Monday, August 22, 2005

Dizzy

Hi

How’s it all going?

I’m feeling a bit sick. Blah.

I had a zero-social life weekend, but did achieve stuff. I shot a black & white film, developed it and did a contact sheet. I put in a cat door which was pretty exciting cos it was the first time I’ve used a jigsaw. Made roast sweet potato and rosemary chicken. Very fucking delish. Had it with a nice pinot gris. D is exceeding pleased that I am improving my culinary skills and she gets to try it all. She asked “Why are you single?” Established phase 2 of D’s career plan for me. Danced around the house singing loudly and, according to Miko, badly. Had my last little smoke while watching the Nirvana dvd “with the lights out”. Did some maintenance, schoolwork, paperwork, all that sorta stuff. Oh and I did something too geeky to mention. I’m quite happy when I am being a geek.

I felt dizzy all weekend and I had a few nightmares, one of which reminded me of the time I spent at a pedophile’s house. That sounds a lot worse than it was, although it was rather yukky.

Hil is currently in the jungle in Malaysia or somewhere like that. Sounds fucking awesome.

I wanna go to China.

I’m off to watch Futurama – you should too. Laughing is good for you.

Laters.

Music of late:

Grace Jones: Island Life – I’m getting tired of looking, wasting all my cooking.

David Bowie: Scary Monsters – when I was a kid I had a little replica of this album with a bubblegum record inside. When I finally ate the record it was all floury and crap.

Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze

Eagles of Death Metal: Peace Love Death Metal

Peaches: The Teaches of Peaches

Patti Smith: Trampin

Sonic Youth: Dirty
– I’ve been around the world a million times and all you men are slime.

Neil Young: Harvest – my stepfather used to always sing “Old man lying in the road with his guts hanging out of his stomach.”

Neil Young: Rust Never Sleeps

Kim Carnes: Mistaken Identity
– I was trying to identify why I like this album. I decided its cos it reminds me of my mother, drunk and playing air-guitar – which is never a bad thing. In fact it’s a fucking hilarious thing.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

If you build it, he will come

Hi

So I completed step 1 of D’s career plan. It went well. I can’t wait to talk to her to determine step 2, but she’s away for a few days. There was some very interesting work news today also, which has restored my faith in miracles, or good luck at least.

Miko is very interested in my cursor.

Today I printed a contact sheet for the film I developed on Tuesday. It’s the first time I’ve been in the darkroom in 14 years! Its like riding a bike, I remembered how to do it all. It’s funny to be pottering around in the darkroom again. During my 6th and 7th form years I only attended homeroom, classics and I spent the rest of the day in the dark room, or sitting on Tash’s floor listening to music.

Tash introduced me to good music. For that I am eternally grateful.

Speaking of which, I’ve been listening to Lullabies to Paralyze all day today. I am loving “I Never Came” and “Skin on Skin”. The latter gets me horny. Not that it takes much, but having Josh Homme sing about his love of cunnilingus certainly does the trick. He’s pretty hot for a ginger.

Spanna sent me a letter on Barbie paper. She’s coming home. Yay!!

I told D I was thinking of adding fake tan to my list of maintenance. She said “Bring it into play! If you build it, he will come.” I doubt the baseball diamond of my body will be attracting any players any time soon. Since I last told you about my list of maintenance I have performed half a pedicure (trimmed my toenails, essentially) and shaved one leg. I got bored so I have yet to shave the other. Being girly doesn’t exactly thrill me.

Being a girl however, that’s pretty darn exciting. Multiple orgasms anyone?

Sorry for being so obsessed with sex, it’s just that I’m not getting any. I don’t talk about it much when I am an active participant, except to the party involved, of course.

I’m as tired as a fatherfucker so I might crawl into bed. The house is a mess but I can be a slob cos D’s away.

Nighty night.

Music du jour:

Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Time After Time

Hi

I tried to post this at work, but I use too many swear words and it won’t let me. So I am at home on D’s flash laptop with the remote internet connection thingy which is super cool. D says that if I had a voiceover I would be Carrie Bradshaw.

The mercury retrograde is over – praise fuck! Very icky times those are.

