How Does One Recap 13 Years?

I swear I only went to put the kettle on...

Hello again. It's me. Much older and wiser (debatable), and a little battle worn. 

I fell down a rabbit hole of reading blogs this morning, some long abandoned sadly, some still active with a thriving community, and some still active but seeming like a lone voice still telling things to the internet. In reality I'm mostly elsewhere; Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky. Instagram is generally my regular haunt.

I've missed blogging at times, missed the long form storytelling this makes possible, and missed how connected other people's stories made me feel. I'm not sure anyone will read this, but that's ok. I mean, I'd prefer it if someone did, but we all know that blogging has seen its heyday pass. Most of us have shorter attention spans now. Dopamine habits that must be obeyed.

I have an ulterior motive, and this might scare you off, but I have some conversations I need to have with the Universe about cancer. Not only, but there will be some posts about cancer. Anyone still here? Yeah I know, it's a lot. I KNOW. Anyway, it won't be doom and gloom because I'm not made that way, but I do need to wrangle my thoughts and writing them down helps. 

Having said that, here's a quick list of major things that have happened over the past 13 years, in a totally eccentric and arbitrary order:

• Travel. Starting in 2015 I visited Portugal & Spain (2015), Italy (2016), Canada (2017), Greece (2018), Spain & Portugal again, but different parts (2019). I was booked to visit Egypt in 2020 but Covid happened and everything was cancelled. Other things over the past 4 years prevented me from travelling [cancer foreshadowing!], but then I visited Japan this year in 2025. Travel is good for the mind and the soul, and I hope to do more of it still. Maybe I'll get to Egypt one day.
• For almost 6 years now I have been in a relationship with a wonderful man called Thomas. He's kind, gentle and crazy tall at 6'4", a full foot taller than me. He's also handsome as all get out, and that's not just my biased opinion. As we say in this country, I'm punching above my weight.
• I started working in a University in 2011, and in 2023 I was retrenched. Which was kind of great, actually. They were very good to me while I was unwell [more foreshadowing] and I walked away with enough to live on for about a year and a half, which helped me enormously.
• I turned 60, and as we are allowed in Australia I accessed my superannuation to pay myself a pension. It might not be forever, I might try and return to work, but being 60 and re-entering the workforce is daunting and seems like an insurmountable task. In the meantime I'm resting and looking after my health.
• Sadly my sister Fiona passed away, after a very long and very tough battle with Crohn's Disease.
• I registered a business name to make millinery items for sale, but hats... in this economy? I made a few hats and still might pursue it, but the timing is tough and everyone's wallets are tight.
• I had to move house 3 times, as places I was renting were sold by the landlords. I'm about to move again, but this time Thomas has bought an apartment so this should be my last move.
• In early 2021 I discovered I had prostate cancer, and then 2 weeks later I discovered I also had thyroid cancer. It was during a Covid lockdown here in Sydney and it was difficult, and lonely at times, but I got through it and am now minus a prostate and a thyroid. I also had radiation treatment for both.
• Earlier this year I discovered that my PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) went from undetectable post surgery, as expected, to slowly climbing again, meaning that some rogue prostate cancer cells were out and about in my system. I now know that I have a wee small babby tumour in a lymph node in my abdomen, so I recently started treatment to stop it from growing. I might also have some more radiation at some point to try and pew pew it out of existence.

I think those are the main points we need to cover, and some I might write about in more depth. 

I'm doing well, maybe a little directionless at present as I've been spending a lot of time on heath related matters and haven't started enjoying retirement fully yet. I've reacted quite well to my new treatment regime, and I've recently started losing weight, so everything feels positive. I'm looking forward to making a home with Tom, even though we currently already live together, but it feels hard to put down permanent roots in a rental. I look forward to exploring our new suburb of Hurstville, and it'll be my first time outside of Sydney's 'Inner West' in decades.

Funk & Fabulousity

I have been a lifelong fan of all things aromatic. Fabulous fragrances. Pretty perfumes. Once upon a time (in a galaxy, well, you know) I even worked in the industry, as a Fragrance and Cosmetics Buyer for a retail chain. Yes, on the short list of Gayest Jobs Ever.

The combination of a bit of extra discretionary income recently, and some exciting and challenging times in the fragrance industry (the rise of exciting indie perfumers, and the tarnishing and cheapening of many classic old fragrances, in part due to drastic allergen rules being introduced, for a start) have stoked the smouldering incense embers of my old obsession. Also with the rise of internet shopping, a medium not conducive to the smell testing of fragrances, many retailers and manufacturers have introduced affordable sampling programs. For small cost you can sample a whol range of new and interesting 

I've also bought a whole bunch of fragrance ingredients recently, with a plan to playing around and making some of my own fragrances. If that works out, I might even try and sell them through www.etsy.com, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Developing a fragrance is a long, complicated process.

So, I bow to present my new endeavour: You Smell MARVELLOUS. Come on over and let's get our stink on.

Homemade Space(ships)

Sometimes it's hard to figure out how you end up where you are. And I don't mean that in the naval-gazing larger-scheme-of-things sense, but in a metaphor free literal sense. On the interwebs specifically. Link leads to link and suddenly you're in some unexpected side road off the great information super-highway.

I'm a bit of an architecture nerd, and being home from work today with a raw sore throat I spent some of the afternoon looking at interesting architecture that is a bit left of the mainstream. I started by reading about the fantastic re:START project in Christchurch, New Zealand. A pop up shopping precinct made from shipping containers which is reinvigorating the earthquake devastated centre of the city, but now sadly faces a lawsuit.

Shipping container architecture in a round about way (so round about that I doubt I could retrace those steps) lead to the "small home" movement. People who choose to live in tiny, often self made, homes. Including one enterprising 16 year old who is building his own tiny mobile house. And when these people talk about tiny houses, they mean tiny, to whit:



More interweb meandering from the poster of the clip above lead me to an interesting website called *faircompanies. Which is essentially an aggregator of clips, blogs and news stories with a theme of sustainable living.

Now I like my creature comforts, but on one level I would love to have the mobility to take off and explore the world. This video introduced me to Kyle and Jeannie, two nomadic artists who built their own simple little trailer and have been exploring the US since. Their trailer is quite basic, and as they put it is more like camping in a tent than being in a caravan. (They also have a charming blog and sell their handmade wares via their etsy store.)

Kyle and Jeannie are doing their travels in a much more rustic way than I think I could cope with. In spirit though they remind me a little bit of Lucie and Lachlan of The Vagabond Adventures. Sadly their blog is now no longer really being updated (as they are back in England running their business The Vagabond Van), but I loved reading about their adventures in Africa with their dog Bow Wow.

An afternoon of wandering the interwebs, that lead to nomadic adventures of a different sort.

Style Files

I'm going through a mini obsession with sewing and fashion blogs at the moment. Over the past few weeks I dug out the sewing machine and pieced together a quilt top for a simple throw for the couch, bought a Japanese book of coats for men, and started planning fabrics for a new coat for myself. Meanwhile (and in part while I'm waiting for my measurements to stabilise, what with the weight loss and all) reading about sewing is almost as good as doing. To whit:

• Unsung Sewing Patterns: an archeology of home sewing. Andrea's blog documents her experiment in sewing garments from old patterns and her research into the history of home sewing. What makes her blog fascinating is her focus on the unsung more utilitarian side of things; everyday garments, children's play clothes, workwear, costumes and clothes (like nautical styled "middy" blouses) that had a context that seems obscure to us now.
  
• Colette Patterns Blog. The Colette Patterns blog is attached to the commercial Colette Patterns website and is written primarily by the company founder and designer Sarai Mitnick. What I love about this blog are the fantastic how tos, the technical articles (a recent series about fabrics was very good) but especially the excellent profiles of vintage designers. These snapshots of past designers are a great intro and springboard for further research, and I love that some of the designers are influential but perhaps not that well known.
  
• OutsaPop is an English language blog by Finish blogger Outi with a particular focus on luscious photography, young designers, sustainable fashion and remade and recycled clothing and accessories. Her "trashion" as she puts it. Outi is so insanely cool and stylish, has a great eye, and has even styled a pop band with her "trashion". We are not worthy.

Inspired

One of my favourite design blogs Desire To Inspire has a weekly feature that is absolutely slaying me. Simply called "Pets on furniture" it does exactly what it says on the tin. There's pets, and they're on furniture.

But oh, the puppehs. (And sometimes, oh the furniture!)

Case in point:


"Here is my dog Baron on our Chesterfield. Sometimes I come home and see him sitting like that waiting for me! He's about 100 pounds at 18 months and cuddly like a teddy bear."
- Jeanette

I need to cuddle Baron immediately, once I've fetched him his pipe and slippers that is.

Accidental Penis

Freakgirl posted this recently, and I've been giggling ever since.

45 going on 13, apparently.

Advanced Style

My friend Lyn over at Shades Of Grey recently posted a link to a fantastic new find, Ari Seth Cohen's Advanced Style. Ari documents the stylish and interesting members of the older generation, in a similar manner to Scott Schuman over at The Sartorialist.

I love it. Now I know what I want to be when I grow up, full of joi de vivre!

Imitiation, The Sincerest Form Of Flattery Or Not?

I would say, not.

I had my own little experience with plagiarism when a Belgian craft company ripped off one of my knitting photos from Flickr to use in their product catalogue. Something I never would have spotted if an eagle eyed Flickr viewer hadn't spotted the picture, thought it looked familiar, tracked it down to my profile, and even scanned a copy of the brochure and then sent it to me as proof. I've got to tell you, I didn't feel flattered, I felt really pissed off.

When I used to be involved in historical re-enactment I wrote a series of articles for our local group's 'zine about hat making and garment construction, only to find out through a reader that another group was photocopying them right out of the 'zine, cutting and then pasting them into their own 'zine, without ever having had the courtesy to ask. I would have sent them originals to use if they had only asked, instead I got bent out of shape and told them to stop.

There must be many, many instances where creative people have their images and ideas ripped off. However, ripping them off for advertising or products just increases the likelihood that someone, somewhere along the line is going to spot it. So I find the blatant plagiarism documented on this blog post and this website astounding. Thankfully there are plenty of someones out there doing the spotting.

Joy Of Toile

This week so far has been a rough one, lot's of angst, pressure and overtime on the work front and tired, listless evenings filled with take-away food and desultory web surfing on the home front. Meh. Oh yeah, punctuated with cussing as my internet connection keeps dropping out. My phone line that was playing up a few months ago seems to be crackly and erratic again.

Anyhoo, the high point of this half arsed websurfing though is discovering a few fantastic new design oriented blogs. With a new sewing machine in my custodianship, and ideas bubbling in my head about remaking, reusing and recycling some of the things in my wardrobe, I stumbled across a cool community of wardrobe re-fashionistas. Like the amazing Finnish 'trashionista' OutsaPop Trashion, and Queen Michelle of Kingdom of Style.

On the yang side of design and fashion Mr Peacock is my new fave. Not a re-fashion blog this time around, but a wonderful curated mix of food, interior design, fashion and interviews with stylish 'peacocks' about town. One recent post that really put a smile on my face was about the tattooed vintage peacocks of doll maker Mimi Kirchner. Mimi has a wonderful blog Doll: The Art & Craft of Mimi Kirchner and an Etsy shop full of goodies.




Kirchner had the genius idea to use Toile de Jouy fabric for the tattooed bodies of the dolls. Genius! The scale and fine line art style of the drawings are ideal and have a great vintage look.



She compliments the fabric with vintage strong-man style togs, and super cute illustration style facial features. Cute non?



I've never been tempted to be a doll collector, but I'd love a couple of these guys. Of course, as handmade dolls the prices (while being reasonable for the work involved) are a little out of my budget for something so non-essential. Although, if I re-classified them as essentials...



She also does a line of other female dolls, like these super cute mermaids, and magical little 'tiny world' pincushions in a tea cup. So clever and inspiring! Aside from having a go at re-fashioning, maybe it's time to get the sewing machine to work on some other fun stuff.

[All photos and doll designs by Mimi Kirchner.]

Delights

Escape Artist ~ Stunning, stunning drawings. Beautiful knitting. Lovely writing. Thoughtful thoughts.

Lynn & Horst ~ Fashion, style, beautiful young people, photography, Sweden & Germany.

Benoit Prevot ~ Gay beefcake meets Art Deco illustration, all en Francais. Tom of Finland meets Leyendecker's Arrow Collar Man. Gorgeous and fun.

American Athlete ~ Pat Les Stache (aka TJ Gorton). Producer, DJ and disco enthusiast. How does one so young know so much about the underground music movement that became known as disco?

Hear My Dulcit Tones! Listen To Those Sibilant Esssssssses!

I totally forgot to post a link to my little interview on David Reidy's podcast "Sticks & String" a couple of weekends ago!

