Five reasons for why my blog-work is late:

1. The (wonderful) Wagons. We saw them the on the first night of summer, at the groovy, atmospheric, and once Nazi-frequented Speigeltent (according to Henry Wagons). A fantastic show, with dark and moody country music, sometimes funny and sometimes painfully awkward patter from Henry W., a delightfully irreverant hiphop song in the encore, and a so-cheesy-it-hurts-my-arteries interval version of Believe It Or Not (I'm Walking On Air)! And may I say, a washboard never sounded so good!

2. 32. No, not the meaning of life, in fact ten less than that, which gives me a decade to work it all out. My 32nd birthday. Also my brother's 37th birthday, although he reckons he waited for me to catch up at 32 and is still there, but I don't think it works like that. My brother is currently overseas, and although due to fly home on our shared birthday (a fluke date) last Saturday, he remains in Brazil, tumbling head over heels in love. I had an email from the lass the other day - she sounds lovely and equally enamoured with him, which pleases me, but it's the first time in memory that I haven't spent some time with my bro on our birthday, and that makes my bottom lip quiver a bit! In fact, until I was finally able to reach him on his OS mobile on the morning of the birthday, it had been precisely a year since we had spoken. Waaaaaaay too long between drinks. And yet, like it was only yesterday.

3. Went to the in-laws house way down on the coast for four days, to get the hell out of Dodge and breathe some fresh sea air, ramble about looking at petrified forests,limestone caves, Blue Lake and generally get well-fed by the folks. There's nothing like getting out of the concrete jungle and into the world. I especially liked when Daniel almost put his foot through a huge mound of rotting whale blubber on the beach! (No, Zoe, it's definately a rock, look, I'll show you... URGH!!!!!)

4. Christmas ... bloody Christmas. I love the giving and the planning of the giving and the making of the giving, and if I find a just-the-right-thing, I love the buying of the giving, but I don't love that I never seem to have enough time to enjoy all those aspects and it all seems to turn into a frantic babble of second-bests. And permit me a short vent about christmas in the corporate environment: we have a non-compulsory-but-if-you-don't-play-you're-a-bit-of-a-scab kris kringle at my work, which on principle I am refusing to join. I neither want to give or receive a thoughtless $10 present to/from someone I barely know for the mere sake of bowing to formality. Even in trying to be a bit of a scrooge at this time of year, I find my list of people I'd really like to give at least a little something to is plenty long, so anonymous work colleagues be damned I say! (Ebenezer...yes.)

5. Life. It's a funny old thing. It keeps on getting in the way of all the wonderful things I think I want to do. Like sewing myself a special sun-shade shirt (not just an ordinary shirt, but something groovy and yet protective), making lino-prints, lampshades, badges, Stella pictures, pickles, and of course a cure for cancer.

So they're my reasons for being absent of late, though am I only telling this to myself anyway? Have I stayed up too late essentially talking to myself?! Am I the crazy lady at the intersection of the internet superhighway?! Can anybody give me a lift?

Technically inept!

Dagnammit... I seem to have arsed up my page, sending the profile and links down to the bottom of the page in Explorer (though it looks fine on Firefox at home)... Am a bit scared to fack around with it too much in case I make it irretrievably worse. Daniel... will you help me later? I'm a spaz.

Moments of small joys

Well, it's been a long time between drinks, I tells ya! I guess I've been busy... and lazy... and uninspired. But the inspiration flowed again with a vengeance on Sunday, after I had been to see the fabulous show Eyes, Lies and Illusions at ACMI. Over 500 examples of pre-cinematic optical toys and illusions from the private collection of German experimental filmmaker Werner Nekes. It really is a spectacle of staggering proportions, with a walk-in perspective room, peep shows, a live zoetrope, shadow puppets, flick books... the works. We were lucky enough to attend a couple of seminars, one of them a re-enactment of an old-time magic lantern show and the other a presentation by Werner Nekes himself. There's a few school-aimed workshops on over the coming months as part of it too, and a walk-in camera obscura in Federation Square that we missed this time, but will make a trip back to the CBD to experience for sure! Also, around the traps (we stumbled across ours at Polyester Records on Brunswick St) you can find free flick-books from ACMI advertising the exhibition... look out for a brown paper envelope with Don't Panic scrawled reassuringly over it's front in red... it'll be with the other free promotional stuff in shop windows.

I've also recently had a great food experience that was a long time coming, and is worthy of sharing... Dainty Sichuan Food (formerly of Smith St, Collingwood, now in Corrs Lane in the city). My friend and ex-housemate raved about this place ages ago, and it inspired him to teach himself Sichuan cooking, with great success. After revelling in the joys of Twice-Cooked Pork and Pock-Marked Mother Chen's Spicy Bean-Curd, I was moved at last to seek out the inspirational eatery myself to celebrate Dan's period of voluntary joblessness! Dainty Sichuan isn't fancy, and nor are it's prices, but the food packs a mean, keen chilli and Sichuan pepper punch that leaves your taste-buds reeling, your mouth tingling and sweat pouring down your face!!! I can highly recommend the Spicy Garlic Eggplant (I almost had a When Harry Met Sally "I'll have what she's having" moment over it!!)! But wear good runners with a grippy sole if you plan to go - most of the dishes arrive at the table buried in a pile of oily fried chillis, and in the the process of extracting your meal from the heap, a lot of chillis and their oily coats end up on the floor. A hasty and cursory sweep isn't quite enough to render the floor hazard-free, so watch you don't come a cropper! The cowboy boots saw me skating precariously to the toilets... lucky I've got good balance!!

