dead brides, black cats and vampires

went to a halloween party last week. knowing the host (and the hostess) i was pretty sure it would not be one of those beer-on-floor, vomit-in-livingroom, heavy metal music, ass grinding-from-strangers kind of party. i was not really keen on going coz i wouldnt know most of the people there but i thought what the heck. so tina and i gave our 'oks' to our hostess.

tricky part to it, i had to dress up. ooo boy. i am not creative, period. i dont have the brain capacity to make my own stuff so i decied to go the lazy-man's way, just buy the damn costume. i refused to be anything cute (yucky-doo) so i decided to go as a vampire. (dracula is so sexy *dreamy look*). tina decided a long time ago to dressup as corpse bride. talk about dedication. she actually studied the picture of the corpse bride (from the movie) and went looking for the specific stuff needed.

i just got a cape. a plastic one at that..

so we got dressed up. had to borrow jo's scarf and had to ask her to bring it to me coz i wasnt going to walk to her flat looking like a vampire. i had makeup on for goodness's sake!!..ive asked her before to come along but she had a prac exam the following monday. i asked her again before leaving my flat and once more i was refused. it was a pity though..jo LOVES dress up parties and she is as dedicated as tina.

so tina and i drove there but it was pretty loud and looked crowded so tina suggested we go for a drive first. that girl..she actually wanted to get something to eat!!. so we went to a drive-thru and i tried to pretend that vampires buy KFC all the time.. on top of that, sitting next to a dead bride complete with dirt stains and plastic flowers stapled to her veil was a common, everyday sight. i could tell that the girl in the window tried really hard not to stare.

so we finally get to the party, and like 10 people were there. where was all the noise coming from?.. the neighbour was also having a party. ahhhh...it was kinda dull but i did meet some new people and i tried to be friendly but some of them just turned their backs to tina and me. so it was just up to us to entertain ourselves. i was chatting with this old school mate of mine and tina disappears on me. i go looking for her and she is outside sitting on a wall in front of the house.why you ask me??... coz the dogs were loose and and walking around(rolling eyes). they werent anywhere near her. after trying to get her in several times, i gave up and i ended up being by myself in the house.

i hear the front door opening and i see jo walk in with her housemate shin min. i turn away after smiling at the familiar face. it took me some time to realise that jo was not suppose to be here. but it WAS her walking through that door. it was the best kind of suprises; to see your friend you wished was there with you actually showing up. weeeeee!!!

the party just got uphill from there. the earlier bunch started dancing in the living room but jo, shim min and i were dancing silly in the kitchen. and i mean real silly. jo came as a cat and shin min..eerr..a showgirl/Willy Wonka i guess. then the music changed...and we conquered the living room. of all nights that i have gone out with my friends this was the only time i brought my camera along.

so i got a lot of random pictures..jo trying to show off her tail, shin min blocking my view with her big hat (unintentionally of course), and me molesting a skeleton, all of us dancing, posing with a rubber snake, jo torturing our friend anthony just by repeatedly shouting out his name...the list goes on.

what a night that was. it s was the first party i have been to with jo and i can tell you, both of us and im sure most of us there had a blast. we definately will try to come up with excuses to throw parties in the future.

[ill try to load the pictures up as soon as i figure out how to]

trick or treat everybody!!

party pooper

i ruined what could have been one of the best nights i have had these past few weeks. i almost got into an accident, though nothing happened im feeling the after-effects now.my hands are shaking and my ears have are hot and is the colour of red cherries at the moment.

FYI: my ears turned red when im having a "FUCK! what have i done??!!" attack..

i have always prided myself in being a good driver. not becausei drive well, its because i drive safe. i guess my confidence turned into cocky-ness and what do i get? curses and the middle finger which i completely deserved for putting two lives at risk with my stupidity. i gladly welcome it as it better than getting a friend to get hurt...or worse

so jo, if you are reading this, im sorry for scaring you tonight. we were having such a good time and i spoiled it for both of us. i hope you dont feel unsafe in my car after this and lose faith in me.

drive safe everyone

time and timing

it has been an interesting fortnight. all though i have been itching to log on and write something in i just didnt have the time. my brother came to visit for a week and we were only home to have the occasional dinner and sleep. the moment we got out of bed, we were out of the flat.

