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.

The Den of Slack

Another post devoted to bemoaning the sorry state of my habitat. Sorry. I guess I'm just procrastinating about going in to university on a Saturday to photocopy a small rainforest worth of paper. But there are certain things 'going down' in Brunswick at the moment that are playing on my mind.

Karin and Clarke are moving out today. Horray, but not - this practically decimates the female population of the house. Although Karin can be a rather painful person to be around, our collective femaleness I think helps calm down the absolute testosterone that is otherwise bouncing around in here. I fear my inner-city home is about to become the ultimate den of slack - the bachelor pad.

For a week and a half, I have been either at my Dad's house or at my Mom's, generally being the annoying grown-up offspring who comes home and lives in their pajamas, makes a mess in their old room, sleeps till noon, eats everything in sight and responds in monosyllabic grunts. Needing to gather some materials for a research assignment, I had to venture back last night. On my homecoming I was greeted by a half-metre high pile of dishes and a house full of blowflies. No, I'm not talking about my housemates, I'm talking about the abnormally big, loud scary black flies that seem to be attracted by filth in it's many incarnations.
The thought of frequenting the common areas much longer was too much to bear, so I retreated to my room. The horror! Underneath my half-open window was grit and dust, which was strange. Then I noticed some grey feathers laying around near my door. A pigeon was in my room!

Of course, I couldn't bare to sleep in there. What if it was still in there, hiding somewhere? What if it hadn't been able to figure out the escape route and had crawled somewhere to die? All these thoughts were running through my head, and I felt physically uneasy just being in the room. I despise pigeons, a lot. They're so creepy and disease-ridden and weird. There are so many of them in the city, they are the worst kind of vermin. Like rats with wings.
So I was too scared to sleep in there - I had to sleep on the couch. Joy.

Upon waking up, I could see even more grossness that I wasn't able to quite discern in nighttime light. I couldn't find a clean spot on the bench to put my glass this morning as I was pouring juice. Argh!

So I'm apartment looking. And I'm looking for one cheap enough that I can afford it whether or not Lucien goes in with me.

Gone Through Brimstone, And I've Been Through The Fire

Today was ridiculous. By ridiculous, I don't mean ironic or strangely amusing. I mean it was downright ridiculously annoying, frustrating and an absolute waste of time. I suppose it was absurd. I'm not a happy girl.

It's funny how when you're on stage, it is possibly one of the most glamorous things ever. You're dripping in red lipstick, sparkling like a diamond and singing your heart out. Today was not glamorous. My legs and feet are killing me from teetering on stilettos ALL day. I'm covered in red marks from being poked and prodded and accidentally impaled on safety pins. I feel under-appreciated and exploited.. and it's just about to get a whole lot worse.

Today we had the costume call, makeup workshop and citzprobe for Anything Goes. Some definitions are in order:

Costume Call - putting on your various costumes in order of scenes and then standing in a long line. One at a time you are asked to step forward, do a twirl and then stand there for five minutes while the directors loudly scrutinize you. "No, it's too tight around her bust. That colour makes him look like he has jaundice. Can we find something that doesn't make her look like an elephant?" are commonly heard comments, along with being yelled at for pairing a white hat with a cream belt, black shoes with navy gloves, not wearing your pants on your waist, etc. Imagine doing that for 3 and a half hours, whilst starving, sleepy and freezing cold. Seeing so many other girls naked made me feel like a concentration camp inmate.

Makeup Workshop - being told what I already know. Sure, it's valuable for the newbies and for the dancers, but do I really need to sit on a cold, hard wooden floor for hours watching someone put on makeup and contradicting themselves whenever they are asked a question about style and the 1930's?

Citzprobe - this one isn't actually so bad; usually it's one of my favourite parts of the rehearsal period. Basically, it's a sit down and sing with the orchestra... which is usually enjoyable. Not so enjoyable when you have a gaggle of male tappers sitting behind you banging their feet on the floor whilst sitting down. I glared at them and told them off, which has now confirmed my 'bitch' status in the cast. I know it's amateur theatre, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't behave professionally. Then Regina turned up. She's generally considered the Queen Bitch of theatre in my town, and she's not even in the show - she just came along to be a brat, smoke, drink coffee and annoy people. Grr!

So all in all, the 7 hours spent today achieved very little. My costumes are.. let's not even talk about that. The Nazi costume designers jumped on everything and now I have a completely new wardrobe for the show. My evening wear looks like an ugly mauve (least favourite colour EVER) curtain from the '70s, and the costume ladies had the gall to take my hat (one that actually belongs to me) and plonk it on somebody elses' head. It seems like they're on a mission to make me as look as ugly as possible. Oh well, I actually own a beautiful original 1930's black dress that I'm going to wear for the evening scenes, whether they like it or not.

Here is the moment where I take a deep breath. And continue!
Things were winding up when some scuffle erupted outside the sound studio - I'm not even sure what happened as I was inside talking to Annie-Mae (the girl I'm understudying), but it involved Ross running up behind Lucien and punching him in the head. Lucien swiftly brought Ross to the ground (not injuring him, but just 'apprehending' him), to which Regina said, "Well done Ross, who hasn't wanted to punch him?". It was surreal - these theatre people have previously been like a family of great friends to me. Now suddenly civil war was breaking out among the ranks.

We left quickly and I decided, spur of the moment, to go on a mini-adventure with Benjamin and Drake (Lucien couldn't come - he was too furious, so he went home). It started out alright - shooting down the highway in a cool British car with sports car suspension, listening to extremely bad quality AM radio, Drake smoking and yelling at other drivers in his carefully cultivated quasi-English queer accent, Benjamin spitting out innuendo about me and all the dancers in our itty-bitty costumes. We were following a car that had two of the tappers from the show in it; they promised us some kind of fun, so we chased the opportunity. We got to our destination and managed to sneak past the ticket desk, avoiding paying a $6 (ha!) ticket price, and I found myself at the dancing section of an Eisteddfod. Eek.
We sat through an hour and a half of amateur ballerinas doing nothing of consequence in pretty tutus. It was possibly the most boring thing on a stage that I have willingly put myself through. Don't get me wrong, I adore going to the ballet, but this was just boring. These girls had fabulous technique and they smiled a lot, and hell, they even kept dancing in time when their cds skipped, but it was just boring. Dancing isn't just about being able to do it, it's also about creating engaging choreography that tells a story and being able to act it convincingly. These were just pretty young women jumping about, occasionally pirouetting, do lots of relevés and smiling so much that their faces hurt.

The interesting part came when the tapping troupe section came on. There were two groups from the dance school which is 'home base' for a lot of the dancers in Anything Goes. I suppose that by supporting them I was at least trying to be amiable and friendly. We watched, and finally, there was some diversity and passion. We saw girls in black and white with tilted hats, scarlet showgirls, what looked like the cast of a Gap commercial, black and silver showgirls, purple showgirls, golden showgirls. Etc. You get the idea - the average female costume consisted of a leotard with several kilos of sequins, fishnet stockings, tap shoes and some sort of hat or feathery thing in their hair.
In the end it was quite good - I think the tappers thought a lot more about their choreography than the ballerinas did. I enjoyed it, but *sigh* - the rest of the day seems like the ultimate waste of time, energy, emotions. Not a happy girl.

Lost in Chinatown

It was a nice evening. The kind that puts you into a happy daze where you wish blindly that things could stay as they were forever, despite the fact that you'd eventually get bored and they wouldn't seem so wonderful if you always had them. But it was nice, especially nice to spend pleasurable time with people who recently my relationships with have been so frought with disappointment. Namely, Dad and Lucien.

Scarlett doesn't count - she was there, but she's still a brat. Oh, in case you didn't realise.. she's his step-daughter, rather than his wife. His wife, Selena, has had to fly back to HK to finish up business before she transfers down to the Melbourne office.

Dad called me in the afternoon asking if I wanted to go to a lecture. Why not? Topic - peak oil consumption and how governments and individuals should respond. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I decided it was worth sitting through it to please my Dad. Lucien and I arrived late, sneaking in and taking seats apart from each other. Instead of dozing on his shoulder, I actually had to look interested which somehow transformed itself into actual interest.
One of the experts was asked a question on how rising fuel prices in response to the burgeoning oil shortage would affect industries that rely on it (i.e. aviation, product distribution, etc) in the long run, and was wondering what solutions might be in order. The answer ran somewhere along the lines of individuals having to pay extremely exorbitant prices for these 'luxuries' and going back to grassroots production; as in growing food in their back gardens and limiting travel dramatically.
Everybody was sort of nodding their heads in agreement, but I was secretly wondering how many of them actually realised how it would affect them. Would they be willing to give up their company cars and overseas vacations, or even down to smaller things like abstaining from any non-local fruit in their smoothies? I watched the Arts Centre glittering in the background and found myself thinking about how much longer an economy such as ours could really exist on such a rapidly disappearing resource, when everybody seemingly has the right attitude but nobody wants to make sacrifices.
I will be the first to admit that I don't want to make these sacrifices - I like travelling and drinking imported tea, as well as having the freedom to be able to buy things rather than have to grow them in my backyard. It's selfish when there are people who would feel as if all their Christmasses came at once if they could grow their own food, but this is the way I have become by conditioning. We don't appreciate how great our lives and our possibilities are - nor do will we admit how difficult it would be to give them up.
Too many thoughts.. to sum up, I dislike what capitalism does to huge groups of people, but I will recognise that it does some pretty nice things for me. I wish it could do these things for everybody, but if it did, then the system would cease to function. Therefore it is up to me, being in the advantaged group, to take care of and try to help the less advantaged!

Ok, enough of that strange serious deviation from the normal fluff of this journal. After the lecture, I was kind of quietly pondering as I was whisked along to Chinatown. I adore Chinatown, it reminds me of growing up in Taiwan. The smells of strange alleyways, the neon signs, the tanks full of fish staring grimly out at potential diners, the roaming gangs and occasional harajuku girls giggling on corners. It speaks to me, and I understand it. The four of us wandered into a restaurant called Kun Ming (I think) and proceeded to devour some truly awesome Cantonese food: sweet and sour pork, black bean beef, sauteed chicken in satay sauce and prawns with ginger and shallots. I chose the last dish, which was to die for - prawns cooked just enough to make them practically 'pop' juicily as you bite into them, complemented perfectly with the sharpness of the ginger and the subtle flavour of the shallots. We drank Jasmine tea and spoke to each other in broken Chinese for half the time.
The method of conversation got quite a few stares from the people at the table next to us. They weren't my favourite type of people - the man looked like the type who would visit Thailand simply to sample the women. His enormous belly bumped dangerously against the table each time he moved, and in the first five minutes of being there he managed to: a) speak very slowly to the English-speaking Maître d' as though he was a small child, b) glance none too subtly at my breasts on several occasions, and c) come up with the grossest mispronounciations of simple psuedo-Asian words (i.e. satay). The wife reminded me of a hen or a pigeon in her mannerisms and the way she spoke; sharp, inconsequential and fussy. They were clearly an absolute joy to be seated near.

We managed to enjoy ourselves despite the ogres - luckily they arrived just as we were finishing. As we were walking out, we stopped to take a gander at the poor fish awaiting their fate. My Dad pointed at the lobsters and said, "Look, they've made a little sign saying 'Try the fish!'"
My response: I peered into the tank with wide eyes, asking very serious, "Where?". It was a very 'self-inflicted slap to the forehead' moment.

It may seem like simply a nice night out, but there is one thing I deliberately left out - any kind of animosity between the members of our party. I left it out because there was none. In the past, my Dad has been rather vicious - I suppose it's part of coming to terms with the fact that his daughter is growing up. This has ranged from calling me a disappointment, to saying that my degree-in-progress won't be worth anything so I should give up now, to saying that I might as well just be a check-out chick forever because I won't amount to anything better. I think he's Bipolar sometimes. Seriously.
Lucien has also been a prime source of criticism lately. If I had relied on him for all of my self-esteem and my entire perception of myself... it wouldn't be good. I must take some pride in being a little more sturdy than usual.
But last night, they were both lovely.

We parted ways after that - Dad and Scarlett went back to their house Lucien and I wandering back home through arcades of Asian teens playing video games and munching on things on sticks. We walked silently, holding hands, and I felt as though I was walking alone. Not in a bad way, but in the type of way where you just take everything in and don't have share it with the person you are with. We just drifted receptively, I suppose.

Lovely, nice, great - such boring adjectives. But what else can you say? What other words really signifies that kind of contentedness? I imagine a kitten, dozing on a rug in front of a fire, sleepily batting a ball of yarn around - possibly the definition of this nice, lovely, great, contented feeling that seemed to permeate every aspect of that enchanted night.

Memory Lane

Another big day today, completing the fullest weekend I've had in a long time. It's definitely satisfying, but I'm so tired and needing that contemplation-reflection-imagination time that I usually take for granted. I wish I had a bath at my apartment, because taking a long, hot bath seems like it would be just the thing.

Ergh, my housemate just came home; singing loudly out of key, shouting, now going to the bathroom with the door open, swearing loudly and snarfling and snorting and spreading his filth and vibes of disgustingness everywhere. Horrible. Great, now he's making racist jokes. It's definitely time to move. I'm looking mostly at inner-city apartments and townhouses, but alas! I have nobody to share with. Last time I almost went into a share house with a friend ended in disaster, so there is the tiniest bit of worry tingeing what is otherwise a usually unwavering trust in the good in all people.
Grr.. now I have moved into my bedroom and I can hear him making fun of me and telling yet more racist jokes and tales of his various sexual encounters with prostitutes. Now, where is a bazooka that shoots poisonous nails and AIDS-infested broken glass when you need it?

Today was a family affair, which is strange considering my parents are divorced. We all went to see my little sister Ellen perform with her orchestra at the Royal South Street competitions in Ballarat. It was alright, but who won seemed to be completely arbitrary - the ensemble who won were definitely not the best. We saw a particularly awesome viola soloist, and heard the same piece (Intermezzo by von Chrysler - yes, I agree, what a name) about three times.
The original plan was to hit a delicatessen and go for a picnic, but we left out that one important detail - in Ballarat, it's always either stinking hot or freezing. Today it was the latter, and the first suggestion was McDonalds, so off we went. I protested. I lost!

After that, we split into two groups - my Mum, sisters and brother went home, and I went with my Dad, my grandmother (her name is Rose too) and Scarlett. I thought we were just driving back to Melbourne, but we definitely took the scenic route. We drove through Ballarat where she pointed out landmarks of her youth; the town hall where she made her debut at the Victory Ball, held when the war finally finished in 1945. She told me of people dancing in the streets and one young man who grabbed her and kissed her because he was so overcome with joy. We then drove to Learmonth, where we visited the house she grew up in and saw magnolia trees bigger than I have ever seen before. Grandma told stories about her childhood, about summers spent swimming at Lake Learmonth (picture left, in the 'good old days') - we went to visit it, and were shocked to find that it had all but dried up. There were a couple of puddles in it not much bigger than tennis courts, but the entire lake was dry. It was so sad to behold; the abandoned Lake Learmonth yacht club stood like an orphan, overlooking the dry lake bed that stretched almost to the horizon. Dad reassured me that it might fill up again one day, but it would take years of above average rainfall which is unfortunately unlikely.