I’ve been thinking about time lately. I always thought of time as quite an abstract concept, very fickle and subjective, but then it was pointed out to me that clocks measure time. Which I knew of course, but never grasped that this then means that time exists in objective reality. If clocks measure time, then time must have some kind of relationship with physics, due to clocks being mechanical and all. One second equals gravity causing the pendulum to swing from here to here. I don’t really get that and I’m not sure I want to. I think time exists because humans need to experience reality in a linear fashion, or our brains will hurt trying to comprehend the simultaneous nature of existence. Which I have done on occasion, but luckily can’t sustain. If I could sustain it I’d be an airy-fairy hippy like the space cadet I used to be. Time exists for humans and I doubt that other creatures experience it in the same way we do. Just taking the creatures on this planet for example – I’m sure a fly’s three days seem like a lifetime, and I’m sure a big oak’s lifetime doesn’t seem particularly long. You can tell this because trees have this long-term perspective on things, which you’d know if you’d ever, like me, gotten high using drugs or meditation and had a chat to them. They are funny. It takes them a minute to realise that you are the one talking ‘tree’.

The first love of my life liked time, as in the time zones and calendar and 24 hour clock. He liked it cos it’s the one thing we all agree on.

You may have noticed something in that above paragraph. 10 points if you did. I said that I have had occasions of experiencing the simultaneous nature of existence, but did not sustain it. You may be thinking I’m full of shit and want me to explain myself. I am full of shit, of course, but I am also full of truth.

I digress – it is of course a paradox to talk about sustaining something when talking about experiencing the simultaneous-ness of existence. Just as it’s bullshit for me to talk about not sustaining this state when this state did in fact occur out of time. But to avoid long-winded and potentially ineffectual explanations such as these, I will let things like this slide from time to time.

Which is why I will not try to explain to you what I mean by something occurring “out of time”. I’ll just assume you’ve had similar experiences and if not you probably are bored shitless by this so we’ll leave it there.

By the way, I’m ok. Thanks for asking. How are you? Did you get that thing you wanted?

Laters.

Music du jour:
Cyndi Lauper: She’s So Unusual – the first album I ever bought! And still a goodie. ‘When you were mine’, ‘Witness’, ‘I’ll kiss you’ – gorgeous!

I was thinking about ‘She Bop’, cos you know it got banned from US radio after somebody figured out that it was about wanking. Is masturbation really such a contentious issue, or was it because it’s female masturbation? After all, in the 80’s you only enjoyed sex if you were a slut.

Once a song is banned is it always banned? I haven’t heard that song on the radio or seen the video since those few golden weeks when the US radio people still thought it was about dancing.

So how come Billy Idol’s ‘Dancing With Myself’ never got banned? Cos it’s boy-wanking? Does that make it okay? Guys seem to be forgiven for being animals more than girls are. That statement is not intended to use the word ‘animal’ in a derogatory way, just as an acknowledgement that we are indeed animals. Animals with complex social behaviours, but animals none the less. Guys scratch their balls in public, piss in public, burp and fart and throw tantrums in public and most people look the other way. I like to stare at guys who piss on the street like dogs and try to get a look at their dick so they’ll feel a bit more insecure about it in the future. Or at least be a bit more aware of what they are doing. Guys who piss in the toilet without shutting the door really fuck me off! There are unisex toilets at school and a guy did that yesterday. I was gonna say something to him but instead I paused outside his cubicle and gave him the evils. I hate unisex loos.

I burp and fart in public, using some (not very high) level of decorum. But I do not scratch my twat or tits, now matter how itchy they get. And I don’t piss in public. You have to expose your whole arse when you are a girl, so the logistics are a lot more challenging.

Speaking of burping, it turns out that D, my new flattie, is a burp nazi. Every time I burp she says “Ms Brown!” in the tone of a stern intermediate school teacher. I told her to give it up, as burping is one of my simple pleasures in life. She said that telling people not to is one of her simple pleasures – which it isn’t, by definition of a simple pleasure being something which is pleasing to the senses. It’s starting to piss me off so I think I’ll reply “fascist” whenever she tells me off in future. I don’t take kindly to people trying to control my behaviour.

