one foot down the rabbit hole

In the background

2007-02-24T13:30:00.000+11:00

On Thursday evening I was waiting at Spencer Street Station (yes, Spencer Street, not Southern Cross) for my train. It wasn't arriving for about 10 minutes so I decided to go up and have a look at the Sock Shop to see if I could find any interesting stockings to add to my already monstrous collection that takes up an entire large drawer in my bedroom.

On Thursday I had been at work. Yes, work! I've managed to find myself a job, and a most fantastic job indeed.

I am a builder of giant puppets!

I think I must have the only job in the world where the large, pendulous boobs of a blue bunyip get in the way of me doing my work properly.

On this particular Thursday evening I was still wearing my work clothes. "Work clothes" are basically anything I can find that I don't mind getting paint and glue on, and are cool enough to withstand the heat in the large, un-insulated tin shed in Footscray that is the workshop. This Thursday's work clothes were a pair of fisherman pants, and a bright lime green t-shirt acquired from the time I was an Orientation Volunteer at Uni. Both clothes and me were adorned in a layer of dirt and sweat, my newest accessory.

In less long winded terms I was not looking (or smelling) my rosiest.

This Thursday was the Thursday that Channel 7 for some reason had decided that they were going to film inside The Sock Shop at Spencer Street Station. I don't know why, or for what, but they had cameras there. I didn't really notice them when I walked in, but suddenly it was me, the woman who worked there, and the Channel 7 crew inside the tiny shop.

The man behind the camera smiled slyly at me as I perused the wall covered in printed tights. The smile was one that said "why hello darling, don't you look just TERRIBLE today. What a shame you'll be featured in this cutting edge story about the rise of the sock trade we're showing on the next edition of Today Tonight.". At least, that's what his smile said to me. It could have just been a general friendly smile and an unfortunate facial defect made it seem otherwise.

I was somewhat alarmed at the cameras this particular Thursday. Thoughts immediately entered my head of all the people from high school who would turn on Channel 7 that night to recognise a very dirty and dishevelled me looking at striped stockings. I imagined them calling out to their high school boyfriends who they now live with in the same postcode as their parents, yelling from the lounge room "look, it's that Erica from high school! Hasn't she turned out horribly!".

These kinds of thoughts enter my mind quite often, most often when I'm at the supermarket and notice someone from my year level selecting tomatoes. The general response to this is for me to duck down behind the bananas, and slink slowly away from the produce section with my basket, hoping they don't notice me as I grab a head of broccoli on the way past.

In the supermarket you can hide. On television you can not. Did anyone see me? Was I featured in a story on Sunrise about places to shop in Melbourne? Did Kochie make an uncouth remark about the horrid looking girl in the background of the last shot? Did the woman he sits next to whose name I don't know laugh and scold him fondly for it? Or did I look so terrible that they decided they couldn't use any of the footage at all? I may never know...

Did anyone see me on television?

I hope not.

Things I was given money for whilst busking in Rundle Mall

2007-02-01T15:50:00.000+11:00

Having awesome shoes.

Having an acoustic guitar.

Playing John Denver.

Having a lovely smile.

Being from Melbourne.

Being actually able to hold a tune.

Being felt sorry for.

Being sunburnt. (They also offered me sunscreen)

SMS conversation with my mum

2007-02-01T13:36:00.000+11:00

Wednesday night, in Adelaide, some time around 10pm.

Mum, out of the blue: What have you been doing?

Erica, somewhat tipsy: Hi mum, i've busked in rundle mall, then explored the city. We have been watching an arty gig thing tonight and will probably do similar the rest of the week.

Mum, unguageable emotion: Sounds interesting.

Erica, somewhat drunk: It is.

Wheels

2007-01-29T11:55:00.000+11:00

I have begun to nudge some rather large wheels. In fact not just rather large, incredibly large. The very first, tiny step towards motion that could very well be the furthest motion my life has seen so far.

I never told you about my trip to Adelaide. Or the events leading up to that trip. All you received was that one tiny bit of information. That I was going to Adelaide. Those who read ericaordinary.com would have gleaned a little more, but not much.

Adelaide was a whim. His name is Rob, and I walked myself out onto a limb toward him that could have snapped at any time. It turns out that it didn't, and I arrived back in Melbourne on my feet. Not just on my feet: floating at least two off the ground.

Before the Friday night when I arrived we hadn't even kissed. We had thrown sticks at and flirted with each other on the lawn of the Treasury Gardens, and shared two very brief goodbye hugs. The final night he was in Melbourne we stood next to each other watching The Mountain Goats, and, although all I could think about was putting my arms around him, TimidErica took over. We simply stood, side by side, and I have never felt anything such as what was running through my arm when it brushed his.

Why did I choose a boy named Rob from Adelaide?

Because something was switched on inside me when we met. Something, now that I'm aware of it, if it were ever to leave I think I would feel emptier than I have ever felt before. I have found myself planning my months ahead to include his visits to Melbourne and mine to Adelaide, yet this Wednesday it will only be four weeks since we first met.

I have also found myself making a second trip to Adelaide, because the 15th of February is too far away to wait for him to visit Melbourne.

I've found myself peeking at jobs advertised in Adelaide on Seek whilst applying for those in Melbourne.

I've even found myself actually emailing off an application to one particular job in Adelaide. Originally curiosity; increasingly appetising.

And I have found myself tentatively researching business and music opportunities in the state of South Australia.

These are the kinds of things a boy named Rob from Adelaide can do to me. He uncovers wheels I never would have thought existed before three and a half weeks ago.

I'm scaring myself ever so slightly with possibility.

Can anyone give me advice?

Gone fishing

2007-01-12T02:21:00.000+11:00

I wasn't quite sure how to tell my mum so I just blurted it out at the dinner table. Just after slicing the very top of my little toe off on a folded up banana lounge belonging to my Aunt. We were all eating chickpea and corn enchilladas that my middle sister had made, and it was the first time I had sat down to dinner with my family in some months.

"I'm going to Adelaide for the weekend."
"You are? What for?"
"To see a guy who I kind of really like,"
"And yet another weekend goes by without cleaning out the garage...or the spare room..."

And thus was the reaction of my mother.

Is it crazy to travel ten and a half hours on the bus to Adelaide? Especially when the number of hours you have seen this person for are less than the number of hours you will be on the bus?

I will be back on Monday night.

There are so many butterflies in my stomach right now that I can't tell where they stop and I begin.

Hurry up my chimney baby!

2006-12-23T18:01:00.000+11:00

Merry Christmas everybody!

Santa Baby (right click and save target as to download)
Performed by Nayfn and Erica

(Christmas 2005)

Banana

2006-12-21T16:37:00.000+11:00

My mum and I have very different tastes. I walked around for quite some time yesterday trying to find an interesting, Melbourne made piece of jewellery for her Christmas present but instead came home with a dress for myself.

Today my middle sister and I went shopping together.

"Have you got anything for mum yet?" she asked.

"No... she was really hard to buy for," I replied.

It was then that we walked past Barbecues Galore and I had my Brilliant Idea.

"What about a new lounge chair for outside? That old wood one is all falling apart."

"Yes, that's a great idea!"

We walked into Barbecues Galore and found one outdoor banana lounge that was well out of our budget. Onward and downward to Kmart we went! It was there we found a perfect lounge, and after a telephone consultation with Dad carried it together to the registers, paid for it, and then carried it through the throngs of angry shoppers and to my car.

This was where our troubles started (if carrying a large lounge through big crowds in intense heat wasn't trouble enough). As you will remember, after the Camira died I bought a new car. Tyvvie is a lovely automobile, but she is very little. Bianca and I set the lounge down on the bitchumen of the car park and stood with our hands on our hips looking at the boot.

"How do we do this?" Bianca asked.

"I'm not exactly sure," I replied, trying to mentally rotate the image of the lounge and place it into the mental image of the inside of the car.

We opened the car, folded down the back seats, and then pushed the lounge into the boot. We pushed and pulled, this way and that, until we were able to get all but one leg inside the car.

"It's not working!" I called from my position at the back seat while Bianca pushed from outside the boot. "We'll have to fold the front seat down too."

I opened the front door and started winding the disc at the side of the passenger seat until it lay against the back seats. We resumed our pushing and pulling, and then suddenly all four legs were inside the car. Standing back, we wiped the sweat off our faces and admired our handywork.

"Erica..." Bianca said.

"Yes?"

"How am I supposed to get home now?"

"Oh..."

I realised.

"You'll have to take the bus..."

Why I went away...

2006-12-13T11:59:00.000+11:00

because I couldn't think of anything to write about.

because I wrote it all in emails and letters instead.

because my blog felt different with all these people around.

because I got tangled up in a South African boy and forgot about many other things.

because I thought I was falling in love and it scared me.

because he broke my heart.

because people keep telling me to write something.

because I ran out of stories I wanted to tell.

because I am not anonymous enough.

because it is my blog, and my outlet, and I need to decide when I write and when I don't.

Erica Ordinary

2006-10-23T15:15:00.000+10:00

I have been told.

That post below was not large or important enough to get across the information required, so I am making another one. I don't like using this blog as simply a marketing tool for myself, which is what it seems to have become of late, and that is why I made the short post in the first place. Other bloggers may be comfortable doing it, but not so much me. I suppose I'll just have to get used to it, seeing as there is nothing I can think of to write about instead.

Unfortunately I'm feeling very un-creative today, so here are the facts, said plain.

My "career" as a solo musician has been officially launched with some scrappy home-recorded demos, a website that makes me seem more professional than I really am, and an up and coming gig.

ericaordinary.com
Here is where you can find all the information you ever wanted to know about the odd girl named Erica Ordinary. There is a blog there too, if the sparsity of the posts on this one doesn't quite keep you satisfied. Let it be known, however, that Erica Ordinary is not as wholly me as you may think. She is me, but one side of me.

MySpace
This is where you can go if you're MySpace inclined, and be amazed at the amount of friends I've accumulated in the space of a week. I think I'm getting the hang of the place, which is slightly worrying...

Triple J Unearthed
If you feel like you really like my songs, and want to express that, you can vote for and review them on the Unearthed website. There's one review there by the awesome Nayf, and I'm sure more biased reviews by friends will help boost my popularity and make me the Next Big Thing. No, being serious, it would be awesome if you have the couple of minutes to register and then vote, even if my tracks are slightly dodgy home recordings.

OzSoundCheck
Again, another way to vote for me - except they use the rather dirty sounding term "crank". So if you want to crank me, then go ahead, I won't mind at all.

And finally, on Friday night I will be playing an unplugged set at the Nicholas Building. See ericaordinary.com for the details.

I'm really sorry about this post...and about all my posts of late. I'll start writing about proper things some time soon...at least I hope I will...

Subscribe to Erica Ordinary's mailing list:

Conjunctions

2006-10-19T13:00:00.000+10:00

So I found this girl. And she's a little like me. But I'm not sure what to do with her.

My heart

2006-10-15T21:40:00.000+10:00

I didn't even hear it break...

Who?

2006-10-09T01:49:00.000+10:00

I don't think I know who I am.

I always thought I did, and even prided myself on it. I am Independent, I would say. I am Grounded and Self Aware. Self Sufficient. Self Informed. But it's hard pretending to be all those things, so when somebody else comes along willing to share part of their life, it's such a relief to let them dictate who you will be today.

Then tomorrow comes and you realise it's your life after all and the holiday has to end. Time to build You up again layer by layer, until once again you are protected by your armour of lies.

I need to get a haircut this week. New haircut, new personality.

Bullseye

2006-10-06T10:50:00.000+10:00

Sometimes you have a bad week. It's like the universe stores up all its crap in its crap cannon, and then fires the whole stinking, festering load right at you. Not the rosiest of analogies, I know, although if you'd seen my tonsils in the mirror earlier this week you would have thought a cannon full of crap a quite attractive sight compared. I think the doctor summed them up best with "severely inflamed, pus in the tonsils, left more than right". That was noted in my file.

Of course the rain doesn't last forever, and sooner or later you emerge, cleaned of the residue (like when I washed my hair yesterday for the first time in a week), and nothing looks quite as bad as you thought it did. And the best remedy of all? A wonderful friend coming over unexpectedly to give you a hug and a book and make you feel one thousand times better. Thankyou.

To all those who are following along, things are not nearly as bad as my emotional and melodramatic self made out yesterday. And to those who are happy I'm posting again, yes, I know that these posts are nothing anyone is really very interested in. Although I may have the time to write, I still can't think of anything to write about.

Today

2006-10-05T17:33:00.000+10:00

As I was unlocking my car a man coming from the Special Centre nearby walked past me and said hello.

"Did you have a good day?" he asked.
"Yes thank you," I replied out of habit, "did you?"
"An excellent day!" he returned.

I sat down in my car and burst into tears.

What he said

2006-10-05T08:18:00.000+10:00

I know it's terrible to say this while you're sick...

Glandular Fever

2006-10-03T16:38:00.000+10:00

Yes, I know it's been a long long time. Work happened, life happened, then our internet disappeared for a couple of weeks, and blogging has been the last thing on my mind.

Turns out for the next few weeks I'm going to have infinite spare time for frivilous pursuits like blogging. I've just returned from the doctor's with a diagnosis of glandular fever. A cough of a few weeks became a sore throat on Saturday, and then by Monday was so painful I couldn't even swallow sips of water. I was given antibiotics for severe tonsilitis yesterday, had some blood taken, which today was confirmed as glandular fever.

And how wonderful it is indeed. I'm starving, but forcing down pureed fruits and soups is so painful it seems easier just to feel hungry, and I have to keep going to the sink to spit out saliva because I can't swallow it. Gross, I know, but that's pretty much what my past two days have been. To make things worse, it's quite likely that the heroic mouse spotting guy from the previous post has it too, which would be even worse than me getting it. He can't afford to get sick, I can.

Anyway, writing about this is making me upset which is in turn swelling my throat and making everything even more painful, so I'm going to go and wallow in my own misery and force down some more apple puree.

Mice

2006-08-31T10:59:00.000+10:00

I watched the tiny mouse as it scampered its way in and out of the stacked pallets at the bar. "How cute," I thought, and tried to follow its path from one side of the bar to the other. It was very small, and darted cheekily out of holes and between legs. No one saw the little thing but me, and I let it amuse me while I waited.

Later on that night, after a very enjoyable three course meal at the kind of restaurant that serves up wagyu beef, "smashed" salads, jerusalem artichoke crème brûlée and waiters who bow and use the phrase "very good Sir" when a wine is selected from the menu, I heard a small sound coming from the floor of my bedroom.

"What was that?" I whispered, peering over the side of the bed to try and see in the dark.

"I didn't hear anything," he replied, and I decided I was imagining things.

Another sound. Small things being knocked over. Scrabbling.

"What the fuck is that sound! There's something in here..."

"Probably not..." he said, but this time didn't look so convinced.

The blinds moved suddenly and rattled against the window.

"That's just the wind," he said.

"But I closed the window before!"

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

We sat in the dark and waited. The blinds moved again and suddenly, at the corner of the window where they didn't quite reach, something appeared.

"There! There!" I whispered frantically. "In the corner! Did you see it?"

"Yes! It's a little mouse."

"It looked huge to me...was it outside or inside? I really hope it was outside the window..."

"Inside," he laughed quietly and kept watching the corner, his eyes bright.

"What are you doing?" I asked as he sat, still staring.

"Waiting for it to come into the corner again,"

"How did a mouse get inside my bedroom? And I can't sleep in here! What if it climbs up the blanket into my bed while I'm sleeping!"

"Shhh."

We waited, and then all of a sudden it appeared in the corner again. It tried to run up the wall at the side of the window before falling down and running back the other way behind the blinds again. It made it about half a metre up the wall, and it didn't look very small to me. More rat than mouse. I'm not sure if he noticed I had retreated towards the back of the bed, farthest from the window. My previous thoughts of mice being cute were nowhere to be found.

"It's getting late, I really need to go home," he said as the rodent still made all manner of noise wandering around my bedroom.

"I know. There's no way I'm sleeping in here tonight. Should we turn on the light? I'm slightly scared to..."

"No, leave it off."

"Where are my jeans? They were here somewhere."

"You were wearing a skirt today,"

"I know, but my jeans are somewhere around here. I have to turn the light on."

The room lit up, but we saw no mouse. He went to examine behind the blinds, inside my wardrobe and behind my chest of drawers, but found nothing.

"Just so you know, my room has never attracted vermin before..." I said, laughing.

"I believe you," he returned the laugh. "I'm guessing you'll be tidying your room tomorrow."

We walked to the door, and I kissed him goodbye.

"Enjoy your sleep on the couch," he smiled.

Songs About Boys

2006-08-16T15:06:00.000+10:00

"It's coming - the world is doomed," said my Grandma in an overly dramatic voice as the news played a story about the current situation in Lebanon.
"Mum!" exclaimed my Aunt through lips glossy with Chinese takeaway grease, "don't say things like that!"
"It's true, I just know it is. The world is doomed. Doomed!" half chewed pieces of rice spattered from my Grandma's lips on that last syllable.

Some time later the news was over and the takeaway devoured, and the two had moved to sit on the couch in a post-feast lethargy. It was during a particuarly gloomy current affairs story that my Aunt started coughing uncontrollably.
"Vicki! Are you OK? Do you need to get yourself a glass of water?" my Grandma questioned.
"No it's the television," replied my Aunt, still coughing. "Watching depressing things does it to me. Change the channel please Erica."
"Yes change it Erica. This depressing news makes Vicki sick."

I stood up from where I was tuning my guitar and picked up the remote control from next to their empty plates on the coffee table. Flicking channels I came across Mary Poppins. I decided that would cure any ailments they were suffering due to depressing television and retreated back to my makeshift recording studio in the bathroom.

And it is now that I present you with some of the product of this makeshift recording studio! Featuring myself on clumsy guitar, overly-occa vocals and terrible but charming harmonica. Right click and save target as to download:

Aeroplanes
Telephones
Drive You Home

These particular three songs are each about a different boy, written at different points some time between late last year and late last week. Ten points if you can guess who. Actually, no, don't guess. Because certain readers will know, and could expose all my secrets in one foul hit!

So now I have decided I need a stage name for myself, separate from my band. I have come up with Little Miss Lovesick, but I think it would be much more exciting (and probably get a better result) if I put it to you to think of some suggestions. The winner will receive a drink at my first solo gig. For that is what I have decided to do with all these songs about boys I have been collecting.

To hear some of these songs live, and many more, come along to the Brunswick Hotel tomorrow night - we're rather desperate for a crowd too, as the other bands supposedly playing all pulled out. How embarrassing - especially on the night the most recent boy I have written a song about is coming to watch. So I shamelessly beg you all down to make it look like we are an awesomely popular band, and to give me people to look at other than this most recent boy, as I play the song about him.

I hope these downloads make up for the almost month I went without posting anything at all, but somehow I don't think they will. I'm sorry! Something better will be coming soon, I promise (to try my hardest at least).

Waiting...

2006-07-26T15:02:00.000+10:00

"Is there anything you can't do, Erica?"

2006-07-07T10:58:00.000+10:00

"Sure, there's plenty I can't do. I just avoid talking about those things."

It has now been over a month since my last shift at the hardware store. I'm still employed there, the building industry is just too quiet at the moment and they can't afford to pay me. Not when there are 18 year old girls they can use instead.

My last salary deposit into my bank was exactly one month ago; an amount of $100.16. For a month I have been living off that $100 (and sixteen cents, don't forget the sixteen cents), and whatever I happen to make selling scarves at markets. I do a lot of stuff for free. I do it because I love to do it, and because I hate to be doing nothing, and I wouldn't ever stop doing things for free. Unforunately, doing stuff for free doesn't make my $100 (and sixteen cents) magically double or even treble in size.

So here I am, putting out a call for help.

Do any of you valiant and hard working blog readers need someone with the kind of awesomely-amazing-super-hero-esque-multi-skillz that I am possessed with? Or know of anyone who does? I am incredibly versatile. In fact, if I were a super hero my alter ego would surely be named Versatila.

I really can do lots of things. And I'm good at them too.

I can design you stuff. Like posters, or websites, or business cards, or even t-shirts. And I could even print the t-shirts too. Or show you how to print them yourself. I can lay things out, I can take and retouch photos, I can prepare things for print and publish them on the web.

I could sing you something. Even an advertsing jingle. Really, I could.

I could write for you. Anything. Me write good. Real good. Scripts. Articles. Interview. Reviews. Stories. Bios. Brochures. If you want to see an example of my real good writing, because me write real good, email me and I'll give you a link to a secret.

I could lend my manual labour and skills with my hands to construct you something. Help you on a set. Help you sew stuff. Help you put something together.

I could teach. I have lots of experience teaching. Crafts, knitting, screen printing, even dancing and movement classes for kids. Or I could just babysit.

And if all else fails I'm great with customers and, unlike most salespeople, actually enjoy working in retail.

See, multi-skillz. I'd be the most versatile person you ever found.

If you don't really need my skillz, but can give me some advice on how to find people who do, email me. I've got no idea what the hell I'm doing, or where the hell I'm supposed to be looking, so maybe you can help.

One of my many skills will be on display tomorrow night too. My band are playing at The Brunswick Hotel again, and it's going to be a big night.

Another one of my many skills has gone on display. The fun and fabulous market I attend on Wednesday nights to sell my knitted wares now has a website. Go and check it out, and come down to Section 8. It's a really kooky bar, with lovely staff. Perhaps we can meet up and you can talk to me and my skillz about how we can serve your requirements.

See, multi-skillz. What more can I say?

Timing

2006-06-30T16:43:00.000+10:00

Good timing:

SMS received on arriving at our local library

Hey mate, was just looking out the window and saw u go past...Ur hubcap came off and it's now in my front yard! Good timing hey!

Bad timing:

SMS from someone I was just getting to know before they left to go overseas. Received whilst trying to navigate my car down a very busy Glenferrie Road, stuck behind a tram, crippling my opportunity to reply before their plane took off

Hey there, just about to leave sydney, so thought i'd send a quick msg. On to warmer climates for me. Hope your fingers and toes survive the cold! See ya soon!

Dancing With The Duds

2006-06-24T12:05:00.000+10:00

In Primary School, for a portion of the year, sport would involve dancing. There were the requisite line dances like The Nutbush and The Bus Stop and bush dances like Strip The Willow, and then there was Achy Breaky Heart. For weeks on end the whole of the year level would form a huge circle, take their partner's hands, and proceed to practice the footwork that belonged to Billy Ray Cyrus's grating tune. It was something of a combination between a line dance and a very slow six step swing, and you had to hold the sweaty, clammy hands of your partner the entire time.

