Sunday, June 27, 2010

Coming out of storage

So after max encouragement from Betty, I called the storage company and arranged to have the container shipped to my studio. Ironically, the truck couldn't maneuver it up my street, or into my parents driveway so I had to have it shipped to my old house.

All things are circular. Everything begins where it ends.

So I thought it would be an easy process, and you know I really believed this. What could possibly go wrong? It's my table, some ottomans, my Grandma's vanity, my washing machine and some bits and pieces.

I opened the container and I did a little blink. I had greatly underestimated the amount of furniture I used to own. In addition to the above there was also
  • two side tables
  • two outdoor tables
  • a bookshelf
  • more chairs
  • boxes of electronic gear
  • easels
  • seven paintings
  • tool sets
  • suitcases
  • a coat rack
  • a heater and a fan
I blinked again to make sure what I was seeing and then I had to sit down because I could feel myself launching into a full-on unparalleled panic attack. Breathe. breathe. breathe. What the heck am I going to do with all of this stuff?? And how come I didn't remember any of it?

My first instinct was to close the container back up, lock it and send it back into storage. I could pretend that it didn't exist and no-one [other than my bank account] was going to be worse for wear.

Or I could man up and grow some cojones. Of course, growing cojones takes a bit of time, so during that period I stood there and gaped at the container some more. It took about an hour to get my shit together and peel myself from that spot. I'm sure my former neighbours were wondering what the hell I was doing. Maybe performance art or something.

Anyway, [with the help of my cousin Little J - handily at home on a Friday night] I had moved half of it by midnight, yeah- it took five hours to move half of the fiddly stuff.

So the moral of the story is firstly: If you ever decide to move your entire house into storage- for God's sack, take inventory! Or will you end up as a hyperventilating mess and the second moral of the story is when the situation calls for it, you have to stand your ground and grow some nuts. They don't have to be too big, they just have to be enough to get you through.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

First Female Prime Minister of Australia

Hell yeah!

And we have our first female prime minister! It took us more than a bit of time to get there, but we finally got there!

She's smart and she's sharp and she's definitely going to take our country somewhere. Thank God she also happens to be the antithesis of the right-wing-crazy-Sarah Palin.

And you know I'm thinking a lot of you don't care [and boy, do I hate it when people are apathetic about politics] but you need to open your eyes, because this is epic. It is absolutely monumental.

Fuck that glass ceiling! Women can do anything and everything! Go you Julia Gillard!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

World Cup vs Daughter

[On cancelling dinner]

Mum: We can't see you for for the duration of the World Cup. We'll get together when it's over.

Mush: !! Wait, which is more important? The daughter or someone kicking a ball in South Africa?? Where's the love??

Mum: This is not about love, it's about soccer.

Well if I didn't have massive abandonment issues before, I have them now. Thanks Mum!

Oh, comic sans

This monologue made me laugh [but not out loud cos I'm at work].

The Angry Comic Sans Rant

Guilty as charged. I still hate comic sans though.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

And Ta-da!

New layout!

I'm seriously spending more time working on banners and things than I am on actually writing, but I hate hate haaated the old banner. I don't know what possessed me. I was clearly high on metho when I created it.


For one thing, I am brownist. I despise the colour brown. If I could erase the world of the colour brown, I would totally wave my wand and do it.
Secondly, the more I look at it, the more the arrows seem to be really really askew and not in a deliberate askew way but more like the designer had blurry contacts-askew. It's beyond distracting. Where the heck are people supposed to look? [Yes, I'm asking myself.]

Lastly, there's no concept behind it which is probably why it's come out looking like a bunch of random objects pasted together.

Alright, not my finest moment as a designer. It's not going in my portfolio.

On the plus side I like the font. I might use it again one day. Hmm.

I however really really like my new banner. I'm proud of how stylin' it is. It has a dimension which the others didn't have [Thanks transparency and gradients!] I think I'll keep it for a little while.

Which reminds me I really should go and do a basic html or php course so my playing is not just playing.

The good thing about design is that you have total control of everything and how it turns out. When life twirls out of your hands, it's just therapeutic to sit down and tweak everything to just the way you like it. There's a certain comfort in it. And as a bonus, it allows me to ignore the phone for a little while longer.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Last woman standing!

"While everybody else is getting out of bed
I’m usually getting in it
I’m not in it to win it
And there’s a thousand ways you can skin it"
-If it's love, Train.

About a week ago, I noticed that all my friends in the Friday Night Crew with the exception of me and Coconat have picked up a partner in the last year [and especially in the last month]. I put it down to this winter being exceptionally cold.. yeah, that's it.

