Licking the Wooden Spoon

New blog alert...MINE!!

2011-04-03T20:30:00.003+10:00

A-hoy-hoy.

So, as I alluded to in the previous post, I've created a new blog. WHEEEE!

I hereby invite you all to visit me at my new base, that of Pretzel Thief.

Unfortunately, visiting doesn't mean you get a virtually-delivered hot pretzel...or DOES IT?!

See you over at the new digs!

::crickets chirping, tumbleweeds rustling::

2011-03-17T14:19:00.005+11:00

[Started this post on the 17th but finished it today, the 30th of March.]

Man.

What does one even say, huh? Right?

I know.

Last post in late September...well, then.

I guess it's been a combination of pre-wedding madness and running around (the wedding was November 20 last year), writer's block (I know, INSERT EYEROLL HERE, what a copout) and perhaps apathy? Yeah, sounds about right. That's the combo right there.

Thing is, I kind of miss writing a blog, but maybe not THIS particular one. So should I start afresh with a new one, one with a different (cooler) name and some such? One that I would actually update fairly frequently?

I'm pondering that for the moment (and trying to think of a cooler name, heh).

For anyone who still visits (...yello?), yes, I'm alive and well (thank God)...and the wedding was amazing and beautiful and touching and...just perfect. Both my husband and I were relaxed from the start of the day, and this continued throughout. We had a blast, the ceremony was very special and wonderful and we danced the night away. Needless to say, we didn't want the day/night to end, but we'll always have the beautiful memory of our wedding day. I know, right, could I make it sound any more generic? I suppose I don't want to delve too much into detail because I like the idea of keeping it all private, you know? Keeps it more sacred, somehow. (Also, I'm lazy, in case you haven't figured it out.)

In the first few months, it felt weird saying "husband"; like anything new, this soon turned into a normal thing and I now no longer cringe every time I say it. One simply grows into it, becomes accustomed to it, then starts to LIKE saying it. DUH. In short, life is great, we're healthy and happy (husband quit his horrid job last week and is now looking elsewhere, though the talented designer he is, he'll be in a new place in no time!) and, oh yeah, "married life" is exactly the same as the life we had when we were cohabitating. Bwah!

Okay, well, that's all from me...She Who Disappeareth Into Thin Air!

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me

2010-09-21T23:15:00.003+10:00

My paternal grandma passed away Sept 1.

That's pretty much why I've been absent from this here blog (not that I update very frequently in general, I know). With grandma's death went my writing mojo. Wow, could I BE more selfish with my white girl problems about "ooh, I've got writer's block now that my grandma died!"

My grandma got a major stroke about nine months after the death of my dad (back in Nov 1993), her firstborn. She never spoke of dad; she simply couldn't.

In spite of losing both her firstborn and her husband in quick succession (under the horrid circumstances of a bloody civil war in what used to be Fmr Yugoslavia), and after 15 years of illness most recently being diagnosed with motor neuron disease, grandma was ALWAYS a fighter, always brave and always inspirational.

I am, and forever will be, so proud of her, and in awe of her strength, dignity, grace and unquenchable spirit. There is so much to say about her and yet not enough.

RIP, grandma, we love you. We'll miss you more than even we realise right now.

Seen on train home last night...

2010-08-24T21:37:00.003+10:00

A girl with long, stringy bleached-blonde "hair" (shudder), an orange tan that'd make Oompa-Loompas recoil and reach for the nearest eye gouger, and a set of the clumpiest, SCARIEST fake eyelashes EVER.

3cm long lashes, peeps, I shit you not.

I'm sure her fluttering of them caused a category 5 hurricane somewhere in the northern hemisphere.

Did I mention The Scary? (Uh, YEEEES, capitalisation is beyond required.) It's like she had been 'bazooka-ed' with the most garish makeup known to (wo)man. I mean, who wakes up one day and decides that that look constitutes prettiness? Er, Emaciated Girl with Snake Lashes and Ratty Hair Extensions, that's who.

On a completely unrelated (and normal) note, it is now less than three months until THE WEDDING (eep!), and although pretty much all the big stuff has been set in stone for a while, there are a few small(er) outstanding items...such as my veil! Or do I get a birdcage? Here are the ones I like: this and this.

What do y'all think?

Now, wait just a goddamn minute!

2010-08-07T00:14:00.006+10:00

It shouldn't be a surprise, really, that my last post was on June 27 (clap...clap). Hell, I'm surprised I stepped out of my World Cup cocoon long enough to even get THAT entry out.

Ooh, hey, what's that -- lemme distract you with this new design layout. PRETTY SHINY THINGS!!

But seriously.

The World Cup obsession continued, though sliiiiightly waned as the matches dwindled down. After that, I became too lazy to write because of -- wait for it -- my then-newfound obsession with The Office. And I mean MASSIVE.

(That's what she said!)

And whilst I do realise I'm about five years behind (pshaw), I LOVE IT. I always MEANT to watch it when it started up, but never did, and then it seemed pointless to watch an episode on TV when I didn't know the characters, all their nuances, blah blah blah.

My fiance and I are now up to season 5, about halfway through...

But that's not fascinating information, now is it?

(Though, Michael...WOW. And Dwight K. Schrute is a god. An evil, hilarious, PSYCHO god, but a god nonetheless.)

I don't know why I update my blog so infrequently. It's probably a mix of lazyness, apathy, writer's block, lazyness some more...wow, I'm really selling myself here, huh? Maybe I'm no longer interested in keeping up the blog? Maybe I'm too bogged down with work priorities and wedding planning and hanging out with my nearest and dearest.

...And/or maybe I'm just a lazy bizzotch. Quelle surprise!

World Cup(ped)

2010-06-27T16:47:00.006+10:00

Oh, I'm sorry -- have you been coming here expecting me to post something?

(...Have we met?)

Jesting aside, interwebs, I have a confession to make: I am a total and utter World Cup- and football-phile. Like, I'm on such a World Cup high that I shudder to think the withdrawal I'll suffer once it ends in two weeks (noooooooo).

Well, I'm not so much on a high NOW, or haven't been since both Australia AND Serbia crashed out of the first round early Thur morning Oz-time.

I've been in annoying funk over Serbia and/or Oz not progressing. I mean, it's just football, right? I should get a grip, snap myself out of it, 'build a bridge and get over it' and pipe the hell down already, no?

Yeah (and I will)...but this is all just too bittersweet, dammit. Sure, indulging in some innocuous schadenfreude over Italy crashing out has helped ease my somewhat verklempt state, but...waaaahhhh.

Methinks accumulated fatigue from many a sleepless World Cup night is prolonging this damn 'funkdom'. Reading about Lucas Neill's (Socceroos captain) post-match tears in The Australian probably isn't helping matters, either. (Neill, you're even hotter when you cry, if that's possible. I love a man who isn't embarrassed/scared to get emotional.)

Once again, I'm proud of both Serbia and Australia...good on you, fellas. They were both so close and yet...

And it pisses me off that Ghana got through on only TWO PENALTIES, and nothing more. It also pisses me off that Australia's coach(-no-more), Pim Verbeek, didn't make crucial changes in Oz's first match, in which they were thrashed by Germany 4-0 (a loss that isn't reflective of Australia's ability, as evidenced by their beating Serbia 2-1 in their last group match).

Finally, it soooooooooo pisses me off that referees make shitty calls which jeopardise players and/or matches (in Australia's case, Tim Cahill being red carded in the Germany match and Harry Kewell getting the same after only TWENTY-FOUR minutes of game play). For f--k's sake!

Soccer needs to come out of the dark ages and introduce video replay. It'll put a stop to histrionic theatrics and insipid diving (hello, Italy), and ensure fairness overall. The fact that FIFA are so resistant to introducing it leads me to believe there might be something shady going on behind the scenes. I mean, why the hell would they not want to introduce something that would end frustration and unfairness?

PAH!

Oh, also?

Every 4 years, the World Cup drills home the indisputable fact that footballers are a sight to behold and, quite simply, damn sexy. Hubba hubba! Thanks for the delish eye candy, FIFA.

And now, let me present the Aussie contingent of utter sexiness (might as well end this on a happy note, no?), thanks to the awesome, uber-witty blog that is Kickette:

"Thunder (In Our) Down Under: The 5 Hottest Australian World Cup Players"

Ahhhhh...Harry! Timmy! Lucas!

Loving the following text about Lucas Neill by the Kickette girls:

"...there’s just something about the hot-headed shelf-bottomed team captain that gets us going in the morning. As one helpful reader pointed out, we should base these lists on whether we would 'strip them immediately in the street or just stop for a chat.' And on that note, Lucas, please remove your pantaloons."

Bwahahahahahah.

Amen to that.

And here's another (shirtless) picture of the delectable Tim Cahill.

World Cup wounds sloooowly healing...

Too relaxed and busy lazying around to think of a title...

2010-06-12T23:10:00.005+10:00

..Duff beer for me, Duff beer for you, I'll have a Duff, you have one too.

Happy long weekend, my fellow Aussies!
God save the Queen, indeed.

(Long weekend, woo hoo!!)

P.S. The World Cup has begun and I am a happy woman. HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY! I love football (and yes, it's football, not "soccer," sheesh!) and will be supporting Australia (DUH) and Serbia (...being Serbian and all).

P.P.S. ...Mind you, in the Australia-Serbia match (what were the chances they'd be in the same group, gah!), I'll be going for the Aussies more as they're the underdog...Serbia, being a football-mad country, has always been veeeery strong (er, 'cept for 4yrs ago when they were beaten 6-0 by Argentina. Now, let us never speak of that again).

P.P.P.S. Have I mentioned the clusterf--k of awesomeness that is the long weekend? Oh, all right. (But it is...so, so awesome!)

Morsels

2010-06-07T14:17:00.004+10:00

I flip crêpes like nobody's business. And crêpes are the perfect accompaniment to cheesy 80s films like "Iron Eagle," which was on TV last night. For the uninitiated, Iron Eagle is the poor man's Top Gun, but just as testosterone-fuelled (read: eyeroll-worthy) and with equally copious amounts of 80s tunes (where the synthesiser is king). In a nutshell, it deals with a teen son going to save his fighter pilot father (as you do) who's been imprisoned in 'eeeeeeeviiiiiiiiil' Pan-Arab territory. I had a little 'squee!' moment when I flipped to the channel it was on, because my brother -- who during his teens dreamed of being a fighter pilot -- made me watch it with him oodles of times. I didn't mind 'cause Jason Gedrick was a cute "teenager" in spite of his wooden, stilted acting.