In Primary School there are such things as boy and girl germs. Or cooties if you are American, which I am not. There was no rule set by teachers that you had to partner someone of the opposite sex, so everyone immediately rushed to their bestest friend, lest they be stuck with a complete loser.

Everyone but me that is. Well, I rushed to my bestest friend, but she had already rushed to another girl who used to hang out with us (who I hated because she was a scrag and SMOKED). Apparently I just wasn't cool enough. She was my best friend, only not so much in public. "You understand, Erica".

So it was that I got stuck with the biggest loser in the whole of the year level. He was fat, had red hair, goggle style glasses that he kept on his head with a big thick neoprene strap, and he snorted when he laughed. He was also rather thick, and nobody wanted to sit next to him in class because he smelled.

Now you might be calling me shallow, but remember. I wasn't much further up the loser food chain in Primary School, so I had to do all I could to survive. The same way my best friend ran to her other friend when it was time to choose partners. She was surviving.

And so it was, that I got stuck with the biggest loser in the whole of the year level.

I remember his hands being crusty with eczema, and his lumbering dancing style meant my toes were constantly being caught under his heavy feet. His grip was always limp and clammy: like holding two plump, slimy dead fish in my own little hands. I think I dreaded those sport classes even more than the normal sport classes where we were required to use balls and bats and other things that I was always hopeless at.

This morning I heard Achy Breaky Heart on the radio. It brought back a lot of memories.

Somewhere you will NOT be hearing Achy Breaky Heart is The Brunswick Hotel this Sunday at 8:30pm when my band, Eon Automatic, play their next gig. You may be forced to dance, but I can guarantee all the people in attendance will be ultra cool and awesome dancers. Come on down - it would be awesome to see you there!

Blame it on the moon (or Blood and Soup)

2006-06-22T00:06:00.000+10:00

I should have known that when my car didn't start this morning I was in store for a bad day. Things were reasonably smooth most of the morning. Even my job interview in the afternoon went well compared to what was to follow. I started off the day presentable and neat and I ended the day on the train covered in pumpkin soup, red wine and fluoro orange bandaids.

I blame it on winter solstice.

I arrived at my market tonight, a friend from school in tow. I had discovered her in the library. Another guy from school also turned up. A little later a very good friend came and we exclaimed about the bizzareness that my intervew had been for a job at the company she works for, and I hadn't even realised. She left, and another very good friend arrived unexpectedly.

It was then that I decided to trip myself up, fall, regain composure, and then fall again to slide spectacuarly across a nearby table, knocking beers down like bowling pins. The entire bar moved its collective gaze to my upturned self, and the only sound was the background music, the clinking of ice cubes in glasses, and my friends' hysterical laughter as I apologised profusely to several businessmen for spilling their drinks.

Several hours later I had gotten over that spill and the crowd had recycled itself*. It was then, while carrying a bowl of soup from the bar that was to be my dinner, that I stepped in a slight ditch and took a second, even more spectacular tumble. Pumpkin soup was airborne, scalding one of the other market girls, splashing two friends, and covering me. I stood, bewildered, and again began apologising profusely, my hands, legs, arms, face and jacket dripping with soup. It's amazing that there was more to cover anyone else.

I just stood, unsteady and flustered, the entire bar once again focussing collective attention on me. The market guy who calls me love pointed out I was bleeding, and in the most calm voice I have ever heard in my life escorted me first to the bar for antiseptic, and then to the bathroom to wash off the mingling blood and soup. The bar tender and security guard tended to me with bandaids and I regained enough control over myself to clean as much of the soup up as possible. Meanwhile, the market girl and her friends were in the next toilet cleaning themselves up, laughing rather hysterically.

After that I felt like I used to feel when I drank caffeine. The way I'd feel before a music performance at TAFE, when my nerves were at a high and the caffeine had made them even higher. I was shaky and unsteady, and felt like every time I moved I would wind up sprawled on the floor, covered in broken glass. Now I am feeling better. I think. I'm not quite sure. Being at home makes me feel much safer, because I know that if I fall over it'll be on familiar ground.

* the old crowd had left, and a new crowd had arrived to fill the gap

Holy Smokes!

2006-06-19T12:39:00.000+10:00

This morning I cracked an egg into the metal ring at the bottom of the frying pan. To my surprise there were two yolks. I've never cracked a twin yolk egg before. Leaving my breakfast to cook, I went to the computer to find some folklore about what a twin yolked egg might mean. I was hoping it would be good luck. Unfortunately I didn't find anything useful.

I returned back upstairs to check on my eggs and tomatoes, and discovered the kitchen and family room filled with a huge cloud of thick, white smoke. I sprinted madly to the stove. Nothing was burning in the pan. Instead it was our recently defective toaster; my toast had failed to pop up and was on fire.

"Oh no! My toast is on fire! On fire!" I exclaimed aloud, even though I was the only person home. I frantically popped the toaster manually, grabbed the two pieces of flaming bread with my bare hands, and ran, holding them in front of me, to the sink. I dumped them in there, and doused them with water.

The kitchen was now completely filled with smoke. It was actually hard to breathe. I opened some windows, held a tea towel over my mouth and nose to breathe through, and continued to cook my breakfast. I was hungry damnit! It took a good ten minutes for the smoke to dissipate enough for me to take the tea towel away, and by that stage my two egg and tomato non-mc-McMuffins were ready.

I thought I had better leave a note on the table, just in case someone came home and thought that the house had been on fire. I found an old envelope and a pen that hardly worked.

The house was not on fire. My toast didn't pop up and it burnt.

Now I am out of the house, but it seems the smell of smoke has come with me. On the train, a boy sitting near me even said to his Dad "when you were eating that pear before, I turned around this way and it smelled like pasta sauce". I'm pretty sure the pasta sauce smell was me.

And of course, I have a date later on tonight.

If you were going on a date with me which would you find crazier - greeting you carrying cones of yarn, or greeting you carrying the very strong smell of charcoaled toast?

I almost forgot! The delectable Hooch has a new blog. It's called the Humour Archive, and it's to help her get moving on her thesis. She's a very smart cookie who's just nuts about linguistics. Go and make some comments, and get her inspired to write!

Following Up

2006-06-19T00:12:00.000+10:00

#1: Waxxxing

The Beauty Salon was in the middle of a local shopping centre. I was running late. The elderly people who frequent this particular shopping centre were moving particuarly slowly, and I had to call on all of the coordination gods in existance to help me manoeuvre through them at high speed without causing any hip breaking spills. I slowed myself down just enough to enter the doors of the Salon in a calm, unfrazzled manner.

The girl who greeted me at the reception desk was cheery, and told me to take a seat and wait, as they were running a little behind with appointments. So I did. After about ten minutes a woman emerged, introduced herself and told me to follow her.

I wasn't so sure about the Salon's choice of uniforms.

They were wearing dark, ill fitting dresses that zipped up down the front, and the top half gave the impression of a sleeveless polar fleece vest. Much like those I imagine staff at Ray's Outdoors or Anaconda would wear. My waxer was also very matter-of-fact-but-still-well-groomed looking. It was more like she would be leading a group expedition to explore the caverns of my nether regions, not simply ridding them of hair.

She led me to a small room, where some intended-relaxational electronic music was playing, and told me she would wait outside while I "got ready". She closed the door and I panicked a little. Get ready? What was I actually supposed to do? What happened to the disposable underwear I read about in the brochure? Was there a disposable underwear dispenser somewhere I was supposed to find and utilise? Or was I just meant to take off my jeans and sit on the bed in my underpants?

I didn't have time to do more than remove my shoes and jeans when she knocked on the door asking if I was ready. I answered yes, and hoped that I was the "ready" she expected me to be. She came back in, and smiled, so I decided I had gotten ready the way I was supposed to.

The waxing part was actually quite relaxing. It was nice to lie down for a while, and have someone else do the work. Even if that work did involve spreading almost too hot wax on your body and then ripping it off along with thousands of hairs. Much easier and faster than DIY. Once she had finished my legs and bikini line she asked if I wanted her to do my eyebrows too, as she had a little extra time. I said why not, and she said excellent. And she did a marvellous job on them too. She was very thorough.

Once all the waxing was over, I went to stand up, and discovered the paper I was lying on on the bed was all stuck to the backs of my legs. You don't look very graceful trying to get up off a bed in your underpants, wrestling with a large sheet of paper at the same time. That was probably the most akward moment.

That and having to walk briskly through the crowded shopping centre with very very red eyebrows, avoiding peoples eyes. I made a note not to book in for my next wax on Pension Day.

#2: Broken Hearts

This comes as a request from Enny. She wanted to see photographic evidence of me expressing my heartbreak on my own primary school jumper.

And here it is!

See how sad the writing looks? And that broken heart I drew...
Kyle Sellers, if you Google your name, know that you broke my heart!

#3: Grog Blog!

I am no longer a Grog Blog virgin! I was going to upload some photographic evidence of the cherry popping moment, however I can't figure out how to get photos from my phone onto the computer. You'll just have to imagine the look of delight on my face.

So what went down at Grog Blog? Quite a lot, considering I didn't get home until 6:30 the next morning. The highlight of the evening had to be the surprising outbreaks of girly singing whilst closeted in a small room armed with only the most complicated remote you have ever seen, a dimmer switch, and some very very cheesy karaoke classics.

Coming in a close second was when I told the enigma known as Engles that I studied knitting, and ten minutes later he asked "so where do you study accupuncture?".

For a full roll call you are best to visit Russ's blog. He's much better at remembering names than I am it seems.

I am looking forward to much more Grog Blogging Goodness in the very near future.

#4: 123 I Love You

This is one of my favouritest blogs. He's begging for links. I don't normally give in to beggars this easily, but when they're as funny as this guy all I can do is oblige.

500

2006-06-09T23:42:00.000+10:00

Da-da-da-daaaa! Sound the fanfares, throw the confetti, One Foot Down the Rabbit Hole turns 500!

Yes, I can't believe I've been crapping on for a whole five hundred posts. And I can't believe that you have stayed around to let me do it for that long! If you're a reader, but have never commented before, I think now is your chance. Perhaps I could do a Shauny and conduct a census. Somehow I don't think I'll get 100 comments though.

When I first started this blog, all those years ago, I probably looked a little something like this:

Well, not exactly like that, because that photo was taken a year or two earlier at my year 12 formal, but it was the closest I had saved on my computer. Can't you just see the innocence simply pouring out of every pore?

Oh how things have changed...

Now I'm starring in bad beer ads!

No, not really. But with pots like that perhaps I should start. I'm in need of a new part time job...

The younger, innocent blogger in me was prone to long, rambling, poorly grammatically constructed posts. It's rather embarassing actually. I recommend you don't read archives before about 2005.

The innocent Erica had a habit of writing posts in an eternally happy, bubbly tone. Even when things were not going so well, she still natters about leg warmers and the moon, and then suddenly transcribes depressing song lyrics that hint how she is really feeling. Corrupted Erica just blurts everything out.

This blog has tracked my life for over three years now. From the naive, innocent Erica, to the confused and directionless Erica, and all the very significant events that followed.

There have been celebrity crushes and crushes from afar, as well as discussions and debates on men, anniversaries, dates, daydreams, frustration and cake.

I have talked about flashing and my breasts, as well as been mistaken for a porn star.

I have been clumsy, and uncoordinated, and hungover, and sleep deprived.

And there is my family. Here and there, and there and here. And here and here and here as well.

There is my childhood; dying and damper and Melbourne summers.

There has also been music.

And then there is the rain. I love the rain.

I think I should thank people. I should thank AJ for introducing me to blogging. All my friends (real life and internet) for their comments, and all those lurkers who don't say much but who I see in my stat counter. Won't you say hello?

Delays

2006-06-06T11:33:00.000+10:00

Unfortunately, the big writeup about my waxxxing experience will have to be put on hold. Yes, I know you're all disappointed and were really looking forward to hearing about my hair removal, but I'm currently buried under a mountain of yarn, trying to claw my way out.

But, if you'd like to hear the story in person, then perhaps you should come along to Eon Automatic's gig, this Thursday night. Yes, you really should.

This Thursday
Brunswick Hotel
140 Sydney Road, Brunswick
9:30pm until late

Take a break from all that study and have a night off. I really think you should do that!

Standard for me!

2006-05-31T10:48:00.000+10:00

These sex and the city style posts are creating some great comments!

(I confess, my post count is almost at 500, so I'm finding any excuse to post and make it to 500 for a special "best of Erica" post to celebrate. That's why you're getting post-fulls of nothing and too many words)

So I thought today I would talk about waxxxing. Not waxxxing lyrical, as I often enjoy doing, but waxxxing that unsightly body hair.

Do you like the way I'm spelling waxxxing with xxx? I thought you would. I've seen all the trendy salons spelling it that way. All class.

I've always been partial to DIY when it comes to my beauty regime. Dyeing and even cutting my own hair, as well as waxing my own self. And yes, that does include my own bikini line. I'm a crazy girl. There is usually hesitation as I sit with the strip on tender areas, before psyching myself up to pull it off by talking aloud to myself.
"Ok Erica, ready? You have to do it. Come on. Ready? 1...2... Are you ready? Let's do it. Let's go. 1...2... You can do it. Once it's off it'll be fine. Come on. Ready? 1...2...3!"

As you can see, it can take me rather a long time to actually finish waxing myself. That time is something I don't have much of at the moment, so I decided that I would let a professional handle it this time.

After consulting with my sister about where she goes to get her eyebrows waxed, she dug up a brochure covered in some kind of leaked, greasy moisturiser. I held it away from myself and dialed the number on the front.

"Hello, Angela speaking," a woman's voice answered.
"Oh hello," I replied. "I'd like to book in for a leg and bikini wax please."
...extended silence...
"Er...I think you have the wrong number," Angela said finally.
"Oh...sorry...thanks!" I very quickly hung up the phone.

I took another look at the number. I was sure I'd dialled it right. I decided to try again, and if Angela answered once more I would just hang up the phone.

"Good morning, Beauty Salon! Tiffany speaking!" Tiffany sounded exactly as I have always imagined a beauty salon receptionist to sound.
"Hi, I'd like to book in for a leg and bikini wax please."
"Most certainly! What time would you like to come in?"
"Tomorrow morning, if that suits?"
"Of course! We have a spot at 9:30. Now, have you had any treatments with us before?"
"No, this is my first time." I immediately wished I'd chosen different words.
"Not a problem! I'll just have to take down your name and a contact number for our records then!"

I gave her my details and could hear her fake nails tapping away on the computer keyboard.

"Now, do you usually have a standard, extended or Brazillian bikini wax?"

Standard? Extended? Brazillian? I know what Brazillian entails, and didn't want one of those. I tried it once at home when I was bored and it wasn't my cup of tea. But what was an "extended" bikini wax? And how did it differ to "standard"?

"Standard for me!" I blurted out, and then couldn't believe I'd used the phrase "for me".
"Not a problem Erica! We'll see you at 9:30 tomorrow morning for a leg and standard bikini wax! Bye bye now!"

I hung up the phone and and wrote the appointment time in my diary.

The brochure says they provide you with disposable underwear for your hygeine and protection. Look forward to an exciting post tomorrow about the experience!

S-S-S-Ohhhh-Ohhhh-Ohhhh-S-S-S

2006-05-29T16:45:00.000+10:00

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?

Since when has analysing each and every move I could possibly make with regards to "dating" ever worried me before?

Actually, I know since when. Since someone told me that there are "rules". Rules of when you should call. How long you should wait to call. How often you should call. Whether you should SMS instead. What you should say. How many smileys you should use. What you should do if they don't reply.

What are these rules exactly? Can someone explain them? How do I stop from appearing some kind of clingy freakwoman? An over enthusiastic SMS-er? An unwanted caller?

I liked my old strategy better. You feel like calling, then you call. You feel like SMSing, then you SMS. You don't analyse every single syllable of replies (or lack thereof if that happens) until you are trying to work out whether the open mouthed smiley meant they liked you more than a closed mouth smiley. And you don't hesitate, your finger over the "call" button on your phone, wondering if enough days have passed since you last pressed it.

Help. Anyone?

When doves cry (and shoot purple light from their ears)

2006-05-27T22:21:00.000+10:00

I was sitting on the couch tonight wondering what to do with my evening when I noticed a video on our coffee table. I picked it up and Prince's dark eyes looked back at me from the cover.

Someone in my family had hired Purple Rain.

If the purple cover and saucy images of Prince on a motorcycle, Prince in a steamy embrace and Prince punching the air weren't enough to make me want to dedicate my Saturday night to it, there was the blurb. Oh the blurb. The adjectives were thrown fast and furious causing my head to spin right off my neck and fly up into the sky, beams of purple light shooting out of my ears.

"urgent, explosive feature debut"
"richly-human story of survival and triumph"
"startling, brooding presence of...Prince"
"passionate"
"pulsating"
"lightning guitar riffs and flash-fire vocals"
"smouldering anger"
"steamy love for sultry Apollonia Kotero" (Apollonia! Her name was Apollonia!)
"turbulent, gutsy film"
"sizzles, seethes and rocks"
"hot-blooded"
"electrifying"
"exhilarating"

If your head is not now spinning off your shoulders and your ears shooting beams of purple light after all that explosive language, then it should at least be throbbing just a little bit.

I have to say, that Purple Rain was one of those classic so-bad-it's-completely-fantastic movies. It had it all. A cheesy 80s soundtrack of the best blue vein variety, inter-band fights because Prince wouldn't consider playing "the girls'" new song, band-2-band fights over Apollonia and which band should keep the gig at the club filled with 80s extras, steamy sex scenes (to which my dad, who was in the same room at the time sitting on his laptop with giant headphones on most likely editing one of his home movies, paid absolutely no attention to, not even when Prince's hand was all but down Apollonia's teeny tiny underpants), the worst one-liners you have ever heard, and even worse acting than that, and absolutely brilliant choreographed dance moves. My sister wants to learn one of the routines. I think I will get her to teach me too. The dodgy Blockbuster VHS made the experience all the more authentic, with the slightly out of tune soundtrack and occasionally jumpy visual.

All in all, I'd say watching Purple Rain was a good way to spend a Saturday evening. And I would possibly even do it again.

Now it's time for me to put on my own one-woman rock show in my loungeroom. I wonder if we have any puple light globes I can use...

Chip

2006-05-27T19:07:00.000+10:00

Last night I chipped my tooth on my microphone.

That was almost as stupid as the time I chipped a tooth eating spaghetti.

New friends

2006-05-25T00:40:00.000+10:00

Sometimes you meet people who you feel like you have known forever. You speak like long lost childhood friends, and there is no need to ask questions or create small talk. Conversation just happens like the steady trickle of calm creeks running faster to estuaries and then bursting out into open seas. You discover things you once wrote songs about are not so imagined anymore, and wishful diary entries not so far fetched.

And then, after the waves have subsided, you sit in your boat on the flat, glassy ocean and wonder if it there really was such a connection, or if all these people you meet are just simply being polite, or are naturally friendly to everyone and you're nothing special, or if they are just looking for sex or some kind of favour.

I don't like when my boat arrives there.

Dates and yarn

2006-05-18T15:04:00.000+10:00

"Oh dear," I said to everyone and no one in particular all at the same time. "I'm going on a date after school today and I have to go this afternoon to buy yarn. I don't want to take cones of yarn on a date with me!"
"Can you leave them at school and pick them up the next time you come in?" suggested one of the girls in my class.
"I need the yarn for the weekend."
"Damn."
"Maybe I could put it in a plastic bag, and hide it somewhere inconspicuous just outside the school car park. So that way it won't be locked in when school closes at 9 and then I could pick it up when I'm leaving to go home again." I considered, weighing up the pros and cons of this option.

"Leave it at the supermarket!" piped up one of the other girls.
"The supermarket?"
"I always leave my folios and stuff at the information desk at the supermarket when I do my shopping. Just ask them if you can leave your yarn there."
"But that's shopping!" I laughed. "So what, I'm supposed to leave my yarn at the supermarket, go off on my date, and then come back like five hours later to pick it up? What time is the supermarket even open until?"
"Probably 11 or something."
"Hmmm..." I wasn't sure if this were a better or worse option than hiding it in the bushes.
"I'm thinking up ideas like this all the time," my classmate mused cheerfully.
"I think I'll just take my yarn with me," I decided, and returned to the gigantic cable I was attempting to knit on the knitting machine.

The Night Rider

2006-05-14T16:05:00.000+10:00

I stood in the line for the Night Rider while tired looking punks with black nails and studded leather gloves used their mere appearance to slowly push their way in front of some skinny young boys in striped shirts and distressed jeans. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the distinctive curly red hair of a guy I went to high school with, who I have spent my post year 12 years avoiding around my small suburb.

Oh God. Don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact, my brain repeated over and over. I tried to look as little like myself as possible, my eyes staring in the opposite direction. It didn't help. He looked at me, nay peered at me, leaning forward across the crowd so his face was no more than a metre away from mine, before saying "Erica?"
"Oh, er, hello", I replied, still listening to my brain's no eye contact instructions and remembering the stories my friend told me about how this guy stands in front of the mirror at the gym working out, watching his muscles rippling in the reflection.
"Have you been out tonight?" he asked, coming to stand next to me.
(No, I just catch the Night Rider at 4am in the city for fun...) "Yes, to a party." I replied.
"Cool man. I just met up with my brother and we hung out. (Background info: His twin brother was expelled from our school in year 9 for dealing drugs. He also used to wait for my youngest sister in primary school and then chase her, crying her eyes out in terror, to our car where mum would pick us up after school.) So what are you doing with yourself now?"
"I'm studying textiles. Knitting."

(Note that I was doing my best NOT to initiate more conversation. He continued it all by himself)

"Oh yeah, knitting, cool man. I'm doing some media stuff at the moment. Just trying to break into the industry." He did that slow nod people do when they realise there is an akward silence coming. I was remembering the other stories my friend told me about how his main goal in life is to find himself a super hot chick. I was now thankful that I hadn't put any makeup on that night.

The silence stretched between us, until he snapped it by getting onto the bus. I hung back, letting a second group of punks saunter in front of me in the line, lest I have to sit with him the whole ride home. I got off the bus a stop early as well, adding a kilometre to my already 2 kilometre long walk, just to avoid potentially having to travel part of it with him.

