Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Arting Around

This afternoon and evening proved to be most creative! Visited Polymorph and hung out with BodModBoy and worked through new Aug HF show ideas, contacted an assortment of folk re the nitty gritty of it all, went to costume fitting for ArtSpace show, and found out about a couple of new art shows coming up: Naked Canvas, some sort of body modification installation (??? don't have many details yet), Monday 20th August from 4-7pm at The RoundHouse, UNSW and Dead Still, some sort of goth-esque affair with a whole pile of artists exhibiting at New View Gallery (277 Australia St Newtown) 6-8pm, Thursday 30th August. Oh, and I have maybe found a conference or two to go to in Austria that might get me funding to get OS! Just have to get my funding application all signed off and submitted by Friday, whilst working fulltime. Will be working at least 7 hours a day for next two weeks, which will make time management for shows a bit tricky, but nice to a) get money and b) be busy, as the more I have to do the more I get done (if you know what I mean).

And of course, last night was Orlan. Not sure if the fact that I nodded off in the first half was more a reflection of the talk or my state of exhaustion, or both? Left feeling a little non-thrilled, like I could have just read a bloody book on her- nothing new or exciting really. Not bad, not borning as such, just... old? Jaded? Routine? Banal? Hmmm.

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PUNK Conference *Call For Papers*

Trawling for an OS academic conference to go to next year, and came across this. NO idea how I could work breastmilk or lactation into a punk paper...

PUNK: words, music, politics, influence

The first international scholarly conference on punk will be held at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, on April 24-26, 2008.

Please e-mail individual abstracts or panel proposals to Prof. Paul Budra at budra@sfu.ca. Include the proposal as part of the body of the email, not as an attachment. Individual abstracts should be a maximum of 500 words and may address any aspect of punk. Panel proposals should include a panel title, the names of three presenters, their abstracts, and the name of the panel chair. The deadline for submissions is January 4th, 2008. Visit http://www.sfu.ca/punkconference/ for more info


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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Zoo Gets All Mushy Again

What a wicked game you play
To make me feel this way
What a wicked thing to do
To let me dream of you
What a wicked thing to say
You never felt this way
What a wicked thing to do
To make me dream of you
And I don't wanna fall in love

-Chris Isaak
'Wicked Game'

This came on the radio at work yesterday, when the sky was clouded over and you could smell the rain coming. And suddenly I remembered driving through the countryside with the skies wide open and the sound of windscreen wipers and tyres on the wet highway, listening to this CD. Made me all cosy and happy and mushy, as much as I am not usually a huge fan of Isaak's sentimental stranger style. Suddenly I longed for counter meals in country pubs and fleeting flirtations with moody boys in jeans and checked shirts and sitting in cafes watching electrical storms and hitching up long skirts as you run through puddles. Damn, such a cliched old romantic I prove to be, time and time again! Ooooh, Zoo is just SOOOO subversive, with her not-so-secret longings to be whisked away by a likely character in denim and a trucker cap, or braces and a polo shirt, or chaps and a Daddy cap ... heck, a Zoo wants what a Zoo wants, and there ain't no shame in that I suppose. Just where to find someone who fits the bill AND wants to make sweet love/plans/adventure with me? Damn the cold weather and schmaltzy music, always turns me into a soppy old creature wanting flowers and cuddles and the odd rough and tumble.

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Dazza Stole My Girlfriends

Is it true that them lezzos just need the company of a real man? 'Cos when Dazza was at The Sly on Wednesday he got sooooooo much attention from the ladeez, and more snogging action than Zoo has seen in quite a while. Seems that petticoats, corsets, red lippy, a dazzling display of decolletage and diamantes do not carry quite the same attraction for Slox clientele as a streaky tan, mousy mullet, large and decrepit teeth and a ego even bigger than the bulge in your pants.

Let Me Hear Your Body Talk...

I'm sure you'll understand my point of view
We know each other mentally
You gotta know that you're bringin' out
The animal in me

Let get physical, physical
I wanna get physical
Let me hear your body talk

- Olivia Newton-John
'Physical'

While stumbling home from The Sly the other night with MO'M, I started rambling about how hard it was for me to perform, and how uncomfortable I had been about my body for a long time. For someone so unabashed about showing my bits these days I sure had/have my share of body issues.

For some reason, this revelation seem to suprise MO'M. Then I got to thinking about how freakishly uptight I had been, even in comparison with the 'normals' (not just shameless queer libertines), and its all really quite odd. For example: I didn't go out in public bare-legged, even in summer, for 10 years or so. Naturally, this meant I didn't go swimming for this whole period, and the warmer months were hellish. Stockings or tights were essential, and rarely even fishnets at that (too much skin showing, and far too sexy). I never showed any cleavage, not a hint of titty flesh ever on display. From the time I budded breasts until I was 27 I never went out without underwire underneath my conservatively necked shirts or dresses. The vast majority of the time over these years I would not venture from my house without being fully made up- foundation, liquid eyeliner and dark lipstick (yes, there was a substantial goth period). All of my swooshy outfits were floorlength, or close to it. I didn't own any skirts above the knee, and certainly not any pants or trousers. I had lots of earpiercings, and my nostril done, but anything below there was not open to the touch of strangers. I even found getting my eyebrows waxed a little uncomfortable. I always had long hair, and though tempted to shave part of it for years was too weirded out by the exposure of skin this would entail to do so. My body had very strict boundaries. I wouldn't dance in public unless I was extremely drunk. I wouldn't wear tampons, as it involved too much intimate contact with bloody bits. I had my hymen until I was 20. I don't even remember the first time I had a pap test, but know I had put it off years longer than I should have. Yet I was strangely sensual, and loved sex from the moment I discovered the power of the jets in my friend's swimming pool when I was about 8 (or was it some unexpected pleasures of certain examinations at the doctor's?). I was an incredible flirt from the age of 15 or 16, and a rampant indulger in the self-erotic arts.

