Soz everyone.

Hello all my lovelies.

Seriously, a huge huge sorry for being the most disappointing blogger EVER.
I will get better. I swears.

Some stuff has happened. Or, to put it more succinctly: shit has gone down.

It's true and it's a fact that when the vast majority (roughly everyone) of people in your immediate circle of friends (some of which don't even talk to you anymore) (yeah I know, how does that work right? Well, let me tell you: it doesn't) are flaming homos (or, ~fluid~), every day of your life can go a bit like this:

(via Married to the Sea)

Having somewhat distanced myself from all of that for the past year or so, I kind of forgot how that goes. Getting back into the social circle you were once a part of can be jolly well swell. But it can also be a bit of a mind fuck. 

There's not really anything more I can say on this particular matter at the moment... I'll tell you guys in like, a year. Or I'll think of some really creative code names. Or I'll tell you that such and such happened to a friend of a friend of mine. Or, erm. I don't know.

Proper posts soon. Pinky promise!

First Day at Uni

I ran away from the tour group cause I had to pee (slash, had needed to go for two hours and made a break for it as soon as I got out of the lecture theater); never found them again, subsequently got lost (but then again that pretty much is my biggest talent). Found the bookstore and spent $300 on textbooks (and that's only half of them)... call my crazy but couldn't some of my $5000 a year I'm paying for this course pay for my textbooks? Apparently not, so then wtf am I paying for really? Find me a tour guide who can explain THAT to me. And then maybe I'll stop complaining about uni. Maybe.

Returned home to discover a lipstick from StrawberryNet had arrived (YESSSSSS), as did a letter from some insurance company offering me a Bill Relief Plan. Complete with interesting examples and case studies such as Sue, a 44 year old housewife who wanted to 'protect her lifestyle' (I'm not even sure what that means exactly). This is all quite interesting to me as I've actually never paid a bill in my life. But apparently I shouldn't "let such an important decision go by another day"!!! Shit, guys. All I need to do is sign the enclosed form and post it to them. (It says 'read the form, sign it and post it to us'; apparently actually thinking about anything it says in it is not so important)... erm. Dear Insurance Line, how the fuck did you get my name and address?

That's all I have to say with regards to this delightful day.

If I could build a tunnel I would...

Before I start I would like to point out that I do have some other posts planned, including but not limited to some business about a ‘Stylish Blogger Award’ (oh my), but first, a summary of the day that was had:

1. I woke up in my own bed. Soooo good. I missed you, mattress!

2. I had to go to uni to pick up my student ID card. It was a very sunny day but I didn’t ravish the idea of slathering myself with sunscreen, because

a) I just spent 10 days doing that in Sydney, and lets not beat around the bush, it feels pretty grotty;

b) Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry Touch Empty Promises SPF30+ With Added Sadness caused both my mother and I to break out in a huge red spotty rash all over. Pretty sexy, but really quite painful and itchy and I’m reluctant to put anything on it.

So I had the great idea to wear stockings with a suspender belt, thus shielding my pins from the sun and also allowing a cool breeze to pass through. Little did I know that one of the clippy things (not sure of the technical term, sorry Vintage Enthusiasts) would decide to break before I even made it out the door. I craftily reattached it with a giant baby safety pin. Quite creative, but not so comfortable for sitting on a bus for an hour and a half, it must be said. Later in the day, sitting on a bench, the other clip got stuck in the bench through my skirt and also snapped open. I really felt Quite The Lady. Oh well, this is the quality one gets for $19.99 at Bras n Things. (I am looking into a proper one, just having troubles deciding. =/ )

Anyway back to uni – my ID card photo was hideous, just as it should be I suppose. It took all of two seconds to do, for 40 minutes of travel each way – gr8. The lady then suggested I head to the Student Association for some info on some Fun Camps I could take part in! I decided against this for the following reasons:

i – My intense dietary requirements would lead to two days of starvation and shame.

ii – Do I really want to be friends with the sort of people who go to uni camps? Judging from the sort of company I keep, probably not.

iii – Getting smashed with a bunch of strangers is likely not going to lead to lifelong friendships; actually in reality I would be avoiding anyone who I met there and got drunk with for the rest of my 4 years at uni.

</antisocial little bitch>

3. I decided to get lunch before heading home, reasoning that we didn’t have much in the fridge. However this lead to the phenomenon I often experience in a food court situation: ordering shit I don’t want. It’s almost magical – I walk in, start perusing the options and before I know it I’m left standing with a plate of whatever it may be, thinking “I don’t want you”. In this instance I ordered something I CAN’T EVEN EAT. Smart girl.

4. Got home and put in my timetable preferences. They’re not looking good, guys. Looks like I’ll be enjoying a Thursday of: 8am lecture, 4pm lecture, NOTHING IN THE MIDDLE.

