2011 was a relatively quiet year, nothing huge happened but good things were spread out throughout it. Here is a breakdown of the last year. I meant to post this IN 2011 but oh well.

I got particularly obsessed with everything British, particularly British telly.

I learned a lot about myself, such as that I am HSP, which was quite the duh moment if I can admit.

I posted a bunch of Reviews.

I celebrated 8 years with Manly Man.

I learned about friendships and how they are supposed to work.

I wrote about letting go and quite honestly I think I’ve gotten better at it.

I went just a little crazy.

I Laughed My Ass Off.

I did a quick movie list of the movies I’m telling you to see or you are a dumbass.

I discussed the art of the Bad Boy, it was riveting.

I did a photography charity thing, felt really good though it was intense.

I wrote this a while back but I think it still needs to be said.

After watching all 5 seasons of your family I have a few suggestions that might help you all out a little.

• With all the problematic pregnancies maybe the world is trying to tell you something. Don’t get me wrong, the men in your family are top notch.
• I’ve never seen a family with so many secrets maybe you should try, I don’t know, just being honest. I mean, has all of your secrets done any of you any good? I’ve never seen so many people live so long with so many secrets, I don’t know how you do it.
• I’m thinking maybe William Walker had a sex addiction because seriously, he put in a LOT off effort just to get laid. Also, does he know of a little thing called a condom?
• With all the tragedies that happen regularly maybe you guys should leave the house a lot less, it might be better for everyone.
• Richard and Kitty: with a heart attack and then cancer, maybe you guys should have taken a year off from politics.
• Ok ok, Holly is growing on me slowly but the way she talks still makes me want to hurt her sometimes.
• I realize that even though Justin and Rebecca are not actually related it was still creepy them ending up together.

I offered to make a movie list for some family members when we were on vacation and I thought I might as well share the same list with all of you. I stand by every single one of these movies, especially the ones that seem not all that interesting…those are the ones in particular I recommend. You can also see my lists, etc. on Imdb.com.

HORROR

note: so most of these horror movies are either the kind to give you a heart attack from the suspense or just plain terrify you to the point you sleep with the lights on. You’ve been warned.

Funny Games [There is a 90s German version and a current American version. Both were done by the same director shot for shot so I approve of the American version even though I haven't seen it. I mostly recommend the newer version because it has Tim Roth and Michael Pitt in it.]

Martyrs [This foreign horror film actually caused Manly Man to storm out at the end of it saying "I can't believe you made me watch that." Now they are in the process of making an American version but I'm fairly certain there is no way we can pull of that kind of insanity but who knows. This one gets a real serious warning, don't watch this if you get too squeamish.]

Audition [This is an Asian horror film and one of the best of it's kind. So creepy and there are memories from it I will never ever forget.]

The Orphanage [Super creepy and awesome.]

DOCUMENTARIES

King of Kong [The only reason I watched this was because Gwen recommended it and for the most part I trust her recommendations. I did not think I'd get into a documentary about Donkey Kong but I was on the edge of my fucking seat the entire time. If anything you need to watch this to meet the most vile man on the planet, Billy, if I ever see him in person I hope to knee him in the nuts.]

Man on Wire [Beautfiul (true) story and I loved how the film was put together. About a man who decided to walk a tight rope between the Twin Towers.]

Lord Save Us From Your Followers [You might think this was about how much I hate religion (which I do) and how all the followers are a bunch of knobs but it's not, it moved me to tears and is something every single person needs to see.]

The Thin Blue Line [A man is put in prison for a crime he did not committ and this documentary set him free.]

Wasteland [About a man who visits the largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and the journey he takes is an emotional one.]

Capturing the Friedmans [I can almost guarantee you'll come out of this movie with no answers and that's the best part of it. Also it's a fascinating case.]

Hot Coffee [This only just came out but wow, I had a totally different opinion when I went into this than what I came out with. It's about our litigious society (we are sue happy) and it starts with the woman who sued McDonalds for being burned by her coffee. I had always thought this woman was nuts but turns out, I didn't know the whole story.]

DRAMAS

note: I’m not going to explain these, watch them or not, I don’t care. They are good, that’s all that matters.

One Week

Somers Town

An Education

It seems many look down on anyone mourning Amy Winehouse’s death because she deserved it. She had a drug problem and most likely that is what killed her. Because she was a drug addict did she deserve to die? No, every death is sad and unfortunate. She was someone’s daughter and friend. If a good friend of mine had a drug problem, even if I lost touch, I’d be devastated. When this happens, that’s what I always think about. I think about those who loved that person and how much it had to hurt to lose them. I can’t even imagine.

What happened in Norway was also devastating and something that should never have happened. I would never compare this to Amy Winehouse or any other person who died. Why must we compare?

