a letter to the bloody dog

Dear Woody,

Please be advised of the following:

• My shoes are not toys
• My pink knickers are not toys
• My sports bras are not toys (and I would appreciate you not taking any of the above for a run around the backyard again)
• My computer cords are not toys
• My trousers are not toys
• My cat is not a toy
• My bed is not to be slept on
• My shoulder is not to suffer an attempt at dislocation when I take you for a walk
• The cows in the paddocks a few streets away do not need to be herded despite your obvious thoughts otherwise

Your cooperation in these matters would be appreciated.

Kind regards,

Annelise

P.S. Stop stealing the fucking tissues from the bin. It's disgusting.

fiesta (and a journal update)

The weekend weirdness ended with the green fairy, more’s the pity. But there was drinking and dancing to a Spanish band and that awesomeness made up for it.

My first day of holidays and I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I watched Candleshoe instead. It’s a 1977 Jodie Foster movie about old English houses and lost treasure. (Treasure hunting movies just may be my favourite.) Have you seen it? I recommend it for when you’re at a loss with what to do with yourself.

I also attempted some writing, like I said I would. Except after a page and a half, I realised that I don’t really know the characters anymore. So I read over what I wrote last year and my original vision has been completely lost. I need to spend a day or so to reacquaint myself with those old friends, find out how they’ve been entertaining themselves in my absence, and then start playing God with them all again.

So, the journal. We’ve hit a snag already so I’m going to get another one happening. I’m just wondering, though, if you would rather wait until Christmas is over and done with? I’m more than happy to send it out this week or next, so if you’re up for receiving it between now and 25 December, let me know. Otherwise, we can wait til the dust settles on 2011 and kick it into gear in January.

Did anyone do anything exciting on the weekend? Anything green-fairy-weird happen to you? Do tell.

So, I'm sitting here at work, looking out the window, watching all the people go past because it's Gala Day and there's a thousand kids bashing on the glass and it's annoying me but then I see a man and I notice he has a hook for a hand, just like Captain Hook, except this man doesn't look like a pirate at all and as I was thinking this would be the highlight of my working day, a woman dressed as a green fairy walked into the office, carrying a coffee which she had bought for one of my workmates except he wasn't in the office so she gave the coffee to me and it's only 1.52pm and I'm excited in case anything else bizarre happens today and I'm going to Nat's house tonight in Melbourne and we're going to have some drinks and go out and I really hope that more weird stuff happens up there because I really love it when weird stuff happens.

that’s that done then

 

Image source unknown

Classes are done for the year. Hallelujah, praise baby cheeses.  Done until March. Done until I get back from Vietnam. Done done done. With the exception of an entire subject that I just never got around to starting and of which I have the pleasure of completely over the holidays. So, actually, I’m not done done done at all. But still. Kinda done.

I have plans for these holidays in order to prevent this from happening again. I think the key is to keep busy. Keep my mind ticking over. Do stuff. Keep active. I saw this the other day and it struck a chord with me. I love sleeping in and staying up late, I’m most definitely a night person but I do find it hard not to feel guilty about wasting a good few hours of the day by being in bed. So this week, I’ve been setting my alarm for 6am – not necessarily getting up right then but within the hour. Gotta start somewhere, right? The day is longer and I’ve felt more tired at night (though I still do continue to fight tiredness like a toddler). The times that I’ve looked at the clock and have been surprised that it’s only 10am have been worth the annoyance of the alarm disturbing me from slumber.

I have the usual list of things I would like to get done over the holidays (including washing my car. My cousin, the smartarse, asked me a couple of months ago if Stevie Wonder had washed it and I still haven’t touched it) but what I’m really going to concentrate on is writing. Last year, I wrote 20 000 words of a novel and only managed the tiniest amount this year so I’d really like to get stuck in to it over the next couple of months. I have all these characters in my head, telling me about the their lives and I need to get what they’re saying onto paper. And besides, if I do this writing thing, then that will justify me not looking for more work over the holidays! Yay!

Happy Friday, friends.

another offering

I am arse-deep in end-of-year uni crap and this is the reason for my extended absence from this here blawg. But as I've done before (and will probably do again next year), I present a musical offering. If you follow Gwyneth Paltrow on Twitter (and if you’re not on Twitter, you’re missing out. I never thought I would say that, but for reals. It’s fun shit. Get on it), you might have seen her tweet this video was making her very happy. Because I like a bandwagon, I clicked the link and was mesmerised. The video is insane.

Erato, three girls from Sweden, covering Robyn’s Tell Your Girlfriend, using only empty, plastic margarine containers as musical instruments. Their voices are amazing but I couldn’t take my eyes off their hands. Incredible. Watch it, go on. Even if you don’t like the song (gasp!), it’s worth it for the high-five fail at the very end. Awkward.

P.S. Just as Lana Del Rey complemented my Rolling Stones essay a couple of months ago, I’m absolutely positive that these lovely ladies can only have the same effect on tonight’s essay about Bra Boys, a notorious surfing tribe from Sydney. You can watch their shit here if you want. However, if you’re taking documentary-watching advice from me, I’d suggest the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter. It’s from their 1970 tour of North America which ended in a huge free concert in San Francisco and some poor bastard being stabbed by a member of the Hell’s Angels, which can be relived over and over again in all its shocking detail as it was captured on camera – unbeknownst to the cameraman at the time. It’s really worth watching, I flipping loved it. And then, if you watched Gimme Shelter and wondered what the hell happened to the whole ‘sex, drugs and rock n roll’ malarkey, watch the other Rolling Stones’ documentary, the charmingly-named Cocksucker Blues. The quality is crap but the content is mind-blowing and in fact, the Stones sued the filmmaker to prevent it ever being released because they realised just how damaging the images of their debauched lifestyles would be to their reputation. Apparently, though, the filmmaker is allowed to show it twice a year (seems weird, no?) and I guess a bootleg copy got out somewhere along the way. But if watching footage of groupies mainlining heroin isn’t your thing but the Stones still are, the more recent release of Stones in Exile could be more your speed. I don’t have a link to the whole thing, but here is the trailer. It’s about the making of the album, Exile On Main Street, in the ‘70s in a rented villa in the south of France. I prefer the nitty gritty of Cocksucker Blues but each to their own. Oooh, and if we’re continuing this Stones theme, may I recommend to you Keith Richards’ autobiography, Life? I read it a couple of months ago, when this obsession was at its peak, and he has managed to tell his life story seemingly without holding anything back. Especially the drug stuff. (I’m fascinated by this, can you tell? I also loved Kate Holden’s autobiography, In My Skin; she’s a Melbourne-based writer who funded her former heroin addiction through prostitution. Gritty. I like gritty).

Longest postscript ever. Probably too long to be a postscript, really. But it’s 1.36am, I’ve been up since 7am and I’ll be up for a while yet, typing out this ho of an essay (I make it really difficult for myself and handwrite it all first). But at least I’ll have something lovely to listen to. Go on, watch it. Watch their hands. Listen to their angelic voices.

I’m so tired.