Saying all that, D’s pretty cool and has become my career guru. The first step of D’s career advice is being implemented tomorrow.

Electric Six: Fire – another album that used to be on constant rotation for months and months. This one definitely reminds me of Tim as we used to fuck to it. Dick Valentine sings “Girl, when I’m fucking you, its like nothing else matters.”

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Sunday

Hi

I took photos in town yesterday. I had a great outfit on. I bought lots of photo supplies. I saw Fluffy Bunny. I heard her unique voice as I was walking down Cuba Mall, so I turned and said hi. She was with Rob – does this mean that Stella is back in town?

Fluffy Bunny made me think a lot. But perhaps I think too much.

Today is Sunday, which means it is glorious I-don’t-have-to-have-a-shower day. I can’t be arsed with this daily bathing malarkey, but modern life demands it. Except on Sundays. Yay!

I’ve spent the morning drinking bad coffee – Kenyan and old, but I found it in the cupboard and I am obsessed with using things up, so I grind it anew to make it a little fresher and drink it while trying to discern what it is exactly I don’t like about it. I don’t have the proper vocab to express my palate. From my hanging out with hospo people I am aware that there is a whole nother world of taste with its own vocabulary and etiquette. I am ignorant of this. I just like real good food and wine and coffee and liquor. I am a connoisseur of the sensemelia, however.

Speaking of which, I am all out and have been thinking of what I can do about this, and whether I should do anything about this or not.

So, like I was saying, I have spent this morning drinking bad coffee and working in my study. I’ve got stuff done, but the study now looks like a complete mess.

I was reading an interview with Kathleen Hanna
the other day and I loved this quote:
“She got a gig doing a short thing for MTV, and she needed somebody to do music for it. I lied and said, "Oh, yeah, I play guitar," and I totally didn't know what I was doing. So I locked myself in a room with a 4-track and a guitar I didn't know how to play, and I sat there for an hour trying to tune it and when I finally did I was just crying. But it was really cool, because nobody else would have hired me for something like that, and I needed the money, and it was really fun working with her.”

I often jump in at the deep end and force myself to swim. Some people call it courage. I’m not sure about that. It requires courage, yes, but that’s the means, not the motivation. This quote makes me happy cos my hero throws herself in at the deep end too.

Laters.

Music du jour:
Hope Sandoval: Bavarian Fruit Bread – Something mellow in the morning so as not to disturb my flatmate too much.

Pulp: This is hardcore – Jarvis was a bit unhappy when they made this record. You can tell. But I do love the “Dishes” song.

Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze

Laurie Anderson: Mr Heartbreak

Eagles of Death Metal: Peace Love Death Metal – Ass-shakingly good. This album used to be on constant rotation. Now it reminds me of Tim a bit, so I have a slight resistance to listening to it.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Restless

Hi

I’m feeling restless.

Music du jour:
Laurie Anderson: Big Science – Laurie Anderson is a fucking genius. But you knew that already, right? I got a book out of the library about Laurie. It was all in German, unfortunately, but the pictures weren’t. There were a couple of photos of her as a quite young woman. She was a freak even then. I found those photos real interesting, cos I’d always thought of her as being in her 40’s.

Le Tigre: Le Tigre

Le Tigre: Feminist Sweepstakes –
You girls look tired
Were you out late last night?
I heard you were some kind of underground electro-feminist performance artists
Is that right?

Ladytron: Light & Magic – I used to be obsessed with the “seventeen” song. I would call up the radio station daily to request it.

Friday, August 12, 2005

She's a girl

Hi

So Stephen’s added me to his list of drinking buddies. I don’t have an image for him so he’s put a picture of a bald Melissa Ethridge to represent me. He got it by googling “ugly lesbian”.

I think this may be backlash from my “I’m hot” comments of yesterday. I’m not feeling hot today. I’m feeling zitty and flabby and in dire need of a haircut. This weekend will see my annual epilation of my winter-long hair, due to it being spring as heralded by the blossom tree outside my kitchen window. Spring is springing! Time to shave my legs and have some fun.