I mentioned this passingly to Coconat. "If you start dating, I will be the last woman standing!"
She was instantly dismissive, "As if. If there is a last woman standing, it will be me. Not that I'm not enjoying singlehood."

--

Well last night at the end of a very very long night [it must've been close to three in the morning] sitting around the table with Dylmah and JT, she brought it up again. She'd obviously been thinking about it.

"I'm going to be the last woman standing."
"No, you're not. I am."
"Uhm. No. Definitely me."

Dylmah leans forward and gives us both a sideways look "what are you talking about?". We give him a quick rundown and then we turn to him and demand an answer:

"Well who do you think it's going to be??"

He looks at us. We're both gorgeous, smart and possibly the two most neurotic girls on this side of the Eastern Australian Coastline. His face is of someone who is being backed into a wall by knifepoint, so he answers as diplomatically as he can.

"Um. I dunno. Tough call."

"Fine," she grins at me, "Let's place money on it."

"You're on. How much?"

"Two dollars."

"Two dollars?? What is two dollars going to do for me?"

"Twenty dollars. I will be the last woman standing."

"Twenty is a done deal. If I am the last woman standing, you're giving me twenty dollars!"

We laugh and shake on it.

At this point Dylmah pipes up "No self-sabotage!"

I'm amused "That's what I'll tell them. Sorry, I can't date you. I have twenty dollars riding on it.

Right, the T&Cs are it has to be a relationship over 2 months and if anyone breaks up [from our group] within that period, the bet is considered null and void."

Coconat turns to JT: How long have you been dating for now?

JT: Over three months! Woo! *Gives himself a little cheer.*

I grin at her. This is going to be interesting. "Game on Coconat."

New layout

And another new layout. I don't know if I like it. It's a little bit old for me I think.

Ok, I've decided I haaaaate it. Will fix it tonight.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Soulja Boy haters

So over the years when guys [and only guys for some reason] have flipped through my iPod, they don't usually complain about my taste in music. That is until they notice that I have Crank Dat by Soulja Boy in there and then everyone gets all weird and judgemental-ly

Examples of various comments throughout the years include:

"I cannot believe you have this song, I have lost all respect for you."

"Why do you have this song? It's the stupidest song ever."

And um.. my only response to that can be... "yoooooh!" and a rapid flailing of the arms which only leads them to look at me like I'm mental.

I really do not get the hate for the song so I went looking for answers, the best response that I could find was "It's the gangstas version of the macarena."

The most disgusting response I found was " some guy (Soulja Boy) whacks off onto a girls back when she's sleeping, and sticks a bed sheet to her back, and it sticks, hence SUPERMANN!"

Annnnnd.. his words, not mine. [Do people really think like that? No wait, do people really do that? And if people do things like that, I never ever once told you how much I appreciate my cloistered world in all its cloisteredness]

And yet, it's catchy and puerile and I love it. And when it comes up on shuffle, it's all I can do to not get up from my chair and break out into a little dance.

If you see a blonde and an asian girl rocking out to Crank Dat in a Ford Festiva in the inner suburbs of Sydney, you should totally beep and give us a wave, because that's me and Campbell. Getting our ghetto on.

Of course, haters need not apply, but you're free to give us some wicked glares but we'll ignore you and then turn it up a little louder or as Soulja boy says "Hayters get mad 'cause, I got me some bathing apes!" [Yeah that doesn't make sense, but none of the song does! Just dance to it, you know you want to.]

Hello Kitty Jelly Bellys


Well what can I say except for: Well hello lover!

And of course since we're on the edge of the world they don't sell them here. Lucky for me, I have a vast network of jetsetting relatives.

Mush: Hey Matty, are you going overseas next week? I wanna place an order with you. [Haha, he's like my supplier! My Hello Kitty drug mule]

Matty: I'm heading there next week, what do you need?

Mush: A bling blackberry 9700 case and a box of Hello Kitty Jelly Bellys :D

Matty: I'll see what I can do. Although I don't know if you need more candy [I bought 3kg worth of gummi bears last week. Whoops]

Mush: Thanks Matty! Did I mention that you're my favourite cousin? [Hopefully no other cousins read this blog!]

Matty: Lol. Wait til you hear my lecture about too much candy.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

More bits and pieces

"If it's love
And we decide that it's forever
No one else could do it better

If it's love
And we're two birds of a feather
Then the rest is just whenever"
- If it's love- Train
[I thought I would keep it upside down, the way it was originally taken, captured in posterity forever upside down.]

