I got these shoes, they're pretty great

Here's me in my backyard, comboing out on Lazy Oaf. I have plans to turn this boring ass denim shirt dress into a printed colourful thing to rip off their other stuff and fully transform into Lazy Oaf Girl. Brand loyalty and all that.

Hello! Things I have been doing:

- Thinking about blog posts, writing extensive notes on blog posts, but not actually doing blog posts
- Extend that to stories and my "novel"
- So basically just writing heaps of notes

But also, playing gigs, recording for a Weiner tape we will release at some point in the future, and planning touring America next year.

Also - watching Steven Universe! How good is that show?!?! It's really filled the hole that Adventure Time hasn't been able to recently (still love you AT but it's gotten a bit silly and shallow compared to the heavy episodes of the past.) There are so many ~real~ moments in Steven Universe, and I'm super glad a show aimed at kids is portraying like, non traditional families, not all just white people, death and grief, emotional immaturity of both adults and teenagers. It gets real! It has a lot of character development. A lot of back story. A lot of sci-fi as well. A++

Thinking about serious feels and how to incorporate them into my story telling. Thinking about what to say, how to say it. There are a multitude of things I feel on a daily basis, but translating that to fiction writing is hard. I'm making a lot of notes.

Gearing up for another Moss Piglet, Issue #4 this time round. I've had some amazing submissions so far. I love what people come up with. I love how loose of a genre I can turn sci-fi into.

See u round blogosphere

Pew Pew Nano Down!

It's the first of December and I am happy to say that November is over. Not because time is moving forward faster than ever and with it my impending aging and death (lol?), but because Nanowrimo is over for another year and I did it.

Yay!

I wrote 50k words this month and it feels hella good. To celebrate, I am staying in tonight, eating lamington ice cream and playing video games. This is the life!!

I'm also particularly happy with how it actually went this year. As I've said before, I'm a serial pantser. But all that pantsing paid off this time round, as halfway through writing myself in circles I was suddenly afflicted with *inspiration*. Now I'm legit interested in my story, I've got more ideas for it, and even better, it's not anywhere near finished which means it should be a good length when it finally is. Hurrah!

I wore this outfit the other day to see my kewl friends Shit Sex play. I was feeling special so I even did fakey eyelashes, which is unusual for me. For some reason I end up completely dressed up for random casual things like work and a gig, but when some real occasion comes up I'm running late and staying somewhere and barely have any makeup to work with. W/e! Life is fun. This outfit was inspired by my new fave girl, Becky G, in her video Shower. I even did all the makeups but I don't know how to photograph that so you'll have to take my word for it.

Uhhhh those are my new docs. I will quote my Nana, who said, "I know why you had to buy those shoes. They're an extension of you." She knows what it's all about.

Now for the rest of the year I've gotta quickly get another Moss Piglet out, gather the relevant presents and hopefully get some sleep-ins at some point.

I'm flying through books this year too. I recently finished both The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Both amazing writers, WOC and telling stories that more people need to hear in order to understand the experiences of specifically black people in America. Especially in the light of Ferguson. If more people read books like these they might be less ignorant and racist. You would hope, anyway. That Rookie roundup was perfect.

Now I'm reading Wetlands. It is both digusting and amazing. I can't wait to finish and watch the movie. It's both relatable and so extreme at the same time. I'm just so glad someone wrote a book about the stuff people do in private. It's so refreshing for it to be out in the open. Especially reading it on the tram, I get a kick (in the same way I think the main character, Helen, would) thinking about people catching sentences about period sex and butt cleaning accidentally.

Books are the best.

Hello blog/ Modern Polaxis / Megahex / Moss Piglet

Haiiii how's it going? The worst thing about not blogging is that I know I've been wearing some rad-ass outfits but haven't documented them. I will forget! They will be gone forever!! Damn. This/some combination of this has been a regular recently. My housemate was giving a bunch of clothes to charity and I took these pants out of the pile. Sorry charity.

I think I will start using this blog more actively though, and not just to document my outfits, but I've got a bunch of article ideas and I probably should start writing them up. I've always thought of articles as, like, adult writing for grown-ups, but for real they are mostly just a bunch of opinions. Of which I have many.

Having new experiences is great for writing too. I now work at a games store and it's giving me a lot of new interactions with different types of people who never came into the bar.

****UPDATE****

As I was writing this, the mail arrived. With it, came Modern Polaxis, a comic by Sutu that I donated to on kickstarter. It is ridic!!!

