61. I have a soundtrack. There's always something playing in my head. It's very companiable.
62. I go through cd fads. I'll only play one cd for weeks on end and then I drop it and replace it with another which I play endlessly. I have some old reliables too.
63. I have a shelf full of books of poetry. I also collect books by Francesca Lia Block and fantasy novels about strong women.
64. I love to order things by mail or internet, but I always worry that it will somehow get lost or stolen. Consequentially I am overjoyed when I recieve what I ordered. It's a vicious circle.
65. When I was a kid we had a casio electric keyboard. I made up wild symphonies on it about a girl and a horse, possible called wildfire. I've never been that into horses except in casio compositions :)
66. Websites I check everyday: my email, neopets, stonesoup.
67. Growing up in Wellington has made me paranoid of earthquakes. Whereever I am, I think "what would happen in an Earthquake?" This would fall down, I'd have to get under the desk, away from the window...because of this I am uncomfortable underground or in the Mt Vic Bus tunnel.
68. I used to work with the guy who played the Ring Wraith that stabs Frodo on Wethertop. He is nearly 7 feet tall.
69. I can recognise at least 4 people I know, either friends or friends of friends in the first two LOTR movies. Another of my friends is going to be in the third.
70. I do this thing where I worry that it will be the last time I ever see someone when we say goodbye. I worry about this most with Lee because I worry about him. So whenever we part I make sure to say I love you and other nice things so that if something happens at least I'll never go "But the last thing I said to him was 'get more toilet paper' and worry that he didn't know how much I cared.
I'm less over the top about it with my friends.
71. Giffy has been my best friend since fourth form at Welly Girls. We met in Graphics class, where we made a robot arm together with M. M and I built the robot arm out of lego and Giffy programmed it on an ancient computer.
72. My favourite fruits are raspberries, rockmelon and a really good ripe pear.
73. I really like seafood, but I can't eat white bait anymore because it looks at me. I won't eat tentacles either. They're oogie.
74. If I don't get enough sleep my knees ache.
75. If I don't eat enough I get lightheaded. Sometimes if I only have carbs for lunch, I get lightheaded.
76. I like Dr Phil. I am so pleased that he isn't a quack and is in fact reasonable. What he teaches is common sense, and I'm glad so many people listen to him.
77. at the end of sixth form I did a TV drama type course and part of it was we had to sit in front of the camera and say what we liked and didn't like about our bodies. Me and one other girl out of the 20 there actually liked our bodies. The only thing I wanted to change was my height (taller please!) and maybe cut my hair.
78. I can recite The Princess Bride and a lot of disney movies.
79. When I was little Dad read The Hobbit to me and Gollum was my favourite character. The copy was had was full of pictires from the cartoon and Gollum looked like this sad frog guy. I used to go around saying "what has it got in it's pocketses?"
80. I hate rubberneckers, so I get the passengers to do it for me while I drive past at a regular speed. Then they report back.
I saw Calendar Girls yesterday, it was hilarious!
I saw it at a fundraiser screening for the Parkinson's Society and it was just the right audience. Everyone was howling with laughter and weeping quietly in turns.
One of those celebrations of aging women, but done so well. Kind of like The Full Monty but with women and none of the horrible steel mill closing stuff. I'm a total wuss about sad things, so I cried quite a bit, but it was uplifting all the same.
Plus caught up with my sister, which is all cool.
I am reading a book called "Doing it" by Melvin Burgess, it's kind of erotica for teens. Not sure if it's appropriate for teens, but I'm kinda sorta enjoying it actually. It's rather explicit and kind of pervy for a grown man to have written it, but there ya go.
I wrote this in an ENGL 231 lecture: (so...2001)
Rupert Brooke Haiku
Known to write poems
of ill repute. He dies
at a good moment.
It's still like the best haiku I've ever written I think.
here's a poem I wrote in a dream (well, the first two stanzas, the rest I wrote on waking):
The truth about spagetti
is that it hangs from your mouth
like the worm from the beak
of the blackbird on the dewy
lawn of the early coffeebird morning.
