Are we human or are we dugong?

Things have been good. I’ve been in a good mood most of the time. I find myself smiling ridiculous amounts, listening to my favourite band of all time, The Doors, a lot and just generally being happy, even when broke, unemployed and somewhat stuck in the suburbs. (The only thing getting me down is a chunk of the Serbian community that has been gossiping about me being a junkie. Thanks a lot, folks. As if I didn’t feel removed enough from that community already!)

Nikola and Jasmina are still in Byron Bay, making the south-west a little less fun, but Zig is back from Kempsey, making Sydney ten times better. We hung out in Newtown the other day, my Happy Place where I need to move to soon, and I saw this girl I once met in Hyde Park when she and a bunch of others asked Morgan and me to join their ‘party’. (Read about that here.) She calls herself Poppy Salmon and is really adorable and wears lots of bright colours. She recognised me before I could figure out where I knew her from.

Also, I got to hang out with Emma, finally – it had been too long. We + Morgan went to the Aquarium to see the greatest creatures on the planet – my beloved dugongs. I was so happy, I almost cried! They are so fantastic! That was a really good day. The Aquarium is such a relaxing, lovely place to be; entry should cost less because if it did, I’d be there every day! Emma changed that Killers song into “are we human or are we dugong?” because she is brilliant like that! (Photos here).

I finally wrote that review that was taking forever. It’s up on The Dwarf: here.

Also, help me decide. 5^th April – to take part in a zine fair in Wollongong OR to see Evan Dando at the Annandale? Or to somehow squeeze both in?

I hope I never figure out who broke your heart

I haven’t been that good at updating on my life day-to-day but the rumours about Livejournal dying have made me want to document things even more (that, and the fact that my memory is horrible is becoming more and more apparent). I never saved the entries from the last Livejournal I had and I don’t remember the username or password so a big chunk of my life has basically just disappeared. It was probably all teenage angst but I’d still like to be able to look back on it in ten years. So now I’m attempting to copy and paste over 1000 Livejournal entries because I can’t figure out how to work that LjArchive thing. Goddamit.

 

Some things that have happened in the last few days…

 

I developed some photos from New Year’s Eve. A lot of them were too dark to be developed but here are a few that did and that I really liked. The one of Emma is my favourite. As she put it: “gotta love a cig and a bottle of warm champers at 7am”.

 

   

 

Jasmina turned 21. We started celebrations at her place with cheese, crackers and cake and then drove to Newtown for drinks at a quiet little pub I think was called Cooper’s. We took over the smoking room and got proper drunk. It was goooood. Jasmina and I had a heart-to-heart in the bathroom. haha. There was a bit of trouble on the way home but it got sorted out eventually and all was well. Fun times. (More photos here.)

 

  

 

I saw Tegan & Sara play. Thanks to The Dwarf, I went to their concert last night at the Enmore Theatre. It was reaaaaaally good. I’ll be writing my review soon so I won’t say much more here except that the crowd was ridiculously good-looking and I want Sara’s babies. Oh and when they played Nineteen I almost cried a few happy tears. I cannot believe I’m turning 20 soon. I’m not handling that fact all that well. But anyway, it was a lovely show and it’s so strange how funny the both of them are when compared to how sad their lyrics sometimes are. The supporting bands, The Jezebels and An Horse, were also really good. (Photos by ANNIE LY.)

 

 

 

I played basketball. Well, sort of. I threw the ball around a bit, barefoot, in a skirt, whilst smoking. I have skills to pay the bills, obviously.

 

Christmas happened. January 7^th was the Orthodox Christmas. Being a filthy atheist and all, I always dread these sorts of events. The upside was that my Canadian cousin Vlado came over for lunch so I got to sort of catch up with him and make fun of his accent.

 

I haven’t written anything other than a journal update or review in a long time, and it’s becoming really frustrating. I need something new, exciting, inspiring, motivational….and I don’t know what that is. I’ve been mostly having a good time. There have been new and interesting things in my life, and I’ve reconnected with old friends, and I’ve been having fun, and people from my ancient past have contacted me (people from Serbia) and still…..I feel like I have nothing to write. It’s really, really, very frustrating for me.

