secret: creative brain fry, or, the fine art of pottering

i don't know about you folks, but when i have a lot of things on my plate (not literally, although i do love a good full plate of thanksgiving dinner) my creative will to live just disappears out the window.

when i finally do have a night off, and i have to say i haven't had one in a while, i need some decompression time, in the form of pottering. i thought i'd share the sorts of things that happen during a pottering session in my lovely (chaotic) space.

music debrief:

i've had a few "must listens" floating about lately on my ever-expanding list of things to listen to. thanks to a music-loving friend with whom i share many great favourites, i was reminded that a certain amount of time has passed since i'd listened to some of my all-time bestest favourites, namely Radiohead and Elliott Smith. I'm really digging this particular track from Elliott:



and OK Computer reminiscence (let's face it: Radiohead in general) lead me right to this beautiful thing that i once was able to play on piano, harder than you'd imagine.



i also have quite a lot of live footage to watch from my all time favourite thing i've found on YouTube so far, tiny desk concerts via NPR. crazy into The National at the moment, and so this show has pretty much given me the feeling where the world opens up and you fall in love, right down to your little toe.



apologies for the music-heavy sharing, but i just can't get enough of this at the moment. so of course, it's time to make my november Maude the Mazda Mix (they are famous, but only in very tight circles of maybe 2 people, one of which is me... the other is one of my brothers, whichever one is handy).

YouTube giggles

my YouTube dirty pleasure is interviews on ellen, mostly when it's ryan gosling. i recommend you look that up, the one in onesies in particular.

besides this, i also like to watch standup comedy from such greats as dylan moran and louis ck.





Pretty things

i am a bowerbird when it comes to pretty things. sometimes, when i'm pottering, i like to arrange my pretty stuff that i own into aesthetically pleasing combinations.

all of the favourites, but of particular note is the sweet 'hello' necklace from the awesome anna at The Eclective, the sweet and special 'imaginary lovers' zine from deerface, and my granny's old copy of Alice in Wonderland

sometimes, i like to just sit in my chair and rifle through books i haven't actually read yet, looking forward to having time to read them. 

this weekend just passed i had a great score from a book stall at the local steiner school's spring fair, and the illustrations are so much lovelier than disney characters. don't get me wrong, i love the disney classics, i'm just a bit bored of what disney thinks people look like.

Writing notes and letters, and finding old things I wrote once

i found this recently. a thing i scrawled into the back of a notebook long ago, when i still lived in melbourne and longed to escape whatever it was at that point that held me there:

i have a fantasy about swimming in an open air pool at night time in summer. this fantasy is so tangible to me that i wonder if it may in fact have happened once, a dormant memory of sliding into a pool the temperature of my warm arms, the weightlessness of my previously cumbersome body, sounds echoing off the water.
surely it has happened, at one time, to somebody; how else could we know how it feels to swim at night? the cocoon of water closing over and into my ears, the smell, or imagined smell, of warm jasmine blowing overhead all through Brunswick.
i can hear my own gasping breath as i pull to the surface each 4th stroke, and i feel my heart hammering. why must my words end here? for suddenly, the warm summer night is lost to the absence that is you my dear, and all i remember is floating, face down, with night city noises filtering through the pool water.

i write postcards and letters to the friends of far away that i am missing lots lately, perhaps because i get to see them again soon.


these are the things i do o a quiet quiet Monday night. and find new artists to fall in love with, again on YouTube (such a magical place).

i leave you with a beautiful tattooed man whom i shall perhaps one day meet and marry.

#30daychallenge day 24: my favourite movies and what they're all about

i hate picking favourite stuff. one favourite movie, or one favourite book ... or one favourite band, or one favourite person... nah. i have ALL the favourites.

seeing as this is my blog and i blog if/when/what i want to, i'm going to give you the low-down (in a fairly brief capacity so as not to spoil) on not one, not two but three of my favourite love story movies, in no particular order...

• crazy stupid love. i have mentioned this one briefly already, in so much as i have watched it a lot of times and i just don't get sick of it. it's a romantic comedy, but there are several love stories going on at once- different kinds of love. normally i have a bit of an issue with rom-com when i'm single, because it all seems really convenient and i highly doubt my own love story will be so tidy, but this seems to be just messy enough that it actually might work, although obviously in real life nobody actually has those abs except ryan gosling himself, and you know, it's his job to look like that. i like him and emma stone as comedy actors, as well as (of course) steve carell.
  