Children can throw spagetti
like that devil-child on the
television ad, or they slurp it
into their mouths with a messy,
albeit effective suck-ship technique action.
Spagetti makes a nest in your
bowl and is too slippery for a fork,
it requires winding and fast
relexes. People can commit crimes
with spagetti, like putting it on pizza
or cold in a sandwich.
Thr truth about spagetti is that
is it too difficult and undignified
but very easy to cook and
sometimes comes with good sausages.
Obviously, I haven't been blogging long. So, my blog entry about blogging will have to be about my first steps.
Serendipity. One Saturday a few weeks ago I was at a party talking to my friend R about blogs. Neil Gaiman's blog in particular, and I said how I'd like to have a blog, but I didn't think I was interesting enough and no-one would read it.
For the next few days I thought "yet, I'd really like a blog, it's be so much fun. I want to blog!"
Then Morgue sent a group email about what he's up to and at the bottom he put "Read this blog" with a link to chinashop.
I read a lot of chinashop and then I went to look at the other stonesoup blogs and I liked them too.
Then I saw the bit saying "want a stonesoup blog?" and I freaked out and went and did something else.
That little invite haunted me for a day and a night and then I finally got up the courage to ask Iona and Lo! She said yes!
So here I am. I have already got more visitors than I had expected, and that makes me all warm and happy. I'm still not sure how interesting I'm being, but people do comment, so that's a good sign.
I'll put up some more poetry, since that went down well, and I'll continue to put up pictures, because I'm photo-obsessive. I've hit a wall around number 60 of my 100 things, but I'm still thinking, I haven't given up. (I know there's more things to me than 60!)
Thanks for reading! Come back tomorrow, I promise to keep trying as hard as I can to be interesting.
I watched episodes of season four Absolutely Fabulous last night. (Lee said "I didn't know you liked this" and I realised how long it's been since I watched any). There was one about Patsy modelling, and it had sixties flashbacks where the photographer got her to say "Thursday" because it made her mouth all round and her face all surprised. It was funny and now I want to say "Thursday" in the same soft tones and vaguely surprised way she used. But that would worry people, so I won't do it. Yet.
I also booked via the internet tickets to Flight of the Conchords next week. http://www.whatthefolk.net/ for info on the band.
I left it too late so I have to make do with back row seats way up high. Well, if I hadn't also been booking for 6 friends, I could have had front row, I had an eeeee-vile moment when I thought "I could just get myself the good seats and my friends can fend for themselves..." Then I realised that was an eeeee-vile thing to do since I told them I'd get them all tickets, so I didn't.
I have been a FOTC fangirl since their very first stage performance. In 1999 I used to go to comedy night at Indigo with my friends. It's be a Tuesday night and we'd stay right through and then go to J's place and stay up talking. I'd quite often miss my 9am lecture on the Wednesday. FOTC started out there, and we'd cheer them and woop and offer to be their groupies. (Not in a sex way, but we did offer to dance on stage with them. They said no.)
FOTC are hilarious, and this show has all new songs! Yay!
is dream of you..."
From Singin in the Rain, stuck in my head.
I tried to post a picture of me, Giffy and Margie, but it was all huge. I will re-size it and post it later.
Today I went to the costume shop just up the road from me and tried on pretty "Pirates of the Carribean" era dresses. I picked a totally OTT powder blue one with sparkly jewels and masses of skirts for my birthday party. They're going to give me a hoop petticoat to go with it. Aaaaah bliss. A lot of photos will come of this, I can already tell.
In other news, I got third hand an outraged missive from the Christchurch anime fan club about me and my friends not winning on Sunday, so that's nice.
Despite still being sleep deprived, I am quite happy today. All the pro-costume support from yesterday's entry improved my spirits, thanks guys!
