fuck ME that was an earthquake.

NEWtown

new discoveries:
(late to the game, as usual)

*scott pilgrim
*dan savage
*writersblok (move aside, moleskine! actually don't move aside, just become a little more affordable)

wickedness!
i am loving this shot of city life, it makes me wonder why i don't live here. maybe i will one of these years. having the company of my man friday for a few days of lurking is super cool, yay for that! loving it.

MAKE LiKE HOUDiNi ...and

ESCAPE!

Sydney today, Broken Hill tomorrow.

most annoying thing about packing: finding chargers! phone, camera, ipod...

x

THiNGS i'M EXCiTED ABOUT

sydney and broken hill in a month.. escape! dry desert air!

m. ward and belle and sebastian

g's new venture

helen trying to figure out residency for marco (take that, italy)

slow-cooker soups and houseguests who make them!

xx

ADMiSSiONS

so a couple of weeks ago i made my first foray into the world of online bookshopping. i've been thus far avoiding it, in the knowledge that it is a slippery slippery slope!! far too much temptation. however, sometimes books just aren't available anywhere in new zealand, and the cost of getting a shop to special order them is just too much!
i am still a fan of buying local and supporting small business.. of course.. but i decided to cut myself some slack and just buy the three books i really wanted!
i've been holding off telling you about them, but now i can (fb knows why). the first one....
from eroica with love, vol.1 ~ yes, really! this is a very bizarre series of manga, the central character being this blond gay chap by the name of eroica. all the girls swoon over him. i admit i have only read the first couple of pages.. it's cringeworthy!
the next book was "rotisserie chook or the founding fathers" by jessica hagy, from her awesome website indexed. it's 30 postcards, all of them awesomely cool graphs of various types.
finally, the buy that really made my day.... "ZOMBIE HAIKU"!!! two of my favourite things united at last. it is wicked. probably in both senses of that word. i opened this package on the bus one day, within about 5 pages i was laughing so hard that i had to put the book away, and hide my face in my hands because people were starting to look alarmed. i never had much of a thing about zombies until quite recently. of course "shawn of the dead" was an awesome movie, but that still didn't turn me. i'm not quite sure what did actually, though i'm sure fishboy had a lot to do with it. his influence is strong, many a time i've been pulled to the dark(er) side by that one. anyhoo... definitely happy to have received this brilliant book in the post!
sometimes at work i pretend that i'm a zombie, i've discovered that just pretending inside my head is enough to bring a smile to my face... so customers think i'm nice when actually i am imagining ripping them limb from limb and devouring their mushy organic brains. oooh, have i said too much?
in other news, i'm listening to the national for the first time, loving it so far, thanks ray and claire for another good recommendation.

xx

THE iMPORTANCE OF BEiNG iNTERESTiNG

i had a good chat with my friend ariel a couple of days ago, about how good 'we' are at avoiding doing the things which are actually important.
we deem silly things like laundry and and tidying to be important, somehow making time to do those things... and yet, at the end of the day we haven't really spent any time on the things that we tell ourselves are the most important!
like, when someone asks what's important to me in my life i will come up with things like making art, crafting, gardening, blogging, walking in nature...
and when do i actually do these things??? i tell myself i don't have time, there is too much daily grind to get through! what the hell? it's so easy to push those 'nice' things aside as being less important than keeping the house tidy. 'we' must be mad, surely.
so i am once again reminding myself that those other things are not to be ignored... i come to this conclusion periodically... and i intend to do something about it!
i have started playing around over at listography, i think it's time to write some real to-do lists.

dear blog friends,

i love you. please give yourselves a hug from me.

yours sporadically,

eroica

x

PUBLIC HOLIDAY MONDAY

genius playlists make my monday a happy place.
i am halfway finished jeff's very late birthday present.
i have a pile of clothes for the salvation army.
coffee number 3 is being planned.
leonard cohen tickets are purchased (yes!!).
it's still raining.
i am loving indexed.

x

hello blog-loves.
update time.

firstly, and very importantly, my hands are on the mend. give it a few more days and they'll be good as new. this is an immense relief! it got to the point where i just stopped coping, which of course was over easter when medical facilities were shutburgers.

today i am sick with other ails, aah it's so much fun being me! lack of sleep has triggered shivers and aches and nausea and dizziness, i don't think catching up on sleep will salvage me anymore.

yesterday i spend 8 hours at the polytech learning about the sale of liquor act, in a bid to apply for my duty manager certificate. it was painful. not so much because it was dull (it had it's moments) but more because i find it so damn upsetting that we have this utterly abhorrent drinking culture in our country. it really bugs me. according to one economist's study, in 2004 kiwi taxpayers spend a whopping $11 billion on alcohol related issues. this is not ok! what is wrong with 'us' that we feel the need to get shitfaced to the extent that we cause more damage than you can even really imagine? i mean, $11 billion!!! i have to stop writing about it, i'm getting knotted up again.

in other news, helen and marco are mere days from leaving. currently they're holidaying in golden bay, so i am housemateless. i hate that they are leaving! i miss helen already, and she's only been gone a day. for sisters who used to swap bites for kicks, we now get on very well and i happily consider her my friend as well as little sis. it'll be hard being without her again. thank the gods for such wondrous technologies as skype.

my friend matt may move in, which would be an easy way to solve my housemate issues. for although i like the idea of a few weeks on my own, more than that will just get difficult in the money department. and i have a raft of money-sucking thing to attend to, such as renewing my passport and planning a trip to sydney for late winter. man, i hope that can happen! definitely been too long since i was there. i can't think of a better way to spend a few days than wandering newtown with the esteemable jeffmeister (love you). my friend nik lives there now as well, which means another very good reason to visit old sydney town.

i had the lovely j&m to stay last week, lucky me! they made super first houseguests, and justin and i had plenty of opportunities to talk art and craft and bounce ideas off each other. we also managed to fit in a lengthy breakfast and cribbage session at the addington coffee co-op, a la last winter. definitely a sweet weekend.

now, back to my sage-oliveleaf-ginger-lemon-honey tea and perhaps a page or two of shantaram (i'm over halfway through now).

love to you blogfolk
xxx

my hands are wrecked.
there is nothing, NOTHING, ok about this. it is the most demoralising depressing thing. i can't do the simplest things, and it is driving me fucking crazy.
FUUUUUUUCK.
rant over.