Vegetable Car

"Baby, you don't even know me
But one day I'll get up the courage as you pass by, You'll see
Oh baby, one look just might save me
I need you to slow by the corner, stop right in front of me

Till then I see you hopefully through
I do wish that you'd ask me to ride along
It wouldn't be wrong to tell more than I know about you

She drives a vegetable car
Diesel Mercedes green 2-door
I barely know who you are
Lisa Loeb glasses, I'd sure like to ask you to stay

Baby, I need you to save me
The one thing that my heart requires is that you admire me

Till then I see you hopefully through
I do wish that you'd ask me to ride along
It wouldn't be wrong to tell more than I know about you

She drives a vegetable car
Diesel Mercedes green 2-door
I barely know who you are
Lisa Loeb glasses, I'd sure like to ask you to stay

How do I know why the sight of you makes me weak
Each time I see you turn on to my street
Your hair is always up in a bun
This girl's the one

She drives a vegetable car
Diesel Mercedes green 2-door
I barely know who you are
Lisa Loeb glasses, I'd sure like to ask you to stay"

-Vegetable Car, Joshua Radin

My favouritest song ever.

Saturdays

"When you've got friends to wish you well,
you'll find a point when you will exhale"
-Shoop shoop (Exhale) - Whitney Houston

Sometimes you don't know miss people til you actually see them. I caught up with my cousins for lunch and I seriously forget how funny they are. We're all programmed with a code of genetic randomness.


Sumo decided she hated my sunnies. So much so that she had to model them. They look better on me. Ha.
I don't have any pictures of my cousin Matty, he decided to grow a really unfortunate goatee and could not be photographed. So no Matty pictures.

It's a bumbag. She was toting a bumbag, please tell me these are not coming back in style. Ever.

After we had coffee, we decided to head off to yum cha because Sumo hadn't been since she broke up with Nathan. "It's like I broke up with yum cha!"

She then went very quiet and said "Breaking up with someone is breaking up with all the little things.." I guess truer words were never spoken.

---

I don't have any idea why they don't allow drinks in that fridge. Weird.

Lunch was a completely raucous affair. I don't mention very much that I love my family a lot but I really do. I don't see my cousins enough.

---

Onto Ms Smith's birthday.


We are wearing the same jacket!


It's not as tall as we thought it was..


He's being elbowed! There was a lot of elbowing since we interrupted a toga party.

I've started a journal so I can stop being emo on this blog. So can everyone please heave a big fat sigh of relief for a break in regular programming.

Which reminds me when exactly am I going to return to my regular consistency of rock hard cynicism and not this doughy tofu thing that I've become?

Last night, Dhana and all that were snickering and gawking at this couple that were leaning in and taking their time to kiss each other. "Oh my God, would you look at that?" and then they all collectively rolled their eyes "Get a room."
".. I uhhh.. well I think it's kind of sweet."
They stopped looking at the couple for a second and all swivelled their eyes on me. Uhm, who are you again and who says that kind of thing out loud?!
Well it was really sweet, and it's just nice to see two people enjoy each others company. Anyway.

And then this morning, Mexicana was telling me how her ex Ippon has fallen in love with a Vietnamese popstar and wants to bring her over here. Mexicana was disgusted, "God, what a car wreck."
But you know? Maybe it is true love and maybe she genuinely wants to be with him and is not using him for a visa.. and.. and..

yeah, ok I'll let you know when I snap out of it, but this whole believing in love thing is kind of nice? I'm feeling optimistic lately. Must be the journal thing.

Chopsticks in my car.

In the boot of my car I have

• a picnic blanket
• a rice cooker
• a basket full of sheets
• a magic eight ball [er, in case I can't decide where to go]
• a literal sack full of assorted items including sticky tape, oil face wipes and a rubber duckie
• a luggage suitcase full of year 10 textbooks
• an umbrella

In the backseat of my car I have

• a copy of Marie Claire [never-read. Hmm.]
• a sketch journal
• a pair of mickey mouse gloves
• a scarf
• DVDs including Season 1 of My name is Earl, Season 1 of Gossip Girl and a copy of Up
• a portable vacuum cleaner
• the biggest Hello Kitty head pillow.ever
  
• annnnd. a pair of takeway chopsticks.

