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Beautiful
Beautiful Bastard (Unabridged) – Christina Lauren
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Beautiful
A guy was just waking up from anesthesia after surgery and his wife was sitting by his side.
His eyes fluttered open, he said, “You’re beautiful!” and then he fell asleep again.
His wife had never heard him say that so she stayed by his side. A couple minutes later his eyes fluttered open again and he said, “You’re cute!”
The wife was disappointed because instead of “beautiful” it was “cute.”
She said, “What happened to ‘beautiful’?”
His reply was “The drugs are wearing off!”
Received from ArcaMax Jokes.
The Good, Clean Funnies List
Melanie Walsh leaves little to the imagination in this beautiful nude set…
See more of Melanie Walsh click here
Hello everyone Melanie Walsh here,
In today’s set I am nude, yes All I am wearing is my birthday suit hehehe
I hope you like this nude set, I think its super sexy. To see the rest of the photos in this set come and see me at www.onlymelanie.com
Luv
Melanie Walsh xxxx
A Beautiful November – SoMo
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© ℗ 2018 SoMo, LLC |
I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it – The 1975
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© ℗ 2016 Dirty Hit under exclusive license to Interscope Records |
Beautiful People Everyday – Velimages
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Beautiful Creatures (2013) – Richard LaGravenese
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© © 2013 Alcon Entertainment, LLC |
Carell and Timothée at “Beautiful Boy” premiere
A family battling with drug addiction is the focus of new Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet drama “Beautiful Boy” with the duo portraying a father and son struggling with the problem for years. Rough cut (no reporter narration).
The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever – BTS
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© ℗ 2016 Bighit Entertainment |
Beautiful Name Tag
Our favorite restaurant has a waitress whose name-tag reads “Beautiful.”
“Is that really your name?” I asked her.
“No” she admitted. “But if people are going to holler at me all day, I can at least be called something I like.”
Received from Pastor Tim.
The Good, Clean Funnies List
Firework Explodes in Crowd During ODESZA Set at Life is Beautiful
9:20 AM PT — Law enforcement sources tell TMZ one of the pyrotechnics fell over when the firework unit malfunctioned, causing a spark to shoot out. Two people in the crowd suffered minor injuries — one person hit in the stomach and the other in…
Lena Dunham Rips Biz Partners for ‘Fat is Not Beautiful’ Sweatshirt She Helped Design
9/14 — Revolve issued an apology, saying, “We messed up big. We are SO SORRY for hurting and offending you.” They go on to say they have canceled the line and are donating $ 20k to Girls Write Now — the charity that was going to benefit from sales of…
Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings, Vol. 4 – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2014 Triple Pop |
Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings, Vol. 7 – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2015 Triple Pop |
40 Most Beautiful Violin Classics – Various Artists
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© ℗ 2011 Warner Classics & Jazz, Warner Music UK Ltd |
Beautiful Burn: A Novel – Jamie McGuire
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66 Most Beautiful Opera Arias – Various Artists
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© ℗ 2009 Menuetto Classics |
COLT Studio Ships Leather, Hung, Butt Beautiful Calendars For 2019
COLT Studio is shipping its 2019 calendars featuring classic COLT performers pulled from its five-decades-deep catalog.
XBIZ.com – Pleasure & Retail
Beautiful Life – Rick Astley
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© ℗ 2018 Rick Astley under exclusive licence to BMG Rights Management GmbH |
Steve Carell will wreck you in ‘Beautiful Boy’
It’s still too early to say whether “Beautiful Boy,” a film about the impact of methamphetamine addiction on one family, will be part of the Oscars conversation, but the movie’s first trailer sure makes it seem like it has a shot.
Beautiful Liar – Shamie Royston
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© ℗ 2018 Sunnyside Records |
Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2012 Triple Pop |
The Most Beautiful Place on Earth – We the Union
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iTunes 100 New Releases
Beautiful: When This Man Saw A Muslim Woman Getting Harassed On A Train, He Made A Facebook Status About It
Beautiful: When This Man Saw A Muslim…
Faith in humanity restored.
Submitted by: Malcolm Kelner
Regular
Keywords: facebook muslim racism hero good samaritan helpers harassment activism
Views: 67,448
40 Most Beautiful Cello Classics – Various Artists
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© ℗ 2011 Warner Classics & Jazz, Warner Music UK Ltd |
Big And Beautiful First Timers 3
Big Girls Need Love Too!
Falicha says Steve is under the influence of ass, and Steve doesn’t argue as he buries his face deep in Falicha’s bottom. Falicha gets Steve ready for action by sucking his bone and getting him hard. He flips her over and shoves his bone deep inside her for some serious pussy pounding.
Guatemalans Rose and Henry don’t speak very much in this scene, but that doesn’t really matter once Rose busts out her monstrous titties for Henry. Henry engulfs himself in her massive mounds of mammaries, and his cock quickly gets hard.
Molly and Johnny are making their first sex video together and they are a little nervous. They talk about some of their previous sexcapades including a threesome with Johnny’s ex-girlfriend! After a brief introduction, Molly and Johnny get right to business. Henry’s tongues goes directly to Molly’s wet pussy, and she is very pleased.
Amber and Dave begin quietly in bed. They wake each other with some soft kisses and gentle rubbing, but the sexual activity quickly gets heavier when Dave sucks Amber’s tits and plays with her pussy. Dave licks Amber’s clit while he finger fucks her and quickly brings her to orgasm.
Watch the Full Length, High Quality Movie!
Big Girls Need Love Too! Falicha says Steve is under the influence of ass, and Steve doesn’t argue as he buries his face deep in Falicha’s bottom. Falicha gets Steve ready for action by sucking his bone and getting him hard.
Stars: Steve Bigs Falicha Karr
Categories: Gonzo Homemade BBW Amateur
Scene Number: 1
Orientation: Straight
Studio Name: XPLOR Media Group Homegrown Video
‘Beautiful models, beautiful dresses’ at bridal show – model Irina Shayk
Russian beauty says Pronovias is good at putting on a show, reckons Russia will do well hosting the World Cup, and ‘stong’ Russian women could run for president. Rough cut (No reporter narration).
Ariana Grande Reveals The Beautiful Meaning Of ‘No Tears Left To Cry’ In Behind-The-Scenes Look Of Her New Music Video
Ariana Grande just revealed how she defied gravity in her new music video!
Pink tops People’s beautiful issue
Pop singer Pink beats off future Royal Meghan Markle and the four female stars of ‘Black Panther’ to be named People’s Most Beautiful. Rough Cut – no reporter narration.
All The Bold And Beautiful Looks From The 2018 iHeartRadio Music Awards Red Carpet
Sequins, cut-outs and color ruled the red carpet.
Style and Beauty – Fashion News, Celebrity Style and Fashion Trends
FASHION NEWS UPDATE-Visit Shoe Deals Online today for the hottest deals online for shoes!