my brother being here was a good and a bad thing. good thing, i got to eat (ALOT). good thing, got to take drives and learn new routes and roads in this 'third world country' state im living in. good thing, i got to know my brother whom i wasnt terribly close to a little better.

the bad stuff...i realised how much i wanted to leave this shithole. i was literally jumping everytime he mentioned moving to perth. this would mean i get to go live with him. after i dropped him off at the airport and i got back to my flat i just didnt feel like going in. bad thing..the possibility of living with my brother when he gets here. my brother is a typical male and had this mentality of "my house, my rule" kinda crap. whatever....bad thing, he has already made it clear that we would have to "share the housework". sharing housework with my brother means it me that will have to do all the housework ( and my sister can affirm this )..bad thing, he smokes. and he plans to do it in the house. this i cannot tolerate. ill kick him out with a saucepan if i have to.

in the end..i still want to move out and go live with my brother.i think we can be pretty good housemates. im really really dying to get out before i lose my mind in this place. i gave up my chance of moving out with jo because of him. we'll see how it goes.

since he was here during my break i spent the last week catching up with all my assignments. seems like it never ending. i have this law critique due this friday and all i have done so far is to stare at it. i dont even know what the assignments wants me to do. thats why i am typing this and not reseaching for information at the moment.

procrastination is my middle name..did i tell you that??

on the topic of time.. 22 years of my life has just passed me by. i spent the last 17 years in classrooms. a friend asked my once what is your earliest memory of yourself and the only images flooding in were pictures of me in my blue uniform. i dont remember our first family dog...the house i was born in..nothing.

what a life i have led. it has been a life of textbooks and competitions to be the best brains. what a lousy and unfulfilling way to spend your life. yes i want to be educated and yes im lucky to have the opportunities to receive it. but as soon as i get out of uni i have to start earning my living.. i dont want to be one of those middle aged women standing at their kitchen sink realising that their lives has just flown passed and there was no way to rewind it. i dont want to miss out.

anyhooo..i really dislike my birthday. i never had my family with me for any of my birthday and seems like it will always be that way. even on the day i was born my father was somewhere across the ocean. he saw me for the first time 2 weeks later. i hope i burfed on him for missing my birth ( not that my mother ever mentioned that i did ).

also something shitty always happens to make me dislike it even more...its a bloody curse. my mother had this huge fight with my dad once and almost left my family..my grandfather and my parents fought like 2 days before and they didnt speak for nearly 4 ( or was it 5?? ) years. it was a regular day this year..i attended my lectures and followed jo to 'multicultural night' held in the student village. my day didnt end as nicely as i would have liked it to but hey...curses never really leave you.

the art of being together

found an interesting article the other day. thought you might like it ..the wedding bit at the end is so cool!!!!

Don’t Worry, Be Sappy

All that coupley romantic stuff left Audrey Ference cold. And then, one Valentine’s Day …

Some people are built to be sappy. My sister, for instance -- her turn-ons include romantic comedies, diamonds, flowers, snuggling, and babies. An elaborate wedding proposal involving a Jumbotron, an adorable monkey in a tuxedo, and enough carats to restrict normal finger mobility would completely kill with her. If you are one of those people, then this article is not for you.

Everyone else, listen up: When it comes to the lovey-dovey stuff, you are not nearly as punk rock as you pretend to be. Yeah, I know, nobody wants to be in one of those gross couples that makes single people gag, but deep down inside, I bet you like doing some of that touchy-feely junk. Snuggling. Giggling. The occasional sweet nothing. Well, it’s time to own up to it. Stop living a lie. By continuing to deny your mushy side, you’re only hurting yourself. It’s not easy, I know. But I can help, because I did it.

Let me share my coming-out story with you. My personal distaste for the tradition-ally romantic has mostly centered on gifts. There’s something crass about popular images of couples-type giving, a kind of money-equals-love formula that I find icky. Like in those diamond ads where the message is always something along the lines of “Don’t be fooled, at heart all women are grasping, materialistic harpies.” Plus they always feature dudes buying stuff for their ladies, and never the reverse, so there’s an air of anti-feminism about the whole thing.

