Give Me Back My Life!

Oh man, I am still struggling along with this chest cold. What cold lasts for nearly two weeks?! I haven't had an actual cold for ages, so I guess I was overdue for one (if there's a quota system, that is). I'm such an overachiever. It's not bronchitis though, I've been down that road many times before and so far so good. Nearly two weeks later I still have all the stuffy head/sore throat symptoms of a cold.

Blech.

It's not bad enough to keep me away from work, but just bad enough to be really annoying. Stopping me from doing anything other than going to work, making some dinner and going to be each evening. Frankly, I should be healthy, wealthy AND wise by now with all the early nights I've had.

You're Doing It Wrong!

As a tribute to the educational power of infommercials, I bow to present:

It's a wonder these people can even leave the house in the morning.

Dressed To Kilt

Oh how I love the kilted silliness that is the annual Dressed to Kilt event.

What you don't see in this video clip is all of the performance of the UK tv's Scottish interior design duo Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan's trip down the catwalk.

McAllister & Ryan

A real life couple since 1985 the boys decided to seal the event with a kiss.



Awwww. Two of my favourite things, boys in kilts and cute guys kissing!

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!

August Sander

In between hacking up a lung or two (see my previous post) I've been watching DVDs, knitting,and making nice with the internet. In my travels on the information superhighway (remember that?) I stumbled across some photographs by the German portrait and documentary photographer August Sander (b 1876 - d 1964). It has to be said that his subjects are a pretty dour lot, but there's something about that direct and fearless gaze into the lens that has always intrigued me.








C'mon, say "cheese".

Chesty

Looks like the cold that had started brewing when I went to Melbourne has become a full on chesty bit of nastiness. Ugh, I'm going to pop out and grab a coffee from the cafe near my house but then it's back to the bed/sofa for me. (My new flatmate has brought with him an extensive collection of DVDs, so I suspect the sofa is where I'll stay.) Laters!

Melbourne

My little day trip to Melbourne was fun, but exhausting. My cab to the airport arrived a little early, so I left home at around 5.30am and was at the airport about a quarter to 6. IN THE MORNING. I'm an early riser but that's ridiculous.

Naturalmente my first stop was the little coffee bar in the departures lounge (where I got myself a surprisingly good cup of morning joe). I spotted my co-worker disappearing through the departures gate so I gave her a quick call and confirmed that she'd already checked me in at the electronic ticket kiosk thingy. Truly, I miss some of the glamour of pre-deregulation air travel in Oz but being able to do so much of the process online and being able to check-in ahead are pretty convenient improvements. Aussies, remember when we had to ring up the day before and confirm the flight?

Mind you, at times I would kill for a bit of proper in-flight service. Cutlery. Glassware. Hot food. Hotter flight attendants.

We got into Melbourne before the shop opened, and the shop manager was stuck on a delayed train and so her plans of opening up early for us were dashed. So we headed off to Degraves Street nearby for breakfast. Fortified by a truly fantastic cup of coffee and a delicious BLT baguette we headed back to the shop and worked solidly until 5pm.

I installed windows, I drew up plans, I measured, I discussed options and at one point I even got the iron out and ironed a banner that we later hung in the window. The shop looked pretty good, just in need of a bit of tweaking, some layout adjustments and making some of the displays look a little stronger.

We flew back on mega-cheap Tiger Airways. From the hastily built demountable terminal, to the long Av Gas scented walk across the tarmac, to the worn fabrics on the seat, travel with Tiger was an experience. A couple of the cabin crew were very friendly but they all seemed very young and some quite inept. Especially the chief flight attendant (no 'purser' here) who kept stuffing up the safety drill announcement, making some of the other crew giggle. Still, a shortish flight and a $6 beer later we arrived back at Sydney airport about 8pm.

Completely knackered.

Somewhere along the line I also picked up a cold, so I'm going to head into the office late this morning. I just wish I could get another of those BLT baguettes before I do so.

