Fashion Zoo

I'm full of Mexican food and mocktails; quite content (see photo, right). Dinner at Montezumas on Bridge Road with Paul after a day of gallavanting? Happy ending to a day that began with a less than happy outlook.

Not sure why, but this morning was not as sunny inside as it was outside. I decided I needed something to cheer me up and picked Fawkes as the likely accomplice for a trip to the Crabapple Bakery for a cupcake. Unfortunately he couldn't be swayed - I jumped on his bed, said "Please" in a million different ways, changed into a cute little red-and-denim Parisian ensemble to try to sway him. It didn't work, so he suggested I take my iPod in place of a playmate.

Disaster struck - iPod was playing dead. Nothing would revive him, so I set off feeling despondent and cursed. Paul was promptly messaged and we caught up in Prahran for some fun at the Chapel St Bazaar which I am ashamed to say I had never visited before. It was brilliant, I saw more than a few vintage red telephones that I needed, except for the price tags..

But once again my fashion-phobias were tested. I ended strutting out of the house wearing my new trenchcoat over jeans and a black petticoat (worn as a dress), with my ruby slippers, red beret and red lipstick. I was angling for 'quirky-cute-French' and did a little social experiment.

For part of the day I hunched my shoulders, frowned, looked at the ground, tugged at my clothes and exuded uncomfortable, vulnerable vibes. For the other part (when I was with Paul), I practically danced down the street, smiling, laughing, standing completely upright and basically being confident and exuding happy and pretty. The way that people reacted to me did change quite a bit - it seems that seeming vulnerability invites judgment and antipathy more than confidence does. Another thing I noticed was that the people who gave looks of approval were the ones who I would consider well-dressed, whereas girls who had obviously fallen prey to phenomenons such as the 'muffin top' were the ones who reacted with disdain. I'm not quite sure what this all means, but I realising in my crusade to understand street fashion and aethetics that you simply can't please everybody.

Too late, bedtime. Oh, and a sidenote - Demosthenes, if you read this, email me!

Self-Improvement + Sharks

I just realised that all the little tiny blonde hairs growing on my forearms don't match. On one arm, they follow some sort of pattern and grow in unison away from the 'inside' - if that makes even the slightest bit of sense. On the other arm, there is less hair but it is just a bit crazy. It's all growing in different directions and the hairs are different lengths. Why, oh why?
I only waxed my arms once, when I was about 14 and I got over-enthusiastic with the novelty of hair removal. I got bruises from waxing - who gets that? It was the height of stupidity, with a dash of humiliation for whenever people asked who'd been beating me up.

Tomorrow I'm going for a much bigger, scarier waxing job. A lot of my friends have it done regularly and assure me that it isn't quite as bad as you would imagine. I'm not convinced, but hey, I want to experience everything once. Perhaps I'll post a little account of what happened for all those brazillian wax virgins. I won't be one tomorrow.. eek.

Hold the phone - something awesome was on the news as I was eating my lunch today. Amongst the regular war on terror updates and the reassuring message that the escaped sex offenders from my suburb were actually caught, there was a reported sighting of a shark in the Yarra River. The Yarra runs straight through Melbourne and is a horribly polluted mess, as are most major rivers that run through large metropolitan areas nowadays (sad), but apparently it's increasing salinity has meant that a shark felt at home enough to swim through it.
So, if you ever fall into the Yarra after a crazy night on the town, your major worry won't be rats, filth or ruining your new shoes anymore.

Lucien was sick today. How much of it was actually feeling ill I'm not sure - he has a big presentation to give tomorrow on ethics, politics and human rights, and there are also a million and one internship applications staring at him with due dates edging closer all the time.
I've been at my Mom's house visiting and generally mooching off the social contact and, well, food that being at home brings. Poor Lucien is stuck in the city with nobody to look after him.

