Thievin'

I'm actually a little mad that Zooey Deschanel can sing and write. I mean, didn't she use up all her coupons when she was blessed with a petite figure, big blue eyes and a perfectly straight, blunt fringe? Surely she's thieved something that wasn't meant for her...

Sporting outfits that would make anyone else look frumpy and dated, even her voice is old-worldly with a Grammaphone edge.
But please say you agree with me when I say the hula hoop is overkill. What? Me? Jealous? You tell me someone stunning can sing, song-write and now she can hula hoop too? How do girls like me even stand a chance out there?



I surrender,
love
cactus
x

Wha choo tryin' to say?

It's times like these...







I wish I knew sign language.

love,
cactus
x

What's the object of your affection?

When I was young, the object of my affection was stickers. I was sticker mad. I had a sticker collection which mainly came from bookclub purchases my mother reluctantly paid for. What on earth do you want more for? You don't do anything with them. And I didn't either. I just used to stick them in my album and look at them. Arrange them in different configurations and sometimes, if they were lucky, give out the ones I didn't like to my brother and sister. The really crappy ones that said 'cool' in icicle-style font. I collected stamps and ink pads and embossing powder too.

But for all the stickers I had, all I ever wanted was those ones that the teachers gave out. Those wonderfully round stickers with praise like 'Good Work' and 'Tops!' written on them with some scholarly picture accompanying it like an apple or a smiling pencil man. Once, I opened up the back of my book and I saw the biggest, shiniest sticker I had ever seen. I'd written out all the lyrics to Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer when our teacher had simply asked us to write down our favourite christmas carol - a literal child.

Anyway, the point is when I was about eleven I had a friend whose mum knew the librarian and had access to the teacher's stationary order forms. Low and behold - sticker access. Actual real, genuine teacher stickers - and I could order as many as I want. And I did. The funny thing is though, when I got them and had them all there on a sheet, all for my very self, something changed. They lost all their specialness and it was like I had to grow up on the spot, in that moment.

I don't know about you, but I think life would be a lot easier if teacher stickers were still the object of my affection.

love,
cactus
xx

Oh Bobby.

I should have gone with my instincts. Just stuck to something I know could have worked. A cute, frilled bobby sock with some patent leather mary-janes. Instead I attempted a hipster look: knee-highs with some flat lace ups. I should have known that this was never going to work because I don't look like this:



or this ...



and I especially don't look like this:



Perhaps I would have been able to wear this look in my teens, well before I hit puberty that is. I thought I was destined to be a waif but boy did the summer of my seventeenth year really stuff that plan up. I went away stickly and flat chested, only to arrive back ready for the H.S.C with wide-load style hips and c-cups.

I have to remind myself that just because I like the way something looks, i.e. knee-highs with flat shoes and baggy shirts with mini-skirts, it does not mean that I can wear this look and do it justice. Usually I'm good with dressing for my body-type, but every now and then a whimsical style comes my way and I fold, and fail and spend the day catching glimpses of myself in full length windows and jumping with fright at the woman-child who walks past desperately wanting to look effortlessly chic, but is instead pulling her socks up only to have them roll down her calves seconds later.

Rookie mistake, I know.

love,
curvy-cactus
x

Kids who can wear knee-highs live here.

Dreamy Melbourne.

So as I sit here waiting for my pudding to bake, and after washing up my plates stained with beetroot and fetta salad I wonder if I'm eating these foods because I like them or because I'm trying to recreate a meal that was made for me when I was in Melbourne over the weekend.

I always forget how different Melbourne is to Sydney and when I'm there it always baffles me and I wonder how our two cities became everything the other is not.

A couple of chilly days in St Kilda was just what I needed for inspiration. Walks down Brunswick street, late night curries and drinks at The Black Cat made for eventful evenings while the Tim Burton exhibition, brunches with lovely friends and a visit to Sticky* filled my days.

I'm also very proud of myself for only purchasing ONE item! A stunning little hat from St Kilda markets** from a lady who comes from a family of milliners - a family trade. It was the hat-pin that really sold me though. When I put it on I felt like I'd stepped out from another time and after a very small thinking walk, I had to run back and wear it right there and then.

I stayed with an old friend is his gorgeously kitch St Kilda apartment, and while I teased how cool, and underground slash organic vegan he'd become, I couldn't help feel a little a little pang of envy and how, in a different lifetime, it'd be me he was sharing a flat with. We were obsessed with The Secret Life of us in our teens and he's down there doing what we said we'd always do: strolling along St Kilda beach, living with an alternative crew who have midnight chats and drink red wine out of teacups...but as I learned recently - that old phrase the grass is always greener is horribly true. So maybe I'll live in Melbourne one day, but I think I need to be in Sydney for now.

love,
cactus

*I was able to stock my zine in Sticky! So if you're ever there look out for Love/Hate Food. Alternatively I'd love to send you one. Let me know and I'll pop it in the post :)

**I was very naughty with the camera - minimal photos taken. Was using my eyes without the lens and just couldn't bare to chop it all up in pixels. Selfish, I know. I guess I'll just have to go back to take some piccys for ya'll

xx

What does one say to Bret Easton Ellis?

