What's in my Bag? Backpack Edition!

Listening to Blood by The Middle East (You may recognize it from the end of Crazy Stupid Love)
Subsisting on tea and cough drops
    So. I start classes in a week. It's only fitting that I get sick, right? It started off as a stomach bug, but it's turned into a killer cold, complete with cough, congestion, and hot nails in my throat. My room is a hot zone, I sound like a man, and I keep finding tissues wedged in all manner of weird places. And yet I'm blogging. For you special seven people.
    I even went out Saturday - even though I was so sick I had to call out of work (I had a fever and was throwing up; they wouldn't have wanted me anyways) - to buy school supplies for a back to school post. It was also the last day of tax-free weekend, and since I just spent 237 smackaroos on twenty books for school, there was no way I was paying sales tax on my school supplies, dangit.
    I don't know about y'all, but I have a special place in my heart for school supplies. Having gone to a private Christian school for half my life where we wore uniforms, the primary way we (at my school anyway) expressed ourselves was through our school supplies (and tennis shoes). We bought the biggest pencil boxes available and filled them with every pencil, pen, eraser, gel pen, sticky note, highlighter and mini stapler we could find. Bonus points if they were Lisa Frank or rainbow colored. By fifth grade we discovered the world of trading. "I'll give you my cloudy patterned sticky notes for your sparkly blue gel pen and scented eraser set." It was insanity. It actually got banned in seventh grade because it was distracting us from class and making kids who couldn't afford to buy the entire stock of Staples feel bad. So we would trade "on the black market" during recess behind closed doors. It was super sketch.
    Weird as it is, I still feel an adrenaline rush when I see a cool pen or squishy pencil grip. I did have to stay on the cheaper end of the scale as far as my school purchases this weekend. Also I was in a drug-induced fog so I didn't stand looking at things for too long before chucking 'em in the basket and coughing into my sleeve. (I'm pretty sure a middle eastern family thought I was racist 'cause I kept avoiding them in the store, but truthfully they had three little girls under the age of ten and I didn't wanna get them sick.)
     Anyways, here are some of the things I got that I thought were neat, and not too expensive. I know some people have already gone back to school, but us college kids have another week. Ish. Prices and links at the end of the post.

1. Post-it Flags. Since I'm an English nerd, and I'm taking three English classes this semester, I'm gonna be writing papers left and right. My favorite way to keep track of important quotes is with these little boogers. I like the wider ones so I can jot down on the flag which point in my paper the quote on that page coincides with. Bonus points for color-coordinating the color of the flag with a certain character.
2. Starbucks Cool Lime Refresher Instant Drink Mix. No, it's not as incredible as buying the drink at Starbucks. It's close, though. In my opinion, even though the packet is for 16 ounces, it's too strong. I usually use only half a packet, so the package lasts even longer than five drinks. I have yet to try the orange one, but with my love of everything citrus, I'm sure I'll love it.
3. Cool Gear Thermos. Y'all. It looks like a can. How freaking cute is that? My mom bought it when she was at WalMart (one for me and one for Maggs), and I just think it's the coolest thing ever. She said it was supposed to come with a straw, but I don't mind using it as is. You push back the faux tab and it slides the covering back from the little opening. My work friends made fun of it, but I'm pretty pleased with it. Plus, it's water tight when it's shut, so if I need to give my refresher a little shake before drinking, it won't make a mess!
4. Bic Erasers With Grips. I'm weird, y'all already know that, but there are a few things whose textures I don't like. The feeling of newspaper is one. Erasers are another. I don't know why. I just don't like it. When I buy erasers for school, I always get the clicky ones (where you click it up and down?) so I don't have to actually touch the erasers. Those, however, were twice as expensive as these, with their little grips. So I'm trying something new. Wish me luck!
5. Pentel EnerGel-X Express Roller Gel Pens. Long name, but I'll let it go because these are the greatest pens on the planet. Because I do so much writing, I have very specific preferences on my writing utensils. I stole a pen from Maggs a few months ago and freaking loved it. But within a few weeks it was already out of ink. I scoured Target, Walmart, and CVS for the pen to buy more, but couldn't find any. I found the InkJoys at WalMart and decided they were a fair enough substitute, until I visited Staples with Suzanne a few weeks ago. I found them, you guys. And not only in black, but in super bright awesome happy colors. You know how much I love bright colors. So you better believe when I went looking for school supplies I zeroed in on these babies and snatched them like a crazed bargain shopper at a store closing sale. I don't have a problem. Anymore.
6. Pilot Frixion Erasable Highlighters. Who here gets overexcited with the highlighter and colors a whole page neon orange? *raises hand* These, my friends, are for us over-eager highlighters. They're erasable. I have no clue if they actually work. I haven't opened them yet. But the back of the package says, "Unique Thermo-Sensitive Ink formula disappears with erasing friction." Sounds legit, right? I'll keep you updated.

