| the lassi in varanasi, city of shit and other adventures |
[Feb. 10th, 2007|06:14 pm] |
i fled jaipur after a semi-paranoid/semi-serious big-brother-is-watching-you situation involving cleverly disguised, attractive gem smugglers... i skipped bodhgaya and headed straight to varanasi in general class, because sleeper was sold out. general class is a special experience... it's normally where you travel if your trip isn't over night... foreigners generally don't use it... i had no choice... for a while i had no seat, and at night, i managed to crawl under the seats for a nap on the filthy floor, occasionally being stood on. i figured it wouldn't be that bad, seeing as it was only a twelve hour trip. twenty-two hours later, we arrived in varanasi.
i met some french girls from my dorm in jaipur at the train station and we all headed to another dorm and spent the week hanging out along the ghats, in cafes, shops, drinking shitloads of chai and seeing a bollywood movie after drinking a bhang lassi... bad move. i got anxious and paranoid, just like i used to before i stopped smoking. i don't remember the movie, but it was quite stressful trying to figure out if things were supposed to be hilarious or horrific... i didn't want to offend anybody by laughing in the terrible bits. i relaxed a little when we got back to the dorms and the effects were less intense, but i'm thinking it's something i should continue to stay away from.
we saw a little bit of rain and the tiny labyrinth of a city was covered in a thick sludge of cow shit, and hid in cafes for the day, listening to a man from chile tell tall tales and laugh his infectuous laugh. we were joined by a german photographer who doesn't like shopping and i managed to stand in human shit by the ganges, forcing myself to bathe my foot in the polluted holy river. a chai man watched and laughed while trying to sell me chai at the same time... we called across the ghats to each other, discussing chai and SHIT, which is always pronounced much louder than any other word. i walked home in my sandals through the sludgy cow shit and learned to say cow shit in french in two different ways. i also learned to say "there's monkey shit on my head" when a monkey decided that it would be fun to fling his shit at my head in front of a lot of people the next day. i have become a shit magnet.
i managed to do reiki level two with a reiki teacher that i didn't get along with so well. i healed one of the french girls for my practical session and it was great to have feedback from her, because her mother, father and brother all practice reiki. we figured that the purpose for having a reiki teacher i didn't click with was to encourage me to find my own way, rather than using somebody else's methods.
this will be my last india blog until next time i feel the need to get lost in the subcontinent, but it's been an amazing ride, even if i didn't plan it so well and other travelers look at me in amused disbelief at my ridiculous itinerary that defies logic. doing things in order has never been a strong point of mine.
i've read some great books here... and hopefully i'll finish 'shantaram' before i get home. it's just hard to get into after reading a book as amazing as 'the god of small things', which no europeans can get into... but i don't think the translated versions would be the same. i think the book needs to be in english to be fully appreciated. of all the books set in india that i've read, it's my favourite.
it's been hard living without a great selection of music... cibo matto, massive attack, the smashing pumpkins and a mix tape from when i was sixteen, but i've picked up a morcheeba album and the best of mtv unplugged vol.2 for rem and bjork... looking forward to a reunion with my cds very much. and good tomato salsa. |
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| rats ahoy |
[Feb. 1st, 2007|01:40 pm] |
there's this temple in a desert town called deshnok in the middle of nowhere called the karni mata temple... karni mata, an incarnation of durga, once asked the god of death to bring a storyteller's son back to life. upon his refusal, karni matha reincarnated all storytellers as rats, so the god of death would be deprived of human souls.
so anyway, this temple is crawling with rats. i travelled on a five and a half hour busride through the desert, then another hour bus, then an hour bus back to bikaner where i had to spend the night, and then a seven and a half hour bus ride to my next stop, all so i could see this temple. it was worth it... rats everywhere, people making offerings, tourists and their cameras, lots of indian children chasing rats. you can't wear shoes inside temples. i came out with feet covered in rat shit and proceeded to clean my feet with the dirt outside... when faced with rat shit or dirt, i'm pretty sure dirt's the cleaner option.
i saw a white rat outside the temple, which is meant to be really lucky... i hope that still works when you see it outside the temple. it's also lucky to have a rat crawl across your feet. i wish i'd known that at the time, but i moved my feet out of the way when they got too close.
feeling lucky after my white rat sighting, i caught the bus back to bikaner, and was invited to ride on top of the bus on the rack with some other people... in wide-eyed puppy excitement at the prospect of zooming through the desert on the roof of a bus, i made my way to the ladder... and then the bus conductor guy shouted at me and made me get inside the bus. killjoy.
when i arrived back in bikaner, i was crossing the road, but didn't look both ways, seeing as the lanes were separated by a median strip. i felt a funny sensation on my leg, but i didn't have long enough to identify it, as the next thing i knew, i was sprawled on the ground, the book i was reading open on the road, my leg forming a bruise, my hand grazed. i'd been run over by a fucking bike rider. a bike rider! how lame is that??? that is NOT vogue. watching my mouth in india was pretty much over from that second. i apologised for not watching where i was going and made my way across the road with a series of "shitFUCKshit"s or possible "fuckSHITfuck"s while families watched.
i'm in jaipur today, feeling luckier. i got locked in a bathroom stall tonight in an almost deserted mall... there was only a tiny amound of space between wall and roof, so i popped my head up when i heard someone enter. the man peeing in the urinal looked up at me. i smiled. "can you please let me out? there's no handle on this side." i slipped back down, said "shit!" and waited... he opened the door, bless him. i didn't fancy sleeping in a toilet cubicle in a locked mall. |
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| in a world without vodka and lesbians |
[Jan. 27th, 2007|08:59 am] |
in a country where it is common for people to wear their clothes honestly [unlike the costumes we carefully plan in my world] but hide their real intentions, follow religions that oppose the material world yet cling to their possessions, devoutly worship their Gods while they trample each otherand behave obscenely at times while being so easily offended, it is only natural to adapt and split in half. i started out being impossible to piss off, but in my last month, i can change from my usual calm and unphased to impatient bitch with enough aggravation. after getting blisters from my new rajasthani shoes and spending all friday being asked why i was walking around in bare feet in the north of india, being hassled for money by people after repeatedly explaining that i'd given them the last of my change that morning, and still not being able to find appropriate wedding pants, i stopped at the place i'd bought the shoes on and let the salesman know that he shouldn't promise people they wouldn't get blisters, displaying the large red wounds on my heels and little toes... i felt like such an ass afterwards, seeing as i only did it because i was frustrated. when the blisters first appeared, my attitude was "you should've worn bandaids with tissues, you goose!"
after spending the week going in and out of moondance cafe to visit jaisingh without letting his boss know that he's socialising on restaurant time, we snuck off to his brother's wedding party [even though my gut instincts told me explicitly not to] on a rented motorbike [i wanted to hire the pink moped, but he insisted on the big black bike] and we zoomed around the windy mountain roads between pushkar and ajmer while his earlier words "one years driving experience" ran around in my head. holding his bag and mine, i was holding on with one arm, flying through the air as we went over bumps. if i thought johnny the camel was bumpy, or scooting with alex was being fucked in the ass sans penetration, this was so much worse. he began weaving through trucks, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic and getting way too excited. my inner grandmother came out and asked him to take it easy.