Do you know what is happening in Somalia? This too is tragic and incredibly painful to think about. There is so much pain in the world right now, more than it seems is even possible. Our country falling apart is beyond comprehension to me, even though to me it seems we caused it. So many people (such as my husband) are suffering because of our country’s problems who are completely shut out of the work force. He can’t even get a job as a pizza delivery person and he’s a skilled tradesman.

There are also beautiful things in this world like 2 grandmothers being the first gay marriage in New York. So there is something good still happening in this world among all the sadness. I just am so bothered that with everything happening people seem to be arguing over which is worse or trashing people that died. What is wrong with us? How did we get to a place of such judgment and such anger over something we should all come together over?

So back when tumblr was still very new I decided one day there needed to be a tumblr just for Kevin Spacey. So at that point I started Fuck Yeah Kevin Spacey, I didn’t think much of it except I could post all about Kevin there without annoying my non-Kevin-obsessed friends. I honestly didn’t think it would make much of an impression because let’s face it, most of Tumblr is teenagers who tend to care about Justin Timberlake and Hannah Montana.

That is more than my daily tumblr or this blog for that matter.

To my surprise it took off pretty quickly, people starting to follow it right off the bat. Of all my Tumblrs, and I have a few I must admit because they addictive like tattoos, this one has gotten the most attention. There are a lot more die-hard Spacey fans than I ever imagined. For as long as I can remember my friends have made fun of me for my love of Kevin and the fact that I call him Kevin. I’ve been asked many times why I love him and there are so many reasons it’s kind of pointless to even get into it.

It’s probably not entirely surprising that Gwen helps me manage it because we initially bonded several years ago over our love for Kevin. Someday we plan to move to London and follow him around (stalking sounds so evil) as a hobby. Hell, she even came out to visit me, 2,000 miles away, so we could watch him in a movie he didn’t even have a lead role in.

So basically I just wanted to say “I rule!”

It’s strange to even have someone come up to me saying they want to get into photography, I still don’t really feel like a photographer. I have though been paid for my time and work so I figure, there’s that. So here are my tips for someone who is thinking of becoming a professional photographer.

1. Make sure you are being paid for your time and for your work. Charge for the session when you take the pictures and charge for the prints they order. It’s hard to do this at first but you need to be worth something.
2. Learn to love photoshop because you can’t be a photographer without it. Sometimes you need to spend 2 hours working on 1 picture and sometimes it just needs to be cropped. For me it makes the difference between a snapshot and a professional portrait. Here is the difference between a non-edited photo and an edited one. (See below)
3. To build your portfolio ask to take pictures of your friends and their kids. Make sure they know that this is a one time deal and they won’t get it for free again. Only do this at the beginning when you are learning.
4. When you go professional just because someone is your friend or a family member doesn’t mean they should get your work for free. Don’t let them take advantage of you. I have a family member who I did pictures for, for free and then offered the pictures to order at a discounted price and she refused to buy pictures. I can only assume it was because she felt she should get them for free.
5. Do not do full resolution discs, the clients should pay for both the services and the product. Only do discs of images for weddings but make sure you are compensated.
6. If you are going on a shoot make sure to bring water with you, you will get thirsty. You will also be starving when you are done, you’ll eat like you’ve never eaten before.
7. Don’t compare yourself to other photogs. Find inspiration and ideas from them but don’t compare yourself, easier said than done. Here is some inspiration.
8. If you are doing a wedding bring a second shooter. My first 2 weddings I didn’t have a second shooter and I wish I had. It’s so easy to miss an important moment when shooting a wedding.
9. Light can be your best friend or enemy. Light can take a picture from a snapshot to a portrait.
10. Communicate with your clients before, during and after the session.
11. Always have a contract, just to cover yourself and the client.
12. Don’t let anyone discourage you if this is your passion but also know that photography is a long hard battle that never ends, you can’t just magically become a professional because it’s what you want.
13. Understand you will fail but always learn from it so you never make that mistake again.
14. Make friends in your community of photographers. Join local online groups and find open houses to go to. That is the best way to learn and to grow.
15. Find your personal style and love it.

I could go on forever, these are the ones I thought off right off the bat.

It’s intimidating and I swear if you don’t feel completely overwhelmed by it at least a few times a week then you are utterly nuts. Here is what I consider to be the process of becoming a professional photographer, as in one who gets paid.