I'm feeling remarkably upbeat lately, I don't know why but the future seems really bright. Of course I'm not Pollyanna and I have bad/mopey/fat moments but I feel like I've wasted so much time that there's no point not looking forward. So I've been busy like a nut recently and not doing much blogging, writing or any analysing at all [which I figure would explain why my dreams have turned into these insane Dali Lynch paintings].

I had my first manual driving lesson the other day! I don't think I'm very great but I can drive round and round in circles on 1st and 2nd gear, and as I was concentrating very hard [clutch, accelerate, clutch, brake ] Mountain Guy turns to me and says "I really envy your life".

This was probably not the right thing to say to me as I was careening down a one way strip down a mountain. "What?"

"You have a great life. You live in a nice suburb, you have flexibility to move in your job, everything is good." He looks at me. "In three years, I'll work towards it and I will have a lifestyle like yours."

I didn't know what to say, I just shook my head.

--

I do have a nice life. I have family and friends who I love and [mostly] love me back. I don't have much responsibility to anyone or anything. I can eat gummi bears for dinner and I can turn the music up as loud as I want. I don't have much money, but I get to eat out when I choose to. I do live in a millionaires suburb, but if you're ok to live in a 5x5 studio then you can too.

I like my life, but I don't think it's anything particularly different from the way that any other young professional lives. I really puzzle about the way I come off to people that I don't really know very well.

--

So as well as the manual driving thing, I'm also going to a Grease dancing workshop [oh Sandy!] and apparently a soccer skills course with Coconat.

I mentioned the soccer skills course to Alv

Alv: What? Why? wtf.
Mush: I'm on a self improvement kick!
Alv: What the heck is it with girls and self-improvement?
Mush:.. what do you mean..?
Alv: You know that someone [ie. a guy] should like you just the way you are.
Mush: I'm not doing it for a guy?! I'm doing it for me
[Good thing, this was over skype otherwise I would have walloped him with my handbag. Way to go to ruffle my feminist feathers in a single swoop]

--

Last Sunday I was standing at the ATM when I bumped into Alphabeta, I still don't know how I feel about it. I'll write a post about it when I figure out what these weird emotions are.

--

I'm watching the soccer as I type this [Argentina vs South Korea]. It's really strange to see that the sun is shining on the other side of the world.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Friday, June 11, 2010

That time when I didn't palm a random stranger in the face

So I'm sitting there quietly eating lunch at the counter of this Chinese takeaway, when this very loud lady and her companion plop herself next to me. The empty counter is about 4 metres long. She's at my elbow. Not such a good start.

So while she's eating, she opens the Daily Telegraph and starts exclaiming about the state of the world. This is one of my biggest pet hates of all time, taking a tabloid newspaper as fact and then using it to proclaim the world a mess. It really really annoys me. I get that there are plenty of discerning readers who question what they read, but my guess is that there are plenty who don't. And this lady was one of them.

"Oh isn't it just shocking how much we spend on our prisoners. Two hundred dollars a day!"

I'm staring into my noodles and trying to ignore her but the lack of space between us was a major issue.

Every progressive page, its gets more shocking and more terrible! And I wonder how my plate of noodles turned into that ever refilling pitcher from Greek mythology. It's the plate of noodles that never ends. I feel like I've been sitting there for seventeen hours.

As I'm finally rounding out homebase, someone calls her on the mobile and she answers with

"Hello! I'm sitting in the best Chinese restaurant ever. I have a brochure with me, I have no words to explain how good it is. [pause] it's just wonderful. And you're speaking to someone who is a Chinese food connoisseur. It is simply the best Chinese food in Australia!"

I look at her plate of fried rice, sweet and sour pork and spring rolls.

That's it. I have to leave before I flick her in the forehead with my fork, noodle or no noodle.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Letting go

So the other day at dinner, my mum asks me about all the furniture that I'm keeping in storage.

"Why are you keeping all that stuff? You're paying an extortionate amount to keep it there."

And I immediately answered "It's something worth holding onto."

Of course, she immediately jumps to the conclusion that I'm using the furniture as some sort of twisted shrine to SB.

".. why hold onto that? Let him go."

And then I get super annoyed and give her the crossest look ever.

"This has nothing to do with him. It's about chasing down a table that I took four months to find and ottomans which took six weeks to make. I have an unusual attachment to my furniture."

"I think you should just buy new furniture!"

--

Of course after a couple of days of thought -she's right. I'm paying so much money to keep it in a [big] box. Sigh. I may as well pluck up the courage and sell five ottomans, a table, a washing machine, an armoire, two vacuum cleaners, a mirror and.. close to a billion other things. It's going to be like wrenching my arm off and slapping me around with it. I don't even know where to start, do I just dump it in front of a second hand store?