Anyway, for the longest time I was way too sophisticated for all that crap. Every time an anniversary or Valentine’s Day rolled around, I was quick to tell whomever I was dating that he was not to worry about such lame, Hallmark-generated hoopla. I would then proceed to look down my nose at the candy-concealing bears and heart-encrusted lingerie, happy in my intellectual superiority. I was, I imagine, a real treat to have around.

Then, one February, everything changed. It was like this: I was sitting around with my boyfriend, Frank, drinking a beer, when he asked what I wanted to do for Valentine’s Day. I suggested the usual nothing, wondering if he had forgotten what a lovely time we had had the previous year doing nothing. Frank nodded. Then he mentioned that he was thinking of buying me a gift -- if not for Valentine’s Day, exactly, then just because -- and suggested that maybe I consider doing the same. I sneered. This was the moment I looked forward to every time I sat through a De Beers ad, the moment for self-righteous speechifying. “Why would we want to do that?” I asked, gearing up to lower the boom. His answer totally flicked on the cartoon lightbulb over my head: “Well, because I thought it would be a nice thing to do.”

A nice thing to do.” How can you argue against doing nice things for a person you like? You really can’t. Feeling like the Grinch during the heart-grows-three-sizes scene, I realized that perhaps it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that couples might give each other presents not because of capitalist brainwashing, but because they like to be generous with their partners. That, just maybe, what you do for each other isn’t as important as why and how you do it.

Frank and I agreed then to buy each other something special and, you know, meaningful. A thing that the other person would really want to have. Which, it turns out, is an odd combination of more and less sappy than just grabbing an off-the-shelf plush from Snuggles Unlimited. More sappy because you have to put a lot of thought into delighting someone you love, and less sappy because you’re not doing anything that would make my sister say “Awww.” So when Frank gave me the nose ring he had picked out, and I gave him a signed comic book, it did feel like we were doing something nice for each other, and with very little associated saccharin.

It’s possible to find a happy medium between sticky sweet and bitterly repressed. Here’s an example involving people other than me: A few years back, my friends Josh and Karen announced that they had decided to get married. My initial reaction was to be highly skeptical about the whole thing. Not because of the commitment -- they’d been living together for years and were really good for each other. No, I was bothered by the inherent lameness of having a wedding.

I had only ever been to big, puffy, expensive bridezilla-type ceremonies, with the lurid bridesmaids’ dresses and the crazy parents-in-law and the single women brawling over the bouquet. Why, I wondered, would people I respected want to put themselves through that kind of misery? It had never occurred to me that at your wedding you can do whatever the hell you want.

Rather than a church and a minister, Josh and Karen had a kick-ass outdoor spot and an old friend officiating. In lieu of “Wedding March,” Karen walked down the “aisle” to “Green Onions” by Booker T. and the MG’s. Instead of the uptight, buttoned-up ceremony I had been expecting, they had thrown themselves a weekend-long party with all of their best friends and family, and it was wicked fun. Everyone seemed genuinely happy for them and happy to be there.

If weddings can be cool, anything can. It shouldn’t be embarrassing to admit that you love somebody -- fifth grade was a long time ago. Not even the grumpiest anti-romantic wants to go through life alone and miserable, a stinky, senile cat her only companion. At the same time, it takes a while to get comfortable with your smooshy side. You kind of have to grow into it -- learn to love the love.

In that spirit, when I recently told my roommates and best friends that Frank and I had decided to move in together, I choked back all of the practical justifications for the move (saving money on rent, getting more living space, simplifying our scheduling, blah blah blah) and told them the painfully earnest truth: that we liked each other enough to want to share a house.

Naturally, I got ribbed for it, but good. I guess I deserved it after all the grief I’d given friends like Josh and Karen when they made moves to pair off. I stood by my moment of sappiness, though. And as I sit here in my shared apartment, with my shared cat and my sentimental nose jewelry and my decidedly un-rock‘n’ roll Netflix subscription, I’m struck by this thought: I may have ended up the kind of becoupled homebody I used to roll my eyes at, but unlike my ex-roommates, I am getting some on a regular basis. And what could be cooler than that?

Audrey Ference is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn with her boyfriend and a senile cat. She still can’t bring herself to call anyone “Schmoopy.”