Instead I walked some of the way with a couple of drunken idiots in front of me who had also left the night rider, until they turned around and realised someone was following.

"Oh hello, did you get off the bus too?" asked the first drunken idiot.
"Yes," I replied
"Where did you go tonight?" asked drunken idiot number two.
"To a party,"
"You have funny shoes," observed drunken idiot number one.
"Why thankyou," I replied.
"And you walk funny," he continued.
"She's drunk, that's why!" shouted drunken idiot number two.
"Nope," I said.
"You're not?" said drunken idiot number one.
"Nope."

Thankfully they turned down the next street and I kept walking straight. They were harmless, but their banter unwanted.

Just a little heads up, the website for my business/modest fashion label is FINALLY up and running. You can visit it at www.littleblacksheep.com.au. It'd be awesome if you came and visted me at a market one day for a chat!

Joyeux anniversaire!

2006-05-06T11:17:00.000+10:00

"Tu est charmant," whispered the French boy.
"Je voudrais un kilo d'haricot vert, s'il vous plaît," I replied in by best, most seductive French accent.

Translation:
He- "You are charming"
Me - "I would like one kilo of green beans, please (formal pronoun form)"

If only we had learnt practical things when I studied French.

Today is my birthday! Last night were birthday celebrations for myself and Eug, whose birthday was on Wednesday. I drank wine, enjoyed my first ever tequila shot, and improved my French skills (both the language and the style of kissing).

I have spent the morning of my birthday avoiding our kitchen, as we have had a rat incident. We have had a rat living right underneath our kitchen cupboards, which no one has been able to get to to get rid of it. Recently Dad put some ratsack down, and over the last week or so there has been an incresingly terrible smell coming from near the dishwasher. Dad had to dismantle part of the kitchen cupboards to find the carcass, and when he did came running down the stairs muttering "dirty rat. Yuck! Dirty rat!"

Still, I think that a dead rat is better than getting stung on the behind by a wasp.

Crushes from afar part III

2006-04-17T17:52:00.000+10:00

Part I
Part II

In grade six I was utterly infatuated with one particular boy in my class. Unfortunately, he just happened to be the most popular boy in my year level. He was cute, and oh so cool, and he was the school captain. I on the other hand was probably the closest you could get to being the biggest loser in my year level, without being one of those kids who had a permanent, lingering smell, or one so poor that they would bring nothing but half a loaf of Black and Gold brand white bread still in the bread bag every day for lunch.

This boy had it all. All except for the liking me back thing that is, which is just a little bit important. But that mattered not! The whole year of grade six was spent looking on lovingly as he gave his speech at Monday morning assembly, borrowing countless medicine balls and bat-tennis bats from the sports store when he was on duty there (even though I was a complete unco), and starting up conversations with him in class to which he would generally respond with "go away" or similar. I was bolder in those days. And stranger. Instead of the smelly kid, I would have been the one who blurted out odd things at random times to people who didn't want to be seen talking to me at all. No wonder he told me to go away.

On the very last day of school, when everyone was getting their grade six jumpers signed as a display of how many friends they had, I approached him and his equally popular yet not so good looking best friend and asked them both if they would sign it. The friend said no, but my heart fluttered when my crush took my jumper and black texta and wrote what I could only hope was a message of his secret love for me on the sleeve. "Thanks!" I said when he finished, and ran away clutching my jumper to my chest.

I didn't want to read his message straight away, or he would have seen and known that I liked him, so instead I got a few other people to write on my jumper, and then headed to a quiet corner to look at the spot I had made sure to memorise. That was when I saw that instead of the "I've always loved you" I had been hoping for, there was simply and devestatingly "PISS OFF". In big capital letters, just like that. I was so crushed, that I had to express it myself on my own jumper. I still have hanging in my wardrobe a signed grade six jumper with a tiny "You've broken my heart, Kyle" written on the cuff. It has a picture of a broken heart next to it.

Peekaboo!

2006-04-11T07:55:00.000+10:00

"Excuse me," said the forty-something man who had stopped at the end of the lane at the pool to rest, "but you've slipped out."
"Pardon?" I replied, looking blankly around and behind me, thinking I had somehow managed to swim underneath the lane barrier again, this time wearing goggles.
"You've slipped out," he repeated, and pointed at my chest.
I glanced down and was greeted by two nipples looking back up, seemingly very pleased with their escape from my bathers. "Oh my god...thankyou..." I said, shrinking down under the water, as if I could hide my exposure in the clear, cholrinated stuff. I hastily slipped them back inside my togs before tightening the strap around the back of my neck considerably. He smiled at me and swum off.

I can't decide if this was better or worse than the time I went down the Speed Slide at Wet'n'Wild in Queensland and stood up from the little pool at the bottom only to discover that I had "slipped out" in front of all the people young and old waiting for their friends and family to come down the slide...

Goggles

2006-04-05T11:12:00.000+10:00

Last night I went to 24-hour Kmart. I needed goggles and a swimming cap. Why? I hear you asking. Why would such an uncoordinated girl brave the rather scary hoodlum who was stalking her in the sports equipment aisle and lashing out violently at punching bags just to buy goggles and a swimming cap? Well to swim of course! As part of my "oh crap I'm sitting at a knitting machine all day and my back is getting sore!" exercise plan I have decided to start swimming in the mornings.

All charged up and excited, I made my way down to our local pool last Friday. I tried to time my visit at a very early time when there would be maximum old folks and minimum young squad training folks. Unfortunately I slept in. I tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as the two buff twenty-somethings stood stretching at the side of the pool, but I think I was doomed.

My first dilemma came with the lanes. There was the slow lane, the medium lane, the fast lane, the slow-medium lane and the medium-fast lane. Which was I to choose? How fast a swimmer would I be? What if I were too slow and someone crashed in to the back of me? What if I were too fast and crashed into the back of someone else?! I decided on medium, mainly because it was the least populated lane. Less people to collide with.

My second problem came with my lack of goggles. I have never been able to open my eyes under water, so I began to swim down the medium lane with my eyes squeezed shut. I tried to use the rope to guide me down the correct side of the lane, however I think I must be stronger on one side of my body than the other, and kept drifting.

At the end of one of my laps I turned around to rest at the wall for a few seconds, when I saw the sign "Fast Lane" up the other end. "Fast lane?! How did I end up in the fast lane?" I thought just as another man was finishing his lap. Unfortunately I thought it aloud, and he gave me a look that was somewhere between a smirk and an expression of "Freak!". I pretended not to notice him.

I also pretended that there were no lifeguards standing at the side of the pool, watching me flounder down the lane and then somehow pass UNDER the lane divider and into the adjacent lane. It was at that point I decided that I'd had enough blind swimming for the morning and headed off to the changerooms. I think I'd managed about six laps.

The changerooms were a whole new experience. How naked should one get in a changeroom? At high school there was always a gymnastic effort by everyone to change into their sports uniforms showing as little skin as possible. This included putting your T-shirt on over your school dress and then taking the dress off underneath.

In the pool changerooms however it was very much the opposite. Groups of old ladies stood completely starkers, chatting to each other as they would over a cup of tea in a garden. Young twenty-somethings wandered out of the showers not even wrapped in a towel. Mothers in the nude dried and dressed their children before dressing themselves. I didn't want to look like a prude, completely hiding myself whilst changing, but neither did I want to walk around in the nuddy. I think I found a comfortable balance.

So that, my friends, is the story of my trip to the pool, and why I needed goggles and a swimming cap. I tried them on when I got home from Kmart and stuck my head in the bathroom sink to test them out. I truly looked like a freak. They made the bottom half of my face, especially my lips, look disproportionately monstrous. Hopefully it will be a successful enough disguise so no one remembers me from last week's attempts at swimming.

Toe tapping

2006-03-30T21:15:00.000+11:00

My bright red shoes scuffed the ground in time to Van Morrisson's Gloria, keeping up with my bobbing head and slightly swinging hips. In my left hand I clutched my bag and bicycle helmet. In my right - the handle hanging from the ceiling of the tram. Of coure, only I could hear "G-L-O-R-I-A, Gloria!", as is the way with headphones. From the corner of my eye I watched a scruffily cute twenty-something student with big dark curls and checked pants walking his fingers through his CD wallet. One by one he flipped the sleeves over, and stop after stop more commuters climbed the two steps into the tram. As the doorway filled up I filed down until my red shoe was tapping next to Curly Hair's grey one.

"What are you listening to?"
"Van Morrisson," I looked up, Curly Hair's brown eyes were looking down at me. "You?"
"The Doors. I love Van Morrisson!"
"And I love The Doors!"
Curly Hair smiled.
"Where are you headed?" I paused my music and moved my headphones from my ears to my neck. He did the same.
"To Uni, I have to pay my fees."
"Ahh, the expensive stuff. I'm going to Uni as well - but I need to withdraw from some subjects."
"Which Uni?" Curly Hair moved to one of two nearby vacant seats, and gestured me over with a pat of the other seat.
"RMIT" I sat down opposite him.
"Me too - the line at The Hub is going to be so long."
"Tell me about it..."

We left the tram and merged with the crowd, following the green flashing man's instructions to cross the road, obeying the red man's commands to stop. On arriving at The Hub he joined the payment line, and I took my place at the end of the information line.

"I never even asked you your name"
"It's Erica."
"Sebstian. Nice to meet you."
"You too"
We bridged the gap between our lines to shake hands.
"What are you doing after you've withdrawn from subjects?" Sebastian asked.
"Not too much - what are you doing after you've paid your fees?"
"No plans. Want to have a coffee?"
"I'd love to."

Suddenly the tram lurched, and I tripped forward out of my daydream, slightly elbowing Curly Hair. "Sorry," I muttered, straightening myself up.
"No worries." he gave a small smile and turned back to his CD wallet.
I tried to sink back into my daydream but couldn't remember where I had left off.

This making up stories about strangers is not uncommon behaviour for me. For as long as I have memories, I have memories of my little fantasies. Even in prep, I would lie in bed thinking about whichever boy I had a crush on. I was a princess, passed out in a forest somewhere, and he would come riding up on his horse to rescue me and take me back to his castle where I would miraculously regain consciousness. It was very rare that I actually got to the castle part of my fantasies though. I would spend so much time imagining how it was I came to be unconscious in a forest, and how my crush came to be riding a horse through that forest, that I was asleep by the time he found me.

Am I strange?

There's always room for cake

2006-03-17T06:10:00.000+11:00

The ever philosophical AJ turned to me in the middle of a bowl of pasta at Pellegrini's and asked rather abruptly "What makes something a date?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what is it that makes going out somewhere with someone a date, as opposed to whatever it is when it isn't a date?"
"I'm not really sure. It depends. Are we on a date right now?" I tore a piece of bread and dipped it into my napoli sauce.
"No. This is...different. We're friends. It's not a date," he replied looking a little bewildered in his thoughts, "What about if someone rang and asked you what you were doing, and you told them that you were just about to get some lunch, and they asked if you wanted to get lunch together? Is that a date?"
"Well that depends. On whether the person was using the lunch as an excuse to lure the other person into a 'date'"
"Ahh, so they were being all smooth. But is it a date? I don't think it's a date."
"Maybe it depends how well you know a person. When I meet up with Luke for drinks after school that's not a date. Because we're friends."
"No, that's definately not a date."

By this stage we had finished our pasta, and ordered coffee. There was a handy mirror right in front of the bar along the wall where we were sitting, perfect for checking whether you had any orange tomato sauce stains on your chin or bits of basil between your teeth. I couldn't help thinking that if we were on a date it would come in very handy and possibly lower the chances of any embarassing moments later in the night. Nothing is worse than trying to concentrate on what the other person is saying but being distracted by the mesmerising and gross glob of parmesan cheese stuck to the side of their mouth.

"I don't think I like this dating stuff," I said, pouring a liberal amount of sugar into my coffee. "It's too confusing. I think that just going to a party and pashing someone is definately the way to go."
AJ laughed as he moved his chair to let a waiter past.
"Drunken pashing," I continued. "Once you've done that you've gotten over all the akwardness, and everything can just move on smoothly from there. Get drunk and just pash someone I say. And once you've already kissed them when you're drunk there's none of that first kiss akwardness." we stood up from our seats, turned around, and stepped the metre from the bar where we had been eating to the counter to pay for our meals.
"That's very true." AJ replied as he took his change from the waiter he had earlier in our meal dubbed the "Pasta Nazi".
"In fact, that will be my new strategy!" I flourished my hands dramatically and we left the tiny restaurant. "Where to now?"
"Well, we have about an hour to kill. We could find some cake."
"Can you fit cake in?"
"There's always room for cake!"
"That's so true! There IS always room for cake. In fact, THAT will be my new philosophy. There's always room for a little bit more of the good stuff."
"There's always room for cake!"

SMS

2006-03-13T15:03:00.000+11:00

beep beep, beep beep

I stopped working at my knitting machine and picked up my mobile, wondering who would be sending me an SMS at 2am.

hey erica if i buy a guitar would you teach me how to play it??

After reading the SMS I was still wondering, as it came from an unknown number. I ran through the list of people in my mind who might want to learn guitar, but couldn't think of anyone.

hi, i don't know that much guitar, but could teach you a few things i suppose. btw, who are you? i don't have your # in my phone.

i thought you said you had my number. look out your window and find out who i am...

My hand tightened around my phone, and I felt that icy numbness slowly tiptoeing its way down my spine to leave my body completely frozen, save for the pounding in my chest. I stood motionless for a full minute, until my legs somehow carried me to the door of my studio which I immediately shut and closeted myself in. Sinking to the ground, I wedged myself into the corner of the little room and tried to think rationally through the cloud of fear and dread that was rapidly engulfing me.

After several minutes of sitting in the corner I managed to coax up a thread of courage and re-opened the studio door to look out the loungeroom window for any strange cars or person shaped shadows. I crawled several metres along the carpet, and then stopped, hidden from view of the window by the liqour cabinet. Stretching my neck out from behind it I examined the dark street below, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.

who the fuck are you and why are you outside my window? you're really freaking me out.

I had shut myself up in my studio again and gone back to my phone. I then SMS'd another friend, who I had been speaking to on MSN about half an hour earlier, thinking (more like hoping with all my might) that it was him sending me SMS's from another person's phone, and not some freak I didn't know.

are you sending me SMS's from someone elses phone? i'm really freaked out right now.

no why?

someone whose number i don't have just sent me an sms asking for guitar lessons, and then said to look out my window to find out who they are. are you sure it's not you...

fuck! no not me, just someone being a knob. was there anyone outside?

i looked outside, but couldn't see anyone. fuck! what kind of idiot does this?

absolutely not me.

I sat in the corner of my studio, still chilled through with fear, waiting for some kind of reply from this unknown person but it never came. I crawled through the dark house to my sister's room, and knocked on the door to see if she was awake and if I could sleep on her floor. There was no answer so I continued on to my own bedroom and climbed shakily into bed.

On awaking the next morning there was a new message on my phone.

i can't believe you freaked out. it's only me, (insert name of friend's idiot ex boyfriend here).

Suddenly all my fear from the night before melted away into a big, boiling pool of anger, which is still simmering away right now. Anger that some idiotic person would send me sms's at 2am making me think they are outside my window, and then not telling me who they are until the next morning.

Breakfast BBQ

2006-03-04T18:55:00.000+11:00

"Dad, stop! STOP! Bits of tile are flying into my toast!" I was standing at one end of the kitchen attempting to make breakfast while Dad madly chiseled away tiles from the wall at the other.
"This is a construction site now, you shouldn't even be in here," he answered with his mischevious smile as I picked fragments of tile and grout out of the layer of honey on my toast, "You have to ask the foreman for permission to enter."
"And exactly who is the foreman of this construction site?"
"Me of course. I'm the only one qualified for a job like that."
"Well, foreman of the kitchen construction site, may I please enter and make myself breakfast?"
"Nope."
"Daaad! I'm hungry!"
"Well you should have gotten up earlier then."
"It's 7am! On a Sunday!"
"And I've been up since 6."
"Arrgh, Dad, can I please just make my toast?"
"Alright then, but this is going to cost you in time delays you know."
I began to spread honey on my second piece of toast when Dad started violently chipping away at the tiles again.
"DAD! STOP IT FOR JUST ONE MINUTE! I ONLY WANT TO MAKE MY TOAST!"

That was about a week ago. At that stage our oven and hotplates were still connected, and our kitchen sink's plughole actually led somewhere other than straight to the floor of the cupboard under the sink. Now we just have holes that you shouldn't absentmindedly pour a glass of water down, and no cooking facilities besides the microwave, electric wok and the BBQ.

I've been really missing eggs for breakfast. So much that I think tomorrow I will have to go out to the backyard and fire up the barbie at 7am. If the neigbours didn't already think I was strange, I'm sure that breakfast barbecueing will make their minds up for them. I do think that cooking eggs on the BBQ will be a lot more successful than in the electric wok though. I'd end up with odd shaped eggs indeed.

I'm really suffering cooking withdrawl at the moment, and hope that our brand new oven and hotplates are operational soon. There is a plus though - the new oven door will close properly (unlike our old oven), and the hotplates will hopefully have more settings than simply "burn" and "off" (unlike our old hotplates).

And I shall leave you with what my friend Nayfn once said:

"There are two things I will never understand. What you're supposed to do when you open the car bonnet, and when you open the oven door."

Cherry poppin'

2006-02-28T21:44:00.000+11:00

This year, it seems, is going to be the year for popping cherries. No, that doesn't mean I'm going to seek out young, innocent virgins to deflower. What I mean is it will be a year of firsts. A year of crossing things off my list of "never done's". So, who was the proud popper of my meme cherry? Why it was Enny! Congratulations! You win the prize! Streamers and balloons cascade from the ceiling and a fanfare plays!

Ahem.

The Five Things Meme

What were you doing ten years ago?
Ten years ago was the very beginning of my high school life. I was dreaming about finally throwing off the nerd shackles that had held me back in primary school and becoming the cool, popular person I had always wanted to be. Sadly that didn't quite pan out, so instead I spent the year hopelessly crushing on guys who didn't crush me back, trying to find a best friend who didn't make fun of me to raise her coolness factor by comparison, and wearing every colour jeans imaginable except for traditional blue.

What were you doing one year ago?
One year ago was the very beginning of my tertiary life. For the third time. I was sighing with bliss at the sight of the knitting studio, sighing with exasperation at the idiotic girls in my class asking their relentless idiotic questions, and sighing with contentment at the abundance of Lebanese food available in Brunswick.

Five snacks you enjoy:

Lebanese pizza wrapped up with salad (If you have never eaten Lebanese pizza before then get yourself down to Sydney Road, Brunswick and try some)
Custard tarts (I'm OBSESSED with custard at the moment...)
Bananas (They're portable and very convenient, much like myself!)
Home made hummus with freshly baked Turkish bread (hummus must be drizzled with excellent quality olive oil and sprinkled with cayenne pepper, Turkish bread must be warmed in the griller)
Exotic marinated olives (my favourite variety being Hungarian Chilli)

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
Being a (hack) singer, there are hundreds of songs I know all the lyrics to. I'll pick out some obscure ones for you.

Our National Anthem, both verses. The reason I know both verses is because my mum's work used to have a poster on their wall with the words on it, and I'd wander round the office singing it quietly to myself while waiting for her to finish work and take me home.
Part of Your World from Disney's The Little Mermaid. I have always loved singing this song, and always will. Especially the part that goes "But who cares? No big deal. I waaaaant moooooooooooooooooooooooooooore!". In a slightly related story, my sisters and I used to know every single word, songs and dialogue, to Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and would recite it from start to finish on car trips up to Parkes or Canberra for dancing competitions. Imagine how mum must have felt...
Dust by Bic Runga. A beautifully obscure B-Side of her's with an amazing modulating melody and very sparse accompaniment. In fact, I know every word to every song Bic has ever recorded, and how to play many of them on guitar, except for her new album. Those ones are being learned right now.
That's What Friends are For. Ugh. What a horrible, daggy song. It was the first song my ensemble group learnt when I was studying music part time at TAFE, and I hated every cheesy moment of it. "Keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me...for sure...that's...CRASH! BASH! SMASH! Thank goodness I destroyed that mental recording.
Deep Purple. Another incredibly daggy jazz standard with the most horrid melody you have ever heard. In the very short period of time I had singing lessons it was one of the songs I learnt, and my singing teacher would warble it out in her elderly lady soprano tones along with me.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
This won't be very interesting - I'm not really a money kind of person.

Buy a brand new semi-industrial knitting machine. Oh god how daggy that that was the first thing I thought of...
Buy a beautiful, new, expensive acoustic guitar, an amp, a PA, and all the CDs and DVDs I've ever wanted but haven't been able to afford
Go on a trip, Six Degrees style, to Europe, Egypt, Turkey, Morrocco, Africa, India...
Buy myself a house and a studio so I can finally move out!
Fund an album for my band and put the rest into my business

Five bad habits:

Being untidy
Picking scabs! Ew! But it's an obsession and I can't stop...
Impulse purchasing - like the nailpolish I went out and bought at 11pm the other night, because I had an uncontrollable urge to paint my nails a dark burgundy
Frowning when concentrating. Something which mum always tells me off about by saying "It may never happen Erica!" in her half mocking voice.
Drinking too much by myself

Five things you like doing:

Doing things with my hands - make of that what you will
Hanging out at night like a rebellious teenager in parks, on school playgrounds, on University campuses and at 24 hour Kmart with a particular friend of mine
Supermarket shopping at 2am
Hiring a whole heap of weekly DVDs and staying up all night to watch them by myself with a pot of rooibos tea
DVD nights with friends

Five things you would never wear, buy or get new again:

A denim jacket (I have owned several in my time)
A puffy, metallic quilted jacket (I owned one of these in the 90s too)
Skanky skin tight black pants with a big black bomber jacket, as seen on all the dirty-blonde skanks wandering the streets of Ringwood
Flowery leggings with a matching jumper, worn with blundstones and long socks scrunched down. Oh and don't forget the side ponytail with matching scrunchy. What a dag I was...
Anything baby blue, pastel purple or baby pink. ESPECIALLY if they are accompanied by anything black

The meme stuff:

Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot.

Random Concoction
Anyone Can Try Anything Twice
I Blogged Myself
Welcome to the Enny-Pen
One Foot Down the Rabbit Hole

Then select five people to tag:
Hmm, I don't really know too many people to tag, so if my list comes a bit short of five then I suppose you'll all just have to deal with that emotional trauma.

