30pictureschallenge: Day 13

 Stayin' up late makin' mixtapes:

i haven't made one in a while, but i owe a few people some promises.

so many important moments and thoughts i've had lately seem to be scored to a soundtrack. simply put, music is one of my great loves. i think, when all is said and done, i'd be missing something and never knowing what it was, if music wasn't a thing.

making this mixtape, i am thinking a lot about the person it's for and how much i love and miss him. i am lucky to have some beautiful friends. it's just a constant heartbreak to live so far from the people that seem to really know you and get you. the treasure for me lately has been meeting more people close by who seem to maybe get me a little bit too.

but there are some special ones who i will love the rest of my life, and i hope to keep them in it, in some small way, shape or form.

here, i send out a mixtape, and what i want it to talk of is not only the love and the friendship, but also the will to insert a message through the songs of others far more talented than me to say that i want to be around, in the airwaves in the earbuds, as you go about your life and i imagine you in it. 

30pictureschallenge: Day 12

It is Sunday morning. I'm sitting in my comfy chair in my new room, looking at the work of settling in I did yesterday in a self-satisfied way.

The sun is shining in, there is peach tea and apple with yoghurt to munch quietly. I'm reading everything at once: feminist books, a smattering of chick-lit, the newest Frankie magazine, my favourite blogs that I haven't caught up with in a while.

It's my 28th birthday tomorrow. In an abstract way, 28 is something of a non-event birthday. My mum tells me 28 is the year of Saturn's return, or the year I become an adult. While I am at times skeptical of such pronouncements, this one actually feels about right. Things I want are becoming clearer and more specific, instead of the "I want everything" feeling from before. 

In a less abstract way, I wonder if I will wake up tomorrow with that little birthday zing I've had every birthday so far. A birthday is a birthday, after all. 

30pictureschallenge: Day 11

This one is just a very brief one on stationery.

I have gotten into a bit of a habit with collecting cards. I'm getting quite a good collection now. I tell myself that they're for backups, or for later, or for emergencies. There are many many awesome cards out there in the world- I like blank ones which can be sent 'just because', but if it's a cool graphic or a funny thing (in my rather loose concept of funny things) I will generally buy it and save it. For later.

I know I'm kidding myself- the reason I know this is because sometimes I like to get out the pile of cards I've purchased, still blank, still waiting to be scrawled on and sent off into the world, and just flick through them with a happy feeling in my heart. That's how I know they've become another thing I collect. 

In Brisbane this extended weekend I have found a few more to add to the collection. I'm going to try something different this time- I'm actually going to post at least one of these out into the world, because I bought it for a person in particular. 

What I'm hoping, by sharing this particular habit of mine with the greater Internet, is that someone might write back and tell me they're quietly doing the exact same thing. On the Internet, though- not a card. We're saving those.

30pictureschallenge: Day 10

I've never been very good at sharing a bed. That seems to me to be one of the crappy parts of being an adult, that you have to share your bed with someone who might steal your covers away, or sleep in a star shape while you struggle to hold in to your little bit of space.

Because I have so much trouble with sleeping, I am pretty damn particular about such things. Amongst the many wonderful things of singledom is the wonderful thing of having my bed to myself. 

I took this photo of the magical space that is the bed in the back of my awesome van, Maude the Mazda. On account of the amount of whiskey I needed to drink to deal with Tony Abbott becoming Australia's Prime Minister, I was unable to drive home on election night (this wasn't an accidental thing, let the record show). I parked my lovely Maudie outside Paddy's house on a flat spot and had a little sleepover. 

I'd recently added a few important elements to the bed- the multicoloured rug was a score from an op-shop, as was the lacy pillowslip. It is my intention to furnish Maude with floral sheets as soon as possible, and maybe a little spot to secure my book, notepad and pen so they do not disappear into the bedding.

That bed is one of my particular favourites. In the morning, the sun comes through the pink curtains and gives everything that rose-coloured wonder that on this particular morning was quite perpendicular to the Australian political situation. When you awake, well-rested despite (or perhaps due to) the amount of whiskey imbibed, and you are in a warm rosy world, you are able to feel a little joy in your heart. Fact.