I added a bit more to my donation to get his other comic, Krysalis, which looks amazing. But the thing about Modern Polaxis is that it's an 'Augmented Reality' comic book, which means when I put my ipad camera over it (with an app) the pages are animated! So cyberpunk!!

I also went to All Star Comics last week to get Sugar Skull, the new Charles Burns, and I ended up grabbing Megahex and also meeting Cazz from Nerd Burger, who works there! She's super nice and wears the best clothes.

I'd only read one interview before with the guy who makes Megahex, and it made me pretty interested to read it. I was not only enthralled but left thinking about the characters for days. Definitely recommend for anyone who's ever had shitty friends who smoke way too much weed.

Sugar Skull was great. Yet again the artwork was strange and familiar at the same time. I was a little disappointed in the story I guess, but maybe I was expecting something other than what he does? It felt like it petered out a bit after all that build up. Then again, that's what he does - reality with a large dose of the surreal. I preferred the surreal bits. It was still really good.

My own shit is going alright, actually. In terms of writing, for once I've got a starting idea - I've got two characters I'm actually interested in. 'Big whoop' you might be thinking. For me this is a big deal! I usually hate everything I think of, which is the ultimate form of procrastination. I may or may not do Nanowrimo this year (it's still appealing, even to do a small part of it) but one of my *goals* on my 2014 list was 'have a substantial amount of one novel finished' and it's getting dangerously close to the end of the year again. Yeah, there are a lot of things on that list that won't be finished.

Publish two Moss Piglets was one of the other goals though, and that's going ahead as planned. The deadline for issue #3 is October 31st. So on the off chance anyone reads this, spread the word to your writer/sci-fi loving friends. Here's a lovely poster my friend and MP contributor Ashley Ronning made:

And that is all for now. :) :) :)

Making time

Wee-ooooo blog! I'm glad I haven't had time for blogging. I've been very busy, it's good to have many life things happening. Feels like it's going somewhere. Here're some pix of me the other day:

Hair flick cos why not. It was warm enough to wear shorts! Uh-mazing. These shoes are my new-ish babies. Also new in babies: I adopted a cat. Her name is Janet.

Also new in news: my band released our first E.P.

Listen and/or buy it here: http://nunofthetongue.bandcamp.com/

News in also also: Moss Piglet #2 was borned.

Buy it here: http://mosspiglet.bigcartel.com/

And my new job is amaze, my hair is new, my life is good... yada yada.

Hopeless x Agent Provocateur x Me

So I definitely didn't wear this anywhere today, I mostly sat around in my pajamas on tumblr, but I'm planning on wearing it very soon. I don't get a lot of nights off unfortunately, and this week was particularly painful work-wise, but I'm now relaxing in bed with my feet up so that's nice.

I got this bra from the Agent Provocateur sale, yay! I'm really glad I bought it on mega-sale for $50. Originally it was something like $200, which I would never spend on a bra, and honestly it's not worth that much. It's not perfect, like the straps are a bit too long in places and you can't adjust them. But flaws aside, I love it very much, and it was definitely worth the price I ended up paying. As a side note, I'm also wearing my Hopeless Lingerie harness with this, and I think Hopeless are better quality than Agent. Not to mention half the price. And it's an independent business run by a woman from Melbourne. Tick tick tick.

My real life and blog friend Tegan tagged me in this question-answer type thing, so that's what I'm going to do right now. If you're the kind of person who thinks that's boring, you don't need to continue reading.

1. What am I working on now?

I'm working on the second issue of Moss Piglet, my experimental sci-fi journal. Submissions have just closed, and the entries I've received are awesome. I'm planning on making it a bi-yearly thing so if you missed out, don't worry. There'll be another one in the next six months.

I'm also working on a 10k word project for Camp Nanowrimo. The good thing about Camp is that it's not as intense as Nanowrimo. You can choose your own word limit at a minimum of 10k, which is only 334 words a day for a month. At this point in my life I don't have the time to do a 50k in a month thing, but 10k will easily be a good start towards the story I'm writing (which is a cyberpunk thing, yay!)

I'm also 'working' on finding a new job, because my current one is causing me lot of emotional stress. And I don't think that's worth any amount of money.

2. How does my work differ from others in its genre?

In terms of Moss Piglet, I've purposely set out to make a journal that's different from the majority of literary journals that are currently being published. (I love being on a high horse!) I've just found that the serious tone in both stories and the artwork in current journals is really boring. Like really boring. Like I don't even want to pick them up because they all have that same vibe. So I wanted MP to be willfully low brow. That's not to say that some of the stories aren't serious, because they are. But I want there to be variety. Silly/sad/funny/scary/whatever. No style out of bounds. And no particular style favoured. So the people submitting will feel free to write in whatever way they want, rather than trying to force their style to fit a journal's style in order to get published.

