Today I went for a wind-ailed wander to Darby Street. I bought some cute postcards from Blackbird Corner (want me to send you one? :D) and some dark red henna from Natural Tucker. I wanted to buy a copy of this (relatively) new Australian magazine called Peppermint, at Blackbird Corner, but I couldn't justify the $10 purchase, when that would be useful food money for the fortnight, I'm feeling so poor. Besides feeling unnecessarily self conscious, poor and unhappy for most of it I had a nice time being out.

When I got home I very cautiously started mixing together the henna. I used beetroot juice, lemon juice, some fresh brewed black tea and boiling water and mixed it up with the henna powder, which C said smelled like spirulina. Once mixed it had the consistency and colour of thick brown mud, or chocolate cake mixture, and I got C to help me smear it all through my hair. I've had it in for about two hours, wrapped in glad wrap and a towell, but the guy at the shop said basically the longer you can last with it in your hair, the more colour will come out. I will report back on how it turns out. I managed not to stain any of the basin or myself in the process which I thought was quite an acheivement. I've dyed my hair at least once a month since I was 14, and every time my Nanna sees me she begs me to stop poisoning myself. I often wonder what it would look like without the layers of dye and what the long term effects of regularly soaking it in ammonia and peroxides and other chemicals can have on your body. Henna dye seems like a good alternative, and hopefully I won't convince myself to use the nasty stuff again.

Tonight I'm watching the last of season 4 of Scrubs (my favourite character is the janitor) and chilling out til my hair is done.
I have to get up early tomorrow and desperately try to beat hundreds of people in regestering for tutorials and studio/demos for my classes for next semester. I'm not looking forward to it one bit. I've already drafted up my 3-day timetable plan for uni, and I know that once I try to get on to register for all those things I'm going to miss out and end up with a five day week. I'm seriously considering just taking some time off, not studying and relying on Centrelink to support me while I look for some crappy work. I felt like I'd had a break between finishing the HSC and starting uni, but I was moving around and unsettled and I just want time to decide what I want. I don't want to waste money and time doing uni courses that I'm not going to get a whole lot out of, or pass, just for the sake of going to university. Raaah.

And for my regular 'If I had a lot of money...' moment:

This collar. Yes please!

Also, one of my Postcrossing postcards was received, so I can send another one :) The post in Finland must be super efficient, it got there in like, five days. Maybe it's not a public system like ours. I am obsessed with this website.

&& here are some of the postcards I got today:


PS. The henna was SO INCREDIBLY EXHAUSTING TO GET OUT OF MY HAIR, but the results are lovely. Our bath/shower's plug hole doesn't drain very well, so I was basically standing ankle deep in chocolate brown coloured water, with this gritty brown water pouring all down my face and in my eyes. It was really hard to get out, but lots of shampoo, conditioner, combing and patience and it all worked out. It is so intensely red, much redder than it's chemically alternative would have turned out. I'll take a photo tomorrow in the light and show you :P

I think I've fried my brain. I just put a heat sock in the microwave for my neck and pressed my pin number in for the minutes... ahahh... Let me tell you, the sock would have been heating up for quite some time.

Also, Obama quote of the... week?:
“Sometimes, when we’re lying together, I look at her & I feel dizzy with the realization that here is another distinct person from me, who has memories, origins, thoughts, feelings that are different from my own. That tension between familiarity & mystery meshes something strong between us. Even if one builds a life together based on trust, attentiveness & mutual support, I think that’s it’s important that a partner continues to surprise.” — Barack Obama, about wife Michelle (1996)

Why fuck with apples? Apples should taste like apples, not grapes! Grāpple?! WTF?! Apparently they're not genetically modified and simply go through a 'relaxing bathing process'. I'm grappling with the concept of Grāpples.

Some friends and I had a bit of a rant last night on Facebook about the intense gender imbalance and lack of female acts represented in the 'Hottest 100 of All Time' list. Not one solo female came up in the whole 100 list, and only six females featured, that I could find, in bands (Massive Attack, The White Stripes, Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Pulp, The Dandy Warhols), in the whole thing, amongst hundreds of males. I wasn't so much upset or annoyed, as I was puzzled as to why some of the biggest names in (alt.) music didn't show up?

No Nina Simone, no PJ Harvey, no Patti Smith, no Joni Mitchell, no Fiona Apple, no Tori Amos, no kd Lang, no Tracy Chapman, no Bjork, no Kate Bush, no Aretha Franklin, no Sinead O'Connor, no Peaches, no Annie Lennox, no Ani Difranco, no Blondie, no Divinyls, no Breeders, no Portishead, no Amy Winehouse, no Madonna, etc, etc, not even a meagre Missy Higgins in there.

Although it was disappointing, it wasn't entirely unexpected. Whose fault is it that not one of these artists came up? Do women not sing, play or write good songs? Of course they do. It's not hard to feel like the music industry is patriarchal and generally excluding of females, do we not have the encouragement or support to create music in the same way as our male counterparts? Is this our fault? The lack of women on the list is just a reflection of the people who voted in it and perhaps is just a sign of our times.

C said "I knew I was going to find the 'Hottest 100 of all time' lame and a cop out but I didn't realise I was going to be offended by it!" and my friend Chris said "Is it the list that's stupid or the people who voted?". Some forums I saw suggested that there be a women's hottest 100 of all time, but it feels like that just goes further towards highlighting and creating separation and tokenism.

I felt like the list was basically full of the highlights/worst of the 90's, one hit wonders and the 'breakthrough tracks' by artists. Although I feel a little ashamed by the list, when it comes down to it, I didn't vote, and 'THE LIST' is totally meaningless and irrelevant. The fact that we spent so long bantering backwards and forwards about it was basically the point of the list; to incite argument and discussion and general dissatisfaction (this should have been in it, this shouldn't have been in it, this should have been higher up, this should have been lower, that was a cover, too few Australians, too many Australians, lack of folk/gospel/punk/etc), get Triple J a bit of talk and attention, and none of us actually voted, which was kind of ironic. Nobody is ever happy with the outcome of those lists, Rollingstone publish them repeatedly, though theirs at least seem to be somewhat more well rounded. I'm pleased others are becoming aware of the 'cock forest' that is The Hottest 100 Of All Time, and quite a few blogs and articles have sprouted up about it.

Apparently Hack will be talking about the gender imbalance in the list today at 5.30, but I'm skeptical about it's outcome. I hate to think that there will be underpinning elements of sexism and misogyny, as I felt there were in our Facebook discussion, and I couldn't help but read into Nick's; "Generally, the people that will vote, will not vote for such alt. music, which is what these girls are known for. Also, to be honest, a lot of these people lack the continuity of celebrity, or in cases like Missy Higgins, the string of hits over a prolonged period of time. I don't want to beat around the bush here too much, some of them just don't write the kind of music that lasts through the ages".

Good to see somebody else was concerned about those excluded by the list:


Today I have to write/post some letters and postcards and maybe go to the doctor's (still veeeery sick, drowning in my own body fluids, I think I've eaten at least five bulbs of garlic since I got sick). And as it turned out, attempting to install Linux on C's computer was a very BAD idea, he's having a friend come around and try to fix the whole mess this afternoon.

Unrelated to anything, here are some pretty pictures of my lounge room/desk:










Also, here are some old pictures I turned into polaroids via Poladroid: