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.

Pretty Silly

"Come home and take me in your arms..." - that is the second line of the Marilyn Hacker sonnet I posted last week. In my lecture notes, this line is described as vernacular, uncouth and colloquial. All these words have such negative connotations, like somehow the line doesn't measure up to how high-brow a sonnet is supposed to be. But it's one of my favourite lines, because it is so honest. It sounds like one of those sentiments that just falls out of your mouth in words that weren't pre-empted, something that comes straight from your heart without having to be processed by the brain first. I like spontaneous yet truthful effusions!

Lucien and I went on a mission last night - biscuit and juice hunting at 1am. What is it about late at night that awakens something crazy in me? We danced and sang our way to the supermarket, literally, until we saw some scary goths shouting drunkenly at each other in the street. We ended up with so much more than we had anticipated on.. Lucien bought two packets of raspberry tartlets (urgh) and a litre of blood orange juice for me, and I bought a packet of Venetian biscuits (my favourite) and some pineapple-coconut juice. Late nights also inspire bad eating habits.. out of all the three packets of biscuits we bought, there is nothing left. We did share them with my housemate though, who shared the late-night study-fest as he worked on his PhD thesis thing.

I wish my name was Twyla. Twyla Tharp. She's the lady above, kicking her leg out with the insane dress.. isn't she elegantly wild? I want to be elegantly wild.. I want to be the kind of woman that people take black-and-white photographs of, and they become iconic. Like Gene Tierney. I suppose she's another person who I think is beautiful... there she is to the right, her gaze like pure sensuality. My aunt Marie-Therese once said that I reminded her a little of Gene Tierney, that in one of her earlier films we looked like twins. I wish I could be as beautiful as her.

No, I'm not gay. I just appreciate beauty in general, but these women.. it's more that I wish I were like them. Unwaveringly confident about my sex appeal, self-assured, etc. I'll work on that, and maybe just maybe, I'll join the Half-Naked Thursday crowd!
Or not.

Right now I'm wearing a white cotton skirt with lace and tulle around the bottom. It has a subtle navy and red pattern of cherry blossoms and bamboo on it, and it's kind of sheer and floaty. An older woman on the tram this morning commented on it, telling me how beautiful it was and how nice I looked in it. I thanked her and smiled, but after I stepped off the tram, I felt like laughing at the absurdity of it. I feel like the most unattractive girl in the world right now.. my hair is fluffy and won't sit right, my face looks washed out and pale, there is no colour in my cheeks.. blah blah blah.
But it was enough for that woman to say something nice to just make me feel almost slightly pretty for the briefest of moments.