____________________

Liza Minnelli executing a hilarious, high-camp "Single Ladies" + Samantha's spazz attack in the middle of a bazaar + the gorgeous dresses/outfits that I'm (not-so-)secretly coveting (mostly Charlotte's) = an underwhelming yet pleasant, and ultimately not-too-bad effort for "Sex and the City 2." I rolled my eyes at the clanging puns and Arab stereotypes, but also laughed at...well, the funny stuff. (Also? When I grow up, I wanna be Samantha. Er, body-wise, that is. I mean, hubba hubba...the woman is dynamite!)

____________________

Dear "Every Girl in Her 20s to Whom the Following Applies": You are young, no? Young, however, doesn't also mean 'stupid', which is what I think when I see you dyeing your hair geriatric-white. I'm sorry, but WTF? Why you would want to bring hair-aging forward is beyond me. There'll be plenty time for that, y'know, LATER. Say, in 40 YEARS. Lose the Pepé Le Pew streaks, for crying out loud. Gah!

____________________

I happened upon an episode of "Entourage" a few weeks ago (first time I've ever seen the show)...

So (and forgive my flippancy) the show seems to be, in essence, about a bunch of puerile boys who are given free rein in Hollywood (thanks to their A-lister best friend, Vince), which involves a lot of obnoxious posturing, 'hugging it out', back-slapping, high-fiving, occasional brawling and saying 'bro' a lot?

(Did I mention the obnoxious part? ...Oh, FINE.)

And yet, in spite of itself, it's a strangely compelling show. Or maybe I was just particularly tired last night. Hmmm. All the same, Adrian Grenier (aka 'Vince') will to me always be that dude from that Melissa Joan Hart teen flick named after that Britney song. Melissa Joan who? Exactly. (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, anyone?)

P.S. I'm sure Adrian Grenier cringes at the realisation he was in said movie.
P.P.S. Probably doesn't cringe enough, seeing as he still has THE EXACT SAME HAIRDO(N'T). Oh wait, he recently got a haircut? Whatever, my point remains.

...Quack-quack-quack-quack, goooooooo DUCKS!

2010-05-29T17:15:00.007+10:00

So, who here loved/was obsessed with/couldn't get enough of the Mighty Ducks movies as a kid?

Because, Internet? I was obsessed, with a capital O.

I was eleven, and the movie(s) made me fall in love with ice hockey, with the Twin Cities, and, most especially, with one Charlie Conway, played by the just-gets-better-with-age Joshua Jackson who was then a veeeeery cute kid/teenager.

HOO BOY did I fall in love. Well, 'fall in love' - I was completely and ridiculously infatuated and he was my first actor crush (notice I didn't say 'celeb', seeing as barely anyone had heard of Joshua Jackson in the mid-90s, but if you mentioned "he played Charlie Conway," everyone would go "ahhhhh, I know him!").

This infatuation was so grand that I once forked out, like, 12 bucks of my pocket money (POCKET MONEY, people) on an imported US teen magazine ('twas either "16" or "Teen Beat"), simply because it had a two-page spread on him (this was pre-Dawson's Creek so finding anything Josh-related was virtually impossible). The article was about his Showtime movie "Ronnie and Julie," and when I read that he had (apparently, according to the article) started studying architecture at the University of Vancouver, I WROTE HIM A LETTER.

...True story.

I have a vague recollection of trying to sound all cool and mellow and interesting in this letter, and I may or may not have gushed about what a fantastic actor he was (heheheh) and how I also wanted to play ice hockey (oh God, I hope I didn't say I wanted to be a Duck like him). Oh, to find that letter now! I can only imagine the hilarity and how much I could snark it out.

I ended up addressing the letter to 'Student Joshua Jackson' (crikey) at the University of British Columbia, because the University of Vancouver didn't and doesn't exist (nice going, MAGAZINE). The letter came back with 'return to sender' scrawled over it, along with "No such student exists" next to Josh's name.

Needless to say, I was dismayed; in my mind, Josh would have read the letter, fallen madly in love with me, flew me over to Canada--

ANYWAY!

(Bwahahah.)

And then, circa 1998, Dawson's Creek blew up and it was like a gold mine: I could watch my crush every week and bask in his televisual glow. A few years into DC, I still 'loved' him, but the obsession of my preteen (tween?) years had long before begun to wane as I started getting unrequited crushes on, you know, REAL LIFE BOYS. (But I was always and WILL always be a Pacey and Joey 'shipper!)

What prompted this post, you ask? Lately, I've been seeing a lot of Joshua Jackson in the media with his girlfriend, the lovely Diane Kruger - they make an adorable couple and seem very down-to-earth. Plus, Josh just keeps getting more handsome and strapping as the years go by. (Ah, he'll always be my first ever movie crush!)

Yes, this DOES expand to a bigger image...go on, click on it. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.
As for getting to play ice hockey as a kid, well...never happened. I brought it up twice or thrice, but my mother would fix me with a stare so firm, and maybe she cocked an eyebrow, and MAYBE she even burst out laughing, but the crux of it all was that she said, in no uncertain terms, "No daughter of mine will be playing ice hockey...I mean, are you crazy? You're a GIRL! Ice hockey is a violent, dangerous sport." In spite my sputtering, pre-feminist protestations to the contrary ("B-b-but...the DUCKS, ma, the Ducks!"), nothing ever eventuated and I was forced to stick to rollerblading in my yard and using a makeshift hockey stick in the form of a broom, which I used to practice the triple deke (I know, I KNOW).

You can imagine how THAT looked.

(Several months ago, however, a new, state-of-the-art rink arena opened here in Melbourne -- with not one but TWO Olympic-sized rinks -- and they're offering beginner ice hockey lessons. As a way of fulfilling a childhood wish, I am TOTALLY gonna do it. All they ask is that you know how to ice skate, which I do, so...SCORE!)

Anyway, I thought it'd be a swell idea (heh, 'swell') to do, for my next post, a review of "D2: The Mighty Ducks," because, my God, imagine the snark factor. How fun would it be to review a kids flick with many an eyeroll moment?

So I will...very soon. I promise snarkiness galore and a laugh or two. What do you reckon?

Ho hum...

2010-05-26T10:55:00.004+10:00

Wednesdays are really lame, aren't they?

...Yeah.

That is all.

(WELL, I do have two fun posts in mind but I'm at work and, as such, obviously can't delve into them like I'd like to. But they are a-comin' soon!)

Prepping

2010-05-16T21:07:00.007+10:00

Booking an awesome, sophisticated wedding band full of bona fide musicians: $______ (to be confirmed).

Having to pay a second deposit on Thursday for the reception venue: $1,500.

The hysterical, therapeutic laughter when you and your fiancé realise how this wedding tends to cause sporadic 'pseudo-brokedom', and he suggests jumping ship and shouting everyone Subway instead: PRICELESS.

There are some things in life money can't buy. For everything else, there's--

Oh wait.

I don't HAVE a Mastercard. Hell, I don't even have a credit card.

(Which, I imagine, can only be a good thing. Even during times of the aforementioned pseudo-brokedom.)

'Lazy' doesn't even BEGIN to describe it...

2010-05-04T09:49:00.005+10:00

WOW...the 18th of March. That was my last post?

Huh.

...Can I get y'all to join me in a chorus of how much I sucketh? Let's take it from the top, peeps.

You know, I could use a litany of excuses: I lost track of time (I mean, MY GOD, it's May ALREADY?!), my brother moved to London indefinitely (sniff!), the new editing job, blah blah blah 'excuserrific-cakes'. And, while these reasons might all be valid to a certain extent, I cannot honestly say that I don't have 20 minutes every now and again to sit down and write something.

Because DUH.

Why don't I just come right out and say it: I'm a lazy little shit. THERE!

Hmmm...sadly, that wasn't as liberating as I would've liked. Maybe because I've been admitting it to myself for eons, or what seems like eons, anyway. Ah, sweet, discombobulating honesty!

Yes, interwebs, perhaps I do have a ~~hell of a~~ bit of a lazy streak...and for that I apologise. And yes, I do subconsciously make excuses à la "pfft, whatever, it's not like I have a (big) readership, who's gonna miss me!" and the like. 'Cause that's just shitty of me and almost 'ooh, woe is me', no? Exactly. And I don't wanna be like that; what's more, I'm NOT like that.

Here's to more frequent posts...!

(Please don't give up on me!)

(Heh heh.)

Soooooo busy...ack!

2010-03-18T13:06:00.002+11:00

Yes, that's right!

What, you don't believe me? Well, I AM!

Seriously, though, this new job has had me scrambling. I'm loving it, though, don't get me wrong; very much so! It's quite dynamic in nature, in terms of having to copy-edit copious documents on a daily basis, and there are shitloads of deadlines every day...but that's what keeps one on one's feet, no?

It's been keeping me in check, without a doubt.

Anyway, in short, I'll endeavour to be a better blogger in the coming weeks...hell, coming DAYS, even.

We-ell, isn't someone being ambitious!

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye! (Fear not, the blog ain't a-closin' down!)

2010-02-26T01:13:00.009+11:00

My last day at The Job That Shan't Be Named was on Monday.

(Blink. Blink blink.)

You know, there was a time when I honest-to-God feared I wouldn't find a new job. That's how trapped I felt. I know, I know, über-dramatic much? I thought I'd either a) be made redundant or b) languish away (further) in my cloud of gloom.

I mean, hold up--

I lasted just over 1.5 years in that job. (That's YEARS, plural.) The job of doing ADMIN ALL DAY EVERY DAY OH MY GOD. Ahem...see, I'm only a little bit insane as a result of it! Juuuust jesting. (Or AM I?! Okay, I'll stop now.) And please don't get me wrong - I'm not undermining admin work by a long shot (every job has worth), but it wasn't what I had signed up for. My role insidiously morphed into that, and I was peeved.

But that's okay. Because I'm outta there now, out-out-out! I'm rapt about my impending editing/proofreading role and, by golly, I'll make something of it!