Last year, one of the hardest things about living away from home was the fact that there was nobody to look after me when I was sick. Having my manked immune system, I get sick often. Probably chest/sinus/throat infections about 10-11 times a year, and this regular pattern is peppered with viruses and other lovely things, not to mention the joy that is post-viral fatigue. It seems that whenever I get it, it's worse than the last time, like my body just doesn't ever completely recover from the last bout of whatever. I like filling my life and schedule up with as many interesting and fulfilling things as I can, which is completely out of sync with what my body wants.
Being sick when nobody is around is possibly one of the worst punishments ever. I don't want somebody waiting on me and responding to my every beck and call, but it's nice to know that there is somebody in the next room who can give you a hug if you need it, or drive you to the doctors if it gets really bad. But being alone, and unable to do anything or even sleep through it, is horrible.

How did I get onto such a depressing topic? Oh Lucien, right. Well, he called and he has hauled himself onto a train so he can come home to his parents for a weekend of recuperation and TLC. Good.

A nap would be divine right now, but a horde of aunties are coming around for afternoon tea shortly. Mother is out getting supplies and I'm supposed to be making sure everything looks nice. But an afternoon nap...?

No rest for the wicked.

Drinks?

It signals a new era:
There comes a time in a girl's life where she is not a lowly student struggling to pay the rent and study, but a young woman flitting about town like the social butterfly that has been hiding inside a cocoon for so long.
Instead of sitting at home watching Scrubs in pajamas and eating noodles out of the box, here comes a new Rose, going out for 'drinks' on both Wednesday and Friday nights this week with her work mates from Myer.

Now comes the stressful part - what to wear? How much to drink? What sorts of conversational topics are alright? So many ways in which I could potentially screw things up.
The plan so far is to drink one cocktail very slowly (so I don't get silly, but enough to make me relax), talk on general topics so I can get to know people, and wear what I wore to work but perhaps with a pretty necklace, some different makeup and nicer shoes. Now all I have to do is stress less.

I've been thinking a lot about myself in a social context lately. I barely have a friend in Melbourne, other than some who I am sorry to say that I neglect. If I were to have a party, I would have nobody to invite. It's sad, but it's true and I want to work on fixing that. I think I need to open up to people and stop being so shy and elusive. People get tired of having to chase me and give up; so I'll make myself a little easier to catch. I'll also be braver.. talk to strangers in the cafeteria at work, on the train, and at drinks on Wednesday and Friday. I'll also have to try harder; not forget birthdays, or to return calls - to initiate social activity rather than to wait for it to fall on my doorstep.

Moving (hopefully)

What a waste of a day. I woke up at about 1pm, walked to the shops and shared some KFC with Will (what a gourmet treats, bleh) and procrastinated.. procrastinated again, and then procrastinated just a little more. I was meant to go home to my family for the day, staying until tomorrow. I was meant to be giving my little sister her birthday present early, and making industrial amounts of shortbread for everybody I know. I was also meant to be meeting up with a friend, Fawkes, to discuss the moving in together we are hopefully going to be able to organise.

The plan as it stands: Will, Fawkes and I will be going to have a look at a house on Wednesday night. It's a three bedroom terrace house in Fitzroy, close to Brunswick Street. One of the major draw points for the boys is that it is a mere 200 metres or so from a pub. Hopefully it will be nice. Hopefully our application will be accepted above any others received. Hopefully it will work out.

I'm investing a lot of hope in this venture. I'm so eager to get out of my house, and building my hopes up to this level is bound for disaster.

Bubble-Wrapped

Posts have been sporadic, I know, and I'm sorry for it. This journal of sorts is a bit of a release for me as well as an exercise in brevity+quality rather than length+rambling (you can see I am losing the battle!). And I guess I sort of hope that you enjoy reading it too.

Lately has been .. strange. I won't go into too many details, but I'm currently not so well. On the brink of mental breakdown, I have had two people looking after me 24 hours a day for the last week. Now they have both left and it's violently quiet. I don't think my shrink would be very happy if he knew I was being left alone right now; he's up to seeing me every second day. It's all a bit full-on.

And on to happier topics of conversation! I realised I hadn't been doing anywhere near as much roaming around Melbourne as before, so I took it upon myself to do it all at once. Fabulous for my mood, bad for my figure and purse. Seraph and I went to San Churro Chocolateria on Monday. We both ordered some type of delicious white chocolate shake (mine was white chocolate and berry), and shared a plate of churros (see right) with chocolate ganache. It really says something about a churro when you have to drink a chocolate milkshake to cut the sweetness and richness! We walked away with full tummies and big smiles; as 'gourmet' churros go, these were awesome.
A couple of days later whilst at the Queen Victoria Market, we got some more churros. These were less the 'served on a beautiful plate' type, and more the 'shoved in a paper bag with a clump of icing sugar' type. But they were still lovely. It's worrying that I should be addicted to something so fried and decadent. Oh well!

