1 Weird Trick to Looking Good in Photos

I recently read a blog post about incredible transformation photos. You know what I'm talking about; an ad for some diet aid or light food shows before and after photos of people who used to be lumpy and are now utterly svelte. I could tell you how to transform yourself, but I think I'll start off with proof directly from the source, who proved it.

Says MelVFitness:

"Check out my transformation! It took me 15 minutes. Wanna know my secret? Well firstly I ditched the phonewallet (fwallet) cause that shit is lame, swapped my bather bottoms to black (cause they're a size bigger & black is slimming), Smothered on some fake tan, clipped in my hair extensions, stood up a bit taller, sucked in my guts, popped my hip- threw in a skinny arm, stood a bit wider, pulled my shoulders back and added a bit of a cheeky/Im so proud of my results smile. Zoomed in on the before pic- zoomed out on the after & added a filter. Cause filters make everything awesome. What's my point? Don't be deceived by what you see in magazines & on Instagram.. You never see the dozens of other pics they took that wernt as flattering. Photoshop can make a pig look hotter then Beyonce."

That's right, fifteen minutes to a slimmer, fitter you, using this one weird trick.

There are other tricks. Resting your weight on one leg rather than both is one, and another is stretching your neck forward a bit toward the camera. From the side you might look a bit like E.T., but in the picture it'll smooth out your neck and jaw. Wear clothes that skim your figure instead of being overly loose or tight. If you want to play with the big dogs hire a tailor for everything down to t-shirts and sweats.

There are people who make careers out of posing people (or being posed). Models and photographers don't just stand there and take pictures, there's work that goes into it all. If you put in that kind of work, you could look amazing too. Or you could stop worrying so much.

Almost every photo of my mother when I was growing up was actually a photo of her palm facing the camera to block out her face. She was a little overweight, reasonably pretty, and somewhat obsessed with her appearance. Even on weekends she put on makeup before wandering around the house.

I read something recently that claims "Real Women Have Curves" is doing damage, and I believe it. It took me years and years to accept that my shape isn't the one that's currently fashionable, and this applies no matter your sex or gender. Even if I lose every ounce of fat on my body I still won't be shaped like someone in a magazine because not everyone is built with a broad chest, narrow hips, a tiny waist, or legs twice the length of their torso. Buying mass-produced clothing would imply otherwise, but it's not true.

Says Hanne Blank:

"Real women do not have curves. Real women do not look like just one thing.

"Real women have curves, and not. They are tall, and not. They are brown-skinned, and olive-skinned, and not. They have small breasts, and big ones, and no breasts whatsoever."

It continues in much the same way, the point being that people aren't all shaped the same. At all.

Guess what; the models in lingerie ads aren't the same ones you see on runways. Runway models are typically tall and slender. They're supposed to look like walking hangers so you look at the clothes. They're still real people, just tall, lanky ones who may or may not be pressured by their careers to eat little and stay slim. Lingerie models are shorter and curvier than them, but still pressured to stay fit.

What you see isn't the one version of perfection that so many people think it is.

So you can hide from the camera when you're not feeling attractive or pop your hip, stretch out your neck, suck in your gut and try to look like a model, or you can decide it's just not worth it.

Take my rant and search photography/modeling tricks or give yourself a look and decide that maybe you look like a person, like everyone else.

Discussion/comments are welcome.

Personality Tests

I'm a sucker for a good personality test. It has to be difficult, however. I can see results a mile away, and can't help tweaking my answer toward one result or another, or spreading my answers out so I know the result could have gone in multiple directions.

This one, however, stumped me. (Disclaimer: flashy lights, avoid if epileptic.) You're given a couple circles on a pulsing background and asked a question, such as, "Which one is angry?" or "Where will you never be safe?"

I, being the smart-aleck I am, started out picking the opposite of what I thought was obvious. As I went through it got a little disturbing, and I started to play it straight. My results were... me.

Though quiet on the outside, you are often the hidden hero; someone who rushes in when needed and then after the emergency is over fades back into the woodwork. Because of this sense of duty and honor, you can also on occasion be rigid in your viewpoint and unyielding in the face of other ways of thinking. Usually cynical and rarely trusting of others, you maintain a small set of intimate friends. These bonds are stronger than most. You are always grounded in the present moment. Your close bonds can also lead to clique-ishness and a tendency to gossip about those who are deemed less worthy. You are an integrative thinker, collecting data from a wide range of sources and applying it to your worldview. You can become overly task-oriented. In stressful situations you often withdraw from the world to seek peace in contemplation. You often seem cold and withdrawn. Often you will withdraw rather than verbalize your discontent.

Maybe not the best parts of me, but that is me, minus the bravado. That's me minus the logic that keeps me going. "I feel ____, but logically I know ____, so I refuse to show anger because I have no real reason to be angry."

Eh, it makes my mind swim. So of course I took the second test in the series immediately.