There you have it. My Backpack Essentials. Some of which may or may not be as awesome as they claim. Which makes it exciting.

And I'm going back to bed.

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Supplies and Stuffs

• Post-it Flags $6.99
• Starbucks Cool Lime Refresher Instant Drink Mix (Available at Starbucks and SuperTarget for about $6.00)
• Cool Gear Thermos (No longer available. I'm sorry. I suck. I know.)
• Bic Erasers With Grips $2.99
• Pentel EnerGel-X Express Roller Gel Pens $7.29
• Pilot Frixion Erasable Highlighters $5.29

The Neutral Wing

Listening to Summertime Sadness, Lana Del Rey (Cedric Gervais Remix)
Craving some Chickfila. It's about that time, folks.
    One of my favorite trends is winged eyeliner. It's been around for a while, and much to my relief it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I used to wear it all the time with liquid black eyeliner, but I recently crossed to the gel side, and I haven't looked back. I feel like you can be so much more exact with gel than you can with liquid. That may just be me, though.
    Anyway, here's a little tutorial for a neutral winged look. Enjoy!

I start off with a base of Barely Branded, but any primer or creamy neutral base will do. Then I use a fluffy brush and apply a warm taupey brown to the crease, and blend it up past the brow bone (but not to the brows). I also pat some on the outer third for added depth. Next, I use a C-brush and swipe a shimmery champagne on the rest of my lid, blending it into the taupe on the outer corners.

Using the same shimmery champagne and the same brush, I apply a bit of it on the brow bone, but don't overdo it - it shouldn't be the center of attention here. Just a light wash. (Not pictured) I dab an extra dose in the inner corner as well. Next, using a smaller crease brush and a darker brown color, I define my crease and outer V and blend away. Then, using a matte charcoal grey, I create a fake drop-shadow from my "voluminous" lashes (ha) by taking the C-brush with the grey on just the edge, and draw a small short diagonal line down and away from the outer corner of my eye (you can see this best in the second photo of the next photoset). Marilyn Monroe was known for doing this to make her lashes appear longer and more dramatic. Just be sure it's matte, because a shimmer in a drop-shadow would defeat the purpose!

Now time for black eyeliner! Once again, I love using that e.l.f. concealer brush, but use whatever you feel comfortable with. I generally start from the middle of my pupil and work my way to the outer corner, then, starting again from the middle, fill in the rest to just before the inner corner, saving the wing for last. (If I'm not wearing liner on my waterline, I don't draw my liner all the way to the corner.) For the wing, I draw a diagonal line up and away from the lower lash line, and draw a small line from the upper lash line to meet it. Since this look is more neutral, I don't line as thick as I would for a true 40s-inspired wing look.

Finishing up! I fill in my brows and set them with brow gel, curl my lashes, slather on some mascara (do my hair from another tutorial) and I'm done!

Reasonably simple, quick, and straightforward. How do you wear your wings?

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Products Used

• Maybelline 24 Hour Color Tattoo Metal in Barely Branded
• e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow in Enchanting
• e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow in Elegant
• Physicians Formula Nude Classics Palette
• e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow in Seductive
• e.l.f. Studio Cream Eyeliner in Black
• Revlon Brow Fantasy in Dark Brown
• Maybelline Mega Plush Volum' Express Mascara in Black

Endless Rewrites

Listening to Blue Ocean Floor, by my man JT. I really cannot get enough of this album.
Thinking about writing and the many issues that accompany it.
    I was reading old posts to be sure I still wanted them on the blog. Just on a whim. I stumbled on one from the December I'd first started this blog. I'd just finished my first NaNoWriMo, and I was filling in the blanks between big events in the story. The same story I'm working on now, only this is a complete rewrite. I was having problems, I wrote, with the boring and the mundane. The every-day events. Now that I've changed so much of the story, I'm trying to tone down the big events so that they don't take so much stage. I don't want them to be the center of the story, to stand out from it. I want it to all be one continuous line. The way the novel should end, were I to put it in musical terms, is on a softer note, and the whole story should lead up to it at the same tempo, but still with a sense of forward motion. Does that make sense?
    The thing is, I took two short story writing classes, and my strength, unbeknownst to me, is writing the mundane and still making it entertaining. I would take small vignettes and make a story out of them, and though nothing huge happened, it was still a moving and engaging story. That's the feeling I want to evoke in this novel. It doesn't lead up to the big bang ending you want, but you're content with it nonetheless. This is apparently my strength, isn't it?
     So why do I find myself struggling with it? Someone de-riddle this for me, because I'm losing my patience with myself.
***Added*** Shout out to my good friend Hannah from Hannah Cynthia Lane for being such an awesome reader and writer, for that matter! (Y'all go check out her blog ASAP; she makes me giggle like a hyena during a hostile takeover.) Hope you have fun in Fiction Writing this semester with Big Daddy Platt. Also known as the Plattypus. (Side note, don't call him any of these names. We kinda got him angry a few times.)