The last couple of days have been rather hot, so on Tuesday Lucien, Seraph, Will and I all headed off on the 96 tram to St Kilda Beach. It was lovely - there was cloud cover, but it was still hot and windy. The water was ice cold, which Lucien couldn't handle, but I was in love with the contrast. We played with a ball, and splashed around and had fun until we noticed some wind whipping across the water. It was coming towards us, but we ignored it. Suddenly on what had been absolutely calm, glassy water, diagonal waves were coming in towards us. As we looked up on the beach, the wind was fierce; the entire top layer of sand was hurtling down the beachfront, collecting items of clothing and towels as it went. People were screaming and running, but of course, we were in the water and couldn't feel a thing.
So, we decided to make a run for our stuff and get out of the water before the storm hit. The dash across the sand to get our towels was painful; the sand was hitting my calves like needles and the wind was so strong that it knocked me over a couple of times. We ran with all our stuff up to a grassy area and crouched with towels on our heads. Eventually the squall stopped, but storm clouds were still looming angrily, so we left in favour of fish and chips. Very exciting... even if it did put an end to all my splashing and diving and pretending to be a mermaid in a black tankini.

Lucien has moved up to Melbourne with me for a couple of weeks while he has a summer clerkship at a law firm. I'm not sure how I feel about this.. I should be bursting with joy that my boyfriend, who I'm usually seperated from, will be living just a couple of metres down the hall. However, it has come with it's own little set of problems. Eating is one of them. Being a semi-unemployed student, I am quite regularly poor. This means eating relatively well at the beginning of the fortnight and then slowly as my resources dry up, resorting to having ryvitas and cheese or two-minute noodles as a meal. For days on end.
However, Lucien does not have this fund problem. So it's a bit much to expect that we can take turns in buying food and cooking, because I am simply too poor. But for him to chip in more or even pay for things, I don't like it - even though I'm barely scraping by, I like to hold on to the small vestiges of independence that I have. So it's an issue.
Another one is mess. Lucien has never really moved out of home before, nor has he ever lived in an environment where his mother doesn't do EVERYTHING. I mean everything. I am sure she would brush his teeth for him if she could. It's all very caring and everything, but he doesn't seem to get how suffocating it is. Anyway, because he rarely has to do much work around his house, he doesn't seem to get the whole 'clean up after yourself' thing. My house is a disaster right now, and although none of the mess is mine, it's very disheartening to find half a dozen empty bowls with traces of custard (Lucien likes custard as a mid-study snack) and a housemate glaring at me to clean it up. Little things, but they are irritating. I may be Lucien's girlfriend, but I am not his maid, and it makes me angry to think that all the other boys in my house truly believe that I should be cleaning up his mess.

Oh, in terms of housemates, we have some adjustments! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see this post. Karin and Clark have moved out to much hearty celebration, whereas Raj left in the night without even telling us he was leaving. So, introducing the new recruits:

Muhammed - Overgrown man-child with no social skills. His irritating habits include turning every single light and fan in the house on and leaving them on, leaving taps running (hello? water restrictions?) and leaving a piece of fish in the fridge for several weeks. Apparently in his country it's ok to whistle at a girl or snap your fingers at them to get their attention, and he has already made some just fabulous comments about me - "Why you eating all the time?" - "Because you stress me out!"


Rick - Token gay emo man. Why token? Because he inflicts it on himself. He has the quasi-American-effeminate voice thing going on, and a penchant for peppermint tea. All in all, he's quite nice, but very shy. However, his hypochondria is tending to get on my nerves. Every passing conversation in the hallway or over the kettle has been about his migraines, his supposed glandular, his chronic fatigue, his insomnia, his anaemia, etc. He has covered his door in amateurish pastel drawings with captions like "You will haunt my heart forever" etc.

In a week or so, we're about to get another one, a young lady called Tina. And some karate people from Okinawa. And how many rooms are left?.. - one. This will be very interesting.