  
  
  
  the soundtrack is surprisingly good, and everything ends underscored by The Middle East's "Blood", which is lovely and australian, also.
  
  
  
  
• eternal sunshine of a spotless mind. this one is slightly weirder as love stories go, but probably gets to the root of a breakup better than a lot of popular movies, in that it's all a bit embarassing and tragic, and you most certainly do wish, at various points, that you could wipe the other person clean from your mind. it seems like you'd be happier and life would be easier. the story of clementine and joel is, of course, the point of it (plus cool effects throughout, like when the house fills with sand) but i actually have started watching it for poor mary, played by kirsten dunst, who's the receptionist and has her own sad love story. i won't ruin it in case you managed to miss viewing this in all it's cult-film goodness.
  
  the main take-away point here though is that i want kate winslet's hair. the red is my favourite.
  
  
• 500 days of summer. it's like both of the previous two put together. does it say a lot about me that i'm more interested in the breakups of life? this one i love for joseph gordon-levitt and of course for zooey deschanel who has such wonderul clothing in this movie. i love the way this movie jumps around in the sequence of events, but i find the ending to be a little lame. again, i love this one for the soundtrack. and for the choreographed dance sequence - because that's exactly how you feel when you're in love. and also, don't forget joseph gordon-levitt.
  
  

#30daychallenge day 21: one of your favourite shows

right now, it has to be suits. do yo'selves a favour and download it. or if you're like me and don't have much hard drive space and are too lame to commit to buying an external hard drive, you can stream it online at somewhere like Project Free-TV as long as you don't mind popup ads and have a bit of patience.

i could talk a lot about suits, but i don't want to ruin anything, so i just thought i should share a little of the eye-pleasure that is the suits cast. they're all kick-ass characters. fall in love, i dare ya.

secret: I need feminism because I like telling people what I think about stuff

It's hard to believe, but there are a lot of places in the world where a woman does not have a voice. I grew up with my voice splattered all over the place, and yet even here in this privledged point in time that I call my own, having a voice gets tricky sometimes.

I'm trying to figure out exactly how to speak up about things I believe without alienating anyone, and am sort of realising that it's not possible to keep everyone happy and unoffended, and that perhaps you have to break a few eggs to make a cake.

It's been an interesting month of thinking, reading and learning for me. After I wrote "We need feminism because ... " a while ago, I gradually found a whole online community of feminists who hold wildly varying opinions on a wide variety of current issues. So really the feminist world is just like any other. I keep up with all of them on Facebook and so I have an idea what the Radical feminists are concerned with, what the feminists in Australia are thinkin', what's happening in the UK (Gay marriage is legalised! Go the Queen!), and much more besides.

The beautiful thing I'm seeing (amongst the folk I follow) is the inclusiveness. I listened to the wonderful Courtney Martin's TED Talk on Feminism and had a good think about intersectionality, which may just be a way forward, if we must take a step away from calling it feminism to get those caught up in the semantics of the F word involved (must we?). I've read, giggled at and nearly finished "How to be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran (book review to follow), enjoying the conversational tone of writing by a woman who just wants a point out some truths of life, without too much drama and even that much controversy, simply from the matter of fact narration. I highly recommend buying a copy: we can have coffee after you've read it and share our enjoyment!

I also have fallen head over heels for Tina Fey after reading Bossypants (even though Kate J had told me a long time ago that it was funny, and in fact had read me some funny parts to illustrate her point). I love her so much I'll probably write about her soon, once I have watched a whole lot more SNL and also seen every clip of her ever on youtube.

I feel like maybe it's a great point in time for having these conversations, but after an assortment of experiences in the last month I'd probably observe that you may end up in discussion with a person of the male persuasion who may not like what you are saying, not exactly. Or you may find, very rewardingly, that your father and brother actually talked about feminist issues over dinner and you weren't even there to bring it up (proud sister & daughter right here).