And on that cheery note, allow me to indulge in some randomness. Mmmkay? Heh.

At some point last week, I decided - nay, realised - I'd seen virtually everything: a young, non-hobo-looking girl was CLIPPING HER TOENAILS[!] on the railway station platform, then continued the activity on the train. OMG... Oh, and that sound you just heard? That was my BRAIN EXPLODING INTO SMITHEREENS! What the Dickens is wrong with people? Ack!

Soooo...I have something of a confession to make. I sort of inexplicably like Taylor Swift's particular brand of country-twang pop, especially that oft-played You Belong With Me. AND I'M TWENTY-FIVE. Zuh?! I like it in spite of the lame-o "she wears high heels, I wear sneakers, she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers"-type lyrics (why yes, I know the lyrics; please shoot me now). My 14-year-old self would have been all over this song back in the day, and played it loud and proud. And probably would have copied Taylor's earnest bopping in the video, complete with singing-into-the-brush 'shenanigans'. My present-day equivalent, however, is slightly more reserved ('cept sooo not) and resorts to furtive, low-volume listening here and there. My fiancé is aware, though, and he still loves me. (Aren't I the luckiest woman alive? Damn straight!) The song may be mawkish but it's catchy and utterly singable! Just the same, if you don't hear from me in the next 24h, I'd put it down to a potential overdose from the saccharine schmaltz of it all.

Speaking of randomness, I can't help but wonder ('Carrie Bradshaw'-ism totally intended) whether this blog is...directionless, in a way. I mean, most blogs have some sort of a story, no? And characters within that story. If I were to ask anyone reading this blog (who are you, where are you?) to tell me something about Fiancé or my brother or mum or three best friends, I doubt they'd be able to do it. And that's my fault, because I get so caught up in not revealing too much that I end up revealing...not much of anything. Right? So, I'm going to work on changing that. (And also resurrecting the 'Awesome Photos of the ____' segment, and maybe make it a monthly thing, not weekly.) Maybe that's why I'm lacking in traffic. People have nothing to invest in, no story and 'protagonists', if you will, to invest in. So I plan on describing my lovely peeps in more detail over the next coming posts. And also writing more about my love for music. Did you know I'm a soprano-soloist in a chorale? Not many people do. I've been singing since I was four-years-old and HOO BOY do I love to sing (Fiancé can attest to that, beliiiieeeve me).

The other day, I randomly discovered that 'wooden spoon' is slang for...you know. The male appendage in its...ahem, flourishing state. ARRRGGGHHH! I feel so naive and dumb and like an unwitting harlot. (Hee!) I mean, LICKING the...the...good God. As if I would knowingly name my blog that! The reality is that it's all so innocent because I named the blog after a fave pastime of mine as a child when my bro and I would fight over the left-over cake mixture. That's it! And now, now that I know what wooden spoon stands for, my blog name is all innuendo-laden and shit. What do I do? Do I suck it up and say 'who cares!' and 'lickety-lick, suckers!' or is this grounds for changing the name? Oy vey.

Oh no, ants! Quick, panic and be completely irrational!

2010-02-16T19:08:00.005+11:00

We're having a bit of a problem, see.

Ants.

Ugh. Gah! Loathe them!
Waaaahhh!

All right, let me back up a smidge...

I don't really...hate ants. I think they're sweet and hard-working, and that's all good and well. I respect that. Diligence! And teamwork! And persistence! All very admirable, without a doubt. Look at them go! Grass, footpath...et cetera.

But ants in my house? NUH-UH, nooooo. That's the part where I turn into Crazy Evil Ant-Annihilating Bitch (with a generous dose of paranoia thrown in for good measure). Now, doesn't that sound appealing! I know that they're small and that they don't mean harm and blah blah blah; I get all that. But I still don't want them crawling across the kitchen floor or on the benchtops, or anywhere inside for that matter.

And it's not like our place is dirty with food remains on the floor (ew!) - apparently, ants like to seek refuge in people's homes during summer.

We took action and sprayed the outside area, then put some 'tablet' thingies inside the kitchen that apparently attract the ants with its poisonous food, which they then take back to the queen and...well, they all die in the end.

(Cue Dr Evil laughter.)

Hmmm, maybe if they were all adorable and chatty like the ants in that movie...y'know, ANTS. Hey, I'd hang with them. I'd let them roam the kitchen to their hearts' content.

This, however, is reality, which means I stand over the ants that come in, watch them gingerly approach the tablet(s) and say (a la Mr Burns) "Yes, ANTS...go to the tablet. The tablet is your friend, yeeees."

Because I'm all evil and shit.

P.S. ...But seriously, last night out of nowhere a GIANT ASS KILLER ANT came inside and...MY GOD. What the hell? Being my usual animated-self, I commented to my boy that this ginormous ant had come to seek revenge for all of the ants we had vacuumed up. Boy very wisely rolled his eyes and ignored me. Good move.

P.P.S. Did I really just write a whole post about ants? Huh. What do you know. Hell, at least I'm writing. Riiiiiight?

Lisa, it's your birthday, happy birthday Lisa!

2010-02-10T10:28:00.006+11:00

It's my 25th birthday today.

Hooraaah!

And last night, in anticipation of this mighty event (heh), I was maniacally singing "Lisa, it's your birthdaaaay, happy birthday Lisaaaa!" as my boy and I rode our bikes in the warm summer evening, complete with Michael Jackson-esque musical nuances at the end of each line (what are those things he did with his voice called?).

As my boy chuckled at my childlike zeal, I wondered if I might be going a little mad.

(Oh, but was it ever fun singing that and riding my bike at the same time!)

No, I decided, not mad; just cheery enough to unabashedly get in touch with the 'child within' (the child who is a 'hee-yuuuge' Simpsons fan and can quote old school episodes at the drop of a hat, and was enamoured - and perhaps a wee bit teary - the first time she heard Bart's aforementioned ode to his little sister...aw!).

But anyway!

The other thing I'd like to, ahem, announce is that...

(Drum roll please!)

...the other day, I got a new job!! YAAAAHOOOOOOOOO!

In short, it's an editing/proofreading position and I'm stoked. STOKED, I tells ya! Bwahahahah. I mean, this is perfect for me, you guys. Finally my 'English/grammar/punctuation/spelling' geekdom will be put to good use...it will flourish in all its glory! As an old mate put it, I can now 'wage that battle against bad grammar, one split infinitive at a time'!

But seriously, I was rather miserable in my current position - it was mind-numbing, rendered me robotic (well, it felt like that, ugh) and didn't challenge me in the least.

I'll be glad to haul ass out of the building on my last day, that's for damn sure!

All the same, I'll miss the lovely people with whom I work(ed), that's a given.

But AAAIIIIEEEE, so happy to be moving on...!

Yay!

Rabid frog

2010-01-28T15:12:00.021+11:00

Can the pathetic excuse for a network that is Channel Seven dump (effective immedi-- YESTERDAY) Australian Open 'commentator' Henri Leconte? I mean, MY GOD. To say his coverage of last night's Djokovic-Tsonga match was unprofessional would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. Dude wouldn't know neutral if it bit him in the ass. Beat it, Frenchy! And take your categorical favouritism with you. And the maddening, overwrought yelps as you root for compatriot Tsonga like the rabid frog that you are. AND the pompous rat-a-tat-a-tat laughter, 'à la Française'. I hope fellow- and main-commentator Jim Courier (whom I actually like) sucker-punches the bastard. Repeatedly. C'mon, Jim, do it! Better yet, I'll join ya! Now, where's my baseball bat...wait! I'll just use a stale baguette. Zing!

That Heidi Montag chick scares the living bejesus out of me. I mean, what is up with THAT?! Saw a news segment on her the other night; chick looked fine before, pretty and natural, now she just looks...bloody terrifying. Immobile. Cringeworthy. Egads! What sane 23-year-old undergoes plastic surgery? The world is going to hell in a hand-basket. So, the moron went in to make herself better (?!) and ended up an unnatural, plasticised version of her former self, one that makes people gasp in fright. That's some poetic justice right there. Chick's a walking trainwreck. I guess famewhoring will do that to ya. Yeesh.

So, apparently I've become important enough (cough) that someone has wasted time on my blog SPAMMING my previous post. Jebus, didn't know my haiku was THAT insufferable. Pipe down, Spammy McSpammerson!

The following are search terms that have brought people over to my little nook here: "Miley Cyrus licking spoon" (ew...and EW); "can you get swine flu from screwing apig" (argh, my eyes, my eyes! Sod off, weirdo!); "cartoon excited dude" (hey there...cartoony dude who's excited!); "horror movie - man licking bus window" (...riiiiight); "pig licking me" (my God, who ARE you people?!); "teenage girls wooden spoons" (for f--k's sake...freakazoids!).

In a haiku sort of mood...

2010-01-21T14:03:00.001+11:00

fluorescent lights
nameless faces pacing
a buzzing hum

salutations
the corporate circus spins
plastic smiles and stilettos

computer crash
screen flickers madly
nothingness in black

the northerlies of Melbourne
linger between tresses
limp

the wind swirls manic
strands stuck to balmed lips
mouth mute

clattering keyboards
speak in binary
intersecting cryptic messages

foot in puddle
spring forth in surprise
wet and cold

'twas the morn
incapacitating with heavy-lidded slumber
bright

I have a new layout.

2010-01-20T15:50:00.001+11:00

...That is all.

As you were!

(Shortest. Post. EVER.)

Apathy, boredom, frustration...pah!

2010-01-13T17:46:00.024+11:00

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm back at work as of today (oh, joy) and I'd...like not to be. Give me anyone who wants to return to the daily grind after three glorious weeks of doing f--k all, plus some fabbo day trips to the wonderful Great Ocean Road along Victoria's surf coast.

Exactly.

So, I've got a little Facebook qualm. In fact, it's something that pisses me off and makes me roll my eyes uber-dramatically and the like. And so I feel the need to share.

Wait, don't all run off at once!

What's my deal, you ask? Well, you know those lame-ass and pathetic "Know who's viewing your profile 24/7!" groups that we know are bogus anyway...? Why are people so bloody desperate to know, and preoccupied with, who may or may not be viewing their profile? I mean, who gives a toss? I shudder to think that people would exhibit such egotistical (or paranoid) traits and in such a public forum, at that.