we arrived safely at the place where most of his family lives, and they were drunk as shit. there were couches in the courtyard at the centre of the buildings and it was looking like it might be fun... except that i forgot the "namaste" to the head of the family, everybody [over sixty people] was staring at me, and whenever somebody said something in hindi and pointed at me, everybody errupted in an unfriendly, raucous laughter. i'm not really sure what happened, but the oldest uncle, motioned for me to get out and jaisingh's older brother escorted me out the front, where jaisingh was talking bikes with some cousins and they had a long conversation in hindi... the only english word was 'hotel.'
after the only hotel that had room turned out to be bad news, according to jaisingh, who wouldn't explain, we had to take off, even though i'd given them 500 rupees. we ran away, ducking through alleys, back to the bike, being approached by visciously barking dogs, growling and baring their FANGS! and by the time we got close to the bike, we noticed one of the guys from the hotel following us and ran to the bike, starting it just as he was two metres away from us and speeding off into the night, not stopping until we reached his father's house.
he asked me if i wanted to come to his friend's wedding, which was happening, but i listened to my instincts this time, remembering the wedding parade at bandra where i was almost beaten up. i thought that had just pissed me off at the time, but i suppose it left a mark. i got to crash at his father's place [unlocked part of the front of the house, not-so-good part of town], while he went out, a poster of bollywood superstar john abraham watching over me like a guardian angel. way too funny.
in the morning, young cousins watched me from around corners, while we chatted and i tried to explain vodka to him. we got up, took the bike and went to this big mosque in ajmer, where he led me by the hand, making sure i didn't get lost in the extreme crowds, and to make sure i got through the central prayer room thing without getting crushed. it was more crowded than any form of indian public transport i've ever seen. when we made it through the exits, his shoes had been stolen, so i offered to buy him new ones, seeing as he'd covered my shoes with his so they wouldn't be stolen.
we made it back to pushkar in one piece, even though his driving was scaring me even more, my head racing oneyearexperienceoneyearexperienceoneyearexperience. he did hit a bike rider, but luckily it was just as he was coming to a halt. we traded our bike back for the luggage i'd left as a deposit and got the bus back to ajmer together, while i tried to explain the word 'lesbian', but he just didn't get it. we parted at the bus stand and i got on the bus to jodhpur, parting in a less good mood because i'd learned a few things during the day that really disappointed me, and not in an 'i don't understand vodka or lesbians' cultural difference kind of way. i hate being lied to. i was extremely glad to be on the move again, where nobody knows me. somewhat free.
after my six hour busride through the desert, i arrived at the blue city and was almost tricked by a tout at the bus stand who picked up another extension when i tried to call my hotel. luckily i was on guard and caught him out, otherwise i wouldn't be where i am now... this insanely cheap guesthouse where i have a tent on the roof overlooking the blue city, which is an AMAZING view, and the home cooking is so much better than most of the restaurants i've eaten in. there's light at the end of the tunnel. |
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| return to rajasthan |
[Jan. 23rd, 2007|01:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  ecstatic | ] |
well, i was going to write an entry about brushing my teeth in the middle of MG road while crowds of people rushed to work, and about a train ride with an english guy, where the other passengers in our compartment kept changing around from kids who wanted coins, musicians who played us indian folk songs about wood, to men who played a strange card game [that made absolutely no sense, and as far as we could tell, nobody won], and then some men of various ages who asked many questions and taught us helpful hindi phrases, such as "that's very costly", "how are you?", "i am fine", "what is the cost?" and most importantly... "vagina."
i was also going to write about this city called pushkar which is amazing [if you ignore the pushy "priests" trying to rip people off.] it surrounds a holy lake, where public displays of affection, drugs, alcohol and meat are all forbidden, the reiki master who was unsatisfied with with the stage i'm at, and took me back to the beginning, and the affectionate, socialite camel named johnny i rode around a mountain, and the camel guide uma, who tried to marry me off to an austrian girl and possibly spiked my chai with bhang. i've never tried bhang, so i'll have to have a special lassi one day for investigation purposes. i need to be certain it was bhang chai before i can really tell that story. journalistic integrity, you understand.
but that is all boring compared to what happened to me today... my new best friend jaising invited me to stay at his place when i finish my three day yoga course and have dinner and join the celebrations for his brother's WEDDING for one of the four nights of the wedding. they really get into marriage here. i'm so psyched... getting invited to an indian wedding was on the top of my to do list, and this late in the game, i thought it'd never happen. what shall i wear?? i'll have to buy a new outfit of course.
i love this city so much that, even though i only have time to stay for no more than three days in any city at this stage, i'm staying for a week... even if i have spent a bit and i'm readjusting to people trying to trick me into giving them large amounts of cash. |
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| "this story doesn't seem to be drying me at all!" |
[Jan. 19th, 2007|02:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  giggly | ] |
my time is running out and i keep having nightmares that i've come home.
i'm at the point where, if a city does anything to piss me off, or doesn't entertain me, i'm on the next bus out of there. that's why i only spent a few hours in mysore, one day in bangalore, one day in chennai, one in the city formerly known as trivandrum, one in kollam, and one night in alappuzha. i only spent three nights in kochi because all the trains to goa were booked out, and i spent two nights in goa because i had things to do there... eg. get an aubergine bake from shore bar, have my dreadlocks fixed [four hours of indian head torture!], buy a hammock... you know, the usual.
i bought a pair of green afghani pants from anjuna market which are hilarious and EVERYBODY is going to hate them. i'm going to wear them out to a nightclub as soon as i get home. unfortunately, the thing that happens whenever i buy something has happened... i now want a dark blue pair and a greyish brownish pair. some in a different shade of green might be nice too.
i got accommodation in goa for 40 rupees, how insane is that? of course, i slept on a rooftop with about fifteen other people on mats on the floor, so it was kind of like a dorm, but without the walls... and the door... and the beds. i spent two nights there, and the night before on a train. i spent last night on a train and i'll be spending tonight on a train... i look forward to seeing a bed sometime in the near future.
i've stopped over in bombay on my way to rajasthan and i don't know how they've done it, but they've somehow managed to switch around the whole fucking city... nothing is where it was last time, i walk to where MG road is supposed to be and it's not there anymore, they've moved the train stations around and they've renamed all the streets, i'm sure of it! my sense of direction can't be that bad.
i went looking for a new book to read today, since i was forced to read alice in wonderland on the train last night as a result of a poor selection of books in goa. there were some interesting titles such as 'bizarre lifestyles no. 1: lesbian sex techniques' and 'slapping the bitch.' i bought a book about a hustler in bombay.
i also caught another bollywood movie called 'the guru' and it was the shittest one i've ever seen. it was mostly dialogue and judging from the style of the glasses they wear, and their hairstyles, it's set in the 70's and it's about some guy who's head of some corporation and they're in trouble for fraud or something. there are no attractive men in it and the lead actor is the shittest dancer i've ever seen. the only thing worth watching in this film was the leading actress in the dancing scenes... i mean, fuck! when i go to see a bollywood film, i expect hot people, kitschy dance routines and ridiculously tacky plots, not this historical bullshit about the fall of a major corporation. perhaps if i understood hindi, i might've enjoyed it.