The world expands. For me, it's reading articles like this one of Phaedra Starling's, which says more eloqently that I can exactly what I was getting at in my piece. Don't be put off by the title: it's a nice little piece which explains how to approach a pretty girl who doesn't know you, in public. We women don't hate you for trying, we just don't know you yet, and you could be anybody.

Or it's going the other way, into the world of Tavi Gevinson's Rookie. Such a beautiful, exciting and creative idea, and she's making people take notice. I myself am out of my mind thrilled to be seeing her speak on the weekend at Sydney Opera House. Heroine, that's for darned sure.

I haven't been terribly focused on specifically feminist issues this last month; I've been focused on myself, and I am a feminist, so it sort of works. I have done a few things, like my women-only July of musical discovery, and I've been reading a lot of stuff. I'm going to start putting a few bits and pieces out in bite size chunks, much akin to leaving cookies out for Santa. I hope you guys just leave crumbs, and not spat out bits of cookie.

update on July's challenge: week two, or, oldies but goodies

Having grown up on a steady diet of quality tunes (read my blog on mixtapes, or my blog on music) I was only too happy to go back and revisit some of the favourites this week. I lugged my clunky old laptop out to mum's last weekend to comandeer a whole bunch of her music, and now have a few gb of tuneage which I am still making my way through.

These are some soulful women, I must say - Joan Baez, Joan Armadtrading, Tracey Chapman, Joni Mitchell, the Eurythmics... It's actually perfect for the sort of mood I've been dipping in and out of this week. I have to say, there's something about these women that really resonates, and I've been doing a little thinking about it to figure out exactly what it is.

I never studied music in any form so I probably don't know the right wordses to give this idea some life, but I think it's something about the simplicity of the music and the honesty of the lyrics. Have a listen to "Love and Affection" by Joan Armatrading, or my particular favourite, Joni Mitchell's "All I Want". I listen to this song and think of sunny summer weekends when Mum would blast this album through the stereo while cooking up an storm in the kitchen for whoever was coming out for a dinner party.



I think it's one of my favourite almost-love songs, still. There are some truly beautiful voices out there in the world today, but Joni Mitchell has such an amazing range, which you can't miss from her songwriting style. Tavi at Rookie writes about her love of Joni- couldn't have said it better myself.

It's been nice to simplify for a week - I've gone for what I already know and grew up with, so there's that wonderful sense of reuniting with old friends. I'm very grateful that my mum listened to so many female musicians growing up; the strength of their voices and their honest songwriting have left a legacy for everyone that has followed.

I had a lovely trip down memory lane with Stu and Hugh at Christmas time last year - we were driving out to Grandma's place for Christmas Eve drinks and Hugh cranked Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution". There is actually probably nothing I love more than going somewhere in a car with my little brothers, howling along to an old favourite, a shared experience of before, when we were little, and knowing all the words.

treasure: my granny, Patricia Taylor

One of my favourite bloggers, Pip from Meet me at Mike's, has suggested a blog-along about grandmothers today. You can read hers and be inspired maybe to write something of your own, as I am today.

I think often about my Granny, who it turns out has been a huge influence on many of us Taylor folk, one way or the other. The only thing I ever occasionally let myself feel sad about in relation to Granny is that I'd just love to sit down with her now, at 27, and have a good old chat about things. Now I understand a little more. Now I'm an adult. Now I've met more of the whole wide world, and consequently realised just how wonderful she was, not just as my Granny (for she was given instant 'wonderful' status ever since I can remember) but as a woman.

Of course, I never knew Granny as a mum, but from what I gather she managed 5 kids and a husband on a NSW sheep farm quite adequately, not to mention the governesses, the jackaroos, and the rest of the surrounding family. As a Granny, she was kind and strong, and somehow managed to make each of her 14 grandkids feel special to her. Until I was 10 or so, she lived just down the hill from us, so close that Mum was able to stand at the top of the hill and watch me toddle down to see me arrive safely in Granny's waiting arms. From there, she took me inside and I was fed shortbreads and hardbiscuits (a family recipe, an oat & golden syrup combination that are infamous), as well as allowed to help out with baking and making butter. I got sat on the edge of the kitchen bench while she went about this business, and was occasionally granted my very own little ball of new butter to put on toast, or eat then and there, delicious and creamy, popped straight into my little mouth.