AJ - the obvious choice, as he is the one who got me started in blogging!
The Student - I know he'll HATE this tagging, and I just love to annoy him.
Any one of my friends over at onlycoolpplwho feels like doing this - that should hopefully bring my total up to five.

Blau

2006-02-23T19:49:00.000+11:00

"So this is a hangover..."
I groaned and adjusted my position on the train seat, trying to ignore the stale nightclub smell of the green jacket that was pillowing my head against the window. I was supposed to have woken up to take my car to the mechanic by 7am, however that plan was hit on the head like my snooze button and I didn't make it until 9:30.

"Hello, I have my car booked in for a service," I managed to get those words out and only sound moderately seedy.
"Ahhh... Are you sure you're not meant to be next door?"
"Er...maybe...no...I don't know...I think this was the place...my name is Erica," that kind of questioning was certain to become my undoing.
"Oh! Wow, you're all grown up Erica" the head mechanic looked me over, obviously remembering me accompanying Mum to drop the Camira off for servicing when it was the family car.

The train lurched around a particuarly brutal corner, and I started to regret the spanish omelette I'd eaten for breakfast at a cafe near the mechanic. I curled my body around my slowly churning stomach and closed my eyes behind my broken sunglasses, trying to sort out the fragments of information I remembered about the night before.

Stealing drink cards from behind the bar. I remembered that well. It fuelled the rest of the night's free drinking. A guy next to me told me to do it, and so I waited for the opportune moment, when all the bar staff were occupied elsewhere, and did. In truth, if I'd been told to jump off a bridge I probably would have done that too. Such was my state of recklessness. He got half the cards, and I got half, and he was never to be seen again.

The train stopped at a station, and I moved my legs to let a particuarly wide person out of the seats. The motion brought a new slosh inside my stomach, and the long deep breath I was holding came out again in a shudder. The wide passenger shuffled out of the seats, their back to me, and rear end wobbling hypnotically in front of my face. Rear ends. Arse grabbing competitions?

"Erica, you've grabbed the same guy's arse about five times now!" my friend laughed on the dance floor.
"What? No I haven't! I've been grabbing different people! I think I'm winning the competition, don't you?!" I continued dancing, the utterly terrible house music swirling around me, and reached for another guy's bum.
"That was the same guy AGAIN!"

The train trundled along, and I watched the graffiti travelling past through the window. The whizzing colours made my eyes go a little bit funny, so again I closed them and tried to concentrate on something other than the turbulence being navigated inside my gut. I remembered many names. Bruce. Someone kissed someone named Bruce. Did I kiss Bruce?

"I can't believe I kissed a guy named Bruce!" the slurred voice of my friend's sister came floating over from the back seat of the car. "And his name really was Bruce. I saw his driver's licence. Ohhhhhhh... His name was Bruce..."

The train pulled in to the next station, and I woozily gathered up my many belongings, crossed the platform and boarded the train on the other side. I found a vacant seat and sighed with relief as I resumed my curled up position against the window. There was a slight memory of marajuana skitting around my head, and I tried to grab hold of its tail and coax the rest of it out.

"Can I have a drag?" I reached drunkenly for my friend's sister's cigarette as we stood in the toilets.
"No! You don't want to smoke! It's bad for you. And there's no weed in it so there's no point." she held the cigarette away from my reach.
"Ohhhh, I'm bleeding!" a blonde girl cried out as she examined her leg.
"Oh no!" I turned my attention away from the tobacco and towards the blood. "Do you want a bandaid? I have one in my bag."
"Thanks," the blonde girl said as I handed her the bandaid. "I wish I had some weed!"
"I know," I agreed.
"I have a little plant growing in my backyard at home,"
"Do you think mum would notice if I planted a marajuana plant in our backyard?" I asked my friend's sister.
"Yeah, I think she'd know."
"Haha, I plan to use my plant for cooking. Mmm, hash brownies are the best." the blonde girl went on.
"Oh yes! You make hash butter from the weed, and then use that in the cooking." I had read about that on the internet once and was quite excited about being able to use the knowledge.
"I know! My friend has an awesome recipe for it!"
"Awesome!"

The train pulled in to my stop, and I stepped shakily out onto the station platform. I walked the five minutes to school, sat down in the knitting room and lay my head down on my jacket on the table.
"Are you sleeping?" asked a voice.
I looked up, and there she was, my nemesis, staring back at me.
"Mmmmm, no, just resting..."
"Ok." my nemesis went off to wander aimlessly around the classroom, using equipment for no reason.
I kept "resting", hoping that she had returned my book to the library.

Newfound Nemesis

2006-02-16T22:20:00.000+11:00

Yesterday a girl sat down next to me in my knitting class, and from the moment her denim mini-skirt clad bum touched the burgundy vinyl of the chair I knew that she was my nemesis. Don't ask me how I knew, for I have no answers. We can call it women's intuition. Or in this case knitter's intuition.

And, for once, it turns out it was right.

The first sign that my initial impression was accurate was her knitting-know-it-all attitude. Being a knitting-know-it-all is my thing! How dare she possess one of my defining traits. Unlike my nemesis, however, my knitting-know-it-all-ism comes from actually knowing things about knitting. She didn't really have much of a clue. Although she tried very hard. It was not in a "your daughter tried very hard at school this year so I'm giving her an A for effort" way, but it was definately in a very "you're such a tryhard knitting-know-it-all" way.

Secondly there was her Queen of the Knitting Room behaviour. I had turned up early to sit and eat lunch and avoid the noisy crowd in The Caf, and she too came early. How dare she come early! Coming early to knitting class is what I do each week. It's just my thing. While I ate my lunch and finished doing a little sewing, she swanned around the studio as though she owned the big yarn filled factory space, looking at all the new equipment and waiting for our teacher.

When our teacher finally arrived my nemesis continued her swanning, yet progressed from acting like Queen Bee of the Knitting Room to Special "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink We Have Secrets" Queen Bee Friend of the Teacher. Now how dare she act all chum bums with the teacher? I'm friendly with the knitting teacher. It's my thing! Too bad that the teacher wasn't so chummy bummy with my nemesis. I got the distinct vibe throughout the lesson that she didn't like her very much at all.

And then, if stealing my personality "things" wasn't enough, she went and stole one of my actual things! A library book called Knitwear in Fashion that I'd brought in to show the teacher, as she'd asked to see it. I put it on the desk in front of me, ready to show the teacher some time during class, so that we could ooh and ahh over it together. The book was on the table in front of me, and my nemesis just started looking through it while the teacher was explaining things, without even asking me. She then started ripping up bits of paper and marking pages with them, without even asking. And finally, at the end of the lesson she disappeared and the library book was nowhere to be seen. All the rest of the class were still there, and they hadn't taken the book. There was only one conclusion to reach. My nemesis stole it! Without even asking! And the teacher hadn't even had a chance to look at it!

Well we have another knitting class tomorrow morning, and my nemesis had better be there. And she'd better have my library book. Or else there will be violence. You don't want to come between me and my knitting, it can get very ugly. Knitting needles can be quite sharp when in the hands of a vengeful person - why do you think they have banned them on aeroplanes?

You're in!

2006-02-13T22:49:00.000+11:00

"Did you have a nice time out last night?" Mum asked me as she passed with an armload of washing. Carrying armloads of washing seems to inspire her to conversation.

"Yes, we ended up having fun," I replied from my position at the stove. The stove is not a good place to stand if you're wanting a bit of time to yourself and Mum is on the prowl and armed with washing baskets.

"So...did you..."

I knew exactly where this conversation was going.

"...meet anyone?"

Through a faint snort of laughter I answered no, and hoped for the end of that particular line of questioning.

"I'm only asking, Erica," she sounded annoyed.

"Well no, I didn't meet anyone. I don't go out to meet people. It's not like I'm one of those skanks who stands at a bar with the sole purpose of seeking out her prey and pouncing. I go out to have fun with my friends."

"So, what, are you going to stay single the rest of your life then?" she wasn't so much questioning as accusing me.

"What? No! Well, I mean, I'm not planning on that, although no one ever knows how life is going to turn out. It might just be that I am dealt that hand. And anyway, I meet plenty of people."

That last bit was a lie. I don't really meet that many people at all, however mum doesn't need to know that.

Mum's streak of conversation had run to an end, and she gave no verbal reply. That didn't mean I couldn't sense her thoughts from across the kitchen, flying at me from her narrowed eyes like little angry bees, their stingers erect, charging straight towards my vulnerable places like nostrils, ears and eyelids.

"Why don't you just go out and find yourself a boyfriend?"
"You're getting old, passing your prime."
"Your friends will stop liking you if you stay single the rest of your life."
"And why are you wearing those ridiculous orange leg warmers?"

Truth be told, I don't actually think mum wants me to find a boyfriend for my own happiness. She only want's an extra pair of strong arms around the house to help with tasks like moving heavy objects, mowing the lawn and helping with minor renovations. She is often commenting that I need to go out and find myself a man in the same conversations as those about needing Dad to get home from work and help her move the new oven.

So strong and handy men, it's Valentine's Day tomorrow. My Mum could use your muscle. I can guarantee that if you came over, moved the fridge to the centre of the lounge room and stuck a "Happy Valentine's" sticker on it Mum would love you forever. And everyone knows that once you're in with the parents you've got a good chance of winning the daughter. Parents have maximum exposure to their children. They can get you at the dinner table, in the toilet, in the bathroom, sitting watching television, out in the garden, relaxing on the couch...they can even sit in your room at night and try a little subliminal stuff whilst you're sleeping. They can work their persuasive powers to the bone until you finally cave.

"That Dave is a very nice guy..."

"So how has Dave been going?"

"You know, I've always liked Dave. I always thought he was very friendly."

"Have you seen Dave lately?"

"You know, Dave is studying law, he's a very smart guy."

"Perhaps Dave would like to come around for dinner, and maybe after we've eaten he can move the fridge out of the lounge room and back to the kitchen where it belongs. It's getting to be a little bit of a nuisance down there."

J.A.F.F.Y. (or just another f**king first year)

2006-02-08T17:51:00.000+11:00

Several months ago I signed up to be an Orientation Volunteer at my Uni. This involves helping all the first years adjust to their new life out of high school by serving them food and alcohol on Festival Day, serving them alcohol on O-Night, and taking them on a tour of the Uni to point out all the closest pubs. Well, we do a whole lot of other stuff as well, but the only thing first years are interested in is the alcohol.

Today I was one of about ten Orientation Volunteers who hosted a tour of the campus for Electroscience TAFE students. We walked collectively as a group to the TAFE building, our matching lime green t-shirts blazing beacons under the Melbourne summer sun. One larrikin student sitting on a wall outside the TAFE building even called out "The green army!" as we approached. Granted, we were following the Orientation Coordinator who was dressed in normal clothes, so I suppose we must have looked like his personal army, ready to conquer Building 56 with our super volunteering powers.

The 80 or so strong male dominated Electroscience group was divided up, and each host took their little group of students to begin tour-guiding. I was the last to be assigned a group, and ended up with the dregs - 6 slightly disinterested looking guys. I led them out of the building and about ten metres down the road, then turned around to tell the three faces behind me that we were going to start our tour at the library.

Wait, three faces?

"What happened to the rest of our group?"
"Er...I dunno...I think they walked off down there..."
"They did? Oh well, it looks like our tour's going to be a nice cosy one. You might as well tell me your names, I will hopefully be able to remember three."
"Mario"
"Fabrizio"
"Demitrios"

Actually their names weren't really Mario, Fabrizio or Demitrios, but they were something along those lines. Turns out even three names was too many for me to remember.

"Nice to meet you Mario, Fabrizio and Demitrios. Are you guys straight out of year 12? Follow me, there are plenty of pubs to see this way."

I led my straggling group on a winding path through the Uni buildings scattered haphazardly around the city, pointing out useful services such as the Womyn's Room and the Queer Lounge. They were particuarly uninterested in those places, but very interested in the gym and the soccer club.

After an hour of walking and friendly banter we concluded our tour, and I left my trio outside the Uni.

"See you later guys, I'll hopefully see you at O-Night, it'll be heaps of fun! Are you right to get back to the train station or wherever you need to go now?"
"Um...yeah...we have to go pay some fees...I think I remember where that was..."
"Do you want me to walk you back there?"
"No thanks...we'll find it...I think..."

I'm not sure this first tour was my best. But as they say, the only way is up from here.

I hope Solval really does solve all.

2006-02-06T22:09:00.000+11:00

Today I was called in to work. The reason being? One of the other hardware guys went home sick covered in a contagious rash. "Oh dear!" I said to the HR lady on the phone when she told me of the hardware guy's ailment, thinking of how uncomfortable he must be feeling, covered in this rash.
"That's exactly what I said," she replied gravely.

It wasn't until I arrived at work that the meaning of the words "contagious rash" really hit me.

"Is there a spare mobile around I can use?" I asked the hardware manager. There are two store mobiles that we carry around when working in hardware so that telephone calls can be transferred straight to us. They are robust phones, resistant to the throwing across the room that they endure as a result of stupid customers and their even stupider questions. Questions like "do you sell hardware?", "how much does paint cost?", "how long is a bolt?", "what time does the brothel around the corner close?"...

"Is there a spare mobile around I can use?"
"Yes, but it has to be disinfected," the hardware manager replied.

Disinfected? Disinfected!? What kind of rash was this? Suddenly I was a little scared to go near the paint counter, which is the usual hangout for this contagious hardware guy.

"His girlfriend had scarlet fever a few weeks ago, and he might have it too," continued the hardware manager.

Scarlet fever? Scarlet fever!? I thought that was a disease that went out with the plague. It's the disease that features in an extremely disturbing story I read in my childhood written from a toy rabbit's point of view. The rabbit gets incinerated at the end of the story - or it may have escaped the fire, I can't quite remember. My five year old grief was as gigantic as if it had been burned alive. For everyone knows toys are alive when you are five. That poor rabbit comforted the little girl while she was sick with scarlet fever - it was the only toy that did. And then they murdered it! How traumatic. I think my twenty one year old brain is still recovering.

For something that required every item of clothing and bedding and every toy that came into contact with an infected person to be burned, scarlet fever must be one nastily catching disease. I managed to avoid the paint counter completely for several hours, until a manager yelled out "Erica, can you take line 1!" from the front of the store. I was nearest the paint counter phone, and without thinking picked it up and put it to my ear.

"Oh no!" I realised, "This phone could be covered in scarlet fever germ carrying spittle!" I pulled the receiver away from my face and attempted to talk to the customer on the other end whilst keeping a 10cm distance between the infected object and my skin.

"No, we don't stock a product called Taubmans Sparkle Paint I'm sorry!" I shouted down the line. "Try one of the paint stores in the area, they'll have it!"

The customer replied with something that could have been "Thankyou for your help", but I couldn't tell. My ear was too far from the receiver.

Panicking, I ran to the toilets and scrubbed at my hands with Solval, and then my ear and cheek too. I then proceeded to disinfect the phone with eucalyptus spray and paper towel, holding onto the corner of the receiver as if it were a soiled nappy. After I was sure all germs on the phone were thoroughly murdered like the poor toy rabbit in that story, I pointed the eucalyptus spray can at my hands and coated them in the pungent stuff. Another scrub with Solval, and I decided my hands were free from any contagious germs.

At least, I hoped they were...

Unexpected

2006-02-05T17:05:00.000+11:00

Parents are dark horses. In fact, I have been discovering lately that everyone has their hidden sides ready to leap out from behind a door and jab you unexpectedly in the ribs.

But parents are the darkest of horses.

On Christmas morning I excitedly unwrapped the small box that I knew contained the blues harp I had chosen as my Christmas present from Mum and Dad.
"What is it!?" asked Dad as I removed the paper and opened the little blue case.
"A harmonica! Thanks Mum and Dad, how did you know?" my family always have the same joke on Christmas morning when we open presents picked out by ourselves.
"Oooh, let me have a look!" said Dad.

I passed it over, and he put it to his lips. My sisters and I, expecting a couple of errant blows through the reeds, were amazed when a lively, toe tapping rendition of "Oh Susannah" filled the lounge room. We sat, first stunned, and then laughing at this hidden talent of Dad's we had known nothing about.

It sometimes becomes all to easy to forget that your parents were once young and groovy.

My Mum was a middle class, PLC graduate, surfer chick in her youth. My Dad - a smiling, Sandy Tech graduate brickie. Mum told me once that Dad was nothing like the boys she was accustomed to hanging out with, and I got the feeling my grandparents didn't quite approve of him. It's very hard to think of my straight-laced mother as a wild, rebellious twenty-something who dated scallywag bricklayers and spent her days surfing and hanging out with her surfer friends on the beach. Yet it is so very cool.

These little hidden secrets my parents choose to disclose reveal glimmers of them as real, growing people, beyond the mother and father they are. The few stories they have told my sisters and I of their youth are both precious and bitter. They make me realise that the selves I see are very different to those they were at my age. Are they happy with the paths they have walked in life? Did they have dreams they will never see realised? Did they ever imagine that they would end up where they are now from where they started?

And the most important question of all, will I turn into them?

My sister gets hot

2006-02-02T22:54:00.000+11:00

"Erica, I was cleaning out the vegetable drawer before and thought I should make a salad for lunch tomorrow to use up some of the stuff in there."
"Yes..."
"And, well, you know how there were those red chillis sitting at the bottom of the vegetable drawer?"
"Yes....."
"I just started cutting one up, but then I thought I had better taste it to make sure I liked it."
"Yes......."
"And, so I ate a bit of it...and it was really hot...it burned!"
"What? Why the hell did you eat it?"
"Well because I didn't really know what it was, or how hot it would be!"
"But it was a chilli!"
"Yes, but I didn't really know that."

Interlude: I somehow manage to start sending webcam images to a friend on MSN without realising. Panic and laughter insues as I try to work out how to stop sending the webcam images.

"Erica, are the seeds of the chilli hottest?"
"Yes, they are"
"I think I ate some of them..."

I never counted anniversaries

2006-02-01T14:16:00.000+11:00

You know what I realised when I woke up this morning?

I realised that it was the 1st of February.

Isn't it funny how you can feel like you are completely over things, yet then when dates like the 1st of February come rolling around it becomes apparent that these days still matter. They don't matter or make me feel the way they used to, but still trick me into thinking about them and having feelings all the same.

Three years was a long time. Today would have made it four. Yet the only thing I miss? All the friends I can't see any more.

I drove to the shopping centre today in the hopes of running into someone I knew. All I found was a noisy crowd whose faces I didn't know. Instead of feeling calmed by my anonymity in the crowd of strangers the way I usually would, I just felt overwhelmed. I turned around and ran back through them to my car and just sat there for a while.

Shower-in-a-can

2006-01-31T18:11:00.000+11:00

I recently had a conversation with a friend about deoderant, of all things. He told me how he felt so cool when he first received a Lynx gift pack, yet didn't actually use it for about a year because he felt too akward about it. He then went on to explain that in his experience twenty-something males generally dislike the smell of Lynx deoderant because it reminds them of their akward teenage years. I was reminded by him of my own deoderant experiences. From way back when I was a blonde, long haired thing.

I felt so grown up and cool the day mum came home from the supermarket with a whole heap of roll-on deoderants that were on special and offered one to me. I was in primary school, and camp was coming up. Thoroughly excited about this, I packed my new roll-on deoderant into my toilet bag, along with my roll-on sunscreen and roll-on Aeroguard (the list of "things to bring" sent home from school said "no aerosols!", hence everthing being in roll-on form).

I was feeling so pleased with my new-found grown-up-ness, that when it came time for my cabin to dress the first morning of camp, I pulled my deoderant from my toiletries bag, and with a flourish began to apply it to my underarms. Unfortunately for me, the deoderant being cheap was also synonymous with it being a really crappy brand.

The comments from the other girls in my cabin (who were supposed to be my friends!) went along the lines of:
"Oh my god...what kind of deoderant are you using? That's like, the most uncool deoderant I've ever seen!"
"Did you get it from The Reject Shop?"
"It's not even anything like Impulse, hahaha"
"EVERYONE has to know about this, I'm going to tell them all at breakfast."

I was completely humiliated, and didn't take the deoderant out of my toiletries bag at all for the rest of the trip. The other girls smugly sprayed around their Impulse (ignoring the no aerosols rule!) and rubbed my dorky face in their coolness.

Once I hit high school, determined to fit in, I made mum buy me some Impulse. It was the big thing in year 7, and everyone would compare scents as we got changed after PE. I always thought the girls who knew that trick of spraying the scent into the lid and then waving it around in the air before smelling it were just the coolest. I never adopted that technique, as I didn't feel myself cool enough and worthy of it. Much the same way as my friend didn't feel himself cool enough for Lynx.

In year 7 nothing was cooler than a girl carrying around a can of Impulse. That all changed in year 8, however, when it was found out that Impulse tested their products on animals. Suddenly what was the biggest fashion trend became the biggest fashion taboo, and no one would bring their Impulse to school any more (although I'm sure everyone still kept it and used it at home). Australis replaced Impulse as what was hot in rank smelling body sprays, and you just weren't cool if you didn't keep some in your bag ready to spray yourself with every time you passed the lockers.

I'm sure everyone can remember the cloud that would form above the locker bays at high school, becoming more and more pungent as the different brands and scents of deoderant mixed and mingled in the air. And I'm sure everyone remembers at least one friend who was a compulsive sprayer. Someone so preoccupied with "not smelling" that they would have to make several detours each lunch time via the lockers so they could deoderise inside their school dress. I had several, and can still picture the perfectly choreographed and practiced way they would thrust the deoderant down the front of their dress, and give themselves a good spritz of sickly smelling freshness.

Dehydration

2006-01-27T18:21:00.000+11:00

There is a naked baby doll with a single tuft of red hair sprouting from its head straddling our kitchen tap. I have no idea what it is doing there, where it came from, or what its plans are. I can only guess that it is plotting its world domination as I type, or at the very least the take over of our household. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling it is also in league with all the other naked dolls hanging from our clothesline in interesting ways. There are things that happen in my house that I choose not to ask about.

I think I may be suffering from some kind of heat exhaustion. It is most likely all my own fault, however, as the only liquids I drank yesterday were wine and tea, and the only thing I've eaten today is an avocado and tomato sandwich. In fact, it's all my fault. I should stop complaining and get my dizzy self to the kitchen to find some dinner and guzzle down a litre or two of water.

