Things 'n' stuff

I was asked to post about the thing I did today, and the request came in such flattering terms that I feel compelled to do it. Oh, now it seems too built up. Let's start again. This post contains spoilers for a certain Academy-Award-nominated movie, btw.

Today I went to what is sometimes known as a 'Mums 'n' Bubs' movie session. I mean how that makes the Dads feel I don't know. Don't get me started on the term 'bub'. Anyway, the idea is that every pram-pusher in the Inner West goes to a movie at the same time. And because everyone knows the theatre will be full of potentially-squalling babes, no-one is upset when they do, in fact, squall. 'Cause you're all in the same boat, see. Supposedly they have the sound slightly down and the lighting slightly up to make it nicer for everyone. Aww. [Have you seen Louie the TV show? That bit in the pilot where he goes on a date with Chelsea Peretti and he says he has two girls and she goes 'awww' and he recoils like, WTF, I didn't say they were cute or nothin', patronizing fucker. I wish I could find a link because it's all there in her intonation.] Anyway.

I have never seen so many babies in one place. You know that episode of the Simpsons that references Hitchcock's The Birds, with the babies everywhere? Kind of like that. Like if you see more than a few cats in one place, and you realise that if only they pooled their power they could kill every one of us.

Yeah, so, lots of babies. Including mine. It was actually incredibly cute. A sea of babbling little things, being soothed by their art-house-cinema attending mothers. The odd crier, whose mother everyone feels sympathy for. A few crawlers roaming free at the front bit under the screen.

It was The Silver Linings Playbook (don't bother. it's such a piece of overplayed fluff. mental illness? let's gloss over that. gambling addiction? fuggeddaboutit. let's have some hugging, learning, saving one another, and oh yes some gratuitous Jennifer Lawrence dance contest butt close-ups. did I forget to mention that this mental illness recovery movie has a dance contest? don't they all? anyway, so, yes, good test case for the Mum/Bub movie concept). Anyway, every now and then there would be a loud aggressive bit (thanks David O Russell), and all the babies' sounds would ramp up a notch and you'd hear all the mothers going 'it's all right, it's all right' haha funny.

My kid is five months, and he squirmed a bit, took two naps, and basically had a fun time jumping around and giggling on my lap and gawping at all the other babies. He also watched the screen from time to time, which he's not allowed to do at home (except the Bureau of Meteorology radar page, he loves that; hey, it's edumacational!).

So anyway now I've blogged about it. I can't blog any more because these days we have to go to bed early. See previous paragraph.

Possibly the best-looking gift I've ever given

Last word for the day

I'm finally really stuck into this book.


It's totally doing it for me now. I'm about a third of the way through.

I can hear the Fleet Foxes in the other room, so I'm going to read some more.

Aussi, parce qu'il pleut.

Melange du chose au deux jours

Yesterday I tried to find fabric town, but got lost in 'normal people live here' town. It was lovely, actually. Lots of tiny narrow streets. I found a shopping street that I decided was functional and not uber consumerist and paradoxically went a bit buying things crazy. The ceramics they have here are to die for ... I still want to go back and buy the $50 red mug ... today I managed to only spend money on lunch and entry to a parky thing. What a star! Such restraint!

I've seen no art yet, I keep wandering on foot and getting lost in neighbourhoods or shops, or getting lost on a bike. Tomorrow I am totally going to see some art.

Today there were iris fields, which were frankly a little bit overrated (or perhaps it made me nostalgic for my Mum's garden). It was full of Japanese couples of a certain age, which is nice, and many were doing watercolours of the flowers. Yesterday I bought these dried banana things and they are so amazing that I've now looked up whether I'm allowed to bring them back to Aust (I think so, if I declare them) ... soooo goooooood.

What else happened in Tokyo? My charming host took me to a beautiful bookstore, full of gorgeous books on the twentieth century avant gardes. I can't tell you how pleasing a second-hand bookstore can be made to the eye in this country. I just can't. I exhibited great restraint in not buying the book of photographs of Morandi's studio in Bologna, or the Fluxus artist's book wherein all the contents of a table are described in great detail.

Oh, curry is ready! I'm being so well-looked after.

What a lovely day

Today's experiences included, but were not limited to, the following:
- ate raw chicken (chicken sashimi!)
- rode a bike through lots of places I can't name
- ate charcuterie
- withdrew cash (yay for functioning ATM card! - long boring story)
- bought a fancy pencil
- looked at seven floors of fabrics
- ordered udon from a machine, which was then served by a person
- drank a beer brewed in Brooklyn
- saw crickets for sale in a little cage box thingy (like guppies!)
- sat on a heated toilet seat (how can I ever go back??)

