Wah-wooh tattoo

Because I am a woman of many obsessions, I am back to dreaming about another tattoo... basically, I've been told my bags will be packed for me if I come home with another, but here's a quick mockup of what I would LURVE* (damn you Flickr group!):


Firstly - No, they're not my feet;
Secondly - Yes, they say "...Carry my joy on the left..." and "...Carry my pain on the right...";
Thirdly - Yes, they are from a Bjork song;
Fourthly - No, I would like the font to be thinner;
Fifthly - No, I would like 'joy' and 'pain' to line in the diagonal inner corners of my little toes;
Sixthly - Yes, I would prefer the text to run straight down the side of my foot, but I can't do that in PowerPoint;
Seventhly - Yes, I would prefer the text only run halfway down the side of my foot and stop with the last/first dot at the webbing join of my big and second toe; and
Eighthly - Yes, I know feet tattoos tend read with the writing from the ground up (rather than my eyes down), but I think I'd prefer it this way - that tattoo IS for me...!

Thoughts?

*Chances of this ever actually being done - 1/100.

Resting Reflection

She looked around and saw them at the ready, the eager eyes on the faces she had known over different stretches of time. It really did seem to be the only option, those eyes really did seem supportive.

She was feeling pretty confident. She knew she wasn't in great shape but she believed she had realistic expectations of what was to come - after all, she was the one to live in this skin. She carried her own doubt, she drowned and soared with her expectations and disappointments, she was her own burden on her own shoulders.

She removed the covering sheet as she stepped out to the platform in the middle of the group, bending down then laying back on her side. She settled herself as comfortably as she could for what was an inherently uncomfortable situation. Her weight shifted onto her left thigh, her left hip, her left elbow. She placed her forearm across her chest to try to maintain some dignity, she moved her right knee slightly towards the group so that her ankles no longer touched, her silhouette settled into what she felt to be a more flattering pose. As she lay her right arm along the bridge of her hip she sucked in a bit more, the tension only just more noticeable than the constant in-breath she seemed to maintain.

She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breath as she felt the flashes of the cameras go off. Still only for a short period of time before raising her body off the makeshift support and back into the protective safety of the sheet, she was assisted by the friend she had known the longest.

She looked around for one of the cameras that had just witnessed the unlikely event, internally sure that the image on the screen would reflect the image in her head.

Yet what she saw was no mirror image.

The stomach she had tried so suck in could not be sucked in - an indicator that the moments she had felt she was undermining her svelteness were those of vanity, pure and simple. The roundness that was so prominent in her every day life stretched forth, resting on the support so that it was flat along the lay-seat. The camera flashes had been captured in the engorged skin, lighting it up as it reflected the bright light, her biggest insecurity the focus of the whole exercise.

The panic rose in her throat as her stomach, her demon once hidden now exposed, sank.

She pleaded with them to remove the images. She moved from person to person, camera to camera, fighting to hold back the tears and the shaking and the sobbing as she checked each device. She begged them to make sure all evidence was removed, hoping that her faith in them over the years would be repaid in this moment.

Yet she couldn't be sure.

She could never be sure.

Spoilt Girl!

Yes I was!

I was awoken by a call from the parents, wishing me a happy birthday and making various old jokes. I then had a bit of a flashbolt moment where I realised I was another one of those people who makes jokes about people getting old on their birthday yet dislikes it happening to them - and made a note to change that behavioural pattern.

The Hun surprised me with a hand Microsoft Paint-made card with a picture of me on the front - would you believe I was wearing a purple dress? We are a creative household, us two (don't believe me? Check my Facebook profile photo!). He then surpised me with a GHD Hair Straightener - wahoo! This was pretty suprising because he was very insistent that he wouldn't buy me one because it was so expensive and I would never use, but my list of other suggestions contained nothing that was any good either, so he caved. Whilst I haven't had the 'pleasure' of wearing my hair out, I've had some pretty sexy looking ponytails over the last two days - I'm putting aside some time on the weekend to watch the instructional DVD, and have booked myself in to get a cut/colour next Thursday.