I was finding my un-climate controlled house rather difficult to cope with today, so in a dehydrated daze I made my way down to the small dingy shopping centre near me. It is the kind of shopping centre frequented by senior citizens and screaming children, and whose department store jewel in its store directory crown is Harris Scarfe - the inbred, mutated cousin of Myer and David Jones.

I wandered lethargically past Vacuum Cleaner City, looked through the door at all the gaudy old lady clothes in Miller's Fashion Club and then stopped off at $2 More Or Less to buy a paper fan for $2, more or less. I then somehow found myself in Dimmeys looking at $4.99 ties (don't pay $19.99!) and contemplating buying a green one. I must have gotten distracted, because the next thing I knew I was outside the store with no purchases.

Dimmeys reminded me of some years ago when my Dad discovered the genius of both the store and those fandangled cargo pants with the zip off legs that were briefly in fashion. He came home from work one day full of glee and flourished a Dimmeys bag at my sisters and I.

"Look, look what I got! They're great! These pants zip off at the knee!" he pulled the pants out of the bag and demonstrated how the legs zipped off to become shorts.
"If you were a tradie working on a building site and got a bit hot you could just zip the legs off. Fantastic!"

After several more demonstrations of exactly how the pants legs zipped on and off, including some modelling, Dad turned his excited attention to praising all the bargains to be had at Dimmeys.

"There was so much great stuff at Dimmeys! I'm going back tomorrow to buy another three pairs of these pants - they were so cheap!"

My fondest memory of being in Dimmeys was when a little girl pulled a very large leopard print g-string out of an underwear bargain bin and said "Mummy, I want these bathers!"

If you are looking for something to do this Saturday night my band are playing yet another gig. This time at Ding Dong Lounge in the city. I have a feeling it's going to be quite a massive night, as it's Chinese New Year, so come on down and you can see me strutting around the stage in a short skirt singing songs which include such smutty lyrics as "I never masterbated to your picture late at night" and "when I find that man we're gonna get naked in my kitchen"!

Please forgive me for using sex to sell my band...our music is lots of fun too and there will be dancing, even if it's only by me.

You are certainly not a police man!

2006-01-25T21:10:00.000+11:00

Standing in line for the express registers at Coles this evening an old man made a beeline for my section of the queue. His eyes were staring with just that little hint of crazy in them - a gleam that could very easily and suddenly turn to a maniac twitch if provoked the right way.

"What gives you the right to park in that spot!" he bellowed at the compact asian girl in front of me, more an accusation than a question.
"Excuse me...!" she shouted back, and I was surprised at the powerful voice that emerged from such a small person.
"Are you disabled? What gives you the right!"
"Well excuse me! Did you even see me driving the car..."
"What gives you the right!"
"DID YOU SEE ME DRIVING THAT CAR? DID YOU?"

By this stage the two of them were shouting over the top of each other and interrupting to get their words out.

"No, but your friend was driving the car! What's wrong with her?!"
"Yes my friend was, and she has a disabled permit."
"BUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH HER?!"
"I AM NOT TELLING YOU THAT! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ASK ME THESE QUESTIONS, AND YOU ARE CERTAINLY NOT A POLICE MAN!"
"WELL FINE THEN!"

The crazy man strode forcefully and madly away, muttering to himself, his crazy eyes twitching and gleaming in the fluorescent lighting. I was the only person in line who found it amusing that when he turned round the "Police Academy" logo on his t-shirt came into full view.

I went to Coles to buy three specific ingredients. Burghul, roma tomatoes and broad beans. Do you think I could find ANY of these items? No siree. I then drove to Safeway, where I found the tomatoes, albeit such tiny ones I could have mistaken them for grape tomatoes. I then proceeded on to my favourite supermarket, MaxiFoods, but was still unable to find the burghul or broad beans. And by this stage I had purchased much more than I had intended from all three supermarkets, and decided I would attempt to make some stuffed vine leaves to take to an Australia Day BBQ tomorrow. That would have been all well and good if I had found some preserved vine leaves. It looks like I'll be creating a less exciting dish to share with friends tomorrow, unless someone has a grape vine growing in their backyard that I can come and steal leaves off tomorrow morning.

Makeover

2006-01-23T19:15:00.000+11:00

Yes, things look different. I was getting slightly bored of the old colours, as well as the slightly ridiculous text/background colour combination. At least now my regular readers will be less likely to hunt me down to pay the cost of their optometry bills.

Speaking of regular readers, who is my long time Canadian lurker? I see you in my stats and wish you'd say hi, either via comment or email. Same goes for all the other lurkers.

I have been dabbling in website designing since we first got the internet. I must have been in about year 8 or 9 at school when mum brought home a copy of HomeSite from her work. I gleefully set to work making a site named "Erica's Funny Foto Page", which featured lots of terribly embarassing photos of my friends and I. I uploaded it to Geocities and sent out the link to all of my friends, but unfortunately some of them weren't as enthused about the content as I was and asked for their photos to be taken down. Now where's the fun in that?

My biggest teenage web project by far was a personal site inspired by the web pages my younger sister used to like to visit and make. Needing a name that topped the brilliance of "Erica's Funny Foto Page", I searched deep inside my teenage brain and came up with...wait for it...Jelli Babi's Sugar Dome! It wasn't just a Sugar Page, a Sugar Castle, or even a Sugar Cube. No no, it was a Dome.

Jelli Babi's Sugar Dome v1.0 was a very pink affair. I went crazy with Paint Shop Pro, creating logos and icons themed around cakes, strawberries, lollies and cherries. It was a very interactive site, with plenty for visitors to see and do. Here are some snippets from the "things to do" page:

Got a sugary sweetheart? Need to say sorry? Then why not post a greeting on my site?
I know how much everyone loves quizzes so here's some super tasty ones in my Quiz-a-Rama.
What are you waiting for? My guestbook is waiting! Read the sugar coated messages and make sure you sign it!
Think your site is sugarific? Why not go in the running for a sweet site award?
Curious about what awards my site has won? Check out my sweet successes at the trophy dome. (and of course, what would a Sugar Dome be without its own trophy dome...)
Here's the bit where I thank all the sweet people who have helped me with this site.

I also went a little crazy with the font Curlz MT on the Dome, and each word or phrase that had anything to do with the word "sugar" got the bold, bring pink, Curlz MT treatment, as indicated by the bolded words above.

Jelli Babi's Sugar Dome v2.0 was a little less pink than v1.0, but still just as sickly sweet (and sugarific of course). I introduced a whole new concept to the world of teenage personal website browsing with this one. And that was Flavours. That's right kids, you could decide what mood you were in and choose a page theme to compliment it. The delicious flavours a visitor could select from were Bubble Candy, Fairy Dust, Golden Honey and Spookalicious. There was also a special limited edition Valentines Day Flavour.

I was so proud of the Sugar Dome that I gave the link to everyone I knew. That included my ex when we were still only in crush stage. He was a little freaked out (and possibly still slightly traumatised to this day) after being assaulted by pages and pages of pink and horribly cheesy language. I'm surprised he actually agreed to go out with me and didn't try to commit me to a home after that experience.

Ich bin heiß... mir ist heiß...

2006-01-20T11:00:00.000+11:00

Standing behind the counter of the hardware store I tried not to think how hot I was in our newly designed work shirt. The budget is obviously getting very tight, as these new polo tops are only 35% cotton, 65% polyester, and disgustingly sauna-like in Melbourne's muggy summer weather. I leaned on the counter and gave one of those woeful sighs of utterly exasperated boredom, and waited impatiently for a customer to come with something to purchase.

"Afternoon, how're ya going?" I asked in my lively work tone, with my usual toothy simle and just the right portion of occa in my accent when one finally arrived.
"Hot" he replied.
I was just about to comment on the uncomfortably warm weather when he cut me off.
"I mean, I'm feeling hot. Temperature wise. I didn't mean I thought I was hot looking. If that's what you're thinking, because I meant the weather is hot, not me..."
"No, no, I knew what you meant, and it really is too hot today," I tried to cheerfully counteract his extreme akwardness, and then realised I was possibly half insulting him by saying I hadn't thought he was hot looking.
He gave me an odd look and started up again.
"I mean, you might have thought I was hot, and that I was up myself for saying so, but I meant it was hot weather today."
"Yes, it's very humid today,"
"I'm not up myself or anything, if that's what you were thinking,"
"Haha, no, I knew what you meant. That comes to $23.45. Is this on credit?"
"Yes, credit please, and I did mean that the weather was hot, not me,"
"It's definately very hot today, I can't wait for the cool change to come through. There's your receipt, and I hope you can cool down this afternoon."
"Uh, thanks, I really don't think I'm hot looking - but if you do then that's OK. Bye..."
"See ya later."

Whilst still recovering from that conversation another customer arrived at the counter with a can of coke. I recognised him as a guy who's been trying to use up a $100 gift voucher for weeks now, but can't make up his mind on anything to buy. He handed me the can of coke worth $1.30 and a gift voucher for $47.20 and looked on expectantly. Before I could say anything another customer needed help with flyscreen, so I thankfully left one of the other register girls to deal with him. I'm not sure if she asked if he could pay for the coke with cash, or spent ten minutes writing out a new voucher for $45.90 in change. I know which option I would have chosen.

After cutting several lengths of flyscreen I returned to the counter only to be greeted by a creepy regular account customer who has a fascination with my chest.
"Afternoon," I said, and waited the required five seconds while his eyes rested on my bosom before he looked back up at my face.
"Hello."
"Excuse me, but could you please not stare at my chest when you greet me?"
"Oh, er..."

Actually I didn't say that. I wish I did though. Rewind to hello.

"Hello."
"Have you got a lot of work on today?" I asked.
"Oh, yes...you know...the usual amount," he always speaks in a very slow drawl
"Well hopefully you don't have to stay out in the heat for too long,"
"No. I won't be outside much."
"Well enjoy the cool of inside then," I handed him his copy of the invoice and walked over to put our copy in the designated basket. When I turned back around he was still standing at the counter.
"Goodbye Erica," his eyes travelled down once again.
"Have a nice afternoon," I said as I turned and hastily walked to another part of the counter.

Look at the time, I need to leave for another day of bliss at the hardware store...

*I forgot to add, if anyone's around the Brunswick area tomorrow (Saturday) night and feels in the mood for some funky toons then come along to Noise Bar on Albert Street where my band are playing and say hi.

Tabbouleh Injustice

2006-01-17T18:23:00.000+11:00

I want you to imagine. First I want you to imagine tabbouleh. I want you to think of all the little small bits it is made up of. The finely chopped parsley, the tiny grains of burghul, the itty bitty diced pieces of tomato. I also want you to imagine running very late for work. You are dashing around the kitchen trying to put food in containers, shoes on your feet and toast in your mouth.

Now I want you to slow your imagination down. Riiiight dooooooooooooooooooown. I want you to trip, I want the top container of tabbouleh to sail from your arms through the air, and I want your mouth to form the long, distorted and painfully drawn out "nooooooooooooooooooooo!" while the container hits the ground. The container is to bouce once in ultra slow motion, and then send its itty bitty chopped up contents tumbling like rice at a wedding down the carpeted stairs of your house.

Now I want you to imagine how it would feel to stare in disbelief at the spread of the mess, knowing you are supposed to be at work in 10 minutes. I want you to think about how hard it would be to try and clean up the finely chopped mess without having the brain capacity at 7:50am to think about using the vaccuum cleaner until half way through the job.

And finally I want you to realise that because the tabbouleh is now living a new life inside the vacuum you are going to have nothing to eat for lunch.

That was an unfortunate event of about a week ago. I'm planning on eating some tabbouleh among other Lebanese dishes for dinner tonight, and I plan for it to make it into my stomach.

To stall or not to stall

2006-01-17T05:03:00.000+11:00

Stalling is embarassing.

Stalling when you're not a learner, or even still on your P's is embarassing.

Getting flustered and stalling several times in a row while a line of cars is waiting behind you at an intersection is embarassing.

Getting the car going and then having to stop again because the road is no longer clear is embarassing.

Getting going and then having to stop several times in a row is embarassing.

Experiencing all of the above in one sitting at a busy intersection, at a busy time of day is embarassing.

Why haven't any of my friends come for a drive with me yet?

Warning, don't click in presence of boss or small children

2006-01-16T00:20:00.000+11:00

I recently received a rather strange email, sent to my band address. The subject title was "Question for u", and the body of the email went a little something like this:

Is this u?

http://www.abbywinters.com/main.php?page=profile&model=434

she is from melb. 21 years old and looks exactly like u.
if it is u do u have any more pix?

Actually that's exactly how it went. I copied and pasted. I apologise to the sender if they happen to have a bit of a thing for copyrights. It's obviously not all they have a thing for.

My first thought when I clicked the link was that the email was some elaborately concocted spam. But spam doesn't usually resemble you. And in a couple of the shots of Georgina I can see how someone could think we were one and the same person.

Especially if they had only seen pictures like this one

on my band website, and never actually met me in person.

Note the profile, which would be quite similar to my own if I were to write one. Except for the part about being a science student. I gave up all science subjects the moment they were no longer compulsary at high school. And all I remember of the years I did do science was making men out of potatoes and onions, with carrot or celery arms and legs and sultana or pea eyes. This was when we were studying genetics. Unfortunately I haven't ever seen anyone with sultanas for eyes or sticks of celery for arms, so I'm not exactly sure how relevant that exercise was to real life. Still, it was the best thing we ever did in science.

But back to this email. Note too, that I (Georgina) belong(s) to the "meaty lips" category. I'm not sure why this is notable, but you should note it anyway.

I like the way the writer of the email so casually asked if I had any more pictures. Just as if I kept a stash of leftover shots from the photo shoot to send out to anyone who sent a friendly email. I did reply to them on The Student's advice, telling them that unfortunately they had the wrong person but that Georgina was a spunk. Sadly I never got a reply back.

All jokes aside, I'm not so sure about the level of stalking that has been going on around my internet homes lately. First there was Mark Hunter's comment on this post, and now I'm being mistaken for naked people on adult websites. Perhaps it's about time I actually started closing the curtains on my bedroom windows...

Shotgun Wedding

2006-01-15T22:17:00.000+11:00

How very rude of me. My period of mourning for poor old Camira was ungraciously short. He hasn't even been put in his coffin and taken away in the big industrial Hearse that is a wrecking yard tow truck, and already I am making eyes at my brand new partner in crime.

Everybody, meet my new set of wheels. New wheels, this is everyone. She is a platinum glow coloured 1988 Nissan Pulsar who is ever so purdy.

And she is a manual.

I haven't driven a manual car since my licence test waaay back in 2002. It was about midnight when I first got the chance to actually drive this new automobile. I sat myself down in the front seat and tried to bring back all the sentences my driving instructor used to repeat over and over, each time using the exact same wording and inflection. Alas, all I could remember was his overly calm voice saying,
"Now we are going to turn right into your street. Start merging into that turning lane, you are allowed to drive over the patterned area...". That part of his advice wasn't really much help at all.

Putting my foot on the brake, I decided just to turn the ignition on and see what happened. The car lurched forwards and the engine made a strange noise, but it didn't start. I took my foot off the brake, the keys out of the ignition, and used the little green LED light on the end of my fandangled house key to peer around for any special buttons that might have needed to be pressed. There were none. It was only when I consulted the Nissan Pulsar Owners Manual that I realised the car had to be in neutral for it to start.

I stalled once driving out of my court, and then again a few metres past my court on a hill. The hill stall wasn't good. I never liked handbrake starts when I was learning, and now with very little manual car knowledge left in my head I was made to attempt one. I failed dismally, and instead decided to reverse back down the hill to start again from flat ground. An hour, several stalls, bunny hops and gear grinds later I returned home with feelings very reminiscent of when I was still a learner. At least I have a grasp of road rules now, even if the actual driving part isn't so crash hot.

My driving might suck right at the minute, but I'm confident I'll get better. At least my car looks purdy. The wooden ladybirds that adorned the dashboard of my Camira have now been moved into her, and all that remains is to transfer over my CD player and give her a name.

I don't know if blog readers could help with the CD player thing, but you can definately assist with the naming. I am stumped for ideas. Her number plate is "TYV", and I considered Tyvvie, but that's such a terrible, terrible name. So, any suggestions? Perhaps my regular lurkers will have some good ideas that will give them a nice ease into commenting!

you've mixed with some dame...

2006-01-13T10:42:00.000+11:00

First we gave you Something Cool for Christmas, and now Nayfn and I have returned with another track for your enjoyment.

This one is a compromise between modern funk and 60s soul, the arrangement inspired by two funkified ladies Lauryn Hill and Vassy K. Turn out the lights and immerse yourself in the rich blues of this track written and originally recorded by the sensual Lady Day.

Don't Explain (right click and save target as to download)
Nayfn - Keyboards and saxophone
Erica - Vocals and guitar
Words and Music by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog
Arranged and produced by Nayfn

RIP Shagen Wagen 1989 - 2006

2006-01-12T11:58:00.000+11:00

It seems the end has come for a very close friend of mine. Our relationship was a tumultuous one at best, but that doesn't stop me feeling surprisingly sad about the whole demise.

My time with the beloved Camira is over.

I inherited our old family car when I first received my big red P plates from Vic Roads back in 2002. I'm not exactly sure how I managed to pass my P's test seeing as I stalled several times, didn't comprehend until it was too late that turning right on a main road meant changing lanes, and cut off a car on my way back into the testing centre. Even my driving instructor wasn't very optimistic and prepared me for the worst while I was waiting for my results. But that is another story.

When I say I inherited the car, it wasn't exactly a passing down of the keys. The Camira had been sitting out the front of our house for years, not working well to begin with, but in even worse shape due to disuse. I just started one day to drive it around as a temporary thing, which turned into something more permanent as the months and then years wore on.

At first the car was a difficult thing to drive. If driving for a long period of time (a long period being more than 10 minutes), I wouldn't be able to come to a complete stop or else the thing would conk out. Approaching red lights I would slow down so much that I would be rolling down the road, hoping for the lights to change and the traffic to move before I reached the car in front. Passengers brave enough to travel in the wagon of death were treated to my cries of "come on, turn green, turn green, TURN GREEN! Go go GO!"

If I did have to stop, the Camira, which is an automatic, would shudder to a halt, the way a manual car does when it stalls. The only way to get going again when the lights turned green was to put him into neutral, press down hard on the accellerator, and then switch back into drive. This would mean taking off in a cloud of smoke, accompanied loudly by a screeching of tyres. Again another treat for my passengers who would have tears rolling down their face due to either hysterical laughter or absolute fear.

Eventually the conking out problem was fixed, but the poor car was plagued by a parade of little annoying ailments. It has always had a moisture leakage problem, and the inside was covered in mould until I cleaned it out with Big Kev's mould remover. Before that cleanout one of my friends described the Camira as "smelling like frogs". Eventually all the seals around the doors just fell off, and every time it rains heavily water comes in through the doors to soak the seats and floor. There was an unfortnate night when I parked at a cricket oval where they had sprinklers running, and my passenger door was right in the path of one of the jets of water. My trusted Melways was never the same after that waterlogging.

Other problems include disintegrating fuel hoses, power steering fluid hoses, oil hoses, water hoses and any other hoses that are required to make a car go. There were also dodgy batteries, a broken computer, a time when fuel was spurting out all over the road and a broken radiator pump. There has also always been a bung electrical connection that makes the "check engine" light flick on and off constantly while driving. That last one means I never really know if the engine actually needs checking or not.

Camira's current sickness is in the fairly newly replaced transmission, and it has been decided by all that this is it. I'll miss old Shaaagen Vaaagen's personality, his endearing way of breaking down in the very worst of places, the gigantic hole in his back door, and all the little wooden ladybirds that adorn his dashboard.

Even though I once wrote an angry song about you, and cursed your dodginess many times over, you'll always hold a big chunk of my heart and I'm going to miss you lots.

Bottus

2006-01-09T19:55:00.000+11:00

My mum has been cleaning out this big cupboard in her bedroom full of wrapping paper, old text books and childhood relics. She came upstairs with a few bits and pieces, and in her hand I saw Bottus.

Instantly, something inside me twanged at the sight of the little hand knitted bear I have owned for as long as I can remember, and I almost let a little of that salty water escape from my eyes. Mum started to go through the things in her hand, asking if we wanted to keep them.

"Yes," I replied when she got to my stuff in her pile. "And I want Bottus too."

Saying his name sounded so strange. I felt four again, like I had shrunk down to the little shy, blonde haired thing I used to be. It's such a stupid name too, which made me asking for him all the more childlike. Mum isn't sure why I named him Bottus, and I have no recollection of the day he was named. All I know of Bottus is that he has always just been Bottus.

As well as Bottus, mum found some amusing things that belonged to one of my sisters. Included in the collection was a marriage certificate that proclaimed her the wife of some random guy. Somewhere in the world could be a boy who doesn't know he's actually married to my sister. He could be living in sin with another woman, just like my sister is cheating on this husband with her boyfriend! Luckily my sister had printed the certificate off the internet many years ago on our old bubble jet. It could get very ugly indeed...

The nights when you don't sleep...

2006-01-06T01:40:00.000+11:00

I just realised that it's already the 6th of January and I haven't written anything about New Years resolutions. Perhaps that's because I haven't officially made any. In fact, I've never officially made any New Years resolutions. Ever! Here are a few more things I have never done.

Had a midnight pash on NYE.
Purposely shoplifted. Although I did accidently steal one of those tubes of Cadbury chocolate tabletty things once. You know how it is - you're at the supermarket with your mum, and you pick up a chocolate bar waiting for the right moment to ask her if you can have it. Except that moment never comes, and before you even realise you've walked out of the store with the chocolate in your hand. I distinctly remember sitting on my top bunk, guiltily eating the chocolate and hoping that mum wouldn't burst into my room and catch me in the act.
Been to church for something other than a family wedding, christening or funeral, or the times they made us all walk in procession from primary school to the church nearby at Easter and Christmas.
Seen the movie Pulp Fiction.
Eaten caviar.
Been to a cemetary. And wouldn't want to. Ghosts scare me, remember?
Broken a bone.
Been to a doctor for a "general checkup". I don't like going to the doctors. Much the same as I don't like ghosts.
Paid someone to wax me. The thought of some person waxing me gives me the same kind of uncomfortable vibes as the thought of going to see a doctor.
Opened my eyes under water.
Been naked in public or in the presence of a group of friends. There was one time when my bikini top came half off on one of the big water slides at Wet 'N' Wild in Queensland. I didn't realise I was hanging out until I stood up in the pool at the bottom of the slide and checked the position of my bathers. Unfortunately for me that slide was experiencing a busy moment, and there were quite a lot of people standing around the little pool at the bottom waiting for their friends and family to come down.
Called a radio station for any reason. I did dial the phone number for TTFM during their Pillow Talk show one night, but panicked and hung up after one ring. I was only in primary school, and I used to listen to the show in secret whilst lying in bed. I think mum knew.
Made any purchases from an adult store. Not even an inflatable penis as a joke birthday present, or a set of raunchy playing cards.
Watched an "adult film". Don't believe me? Well it's true.
Purchased an item of clothing from a surf shop. I'm very proud of this one.
And finally, I have never smoked a cigarette.