So out of all these things that people choose to mess around with and rummage around in- the first thing they always comment on is the chopsticks. Why oh why do you have a pair of chopsticks in the backseat of your car? And I always reply alternately

"I'm digging my way to China."
"Chuck Norris gave them to me. Anything by Chuck Norris is a gift. "
" Those are not actual chopsticks, you're just imagining them."

In any case, why not keep a pair right? you know for fishing things out of cracks and poking rude hitchhikers in the eye when needed.

But seriously, you don't know how happy I was that I could run downstairs to my car this afternoon, pick up the sticks and eaaat my lunch because the dumb lady forgot to give me cutlery with my takeway.

I'm such a girl scout. Always prepared for anything.

Human Nature

And now I am in just kind of that mood [angry Madonna mood not BDSM mood, in case I needed to clarify].

There but for the grace of God..

So I was driving home today [singing to 'Girls just wanna have fun' of all things] when I had to slow down because a car had stopped in the opposite direction of my narrow two way street. As I maneouvred past, I noticed that guy was staring ahead with a rather pissed off expression and the girl in the passenger seat had her head in her hand and was crying.

A lover's spat on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

My heart went out to her but I'll be brutally honest with you, the first thing I felt was relief. How long ago was I in that same position and how glad I am to not to be sitting there anymore. There but for the grace of God am I not there any longer.

Nothing is as helpless as a passenger seat cry. The oceans that can come between two people who are within touching distance.

So as I passed, I didn't feel so much like singing after that. I hope he gave her a hug and they worked it out before they went home.

Constantly recanting

So I woke up and thought: what the heck did I write again? Shoot, I'd better go check it. Oh. That's not so bad. I thought I'd have to pull down another post.

I really am constantly doing that lately. And I never used to do it, five years [plus!] of blogging and I have never been ashamed of my feelings or what I'm feeling or even heck, what I'm doing but lately I'm just wondering if the things I write are just way too personal for public consumption.

I don't let people in very much and yet I continue to splatter my heart on here every day. A walking, talking contradiction.

More than a couple of people have said to me over the past year "I read your blog the other day, and holy shit, it was so heavy." And what can I do but politely smile and wryly say "Well that's what the inside of my head looks like."

I am [and I guess you already know] a person that feels a lot. I am never neutral or indifferent and if I ever tell you I don't care, I am clearly lying to be socially appropriate [but don't worry, you'll hear all about it later! in the car! on the way home! ]

I can't just keep pulling all the personal stuff down. Eventually it's just going to be a completely anecdotal blog.

I had a conversation the other day [and I can't remember with who, so I'm wondering if I dreamed the entire thing] I drew a line across the table. The end left is where most people are, and the end right is where my heart is. This middle stroke is where you get to if you're lucky, the middle stroke is where most of my friends are congregated. She very gently pointed out I'm not even letting people past the first line.

This blog is my middle stroke, and I'm starting to pull down anything that veers to the right hand side.

At the end of the day, I don't really want to censor myself because where else am I going to go to get all these thoughts out? [My head might explode or I might start sleepwalking if I don't process everything]

All I'm saying [ruminations and rambles] is that I'm in a very funny place right now, a bit vulnerable and a bit feisty. So until I stop being all weirdo and sensitive, there are probably going to be lots and lots of recanted posts for a few weeks. Maybe I should just turn this into an anecdotal blog.

Holding

So I admit I am in the running for the worst drunk dialler in the world. Undefeated champion. But I'm still holding onto the edge of my desk because I can't call him and ask all the questions I want to ask.