Here We Go Again

After such an abysmal time doing Anything Goes, I'm gearing up for another round of self-destruction. I'm auditioning for Beauty and the Beast.
The hope behind this decision is that it will wash away the bad taste brought about by my last show; I'll be doing something I believe in, I'll be appreciated, I'll be surrounded by hard-working and professional people for once and hopefully I'll be in a role that I can really flex my performing muscles. I'm gunning for Belle, but hundreds of girls will be, no doubt. None of the other female roles really suit me.. the Silly Girls call for busty and flamboyant girls. I am certainly busty and sometimes flamboyant, but Lucien noted that it's in a way that somehow doesn't compare to certain other individuals in town - they look like sex objects you'd see in a magazine, I apparently just look 'nice' and elegant. The role of Babette would be fun, except my dancing would probably not be up to scratch after being out of it for so long. Too young to play Madame des Grande Bouche or Mrs. Potts... I suppose I could play the Enchantress, but she's usually just a member of the ensemble and doesn't speak, doesn't sing, doesn't dance. Head a-splode!

So, the plan is to tailor my audition song and monologue towards Belle. Of the characters in the show, she suits me to a tee, but she also will be the most difficult to get. But we'll see.

Tomorrow is the last day of school. I'm freaking out - I have an assignment due in eight days and I haven't seen the film that I have to write on yet. Very worrying. A couple of days later, I have another essay due.. then I have to do a philosophy exam. Eek.

I had my first day with Myer today... actually, it was still training, but it was so strange and nice! I rocked up in a suit, shock horror, despite the fact that everybody else was dressed quite casually. One girl even turned up with jeans and converse on, for her first day at a job where the preferred dress is very clearly stated. She didn't even try, but she ended up being quite annoying and argumentative so I disregarded any sympathy I had previously felt for her. We sat in the 'Learning Institute' from 9am to 5:30pm, but it felt so much longer. I suddenly remembered everything that high school felt like.. the minutes that felt like hours and the times when you seriously wondered whether or not the clock was going backwards. A couple of times I actually caught myself blinking so heavily that I would almost fall asleep.
It wasn't all doom and gloom though - after the actual training day, I went to visit my department and introduce myself to my manager. She wasn't there, but I met a nice boy who is working in the same place as me and only started yesterday. Everybody in there seemed to have a less strict, more jolly idea of uniform. Instead of everybody wearing suits, the girls I saw were wearing variations on this theme - black pinafore dresses with white tops, curls in their hair and glitter on their faces. I later discovered from the nice boy that everybody gets covered in the glitter just from being on that particular floor. It was great fun and it felt so magical just being there. It will be so lovely, being surrounded by magic and Santa and trees and snow and glitter and fun and joy for a couple of months.
Ah! Excitement!

I am still bemoaning the loss of Olympia Manet. Where is she? I hope all is well, but I am suspecting the worst. My mind is flying to the worst case scenarios - maybe a crime of passion was committed after a client read Postmodern Courtesan. Maybe she is sick. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I am hoping that it is something fairly .. well, innocuous - like she had a change of career, or she fell in love and decided to shed her former life, or she just had a close call with someone discovering her identity and decided to discontinue her intrigues. I just hope she's ok, and if she reads this for some odd reason, good luck Olympia.

I almost got 'done' by tram inspectors today. I bought a daily concession card to travel into the city for work and out again when I was done. On my way back home, I was asked to show my ticket - which I did. They asked to see my concession card, and I thought, "Sure thing". Reached into my coin purse.. where is it? I hunted around in my bag, getting frantic, couldn't find it. I had it this morning and it doesn't seem to have fallen into my bag and tucked itself into a book or anything. I have absolutely no idea what I have done with it. Luckily for me, the ticket inspector was a young woman who saw how flustered I was getting and said, "Look, don't worry about it. I could fine you, but they're already busy at the other end [of the tram] so they're not going to notice. I'm just going to walk away." I whispered thank you, and couldn't believe my luck.. first at being so unlucky to lose my concession card, then to be so lucky to have such an understanding ticket inspector.
Now.. the tricky part comes in trying to get a new concession card. This would be easy if it were one of the tertiary travel ones, but no - my particular concession card was also my health care card, and I certainly can't pay full price for all my prescriptions. So, I'm in dire straights. Must find replacement!