3. Why do I write what I do?

Who knows?! Nah, I write what I do because I feel like doing it, to be honest. I blog because I like having a record of my thoughts for the past couple of years. It's for myself basically. Because, as Tegan wrote, my memory is not good at all. So it's nice to remember things.

I guess people usually write journals, but I feel more comfortable writing at a computer.

4. What is my writing process?

Slack off, slack off, watch American Horror Story, spend hours on tumblr, slack off some more, then WRITE 50,000 WORDS IN ONE MONTH

then slack off for a year.


Thanks Tegan for the thingy! I don't really have anyone to else to tag apart from Hamish or Oscar I guess, who probably wouldn't do it. And apologies for those of you who were expecting a thoughtful blogpost and got pictures of my bra.

And oh yeah, I have this hair now. Surprise!

Ode to Lana Winters

I have to say, I love American Horror Story. I love it in the same way I love Stephen King - it's cheesy, kind of B-grade, but tells an awesome story that you get weirdly obsessed with. I just finished watching Asylum, the last of the three seasons I hadn't watched. I think it was the best of all of them, with Murder House second and Coven third. They just really went hardcore on the whole 'bad things happening to innocent people' idea. A story where someone you can relate to is helpless to other people and things, constantly trying to escape but trapped, now that's the kind of story people are gripped by. It's also a very relevant story in this current climate of asylum seeker detention centers. The show is made in America so I'm not sure the parallel was intended, but nonetheless it feels like a metaphor.

Something else I love about this show is the amount of interesting female characters it has, all with their own stories. Some strong, some weak. But not weak in the sense that they're a stereotype with no background. Weak as in they have their own struggles and they've been beaten down by them. The characters themselves have all been written strongly.

Unfortunately I think it is overwhelmingly a white show, especially seasons 1 and 2, with the exception of Britne Oldford who was awesome, but didn't play a very big part. Possibly they took that criticism when they were making Coven, which obviously has the amazing Gabourney Sidibe and a small cast of other incredible black women making up the voodoo coven. Like, that's awesome and all, but I wish they would start casting other minority actors in roles which aren't to do with their race at all. You know? Just as the main characters. Who aren't involved in race-related storylines. That would be nice.

Ok, on to the other stuff I guess. Lana Winters' outfits at the end of Asylum were off the chain! They almost made me want to wear skirt suits, pointy stilletos and fur coats... almost. Here're some examples:

And here are a few I just found on ebay... because you never know, maybe one day I'll reform my sneaker and tshirt wearing ways and become uber-glam.

uh, this one is mine. don't even.

Sooo excellent. Powerful journalist lady looks all the way.

Not actually grumpy

Hello there! I hope the new year is finding you well. It's finding me very well tbh. The general vibe, as far as I can tell from tumblr, is fuck last year this year rules? Which is something I can get behind. I'm glad I've documented the past few years on this blog, because I can see my own progression and remember that I've come a long way. I'm feeling very positive. I'm doing cheesy *positivity* things without shame, because they make me feel better. #Survival is so much more important than nonchalance and being cool. That is the theme this year. Shake off the shackles of irony and sarcasm. Stop pretending you don't care about yourself and what happens to you. Tell yourself you can do things. It makes you realise you weren't being realistic, you were actually holding yourself back.

Things I have done this year already:

1. Revisited my nano 2012 story and begun editing it.
2. Worked on the story of my nano 2013 story.
3. Started a story for a competition.
4. Almost sold out of Moss Piglet #1, and sold it at the zine fair yesterday.
5. Kind of successfully pushed work out of my mind while I'm not there (a work in progress)
6. Bought a new cymbal that I am in love with.
7. Hung out with nice people more. (being less socially anxious)(a work in progress)
8. Made some jewelry.
9. Played some gigs. (Bar Open + Boney)

So yeah. Going well.


How are you?

Jet Satisfaction

Saw Guitar Wolf at the Tote again. Always amazing. It was very hot and they went harder than last time, probably because of the heat. At the end before the encore, the bassist almost passed out and crawled back to the stage. They are definitely one of the coolest bands ever. Their commitment to being rock n roll is bar none.