Any questions about the above, or about anything else I may or may not have done? Ask me via comments, or if you're a little too shy for doing it publicly then email me. I'm feeling generous in my insomnia tonight, so in a one time only offer I will answer anything you ask. I'm sure I'll regret saying that in the morning.

The Mega Mile

2006-01-05T01:27:00.000+11:00

My mum and I went to buy two rather large shelving units today, and took my car which is a station wagon. I haven't driven with mum as a passenger many times before. Even when I was a learner I avoided driving with her, preferring instead to pay for lessons with my non-blood-related driving instructor.

We got into the Camira and headed off to the Mega Mile, a colloquially named road that is home to an extremely densely packed stretch of furniture stores.
"What's that noise?" Mum asked referring to the rattle that has been coming from the passenger side of my car for the past few weeks. "I'm feeling very unsafe right now..." she added, one hand gripping the dashboard. "Erica, brake!"
"I am braking mum! My foot is on the brake pedal and is pressing down!"
"Yes, alright."

Once we arrived at the Mega Mile I had to try very hard not to be distracted by those air filled wiggling men out the front of many of the shops. I find their swaying bodies and waving arms very hypnotic, and am easily mesmerised. I was a little slow to take off from one red light, being too busy staring at one particuarly bendy man, and I think mum was very happy when we finally parked and left the car.

The drive home I was extra cautious, and travelled 5kms under the speed limit the whole way. It still didn't stop mum from discreetly grabbing the dashboard or pressing her feet into the floor of the car occasionally. I think I will be avoiding driving mum around anywhere in the future - it's just too stressful.

Twenty one year old tantrum

2006-01-03T19:32:00.000+11:00

This morning I threw a tantrum. A juvenile, pointless tantrum. I tried to slam my bedroom door, but instead of satisfyingly banging against the door frame, the wind caught it, and it shut slowly and quietly. I spun around, grabbed the handle, re-opened the door and closed it as hard as I could. I then threw some shoes, a couple of balls of yarn and a plastic bag full of dried eucalyptus leaves at my bedroom wall, chucked clothes all over the floor and collapsed face down onto my bed in a fit of hopeless, tearful rage.

I'm not going to tell you that the tantrum was all over a missing knitting machine instruction manual, because that will make me sound even more stupid and childish than just telling you I threw a tantrum. I will tell you, however, that the tantrum didn't make me feel any better, and just put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

My grandma staying with us at the moment has not made matters any better. This is the kind of thing that happens when Grandma comes to stay.

She is the biggest drama queen I think anyone could ever meet. Only five minutes ago my sister asked her how her dinner out with a friend was last night.
"A disaster!", she replied.
"We had to send the food back because it was raw," by this stage her tone had switched completely and she was sounding rather pleased with herself, "so they didn't charge us and gave us a lovely new meal for free."
The fact that she got a free meal was far from disastrous, and she then went on to talk about how nice their desserts were and the fun they had playing the Pokies. Still, she had to use the word disaster. I wouldn't have expected anything less.

Over-Forty Days

2005-12-31T16:21:00.000+11:00

42 degrees. That was the forecast for today. Forty-two freakin' degrees. Or 107.6 farenheit for all you crazy American folks still stuck in the imperial ages. Days with over-forty temperatures are days for doing nothing more than taking up a permanent space in a pool or in front of an icly efficient air conditioner.

Over-forty days are the days when school would be cancelled so hundreds of students weren't taken to the sick bay with heat stroke after spending a double period locked in one of those furnaces they call portables. They are days for eating mangoes, lapping up the wayward juice from your hands and catching it with your tongue as it runs between your fingers and down the inside of your wrist.

Over-forty days should be filled with the scents of sunscreen and cherries, and the heady fragrances of thyme and rosemary as the garden bakes under the sun. They are days for sucking on ice cubes or lemon icy poles in the backyard, sitting on banana lounges under the shade of a tree.

Over-forty days are days when newspapers held over a head and quickly constructed paper fans become the height of fasion. They are days for lying in wet bathers in front of the television watching the tennis, a rickety old pedestal fan ruffling drying hair.

Over-forty days are not for working.

All the power went off at about 10am at the hardware store. Registers in the shop and power saws in the timber yard were rendered useless. Sadly the power returned all too quickly. We hoped for more power failures which would mean closing early. The hardware boys cranked up the air conditioners to their maximum velocity, hoping for an overload, and I cranked up the Glam Rock on the store radio hoping the vibes would quicken the journey to power outage. It didn't work.

Not all was lost on this dry Melbourne summer's day. We did close early, at two instead of four, and after a very sweaty drive home in the un-airconditioned Camira I was out of my uniform and into the swimming pool to spend the rest of the day the way over-forty days should be spent.

Gladiators, ready!

2005-12-29T00:46:00.000+11:00

I remember one day in primary school my foot got stuck down a rather large hole.

I was wandering along toward where Mum parked every day to pick my sisters and I up after school, probably giggling to myself the way strange children do, when suddenly, all of a sudden, in the unexpectedly sudden way sudden things like this happen, my foot sunk down into the ground up past my knee. Some absent minded gardener or tradesman had removed a thin wooden pole from the ground and not filled up the remaining hole, put a barrier of high visibility tape around it, or at the very least quickly scrawled a dodgy sign that said "Beware: Hole".

My foot was stuck fast down this hole, and even with all the primary school strength I could muster I couldn't free it from the dirt's evil clutches. If I had thought to point my toe so that my foot was angled down and not wedged in the thin hole then I probably would have had a much easier time of it. Instead I panicked, and pulled and pulled at my foot the way a small child does when it gets its head stuck between two bars of a banister and doesn't realise it should turn sideways to free itself. I stayed trapped in despair until a girl I knew came walking past with her mum and found me sitting in the dirt crying, my leg still half swallowed by the ground.

In an unrelated but nonetheless interesting anecdote, in prep I was decidedly jealous of this particular girl who was about to come to my rescue. I wasn't jealous because of a cool toy she had, or that she had a whole room in her house that was one entire swimming pool like another girl in my grade did, or that she owned a pony like the two snobby girls in the other class. I was jealous because she knew where to put full stops in sentences - a skill we had yet to be officially taught.

I was so insanely jealous when the teacher praised her for knowing exactly where that special thing she called "punctuation" was supposed to go, so I tried too to punctuate the story I was writing. I'm not sure I did such a good job though, as I never received the words of praise I was expecting when I showed the teacher my picture book about a puppy who loses his owner or some such rubbish. Fortunately I did manage to learn the highly skillful art of full stop placement some time during my youthful education. It is a skill that has served me well over the years.

Anyhoo, end deviation and return to my riveting hole story. Full Stop Girl's mum was equally as smart and quick thinking as her prodigial child, and deftly freed me from the muddy hole. She then walked me snivelling to my own Mum's car, where I relayed the whole dramatic tale, punctuating it precisely with hiccups and sniffs. We got home and mum helped me clean the mud off my runner (we were allowed to wear runners to primary school, instead of proper school shoes) and I finally saw the funny side in the day's events.

Primary school holds lots of memories for me. Memories of mum accidently running over our school bags with the car and smashing our lunchboxes and warping our folders. Memories like the time I tried to hit this girl who was being a right bitch to me but she just laughed loud and long in my face at my very weak attempt. Or playing Gladiators on the long benches outside. There was always a huge fight over which person would get to be Cheeta, and I always lost. I preferred to make up my own Gladiator named Corkscrew whose move was to swing their arms round and round in circles to block the Challenger's path. I also had another Gladiator persona I brought out sometimes named Elizabeth Taylor. In primary school Elizabeth Taylor was at the height of media attention with her numerous marriages, and so her signature move was to grab the Challenger crying "I love you!" and then wrestle them off the bench shouting "but now I hate you!".

I was a strange child. Very uncoordinated, and one of those strange children who walked around muttering and laughing gaily to themselves. I had long, dead straight, blonde hair which was pulled back into a low, parted ponytail, and an extremely thick fringe that was never straight due to mum's dubious haircutting skills. I remember seeing my shadow once, and thinking that my sillohette looked like a boy.

Christmas in Rosebud

2005-12-27T08:39:00.000+11:00

"Erica, tell me about what subjects you're doing at school this year," said my Grandma as she totterd over in high heels and white pants so tight you'd need a shoe horn to get her out of them.
"Well I'm doing German, maths, graphics, account..." I was cut off mid sentence by an exclaimation from Grandma.
"Oh Vicki! Come and see this gorgeous dress I bought the other day!"
She started to walk with my aunt Vicki to her bedroom, leaving me with my mouth open on the "ing" syllable.
"Mum!" exclaimed my own Mum sounding more than just a little exasperated with the way our Christmas lunch had gone so far, "You asked Erica a question, and now you don't even bother to listen to her answer!"
"Oh I'm sorry, I just don't realise these things! Tell me what your subects are Erica."

I started my list again, and managed to get to the end of my six subjects without interruption. It was clear I wasn't really being listened to though, as the moment my lips had finished forming the final syllable of "psychology" Grandma launched herself into a tale of the misery she felt at being the only un-partnered woman at ballroom dancing since her boyfriend had dumped her for another woman in their class.

I think that conversation took place the same Christmas we ate in my Grandma's garage. We always celebrate Christmas with my mum's side of the family on either Boxing Day or the day after, and it always rains. Without fail. Grandma had decided that we were going to eat around a trestle table in her garage, as there were too many people to fit in her lounge room. It didn't matter that we were exactly the same number of people as the year before and we'd eaten in her lounge room then. Her mind was made up and none of my mum's objections to the idea could change it.

We sat in the garage around the trestle, our paper serviettes rolled up in the napkin rings made of gold spraypainted gumnuts and leaves that Grandma brings out each Christmas, our place set with plastic wine cups and paper plates patterned in Christmas trees. There were no windows in her garage, so the only light came from a single naked bulb in the centre of the roof. I was sitting on an end, half consumed by darkness, which made it difficult to see what was travelling on my fork into my mouth. I just stabbed at my plate, hoping for something I liked.

We were about half way through our meal when the rain started. It poured down the way only torrential Melbourne rains can, and thundered on the tin roof of the garage. "This is ridiculous Mum! Can't we go inside to eat?!" my mum shouted to be heard over the din.
"No! There's nothing wrong with it here!" was Grandma's yelled reply.
"Bianca can you please pass me the bread!" it was my turn to cry out over the noise.
"What?!"
"The bread!"
"I can't hear you!"
"The bread, can you please pass me the bread!"
"What did you say?!"
"The bread! She wants the bread!" Nicola yelled right into Bianca's ear.
The rain thundered down for the rest of our meal, and we had to stay in the garage conversing in shouts and sitting in near darkness.

That is just one example of the way Christmas with Mum's side of the family usually goes. In about an hour we will begin our drive to Rosebud, and I can guarantee that this year will be just as nutty as every other year. And because it's in Rosebud there's no escaping until Mum and Dad can't handle it any longer and decide it's time to drive home. At least it's not going to rain this year - that's definately a first.

Something Cool for Christmas

2005-12-25T22:51:00.000+11:00

Today I went on one of those see-saw type swings with the two round seats hanging from thick cables. Unfortunately I was much heavier than all my young cousins. I also swung on a swing that my hips didn't fit in and on a flying fox with my legs bent up to skim the ground. I then played Octopus, Hug Chasey and Chain Tiggy around Blackburn Lake. All accomplished in a nice dress and stockings. Christmas day was lots of fun.

I came home with a Christmas present waiting in my email inbox from my friend Nayfn. A present I now gift to you, the readers of this blog. Listen alone with a stiff drink, lights down low, leaning on a golden lit bar or glossy black grand piano.

Something Cool (right click and save target as to download)
Performed by Nayfn and Erica
Written by Billy Barnes

Merry Christmas everyone.

"Then I saw mummy tickle Santa Claus..."

2005-12-24T17:16:00.000+11:00

It's Christmas Eve. One sleeps until Christmas, as the sign outside my work proudly proclaimed this morning. Until we fixed the grammar. Tomorrow morning my sisters and I will wake up early, excitedly open the little presents in our stockings, and then wait for Mum and Dad to get up for the presents under the tree. Yes we are old now, but Christmas still holds that little bit of magic.

When I was little and first started to realise that Santa didn't actually exist, I didn't want to believe it. Not because of the magic and wonder he brought, but because I felt bad that it had been my parents paying for all those presents and not some fat, perverted guy in a red velvet suit. I chose to believe in Santa for much longer than I really should have out of pure guilt. And after I stopped believing I then had to pretend to believe, for the benefit of my younger sisters. So really, I was akin to those kids who are still drinking from their mothers at an obscenely old age. Except it was Santa doing the milk drinking. And the mince pie eating. Oh and Rudolf got his carrot of course.

After the morning's recycling creating, we will be visiting my Dad's side of the family for lunch, and most probably dinner as well. My dad has two brothers and one sister, each with spouses and several children are under the age of thirteen. The children are under the age of thirteen that is. The spouses are all of a legal marrying and sex having age. These relatives makes for a very large Christmas meal that takes some organisation. And the person to take charge is Dad's sister.

She's one of those charging personalities who grabs everyone by their horns, pulls them into a straight line and makes them sing Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer complete with the additional primary school call back lines, all the while organising four different roasts and accompanying side dishes and sauces. I remember the one Christmas when I was trying to rescue chocolate ganache that had split, and she called out "Balloon whisk, you need a balloon whisk!", with one hand stiring gravy and the other whipping cream. Her personality is in direct contrast to Dad and his brothers' relaxation and laid back-ness, and can be extremely daunting to non-family members like boyfriends. As my former* discovered.

Because of the large number of people on Dad's side of the family, instead of each family buying a gift for each other person, everyone opens one present from "The Family". Spouses buy for spouses, and parents buy for their children. It has generally worked very well except for the year I turned eighteen and the family weren't quite sure whether I was an adult or a child. They decided I was neither, and therefore wouldn't be getting a present from "The Family". Mum gave me an extra present under our tree to compensate, but it was still kinda sucky watching everyone else open their gift very ceremoniously (the youngest cousins passing out the gifts one at a time, only handing over the next gift when the previous had been completely opened and ooh-ahh'd) knowing I wouldn't be unwrapping anything myself. After that year it was decided that I could still be counted as a "child", and the next year I wasn't so cruelly left out.

As far as Christmasses go, Dad's side of the family is relatively mentally stable and enjoyable, and I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. Mum's side of the family is another story - one which we will be adding a new chapter to on the 27th when we visit them. Stay tuned for a blog about that side of my genes in the next few days.

*The phrase "my ex" is not liked by my former boyfriend, so he will hereafter be kown as My Former.

Giving books

2005-12-22T16:53:00.000+11:00

Walking through Kmart with Mum last night we passed the Wishing Tree. We circled the base of it trying to work out how you went about donating a gift.
"Do you think it has to be wrapped?" Mum asked, reaching for one of the tags attatched to the plastic tree.
"That one there isn't. It's just tied in a plastic bag. But maybe that person just didn't know how to wrap a present, and thought a semi-transparent supermarket bag counted as wrapping paper."
"There must be some instructions somewhere on this tree."
"Over there, next to that massive present."
"It says it doesn't have to be wrapped. Good, let's take a tag and find something."

I followed mum down the nearest aisle which happened to house rows of those ugly Bratz dolls. Since when did Barbie become not cool enough for little girls? My sisters and I have toyboxes and garbage bags and boxes full of Barbies, Barbie clothes, Barbie houses, Barbie cars, Barbie animals, and other random Barbie accessories. Barbie was a strong, ambitious woman - she could be a doctor, a teacher, a rockstar, a pilot, anything she wanted. The only thing these Bratz are good for is looking ugly in clothes that belong on patrons of the skankiest nightclubs in Melbourne. At least Barbie had class.

Mum studied the different breeds of Bratz with a frown for a few minutes, and afraid that she was going to select one I interrupted her concentration with "I think a book would make a good present". We made our way down to Kmart's rather pitiful book section and I proceeded to pore over the young readers' section for some of my childhood favourite books. Alas, vulturous Christmas shoppers had already picked brutally over the carcass of the shelves, and the choice was slim. I eventually settled on Emily Rodda's Rowan of Rin, a book I remember really enjoying when I was younger.

Mum was poring over the sparse shelves with equal determination, looking for something for one of my young cousins. I suggested she get one of Paul Jennings' books for him, as it is a perfect classic selection for a boy of his age. Not so convinced, she gave me one of her more potent sighs of dissent. My twenty one years have equipped me with excellent parental pursuasion skills however, and I easily talked her around. We then chose The Adventures of the Wishing Chair for my other little cousin, and proceeded to the registers to pay for the books, and put our gift under the Wishing Tree.

Just as we had almost reached the car, mum stopped.
"Oh no!", she exclaimed wearily.
"What's wrong?"
"I forgot sticky tape. It was the most important thing I came for"
"Oh..."
"I can't be bothered now. People will just have to put up with their presents being wrapped with masking tape."
"I don't think our cousins are really going to be concerned with what their presents are wrapped in..."

Sightseeing in the City

2005-12-21T15:35:00.000+11:00

A man in tight jeans and a stonewashed denim jacket trimmed with fur. He was wearing big fat rings, and had to turn them upside down to get his hand into his pocket to pull out a lighter. He then bummed a cigarette off a couple of emo looking twenty somethings nearby.
A long haired, dragon embroidered shirt wearing asian guy who put two cigarettes in his mouth, lit them both at the same time, then handed one to his girlfriend. Romantic.
A very friendly, rather cute guy who sold me my Christmas present from Dad's side of the family, a blues harmonica. I like flirting with salespeople at music shops.
A woman frantically asking the whereabouts of a little boy in blue overalls. The runaway was eventually found by the police, and returned to his family in a hysterical, teary reunion.
An elderly woman with a small hat atop her head. The hat was trimmed with a fake plastic lei that looked a lot like the ones my Grandma used to have in her dressup box to match the authentic grass skirts and real coconut shell bikinis.
The young people completely absorbed in their dance, drum and guitar simulation games. It was a very surreal sight looking into the long, thin arcade from out on the street.
The mad, crazy lines in JB HiFi for the registers that snaked all around the store. Then the registers all froze at the same time. I wasn't purchasing anything so waited outside.
The dearth of my favourite custard filled doughnuts at a bakery on Flinders Lane. It's true even with food that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I've been craving one of those perfect pastries since.

Blacking Out

2005-12-20T18:57:00.000+11:00

My favourite thing about the pool is the first few somersaults. I get this intense dizzy headrush on surfacing from the first four or so somersaults I do, until my body gets used to to the motion. It is a highly pleasurable sensation, and when the somersaults stop giving it to me it's ever so disappointing. I got my sister to try it out this afternoon when we were in the pool and tell me if she also got the same dizzy headrush, but she didn't. Am I the only freak out there who experiences mildly orgasmic somersaults in the pool?

I have a feeling the somersault headrushes have something to do with my low blood pressure and propensity for blacking out at sudden elevation changes. I have only fainted twice in my life, but have had too many dizzy blackouts to remember. Two of the more notable of my blackouts were the Lego and the Knox City shopping centre food court incidents.

The Lego incident happened one morning about ten years ago. I was lying in bed listening to my sisters play with our Lego village set up in an old trundle and decided it was time to get up. I walked the distance from my room to the lounge intending to ask whether I should wear pants or shorts. I got half way through my sentence when suddenly the world faded to black, my knees gave way, and I fell crashing down on top of all the Lego houses, smashing them to bits. Dad's roaring cry of "What's going on out there?!" was heard from the computer room as I tried to compose myself, and my two sisters stared in disbelief at my sudden toppling and the natural disaster I had caused to the poor Lego men and women of Paradisa.

The incident of the Knox City food court had my sister Bianca and I in stitches for days afterward just thinking about it. The only thing I remember was eating a sandwich, and then Bianca's face in tears of laughter opposite me. What happened in between she had to fill me in. I had apparently dropped my sandwich, eyes staring, flopped my torso down to the side of the table with my arms hanging apelike to the ground and started to convulse and shudder violently. Right in the middle of a completely normal conversation without any warning. The cause of this? Trying to swallow too big a bite of my sandwich.

It's true, I'm a freak...

'Tis the season

2005-12-18T14:42:00.000+11:00

Christmas is motoring closer every day. Speeding toward me in a fit of road rage, hurtling along like a stressed out, power-suited mother in a 4WD full of whining children. People go crazy at this time of the year. Perhaps it's the impending doom of a day spent with slightly mad relatives that there is no escape from, or maybe it's just everyone's collective stress vibes accumulating and magnifying themselves to frightening degrees.

I have had the pleasure of working in various retail positions for the past four or so Christmasses, and customers can be downright bitches when the silly season rolls around. This rubs off on sales assistants, and then the entire shopping centre becomes one giant conglomerate of bitchiness and hostility. I take a strange delight in being extra cheerful to both angry customers and sales assistants. I wallow in the somewhat adolescent glee of asking a disgruntled Kmart employee "how are you?" in the most chipper way possible. And watching them squirm as they are caught between feeling murderous toward you and having to answer in an equally sprightly tone. Small pleasures.

As well as breaking out the bah humbugs, people like to crack open the party juice at this time of year. My work seem to be stuck in Scrooge's house this year though, as we are not having a Christmas party. There was apparently no time to organise it, however I just think they are being stingy.

My band on the other hand - well we know how to have a good time! Our Christmas party the other night involved flaming Sambuca shots, blues jams in my courtyard, BBQing at 10:30pm, Christmas pudding drowned in brandy, and a sleepover in my lounge room. Secrets were spilled, nipples were bared and at least one incriminating photo was taken. I'll leave you to make of that what you will, but it's most likely much more tame than you imagine.

