Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Last night I went over to DH’s place and was treated to a fabulous spaghetti carbonara yet again. I didn’t go to work because I was still not…well. I did, however, make it to the first dress fitting for my brother’s wedding, which miraculously took no time at all. I think we spent more time travelling to and fro, and trying to get out of my brother’s future-in-laws’ house.

I was a good deal relieved when I finally made it to DH’s place. I told him about my week of epic fail last week, and then we got all excited over Mozart piano concertos (yes, I realise these two things are not related). He expressed some shock at the fact that I’ve not read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I know, I know, dreadful of me.

While we sipped our port, JM, DH’s housemate came home and we talked about psychoanalytic readings of Lord of the Rings (this is becoming something of a personal joke) and The Chronicles of Narnia - more so about Narnia because JM is studying theology and is very interested in C. S. Lewis. He asked me if I were coming to his 30th in a couple of weeks, for which the theme is the 1930s. I said yes, and that I even plan to come in costume. It then came up in conversation that I hadn’t yet read The Great Gatsby (well, I’ve read a graphic novel adaptation, but that’s hardly the same, I know, I know…).

I was looking quite the bad lit nerd.

Was a fantastic night, DH remarked that I looked like I’d lost more weight. What girl doesn’t want to hear those words?!?! I get a great dinner, sparkling dinner conversation, great grog, and that as an observation! Sweetness.

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Woke up very early this morning with a slight hangover from the red wine at my parents’ place. Despite this week’s two crappy incidents, I was feeling pretty damn good. It might have had something to do with the fact that I was having breakfast out with neighbour-friend (okay, so he’s my friend and was my friend before we became neighbours).

Went to a place in North Melbourne called Fandango. Service is…interesting.

Breakfast was…

…ace.

I had French toast (or le pain perdu for the Frenchies, giggle) which was ginormous. Yes, I realise this is not a word a budding word-smith should be using, but it was. Dangerous Dave, or should I say ‘good-looking Dave’ (actually, I call him neighbour Dave. These things help when you and your friends know many Daves, and know many of the same) had beetroot eggs.

We were deceived by the ’squeezed daily’ orange juice…(I shall not reproduce the nerdy debate that we went into, surely one can imagine). We had yet another discussion about Joy Division and the film Control. I then guessed at the reasons as to why one would not tell someone how they got a particular injury rather resembling something one might get when one punches an inanimate object.

Today is my friend CM’s birthday. She’s going to be down in Melbourne town for the day to celebrate, which includes dinner, and seeing a show. I originally wasn’t going to the show but someone pulled out, and she gave me a free (squee!) ticket to go and see Stephen Sondheim’s Follies.

I think she had a good time, which is of the utmost importance! Follies was ace, but it made me a little sad…it was about love, and I’d been thinking about that very topic on the way into the city to see CM.

The worst was the trip home, very late at night. It seemed lonely enough for me to wish I had enough money to buy a ticket to somewhere out of Australia. Been a long time since I felt like that. Um, I’m still going to be the same stupid mess abroad that I am here, now. Same stupid slutty mess.

Yesterday was pretty depressing, depressing enough that I wasn’t able to go to work today - that hasn’t happened for ages.

But all was not lost! I got to have dinner with my mate OM who I had not seen for absolutely ages. We went down to a formerly-old-man pub that seemed to be mysteriously closed up early, so we headed back to one of my fave haunts the Town Hall Hotel. OM had kangaroo, I had roast pork - complete with crackling. Christ, it’s been ages!

Somehow pints of Coopers Pale Ale didn’t seem quite enough so we headed down to a local bar Rrose…where OM pretty much soothed my bruised heart by buying us cocktails. Yum. I can’t remember fully what OM’s one had, but mine was made of vanilla-infused vodka and rosewater, with an icing sugar rimmed edge. So it basically tasted like very alcoholic Turkish delight. Wow. It was called the ‘Persian Princess’. After that, we had very nice hot chocolates and semi-staggered back to my place.