Even drunk diallers have a modicum of dignity,

Comfortable Love

**Before I start anything I have to give a massive big shout out to the Chatswood Chase Security Guard who let me out of the carpark when I lost my ticket. There are still good people out there!

I don't know how the subject changed to love.

H: Love is.. love doesn't matter anymore after a while. In the end passion goes, and you're left with comfort.

M: Wait. Don't you love your husband?

H: I don't know.

M: ...

H: I know what we have is comfortable. I don't know if I love him.

M: But.

H: I honestly don't.

M: But what about at the beginning? weren't you in love??

H: No, never. I never had the in love feeling with him . I was always comfortable and I always liked him. However it wasn't an all consuming love. You know how falling in love is supposed to be like the ocean? Well these are ripples..

M: And does he feel the same way about you?

H: I think so.

M: ...

H: It was what I wanted after the first two relationships failed. It's just comfortable love. And it's strong and stable. [Gestures towards Little H] And anyway, after you've had a kid, she becomes the most important thing in your life. More important than your partner.

[pause]

H: Maybe that's what you should look for. Comfortable love.

Is that crazy? She really is happy in her life and in her marriage. And that's one way I guess to go about avoiding disappointment. But I don't think I could do that. Because I want to not only be liked, but I want to be loved. I wanted to be loved in a heart-crushing, head-pounding, can't-do-without-me kind of way. I want him to at one point to say "I cannot live without you." And to feel exactly the same. And if I cannot find this kind of love then I would rather do without.

Which leads me I guess back to, that there possibly isn't this kind of love out there and I've been spun around by movies and novels and I will possibly eventually end up alone dreaming my violet coloured dreams.

These are the chances you take.

Chatroulette: A morning with Alv

Sometimes the most productive way to vent [other than the blogging thing. Der.] is to take a a teeny weeny golf ball, a massive five iron, pretend its someone's head and whack the holy moly out of a bucket of balls. I'm a pacifist everywhere except the driving range. Equal anger and violence on each ball.

Anyway Alv volunteered to go with me, but first we got into a discussion about human interaction on chatroulette.

Alv: What's chatroulette?
Mush: It's like a video chatroom where you get paired up with random strangers. And if you don't like the look of them, you click next. You get a lot of interesting interaction because you're forced to communicate with people on a different level.
Alv: That sounds really really stupid.

Well my game ass is always ready to try anything new [underground rock bands, thriller dance classes, retro nightclubs] so what the heck, why not try this before I dismiss it?

Alv: I want to see you do this, because I think your reaction is going to be hilarious.
Mush: Hmm.

So he dragged his laptop up to my place, and it was the biggest friggggging laptop I had ever seen, a 20'1" screen. Also it was probably the coolest laptop I had ever seen in my life and I don't think any picture could ever do it justice. If I could get married to a piece of technology, that laptop and I would be heading to Vegas.

Oh look, there it is. You can't see me but I'm pulling kissy faces at it. It has a swivel screen too. [Breathes in. hard.]

So anyway I'm all settled to start Chatroulette. Alv has positioned himself on the couch when my phone rings.

Mush: Hullo?
Mum: Hai! We're coming up! We're bringing you the flatscreen tv!
Mush: You're where? You're doing what? Thank you? Whuh?

My mum has spontaneously decided to give me her flatscreen on this morning. Her flatscreen is bigger than the entire wall of my studio. Where am I going to put it? Am I going to go blind looking at it? And how am I going to explain Alv in my apartment? Although do I really have to? It's not the 1950's. So many questions.

Mush: You better .. do something. My mum is coming up.
Alv: Should I just pretend to be your neighbour?

..

Proceed awkward conversation between Alv and my mum

Mum: Hullo. Who are you? You look familiar. You look like someone I know.
Alv: I'm Alv.
Mum: Do you speak chinese?
Alv: Yes.
Mum: Cantonese or mandarin?

And meanwhile they are both pulling faces at me when the other one is not looking. Alv is perfecting a Bad Badtz Maru. Like so.