It takes "me-me-me-ME!" to a whole new (obnoxious) level. What sort of validation could that possibly give the person who just MUST know who's been checking out their profile? How will it improve their quality of life? Finally, why are people so damn self-obsessed? I mean, UGH!

And am I wrong in wanting to slap any and all people who choose to join such groups?

Please tell me I'm not alone.

Auld Lang Syne

2010-01-10T19:34:00.008+11:00

Okay, so it's ten days after this song should be sung, and in my case we didn't even sing it. They only sing it in movies, right? It just seems like such a...'movieish' thing to do.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR! May you all enjoy it and I hope it's filled with oodles of health.

(I love the word 'oodles', I must confess. In fact, I try to slot it into as many contexts as humanly possible.)

So, new year...what can one say? Well, how's this: I hate the first few weeks of the new year when you start referring to something that happened, say, late 2008, and you're about to say 'last year' but then realise that NOOO, it's now THE YEAR BEFORE LAST. It irks me. (Well, it does.) And of course there's forgetting to write down 2010. Holy crap, it's 2010! Do you know next year will be TWENTY YEARS how the civil war(s) began in the Fmr Yugoslavia?

Freak-o-rama.

But that's not what this post is about, fear not.

Hmm, what is this post about?

Well, for one, tomorrow is my last day of annual leave and I plan to savour it, ohhhh yeeeees. Suffice to say, I really don't want to go back to work. DUH. The next thing to look forward to is the four-day trip to Sydney my boy and I will be going on early Feb. Wheee! The only other trips in the year will be the snow trip mid-August (precious snow!) and our honeymoon. Where, you ask, will we honeymoon? New Zealand, for the most part, and we plan to sweep either Noosa or Hayman Island on the way back.

Holiday(s)...celebrate!

In this new year, I'm also looking forward to finding a new job. Oh so much. I've been in my current position 1.5 years and I need a new challenge, BADLY. Hope to have a super-dooper-happy post soon about how I've found some fantabulous position...fingers crossed!

Toes too, please.

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Batman! I mean, LEADER! Leader! (I mean, holidaaaay!)

2009-12-23T12:49:00.035+11:00

Y'know, it's funny--

(Well, not 'funny ha ha'.)

Now that I've gotten the overseas-trip-rundown post out of the way, I don't feel as guilty about posting more often. Huh. And how stupid does THAT sound, 'feeling guilty about posting more often'; I should feel happy.

But it makes sense because before when I wanted to post some little tidbit or whatever-the-deuce, I felt as though I had to justify that, OH YES, I will be posting about overseas soon, YES I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN HOW SUCKILY I SUCK, and blah blah blah WHATEVER.

And I'm well aware of the suckiness factor, to be sure. But 'OMG!' because I'm posting something new the DAY AFTER. This is almost unheard of in my world.

Aaaaanyhoodle!

I'm going to be uber-random in this post BECAUSE I WANNA. And I can. Oh the freedom!

I look forward to the day I'll be able to mellifluously play (well, AT ALL) Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" (divine) and Tarrega's "Caprichio Arabe" on my classical guitar. I'm giving it about, oh I don't know...10 years? Yeah, that sounds about right. Oy.

I was as flabbergasted and saddened as anyone upon hearing about Brittany Murphy's shock death. 32-years-old, good God. I first saw her in 'Clueless' all the way back in 1995 (a trip to the movies as a ten-year-old was an outing to behold!), and then saw 'Just Married' more times than I care to remember (in ONE SITTING), mostly because it was one of the few semi-decent flicks on a flight to Vienna in '03, and so I watched it and watched again and had it practically memorised by the end. Meh. My fave moment remains Ashton Kutcher holding up a poker and maniacally saying "Oh, hello Peter!" Anyway: a sad and shocking passing.

Speaking of 'Clueless', MAN is that movie eminently quotable! To this day I love to watch it. Hell, why not, it's witty and fun! And after umpteen viewings over the years, I still cackle gleefully at Cher's earnest debate speech, which I've got below from IMDb.com:

"So like, right now for example? The Haitians need to come to America. But some people are all, 'What about the strain on our resources?' Well it's like when I had this garden party for my father's birthday, right? I put RSVP 'cause it was a sit-down dinner. But some people came that, like, did not RSVP. I was like totally buggin'. I had to haul ass to the kitchen, redistribute the food, and squish in extra place settings. But by the end of the day it was, like, the more the merrier! And so, if the government could just get to the kitchen, rearrange some things, we could certainly party with the Haitians! And in conclusion, may I please remind you it does NOT say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty. Thank you very much."

[and then later in the movie]

"So until mankind is peaceful enough not to have violence on the news...there's no point in taking it out of shows that need it for entertainment value."

Heh heh heh. And I love Mel, her dad. ("Anything happens to my daughter, I got a .45 and a shovel. I doubt anybody would miss you.")

Last week, I saw a little girl (circa 5-years-old) on the train to work who bore quite a resemblance to me at that age. Frrrreaky. Fiance actually remarked upon it first, and was fascinated and awed by my mini-doppelganger from that point on, periodically voicing his disbelief. Aw! His reaction was endearing and way too adorable, I must say. And if me saying that is cheesy, well...so be it!

Speaking of good ol' trains, I saw a lady on it who looked not unlike the Skipper doll I had as a kid, whose luxurious blonde mane I got bored with one day and decided to shear. I went all Edward Scissorhands on perky Skipper, wackily cropping her thick tresses, thinning them out along the length, and leaving the top her head fuller a la an 80s upper-head perm. Egads! Such was the hair-do(n't) Train Lady was sporting. Suffice to say, I was perplexed and amused.

Remember that 1999 song 'Steal my Sunshine'? I've kind of always loved the tune. I mean, it's such a summery, driving-down-the-coast-with-the-windows-down type of song, don't you think?

I deem it uber-wankerish when work jackasses type questions in an email akin to the following: "What do we know of this????" Ugh...for the love of all that is good and holy, SPARE ME the 'panicky-bullshit-multiple-question-mark' histrionics. It doesn't make me want to respond to you any quicker, BRAINIACS; frankly, all it makes me want to do is respond with a barrage of profanity...#&%^#&#&*#@!!! Ahhh, that's better!

"Aaaarrrrggghhh! It's the beating of the hideous heart!! ...I mean, I think I hear something." Yeah, I don't know. Just felt like putting up that quote, one of my all-time fave Simpsons ones. 'Tis the second one of the whole post. (Hint: my post title is a play on a Homerism. So, not an exact quote, per se.)

And finally, I'm on annual leave starting tonight and return to work January 12th. Last day at work, last day at work, last day at work, last da-- YAHOOOOOO!

Recounting the overseas trip, four months too late...ACK!

2009-12-22T13:34:00.009+11:00

On Sunday August 2, around 10:30am at the beautiful 17th century Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad, my boyfriend of 3.5 years proposed.

I don't have to tell you that THAT was the highlight of the overseas trip, I mean DUH.

I was...well, dumbstruck and euphoric and could NOT stop grinning. The song 'Walking on Sunshine' comes to mind and me bursting spontaneously into my own rendition, musical-style. Complete with spirit fingers, inspired choreography and uber-zealous facial expressions.

Ahem.

I'll keep the details of the proposal private, in terms of what was said and all that, but basically my boy - who's an avid and talented photographer, as you can see from the Awesome Photos segments - was snapping away around the fortress, and then he took a photo of me sitting on a bench (as below), and just as I was about to get up he kneeled before me and stopped me by placing his hands on my shoulders and sitting me back down.

Hey, you! Duuuuuuude, you're soooo about to get proposed to (::snicker::)... HEY! I'm talking to you!
He began saying things at this moment, wonderful things...things I've heard before, but the tone in my boy's voice and his position before me gave me the sneaking suspicion that I just MIIIIIGHT be at the receiving end of a proposal.

And then he put a ring into my palm.

And I burst into tears (as you do).

Let it be noted that I was already on the verge of tears from the heartfelt words, but the completely unexpected appearance of the ring sent my emotions into overdrive.

For the rest of the day, I was grinning like a vampiric Cheshire cat, and couldn't stop staring at and readjusting my ring. And being paranoid about my ring accidentally slipping off, OH MY GOD THE HORROR. This from the girl who hasn't worn rings for ages, nor particularly cared for them.

Well, obviously; it's my engagement ring, how could I not care about it!

I honestly hadn't expected a proposal during this trip - my boy and I both knew we wanted to and WOULD marry one another (God willing health), so it was only a matter of 'when' and thus I wasn't in any rush.

Which is why I was so darned surprised!

An hour-and-a-half later, we made our way to Belgrade and did all manner of things with my mum, her partner and my bro (during one of the biggest heatwaves, yowza!), before finishing the day with a celebratory dinner in the gorgeous 'Skadarlija' part of Belgrade.

Now, for the trip as a whole...where to begin?

I'm not quite sure how, exactly, to surmise our six-and-a-half weeks in Croatia and Serbia. It was a lot of things: uber-relaxing, uber-HECTIC, fun as all get-out, emotional, exhausting, warm, hot, humid, refreshing, calming, meditative, humorous, nostalgic, delectable, azure (the Adriatic, heh), frustrating...

If I had to single out my fave parts of the trip (the surprise proposal notwithstanding!), it would be the ten days on the Adriatic Coast (ahh!), all of our time in Licko Petrovo Selo (where my boy is originally from), Zagreb, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Lovran (we made another impromptu trip to the more northern part of the Adriatic to see my boy's first cousin and spend some time with her)...

Notice I haven't outlined my hometown of Karlovac, and there are a few reasons for this.

Oy vey.

I love Karlovac, that's a given - it's where I was born and raised, and it's a beautiful little town that I adore.

When I returned, I had a great time with my family and friends, but being back, well...I can never fully relax there anymore. It's picturesque and leafy and has four (FOUR, people!) gorgeous rivers slicing through it, and in all those respects it's a hell of a time to be there and enjoy it.

My 'problem', if we can call it that, lies in the simple fact that I can't seem to disconnect (subconsciously) from reliving the memories of war and my father's subsequent death which, as you know, happened in that very town. And while I was there four months ago, I didn't really get emotional 'cause I've learnt how to deal with all that shit, but it can't NOT be on my mind while I'm there and as such there's an underlying tension within me that I can't, rather couldn't quite shrug off while I was in Karlovac.

