30daypictureschallenge: Day 19

feels like falling in love, or making wishes...

this illustration actually got donated to the opshop where i used to work, along with another. they are beautiful and delicate - pencil i think. as with so many things that came through the opshop, these could have easily been crumpled or torn in a pile of other things, but thankfully i was at the door with my hands empty and open for artworks, and so i nabbed them for myself. 

it means they have been on walls in many of the houses i've lived in since, and there really have been a lot of those. i tire of moving house. i want to stay put for a while now, in the same room, with all my pretty thistle drawings staying still on the walls and decorating my life.

i'm making a wish for it.

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.

30pictureschallenge: Day 3

this is winter time in whistler. it looks like it's christmas, but the magic of whistler is that it looks like this all through winter.

things freeze, things stop, things slow. at the same time, there is frenetic energy. the village is filled with visitors; it's a visitor's town.

when fresh snow falls, right down to the village, there's a nice time during the night before it's cleared away and salt laid to make safe paths for those unaccustomed to the white winter underfoot. before it's cleared away, it gives beneath your feet. it makes a sort of muffled crunch, a murmur released as you leave a footprint behind.

it's ankle deep. sometimes it's knee deep. these are the nights you quietly head for home; these nights promise nextmornings filled with pow turns and faces full of snow. your heart fills with the anticipation of it. you smile at strangers as you trudge by them, wading through the fresh snow to the bus stop, and home. you pull your hood up; you wrangle your toque into place under your hood. you check your pockets and pull on the mittens you have stowed there.

the more the snow falls, the wider and fuller your heart becomes. the flakes are big, floaty things; they drift slowly to the ground or they fall thick and fast. you're covered in them as you walk, you brush them out of your face and off your eyelashes. they're wet and cold, but you don't mind; on still snowy nights such things can easily be forgiven.

off the bus, you're making your careful way up a hill that is foiling any cars without winter tyres. you pick a path and patiently put one foot in front of the other, avoiding the slipperiness that comes with packed down snow.

once home, you shake yourself off and shed a wet outer layer; hang up a coat, stash your boots. you rub your hands together and blow into them as you stomp your way up the stairs, buoyant with the magic of the winter world you just traveled through to make it back. upstairs there are housemates, equally happy in their anticipation of what tomorrow will bring on the mountain.

a cup of tea, a brief chat, a plan made for the morning, then bed.

secret: a rainy sunday afternoon and much contemplation

oh god, what am i going to do with my life??

yes folks, it's one of those posts. i just turned 25. i got a tattoo that i love. in a month, i will be able to go snowboarding, which is so exciting! i just can't seem to see past it. which is probably not a bad thing. but for some reason, tonight i just want to make some kind of life-altering decision.

i am certain i'll be over it by the morning.

options: stay here.
go home.
study. here or home.

firstly, sort out where home is.

i have a life here. it's a life that i like. here is home.
melbourne is home. there are people in it that i love and miss.
brisbane might be fun.

pfffft I am going to bed.

secret: whimsy

my crazy sunday night: into town at 10pm. one beer which lasts til 11.30, one sneaky smoke outside, making faces and random chitchat with friendly pretty blonde quebecans who work with my housemate nic, leave the bar at 12.20am, cup of earl grey london fog from moguls, where the boys look at me like i'm an alien (or am i just projecting 'i'm an alien'? don't know), one bus ride home and a walk up a hill listening to john butler's "revolution".

subsequent whimsy occurs. or maybe i just enjoy the word subsequent.

i really miss my little brothers. i am aiming to stop missing people that aren't around. to be. or should i say, to Be.

i watched 'eat pray love' yesterday. i always watch or read things and get a head filled with ideas, travel plans, ways to Be ... like for instance, go to india and live in an ashram for a month. or several. or, to go to Bali and meet a hot foreign man with a strong nose (strong is a nice way to say big. i like big noses).

i would quite like to be a little more enlightened. for now i shall just accept my need to stare at the full moon on a cloudy night and wish i could play guitar like john butler.

secret: !!!?!??!?!

FUCK ME I WISH I WENT TO SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS

AND I WISH I WAS GOING TO BAR ETIQUETTE TONIGHT FOR MY FRIENDS' BIRTHDAY

I MISS MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS

BUT I AM NOT GOING BACK. SEE WHY?!!!?!?!?!