Girl Anachronism

I had this link sent to me today which amused to me to no end - one, because I agree wholeheartedly with everything the writer has written, and two, because it was passed onto me because it made the sender “think of me” - heh!

I accept or deny nothing!

Onto the article (warning, extremely adult content, read at your own peril!)

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I have a deep, deep love for Hunter S. Thompson.

Wordsmith doesn’t even cover it. A ball of introspective humour mixed with a more than healthy dash of paranioa, obsession, fatalistic depression and a burning anger regarding the state of the human race - nobody else wrote like this. Nobody else could write like this.

Whenever I read his work, it’s always with a mix of awe, amusement and slight terror, my eyes tripping over each other as they race forward - down sentences and across pages. The final sentences of any article or book are always met with the same response, my breath almost catching as I feel the need to pant from the mental exertion required to process the thoughts presented, my eyeballs feeling as though they were dripping tiny drops of sweat, euphoria and a miserable low on recognition that I’ve finished another of his writings, indulged in another lot of his thoughts, and that I have one less to enjoy in the future.

It’s almost enough to make me wish I’d retained the various rants and letters I’d written in the midst of my green-laced binges, but after having gone almost two years without a taste, I’m afraid that a sampling of the thick smoke now would just render me comatose, my tolerance levels back to below zero.

“Buy the ticket, take the ride”

I would, but I’m a chickenshit at heart who just doesn’t have the committment to throw myself into the path of the terrifying unknown, and having to deal with the ramifications that followed.

So, puff puff pass - but pass it straight over my head, I’ll just suck on my cancer stick and look for inspiration in the madness of my fellow (wo)men.

Meanwhile, perhaps this explains some of my continuing attraction to members of the opposite sex who display a similar sort of introspective, thoughtful paranoia?

Sunglasses, to me, serve more than just the practical purpose of preventing me from being blinded by sunlight (especially whilst driving, hence the tinted yellow as opposed to black). They also act as a defence mechanism, providing me with a barrier between me and the world, the physical helps me step outside the throng and takes me from being in the midst of the madness to cool observer of the human condition.

Similar to looking at the world through a camera lens, reality becomes a sequence of moving pictures, and it is from this standpoint that I feel most at ease - removed of passion, the analytical side of my mind is free to roam as it chooses.

Then the glasses come down, the camera is turned off, and I’m in amongst the madness again.

Photography lessons learnt today:

1. Always shoot in colour - that way you can have the photo in both colour and black and qhite if you want

2. Make sure all camera settings are correct - don’t be an idiot like me and forget that you had the camera on iso 800 from a night shoot the previous evening, which will consequently make your images ridiculously noisy. Grr.

Not feeling particularly eloquent today so shall keep it short - here’s a list of movies that I can’t recommend highly enough:

• The Darjeerling Limited (Wes Anderson, creator of The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic) - excellent and very Wes Anderson, less quirky than other films and felt like a more mainstream effort though still very enjoyable. Casting of Adrian Brody was a surprise but he fulfilled his role unexpected and extremely well.
• Enchanted - old school Disney mixed with humour, light sarcasm and a cute storyline surrounded by lots of Disney taking the piss out of themselves, some stellar (over)acting.
• The Bee Movie - Not a Jerry Seinfeld fan and I found his voice really grating, but a cute movie despite this.
• Run, Fat Boy, Run (Dylan Moran and Simon Pegg, is this any surprise?) - Not as good as Pegg’s previous two movies but not bad, and Dylan Moran plays a bigger role which pleased me to no end!
• Juno - No surprise here either, cute indie pop/rock soundtrack, fast-paced enjoyable banter, well-written, flawed and lovable characters, lovey without being over-sentimentalized.
• Across the Universe - not quite a movie, not quite a musical, built around the Beatles anthology, there is some absolutely AMAZING cinematography and decent acting, and with all songs sung by the main cast (all unknowns to me other than Evan Rachel Wood who I found to be an alright, if not entirely believable actress and extremely mediocre singer, easily the weakest performer of the lot), there are some breath-taking songs performed that sound nothing like the originals - notably:
  • “I wanna hold your hand” by T.V. Carpio
  • “Come together” by Joe Cocker (in a gorgeous cameo during this musical number)
  • “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” by Dana Fuchs (who played Janis Joplin in a tribute musical)
  • “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” by Joe Anderson (this is my second favourite performance in the whole movie in terms of stunning musical arrangement and beautifully graceful yet powerful and aggressive choreography, the first time I saw it my entire body was covered in goosebumps!)
  • “Strawberry Fields Forever” by Jim Sturgess and Joe Anderson (heart-wrenchingly beautiful vocals and visuals, though the last few seconds of visuals during this sequence failed to grab me)
  • “Revolution” by Jim Sturgess (Jim is the standout performer of this film, casting did well by putting him in this role, he sings this song with a very palpable and believable anger and passion)
  • “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by Martin Luther McCoy and joined by Jim Sturgess for one verse and coda. This song made me break down into tears the first time I heard it, McCoy’s rendition cracks and whispers with real emotion, and is musically one of the most heartbreaking, beautiful performances I’ve ever heard. Pure heart and soul. Without a doubt, my favourite performance of the film.
  • “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” - Joe Anderson, patients, and Salma Hayek (in a brief cameo as a sexy singing/dancing nurse). Absolutely fuckin’ amazing. Dark, menacing, sad and desperate, this song cuts to the core. Anderson’s voice is beautifully expressive and the musical arrangement of this song could not (IMO) have been done any better!

