health

AWOL

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

Hey, internet.

I figure I owe you, my one true love other than James and cats and potatoes an explanation for my extended absence without leave from this, my blog. I haven’t even been very active elsewhere, but here has suffered the most.

If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been around much since May, and even before then. The reason is simple. For the past year or so, I have been suffering, more so than usual, from depression and anxiety. In the spring of this year, it got to the point where I was no longer able to cope on my own, and I took a medical leave from work (and basically the whole world) so I didn’t collapse on myself.

Things hadn’t been good in my life, aside from my partner and my friends. It grew worse in the summer when I lost my best friend, my beautiful cat Vinny, to cancer.

In the time I’ve been away from the world, I’ve been working on getting myself better, and aside from a few points, I can say this is the least depressed and anxious I’ve been in a while. I think these are things that are going to be part of me for the rest of my life – especially the anxiety – but I’m slowly learning how to cope and heal.

If there’s one thing I can say, it’s that, if you’re feeling in any way depressed, anxious, or too stressed out, take the time you need for you. Your relationship with yourself is the longest, most rewarding relationship you will ever have. Cherish it and treasure it, and make sure you are healthy and happy, inside and out.

This isn’t worth the agony for all involved, so please take care of yourself first.

And now that I’m feeling better, I hope I’ll be around more often. For now, I’m going to colour a cat line art book with my 96 pack of crayons and watch Cinderella.

Hairventures: 2014: May

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

May 2014

May 2014 (2)

And we continue to be blonde.

After leaving my hair for entirely too long upwards of eight weeks, please don’t hurt me I’ve finally got my roots done again, and toned more so it isn’t as yellow/green. It’s finally white, with random darker bits that look glorious but are totally only there because the dye didn’t hold as well.

Rather than an all-round pixie this time, we cut shorter on the back and sides, with longer up top, thanks to a photo I saw in People magazine of Charlize Theron. It was longer on top, and sort of delicately curled, so we’re going to get mine to grow a little and do the same. You can kind of see our waves and curls here, but they’ll be better once it’s all longer.

As per the norm with white hair, I’m toning it weekly with purple shampoo that stops it from turning ugly yellow. This is a lot more important than people might realize, because the reason people with dyed blonde hair might get judged or sneered at is their yellowing hair. If you want to keep the colour you dyed, you have to tone it. Everyone learns this the hard way the first time, but it improves, trust me. The only problem is it doesn’t dye my roots while I’m at it, but hey, this is my punishment for wanting to live by Gwen Stefani’s words again:

Platinum blonde life!

Also, meet my kitchen. Hello, kitchen

Hairventures: 2014: March

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

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I did promise my hair wouldn’t be brown anymore, didn’t I?!

Yep, I am blonde again.

If you’ve been following my hairventures since the get-go, I was blonde for about six months last year.

January 2013 (3)

This photo is from January of last year. I was blonde until March or so, actually – so essentially a whole year passed being unblonded. I actually joked that last year I went through a range of Game of Thrones-related hair: I started the year a Targaryen, then I was kissed by fire, and finally, a Baratheon, black of hair.

Which means I’m a Targaryen again!

And that actually ties into why I’m blonde again.

If you see from the previous linked post – January of last year – I quit being blonde because it’s expensive. My hair is very dark naturally, and apparently grows super fast. I had noticeable roots within a week of dyeing this time around. James and I were talking a few months back, and he was saying how part of the reason he loves Daenerys Targaryen, of Game of Thrones fame, is because of her white hair. Emilia Clarke, her actress, has even said that the best, most empowering part of playing Dany is her wig. There’s something about that stand-out, unnatural white.

So, when I pined about my long lost white hair, James offered to help me pay for it. The only time he saw my white hair was the first time we met; afterwards I had red and black. He was curious, I was pining, and voila. Because I am poor and he is usually not, upkeep is shared.

And I get to be blonde again!

Maybe next time we’ll add funky colours again. We shall see! 😀

Hairventures: 2014: February

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

20140205_230218

20140205_230300To be perfectly honest and fair, this is not the first time my hair has been done since last July, which was when my last hairventure was posted. That being said, the styles I had were the exact same as last July’s, so not worth mentioning.

And don’t mind that sultry face I’m making in the second photo.

My hair is currently the first time in ages that it’s been wholly my natural colour. Thar she is, in all her dark glory.

It’s just a scruffy pixie this time around, and it will be for a while yet. I really like this style, and it’s easy for me to take care of. Despite how little hair I have, I desperately hate blow drying, and prefer to let it dry on its own. The only problem with that is I end up with a bowl cut looking thing on my head because it dries flat.

To counteract that, I put in my wet hair my Osis styling gum or simple mousse to pull it how I want it to go, and it will usually dry that way.

Short hair, yeeeah.

In a few weeks, my hair will be updated again. If all goes to plan, this brown will be gone. 😀

I seem to have taken an involuntary sabbatical

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been pretty busy in my tangible life for the past while, so things have been pretty quiet here since Purity was released. James is home, which means I’m spending most of my spare time with him. The busy season is beginning at work, so I’m there full time in any case, and tired all the time but that’s really nothing new, is it. My grandmother has been in and out of the hospital for the past month, and I’ve been worrying about her like crazy. And, as the icing on the cake, my car is coughing his last, I think. Which is genuinely heartbreaking, because sweet Percy has such personality.