You’re Beautiful – Molly Cooke
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© ℗ 2018 Molly Cooke |
How Artificial Intelligence Is Trying To Make Us More Beautiful
As if there weren’t already enough products on the market, things are about to get even more advanced. And personal.
Style and Beauty – Fashion News, Celebrity Style and Fashion Trends
FASHION NEWS UPDATE-Visit Shoe Deals Online today for the hottest deals online for shoes!
Beautiful Bumholes
Slim Aussie blonde surfer girl surrenders her bottom, pushing it up and spreading it for tongue fucking and anal rimming. She loves it, and flips over, shoving her pussy into Anabelles mouth, and grinding it so hard she orgasms again. Its a beautiful sight to see her return the favor with intense anal stimulation.
Watch the Full Length, High Quality Movie!
Slim Aussie blonde surfer girl surrenders her bottom, pushing it up and spreading it for tongue fucking and anal rimming.
Categories: All Girl Anilingus High Definition All Sex International Lesbian Small Tits Amateur
Scene Number: 1
Orientation: Straight
Studio Name: Girls Out West
Meghan Markle’s Baptism Was ‘Beautiful’ & ‘Very Moving’
The Archbishop of Canterbury recently talked about Meghan Markle’s baptism, and how he’s preparing to officiate Meghan’s wedding to Prince Harry. Watch to find out more.
‘Bold and the Beautiful’ Star Winsor Harmon Arrested for Drunk in Public
This one’s bold, but it ain’t beautiful — Winsor Harmon was arrested after allegedly getting loaded in his car and peeing in front of a live audience … TMZ has learned. Law enforcement sources tell us the famous soap star — who starred in “The…
Travis Scott Says His Baby With Kylie Jenner Is “Beautiful”

Source: Bob Levey / Getty
A few weeks ago the Kardashian clan added another member to their franchise when Kylie Jenner gave birth to a baby girl fathered by H-Town rapper, Travis Scott.
Since the birth of the baby Scott’s been mum about being a new father but when caught by TMZ cameras outside of Poppy on Saturday night (Feb. 17), the “Goosebumps” rapper finally broke his silence when asked how his baby, Stormi Webster, is doing.
“She’s beautiful.”
Short and to the point. While he seems to be happy about being a daddy many are wondering why there’s been a lack of pics of daddy’s little girl posts on both his and Kylie Jenner’s social media pages. Could it be that they want to keep their daughter out of the spotlight or are they just holding out for a big payday from some tabloid magazine for the exclusive pics. More than likely it’s the latter.
Check out the video below.
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Photo; Getty
Travis Scott Says Baby Stormi Webster is ‘Beautiful’
[[tmz:video id=”0_cs2pb758″]] Travis Scott gave what might be the first public update on his and Kylie Jenner’s new baby girl — and, believe it or not, she’s a good looking kid … so says dad. Paps got Travis Saturday night leaving Poppy, where he…
Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life – The Wombats
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© ℗ 2018 The Wombats |
The Cast Of This Is Us Turned The SAG Awards Into A Beautiful Pearson Family Reunion
‘This Is Us’ won big at the 2018 Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the cast couldn’t have been cuter.
News
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West
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© ℗ 2010 Roc-A-Fella Records, LLC |
Scars to Your Beautiful – Kevin Hjelm
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© ℗ 2018 Kevin Hjelm |
Beautiful blonde Melanie Walsh strips
See more of Melanie Walsh click here
Hello guys!! Melanie Walsh here!!
Today I am ‘rolling’ about in the hay and stripping out of my tight white top and beautiful hot red skirt to show off my sexy stockings and thong.
This shoot was such a turn on, I love my uniform that I am wearing, I love the black bra and white shirt ohh and the black boots very sexy. What do you think?
Luv Melanie XxX
Cory Chase In A Beautiful Beginning
Cory is so proud of her Son who has graduated. He worked so hard and a Mother could not be more proud. Cory’s feelings for her Son get the best of her and he is surprised at himself that her sexual advanced do not phase him.
Watch the Full Length, High Quality Movie!
Cory is so proud of her Son who has graduated. He worked so hard and a Mother could not be more proud. Cory’s feelings for her Son get the best of her and he is surprised at himself that her sexual advanced do not phase him.
Stars: Ricky Spanish Cory Chase
Categories: High Definition Taboo Cougar M.I.L.F. Mature All Sex Blondes
Scene Number: 2
Orientation: Straight
Studio Name: Taboo Heat
Most Beautiful Island – Ana Asensio
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© © 2017 Tree M Productions |
The Beautiful Immortals (Book One) – Tim O’Rourke
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Everything’s Beautiful – Miles Davis & Robert Glasper
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© ℗ 2016 Sony Music Entertainment |
Beautiful Trauma – P!nk
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© ℗ 2017 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment |
‘The Voice’s’ Brooke Simpson Wows With ‘Wrecking Ball’ & ‘What’s Beautiful’– Watch!
It was a showdown on Part 1 of “The Voice” season finale on Monday and Brooke Simpson definitely brought her A-game.
The Last Jedi Director On Carrie Fisher’s Performance: ‘What We Have Here Is So Beautiful’
Director Rian Johnson opens up about Carrie Fisher and her important, final performance in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’: ‘I felt really strongly that we had to let this fly.’
News
The Beautiful & Damned – G-Eazy
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© ℗ 2017 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment |
Love Thine Body: Big Beautiful Camming
I can’t say I was the girl who grew up dreaming of being a cam girl someday. In fact, I never knew that camming existed until a little before I started.
XBIZ.com – Opinion
40 Most Beautiful Arias – Various Artists
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© ℗ 2006 Warner Classics, Warner Music UK |
Check Out Beautiful Sonar Images of the Seafloor Near Hawaii
Scientists have mapped the seafloor near Hawaii with huge blasts of sonar. It’s beautiful AND educational!
WIRED Videos
40 Most Beautiful Piano Classics – Various Artists
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© ℗ 2011 Warner Classics, Warner Music UK Ltd |
Pink Releases Her Music Video For ‘Beautiful Trauma’ Co-Starring Channing Tatum
Pink just put her own spin on marriage in her new music video for
“Beautiful Trauma,” which co-stars, Channing Tatum.