It sounds a bit odd as a treat for a child, but I must say it was my absolute favourite thing. What I wonder about now is what her and I talked about, for I'm certain I would have chatted away happily with her for hours (genetic trait, the chatting- Granny was the best chatter I know) about all my secrets and thoughts. I imagine I may even have bored her with my chat, having since discovered that once kids figure out how to make themselves understood, they Do. Not. Shut. Up.

Growing past this rosy-cheeked child stage, I know I missed having Granny and Grandfather so close by when they moved into town. Our family moved into the homestead, and all the mystical places that had hidden secrets inside when Granny and Grandfather lived there were opened up and brought to light. Furniture was moved out and empty space left for our family to move on in. The 'good' lounge room stopped being a closed space in the dark, and Grandfather's dressing room stopped smelling of mystery and was instead painted blue, becoming a bedroom for my little brother Stuart.

Their new house in town became the place for Christmases and family get togethers, and while those were always special, it was the one-on-one times with Granny that I remember that house for. I cannot remember ever watching television there, instead we'd drink countless cups of tea and I'd read my book, or tell Granny about highschool, or whatever else I felt like chatting about. I can't remember ever trying out teenage rebellion on her; while I was a well-behaved girl, I had a truly awful temper with which I would constantly tear strips off my parents, but I'm pretty sure I never tried that out on Granny. One wouldn't.

As always with the passing of time and the gaining of maturity, on reflection I feel truly amazed by the legacy and impact Granny had upon me, and I don't doubt, all of the other Taylors I know. I think of her now as my conscience; when I act well, true to myself, when I help others or resist making an easy choice in favour of a better choice, I feel quietly proud of myself in the same way that I imagine Granny might. When I make a mistake, or a knowingly act in a way that I regret later, I shake my head, try not to beat myself up too much and instead think "Next time, I'll do better". That's what Granny has given me. I expect a lot of myself, which I know is a 'Taylor' trait with which we all have been blessed/cursed.

In the end, I only have a few tangible objects which have come from Granny. One is a green glass bead necklace, another is her copy of "Alice in Wonderland" from back when she was a Fraser instead of a Taylor, and the last, a happy discovery of just this month, is that the curtains that hang in my beloved van Queen Maude are made from scraps of sailboat fabric that Mum was given by Granny. So I have a little piece of something of hers to travel about with every single day. That is truly lovely.

Another treasure is a rhyme that has stayed with me for many many years, and I'm sure all the Taylors are reciting it in their heads while reading this. This Mabel Lucie Attwell poem hung on a towel rail in Granny's bathroom from since way before I can remember, and it will always remind me of having baths at her place, having my little body rubbed dry with a towel by Granny in her more limber days on her knees by the bathtub; it will remind me of the countless times I read it when visiting the toilet, moving the hip-friendly toilet seat out of the way. In a way I guess it is Granny, through and through. Tidying up after yourself and thinking of others, meeting your responsibilities head on.

Sending all my love, not only to Granny, but to all of us who love and miss her - Patricia Taylor, you're one heck of a lady to live up to, but all of us, we're doing our best (which I'm sure is all you'd really expect of us anyway).

treasure: oh, Canada!

so listen: I'm just going to come right out and say it.

there are days when it rains a lot and you have a headache and generally, it turns out, you're failing a little bit at life. 90% of the time, I love my life. the other 10% i think, damn I wish I'd stayed in Canada.

today is Canada Day, and I'm too far away to be able to get my hands on some Clamato juice for Caesars, or $10 worth of wings at Crystal, or wedges with the infamous Butt-Rub mayo from Dusty's. No Eggs Benny from Wildwood for me (no side of Banana Bread french toast either).

there's no green grass by picturesque lakes to sit on today, either; no snow-capped peaks to surround me; no fresh pow to shred; no bears to thrill/scare the bejeezhus out of me.

oh Canada, I miss your face. the shitty bits of Canada have fallen away to the sands of time, and all I really remember now are the friends, the good times, the all-consuming sense of possibility and non-sensical lack of responsibility and need for decisive behaviours. floating through 3 years of living out amongst the seasons, knucking down for the freezing cold or the hard-to-come-by sunburn, adapting to the weeks on end of rain, the overnight 30cm messing up the bus route but answering your prayers when you awoke to the sound of avi bombs exploding.