I spent most of today in bed but again went out for dinner - this time with my fiancee, as it’s her birthday. Went to a local Thai place, had deep-fried tofu with chilli sauce (upon OM’s recommendation, actually) and a pork mince salad. Tried out one of the Asian beers they offered and then headed back to fiancee’s (real) partner’s place for generous servings of choc-mint ice cream and watched the film St Trinian’s before collectively drooling over Jessica Alba and walking home.

As I walked home, a little unfamiliar though in my own neighbourhood, I saw something scamper across the road. It was smaller than a cat. Eventually it stopped alongside a tree, I assume to contemplate climbing up. As I approached it didn’t run away - it was a possum, its tail to the ground, set in meerkat-like posture. I said hello to it and kept walking.

…mentioned that I’m apparently not tall enough. It doesn’t really matter, he has…disposed of me for other many, varied reasons which are only really known to him. Doormats are after all supposed to accept this fate!

But trust xkcd to crack me up about it…hehe.

*giggle*

Lookee here!

He’s not the first boy I’ve met that’s made some slight on my lack of height. Curse those pesky genetics! *shakes fist*

Yeah well, if he’s complaining I wasn’t happy the last time I saw him, I’m definitely unhappy now, and he’s the cause. I’m lame, I know. But I’m sure boy-related lameness will soon pass.

It wasn’t super-exciting, it was just…ace.

I guess probably because I didn’t spend it all sleeping as last week I slept a bit better than usual. Ah sweet relief.

Woke up nice and late on Sat, went to the local coffee shop with my neighbour/friend DS and Rob, found a cockroach in my purse and naturally freaked out - it crawled out of the notes sleeve just as I went to pay for my hazelnut hot chocolate (gustatory sex…wow. Had actual crushed hazelnuts in it, none of this additive syrup shit). Got home, faffed around, FD came around to wax his snowboard, as well as tell of his love woes (poor dear). Then DS, me and FD went to local burger joint, got burgers, went to a bar while waiting for said burgers, came back to mine to watch I Heart Huckabees. Drank nice homebrew, laughed our heads off and the night soon finished.

Sun I spent being pretty nappy and attempted to have Vegemite on toast (having been brought up in England, I’m convinced Marmite is better. I swear it’s beefier. Vegemite is too salty). Rang parents, got another lecture, father semi-bullied me into not coming over for dinner because apparently I wasn’t staying long enough. Hmm. This meant no dinner. It also means I have to visit my parents on Friday night and stay over (why do I have to stay over? I want to sleep in my own bed dammit, with my surrogate puss and soft toy Firefox…grrr).
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Rob convinced me to ride my bike to a lovely lass’ birthday party last night…which meant we drank beer and giggled lots before we got there. Hope you had a good one Cat! I was actually planning to drive but in Rob’s words, “fuck that shit”.

I am an absolute retard on a bike.

No, really.

I fell off dismounting and scraped my knee (a tad…inebriated on the way home…). I might add that dismounting is somewhat more stationary than riding. Been a long time since I got a scrape on my knee (the last time it happened was a few years ago, when I first moved out of home. I was chasing an escaped rabbit…).

Hopefully, fiancee is reading this and will be proud to know I actually cycled somewhere (or attempted to)…and in the freezing cold and rain!

Bruno-puss slept with me last night, I felt pretty special. This week, I’ve had three nights where I’ve actually slept more than five hours. It seems…precious. Sadly, it has largely been…alcohol-assisted. I am aware that this is not really a good thing.

I listen to too much Radiohead. I don’t care, they’re ace! Am loving Hail To The Thief at the moment.