Beautiful Trauma – P!nk
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© ℗ 2017 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment |
A Love So Beautiful: Roy Orbison & the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – Roy Orbison
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© ℗ 2017 Legacy Recordings and Roy’s Boys LLC |
Life Is Beautiful (Subtitled) – Unknown
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Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings, Vol. 8 – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2016 Triple Pop |
40 Most Beautiful Violin Classics – Various Artists
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© ℗ 2011 Warner Classics & Jazz, Warner Music UK Ltd |
The Beautiful Lowdown – Curtis Salgado
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© ℗ 2016 Alligator Records |
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West
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© ℗ 2010 Roc-A-Fella Records, LLC |
I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it – The 1975
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© ℗ 2016 Dirty Hit under exclusive license to Interscope Records |
Nicki Minaj ‘Fought’ Kanye To Keep ‘Monster’ On My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Nicki Minaj celebrates the seventh anniversary of “Monster” by revealing how she convinced Kanye West not to cut the track from his 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
News
Pink’s ‘Beautiful Trauma’ Is No. 1 With Big Sales in a Streaming World
The singer’s new album debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart with the most impressive sales since Drake’s “Views” a year and a half ago.
Rock Music
Join Group Chat!
Worthy – Beautiful Eulogy
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© ℗ 2017 Humble Beast |
The Most Beautiful Place on Earth – We the Union
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iTunes 100 New Releases
40 Most Beautiful Arias – Various Artists
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© ℗ 2006 Warner Classics, Warner Music UK |
Melanie looking beautiful posing in dark purple lingerie and dark stockings.
See more of Melanie click here
Hi guys Melanie here,
Hope you like today photos I really love the purple lingerie and the photo of my foot in the stocking is great what do you think?
I dont wear much purple but after wearing this purple lingerie I think I will start wearing more of it.
Luv Melanie xxx
Beautiful Trauma – P!nk
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© ℗ 2017 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment |
Beautiful Trauma – P!nk
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© ℗ 2017 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment |
A Beautiful World – Kermit Ruffins & Irvin Mayfield
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© ℗ 2017 Basin Street Records |
Beautiful Melanie in a sexy grey suit in this video
To see more videos of Melanie click here
Hi guys,
You know you want to come and see all my videos and photos on my site www.onlymelanie.com. I also keep a diary and regularly post on the forums there.
See you soon
Mels xx
Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings, Vol. 7 – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2015 Triple Pop |
Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings, Vol. 4 – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2014 Triple Pop |
Beautiful Mel in jeans and white ankle socks
Hi guys,
You guys see the jeans I am wearing in these photos, they are my favorite jeans hope you like them and i really like the light blue lingerie that matches the blue jumper and not that you cant see I am also wearing white ankle socks, I think I might keep this outfit on all day 🙂
Lots of luv Mel xxx
Video of Melanie looking beautiful in a skirt and stockings.
To see more videos of Melanie click here
Guys,
Come see all of me in my skirts and stockings in my exclusive videos and photos at www.onlymelanie.com
luv Mels xxx
An amazing set with the beautiful Melanie joined by Hayley-Marie.
See more of Melanie click here
Hello
Well this shoot was so so much fun!!!! The only problem doing your own solo site is that you never get to work with any other girls but we got Hayley-Marie to come in and do a few shoots with us. It was a great laugh, we have worked with each other before on www.onlytease.com but that was a while ago, still we ‘clicked’ together very well.
Hope you guys like the photos and our mini skirts and tight tops.
Luv Melanie
A Beautiful Lie – Thirty Seconds to Mars
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© ℗ 2016 Virgin Records |
Beautiful Melanie wearing a light blue nurses uniform
See more of Melanie click here
Hi guys,
Nurse Melanie here looking beautiful, hope you like my english nurses uniform and white lingerie & stockings
Hope you are all feeling well, if you are not i will have to see what i can do about that !!
Hands up who wants some of my medicine 🙂
Luv Meanie
Exactly How to Get Into Rome’s Most Beautiful Off-Limits Attractions
The Eternal City has always brimmed with secrets, and today, epic burial grounds quietly crouch beneath unassuming streets, and unremarkable doors just might open to jaw-dropping works from the city’s most famed artists.
Vogue
BEAUTY TIPS & UPDATES BY GABBY LOVE! –Get free shipping everyday on orders $ 35+ at Beauty.com plus earn 5% back!
Gabby Loves Avon #2-
Beautiful Melanie wearing denim miniskirt and long white socks.
See more of Melanie click here
Hi guys,
I really liked doing this shoot, i cant wait for the summer, when i can go out in my pink tshirt, mini skirt and white long socks all the time!!
I think the mini skirt and the knee high cotton socks is a good look for me, what do you guys think??
Luv Mels xx
Beautiful Tempest (Unabridged) – Johanna Lindsey
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© ℗ © 2017 Recorded Books, Inc. |
The Most Beautiful Nude Photos by Dani Olivier – Body and Soul – Dani Olivier
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Beautiful Mistake (Unabridged) – Vi Keeland
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© ℗ © 2017 C. Scott Publishing Corp. |
Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2012 Triple Pop |
Beautiful Demons Box Set, Books 1-3 – Sarra Cannon
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This Beautiful Fantastic – Simon Aboud
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© © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved. |
40 Most Beautiful Piano Classics – Alexandre Rabinovitch, Alexei Sultanov, Boris Berezovsky, Cyprien Katsaris, Elisabeth Leonskaja, François-René Duchable, Güher & Süher Pekinel, Güher Pekinel, Süher Pekinel, Jean Doyen, Karl Engel, Martha Argerich, Michel Legrand, Monique Haas, Rudolf Buchbinder & Susanne Grützmann
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© ℗ 2011 Warner Classics, Warner Music UK Ltd |
A Beautiful Mess – T.K. Leigh
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Melanie looking beautiful as she poses on a bed wearing sexy black lingerie
See more of Melanie Walsh click here
Hello Guys, Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you guys, hope you have a great day.
Today I am wearing my sexy “little miss naughty” black lingerie, I think this lingerie is just so sexy. What do you guys think of it?
I think maybe I should have wore some lovely stockings, I am sure that would have topped the lingerie off nicely do you agree?
big kisses
Luv
Melanie XxX
George and Amal Clooney adopt — a beautiful rescue dog! See the pic
Millie, a 4-year-old dog from California’s San Gabriel Valley Humane Society, is just the latest furry bundle of joy to join the family.
Carrie Brownstein on Writing Her Beautiful New Memoir

A 2005 live video for the Sleater-Kinney song “Modern Girl” opens with a shot of guitarist Carrie Brownstein, gritting her teeth, clenching her jaw, and launching into the track’s singsong-y melody in a voice that ripples with discontent. “My baby loves me/I’m so happy,” she spits, looking quite the opposite. At some point Brownstein whispers to bandmate Corin Tucker, and Tucker smiles. It’s the only moment of sunniness in a song that repeats and ends with the (seemingly ironic) assertion: “My whole life/looks like a picture of a sunny day.” As her words trail off, the shot holds on a stormy-looking Brownstein, shifting in front of the camera defiantly, waiting for the inevitable fade to black.