Plus, I spent the day at my parent's place, we walked on the beach and I had lemon/lime ice cream with strawberry sauce in a waffle cone. Mmmmm waffle cone....
I did scrapbooking with my Mum, which is always fun, and then I came back into Wellington and went to The Italian Job and out for dinner with good friends. I was so sleepy I "rested my eyes" during the tacked-on romance in the movie, but got rather giggly at dinner. Good fun.
Italian Job was OK. It isn't crap, although aspects of it are. I am a bit beyond being impressed by car chases, but the hero/criminal stereotypes were all well done. Yay for Seth Green's hacker! (The REAL Napster). It had some great lines and plot devices, I just wish I hadn't seen the trailer so many times and picked up so much of the story from it.
Didn't sleep as much as I needed to, but went to a meeting this morning and came away with a lovely long reading list. I picked up two films of photos which always makes me happy, and it's a gorgeous sunny day.
La la laaaaa! *happy dance*
All I have to do is make it through work and roleplaying tonight and then I can sleep again.
Well, despite all the long hours of effort and meticulous attention to detail. I didn't even rate in the top third of cosplayers accordng to the judges. I am annoyed about this, and not just in a sour grapes kind of way.
Me and my friend constructed this outfit with no pattern, and managed to pull off all the weird details and made it look pretty darn good. The woman who won the contest was wearing black pants, black jacket, white shirt, a wig and a hat that she had clearly not made and some wings and face paint that she can be credited for. She looked good, sure, but where is the skill?
I intend to write a letter. That'll show them!
My outfit was very popular with the audience and the cosplayers and the general Armageddon going public, but not the judges.
*sigh* it is very disheartening. Not sure I'll enter again next year, if I do it will be in a jokey costume. I got some pretty darn cool photos though.
Instead of coming up with something new, I'm gonna put in something I wrote a while back. Not sure how good it is now, but there you go...
Number 14 via Roseneath
Always knew that Wellington
was Port Nicholson at the back of my head
but didn't understand until
bus four days a week, twice
a day wound around the hills
above the sea, blue and green
still and grey
Saw that the sea can be choppy
saw the little white v shapes
that seemed so improbable when
Botticelli used them.
Understood that ships visit
with French or Japanese sailors
or regiments of fat Americans
who buy up kiwifruit chocolate
stripping Deka's shelves
then sail away in their bloated
cruise whale ships.
Saw the ships docked for a day or three
up against our railroads.
Finally figured out the noise
of seagulls in the city
the glow of sunlight on the shore
and the sudden smell of fish
while you're shopping.
I love this spring weather. It dawned all sunny and lovely and hot and now it's misty and oogie looking outside. I loved it yesterday when it suddenly rained *really* hard, like all these monsoon buckets being overturned. Wonderful.
I went to the new spotlight store and bought more beautiful fabric for patchwork or craft or something. Lovely. I tried to go yesterday on their grand opening, but I couldn't get a park. I managed this morning at 5 minutes past opening. Phew.
The Lewis' man came and measured my windows for curtains. Does that sound like a euphemism to anyone else? Ooh yeah, baby, measure my windows....
Music in my head: Cornflake Girl by my Tori, because I'm listening to it. Aaaahhh "you bet you life it is!"
This is the character I'm gonna dress up as. Everyone keep their fingers crossed for me, because it's taking longer than me or my talented friend anticipated....
*image removed...check out cosplay lab...*
Her name is Hikaru and she's from Angelic Layer, a wonderful Japanese Anime about a game. You make an "angel" doll like Hikaru which come alive on the "layer". You control them with your thoughts and fight other angels in competition.
It's very exciting and also emotional as it goes into the character's motivations and why they play. The primary character is Hikaru's owner Misaki who plays it for the first time on the first episode and quickly rises through the competitions. Obviously it's much more complex than all that, but that should give you an idea.
An interesting thing is that it is almost entirely girls who play Angelic Layer.
So, costume wise; the red, white and gold bits are PVC and the black is lycra. I'll post up a pic of me in it when it's done. (Fingers crossed for Saturday.)