So I’m here to apologize for my neglect. I’ve finally acquired my ISBN prefix from the government of Canada for the Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords formats of Purity, so once I finish the last bit of formatting and get my rear in gear, I’ll be putting her up on those. I’ll keep everyone informed. In the meantime, I’ll continue putting up reviews, since I’ve been reading a lot, and maybe I’ll stuff up some teasers – most likely the Of the Arbour rewrite, or even some enticing tidbits of Purity. We’ll see.

Sorry if this post is scattered. I’m not really all here right now, and concentrating for me is hard even on the best of days.

Gender roles: a rant

~ JP Marshman ~ 1 Comment

I am an LGBT ally, and what bothers me most on a personal level—beyond the fact that equality should be for all—is the stress society places on gender roles and expectations. For several years now, I have chosen to wear my hair short. It was long once, and over the years it gradually got shorter and shorter —from elbow length, to shoulder, then shorter until I had the sides buzzed, as can be seen in my hairventures. I don’t like the feeling of hair touching my neck or face, and short hair, for me, is easier.

And yet I get questions from complete strangers asking me why, as a female, I chose to cut off my long hair. I have had several people confuse me for a male solely because of my short hair. At first I didn’t mind the questions, but if a stranger is going to comment on my appearance, I would infinitely prefer they ask me about my piercings or my tattoos or the clothes I wear. Honestly, I would be more comfortable explaining to someone I don’t know why I have the serenity quote tattooed on my arm than why I cut my hair short. The only trouble is that the tattoo explanation would make everyone else uncomfortable.

I don’t buy into gender roles. I am female, but I can’t cook or bake or sew. I wear jeans and tee shirts most days, and oftentimes shopped in the boys’ section as a child, and played in the mud with my brother and his friends. I play video games and curse like a sailor. Yet I do love a good twirly dress and heels, and I have more Barbies than most people I know. I wear makeup 90% of the time—and a lot of it, too, only designed to look subtle.

And if we’re really going to delve into it, I have this:

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a traditionally feminine shape.

I have an hourglass figure. I have enormous breasts, a narrow waist, and hips. I have the body of pinup girls from the 1950s. Continue reading →

Wow, I am the worst at blogging

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

I was doing so well for a while there, too.

But let me list excuses why I’ve been neglecting you forgive me:

  • James was back in town
  • I had one health crisis—
  • —followed by another
  • On my two days off this week, I played probably 24 hours total of Dragon Age: Origins
  • and got no writing done whatsoever
  • Star Trek TNG
  • Preparing for Halloween
  • Work
  • I sometimes have a social life
  • I played a lot of Dragon Age

So I’m going to try blogging on a regular basis again, and pick my lazy ass off the floor. I’m also going to try to push past this strange laziness of putting off Abominatino, and I’m going to go hard editing Purity, because I still intend to release her around Halloween, and that’s coming up soon. September and October are going to be busy months, so I’m going to be sporadic, but less so.

/endupdate

Insomnia Strikes: Of the Arbour teaser

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

He could see shapes in the ceiling.

Shadows writhed in a sensual dance as the dying embers of his candle spat and faded. What little light remained cast an eerie glow across the worn stone walls of his room, and the edges where the mortar had crumbled and flaked away had shadows like spider legs stretched across the surface. The door on the other side of the room was invisible, swallowed by blackness; for a moment he considered taking the time to relight the candle, then decided that wasting the flint would be ridiculous. Master Korrin wasn’t about to give him more because he thought the shadows on his ceiling would give him nightmares.

He rolled his shoulders and winced as bolts of pain shot down his spine and spread through his muscles. Nightmares weren’t for the waking world—usually, he reminded himself with a small shudder. One required sleep to have nightmares. Continue reading →

Hairventures: 2013: July

~ JP Marshman ~ 1 Comment

Mah hurr has been did again!

Due to the fact that I’m a poor kid living on her own, I couldn’t keep up with the ridiculous, fun stuff that Suzanne and I usually do. To be safe, we went as dark as she was willing to go, since my own hair is only a few shades lighter than this black. Just before we started dyeing and cutting, Suzanne looked at me, at the blonde, bleached patch that had been yellow and orange before, and asked if we were still going to do something fun.

I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to have single-tone hair once more, but this perked me up. We’ve been going strong with the weird colours for years now – why break the cycle? Continue reading →

Hairventures: 2013: January – March

~ JP Marshman ~ 3 Comments

January 2013 (3)

At the beginning of 2013, we continued being white blonde. I was living, as Gwen Stefani might say, a platinum blonde life. Pink dye is also nice in that it doesn’t fade or wash out as quickly as, say, blue or red, my favourites, so we continued with this trend, only this time we added some purple to the sides and roots. This was, as per the norm, Suzanne’s idea; I originally was thinking all dark blue with lighter blue tips, but that would be unreasonable and wouldn’t last, so we kept up with the white and pink. Continue reading →