Ah, there is much more to be said here, but enough for now. Time for a dance in the sunshine, some French toast and maple syrup, a mud mask, a bubble bath, and to start on the show and outfit I promised AuntyC I'd do at her party tonight.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007

I Wanna Kiss The Bride

Don't tell me romance is dead... this is Dazza and Scragg engaging in a bit of pre-wedding bathroom spit-swapping... full report of the nuptials soon, promise.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

To My Favourite Scragg, Love Dazza

Well it's me and you and a flatbed truck
My heart kicking over like a whitetail buck
Hey hey hey

In the middle of spring
You can cut me deep
You can cut me down
You can cut me loose
Don't you know it's okay
You can kick and scream
You can slap my face
You can set my wheels on a high speed chase
Hey no matter what you do

Wild horses could not drag me away from you



You know, Schappy Baby, I like couldn't find a way to express just how grouse a chick you are, and then I was in my ute driving down the M5 and listening to WSFM Love Song Dedications and Gino Vanelli was singing 'Wild Horses' and then I remembered our wedding day and bugger me if I didn't begin to choke on my Coke Zero and have to pull over and call you to let you know how much I loves you but me mobile was flat so I tried to ring you on the emergency roadside phone and instead they sent the NRMA and so I got the bloke to check out me dodgy carbie while he was there and then I was starving hungry so I went and stopped at the drive through and got some McNuggets for me and a McHappy Meal and strawberry sundae for my most bewdiful SchappySnookums...

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Love Song Dedication

We can lock away the bad memories together
Close the doors to the past forever
Watching you touch
We're past this much

I'm alone with you tonight
I'm alone with you tonight
I'm alone with you tonight

I can't always remember what I say
I can't always take it having to pay
Watching you walk
You know you're really attractive

I'm alone with you tonight
I'm alone with you tonight
I'm alone with you tonight

I know it's hard when you have tried
When the conversations terror, you have tied.
Making out you still don't know
All I have is alcohol so let me go

I'm alone with you tonight
I'm alone with you tonight
I'm alone with you tonight

- The Sunnyboys
'Alone With You'

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Monday, July 23, 2007

PERV PERV SWISH SWISH

Swooshed onto the peak hour train this morning all taffeta and leopard print, to find the words 'PERV PERV SWISH SWISH' etched into the glass of the door diagonally opposite me. I took it as a direct order, if not a prophecy, so I did- but much more of the latter than the former!

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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Week/end Wrap-up


Had two spectacular nights of dizzyingly silly drunkeness and sheer joy this week, where I was pretty munted but NOT sad in the least, not mooching around all melancholy or rolling around ranting or being upset that I wasn't picking up anyone or pining for lost loves or crying for the dead or worrying about the sick. Wednesday afternoon was lovely, went and saw BodModBoy at PolyMorph to run through show ideas and then went to De Borsche's studio to finalise branding design and size, then dropped in to Slox to see who was around. Ran into a Cheeky Sod I've not seen for AGES, and we decided to head to The Newtown to see if we could win anything in the crab races. We couldn't, but we had lots of ludicrous fun thinking up names for and cheering on our chosen critters and having a couple of bevvies. Then back to Sly, chatting and drinking and laughing about the place with a heap of friends. DreadfullGirl turned up just as I was thinking of leaving, and this prompted new heights of terrifying and uninhibited Fraggle-dancing, before a nonsensical trip to The Townie, a strange convenience store shopping spree, a wee small hours cooking adventure and yet another slumber party in the loungeroom. I was giggly and mischievous and just felt... free? At one point someone I had just met asked if I had taken a pill 'or are you always like this?'. It was ludicrous, in the most delightful way!

And then Friday was Hellfire. Went over to ButchBitch's dressed up, drank a few glasses of wine and had some spag bol and headed to the club. Was in super-hyper-sillypants mode for no reason I could pinpoint at all. Ran around in circles, danced, chatted, danced, met The Initialled One (waves to PV, and thanks for finally putting me out of my mystery misery), danced, drank copious amounts of vodka, watched an amazingly sexy feathers and hula hoops show by Kira and a perfectly absurd show by the quirky beast that is Birdman (thanks for the drinks vouchers!), danced, tied myself up in my feather boa, danced, babbled on telling everyone they HAD to come to the next one and see my show, danced and... after the lights came on we realised most of our friends had scuttled off into the night somewhere along the way so ButchBitch and I stumbled over the road to The Midnight Shift. Upstairs. With the twinks. One of whom had some poppers, which normally I wouldn't do on the dancefloor (these things work best usually if Zoo not standing up), but I was feeling reckless so sniffed away and got even dizzier and there were lasers and handbag music and it was all just so bloody GAY and shiny and ridiculous that I almost choked on camp and had to leave after a short but very entertaining while. Then back to BB's place to drink tea and ramble on for ages before crashing out.

Realised that somehow the last two times I had been on the piss I have ended up feeling more like I was on other, less legal, chemicals, than like I was bedrunken. In a very good way. Not maudlin or messy, but hilarious and happy. YAY!

Home mid-Sat arvo to manufacture the second sock puppet, invent a show and costume, and get to LesBeanz's birthday bash. Performed, danced some, got all gooey over the speeches, met some fun people, ended up at house party before getting a lift home, sober and at a respectable hour, and having poached eggs and toast with DreadfullGirl. REALLY nice night. Today went to MCA for a small spot of art while I waited for my friend, J, and then went to the Aroma coffee festival in The Rocks. Shared a gozleme, had a couple of coffees, wandered through The Botanical Gardens, checked out Sax and had a beer at The Oxford. Then headed to Noel's wake, which was at an art gallery down the road. It was sweet, and a nice chance to see some people I'd not caught up with for a while, and to reminisce about all manner of things. Back to a friend's dungeon for coffee and bickies and then home to blog and cook and watch telly and hang out with my homies. Sweet.