This one was four pulsing colored squares, each with shadowy figures in the center. "Which one knows your secret?" "Which is better than you?" Entirely different results, but still me.

A risk taking individual who fights against the burdens of life through a quest for excessive stimuli. This individual is not only impulsive but admires impulsive behavior, as this is perceived as being free of the exhaustion he or she feels from everyday life. Best method of entry is to appeal to the novel and the future development of our protocol. 

This client feels that times have come to a juncture that is requiring immediate action. This belief is often mistaken however and such an individual can react to perceived threats with overzealous behavior or asymmetrical responses. This client will not heed advice, whether good or bad, and will take his or her own guidance, even if it is only chosen as a means of asserting individuation.

This one cut deeper. Part of it is who I want to be. I want to take risks. I want something to truly interest me. Yes, I admire people who can set aside that very logic that I hold to and do what they want. Freedom is a heady thought. Freedom from constantly thinking about the consequences and deciding "It's not worth it," because maybe sometimes it is.

Also, interesting little fact here: When trying to read the second paragraph, I blanked out. I do that sometimes when something hits too close, or is too stressful. Rather than stressing over it, I just lose my train of thought and have to start over (much easier when I can reread what I've written). A quick read tells me that I sometimes go overboard and I don't trust advice. Sometimes just to prove that I have my own mind.

Well, ouch.

You know what's really fun? They have a third test, complete with pulsing lights and disconcerting noises.

You feel frustrated in your attempts to make your will manifest in a relationship, either personal or public. This frustration can be seen by others as irritability or anxiety and occasionally a tendency to drift into righteous anger. There is a feeling that society or people are holding you back, which can lead to a moral exhaustion and a sense of apathy if allowed to fester. If this continues you will ultimately desire only to be left alone.

Insecurity is the watchword for you at this moment. There is a strong sense that you have been socially demeaned or ignored recently. Hopes and dreams have been stymied, leading to an ever greater anxiety or unease. You need reassurance and to believe that your problems will someday be overcome, whether or not this is actually the case. Often your anxieties will lead you to become unreasonable or demanding. 

Mild discomfort now. I'd really rather deny this one and delete this entire post, but I won't let myself.

Big Disclaimer:
The tests I just took may beat your ego to death and creep you the heck out. In fact, they recommend not taking them unless you have a clinician ready to look at your results. I don't know if I just took one for the team or if I'm psyching myself out.

Little Disclaimer:
I love stuff that messes with your mind. For example, The Game, starring Michael Douglas, is an awesome movie that will drag your brain through the mud, push it off the roof on your dad's birthday, then laugh at you.

The moral of this blog post: How I entertain myself alone on the Internet.

Depression is Depressing.

I am miserable with my life. It doesn't count as suicide if you just ask God to hurry up and smite you, right?

To reassure anyone who thinks this theatrics, I am currently technically homeless, and living with a family member who needs help. This house has been seriously compared to Hoarders by worried family. I live out of a suitcase because my personal belongings, including my bed and perishable food items (which were mistakenly delivered with the rest), are divided between several people's storage units. I hope someone finds the food before spring, though I'm sure that by now it's been cold enough for the water bottles to explode and warm enough for the milk to sour. There are four cats in the house, three of which use the litter box, four in the garage who don't have a litter box, but get let outside sometimes, and two in the back room who neither have a litter box nor go outside. One must enter and exit through the garage, which, no offense to those up above, stinks to high heaven.

My friends live online because those I graduated college with have moved on. I have an amazing phone, a few really amazing friends, and severe, sometimes debilitating depression, as of about fifteen years ago. I used to tell myself that the worst that could happen would be ending up homeless and alone, but I've pushed my "worst" standards to far more horrible things. I am not currently being eaten alive by maggots while impaled in a hole full of spikes and having hail pound into my open eyes. Please, please, God, please, don't use my sense of sarcasm against me and make that happen.

Irony (or not, if you know all the technicalities of the word) is that just over a year ago I was set to graduate college, then move to the Golden State of California, where my daughter would attend a private school for hardly anything, thanks to one of those amazing friends, and I would be nearer the kind of job opportunities I'd dreamed of. My ex questioned me, gave me the verbal go-ahead, and took our flight information so that goodbyes could be said, we got the kid a cell phone for easy contact, got a Facebook so they could chat easily, etc etc.

Sunday before graduation, a week and two days before the flight, yours truly was delivered of a restraining order and a motion to take any and all custody away from me. After a week of locating a lawyer (since if you don't have one, at least here, the case defaults to the other person), during which I didn't sleep and unknowingly contracted pneumonia, I completed no final exams and was given a pity D to graduate in a class I'd been acing. Damned final exams. I don't really remember graduation. Had a high fever that day, and was super-proud that no one could tell how dizzy I was.

Anyway, after bouncing from place to place, I failed out of an attempt at grad school (admittedly a subject I ended up hating) and here we are. The child is tired of moving and living with other people, and despite the emotional abuse she suffers when with her other parent, I wonder if I'm doing any better.