So yesterday earlier in the day wasn’t too fantastic, but the evening got better. I found myself at the pub surrounded by various lovely EMS people (whose ranks I shall shortly be joining. One of my workmates cracked up when he found out I was changing my hours of availability to play flute in a concert band…). I think EMS people might slowly be restoring my faith in the human race. Go nice, smart nerds!
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I think things are back to normal at u11 (that’s what our flat is referred to around our parts). Frosty told Rob and I that he won’t be able to apply to go to England till October because of new laws concerning I-can-only-imagine-what. Means tAlex and his awesomeness won’t be able to move in quite as soon as thought, and it may also mean he won’t get to spend as much time with Rob, seeing as Rob’s going to leave not long after Frosty. He’ll just have to put up with me, hahaha (sorry in advance, tAlex).

Even though I’ve already wished her happy birthday, I’ll do it again - happy birthday Ash! Have a cupcake at Cupcake Royale for me…

A lot lately, I’ve been listening to Coil’s Secret Love Domain - it’s virtually impossible to categorise (and last.fm tags don’t really help) and Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief (which is probably due to TH). It’s occurred to me it’s the album of theirs I’ve listened to the least (discounting Pablo Honey…can we not talk about that?). I had some weird half-awake epiphany earlier that if my life were a film, at the part of the film where I’m preparing to hang myself (I might add this is not my preferred method of suicide), I’d have the first track ‘2 + 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm)’ playing as the soundtrack. It’s so beautiful, but heart-breaking at the same time. A lot of things that I find beautiful and/or moving tend to have some sort of sadness attached to it.

I read a funny poem about, well, it’s pretty self-explanatory. It reminded me a lot of xkcd for some reason:

‘Prof of Profs’
by Geoffrey Brock

For Allison Hogge, in memory of Brian Wilkie

I was a math major — fond of all things rational.
It was the first day of my first poetry class.
The prof, with the air of a priest at Latin mass,
told us that we could “make great poetry personal,”

could own it, since poetry we memorize sings
inside us always. By way of illustration
he began reciting Shelley with real passion,
but stopped at “Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” –
because, with that last plosive, his top denture
popped from his mouth and bounced off an empty chair.

He blinked, then offered, as postscript to his lecture,
a promise so splendid it made me give up math:
“More thingth like that will happen in thith clath.”

Who could resist a promise like that? Uh, I meant resist a recitation of Shelley that moving…?

Not well, metaphorically speaking.

I did something very stupid yesterday. Stupid-serious-stupid.

My workmate has definitely forgiven me. Though, to my horror, there is apparently evidence of me…’cuddling’ people. I was too embarrassed to look at the work pictures for last week’s function. Shudder. Still, it could be more awkward. Like at lunch today. The man at the coffee shop actually asked me to have my lunch with him. He asked me so nicely that it seemed impossible to refuse, so I said yes (I’m not quite sure why I felt I shouldn’t…perhaps that social retardation is creeping back in).

Dodging my parents’ phonecalls was not a smart move, no matter how…’unwell’ I was on Sunday. My mother had her operation on Monday and I could have been there if I weren’t such a tosser. She told neither myself nor my brother because she didn’t want to worry either of us. But it’s okay to call me and badger me about my health? I’m pretty pissed off.

Mid-week not going so well. Last night, I met up with DH on Brunswick Street, after driving around for 15 minutes trying to find a park. We had dinner at Mario’s - both of us had spaghetti carbonara (oh so yum) and glasses of wine. Mario’s is a bit of a Melbourne institution, been years since I went. Last time I was housesitting in the area. I only had one glass of wine - seemed very…weird to be so restrained!

After that DH tolerated me wanting to browse around Brunswick St Bookstore - I must be really out of it because I walked out with no purchase. Couldn’t actually find what I was looking for (though there was a very tempting, meaty volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets complete with close reading notes…yum).

Il y a deux personnes qui me détestent cette semaine. Pour la première, il a une bonne raison (mais il me blesse aussi) et l’autre - je ne sais pas ce que j’ai fait. Ma vie est plus difficile à cause de ces choses. Malheureusement, au moment je ne peux pas aller à la maison de mes parents pour des embrasses de Puss.