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Random Dressups


Who needs an excuse to post pwetty pictures? Red dress outfit house party last weekend, and leather tutu from Hellfire on Friday.

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ORLAN At AGNSW July 30th

FREE PUBLIC LECTURE
Monday 30 July, 2007

This Is My Body, This Is My Software: between western culture and non-western culture

French artist Orlan uses plastic surgery as her medium. Between 1990 and 1993, she underwent a series of choreographed surgical performances. The talk will comprise a survey of Orlan's work in order to ask questions about the status of the body in society. Orlan lives and works between Los Angeles, New York and Paris.

Venue: Domain Theatre, Lower Level 3 AGNSW
Time: 5.15 for a 5.45pm start
No bookings, come early to ensure a seat by 5.30pm
Refreshments and exhibition viewing of contemporary galleries at 6.45pm

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My Cups Runneth Over

My breasts are heavy, they are bigger and ache and feel 'full' again. I am supposed to start pumping and popping milk-pills soon, in order to be ready for an upcoming show, but haven't started yet... I wonder what is provoking these changes? I have found myself in a few discussions around mothers and maternity lately, be it in relation to my own desires and options (or not) for pregnancy and parenting, the influence (or not) of our mothers on our personalities and peculiarities. Are my breasts responding to a desire to nurture?

And if so, who do they want to nurture? A past girlfriend of mine was adopted, and when I let her suckle from me it was often a somehow bittersweet experience, an attempt on both our parts to make up for some lack (not so much physical as emotional as a bonding and comforting. The kiss on a grazed knee, the skirts to hide behind). And a recent playmate provoked a similar inkling in me, an urge to compensate for past losses (mine to mother, zirs to be mothered). But then, with so much death and diseases around me of late, perhaps the desire is less specifically linked to an individual and more to provide solace and sustenance to my whole community? Or myself?

Whatever the cause, the response is quite intense. It HURTS. My shirtbuttons are straining to hold back my milky tides, I am getting the surging pains that signify that first wave of letdown as I type this. And the tears too are swelling up, my dams are all threatening to burst...

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Well Sock My Puppet!



Decided to do a show for LesBeanz's 21st Birthday Bash. Theme was 80s sci-fi. LB loves Patti Smith. Everybody loves sock puppets. So...

'Dancing Barefoot' playng. Zoo dressed up in blonde tousled wig, geek glasses, lab coat, oxygen mask, boots. Schmoozed about audience, sat on chair, slowly removed boots, took off sock puppets and put on hands. Danced around, groped people with puppets, stripped off lab coat to reveal dentara knickers, nose attached to navel, eyes glued to nipples. Sort of mad-scientist-meets-mutant-monster. Silly, rather unrehearsed, but lots of fun and seemed to go down well with the crowd!

Lovely night really, great speeches and yummy cake and much love and schmoobies *g*.

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Thursday, July 19, 2007

Hankie- Panky

Tristan Taormino explains a bit about the hanky code (click here for full article):

I have become obsessed with hankies. Beige hankies, purple hankies, orange hankies, yellow hankies with dog bones on them. Not cry-your-eyes-out hankies, but fuck-your-brains-out hankies. I've been so consumed that I've searched for a nonexistent hankie and have even begun a movement to codify a new one.

Zoo's Hanky Selection

Left: Red

Centre: Yellow

Right: Black, purple, maroon (and have earned them all the hard way). And Holstein if I ever find the print.

Former right: Orange. Know MUCH better know!



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Newtown Jets VS Auckland Lions



Saturday August 4th
Henson Park (Centennial St, Marrickville)
3pm kickoff
Tickets $8 at the gate

'Game Day at Henson Park is real rugby league - VB beer, Garlo's pies, sausage & steak sizzle, children kicking the ball around on the hill, players acknowledging supporters after the game - a great AND inexpensive way to spend a Saturday afternoon during the football season. '

And no, I don't imagine it will look quite like the game pictured here! See you on the hill...


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Mint Green, With Traces Of Spittle

Bad Mummy won't let you go to bed before midnight. Bad Mummy always makes you eat dessert first so you can't finish your peas. Bad Mummy lets you wet yourself in public and won't change your pants for hours. Bad Mummy adds a dash of vodka to your orange juice. Bad Mummy doesn't check your homework. Bad Mummy answers the door in her negligee. Bad Mummy flirts with your headmaster. Bad Mummy leaves red lipstick marks on your cheek. Bad Mummy spanks you in the middle of the shopping centre. Bad Mummy breastfeeds you in front of your schoolfriends. Bad Mummy spares the rod and spoils the child. Bad Mummy doesn't tell you you'll go blind or to keep your hands above the quilt.

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

All I Have To Do Is Dream...

Wet dreams are not usually part of my life, in that I rarely wake up having been shagged senseless by figments of my REM imagination. But lately I keep dreaming about one particular person, dirty sweaty dreams where suddenly I am wanted and desired and appreciated for my unique and kinky talents. In these scenarios filth will be happening all around me, and I will be feeling a bit sad and insecure and just hanging around in the background, and then suddenly this person comes over and kisses me, and then... The latest episode, this morning, involved the sudden realisation of us being kindred spirits, sharing perversions and proclivities. It was soft, and sweet, and I felt like I had found a soul mate to grow with. There was a vastly different dynamic to the one I have had with most partners, more like furtive schoolboys fumbling about in the locker room, sweet and nervous and grasping unsurely at raging adolescent hardons, a mutual exploration of blossoning sexualities, than master/student or Daddy/boy or top/bottom or parent/child.

(And no, for those reading who know me too well, the lust-object in question just may NOT who you are thinking. Or maybe zie is- depends on your insight *wink*.)

When I was suffering badly from PTSD and having incredibly awful execution nightmares all of the time a counsellor advised me to try and change the ending whilst I was in the dream, to provide my own 'happily ever after'. This could well be what I am doing now, rewriting the script so the Zoo gets the knight in shining armour. This is the most likely explanation. But part of me still hopes it is prophetic!