--

But before that, while I'm getting rid of past things- I have been ignoring my papers for a good year or so.



And that's what it looks like when you don't have your affairs in order. The papers have just spiralled out of control. And now I have to sit down and fix it. I have to be a grown up and start putting things down, letting things go and sorting things out. Trust me when I say that idea is not sounding like much fun.

9:20

Well that took a much shorter time than I thought I would to compartmentalise my life in three boxes [and 1500 plastic sleeves]. And I feel oddly better and so much lighter, like I've stripped off layers of something. I wonder if I will feel the same way after my furniture is gone as well.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

The limit to my Hello Kitty love

So I'm not really a brand whore but I don't particularly approve of fake branded products either. I guess it saves you the money but how good can it make you feel to wear Puicy Mouture or Ralph Jauren?

Which is why when we started selling fake Hello Kitty Mousepads, I was slightly disgusted. They brought them to my desk and everyone looked at me and expected me to start clapping like a seal or something.

"Do you want one?"

The front was slightly grubby which was cleanable, but the thing is that calling it a mousepad was a bit of a stretch. It was less like a mousepad and more like a really thin piece of cardboard with a Hello Kitty head on it. I had serious convictions that running a laser mouse on the glossy front would probably make it haywire. Maybe if you went old school and had a mouse with a rollerball?

I don't know how to adequately describe the expression on my face, or the emotions rising in my chest which went something along the lines of.. even an ardent HK fan would not buy this piece of cardboard because firstly it's so fake that they couldn't even be bothered to put an even faker Sanrio label on it and secondly it's a piece of cardboard masquerading as a piece of equipment? I don't know? but I twisted my face into wry amusement and said "No, it's not for me."

Well anyway the designer took a killer photo of it and it looks phenomenal.

Look! Even I would be seduced if I saw it online. And of course people are buying them. So here's the lesson folks:
One: Even there is a limit to my love of all things Hello Kitty. You cannot just slap her head on something and expect me to giggle like a 12 year old school girl
and Secondly, be very very wary of product pictures that you see online. I have a feeling that 14 people are going to receive these in the mail at some point and be like "what. I paid for this. what."

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Bright spots in dark days

I walk into the hospital room and I don't know what to say. Where do I look? and what should I say that hasn't been heard before? My cousin Maria says that the previous visitors started singing hymns and hallelujahs, annoying the people in the next beds. We both smile at the image. Aunty May has a bruise on her hand where the intern couldn't put the needle in.

My Great Aunty May is very sick and she doesn't have very long to go. And I worry. I worry because I don't know how to deal with death, I'm even less well equipped to deal with the aftermath. I don't want her to die. I don't want her to die and leave my great uncle, who is after sixty years of marriage is clearly struggling to come to terms with it [And where is God when you really need him?]. Of course what I want has nothing to do with anything. Logically, we are prepared for death as an inevitability. But logic exits when it actually happens. We're not built of logic.

When you leave the hospital room, when you leave the hospital and you step outside, all you can do is suck in air. You didn't realise you'd been holding your breath the entire time.

--

And so you unknowingly look for bright spots to compensate. An email from overseas. Singing in the car with your girls. Making your mum laugh so hard that she cries.

So you close your eyes, and breathe this weekend in and hopefully when you open your eyes, someone is standing in front of you smiling at you reminding you that life is still moving. And you'd better get going as well.

Friday, June 04, 2010

Odds and thoughts



I'm sitting with my parents and my uncle and aunty at dinner, when I see a very attractive girl walk past. Her face was perfectly formed to the point where its been reduced to a set of geometric shapes and there's not much movement going on there, I call plastic surgery when I see it.

I poke my mum, "What do you think of her?"

And then my mum looks.

And then my stepdad turns around

And then my uncle surreptiously drops his napkin to the floor.

And my aunty [always the kind one] hisses "What are you all doing?"

My mum stage-whispers across the table [the only person I know who actually stage whispers]
"I think her nose is not God-given!"
My mum is very good at making me laugh when she doesn't mean to.
--

Later on in the dinner, my aunty gets very pissed off at my Dad for his lousy fathering. And I'm surprised by the vehemence of her emotions. I didn't know she had been watching that closely. I guess my mum doesn't feel that she can say these kinds of things because it's not on for her to do so. And I respect her for her restraint. However it's nice to have an authority figure validate what I'm feeling. That it's wrong. And the situation is wrong. And all of it from however many years ago til now has been wrong. wrong. wrong.