Saw Pirates of the Carribean. It was fluff, but very good fluff. Johnny Depp is just wonderful. He always is of course, but the mincing! And the dialogue! Aaaaahhh... and Orlando Bloom, well, I suspect he's actually not that good an actor. But he looks good, so everyone ignores it. He has a bit of an *acting voice*. Yeah.
Spent the weekend making my costume for the sci fi convention on the weekend. *geek alarm!* It should be good, red and white PVC with black lyrca...extreme anyway.
not a lot else actually. I did so much housework today, it's quite satisfying. I even baked muffins!
41. I do storytime at Cummings Park Library on Tuesday mornings, observers welcome.
42. I have only been out of New Zealand once, to Melbourne.
43. I am a little superstitious, but not much. I'll walk under a ladder, it doesn't bother me. People all have differing opinions why you shouldn't anyway. Obviously I'm not going to walk under a rickety ladder with pots of paint stacked precariously on top, but if it's a mystical 'breaking the sacred triangle' issue I don't care.
44. I believe in ghosts, I've never seen one, but I think I've come close twice. I've heard lots of spooky stories from people I believe.
45. I don't like organised religion. I think the closest I'd ever get to being religious is Hollywood-style Wicca like Willow and Tara do.
46. I have encouraged no less than three people to watch Buffy. They have each become addicted.
47. I watch anime, I like girly anime such as "Cardcaptor Sakura" and "Angelic Layer" and more mainstream stuff like "Cowboy Bebop". I don't like "Dragon Ball Z" or mecha-based shows.
48. I only swear in my head, except for when I'm driving and someone is driving dangerously, or hasn't looked...then it's open season.
49. I don't get headaches, unless I'm sick or I am exhausted. Whenever a stress hedache threatens, I breathe deeply until it goes away. I taught myself that trick as a teenager.
50. Pants with pockets are good. The more the better.
51. I buy a lot of toys. When My Little Ponies were re-released I bought one called "Sweetberry". I have a new Care Bear too.
52. In Napier my favourite thing is the National Aquarium. I bought a fluffy soft toy sting ray there, his name is Scat. (Short for Skate Hat).
53. When I turned 2 my brother gave me a pink dog toy which I called Punsy. I've never managed a better toy name.
54. I am scared of clowns. I am getting better now, but as a child I'd scream and cry if one came near me. Santa too, and people dressed as animals. I think I nearly died when Wally Weta came near me one christmas parade.
55. Can't stand wetas, stick insects or spiders bigger than a 20c piece. I'm Ok with rodents though.
56. For two years I carried a "little book to keep things in" which I wrote quotes and thoughts and cartoons in. Then at Varsity I just stopped needing to do it. I've lately started another one.
57. I hate doing the dishes but I don't mind vacuuming or cleaning the bathroom.
58. Laundry is good to do frequently but there are too many steps. I miss having a washing line. Damn apartments!
59. I am allergic to some cats. It gives me hayfever. Living also gives me hayfever. I suspect it's actually an allergy to dust.
60. I should do more excercise.
Today is the two year anniversarry of 9/11. This made me think about where I was when I found out about the World Trade Centre, and consequentially flasbulb memories.
Flashbulb memories are cool. Basically it's when everyone remembers vividly where they were at a certain time. E.g. 9/11, JFK's assassination. A lot of these memories are accurate, but sometimes people tell them again and again and change them subtley each time until they believe something totally different to what really happened. Here's some reading I found through google, and a farside cartoon about them.
So, when I found out about 9/11 I had made it all the way to work without knowing. My flatmate had got a phone call at 6am, and had been watching TV with the lounge door closed all morning. I started work at 11am, and didn't try to enter the lounge. My workmate told me about ten minutes after I started and I didn't believe her just at first.
I had never heard of the World Trade Centre before that day, although that's nothing amazing as I know bugger all about geography. We spent the day at work checking the BBC website and mumbling how awful it was to the customers.