We visited Creswick and then Daylesford to lay flowers on my great-grandmother's grave, and then my Grandma's best friend's grave. Wattles were blooming everywhere, like trees that had burst into riotous yellow fire, and daffodils were smiling up along the road the whole way. In our travels, we went back past the Ballarat Botanical Gardens and Grandma told me of the first time I went there. Picnics on the banks of Lake Wendouree are something that I remember distinctly from my childhood, and today I found out about my first ever time. I was only a few months old, and it was the height of summer - we had a heat wave that year, so it was unbearably hot. I was all dressed up in a pink sundress, pink bonnet and little pink cotton shoes. I was unanimously voted 'Princess of the Lake' by my aunts and uncles. Apparently that nickname stuck for years.. funny, I just don't remember it.

Eventually we made our way back to Grandma's house, building up a nice, cosy fire and sitting around munching on homemade yo-yo biscuits and drinking tea. Lovely. My Mum often urges me to see my grandmother, because she is quite old - she'll be 80 years old in January. It pains me to think that she is going to die one day, and not a far-off unimaginably distant day... but it makes me feel better to think that I do make effort to see her and make sure that she realises how much her family love her.

I have vowed never ever to have children, ever since I was about 5 years old. Lots of people say that, but believe me, I'm deadly serious: nothing ever could change my mind. I have possibly the worst genes in terms of certain health issues that anybody could give to a child - I don't want that responsibility of having created someone who is genetically doomed from day one. Also, I suppose I take a similar view of children as I do to .. well, dogs: why create one from scratch when there are so many needing love and attention out there already? I would never buy a puppy that had been specifically bred to be sold, I'd rather go to the pound and find one who was more in need. Likewise with kids, I'd rather adopt one than make one - why bring yet another child into the world when there are enough that need love and care already? Having said that, I'm far too selfish for children, so there!
But seeing my Grandmother, and the joy she gets from her 7 children and (counting..) 17 grandchildren.. maybe being old and alone is quite a disturbing reality. Maybe children are really like .. leaving a legacy. Maina Gielgud said something along the lines of this: Anybody can get married and have children, but very few people are able to find absolute fulfillment in other ways. (No quotation marks, because I can't remember the exact quote).

But I think that I will find another way to leave my mark, rather than getting married and having babies. Something that will help lots of people, rather than just a select group of brats who happened to belong to me for the first eighteen years of their lives.
Because I would rather adopt children than have children, and to be frank, I would rather adopt puppies than adopt children!

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!

Heatwave!

I wish that I could post audio clips as the titles of my posts. My little 'Heatwave!' isn't just a word when sung by Martha and the Vandellas (right). The song actually has pretty.. well, boring lyrics, but the whole package is just deliciously Motown.

Today is rather hot, considering that it's still winter. It's 23 degrees Celcius outside, brilliant sunshine and windy. I was walking along the Yarra river near my Dad's house and the breeze was glorious. It was the kind of breeze that feels like it's kissing you all over.
People are sunbaking outside the State Library. Floaty skirts and sandals are suddenly appropriate. There is some kind of iron-stomach contest happening down on the Concrete Lawns at university.. everybody is standing around and laughing and cheering. I have a bird's eye view from the computing centre.
Last night on the news, meteorologists were talking about another El Nino pattern developing - despite having one a couple of years ago, it occurred 'out of phase' and this one will be bigger and badder than we've had in a while. Although that means warmer weather and probably getting sick less for me, it will also mean bushfires and drought. Mmmm.
When I was finishing primary school, Australia was in the middle of some of the worst droughts ever. I remember the water restrictions - pools and carwashes were out of operation, we were getting little spotfires in our garden because we couldn't water it, and the air constantly smelt like smoke from backburning meadows near my house. Scary.

I was at my Dad's house last night. Scarlett is still there, but her mother has gone back to Hong Kong for a while. We made fried rice and barbequed some honey soy chicken. Dad drank wine; Vivian and I found a strange bottle of soft drink called Diet Rozé. It was strange and all done up in fluorescent packaging, so we had to try it. The meal was so good.. really, I don't think anything compares to home-cooked, guily-pleasure food, especially homemade Chinese food.