--

Now that I am required to Facebook 24/7 at work, I hate Facebook. I don't want to see it again for a week [or seven] .. but how else am I supposed to play Scraaaaable? Damn you Facebook. Facebook: 1. Mush: 0

---

A couple of years ago [actually it might have just been last year] it started bucketing down while I was driving, and it rained so hard that I couldn't see a metre past my windscreen. I couldn't see a thing and I was so terrified out of my brain that I was crying and driving at the same time [that couldn't have helped my vision at all] Anyway I was thinking about it last night because it hasn't stopped raining for two weeks. And I was wondering about how now that I'm a more experienced driver, I would probably be less scared and in hindsight, I was probably a sook.

Well if it was raining hard before, today it was absolutely frigging bucketing. I couldn't see a thing. I was driving through puddles that reached my bumper, I would not have been surprised if my car would have stopped simply because the engine was not built for taking a bath. but I was much less scared and yes, in hindsight I was a complete sook.

[By the way when I stepped out of the car, the water reached my knees. I'm not joking.]

--

Mooncake called me today to tell me she's leaving the country in July [and what the heck is it with people just calling me to tell they're leaving forever in two weeks. Saffron did it (which I'm still not particularly over). Polish did it. Campbell thought it would be better to send me an email so I wouldn't yell at her. I yelled at her anyway.]

Mooncake: I'm leaving the country at the end of July
Mush: You're doing what? You just had a baby two weeks ago. You just bought a house. You just bought a car.
Mooncake: Mr Mooncake doesn't want to stay here anymore. He wants to open a business in China.
Mush: Well what about what you want??
Mooncake: I have no choice la. It's what he wants to do. It's his dream. I love life here, it's so simple and easy.

Ok. I'm not married, so I would have no idea what I would do in this type of situation. Hypothetically, if my man decided to uproot me from my comfortable life while I still had stomach stitches from pushing out his baby, there's a good chance that I would tell him where the cliff is and how he can jump from it. [mmm.. that way.]

I remember a conversation I had with he-who-shall-not-be-named a couple of years ago
..: Would you go with me anywhere if I wanted to pursue my dream?
Mush: Of course! I'd follow you anywhere. Except Orange. Or the Arizona Desert. Do you mind focusing your dreams on a more metropolitan area?

So maybe I just don't have it in me to pull up sticks because someone asks me to. Well okay, I do. But I'd better like you a helluva lot. And it'd better not be to a one horse town in frigging Timbuktu. And definitely not after I just had one of your kids and am cranky and sleep deprived. Wow. So many conditions.

She's not imposing any of these however.. and she just sounds so... unhappy.

--

I'm standing there talking to my neighbour and he's waiting for his friends to pick him up and take him to the airport [How come everyone's going to Hong Kong? My boss, Alv, Eric, my neighbour -what am I missing?] and as he goes to leave, I am about to shoot off my normal travel parting greeting which is:
Haha, don't do anything I wouldn't do!
And just as soon as I remember I don't actually know him that well I stop. So it comes out as
"Don't do- .. oh. Have fun!"
At what point can you actually say that to anyone anyway? Would you have to know them super duper well? If a stranger said that to me, my only polite response would have to be "Well, what do you do?" [And what was your name again..?]

I'm an idiot and I need a new parting greeting when talking to acquaintances who are about to leave the country

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

What would have sold me on the iPhone

ok, so we all know I didn't get the iPhone because my fingers are just way too fat and there's no way I'd ever be able to type on it. Well I could type on it. Badly. And then I would be annoyed because then everyone would assume I have bad grammar and I'd have to go around correcting people even more than I already do to compensate. So no. Bad idea for everyone involved.

However I was surfing today and I spied an app that says "It's Britney, Bitch." when you shake it. That is so so cool. If I had an iPhone and that app, I would be shaking that mother all day long. Of course, it's too bad that Apple doesn't care about us less dexterous people or I would be having the time of my life on that thing.

It's Britney, Bitch!
It's Britney, Bitch!
It's Britney, Bitch!

And now I am off to go rock Gimme More on my iPod. The irony. It's never lost on me.

The meaning of life

"A tiny dish of vanilla ice cream topped with a chocolate coated raspberry and paired with a chocolate mini tart filled with vanilla pastry cream and crowned with fresh raspberries and chocolate. Made with Wheeler's Black Label vegan ice cream"
Well I dunno about you but I think that would make my day better. Just a bit. Ok I lie. By a lot. In fact, it would probably complete me and I would have to stop searching for the meaning of life.

[Haha, I just remembered that the cake is a lie! Sorry, geeked out there for a second]
 
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