Fad N0#21: Yes-man

That's me...just can't say no. Just agreed to a modelling job I don't really want to do, entailing missing a yoga class, because I have a soft spot for the dear old bird running the class and she needed a replacement desperately. At least I was strong and didn't put my hand up for extra days at my real job... part-time isn't very when you keep going in on your days off. Note to self: find harmonious balance between people-pleasing and self-pleasing. (As opposed to self-pleasure, which is on my other blog! Tee hee! As if!)

Fad no#20: The Air Kiss

I have never been good with platonic kissing. I am not a natural cheek kisser, I prefer a cheery wave myself, but I have resigned myself to the need to negotiate these social nuances. The outlaws were over on the weekend. Dan's mum is pretty matter of fact and just launches in and before I know it we have done some kind of 'mwah' business and it's over painlessly and quickly. But I have somehow created this ridiculous pantomime with Dan's dad which invloves an awkward handshake leading into some kind of cheek kiss where I do a running commentary ALOUD of how unco and clunky I am at it! Then we all laugh uncomfortably and shuffle our feet and do the 'so how about the local football team' to cover the moment. I take all the credit for this utterly farcical affair. My concern now is that I have created a rigid model of how Garry and I interact. Next time I see him, I am determined to march straight up and plant a smacker on his cheek and set the new regime as that. With not a commentary to be heard. Or I could go overboard and run towards him in slo-mo, arms wide, calling 'Garry! Garrrrryyyyy!' Really freak him out!

No love for Marlowe!

Well, hee hee, after all that work creating Marlowe and his mobile theatre, he can't go into the Picturesque fringe show because he just took up too much space in the display cabinets! Whoops! Bit ambitious there! So, he'll be coming home to take up permanent residence with us, which we are more than happy about anyway. But don't go to the show expecting to see him there. Do, however, go to see lots of other fabulous work!

Fad No# 19: Tagging!

So, it seems there's a cyber-game of tag going around, the aim of the game being to prise hopefully interesting information out of fellow taggees. The game I've been tagged into is a bit of a Getting-to-know-you-and-your-reading-habits.
So... I'm cutting and pasting from Pen's blog to answer the tag myself.

A book that changed my life:
Nerdy as it sounds, quite possibly it's Roget's Thesaurus. I suspect this book may have contributed firmly to my love of language and the subsequent Bachelor of Linguistics I did, said degree being rolled up in a cupboard somewhere and costing me a mega-thousand dollar debt to the government! Yay for Roget! (In primary school I went through a phase of writing lists of all the words I could think of. I used to do it wherever and whenever, including whilst walking home in the afternoon, trying not to trip over cracks in the pavement as I joyously scribbled "uncle, elbow, nudge" and whatever else popped into my head. I also ate crayons.)
Another book which impacted on me is Home In The Sky by Jeannie Baker. I think this book was pretty influential on my interest in the tactile arts, as were all of her beautiful books.


A Book I've Read More Than Once:
This is a question that risks a long answer. I am, like Penni, a comfort reader, and have old favourites according to the mood that needs feeding. For a belly laugh, I'll go to my threadbare copy of the Red Dwarf Omnibus. For a therapeutic cry, it's Bridge to Terabithia. For something wholesome I'll read Cold Comfort Farm.


A book I'd like with me if stuck on a desert island:
A really good dictionary. Maybe the complete Oxford. Except I think that's 24 volumes, and I don't know if you can count that as a book. Maybe Red Dwarf again. Geez, two appearances already. Must be a good book! Also, Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence. Always gives me hope for beyond the apocalypse.


A book that made me laugh:
Inconceivable by Ben Elton recently cracked me up for the second time. Also This Is Your Life, by John O'Farrell.

A book that made me cry:
When The Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs. So poignant, so simple and so rich. I almost tear up just thinking about the illustration where the old man is bleeding onto his grimy white shirt and doesn't even realise it.


A book I wish had been written:
Well, I don't so much wish it had been written, as hope it may be made one day... a book of Stella images, with lovely glossy photos and a sense of achievement!

A book I wish had never been written:
Easy peasey! Wild Animus by Richard Shapiro. I know it is a bit mean-spirited to nominate a book for this question, but it was a freebie they were giving out as a promotional thing on Bookcrossing one time, and I got it and read, well, most of it, but it was so truly horrible that I couldn't bear to waste any more of my life force on it so gave it away in the bookcrossing tradition.

A book I've been meaning to read:
Well, many years ago I bought The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester, after a passionate recommendation by my favourite linguistics lecturer, but it is yet to be read, and has now migrated from my shelf to the bookcrossing pile to only be reclaimed by Dan and relocated onto his shelf. So maybe I'll try again. I feel as a linguist I ought to love it. Is it not enough to want to love it?!

A book I'm currently reading:
Just started Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer. Uber-futuristic sci-fi. Too early to say what I think of it, but I'm intrigued by the premise of a world where people live in stasis six days out of seven to reduce their impact on an over-taxed world and its resources.

Fad No#18: The Cliff Young

Spring has sprung, in all it's gusty, blue-eyed fierceness and you can almost feel the dry nose of summer nudging along behind it, and with the clear days and perfumed mornings I have found myself taking up the art of the Cliff Young ... in my crude attempt at Cockney rhyming slang, the Cliff is the humble run. I can now be found not so much pounding the streets as shuffling them, in an effort to compliment and justify the peach-cobblers, bread-and-butter-pudding and general fat of contentment that domestic life has settled over me like a soft, heavy blanket. And I'm discovering all kinds of joys beyond a tight little ass (which hasn't in truth been quite discovered yet, but I'm sure there must be at least one or two buried in there somewhere!) - like the quiet meditation of getting one foot in front of the other before I fall flat on my face (the miracle of pedal mobility! Don't think about it too much or it ceases to become instinctive and instead becomes robotic!) and the aesthetic raptures of my new and as it turns out, rather pretty neighbourhood. I am inspired to take my camera along on some on these excursions to capture some of the moments that please me, that they may please you too!