i'm feeling a little under the weather AGAIN. i think this is the fourth time? do you have ANY idea how hard it is to use a squat toilet on a speeding train? do you have any idea how embarrassing it is when you come out of a cubicle and everyone's staring at you because all they've heard the whole time you were in there was hysterical laughter?
i'm still flying solo because i can't stay still, which is really attracting some strange people... a man who thought that if he leant in close enough and screamed in my ear, that i'd some how be able to understand malayalam, who tried to get me to trade one of my shoes with him, an odd british man who'd just had the taj mahal tattood to his upper arm and an indian guy who kept naming all the rock bands he liked while i was trying to sleep on the train. then there was the group of indian men who laughed at me for reading alice in wonderland, and the children training to be "come look my shop" girls in anjuna who grab your wrist and drag you, kicking and screaming into their shops. and alice thought wonderland was mad. |
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| of chickens and foetal hippos |
[Jan. 9th, 2007|07:28 pm] |
i'm in thirivanantharamshebambamboom... formerly known as trivandrum, whose current name i can't spell or pronounce... the road i'm staying on is completely full of vegetarian restaurants and it's the first day of the new year that i haven't felt queasy, so i decided to eat my first real meal of the year. i ran to a rickshaw and said "can you take me to some chicken??" or something easily as stupid and the driver gave me a confused look. "all the restaurants on this road are vegetarian, is there somewhere non-veg around here?" [i've barely eaten meat this whole trip, i'm craving it for the first time in a long time.] so we drive along on a chicken hunt and he asks me "so you want veg? or non-veg?" and i say "non-veg, NON-VEG!" and he says "ah, so you want the chicken!" and he drives me to this heavenly restaurant, which isn't too pretty on the inside, but outside, they have massive amounts of dead chickens turning around over flames and it was just the most beautiful thing i've ever seen... AND they knew what a vanilla milkshake was!!! i got to have a VANILLA MILKSHAKE!!
sometimes i think being alone again isn't working in my favour, people are looking at me like i'm insane because i keep talking to myself in public, and even laughing at some of the things i say. i guess taking pictures of dead things in jars at the natural history museum didn't help much either... but who doesn't love a dead foetal hippopotomus?
i also tried to get video footage of some hippos mating at the zoo today, but the damn zoom on my camera is so shitty. |
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| groundhog day, bangalore post office style |
[Jan. 4th, 2007|06:35 pm] |
i realise i just posted an entry, but i didn't want this entry to ruin the awesomeness of that one.
after spending my new year's day auditioning for the exorcist, i awoke on the second feeling a little bit shaky still. we had brunch at shore bar and carried on as though we still had all the time in the world together, but before the bill was paid, alex and gillian were headed to arambol to enrol in their yoga course. after the bill was paid, fergus, alan and i headed into town to get our bus tickets, but the only one who had any luck was fergus who got his ticket to hampi on the fourth of january, and had to stay in anjuna for another two days, the lucky boy. we said goodbye to fergus and boarded the public bus to mapusa, where alan and i said goodbye as he headed for panaji and i tried to find a bus to bangalore.
i had no luck and had to go to panaji anyway, but alan was long gone. i got an overnight bus to mysore, which was horrible... i was freezing cold and the seats didn't recline, so i was in the strangest sleeping positions i've ever been in. i woke up smiling because i was alive and free and had no idea what was just around the corner. i got off the bus at mysore and checked my luggage in, buying a ticket to chennai... i checked out a folklore museum because alex had this running joke that she loves folklore, ever since she was misheard saying something else... that was a waste of time... tiny museum, no photography allowed and i started feeling sick again. i hung around for hours waiting for my chennai bus and when it was a couple of hours late, i went to check at reception... they said that i'd missed it and would have to buy a new ticket.
seeing as i didn't want to arrive in chennai at fuck-off o'clock in the morning, just jumped on a bus to bangalore and made friends with a studly guy from kerala who told me that i should get married and have kids, otherwise i'll live like a king, but die like a dog. with marriage, you live like a dog and die like a king. i got off the bus at bangalore and my new friend helped me find a place... a bare room with stone walls and a squat toilet, easily the dodgiest place i've stayed in so far and yet i'd never been happier to be in a room. i'd spent the previous night in an uncomfortable bus and the night before on a bathroom floor... this bed was heaven. who cares if it had no blanket and i'd left mine somewhere long ago... it was a bed!
i woke up with the world at my feet, just knowing that i'd be in pondicherry by nightfall and could report back on the tide situation...
WARNING: what follows is possibly the most irritating thing i've had to experience or write so far, so i can't imagine it'll be fun to read. with this in mind, i've had it pretty good in india, in the sense that when things get annoying, something good usually follows shortly after.
i got up and jumped into a rickshaw and asked the driver to take me to the post office. he pulled over at MG road, saying that was where it is... i asked him to take me there, but he had to ask for directions, which were met with a "there is no post office on MG road." we spent a while searching for the post office while i reluctantly tried to read a map, pausing to ask "i am in bangalore, right?" i was. we found the post office, and when i got out of the rickshaw, i found that it wasn't the international one. upon arriving at the correct post office, they informed me that they had no boxes, so i had to search bangalore for a box. i asked some men in a shop if i could buy the cardboard box on the counter, to which they replied "that's our bin" and laughed at me. i bought a nice purple one with a peacock on it from a liqour store and took it back to the post office, only to find it was lunchtime. i had a bite to eat [first proper meal for the new year] and returned with my box. the nice man informed me that now i had to fasten it with duct tape, so i wandered around and found a stationary store where they taped it up for me. i returned to the post office, only to find that i still had to have the box wrapped in brown paper, so i was off again to find someone to wrap my box so i could write my adress on it. i returned to the post office and was allowed to send the package and be on my way. i was so glad to be out of there, i got a rickshaw to the opposite side of the city to book my bus to pondicherry. because this postage game took around six hours, it turns out that i won't be in pondicherry till 6am tomorrow morning [5th of jan], which is crazy seeing as i left for pondy on the 2nd of jan and it's really not that great a distance. buying my ticket was incredibly frustrating too, because people shove in front of you and because when you're at the wrong counter, the thing to do is shout at them, usher them in a random direction, but never actually help them. i lined up at three counters [one counter three times, so that's lining up five times while people are shoving in front of you...] and spent around two hours in the bus station before getting my ticket to pondicherry.
it may have been annoying, but it could've been a lot worse. i've missed one day of the pondicherry yoga festival, but there are three i'll be there for. i just hope it was worth all this hassle. the hassle was really just amplified by the fact that i have been feeling like shit and that i've only just been left on my own again after spending the most amazing two weeks with four amazing people who felt like they were family. i woke up the other morning, surprised that they were gone. i'm really gonna miss those crazy kids. |
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| new year's essay |
[Jan. 4th, 2007|05:59 pm] |
now that i'm in karnataka, about to be in tamil nadu, which is a fair way away from goa, i feel that i can mention the al-qaeda "concrete" bomb threats on goa over the holiday period that jerusalem had warned all israeli tourists about. goa was almost devoid of israelis this year, which is a shame because they are so amazingly beautiful. while this season was busy, it wasn't as busy as it could've been. we got much better deals at anjuna flea market because of the lack of a crowd ["i give you good price, cheap price, bomb price", gillian even ran away from somone yelling "you'll never see this price again, THERE'S A BOMB!!!!"], and even though the aussie, uk and us governments didn't issue any warnings, i was still a little bit worried because they closed panaji airport between xmas and new year as a precaution. the fact that there were a lot of fireworks and that we were going to the biggest party in the state for new years didn't much help either. but nothing happened, and we had a lot of fun. i'm just really glad this news never made it back home, so nobody had to worry.