T, je suis très désolé…je voudrais te donner un étreinte (that noun doesn’t sound right but no one’s going to be able to read this so whatever…) - et c’est tout. Mon meilleur ami - je ne sais pas ce que tu veux me faire. J’attendrai. Je n’ai pas de choix, en réalité.

Thanks for hanging out, DH. It was ace, as always.

Okay, so not real ones.

It’s nearly 7.30am on Wed, I don’t start work for quite some time. I sort-of slept for a few hours, not particularly well…

However, had a wonderful evening with my pal T whom I’d not seen for months. We’d talked on the phone a fair bit but because he works and his significant other lives in the country (he visits her on the weekends), catching up was at an all-time low.

It’s unusual for T to be running late: he was to meet me at a fairly notorious bookshop in Melbourne called Polyester Books. Me in a bookshop, alone, waiting…christ, just think of the potential damage to my finances.

Such damages did occur: I ended up with two books, both by Lawrence Ferlinghetti - A Coney Island of the Mind and A Far Rockaway of the Heart. His poetry has been recommended to me and I’ve only ever come across it in anthologies, so I snatched both volumes. Figure it’s better than ordering them in.

Eventually T arrives, he buys some books, I ooh and aah over many more (they had Deborah Curtis’ book on Ian Curtis…sigh. I really wanted that), he buys some books and we get the hell out of there before any more damage occurs.

A hop, skip and a jump across the road…is Polyester Music. Groan. I end up with a Radiohead EP I’ve wanted FOREVER (squee!!!), not one but two Julie Doiron albums, and a Rough Trade compilation. I somehow manage to get a slight discount because I know T (can’t quite remember why that was? May have had something to do with the secondhand music shop we used to both work at?).

We exit a good deal poorer, and T decides that we scrap the Mexican restaurant/pub open mike night idea and just settle down to el-cheapo (but fantastic) pizza and beer at Bimbo Deluxe. It had been a while since I’d been there - or Brunswick Street for that matter (for non-Melbourne/int’l readers it’s a very funky, eclectic street in inner Melbourne). They have flavoured vodka. I tried the vanilla vodka with pink grapefruit juice. Swoon. Pizza was consumed fairly quickly, place filled up so it was back to mine for free beer, woo!

Of which much was consumed. Sad to report that the best extra stout is now finished, so we moved onto the hightail ale. Mmm, so nice. We listened to lots of music, including that Rough Trade compilation I’d bought, talked about who we’d go gay for, hot Scottish accents, love (or lack thereof in my case), and more serious topics which meant parting ways at 2.30am or so.

If it weren’t for work, the beer and conversation could indeed have kept flowing.

Interestingly, I’m again dining on Brunswick St. tonight, and I get to meet my friend DH at yet another fantastic bookshop there. We’re dining at a restaurant called Mario’s because he’s craving the carbonara (the food there is yummy). Please pray for my bank account.

Yesterday, at some ungodly hour we lost water. I think it was our whole street, not sure. Lucky me, I got the last three glasses of water at our place and housemate wakes up and declares he cannot go to work without fixing his hair (really, it wasn’t that bad). Stupid bloody roadworks. They could have at least issued some warning.

So we watched Rome. 8.45am, he pours himself a glass of beer.

me: uh…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but isn’t it a little early for beer?
Frosty: I’ve had it earlier than this before.
me: oh.

Well, it was the only liquid available in the house.

Got sent home early from work today, which sucks arse as I started at 9am (yeah, life is hard!). I’ve come to the realisation that coffee makes me nauseous and it’s a direct result of medication. I’ve also come to the realisation that I drink it out of necessity to stay awake.

It has also come to my attention that last week I was a tool. Not on purpose of course, but these things happen. Please let this week be better…

Interestingly enough, I just turned down a job offer. Health grounds, gosh, I hope it wasn’t an idiotic thing to do…sigh. The hours of availability were a bit crazy, and given my excellent sleeping patterns…hmm.