A Little Piece

Nomotta yarns were right, a little piece of you does go into everything you knit!

Here's a pic of something that a lot of me went into, the 'Logan' oversized neckwarmer that I designed and sample knitted for the Autumn fashion windows at the store I work at:



It's not overly complicated, essentially just a huge tube of 2x2 rib, but I wanted it to be something that was dramatic and a real statement piece. (This is not a child's mannequin I shot this on, but a full sized adult one. This thing is BIG.)

I was inspired by some of the chunky knits that have made their way down catwalks recently, and by some of the early works of Sandra Backlund, so I worked this in 2 strands of 8ply (aka 'double knit') held double on chunky circular needles. Even with the chunky needles it soaked up the yarn like a sponge (12 balls in total) and took me quite a while to knit. Knitting to a deadline is not as much fun as knitting for pleasure, and as the deadline for the window display approached I spent much of my free time knitting this behemoth.

I was originally going to make it a bit smaller, but our in house designer suggested I really go for it dimensions wise. I was worried that it wouldn't work after I cast it off as being rib it stretches out to a HUGE size when you hold it up, but I always imagined it as something that could be twisted up dramatically like this, or pulled up as a hood. Combined with the other 4 garments in the window (all variations on this tubular neckwarmer/cowl idea or big textured wraps) it makes a really dramatic statement and is probably one of the more high fashion windows we've tried. I've noticed lots of younger women stopping to look at them, and we've already had offers to buy the samples outright (including one woman who wanted all of them).

We've had a whole second set of samples made for our Melbourne store in different colours (their "Logan" is a warm French grey), which thankfully I didn't have to knit. Tomorrow I'm catching the red eye to Melbourne to do a store visit, look at how we can improve their visual merchandising in general, and help install their version of the windows. Fun!

Except for the bit where I have to be at the airport at 6.10am...

Archie

I had a really broken night's sleep last night, finally culminating in me losing my patience with tossing and turning and getting up not long after 5am. Sadly (sometimes) I'm one of those people that wakes up easily and is fully awake in a finger snap, so the only thing for it is to get up, or maybe read, but do anything other than lie in bed and wait for tiredness to return. My regular working week is Tuesday to Saturday these days, so I wasn't stressed about having to get up early for work this morning.

So I pottered around a bit, then came back to bed and watched youtube clips of the earlier seasons (not shown in Australia) of my beloved tv show QI. [Official website and QI on youtube.] I could not love Stephen Fry more! It's true. About 7am I started to get drowsy, so I rolled over and went back to sleep until just before 9am.

I hadn't been up long when my friend Judy rang about 9.30 and suggested we head on in to the Art Gallery of NSW to see the portrait competition The Archibald Prize. Judy doesn't work any more and so she and I often use my Mondays off to catch up and do fun stuff. Today also dawned a glorious mild day, so it was lovely to get out and about in it.

It also saved me from my one big 'plan' for the day. Housework.

One thing I love about urban Australians is just how much we appreciate and use our galleries. The Archibald has been going strong since 1921 and is so heavily patronised that they have to have crowd control. Winners, and the inevitable controversies, make the prime time news. There's a people's choice selection, and a 'packers prize' for the favourite of the storeroom packers. Even on a Monday morning the line for the exhibition snaked around into another gallery space.

These days a ticket into the Archibald also gets you into its 2 sister competitions, the Wynne Prize (landscape paining or figurative sculpture) and the Sulman Prize (subject, genre or mural painting). For only the third time since 1921, this year the Wynne and Archibald were won by the same artist, Sam Leach. I had a shortlist of favourite's in both exhibitions, but was completely entranced by Leach's 2 small jewel like paintings (especially his landscape), so I had no quibble with the outcome.

The first thing I spotted when we walked into the Archibald was a huge portrait of a musical favourite of mine CW Stoneking.