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Zoo The Big Top

It appears I am entering a new level in my perverted path, and much wanting to improve my technical toppy skills at the moment (ie not the topping from the bottom ones, the 'come here and let me bruise you' ones). So many bottoms that need spanking or piercing or a good thumping with the whacky stick, and I'm becoming much more inclined lately to be the one dishing it out. Miss X will be teaching me some piercing skills soon, which I am looking forward to most excitedly! Its funny, a lot of people expect that because they have seen me all pierced or tied up or beaten they can hand me a box of needles, a length of rope or a flogger and I will know what to do with it. But really, in most cases I don't have a clue, or the confidence. So, am thinking that I could do with some instruction in such matters, and to this end I will need both some willing flesh to practice on and knowledgeable hands to guide my own. Anyone want to help unleash Zoo The Big Top?

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Soaking, Shiatsued And Shot With Silver

I am truly blessed to have such generous friends! Yesterday I had a lovely date with Miss X.
Started off being picked up from Mayhem*'s at midday, and having a yummy big lunch at The Cross. Then headed into the ginseng bathhouse at The Crest, where we were booked in for a shiatsu (all of this her treat). Ooooh... I love those baths! Got our robes and showered then jumped in for a quick soak in the ginseng. Then on to a most glorious massage, painful in a VERY good way, and seemingly much longer than the half hour we had asked for. Returned all floppy to the water, ginseng, hot bath, cold bath, wet sauna, back into water, scrubbed ourselves down thoroughly with the scratchy mitts, back in the water. Bliss! All warm and fuzzy we dried and dressed, headed into Newtown for shopping and bakery goodies. Back to her place for organic red wine, quince paste and white castello on crackers, and a fabulous talk with her highly entertaining and flamboyant housemate who had just returned from a trip to Morocco. She was supposed to teach me to pierce, but we got distracted and decided to head to The Newtown instead for pinball and pool comp (got down to the black ball), then some Indian dindins and porn shopping before toddling to our respective homes. Sweet.

* Had a lovely night/morning at Mayhem's. Met her at Uni for a meeting, then headed to her place via the kinkiest sex shop on King. We spent a very long time playing with the various harnesses and dildos, and discussing the merits (?) of banana-flavoured lube. Eventually she settled on the lovely pleather and webbing harness, a most exciting silver vibrating love-gun cock that is amusingly bendy and a sensible pump pack of Wet Stuff. We came home, ate yummy soba noodles and tofu, watched Torchwood with her neighbours, then spent a giggly while playing with her new toys (and the magical Hitachi). Grinning-like-a-fool Zoo!

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Little Miss Manners

We are vain and we are blind
I hate people when they're not polite

- Talking Heads
'Psycho Killer'

There's a person that I really like on a lot of levels- funny, sexy, cute, a damn lovely cuddle and a decent chat, intelligent, political, kinky. We played a couple of times, hung out a bit and had some pretty special talks. Zie is playing with some of my mates, and this was all nice and good really, even if I was getting left out of the lovin' loop. But then recently I found myself becoming a little antagonistic towards zir, and thought maybe it was just a touch of jealousy and insecurity and I was simply being a childish bitch. I'm sure that this is part of it, wanting someone in a way that this someone doesn't want me, the indignity and ouchiness of unrequited lust and longing. Sometimes I'm not that mature really, and just want my slice of cake to take home from the party. And a lolly bag, the pass the parcel prize, and the tail still pinned firmly on the donkey. And I can get awfully sulky when I don't get it! Stompy 5 five year old Zoo with her knickers in a twist and a curl in the middle of her forehead.

But then something else occurred to me. I had gone out of my way for this person. Invited zir to stay with me, which zie then did (though did not organise it with me directly but another friend who was also staying here. Felt a little odd, but figured it was 'cos zie was maybe a bit shy and knew the other person better so let it go). Emailed zir pix from adventures we had shared- no reply. Emailed a list of fun things to do and upcoming events zie might like to come to- no reply. Invited zir to various parties and whatnot- only got one (negative) reply. Sent zir a blog post I'd written about a trip we took- no reply. Sent a link to a book that was relevent to a discussion we'd had- not a thankyou or a mention of it. Hmmm. And all the while zie is merrily telling me about how zie spent a whole day on the net, and texting people while we are out together. So its not like zie doesn't have the technology. And there were plenty of face-to-face times when a thankyou could have been said. Double hmmm. Now, it doesn't take much to be polite. Even to people you are not shagging, and don't want to shag. If someone is nice enough to invite you somewhere and you don't want to go, or can't, you say 'sorry I won't be making it but thanks for the invite'. If someone sends you some photos, or takes the time to locate a book they think you will like, you say 'thankyou'. Simple.

I can't guess at zir motivations for being that rude to me. Maybe it wasn't intentional, maybe its just that zie was too busy thinking about getting zir end in to be bothered with anyone else, maybe zie got distracted by something bright and shiny just as zie was going to write that text. Maybe zie never had a Daddy that taught zie any manners. Maybe its not a case so much of malice as ignorance or a short attentions span.

But it hurts, and reopens old wounds. When I was in high school I was never really harrassed, never teased or bullied as such. I was simply ignored, the nerdy kid who got straight As and won prizes in competitions and hung out in the library at lunchtime but wasn't worth teasing about it. I had friends, sure, but was always on the fringes. Not particularly offensive, just invisible.

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Monday, July 16, 2007

Right Up(Start) Your Alley

I have been asked to perform at Upstart Alley on September 15th, which is being held somewhere in Melbourne. Last one was brilliant, with imported Gaylourdes and Wife and Domino talent amongst the Victorians, and full of Camp Betty beauties. No idea what happens when Betty's not in town, but figure it should still be lovely. Planning to drive down with Beculum- she's been hassling me to head south with her for ages as her missus hates Melbourne and we've contemplated various roadtrips for years. So, if anyone wants to put us up we'd be MUCH obliged! We don't take up too much space and are quite well house-trained. Really we are.