new years eve was an absolute blast... the best i've -ever- had. my memory has it as follows:
we had breakfast at a place called lobo's because i'd been dying to eat there ever since i noticed they had beds... beds!!! in a restaurant overlooking the sea!!! as soon as we got there i -jumped- straight on... only to find these "beds" were made of concrete. we did random necessary crap in the day, such as tanning, swimming, eating and shopping, then gillian and i went into town to buy crackers, cheese and vodka and made it back to our hotel about four minutes after australian new year, so we pretty much plowed into the cheese and vodka and got a tiny bit smashed before heading to shore bar.
sometime later, i was making a phone call, then headed back to shore bar to find that we'd moved on... luckily fergus spotted me from down the beach... we'd actually moved to liliput. silly me. so going back to liliput, we did the countdown thing on the beach with a bonfire, said hey to a couple of people we'd had a crazy night with at paradiso and peed behind a big van with 'simon' written on it... although gillian had to convince some guys not to start their car, otherwise i would've been peeing with a spotlight and audience... [damn right she should save me... i totally stalled some people while she was peeing on a hill... and proceeded to fall down the hill... "i'm trying to stall them, but i seem to have fallen over!"]
we made it back to the beach, although gillian and fergus decided to go through the bar "as the crow flies" and ended up climbing through the bar over tables, chairs and people, and then proceeded to do crow poses on the beach.
we then walked along the beach and up onto the road for a while, when i decided i wanted to change my pants... luckily i'd forseen this coming and had a spare pair in my bag... of course i changed in the middle of the road, as a taxi was pulling up to us... we cabbed it into the hills for the biggest party in goa, the hilltop rave, which was about 1000 rupees to get in and to make sure i took no pictures, security guards removed my battery from my camera, yet they put both camera and battery back in my bag. i only took about three photos though. i hope i can get some off other people.
the place was amazing... people everywhere, random uv painted trees, the dj's were playing in a lit-up IGLOO on a big stage... it was fantastic. the mood we were in, we even enjoyed dancing to trance music... trance music with random bursts of "despite all my rage, i am still just a rat in a cage" because i've had the smashing pumpkins in my head all day [renamed the "chai coffee coffeeeee pumpkins" because apparently billy corgan's voice is like a chai salesman.] until about 5ish is a blur because it all happened so quickly, there was just a lot of dancing, random funniness, someone painted our faces in uv paint, so i'm told, but i forgot all about this and was horrified when i looked at a digital camera after a photo was taken and found that i had orange on my face. i never wear orange. apparently they target really trashed people and then try to charge 500 rupees for it. i hope i didn't pay for that.
gillian and i went for a walk, which always ends in trouble, it seems. we walked behind the stage [which is basically a really big dirt wall] and decided to climb up onto it, forgetting that this same stage was where the dj's were in their igloo. she was smart and found some stairs, where as i just dug my hands into the dirt and scaled the wall. we were very proud when we reached the top, massive smiles on our faces. for some reason security wasn't as impressed with our efforts. he ushered us off the stage the second we reached the top.
we rejoined the others and danced through the entire party, huddling in the tiniest bamboo forest in the world, only to find that it wasn't as fun as it looked, so we went to find a place to sit, where i met a nice indian boy who kept offering me beer and taking me to dance. when i came back to the others, gillian had bought some kind of bakery food and said it was "really, really good"... i took a bite and spat it out immediately. it was so bad... she and fergus laughed hysterically. i reached into my bag and offered her a mushy banana [not quite sure what it was doing in there] and the next thing i know, fergus, gillian, alex, alan and i are all massaging each other's FILTHY feet [at this point i hadn't worn shoes in two weeks] with vaseline, cocoa butter and sunscreen and blowing raspberries on each other's stomachs.
day broke and i made friends with a welsh lezzie, had a group dance/hug with some of her friends, got a lovely note from alex, ran into a girl i know from melbourne through fiona and pip, and said goodbye to alex and alan. fergus, gillian and i sat, quite unsure of what to do and drank beer until the sun was too high to stay on the hilltop. we walked back to our hotel and i realised i needed to get a motorcycle taxi to calangute to get money. i called pip on the way home and vomitted outside the phone place and spent the rest of new year's day lying on the bathroom floor, drinking lemonade and water and heaving it right back up again. all were quite impressed with exorcist-like noises i make when i puke. i thought i was done that night and walked to shore bar to stock up on water... luckily i went the back way, because i hadn't finished vomitting. |
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| penguin puppetry |
[Dec. 31st, 2006|01:30 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
cramming five people into a small beach hut is great fun when the bed is pretty much the only thing that fits in the room is a lot of fun... especially when we all have the same dry cough that sounds like we're in the lung cancer ward, and we're always being yelled at for using the wrong bathroom... moving down to the south of goa was a great idea in theory, and it was pretty nice... but the north was a lot more fun, so we've come back. the five of us are now split into two rooms by the beach, so we're in the lap of luxury right now... but we have two boys from luxembourg joining us tonight, i think, so we'll be seven in two rooms... assuming the hotel staff don't notice us sneaking them in.
i'm travelling with absolute nutcases, and it seems to be rubbing off... we were at a club with a balcony thing, and the scottish girl and i decided the most sensible thing to do would be to climb over and put on a puppet show with our penguin swizzle sticks... another guy just happened to have an egg with him at this nightclub, so he joined the show too... until gillian's penguin broke it. the morning after, we decided to swim out to some fishing boats and climb aboart, but after shitting out my entire body weight the week before, i was too weak to pull myself aboard and just kind of hung there until someone dragged me up.
back in anjuna, i've spent even more money at anjuna flea market and have more pairs of fisherman pants than anyone should ever have... i almost got a hot pink pair, but decided against it. i look like the biggest hippie alive with this hair and the fact that i haven't worn shoes since my thongs were stolen two weeks ago.
i'm absolutely loving this little holiday portion of the trip, great food, great booze, suspiscious juice, great company... i could easily live like this. we've made friends with all the women who have shops along the beach... they bully us into having a look with their usual "come look my shop" and dragging you by the wrist. my favourite is gita, who stole my tshirt and the scottish guy's shoes and wouldn't give them back until i bought something! she's sassy, how love. i also like the juice lady who says "hello, coconut" whenever she walks by... the man who tried to sell me the vibrating comb is less favourable though.
