Some Pictures

It's kind of funny. I love having my picture taken, but I don't look good in them! I usually look overweight (which can be contributed to actually being overweight...), or my face is fat, or whatever. But I keep hoping I will suddenly look like Michelle Pfeiffer when the next photo is taken!

This photo was taken in NYC by Harry about two years ago... I don't think it was taken last year but who knows... I can never remember when things happen - not like this as it is not tied to an event of some kind. I periodically go into the city to hang out with Harry. We usually talk on the phone for a couple of hours, so we are perfectly capable of wandering all over NYC chatting and shopping and eating and just having a great time.

This image (to the left) is quite old. It was taken at the New York Renaissance Festival, after hours (I'm not wearing garb there). This has to be somewhere between 1989 and 1992... you can tell by my face, which is quite a bit thinner and my eyebrows, which are quite a bit thicker. And the hair is long - for me. Funny, isn't it? I don't know why I was making such a face... I guess I was just being my usual weird self. I should grow my hair again. I like being able to do different things with it. It's just hard as an EMT to wear it long. Patients like to grab it and pull. Still I miss having hair - hair to put up or down and especially to have the long woven whatchacallits in it. I forget what they are called. I usually get them at the NYRF. The woman there will take different colour threads and weave them into a bit of my hair and then continue to make it as long or as short as I want it. Oh - yes! Hair wraps! I have a great shot of hair wraps I had in 2003.


Yes, that is my big butt there. I had a tight velvet dress on. Not a good look for someone with my excess weight but there it is. THe interesting part is my hair. It was long so I had it pulled back in a style similar to the Amish women (but not so tight that it would fall out), then in a bun at the base of my neck. It is a very comfortable way to wear it. Hanging from the back are two really long things and those are hair wraps. They are most definitely permanent unless I take a scissor to them. I love them. And Luis likes them too - gives him something to play with. Men and their toys! Luis loves it when I have long hair. Although "long" is something of a misnomer. My hair never gets much longer than the above picture. For whatever reason it reaches a certain point and then it is finished. It will get this far and no further. I don't know why that is. It never lasts very long anyway. It is a lot of work to keep it that long and I don't have a good face for it. I have a long face to begin with so the long hair (when down) makes it look sort of horsey. It's nothing to do with my weight - it is just the natural shape of my face.

This was taken in 1996. That was my garb back then - still quite a bit lighter in weight then. I love that bodice and still have it... just on the off-chance I lose the excess weight and can fit in it again. I certain hope that this happens some day! I think this was taken on a rainy day there as I'm carrying a really heavy weight cloak and have on long sleeves. This faire runs August through September and usually is warm if not quite hot. I'm wearing too much for it to be a normal day there. This is a great outfit but not a good look for my face! I have quite the double chin there, thanks to the angle of my head! And what is up with that stupid "cat that ate the canary" grin? Maybe I got lucky up there that day!

This was taken in 2001 at the NYRF, working with David and Dorita. She makes the most amazing articles of clothing. It is strange but wonderful - this was when they were really just starting to sell this. The clothing is a little expensive but not unreasonable - it's hand made silk cloque and it is a time consuming long process with incredible results in colour and texture. It is silk and Merino wool, which are not inexpensive materials. I love their clothing. I have a couple of skirts that are really nice and very unusual. I wear them to work and they get comments. Most are positive, but I dress a little unusual, so I'm sure it is odd in the environment I'm working in now. They'll get over it!

One reason I have been working at the NYRF almost twenty years now is because I can dress up in almost any way I would like (in a Renaissance way, though - no modern garb - and it is okay. This me showing off my boots in 2002. And it is a lot of fun. Most of my exhibitionist tendencies come out here. It's okay to be blatant and sexual and let it all hang out! My breasts are generally considered public domain. Or Harry calls them Sydney and George. I don't know where he came up with those names for them. But Sydney and George have been so named for a long, long time. Talon used to come up every day for his woobies. He would bury his face between my breasts and shake it. He loved doing that and I certainly never minded. Oddly enough, it wasn't sexual - well, not for me... but I don't think it was for him either! It was fun and funny and everyone expected it!

Me getting my hair wrapped in August of 2003. I was a First Responder at that point. We had moved between the previous Ren and this one but I still had long hair - for the last time - it all came off in January of 2004, during EMT school. You can tell that this was taken early into the Ren season - my breasts were milky-white then, something that they never are by the time the faire is winding down. I don't try to tan but it just happens. I look a little weird there - I don't know why. I miss having the hair wraps and that is another reason to grow the mess again!