Dad has chosen my birthday present. I haven't a clue what it is, other than that it isn't a digital camera or an iPod (damn). However, he gave me this clue - "It's something you've always wanted to do". My mind is flying towards all the possibilities, but the big thing that I have ALWAYS wanted to do seems just too left-field and extravagant even for my Dad. I have always wanted to go to Prague. In the depths of my 'illness', Dad promised me that once I got better he'd let me go to Prague on a holiday by myself. That was when I was 15, and although nobody considers me completely better, maybe now is the time he has in mind. But really.. sending your daughter to the other side of the world for her nineteenth birthday? It's incredibly extravagant, and I'm angry at myself for even thinking of it - because now when I get something else, no matter how incredible it is, it just won't compare to going to Prague.

Last night I was sleeping on the living room floor of my Dad's apartment when I noticed something creeping on the balcony. I crawled over, oh so subtly, and saw it was a possum. A cute pregnant female possum. She was sniffing around the barbeque for something to eat, so I put some bread and mandarin segments out for her. She didn't really trust me; she'd grab the food and then scurry back under the barbeque to eat it, but eventually she started staying out in the open. Then tragedy struck. I was cutting up an apple in the kitchen when I heard a commotion and some squealing sounds. I looked up just in time to see the possum and another possum chasing her away. Suddenly I felt terrible, like I had contributed to the possible injury of my darling possum by giving her food that would insight fighting. I put the apple out anyway, in case she came back later on and went to bed. Couldn't sleep though.

I am still worried about the possum. It's ridiculous, I went out onto the balcony this morning and the apple was still there. I looked around for any traces of blood or anything that would suggest the poor possum was injured - there was nothing. But something distracted me on my way back into the city - Krispy Kreme! There was a young Asian preppy couple sitting near me on the tram, carrying a big box of donuts and talking about the novelty of it all. I want some badly, but I really can't be bothered going all the way out to Fountain Gate to find them. At the moment, they only deliver in the Sydney area. When I was in the car with Benjamin and Lucien the other night, we actually decided that we should go get some at 11pm. Alas, we didn't - but I still want them! I think a store is opening up in Collins St soon enough, so I'll get them then. Or maybe I'll make someone who lives in the area get me some for my birthday! So silly..

Summer just does something to me. Makes me into a brighter, sparklier person for a few months before I descend into that sickly hell that is Winter. I know it's not here yet, but it feels a hell of a lot closer than it did a week ago.

Vampire Rose and the Champagne Bomb

This morning I was absolutely shocked as to what greeted me when I glanced upon the mirror. I looked like a vampire. My skin was very smooth and cold, but deathly white and you could see every tiny vein. My eyes were sunken, with great dark marks around them (natural, I discovered after I washed last night's mascara off). My lips were as white as my skin, and my cheeks looked like pale, cold stone. It was shocking.
I suppose that is what pulling an insane all-nighter including trips to the beach (4 degrees Celcius!), getting locked out of my room and sleeping on the mezzanine in the cold does to you.

7 hours later, there's still no colour in me. People have actually gasped when the looked at me - I seriously look dead. I feel like I'm teetering on the brink of passing out. Not necessarily sick, but exhausted.

My mother has demanded that I come home this weekend, and I'm glad. Home-cooked food, blankets, my favourite pajamas, central heating, my puppy, and best of all my Mom to look after me.

Ooh! I bought a chocolate from Myer today.. called a Champagne Bomb. It was the most incredible thing I have ever tasted and I can't believe how good it is. I'm still in raptures over how wonderful it was.. it was like milk chocolate with white chocolate drizzled over it, filled with champagne creme and a champagne flavoured liquer sauce. To die for... get them at the Nina's Chocolates counter at the Myer Food Hall. Warning - they are incredibly alcoholic and about $80 a kilo, so one is probably enough!