we've rented scooters -again- and i've been opting to ride on the back with canadian girl... we don't feel the need to pay attention to signs, we just follow our intuition... which is why we always get lost and end up in strange towns miles away and have to meet everybody much, much later. she's a great driver though, we ended up in scary indian traffic around a roundabout with me indicating in all the wrong directions and she still didn't kill us. she's assured me that if we die on the road, something cool is going to kill us. so every time we get into a tricky situation, i just have to ask myself... "is it vogue?" generally, the answer is "no."
i developed the old famous 'friend crush' around xmas dayish on a great guy, but had the sense to realise it was just respect and fascination confused by good vibes. i felt awkward for a day or two, but frozen blue margharitas made all clear again. oddly enough though, i think my capacity to feel things i used to be to guarded to feel has been changed since then. so it all works out for the best, i suppose.
we're all splitting up in a couple of days and i'm going to a yoga festival in pondicherry... i can't believe i'm in the yoga capital of the world, after doing two yoga classes a week for the last year and yet i haven't done a single yoga class since arriving in india a month and a half ago. so the girls are doing their yoga course in arambol, i think the guys are going to surf in kerala, and i'm going to yoga on the opposite coast in pondicherry, where i will call the girls in goa and let them know if the tide goes in at night on the opposite coast. we could probably google it, but that's just not as fun. "checking the tide in pondicherry" has become code for absolutely everything. although there isn't much we need code for... we can freely discuss our bowel movements and vomitting habits over dinner now, because we're just not able to be squeamish anymore.
we're doing the chip and dip thing this afternoon with incredibly cheap smirnoff vodka on the beach... it's only 340 rupees for 750mL, which is basically 10 or 11 australian dollars... we're going to have a little celebration at 6.30pm for australian new year's eve, then go to a hilltop party which is meant to be huge for indian new year's eve, then we'll be celebrating british new year's eve wherever we are around 5.30am, and then around 9 or 10 at recovery drinks, we'll celebrate canadian new year's eve... this should make up for missing the countdown for the last five years.
i hope everybody's well, and that you're all doing something amazing to start the new year. i don't care how many people say new year's eve sucks because you hype it up too much... i'm not a fan of christmas, but new year's is great because everyone is in the mood for celebrating and the vibe is generally good... people just need to learn to not get too hyped. |
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| "if it flashes, i'll 'ave it!" |
[Dec. 21st, 2006|06:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
well, after bollywood, i spent three days bound to my hotel room and hotel bathroom. being sick with a shared bathroom is quite embarrassing, but ah well, it's india. i clogged myself up with some random "intestine medication" and hopped on a bus to goa on monday to spend the holiday period here. unfortunately, this season in goa isn't as exciting as it usually is, due to bomb threats against israeli travellers in goa... everyone's a bit tense. i considered leaving, but i really want to have goa in new years and there are so many beaches here, i'll just hang at a quieter one.
i met a scottish girl, a scottish guy and a canadian girl on the bus and now we're all crammed into a double room by the beach in anjuna and have just been joined by an english guy. we've just been eating, relaxing, swimming in the sea and going to bars. i can't wait to be well enough to eat curry again.
i know hanging out with other westerners defeats the purpose of going to india, but it's nice to hang out with similar people over the xmas/new years period... it's been pretty fun. they had me convinced that the haggis was actually a type of animal, hunted in scotland for food and that it was like a hairy wild guinea pig. they kept me going for days, it was hilarious. i was quite disappointed when i found out, cause i kinda wanted to see one.
we went to a bar high in the hills last night which was packed full of package tourists and it was tragic! funny, but tragic. we met some random middle aged women in sequinned snake skin dresses with sparkly wigs, one was carrying a sparkly fake microphone, and upon being asked about her microphone, she informed us she got it back home, and [in a rough cockney accent] "as we say in black pool; 'if it flashes, I'LL 'AVE IT!!'"
we then bumped into some rough english girls from a dorm we'd stayed in who said they "really needed some COCK", who're now dubbed "the cock girls" and chatted with them for a while, although one of them was very unimpressed with my new ring, which is really pretty.
they closed the bar, and you couldn't swim in the pool at the club anymore, so we headed home around 6ish and spent the day swimming and drinking bloody marys and had short catnaps. today feels a little seedy, so i think a quiet one is the plan for tonight.
i overspent at anjuna flea market again.
i've given up on this whole "you can't give beggars money for this or that reason" thing... now and then, i've started to give a little money, although never to children who're carrying babies, or children in general. just now and then when i really, really feel like it, because i really don't see the harm. and as for being swarmed by beggars at the first sign of weakness... knowing a couple of hindi words is really helpful to make them just go away. i think i'm slowly getting used to it, although i still feel really unsure of what to do. but i think going with what i feel is better than doing what i'm told. |
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| johnny goes to bollywood |
[Dec. 16th, 2006|03:04 pm] |
bollywood movies are my new favourite thing, but unfortunately, most of the cinemas around here are all playing the same films over and over, and i can't wait for a new one to come out. i'm absolutely in love with this actor called john abraham, you should definitely check him out, he is lovely!
i've done a fair bit of sight-seeing, including the hanging gardens [where absolutely nothing is hanging], a really depressing aquarium [where i was completely mesmorised by an octopus. i really want one.] and a national park, where i went on a bus ride and saw tigers. i expected them to be bigger.
i saw a boy dump a kitten on chowpatty beach, so i picked her up and got a cab to the animal shelter, where it was nearly impossible to find anyone who could help me, they all just pointed me in random directions, but eventually, a guy escorted me around the place and i gave them some money to cover her costs so that somebody can adopt her.
i worked as an extra on a bollywood film the other day, expecting to see a full-on dance routine, but it was a boring scene with a marriage proposal at the airport... it was a long day of walking around in the background, noone had a clue what they were doing, everybody was rushing around, barking orders, while myself and the other westerners kept making jokes and getting over it pretty quickly. it was so typically indian. it basically just involved walking back and forth in view of the camera all day and standing around waiting. the other westerners were pretty hilarious.
after my brush with superstardom, i went to a gay and lesbian fashion show i'd agreed to be in, and was expecting high fashion, vacant stares and cool strutting... not 90% drag queens and trannies, gaudy, over-the-top outfits and big smiles... it was just as disorganised as the day's filming, and instead of walking by myself, i was to go onstage, arm in arm with a drag queen, because the choreographer didn't trust me to walk by myself... even though i'd spend the last 9 hours practising walking at the airport. it was lucky that i had help though, because i thought i did one lap of the stage and it was over, but no... i had to make a second appearance and had absolutely no idea what i was doing, so i just let the drag queen [whose name i have forgotten] take the lead... it was even harder because she only spoke hindi, and my hindi is limited to about five words... what made the night even funnier was the fact that the majority of people there didn't speak any english, so often i was standing in a group, smiling while conversations were going on in hindi and the only word i understood was 'australia'...
there were a few english-speaking people there though... a cool lezzie with cute hair and good taste in music, a trannie who'd written 'AIDS' across her chest, but in the mirror, so it was back-to-front, and an outrageously camp boy who kissed me on the cheek towards the end of the show. just before it ended, we were told that the judges were going to come backstage to see our badge numbers... my response - "there are judges?" thankfully, i didn't make the top ten, even though my outfit was completely the hottest.