Update…

Thursday, 18^th

Up early, lift to the city from parents who were driving to the fish markets, walk from Pyrmont to Town Hall…overly nice Red Cross money collector complimented my hair (and noticed it was dreadlocked…most people just think it’s a manic growth on top of my head) and my fork bracelet…met up with Kylar, coffee and cigarettes all over the place, Hyde Park and Bill & Toni’s and Hyde Park again….home, Slavica and Jasmina helping my mum cook for Sveti Nikola, but had to leave soon after I arrived…all day running around helping with whatever needed to be done around the house…late night Oz watching. Consumed five coffees and was still dead tired.

 

Friday, 19^th

Sveti Nikola, my family’s Slava. I am horrible at getting into the spirit of things so I mostly hid in the living room and avoided all the guests who were in the sun room. I get really awkward every year because I rarely see a lot of those people, and there’s the confusion of whether I should just shake their hand or do I need to kiss them as well, and do I kiss them once or three times, and what the hell should I talk to them about, etc. Plus, every year someone makes a comment about me losing weight, which makes me wonder if I was obese as a child or something… Towards the end of the night I managed to get away with sitting on the couch and reading as most of the guests had left, my parents were with the older ones and my sister with her friends, and Jasmina had left – these days I have only a few Serbian friends, and those that I do have go to Nikola’s house because his Slava is also Sveti Nikola, and as they’ve been going to Nikola’s well before they met me, they of course still go there. Plus, everyone gets drunk there so it makes more sense anyway. Our house tends to be a bit quieter. Sveti Nikola reminds me every year, very blatantly, just how hard it is for my family to spend a day together and get along. The upside is waiting for midnight so I can eat chocolate.

 

Saturday, 20^th

       

 

Kalaediscope fun; Emma; Kylie; Seeta & T-Nev; Katie & moi; Arex

 

During the day, Annie and I went to a small zine fair that was happening at the first Voiceworks launch to happen outside Victoria. It was nice. Small and kind of quiet, and the people that came along didn’t really seem to know what zines were, but it was chilled out; I mostly sat around reading and occasionally talking to the kids from Just Like Candy & the Black Rose Anarchist Bookshop (on Enmore Rd, Newtown). Afterwards we wandered around a bit, bought a present for Emma which was directly responsible for us speaking Engrish all day – part of the present was a Guns n Roses cigarette case. On the side it had a warning label against smoking but it said something like “cigarette smoke the harmful health”…what the fuck? So all day we were speaking Engrish – replacing every L with an R. “hero, may I have a rarge vanirra mirkshake?” Then I went home, frantically rushed around for an hour getting ready to leave again, then off to Scary Canary…which is a terrible venue but Up the Bracket happens there and it featured good people + vodka and therefore wasn’t horrible like the venue is. Good company featured: Emma (we were celebrating her birthday), Alex (Arex), Katie (ok just quietly, I’m sort of in love with Katie), Kylie, Seeta, T-Nev, etc. Seabas played a bit of November Rain – hell yeah! After a while we went to Emma’s (new) place which I really like. Stairs everywhere! Emma put on The Doors and packed a cone as soon as we walked in which made me very happy.  Katie asked me why I love The Doors and I really couldn’t put an answer into words – they are just so special to me. Bit of hanging around, being lazy, that sort of high when sitting on a couch with a blanket is just like the most perfect thing, then we wanted to watch That 70s Show but the speakers connected to the fancy-computer-TV weren’t working so instead we watched so-bad-it’s-good Stripperella on SBS, then something else I don’t remember, before we went to sleep.

 

Sunday, 21^st

  

 

I woke up around 9.30 and Annie was already awake. We sat on the little balcony smoking – I really wanted to have a cigarette first thing in the morning because I can never do that whilst living at home! Then we wrote a note for Emma and left before her housemates, who we don’t know, got up to find two weird kids hanging out in their living room. Wandered the city in search of a pretzel (nowhere to be found!), then went home. I napped on the couch, watched Oz, and otherwise generally lazed around.

