Just a little something

There is just never enough time.
I couldn't follow through with my promises for putting pictures online, there was never a free moment to do the work I wanted to do.

The show went spectacularly, the last night was by far our best performance, both in knowing our lines / characters, and with our improv skills. I am honored and so proud to call it my senior show, and to call those I've worked with in my 4 years with the Working Title Players my family. There were loads of tears. I hate crying. I love my friends.

This week should finally "calm down" because I won't have rehearsals every night, but at the same time, I expect to be busy as ever to wrap everything up before spring break. I sent out my test prints, I hope to get them back either right before or right after break.

Everything's happening.

Edward Scissorhands

Feb 25, 26, 27 @ 8pm, Catherine Cummings Theater -- FREE for Caz students, $4 for everyone else.
I don't give a shit that we're getting a gigantic snowstorm for the rest of the week, blame Edward hacking out ice sculptures. You should come see ours. I have awesome eyelashes, sooo you should probably come for that alone.
In other news, I've missed my roomies: the only real times I spend with Sarah lately are in class or doing homework, and to be perfectly honest, I haven't seen Laur for days other than this afternoon when we got free IHOP pancakes (For those of you who don't know, Free Shortstack @ IHOP Day is a national poor college student holiday, well embraced by the 18-24 crowd.)

They're adorbs. To the max.

I don't really sleep anymore and have been swamped with scheduling and projects and editing, but I promise these things for the nearest future:
-Mike's pictures will all be flickrd by this weekend
-Jordan's latest shoot will be flickrd by next weekend
-There will be a MINIMUM of four shoots over my spring break (March 6th-14th) and hypothetically I can be done shooting on March 27th at the ABSOLUTE latest, giving me two weeks to edit, and another almost full 2 weeks to get the mounted prints back and ready to hang.

Holy hell it's coming up so fast.

ZUMBA!

Quick story for ya'll - last semester I had to find a way to drop some weight before I was a bridesmaid in two back to back weddings, and reluctantly found my way to the campus gym (we were not seriously acquainted.) I tried the elliptical for the first time, and at least found a piece of work out equipment that didn't kill my knees. While there I saw an flier about this aerobics class called Zumba. I had heard vaguely about it before, heard it involved dancing with a latin chacha salsa style. Also heard it was one of the few not-free-for-students classes, so immediately I was put off. Found it was free for the first time that semester, and it was on an afternoon when I actually didn't have class. Figured I'd try it. Made Hannah go with me.

The instructor is a 40-something woman with a fit body. She was energetic, made this ridiculously cute "woooh!" noise during and after songs, and I vowed then and there that if Zumba gave her that body, I was going every week.

And I did. I think I only missed two classes all semester. I had never found something that kept my heart rate up, didn't bore me after 10 minutes, didn't feel like I was actively "working out," and actually felt like I was getting something out of it other than pain. I told everyone I knew, advocated it all semester, and still only about 4 of us regularly showed up. It was the one hour every week that I dropped every thought of stress over homework or drama or even self consciousness - I had one hour a week that was just for me. I went to it as if it was a required class, and studied like a good student.



This semester, my advocating paid off. There's a horde of ladies that come in every week with me now, that love it and can't believe they never tried it before. My mother, who vehemently is against working out consistently always for one reason or another, found a class in Binghamton with a friend and started going - enjoyed it probably as much as I do; it reminds her of the line dancing she used to do (and we would do together on occasion - we have a new silly thing to bond over now). I just love that other people are having fun with the one thing I've ever been able to connect with when it comes to working out.

If there's Zumba offered near you, I suggest you, if nothing else, look into just one class. I feel better after, and working out has never given me that endorphin good feeling after - only sore muscles and knees. Granted Zumba beats on my knees, the rest of me feels fitter and I breathe easier after. I'd recommend it to anyone (and so far, everyone I know knows, especially now haha).

PS, this is my 123 post

...it's the 4th blog I've kept up since 2001, but who's counting. It's by far become my favorite.