1. You pick up your camera and take a picture. Gee, that was fun.
2. Someone tells you the picture was really good.
3. A bunch more people tell you that you have an eye for it, you decide to learn more.
4. You release that with all the talent you may or may not have you can’t survive on a point-and-shoot.
5. You get the DSLR camera and wow, that’s so much different and you also realize you have so much more to learn.
6. You come to realize you can’t survive with just this kit lens, you need to get another lens.
7. Holy fuck lenses are expensive!
8. You decide you need more for your portfolio so you ask some friends if you can take their pictures.
9. It takes you forever to edit the pictures, mostly because you had no idea what you were doing when you took the pictures. It’s a good thing you didn’t get paid.
10. You feel you are better so you get another lens and get a paying gig.
11. You rock it but editing takes up all your free time and now you see why photographers get paid so much.
12. You do another session but this time you fuck it up, you reshoot it.
13. You do a wedding for nothing and fuckballs, that was the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Note to self: must be mentally ill to shoot weddings.
14. You make friends with photogs, some talk down to you and some are an angel sent down from the heavens to better explain manual mode. The more friends you make the better you get and the more confident you feel.
15. You realize that now you are somewhere in the middle of amateurs and professionals.
16. Despite what they say, sometimes you really do need better equipment…not to be a better photographer but just to have more control over your result.
17. You realize all the marketing that other photogs do requires money and you have none. Most successful photographers have a husband who makes a ton of money or they are independently wealthy.
18. You spend your days either inspired or paniced. You just keep shooting, keep learning and absorb as much as you possibly can.

Also I feel that somehow British shows portray biracial couples more believable or something, not sure what they do different than we do but Misfits had the first biracial couple that I fell head over heals for. I think it was important with Simon and Alisha that they built their relationship up over time and didn’t just try to create one out of nowhere to give the show some diversity. I think a big part of this on British shows is that they don’t really even address the racial aspect, they are all just people. Same goes with their same sex couples.

Let’s not forget how censored our dialogue is on American shows. It still irritates me when shows uses sexual innuendos to get a sexual point across, it makes me feel like I’m in Kindergarten. Why are Americans so afraid of being corrupted, like saying masturbate on television will cause a teenager to spiral into deviant ways? It’s getting really obnoxious to be honest with you.

Last but not least British television considers quality over quantity and good writing is more important than ratings. Most seasons on British shows are between 6 and 10 episodes where American shows are usually more than 20 episodes a season. At first this was tough for me to handle as I was used to so much more but I’ve come to realize that in the end I’m more satisfied with the shows that focus on good writing and great characters.

I mean, the show Outnumbered was only on for 3 seasons and had 6 episodes a season. That’s only like 18 episodes total (I think there was one extra Christmas episode in there) but they ended it after 3 seasons even though it was still really popular. The Inbetweeners is still a massively popular show and again there were only 3 seasons and a movie is coming out this year. Why do they have such short series? My guess is they don’t want to take the show to a point of no return. I think we can all agree that the show Friends probably went on for at least a few too many years.

So there you go. This is why I prefer my British shows over the American shows, because in the end I get so much more and that makes me happy.

Friend relationships.

Working relationships.

They are all intrinsincly the same. They all in the end work or don’t work for most of the same reasons. It’s about communication, understanding where the other person is coming from and never taking the easy way out. Being with someone, anyone, for years on end gets harder as the years go on.

I believe, that humans aren’t meant to be monogomous. I believe that it isn’t in our nature to stay with one person until the day we die. That is why it’s such hard work at times because we have to push past our natural response to give up. It doesn’t mean you can’t love one person forever, it just means that as the years go by you add on more and more baggage.

The same happens with friendships. The longer you are friends the more baggage is added on and the harder it is to enjoy each other’s company. Yeah, it’s easy to just move on and find a new friend without all the issues but in time, problems will arise. It’s all about talking and dealing with things, if Manly Man and I didn’t work through stuff when it came along we wouldn’t be able to stand each other anymore.

Take my co-worker at work who I’ve had to work with for 6 years now. She is like 30 years older than me and does things very differently than me. We are both stubborn and we never discuss the issues, we just ignore them. So now our entirely relationship is passive aggressive and fake. I never really tell her when I think she’s being a stubborn knob and she never speaks up to tell me I’m being an annoying twat.

Relationships of all kinds are never all fun and easy, no matter how good they are to start off. It’s important to remember that there was a reason you liked this person’s company before. Still, if you close yourself off you will never really connect to anyone. If you can’t be who you really are with the people in your life what is the fucking point?

It was a year from today when Hurricane Gwen came through Massachusetts leaving great memories and mini-pies. I’m sad thinking it was that long ago and that she lives so damn far away that I we can’t see her more often. Not only did she and I get along so well but I’ve never had a friend get along with Manly Man so well, which is awesome since not every “gets” him.

We spent a day in Boston, a day in Cape Ann and a day in Worcester. We went to see the movie Men Who Stare At Goats, which was legen…DARY! We hung out in our living room in our pajamas playing on our laptops and laughing endlessly. We took her to a local comic book store which she’s probably now a preferred customer at.

Manly Man and I are not really the kind of people who excel at entertaining people for more than a few hours at a time but with Gwen it was easy, we all felt like we’d been friends forever.

*sniff*