I am looking forward to more Christmas cheer, less Humbug, and have my legion of puddings lined up, prepared for all the celebrations ahead.

Tension.

2005-12-11T14:06:00.000+11:00

I take up my usual position on our sunken couch, DVDs in hand. Mother is sitting at the kitchen table, the head of her own personal production line. She is cutting and measuring and glueing with such precision, such choreographed grace. It is a tender ballet, an unforgettable performance by Scalpel and Guillotine. There is a hard glint of determination in her eyes, the tip of her tongue creeping out the left corner of her mouth. Unwavering concentration.

She takes no notice of the images playing across the screen. I am comfortably isolated with my arthouse film, even though not alone. The end credits roll slowly up the screen, and I move to change the DVD. The disc tray closes, season one of Six Feet Under disappearing inside. There is a setting down of tools, a scraping of chair legs on slate floor, and she comes to sit beside me. We watch for several minutes. She hates the DVD. I can tell. She picks up the cover, a light scowl marring her brow, and turns it over to read the back. Still she sits. Sex sene. We sit. Death. We sit. Two men embracing. We sit. We watch in silence until she chooses to break it.

"Don't you find this depressing?"
"No, I find it comforting. And thought provoking."

She sits back and I know what she's thinking. The familiar sigh. The slight shake of her head. The tension and misunderstanding descends, and we revert to the easier option of silence. She stays for the rest of the episode. A goodnight is exchanged and she departs for bed. Finally. I open the sliding glass doors, push the couch out onto our courtyard balcony, and sit content in my solitude in the open night.

Puddin'

2005-12-09T13:22:00.000+11:00

Today is my traditional Christmas pudding cooking day. I've never actually cooked a Christmas pudding before today, but have decided that it is a traditional thing that will be happening once a year - in the way that traditional things do. As with all good traditions, this one will have a certain way it will be carried out.

It will be traditional to wake up at 7am on the day of cooking and have a large breakfast possibly including but not limited to scrambled eggs, fresh bread, fresh fruit salad and chai tea. It will then be traditional to dress in a nice frock, don a pair of knee high boots, head down to the supermarket, and working your best strut pick out all ingredients needed for the pudding.

It will be traditional while making the pudding to drink brandy. Even if you start cooking at 10am.

It will be traditional to crank up the stereo with some rockin' and groovable music to dance in your dress and boots to whilst cooking. If anyone yells at you to turn it down, tell them it's tradition! And pass them a glass of brandy. Under no circumstances is Christmas music allowed. Not even if the coolest band in the world release a Christmas album. The chances of that are next to nothing, and if it were to happen the album would undoubtedly be terrible.

It will be traditional to devote an entire day to Christmas pudding cooking and brandy sipping. For that reason, check that you have all necessary ingredients before you begin to cook. It woudln't do to discover you have no eggs in the fridge after consuming half a bottle of alcohol.

And finally, it will be traditional to share the pudding covered in lots of extra brandy and rich sinful cream toppings with your friends when Christmas comes around.

To end this traditional Christmas pudding cooking day post, here's a recipe so you can begin your own Christmas pudding cooking day tradition.

londonbridgeisfallingdownfallingdownfallingdown!

2005-12-09T09:03:00.000+11:00

I sometimes wonder things. Things like who invented the alarm clock. And then I wonder which idiot invented my sister's alarm clock. Most alarm clocks are content with just playing a beeping sound when they are activated, or turning on the radio. But not her's. Oh no. It just has to be different. It just has to play London Bridge Is Falling Down at an extremely fast tempo, in a very high pitched 1980s Casio Keyboard tone over and over and over again.

It is the most frantic, phrenetic rendition of the children's classic I have ever heard. So vivid and moving in its performance that I can almost see the clock sprouting arms and legs which it sets the task of dancing around and madly flailing, all the while shouting "londonbridgeisfallingdownfallingdownfallingdown, getoutquickgetoutgetoutgetoutlondonbridgeisfallingdown!". In fact, hearing the alarm makes ME want to run madly around the house shouting "londonbridgeisfallingdownfallingdownfallingdown - wakeupwakeupgetoutgetoutlondonbridgeisfallingdown!". I often do go a little crazy and start singing frantically along to the alarm clock's tune whilst at my sister's doorway flailing my arms and running on the spot. It is the kind of mad crazy tune that will put you in a wide eyed and speedy mood for the rest of the day, making you prone to running around the house, running into walls, and running your car off the road.

Someone should definately sue the person who invented my sister's alarm clock. Im quite certain that it is only going to lead to death and destruction.

MPT - Motorised Personal Transport

2005-12-08T01:44:00.000+11:00

So, what should I see today at my local supermarket I hear you ask? A very strange fellow on his bike, that's what.

I was enjoying a pizza ingredient buying, chocolate stockpiling, DVD hiring and preservative-free wine purchasing outing after work this evening when he rode past me as I was walking to my car. I took note of his dinky helmet with light attatched to the top whilst he peered out at me from behind rather large glasses. I looked him up and down, covertly of course, and decided that his bike riding attire was even sexier than mine. I give him claps for that acheivement. I look damn hot with a capital H-O-T when my bike and I are out and about. People fall off their chairs when we go whizzing past, the wind in our flowing hair and spinning spokes. Though that might be because I'm not so good with the steering thing.

Much to my entertainment, I had not seen the last of this classy rider. I passed him again, this time in my car on the way home. I think lack of steering ability must come with looking so darn good on a bike. His erratic swerving in and out of the bike lane forced me across the centre line on the road in an attempt to keep him on his bike and alive. Fortunately for him I have grasped the steering thing in an automobile better than on a pushbike.

It was when I passed him that I noticed his bike was not only just as old and dinky as his helmet, but had a little motor attatched to it, that was powering him along down the road. And when I say powering I really mean nudging in the feeblest manner possible. I am not sure which one of physics' laws dictates that a person moving along excruciatingly slowly on a motorised device will look so hilarious, but I am grateful for the entertainment nonetheless.

Be it people on dinky bikes, or those two obese goth-slash-skank women on motorised scooters who frequent all the shopping centres in my area. They enjoy blocking aisles, conversing in loud, derro voices, and running over small children. Or be it the three barely fifteen year old bimbos I saw motoring around one of the large shopping centres near me the other week on these. They were supposedly spruiking Carefree products, but spent more time giggling uncontrollably and batting eyelashes at groups of horny teenage boys. I hope they were getting paid on commission.

Long live the people on Motorised Personal Transport. May you always travel slower than walking pace, and may your snail's speed allow you plenty of time to glare at me as you motor on past. And may you crash your Motorised Personal Transport into a conveniently located pole because you were too busy glaring and not looking where your motor was driving you.

Sensibility. scorn and sanity.

2005-12-07T04:08:00.000+11:00

In case you haven't been able to tell by the plethora of fresh posts erupting on this blog of late, I'm on holidays. And yes, I am posting this at 4am. I just remembered that I had forgotten I was working tomorrow (well today now) at 9:30am. So instead of going to bed and undoubtedly sleeping in, only to be woken with a snide "So Erica, are you coming in today?" phone call, I have decided the smarter option is to not sleep at all.

At least, at this point of the night (morning) it seems smart. I know from terrible past experience that I won't be feeling the same sense of "Yes-I-Had-My-Weetbix! enthusiasm" for an all-nighter at around 6am. I will sit on the couch forcing my zombie eyes to stay open and focussed on either channel 7 or channel 9's equally bad breakfast shows whilst eating toasted muesli. And I will be all moany and think "oh why didn't you just go to bed at 4? You could have had at least four hours precious sleep and it would have been so much more sensible."

But sensible? Ha ha ha! I laugh in the face of sensibility! I scorn thee, sensibility, with the cursing and the dramatic music and the scorn-giving hand thrusting and all that. And then when 6am rolls around I will come crawling back, with hastily purchased flowers from a petrol station and a mouthful of shameful apologies that are making my muesli difficult to chew. At the moment it's all still scorn though.

I had to make one final trip into school for the year on Monday. The purpose? Re-enrollment. Like most of my days, the actual school part was merely the boring jam inside a sandwich made of superbly excellent bread. The bread being my public transport adventures to and from school. So let's get the uninteresting filling over with first. It was basically a very disorganised 2 1/2 hours of waiting in lines, filling in forms, glaring at air-head queue jumpers who couldn't understand how the "snake" system of waiting-chairs worked, and sighing at the annoying girls in my class who somehow managed to pass and will be returning next year. Not only will they be returning with their irritating giggles and supreme queen-of-bimbos crowns, but almost all of them are doing the EXACT same major/minor combination as me. Knit major and screenprint minor. My hopes of ending up in different classes to them are dashed completely. I will just have to use them as hopefully hilarious blog fodder - a small consolation.

Now for the bread. My trip to school was relatively uneventful on the bus and then the train, however on the tram I was treated to a very loud and stern phone conversation by a mother of a teenager who looked like she hadn't had a day of fun in her life. Her bleh blunt bob, bleh glasses, bleh black clothes and bleh-est of all flat black shoes were just the epitome of bleh. Oh my was she bleh. And one of the worst mothers a teenage son could ever have the misfortune of being born out of.

The mother was first on the phone to her husband, instructing him that their son's marks for the year were not good enough, and that it was all the husband's fault for letting the son have a computer and the internet in his room. I don't think the husband got many words in, although he did stand his ground and tell her he wasn't getting rid of the internet. By the end of that conversation she had made the "family decision" that the computer would be removed from her son's room.

It was then the time for her to ring her son, and tell him the glorious news that he was losing his computer. I could tell he wasn't happy, but the mother was unrelenting and very very angry at her son's poor academic performance. She also carried out her phone conversations loud enough for the whole tram to hear. And she didn't say goodbye on ending the calls to either her husband or her son. How rude!

On my way home from school I happened to get on the same train as a girl who had been standing behind me in one of the enrollment lines. We had exchanged a few annoyed "why is this taking so long?!" comments at school, which qualified us as aquaintances enough to sit together on the train. She was nice enough I suppose, but being nice couldn't make up for the annoying things she talked about, and the even more annoying way she spoke.

I learnt all about her past relationship history - details such as how long each one lasted (an average of 2 months), what kind of guys they were (all rich boys who only liked to go clubbing), and how she had met them (all friends of her cousins). I then sat politely through the story of her current boyfriend, who was thirty, and who her parents didn't know was her boyfriend. She was on her way to his house, and was going to be getting on the same train line as me once we changed trains in the city. Deciding I couldn't handle another 35 minutes of her banter, I told her I was going to do some shopping in the city before going home.

The look of disappointment on her face when I said this made me feel slightly guilty, but I am working hard to keep my sanity when it comes to people from school. I did do some shopping, and purchased a very nice dress, and then on the train home bumped into my band's illustrious drummer on his way home from work. Thankfully he didn't talk about annoying things in an even more annoying way, so my train ride from the city home ended up much more enjoyable than it could have been.

Not quite breakfast, not quite lunch

2005-12-04T21:32:00.000+11:00

Brunch is a most excellent meal. Especially Sunday brunch. It is nestled there all snug'ly between breakfast and lunch, letting you indulge in all those foods that are a little too much for your morning meal, yet not lunchy enough for midday. Delectables like pancakes, fruit salad and fresh yoghurt, large plates of scrambled eggs with accompaniments such as grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, or delicate pastries filled with fruit and dusted lovingly in sugar. Brunch is the best meal to spend with friends - the day is still green, with infinite possibilites for the coming afternoon dancing merrily around your coffee cups and foil wrapped Choicest Butter portions.

I have often let my mind meander down a tree-lined, sun-dappled lane to a time when I spend Sunday mornings with a special someone either brunching out at a friendly cafe filled with fun, arty types, or at home on our porch with crusty bread, fresh eggs and German cakes. We will laugh and relax while pouring chai tea, and then vacate to our garden swing to lie in the sun and read or play a little guitar. Of course this fantasy world that always sees balmy Spring mornings and pastry consumption without expanding waistlines doesn't exist outside of my mind, but it is a warm and fuzzy imagining that I'm going to keep.

As well as a Sunday morning birthday celebratory brunch, this weekend saw me bask in the blissful relaxation of not having to work for once, tear up the dance floor at an Eastern suburban metrosexual hangout, control the flow of a friend's money at the Casino, watch Tim Burton's charming and wonderfully crafted Corpse Bride, chat and laugh over salad sandwiches, and pose with two pots of beer for a rather questionable photo taken on a friend's phone that ended up looking very topless. And I was fully clothed.

Family Habits

2005-12-03T08:56:00.000+11:00

Other people and their families tend to have strange habits. Things they see as completely normal, everyday behaviours turn to bizzare quirks through someone elses eyes. One prime example is the way others' kitchens are organised. However different others' kitchens are though, it can be almost guaranteed that every household will keep their cutlery in the top drawer. Every household bar one particular friend's that is. Finding things in her kitchen is a crazy and exciting adventure.

An old friend of mine, who I've known since primary school, is the owner of so many wacko family habits that I am going to focus the rest of this post on her. Turn the spotlight off my own craziness for just a little and onto somebody else. Cheap laughs.

She showers at least twice a day. Once in the morning, once before going to bed, and if she's going out somewhere she will shower before she leaves. She also washes her hair every single day - and her shampoo ain't that cheap stuff either.
Her family often keep toothbrushes in their shower, so they can brush their teeth whilst washing. While I know this might be completely normal behaviour to some people out there, I find it very strange. Akin to brushing your teeth whilst sitting on the toilet. Also extremely strange behaviour.
As well as brushing their teeth in the shower, they also flush used feminine hygeine products wrapped in plastic bags down the toilet. Several times I lifted the lid at their house to be greeted by an environmental monstrosity that didn't quite make it all the way down.
The Mother doesn't work, and spends her days doing housework. She washes all pyjamas after only one wear, and changes the sheets AND blankets on the beds every morning.
Because The Mother's only hobbies are housework and contacting her network of spies to find out information about the secret comings and goings of her daughter, their house is unnaturally clean. So clean that there are no stains, no dents, no marks, no cracks anywhere. Visits to their house made me so anxious about spilling or breaking something, that I inevitably would, and then feel guilt for weeks about it.
I have visited their house at all hours of the day and night, but never seen it lit with proper daylight. In fact, the only image I have of their house in my mind is of dark rooms and rooms lit with a golden, ambient light.
The Mother almost had a heart attack one dancing competition trip where we had all booked to stay in one of Sydney's Formule 1 hotels. On her arrival no less than five other mothers sprinted down the stairs with cries of "we must warn The Mother, warn The Mother!", and set themselves up to act as a buffer when The Mother was shown the size of the rooms (or lack thereof). That dancing trip was in fact the most enjoyable we've ever had. I'm not sure The Mother had such a great time with her compact bathroom/toilet/shower in one however.

Now because my friend and her family live like this they find it completely normal. I disagree. And I give others the right to disagree that they way my family and I live is normal. I'm sure people would find it strange that if I am walking around the house and discover a bobby pin lying around I must pick it up and put it in my hair. Or that we have a ladder permanently erected to our roof so that dad can get up there every night when the possums emerge to try and block up their holes. Or that we don't put any dishes in the sink unless they are soaking. Dirty dishes go in the dishwasher or on the bench. When guests put dishes in the sink it is just so annoying and completely undermines our routine.

The Adventures of Handyman Erica

2005-12-01T17:49:00.000+11:00

Handyman Erica has returned! And today's DIY project? Turning this humble trestle table:

Into this - print table extraordinaire!

Handyman Erica padded, and covered, and drilled, and even countersunk. Only one phone call to Daddy Handyman was required throughout the process, and that was because Handyman Erica hadn't quite grasped operating the drill press.

Handyman Erica hint #1: If your drill bit keeps falling out of the drill press, perhaps you forgot to tighten it in all three places with the chuck key.

For the drill press segment of Handyman Erica's DIY day, she stood outside the garage in the 34 degree heat for several hours. Neighbours coming and going gave her odd looks as she sweated over her drilling, and a guy who came to do next door's garden gave her a knowing nod. As if they were both part of a secret society of professional DIYers.

Handyman Erica hint #2: If you are going to plan a day of labouring outside, try and think ahead, choosing a day that the weatherman isn't forecasting over-thirty temperatures for. This will assist in preventing dehydration, sunstroke, and severe sunburn.

Everything was going according to plan, until Handyman Erica tried to pre-drill holes into the top of the padded table.

Handyman Erica hint #3: Do not try using a battery drill to drill through a layer of polyester wadding. The polyester will tangle, and then melt around the drill bit. Daddy Handymen may get angry to find their drill bits coated in a layer of melted polyester...

After some advice from Daddy Handyman, Handyman Erica simply screwed straight into the table without pre-drilling. Worked a treat.

Handyman Erica hint #4: If ever in doubt, simply ask a Daddy Handyman. They have all the answers a part time 10/10 hardware assistant doesn't.

Handyman Erica, signing out.

Mancini's Baby Sister Walk

2005-11-30T11:49:00.000+11:00

My youngest sister swanned past me earlier dressed in her togs and carrying a bottle of coconut tanning oil. As she was opening the door to head outside and obviously sun herself, I frowned and said "make sure you put sunscreen on..." in a particuarly over protective big sister voice.
"I have some on," she replied, and waltzed on outside, leaving me to shake my head at her sun-foolishness and hope that one of these days she will learn that UV exposure is bad for you. Hopefully one of these days comes before she ends up looking like she's made of leather, or worse, is diagnosed with skin cancer.

She has now returned from outside in a cloud of eau de pina colada, her ex boyfriend at her heels. His white shirt is open and blowing in the breeze, a style obviously taken from the Backstreet Boys circa 1997, that he has modernised by a flipping of the collar. They have now shut themselves up in my sister's bedroom, an all too common occurrence in their post-relationship. The thought of my littlest sister all oiled up and locked in her room with her ex boyfriend makes me frown and give an overly protective big sister shake of the head.

An air of brisk efficiency

2005-11-29T20:02:00.000+11:00

I have a brand new mobile phone. I've never owned a fancy, fandangled phone before, so this one is a whole new adventure. My only requisite for the new phone was that it made phone calls, sent SMS's and had an alarm clock. The salesman at the Orange shop looked at me a little strangely when I said that. I suppose most people ask for a phone with cool games, wicked ringtones, and a camera so they can take lots of ultra-low-resolution happy snaps of their beau.

I'm not really down with all the hi-tech multimedia options all the kids are lovin' right now. I was sitting in the Caf at school with a few of the just-out-of-year-12-girls in my class one lunchtime, and they were passing around their phones giggling at something that seemed very amusing. I asked what they were doing, and they showed me a picture of one of their fathers, his head stuck on the shoulders of a bare-midriffed Britney Spears. Apparently you could email a photo of someone's face - via your mobile - and the website would send it back morphed onto the body of a celebrity. They looked at me like I was a baby boomer asking their kids how to turn on the computer when I said I didn't even you could send emails from a mobile, and asked if my phone was capable of some kind of acronymed service. Probably not I replied, as it's an Orange phone, and left them to their 21st Century fun while I put my head back into my book and continued to eat my homemade vegetable curry.

This new phone is really something. The blurb on the box uses phrases like "clean classic symmetry", "superb performer" and "air of brisk efficiency", and uses a "4-way-joystick" to navigate the menus. It has a camera, a radio, a voice recorder, colour screen, and dinky polyphonic sounds. The pre-programmed ringtones have names like "Ice Breaker", "Sizzlin', "Open Gallery", and "Espionage". I have set it on one named "Blue Ice" - a groovin' 60's sounding tune. I start Go-Go dancing every time someone calls. The phone even has a game called Snowboard 3D! My last phone had a skateboarding game that was very hard to play. I've yet to see if Snowboard 3D proves just as challenging. I'm really looking forward to someone calling while I'm driving so I can take advantage of the handsfree instead of trying to carry out rapid, abrupt conversations illegally at red lights.

Coordination.

2005-11-28T11:54:00.000+11:00

Coordination and I have never been close. He pops in every now and then, usually only when I'm dancing, but at all other times is nowhere to be seen.

Here are some old posts that illustrate my uncoordination quite nicely:

Roller-Rama
Tram Trip
Bustin' a Move and a Bone
Falling up the Stairs
Erica's Grand Entrance
Falling With Hats
Bathrooom Bashing

And there is a whole post with links to other whole posts about my accident prone-ness.

I have always been uncoordinated. In fact, in primary school I was one of about five "special" kids to be chosen for a "special program". I was taken out of class a couple of times a week for what was basically remedial coordination. We would do things like skipping with skipping ropes, and practicing throwing and catching balls. At the time I had no idea that I was getting this "special treatment" because I was a nuff nuff. I just thought I was really lucky, getting to miss out on class.

In interschool sport that was compulsary in primary school, I was always put in the Rounders or Bootball team, even when I didn't choose them as one of my preferred sports. Rounders and Bootball were typically where all the unco, overweight and unfit kids got put, so when they read out your name in one of those teams it wasn't the greatest confidence booster. Interschool sport Fridays were a dreaded day.

High school wasn't much better, with my PE reports typically saying "Erica tries very hard". That comment was usually followed by a string of C's and D's for each sport we had played during the year, with the occasional B or sometimes even an A for activities like gymnastics, flexibility and self defence. In Year 12 I was roped into playing girls cricket for Interschool Sport, and managed to go out first ball by knocking over my own wickets with my bat. Our team ended up making it to the Eastern Zone finals, where we were pitted against a team who had a State level player. I was a last resort selection into the team, and the last to bat. In the end I somehow managed to be the only player not out, and top scored for our team with a total of three runs. Everyone else got bowled or run out on only one or two runs. That girl was a really good bowler...

So while coordination and I continue our estranged friendship, I will continue to fall over, drop things, and fall in a heap when attempting anything that involves a ball. My friends know better than to ask me to fill in for mixed sports teams when they are short a girl, although I still sometimes get called up as a last resort. And every one of those times has been an embarassing disaster. All my woeful mixed indoor cricket matches, and the one and only time I filled in for mixed basketball, wasn't explained all the rules, and then managed to sprain my dodgy ankle half way through the game by getting my feet tangled up with those of a player on the other team.