Promised the Upstarters blood, and at this stage am considering a human fly sort of number. Which makes it extra good to have Beculum around 'cos that gives me a piercer I can trust to poke metal through me in places I can't reach. MOST EXCITING!

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Plaster People

From a Voice article on Morton Bartlett, a Bostonian born in 1903:

He lived alone, but peopled his leisure hours with plaster sculptures of children that he created, using anatomy books and growth charts as guidelines. These little people were somewhat less than half life-size, but startlingly detailed, from eyelashes to pudenda. There are three identical boys, each about eight years old, whom scholars have assumed to be self-portraits. But most are girls, about a dozen of them, from prepubescent to teenage, arrested in the first indefinable bloom of youth. Bartlett arrayed them in wigs, hats, and exquisite hand-sewn and hand-knit clothing that he'd designed, then photographed them in staged tableaux—movie stills featuring his personal galaxy of stars.

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Great Minds Think Alike (Or, Fools Seldom Differ)

Sometimes I do almost believe that Mayhem reads my mind:

'One would think that being held in such an incredible network of sexy brilliant freaks, of close human contact, of being able to fuck people I love, and love people I fuck and not be jealous or neurotic but happy and open and confident, and be surrounded by people who i love - and no I don't have to fuck all of them or even most of them, and no - i'm not sex addicted either - but just lucky enough to be in a very nice couple of spaces at the moment - that I'd be *happy* and not pining after something that in many many ways I was glad to get out of.'

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Channel Nine, 2am, Monday Morning

'You know what burns me? Ladies restrooms that don't have urinals' states some hick American man in drag on a show called Blue Collar TV.

'Why are you wearing heels?' asks small girl-child. 'Because I'm a girl' replies Posh Spice in an ad for her new show.


This is surreal. DreadfullGirl and I spent this afternoon dressing up and poncing about in front of the camera at my friend's open studio day, and then came home and made pasta bake and woofed that down followed by chokkie cake and bikkies and microwave popcorn. Now we are having an impromptu slumber party in the NICE WARM loungeroom, all wrapped up in doonas with the heaters on and reading and chatting to foreigners online.

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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Show Us Your Udders


Found this pic of me at Old Mac Bad Dog. Classy, huh?

Star Struck

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): A misguided swan became infatuated with a pedal boat at a pond in Hamburg, Germany. Apparently mistaking it for his soul mate, the devoted bird guarded the boat jealously and rarely left its side. The human owner of the boat found it amusing at first, but later regarded it as a nuisance, since the enamored swan chased away all potential renters of the vehicle. I propose to make this poignant creature your anti–role model in the coming weeks, Capricorn. May he inspire you to free yourself of all delusions you have entertained over the years about the kind of intimate ally you need in order to be happy.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us," wrote Franz Kafka in The Blue Octavo Notebooks. "If the book does not shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place?" I suggest you find at least one such book to help you get the most of the current cosmic configurations, Aquarius. More than that, I encourage you to find people and experiences and dreams that have a similar effect. It's that phase of your cycle when you can thrive on fertile uproar.

Stars according to Free Will Astrology in The Village Voice. How very very very apt both of these comments are to my current situation! So...

What kind of intimate ally do I need to be happy? And what delusions do I hold about who this person/s might be?

I think I need someone to play with. I need long talks into the night about nothing in particular but everything important, I need a bushwalking buddy and someone to cook for. I need someone to play totem tennis with on sunny Sundays and who'll help me wrestle the doona cover back on after I've washed the lube off it, who will kiss me until I am dizzy and spit polish boots with me and spit in my face while pinning me to the bed and who doesn't mind hearing the same song fifteen times in one day when I am rehearsing for a show. Someone to eat fish and chips with after skinnydipping, someone to lick the sweat off in summer and warm my cold feet against in winter. Who will pull my hair hard when I am on my knees and gagging, who will wink knowingly at me across the room at boring parties and slap my face when I get too cheeky.
Someone who doesn't need to be intoxicated to drag me off for sexy shenanigans, who will lead me astray by my choke chain and pee in the bath with me. Someone with flesh I can pierce and who enjoys me being on top sometimes, who will let me open the beers but still make me a cuppa, who'll cry on my shoulder and write me mushy magnetic poetry on the fridge. Who will hold my hand in the supermarket and snog me in the backseat of the bus, who'll do up my zip and smudge my makeup. And if zie has an English or German accent, an artistic streak and the ability to blush then so much the better.

As for delusions, what is it that I am chasing that is wrong for me? What are the delusions that I cling to?Hmm. Firstly, I tend to think I need someone bigger than me. Older than me usually, or more experienced and wordly, often physically stronger and quite toppy (in a variety of ways), someone who will take control and tell me what to do and how. In some ways I often seek a parent figure, someone who have their own car and will chastise me when I misbehave and take my temperature when I am sick, who will make me do my homework and who'll rub goanna oil on my growing pains. Someone to guide me and look after me, someone who has the final word on what happens when, who can overpower me if required for my own good. Someone who knows better than me. It could be that this is not a healthy way of thinking. I'm not a child, really, or even an adolescent. I can decide what I'm having for dinner and find my own way to school. And I don't need a parent, I need a partner. Secondly, I have some sort of fucked-up boy/girl delusional gender stereotype thing that often plays a bigger part than I care to admit in my choosing a partner. Part of my still believes I need a strong masculine type to carry my shopping and deal with cockroaches and drive me around and protect me from monsters in the dark. I can remove huntsmans and manage a twenty kilo backpack, open my own jars and put furniture together. I'm not some weak and feeble girly who can't fight her own demons. I don't need a man to keep me in fishnets or pour my champagne or fix the fusebox, I need someone to pass me the pliers and WD40.