This is the question I've been wrestling with lately. I've been losing sleep over it - literally, playing out scenarios in my head about my 30 seconds - 1 minute of interaction we'll be having when he signs my book when I attend his book launch in august. I first fell in love with this man's writing during uni and came across The Rules of Attraction; a horribly bleak, depressing read about hollow college students. I then moved onto the cult hit American Psycho, followed by The Informers and then an attempt at Less Than Zero. Needless to say I was a bit Ellis'd out by the time I got to Zero and never got around to finishing it.

To say I felt surprised when I heard he was launching his latest book Imperial Bedrooms at the Oxford Arts Factory in August is an understatement. I was downright shocked and had never felt luckier. Here was (I'm gonna put it out there) one of my favourite authors releasing a new book at my favourite watering hole. Is this some kind of hoax? Apparently not.

I immediately set to reading his debut work, the book I'd put down after an Ellis overload some six years ago now and as soon as I read the first page I remembered how I felt when I first discovered him. I love his darkness, his characters' nonchalance for their actions, hatred and disregard for humanity in general. It's utterly gutteral; they've got nothing to lose. This all sounds very nihilistic I know, and trust me usually I'm quite a gentle soul, but something in this snapshot of pop-culture that is oh-so-relevant still today speaks to me. I've just started reading Imperial Bedrooms and am gobbling it down by the page.

Anyway, this brings me back to my original dilemma - what does one say to Bret Easton Ellis? Should I make him a zine? What do I wear? What do I drink? If I'm this nervous in July, god help me when August hits.

Suggestions other than 'love your work' welcomed.

nail-biting times.
cactus
x

A Coffee and a Yarn

On the weekend I went out for a yarn and a coffee at, funnily enough, A Coffee and a Yarn; a new concept cafe in Newtown. The concept being add some coffee and public space to your crafternoon and get those knitting needles on show. The cafe is open and spacey with little hubs of working bee kids and ladies. Unfortunately I don't knit, but that didn't mean the novelty mushroom needles, walls of wool and patterns went to waste on me.

If there's more than two of you, you may need to swoops for a table, as once people start knitting, they tend to get stuck into it for quite a while and tables are limited. Or you can do as I did and invade a couples personal space by joining their little love nest. (What? They weren't even knitting.)

My crafty kittens made me feel inadequate as they chatted, ate, sipped tea and knitted all at once. Meanwhile I looked around and gulped coffee and marveled at knitted squares and the beginnings of lace-wool scarves.

A lovely, wholesome way to spend an afternoon, and you're also pretty much guaranteed an afternoon with just the girls.

Head to 413 King street Newtown and find out if you're a crafty little minx.

cactus
x

You don't ask why, you ask what for.

This was advice a friend recently gave me, to which I barked back 'Aren't they the same thing?!'

Apparently not. And I kind of get it. Like when I think about my very first job out of uni. It was this awful place that did tax for smelly backpackers. A place that made me tense up in dread every morning when my alarm went off. On my very first day, my boss threw a bottle of water at my head and snarled 'Wake up.' I must have been dozing off when being taught utterly boring tasks that have never served me in my life since. It wasn't a good first day, and it didn't improve much for the whole three months I was there. From getting in trouble for the clothes I wore (too much colour - who would've thought backpackers had an aversion to bright, shiny things?) to being watched like a hawk and dealing with some of the most ridiculous people I'd ever met (this one guy put down his occupation as broccoli - I just thought he was making his shopping list when he asked me how to spell it) I asked, pretty much every day, why? And I could never think of a good answer.

So, change it slightly to what for? And I think of the small amount of time I got to work at our Bondi office with Rick, listen to triple j, help pack magazines, talk about magazines, what bands he'd interviewed and how much 'love my way' rocked our worlds I guess I have my answer.

Recently Rick was down old Sydney town way and put on an exhibition called The Keg Show at amBush gallery. Local artists were given beer kegs and got to work on painting, felting, wall-papering them. I walked through the hanging kegs while some heavy metal blared in the background and felt a new appreciation for all things blokey and Australian. There was a fair share of oestrogen at the show though, like this really cute Cathering Campbell keg with bunny rabbits completely covering it.



This one was so special my friend Katy needed to take it home! (Needless to say, her husband was impressed that the keg not only serves as a lovely sculpture, but is also fully functional in the way a keg should be). And the cash went straight to unicef - how could she resist?

Beer and art; who woulda thought? Nice one Rick.

cactus
x