We like our streets short around these here parts!

The Making of Magic

I was invited to participate in an exhibition as part of this year's Fringe Festival - the brief was a plywood cuban cigar box and the theme of "carnival".
Of course, I found this a pretty exciting premise, and ideas flew aplenty... then the narrowing down began as I started to work out the actual logistics and the likelihood of my persevering with certain avenues (see About Me... tendencies to leave things unfinished!).
Well, in the end it came together, after a few morphs. Here's a visual diary of the progress and end result of what became "Marlowe's Bush-Bashing Theatre and Trav'lling Playhouse".

The first idea: a carnival truck carrying some kind of theatre or stage, remiscent of ABC's great show Carnivale. Alas, the truck body looked a bit tricky for me to pull together plausibly in two weeks.



Next, the scaled-down concept: a mobile-theatre, but on a hand-held barrow or cart...


This idea seemed to hold true, so I pushed on with the making. Jumbo ice-cream sticks from the craft shop make great small-scale planks. Yes, the love of miniatures has come to the fore again.


So far, so good. Everything is going according to plan. No need for tanties!


And now for the star of the show... Marlowe! Pull yourself together dude! (Hyuk hyuk hyuk!)







And here he is, in all his theatrical and slightly sinister glory.
Hopefully he will make the grade and go into the show, Picturesque, to be seen at the North Melbourne Town Hall from October 1-14. If not, there is pride of place waiting for him at home, just left of the Tiki lamp and below the Transformers breakfast tray!

Fad No# 17: Pruning

Long story: While D was having a lovely time weeding and pruning out the back yesterday, I tried to apply for my Grad Dip through VTAC online..mutter mutter...wasted an hour painstakingly filling out boxes and waiting for each agonising page to load...curse, swear...site wigged out and crashed before I finished...extreme swearing with c-words shouted repeatedly at the computer, tried to start again with loads more swearing and patience-well run completely dry...c-hunting c-hunt...site froze up early on...C-HUNT! C-HUNT!...stomping out the back to display my righteous fury to Dan and kick a wall or two, grabbed the pruning shears from him...C-HUNTING VTAC!!!..
Short story: the lavender bush out the front suffered a severe and ruthless pruning. However no animals were hurt in the making of this post.

Fad No#16: Rock Musicals!!!

We were hip with the kidz last weekend... and man am I glad I finally got off my arse and did something to experience the wonders that Melbourne frequently has to offer!

Hedwig and the Angry Inch... D only introduced me to this a coupla months ago on DVD, knowing I'm a big Rocky Horror fan, and I was blown away by the film (based on a stage production in the first place)! Superlatives flew from my mouth left, right and centre! It really is a fantastic story with great, funny, rockin' songs, and real depth of character and theme. And the Australian stage version was an equal match! The lead player, some Sydney musician called iOTA, who I'd never heard of (but like I say, I'm generally not really hip with the kidz), brought Hedwig completely and utterly to life - he was absolutely stunning, fantastic voice, and could act to boot! The rest of the cast consisted of his sidekick and partner, Yitzak (an actress called Blazey Best, who is in (male)drag for most of the show, but at the end you get to see what a total HOTTIE she is too!), and the band. It was really great, and I can't recommend it highly enough, though it finishes this weekend, so you'd wanna be quick.
Of course, as we were leaving the theatre, with memories of the show ringing in our ears, I had my usual fantasies of being in a rock musical myself... bowing at the end and sharing conspiratorial winks and looks with my castmates and crew-members, knowing we're a part of a family... can't I just enjoy it for what it was? Do I have to always want to be a part of everyone else's fun?!
Needless to say, I am on the hunt for the soundtrack, so I can "rock ouuuuuut" in my car (god, how sad) singing along and pretending I'm a tortured East German girly-boy!

A Sad Day.

I just found out that Steve Irwin died this morning. This has made me extremely sad. It feels like such a cliche to extend my full sympathies to his family and friends, but I'm doing it anyway, because who didn't love him, in their heart of hearts. What's not to love about someone that genuine?
:-(

The kids at home... (domestic bliss)

Ooooh! Lovers! (Sabre and Amos pretend they're not really boyfriend and girlfriend.) "What?! Nothing! I'm not looking at him!"


Happy Snaps! (Snappy the foster-turtle revving up with the spring warmth ... Aaron, are you ever coming home?)


Blue-collar worker, in the pink.
(Amos wandering among the blossoms - like he isn't enough of a nonce!)

Recycling: the way of the futon.

And on the seventh evening, She look't upon the stale old futon destined for hard rubbish, and yea, declared it would make lovely yoga bolsters!
Yes, they're a bit wonkers, as is my sewing style (year 7 Home Ec classes - never got off my sewing machine L-plates because of my lead-foot), but they do the job, and I feel very pleased about saving a perfectly good futon's worth of cotton stuffing AND jazzing up my new yoga room at the same time!
Now, I just need to get off my wobbly arse and do some freakin' yoga already!

Waaaaaahhhhh!
I have been without the internet at home for nearly three weeks! There is only so much sneaky work webbing I can get away with, this being one of those moments! But I will be connected again come the weekend, so from Saturday onwards, all going according to plan, I will be posting and blogging up a storm! Of course, it will mostly be tedious couply stuff about Sunday trips to the hardware shop and sewing and baking cakes, but that's been my world for the past month or so and dammit, I'm gonna tell about it!
So for all my imaginary hoards of fans out there, and the couple of bored mates looking for ways to procrastinate, watch this space...

