bon voyage

I posted the journal today. It’s on its way to one of you.

You can keep track of it here.

I’ve become an obnoxious iPhone owner, Instagraming and Hipstamaticing all over the place.

Lunch time.

My favourite subject.

The journal before it was attacked with food dye.

My gorgeous niece. I’d have a photo of her brother, the blonde angel of terror, but he doesn’t stay still for long enough.

A tale of the disintegration and demise of two of the most unsympathetic characters I’ve ever read about.

Leaving Nat’s house after a messy night out. Wine and cider, we are no longer on speaking terms.

Apparently, North Fitzroy is an alien hotspot.

Hope you all had a good weekend.

the start.

artwork from A Vintage Poster via Pinterest

Dudes, I’ve got the journal. I just have to pimp it out a smidge and hopefully, I will have it posted to the first be able to post it on either Friday or Monday.

I’ve been mulling over the best way to organise this little experiment. What I think will work best is if you all email me your postal address (if it’s a home address, don’t worry – I’m far too broke to be a proper stalker) and when the person who currently has the journal is ready to send it on, I will email them the next address of the next blogger on the list.

If you're a bit iffy about giving your street address to complete strangers, for Australian residents, I have checked with Australia Post who say that you can have packages delivered care of the local post office. I’m not sure if this is the same in other countries, but I can’t imagine it would be a problem. Also, if there is someone involved in the project that you particularly don’t want to have your details, let me know and I’ll organise it so they don’t.

I tossed up whether to have the journal posted out in geographical sequence, but then I thought it would be much for fun to have the journal crisscross the globe. And it’s always more fun to receive mail from another country, rather than the neighbouring state. I’m thinking that, ideally, there should be a two-week turnaround (three, if you insist, because shit does occasionally hit the fan).

Other than that, there are no rules. Do whatever you please to the journal. Like the above poster’s sentiments, you don’t have to be all neat and orderly. Go nuts. Release your inner artist/writer/doodler/scribbler/finger-painter. Or don’t. Whatever. You can’t stuff it up, just do what feels right.

So! Email me! annelisekate [at] gmail.com. Send me your details. I will hunt you down if you don’t. Via the internet, of course, because I have no money for a proper hunt. Some angry typing will have to suffice.

Do it! Do it now. Now now now. Do it. And if you haven’t already joined the gang, there’s still time. Really, loads of time. Do it.

Sometimes I have to fight hard to resist the urge that wants me to do nasty, spiteful things to people. To post anonymous comments on blogs, asking if they think people actually care what the food they ate on the weekend looked like, up close and macro-style, or tell the fashion bloggers the pose they insist on doing has its own piss-take website. To make snarky comments on grammar, about how plurals don't need apostrophes (photo's!) or to email them an edited version of their post with all the mistakes and changes highlight in red. And in bold. Sometimes when I'm in a clothes shop, I want to push all the neatly folded t-shirts onto the floor or to let the clothes fall off the hanger onto the floor and walk away without making any effort to pick them out. I like to imagine what kind of noise a wine bottle would make as I gripped its neck and smashed it into the sharp edge of a brick wall, or what it would feel like to run my key along the length of a shiny and expensive car. To tell someone to piss off and carefully watch their face as their expression changes, taking in what I've just said.

I don't do these things though because I'm not a sociopath or an arsehole. But sometimes, I'm tempted.

**Edit: I feel I should point out I don't want to make snarky comments any of your blogs; I don't follow blogs which annoy me.

today was A Good Day

pinterest via let's dance to joy division, original source unknown

Things have a way of working themselves out, it’s true. The financial woes turned out be not nearly as drastic as I thought. That will teach me for jumping to the worst case scenario and not listening properly to all the information. Automatically, when something like this happens, my brain just starts jumping around and shouting ‘Oh shit, oh fuck. This could not possibly get any worse. Look what you’ve done. Oh shit, oh fuck.’ Now that I’ve calmed down, found out the facts, I’ve realised it isn’t as bad as first thought. The woes are still there but instead of being daunting, it’s turned out to be quite manageable. Praise sweet baby cheeses.

The essays back in June that caused me so much grief that I wanted to want to dig my brain out of my head with a spoon couldn’t have gone too badly because I found out today my overall semester marks: a distinction for Modern Texts and a high distinction for Australian Literature. I sat here on the couch with a big stupid grin on my face, thinking that all the swearing and weird, tearless crying I did was worth it to get good results.

The good day continued when I stopped to let a woman reverse out of a park that I wanted. As she pulled out, she drove passed me really slowly and wound down her window. I cautiously wound down mine but was taken aback when she held out her parking ticket, telling me it still had an hour left on it. Win!

I bought myself something frivolous to celebrate my good marks. I went to the supermarket and walked straight to an empty register. My niece pointed her finger at me quite aggressively and said “You are my friend.” It was such a great day and I felt like running down the street, high fiving every person I saw.

I am so excited about the travelling journal. I’d love for more people to join in, so if you didn’t see my last post and don’t know what the sweet hell I’m talking about, you can check it out here. The more, the merrier.

I’m off to Melbourne tomorrow after work. I’m going to spend some time with my bad influence of a friend and let off some built-up steam. It’s going to be fun, expensive and cause me a headache on Sunday and I cannot wait.

Any exciting adventures planned for you?

stuff and an idea

 nathaniel russell's artwork via whose truths

I love the internet, even though I regularly curse its existence – but that’s more to do with my extreme lack of willpower when it comes to knowing when to stop clicking on links. However, I like to think that if I did know when to stop, then I more than likely wouldn’t have found the following sites:

Make everything ok found via @bamaloo. On those utterly craphouse days, this button would be worn out.