i finally got back to my hotel around midnight, feeling like shit and then spent all of the next day in my hotel room with a high fever and terrible pains... and the fucking weirdest dreams about being in some sort of flood and trying to climb into big seashells to save ourselves, but nobody wanted to save anybody but themselves. i feel better today, but still a bit vague. |
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| not the ears! never the ears. |
[Dec. 7th, 2006|08:28 pm] |
so goa was fun... we just shopped and sat on the beach, really.
anjuna market is massive... lots of hippies/ravers who worship trance music. not really my music, but the vibe is cool. nobody really does anything, which is nice, but it's also why i left, seeing as my trip's only really starting. i'll go back for new years.
accommodation's not cheap there, not even the cool beach huts we stayed in. but everything else is. i did a lot of shopping at anjuna market, where the jewellery is overpriced and it's hard to haggle... so i bought everything but jewellery there.
the day after lj left me, i had an old goa hippie come and fix my dreadlocks... we chatted for hours about this and that, and when she'd gone, i had to fish a frog out of my toilet... which took like half an hour because i was too busy laughing to do it properly.
i decided to move on to a place called pune, but after many funny things which i'll go into later, i decided heading back to mumbai would be a more sensible plan.
they wanted my ears in goa. at anjuna market, people kept telling me i had something in my ear, so i made lj check my ears a hundred times, only to find that my ears were fine... while i was waiting for a bus in mapusa, a man came up to me and showed me his official government ear cleaner's card and asked to look inside my ears. i told him i'd be fine. then, as if it's a recurring motif in the movie of my life, i walked past a couple of men having their ears cleaned yesterday... but being alone and moving around a lot, i have nobody to share my amusement with. it's still bloody funny though.
there are people called hijra here... eunuchs, transvestites and cross dressers... they ask people for money and generally won't go away until they are paid. people give them money because they're considered bad luck. a man in a dress with makeup on asked me for money just once in pune, and i turned my head to smile and say "no, sorry" and smile, but i ran into a pole as i did, and all the men in the street including dress-man started laughing at me... i laughed too and walked away, only the be hassled by a young girl about waist-height, poking my pockets and demanding money, dancing around me while i try to run away... it was crazy... i kept saying "no!! leave me alone!!" after my patience ran out, but it was a nice old man who rescued me... i don't do well with children.
i still feel guilt. |
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| the gay in bombay |
[Nov. 30th, 2006|12:00 pm] |
mumbai was funny... we left the airport in a taxi and when we were kind of near the hotel we wanted and tried to tell the driver where exactly in colaba we wanted to go, we found out he didn't really speak much english... i'd just assumed he was quiet. that was fun.
we spent a day shopping and went to the markets along MG road [aka fashion street] where i bought a pair of jeans and had to try them on in the street in front of everybody... too funny.
mumbai was just like home, if home were full of crazy people... taxis instead of rickshaws, signs put up to stop people tooting their horns constantly, barely any cows in the streets, lots of western clothing, department stores... we completely decided to be tacky and do the whole shopping thing, went to all these expensive couture stores where i nearly blew $550 australian on a brown velvet blazer, but decided against it and spent $106 australian on the hottest levi's ever... first time i've ever bought a label without it being second hand. ah well...
went to elephanta island, saw some caves with carvings dedicated to shiva, looked at the markets there, ran away from angry monkeys, tried to take a picture of two monkeys screwing, but they became modest all of a sudden.
we went out to the funniest bar that night... polyesther's... they play nothing but retro pop tunes and the decor is like an austin power's movie... mosaic mirror pillars, leather couches, disco inferno dancefloor, big flowers on the way to the bathroom, mirrored walls on the dancefloor, a big swirly door... so, so funny. when that closed, we went to the only gay night in mumbai and it'd just finished... didn't look too thrilling, judging from the small number of people leaving...
i think i'll go back to mumbai to check out the whole bollywood thing. we're in goa at the moment, which i'll have to write about later. lj is leaving me today and i have no idea where i'm going from here... |
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| monkeys and squirrels and cows, oh my! |
[Nov. 20th, 2006|02:17 pm] |
ok, so i'm in india...
the traffic is completely insane... cows, rickshaws, dogs, goats, elephants, camels, cars, buses, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles... it's cheaper than a rollercoaster and much, much more of an adrenaline rush.
delhi was alright, i suppose... it took me a while to get used to beggars, but now i can finally say no without feeling like an asshole about it. they're much more friendly and less demanding in rajasthan. the first thing we did in agra was figure out how to get the hell out. we'd been on a bus all day, which had broken down and a monkey had chased me onto it when we stopped off for lunch, so i had to lock myself in the driver's compartment. they let touts onto our bus to try and con us into going with them to pay for a more expensive ride to jaipur, but luckily we were grumpy enough to get rid of them.
our bathrooms have been great... except i never seem to be able to get a hot shower... it always works for LJ, but never for me... i'm beginning to think someone's playing some sort of sick joke on me. sometimes our toilets don't flush, which is quite comical... that's when we go eat at restaurants so we can use the bathrooms there.
we've done some sight-seeing... we saw the taj mahal from a rooftop restaurant nearby and agra fort when we got off our awful bus... we did a lot more in jaipur... we went to city palace, an observatory, amber fort and some other place i can't spell or pronounce or remember what it's called or what it was for, but it was pretty... we had a funny, charismatic rickshaw driver for the two days in jaipur who kept making fun of us.. much better than bargaining with four or five different ones throughout the day. he hates wearing his uniform and got a $100 fine for not wearing it properly.
i'm sure you're all keen to hear about my hair... which was the first thing i tended to when i arrived at the first hotel... it's in dreadlocks, but they aren't tightening properly... they've been really high maintenance so far... but better than an afro, right?
we're still getting the hang of haggling and have been ripped off once or twice, but we've also had some bargains... we made friends with a gem wholesaler who gave us a really good deal on some nice stones... we spent over an hour talking crystals.
we've been in udaipur about three days now... the longest we've stayed in one place. it's nice here... we went on a boat cruise and checked out a lot of shops and restaurants... i'm thinking about seeing a crystal healing place later today or maybe taking in a yoga class. our first hotel here had monkeys in the back yard which ran past my open window the other day... completely frightening... we left that hotel though because we had rats in our room... so funny.
basically, i've learned to be a lot more patient in the last week... i haven't really cracked the shits at all, although LJ was a bit grumpy when we arrived in jaipur...
we've been doing the rooftop restaurant thing almost every day and night, which is nice.. the food is great and so, so cheap... i haven't been sick at all yet, which is nice. i like being well.
that's all for now. |
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| costumes |
[Aug. 8th, 2006|10:47 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | the dandy warhols - 'boys better' | ] |
i went to milli's birthday painted blue, dressed as a smurf last month... it was pretty funny... but now another costume party is looming and i have no idea what to go as... if anybody reads this at all, i want suggestions. i don't want a "what are you supposed to be?" costume and i don't want a "hey, we're dressed as the same thing!" costume...
also, after that, i have another one to go to, with the theme alliterative mayhem... is it still alliteration if one of the words begins with a silent letter? eg. glittery garden gnome...