Brand New Day

Done. Dusted.
We have Moved In Together.
I have physically picked up everything I own (and it turned out to be a frightening quantity of shite) and moved it half a dozen blocks away. I got to drive a 2-tonne truck. My hands are a mess of grazes and bruises. My legs even more so. The cat is pacing the polished floors yowling through the night. I fear I will be a very bad parent, because to deal with him I shouted a lot then shut him in the farthest away room I could. I fell asleep sour with guilt and woke up cranky and swore at the shower.
I love pacing the polished floors myself, just looking at how all our stuff fits together, watching his cat and mine as they circle each other warily but curiously. The sound of the key in the door has developed a new significance. My ears prick up and my heart pounds. I want to have lots of exciting show-and-tell for him. We keep catching each other's eye and grinning with delight and excitement.

I feel a bit scatty and overwhelmed. I have new normal to get used to. But I have an equally disoriented buddy to go the distance with. Hold my hand. The ground is shifting.
(I love you.)

The Fad Review:

So how am I doing on my chosen fads? Well, I haven't yet tackled the drying of fruit, but I DID go to a mate's primary school where she teaches Prep/1 and spent the day observing/helping out to get a gist (and D, I still maintain that "gist" looks better spelt with a 'j') of how it all works. Let me just say, hats off to primary teachers! This mate ran her class like a prima conductress before a symphonic orchestra. Reading group to the left, cue the creative writing session over there, Johnny sit down and stop poking Tina, Mark I can see you behind me go back to your seat and finish your adding etc etc. Marvellous! It was exhausting just being an observer though, and I didn't even have to go home and plan another class for the following day, but it was a beautiful thing to watch, and I am still keen to get into it, so I'm off to a couple of Uni Open Days soon to see if I can get into a Graduate Diploma. It's all coming together... I think I have a plan!
I'm also coming back to the idea of yoga teaching. I currently take a weekly class at a gym, which was a hand-me-down from MY teacher, so the group is a bunch of old hands who are very supportive and know where I'm at. I've also been filling in for the same teacher at her other gym while she is OS, and it's going really well. I'm getting really encouraging feedback from the participants, so I think I may be onto something, but I'm going to try and get a Certificate 3 in fitness (or whatever it's called) to enable me to teach group fitness classes in any gym - legally that is! Certainly with greater confidence that I'm covered for all eventualities. There is a performative element to leading a group of people or teaching a class that I kinda get off on. After all these years of putting any kind of teaching on the back-burner as my last-resort job, I'm now seeing it with new eyes and realising how awesome it can be! Everything is coming together at this point for a reason! Yee-hah!

Speaking of yee-hahs, tomorrow is Lease-Signing Day!!! And the beginning of the Big Shift. It is definately a period of Capital Letters. We Are Moving In Together! Fuck! And yay! And fuck! (but mostly yay!)

Fad No#15: STENCIL ART

Well, I finally got my arse into gear to make a piece of stencil art. This is a little house-warming gift for D, though I hope to put it out and about shortly (on the streets that is). We'll see how my nerve (and the flimsy paper stencil) stands up.

In The Wild!

Oh joy! Oh rapture! Oh Maurice! What more can I say?!

Fad N0# 14: THE BLUE MARY!

I'd heard tell of the legend of lighting ones own farts, but really, I never truly believed it was possible. Then it came up in discussion at home the other day, and the boys were comparing notes on the Catholic school experience of the so-called Blue Mary. So last night I witnessed in the flesh (in the gas?) a real Blue Mary. And I laughed so hard I almost ruptured something. I wish I could have taken a photo, but Blue Marys are like marsh flares or min mins... they are so brief and ethereal that you would be very lucky to capture one on camera.

Bic lighter: $1.50
Gas-producing meal: $9.50
Look on his face when he thinks his arse in on fire: priceless.

Fad No#13: LAWN BOWLS and other catastrophes

This is probably a bit passe these days - after all, the cool kids have been lawn bowling and drinking imported beer and listening to doof at the Fitzroy Bowls Club for a fair while now. (And of course, old people have been dropping dead over it for aeons!) But I thought it deserved mention. I have, I sheepishly admit, only been a couple of times myself, at the local joint directly across the street from my place, but it was indeed enormous fun. The VB was cheap, the old codgers were dinky di and we have subsequently gone for the $7 Friday night roast, which was as homely and overcooked as you could hope for! We only discovered the joys last year, just before the close of the season, so we have gotten out of the loop a bit, but I look forward to a few idle summer games coming up. (It'll also be an excellent excuse to get together with the housies, who will be ex-housies within a fortnight. Eep!)
Another stately and dignified grass-game (not) of which I have become equally as fond, is croquet. Cut-throat and viscious... yeah baby, that's the stuff! You can voice a lot of spite and vengeance in the clean 'tok' of mallet on ball. And if skill and deviousness fail, fling yourself on the ground in a tantrum! Worked for me! (Watch out for dog-poo.) I think with the weather lightening and the days lengthening, my thoughts are turning to outdoor activities. Probably the quintessential mates-game in my mind is the frisbee chuckabout. "Going down the park to chuck a frisbee" epitomises all that I love about summer holiday playing, even though I am mostly a bit of a spazz with a frisbee, and the slightest breeze can ruin my game. But it's what it represents, somehow. Copping a frisbee in the face sums up all that is good and sweet in the world. Ask any dog.

Fad No#12: WORD-GAMES

I love a good word-game! I've always loved crosswords, and when my gran (RIP) taught me a few tricks of the trade with cryptics that love amped up a notch or two. I also enjoy that Target puzzle in the paper on a quiet Sunday arvo. But my newest and most fervant word-game fad is Wordsearch. We scored this one from Dan's family stash of decaying miscellany in the bush, and I love it! Way better than Scrabble!
(We also rescued Pictionary, a version of Triv that I don't have, Uno, a word card-game from my childhood - My Word, Cluedo and more. We have a veritable games compendium!)