(no particular order)

Can barely keep my eyes open.

snotty

So I should post because I'm bad with the posting at the moment and my New Second Half of 2009's resolution is blog more. Give the people what they want, I say.

So, still, I am in Tokyo. I've been here just a day. Bliggedy-blogger, who I can't link to because for some reason things look DIFFERENT on computers here, took me out with her to a distant suburb where a lovely friend taught us how to do colographs in her gorgeously lovely Japanese apartment with her many many yen printing press. Which was a nice change to spending the first day shopping.

I think I am going to go and wander around now. Get some lovely things (that was spoken like Edina in Ab Fab when she goes to Morocco to acquire things for her shop. Lots of lovely *things*). Some of which may be photos or ramen.

Um ... arigato? No, wait, what I mean is sayonara, a bientot.

Post script: I forgot about the title. I have a rotten cold. Apparently you're not supposed to blow your nose on the street in Japan (you should use a tissue! har har har). Um, so, like, that explains the title, and allowed me to slip in a bad pun. Hooray!

Things be happening

This is my abode-to-be:





I think it's big, but I can't properly remember. We are at the back (obviously I can't have a mansion to myself, der. It's a flat). Plenty of space for both to work at home, though. The rent isn't that cheap but it's manageable and it's not in outer woop woop, which is a nice surprise.

I'm expecting lots of guests, all right?

In the meantime, I have a week off between jobs and will be packing up the ol' house. I completely don't know where to start with anything at all.

Things are looking up

- Feel less rutty (ie no longer in rut)
- Room tidied
- Breaking back of art projects
- Spring arrived!
- More work obtained (poverty fended off again)
- Haircut
- Quazillions of books mooched waiting for me to read!
- internet addiction subsiding (enabling life to be addressed)

In other news, it has been so long since I blogged that blogger has changed its interface in the interim. (Blog, blog; inter, inter).

Homme

So, JC is a fucking good drawer. You should look at his illustrations. I really like the New York ones. He draws so effortlessly.

JC, you told me you wrote a novel - what happened to that, eh?

And what about that trip to Sydney? Huh??

A warning, though: it's no NYC. It ain't even Paris.

In the meantime, I'm making more flags. I'm over 'em.

What a swell party

Topics of conversation tonight included:

*Which Jane Austen character are you most like?
*Does reading Archie comics as a child give you unrealistic ideas about what teenagerhood will be like?
*The emphasis on scatology in French culture
*Cost/benefit analyses in everyday life and 'Freakonomics'
*Hill End
*Sideways [film]
*The woman who gave birth to rabbits (fake!)
*The possible formation of a photographic lighting ownership cooperative

I can't remember any more. There was a lot of wine and food and goodness.

That is all.

Gross-Off

Just keeping you up to date on the kitchen painting extravaganza (ie, we're painting our kitchen). Look at this:


Ew!

That's not even paint going over, it's just a soft wipe of sugar soap with hardly any pressure. It reminds me of that ad from my youth for a product called Tarn-Off, which one was supposed to use to clean metals. It was always so satisfying watching the dirt disappear before your eyes. That's what doing our ceiling was like. Purge! Purge!!

Also of interest is the Justin Timberlake dropcloth. Not everybody has one of these. Below, it can be seen protecting the kitchen table.


Now we've started using it as a tablecloth.

Tonight

I tried to go to a christmas party, but I had on thongs so the fascists wouldn't let me in, even though I was on the guest list (a whole other pointless story). I have done a LOT of walking tonight, which is OK because it's stopped raining every ten minutes. My allergic sister has stopped sleeping on my floor, I'm gonna get a WHOPPING tax return (sayonara, debt!), and I ... I ... I don't know what else.

Life is OK. I blew off my work christmas party because it was all too hard and I was a bit low energy after my two-hour afternoon nap. Is it any wonder I can't get any work done?

Meh. Life is good, anyway. Things are moving and changing. Gonna go to work, go to work, go to work. Be less poor, be less busy. Go to the beach and remember how to cook. Try to remember how to cook.

/stream of consciousness resolutions-ing

I made this

And then somebody bought it off me and put it in their dining room and sent me a picture of it on Facebook.

In contrast to my previous mood of late

Teigan has been up from Melbourne to visit. As a going away present he is getting me some cold and flu tablets. Isn't that nice? It shows he really cares. Right now the sun is coming through the window onto the back of my head and neck in such a way; I can't tell you. You would just have to feel it to understand.

Shelves ahoy!

OK, I take it all (the unposted post) back! Now we have brand new shelving (at least someone has been productive today) and can now spend our saturday night arranging books! Taking them out of boxes! Saying hello to old friends and meeting new ones! Maybe I should make it into a wine-drinking pizza-eating records-playing book arranging hula luau party. I think yes. There's gotta be someone around up for that other than me ... I think it could be very NICE.