"CW Stoneking" by Cara Fletcher

I only discovered Stoneking recently but I'm swept away by his unique pre-war jazz and blues style. To quote his website his work swings from "lonesome field holler blues, to hokum blues duets, to full blown jungle epics". His songs make me think of prohibition gin, mixed race bayou bars and rolled down stocking tops. Amazingly for someone so steeped in blues traditions, although he was born to American parents Stoneking is an Aussie and lives in Melbourne.

"Jungle Blues" by CW Stoneking

After a truly fab ramble through the gallery, some lunch, and a walk through the park, we ended up where else but at Tiffany's. (I don't ever think I've stood as straight.) We strolled further, fondled some cashmere at House of Cashmere, bought comestibles at the David Jones foodhall, browsed for books, and had tea in The Strand Arcade before heading for home late in the afternoon.

Housework be damned.

Shopping For Inspiration

Andy Warhol, 1965.

5 Life Lessons I Have Learned By Teaching Knitting*

• No matter how hard you try, some people will just NOT GET IT. Not even if you beseech them.
  
• One (ie: me) needs to acknowledge this fact and move on, without throwing one's arms around their legs and screeching How have I failed you!?!
  
• Others will really, really get it. Bzzzzzzzzzp! Ok, I've knitted 20 rows, now what?!
  
• Either position can turn perfectly functional adults into being a kid again. Dejection or pride, pretty much 2 sides of the same coin.
  
• I always start the class by teaching a simple slip knot. This is functional, but also highlights the Will Gets v the Will Probably Not Gets. From this I have learned that maybe I should start giving all potential suitors some sort of test. (Not the same one though because then I might only get guys into S&M.)
  

*A beginners' class at work, for 3 hours every second Saturday afternoon.

In Living Colour

Well, well. There was a time when writing this blog was (amongst many other things) a kind of therapy. Putting it all down in the edit dialogue box was a semi-structured way of working through how I thought about stuff. I'm not sure where I forgot about that along the way, but I really should have kept it in mind. I've had stuff to work through you see, but didn't use this blog to help me figure my way through it.

In short, the first quarter of 2010 pretty much sucked ass (and not in a good way). I broke up with the guy I thought I was dating (Or is it that I thought I broke up with him? Given that... never mind.) on New Year's Eve, at a party, from which I walked home, leaving behind my favourite hooded jacket. Portents? Omens? You know, one of the reasons I often don't celebrate New Year is exactly because people seem superstitious that only a good New Year can equal a good year ahead.

Poppycock, clearly.

So, flashing forward and trying to be brief, Sometime up until a few weeks ago I got profoundly depressed. Not dramatically depressed, no renting or wearing of ashes, because so long as you weren't inside my head I gave most of the signs of actually keeping it together. But somewhere along the way I lost me it felt like. Despair must be terrible, but numbness is in the race as well. At least Dorothy Gale got to see Munchkinland turn into colour, which is a lot more fun than the reverse lemmetellyou.

No I didn't seek professional help, other than mumbling something to my doctor and then agreeing that yes it was probably something to do with my old sleep problems and no the strong drugs I used to be on were not a road I wanted to take again. I got up and went to work, sometimes went out with friends but became a bit flaky about turning up for things, basically stopped doing any housework, and on days off quite often remained unwashed and in my robe until I couldn't any more.

The weird thing about being depressed is it's not like your limb is hanging off and people can see that yes indeed, you are a tad poorly. Unlike an only semi-attached appendage sometimes it isn't so bad, and sometimes it seems much better. I had some good times over the past 3 months, and I had some quite average times when I tried to fake it until I could make it... and thought mostly about being home in my robe not doing any housework.

A few weeks back I decided that in line with my parents' Northern English upbringing, all I needed was to pull myself up by the bootstraps. Symptom or cause I don't know, but things miraculously made a turn for the better. Step 1, I needed to lessen my stress about the work/money situation, so I contacted my previous temp agency, and a previous employer, to see if they had any work going. One temp work offer was made, but I decided I also should approach my boss at the yarn store and put my cards on the table. Explain what I wanted to do, what I know I'm good at, why I would rather stay working for them than go elsewhere, and how much I thought I would need to live on to be able to do so.