  Looks like a lot of songs, doesn’t it? When you consider that there are actually 37 separate Beatles songs performed in this movie, it’s actually not that much at all! The ones not on this list aren’t bad per se, just that the ones on the list are in a league far above the rest in terms of performance strength (acting and musical ability) and musical arrangement as well as appropriate visuals/cinematography/choreography.

What movies from the past few months would you recommend? Other than ‘There will be blood’ and ‘No country for old men’, both of which put me to sleep.

It was a bit of a lost day, really. The odd weather and tiredness (remnants of a hangover from Saturday night) had me in a funny mood, a bit short and snippy with the rest of the world. Cleaning the house and helping with dinner preparations had resulted in overexertion of my sore shoulder, and as a result, my right arm hung like a dead weight for the latter half of the day.

The forecasts had spoken of a thunderstorm, and I spent the day anxiously waiting its arrival, watching the skies, smelling the storm in the air - my senses have always been hypersensitive (I am ridiculously ticklish and a slight touch has the ability to send me reeling, I am the only member of my family to have perfect vision, my family uses me as a ’sniffer dog’ to check food which might be a bit squiffy, I am my mother’s taste-tester…my ears however have suffered, after years of going to clubs and gigs and standing/dancing next to the speakers/amps) and my mother has always joked that it’s due to my being born in the year of the dog, which may also explain the penchant that I had as a teen for biting people on the ankle when terribly drunk.

Sitting at my desk, restless and tetchy, surrounded by the thick air that felt and smelt of impending rain, I set myself a few menial tasks to try and distract myself from the wait…and then, suddenly, there it was. I listened to the first few hesitant raindrops landing on the awning outside my window, then felt my heart leap with joy as the slight pitter-patter turned into a magnificent downpour, drenching the ground, washing away the oppressive humidity and leaving a fresh, cool breeze in its stead.

As I sat and listened to the rain falling down, I felt the cloud that had had been resting on my forehead dissolve, melting and trickling down my face, and whilst the sensation lifted my spirits, I also felt the need to feel the rain fall against my skin growing stronger, with every second that passed the sensation grew stronger till I could resist no longer and found myself bolting into the backyard, lying down on the sodden wooden slats of the patio and closing my eyes as I felt the rain cascade over me, each drop a little drumbeat that, combined, created a symphony over my body.

Lying there, feeling every raindrop that landed on me as my body interrupted their journey toward the ground, I felt so alive and at peace that I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing out loud with sheer joy. I felt the raindrops pooling around my eyelids, trickling down my cheeks, soaking my shirt and dripping down my sides to slowly fall off my arched back. The roll of distant thunder reverberated through my bones and each lightning strike illuminated my vision through my closed eyelids, the wind blew through my soaked clothes and raised goosebumps on my skin, and I silently rejoiced at this subtle sensory overload. I lay lost in the pure physical experience that cleared my head and heart till I felt cleansed and pure, having lost all sense of space and time and conscious only of the elements surrounding me.