At work I was spoilt again with a candle holder, some cruisers, a photo album, some A'kin lip balm and calming spray, some musk drops, a redeye, some rice crackers, some jam fancies and some vegan tim tams AND then they took me out to lunch at Vegetarian House where they gave me a potted flower and some orchids to take home! I was feeling pretty special (because everyone smiles at you when you walk into the office with flowers) and then got a call to come back downstairs because I had a delivery - flowers from gf1 and gf2!

After work I went straight to Trinity with my boss and the 'new girl' (who has worked there almost a year and will be travelling with me for work later this year) and had a few drinks, including a very strong 'capriciosca' - that's the name of a pizza from when I was a pizza wench, but it was the closest my boss could get to the name of super strong drink he ordered. Various friends came and went and we ended up at La Porchetta for dinner (I'm a sucker for an antipasto pizza) and then came home early for some shuteye (I got the flu shot yesterday and it always knocks me around a bit).

I was very spoilt with lots of messages on the blog, on my facebook, over email, in person and on my phone - so I just wanted to say a big thanks to all of you - my day didn't suck in any way!

A lil early n a lil lighthearted

I hope to be participating in afterwork drinks, couchy takeaway n half-drunken lolling around tomorrow, so you get this a few hours before the fact (it works best to the tune of "Farmer takes a wife" btw).

Twenty six today, Twenty six today;
Haggard and age-d, she's tired and jaded;
Twenty six today.

Twenty six today, Twenty six today;
Childless and unwed, but obviously well fed;
Twenty six today.

Twenty six today, Twenty six today;
Just internets and folk, her life is a joke;
Twenty six today...

Hey now - at least I'm focussing on being entertained rather than depressed - Hope y'all have a great Thursday!

National Folk Festival - Day Five - 24/03/08

Last one - hope this hasn't completely sent you to sleep, I just wanted to share what an amazing time I had... today was a short day, the first day we were at the festival before lunchtime... because... Rory's show was at 11am! We arrived at about 10am and sat down in the sprinkling rain to watch Earthly Delights and the Bordonian Heritage Dancers. I can't say I enjoyed it as much as the Columbian dancing, but it was lovely to see all the costumes on both the men and the women, they really seem to enjoy it (and some of them take it very seriously). There was a couple in there who were very touchy feely and weren't often partnered together, so we spent a while theorising on the love triangles and squares and circles between all the participants - it is funny to think that there are these people whose love of Bordonian Heritage dancing is what brought them together and keeps them together! And what if they break up? Who stays?! It was also entertaining the number of times in which the word "Beserka" was called out over the mic - we think it's an instrument, but we couldn't tell you what it looks or sounds like!

After watching them for a while we headed back over to the Fitzroy for Rory's last show of the festival, and were lucky to get second row seats - unfortunately, he only had time to play the songs he was going to play at the end of yesterdays set, but I'd say today was my favourite setlist of his show's so far. He hadn't played any of these songs for us before, a collection of some of the lesser known songs - and that's half the fun of hearing him play, being reintroduced to songs off the 9 albums that you might often skip through when looking for one you know more of the lyrics to:
After his show we decided it would be time for us to head home so we could nap and actually have some weekend in our long weekend - today has been spent napping on the couch, sorting through photos, blogging, facebooking and doing the groceries... hope you all had as great an Easter as I did!

National Folk Festival - Day Four - 23/03/08

Easter Sunday!

We had another late start - youngest bro drove over to my place to take me back to pick up my car (vodka, remember?!), then we drove back to mine to get a tshirt because it was the warmest it had been so far.