The only time I really cried was when my mother, my boy, my bro and I arrived in Karlovac by bus... It was the first time my brother had seen our hometown in FIFTEEN years (holy guacamole), and he was visibly shaken and unnerved. He began to cry, and looking at him battle with his inner turmoil set me off, too. It was an incredibly emotional thing to witness, especially because he is someone who keeps his emotions in check virtually all the time. He wasn't just crying for the town that had once been such a huge part of our lives, that WAS our life, but crying for the wonderful father we lost in it and who was, essentially, that whole town. Our father, our town; one and the same.

Memories of my father are there in every part of Karlovac, embedded in the sparkling rivers and the lush parks and the pockmarked facades of all-too-familiar buildings and the streets that were once unrecognisable but are now like before.

Before the war.

And there's the rub - nothing about Karlovac can ever be 'like before' for me. It's not an option. I can't be in Karlovac without the omnipresent thoughts of war, and what we went through and lost in it. It's almost like a switch.

But that's okay; 'it is what it is', as they say.

NOW, let's move on from the 'dark' stuff, shall we?

So, the Adriatic...man, that was the stuff. Ten days of doing nothing but swimming, lying around on the beach, swimming some more, eating yummy food and loads of ice-cream...I mean, heaven, right? And it was, and I got the mother of all tans, and we all loved it. The Adriatic, not my tan. Truth be told, though, that six-seven days would've been enough, too. Blasphemy! Yeah, I know, but...there it is.

And then, the second bout of Adriatic goodness ('Adriaticness') happened around late July, when we decided spur of the moment to go to stunning Lovran, as mentioned above.

And OH MY GOD! I got to jet-ski for the first time EVER...! This was during the first bout of Adriaticness and it was just as fantastic as I always thought it'd be. See, I was a young'un of about 8 when I first saw a jet-ski (our last summer vacation with dad on the Adriatic, in Crikvenica) and I thought 'I gotta get me some of that'.

'Cept I didn't talk like that, nor did I know English. Hee!

But yes, the jet-skiing was oodles of fun, and I'd love to have the opportunity to do it here, in Oz, more often (during summer, obviously). Though I'd need a boating licence...yeah, our state is a bit strict like that!

But I digress!

Seeing friends during the trip was wonderful, natch; whenever I go back, there's always the slight apprehension (read: fear) that we might not get along like we did during the last visit, that distance may have done its thing, but those fears are usually dispersed upon that initial encounter. It's a beautiful and humbling thing to realise that these are the people who've been part of your life almost from its start, or from first grade of primary school...

Now, have I mentioned the food? Good GOD the food...! The first-rate pizzas (pizzas in Serbia and Croatia have always been divine, which isn't surprising given Italy's proximity), the succulent calamari with always-perfect fries (I tell ya, I pretty much lived on calamari and fries - and gallons upon gallons of Coke - while we were over there; not proud of the Coke part but dammit, it's such a good accompaniment to fried stuff!), the pies/strudels, the meat, the breakfast pastries and pretzels, the EVERYTHING! This is not even scratching the surface of all the scrumptious food we were fortunate enough to devour at all our friends' and relatives' houses, I mean, MY GOD.

And, you know, just getting to travel and move from point A to B to X-Y-Z and back and forth all over again...there's nothing quite like it. It's exhilarating and exhausting and fun and frustrating at times but MAN is it magnificent. And Fiance and I only had two fights over the whole 6.5 weeks, so yay for that! Heh heh.

As I skim over this (obscenely overdue) post now, I feel like I haven't really done justice to the trip in describing it, but that may be because I'm writing it four months post-return and I can't really be fudged writing about it. Ah, forced writing, how I loathe thee!

Meh...whatever, at least it's done. Holla!

Walking in a winter wonderland (Awesome Photos of the Week)

2009-12-08T20:30:00.013+11:00

I bow my head in shame before you all, for the lateness of what should be a weekly segment, and yet...

Apologies!

So, let me share something with you: I love winter. Adore it.

Hold up, let me rephrase that--

I love NORTHERN winters; southern winters (at least here in Melbourne) are rather bland, mostly because there's no snow. I mean it's cold but without snow - what a jib, right?

I am a huge snow fan. Sure, we have snow in the Australian Alps, but that's not the same thing - I mean, it means that I have to drive about four hours (and we have, twice) for snow, but back in Ye Olde Country I'd wake up and snow would be ALL AROUND ME, right in my town.

But anyway!

Given that I'm still (after fifteen years of living in Oz) not all that wild about ringing in the New Year in boiling hot weather (though given how cool it's been the past few days perhaps we'll have a Christmas miracle!), I wanted to share some of Fiance's wonderful photos from our first long weekend at the snow (Mt Hotham) in August 2007.

Enjoy!

Divine Belgian do-it-yourself hot chocolate at a charming little cafe in Harrietville (a town in the foothills of Mt Hotham).

Outside the above-mentioned cafe...

En route to Mt Hotham...wheeee!

Sigh!

I'm thinking I would love to have a framed blown-up version of this on our walls...

Okay, so I am IN LOVE with this photo, and have been ever since Fiance took it. I mean, it's so beautiful and eerie and just perfect.

...Another eerie one of the forest. LOVE.

Returning home and stopping by a duck pond in the idyllic town of Mt Beauty...

Unexpected wedding mayhem...but GOOD!

2009-11-30T13:13:00.029+11:00

YES, I know I haven't posted an 'Awesome Photos of the Week', but there's a reason, dear interwebs.

(Besides slight laziness and 'time-getting-away-from-me'-ness.)

For one, I found a wedding dress on Thursday. And the wedding is just under a year away. YEAH, exactly.

Now, see, I am the Anti-Bridezilla. I'm so bloody mellow about the whole wedding planning process that I almost feel GUILTY when fellow females are all "so, have you started looking for a dress?!" or "have you booked a venue?!" and I sheepishly and blankly (and maybe a little defensively) say "Er, no...but I will, just you watch. I WILL!"

And round and round it goes.

So, last Wednesday a good mate of mine sent me a link to a Mariana Hardwick gown sale. On Thursday I came into work especially early, left early and went to Mariana's boutique. I got there with 25 minutes to spare, and most of the dresses I saw were kitschy and nondescript, as well as tent- and parachute-like. Oh joy!

Deflated but pragmatic, I did another spin around the boutique...

And that's when I saw it.

MY DRESS.

Some months ago, I went to Mariana Hardwick's website and found four dresses that I really liked; the last in the 'photo list' was my most favourite, and I was pretty sure I wanted something exactly like it.

So, 'twas five minutes to closing time and I saw the dress on a mannequin. I hemmed and hawed, and my mother - ever the Action Woman - cornered the consultant and asked her if I could try it on while I still stood dumbly in front of the dress. The consultant eyed her wristwatch, chewed the inside of her mouth, and finally said "Oh all right, let's do it quickly!"

People, they had one dress left in the entire store, ONE. And as I stepped into it and the consultant zipped me up, I was bamboozled.

It was a PERFECT FIT, interwebs.

The consultant was as perplexed as I, saying "this almost never happens!" in the same tone as if she had just been confronted with a freak of nature. That is to say, of course, she was hamming it up like only a wedding gown consultant can when she thinks she's close to making a sale.

But seriously, though, who would've thought that the last dress in the store wouldn't need any amendments? I mean, what the hell, right? And can I just say, if my mum had not been there, I wouldn't have gone through with the purchase. My budget for a wedding gown was always around the $3K mark, and this particular dress was originally $5K (egads!) and marked down to...

(Drum roll, please.)

...$2995.00. Yuh-huh.

Call it fate or coincidence, but the marked-down price was a neon sign practically blinding me. I was still reluctant (because the dress had to be paid off within seven days after an initial deposit of $600.00, and I was being my sensible, oft-frugal self) but ultimately went through with the purchase, thanks to my mum's persistent and zealous hurrahs of endorsement. Love ya, ma!

Now, here's the dress:

Ya liiiiiike?

Oh, and on Saturday we also booked our reception venue, whee! It's gorgeous and not exorbitantly priced, thank God (you have NO idea how many places had costs around the $150-$200 per head mark...whatev!); it's an old Victorian dwelling that was renovated and turned into a reception venue.

So, we've gotten two big things out of the way, one without hoping to. We think we've decided on the photographer, too (Fiance is making the call on that aspect, natch) but we'll need to get an official quote. As for invites, that's also Fiance's domain given he's a graphic designer. Score!

As I've (possibly) mentioned before, the wedding will be a humble gathering of our nearest and dearest (75 people), and we're not 'going all out' (in fact, I'm planning to sell my wedding dress afterwards). I believe one needn't go all out in order to have a wonderful wedding, without a doubt.

(Frankly, I kind of abhor lavish weddings; that's just the way I roll. To each his/her own!)

Like I always say, as long as we're all healthy and safe, that's all that matters; the rest will come of its own accord!

(...Way to 'schmaltzify' the end of the post!)

Awesome Photo(s) of the Week (as taken by my talented fiancé) - Numero Due!

2009-11-22T21:12:00.023+11:00

The awesomeness that is my boy's photography continues...!

These are also from the Overseas Trip of Yore (funny how something that happened three months ago feels like bloody forever ago); I've virtually finished the post on the trip, and I'm trying to battle that annoying part of me that's telling me it sucks and why doesn't it flow more and why does it sound like I've written tripe and WHY THE HELL isn't it more engaging and WAAHHHH!

Ahem. I'm my own worst enemy, interwebs.

Aaaaaanyhoo-dee-doodle, photo-time! You know the drill - for a larger version, just click on the photo.

A sweet little granny in the village my boy grew up in (Licko Petrovo Selo).

Lush greenery in the village.

The gorgeous seatown of Rogoznica and the stunning Adriatic sea...aaaiiiiieeee!

Oh MAN...! I cannot adequately describe to you just how divinely succulent and PERFECT these barbecued fish were. Coupled with potato salad and copious amounts of white wine and, I tell ya, we were living like kings every evening after a lazy day down at the beach. Now it's but a fond, distant memory!

