nails and under the nails after. There's a bit of teeny-tiny chipping, and we've just hit the point where someone, looking at the nails from a foot or eighteen inches away, can almost see they aren't quite perfect.

So, it's clear, Firefly is going into the gold metal, winner category. I love this color. I love this name. I love the fact that I tossed everything I have at this polish and it just kept on trucking. It's bright. It's shiny. It's gold, green, copper, and pink. And it wears like a work horse without a top coat. With one, I'm sure you could get a full week or ten days out of this!

Other Press:

http://thekarend.blogspot.com/2012/10/sally-hansen-lustre-shine-swatches.html

http://www.thepolishedmommy.com/2012/09/sally-hansen-lustre-shine.html

http://www.overpolished.com/sally-hansen-lustre-shine-firefly/

All that Glitters is Blue

I had OPI's I've Got A Herring Problem on my right hand, and Sally Hansen's Lustre Shine in Firefly on my left. After forty-eight hours, Herring was done for the wear test. But Firefly was still going strong. Since trying to take polish off of one hand while wearing it on the other never works for me, I decided to spruce up Herring by adding a coat of all of my blue (or blueish) glitters.

Here they are all together:

I did one coat of each, just to see how they looked.

On the thumb:

Pure Ice French Twist is a black jelly with blue mirco glitter and hex glitter. It's got a very nice depth, looking like the glitter is embedded in a slick of color, not just glued onto the finger.

On the first finger:

Seriously, that's one coat.

Sally Henson Gem Crush 01 Showgirl Crush. That's one coat. This is insanely packed with glitter that goes on like a dream. Tons of silver micro glitter and little bitty blue hexes.

Middle finger:

Really, in most lights it reads green.

Sinful Colors Nail Junkie. This one is not very blue, it's more a teal-y green. I love looking at this one, it's green jelly base, with silver and green micro glitter and copper, pink, blue, and green flashing holo glitter. Sooo pretty.

Ring finger:

 
Spoiled Trust Fund Baby. This was a Littlest Dude pick. It's a pretty straight forward mix of blue, black, pink, and silver glitter. Not a ton of it in there, but it does a nice job as an accent.

Pinkie:

NYC Long Wearing 105 Starry Silver Glitter. Name pretty much says it all. It's silver micro glitter with pink and blue hexes. The Hexes don't seem to want to join the party on the nail. They'd rather hang out on the brush, so getting them on my nail was a bit of a challenge, but eventually I got a few on there. 

OPI: I've Got A Herring Problem Review

I got this one while stalking about Ulta, enjoying one of their sales. I thought it was a matte gray-blue while in the store. Once home, I noticed it was a nicely sparkly little thing, with some tiny glassy bits adding a little bling to what might otherwise be a drab color.

I wasn't sure if it would stain or not, so I put a base coat on to go with it. Usually I try to test out a color sans base or top coat. I already know how well my base/top coat combo works (five or so days with no issues besides a bit of tip wear.) I want to know how well the polish wears on it's own! But in that I'm still growing out an unfortunate experience with a red polish, I'm being careful about this sort of thing now.

Three fairly thin coats got me true to bottle color. It's not entirely opaque, I can still see the nail line if the light hits my hand right, but the color looks the same as it does in the bottle, so I stopped at three.

Coats one and two were both a little patchy, but by coat three everything had evened out nicely.

Here it is right after I did the manicure:

Seriously, right after. I haven't even cleaned up the edges, yet.

Twenty four hours:

Little bit of tip wear on my first finger.

Forty-eight:

The dreaded hot shower test killed this one. None of those chips were there until I hopped in  nice, long, steamy shower. So, I got 47.5 hours of just dandy out of this, and my guess is that if I had held off on the shower this would have worn a whole lot longer. 

I'm fairly pleased with this one. A bit more wear time would have been good, but it's a great color, and wore just fine as long as I didn't stress it too badly.


Other Press:

http://www.the-crumpet.com/2012/02/opi-i-have-herring-problem.html

http://www.amandalandish.com/2012/04/opi-i-have-herring-problem.html

http://www.nailzilla.com/2012/02/opi-i-have-herring-problem-holland-2012.html



I used it in this look with L'Oreal's Walk on the Beach.

And a different look I did a bit earlier with OPI's In Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Yeah, I've worn a few letters off my keyboard. It's one of the
rarely mentioned perils of being an author.

Blue on Blue

I Have A Herring Problem

In Her Majesty's Secret Service

Since I'm remarkably lackluster at fine detail painting, most of the manicures you'll see here are variations on the French tip theme. Mostly I like playing colors off of each other, and something about a monochrome/texture variation just makes me happy.

I was in Ulta, eyeballing the OPIs because they were on sale and found two I knew I had to put together.

OPI In Her Majesty's Secret Service and OPI I Have A Herring Problem. In real life they're both a bit more blue than they came out in these pictures. Both look more like grays that had blue added, as opposed to blues that have been toned down with gray.  I Have A Herring Problem is lighter and has a subtle glimmer to it, a sort of glass particle look, rather than a micro glitter. In Her Majesty's Secret Service looks like silver/gunmetal shimmer in a blackened navy base.

Together, I think they're looking pretty snazzy in a subtle sort of way.