if i can get away with the garden gnome costume, then i want my themeless party costume to be something along the lines of smurf, gnome, elf, little mischeivous mythical creature type thing... any suggestions would be great. thanks. |
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| messages on bags of mice |
[May. 13th, 2006|05:03 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  blank | ] |
| [ | music |
| | furslide - 'my friend's gallery' | ] |
it's been a while... i still have a job. it's terrible. i'm closer to leaving the country... only 6 months to go. heh.
i've been going to yoga, meditation classes, i'm looking at taking up tai chi.
i went to confest, that was great... the highlight was definitely the time i accidentally sat in on a tantra workshop... that sure as hell broke me out of my comfort zone. i stayed in sydney for a night after that on my way to the gold coast where i stayed with my mother and that was a bit of an experience... i was drunk most of the time i was there and tried to get myself tattood, but luckily they don't tattoo drunk people... i woke up the next morning after having a nightmare that i'd got myself a tattoo of a big pink bunny on my chest with happy easter written underneath.
i've been exhibiting quite the positive attitude lately, but today for some reason, it's all been a bit too much but these things take time, i suppose.
i had the strangest dream last night... i'd arrived back in queensland via a car from the sky. a man just kept telling me that it wasn't possible, which was getting annoying because i was eyeing off a cute boy in the next car in the parking lot... we got talking after another car landed from the sky... the rest is a blur of big brother housemates... then the next part i remember, i'm in a pet store and there is a plastic bag full of mice... i thought it unfair that they were in this bag, so i undid it... the next time i came across them, the bag had been tied again and a message was left by jess... i untied the bag again and replied, only to find it tied up again later with another message... i left another message on the bag, but i don't remember if i untied it again... i don't remember what the messages said, but i remember they were about a friend of my mother's and my reply was hilarious. |
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| *cough* |
[Mar. 18th, 2006|12:03 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sick | ] |
| [ | music |
| | hole - 'she walks on me' | ] |
so there's this electro night at public office called meccanoid and last week's theme was oriental... i've been itching to wear this chinese top that i couldn't just wear for the sake of wearing it, so of course we had to go. as fiona said, she's boring these days, so it was just milli and i, and we kind of suck at being overly social in completely new places, but we did ok... i'm not so shy if i have someone else to bounce off, but she's always shy unless she's high, so we were minimally social... then we went to the market but pip and andi, who're always there, decided not to be out that night, and that getting fucked at home was an acceptable way to spend saturday night. pfft. market was funny though... i'd lost my phone in a cab when we'd arrived at meccanoid, which was really funny [not at the time] because i'd lost my phone at pride just over a month earlier and this was the replacement. i said a few shits and fucks and then decided to get over it because there was no point having a shitty night because something happened that i couldn't fix then and there. anyway, i told a couple of friends at market that i'd lost my phone and they asked if i'd called the cab company... WITH WHAT???
i somehow managed to get really drunk and spend all of my money and i got high-fived while peeing, which was... interesting.
i only got two hours sleep when i got in on sunday, so when i went to bed that night, i was pretty tired and it was hot... i slept in my underwear by an open window with no blankets without checking the weather forecast. the cool change came in and it was pissing with rain when i woke up from my dream about cigarettes and coughing... i woke myself up coughing... i had the flu, but i went to work anyway because i like public holiday pay and suck at budgeting, so the extra cash would be nice, then just took tuesday off, expecting to feel better... no such luck... worked the rest of the week and it was one of those hectic weeks. i had to stay at my sister's place in the country on wednesday night too... she says hampton park is not the country, but i disagree... i only went because i felt bad for not having been there in four years. i'm safe for at least another four years now. we drove past cows. i caved in and took cold and flu tablets by thursday and went to Q+A thursday night... i'd told the pharmacist specifically to fix me, but it didn't work... i got really drunk though, and managed to get a blood nose on the train... when we ran out of tissues, i had to use one of milli's tampons... so, so, soooo embarrassing, yet so hilarious. Q+A was eventful, but not so fun... edward ended up dropping me home.
i had to go to work friday though, because it was alanna's last day before she moves to queensland, and i'm really going to miss her. we we got along really well from day one and swapped hilarious trashy night out stories to make our shift go faster, we've talked customers out of buying extremely tragic clothes by bombarding them with reasons to not purchase without letting them get a word in edge-ways, we used to have cigarette breaks together and she just generally made being at work a little better. we'd made a pact that we'd quit on december 11th last year, but we suck, so we didn't do that, and now she's gone... so sad... she almost cried with the whole goodbye, good luck, we'll catch up thing, and being sick, my emotions are a little crazy, so i had to just breathe... i'm gonna miss the bitch. but i'll always remember drunkenly dancing to micky at the xmas party and her drunken "oh my god, this is tragic, we're the coolest people here!" i hope things go well for her.
i think i'm actually going to spend this weekend in. i refused to let the flu stop me from doing my usual thing, hoping it'd just get the message and fuck off... but it's bloody persistant. it's stalking me. |
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| brown |
[Mar. 11th, 2006|12:03 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  thankful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Auf Der Maur - 'skin receiver' | ] |
so i went out last night and spent too much money again. i'm really bad at this budget thing. it was kind of fun though, although now that i'm not blonde anymore, the boys don't seem to like me as much, but that's ok. i had today off work so i stayed out much later and left the peel when it was really, really dead. it was nice being sociable and dancing... cute new zealand boy said deckchair and made me laugh cause it sounded like dickchair... some lady said that he and i could come live with her, and then i made friends with some cute lezzies. kissed a boy i've flirted with on and off for the last year finally... but i'm not sure where i lost him... between barry and the peel, milli, tommy and i argued over how hopscotch was done and hopscotched our way to the peel... they were handing out cards telling us to be respectful of the neighbours and to not be so loud when leaving the peel... apparently tommy saw this in the morning and thought it was from his neighbours. walking along smith street on my way home, some guy pulled over and asked if i wanted a lift... drunk john, being as smart as he is, decided that yes, he would get in the strange man's car... he'd been at club 80 and i think he expected that i'd sleep with him... i passed out in his car, but woke up a street later, thank god... he dropped me at exhibition street and i made my way from there listening to pj harvey all the way home. i bumped into seb at Q+A too... he was a bit smashed and had deliberately worn thongs so he wouldn't be talked into going to the peel... he's a funny boy.
i should be a fireman. i rescued my sister's cat from the roof today cause it was too scared to come down... i have a scratch on my shoulder though. she's such a dag... too scared to climb down from high places, petrified of birds... what kind of cat is scared of birds?
i had this dream on wednesday night that fiona didn't want to come to india with me anymore because she'd be lonely... on thursday she told me she wasn't so keen on coming to india anymore because she'd heard some horror stories about how dirty it is. weird, hey?
i went shopping with miranda tonight because she has a date and needed help picking an outfit. i helped her find some nice things and i'm going to cut and colour her hair tomorrow so she looks all pretty. it was nice just talking and shopping... i bought a nice singlet top and found some really cool pants i'll be going back for on pay day. one of the shop assistants asked if i did fashion design or something cause of the make over game we were playing. it was fun though, and as silly and misguided as she can be, i think she's probably the one person who really gets me... i told her this story of how i recently added up the value of everything i had in my room that wasn't paid for and donated it to charity and she was really happy to hear that, whereas some of my other friends think it's not a smart thing to do... i'm glad she's still in my life.
