Lamington Drive Illustration Residency

For the month of August, four Illustrators have been in residence at Lamington Drive Gallery in Collingwood. One of them, Ashley Ronning, is a good friend of mine, and on Thursday night they held the opening of the exhibition which showcases what they've been doing for the past month. The theme was Slumber Party. Queue crocheted blankets, spice girls posters and lots of lamingtons.

There are a lot of photos in this post so click the jump.

Good Books and Games

Hey there! I was feeling particularly pumpkiny the day this photo was taken. I love the colour orange. I also love these space tights, which were from ebay. I got a whole bundle of different ones for vurrry cheap.

I've been doing many things. Life is full right now. It's good. Moss Piglet, the journal I'm working on, is almost ready. Good news for those who contributed back in April! It's taken a while, and life has gotten in the way more than a few times, but it's nearly there.

I'm very excited to read these books, which arrived in the post:

They're by two of my favourite internet ladies. I have to admit, I already read Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth on the tram in one sitting when it arrived... but it's one of those poetry collections I know I'll go back to a million times. It's amazing. Particularly the section called Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre), which I wish anyone who thinks refugees are just 'queue jumpers' would read. Using that phrase makes me sick. If that piece of writing could become the most well known writing of this century, it would benefit the world infinitely. Warsan Shire can be found on tumblr, and twitter.

Mia McKenzie runs one of my favourite blogs, Black Girl Dangerous. The articles are so good, and so on point every time. The blog is a space for Queer/Trans/People of Colour (QTPOC), so be respectful and just read it unless you're part of that community. But I highly recommend reading it even if you're not, to get an education. The Summer We Got Free is Mia's first book and I'm really excited to read it.

I never ended up doing a games post :( Blogging takes time, which I only have a little of now. But I've been playing Path of Exile recently, with my housemates, and it's awesome! It's basically the Diablo 3 you wished you had. It's an independent New Zealand game, and somehow it's free, with the only microtransactions being completely aesthetic and not changing the gameplay at all (apart from making your character look awesome-er.) It's still in open beta so I can't wait to see what else they do with the game as it progresses. It's a giant fuck you to big games companies who have millions of dollars to work with and then create shitty, cartoony games with crap graphics and even crapper storylines... cough Blizzard cough.

Here is my Ranger character Buttz McGee being awesome. I have a blue frog with a crown on as a pet. That's an example of something you can buy with real monies.

Usually I'm not a fan of microtransactions, but the fact that I'm enjoying this game so much really made me want to give some money back to the developers. So I was happy to buy something.

You can download and play POE for free here.

That's all for now, stay tuned to see what colour I dyed my hair (OMG WHAT COULD IT BE?) and more inane ramblings about my life.

25

I turned twenty five a week ago. It was cool. These tights made my legs look really pale. These new shoes!!!

I've been thinking about writing something to do with age and how different it feels, but I'm not sure. The past three years I've been twenty two in my mind, and now suddenly I'm twenty five. It felt kind of scary leading up to it, but now it feels normal. Kind of good? Twenty one year olds seem very young. I guess they always were.

Whatever, life continues, regardless of your feelings. It's good. It means you won't be stuck doing the same old shit forever. I feel like I've been in a rut, and it's taken a long time to get out, but I'm finally making progress. I feel like I've also given up on the 'this is the year everything's going to change' attitude. That's some hollywood bullshit. And it gets in the way of real life. In which things change slowly, and never by themselves.

If you make cakes, your life will be filled with cakes. How good is that?! And I don't mean that as some cheesy metaphor for the cakes of life. I mean actual delicious cakes. The ones above were made by my friends, and they were coconut cakes. The best.