Okay, how amazing is this? One would think this was a painting but NOOOO, it's a patch of the Korana river in my hometown of Karlovac. Incredible.

Back on the Adriatic Coast in the charming little town of Lovran...its streets are pretty much all lined with beautiful buildings like this.

A quiet moment at the always awe-inspiring Plitvice Lakes...
Arrivederci!

Awesome Photo(s) of the Week (as taken by my talented fiancé)

2009-11-15T18:08:00.024+11:00

So.

I've decided to start a new 'thing', see.

I look at it as a way of making me update my blog at least once a week (besides, primarily, showcasing my boy's photography), seeing as it's been over two weeks since I dragged my lazy ass over to the laptop and, you know, TYPED SOMETHING OF INTEREST. On this, a BLOG.

Yeah, I'm a shit.

But! I will get better, you'll see...! I promise. THERE, I said it - now that I made a promise, I must do it; nay, WILL do it, WANT to do it!

I've given away in the post title what my new thing is, but allow me to elaborate.

My fiancé is a natural born photographer. He kicks photographic ass in ways I could only dream of; thing is, I kind of SUCK...oh, I'm not too bad, I s'pose, but I really need to focus - pun totally intended - if I wanna get a good photo, whereas Fiancé just takes effortless snaps ALL THE TIME and then I proceed to bask in the glow of their awesomeness because MY GOD.

Fiancé takes gorgeous, rich photographs, but he is far too humble for his own good. I mean, DUDE, if I knew how to take photos like that, I'd show off to all and sundry, complete with a goofy victory jig at my own talented self.

I kid, I kid. (Er...)

So now I'm doing the showing off on Fiancé's* behalf, heh heh.

The seven photos you are about to see are from our recent holiday to Serbia and Croatia, and they're a nice segue into what will be my next post on said overseas trip, which is sooooo hideously overdue that I'm appropriately hanging my head in shame right now as I clatter away.

I mean, seriously, what the hell, right?

NOW, without further ado, here is a selection of Awesome Photo(s) of the Week...! (Click on the image to see a larger version.)

The entrance to Fiancé's grandma's cosy, storybook abode...!

And here we have a rusty old nail and some cobweb...heh heh. This is somewhere around grandma's house.

At a tram stop in Zagreb, getting to relax for the briefest of moments after a day of running around maniacally (oh, who am I kidding, we were almost ALWAYS running around during the holiday, 'cept of course when we were on the Adriatic Coast for those eleven glorious days!).

The view from our room in Rogoznica, on the Adriatic Coast. Stunning, yes, but that first night we got virtually eaten alive by jackass mosquitoes because we didn't have an anti-mosquito filter thingamajig, and were ready to exert violence (Fiancé might have wanted to kill ME a little bit, due in part to my gasping loudly every time a mosquito would suddenly buzz RIGHT NEXT TO MY EAR, I mean COME ON!).

Still in Rogoznica...ahh!

Love the Adriatic seaside town architecture...so romantic and pretty and prettily romantic!

Moravice, a small village in the gorgeous Gorski Kotar region, where my godparents live. Lucky buggers!

*Oh, and by the way? These photos are Fiancé's copyright, so don't even THINK about any thievery, else we'll collectively hunt you down and cut you. By which I mean, we'll get a lawyer onto your stealing ass post-haste, so back away slowly...

Randomness...it's all I'm good for at the moment

2009-10-29T11:46:00.003+11:00

A-hoy-hoy.

(I'm sure any self-respecting Simpsons fan would have gotten the above reference to Mr Burns and his oft-repeated greeting. Hee!)

So, I'm in a bit of a foul, glum mood. Don't know why and it's pissing me off. I'll get over it, I know. I'm trying to psych myself up and get into a positive frame of mind, but alas it's not working.

I'll give it another hour.

Given my mood, I have nothing more interesting to proffer than random ramblings (you lucky things!) - just something to hold you over until I finally post my overseas trip piece (good God, I'm the suckiest suck that ever sucked).

Random rambling #1: I ordered some lovely clothes from Victoria's Secret (that's right, CLOTHES, not the lingerie!) and they arrived the other day and all items are perfect, so wheee! Two dresses, two tops. All are muuuuchos pretty! Will definitely order more from the website in due time, oh yes.

Random rambling #2: Saw the following tidbit in a local paper - "In Brazil, there is a species of cockroach that eats human eyelashes. They usually feast on the lids of young children while they sleep." Er, as if I needed ANOTHER reason to fuel my irrational cockroach phobia...! This proves my theory that they're evil, EEEVIL I 'tells' ya!

Random rambling #3: I love putting make-up on (well, mascara, eyeliner and SOMETIMES lipstick are really the only things I wear) but am always so lazy to take it off at night. I mean, it's not that hard, right? Of course not; I guess I'm just a lazy wench.

Random rambling #4: I was in the office @ 6:30AM yesterday. Yeah. No, I haven't gone bonkers - my boy and I just had to leave work around 1PM to take his mum to the airport, which necessitated the earliest start to work in the history of...well, us. Heh heh.

Random rambling #5: It's a glorious, sunny spring day in Melbourne today. Like, the sort where you just wanna go to the botanical gardens and sprawl out on the grass and be all Huck Finn-like and shit.

Random rambling #6: When I was little, I wanted to be a number of things...neurosurgeon, storm chaser (ha!), UFO investigator, stewardess, actress, pop star (tee hee!), journalist, 'businesswoman' (bwahahahah), and a writer. I still entertain the notion of that last one.

I bid you adieu, dear interwebs.

Until next time...!

...Just call me cucumber, as in 'cool as a'

2009-10-13T14:53:00.010+11:00

[Randomness is the order of the day: I'm home sick, going to the Doc's in an hour-and-a-half, and trying not to go stir-crazy in the meantime. Oh, and yes, I know I suck for not posting anything in two weeks!]

1. So... I'm baffled by Anglos who really SHOULD know their mother tongue and yet...don't. And WHAT is up with people not knowing how to use ellipses...? Uh, NO, it’s not ‘..’ or ‘.......’ (good Lord) - it’s ‘...’, three dots, THREE.

Not bloody rocket science. Learn it, live it, love it. Oh, I'm sorry, am I being a priggish bitch? Meh, so be it. At least I'm a priggish bitch WHO KNOWS GRAMMAR.

2. Whenever I go for a walk and see a leaf that looks like it could be mighty crunchy, you can be sure that I'll excitedly step on it and subsequently feel the release of endorphins at that wondrous crunchy sound (in fact, I recently discovered a Facebook group, "I Will Go Out of My Way To Step On a Leaf That Looks Particularly Crunchy").

3. Check this out, I implore you:

Awesome Defamer article

Uh...wow. Criminy! Reading this self-indulgent, absurd yet ultimately hilarious claptrap almost makes me not want to consider any of her wedding dress designs. I mean, come ON, is the woman for real?!

'The concept of the sabbath'?

'The regenerative benefits of nature'?

"After performing a few sun salutes (yoga), I enjoy nothing more than a long walk near the water where I adopt the Buddhist philosophy: 'If you’re walking, just walk.'"

"My husband and I feel no real need to socialise on a Sunday so instead we’ll share a long bath before relaxing by the fire. Life is so extraordinary."

Aaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeee!
THE PRETENTIOUS PRATTLE IS ALL JUST TOO MUCH!

The woman is clearly a mild wackjob and oblivious to her major douchebaggery.

Bath-time and then 'relaxing' in front of the fire? What, they just lie there?

No no NO, they then proceed to engage in magical, Buddhist- and Nisargadatta-infused levitating sex where they adopt the Buddhist philosophy 'if you're making love, just make love'!!

If I spoke like that, and how I feel all in sync with the universe because of my mung bean and sexy-time baths and concept-of-the-sabbath and New Age texts, I'd want someone to slap me upside the head, shake me violently and holler 'oh, will you just shut the f--k UP?!' - whoever the editor was who let that go to print must either have it in for her, or was giddy at the prospect of sharing this with all of us.

I'm glad for the sharing.

4. I've been 'shortlisting' some wedding venues (God help me; and by the way, who knew it'd be hard finding a nice place for a 60ish-guest wedding, pah!). So, came across "The Abbotsford Convent" and one link on their site was 'Convent Events'. I suddenly got a visual of gleeful nuns in a meadow, their habits flapping in the wind as they partook in...oh, I don't know, lacrosse or something.

WHAT, I'm just sayin'.

5. Why-why-WHY are stupid t(w)eens kicking up such a stink in cyberspace over that irritating halfwit, Miley Cyrus, deleting her Twitter account?

Gah!

Methinks a 16-year-old (!) who writhes provocatively around a pole during an awards show performance while spewing (ahem, 'singing') such musically-inspirational hits as 'Party in the USA' (ugh) PROBABLY doesn't have anything of substance to proffer. Juuuust a wild guess.

I mean, did y'all see the kid working that pole like a seasoned stripper?!

Uh, WTF?

You're sixteen, kiddo. Go obsess over Twilight (oy) and translucent-skinned vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen and awkwardly attempt to wax coquettish with boys...

And what the hell is wrong with her parents that they didn't veto their daughter grinding a blasted pole? I mean, that's got 'Bad Idea Jeans' ALL over it.

Parents-schmarents! "Hey, let our cash cow-- er, we mean, our daughter, do whatever makes her happy! Y'all misunderstand... She's just DANCIN', is all. That pole was just there so she could balance herself!"

Then again, what are we to expect from the daughter of a once-mulleted man who introduced 'Achy Breaky Heart' to the world? Exactly.

Content

2009-09-28T10:42:00.008+10:00

I didn't exit the house once over the weekend.

It was one of the more blissful weekends I've had.

Perhaps one would think that not getting out of the house would make one stir-crazy; not so, my friends. Well, at least not in my case or in the context of the preceding week.

In short, it had been a slightly hellish one and by Friday I was exhausted and ready to 'chillax'. Friday night as a start was pretty perfect because my 1st cousin Dani popped over en route to pick up her boy from a work function in the city, and we had a few glasses of red (correction: Dani had half a glass of vino seeing as SHE WAS DRIVING) and laughed like lunatics (yeah, we ALWAYS laugh like madwomen and alcohol is most certainly never a prerequisite for that).

