Piazza New York Catcher

Elope with me Miss Private and we'll sail around the world
I will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girl
How many nights of talking in hotel rooms can you take?
How many nights of limping round on pagan holidays?
Oh, elope with me in private and we'll set something ablaze
A trail for the devil to erase

- Belle and Sebastian, Piazza New York Catcher from Dear Catastrophe Waitress

I'm making biscuits! It's tremendously exciting; they are little butter biscuits infused with white tea, pear and a touch of vanilla. They are in the oven right now, though probably not cooking evenly because I am constantly opening the door to check on them. Hopefully I can sample one and give a report before the end of the post.

My Dad is going out on a date. I suppose it's more promising than drinking by oneself and listening to excess Pink Floyd. He's going out for coffee with "someone", which is a dead giveaway - when he first told us that his then-girlfriend was spending the summer with him, he told us that a gender neutral "colleague" was staying with him for a while. Maybe not so mature, but at least I can read him now.
But I must admit apprehension to all these new developments. In the space of a year we gained a step-mother then lost her again, after dealing with the breakup of our parents, the affair, the divorce, yada yada. It is a lot to bear, not sure how easy it will be to just deal with more tumult.

Ok, I tasted the cookies. They came out of the oven about five minutes ago, so they're still very hot. I bit into it: it was light, crumbly and buttery, like shortbread or a yo-yo biscuit. The flavours of pear and white tea had infused into the dough fabulously, giving it a delicate floral bitterness and the pear gave a little tangy kick - ah! I'm so proud! I could never cook, and now I have managed to make three great things in as many days.

Apart from all that, my efforts at essay writing have been absolutely thwarted by creative aspirations. The projects in my head at the moment are:

• Some landscapes, acrylic on canvas, for the upstairs of my house - probably about seven of them in two different styles. We're going for a Colonial-meets-jungle tree house theme in the apartment, so they'll be in shades of beige, olive, chocolate, gunmetal, et cetera. Half the paintings will be for the living room; these will be moody 'scapes of grasslands, playing on the horizon line and distribution of light. The other half of the paintings will be cream and chocolate detailed line paintings of dead trees, focusing mainly on complexity of line. Cheerful, huh?
• I've always had a rather candy coloured bedroom, and I doubt that is going to change anytime soon. So, candy coloured artwork; probably about 3 or 4. Coloured pencil, watercolour, acrylic and fabric/paper collaged parts. They'll be abstract, detailed, lines and dots and shading - my Mum used to draw randomly when she was on the phone, filling up the backs of envelopes and the tops of electricity bills with beautiful little patterns, so they are my inspiration. In shades of tangerine, wasabi, raspberry sorbet, 'yummy' blue, violets in the rain, straw yellow, jade... et cetera.
  
• Last night a story came to me. Something about a young man without much sense of direction trying to find an elderly brothel owner who answers only to Madame Du Barry because of a link she may or may not have to his vegetable father. Set in France, in 1896. No, there will be no consumptive tarts-with-hearts alla Moulin Rouge, La traviata or La Dame Aux Camilles. Mmm, this idea really needs to be workshopped. All I have right now is the characters, not so much plot.
• I need to do the illustrations for Scala and Soldad. The graphics are half-done, but the pictures for the actual story are being a bit more difficult than I thought they would be!
• In my sketch book there are some little drawings I did a year ago; a little monkey in overalls called Troy, a bunny in a pinafore called Lillian, a dinosaur with a vest called Bert.. there are some more too. I was thinking about actually making them, as little soft toys. May is the worst month in the world to be unemployed (so many birthdays, Mother's day, my two and a half year anniversary..) so maybe soft toys are the answer!

I have all these ideas that I am ready to pursue with gusto, but which one? And there is the small issue of an overdue essay on Wittgenstein that I promised Lucien I'd finish before Saturday.. woe.

Oh! Have you ever had a 'friendship crush'? Or did I just coin the term? Well, I'll explain it.
A crush works in the way that you are intrigued, fascinated, interested, attracted to someone in the hope that you can have some sort of a romantic relationship with them. I suppose a friendship crush is where you meet/see someone and feel the same sorts of things; fascination, intrigue, admiration, attraction. But instead of being romantic feelings, they are platonic - instead of the person being the object of your affection, they are the object of your admiration - instead of wanting to love them and be loved, you want to be their friend and earn their respect.

I have a couple of friendship crushes at the moment. It's such an odd concept to try to describe to someone, and I am always scared that they will think I am a stalker.