Essentially they agreed. I'm now on a less modest income (though still not immodest by any stretch), and am in charge of visual merchandising for the 2 (soon to be 3) stores as well as keeping the website updated. The VM stuff is my baby, and because we are a yarn store designing windows means having garments to put into said windows, and to differentiate ourselves it also means designing and product development of said garments. I'm loving it. I put our new windows in a few days ago with 5 garments that I workshopped with our in house designer, and one I designed and knitted outright, and the customers are lapping it up.

About the time I received my promotion I also got a flatmate. The stress of breaking the housework embargo almost broke me as well, and it's true that much of the contents of the junk room front bedroom that couldn't go to Goodwill are now stacked in teetering piles in my bedroom. Awaiting being dealt with. In baby steps. But my friend Steve is all moved in and is paying his rent, and is working out just fine.

Having someone else in the house is a good thing I've decided. Someone to make you reflect on the fact that maybe you don't really want someone to see you welded to the sofa, in your bathrobe, at 3 in the afternoon, and that maybe it was time you brushed your teeth at least. I want to be alone has its uses, but it's time for a little less Garbo just now.

I'm a bit less poor. I have a bit more money in my pocket, and am not looking at a single digit bank balance while waiting for pay day. I've started to not only service my debt, but have started to put a bit away for a trip to Italy next year. I've been doing some stuff around the house. My creativity has been fizzing away, planning things for work and jotting down things I want to make for myself.

So much of my situation was stress related, I can see now. Wow, I do not handle stress well. Shut down all non-essential services, and just leave a pilot light running on some of them. Best of all I feel more like me than I have almost all year. The colour is back, cue the munchkin!

Next Thing You Know It'll Be House Keys In The Refrigerator

And walking the streets with a fried egg on my head, having just eaten my hat.

My entire house smells like burnt coffee, with a hint of rubber. I put the stove top coffee maker on a short while ago, somewhat distractedly, apparently without any actual water in it. I passed it a few times thinking huh, that's taking a while to gurgle.

Well, aside from the melted rubber washer the thing is okay. No house fire. No billowing smoke.

I guess it's time for a walk to the nearest cafe for a coffee. Safer too.

Craft Show Shenanigans

Those of you who warned me that Thursday was going to be a long day, no matter how much planning we put into it, were right! (See my previous post.) It wasn't helped by the fact that my boss arrived a half hour early. He was supposed to pick me up at 6.30am, but when my alarm went off at 6 I noticed there was a message flashing on my phone from 5.52am. Sorry I'm late, I'll be there in 5 minutes.

What. The. Fuh?

He had gotten himself all confused, half remembered a conversation where I suggested quarter to 7 was early enough and at quarter to 6 thought he was running late. A minute later he rang as he was a little lost, while I'm throwing on clothes unshowered and uncaffeinated and cursing like a truckstop hooker.

The rest of the day went pretty well, the 2 hour drive was uneventful and I didn't get us lost, and the stall set up was smooth but long. I was the only one with a real handle on how the thing went together, so even though I gave the others plans of how it was to be merchandised of course I ended up doing most of it while the other 2 chatted, futzed, stopped me with lots of questions or got distracted. I was so tired and over it by afternoon I even snapped at my boss that he might like to unfold his arms and put some of the emptied tubs back on the transport pallet.

Ooops. Note to self, watch that acid tongue.

Thankfully he is a cool guy and later apologised for not having done all that much, and thanked me for a great job. Okay then.

We finally left at 4 in the afternoon for a 2 hour drive home, making it a 6 to 6 day. He bought me a quick dinner near my place and by 8 I was falling asleep on the couch. The show stand looked good, we learnt a few lessons about how we could improve it for next time, and had a quick look at other stands to get more ideas. A tiring but productive day.

Road Trip!