"You should get on disability."

It's really disheartening to be told this, especially following a short speech about not being capable of handling a real job and needing to be realistic. It is disheartening both from one's (ex)friend, and from one's father. There is no explaining to some people that working for minimum wage 5 hours per day, 4 days per week isn't much motivation for someone who feels worthless. There is no explaining that 8 hours a day 5 days a week at a job one loves, being needed there instead of expendable, might just possibly maybe somehow ease the feeling of being useless, and that being paid enough to live on one's own might instill a sense of greatly needed pride, thereby propelling one out of one's dismal hole of hopelessness. And unfortunately, when pressured so much to get a job I've already not been hired at for years, it is difficult to contemplate looking for that big fish. It only makes the whole "not capable of handling a real job" thing all that more real, and the big fish looks like a dried-out goldfish the cat left behind the couch. It was shiny once, but all that's left now is a lost dream.

And yes, this is probably all ridiculous and blown out of proportion, but no matter how I try to correct myself, I can't get out of the mindset that "If you were capable of getting an A, but got a B, you might as well have failed."

I have now been struggling with depression for half my life. It doesn't get better for long at a time. The littlest setback is heartbreaking, and losing a dream that was in my grasp broke me. I've never been as close to hurting myself as I was a year ago, and though I don't intend to—in fact, I intend not to—it can always be worse, and that's what I'm afraid of. If I can hardly cope the way I am, how will I manage another ten years of this? Another twenty?

My depression is being treated, but there's no cure. I've apparently trained my mind to push aside my worries, and so anything that worries or distresses me is forgotten. I don't remember to do laundry when I have the time, nor to job search. If it does pop in, I'm busy, or I'm in a bad mood, or I'm too sleepy to do anything (or so I tell myself), and if I can't fill out an application properly, and better than anyone else, then it was not only a waste of my time, but a waste of the hiring manager's time. I feel like a waste of time.

I haven't blogged in forever because I had no internet access aside from my smartphone, which a friend thought I deserved, no matter that I don't (but it's mine! *clutches and hisses*). I don't even know where I'm going with this. Sudden memory loss in the middle of a sentence isn't odd when attempting to discuss worrisome or depressing topics, either.

Okay, I dragged you all down now, and gave you a taste of a long-term, severe depressive's thought process. I wish I could think of another cheese factory story right now, but since I can't, here:

Margaret Bourke-White. At the time of the Louisville Flood (1937)

It could always be worse, right?

Types of Depression

Suicide Prevention, Awareness, and Support

Changes in the HUD Definition of “Homeless”

Exempt From Reading: A Ranting Post

If I could do so and live, I would tear my brain out right now and stick it in a jar on a shelf somewhere for a while so I could have some peace and quiet. My lizard light isn't pulling its weight, and I'm wary of sitting under 100% power for a full hour, but it looks like that's what I'll have to do in order to stay awake. Still, my brain won't shut off. I could easily fall asleep on the hand-me-down futon three feet away, with no pillow and only a throw blanket to keep warm, but I'm so tense right now that I could scream.

So one time, at the cheese factory, I don't know what the hell the people in the other room were thinking, but they came in with a giant piece of scrap cardboard on which someone had drawn a cartoonish picture of a person mooning the viewer. After telling them they were crazy to spend their work time on such a project, I pointed out that there was way too much butt showing to not add a tattoo. "Do Not Enter" was my contribution.

Back on topic, now that I've calmed some. I'm sleepy most of the time, no matter how much or how little sleep I get. That, in addition to unemployment stress, makes it difficult to hold a solid train of thought, which makes it difficult to keep myself on-track and searching for a job. I got stumped on a cover letter and did nothing for about three days trying to convince myself that I was, somehow, still a competent human being.

Perfectionism can be crippling.

"If you got a B and you were capable of getting an A, you might as well have failed," my mom told me, and though I logically know it isn't true, I still fight it. I couldn't think of anything genius to write in that cover letter, and the immediate first thought, after a few false starts, was that if I set it aside, I'd be able to do it later, when my brain wasn't mush. But my brain continued to be mush, and when I reasoned that a decent cover letter (as opposed to an epic one) was better than not applying for the job, that voice in the back of my head told me that it would be a waste of time and effort, both for myself and the hiring manager, if I sent in a cover letter that just got me tossed in the trash anyway.

Yeah, seriously. I see where the problem in that logic is, but I also see the somewhat twisted point. So, you're the psychologist, here. What the hell am I not paying you for? I need answers, dammit! Solve my problems for me while I'm over on the futon, all right?

Before I go, however, I'll give you an update on last time. I managed the Facebook message and did my best with probing questions, and an attempt at friendship was agreed upon. I was not offered the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on a platter this time, but this weekend we'll be watching a Harry Potter movie or two. From the futon. Which is calling me.

ZZZ Z Z Z zzz z z z ... . . .