I remember how everyone I met that day was very sad.
So that's my flashbulb, I can remember finding out that Princess Di was dead too, I wrote a sonnet about it. Mostly about how I didn't really care...
epililogue:
In the February of the following year I was doing a 'welcome to the library' class visit. We have to cover emergency procedures, so I did what to do in a fire and an earthquake. This little girl sitting up the front put her hand up and said "what should we do in a terrorist attack?"
I said there wasn't a very high chance of Karori library being targeted and moved on. I've laughed about it since, but it's a little scary that little girls are worried about it in suburban Wellington.
Yup, I have had it proved all over again about my family and food. Most especially my Mum. My parents are on holiday in Sydney right now and I got a postcard. After listing all the places they've been, including the aquarium (the postcard has a really big shark on it...cool!), Mum tells me that they've had gelati, Chinese food for tea and got some food for breakfast from a Chinese supermarket!
The best thing is that the only time I've been to Australia I remember we found a really nice Chinese restaurant and ate there a few times.
I love my Mum.
21. For my 21st birthday I had dinner at the Genghis Khan restaurant. I'd bought this PVC strapless top for the night a few weeks before and then was sick all the week leading up to my birthday. I had no appetite and lost all this weight, plus I was on antibiotics, so couldn't drink! I had to keep adjusting at my birthday, and one of my friends asked why I hadn't bought a top that fitted me. Despite all that I had a pretty good night.
22. I like cake.
23. My life is based around food, it's a trait of my family. For example, I can tell you the best food I had in any place I've been. It's the way we remember things. ("Remember Turangi that time?" "Yeah, we had fresh smoked trout, delicious!")
24. Morally I'm vegetarian, but I'm slack. It's easy and convenient to eat meat. If I had to kill the animals myself, I'd be vegetarian.
25. Pizza is my favourite food, then chocolate. Chocolate pizza is OK, but I prefer them seperate.
26. I like cutesy Gothic stuff. Like Tim Burton, the tshirts I can get from the "switch" section of Farmers, and Neil Gaiman's Death.
27. If I had gone to a mufti high school and not Welly Girls, I would almost certainly have had: a goth phase, a punk phase and an I-can't-be-bothered-dressing-nice phase.
28. When I was 15 I meant to go to Hollywood and become a successful director of Action Thrillers.
29. When I was 7 or so I wanted to be a truck driver because they got to have lunch whenever they liked. No, really.
30. When I was 12 I decided to be a psychologist. This kept up right until I failed STAT 193 for the second time and gave up PSYC at Vic.
31. I picked up women's studies in my third year. It was cool.
32. My BA is in English Literature, my favourite courses were Modern Poetry, Shakespeare, Literary History of the Engligh Language and the How to Write poetry course that Greg O'Brien runs.
33. One of my acquaintances asked me what womens' studies was because she didn't know. I said "feminist theory, mostly" and she went "Ew! Feminism! Yucky!" I just couldn't comprehend how to answer that.
34. I want to see America, Canada, Italy, England and Ireland. I could be convinced to travel other places too.
35. I avoid conflict where I can.
36. I hate to be yelled at.
37. When there's confrontation my heart rate speeds up and my face goes red. I hate that everyone can tell how I'm feeling then.
38. I like board games, esp. Settlers Of Catan and Princes of Florence. I like Oxford too, because I'm good at it.
39. I like to customise Barbie dolls. I have so far made a Death Row Barbie and a Romantic Novel/Erotica heroine Barbie. I have big plans for the future.
40. I have a fantastic memory for movie lines and lyrics of songs. My memory for names and faces is less impressive.
It's after 10 in the morning, I hate sleeping in on a Sunday because it makes me so sleepy for the rest of the day.
I dreamed I found the car registration form that I need, and have lost. It's awful when I dream things that I want to happen, because I'm never sure if it really happened until I'm properly awake, and there's this time of "yay! I found it!" which is wrong.