On the one hand, this was kind of Sleater-Kinney’s shtick: “So much of my intention with songs is to voice a continual dissatisfaction, or at least to claw my way out of it,” Brownstein writes early in her soul-searching, self-deprecating new memoir, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, which takes its title from another lyric in the same song.
On the other hand, it was telling. “Modern Girl” was the fifth track on Sleater-Kinney’s 2005 album, The Woods, their seventh studio release and their first after leaving their longtime label Kill Rock Stars to sign with Sub Pop. Soon after this video was filmed, Brownstein, as she relates in the prologue to her book, would find herself on tour in Brussels, Belgium, miserable, lonely, homesick, and contemplating breaking her own fingers, willing a fade to black on the band she’d spent her entire adult life nurturing.
Brownstein is now best known to many as the cocreator of Portlandia, and probably to some as the woman whom Taylor Schilling may or may not be dating. But for 12 years in the ’90s and early aughts, she was one-third (with Tucker and drummer Janet Weiss) of one of the most righteous and renowned indie rock bands of its day. And that’s the experience Brownstein hones in on in her memoir, which takes her from her hyper childhood in the Seattle suburb of Redmond, Washington, to the demise of the band that had thus far defined her. (Then there’s an epilogue that flashes forward to Sleater-Kinney’s surprise reunion last year.)
“Modern Girl” is a perfect reference for a book about its author’s long, arduous journey toward building a life that works, one that’s genuinely, not just superficially, happy. And the line Brownstein uses for her title resonates in particular, given the circumstances she was born into, the daughter of two parents suppressing and repressing two very different kinds of hunger: her father a closeted gay man; her mother an anorexic who eventually starved herself into the hospital and out of the lives of her family for a time.
“She was retreating from the world, a slow-motion magic trick,” writes Brownstein of her mother. “Meanwhile, I was getting louder, angrier, wilder. I experimented with early forms of my own amplification—of self, of voice, of fury—while my mother’s volume was turned down lower and lower.” Self-abnegating parents bred a daughter of appetites—for music, for attention, for experience (though not, until later, for sex). In high school, Brownstein began to consume the records made by riot grrrl bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Heavens to Betsy, in whose wake Sleater-Kinney would soon follow. When it came time for college, Brownstein swiftly dropped out of Western Washington University to enroll at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, ground zero for the music scene she desperately wanted to join. “Everyone, it seemed, was not in one band, but in two or three” in Olympia in the early ’90s. “It would have been easier to count the people not in bands.” Brownstein formed her own, a threesome called Excuse 17, who eventually booked a tour opening for Heavens to Betsy, helmed by Corin Tucker.
Tucker and Brownstein, who is bisexual, soon became involved both musically and romantically. And though the romance ultimately imploded—one of the band’s best songs, “One More Hour,” off their third album, Dig Me Out, is famously about the breakup—the pair’s crackling chemistry helped differentiate Sleater-Kinney from the scores of Olympia bands who never made it out of the Pacific Northwest.
Two records in, their sound cohered further when Tucker and Brownstein finally found in Janet Weiss a drummer who could keep pace. The albums kept coming. Their stars were on the rise. Greil Marcus declared Sleater-Kinney the best rock band in America. Touring was a constant way of life—and a growing problem for Brownstein. Her mental and physical health began to fray. The road became a nightmarish fever dream, each tour diminished or derailed by an array of new afflictions: back troubles, dangerous allergic reactions, panic attacks, and finally the shingles incident that Brownstein revisits toward the end of the book, and which concludes differently, though equally violently, from how the prologue portends.
The question for Brownstein was always just how much of her life should belong to Sleater-Kinney, and her Renaissance woman–like success in the near 10 years since the band’s breakup makes clear that music was never going to be the whole story for her. But after more than a decade on the road, the problem wasn’t only the intensity of touring life, it was also the shapelessness and aimlessness of life at home. During breaks in the band’s schedule, Brownstein flailed, trying on different identities: substitute teacher; research assistant to a sociolinguist; film production assistant; MFA candidate. Her romantic relationships, territory where she treads lightly and vaguely, failed for any number of reasons. When Sleater-Kinney was officially over, Brownstein threw her energy into volunteering at Portland’s Humane Society. The lives of animals offered something like a beginner’s manual to being a normal human being, or so she thought. “They lived in the moment, grateful for the interaction, and so was I. I had a purpose, even if part of that purpose was hosing down feces-covered kennels. The dogs’ needs seemed simple, and I required simple needs: to have somewhere to be. It’s easy to feel sated when all you’re asking for in life is food, water, and some gentle petting.”
She eventually adopted a menagerie of cats and dogs, “one for each of my limbs. Enough of them so that I could evenly disperse my worries and obsessions among them. . . . They were my family.” It was only when the fragility of that animal cocoon became clear that Brownstein was forced to face the depth of her own sadness, a darkness, often tempered by humor, that afflicts the entirety of Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. One day she returned home to discover that the dogs had turned on the cats, killing Hector, her oldest and most beloved companion. “Now finally I was sad,” she writes. “Here it was, that shadow that forms on your insides, a dark pooling, the grief. Everything I had was gone.”
But tearing her life down to its foundation offered the opportunity to rebuild. Anyone who’s followed Carrie Brownstein’s career knows how things worked out. Five years after the end of Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her platonic soul mate, Fred Armisen, came out with Portlandia, their hilarious Emmy-winning sketch comedy show. Brownstein has also written a culture blog for NPR, scored a major role in Transparent, and started another band, the currently on-hiatus Wild Flag. And last year, Sleater-Kinney reunited, releasing an eighth album, No Cities to Love, to another critical standing ovation.
So perhaps it should come as little surprise to see that Brownstein is as nimble, articulate, and honest a writer of literary nonfiction as she is a musician, actress, and cultural critic. She got on the phone with Vogue.com to talk about writing, reading, pets, and living in Los Angeles.
This is a such a personal project, and quite dark. Does it make you nervous to have it out? Or are you purely psyched?
I should go back and think how many times in my life I’ve been purely psyched about anything. [laughs] I don’t think my excitement is tempered per se. But I have gone through multiple stages of fear and anxiety, which I think at this point have passed. Enough people have read it and I sense a general fondness and enthusiasm for the book, which of course is not the only thing that matters. But with something so tied to myself, it would be difficult to have even just people close to me not like it. So I feel like I’ve come out the other side of that stage of fear and now am looking forward to it being out in the world, and going on the book tour and reading and being interviewed in front of audiences. I think that will be quite enjoyable actually.
I’m interested in the incident you open with, this story about the prelude to your lowest moment on tour and the breakup of the band, when you discovered you had shingles. I can relate! I’ve had shingles twice. It’s horrible!
I assume you’re not 60 or 80 years old. Supposedly this is a fairly new phenomenon, that young people are getting stress-related shingles. It used to be an illness pretty much just relegated to the elderly. So congratulations to you and me!