At last, an involuntary shiver brought me back to earth, and I opened my eyes as I felt the cold chill that had begun to creep into my bones. The world appeared alien, almost immaterial through the raindrops coating my eyelashes and blurring my vision, and I had to wipe them away with the back of my hand in order to be able to see and make my way back into the house. I made my way to the bathroom where I discarded my soaked garments and stepped into the shower, turning on a jet of water so hot that it verged on being painful and under this forceful stream I felt the cold quickly replaced by a warmth that felt almost as though it were radiating from my very being.

I made my way back to my room and lay on the bed with my eyes closed, recalling the comforting, powerful and almost sensual touch of nature as it stripped me of all my worries and cares - each raindrop that had landed on my skin seemed to have absorbed a thought, removing it from my being as gravity conducted its tireless work and pulled each of them to the ground.

I am as far from a hippie, tree-hugging earth child as you could probably get, but for me, lying there in the rain, I felt as though I’d communed with nature itself, and the experience was amazing - I am insignificant in the grand scheme of things, a minute detail on the face of the earth, irrelevant and of no consequence…yet, I am special in that I am unique, nobody else will live my life, have my experiences, sensations, thoughts and feelings as they are to me.

How humbling yet empowering, I still can’t sleep because of the high!

So, bring on the rain, I say. Bring it on.

I bought this red lip gloss a few years back, but I’m STILL not sure whether it suits me…oh well.

Went out for a night on the town with the lasses last night - hurrah! I’m far, FAR too hungover to type much, but thought I’d share the three memorable photos from the evening (excuse the craptastic quality but they were taken with my phone)

I love the Kitten Club so much it’s not funny, even if the band last night was crap (and trying to impersonate the craptastic Michael Buble waaaay too much - urgh! Get some musicianship, damnit!)

Katy shows off her ‘WTF’ look

Estelle shows off her disbelieving look

I show off the most amazing party trick of being able to hold my drink between my tits - “Look ma! No hands!”

I have done so much cooking and cleaning of the house over the past three weeks that my right shoulder has become ridiculously stiff and heavy and doing as little as holding a glass of water now causes immense pain.

Overkill? Perhaps, but the fact is that my family have come to rely on me so much to keep things running that they now do nothing around the house to help. And whilst I’m not a neat freak, I just can’t relax in messy surrounds, so keeping things clean and tidy is as much for my sanity as it is for the household. I just wish the rest of them would help out more.

I need a holiday, somewhere isolated with no computer, tv, people - just me and a big expanse of relaxing peacefulness and quiet.

However, in lieu of that, I’ve organized to have a disgustingly big night with the girls on Saturday as a means of getting rid of some of the stress. Perhaps if I kill off a few brain cells, I’ll be able to relax more.

I am *THIS* close to throwing my camera into the pool and giving up taking photos for the rest of my life! WHY can’t I take a decent photo of these damned pumpkin scones?!

I don’t handle humidity well. Actually, scratch that - I don’t handle humidity at all. So when I’ve had a 4th night in a row of about three hours sleep and it’s almost 40 degrees C the next day, let’s just say that this little chipmunk is not a happy rodent. Since I was utterly useless (I didn’t feel like putting on the a/c since it’s so noisy), I spent most of the day laying on the floorboards with a book in hand and a bottle of water in the other, alternating between that and watching various forms of Dylan Moran (Run, fat boy, run, shaun of the dead, monster, black books).

At some stage, the heat and lack of sleep must have wiped me out as I awoke from a nightmare (something quite rare as I rarely ever remember dreams), fingers clenched, nails digging into my palms, and wanting to scrub out my brain with a scouring pad and some bleach.

Why?

Because I dreamt that I saw Dylan Moran fellating a smurf, whilst cooking him an omlette (and we know he could do this as he really is that talented).

This tells me that:

1. I need more sleep - and fast.
2. I now want to hunt down a smurf and kick it in the head
3. I need to stop inflicting such materials on my very impressionable mind - well, only when I’m that tired and my mental state that fragile.

Eurgh.