And my mum is giving me the almighty eyebrow. Which I do not even have an appropriate cartoon simile for. Finally, she leaves but not without I think making a mental note to interrogate me later on with a can of pepper spray, a lie detector and a taser.

Mush: Oh God. She's going to think we're dating. Shitshitshitfukfukfuk. At some point I'm going to have to explain to her that I'm not dating someone else. Or that I'm kind of dating. Um. Sort of. Not really. I don't even know what I'm doing now. Men! Mothers! Argh!

Meanwhile this big chunky tv is taking up my entire floor and Chatroulette is waiting.

[I'm really sorry but for some reason I couldn't take screenshots. They all failed]

So we position ourselves again in our previous positions. I'm on the [kiss,kiss] laptop and I'm adjusting it to my best angle. I look a little orange. Alv is already starting to crack up.

First person: An Asian girl. Sees I'm also Asian. Hits next.

Second person: Also an Asian girl. Also sees I'm Asian and hits next [Hmm. pattern forming.]

Third person: Ooh, it's just a t-shirt. Wait, no the camera is panning.. AND IT PANS TO HIM WANKING OFF. There's all of a sudden a giant peen on my giant screen! I scream and burst into hysterical giggles like a thirteen year old girl. I seriously die laughing. And I can see Alv has buckled in the corner of my eye. What the heck am I supposed to do? I frantically whonk the button for next!

After a couple more rounds with sad looking teenagers, my internet it has had enough and decided to fail and that was that. How anticlimatic.

Alv: Have you had enough?
Mush: Yes. [No, I'm totally going to buy a webcam and laugh at all the weenies!]

By now it was getting on late in the afternoon and we had to run for breakfast-y lunch, andthere was no time to smack some balls around. But as I sat in the outdoors cafe, drinking my Corona, listening to him talk and just people-watching, I thought well what does it really matter? I had fun, I don't need the driving range today.

These Streets

"And I'm wandering 'round
With a half pack of cigarettes
Searching for the change that I've lost somehow
...

I'll get used to this eventually
I know, I know"

-These Streets, Paolo Nutini

My Grandma is pissed off

While I was never my grandmother's favourite child while she was alive. I imagine she is angrily looking at me down from heaven cursing out my debaucherous lifestyle.

I can just imagine how just how much angrier she is now that I've somehow managed to ruin the legs of her antique armoire chair.

Of course, she may be appeased by the fact that I fall off of it everytime I try to sit on it. One minute I'll be on the computer and the next minute I'll be on the ground wondering how I got there.

**[26/4/10] Five minutes ago, I managed to snap the leg completely off. I really shouldn't be allowed to have nice things.

This week up til now in photos

And this morning I woke up and thought "Well, that was a waste of time!" Seriously in hindsight, all the moping I do is such a waste of time. I mean it has to be done for things to be processed, but after a week or so.. seriously giant head slaps. Someone give me a giant head slap.

And at the Argyle! My best girl. I had to photoshop this, because we were so so so red. This was kindly taken by the Chambord Drinking Taylor Lautner lookalike.

Look at this! It looks like I'm frigging shoplifting! The stupid lady didn't take off the electronic tag because she was so distracted by having to work the long weekend. I couldn't figure out why I kept beeping coming in and out of stores. Lady, you are a fail. And now I'm going to have to take it back to Myers. Reverse shoplifting?



Saint Mary's new cat. I uhhh.. just uhh.. forget it. Nomnomnom it is.

And apparently I am also nommable.




So I did a 600 km round trip to Canberra yesterday to see Mexicana. We will have to one day address the fact that it's ridiculously exhausting. Anyway, she took me to this restaurant and I was 'Teppanyaki? Lady, I have no love for teppanyaki." and she gave me the eyeroll of "Try new things!" Of course, as you all know, my mum owns a teppanyaki restaurant so... um, this whole new thing was wasted on me [and we were sitting in a prime spot to be pelted with fried rice.. euhh.].