I feel so honored. Maybe we have old souls.
Yes, I hope that’s what it was.
Why start there, in your lowest moment? Did you write that first?
It was actually one of the last things that I wrote. I wanted to start the book in a way that was suspenseful, just in terms of the structure and story. It felt like a good way to start the book; it kind of leaves the reader seeking the second half, the conclusion to that moment. Originally the book started with the line, “I’ve always felt unclaimed,” which is also, I thought, a fine start. But it really had to do with making the narrative more suspenseful. I wrote that scene in one sitting, and then split it up, putting the second half where it fit chronologically in the story. Thematically the book has to do with the instability of structures and families, so I think it was a better decision to do it like that.
There’s an even darker moment that happened in Brussels that you don’t reveal until the end, so I won’t give it away. You write in the book that you haven’t discussed it with your bandmates since it happened. Now that you’ve written about it, has it sparked conversation?
Not yet! I mean, in a technical sense we haven’t talked about that incident. We have talked about many things, otherwise we wouldn’t be a band today. The three of us are very close friends, and it’s such a familial-like relationship, that certainly the underlying causes have been discussed. Collectively, of course, we talk about our fears and anxieties or our happiness. It’s all sort of on the table. But we really haven’t . . . It was a very dark night.
Was it cathartic to write about? Tough to write about?
Yes and no. As you know, as a writer, you’re often thinking more about the architecture than you are about the emotional tenor of something. It really sometimes is boiling down to syntax, tempo, tone. Only later, when I was taping my audio book, did the collective emotional landscape of the book become more cohesive and clear to me. I wrote it in sections. It was so much about writing and editing and restructuring and retooling, the craft of it. It wasn’t like writing a diary entry, where it is just all emotion. It’s so much more intentional.
Well then, reading the audio book, was there a moment where you took a step back and thought, Oh, man, this is sad!
Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to sound like a sociopath, because obviously I read the book many times in my own rewriting process. But reading it as a whole and reading it out loud, it’s a different way of hearing material and internalizing it. That can heighten the senses. It was a retelling of the book for me, and yeah, that was intense.
In my experience, any distance from your writing reveals it to be a completely different thing than what you thought it was when you were immersed in it.
A friend of mine is a creative writing professor, so she brings authors to her university all the time. She says she’s seen well-renowned published authors changing things that are already published before they get up and read them. It’s hard not to continually want to edit and fix and tinker. When you read something out loud, you are aware. Some things are better served by orality. I remember my editor just said, “That’s it! No more!” I don’t know how much you do that with your articles. It can get very obsessive.
I try not to reread them.
Yeah, exactly.
Per your Instagram it seems you’ve been reading a lot of memoirs. Were there any in particular that helped you through this, that were particularly instructive, or that helped you escape your own story?
Structurally, I was most inspired by Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up, which is a slim memoir that chronicles his life and creative journey up until Saturday Night Live. So it sort of leads you to this precipice upon which we are already familiar with him. He’s filling in what’s beneath the surface. I really liked that. So I thought, Okay, I’ll go up until Sleater-Kinney. The story of Sleater-Kinney served the themes better. I loved Just Kids by Patti Smith. I love James Baldwin’s autobiographical writing. Maxine Hong Kingston wrote this book called The Woman Warrior. Jill Ker Conway’s The Road from Coorain.
I guess I probably read a memoir once a year. A lot of time I was not reading memoirs. I love Joy Williams, Lorrie Moore, such great short-story writers. Miranda July, who’s a friend of mine, but I’ve always been so admiring of her writing. Trying to have moments of humor, too. Balancing out the seriousness is always good.
I loved Miranda July’s novel [The First Bad Man].
Me too. I thought it was her best piece of writing.
So you mentioned that your book charts your course up until the end of Sleater-Kinney. But then, at the end, you offer this very violent story about your pets that takes place after the breakup of the band. There’s so many places you don’t go. Why did you go there?
In a story that has a lot to do with substitution in terms of family and intimacy, I liked it as a part of that. It also served to encompass the ways I felt lost and aimless after the breakup of the band. That story helped elucidate how tenuous these structures, this shoddy amalgamation of family and steadiness, really was. And so I liked it as a companion to grief and loss. It seemed to just be this searing example of chaos and crumbling. It was in some ways the easiest way to describe what it felt like for the band to break up without writing about what it felt like to have the band break up. It functioned metaphorically.
Were you able to forgive your dogs in the aftermath?
Well, one of the dogs I had to put down, because she had terrible epilepsy. She was having five grand mal seizures a week, despite being on a lot of medication to suppress them. It wasn’t working. She was gone. But pets are animals, and we forget that all the time. Animals don’t exist in a world of apologies and forgiveness. Of course I forgave them for their own nature and instinct. Between that and working and volunteering at the humane society, it kind of lessens the tendency toward anthropomorphizing behavior. Which we all do all the time. Nature is very brutal. It was a stark reminder. So I forgave them. But weirdly, the one that actually killed the cat, she’s the one that’s not around. So maybe in some ways that’s easier?
You write a lot about how you were flailing during breaks the band took over the years. And obviously when the band broke up, it was tough to figure out what your life was going to look like. But now, from very afar, it looks like you’ve really figured it out!
[laughs]
When did things start to coalesce for you?
Definitely after Sleater-Kinney went on hiatus. I was able to sort of reconfigure my life in a way that wasn’t dependent on touring, which was a difficult lifestyle for me. But I think I just have a better sense of balance and fulfillment. It started with Portlandia, having a different outlet for my creativity, a new partner with whom to work. Now I feel great. I have a wonderful balance and work life. And I’ve figured out ways of managing and mitigating anxiety, not letting it be permeating and obfuscating, which it can be, you know? And debilitating. It removes the color from any situation. So even though Sleater-Kinney is playing again, it’s part of a bigger landscape and picture. It feels more integrated. It doesn’t feel like something that’s monolithic, that’s blocking my view to the rest of my life.
Was any part of your decision to end the book where you do leaving room for your next memoir?
No. I want to do more writing. It will likely be nonfiction or creative nonfiction. But I don’t know if it will be autobiographical. I also need to give myself some time to live more of my life. And you know, to me, Portlandia is so in the subtext of this book. When I recount moments from Olympia, and indie rock, that have so much to do with exclusion versus inclusion, codified rules that are labyrinthine and difficult to follow and somewhat contrarian—I see the seeds to Portlandia. All over this book.
You write a little bit about how in the ’90s, the Pacific Northwest felt heavy—the fact that people went there to disappear, the weather, the buildings, it didn’t reflect much optimism or wealth. I’ve been recently, and it feels quite different to me. Do you like the way it’s changed?