Ugh, I should have gone to bed already! Tomorrow morning I have to be up at sparrow's twit because my boss is picking me at 6.30 AM for a 2 hour road trip. We are Newcastle bound, to set up an exhibitor booth at a large craft fair. This time around the yarn store where I work decided to try something a little different, and we have created a whole new layout and merchandise for the company's stand.

At only 3m x 2m the booth is small, but we wanted to try and maximise its potential. My bosses gave me almost free reign to source fixtures, plan the layout and create packaging for a new set of kits we'll be trialling. The store has a collection of their own yarns that they have released in the past year, as well as exclusive patterns. So I've worked hard to create attractive kit packaging, and we now have a bunch of pretty cool kits of pattern + yarn in all sorts of price points. Most of which feature their own yarns, with a few that feature other popular yarns.

The fair doesn't start until Friday, but tomorrow is set-up day and we have a woman who subcontracts with us to run the booth who so far hasn't seen any of the radical revamp we've done on it. So in the morning my boss and I are heading to the location to work with her to set up the booth and lay out all the merchandise. I've packaged it, planned it to within an inch of its life, drawn planograms, packed the tubs with stock even... and now I'm pretty confident it should all come together.

Unless I navigate as badly as I did last week when my boss and I went to look at shop fixtures, and ended up about an hour out of our way and on the road to Canberra. Oops.

Steamy, With A Chance Of Thunderstorms

It has been so unbelieveably hot and humid in Sydney these past few weeks, with little respite. Even on the days when the temperature hasn't been that bad, the humidity has been so high that it feels like the tropics. In the past few weeks I've had poor wilted tourists visiting the yarn store where I work, not having realised just how tropical Sydney can be. We've also had lots of rain, heavy, drenching evening rains especially, that haven't done much to relieve the situation.

The aftermath. It was raining when I set out to pay a visit to my doctor this morning, and the footpath in front of the doctor's office was awash in Frangipani flowers that had come down in the heavy summer rain squalls.

My neighbours have a Mango tree in their backyard, and one heavily laden branch is growing over the fence and is drooping down just outside my back door. This rather small mango seems to be the first to start to ripen. It's just a shame I hate the taste of them...

The rain we had this morning left beautiful silvery droplets on the other, larger fruit hanging from the tree.

Yesterday I had headed into the Art Gallery of New South Wales for an hour or so, before being due to meet up with friends at Sunday arvo drinks. On the way I passed the steps of one of the older a buildings in the area (I think it's some sort of courthouse building) and spotted this Frangipani flower. I liked the contrast of the soft, crisp form against the dark stone of the column and the column's base.

I had a nice little wander around the gallery, visited a bunch of my favourites, but realised as I walked in that I was just catching the end of a free talk given by artists Gilbert & George. Bugger, I would have liked to have seen the whole thing. I capped the rest of the afternoon off with drinks with friends, before heading to another venue to keep on drinking and watch a few drag shows. I'm currently working Tuesday to Saturday, so Sunday and Monday are my weekend.

Which now brings me full circle to my Monday off, a day of rain showers in the morning (and steamy, bright sunshine in the afternoon), a slightly hungover doctor visit (me, not her), the rest of the day hanging out and shopping with my friend Judy, and an afternoon movie. ("It's Complicated", which while not actually being a terribly complicated movie was a real good laugh, and enriched by the performances of Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and John Krasinski.) Not a bad weekend indeed.

Falling In Love With Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

Pleasure/Payne

Meet one of my new obsessions, handsome vintage actor John Payne.

Born in 1912, Payne started life as a wrestler and Vaudeville singer before starting out in B-grade movies for Sam Goldwyn. His early career included quite a few musicals, before he moved into dramas and westerns. His best known film is "Miracle on 34th Street" with Maureen O'Hara and Natalie Wood. Payne's career ground to a halt after a serious car accident in 1959, and he passed away in 1989, aged 77.

1930s promo shot.


With Betty Furness in "Fair Warning", 1937.


Payne in "Kid Nightingale", 1939.