My boy and I had absolutely no plans (which happens, well, almost never). Saturday was unseasonably cold with lots of rain and hail, i.e. the perfect day to bunker down on the couch under a nice, warm blanket (which is what I did, ahhh!).
Seriously, this is a luxury most people can't afford, myself included. This weekend was a miracle, MIRACLE I say!

Plus, in the early Sat afternoon I got my thing.

You know, the thing. That dreaded monthly 'friend' whose visit is cursed by all girls ('cept of course if they're freaking out about being late and BEGGING to get it!). So, I was all blah and crampy and BLAH some more, and really, resting was my only option.

I was down with that, if you haven't guessed already.

And here's the thing: late on Friday night, I got hit by Crazy Writing Mojo, big-time. Let's just say that I stayed up 'til 4AM writing away with reckless abandon. Then I continued the next day for a further, oh I don't know, eight hours? Er, not that there's any evidence of that here, obviously, but... Okay, SO, I've got this 'side project' that I really can't get into here (ooh, intrigue!), and I feel like it's now finally starting to come into its own and that makes me feel...content.

Worked that one in there nicely, huh? Subtle as a sledgehammer.

Only thing is, I've been enslaved by the mojo and now ALL I WANNA DO IS WRITE.

It's fantastic and all, except when I'm at work and need to be concentrating on WORK...and I do focus, don't get me wrong, but I'd love to be writing instead.

Huh, there's the understatement of the century...

Y'know, there's nothing quite like sitting down at the laptop and KNOWING you'll be clattering away on the keyboard for hours and hours because the inspiration is just flowing. It's an incredibly enriching feeling for any writer, I think. Wow, way to state the obvious!

I'm looking forward to more writing madness this weekend...wheeee!

Care factor? Below zero.

2009-09-21T10:46:00.019+10:00

Meh.

Yeah, I said meh.

Mondays tend to incite such a response in me. Cannot stand 'em.

Oh wait, I'm being far too kind: I LOATHE them, dear interwebs.

As I type that, I can hear my mother's oft-repeated past chidings a la "darling, you really shouldn't hate anything or use that word."

But I don't, ma, and I'm not; I loathe, 'loathe'!

Ah, technicalities...
Love ya, ma!

But I digress - let us return to Monday-talk (ugh).

Hell, does anyone actually wake up on a Monday, chipper as anything, and says 'gee whiz, I suuure do LOVE these Mondays, sooo excited about the workday ahead!'...? Would love to meet this person and, y'know, smack them.

'Cause I'm a crabby Monday beeyotch.

A typical Monday morning for me involves snoozing until the last possible moment (as you do), tumbling out of bed and lumbering around half-blindly (mustn't...open...eyes), and it isn't until I wash my face with deliberately cooold water that I start to come to.

Cold, refreshing water notwithstanding, I'm still grumbling and whining and muttering as I try to find something work-appropriate to wear (read: not a bathrobe, and oh my God don't even THINK about lying back down no matter how inviting the vision of the warm, rumpled bed before you).

Really, it's a most pathetic sight.

Plus, the thought of applying mascara on a Monday morn, for instance, is an act akin to torture (of sorts).

Unthinkable. Like, almost never happens. A few light sweeps of eyeliner, sure, but that's as far as it goes. And even THAT'S a chore.

I'm not proud of this.

Stupid Mondays.

Needless to say, this'll be me at the end of the day (a rather faithful visual interpretation if I do say so myself):

Booyah!
That is all.

I know that I can't take no more, it ain't no lie

2009-09-13T21:09:00.021+10:00

It's not what you think.

Dudes, seriously.

(Did I have you worried there for a sec? Heh heh.)

I've been meaning to write this entry for a week now (ah, those pesky good intentions interspersed with procrastination!), and the prospect of doing so leaves me both delighted and eeeeeeeever so slightly fearful.

Wait, scrap that.

Let's just leave it at 'delighted'. Whatever the hell could I be talking about, you ask?

Okay, here goes: in my last post I mentioned briefly my once-infatuation with NSYNC (oh boy, here we go). Then last Saturday, my fiance goes to me from our lounge room 'hey, whatchamacall'em are on' and I'm all 'zuh?'. I knew that a video clip show was on but could only faintly hear the beat and couldn't make out the melody.

So I bolted downstairs and what was it? NSYNC's 'Bye Bye Bye' being shown as a classic clip (holy shit, it's been NINE YEARS since that song was a number one hit - for those not in the know, the title above is a lyric from said hit, hee!).

Let me put it this way: I 'fell in love' at 13-almost-14 with a boyband of five guys who may as well have been fictional, such were the chances of me ever meeting them (or seeing them live, for that matter, given they never ONCE toured Down Under - I mean, what's up with THAT?!).

Thing is, before this onslaught of 'OMG-I-luuuurrrrve-them-soooo-much-NSYNC-rulz!' (for the record, I never spoke in such an airheaded way, THANK GOD), I had prided myself on my ability to remain immune to the whole boyband phenomenon. I mean, I was indifferent to the BACKSTREET BOYS for cripes' sake, and they were the biggest. I listened to a lot of different music as a kid that most of my peers hadn't even heard of (at one point courtesy of my 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' soundtrack - heh heh - which had stuff like Toad the Wet Sprocket, Hooverphonic, Our Lady Peace, et al - er, not that I really knew who the deuce they were, I just liked the specific songs on the CD).

I don't have to tell you that this made 13-year-old me feel mighty superior and all alternative and shit. Ha!

I honestly don't even know and can't recall what it was that stood out for me about NSYNC, I really don't. 'I Want You Back' was the first song I heard (first single released late '98 in Oz and worldwide, I think) and it was just so catchy and poptastic and...catchy, and awesome. It neither spoke to me nor held any meaning for me but I LOVED IT all the same.

I taped the music spot one Sat morning; waited like a freako with my hands and fingers a Kung Fu grip on the 'REC' button, hoping the clip would come on - eventually it did and OH THE HAPPINESS. Watched it a gazillion times. Then some more. My first cousin Dani joined in (took the video tape to her place).

We both insidiously became obsessed.

(In that standard, normal, annoying-as-all-hell-to-others teeny way. But rest assured we weren't teenyboppers, nooo!)

We'd do the boys' choreography to 'I Want You Back' and 'Tearin' Up My Heart'. I knew it practically by heart, God help me. Oh, who am I kidding - I knew the dance moves even to Britney's 'Baby One More Time', 'Sometimes', 'You Drive Me Crazy' and 'Oops!'. There was a lot of painstaking still-pausing of clips, believe you me.

(NB: I still - STILL! - know most of the moves...wow. And not a good 'wow', obviously. I mean, the crap that's retained in my brain after all these years...!)

I knew NSYNC's songs inside out. Even now, I'm listening to their first CD and people, I shit you not, but I'm singing along to every friggin' musical nuance of songs I'd forgotten even existed ("I Just Wanna Be With You" anyone?), which just shows the extent of my once-dedication to the group. Heh.

(Sure, I can call it 'dedication' but we all know it was obsession. Period.)

I don't know how my mother, bless her heart, managed not to laugh in my face every time I'd go on about NSYNC, or every time she'd step into my poster-plastered bedroom. She's a wise woman, that one. What restraint!

My cousin's fave boy was Justin (who'd-a-thunk-it that JT would become a pop superstar in his own right?) and mine was JC Chasez.

Behold:

I just found him gorgeous, masculine, enigmatic, and - quite simply - yummy. A most dangerous combo to a 14-year-old, but nonetheless a magnificent fantasy for any NSYNC-obsessed teenage girl. I had big plans to marry the guy, tee hee hee...!

Not to mention that I adored his voice. ADORED. Every NSYNC fan will tell you, no matter who their fave guy was, that JC was the voice of the group. I mean, I love JT (now) as much as the next person, but his voice is nowhere near as good as JC's, and that's a fact. JT tends to sing a little too nasally - especially when he 'falsettoes' - for my liking (read: ANYONE'S liking who knows that one ought to sing from the friggin' DIAPHRAGM). JC's voice is smooth, soulful and rich. In other words, divine (and let's not forget yummy, hee!).

JT is the better dancer, I'll give him that.

Finally (before I REALLY start to ramble), both my cousin and I used to read NSYNC fanfic. FANFIC, people! It was only one author, and she was considered the best and most popular at the time ('00): FictionLyn. I discovered her via the now defunct website NSYNC Studio, and was quickly hooked, then got Dani onto it. We both only read two of her stories, the then more recent ones (Sometimes I Wish & It's Only Me, if any former fans are reading, heh).

Now, let's do a bit of a retrospective of a few choice clips, shall we?

Bye Bye Bye

Still by far one of the catchiest pop songs ever & the one that prompted this nostalgia trip. SOOO much to laugh at, from the opening marionette scene (yeah, we get it, you were CONTROLLED BY YOUR UNSCRUPULOUS FORMER RECORD COMPANY BOSS) to Justin's curly, almost fro-like mop of hair. I must put this out there, though: is it wrong that I still find JC's angry gear-changing (@ the 3ish min mark) so damn HOTTT? So be it. ("If loooooooooving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right!") I'm also not immune to Justin's little laugh post-landing. Meh, sue me.

This I Promise You

Oh, boy: 15-year-old me thought this tune was the stuff romantic dreams were made of. Silly girl that I was, I could almost make-believe JC was singing it for me. Now, one of the YouTube comments that made my day: "Remember when they were comparing Nsync to the Beatles after this song was released?" HAHAHAHAHAHAH! Er, yeah, SUUURE crazy lady. The other night I tried scaring the bejesus out of my fiance when I faux-seriously told him that I want THIS to be our wedding dance song. Poor guy looked like he wanted to call the engagement off (bwah!). I mean, it's practically the BEATLES, y'all. (P.S. The bubbles - holy mackerel, Batman!)

For the Girl Who Has Everything (FTGWHE)

Okay, this was always one of my fave tunes, mostly because of JC's superb vocals on it. I mean, the lyrics are a bit cheesy (okay, a LOT cheesy - "...you drive a pretty car, you know how fine you are and nobody needs to say it...but the only thing you dream of, money can't buy for you, and in my dreams I'll make your wish come true" - yikes!) but the music is nice. In fact, although I love the CD version because JC sings both verses, I almost prefer the video one with JT singing the 2nd verse, because of how much more singing-in-thirds stuff happens with him and JC.