Portland to me is like the embodiment of a shrug. There’s this casualness, and casualness and cynicism sort of don’t go together. There’s this unwavering optimism that I think is embodied in both Seattle and Portland. Certainly the tech industry has transformed the cities and brought an influx of people. It does feel different. The economics have changed drastically. That’s good and bad. The only thing I don’t like about it is that the version of newness that is taking over Portland, there’s this homogeneity to newness, the way that these multiuse buildings all look the same. It starts to feel like a replica of another city. There is something generic about gentrification, the way it supplants a community, it sometimes takes away a lot of the uniqueness. But there’s a lot of great food in Portland now! I guess the quickest way for me to answer this is that I’m living in Los Angeles now. There used to be such a differentiation between the cities on the West Coast, in this almost antagonistic, maybe faux-antagonistic way. For me, Portland, Seattle, L.A., San Francisco—they are so similar now. The things people used to malign about Los Angeles, they exist everywhere now. That’s interesting to me.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
The post Carrie Brownstein on Writing Her Beautiful New Memoir appeared first on Vogue.
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News in Brief: John Boehner To Paul Ryan: ‘I Was Once Young And Beautiful Too’
WASHINGTON—Pulling the congressman aside Wednesday and sitting him down in his office, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) reportedly told his likely successor, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), that he had once been young and beautiful too. “There was a time when I had that youthful glow and that glimmer in my eye, just like you; but time passes, and alas, it takes its toll,” said Boehner as he gently brushed the back of his hand along Ryan’s cheek and recalled how he had, years earlier, possessed unspoiled good looks, an innocent charm and energy, and a popularity among his party much the same as that of his heir apparent. “You might not believe it looking at this old, withered shell sitting before you now, but back so many years ago in 2011, I was no different than you—a bright young thing that every Republican congressman wanted to be …
Kate Winslet and Galvin Scott Davis Create a Beautiful Daisy Chain
Novelist Theodore Dreiser once said “Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.” Galvin Scott Davis’ timeless new film, Daisy Chain, a five minute animated short narrated by Academy Award winning actress Kate Winslet, was born from misery and travail, and is the most stirring recent example of art communicating the subject of anti-bullying. Appropriately, the Tim Burton-esque, hand-drawn Daisy Chain has been released during National Bullying Prevention Month, and in its first week has been downloaded 100,000 times. Proof that art is often the best way to speak to the masses.
Daisy Chain (Courtesy of Screen Australia)
Daisy Chain was created by Australian writer/director Galvin Scott Davis after his nine year old son was bullied. He told his son “Bullying is for people with no imagination.” Davis’ son invited the bully, both comic book fans, to create a comic book with him and a friendship grew. A passionate storyteller (as well as director of Sydney-based digital media firm, http://www.protein-one.com/) Davis began developing Dandelion, an anti-bullying children’s book and app that went on to become a top-seller on iTunes, and winner of several awards. Davis then teamed up with Screen Australia to create the whimsical Daisy Chain, about a little girl named Buttercup bullied by older girls in a playground.
Davis’ chance meeting with actress Kate Winslet on the set of 1996’s film Hamlet planted a seed that nearly twenty years later grew into a beautiful collaboration.
Davis says
We were both being costumed for Hamlet and Kate had asked if I wanted a career as an actor. I said, ‘I want to tell stories. I want to write and direct.’ Then she said, ‘If I have one piece of advice I can give you, it’s to never give up.’
Winslet was Davis’ first and only choice to narrate Daisy Chain, and he even put the project on hold for a full year until she was available. Because as he notes “there was no better voice.”
His patience paid off. When Winslet read about the project, it spoke to her as a mother. The actress has also admitted that bullies made fun of her appearance growing up. As an adult, she has made it her mission to help build self-confidence in others. Davis was right. There was no better voice for Daisy Chain.
A moment from Daisy Chain (Courtesy of Screen Australia)
Davis says the hope is to see Daisy Chain (which is now also an illustrated children’s book, App, and character figurines) grow into an animated feature film in the vein of Coraline. A percentage of the proceeds from the Daisy Chain products are split between three international anti-bullying organizations: U.S. based Pacer, Bully Zero Australia Foundation and the U.K’s Anti-Bullying Alliance.
Daisy Chain’s animation was orchestrated by Frederick Venet, illustrations by Anthony Ishinjerro, and music composed by Hylton Mowday.
Find more information on Daisy Chain on their web site: http://ilovedaisychain.com/
The Daisy Chain children’s book (Courtesy of Protein):
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Toby Keith Releases New Single ‘Beautiful Stranger’
Toby Keith has released a new single “Beautiful Stranger,” taken off of his latest album 35 MPH Town. “That was written years ago,” Keith explains, “and I kept saying I wasn’t putting it on an album until it had a shot at being a single. The vocal shows some range people probably don’t hear out of me a lot.”
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Mel looking beautiful in dark lingerie with light thong and stockings
See more of Melanie Walsh click here
Today I am wearing this super sexy dark lingerie with a white thong and white stockings. I think the white stockings look great with the dark lingerie!! what do you think?Hope you have a great weekend
Luv
Melanie xxx
This Beautiful App is Like a Stress-Relieving Lava Lamp
Pause, a new $ 1.99 app isn’t a typical game. There’s no score and no competition. It’s designed to help you zone out and relax by slowly chasing a beautiful blob of dots across your screen.
WIRED Videos – The Scene
Long Legs and Beautiful #3 / Long Legs and Beautiful #3 – Video 1
From her hips down to her toes, there's so much for you to love.
Beautiful Redemption: A Novel (Unabridged) – Jamie McGuire
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Harmlessness – The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die
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© ℗ 2015 Epitaph |
Young and Beautiful #4 (Fallout Films)
These gorgeous young hotties are ready for their hardcore close up!
This Company Is Making Beautiful Halloween Costumes For Kids With Wheelchairs
A non-profit organization is helping this year’s wheelchair-bound children have a very happy Halloween.
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A Beautiful Fall – Chris Coppernoll
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Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings, Vol. 5 – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2014 Triple Pop |
Modern Acoustic Music for Beautiful Weddings, Vol. 5 – Acoustic Guitar Guy
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© ℗ 2014 Triple Pop |
The Beautiful and Damned – F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Photography: Complete Guide to Taking Stunning, Beautiful Pictures (Unabridged) – Nicole Woods
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© ℗ © 2015 G/O Elite Publishing |
Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful – Bon Jovi
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© © 2009 The Island Def Jam Music Group |
Beautiful Bitch (Unabridged) – Christina Lauren
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© ℗ © 2013 Simon & Schuster Audio |
Beautiful Stranger (Unabridged) – Christina Lauren
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© ℗ © 2013 Simon & Schuster Audio |
The ‘really beautiful’ way Kathie Lee Gifford’s kids helped her return to TODAY
Cody and Cassidy Gifford surprised their mom, Kathie Lee, Monday in a “really beautiful” way.