5. I went to Flinders Street and as usual, suffered a need-to-pee attack as soon as I got there, requiring me to resort to (possibly) the most revolting toilets in all of Melbourne. And what should I spy but a LIPSTICK KISS on the wall. ???!?!?!?!???? I for one am all for lipstick kisses, but FLINDERS STREET TOILET WALL??? Whyyyyyyyyy.

6. Had my first burlesque class of the year, it was so good to be back; however I learned today that dancing on a chair is possibly more of a workout for your stomach than my acrobatics State Team Training ever provided. Gymnastics Victoria should really look into this for changing up their training routine, just a suggestion (but a good one).

7. I realised that the street by burlesque school is on, is also a street where you don’t have to watch the road when you’re driving, and you’re free to check out chicks on the street. And it’s okay to drive past them, staring at them and waving and honking, instead of, you know, stopping at a red light. I guess.

8. I went to Coles, and tried to get a single Chuppa Chup out of the giant Chuppa Chup stand (I’m an avid chup fan – oral fixation), which was harder than one might imagine. And when I finally wrestled the little fellow free, about 20 more fell out. Good design right there. The Coles girl told me not to worry but I felt like a pretty huge douche cause I just kind of stood there and stared at it. Then I had to run to catch my train. I would hate to have myself as a customer.

9. I wrote a draft list of my goals for 2011:

1.     Pass first year of uni

2.     Perform burlesque in front of an audience

3.     Get a piano accordion

I may add to this at a later date but that looks pretty solid to me at the moment. More detail on each of those later. For now, I will leave you with this:

The Year That Was (and wasn't)

I wasn’t actually feeling super enthused by the idea of doing one of these retrospective type things (hence the reason it’s two weeks late), but I thought it would actually be a good idea for me to look at the year I’ve had and try and take something useful from it all.

For all intents and purposes I do feel it was kind of a wasted year. I don’t know that I really achieved anything great, or at least, none of the things I set out to do (I had a little list of stuff I would do in my ‘gap year’… yeah none of that happened). Butttttt I guess I should stop being such a dirty pessimist (/realist) and focus on the ~positives~...!?

Early 2010, in Japan with my mummy

I concede, I actually did grow a lot this year. I think I worked myself out a bit more (not completely!), maybe I know myself better. This was my first year in what teachers at high school love to call “the real world”. Turns out, the real world is actually not all that dissimilar from high school (what do you know). I got a proper job, one which most people seem to assume I must be a ditz to be doing, but I think it was good for me. It definitely made me more outgoing anyway, less painfully awkward around new people (now I’m just embarrassingly awkward). And I am surely better at handling strangers yelling shit at me about “WHY CAN’T I HAVE A DISCOUNT/REFUND/STYLE THAT’S SOLD OUT??? YOU’RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH I WILL GET WHAT I WANT I WILL COMPLAIN ABOUT YOU YOU’RE FAT BLA BLA EFFING BLA” which is for sure a good life skill to have.

I’ll be honest and say the primary reason I took a ‘year off’ instead of going straight to university was because of my mental health. My number one aim for the year was to fix that, and while I’m definitely not 100% of the way there, when I look back at how sick I had been in 2009 I feel like I should be proud of how much I’ve improved. I can’t say that I really am though, actually. This post isn’t going to turn into some sob story about Everything I’ve Been Through and how Hard It’s Been, I don’t want to whine about my problems or act as though I’m the only person who has ever been to that place – I’m one of about twenty billion (rough estimate). But I do think people should talk about it more. I feel like mental health is the elephant in the room in this country and for as long as it stays that way, we will continue to have problems – like the pathetic amount of funding for treatment, the shame  so many people have to feel, the stigma around this issue that leads most people (aside from 15 year old girls, maybe) to be ashamed to talk about it. It shouldn’t be like this. (This was a huge tangent……………..)

On to the new year: I am starting uni! I am going to Sydney in a week for a holiday, and I’m seeing Amanda Palmer at the Opera House on Australia day (!!!). I will still be at The Hill and coaching gymnastics too, I am still studying burlesque, I am going to read more books (I have a list) (any recommendations?) and write more blogs and watch more films and eat more cheesecake. And everything shall be delightful. (…) 

Early 2011, I met Amanda Palmer (shitttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Ps. Oh, and I dyed my hair red. That was probably the best life choice I made this year. I can’t remember why I was so attached to being blonde. And yes, it turns out you can have red hair and wear red lipstick and red clothes as well. Fancy that.

Pardon my abscence

Hello my darling muffins;

I'm terribly sorry for the complete lack of writing anything, ever.

Personal/family rubbish, bla bla teenage angst bla bla work bla bla argho2i34kjnwer09p.

I promise to be back with some sort of coherent post sometime in the foreseeable future.