i've been a little bit sad lately and i'm not sure why... just feeling somewhat numb and flat and getting watery eyes over silly things on television. i think i just want a hug from someone who wants to comfort me or something... maybe i'm a bit lonely now that i don't have people i hang out with constantly... but i need to be like this for a while, it's good for me.
in 2004 i told my mother i never wanted to see her again. we didn't speak for over a year. she eventually tried to see me and i gave in, not recognising the strange things going on inside my head and my chest when i did... then when i decided to get healthy and happy, she asked me to see her again... now we're speaking and i've let go of all my anger [i think] and i'll be going to see her in april for the first time... i'm actually looking forward to seeing her in away, but we haven't really talked things out and i kind of want to, but at the same time i really don't want to... my heart feels funny just thinking about it. i feel that making things right will help me be able to feel love someday, because i'm not sure that i ever have. i've definitely never loved a boy, and i don't think i feel love for my family, which isn't very nice. i want to. all in good time, i suppose.
as lost and empty as i sometimes feel, i'm very thankful for a lot of things today. life is full of good and bad, and i really think i've been really lucky in life, even though i've had some really shitty luck too. i have much to be happy about. |
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| stretched limbs, battling possums and hungry lizards |
[Mar. 8th, 2006|10:11 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Portishead - 'wandering star' | ] |
well, if i'd taken up yoga a year ago, i'd have claimed that it wasn't my thing and given up. luckily it's not a year ago, and although sore and frustrated that i'm so unflexible, i'm going to stick at it. a man who has articles published in the living now magazine is holding a seminar at a new age festival in april... i'm very excited, because when i've thought about giving up on what i've decided to do, i've stumbled on something he's written and it's made me realise that i'm on the right track and that i shouldn't give up.
in other news, i'm no longer blonde... i'm going out as a brunette for the first time on thursday... i bet the boys don't think i'm cute anymore. i'm actually happy with it... i'm much more difficult to find than i was before, which is nice at work.
my weekend was pretty dull. i went to the rose street artist's market on saturday and bought nothing, but had a nice long conversation about design, drugs and spirituality with one of the stall holders for a good half hour. she was impressed with the koi singlet i'd made. i didn't buy anything, there were only like fifteen stalls, so i made my way to the dangerfield outlet on brunswick street and picked up a cute jumper and a plain brown tshirt.
saturday night was a disaster... i went to andi's boyfriend's birthday, not realising that he was only turning 19, and that i'd be the oldest person there at the ripe old age of 21... milli, a friend of andi's and i all sat around being bored while these people smoked bongs and drank too much, talking at each other rather than having conversations... i felt very old and out of place, also serious and boring. we had to stay till 3am, so i went to the car to have a nap. a NAP! mind you, we were going out to the market afterwards and i'd run out of booze and was stone cold sober by this stage... i couldn't get to sleep cause the possums were fighting next to the car... oh yeah, this party... in a PARK in GLEN FUCKING WAVERLY!!! it was like a nightmare. a country nightmare.
by the time we actually got our asses to market, it was so dead, the vibe of the place was really bad, this feeling just kinda hit me and made my stomach hurt... perhaps i was hungry... anyway, the four of us [pip, andi, andi's friend dan and i] just kind of sat there... i walked around for a bit, bumped into cute boy from thursday who was shitfaced again, came back to sit down, everyone was still sitting in silence, so it was just really boring and i couldn't dance because my stomach hurt... we caught a cab home an hour later. in the cab, my stomach pain stopped and i wished i'd stayed to dance and blow off some steam... instead i hung out at pip's for a few minutes, but i got bored and went home... sunday was relaxed, i got some sun and cut my hair.
the highlight of saturday night was discussing home and away and laughing because irene says "god starve the lizards" which i'm going to put on a top with a giant photo of irene... and possibly attack it with a bedazzler if i can get my hands on one... oh the tackiness. i probably won't be doing that. what does "god starve the lizards" even mean? |
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| goats and staples |
[Mar. 3rd, 2006|10:36 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | massive attack - 'inertia creeps' | ] |
well, it's been a fun couple of days. in amongst trying to learn new things, working 9-5 and saving to go away, i've decided to try to give up drinking too... over time... unfortunately, this week's effort has been less than successful. my dad and my sister are in the kitchen arguing about cat pee, so i'm aware that it could be worse.
yoga was good on wednesday... i'm improving, i think even my instructor agrees... i really like the way he teaches, he makes it easier to understand and he just has a good vibe about him. i got home from yoga and got talking to this guy who asked me over for a couple of beers, and seeing as i was kind of bored and the man was clearly the hottest guy i've laid eyes on in quite some time, i said yes. i didn't get there till around 12ish, so i didn't really get any sleep... maybe an hour or two, but it was nice... work the next day was a little less nice. i got home and had a half hour power nap before milli came over and we went to see her friend's band play... we arrived shortly after their set was over [we were late cause i couldn't find my toothbrush and really wanted to brush my teeth before we went out.
there were a lot of people from milli's work there [which is opposite my work], one of whom was in the cab home last week, who informed me that i'd yammered on and on at her about goats and a few other things she didn't remember and passed out on her shoulder a few times... so i didn't get quite as drunk this week. we headed off to barry at around 12ish and the girl's from milli's work took a couple of straight boys with them, failing to tell them it was gay night, which amused me greatly. i think they figured it out when one guy was distressed when his foundation fell into the toilet.
caught up with people, danced, had a few drinks, managed to get stuck in a toilet stall and had to bash on the door and call out for someone to kick the door in... you'd think i'd learn to stop using that stall after the previous times that's happened... doors are tricky creatures... cute boy from new zealand i made out with got really drunk and couldn't get the door to the alley entrance open and went a little nutty, insisting he'd been locked in and that the fuckers wouldn't let him out... i then demonstrated that the door opens inwards, not outwards and we were on our way to the peel... the five minute walk took us at least half an hour, during which, he asked me to come back to his house after hiccupping in my mouth... i knew i'd fall asleep as soon as my head hit a pillow, so i said no, and that i'd rather not have drunk sex anymore, to which he replied "that's not what you said last week, when you were drunker than me." so it turns out i must've been worse than i thought last week, i thought i'd only spoken to him for a brief minute that night. ah well... i walked him to the peel and sat outside chatting to alex until it was time to go and then got a few hours sleep before working today.
work was interesting. we had to wear jeans and this hideous tshirt to promote the denim sale... the sleeves stuck out so far, i folded mine under and stapled them so that they were fitted... by around 6.30 i was getting a bit funny tired, as was another girl in my department and we just kept giving up every time we started to do any work, so we took it upon ourselves to gather some important data... it turns out that the only people who'd make out with my manager for a million dollars are myself, a straight boy a straight girl... everyone in my department would drink their own pee for a million dollars except for one girl... that really says something about my manager.
i bought a crystal on the way home... the guy in the shop wrapped it in pink paper. we were both kind of confused by a water fountain made of selenite, which is supposed to dissolve in water...
tonight i'm doing nothing... i might even get an early night. |
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skankyposer's journal