  

Monday, 22^nd

Spent the day in a really unexpected unbelievably happy mood. I don’t even know why! I just feel good all over. Have lazed around in the sun, reading, listening to silverchair’s Live From Faraway Stables, Love, Alice Coltrane (the last two thanks to Kylar), dancing around the backyard like a character from Hair, discovering Gogol Bordello and reconnecting with my Eastern European roots with mad gypsy music. Good times.

 

(Photos by ANNIE LY.)

Westie Wednesday

Wednesday

  

 

(Nenad & Nikola with Nenad’s lightbox / Nikola & Sasa / Art, feat. Jasmina)

 

First, I went to the dentist and got FOUR teeth fixed. Which cost, oh, only $460. One tooth was so fucked up that no matter how much of the numbing stuff he injected me with, I still felt the pain when he started drilling. The next day my mouth was so sore from the needle jabs to my gums. The four teeth took so long, I started to get really bored and restless towards the end. Was really glad to leave!

 

Then later on I went to an exhibition of works by design students at Lidcombe TAFE which featured the work of my friend Nenad. Jasmina, Nikola, Mark George & I drove there. I almost got into a bitch fight with Mark George in the car when he said that Arts is a pointless degree but I chose to ignore him instead. Some people are just not worth arguing with. When we got to Lidcombe TAFE, we met up with Nenad, Nenad’s brother Milan, Sasa and a really amusing dude whose name I forget. Free beer, Latin dancers, lots of work to look at, coming up with various ways to embarrass Nenad, etc. It was amusing and I sort of started talking to Nikola again which was really nice because I sort of miss hanging out with him. Plus, I rarely see my friends-from-the-ghetto these days so it was kind of nice overall. I dubbed the day Westie Wednesday. We were delayed in heading back because Nenad had to give a cheque to the DJ, then finding the way to Newtown where they were dropping me off was difficult, so there was a lot of driving involved, but luckily we’d swapped Mark George with Nenad!

 

In Newtown, I met up with Zig at The Vanguard where we were supposed to see Tim Freedman play – I was supposed to be reviewing for Faster Louder. As though I didn’t despise The Vanguard enough already, I get there and the awful old bitch at the desk says she doesn’t see my name anywhere on any list, and does not care for the printed out email I show her from Faster Louder. She was so unpleasant. Faster Louder have since said they’ll email them telling them they were very unprofessional! I wasn’t too heartbroken because I really hate that venue, but I heard a few minutes of Tim playing and it was just so fucking lovely, I wish I’d been there. Instead, Zig and I went to Newtown Thai II for dinner which was very good, then wandered down King St, caught a train to Central, hung around waiting for Zig’s bus, then both headed home. Eddy Avenue at night is a really scary place to be.

 

+ My rather awful review of Circlesquare’s Songs About Dancing and Drugs is up on The Dwarf: have a look.

+ It means we’ll manage, I’ll master your language…

Gonna live on science alone

    

 

I’ve been feeling down but I have ways of dealing.

 

Yesterday I met up with Kylar in the city and we went to American Apparel where he spent forever trying on clothes as I wished I’d been born a boy because their clothing is much better. Except for the heel-wearing girls get to do, but I’d wear heels even if I was a boy, and I don’t actually get to wear heels much now because I am a giant and also don’t really know how to walk in them. Anyway, the customers at AA bugged me a little but the employees are lovely, and Kylar bought green jeans. Then we had coffee at Bill and Toni’s, wandered around…I guess we wandered around a lot because I sort of lose track here and we end up at Jet…oh yeah, we went to get Kylar’s novelty lighter fixed but that didn’t really work out. We saw Albert so he joined us for a while at Jet. He was waiting for a friend who was an hour and a half late and we left a little after she arrived. Kylar went home to feed the cat and I went home to watch too much TV, then talk to Nenad until 3^rd Rock From the Sun was on at 1.30 in the morning, doing lots of sit-ups in between because I have lost my mind and think that sit-ups are the cure for everything. (Since 10^th November, I have done 1120 sit-ups and 450 crunches altogether. Go me!)