And I DO need to be bitten and stung into action! But where do I find this fertile uproar? At parties full of anarchists and freaks slamdancing to 99 Luft Balloons, in performance spaces and art galleries, at seminars and in libraries, in museums and at Uni, watching amateur striptease and short films at The Newtown, standing by backyard bonfires discussing tattoos and wrestling moves, sitting in my lounge room eating cheesy pasta bakes and and blathering on with my housemates. All of this is good, very good. I love my friends, I love being surrounded by creative, talented, energetic, intelligent, articulate, gorgeous, people who are constantly sewing costumes and making pervy photo shoots, writing zines and organising protests, DJing and stencilling and rabblerousing and always leaving the world in a much more interesting state than they found it.Maybe, just maybe, the fertile uproar is around me after all, and I just need to find a way to tune into it? Or perhaps I am tuned into it and just don't realise it. This weekend I did two major dress-up parties and a photo shoot, pretty much wrote a show, about to write a blurb for another one and have done other random productive house things (most of this whilst in various states of hangover and confusion). Its not like I am exactly idle most of the time, but I still don't feel like I have gotten my spark quite back yet. Something is missing, that certain...?But what to do? Just keep on keeping on I suppose...


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Bees In Your Bonnet

Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet


- They Might Be Giants
'Birdhouse In Your Soul'

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Dazed And Confused

Posted this when I woke up this afternoon, then deleted it, then reread it a few times and decided that even if it is a bit harsh it was still worth putting this stuff out there. Take it with a grain of salt and the knowledge that I was in a particularly ouchy headspace after a rather odd incident and yet another night of schmoozing and flirting wildly and getting a cab home by myself, and this is not slagging anyone/s in particular just an attempt to articulate the way . I'm not mad, just sad, and still trying to fathom how the hell this is all supposed to workand why I always seem to end up losing.
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Ah, what a couple of trashy trashy trashy nights! Mostly absolutely joyous and gigglypants, moshing to Acca Dacca and lushing about with random strangers and wild abandon, but somehow at the end of last night it all turned a bit odd with certain people and I don't know why. Maybe it was the Scotch, or the wacky tobakky (not consumed by me in either case), just an intoxicated misunderstanding... Hmmm. Dazed and confused and unsure of what to do about any of it.

Obviously most of the reason I am not very much out there playing the field lately is that I need a nice big break from the world of relationships. But a small part of it is that I just can't be bothered competing with the same ten people for the same five people. I don't want to engage in games of who can be sluttier, prettier, funnier, laugh louder and sparkle more and be more assertive and show more cleavage and dance more seductively and... sure, its more subtle and discrete and polite and artistic than it was in high school, but at the end of the day its often the same bloody game in the same bloody lounge room at the same bloody party with the same bloody hips wiggling up against the same bloody bulges in the same bloody jeans and the same bloody cocky boys watching the same bloody princesses parade before them. Yes, its all more grown up and mostly not vindictive or malicious or bitchy but at the end of the night when the bottles are all empty and the cabs are being called... Everyone is still looking for love in all the wrong places, nobody wants to be left alone in the corner when the lights come on and the music stops, nobody wants to walk home alone.

Maybe I am just a sore loser. Maybe I am just exhausted. Maybe I am just paranoid. Or maybe I am right, and for all we try to find other ways of relating sometimes we still fall back into the same old patterns that were drilled into us from an early age.

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Saturday, July 14, 2007

Possession Is Nine-Tenths Of The Flaw


This desire to possess her is a wound
And it's naggin' at me like a shrew
But, I know that to possess her
Is, therefore, not to desire her
Ooo, then you know
That little girl would just have to go

- Nick Cave
'From Her To Eternity'

With some people my desire to possess them, or be possessed by them, is so intense that I cannot keep away from them, I babble at them endlessly and demand constant attention. They are forever in my thoughts, and I haunt theirs whether they like it or not. With others my desire to possess them is so intense that I cannot bring myself to go anywhere near them, I make only the smallest conversation and try to hide myself behind the curtains. I avoid thinking of them, and attempt to not leave a trace of myself on their memory.

She's wearing those blue stockings I bet...

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A Right Kooky Bunch Of Deviants



Oh, Kooky is MAGIC! Dress-ups and dancing and schmoozing and dancing and flirting and dancing and beering and dancing and chatting and dancing and... just look at the creatures one gets to dally with!!!!

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New Queer Grrl Mag Launching Soon *CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS*

From the magnificent Katrina Fox, Goddess Of Grrl-On-Grrl Journalism (see her work in SX, LOTL etc) comes the following excitement:

Evolution Publishing, the largest publisher of GLBTIQ titles across Australia (SX in Sydney, MCV in Melbourne, Queensland Pride, AX National & Fellow Traveller) is launching a brand new, monthly lesbian/queer girl magazine. It’s basically aimed at the sex-positive queer chick who’s interested in fashion, entertainment and pop culture as well as politics and global issues.

Whether an urban ghetto babe, self-possessed boi, high-femme lipstick lesbian, funky fetishist or radical queer/genderqueer underground freak, she’s the sort of gal whose sexuality and gender identity is important, but not necessarily the be-all and end-all of her life. She’s more likely to seek out the latest iPod than IVF treatments and knows that it’s possible, if not preferable, to change the world while sporting a fab new haircut! There’ll be a strong focus on local queer chicks, as well as features with an international perspective – we’re aiming for a queer girl version of Yen magazine or Dazed & Confused.

I’m the editor of the new mag which, like all Evolution titles will be a full-colour gloss print street magazine, and will be distributed free predominantly in Sydney and NSW, plus selected outlets in Melbourne and Brisbane. I’m looking for the following:

  1. Feedback – what and who do you want to see in the magazine?
  1. Contributors – freelance writers and reviewers. Experienced journalists/writers as well as those with less experience but a passion and something to say are equally welcome! (Non-fiction only though, at this stage, so please – no poems!)
  1. Interns – there are opportunities for interns studying writing, media or journalism to spend some time working in the Sydney-based offices of Evolution Publishing and to gain valuable experience in GLBTIQ publishing.
  1. Models – To appear on the cover and inside the magazine. Diversity is the key word here and ‘local’ is the other – if you want to see ‘yourselves’ represented in a lesbian/queer gal magazine, don’t be shy: put yourselves forward!