We stopped for some Gozleme (obsessed, much?) and headed into the Budawang to see the Young Voices of Melbourne which were okay, but I think I like there to be some baritone in a choir - and that's just not going to happen in a choir of children under twelve years of age. I think it also helped to explain where some of the crazy parentless kids came from - there were a lot of them wandering around all weekend:
Post gozleme we caught the end of Jim Conway's Big Wheel and saw THE WORST SHIRT IN THE WORLD (enjoy, Mick!):
After they finished we snatched a seat on the floor at the front for the Spooky Men's Chorale. They must be popular because the entire place was packed out - but I didn't find them all that good. It mustn't've helped that they had to turn the air conditioning on in the Fitzroy when the sound was terrible to start with - but we couldn't really hear what they were saying and it was really, really packed in there and really, Really, REALLY uncomfortable on the floor! Luckily a lot of their fans left after their show, so we were able to get a seat for (guess who?!) Rory McLeod!
The dodgy sound meant he was twenty minutes delayed in starting which was a real shame - he didn't get any extra time at the end of the show to make up for it. But, again, a fantastic performace - he's just so passionate and personable!

We headed out for a bathroom break and a slushee, then headed back in to the Fitzroy and caught the end of Truckstop Honeymoon (who featured Rory McLeod for a song!) and who were pretty entertaining - will hafta catch them next year:
From there, we sat in for Round Three of the Infinite Grease Competition, which was, um, enlightening. There were only seven bands, I think, as a few had dropped out - the Brindabella Chorus went first and I think they were our favourites of the session, the Spooky Mens Chorale also did one that sounded a lot better than their performance earlier in the day (probably helped by the air conditioning now being off), followed closely by the Ballpoint Penguins who were pretty funny (and political - go Canberra!):
And then - the worst performance of the whole festival! Perhaps luckily for them I didn't catch their names - they did this thing where they had two guys pretending to play instruments but weren't mic'd properly and were only making noises occasionally and completely randomly, then a girl came out that had a sideburn drawn on one side that sang the wrong words, out of time, and not entirely in tune, THEN they got a guy in a fairy costume to run along the back:
Youngest bro laughed all the way through, tears streaming down his face - it was just THE randomnest, most terrible thing I'd seen the whole time, completely NOT what I was expecting! Youngest bro maintains that everyone was just too embarassed to laugh, but I can't say I'm sure they meant it to be cringeworthy - it was like they just gathered a few half-stoned people off the concourse and paid them $50 to get up on stage!

After that total abomination I grabbed a baked potato, youngest bro grabbed a bourbon and we watched the second half of David LaMotte with Liz Frencham:
The only thing that can equal mumsys love for Liz Frencham is her perceived distaste for David LaMotte. Personally, I thought he was alright! He is a little bid 'Weird Al' but he did an amazing instrumental with his guitar using echoes that was pretty awesome to witness, he kept the kids entertained and he and his wife have made a charity thing called 'change' that has donated something like $45,000 to schools overseas that get no government funding - they don't have textbooks!

We stayed seated for Genticorum who of course didn't dissapoint! Their music is so bright and cheery and they have really engaging english translations for the stories of the songs they're about to play. They were selling CD's after the show, so I hung around and got me one, got them all to sign it and got completely tonguetied and only managed a 'thanks, thanks a lot' *sigh* can you blame me thought? Here's a coincidental montage picture I managed to take, showing the sexier 2/3rds of the band (but they're ALL super talented) playing with the banjo player from The Duhks:
On that note we headed over to grab some Hari Krishna meal and then over to The Mallee to see what may have been the last ever performance of Allez-gator, a rock and roll show featuring guests from the festival whilst the wooden floor reverberated with dancers. It was fantastic to see so much energy so late at night, and that the majority of dancers were just young people out to dance to the music (rather than professionals - although there were few of those as well!). At about 11pm the impact of another full day (and a warm one at that) hit us and we headed home.

National Folk Festival - Day Three - 22/03/08

Saturday was a bit of a late start - it's actually quite tiring being out and about all day - mumsy and dadsy were planning on coming, but somewhere along the line dadsy picked up a case of the sulks and didn't want to come out, so convincing him took some time. I must say, the whole exercise shined some light for me on why/how I sulk, and also provided a terrifying insight into that whole 'women picking men like their fathers' type thang.