Spending a Summer Wasting

I have a couple of days in between shows, and I literally feel like I'm wasting away. I'm not sure whether it's coming down from such an adrenaline kick during last weekends' run, or whether I'm coming down with something, but I am feeling incredibly lethargic. And sinus-y, sore throat-y and muscle ache-y. Woe...

Oh well! I'm tremendously excited about going on the bike again on Thursday. I found my old Doc Martens and made sure they still fitted me, and on Thursday morning I'm going op-shopping for a pair of jeans (I only have stiff, tight 'girly' jeans, that I fear would be incredibly uncomfortable). Though it is not without an ounce of guilt. My Dad told me today that he didn't want me to die, and therefore didn't want me going on a motorbike again, no matter how experienced the rider was. I don't want to go against him, and I know it is probably dangerous, but it's so fun!

Mmm.. let's not talk about that again. This morning I had to rush into the city at an ungodly hour to get some tickets to see Al Gore. I'm not sure exactly what he is speaking on, but my Dad said, "Get tickets, ask questions later". The tickets were free, but limited to 4 per person, so he enlisted me to get some for my shrink who is overseas.
To congratulate me on my sterling effort of getting up before noon, my Dad took me out to breakfast at Bistro d'Orsay, across the road from the Regent Theatre. Being brave, I decided to do something I haven't done in probably more than 15 years. I ate egg. Yes, it was that shocking for me too.. but it was actually quite nice. Mind you, I took the easy choice by opting for scrambled eggs on ciabatta with bacon, rather than something as threatening as a poached egg staring up at me. But it was nice! I think I'll have to figure out how to make it myself, as good as they did.

Anyway, it's ridiculously hot in my bedroom, so I think it's time to put some clothes on and run around. Ciao!

Boys Don't Cry

As you can tell, I'm currently listening to the The Cure. Now it has changed to The Clash.
I'm in the process of deciding what music I'll put on my new 'Pod, whose name is Shibuya. Yes, I'm giving it a name - it was the 'cool' thing to do in high school, so I'll continue it. My friends had Sebastian the 4th generation iPod, Igby the 3rd generation, Donnie the 1st generation wasabi green iPod mini. Introducing, Shibuya the 2nd generation pink iPod nano. Yay!
I'm sorting my music before putting it on there because I have a lot of junk. Do I ever want to listen to I Only Wanna Be With You by Samantha Fox again? How 'bout all those fairly random clips of me singing? Do I want to listen to all that? Not a chance, so why put it on there?
I'm so excited!
Now we're onto Norah Jones. Mmm.

It's funny that when mp3 players first really hit the market, I jumped on it. Normally I'm one to wait a while until technology get better and prices go down, but for some reason I just wanted one straight away. The result is sitting in front of me right now - a Creative Nomad MuVo player, 64mb. And guess how much it cost me! $150, for what is effectively junk nowadays. It's amusing/frustrating.
I think I've given Apple sufficient time - after all, I'm getting a second gen nano, rather than those first gen ones that simply snapped as soon as you put them in your pocket.

I had a big list of observations to post here, but I lost the list. I've forgotten most of them, so I'll type what I can remember:
- I went to McDonalds yesterday afternoon, famished and needing to rest my weary lungs after being unceremoniously dumped in the city by my father. I took my little ElMaco burger upstairs to see one of the saddest collections of people ever (myself included). Let me stereotype them: there was the overweight, unattractive office clerk/secretary reading a romance novel whilst chowing down a large Big Mac meal with two burgers (ouch), a man in a suit with a briefcase and a bald spot, trying to conceal the dirty magazine he was reading by tucking it into something finance-related while he sipped his thick shake, a scraggly single mother with about 4 radically different looking children running riot everywhere as she yelled at them ("Cartier! Chanel, stop that! Come here Houston"), an elderly couple complaining about how hot their chips were, two ethnic men having a business meeting loudly in a foreign language! I was sad too, sitting by the window overlooking Elizabeth Street, coughing up various internal organs and car parts, surrounded by bags and wilting birthday roses, staring hopefully at my mobile phone. The scene was set against Coldplay and the hum of almost-peak hour traffic below. Oddly surreal, and kind of pathetic.
Maybe I'll have to go to McDonalds more often. On.. uh.. research. Yep.