Beautiful Black Men And Women Flaunt Their Looks With #FlexinMyComplexion
It’s no secret — society often associates beauty with Eurocentric ideals. Even a Google search for “beautiful skin” renders mostly images of white women. Because of this, people with darker skin complexions often go unnoticed and uncelebrated — but that’s changing now.
A group of black women decided to redefine beauty on their own terms with the hashtag #FlexinMyComplexion.
Women (and a few men) of color showed off their photos on social media, flaunting their brown skin. Though the hashtag has been around for a few months, #FlexinMyComplexion amassed more than 85,000 tweets after POCBeauty asked it’s more than 26,000 followers to use it and submit photos of themselves embracing their darker skin, according to Clutch.
“I think it’s important for women of color to know if they’re brown/dark they’re beautiful too and deserve to be noticed,” the woman who runs POCBeauty told Clutch.”Dark skin, in all backgrounds, is beautiful and should be recognized as so.” POCBeauty is a Twitter account that celebrates people of color. The creator remains anonymous because she’s constantly harassed for highlighting non-white women, Clutch wrote.
Ironically enough, white women used the hashtag to express that they didn’t like that it excluded them. Go figure.
Users, including writer Maisha Johnson, clarified the hashtag’s purpose.
“It’s not about exclusion, it’s giving some space to people who usually don’t have space,” Johnson told BBC in the video above. “It’s not about saying we’re more important and you can’t participate because you’re not beautiful, it’s about saying we don’t hear nearly enough that we’re beautiful and that’s what this is about.”
Despite the criticism, the powerful tweets show off the beautiful and various shades of melanin. Take notes, mainstream media:
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Some Kind of Beautiful – Tom Vaughan
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Lots of Beautiful Hair at Teen Choice, Some With Splash of Color
Teen Choice delivered! Rita Ora added a light breeze of pink to her signature platinum blonde tresses and Britney Spears, honored as a style icon, splashed her ends with blue and purple to create what might even be described as an ombre.
All the stars collecting awards in Los Angeles for best movies, acting and music were, of course, beautiful. Most of them stuck with recent trends of natural looking cuts and colors with subtle, soft color transitions. We didn’t really see any big departures from what’s been popular.
Winning an award as a TV comedy actress, “Glee” star Lea Michele stayed with her long layers and caramel highlights. What can you say? It works!
Teen Choice for best TV drama went to the cast of “Pretty Little Liars.” Accepting the award were cast stars including Lucy Hale, who does a lot of long brown layered wavy hair, recently went short with a bob, but then had extensions to do a long ponytail in a cool, slick-back look to accept her award with other cast members. Also going with a center part and slick-back look from the “Pretty Little Liars” cast were Janel Parrish and Shay Mitchell.
Actress and singer Zendaya (star of Disney’s “Undercover KC”) went with a ballerina bun high on top to walk the Teen Choice blue carpet. She changes the style of her dark, brown hair often, and the results are nearly always fantastic.
So, no new trends emerged but we saw lots of beautiful hair. Love those kids! Love change!
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15 Beautiful Women Who Inspired Classic Love Songs
Romantic muses in the age of rock and roll
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Beautiful Liar – EP – VIXX
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25 Candid Photos That Show Breastfeeding Is Beautiful, Wherever You Nurse
After photos from her Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project (PABP) spread widely across the Internet last August, photographer and mom of four Leilani Rogers is continuing to normalize the sight of nursing and support lactating moms.
In honor of National Breastfeeding Awareness Month this year, Rogers recruited over 70 photographers in the U.S., Australia, Italy, U.K., Venezuela and Canada to take pictures of moms nursing their children in public places like libraries, parks, stadiums and grocery stores. She’s also invited other parents and photographers to share their own breastfeeding images on the project’s Facebook page or on their own social media accounts with the hashtag #PBAP2015.
Rogers was inspired by her own experiences with breastfeeding to launch the Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project in 2014, she told The Huffington Post. Though she overcame challenges with mastitis, bad latches, low supply, plugged ducts, thrush, staph infections and more, she says the one issue she was never able to face was her fear of breastfeeding in public.
“I avoided it at all costs,” the mom said, explaining that she feared stares and judgment from strangers so much that she retreated to her house and made life more difficult by planning everything around each baby’s feeding schedule. “I wish I could go back and tell my former self not to care so much about what other people thought. Not to be ashamed of my body. Not to be self-conscious about openly doing what nature intended.”
Rogers hopes the Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project will empower moms by offering the support and community she wished she had. She also believes it may help break down the struggles breastfeeding moms face, not only in nursing successfully but also in overcoming societal barriers and expectations. ”Society’s support is paramount to a breastfeeding mother’s success,” she said. “Mothers are hiding in their cars, restrooms, sometimes not leaving their homes at all — because they do not want to face the kind of public scrutiny that causes someone to file a complaint with managers and store owners about a woman breastfeeding in a public place.”
By encouraging other moms to participate in PBAP photo sessions or follow the project’s Facebook page, she hopes they will gain the confidence to nurse in public. Rogers would also like her images to reach non-parents. ”My hope is that seeing these images will help desensitize them, or even reprogram their thinking that breasts are sexual and that breastfeeding is an extension of that. It’s not,” she said.
“Perhaps you haven’t witnessed a mother breastfeeding in public before,” she continued. “You’re not sure what you would do if you happened to turn the corner in the grocery store and run right into a mother juggling her life with a breastfeeding child in tow. These images also serve the purpose of positive, gentle exposure.”
Keep scrolling for a sample of the beautiful images of mothers nursing their babies in public from photographers across the globe.
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Mini Album ‘Beautiful Liar’ – EP – VIXX
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Why I No Longer Need to Be a ‘Beautiful Boy’
There is a nuanced and etching sadness the moment you realize that you’re not what others would consider conventionally attractive. I realized my body was shaped differently than other boys one summer afternoon in the aisles of a TJ Maxx with my mother.
As she swept through the aisles pulling down discounted bottles of designer anti-frizz shampoo and glancing at overstocked heels she could never wear, I asked her if I would be able to go look at some underwear for myself. Navigating through racks of faux fur coats and jumpers, I pushed past a family of four huddled around a sale rack of tank tops to the men’s underwear section. As soon as I reached for a four pack of Hanes — white, briefs — my hand began to shake and my heart threatened to burst out of my chest. I held my hand in the air for a few seconds, wondering if I were having a stroke when it began to occur to me that my eyes were laser-locked on the package the underwear model on my Hanes container was sporting.
Immediately I began to pace the underwear section, making sure to carefully pause at equal interims to stare at the sock section just to the left. In my mind, anyone passing would have just thought I was a very confused shopper, when in actuality it looked like I was cruising.