The Dreaded 'M' Word

Call me temperamental if you wish, but today I had just had enough of certain housemates. I got home to find the same old cesspool, inhabited by chauvanistic, racist and rude 'blokes'. I bared it for all of ten seconds before making more snide remarks and leaving. It's bitchy and I feel like such an overly-sensitive brat for just walking out, but I think they need to remember that a girl lives here too. It's not exactly welcoming to me for them to converse exclusively about parts of female anatomy and what they would like to do to them.

Today marked 21 months with Lucien. It is a long time. On the train this morning, I ran into my friend Jason who said, "21 months? It's been too long - break up or get married already." Sure, Jason is a bit of a dork whose track record with relationships is very sketchy, but he has a point. It is scary that I am being urged to consider the 'm' word by people, jokingly or not. I am 18 years old - sure, people would get married at 16 in the old days, but I'm far too young. It is hard to imagine how quickly girls would have to grow up back then, becoming wives and mothers before they had reached their twenties. Having to accept or reject a man that they would spend the rest of their life with, before they would have been old enough to drive, drink or vote - one of the most important things in their entire life, something that would eventually become a part of them and define their role.. and they were being encouraged and perhaps even pushed into it when barely out of training bras.
But I suppose for a woman in days gone by, a husband really was the only thing that there was to define you, unless you had other 'attributes'. In Jane Austen's Emma, the title character sees no shame in being single because of her respectability and wealth, but things are different for women in other positions (ie. Miss Bates). For Emma, being an old maid is not such a terrible fate if you have enough of your own 'steam' (wealth, title, status, etc) to support yourself as an outstanding member of society. It is a horrid thing to view a woman only in terms of her husband, or her father's wealth/title.. but things really were like that once.
I'd like to think that things have changed, but there is still so much more to be done. Once in a relationship, is a woman expected to cease being a separate entity? I couldn't be merely an attachment of someone else; I wouldn't take it. But a lot of people insinuate that such an arrangement is just the way that things ought to be.
For me, marriage is something that doesn't actually mean that much. It's just a word, a piece of paper. It can't keep people together if they don't love each other, and people can quite easily and happily stay together forever even if they are not married. So what is the point? I suppose being 'married' would just really confirm and slap a label on something that already was.

Lucien is managing to surprise me more and more, which is quite a feat for the boyfriend of a girl who demands surprise constantly. He's coming to visit me on Wednesday, planning to take me out for dinner and some other things that he is keeping under wraps. I'm looking forward to it so much... these last few weeks have not left much time for us. I'm actually quite proud of myself for taking it with such good nature - previously, I would have been a crumpled mess of a girl by this time, probably sobbing on the phone or desperately catching late trains to him. I think I'm doing well this time.

It was a glorious night tonight. Lucien was unfortunately detained - he had a major essay to hand in today, and has to give a big presentation on Wednesday. But I found a willing playmate once again in the form of Paul. I was dead-set on going for an adventure, but what we ended up doing was so much more fun than any traditional adrenaline-pumping activities. Yummy pizza with pumpkin and rocket, fascinating conversation over tea at the Westin, antics with a shopping trolley at the university. We got sort of yelled at by a drunk/drug-addled busker in the subway. We took some pictures of the clocktower in the dark.. it looked so beautiful with the nighttime clouds around it, reflecting in the moat (which I stupidly stuck my foot in to see how deep it was, making my foot slimy). I also came up with the brilliant idea of snorting ground pepper, just to see what would happen. Tres amusing for everybody around, I'm sure! But generally, the night was an absolute success. I drove Paul crazy with my indecisiveness though...
It turned out to be the most fun I have had in a long time.. reminding me a little of the type of fun I'd have with Louise when we'd get into crazy moods. I am a little sad that she decided to run away to Queensland, but I suppose that the lack of her has made me more likely to make other friends too! She'll be glad to come back and find me a little more independent.