David came along to the knitting in public event at the Opera House on the 14th, and interviewed me for a couple of minutes. If you're not a knitter you'll have to listen to lots of knitting talk before my dulcit tones chime in, or (shhhhhh, don't tell David) if you want to fast forward I'm a little bit before the halfway point. Ish. After me David interviews a fellow male knitter, Courthouse Hotel pub knitting regular and my good friend, Kerry.

If you are a knitter (or are knitcurious, or questioning) then check out the rest of David's podcasts. The episode I'm in is Episode 87: S.K.I.P.

In Denial

I've been biding my time, hoping it wasn't so. Reading other people's eulogies and not wanting to write one. Procrastinating. Denying. Playing look, shiny!



I've moved to a place of acceptance, sadly. I've visited Dowagers 'R' Us and purchased a Fabulon-esque mantilla of mourning.

R.I.P. Fabulon. Thanks for the good times Thombeau, the laughs and the community. Regroup, recharge, relax and refocus, and take my love and best wishes for your future with you.

Yes, I Would Like To Help You Buy A Goat

I've been fascinated by the concept of microfinance for some time now. Comparatively small loans that are made to the working poor and low income entrepreneurs, for small business projects that have the potential to vastly improve their lives. Money for merchandise, seeds, even goats. Low income and subsistence workers rarely meet the criteria for lending from banking institutions, so a number other institutions have risen up to link these entrepreneurs and potential lenders together.




Deb over at freakgirl wrote a blog entry about an organisation called Kiva. I've just spent the past few hours wading through the website and I'm blown away. Kiva personalises the activity of microfinance by profiling each entrepreneur, and by having the volunteer field workers (who are posted with local micro-lending institutions that administer the Kiva funds) write regular blog style updates on the activities of the entrepreneurs in their area. Repayments by the entepreneurs are tracked, usually over a period of 6 - 12 months, and repaid to the lenders. Lending amounts are made in increments of US$25, and you choose who the loan goes to.

Rather than donations, the money is lent and eventually repaid so that the lenders can elect to retrieve their outlay or lend it to another entepreneur. The default rate on the loans seems really low at around 1.3%, but as Kiva warns it is often due to the nature of local unstable economies or even nature (such as crop failures) and so often out of their control. I had a quick look at some of the lender profiles, and some of these people are amazing! Like one retired couple who's portfolio of loans made runs to 5 pages! I love the idea that the money has a life, one that cycles through the lives of these people, helping them achieve new levels of independence, and then can be recycled to help others.

Currently US$25 is a little over AUS$38. Thirty eight bucks! Not such a big amount at all. A trip to the movies and a couple of drinks afterwards. A paperback novel or two. The price of a little indulgence. When I get paid tomorrow I'm going to sink that $38 into a loan instead. Maybe it'll buy a goat or two.

Growing Old Gracefully

I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love this picture! Look at you two! OK sure, the pvc-ishness isn't really my thing but (and I don't mean this to sound patronising) it's the effort that I love. You know, getting dressed up, enjoying the doing of the dressing up, and especially that it's something they do together and enjoy.



In Raili and Jaakko's own words: "We like to choose our clothes carefully and so that every item goes together. We like sharp and well-groomed styles. We often dress up in matching styles. We mostly shop in small local boutiques."

Yay! I think I want to be them when I grow up.

[Via HEL LOOKS, fashion in Helsinki.]

Absences

Sometimes an absence can make you really look at what's left behind. The subtraction alters the context, making unseen things visible and the usual seem strange. Here are a couple of stunning photo sets that prove that.

Absence Of Water

Red Light Ghost Town

A swimming pool without water, or a brothel without the the johns, just a couple of beautifully photographed series at Polar Inertia.

It's Candle Blowing Time

Today is my birthday! I've been joking around about having a midlife crisis ..::sob::.. but really, I'm fine. Really. Honestly. Jesus, stop asking.

So in honour of me, here's some fabulous birthday cake ideas from my new BFF blog Cake Wrecks.



Apparently, they ordered one large olive cake but the bakery decided to make a pair. Now, what do these remind me of?...



Nothing says festive (and midlife crisis?) like a flick knife! (Celebrate or I will cut you, I swear.)

So, off to dinner tonight to celebrate at my fave Thai restaurant with some friends, kindly organised by Mikey (the lovely ex). Should be most lovely!

Joy!

Sheer unabashed joy was what I felt when I read this blog post. What a sweet, creative, fabulous thing.



[Pic by Dancing Mermaid]

Too Funny!

It's a big ole photo-ey day today it seems!