Let the games begin...

When Pads Attack!

Funny...standing in the stupidmarket queue on the way home from a long and draining day (starting with a bang, smash and tinkle - thanks for rear-ending me luvvie!), I noticed the couple ahead buying only a large block of chocolate and a packet of sanitary pads. I glanced casually to one side as I laid my own large block of chocolate and packet of pads on the conveyor belt. Beware, the full moon heralds the howl of bitches! Stand no-one in the way of their chocolate!

Fad NO# 11: The THIRD DIMENSION...

Op-shop score of the month... 3D Viewmasters a la the early eighties! Good old Savers, usually a bit self-aware and overpriced for my liking these days, but at four bucks a pop and with a wad of transparency cards, who can complain?! And a His and Hers pair, what's more! Had EXTREEEEM pleasure playing with them, and want to try making my own transparency cards to use in them... stay tuned for Stella 3D storywheels!

Fad NO# 10: STALKING

But it's not really stalking per se, scoping I like to think of it as. So I walked up to my new street with my new house and kinda stood outside for a while fantasising that I was coming home to it. Wandered my new neighbourhood, mentally tagging that cafe for Saturday morning breakfasts, that op shop for weekend rummaging, that organic butcher/post office/supermarket. Timed how long it would take me to get to my old haunts (15 minutes at a brisk walk! Very pleased!) as I am a creature of habit who fears and distrusts radical change. Er, yeah, yeah, I'm joking. I looooove change! I love it in small, measured, reasonable doses, with plenty of lead-time and lots of progress reports. Anyway, I just had to go check out the place again, to make it real, and confirm what I know to be a grand decision.
I am tres excited!

Fad No# 9: SHACKING UP!

Well, it seems my little reverse psychology with the universe has paid off! After telling the world (cos everyone on the planet reads my blog!) that we were going to be house-hunting foreverrrrr, we have a place! And, smugness of smugnesses, it's the best place ever! Ahh, I have become the "we" that I used to love to hate!
Now there's just a few weeks of mad packing and handing over great wads of cash to spotty adolescent estate agents and the like ... wheee!

Stella.....Stellaaaaa.....

Yes, Stella is revolting. She has got her own blog . She doesn't talk much, but she likes to post pictures of herself. Saucy. Not. But cute!

Hunter... or hunted?

Today was the beginning of the hunt. The house-hunt. The smarmy, foundation-caked receptionists handing out wrong keys, the clang of the hammer as each enquiry is met with the answer "It's been let, it's been let, it's been let". The "how do I dress up my income and previous employment and mother's maiden name and five year plan and every other skerrit of personal data they want into something different and desirable" brain-drain of the application form. The emotional rollercoaster of loving a house, then letting it free. Love it, let it free. But, it is after all, only the beginning. There may be many weeks of this turbulance... who knows WHERE I'll be living at the end of it! I have to remind myself that despite wanting to be with my partner, I am in no hurry. Some people are never so lucky as to have a share-house like my current home. It's a place where friendships are born. Germinating over bangers'n'mash, The Office, summer barbies, the gathering of one another's laundry as it begins to rain. Where is this lyrical waxing going? I know not! Where am I going? Abed, afore I asay something really astupid!

Fad No# 8: STUFF

Okay, once again I'm stretching the boundaries of my blog concept, trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. So when I say "Fad of stuff", what I REALLY mean is "Western society's obsession with product consumption". And I judge from within - I'm as guilty as the rest of them/us/you. Walking to work this morning I passed one of those billboard bus-shelters (rather, an undercover advert that also happens to be a handy place to hail a bus), advertising the leading MP3 player (no free advertising from ME, Steve Jobs!). I felt the weight of my own (dormant) iPod (Dang! I did it anyway!) swinging in my jacket pocket, and I suddenly thought, my god, so much stuff! Advertisers are constantly trying to tell us that we "need" the next new thing, but we say, "Oh no, you're not catching me out that easily! Ha ha!"
But then moments later, we find ourselves thinking, "You know, entirely unaffected by that big billboard over there, I have just independantly and of my own volition decided I really want and need one of those new Product X's." Like the classic addict, we could give up annnnny time we want to, we just don't want to. I have phases when I want nothing more than to throw all my worldly goods to the wind, and run away to the trees. Well, I still want to run away to the trees, but there're a few things I'd like to take with me... Just because I might aspire to a mud-brick shack with a pit-toilet, doesn't mean I am over the addiction.
I remember a time when the only people to have mobiles were high flying business men on TV, and they were probably called portable phones, and they were the size of a house-brick. I remember when you felt like a pretty bloody lucky spotty teenager if you had a Walkman to listen to your Top 40 radio mix tapes. I remember when we had to walk twenty miles to school in the snow, even in the middle of summer, with no shoes and through pits of snakes... yeees, times were better in the days before stuff.
So what am I saying here? Better to be time-rich and money-poor (easily said by a child of a safe middle-class upbringing!); things can't give you a hug at night; status anxiety is the new cancer (hmmm. A flippant and ill-considered metaphor. I'm a fan of those!)
And yes, it's ironic (I think... I never did quite get a full grasp on the concept of irony) that if it weren't for certain "stuff", this blog would never have happened (thank you, faithful little puter!)
So, yay for stuuuuff!

Health vs fitness - the dilemma!