Please email me at katrina.fox@e-p.com.au with feedback, ideas, what you’re passionate about and what you can offer. If you have any samples of your writing, including blogs, please include these. We’re launching around the time of the Sleaze Ball, so please spread the word and forward this message among your friends, work colleagues, networks, e-lists, e-groups, Myspace friends etc.

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Counting Blessings (Again)

Decided today that I have been spending too much time beating myself up recently, and this is not at all in keeping with my 'living without apology' (ie not refusing to apologise when you've been naughty, but refusing to apologise for who you are) stance. I know I am often trashy and messy and shy and unconfident and grumpy and stressy and occassionally hysterical, but I am also supportive, generous, funny, intelligent, caring, gorgeous, kinky as all get out, determined, creative, dead sexy and a mighty fine fraggledancer when I get my groove on. And for the handful of folk who cause me grief and grumble and doubtless think I am a right prat/nutter/bitch I have a squillion dear friends and lovers and colleagues and partners in crime who love me up and cuddle me and bump and grind with me and let me drink their T and grope me in delightfully inappropriate ways and drink champagne with me and create with me and walk along sandy tracks in the National Park with me and swim at the women's pool with me and feed me yummy things and share their lives with me in so many beautiful ways.

Whilst there are still tipsy fumblings in toilet cubicles and laughs in hospital wards and kisses in the spa and snuggles in sleeping bags and stars to be gazed at from gutters I know that everything is alright in the world and maybe I am not so bad after all.

And I'm not sorry about any of it.

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Happy Birthday Aunty C

Its Aunty C's 50th birthday today. To celebrate, we went to the Breast Cancer clinic and got the results back from her surgery/ pathology tests etc.

ALL CLEAR. NO CANCER.

Can't ask for a much better birthday present than that. And there's a nice bottle of Moet chilling for the toasts at dinner. Hurrah!

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Monday, July 09, 2007

Bedtime Stories

'I've waited a long time to find someone to do nothing with in bed'

-Mouse, to Jon in More Tales Of The City (?)

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Sunday, July 08, 2007

Sex And Dying In High Society

You say it's good enough
You say your pain is better
Than any kind of love
That's sex and dying in high society

- X
'Sex And Dying In High Society'

A few years ago I appeared in a documentary called Liberty In Restraint, which was about the life of fetish photographer Noel Graydon. I did a very funny medical/piercing/electric play scene with him and Puck, which was just pure silliness (for the film), and another photo shoot with Noel later. He was a joy to work with, gentle and polite and soft, and over the years whenever I encountered him out and about we had a good old chat. And now I open up my emails tonight and find out that he is dead. Asthma.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??? I am almost beginning to get spooked. Yes, every day lots of people get run over and killed or diagnosed with cancer, or have surgery or fatal asthma attacks. But there seems to be an uncommon amount of death and disease around my communities and friendship circles at the moment...

J's wake at Phoenix last night was a true indication of just how special and loved she was to so many people. The energy was overwhelming, and I danced almost non-stop until dawn with a group of my nearest and dearest. For most of the night we were up the front, then somehow right at the end we moved over to 'my' old corner, the one where the girls would congregate when I very first came out queer clubbing. And then it happened. The music was hard and dirty, I was exhausted and topless (though not very drunk- actually managed not to get too messy at all), and I was in the middle of Beculum and Ali and The Dancing Diva and ButchBitch and the Ts and assorted other folk I love and there was that moment. When everything seems to stop for a split second and you realise that even if things aren't how you think you would like them to be they are somehow as they should be. When the lights came on we went back to DD's apartment and while the others drank and smoked and chatted I fell asleep on the floor. Was woken up when time to get a cab, and have some vague recollection of being SOOOOOOO HAPPY and babbling that I had just been having a VERY good dream. Really wish I could remember what it was :)

Spent today, like yesterday, hanging out with Aunty C, watching Tales Of The City DVDs and being waited on by her dear sweet mother. Tea and chokky bikkies and soup and fruit toast and huddling next to the heater and dozing on and off in front of the telly. Ah, this headcold is horrific. Have barely stopped sneezing or blowing my nose all day, which is a change from the relentless cough I had yesterday I suppose. Blah. More vitamins and tissues and hot drinks and bedrest and hot water bottles. But it could be worse.

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Saturday, July 07, 2007

That Boi Needs Therapy

That boy needs therapy, purely psychosomatic
That boy needs therapy
Lie down on the couch! What does that mean?
You're a nut! You're crazy in the coconut!

- The Avalanches
'Frontier Psychiatry'

In one of those unexpected conversations you have with people you don't know too well but really blow your mind, someone was telling me recently that in the past when they had been made to 'swallow their words/swallow shit' they would go home and throw up afterwards. This got me thinking about how sore my sinuses had been lately, and my theory from a while ago that my sinus trouble was often linked to my emotional state. Consider the symptoms: clenched jaw, watery eyes, slight loss of vision, inability to/hurts to smile, mental fogginess, bleeding gums. And the intense pressure behind your eyes like when you really need to cry but can't.