1930s beefcake shot, check out that swimsuit!


On the beach, 1930s.

I haven't seen many of his films, I'm not to proud to admit that my interest in Payne is largely physical. So handsome!

You can read more about Payne at Brian's Drive-in Theatre.

Allow Me To (Re)Introduce Myself

Hey. 'Ssup you guys?

Well, sorry about that unplanned hiatus. It was only supposed to last for a few days over Christmas and New Year, but one thing leads to another... and another. And here we are at another festive occasion (Valentine's Day) already. The middle of February, almost!

So, catching up time. The end of 2009 and the start of 2010 have been a bit of a rollercoaster so far, and I'm only just starting to feel like the ride has come to a complete stop (and some hunky, possibly even tattooed, carny has reached in and released the safety bar).

Christmas this year was a period of high stress mostly, juggling the search for more work (ahem, more on that later), poverty, the anxiety of not being able to buy anyone gifts this year, and the resultant mini-meltdown that ensued. Maybe meltdown is a little OVER DRAMATIC!!! but I basically hid under the covers as much as I could whilst still giving the outward impression of someone moderately functional. My sisters both came through with the gift of an airline ticket to visit them for Christmas, and so despite my cheeks burning with shame at not being able to afford to buy any gifts other than for my two nephews, I actually had a nice Christmas with them.

New Years sucked and was a very important lesson. If you are feeling confused by how into you someone you are seeing is, whether in fact a relationship might be on the cards or might not be, or it's just casual sex, the answer is... well, we all know the answer to that one. They've moved on and so now must you. Always trust your instincts.

So you don't think it's all negative, just one upside in the past month or so has been 3 of the best one-night-stands I've had in a long time! I'm not normally one for the one-night-stand as an oeuvre... but seriously, sex that could is not to be sniffed at.

Work has been problematic. Christmas and New Year saw temp work dry up completely, but in the meantime I have been able to pick up extra work at my other retail job in the yarn store. It just doesn't pay very well though, despite the fact that I really enjoy it! The promised ongoing position with the other mob I was temping for has not yet materialised, so I assume they are still negotiating their next big contract. We shall see.

So, a litany of stress and anxiety so far, with a few sparkling shags in between. Not quite an accurate picture, but not too far off the mark. Being strapped for cash most weeks has meant not doing as much as I would like to socially, but that's probably saving my liver as much as anything. I did see a couple of movies over the break, "Sherlock Holmes" (not bad, loved the costumes and Jude Law in equal measure), "Avatar" (I'm not too proud to admit I was totally blown away by it) and "Nine" (ugh, at one point I thought please kill me now). Now that things are settling down a bit my goal for the next few weeks is to get a bit of stability back in my life, spend a bit more time reconnecting with people I have been neglecting and perhaps bag another fantastic shag.

Perhaps.

'Tis The Season

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, I've had a really rough past couple of weeks and although I'm not shy about talking about the good and the bad, I've been really flat and unmotivated. Thankfully, thankfully, things are on the improve. I'm still under-employed and not actually earning enough to even pay my rent at present (oops), but I'm about to head off for a few days to visit my sisters in Ballarat and I'm making a concerted effort not to think about the stressful stuff for the next few days.

Avoidance I can manage. Easily. In fact I've kind of been avoiding the whole Christmas thing this year. There are few stresses like feeling you have obligations or the desire to do things, and just not having the cash to do it. So I have basically avoided all social events over the past few weeks. If you are a 'real world' friend of mine, consider this an open apology if I didn't show up to something recently.

My sisters clubbed together and bought me a ticket to go and see them for Christmas, so I'm off tomorrow until the evening of the 28th. Now that we have agreed that I'm only buying gifts for my two nephews (even though that sucks because I love buying gifts, and even better wrapping them!) the stress has at least been eased somewhat. So tomorrow's plan is to try and get a bit of Christmas cheer happening.

I hope you all have a great Christmas/Holidays season, and I'll catch you sometime around the 28th!