For the time being:

 

For if you were having trouble with your owl pictographs.

Love love.

A Public Service Announcement

Dear General Public,

 

My hair colour is not natural.

My glasses, on the other hand, are indeed prescription. I need them to see properly.

To identify either of these things, it's actually(!) not necessary to grab my hair, nor attempt to poke my eyes through my glasses.

Should you still feel like it's vital knowledge for you to know one way or the other, you could simply ask me. No need to attempt to pull off the wig you think I'm wearing (it may not be my natural hair colour but it is still ATTACHED TO MY HEAD) or put a big smudge on my glasses.
I'll still probably think you're a tool if you ask if my glasses are real, but at least I'll think you're a polite tool.

Sincerely,

Short sighted, actually blonde Nicola.

In which I incoherently ramble on the topic of fashion

Fashion, to me, is kind of like a joke. A little white lie, with its tongue firmly in its cheek. Not to be taken at face value, and not at all seriously. I can’t explain this even nearly eloquently, but I’ll make an attempt:

One day, I woke up what appeared to be a completely transformed body. I went from a sort of boyish, straight up-and-down figure, to a curvy hourglass type contraption that confused the fuck out of me. I had round curvy bits bursting out all over the place, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t hide them. I started getting honked by cars walking to school. I felt disgusted and angry at this insidious body I saw before me. My old figure was how I felt on the inside – not especially female; plain and practical. It could be anything I wanted it to be. I felt trapped in my new body – absolutely and undeniably womanly, something I really didn’t want to be, nor did I feel I was. It screamed sexuality, which was mortifying. I discovered I had no control whatsoever over what my body did, which pissed me right off.

I ended up with a rather delightful eating disorder, pretty much inevitably considering my attitude towards my body at the time (that it was like another person, constantly teasing me, that I had to shut up). My eventual and slow recovery from this relied almost entirely on my rediscovered obsession with feminism. I decided Germaine Greer and Ariel Levy were my new bf4l’s, and annoyed everyone at school with my constant rambling on the media’s representations of women, and why do we always have to be small and passive? Why can’t we own our own sexuality, why are non-orthodox female bodies so intimidating to Men In Charge? Why are women defined by their appearance and not by their minds? Society is wrong wrong wrong, blah blah blah (I won a lot of friends this way, I’m sure you can tell).

Having come out of the tunnel of I-hate-my-body-I-want-to-die and into the sunshine of my-body-is-awesome-anyone-who-disagrees-is-a-dirty-misogynist, everything seemed to be rainbows and unicorns and happy lalalalala. I decided that every day was wonderful and exciting enough to get all dressed up. I started wearing pearls and lipstick, with everything. I wore pearls and lipstick with my baggy jeans and chucks. I wore pearls and lipstick with tracksuit pants.

Maybe because this seemed slightly at odds with my feminist obsession, or because I was aware that it was just an act, or because I realised it actually suited by curvy self better, or because it just seemed like fun at the time, or because of a million other reasons I actually didn’t give any thought, I decided it would be a hilarious little inside joke if I appropriated the style of a sparkly cupcake in all my sartorial efforts; mainly because it was the opposite of how I felt inside (I guess, essentially, androgynous). So I did, and it was fun. And it confused people, and that was fun.

It still confuses people, and it’s still fun, but sometimes it does get to pissing me off. Certain aspects of my master plan definitely backfired. Hyper-feminine doesn’t seem to fit into the genderfuck universe (although hyper-masculine does, apparently). This doesn’t make any sense to me, really… maybe it’s too drag queen-esque? But it’s still playing with gender, and people’s perceptions of it.

The other main source of my angst is that, it seems, next to no one (especially the dykiest of dykes, apparently) will believe you’re not straight when you look like a porcelain doll that’s come to life. This has lead me to be a bit shirty towards the ‘gay community’, as such. You wouldn’t have thought it’d be such an ~exclusive club~, but apparently so. This might be a bit of an unfair generalisation (and it's a whole different blog post, really), but it’s something I’ve felt a lot, and it seems horribly unfair, especially coming from where it does. Just last week, I was in the city and some people were handing out fliers for the gay marriage rally today (which I’d had in my calendar for months, but now can’t go because I have to work), and they took one look at me and didn’t hand me one (despite giving them out to pretty much every other person that walked past). Ummmmm okay then??? I might want to get married one day, too, you know. But I guess perhaps I have brought this on myself.

Andrea at Strangely Incoherent Love Letters did a really great post on similar themes (fashion and femininity), which is definitely worth a read.

I feel like I haven’t explained myself anywhere near perfectly, which annoys me, but tell me dear readers;

Do you dress to accurately reflect your personality? Or are you trying to be somewhat irritatingly subversive, like me? Or do you just not give a fuck?