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Hospital Beds

Perhaps naively, I really didn't expect that playing surgery support to Aunty C yesterday would be so emotionally exhausting. After all, it was relatively minor surgery (removing tissue and some lymph nodes) and I'm quite familiar and comfortable in hospitals after spending so much time in my formative years hanging about neuro wards and cafeterias. The smell of linoleum and disinfectant and the squeak of nurse's shoes down the corridor are strangely comforting things to me. But after spending 8:45am to 7:30pm assisting her to the hospital, getting her shot up with dye and into theatre, waiting around for hours fielding calls from loved ones and taking her mum for walks and generally being reassuring, finding her stuff and setting it up in her room, fetching nurses and ice and water and much more besides I walked out of there feeling so... sad? Drained? Weak? Burst into tears at my ex on the phone, and then tried to get it together enough to go to all the parties I had on that night. Made it to them, but I wasn't too bright and bouncy so basically said my hellos and happy birthdays and ran off into the night. As another friend said, its at the stage that we are so busy supporting our friends and trying to keep it together that socialising is just another form of work sometimes, the need to turn up and be shiny and smile and make small talk just to make sure the community doesn't fall apart.

A friend who's husband died last year was saying that one of the times she has missed him the most was when our other friend died and she didn't have him around to talk to and cry with about it. I am really missing having a partner right now, someone to give me a cuddle and make me a cuppa when I get back from a hard day of grieving and counselling and supporting. I have many beautiful and amazing friends to help me through, but its when I get home and am alone that it hits. I know I will get through it, just that sitting here in my lounge room with a headcold and my porridge I'm wondering how the heck I am going to find the energy and willpower to get out of the door and back to the hospital and on to the wake and...

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Thursday, July 05, 2007

Nice Things That Happened To Zoo Today

Reclaimed my favourite bike-chain necklace from a friend. Met up with the mate who is making my branding iron and worked out a magnificent design. Confirmed the date of my next flesh pull (*fingers crossed*). Bought a spectacular leather 'dress' (ie teensy top-thingy and mini skirt-thingy brought together by an O-ring) for $10 at an op-shop. Listened to Strangeways Here We Come two times in a row, and felt 16 years old again (in a good way). Now I'm off to meet Schwee for a coffee and then an art exhibition opening and then on to Aunty C's to stay so I can accompany her to the hospital in the morning...

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Barefoot Chanteuse

She is re-creation
She, intoxicated by thee
She has the slow sensation
That he is levitating with she

Here I go and I don't know why
I spin so ceaselessly
'til I lose my sense of gravity...

I'm dancing barefoot
Heading for a spin
Some strange music draws me in
Makes me come on like some heroin/e

(oh god I fell for you ...)

-Patti Smith
'Dancing Barefoot'


Another day, another 'hits me right smack in the pink bits instant wet panties' moment. Went and watched Kath Ellis perform at the Buzz Bar last night. Big girl, big voice, big eye makeup, big hair, big ruched satin gown, big energy and bare feet. To be clear, I have never cared too muchly for the foot as a source of lustmaking, although I have on certain occassions enjoyed having my sweaty dancefloor feet licked clean and obviously I do have quite a boot thing happening. But this was one of the sexiest things I had even seen, left me absolutely gobsmacked and breathless... right up there with when I saw Patti Smith for my 22nd birthday at The Palais and she oh-so-slowly took off her boots to sing 'Dancing Barefoot' and I couldn't speak for about two hours afterwards 'cos I had just realised/admitted that a woman could have that effect on me... Wow... Footloose and fancy free, toes gripping the worn wood at the edge of the tabletop, casually tickling the hairs on a lover's legs, assertively wrapped around necks, playfully squeaking across freshly-washed sand, dirty soles wantonly smudging across clean floors...

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A Lack Of Real Spice

They said : "There's too much caffeine
In your bloodstream
And a lack of real spice
In your life"

I said :
"Leave me alone
Because I'm alright, dad
Surprised to still
Be on my own..."

Oh, but don't mention love
I'd hate the strain of the pain again
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
It has been before
So it shall be again
And people who are uglier than you and I
They take what they need, and just leave


- The Smiths
'A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours'


Spent yet another trashy mroning after the night before with Mayhem pondering why I don't have the balls to go grab what I want from life and love. Somewhere along the line I came to the conclusion that maybe its because I don't really want what I think I want?

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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Bushwhacking

Spent a glorious day beating about the bush with a cheeky little boi scout. Started and ended with a missed Bundeena-Cronulla ferry ride, and inbetween there was:

Baby octopus and chips consumed by the beach, op-shopping, wandering through the mall checking out the Shire folk (some sights to behold let me tell you!), lots of galahs, paddling in the sea on another beach, some indigenous rock carvings and a HUGE big walk bashing our way through the scrub, lots of spiky things and spiders' webs and wildflowers, eating apples and chatting for ages on a rock by the water, more walking along a seemingly endless sandy track as the sun slowly set across the ocean, and finally bakery treats and ginger beer by the wharf.

Came back to the ghetto slightly sunkissed and with my legs aching with all the hiking and... oh, it was just BEAUTIFUL! After trying to find The Lost Bear I located SauerKraut (who kissed my hair and told me I tasted salty like the beach) and had a very funny drink and giggle at The Newtown and toddled home for french toast and housemate talkies and cuddles and hot water bottle in bed.

Ahhh, got to relax while I can... so much on this coming couple of weeks (as always I suppose)! Scragg and Sly tomorrow, playing surgery buddy for my friend's lumpectomy on Friday, two birthday parties on Friday, a flesh pull (?) and wake on Saturday, then post-surgery pal time and work next week. The other 'cancer friend' is back in hospital too, so will try to visit her one day, then at some point I need to pick up my pump and pills and start getting down to lactating again, and work on shows of course. And much more besides (depressed friend in hospital, random art happenings etc). Phew! Better than being bored I suppose, but please, if we could lay off the death and disease and disaster routines for a while I would MUCH appreciate it.

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Monday, July 02, 2007

Happypants Zoo Again

The blah seems to have passed a little. Still slept in until midday, which means I am a somewhat sad little creature, but once I DID drag my sorry bones out of bed I have been a whirling dervish of activity! Heading off to do some groceries and have a play at Reverse Garbage now- think some creative pursuits will serve me well... and if the weather holds I shall be bushwalking in the National Park tomorrow. Life is good.

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