 

 

Today looked good to start with, then absolutely everything turned to shit rapidly, I did some crying, etc and then decided I had to make myself feel better or else, so I left the house in a hurry, went to the city with about $5 to my name & walked up Broadway giving my resume out (I am so desperate for a job I even gave my resume to that horrible Goth-by-numbers store near Easy Way). Then I walked further down to the University of Sydney where I met up with my sister and we walked to Newtown where she bought us Thai food for lunch and we wandered King St for a bit. By this stage I’d basically completely forgotten how miserable I’d been earlier. I just need to keep myself distracted. Then we went back to her uni, to her interesting but sort of depressing lab (it’s fascinating but spending long hours there would be horrible) where she finished an experiment. To my disappointment there was no fire, smoke, bubbling liquids…nothing. Science isn’t as fun as they make it seem on TV! Then we headed homewards, and she continued towards Liverpool to meet up with friends.

 

My Canadian cousin Vlado was at my house; he’d had lunch with my parents and so we hung out, talking, watching TV, etc. I found out he’s got a job at the same place Kylar works, so I warned him about it. Oh and then I got my grades and that sort of brought the good mood to new levels.

 

So the downside now remains that I am broke as a fucking joke, have no idea how to get any money, am on constant bad terms with my mother and my sister is going away for the weekend! But I’m ok and am seeing Die! Die! Die! & Ohana tomorrow regardless of the money situation…I’ll figure something out (dentist money, anyone?).

This music is the glue of the world, Mark. It’s what holds it all together. Without this, life would be meaningless.

 

 

The weather people told me yesterday would be twenty-three with rain. Lies! I almost died of heat exhaustion. Still, that was probably better than rain during the Newtown Festival which happened yesterday. It was good but not as good as the last couple of years. I’m not sure why. The stalls were pretty much the same and the music was good (except the awful skip-hop that hurt my ears) and the crowds were as impossible to move through as always. I think maybe it was the police presence. Fascists on every corner. The police have this impressive ability to instil fear in me when I’m doing absolutely nothing illegal. I was also in a bad mood for no apparent reason. I need to control my angst. Maybe it was the sugar comedown from eating nothing all day but a bag of fairy-floss and a slurpee? (A public apology to Annie, Zig & Kylar for my moodiness.)

 

The Wahas played a great set at the Essential Stage. They played a few new songs which sounded really, really good & the ending to “Cheap Stuff” is always so impressive to watch. Every time I see them play I get even more excited about Sydney music. I don’t want to spend my life chasing after things that have already happened. You know, The Doors and friends, Hole and friends, The Libertines and friends, etc. Those bands were amazing and I love them to bits, but I don’t want to only dream about how wonderful it would have been to experience that from its beginnings and to be a part of it. And that’s why the Sydney music scene is so exciting to me; because I CAN be a part of it and because the music is really fucking good! (I’m going to be writing about my favourite Sydney bands in instalments soon, so stay tuned!)

 

The Wahas are playing their first headlining show this Friday (14^th November) at the Hopetoun with two other great Sydney bands – The Vignettes and Chaingang. It’s their End of HSC celebration show as well! TEETH interviewed Joel from The Vignettes a while ago and you can read the interview here. (We also did an interview with The Wahas which can be read here.) Anyway, it’s only $10 and it will be a great show so you & all your friends should go! And get there early so you don’t miss The Vignettes who will be playing first!

 

I’m currently listening to the Empire Records soundtrack and wishing my DVD was back in my hands. I don’t even know who has it anymore. The last I saw of it was the case at Nenad’s place but no disc inside! “In the immortal words of The Doors…the time to hesitate is through!”

 

  

There was a lot of hanging out

 

MySpace photo! We are necklace twins.

 

Well I’m really glad that Obama is the new president of the United States. Zig and I had celebratory hugs in the middle of the city today when we heard the news. Everything automatically felt a little better then.  