I hate when you think you might be getting sick. Apart from the whole "this means I am now going to be sick" thing, there is the interruption to the flow of life in that vague am-I-aren't-I? phase, when everyone tells you you shouldn't do exercise because it makes the cold, in this case, worse and take longer to go. I wanted to go to the gym because I'm feeling a bit winter-porky, but now I'm instead sitting with a belly full of soup and a plan to go to bed by 9. Though I AM knackered, and the thought of my bed and book is so very nice! Ah, fuck it! What's a bit of winter chub?! I'll be glad of it if society crumbles into anarchy tomorrow (and it might... the weather forecast DID say light rebellion with a chance of anarchy.)!
On that utterly pointless and self-indulgent note... time for a cup of tea and a biscuit!

(WARNING: Schmaltzy content may offend some readers) Love is a four-letter word.

So is fear. And fall.
I never knew until now what it was to love someone this much, to actually feel for the first time ever that all the potential futures I barely dared to imagine can become reality. I never thought I'd look at someone and think "I don't ever want to be apart from you" or "I don't care what happens as long as we're together" (that is a dangerous sentiment... one should be careful what one wishes for...let it be known, Universe, that I am NOT daring you to present me with horrors on the proviso that I am with my loved one when they happen. I'd like no horrors, thanks!) (It sounds so corny, doesn't it? I'd have made spewing motions and retching noises a year ago!) But what amazes me is that in the midst of feeling happier than I ever have before, I find myself at my less rational times of the month, when reason is nowhere to be seen and raw emotion batters me in spasmodic waves, to be indulging in dystopian fantasies of betrayal, disinterest, heartbreak and loss. The higher you are, the farther you fall. And so, here I am, with my life at its very best, and consequently, so much to fear losing. I think I must be testing myself, saying, "okay, you're afraid of the worst thing happening? Well here it is! How does it feel? What about this version?! And this one?! Wham! Pow! Bam!"
It's a mad world, being a chick sometimes (or being THIS chick, anyways). You can step outside yourself and make an objective assessment, but ultimately you inhabit a place too messy and knotty to allow a clear view the bulk of the time.
I am trying to teach myself a new mantra though, a happier and more hopeful one;
Love is a four-letter word. So is home. And safe.

Fad No #7: TRIVIA NIGHTS (or, I'm not wearing my underpants on the outside tonight)

There was a period last year when I was VERY into the Trivia Night. A small core group of us used to go down to (insert generic local inner Melbourne pub here) for a weekly Triv night. There were a lot of other 20/30-somethings in little knots of light beer drinking Wednesday night cameraderie, whooping, whispering, covertly texting housemates and friends, battling it out for the free jug of beer and the peer kudos of being champions for the night. Our team consistently had (despite its variable team composition of friend of friend ring-ins) the name I'm Not Wearing My Underpants On The Outside Tonight, in response to another team by the name of The Caped Crusaders. We thought we were rather clever, and it pained the poor rent-a-quiz-master lady to announce our name each week, which gave us a flash of collective childish glee! I have mostly lost touch with that group now, but I miss the regular meet-up and the playfulness of the event, and the feeling that despite being a bit of an old lady party-pooper, I was still 'going out'. Oh, and the brain-flexing and thinky stuff. Me like thinky stuff real good.

Fad No# 6: TREE-CHANGE

Noise pollution, air pollution, light pollution, mind pollution. Sometimes I love this city with an aching tenderness, with its throbbing undercurrent of activity and potential, and other times I feel like I'm netted in a tangle of grit, static and hard grey edges. The boy and I are looking to buy land together away from the city. No-one real can afford a sea-change anymore, so the new, groovy weekend-magazine term is the "tree-change". We want to run away, have our own little hideaway, our own little piece of somewhere. It'll just be somewhere to go camping at first, a guaranteed private spot where we can set up mini-projects (I have a lovely pit toilet in mind!) and practise things like mud-bricks and simple building structures. Then who knows... we might run away there for good. Build a house and move t'country!

Wobbly

I am very tired, it is not advisable to blog when you are fatigued. A powernap could save my life. But instead, here I am, whispering into cyberspace, "I feel fragile. I am wobbly. Push me too hard, and like a jellyfish my skin might burst open and shower you with salt-water." Is it because I am a whoah-man, (So I Married An Axe-Murderer), or is it because I am just me, and me has a tendency to wobble, to take things the wrong way? Or am I just a big wanker who thinks she's a bit of a poet but is really just embarrassing herself?
Yeah, I reckon it might be that!

Things to loathe and lurve...

Stuff I don't like:
Pretending to give a shit about next season's range of department store pajamas... People! This is NOT important! I can't feign interest any more! I have to get a new line of work!!!
Sitting at a computer under fluoro lights for 8 hours.
Ironing. (Crumples look more arty and interesting anyway)
Holding in farts at the office. Letting one sneak out only to have some well-meaning colleague choose THAT whiffy moment to come have a chat on the edge of your desk.

Stuff I DO like:
Tinned tuna.
The feeling I have after doing some focused yoga.
CanSolo (my dear little car...warm, roadworthy, tinny and very yellow. A real Harry High-hat.)

Stuff I can't live without:
My three favourite cats in the world, one of them human.
...and now blogging, it appears!

The eternal contemplation...

Ah, Stella, she loves a good naval-gaze!

Not a scarf, not a collar...

...but maybe a "scolla"?! Clearly I still love that pink homespun-style wool. This is a made-up-as-I-went-along lil number, which I shall name Myrtle. I love it's guts out already!

Like sands through the hourglass...