We're on to Pink Floyd now.. Dark Side of the Moon. I love it.

Ahh! Another observation - I was sitting in a café in Richmond yesterday afternoon waiting to go to the Shrink. I had some lovely tea, Frutti-Tutti it was called.. so I was just sitting there, dreaming, soaking up the warmth of the day and the relaxed hum of my surroundings. I was rudely awakened by this horrible woman who came into the shop like the Queen of Sheba. I have a feeling she may be somebody from television; she looked kind of familiar. Maybe C-grade Australian celebrity, or even D-grade. She was talking loudly to the simpering pansy-man at her side who was clamouring and gushing. She marched over to the counter and I'll write the rest like a script. Let's call her Dominique (don't know her real name).

Dominique: Is your coffee decaf?
Barista: Yes, we have decaffeinated coffee available.
Dominique: And are you sure it has absolutely no caffeine in it? Because oh my God!
(to the entire cafe, loudly and obnoxiously) I drank a cup of coffee this morning and I had heart palpitations for 4 hours! Caffeine just does that to me, I'm a very sensitive person. I mean, if I don't eat a macrobiotic diet then I just feel so lethargic, you know? So can you please check with your manager, or maybe even call the supplier to make sure it has no caffeine in it, thank you! (turns from the bar, sniffing loudly and begans engaging in inane prattle with the pansy-man)
Barista: .... certainly. (she talks to the manager, then returns) Yes, the decaffeinated coffee has no caffeine in it.
Dominique: Did you check with the supplier?
Barista: I asked my manager who has worked with coffee for the last 25 years.
Dominique: Well, I want you to call the supplier and ask them, there's a good girl.
Barista: (looks visibly angry but obliges. minutes later returns to the bar. her cynicism and annoyance is showing in her voice now, but Dominique is oblivious) Alright, I spoke to the supplier and they assured me that there is no caffeine in the decaffeinated coffee.
Dominique: (looks the barista up and down, narrowing her eyes and taking off her sunglasses) Well, I'm sorry, the last time I drank decaffeinated coffee today, it obviously still had caffeine in it. I mean, I was having heart palpitations for 5 hours! It was so bad I was wondering whether I should call an ambulance or not! And to think, that somebody sold me decaffeinated coffee that still had caffeine in it, when this is what it can do to sensitive people like me!
Barista: (looks at her incredulously and sort of throws her hands up in the air)
Dominique: So I'll just get a lemon, lime and bitters.
Pansy-man: I'll get a flat white.
Dominique: Ohhh! Hold on a minute, I didn't mean one from the fridge. No, can you please make one for me? A fresh one?
Barista: Alright.. (she begins mixing one)
Dominique: (has begun loudly talking to Pansy-man once again, before she casts a glance back at the drink which has been made by now, along with the flat white) Oh my God! You didn't put lemonade in that did you?
Barista: Yes, it's lemon-lime syrup, lemonade and bitters. Is there a problem with that?
Dominique: Well yes! There is just too much sugar in that for me! Last time I had a Coke, there was just so much sugar that my blood sugar levels went through the roof! How am I supposed to work when I can't even stand up, I said to my boss. I'm just such a sensitive person! On my last cup of coffee today, I had heart palpitations for 6 hours! So, can you make one with just soda water, lemon-lime and bitters? Oh and crushed ice and a slice of lime. Oh, and can you hurry up, for God's sake - I have already been standing here for 15 minutes and I have an appointment in 10.
Pansy-man: Can you make me a new coffee? This one is cold.

I felt like strangling these two and giving the poor barista a big bunch of flowers. It was absurd.. I stuck around, sipping my tea slowly enough to watch all this unfold, but as soon Dominique and Pansy-man sat down, she noticed me glaring at her.. so I ran away.
Ahh, the stupidity of it all. I wish I had an underground magical mystery man, like Amelie has when she confronts Collignon - a person to say, "At least you'll never be a vegetable, even artichokes have hearts!" so I can repeat it. I would have loved to have said something malicious to this horrible woman..