Back at my apartment now, and it's not quite as bad as when I left. The boys were being relatively civil and even friendly - the main offender had already gone to bed by the time I got in (past 1am!).

The calm won't last though.. it never does.

House of Mirth

I've had enough - it's time to move. Yesterday I returned home not to the catastrophic mess that my house was, but something altogether worse. Bottle caps littering the floor, the sink full of dirty dishes, half-eaten meals sitting on the bench, dirty tea towels lying on the floor, week-old scraps of fast food hiding against the skirting board. And to top it off, two of my Neanderthal housemates were drinking to the point of drunkeness at 3pm whilst loudly playing Monopoly and berating everybody in sight. I copped a serve about being a first year, wearing a dress and having 'bad' taste in music, and once again they started on Will for the fact that he has basic hygiene and can speak understandably! I felt like screaming. I also felt like slapping them both and telling them exactly what I thought, but I did neither. I eventually made some snide remarks, grabbed enough stuff for the rest of the weekend and stormed out.

But enough on that. It is a ridiculous situation, and I'll be glad to get out of there.. but so many other lovely things happened before that nastiness. Let's start from the beginning.

Friday morning was divine. A perfect morning of pancakes, window shopping, random acts of kindness and the most wonderful type of company - Paul. I hadn't quite met him before other than seeing him around campus, but as he is leaving for Philadelphia quite soon, it had a sense of 'now or never'. I'll have to post more about this theory later, but he is definitely a member of my tribe. We had breakfast at Morgan's on Collins Street, then went window-shopping, visiting RetroStar (vintage clothes), Anton's (unusual haute couture) and Smiggle (stationary), which was torturous. So many beautiful things that I wanted, but alas! I haven't started properly at Myer yet, so I don't really have the funds to buy anything. But lots of fun was had nonetheless, especially when I tried on a particular crazy purple dress. It had puffed sleeves and a full skirt, with square pieces of lace sewn onto it, with ribbons everywhere. Paul has a photo of it, perhaps he'll publish it.

After the mid-morning sojourn, I headed to Carlton and then Richmond for various medical appointments. I have bronchitis (spelling?) at the moment, which is just peachy. And now the medication to make me better is making me dizzy and nauseous. Even better!

My Dad then picked me up to have dinner with him, and my new step-mother and step-sister. This was interesting - they only got married a week ago, and already the status quo is changing rapidly. The daughter, let's call her Scarlett, tends toward being a spoiled brat. She's the only child of a single mother who doubles as a business executive - Scarlett is very used to getting what she wants, and being a little cow about EVERYTHING. But there was a noticable change in the air.. suddenly she was not getting her way, and being ignored when she sulked.

Though apart from the absolute insolence that is my new step-sistet, I had a nice time. We went out for pasta in Kew and then took a walk around a very nice shop - Leo's Fine Food and Wine. I didn't end buying anything, but just being surrounded by such interesting things was a treat in itself. There was every type of tea you could imagine, packages of dried rosebuds to put in cocktails, kinds of pumpkins I'd never seen before, tiny roasting quails the size of your palm, and little biscuits that looked like sculptures. I felt like an explorer - a shop full of curiosities!

I ended up staying the night, and the next morning we went to the Richmond and then Queen Victoria Markets. I bought three particularly beautiful blood oranges to draw pictures of before eating, a pig's trotter for my puppy, a slice of French almond tarte to share with Lucien, and then - my bargain of the day! A fishmonger called out to me to buy the last of his mussels. $4 a kilo, so I obliged. He measured them out to a kilo, then added the rest of the mussels in the tray. It came to about 1.7kg, to which he remarked, "Well then, that's the biggest kilo I've ever sold!". So yes, dear reader, I scored a ridiculous amount of mussels for $4.
I took them home to my Mom, after the housemates debarkle - we sauteed them in butter, wine, garlic, ginger and chilli. So good! If only I could cook...

Such a nice weekend, now the week looks all the more dreary in comparison. Oh well, I'll keep my chin up.