On a more positive note, going out shopping with a pal I’ve not seen for ages then we’re dining at a Mexican restaurant and going to an open mike gig at a pub. Woo! Should be ace.

Am very, very tired from being up all night and having worked all day, but had a wonderful evening.

Spoke to my pretty-much-future housemate and while I’m nervous about him moving in, I think things will go really well. I’ll still have a bathroom to myself, haha! I definitely feel like I’ll be the most useless of the trio, but I did point out I will be able to help them through any villanelle crises they may have (why didn’t I study something useful at uni?). Gosh, how will I survive with two computer-nerd homebrewers? I’ll really miss my current housemate Frosty…I’ll have no one to platonically snuggle with and watch cool DVDs with.

My old music school buddy DH had me over for dinner tonight and cooked me a very decadent spaghetti carbonara…I honestly don’t remember the last time a bloke cooked for me! Well, there is Rob, but I live with him. Also caught up with J, his housemate, who has been approved for the priesthood. It felt funny telling him about how I’d kissed a girl for the first time whilst listening to DH play Chopin on the piano. We drank most of a really good bottle of white wine (been ages since I’ve had decent white wine), again thanks to Rob. I owe him extra birthday-present beer.

I’m freaking out less about the sleep thing. I heard back from L, Dee and M (L & D - I’ll reply to your communication later, promise). I think it was M who told me most what I wanted to hear (that being, stick it out for a month and don’t go on extra drugs). That’s really what I want to do. Perhaps if I stop sleeping so goddamn much on my days off I’ll get as hot and skinny as Trent Reznik in The Machinist (joking…maybe).

There are some days where I just want desperately to be lied to and told that it’s all going to be okay. I may, however, settle for Tom Baker’s Doctor Who offering me dusted jellybabies.

It would also be nice if I didn’t burst into tears in front of strangers; I would feel like less of an idiot.

I’m having an awful time trying to sleep, even though I had an awesome evening - some workmates came over and lots of beer was drunk and junk food consumed.

At present, the neighbour’s cat is lying on my bed, curled up and very happy. He has gradually become a quite pleasant cat, not at all hissy and nasty like he first used to be when I met him nearly a year ago. I’d rather like to think I’ve won him over.

Over the last month, it’s become obvious to me that I am totally in love with the poetry of e.e. cummings and Pablo Neruda. When I was younger, I used to think cummings affected and…don’t know, but something about it made me think he tried too hard. I was just an idiot. His stuff is sheer genius.

Neruda I can’t read in the original (well, I could struggle with the Spanish I guess, what with my French/Tagalog…) but in translation…wow. God to be able to write poems that leave a sweet, lingering taste in one’s mouth. That’s what Neruda does for me.

Must hunt down complete poetic works of cummings and Neruda.

Gosh, it’s so nice to feel so…normal (read: on less psychotropic shit). Granted the insomnia’s not, but eh.

A friend (thanks T - I might be dumb but I did get them working) gave me some computer speakers and christ, listening to minimal tech is so fecking good now. I love it (Vladislav Delay’s Multila and Jan Jelinek avec les exposures’ La nouvelle pauvrete [yeah yeah, kill me, I left out my accents. Baise-toi]) - fantastic music for insomnia.

Holy feck, edited to add - how could I forget to mention the American contemporary poet Richard Siken?! I would kill/perform various sex acts for a copy of his Crush which I guess I’ll just have to order as no one on e(vil)Bay is selling one…boo-urns (yes, Z, that was for you).