Now I like to think I'm pretty observant, but I'm in awe of the mistakes spotted by the Photoshop Disasters blog. Strange reflections, rubber midriffs and mutant hands, to name just a few.

Drinks With The Boys

My blogging buddy Yani is in town at the moment from Adelaide, so he arranged a small meet up last night so he could meet myself, Tom and Monty. I had met Monty once before at a Gay Blogger Meet organised by Single Guy over at the (sadly now closed) Single In The City, but I had never met Tom or Yani, even though I read their blogs. Monty and I both have been known to post our pics on our blogs, but I had no idea what Yani or Tom looked like.

Fortunately Yani spotted me as soon as I walked in, and gave me a great big hug. We chatted and drank our beers for a while, and then Monty came and found us. He and Tom had been there for a while and were sitting in out in the open air part of the bar. In fact the same outdoor area I talked about (and took photos of) here, here and (rather memorably) here. It was a beautiful warm night, and the four of us sat and shared a few drinks and talked.

What a nice bunch of guys! Yani is garralous, extroverted and funny, especially with a couple of beers in him! Tom is articulate and interesting, but quiet and appears quite shy. Oh, and tall. (Tom and I looked like opposite ends of some sort of spectrum. Before & After.) Monty and I are both talkers I suspect, and I think similarly find it fairly easy to keep a conversation going. All four us shared a fairly similar sense of humour too, and we didn't really struggle to keep the conversation going at any point.

A friend of Monty's rang with some sort of personal petite crise, so he left while Tom, Yani and myself took a short walk to get some gelati. Mmmmmmm, Lychee & Coconut teamed with Kaffir Lime. So good, I would have married it if I could. Tom left and I walked Yani back through Kings Cross to his hotel. 'The Cross' as Sydneysiders call it, was busy and a bit on the scary side (stripclub touts, hookers, drunk backpackers and more than a few drug users on the streets) so I jumped in a cab and made my way home straight after seeing Yani to his hotel.

I had a lovely night. 3 very nice interesting guys, and a really pleasant evening. I think you can get a good sense of what somebody is like by reading their blog, but it's always been really interesting to me to meet bloggers that I have read before in person. Pretty much without exception it has been a positive and interesting experience so far. I hope to catch up with Tom and Monty again some time, even after Yani has gone back to Adelaide.

Thanks for organising it Yani!

Meet & Greet

Last night was the GLBTI Blogger meet at the Courthouse Hotel. I had booked a table under cover, but still outside, and as it turned out the weather didn't really smile upon us. It was fairly chilly and wet, and even though we stayed dry (for the most part) it could have been more pleasant.

The warmth of the company went a long way to making it fun though. There were quite a few people I already knew, Riayn and Marcellous who I had both met once before at Sydney Blogger Meet, James (of course) who I have known for a few years, Grant who I have known for more than 20 years, Therin who I have known for almost the same length of time, my fellow knitting buddy Mary-Helen, and Panther who's house I once went to a party at but hadn't seen for about 20 years! Small world indeed. Ninglun and Mike I hadn't met before, and their blogs were completely new to me.

Here's a mousketeers' roll call of the attendees, and check out these blogs because there are some great reads:

• Grant, who is also A Girl Called Dusty
  
• James O'Brien
  
• Marcellous, the man who is Stumbling On Melons
  
• Mary-Helen, who puts the witty in Witty Knitter
  
• Mike, one half of the handsome duo El Loco & El Lobo
  
• Ninglun, who is writing New Lines From A Floating Life
  
• Riayn, is Dancing About Architecture
  
• Panther, who stalks Pinkboard
  
• Therin, who's motto is Have Phaser, Will Travel

James has written a really good recap of the evening, with his thoughts. I had a really great time, and it was fantastic to see such a diverse group of people. We talked about our blogs, about plagiarism on The Interweb, knitting (yay, Mike is a knitter too!), travel, tv, all sorts of things.

The conversation flowed easily, which has been my experience with meeting other bloggers in the past. I guess blogging really is an extension of our desire to communicate after all, and as such bloggers are generally pretty good communicators. Even though some of us are a little more shy in person than on our blogs, I guess because our own blogs give as a safe space to write our thoughts in (interweb trolls aside).

James, Riayn and I hung at the pub out until about 9pm, by which time it was raining fairly heavily and the cold had driven us inside. I made the short walk home in the rain, having had a fun night and looking forward to all the new blogs I now have to read!