I miss the downtimes in the village between seasons, where you get to spend time getting to know the long-termers who have made their lives in Whistler and are not just passing through. I miss the peak season for the parties and the nightclub dancefloor (but no, not the lift lines or the queue out the door of lift coffee co. for a hot beverage).

I miss my friends; my Whistler family. I miss you all so much, and am lucky to have a few of you who followed me back to Armidale (because I got here first). I miss all the food we ate and the ski days we smashed and the apres we soaked up. happiness, plain and simple.

next year I'm going to visit Whistler, Canada, and I'm going to love it all over.

until then - Happy Canada Day.

treasure: the top 5 posts

being that i've now written over 400 posts on this blog, i got to thinking about my favourites. there's a nifty stats page which tells me the most viewed posts i've written. they're all posts i'm proud of. here they are, in case you're curious:

1. This post about snowboarding. I still maintain it's the most fun you can have with your pants on.
2. This post about tattoos. I have another, which I will share a story about soon.
3. This (other) post about snowboarding. A story of the last day of my first winter in Canada.
4. This post about coming back to Australia. From almost a year ago now. Crazy.
5. This post about the boys I love. I still love them all. This love is huge. I'm going to try and drink a beer with all these people by the end of 2015.

I've enjoyed going back into the past to re-live these moments. And maybe that is what having this blog is all about. Life has been wonderful so far. I can't wait for what comes next.

treasure: anais mitchell

just do yo'selves a favour and listen to this beauty. i myself am in love.

#fmsphotoadaynovember 6. a favourite thing

i am well aware that it's a little bit gross to post a picture of your boyfriend as your favourite thing. i mean, what am i, a teenager? what's next, those nonsense sums you do to work out how compatible you are with someone else as a percentage? don't i know boys have boy germs?

having a boyfriend, or a partner (as the grownups call it) is one of those funny things in life. i've had a few different ones so far, and a list of a great many who i'd have liked to call my boyfriend. after my last one didn't work out, i decided to settle into singledom in whistler, a place where (i believed) relationships based on love and mutual respect could not flourish, unless you are kate and phill, or mark and lisa.

actually, more relationships happen than you'd expect, but there's also (and excuse my bluntness here) plenty of whoring about. an excess of endorphins, alcohol and party drugs, combined with a general sense that nothing that happens in a whistler season is applicable in the real world, leads to many many walks of shame.

i barely ever dabbled in walks of shame myself. i instead fell in love with the snow, and the place, and the lifestyle filled with friends and extreme sport activities. wholesome stuff, you know? i sat back and appreciated the cuteness of boys in outerwear and toques (for boys they all were), did whatever i wanted nearly all of the time, and liked the freedom of it. no walks of shame, just tired and slightly drunk walks home from the hill or the bar or a potluck dinner, filled with shiny joy at falling snow and at the good in simple things of life.

the happy thing that happened next was that a person came along who i really quite liked, who for some reason also seemed to be quite liking me. and the very best part was that i still got to do all the fun stuff that i liked, without compromising my freedom or my friends or my energy and space. the second-best part was that he laughs at my jokes. if they're funny, anyways.

we had a lovely summer, followed by a tough winter when it became clear that due to my ankle injury i would not be one half of the most awesome snowboarding couple of all time. that was a struggle and somewhat of a black mark, only in the way of it necessitating the painful readjustment of expectations. not always so good at change, me, but i beg my humanity as an excuse there.

there were other bumps, like his inability to procure another visa for Canada; the making and breaking of plans, leaps of faith where people put others on planes not knowing when they'd get to see them again... just the regular stuff people do when they're in love and live in different countries.

anyway, not to spoil the whole story for you or nothin', but he's here now, in my house and my proximity, and my arms and my thoughts and all the places. i'm happy in a way that (mostly) makes allowances for the fact we've never lived together before and both have quite the propensity for moods, of all different sorts. true to form, i try to make him think what i think, and he just thinks what he wants to think; i keep trying to make jokes he'll laugh at and he keeps only laughing at the ones he actually thinks are funny; i keep forgetting my toothbrush when we go places and he keeps packing it for me; i keep making plans and he keeps up with me.

he really is a favourite thing, my person. and i still like him, and he still likes me, which i think is something of an accomplishment. and that is all i have to say for now about one of my favourite things.