Plus, a goal for the month is to do all my maintenance in the hope of attracting someone. Or just to feel halfway decent. How high maintenance are you? I have eight things to do to be fully maintained: Hair mask, face mask, dye eyebrows, shave legs, shave pits, bikini line, pedicure, manicure. To give you an idea of what a slob I am it has been 1 week since I had a hair mask, 4 months since a face mask, 6 months since I dyed my eyebrows, 7 months since I shaved my legs, 1 week since I shaved my pits, 2 months since I did my bikini line, 6 weeks since a pedicure and 9 months since a manicure.

So even though I am potentially high maintenance in reality I am not. Because I can’t be arsed, not because I don’t need it.

My friend D commented once about being in “high maintenance mode” and I said it was cos she was getting some. She said “Yeah. I’m a getting-some cliché.”

She has stupidly, or it could have been drunkenly, agreed to attend a baby shower this weekend. She said “And there will come the moment when someone will ask ‘When are you having a baby?’ and everyone’s laser-beam attention will be on me while I try not to burst into tears.”

I said “My response to that question is ‘I have to get laid first.’ But you don’t have that excuse.” She is, after all, a getting-some cliché. Although it has now progressed into A Relationship.

Speaking of things attractive in the getting it on sense – I have a new crush. It’s a girl. Kinda weird, I know, as I went back into the closet a few years ago. I’d only ever been hanging out in the unisex dressing room of bisexuality, trying on sequins while drinking cocktails, but I was sure that I was firmly back into the closet of het, smoking pot and wearing my old jeans.

Anyway she’s a girl. A real one. She’s got thick blonde hair and wears very weird 80’s clothes. One day she was wearing a white blouse with short puffy sleeves and an embroidered collar like the one my mother used to make me wear and I HATED it. Far too girly. I was a tomboy so I hated wearing girly clothes. So she was wearing this dreaded white girly blouse with a woollen vest over the top and I just couldn’t stop looking at her. I couldn’t stop looking at her cos I was trying to figure out if she was beautiful or not, then I decided that she was, because I couldn’t stop looking at her.

Laters.

Music that I would like, but do not have as yet:
LCD Soundsystem
The Shocking Pinks: Matematical Warfare
The Phoenix Foundation: Pegasus
Chaka Khan – whichever one “I feel for you” is on.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

You're still a super hot female

Hi

I’m feeling crap. The thing about feeling crap is that things get crap and then I feel even crapper. Must bring myself out of it somehow.

Music du jour:
Gwen Stefani: Love Angel Music Baby – while listening to this I took a look at my watch and discovered that I’m still a super hot female. A Super Hot Female! Damn straight. Apparently the general consensus is that I am hot. Hot enough for people to ask Matt who I am and declaring “She’s hot”. Males and females reportedly. And hot enough for people to mention it to my face. But still I do not get laid. I must tell Matt that the next time someone says “She’s hot” he should reply “She’s single.”

I find it interesting the way Ms. Stefani talks to herself, assuming of course that it is herself she is talking to or about in “What you waiting for?”, “Hollerback girl”, etc. Calling herself a stupid ho is a bit rough, but I guess acknowledging that she is a super hot female makes up for it. She talks about her brand and sings her tag lines and I can’t help but think that this is before she creates them. That this album is a record of the process, the generation of ideas, the calling of the muses and calling for support, the vision of what will be before she actually goes ahead with the L.A.M.B label. It seems this way to me, but I don’t know if things actually happened that way round.

Instead it reinforces to me that making art about the process is valid. I should know this already, but don’t. I think things need to be planned and perfect before they actually happen. And I waste a lot of time creating the perfect plan rather than working and adapting the one I’ve got. But I’m aware of it now, so I’m getting better at actually working the plan. I have a note on my desk that says “Plan the work. Work the plan” as a reminder.

Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze – oh yeah. Josh is hot, but mostly it’s a reflection from his super hot girlfriend. I showed Michaela a video of Brody’s and said “she’s great”. Michaela was like “yeah… there’s nothing wrong with her”. Which means she’s perfect, in case you didn’t get that.

Queens of the Stone Age, they have these patterns going on. These rhythmical guitar patterns. I like listening to the patterns – it’s like musical wallpaper. And I like the subtle one-offs – the riff or chord change or key change that only happens once in the song. It’s the break in the pattern. Ecstasy.