Happy hour and a half past Valentines Day! I personally believe it's a marketing tool rather than a holiday and you should shower your Beloved with passion and roses (even diamonds?) on a daily basis. I am no where near the romantic Kyle wishes I could be, but for the holiday, I do my best to not ruin his romance (he's a hopeless romantic, I think we balance each other well) -- But, before I get into that, Friday was the PD Firemen's Dinner Dance.
And we're adorable. Had an *amazing* night, danced to Gaga, it's on someone's Blackberry, I can't wait for it to hit facebook. This was right before we left, I really liked my hair.
Funny how much I liked my hair and decided to change it the very next day:
Likey? I'm in love with it. The cut is so different for me and the color is this amazing black cherry red (with "Ruby Slippers toner"!!)

Today I shot with the incomparable Jordan aka Miranda Moreae one more time (but certainly not the last) -- fierce as always. It's not at all edited, I just wanted to give you a taste of the sass and fab I get to work with. Got a heart of gold ♥Then I ended up running late, but "thankfully" Kyle & I didn't have reservations anywhere, and we were just going to take our chances with our favorite Italian restaurant Tonys (they don't do reservations or call-ahead, so... maybe we'd get a table?). By the time I was home and showered and getting dressed, going on about 730, I called Kyle and was like who are we kidding? Do we want to deal with that mess tonight? Let's get chinese and call it a night. 2 General Tsos, some pork lo mein and a glass of wine / captn & coke later, we were on the living room floor with a delightful, very typical of us, jar-candle-lit dinner.
I love my new shoes. A better picture to come, I was rushed for time at this point.

And as far as best Valentine's gifts go? We will never be the card-giving type, I don't really like chocolate, a dozen long stem roses (although still beautiful) die quickly (and travel badly), and let's be honest, the next diamond anything I'm going to see from this boy had best be a ring - so what's a girl to hint at when she wants to be spoiled?

Well, if you're me, you ask for crayons and a coloring book. And if you're boyfriend is as good as mine, you get the big box of Crayolas and an extra-large 20 page book of Disney Princesses:
And potted roses not fully in bloom last weeks longer than their long-stemmed counterparts. I'm very excited to put these in my sunbeam windowsill.

Ok I'm exhausted and half hopped-up on Nyquil. Hope everyone had as fantastic a day as I did, significant other not required.

Drag Attic

flag, originally uploaded by Shanna McKay.

Click the picture for the rest of the set =)
Comment & let me know what you think!!

Tonight's To-Do List

- Respond to both Vanity Faire & Victoria Versai - they both want to shoot, so we're going to nail down a date and time!!
- Burn cds of Mike and Jordan's pictures
- Finish & upload Mike's and Richie's to flickr (keep an eye out!)
- Type up my artist statement for Portfolio
- Reprint my resume for Portfolio
- Create a ppt for Capstone
*Cross my fingers that everything schedules smoothly*

"That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen." - Charles Bukowski

Teaser

Teaser
Originally uploaded by Shanna McKay

Who doesn't love a good teaser shot?
This is Richie / Aneal Pleasures from Saturday's shoot - he is absolutely fabulous and I can't wait to either shoot him or just hang out again, hopefully in the near future.

More to come from this set probably later this week; I had some spare time due to Sanders cancelling class, so I edited a lot of them this afternoon (weeeks in advance of my usual 2-3 week deadline).

Check back for more real soon!

Photo Shoots

I looked surprisingly adorable yesterday for my photoshoot, go ahead and admit it.
It went ridiculously well, thank you Richie for the great day & amazing shots. I cannot wait to get to editing them all.

Tomorrow is my pro contact meeting with Cindy, I'm pretty pumped to show her my progress (since I finally have some) - I hope she likes my direction...

Happy Superbowl Sunday. The Pats aren't making an appearance, I'm gonna enjoy taco dip, chili, and commercials instead.

Oh yes. The semester's there already.
Tonight's 100 nights til graduation.. aka scary as hell.
But tonight, we eat drink and be merry.

Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully. ~Graham Greene

New post when I'm eventually feeling totally like me again