...these are the scarves of my life! The pink knobbly one I just finished last week and am particularly pleased with, though the blue chenille bedspread and retro Japanese cartoon pillowcase scarf is a favourite crowd-pleaser too! I think they need names actually... the pink one feels like an Esther, and the recycled one I hereby name ..ummm... how about Yoshi? A tribute to the pillowcase! The striped one - Tigger. There. An exercise in stupidity... (interesting typo just happened there - "stupiDUTY": my duty to act stupid!) My stupiduties are about the only duties I effortless fulfil every day! Whee to me!
(Thanks also to the boy for sorting out my issues with posting pics and the like. Needless to say, boo to Safari and Yay to Firefox!)

Not a fad at all!

Penni's blog
This lil' lady is no fad... she's a lifetime link! Not only is she an awesome chick, but she's me best mate! And here's her eminently readable and very slightly addictive blog (but not in a stalky way, cos I know her so it's okay to go through her rubbish bins!).

Fad No# 5: KNITTING

Yeah, yeah, knitting, everyone's doing it, everyone's blogging about it, aint it fab?! But it IS!!! This is about my third winter of knitting, (ah, the seasonal fad!)and probably my most productive so far, though it's all been scarves, scarves, scarves - which aren't very adventurous, but ARE nice and achievable. Besides, I love a good scarf. I never did get around to entering this year's Craft Victoria Scarf Festival, sad date-challenged thing that I am, but I have an offering in the spirit of the whole affair... introducing my alter-ego Stella! She too is looking for a meaningful existence, and this image came about as a result of my first bout of knitting. One for all the textilophiles out there!

Fad No# 4: LISTS

Lists aren't really a fad for me... they're more a way of life! But I thought I could make a list of activites I would like to fad-ise sometime down the track...which might only be interesting to a list-nerd like me, but hey, it's my blog and I'll list if I want to!

Things to dabble in:
- massage
- jogging
- making dried fruit (for when I become an earth mother)
- stencil art (stay tuned for my upcoming arrest and short-lived stencil art career!!)
- screen-printing
- badge-making (for my slowly stagnating alter-ego character-based "art" ... see for more: http://craftbase.craftvic.asn.au/view.php?i=287)

I'm sure there's more, but the delicate balance with lists is not to overwhelm by making them trail on forever. I'll just make sure I jot down on my to-do list to update my fad-dabble list later.....

Fad No# 1: BLOGGING - the trials and tribulations

Clearly I STILL haven't been able to post images. I think my software is a bit outdated, cos Safari keeps crashing whenever I try and upload images, and I haven't had a chance yet to get hold of an upgrade... but when I do, boy oh boy will there be great pictures ... of stuff ... and things. And stuff.
Really quite good pictures.
I think.
:D

Fad NO# 3: TATTOOING

It started like this: I've got a few modest tatts of my own design, my closest mates and family are also of the inked variety, and deep deep down inside I always thought it would be a pretty cool job to be a tattoo artist. A few months back I mentioned in passing that in another life I would want to be a tattooist, and the said close mates all went "Yeah, do it! You'd be great! And we can get free work done!" I pondered this for a while, decided that life is short and you should grab by the balls the things you really want... but one of the great questions of the X-Gen is HOW do you know what it is you REALLY want? So many choices - how do you narrow it to the one you feel most passionate about? I sat on the idea for a few weeks, telling lots of people that I was about to embark on an illustrious career as a tattoo artist, and that all that was standing in my way were the minor details of a folio and an apprenticeship. Hee hee! Small, trifling hurdles no?! I finally got my arse into gear to go and have a chat to an awesome tattooist I knew by old aquaintance (at Chapel Tattoo in Windsor) to find out the process of getting into the industry. After a brief, but illuminating chat, I came away feeling somewhat shaky in my resolve. I still loved the IDEA of telling people I was a tattoo artist, and of looking at tattoos that were my designs, but there was a lump in my throat at the thought of how consuming of your waking life the job seems to be, and indeed needs to be if you want to get anywhere. I kinda sat on the idea a bit more, until it dawned on me that I had begun to guiltily avoid thinking about it, wishing I had never shot my mouth off about a pipe dream to everyone who stood still in my vicinity for 30 seconds. I have the biggest mouth I know, and I'm forever digging holes for myself, and here was just another ACME port-a-hole for me to step into. I decided to acknowledge the sad fact that wanting to SAY you're something isn't the same as having the get-up-and-go to BE that something. As far as I can tell, to be a tattoo artist, you have to be bloody dedicated, passionate, hard-working and single-mindedly focused on drawing, researching and working like a dog to establish yourself. Great kudos to those out there who are living the dream! Unfortunately, I am a bit of a lazy so-and-so, and clearly too piss-weak to make it in the cut-throat world of tattooing!
But, in the spirit of taking my utter piss-weakness and using it for good, here are the handy tips I was given by the lovely lady at Chapel Tatts for getting a foot in the door (I would like to add that these are not her words precisely, but rather my two-month old memory of her advice, so please don't send Chapel Tatts angry emails if you disagree with anything... I guess you should send them to me, or even better, just think angry thoughts in my direction!):
1) Get a folio together. This needs to be hand-drawn and hand-coloured tattoo flash (artwork), ideally on an A3 illustration board. Best to use good quality markers and ink pens for black-work. Choose as broad a range of images as you can, but keep in mind that you want to infuse your own personal drawing style into the artwork. Don't just do knock-offs of other people's work. If you have a genre that you really love and are strong in, maybe make that the focus of your folio. Three or four of these A3 sheets would be a good start. Draw all the time! According to my (not very extensive) research, your typical tattoo artist will work all day; tattooing, cleaning and making up needles, booking and consulting with clients, then go home and spend all evening working on drawings for upcoming jobs.
2) Research the tattoo studios you would like to get an apprenticeship with. If there is somewhere with an artist you like, it is worth getting a tattoo done by them, preferably of your own design, so you are showcasing your own work. This will help make you more memorable to the studio when the time comes to showing them your folio, and I guess gives you an opportunity to schmooze with them a bit! If you DO get offered an apprenticeship, be careful of what you are offered. Some places apparently ask you to pay THEM, but again, my source told me that any place worth it's salt wouldn't ask that, and that although apprenticeships are getting rarer and harder to get (the market in Melbourne at least is saturated with artists, so there's not a lot of room for newbies), you should expect to get some kind of wage for your time and energy, though it will probably be pretty crap and a struggle to live on.
3) Don't buy a beginners start-up tattoo kit online and try doing it backyard-style, as tempting and grungy old-school as that might sound. The order you're better off doing things is draw draw draw until you have a folio together, go see studios, and try to get in with someone who will already have big expensive things like autoclaves (sterilisers) and needles and stuff ( I want to say 'guns', but I think that might be really un-street to say... again, clearly I'm not a natural-born tattooist!) Mind you, I still kinda like the idea of getting a kit and doing at least ONE tattoo on just myself, just to see how it went. Maybe I could be a hobby tattooist?!