The first thing we tried was the sushi, and I almost fainted off my chair when I realised the sushi came to $3.50 a piece. Clearly, it was supposed to be magic sushi, powered by the blood of Prometheus because holy shit. Ask me if it was tasted like the will of the Gods. Yeah, no. It didn't.

Here's the thing about Teppanyaki restaurants. They almost invariably involve a lot of smoke and fire because the cooks have to impress you by demonstrating their flair. So you'd think that this particular Teppanyaki restaurant would have considered that. They did not.

Halfway through our [terrible] meal, the smoke alarm went off. And it went on and on. And the waitresses just did not care. They just let it run. It was much funnier than I'm making it sound. It must've been a regular nightly occurence.

Beep.. beep.. beep.. and then the smoke alarm went nuclear. WHOOOP.. WHOOOP.. WHOOOP. And still, it was like nothing. Chernobyl inside a small restaurant. I'm glad I was in there with Mexicana, after a while we were just screaming with laughter. And I guess the waitresses were wondering what we were finding so funny. I figure it has ceased to be funny for them after the 3rd shift.
So much liquid..

And then going back to Wednesday, Sorry I'm not feeling v chronological.


I love this series, it goes for about eight photos. I think they secretly love each other.

Shuttup, I'm looking a little lank. I've only just recovered from the flu. Or maybe it's just the restaurant.



Lastly but not leastly, thought for the day: why does everyone hate on Soulja Boy so much?

Going to try Chatroulette tomorrow as a social experiment [yeah, that's what we're calling it] I'll let you know how it goes.

[I am really feeling so much better, thanks everybody who gave me love this week]

The anatomy of melancholy

About four hundred years ago, the doctors of the time thought that melancholy was an object that resided in the human body, much like your liver or a kidney. They presumed that it was somewhere inside the human chest. Of course, they never found it. Fast forward, those x amount of years, and we're smart enough to know now that melancholy is mostly [mostly] caused by external factors such as watching too much news channel, listening to too much Jeff Buckley on repeat and letting another errant boy crack your heart like an egg over a hotplate.

But we're not smart enough to stop doing these things.

Blogging Drunk

ok I 've never blogged drunk before. And I kinda wanna see how it feels. Maybe it feels more honest. All I know is. that I keep hitting the wrong keys. Also I'm really dizzy. I figure that mostly I' , a drunk dialler and not a drunk typer but that maybe cos my stupid phone is out of battery. So I can't call my faux boyfriend or Josie. or anyone else since it;s 3:40; I must've hit that backspace button lile 50,000 times in 5 minutes. But I' interested in how this comes off tmw. Even though typing is like so much concentration.

Why us noone callinf back?? At least josie likes the fauxbf and he got over th0se hurdles which are hard hurdles I think. My phone is being bastardly. why is noone awake so i can annoy them? fuck. this is stupid. i'm really sorry that lately its less than one coherent post a week. It really can't be helped. And I wanna vomit all of a sudden. Price I have to pay?? I'm getting too old for this shit. Maybe I should move to switzerland. Like Heidi. My head hurts.

I've only been typing for twenty minutes. wanna sleep. throat hurts. Ok. I'm gonnago. No real feelings expressed but I'm going to regret this tmw.Or today.

**Ok I pulled this down and have reposted it. Let's go with the honesty thing.

The Girlfriend Bomb.

So R6 and I were walking down the street and I stop to adjust my pants.

R6: Do you need me to hem those for you? I can do it.
Mush: No. What. Why are you always volunteering to adjust my hems?!
R6: Your hems need adjusting.
Mush: .......
R6: It's not embarrassing right? for a guy to be able to sow the hems of his girlfriend's pants?
Mush: [What did he say? What did he just call me? I can't see because rainbows and of all these heart shaped objects just exploded in front of my eyes. Wait. I hope he wasn't referring to him fixing other people's clothing. I need composure. Ahem. Hold up. There's nothing wrong with my pants!]
R6: [looks at me]
Mush: Uh no. Nothing wrong with it. But I think my pants are good.