Anal tales

2005-11-27T00:08:00.000+11:00

Last night I assisted my Mum in teaching a handmade book class at her work. I find it very difficult to comprehend how completely uncoordinated and uncreative people can be with craft activites. I've always been good with my hands (get your mind out of the gutter, come on!), and tools like scalpels, metal rulers, glue and scissors are like extensions of my fingers. It frustrates my brain when grown people are incapable of holding a stanley knife, or when they can't seem to see the infinite creative possibilities of what they are doing. I much prefer teaching children to adults. They let loose, all wild and free, their young minds producing idea after idea. Adults are stale in comparison, and are intent on copying to the finest detail the examples they are being shown. Teaching them, especially with my Mum, is tedious business indeed.

My mother's anal personality is surpassed by no one else's I have ever met. For this handmade book class, she had organised a display folder full of notes on how to make the books for each student to take home. A novel length "synopsis" with precise measurements and diagrams, all for a two hour long workshop. She included details like exactly where to position double sided tape, how to correctly cut and adhere masking tape, and how long to the nearest millimetre your length of ribbon should be to tie the optimum bow. Every measurement, even how many milimetres from the edge of the page you are going to stick your double sided tape down, has to be measured and marked and then checked again just to be sure.

"Measure twice, cut once" is her motto, which is a very good motto for a lot of jobs, but completely unnecessary for others. If she had the time she would probably get out a ruler and mark out 1cm slices on a carrot before cutting it up, making sure the measurements were checked before the final incision made. Actually she would go further. She would calculate exactly how thick each slice should be from the thinnest end to the fattest end of the carrot so that each slice were perfectly equal in volume, regardless of the diametre. Thankfully she's a very busy lady, so she doesn't have the time to exercise her anal personality to its full retentiveness. I don't want to be still living at home when she retires.

My middle sister inherited the most of mum's pedantic behaviour out of the three of us, as evidenced by the colour grouping of the clothes hanging in her wardrobe, the shelves she bought me for the sewing room to sort all my fabric by colours, and the way that she will only put entire albums onto her IPod as it is neater. In contrast, I ended up with a very conflicting combination of Mum's anal genes and my Dad's complete disorganisation and hoarding. It creates a horrible tug-of-war. Getting my space into such a turbulent mess, yet finding little teensy things to organise like going out and buying containers so that I can sort buttons into colour groups. Most of the time I get sidetracked by something interesting I find while trying to clean up, which leads to more mess, and more clutter, and everything just spirals downhill from there.

Wheeheeee!

2005-11-26T02:57:00.000+11:00

"I wish the telephone had not been invented, 'cause I keep picking it up to say stupid things to you..."

You said it Hawksley. I also wish that red wine had not been invented. Especially red wine in a cask, readily available in our kitchen. If I rang you earlier tonight I am deeply sorry. If I woke you or disturbed any sex I'm even sorrier. I'm not exactly sure who I may have called, but I did try several people and left a few voice messages until someone finally picked up. Well actually, they rang me back on my home phone, yet my little sister picked up (at 2am? Who knows...), and it was a strange conversation with them saying "Hello, who is this?" and my sister replying "It's Nicola...hello? What? Hello?!". All while I was under the covers of my bed, listening in silent drunken laughter on one of the other cordless phones.

I'm surprised, but I seem to have remained strangely eloquent and literate wilst intoxicated. And my German skills increase 100% under the influence. You'd think I was born in the land of giant mugs of beer and long sausages in teeny rolls. I wonder if the same thing happens with my French? Most possibly. And my Indonesian? Well, I only know two Indonesian phrases, but perhaps the alcohol has expanded the large area of my brain devoted to the Indonesian langauge. Searching Indonesian langauge data banks...total search result two phrases...no, doesn't seem to have worked. I can still cook roti though. And I can still count to ten in Japanese. You can thank karate and the Japanese Seminar House next to my primary school for that knowledge.

Time to sign off, from VK3IIB (VK3 Intoxicated In Blogland). Over.

Roger.

Over.

Yes, over.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

2005-11-25T02:23:00.000+11:00

I love this rain. The air smells of earth and the drops are fat and ripe as they tumble down. It started raining just as I pulled up outside my house, and the dash to my door was exhilliarating and refreshing. I like that my canvas shoes got wet, I like how drips of water ran from my hairline down my nose, and I like the damp wool smell of my jacket. And now that I'm inside I like the sound of the rain on my roof, I like the way raindrops chase each other down the windows, and I like that listening to the rolling patter gently nudges all the silly, inconsequential thoughts from my mind. I like that something so effortless and modest can pull me back from where I have been drifting outside of myself lately, and remind me so simply and succinctly of who I am. I am Erica. And I never feel more myself than when it is raining.

Prune summers

2005-11-23T11:15:00.000+11:00

At 6 this morning a tradesman arrived at our house. His purpose? To replace the broken lining in our pool. My two sisters and I have bedrooms all in a row along the side of our house, with windows facing out to the pool. Each of us have one or two blinds missing, as they have fallen down, which leave 10cm wide gaps in our curtains to see out, or in this case for a tradesman to see in. I spent this morning hidden under the covers of my bed until my need for the toilet was so great that I rolled onto the floor, combat crawled towards a shirt, put it on, then crawled out my bedroom door and made a dash to the bathroom.

After the tradesman had left, a pump pumping away water from the pool, Mum went to work and left instructions with my sisters for things she wanted us to do outside. I was told by them that I had to "sweep the dirt into the pool" and then "pick the leaves out of the garden beds". There wasn't much dirt left to sweep into the pool, as they had covered that, however when I went to look at the garden beds was faced with the evil reality that they had set me a Cinderella task. The proportions of leaves and tan bark in one garden bed were pretty much 50-50, so I made the executive decision to skip over that part. Instead I wandered barefoot over the tan bark in the other garden beds and picked up larger spiky leaves that prickled my hands uncomfortably when I held them.

Our pool on days like today reminds me of the summers when my sisters and I would spend entire days immersed in water, until it came to dinner time, when we would walk up to Big Daddy's Pizza (which has now been taken over by that sorry excuse for a pizza shop Dominos) and bring back a large hawaiian and a large Big Daddy's Special with BBQ sauce. I had a particuar interest in walking to Big Daddy's, as a guy from school worked there, and I had a huge crush on him.

I was convinced one day that my crush and I experienced a "moment". A romantic comedy Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks meeting eyes, music playing, slow motion, soprano warbling kind of "moment". Whether this moment was reciprocated, I do not know, although it is highly likely that it was a very one sided experience. He probably just saw me walk in the door, and I mistook his look of "oh no that nerd from school!" for something more romantic. I got a lot of exercise that summer. And I ate a lot of pizza.

Driver seeking navigator

2005-11-22T22:14:00.000+11:00

I'm either suffocating under a mountain of school work or bored out of my mind on holidays. At the moment it is the latter. And because I'm so bored, I will be making a second post for today. And if you don't like that, then so be it.

On Saturday night I have to get myself to Frankston to play a gig at a 21st birthday. My driving history to strange places is an ugly one. There was this incident which had me in tears. Or this time which saw me walking/running for about twenty minutes trying to make it to a gig on time. Those are the only two blogged incidents I can find, yet there have been many more. It took me over an hour and three wrong turns onto the Westgate Bridge to make it to the Docklands for a wedding gig a few weeks ago, getting to the Greyhound for another gig involved many many U-turns, and just about any time I drive somewhere I've never been before it takes me at least half an hour longer than it should due to my inability to drive and navigate myself at the same time.

So I have to get to Frankston. If I hadn't heard so many very negative stories about the Frankston train line I would get the train. These are the times you need a boyfriend to take advantage of.

I should stop trying to alleviate my boredom with alcohol. I apologise for this post.

You're going to die!

2005-11-22T14:40:00.000+11:00

As mentioned in the post about my apparently ugly breasts, the time has come to treat you all to the story of one of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood. This post involves death and ghosts and ghoulies, so if you are a little scaredy cat like me you might want to stop reading here. Or at least don't read it whilst sitting alone in a dark house at night.

The year was 1996, and I was perched in a hot and stuffy bus on the way to year seven camp at Corranderk. I'm sure the teachers had organised activity sheets and other useless things to keep us entertained on the trip, however as resourceful young kids we found our own ways of keeping boredom at bay. And what did one friend suggest she could do to make the bus ride interesting? Read our palms, that's what. When it came to my turn, I timidly held out my dominant hand, and let her peruse over what the lines on it were saying.

"Oh no...this isn't good..."
"What? What's not good?!"
"Your life line has a break in it at twelve years. It means you're going to die before you turn twelve."

You should know, that we went on camp in about March of '96, so I was eleven, turning twelve in May that year.

"Are you sure I'm going to die?"
"Well, it's not 100% positive, but there is definately a break in your life line."
"So I'm probably going to die then?"
"Probably."

Oh the trauma for an insecure eleven year old girl! But that bus ride was only the beginning. Several weeks after camp I happened to be sitting down one night watching television with Dad, and The Extraordinary, hosted by Warrick Moss, came on. Warrick Moss's voice is scary enough as it is, but add to that the fact that this particuar episode was a special on ghosts and spirits you see before you die, and you have one terrifying hour of television.

The bit of this program that really stuck in my mind was when they were talking about Irish Banshees. A white haired woman who is seen in the garden of a family's home or whose wailing is heard in the deep night when someone in the household is going to die. The months leading up to my birthday were such agonising ones that I almost wished I would die, just so I woudln't be scared any more. I would go to bed early, when everyone else was still up and awake, sleep with my light on, and then when I woke up in the morning would keep my eyes glued shut until the time Mum came in to my room to get me up. I slept in constant frozen fear that if I opened my eyes for any reason it would be to the sight of a death bringing spirit looming above my bed.

The worst day of this ordeal was by far the day of my twelfth birthday. I even asked my mum what time I was born, and spent the hours leading up to my actual birth time frozen on my bed in tears, watching the clock. You would think that when I didn't die on my birthday I'd have realised that my friend was full of codswallop, yet that was not the case. Instead my overactive mind came up with the idea that her fortune telling was not entirely accurate, and that perhaps I was going to die around the time of my birthday, not before. I endured a further few weeks of this terror, until finally convinced that I was not going to die.

To this day I am unable to watch any television or read any books about ghosts. I am a scaredy cat in general (rides, movies, dare-devil behaviour...), yet nothing comes close to the absolute mortification that ghosts instill in me. I have never seen a ghost, nor am even sure whether I believe in them, which makes this phobia completely irrational and unexplainable. What I can't deny, however, is the racing heart, frozen muscles and cold sweat that takes me over when I am exposed to anything to do with ghosts. I will sit frozen on the couch unable to move my arm to turn off the offending television program, nor will I be able to stand to walk to my bedroom. If I do manage to get myself up from the couch I will bypass the bathroom for fear of looking in the mirror and seeing something over my shoulder, and leap into bed, where I will resume my petrified paralysis until the sun has risen and there is someone else up to make me feel safe. Completely irrational.

Little Black Sheep - that's me

2005-11-21T13:37:00.000+11:00

I awoke early this morning, bright and alert at 7am without the aid of an alarm. The unknown trigger for last night's woeful whinging has been flicked off almost as soon as it was switched on, and has put me into a state of readiness and action. I put on my thinking cap and my walking shoes, and powered off into the city on a mission. A mission I have accomplished. I am now the proud owner of the shiny new registered business name Little Black Sheep.

It was an interesting visit to Consumer Affairs Victoria. I filled out the form, pressed the button to receive a number, and proceeded to the counter when called. The man at the desk and I exchanged not a word as I handed over my form and he began to enter my details in the computer. For ten minutes there was silence, save for the tapping of his keys, until he told me that "This Black Sheep" was too similar to a clothing company already in operation named "Black Sheep", and that I would have to find a name that didn't include the prhase Black Sheep. Oh woe I thought! But then a brainwave! How about Little Black Sheep? Yes, said the man at the counter, that takes the emphasis off nicely. It's all your's. I paid my fee, he printed the Certificate of Registration of Business Name, and I skipped out to the elevators with a goofy grin on my face.

I feel a great sense of acheivement as I sit in the library at RMIT (misusing the computers for blogging...shhh) and a great power come into my hands. A power to actually envision what my future might be past studying, working in a hardware store and still living at home with my family.

Angsty pants

2005-11-20T18:08:00.000+11:00

I feel this blog beginning a descent into a period of twenty-something angst. Or more, I can feel myself starting on the downward spiral, and as this blog is a shiny reflection of my increasingly erratic moods it follows along in perfect step. I sometimes wonder how one person can experience such extreme shifts in temperament in such short spaces of time. I consciously put myself under the pretence that I am just easily bored, yet I have a tiny nagging voice mocking me from the back of my mind, telling me that it's really a great dissatisfaction.

It's all well and good for my generation to be told that we can be and do anything our hearts desire, yet often too much choice brings about even more anguish than not enough. I am one of those people who has to put their hand up for anything that is asked of them, and take on more than their fair share of extra-curricular activites. I stretch myself so thin that stitches holding some parts of me together break and fall away, while I clutch harder to what is still attatched, pulling it into me lest I feel that everything is slipping from my grasp.

I'm ending this here, before I tumble even further into a woe-is-me speel, as I know you really don't want to hear about it. But hey, this is my blog, and my steam vent, so I'll just hope that you tolerate it until this mood has flitted on by me and off again to wherever it hides when not in use.

Arbeit

2005-11-19T17:28:00.000+11:00

My work is a tedious, tedious place on the weekends. Customers are sparse, and all the jobs that need doing can be finished in the time from 8 - 10am, leaving seven hours left to try and fill. One of my strategies to try and make the time go faster is to take a long strip of blank receipt paper and write lists of things to do. I like writing on the long strips - it makes me feel like I'm Harry Potter, writing a 30cm essay on parchment. So on today's particuarly boring shift, I made a list of things about work to blog about.

Silly things I find amusing that make the clock tick a little faster:

A product we sell named "Pro Value Support Belt". For some reason this makes me think "Prostitute Value Support Belt", which is ever so childish, yet ever so hilarious when you've been twiddling your thumbs aimlessly for an hour.
The current attempts of our hardware manager to grow a moustache. I think he is trying to draw attention away from his rapidly forming bald patch.
The label on "Bragger" variety tomatoes in our seedlings section. It has a picture of a rather devious looking tomato, who I assume is supposed to be bragging about something, possibly the size of his...er...stalk...
My telling a disgrutled customer in an overly cheery voice that if she isn't happy with the $1.75 plastic cap she is buying then she is welcome to come back for a refund. She was the type to drive all the way back for a refund too, using more than $1.75 worth of petrol in doing so.
All the strange, strange people who venture off the streets and into our store with bizzare questions and even weirder behaviour. We had one such customer today with some headphones around his neck, and from them was coming this weird alien sound effect. The kind you hear on a dodgy cartoon when a UFO is taking off, yet this was playing continuously as if he were listening out for extra terrestrial messages on some odd radio station.
Making things out of random items that come the way of the front counter. There was once a tiny little shrivelled up carrot that a particuarly strange customer had given us, and I drew a face on it and cut up some paperclips with wire cutters to form arms and legs. I then hung the little carrot man from a string just inside the cupboard where we keep our bags, so that the weekday girls would get a nice surprise.

Menial tasks I perform to try and counteract the boredom:

Checking the staplers and filling any that are getting low.
Making copious cups of coffee for the bosses to keep them happy and alert.
Checking the BOM website for the weather every half hour to see if there is a fine-ing up forecast. Good weather brings more customers.
Making slight adjustments to stock displays on the counter, so that items are more centred and aesthetically presented. I usually adjust them back five minutes later.
Hanging out in the timber yard for longer than is necessary to ask my friend working there what time he wants to have lunch.
Jumping on any customer who wants paint mixed or to know where something is located, even though I'm rostered on a register shift, not hardware. And when I say jumping I don't mean literally. I'm a very friendly sales person, but not that friendly.
Jumping on the phone (again not literally, although on Thursday I did fall over while trying to answer the phone and slightly sprained my ankle) whenever it rings, getting annoyed when it's just another person asking what time we close, yet even more annoyed when it's a customer asking annoying questions that require me to wander around the hardware looking for prices and information.
Playing DJ on the MusicMatch web based radio type program. And lamenting the far away, almost invisible picture of the broodingly handsome Jeff Buckley when you search for him.

And the highlight of today? When I had been talking to the other girl working about sleeping moments before answering the phone, and picked it up with "Good afternoon, Hardware Store, Erica sleeping". The customer had no idea how close to the truth that statement was.

Makin' plans

2005-11-18T17:26:00.000+11:00

The temporary template ailment that was plagueing this blog for the past week or so is now over. Goodbye ugly black screen, welcome back green and pink and hard to read writing. One of these days I'll get around to making a new template that is a little easier on the eyes.

And one of these days may be sooner than you think. I am now officially on holidays until February, and if you'll let me get a little boring (sorry no amusing stories about boobs or photos of me doing strange things in this post) these are my plans for the several months of freedom.

~~Cleaning my room and sorting through my junk~~ Done!
Constructing and planting a vegetable garden in my backyard
Screen printing up a whole lot of t-shirts to sell and supplement my meagre income
Working extra shifts at the hardware store to boost my savings and give me something to live off next year
Further contemplating the practicability of leaving the nest
Trying to think up new and creative ways of making money. Preferably something that allows me to use my "skills" (Napoleon Dynamite style) from home - be it writing, crafting, amateur designing or bowstaff skills. I'm welcome to any of your suggestions...
Giving this blog a complete overhaul, including going through past posts and editing, and making the archive page template match the real template
Recording a vocal track to "Something Cool", as part of an internet collaboration with a pianist friend of mine. I was sent the piano track close to a year ago...
Trying to keep an up-to-date visual diary, as I have discovered they are useful for design inspiration
Avoiding spending too many days lying around the house doing nothing, for fear that I fall into a creative rut and can't pull myself back out
Getting out to see as much live music and culture as I can afford
Exploring my curiosities, finding new experiences and breaking out of the Eastern suburban bubble I live in

I really have a knack for making my life sound incredibly boring and mundane...

I open the floor to suggestions on how to bring these plans to fruition, especially all those relating to my woeful finance situation, and to ideas of what else I can do to make my holiday productive and enjoyable at the same time.

I'm guilty, guilty!

2005-11-17T00:09:00.000+11:00

Erica, you are sentenced with being a pack rat, hoarder, and just general clutter bug. How do you plead?

Not guilty, not guilty!

Oho! Let's look at the evidence then. Do you recall what your room looked like this morning?

It's uh, not that messy...just some clothes on the floor...

Just some clothes on the floor? What would happen if we took everything out of your room and assembled it in the lounge room like this?

Er, I suppose that is a lot of stuff...

Yes, it takes up a gigantic amount of your lounge room space. And your room is only this big:

Now I point you to the following exhibits.

Exhibit A: This very bad fashion decision of a jacket, purchased in 1998, still in your wardrobe

Exhibit B: These dresses. The images speak for themselves

Exhibit C: This blue dress, worn on the night of your first ever kiss way back in 1999

Exhibit D: This particular bikini, which has long since become too small

Exhibit E: Tops such as these two, which are now rather scant on your adult figure. Please model them for the court

Exhibit F: Fashion Magic. Look at the models on the boxes' clothes! Need I say more?

Now do you still plead not guilty to the aforementioned charges?

Please your honour, it's not my fault! Please make the horrendous fashion stop! I'll plead guilty, I promise

Very well, I sentence you to one day's cleaning, including vaccuming, furniture rearranging, sorting out, throwing out, and de-cluttering. I expect your results to look something like this:

My ugly breasts

2005-11-14T13:51:00.000+11:00

Kay House. I haven't been here since this post. I was planning on writing about one of my most traumatic childhood experiences - when a girl read my palm in year 7 and told me I would die before my 12th birthday - but that will have to wait, lest the tram ride I just had on the number 19 slip from my memory completely.

Sitting behind an old woman with bright fuscia drawn-on eyebrows and a mask of foundation were an old mumbling Italian man and a rather masculine looking woman.
"I don't want to hear you dinging your dinger, driver!" said the woman to no one in particular, "your job is to just drive the tram."
"Mumble mermph mug mem," said the old man to the lady, who obviously comprehended these sounds and responded.
"Her?" looking pointedly at me from across the aisle, "I don't care what SHE does! Drawings probably."
I hid a smile behind the single rolled up drawing I was carrying and stared fixedly out my window.
"Murray does a nice job with your hair, how much does he charge you?"
"Mumble mumph."
"Do you think he'd do a good job at my hair?" she pointed at her greying short back and sides, "yes, I cut my hair like a boy because I WANTED TO BE ONE!". By this stage her comments were directed more to me than her travelling companion. "Who wants to be a woman? Who wants to have breasts? Who would want UGLY BREASTS like HER!" her arm stuck straight out, finger pointed directly at my chest.
Self consciously I hid my cleavage behind my rolled drawing (which I actually thought was quite nice cleavage today), and on seeing the girl sitting opposite me almost choke on her laughter I turned my head as far towards my window as I could to hide my own mirth.
"It's ok for HER to be a woman, but that's HER, don't judge me by HER rules. I am not HER!"
"Mmmt mubble mo mudge"
"I can understand why people would want a sex change. I don't agree with it, but I understand. I UNDERSTAND WHY."
"Murpht mob mebble"
"Yes yes... Driver, stop DINGING your DINGER!"

Sleep deprivation

2005-11-11T16:05:00.000+11:00

No sleep last night. Did homework instead.

Left for school at 7am.

Hat and sunglasses required for masking of unwashed hair and unrested eyes.

Was 10 degrees outside when left home, so took scarf.

For some reason wore lot of green. Felt like French leprauchaun.

Kept sunglasses on almost entire day. Except when in library. Even when in Melbourne Central Station.

Fell asleep in car when got home from station at lunch time.

Mum knocked on window with words to do with seeing me Sunday.

Don't know where she is going.

No power in brain left for more words. Need sleep but must do work. Picture instead.

Beware overhanging branches

2005-11-10T14:51:00.000+11:00

Arrrgh, I just about knocked myself out on an overhanging tree branch while running inside from the car in the rain. I ran, the tree and I collided, and I was smacked backwards off my feet with a great force and onto the sopping nature strip, the newly purchased folders in my hand flying through the air like giant black folder shaped birds. I have checked my pupils in the mirror, and they appear to be a little dilated, although that could just be because it is very dark due to the rain.

$20 worth of colour photocopying at Office Works, $15 of folders and mount board to present my work, a flying dash in the rain, and I end up with a concussion...