*sigh*
In other news I bought some beautiful soft chocolate brown fur fabric for a measly $30 a metre from Global Fabrics. Excellent, especially since the one I like at Spotlight is $104 a metre! I am going to make a ginormous cuddly bear.
Yay! Will scan in a pic when he's all made.
I saw League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen again. I liked it better the first time.
I was sitting between two friends who kept pointing out inaccuracies to me, which got in the way of my blind adoration for the movie. Or at least, my experience of it the first time. It was still fun though.
Plus, saw a long extended trailer for Pirates of the Carribean with my two favourite boys in it. It's out next week, I'm going on Saturday :)
I am a little concerned that Orlando doesn't wash his hair enough in this one, though. Ah well, if he doesn't, I'll just watch Two Towers again.
Am going to see Finding Nemo tonight, also for the second time. (Ths first time was ages ago at a sneak preview at Weta studios. I have friends in high/strange places). Looking forward to that, even if I seem to be the only person on Earth that thinks the seagulls say "mine". Everyone else seems to think they say "mate".
If anyone else has seen it I'd love to know what your opinions are...
(Picture deleted. Imagine a little blonde girl on a blue duckie swing. V. cute.)
This is at Maidstone Park in Lower Hutt. I always thought Maidstone was like the Flintstones. Yay for the blue duckie!
1. I am the youngest of three children.
2. I have a big brother and a big sister. I have never felt like I missed out on anything sibling-wise. I have never wanted a younger sibling. Being youngest is just fine.
3. My Mum and Dad started dating when they were 14! They got married when Mum was 19 or 20.
4. I live with Lee, we've been together since 1999. We own an apartment in Thorndon.
5. From the very first moment I was given a camera to play with I have been snap-happy.
6. I drink herbal tea and turkish apple tea because caffienne is bad for me.
7. I own property and a car. Weird.
8. Four of my friends from high school got married this year. We are all around 23 years old, their dresses were all white and strapless, they all had veils. If I ever get married I will not wear white or have a veil.
9. I saw 37 movies in the 2003 Wellington Film Festival, 29 in the 2002 one.
10. I like dressing up. I don't normally need prompting to assemble or make a new costume.
11. I am a roleplayer. I am currently in three games: A Changeling troupe style game, a Universalis game and one where I'm a Canadian superhero in Chicago. They are all fun.
12. I like Root beer better than Ginger beer. Bundeberg brand is the best for both.
13. I have three neopets. Benton, Meepo and Princess Sparkler.
14... is the date of my birthday! In October.
15. I have too many crafts. I sew dolls and teddy bears. I patchwork, I scrapbook, I write, I paint, I make the odd piece of clothing, I draw. I want to make movies as well. Scrapbooking is *cool*.
16. My music taste is eclectic. I have Britney Spears, Tom Waits, Evanesence, counting crows, Kenny Rogers, Beatles, Harry Belafonte, Lisa Loeb, Mighty Wind soundtrack, lots of soundtracks. Plus heaps more.
17. I have mild intermittent asthma.
18. I love comics, but I prefer to call them "Graphic Novels" even though that's more pretentious.
19. My favourite female singer is Tori Amos, my favourite male one is Leonard Cohen.
20. I have a big crush on Orlando Bloom, and a slightly smaller but longer lived crush on Johnny Depp.
Or something borrowed, or maybe blue? This is my first blog entry ever! It's very exciting. Well, for me at least.
My blog is named Talula after a Tori Amos song, it's on "Boys for Pele" and is a very upbeat dancy kind of happy song. I get the chorus stuck in my head and then I have to sing it and dance along. Oftentimes I do this at work and people look at me funny.
I'm gonna do a "100 things about Jenni" thing so you guys get a feel for me, so to speak...as soon as I figure out how...
Uhm, that's all for now, I am terribly excited and making many typos (now removed). I may well update talula heaps. In between Neopets anyway :)