Anyway, 'tis late and I must go breakfast-hunting.

PS: I was just trawling through Wikipedia when I chanced upon some take-away food that was a big part of my childhood, Mos Burgers! It was a Japanese fast food chain in Taipei, where they would see all kinds of awesome rice patty teriyaki burgers.. yum! I want them to come to Melbourne!
I think I'll send them an email.

Adventures in Suburbia

The last 30 or so hours have been a rollercoaster of non-stop fun.. I should be feeling guilty right now (for the amount of time I have spent not doing homework, for the calories consumed, for the missed phone calls, for the ridiculous amounts of money spent) but no - I just feel content. It's nice! This post will read like a blow-by-blow account, rather than anything fancy. Too much happened to elaborate on it.

I spent a blissfully blank Friday morning and afternoon - no class. I planned to donate blood on Bourke St, but they didn't have any appointments left (that's a job for next week). So I just lounged around in my underwear, chatting to Paul and listening to lovely music. Around 5pm I got dressed and sauntered down to Richmond for an appointment with the shrink - while I was waiting, I drew a picture of a rose garden for a man in the waiting room. He loved it, and it made me smile.

I was met by Lucien after the appointment who whisked me away to Chapel St, Prahran. The tram ride was eventful - it was one of those old W6-Class ones (see right) and it ended up breaking down for 15 minutes. A rude lout sitting near us spent the entire wait complaining loudly about the government and Connex, spouting rubbish like that they should pay for him to get a taxi because the tram broke down. I felt like slapping him. He just went on and on and on until I was seriously considering stabbing him in the head with my parasol.
We finally got to the Jam Factory where we were met by Benjamin (Lucien's best friend) and another friend, Ted. We ran to Friday's where we had cocktails - such fun! I had a Long Island Iced Tea and a Cosmopolitan; Lucien had a B-52 and a White Russian. Trés exciting, and enough to make me go silly.

Soon enough we were met by about.. 7 other friends. We had pancakes and then went to the cinema. Benjamin and I got into trouble for walking down the 'up' escalator. The stupid ticket girl came and said to us, "Either go up or down, but you can't just stand still," which made us laugh even harder. We finally got into the film, Snakes on a Plane, which I deemed to be brilliant fun. Sure, it was no intellectual masterpiece.. but it was the kind of film that appealed to my me-when-tipsy self. Benjamin, on the other hand, was mortally wounded by the fact that he had just paid $11 to see what he proclaimed to be "enough to make me want to die on the spot". We all responded in wildly varying ways, continuing to bicker for a long time afterwards.

By this time, it was 1am and we realised that public transport had ceased for the night. Everybody was in a bit of a state before they realised that Hawthorn (where most of them live) wasn't actually such a far walk from Chapel St. So they set off, leaving Lucien, Ted, Mark and I. Luckily, Mark had brought his car and was sober (red and fast!) so we piled in with the crazy idea of driving out to Narre Warren to hunt for Krispy Kreme doughnuts. We managed to get lost a number of times along the way, but it was all in good fun.

As we neared the fabled Krispy Kreme store, we noticed that there were lots of other cars that seemed to be going exactly the same way as we were. Then we saw it - 2:30am, and there would have been maybe 20 cars of people there. We got out to stretch our legs and managed to be approached by a gaggle of drugged-out emo teenagers. Dripping eyeliner and practically having sex with each other in the parking lot, they seemed to love me. I was wearing bright colours I suppose. They all wanted to hug me, so I doled out the hugs and then we ran away.

Between four people, we bought four dozen doughnuts. Forty-eight doughnuts. We carried the tower of boxes to a grassy hill where we sat and devoured about twenty of them. As fate would have it, there was a lone shopping trolley in the carpark. Lucien put me inside it (forcibly! - he grabbed me around the waist and flipped me over his shoulder, plonking me inside the steel contraption completely without my will, as I was screaming and probably waking up EVERYBODY in the Eastern suburbs) and took me for a 'spin', literally. He pushed me fast, then would stop suddenly, then spun me around in fast circles and managed to let the trolley almost fall over at one point. It was too much - the height of dignity came when I had to stumble away to be sick behind some bushes.