All four of us made it out there and made our way to the Fitzroy (after stopping at the nut stand, the Gozlem tent, the hot dog tent, the veggie burger tent, the slushee tent, the baked potato tent, the hippie headband tent and a handbag tent (I totally woulda indulged in a supercute little square bag, but the handles were leather!)) to catch The Duhks - youngest bro and I had talked them up a whole heap, and they didn't disapoint. The sound in the Fitzroy, however, did. The only thing I noticed at the time was that it wasn't quite as awesome as the other shows of theirs we'd caught so far, and I thought part of it might have been the fact the show was earlier, but in retrospect - definitely the sound in the hall. Which was a shame. But they were still awesome - and mumsy agreed with me that they were definitely the cutest group of the festival.

From there we headed over to the musician's tent where Rory was doing a signing (mumsy and dadsy also picked up two Duhks CD's and a Liz Frencham CD) - the four of us did a super job of being super lame and in super awe! We made some small talk (I told him one of my favorites after I totally blanked out on all of the others I love), we told him we saw him in Canberra last time and would come to see him again next month, and youngest bro requested the Singing Copper for dadsy (who was a policeman for over a decade). Then we shuffled out of the tent, took our jumpers off because we were all quite flushed and gushed over the photos on our cameras (see facebook for mine!).

After all that excitement we headed over to the Flute'n'Fiddle to see Mal Webb - it was stupidly overcrowded and I HATE crowds. We'd run into my two friends from the day before and I was following them to sit up the front, but there was physically no room to move and I ended up sitting on the floor behind a row of chairs next to a girl with one of those earring bars that goes through the top corners of your ear that I think I would like, unable to see a thing. He had some special guests which were good but I didn't think it was one of the better times I'd seen him (though mumsy and dadsy thought he was pretty fantastic).

I got up and out through the crowd just in time to see Rory McLeod for show number three - I think the sound crew were having an off day because there was a lot of crackle and fizz all the way through, and they had the sound tech guys come up twice to fiddle with his stomp board and his guitar. He didn't dissapoint - did another fantastic show:
We were all feeling a bit festive after Rory, so we headed over to the Coopers bar for a few rounds while we watched some of the traditional Columbian dancing - it was pretty good, actually! Although the vodka might have helped, it was really interesting to think about what it would be like to have such a culture - there were families of the dancers standing in front of us, dancing along in the dark to the music, swapping partners and laughing.

We headed over to get some Hari Krishna for dinner (I recommend asking for non of the slimy sweet stuff and getting extra Kofti instead - yum!) and listened to some traditional music that was written/performed around the Holocaust. Hauntingly beautiful. But it made me think - who are these young people that decided to get together to perform the music of the Holocaust? I wish I were a musician...!

After dinner and a few more drinks, we headed in to see the Pacific Curls again who did another fantastic show. Mumsy really enjoyed them and dadsy did until he headed out to catch up with a friend who's a bit of a regular on the circuit - to think he didn't want to come out at the start of the day!
After the Pacific Curls had finished, mumsy and I headed over to see Dev'lish Mary whilst youngest bro and dadsy sat a while longer at the beer tent with dadsy's friend. They were a bit late to start, plus were missing one of their bandmates due to a delayed flight, plus one of the main ladies had laryngitis! So it was okay, but not as good as mumsy and I had hoped (I think she wants to be a Liz Frencham stalker).

And with that, it was hometime - another day, another 11pm finish!

National Folk Festival - Day Two - 21/03/08

Wahoo!

We headed out just after lunch as I had to go to the police station to report the accident on Thursday - being a leased car and all, I can't really mess around with it so had to go through all the official channels (which will proddly p!ss the other girl off to no end, but it wasn't my fault!).