Dear Photograph found via freefalling me. Nearly every single one of these photographs and the one or two simple sentences that accompanied it made my eyes well up with tears. The one with the dad in the window reflection? The dad with the little girl who was his ‘chemo’? Holy moly.

Who is the cutest? Seriously, it’s true.

Save The Words. Limitless amounts of words that have fallen out of daily usage. Adopt a word to save it. The word I adopted was scaevity and apparently hasn’t been used much since the 1600s (stupid spell check doesn’t even recognise it). It means extremely unlucky. I like it and I can’t wait to use it. I imagine it will make me sound intellectual, well-read and ever so pompous.

The Disposable Memory Project. It’s been around for years so chances are you’ve probably heard of it. Disposable cameras are scattered around the globe, just waiting for someone to pick them up, record a few moments in time and either pass it on to someone else or send it back to HQ where they will develop the photographs and post the images on the site. Over 300 cameras have been released but only 28 have been found. Check here to see if any have been released near you. And then find one! And then send it to me!

I love these community art project thingies. The camera one and ones like PostSecret. I love them so much, I want to start up my own. A mini one though, nothing too huge. I’m thinking of a travelling journal, a kind of Day/Weekend/Week in the Life of <insert Blogger’s Name here> type one. Whoever has it has free reign to do whatever they want: they could write in it, draw in it, put empty sugar packets from cafes in it, stick in photographs. Make it as plain or as arty farty as they please. Whatever. Then when they’re done, they can contact me and I’ll tell them the next address to send it to. It could be a total surprise as to where you are on the list to receive the journal. We could record the journal’s trek around the globe with its own blog.

What do you think? Would you be interested in doing this? I would love to have something physical, something I could hold in my hands, to remind me of all the bloggers out there around the world who have given me so much inspiration and friendship. Do you think we, as a group, could make this work?

wanderlust

Remember when I said I was a cautious Capricorn who never said Fuck it and booked plane tickets to faraway destinations? Turns out I can rebel every now and then.

here via pinterest

Every few weeks or so, in a frenzy of masochism, I look up the cost of flights to places like this or this and then get myself into such a funk, it’s hard to see how I’ll even be able to afford to catch the train to Melbourne. Asia has never really held all that much interest for me – I don’t know why, maybe because of its close proximity to Australia? I’m more attracted to the places that take 24 hours of travel to reach – but the other night, I idly checked the prices of flights to Vietnam and caught my breath: UNDER $600 RETURN??

My heart started racing and my fingers started shaking as I started to think that I could afford to do this. I walked away from the computer, telling myself not to be silly, that money needed to stay in the back Just In Case. I jumped around for a bit, checked that the dates would actually be quite convenient (might miss the first week back at uni but whatevs, right?), told myself a thousand reasons why spending the money was a bad idea.

But I did it anyway. I threw caution to the wind and flipped my Capricorn traits the bird. I booked flights and emitted a strangled squeal when the confirmation email showed up in my inbox. Fourteen days in Vietnam, from 23 February to 7 March. Adventure! If I can’t find adventure in South-East Asia, then I’ve no hope. Or imagination.

Have you been to Vietnam? I don’t know much about the country at all so any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. I’m arriving and departing at Ho Chi Minh City and at the moment, I’m thinking of catching a plane on the first day to Hanoi and then making my way back down south over the two weeks, but any suggestions are more than welcome. I may have also convinced two friends to come with me. Finances are being worked through, final decision pending. I don’t mind travelling alone but travel companions are not to be sniffed at.

Vietnam! A holiday! Adventure! This is what my soul has been craving for too long. New ground to set foot on, a cure for these eternally itchy feet. But just how long is February going to take to roll around?!

the other list

Sometimes it’s easy to focus on the negative or the downright annoying (as seen here). One of Alex’s suggestions for pulling myself out of this shitty crappy mood was to start a gratitude journal, listing fifteen things each day that have made me happy or thankful. I’ve tried this thing before and have never made it passed the third day but this time, I’ve kept at it. Except for yesterday. Yesterday, I was knackered after carrying my big-for-his-age eighteen-month old nephew around (and when I say ‘big for his age’, I mean it. He weighs more than his three-year-old sister. He’s not fat, he’s just sturdy. And gorgeous) and couldn’t lift my arm for love nor money.

Here are a few things that have brought a smile to my face this week:

• You guys, obvs.
• The looks of joy on my niece and nephew’s faces we go to visit – it could warm any heart.
• Being snugly in a warm bed when it’s freezing outside.
• An afternoon of window shopping with Mum.
• Finding a new series to read – The Hunger Games. Have you read these? I can’t get enough which is kind of bizarre because as much as children irritate me, I didn’t think I would enjoy a book about a contest where they have to kill or be killed. Oddly enough, I have loved it.
• A day that included both lemon tart and lemon meringue pie (my favourite).
• A father who can fix broken bathroom pipes (whoopsie. I may have caused a fountain of scalding hot water in my bathroom cupboard).
• Being able to read until 2.45am without the worry of getting up for work in the morning.
• A mother who knows more than she lets on.
• Crisp air and blue skies: the perfect winter’s day.
• Realising I had spent way less than I thought and then promptly buying two bunches of the most beautiful pink ranunculus. Flowers are a fail-safe when it comes to shitty crappy moods.
• Watching Dirty Dancing and being able to say all the lines, word for word. I acknowledge other people who watch the movie with me do not feel the same gratitude as I. This is something they have to deal with.

While I haven’t been able to list fifteen each day (is it weird I can’t find fifteen things that have made me happy or that I’m grateful for every day?), I’m finding writing a few things down is a nice way to cap off a day each evening.

So what about you? What’s made you feel all gooey this week?