(I wrote this yesterday…)

Despite the fact that I didn’t actually sleep this morning, I’ve had a wonderful day. Because…

- I wrote a poem. Then translated said poem into French. I think it might be nicer in French, haven’t decided yet (thanks B for helping me out)
- finally worked out how to open the stupid bloody laundry door. This is no mean feat, the lock’s well buggered up the anal cavity
- someone who I missed is back in my life and it’s like we were never apart (I mean you J, if you read this)
- the guy at the coffee shop at work thinks I’m cute, even without the pink hat (even if he doesn’t remember my name - I mean, who does anyway?)
- I made a new friend at said coffee shop because of the ace xkcd tee I was wearing (thank you Randall Munroe - social retards like me need friends)
- my boss said nice things about me on my evaluation (he’s so nice it’s almost criminal NOT to have a crush on him. I don’t, I promise)
- holy fuck, someone just made some really funny racy comment directed at me on Facebook. I mean, I really laughed my head off - haven’t done that for ages…(it was pretty…direct)
- I have a few really lovely friends, they make me gush…

There’s a cat called Bruno who is very much beloved round my apartment block. He’s small, black all over and has a nasty temper. He’s only recently stopped hissing at us in my place, and ever so occasionally, he lets me pick him up. He also likes to sleep with me and meow at my bedroom door (I have a door in my room which leads to the outside, so he wakes me at all manner of hours, as cats will do once they’ve decided they own you).

Not that long ago, I met another cat who, from a distance I assumed was actually Bruno (it was dark). Turns out this is yet another neighbourhood cat, I don’t know her name, but she’s black and has a white bib and feet. Today I started calling her ‘Mittens’.

She’s very shy. She wants to approach, but is still a little tentative. However, today, she finally ventured into my flat, had a poke around, contemplated jumping up with me on the couch as I lay under the red blankie. I left the door open for her because she got a bit freaked out when I firstly closed.

Then guess who wandered in!

Bruno! And he was all sweet and timid and very…well, un-Bruno. They delicately danced around one another, clearly wanting to get closer to each other, but not daring to.

It was beautiful.

It’s about ten to two in the morning, on Tuesday and I’m up listening to music (at the moment, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is playing - great artist), reading Frank Beddor’s Seeing Redd, the second in ‘The Looking Glass Wars’ trilogy, and testing various BPAL fragrances from the Poe collection (fragrances all based on a short story by Poe).

(NB. I did try to shorten this so you had to click on ‘read more’ because the entry is so long, but it’s not working for some reason - my apologies)

The weekend was really nice - my friend from Ballarat came down to visit and we did a spot of shopping before we came back to my place. We went to one of Melbourne’s favourite boutique tea shops - she bought Marrakech tea (Moroccan mint tea) and I bought Turkish cherry tisane, which I am now drinking, yum! We then bought sushi and doughnuts (I know, an unlikely combination!) for lunch and afters, then returned to my place to watch The Tudors, getting through two episodes before she had to leave. I don’t get to see C often, and it was nice to be able to enjoy her company properly. We giggled and made history nerd comments all throughout The Tudors (though I’m a lit nerd, and she’s a history nerd proper, having done her Honours in history).

Then on Sunday, I got to watch my housemate Rob brew two different types of beer. He put on a stellar demonstration for any member of the Engineering Music Society at Melbourne Uni (of which he is a member) to come and watch. It was big fun. Naturally we got to drink a lot of beer (there is a brown ale, and an amber ale on tap at present). The brews he made were a Monteith Black clone, and a Munich dunkel. For lunch we ate awesome gourmet burgers, and for dinner some pizza. Healthy, hee hee. It was a great day, it’s always fun to watch Rob brewing these concoctions in these big-arse pots, haha.

Then today, not so much. Spent the whole day sleeping pretty much, ran out of medication (whoops. That’s bad, the withdrawal on this stuff is supposed to be bad). But did wake up to a nice surprise - Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has two new acts for its Carnaval Diabolique! The Carnaval is a limited edition run, and will be disappearing at the end of Sept 2008. The only one that really jumped out at me was Tabula Smaragdina though Pickled Imp also sounds awesome. I may get The Grindhouse and Dionysia too. There were perhaps 2-3 ‘maybes’ but they had notes that sort of sounded like they would not work on me. I’ll be interested to hear what The Fragrant Elf thinks of this massive BPAL update - by the way, welcome home dear! Sorry about your car, though *growls at errant driver*.