#fmsphotoadaynovember 2. colour (coffee)

i have this sort of dependent relationship with coffee. sporadically i give it up, having become alarmed by my dependence, by the sometimes unreasonable expectations i have of the relationship, and also sometimes it's because i've read some sort of literature that convinces me it's killing my body very slowly from the inside. quite separate to that, announcing you've given up coffee always elicits some sort of reaction, whether it's horror, puzzlement, or on some rare occasions, you get someone who supports your choice (someone who has clearly been reading the same things you've been reading. someone who likes to rant in tones of superiority about health benefits).

my point being that coffee is one of the enduring loves of my life. my favourite coffee comes from melbourne, where the italian influence in carlton (which backs onto University of Melbourne, that place i went once) makes everyone a coffee conniseur, with an opinion on everything. i knew a guy who took a coffee course once, whos family started a cafe, and this apparently made him an expert on coffee. what a drag! everywhere we went together, my eyes would be rolling back in my head with the joy of the delicious coffee and he would, without fault, find some element to criticise. every. single. time. i think there were 2 cafes where he approved of the coffee, and one of those was his sister's place.

we're not friends anymore, but rest assured the fall-out was not only about coffee.

my favourite coffee drinking times have been worldwide. annica made a damn good coffee in whistler, and always seemed to have a sixth sense about when i really needed one. in highschool, kat and i used to drink too much coffee at caffiends in the mall. height of cool = a big betty blue sized mug of milky coffee.and hanging out outside, where people from other schools could watch and be watched. i drank a solid amount of coffee at uni, between castros kiosk, where the lovely opperman girls both worked at the time, and a cafe on lygon st in carlton, name of which has been lost to me (but i can tell you exactly how to get there).

i've had long cups of coffee on my own in creekside starbucks, cursing my ankle and trying not to cry about missing pow days, i've had coffee on the go, rushing to work or a lecture, i've had coffees with friends in need of a chat, i've covered all the problems of the feminist world over several lattes (yep, it takes several). i've had awkward coffees, when you're relived it's an easy temperature to drink and run.i've had coffees right before awful, sad and tearful goodbyes to loved ones. i've had bottomless coffee from southside diner in whistler, and let me tell you, that will wire you right up.

i often think about the taste and the smell, but the colour of coffee is one of those lovely ones, a warm and comforting colour. there is nothing so reassuring as a good cup of coffee.

the end.

day 06. a favourite super hero and why.

i had a think about it and i guess it has to be batman. several reasons.

• he's just an ordinary guy with no superpowers, but lots of amazing gadgets, and the will to put himself out there, protect gotham from evil...
• he has a deep batman-style voice
• he's a romantic
• he has a good sense of humour, even if it only appears now and then
• they've had great picks for batmans in the movies... excepting michael keaton, but i'm sure he was hot in the 80s/90s, he's just not my type.

i also feel his costume is one of the best ones. i love superman but can never get my head around the concept that he just puts on his glasses and becomes clark kent. i like batman's mask, his cape and his symbol most of all.

however, while finding a batman pic on google, i found this, and i think she is probably my new favourite superhero:

secret: television addiction

instead of being embarassed about this, i have instead decided to get everyone else addicted too.

treasure: mountains, mountains, oh mountains!

i have fallen in lust and in love with the rockies. they are all i have been looking at and thinking about for the last 5 days, i have fallen damned hard.

i think i need to be near mountains always. ones with snow on. how can i ever go home now i know how much i love the mountains?

and riding in winter. mmm. is it bad to wish it was winter again, when summer has really only just kicked in? i feel like everything is just one big wait for winter. i am such a winter person. riding and apres and warm headwear (give me another winter in canada and i'll be calling a beanie a toque). powder powder powder.

i send a prayer to the snow gods: give me another good powder season.

then i think i might do a year of double winters. it's getting serious.

basically, this has the makings of a long-term relationship.