I was pretty happy with my gothic getup, although when I got home I realised my buttcheeks were showing a little bit and hoped it hadn't happened much at the Tote. Yolo? This is also my new harness from Hopeless Lingerie. I love Zana Bayne's stuff but I didn't want to fork out for an amazing leather one when I wasn't sure if and how much I would wear it. This Hopeless one was much cheaper and made from satin so it's a bit less intense. It's still made really well though, the quality is beautiful.

What have I even been doing lately? I tried and failed Nanowrimo, although the best thing about Nano is even if you write 200 words it still doesn't feel like a failure. I wrote 5k, and even though that's only 10% of the Nano goal, it's much more than I've written in a long time.

Moss Piglet was in a gallery in London, which was documented by my friend Tom here on his tumblr. I went to an RMIT writing thing my friend Susie held, and it was good. There is a spreecast of it here.

I am feeling closer to writing a novel now I think.

Kitty at my foot and i want to touch it

I love these Lee dungarees so much. I was obsessing over getting some just as a belated birthday card arrived in the post with a General Pants voucher in it. I was hoping they'd have some and these are perfect! The problem with most one-piece clothing items is that if you're tall, a lot of them don't fit properly. The torso part is usually too short resulting in a wedgie. But these fit perfectly :) I also found the perfect beanie, typically after searching all winter through the freezing cold, just as it gets warm. Oh well.

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.

Work n Playing

A jake ring that Oscar made for me, a My Little Pony hat I made for myself, and a vaguely Avril Lavigne-esque work outfit. Maybe I should have worn my Radiohead shirt? Har har

I really am very lucky that a) I love jewelry and b) my boyfriend is good at making jewelry.

The news of my life is as follows:

I am now the manager of Dejavu bar. My boss quit, and so I am doing his job. So far that has been both very stressful, and easy. Stressful because the idea of me managing anything seems insane, and easy because I already knew how to do most of the jobs, and so far the rest of them haven't been that hard. I'm worried that  it means I won't be able to get away from work as much, but having more $$ makes things easier.

My band just finished our first residency. It was rad! All the shows bar the second one went really well. The second one was fine but it was a quiet night, and we always play better when there are people dancing. The third show was a sci-fi spectacular, and I wish I had more photos. The last one we just played really, really fast. The Lounge were super awesome to us, and we loved playing there. I highly recommend trying to get a gig there if you're a band in Melbourne. They treat their bands really well.

This is the only photo I have of the sci-fi gig, credit goes to Georgie P:

Darling Girl

I'm super excited about these makeups I got from Darling Girl. This isn't a review because much better people have written in depth about their brand before, but more of a love letter to them because of how awesome they are! They gave me free samples too.

So pretty and sparkly! Which doesn't come out much in the photos. But I highly recommend their brand for sparkly, awesome, unusual colours.
One of my fav stores in Melbourne, Fashiondacci, had a sale the other week and I came away with pins and jewelry. They're quite expensive usually so I was happy to get some stuff while I could afford it. I'm now aware the pin with the writing on it is probably upside down. Classic stupid Westerner?

Edit: It means provide/lend/offer. ?? haha 

And lastly, my boyfriend's old band, who have sadly broken up now, released their first video yesterday. It took about two years to make, hence the time lapse, but it's awesome nonetheless. Check it oot.

Blogger is being hella stupid and not letting me embed the video, so here's the link. :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg08AVpAJy0

Good Beer Week

More like Get Out Of My Face Week. It's been an intense six days. I got back from Perth last Sunday, and I've been working every day since then. Today I'm going to do absolutely shit all. It's already amazing.

Beer. I love it, other people love it too. There are many different kinds of beer people. Some good, some bad. Because I work at a craft beer bar, it's not unusual for the customers to be knowledgeable about beer. Which is why it's weird that during GBW our bar has been full of people who *think* they know about beer, and are very smug about that fact. It's like dude, beer exists all the other weeks too. And we drink it all the other weeks. This is just your special week to shine.

Anyway thank god that's over. Beer nerds are great. Beer snobs are not.

I've got a bunch of photos and I'm not sure which ones to post first. I guess I'll do the premier of my other vans -

Fresh!!! Or so I like to think. This photo was taken in Perth in my parents' backyard.

I played a few new board games there and a lot of a certain new computer game, but I think I'll save all that for a games post.

If you go my work you'll see the new tip jar art that my boyfriend Oscar drew.

Aaaand I think I'll end this post with Millie. It's too sad that I only see my dogs like twice a year, so when I do I take a million photos of them. Stay tuned for more updates from my exciting life! SO EXCITING!