The Chinese food just got here. I will finish this later!

7 January 2006; 17:36

I'm back. Took a whole day to return, but here I am! I am fresh as a flower (just had a nice long soak and a shower to follow), I have on Split Enz, and I am in a towel (I like being casually dressed). Life is good!

This picture is from 2004 - October, I think. I did not have a really good image from the Ren Faire, but this is not the greatest image, either... I just look like a big walking breast! I had no idea this shirt makes me look so... busty. Yikes. Yes, somewhere under the enormous rack is a person... Goodness. I think this is an image that should not get out. But, well, there it is. Like I said, I love having my picture taken, but I don't look too good!

That's me in October of this year, taken at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire. I was wet and cold and probably not feeling my best. It was not an easy weekend there. Three days in soaking rain and cold will take all the good humour out of anyone! Still, it's one of the better images, even though my hair is all ratty and curly and I wasn't looking at the camera. Oh, and that's an "om" (sp? - the Hindu symbol) on my left breast, not an arachnid!

The big black thing on my forehead is a horn - one of David's horns that should be paired with another, so that I would look like a satyr. Instead I took just one, applied some crazy glue to it and stuck it square in the middle of my forehead! Looks weird, eh? Get used to it - I do a lot of wacky shit like that! And the symbol on my breast was in henna. It stayed on for the better part of two days, and when the henna fell off it left a reddish design there for nearly two weeks. I love it and will do it again next year at the beginning of the NYRF to create the tan lines, which will last a much longer time!

That is thus far the only image of me in the new year. That is Luis and me with Matthew. It's not a great image - the lighting is horrendous. But there I am, over the last five years. All images prior to that are on film and that would be a lot of scanning... I suppose I do have some older images scanned in from 1997 when I first designed my own Web site (www.aislinge.com) - I'll have to look. Some day I should scan in my photographs but I was almost as prolific with that camera as I am with my digital one, so it would take a lifetime to do that. A worthwhile project, I suppose, but quite long-term.

This was taken in 2001, I think. I stood outside in a thunderstorm, tucked under the awning of the back door of our old house on the other side of Parsippany and just snapped away until I managed this incredibly lucky shot. I took some 200+ images to get this one. I scrapped the rest except one other lightning shot. I have tried to do this since and not been successful. Still, this is a big accomplishment! I love this image. I worked bloody hard to get this! New Jersey gets far more heat [sheet] lightning than bolt lightning so it was not just a matter of waiting for a storm but waiting for the right storm! No easy task. And you can even see the step leader on this.

This is an image of my beloved kitties. Yes, both are there - Chelsea, whose eyes are eerily glowing, is behind Ariel, sleeping in the foreground. This is a rare photo of them together. In general, they've little liking for one another and keep a distance. This is a wonderful photo... I think it was taken in 2004, when we got this quilt from my mother, who discovered she couldn't squeeze it into the washing machine. It's a very nice quilt. Right now our bed is boring as the down comforter is on it and that is just plain white. It has been beastly cold, though, so boring and toasty warm beats cold and pretty any time!

This is Chelsea yawning. This was almost as hard to get as that lightning shot. I did not sit there and take 200+ shots of the cat awaiting a yawn - it was a completely lucky shot! I love it - she would likely be humiliated if she'd ever seen it but cats are much more forgiving of this kind of thing. It is slightly over-exposed, as much as a digital shot can be, but it still came out well. This is my all-time favourite of her and that is over the course of 14 years - almost 15. I have hundreds of photos of them both. I love my kitties heaps.

And that is a particularly interesting shot of Ariel, who'd been playing with a catnip toy. Yes, I love giving them kitty narcotics - they love catnip and get really wacky on it. So there she is, high as a kite and giving me those freaky eyes. I love that. She's really my baby. Chelsea loves me and comes for nocturnal visits, as I call them, but Ariel sleeps with me, under the covers, tucked in by my side. She's very sweet and silky soft. Chelsea will occasionally curl up by my head and sleep there but Ariel has to come sleep with me every night.

And last, my favourite photo of Luis and me. This was taken in our old house. I really like this photo. Luis looks very cute in it, but then, he tends to photograph really well. So does his belly, but that is another story! And this is one of the rare pictures of me that I don't find objectionable. There are not many! This was taken circa 2000.

Well, this post is ungodly long and full of images. Time to stop!