I wouldn't say that the dream is entirely dead, per se, but it IS in a bit of a coma, and might come back with a floppy face and a bit of a dribbling problem. I will still design my own tatts, for other people to commit to skin, and any inky mates who want my feedback/help will happily get it (starting with my little mate from Sydney who I met in the Andes... you know who you are pet!), but I'm beginning to realise that I don't have to take every interest and whim and try and turn it into my perfect career, do I? Hello? ....Do I?

I have nasty feeling that this blog is becoming a bit of a sad litany of all the ways in which I have failed to succeed. Or it could be a monument to the 'life is too short to stay stuck in one thing' credo! (I choose the latter)

Fad NO# 2: GRAPHIC DESIGN

My current J-O-B is in graphic design. It's a bit of a misnomer to call the job itself a fad, as it was a fluke opportunity that I stumbled across in a time of need and took up gladly in order to keep a roof over the cat's head. It was advertised as a 'graphic artist position in the textile industry', and as a badly struggling wannabe freelance illustrator with vague and broad-reaching creative goals, it sounded like it could be my new fad-du-jour. Once I got through the scary first month or two, making hi-there-howdy-and-hello chitchat with my new colleagues and nervously sweating all over the keyboard and wacom pad, I found I quite enjoyed the fact that I got paid to draw all day on the computer and crack gags with my new pals. It had plenty of perks - a part-time position, job-sharing with another illustrator; free garment samples to take home once the company had finished ripping off the overseas graphics; improving my computer skills... but soon the honeymoon started to wear off and the shiny realm of fad morphed into the grey-edged world of drudge. I began to see the garment industry (rag trade, sweetie!) for what it is... a voracious consumer of resources, both human and material, for the purpose of making and selling crap quality clothes. Don't get me wrong - I recognise the need for clothing production, and low budget clothing at that, but I think you have to be really INTO the whole vibe if you want to work in the trade and not get horribly bitter and twisted like I'm beginning to sound (eeep!). Really, it's not so much that it is all the work of Satan - it's just not my bag, baby! So I'm at the point where I rock up to work with a groan and tell myself that there is something out there better suited to me, something that I can feel good about, something that ADDS to the goodness in the world. This month, that something looks to be teaching! And I don't subscribe to the "those that can, DO, those that can't, TEACH" bullshit. The good teachers that I have known are doing the do right there! And training to be a teacher means I get to go back to Uni for a while and break away from 9-5 for just a little longer - woohoo!
... Just some thoughts on what I think people might get out of this blog should they stumble across it...
I guess if I'm talking about fads I've dabbled in, especially with a mind to making a lving out of them, it might be interesting/helpful/relevant to make brief mention of anything useful I've learnt about the fads I've tested out.
So, if you want to work in the clothing industry, these are some skills that it would be good to have:
- basic drawing ability (life drawing is great)
- good computer skills (Photoshop, Illustrator, using the net)
- interest in fashion (aha! This is where I fell down!)
- good sense of colour
- no moral objection to reproducing other people's artwork with minor changes to avoid copyright infringement

Now that I've had my rant about my job, I think the rest of the blog should be a bit less ANGRRRRRRY and a bit more happy-happy joy-joy!
Toodles! And remember kids, fashion is the work of the devil!

Fad No# 1: BLOGGING.

So in my meandering journey down possibly the wrong road in life, I have at last come across the world of blogging... and I have to say, I am already in danger of having a major tanty and throwing it all in before I even get going, which is my modus operandi for many new and wonderful ideas. But I am taking deep breaths and harnessing the power of positive thinking, determined to get my boyfriend to work it all out for me tomorrow! I want to upload pictures! I want visuals! I want instant gratification! (Curse of my generation, eh?!)
But remember, the pen is mightier than the sword, or in my case, the keyboard is mightier than the swearword - I shall persevere.
So why am I doing this?
Damn, existential query so early on...
Well, I thought it might be fun/interesting/tragic to chronicle the myriad of one-minute wonders I leap into, full of faith that THIS time it will be the key to my sense of purpose and meaning! This year alone I have wanted to be a yoga teacher, tattooist, at-home mum and now primary school teacher. A yoga-related knee-injury scared me away from yoga teaching, the idea of making a big hairy biker bleed from a tattoo that says "Live to Ride, Ride to Livv" gave me second thoughts about that one (Whoops! Sorry Big Bazza! There was no spellcheck on this needle!), and the whole mum thing is a bit soon for me and the boy to be getting into. (Besides, I have to decide what to be when I grow up before I grow up other little people). So the current answer to life, the universe and everything is to do a Graduate Diploma of Education and fill the minds of malleable children with knowledge and inspiration. Let's see how long it lasts.....