On an afternoon such as this one.

Pretty autumn afternoons in the park, trying to read. I spend too much time contemplating and not enough time observing.

Another tattoo.

So I've been thinking about getting another tattoo for a while. I very purposely have been withholding because my health has been a bit meh this year so it might not be that good a time to stick a needle in me.

Secondly, I have been ridiculously undecided as to what to get and where to put it. And seeing as it's a lifetime commitment, I probably need to think about it a little longer. I don't want to be inking for the sake of inking.

--

Around my group of friends, my Hello Kitty tattoo is somewhat notorious. It occasionally comes up and they pay me out, but for the most part it's a love me, love my tattoo kind of situation. I guess it's lucky in some ways that there's natural acceptance that I am the kind of person that gets a Hello Kitty tattoo. For my part I've never been ashamed of it and I've never regretted that I've gotten it.
However in the outside world, it's a little bit colder than that. And when people I don't know hear of it, they are often ridiculously patronising.

Here's a typical conversation:

Friend 1#: oh Mush has a tattoo!
Acquaintance: Oh, you do! What is it?
Mush: It's a Hello Kitty [waits for it]
Acquaintance : Oh! Really. Ahhaha. That's so Asian. I didn't know you were so Asian. Why didn't you get Bugs Bunny? That's a cartoon too.
Mush: .....

If I had a dollar for everytime I've had that conversation.. I could probably trade in my Civic.

And then there's the head-explodingly judgmental [this is a real conversation btw]

Rose: I heard from ___ that you have a Hello Kitty tattoo.
Mush: Yeah, I do.
Rose: Why?
Mush: Why? It represents how I was feeling at the time.
Rose: [smirks] Don't you regret it?
Mush: Why would I regret it?
Rose: Because it's stupid.
Mush: I don't think it's stupid. And I don't regret it.
Rose: Oh, well you might not regret it now but you'll regret it later.
Mush: ... No, I won't.
Rose: You will.
Mush: I'm not having this conversation anymore.

Yeah, apparently there are people in the working world who talk like that. Like they're still in high school.

--

I'm kind of in love with the finger moustache tattoo actually. And the above pic is one of the best I've ever seen. It's so funny and absurd. I'll let you know if I get it.

Life is Random.

In Canberra.

I drove down to Canberra to see Mexicana this weekend. My soulmate! In the flesh! And God, it's so good to let go and just be a goofus. I mean I'm a goofus most of the time but when I'm with her I just graduate to superultra goofus mode.

Example: [we're discussing what to do because we're being super indecisive.]
Mush: We need a magic eight ball
Mexicana:We need to build a die.
Mush: Oh, but we have six decisions
Mexicana: So we build a six sided die
Mush: I don't think you can build a six sided die. How are you going to do that?
Mexicana: I don't know..
Mush: [mentally counting in my head] wait, AREN'T ALL DIE SIX SIDED??
Mexicana: Oh yeah! AHHAHAHAHA

Seriously, I'd never get away with this conversation with anyone else.

--

At one point she remarked on how I'd changed since the last time I saw her. I think seeing R6 has made me lose my edge.

Mexicana: Oh and then he said that she makes his heart feel like warm soup. Doesn't that make you feel sick? Hello? hello?
Mush: Oh, that's quite sweet.
Mexicana: Lady! That's not sweet! That's sick-making!
Mush: Oh.. yes.. but it's still kinda sweet. Ehm.

[Later on]

Mexicana: [looking at me with love and disgust] oh my God, who are you? You're like a piece of tofu.
Mush: No I'm LIKE SOUP!
Mexicana: I can see you have been entirely liquified.

--

Help.

I feel so ridiculous and vulnerable all the time that I'm light headed with it. Help.