 

I thought the weather was going to be really nice today so I decided I had to leave the house. The weather was actually pretty bad but it was still nice not to be in the suburbs. I met up with Zig and we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I miss the Jimi Hendrix room but there are some really interesting things in there at the moment. My favourite was “Leisure Lady (With Ocelots)” by Yinka Shonibare but the “Astro Black: A History of Hip Hop” video (by Soda_Jerk) was also interesting. “Leisure Lady (With Ocelots)” is absolutely amazing. I couldn’t stop staring at it. I felt as though the ocelots were running towards me. The school groups taking part in guided tours were a bit annoying because I really don’t like hearing someone’s interpretation of what the artwork is about. I’d rather not get it at all but enjoy looking at it, and then research it myself later if I want to know more. Having it forced upon me by some loud-voiced guide is frustrating. There was one adorable kid though with his school pants tucked into his Docs that made me think I really did go to the wrong high school. We didn’t have kids like that!

 

 

 

After the MCA we hung around the city a bit. I was looking for places to apply for jobs but I’m very picky. I did end up handing in a resume at some random clothing store in Market City though. And I spent the last of my money on a pair of really awesome sunnies at Dangerfield (and a badge and a magazine). We hung around Chinatown eating $1.30 cakes and imagining ninjas are about to jump from the rooftops like in those kung-fu movies that are on SBS at two in the morning.

 

Later on I met up with my sister at the University of Sydney and we walked to Newtown for Thai food; her shout. I always feel so comfortable in Newtown. Would be quite nice to live there or nearby.

 

Another good day and another mark off my essay. Should probably think about writing that sometime soon.  

Consumerism on Monday

I spent a boring and kind of sick weekend at home and missed what was perhaps an opportunity to do something big(ger) with TEETH. I hope I haven’t completely fucked that chance up. I was just feeling too sick to leave the house. I spent two days watching Scrubs, South Park and Law & Order SVU on TV all day long. Oh pay TV! Dr Cox on Scrubs is quite possibly my favourite character, ever. Of course all this time I was dying of boredom but didn’t even consider that perhaps I should write the last essay of second year; the one that was due on Friday. When I hand that in I can forget about uni for almost four months, but procrastination is just something I am too good at to stop practicing it.

 

So yesterday I had to leave the house because I’d been inside too long; I felt unusual ($3 for picking up that reference, Annie & Kylar not included). I printed out fifteen copies of my resume with the intention of handing it out around Newtown. My current place of employment won’t need me for a while, and even when they do need me, it’s only three hour shifts at $15 per hour, about once or twice a week. Oh and it’s on the other side of the city so I lose almost $10 just getting there and back! I didn’t actually give out a single resume, nor leave my zines anywhere as I’d also planned. But I did: meet up with Kylar; spend some time in Gould’s Books where I want to live (I bought “Homo Sovieticus” by Alexander Zinoviev and so far, I really like it. His writing style is brilliant); wander down King St; find a $25 fake-fur coat at Vinnie’s which I probably should have bought; hang out at that park which I always forget the name of, the one with Mighty Boosh graffiti everywhere; talk about possible ways to combat my boredom during the holidays (find a job? take up kick-boxing? start to live healthy? write a memoir? develop a drug habit?); buy a handcuff necklace from Dangerfield which I’d wanted for a while. I also really want a handcuff belt buckle but then I’d look like a scene kid and I don’t want that. Then Kylar left and I wandered down Enmore Rd where I found this amazing 80s dress I really wanted to buy, but which I was unfortunately too tall for.

 

Then to American Apparel on Oxford St where, as always, I was really excited about everything but didn’t actually find anything I wanted to buy, except tights which are overpriced like a motherbitch. One of the dudes working asked about my Jim Morrison bag because his mum always talks about The Doors! I wrote down Annie’s site for him. Then I spent more money but not on clothing and shoes, as planned. I seriously couldn’t find any shoes I liked that didn’t have a heel so big I’d be a giant and/or break some bones wearing them. There was even less clothing I liked. Instead, I bought A Clockwork Orange on DVD (I recently read the book and it’s pretty much one of my favourites now) and Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden (not really that good but it’s worth it for “Jesus Christ Pose” and Chris Cornell before Audioslave. I was going to buy something by Bloc Party but then decided on Straylight Run instead, then when I couldn’t find any of their CDs somehow decided on Soundgarden) and taro milk tea from Easy Way which is like liquid cake. Soooo very good.

 

I caught the train home with my sister and we joked about being embarrassed to be seen with each other.