We stopped in to see Allez-gator playing the dance hall, and sat down with some gozleme to circle our interests in the program (this was the only time youngest bro showed any real signs of irritation - his preferred method being to stumble upon people rather than know when some of the ones you like are playing). We caught a little of Women in Docs, some more of Genticorum and the end of Mal Webb (why would they have three of my favorites so far playing at the same time?!) before heading over to see King Curly (catching Cloudstreets Green Man song again!). Unfortunately, all I could really gather of King Curly was that they took a long time to get the sound right, and then the sound wasn't right when they finally started playing! Had the levels been a bit better we might have stayed longer, but we only lasted three songs (it didn't help there was a guy sitting in front of youngest bro with an akubra on, a lady sitting in front of my with a headscarf with a giant top knot, and a lady sitting on the worlds creakiest chair rocking and playing with her baby - once you notice these things, you just can't ignore them!!). On the way out we walked past this girl - walking barefoot on glass (ooch):

We headed over to the Budawang to hear the start of the 666 ABC Conert - the place was absolutely packed out and we started a trend by picking up some chairs from a pile out the back of the hall - everyone started doing it and sitting in front of us! Pacific Curls played first and that's when I realised my purpose in life is to learn to play the drum seat and these cool little spinning drums that she had - I've got a blurry photo below, basically you spin them in patterns to change the timing that the balls hit your hands to change when the 'beat' happens - a soft little thud:

We caught Mal Webb again who did the Carrot/Stick song again - it's still so amazing the way he manages the crescendo of that song! We made a quick exit after him and headed over to the Infinite Grease competition - I remember Ampersand Duck talking about how good the competition stuff is, so I wanted to be sure to catch it. The opening choir was okay, these guys (I'm unsure who they were!) did a pretty good combination of songs from Grease, Xanadu, Saturday Night Fever and Zorba's dance (we predicted there would be a few Grease/Greece jokes):
There was also the Fiddle Chicks (who were okay), Liz Frencham (who did a haunting version of Rizzo's song), Mal Webb (who did a good combination of a lot of Grease songs), the Fourth Realm (who get my vote for their amazing Amazing AMAZING lead vocalist!), a Bush Poet (who made good ocker Olivia N-John) and a band who did 'Peace is the word' (in place of 'Grease is the word') who came out wrapped in Tibetan flags and got quite bossy about trying to get the audience to hold up their hands in peace songs and say 'Peace' loudly... I'm all for Tibet BUT I don't think a bossy folky demanding we call out louder is going to help them.

We caught up with a friend couple of mine outside the show and wandered around a bit, walking past these whistling people where one of their promoters mentioned that each person only plays a second note - that is, they have to pair off and take turns for each note:
We stopped for a baked potato *yum* and then headed in to the Budawang to settle down for the evening. Phil Manning was being interviewed on the stage - he was in a few bands, designed a guitar that was quite sucesful and spent a lot of time stoned, which was interesting. He's also fond of a ramble, and my friend is quite keen to check him out at one of his shows. After Phil finished up, the Eddi Reader band came on. I had circled her after reading her blurb, and she was quite good - a lovely little Scottish lady who seems to have a back problem (?) and likes to fiddle with the mike stand a lot. She was supported by an accordian player who liked to pull lots of funny faces and get his volume switched up or down a lot (and who totally rocked out on the last song!) and a guitarist that kinda looked like Chuck Norris' brother/ the guy from Mythbusters:

The second biggest surprise of the night? She wrote 'Perfect' - I know you know it!! The biggest surprise of the night? Youngest bro had NEVER heard of it... we are now those old people who rock out to nostalgic hits.

And then? Mr Rory McLeod!

He played for almost an hour and a half and didn't dissapoint - my friends hadn't heard him, said he wasn't what they expected, but they enjoyed it nontheless and borrowed my CD! We had pretty good seats to see him too:


He did one of the songs he did last night (and in the last Canberra show) about a girl with a newborn that I don't think is on any of his CD's but is really lovely as well as Huge Sky, No More Blood for Oil and London Kisses (which I love because he makes a kissy noise in the mic) and the one he wrote for his mum Shirley.