Delightful.

Lucien and I returned to my apartment where there was much hearty sleeping to be done. Alas, tragedy struck in the morning when ... the sun shone through my bedroom window directly onto my sleeping head! I wasn't a happy girl, especially when I woke up to see that I had terrible panda eyes and a hangover (oh the shame of getting a hangover after two cocktails..). I managed to grin and bear it, though I stayed in bed until 12 when my Dad called and adventures started all over again.

We met Dad and Scarlett at the Queen Victoria Market, where we enjoyed some awesome bratwurst. Saturated fat in a bun with onions on top was exactly what I needed, and everything seemed to get a bit brighter. It was a beautiful day with not-too-harsh sunshine and a lovely breeze.. I was wondering around in a tank top, flip-flops and a short skirt all day. My last post said something about the breeze feeling like it was kissing you, and today was the same. Too bad tomorrow will be cooler and I'll be stuck in bloody Ballarat (hear about it next time!).

We bid farewell to my Dad and then wandered into the city. We grabbed some old-fashioned lemonade from the Food Hall at Myer and then headed for the State Library, where we basked on the grass for almost an hour. Then came some more hunting of sorts - Lucien's mother called him with a request from his father about what he wanted for Father's Day (tomorrow, in Australia). Liquorice. So of course we had to find a Darrell Lea store, quick. We walked around for hours trying to find a store to no avail (despite the fact that there is one on Swanston as well as one on Elizabeth). After asking about four different people for directions and going to the post office to look them up in the Yellow Pages, we finally found them. Lucien bought his liquorice and we made our way back to my apartment as quick as we could.

A late-afternoon siesta was in order, which we embraced with much gusto. Laying around in the afternoon sun, listening the The Virgin Suicides soundtracks, wearing very little and just basking in stillness, silence and each other's company was a fabulous way to spend the next two hours. I was suddenly overcome by tiredness, so I gave Lucien permission to run away and had a cat-nap. When I woke, I found that Lucien had run down the street to the Green Refractory Café (on Sydney Road). We ended up having dinner there, sitting in a gorgeous little alleyway lit by the moon with the smell of grass and spring in the air, before heading home to our parents for the rest of the weekend.

Ahhhh.. there you go. That will probably be the most boring entry ever for anybody to read, but I just had to chronicle the craziness and jam-packed nature of this half-a-weekend. I'm the kind of girl who might feel overwhelmed if I had scheduled events on both days of the weekend, yet I managed to fit in enough adventure for a month. It's kind of nice; making the weekend interesting and full enough to make up for the weekly slog through school/work/whatever your nine-to-five.

Bring on next weekend!.. after a week-long recovery period!

Introducing Rose

Let's see..
About to turn 19 and being one of the city's newer residents, I'm a girl on a mission. To conquer Melbourne. Not with an arsenal of guns or by setting hearts alight (though the latter could be fun..), I just want to live and love the city. And tell you all about it

So, I might as well introduce myself. My name is Rose, I'm a recent high school graduate who decided to jump in the deep end - moving out and starting at the University of Melbourne (Arts), majoring in Philosophy and Literature. My place of residence is Brunswick, though I have a plan of moving to St Kilda sometime soon (closer to the beach, and near Luna Park which I adore). I have had the misfortune to be one of those terminally creative people, the kind who are so bursting with random spontaneous creativity that they never end up getting anything done. Tragedy indeed. For instance, I'm currently supposed to be writing an essay on Plato's theory of the Tripartite Soul (due yesterday). Mmm..

My passions apart from exploring the city, lie in generally 'arty' spheres (dare I call them 'lofty'?). I am a theatre brat, both watching and participating - currently I'm rehearsing for Cole Porter's Anything Goes, understudying the role of Hope Harcourt. I also like painting, playing piano and violin, travelling, shopping, socializing, cooking, listening to music, reading and occassionally being athletic. Currently, I'm deliriously in love with a delightful young man named Lucien - alas! He lives an hour from me, so we don't get to see each other so often, but when we do it's just glorious. I just got a job at Myer Bourke St, so more details as I know - I literally got the job today.

So make up a pitcher of some delectable cocktail, put on the jazz and put up your feet! Happy reading.