Transgender Day of Remembrance

I haven't, as of yet, gotten very political or very personal on this blog, as my real name is attached to it. And I won't do either here and now, but if a frank discussion against xenophobia in this culture is upsetting, you can stop reading and my feelings won't be very hurt.

I did my manicure in response to Lacquer Lad's request for support in honoring the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The guidelines he gave in particular were that blue and purple should be used and maybe a candle.

I used Sally Hansen CSM Good to Grape and L'Oreal Rainy Picadilly for my colors, with a gradient between the two. I attempted to do a light purple flame (Good to Grape mixed with a little White On) on my middle finger... and it was a huge disaster. So I covered the whole nail with the mix, did some distressing with a little acetone, and added my attempt at this symbol with more White On (swiped from Wikipedia's Gender Symbol page):

Here's our frank discussion, now. We all perform gender roles as we've been trained. I know, love, and respect several human beings who perform gender roles in different ways than society wishes they would, and you know whose problem that is? It's society's problem, not theirs.

We're afraid of what we don't understand. We're afraid of people who seem strange or don't do what we expect. Without teaching ourselves to consciously accept people who are different from us, we end up missing out on amazing experiences and relationships, we add hate to the world, we add justification to those who hurt people for being who they are, and that makes us complicit in the violence against transgender or gender-queer people.

I sincerely doubt anyone reading this is the type to perpetuate violence on people who look or behave differently, but on this day, please remember those who died because other people had no such compunction:

Transgender Day of Remembrance Memorial List 2012

Flocks in Flight!

So for my Llama Nails weekly challenge, F, I had a vision. And as usual, the execution of the vision is....suboptimal. But I'm getting better.

I first mixed up sally girl Epic and Sally Hansen White On to get a sky blue for two coats. Then I sponged on more White On for clouds, and gave it a couple of hours to dry while I saw an arachnologist debunk the Spiderman movies (did they need debunking? No. But it was entertaining) at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

After I got back home, I cut up some masking tape and made mountain shapes. I didn't have a great mountain color, so I mixed some Sally Hansen CSM Good to Grape and Haute Chocolate (Walgreen's has all Sally Hansen CSM polishes for $1.88 right now! Go!) and painted it on, one nail at a time, removing the tape right after painting.

I used my smallest skinniest brush (I need a smaller skinnier one!) to paint on wide Ms to be birds in flight, with the V being on my middle nail, with the Haute Chocolate.

Overall, I think I got the effect I wanted, though as always, it would be better if I had steadier hands.