After he finished (noo!) The Duhks played again - they have the worls cutest violin player - she makes me want to wear my hair out and wear cute chunky heels (she also has a forearm tattoo - awesome!!):
And they were made double awesome by bringing Rory out to play the trumpet (and he added some harmonica too!):
They are definitely the sexiest group on the circuit - each of them are supercute! The drummer was doing awesome things with cymbals and the guitarist was changing the tuning of his guitar back and forth mid song (as well as producing some of the loudest booming feedback I have ever heard!). The lead singer was just as hawt as last night, and the banjo player managed to get everyone up to dance by getting us to strech up and back, shake our hands, move ours hips side so side and voila! Instant dancing crowd!

Heading out again now - hope you're all having a lovely long weekend!

National Folk Festival - Day One - 20/03/08

Mumsy and Dadsy paid for a season (5 day) ticket to the National Folk Festival for my birthday, so youngest bro and I headed out tonight for the opening show.

Then someone ran up the back of my car and only did a little damage but I have to call the police apparently to get it all worked out - that will be a task for tomorrow morning before I head out for day two.

Anyways, here are my observations on the opening show:

I will have to check back and find the names of these guys (edit: Genticorum!)- they are from Quebec and were all very lovely and smiley - the guy with the afro played the flute and it was very alluring (I love me a good folkie!):
If you don't arrive early enough you will rely on the big screen to take your photos.
I walked past the guy in the hat on the way out - Claim to Fame tally: 1

Time taken before there was dancing in the crowd - 20 minutes:

This is the MC - he looks a bit like Harold from Neighbours, liked a good ramble but would cut off mid sentence once the sound crew were ready - he did a good job:

Mal Webb is the guy that reminds you of that friend of yours that will say anything to set up a terribly lame but funny pun and you will roll your eyes and snicker a little. He is also totally kick ass with a little machine that records the bird noises and mouth tricks he does and loops it around and around - he did the most AMAZING thing with a trumpet at the end (obviously, playing it, not some disgusting trick) and I may just stalk him down to hear if he does it again over the next four days:
He also likes to sing in falsetto.

These ladies are called Pacific Curls (from NZ) and they were featuring Miss (something) Beattie (I think - she's the one on the left - she's a Celt) who does some AMAZING things with her violin - simply beautiful! The lady in the middle is the main singer and had a beautiful voice but also did some gutteral jazz as well which was funny but awesome. The lady on the right did some backing singing and played the ukelele (I thought of you, Jen!) and had a tattoo between her boobs:

I'm also going to have to check back to get the name of this guy - he sang a song about saying sorry (five words so hard for a man five foot tall) his mum (whose name he saw on the side of a ship when he landed in NZ), a song about a pearl (that could almost be interpreted as being about a hooker) and a song about Lleyton Hewitt being a c*nt - good job, you!:

This is Cloudstreet, who were the most traditionally folky of all the ones at the roundup show tonight - she has a strong clear voice and he compliments it well and they give good banter. They also harmonise really well but we were getting excited about Rory, she kept talking about The Green Man and how friends are like shiny gems that have been collected in the net of the NFF, and he reminded me of Tobias Funke once youngest bro pointed out the likeness:

And then it was my future husband to be - Mr Rory McLeod:

Mmm - he was great! Sadly, he only went for half an hour (the strictly allocated time) so he only got to do three songs, but he promised he'd try not to repeat any songs over the weekend and hinted at taking requests, so I'm going to take my iPod tomorrow to put together a little list (yes, I'm a stalky nerd).

A few people up and left after he finished but we stuck around for the last act - The Duhks:
Apologies for the not so awesome shots - they were pretty fantastic too! They do very bluesy rocky music, doesn't sound so folky. The women has a very bluesy tone - she kinda reminds me of Joss Stone, but I haven't heard much by Joss herself. I also really liked them because I think I have a similar figure to the lead singer and she was looking pretty frickin hot up there. A lot of people left during their show - I'm guessing because it wasn't so traditional.

Youngest bro has predicted that 'you know how they are' will be the catchphrase of the festival - as in "Those dirty old folkies, you know how they are - snaking your seats/ looking for any excuse to whoop or clap / doing cartwheels/ clapping out of time".

Time for bed - big day tomorrow (hopefully I can update these with actual names and be a bit more accurate - this show was not really timetabled properly so I'm lacking reference material)!