Speaking of ecstasy – I was the other day. I was talking to a couple of girls who wanted a bit more passion in their lives. To me, to be passionate about something is to experience ecstasy with that thing. I experience ecstasy all over the place. I told them how looking at a painting can send me into a rapture where time and space do not exist and I am pure being. They had no idea what I was talking about.

I used to have no faith that mainstream people could experience the depth of feeling that I could. Then I decided I was being conceited and of course other people can experience moments of bliss, ecstasy, love and awe. After talking to these girls I am not so sure again.

The other day, walking home I backtracked so I could stand still with my eyes closed and my face close to some wood board, so I could breathe in the fresh-cut wood smell.

Walking back from school I stopped and looked up until I saw the tui that was singing. I listened and watched. Tuis are great. Especially when you’ve been overseas for a while.

I often stop in the street to look or listen or feel or smell. I don’t see many other people doing the same so maybe its not completely normal. Fuck normal.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

David Bowie is my backup singer

Hi

Its me. Could you tell?

Went to an opening at Enjoy last night. Felt uncomfortable again. Saw the Rostopher. He looked stressed. Talked to Shay and Paul and left pretty quickly. Didn’t like the art.

Went to Sandra’s opening. Saw Tracey – her baby hasn’t fallen out yet. She said it feels like puppies. Made me squirm. Left there pretty quickly too.

Drove home and ate pizza for the 11th night in a row. Read a fitness magazine while eating pizza and drinking beer. Decided I like planning more than doing (uh-duh!). Watched Futurama. Asked Miko to do the dishes, clean my room and do my homework for me. He bit me, which I took as a ‘no’, so I did it myself.

Slept. I have new sheets and they are the best sheets in the world. They are 100% cotton flannelette and bright pink. I get into them and I am instantly a cosy little princess. I got them from the Warewhare for $18. Bargain.

Saw Jaxx breifly last night. She was talking to some hot guy. He shook my hand and winked at me. Jaxx and I walked on and she told me he’s got his dick pierced. Many times. I don’t like that. It makes condoms break.

Like I’ll ever go there.

Later.

Music du jour:
Iggy Pop – Lust for Life: how cool would it be to say “So, like, David Bowie is my backup singer”
David Bowie – Let’s Dance: how cool would it be to say “So, like, Iggy Pop ismy lover.”

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

I love Jarvis

Hi

I turned 33 the other day. I was a bit wary of it, mostly because of Jarvis singing “A man told me to beware of 33. He said ‘It was not an easy time for me.’”

I love Jarvis. Only Jarvis could successfully rhyme “I” with “eye”. Jarvis successfully and publicly took the piss out of Michael Jackson – Freeeee Jarvis! And he did that great show on the BBC about sculpture. And he used to dj in London at that great gallery I forget the name of. You know, the one on the Mall (pronounced Mal, not Maul). I always wanted to go, but never did. I might have shat myself.

Jarvis often wears big black glasses. I have no idea why, but I am irresistibly drawn to boys who wear big black glassses. It might have something to do with the really great sex I had with Dane, who looks like Jack Osborne. Or maybe its something to do with vulnerability. Its definitely a plus to be in bed with a boy who has naturally vaseline-lens romantic vision. Especially when you get to my age. Sheesh.

Birthdays make me feel like a big fat loser. Or this one did anyhow. But I still had fun. I’ve got the bruises and the bills to show it. Lordy.

So I am now a girl of the Hutt. It’s right up your valley. Or mine. I haven’t finished unpacking yet, but mostly. It’s good. I have a whole houseful of stuff in the house, rather than a whole houseful of stuff stuffed into my room. Space.

Again with the space.

I saw a book lying on the side of the road that I thought Ross might be interested in. I almost picked it up for him, but then decided that I didn’t want to make myself vulnerable again. Then I bumped into his flatmate. She just had a birthday too.

Music of late:
Ani diFranco - Evolve
Blondie – Autoamerican
Le Tigre – Le Tigre
Le Tigre – Feminist Sweepstakes
Le Tigre – This Island