Eventually I steadied myself and walked directly in front of the underwear wall. There they were. All of my first boyfriends in a row. Each with perfectly coiffed hair, dimples that I wanted to kiss goodnight and abs I wanted to grate fresh mozzarel off of.
I scanned the rows and rows of underwear models and found the most beautiful one: a man with olive tan skin, dirty brown hair, and green eyes that challenged me to touch him. Holding him in my hand, I felt my athletic shorts rise and stiffen — I had to use the underwear pouch to hide myself as I stumbled back to my mother. I found her in the perfume aisle whispering softly to herself, “…if only I had somewhere to wear this.” Keeping the underwear glued to me long enough for my hard-on to go down and for her to usher me to the front of the store, I felt elated when the cashier placed them in a bag for us. My beautiful man was coming home with me.
Although my fascination with underwear models continued, I didn’t really understand there was a difference between me and them. It wasn’t until I discovered porn that I began to know that there are binaries that exist in the world; that there are “gorgeous” people who have been photoshopped and lit into resembling plastic ethereal creatures, that there are plain people and more importantly, that I definitely fell into the latter category.
After the thunderous sounds of my father’s snores would reach my ears upstairs, I would boot up my PlayStation portable and log onto Sean Cody. Thumping my elbow against the wall as I went at myself I was transfixed by how sculpted their bodies where. The way their hulking shoulders lifted each other up and how their bodies twisted and smash into each other in such a visceral way excited and confused me.
After I would finish I would walk to my mirror and stare at it for 30 minutes or so. If I turned my body to the right and sucked in my stomach until my face purpled, I almost looked like I could have abs hidden underneath years of baby fat and homemade carrot cake. If I dropped my voice to a gruff growl I could almost mimic their moans as they fucked on screen.
I was never considered a particularly attractive boy by anyone who had met me. Inheriting my mother’s thick hair it constantly appeared like I had a growth protruding from my scalp every time my hair grew past three inches. It was woolly and full and when my mother would cut it every two weeks she’d leave it in the garden for birds to build sturdy nests from.
The first time I kissed a girl she ran her fingers through it and a rough knot snagged her ring in what she would later tell her friends was my “dog fur.” I never knew when to stop eating chinese, or pizza, or icecream, or second dinner and it never occurred to me that eating two bagels for breakfast wasn’t the best idea.
I was born chubbie and it wasn’t until my growth spurt that I even began to consider how being thin meant people would treat you differently. The same summer I grew eight inches my grandmother took me out shopping for an entirely new set of clothes. “A strapping man like yourself needs pants that fit you,” she told me as she ran her credit card at the Macy’s check-out line.
High school was a particularly unique challenge for me because although I had grown in height, my face remained frozen in the past. I look back at my senior year photo and I see a boy with sea-foam green braces (at the time I thought they would look cool, in actuality they looked like I had shoveled spinach into my mouth right before the photo was taken), hair slicked back so it looks wet and the concealer I had begged my mother to put on me that did little to hide the acne that had colonized on my face.
When we’re young we rarely see ourselves clearly in the way we do as adults. We feel, at the time, that our faces are final and that we will never be as beautiful as we are in that moment. I would return home from college for the first time seven months after my senior year photo was taken as what many would consider “a new man.”
Sometimes seven months can feel overnight, and my transformation felt like it had happened while I was having night terrors. My braces came off, my face thinned out and my acne decided to stop being a complete dick-wad. A week into college my roommate advised me that only middle-schoolers and poor people used LA Looks, and I promptly poured my bottle of level 7 hold gel down the drain.
I felt like one of those children who were never able to drink in high school, so during college they become alcoholics. Except instead of just drinking I was after a different type of buzz. One that can only come from another person paying attention to you; a buzz that comes when someone feels a carnal urge just from looking at you and you alone.
The first time I began to wield my looks was when I flirted with a bartender and he gave me three free shots. He was around 5’4″ and looked like a fat Justin Timberlake. He said if he gave me the shots I would have to kiss him. I did and ended up getting so drunk I passed out in the back of my friend’s car on the drive home.
I started getting free entry to clubs, free dinners and free gifts from the men who seemed to like whatever I was exuding. Eventually it wasn’t enough for these men to just want me, I needed them to have me. The first time I slept with a stranger in college he fumbled to take off my shirt and his breathe smelled like Jack Daniel’s.
While he scratched and grabbed at my back he called out “Tyler!” like he had loved me for years. We lay there in the dark for a few minutes after, the hum of my fan saving either of us from having to make conversation. I never asked him who Tyler was or his own name. I just liked the way he said Tyler like it was the only name he ever wanted to say again. Maybe Tyler had abs. Maybe he was a handsome man. For a night being him didn’t seem so bad.
I began to notice that the men I was attracting had a certain appetite for youth. They ranged in age and build but one thing would remain the same: their fascination with my beauty. In their eyes, I was never handsome, or hot, or studly. I was pretty, beautiful, gorgeous.
At first these words showered over me and bathed me in a warmth I had never known rubbing my fat rolls together in the mirror as a child. But like all things that fill up empty voids inside of you, they began to trickle out of me faster than I could keep the well of compliments filled up.
There is a difference in being a beautiful boy and a handsome man. I discovered this when men would tell me as they dressed that they liked being with me; that sleeping with me felt like sleeping with a woman. I began to rub my stomach again in the mirror at night and pull at the cheeks on my face willing them to become more hollow and chiseled. Being told I was a beautiful boy was like suddenly becoming a famous child star, but knowing that your moment in the spotlight was fading fast.
There is nothing left for me anymore in the touch of a stranger and there is nothing left in the words that I used to desperately crave to hear. Now when people tell me I’m pretty it feels like a stab to the man I want to be. There is no difference in affection when it comes to being called gorgeous or being called handsome; and it has taken me a few years to understand why these seemingly interchangeable words have bothered me so much.
When I was a boy all I wanted was to catch someone’s eye; to be the underwear model that some confused person lusts over. I wanted to be a shiny thing that was revered, polished, put up on a pedestal. But as soon as I got it I realized that there is nothing left in seeing yourself in a mirror and only wondering what others are looking at. I keep waiting for this knowledge to catch up to my actions. I keep waiting to stop waiting for compliments that will eventually stop coming.
There is a picture my parents keep above their fireplace of a four-year-old me standing, fully-clothed, in the toilet. My mother loves to tell the story of her son sneaking off every 20 minutes or so to climb into the toilet and flush himself down. Depending on when she tells the story, she had to change his clothes four times, sometimes seven. His hair is blonde and his cheeks look perpetually filled with helium, ballooning them in a cartoon way. He is four and he hasn’t heard of abs, or burgers, or how hollow a grab of his ass can feel. I look at this boy: wet, happy, and smiling, but I don’t recognize him anymore.
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Beautiful Now (feat. Jon Bellion) [Big Gigantic Remix] – Single – Zedd
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