But-- okay, Justin? The gypsy gold earrings? OFF with 'em, boy, they're wack (hee, like my hip hop lingo?). Sure, so he wasn't old enough to know any better and probably thought it was cool and, y'know, CRUNK (?!) but GOOD LORD. Where was the stylist? And JT's uber-boybandtastic shimmying is simultaneously irritating and hilarious.

Oh, and am I supposed to feel SORRY for poor little rich girl there? Pfft! Beat it, blondie, and go imbibe your champers. (Sorry, I know, but I have to be snarky even at make-believe shit!)

I'll Never Stop

Even though this song is nowhere near their best (and it's awkwardly similar to BSB's 'I'll Be the One' in terms of beat, tempo, etc), I used to love it - oh okay, I still don't mind it - and just wanted to post the video to bring attention to these...uh, fans. I'm sorry, but WHAT'S with the half-assed dancing and head-bobbing? Put some OOMPH into it, girls! Especially that girl with the bandana, she's got like the same 'move' over and over. They should've brought Dani and me in as the fans - we would've shown them how it's done. I do rather like the juxtaposition with the snippets of the guys performing and goofing off, it's cute.

Now, let's get to the snarky stuff!

(Well, snarkier.)

Random observations

1. "I need love, you need love...we all really need love."

Wow, that's uh...DEEP.

The above is a dreadful, laughable offering from NSYNC's '98 self-titled debut (lyrically & musically - musically because of its dated Eurotrash-sound and techno beats), and a 'song' that - even at my NSYNC-crazed 14yrs of age - I thankfully identified as a hideous crime against music. It was filler for the CD, serving to pad out what the hits could not, but...YEESH!

2. "...You've got no choice, BABE, but to move onnnn & you know there ain't no time to waaaaste, but you're just too blind to see, but in the end you know it's gonna be me, you can't deny, so just tell me whyyyy..."

Ah, NSYNC. There's confidence and then there's blatant arrogance. Fact is, 14-16y.o. me would have eaten that up (and did), nodding emphatically all the way 'cause 'OMG-you-guys-it's JC-&-he's-soooo-hot-&-oh-MAN-that-voice-DAYUM-of-course-it's-gonna-be-HIM-squeeee!'

Yowza.

3. "Girl I know you think no one sees the weight on your shoulders, but you can't fool me, and aren't you tired of standing so tall, let me be the one to catch you when you fall..."

'Twas end-of-'99 when I discovered this NSYNC song on a film soundtrack & I just HAD TO HAVE IT.

I was captivated. It just sounded so pretty! And, y'know, so SWEET because 'he' totally sees she's burdened and wants to transfer some of that onto himself and OH THE PERFECTLY DIVINE ROMANCE OF IT ALL!

So, the movie soundtrack had to be bought, no two ways about it.

And what, pray, was it the soundtrack to?

UGH...Pokemon.

People, I abhorred that f--king little squeaky Pokemon with every fibre of my otherwise goody-goody being (I mean, what the hell kind of a name is POKEMON anyway?!), but still reluctantly forked out $30 for the CD. I may have gripped those dollar bills a little tighter than was necessary, TV-style. A whole CD (Pokemon!!) for one song (it wasn't on Napster at the time, I checked). This move was a new low for me at the time (heh).

4. There's one song of theirs that I randomly rediscovered the other day (and had completely forgotten it ever existed), 'Give in to Me'. I think it's one of their early tunes, although it's not on any known CD (of theirs; it is on Euge Groove's '00 disc as he plays sax on the song & I bought the song off iTunes). I used to love this song when I first heard it 9ish years ago; it sounded unlike anything they'd ever done, still does. It's quite a sexy song and rather understated, but lovely.

(Dammit, no snark there!)

Before I go, here's 14-year-old me:

I'm in Dani's room, attempting my most 'seductive' stare (snort!) and gazing towards the myriad posters adorning Dani's wall. I totally coveted her NSYNC poster there because it was from the 'FTGWHE' video and every one of them looked hot on it. She wouldn't sell it to me, as you might have guessed. Oh, and the other posters are all Freddie Prinze Jr, Ryan Phillippe, etc...we were ALL ABOUT those boys.

But anyway...!

Okay, this has been fun...and juuuuust a wee bit exhausting. After almost a week of reminiscing, I think I've NSYNC-ed myself out. As Danny Glover's 'Lethal Weapon' character would say, "I'm too old for this shit."

Though it sure is fun revisiting that 'teen within' now and again.

For the record, if they do one day do a reunion tour (far greater/legendary bands have done it after insisting it'd never happen), I am sooooooo there. Dani and I, that is. And anyone else who cares to join us. That'd simply be unmissable and a perfect way to seal the NSYNC phase of our lives once and for all.

(AND the perfect opportunity to openly drool at JC and squeal like morons! Justin, not so much - we already did that at his Melbourne concert Nov '07. Bwah!)

EDITED TO ADD: How in the world could I have forgotten the generic pop lameness of NSYNC's song 'Here We Go'?!

A sample:

"Here we go
One more time
Everybody's feeling fine
Here we go now
(Yes-yes-yes here we go! NSYNC has got the flow!)
...
You know the party's here
Sing along and have no fear
NSYNC is here to make you people scream
...
Let's sing it one more time
Everybody's feeling fine
We got the skills to keep this party pumpin' baby..."

They've got...the SKILLS? I'm sorry, what?! To keep a party pumping? There are skills for this sort of thing? They wouldn't by any chance be...er, 'Mad Skillz'? Bwahahahah.

"Sing along and have no fear" - er, yeah, why the deuce would I be SCARED to sing AT A FRIGGIN' PARTY?

"NSYNC is here to make you people scream" - oh geez, here we go (no pun intended!) again with that arrogant streak, NSYNCers! Heh heh.

Also forgot to add about getting the tape.

Y'know, THE TAPE. Their first (I think).

When I got my hands on the NSYNC "N the Mix" (bwah!) tape back in '99, well, it might as well have been the holy grail as far as I was concerned and, suffice it to say, it was pretty much ALL I WATCHED.

(Y'know, in between religiously following 'Dawson's Creek' and 'Party of Five', of course.)

I had that tape and all its segments virtually memorised in a matter of weeks, and it made me love the boys that much more because, 'siiiiigh', they just seemed so gosh darn down-to-earth! And ooh, lookie there-- JC's playing the piano with his Sexy Man Hands, how talented!! And ooh! Justin has bleached his hair so blonde, I'm practically being blinded! And OOH! They're dancing and gazing soulfully at their fans in the audience and thrusting their hips and...oh my. How DIRTY! Scandalous! And...and...

(It was an exhausting and hilarious period, I assure you. Hee!)

Now, indulge me: were you an NSYNC fan? Like, huge, fanfic-reading, choreography-learning, obsessed-like-me fan, maybe even worse...? Or a mild fan? (Hmmm, is there such a thing where boybands are concerned?)

Were you an anti-boyband person in general and loathed them? (Unthinkable! Heh.) Were they an occasional guilty pleasure and you liked only a scattering of their songs?

Did you ever see them LIVE? Did you ever MEET them? (Squee!)

You get the drift.

P.S. And yes I KNOW I've delayed writing about our overseas trip once more...it's all written, really, I just need to type it up. The suckiness doesn't become me, I know. Gah!

Utterly befuddled

2009-09-05T20:13:00.011+10:00

My intense dislike of James Blunt (i.e. 'He of the Chipmunk Caterwauling') is quite well-documented among my closest friends.

He shits me to tears with his thin falsetto, his lame-at-best songs, and - in particular - that dumbass '1973' song almost threw me over the edge (and not just because it was overplayed to death on the radio and YES I DID CHANGE THE STATION!); I mean, where's the good melody people, the depth, where's the catchiness...?

Oh that's RIGHT - it's James Blunt, forget I asked. (Yes, please DO go back to Bedlam, ya nut!)

But-- (Oh dear Lord, there's a but!)

BUT, and God help me, I've always liked (in spite of myself, DUH) that 'Goodbye My Lover' tune. It's been a sort of guilty pleasure for years, and I just...well, frankly, I kind of love it.

Like, quite a bit. Okay, a lot.

The pretty piano tinkling, the melodious quality of it, the simplicity (which with this song is a GOOD thing, unlike the rest of his 'simple' ones)...
Aaaaaaaand I'm kind of hating myself right about now. More so because I buckled and purchased the song on iTunes some hours ago.

Internet, I actually PAID for James Blunt.

Oh fine, I'll knock off the dramatics (but I must add, although I like the song, I still cringe at the opening vocals...sheesh, take it down a few notches, Blunty).

The earth has not quite tilted on its axis yet, though, mostly because I also bought Simon & Garfunkel's 'I Am a Rock' and 'The Only Living Boy in New York' (both of which I actually have on their CD that I can't find anywhere), as well as the exquisite Heather Nova's 'Beautiful Storm'.

So, y'know, there's BALANCE and stuff. A musical equilibrium, if you will!

Seriously though, I love good music (love music, period), but I do also love the 'guilty pleasures' in my collection. And now I will scour my iTunes/iPod list and share them with you all. Oh YES I WILL!!

Ahem.

- Forever and for Always SHANIA TWAIN
(Oh whatever, I love Shania!)

- I've Been Thinking About You LONDONBEAT
- Come Back LONDONBEAT
(Euro dance beats, hee!)

- Boys BRITNEY (oh COME ON, it's catchy!)
- Baby, One More Time

- Drop It Like It's Hot SNOOP DOGG feat. PHARRELL
(My fiance, bro and I have our own faithful rendition - fiance is the beat, I'm the rapper - yes, I know - and my bro does the 'Snoooooooooooop' bit at the end of the chorus. We piss ourselves laughing every time.)

- King of Wishful Thinking GO WEST
('Pretty Woman'...! Richard Gere! Ahh!)

- Tell Me, Tell Me Baby NSYNC
(Catchy catchy catchy! Plus, I was a huge NSYNC fan in my teens and thus have a soft spot for them to this day, heh heh.)

- Everyone BACKSTREET BOYS
- Panic BSB
- Unmistakable BSB
- The Call BSB
(What can I say, I'm a sucker for catchy pop.)

- The Power of Love HUEY LEWIS
(Aw, this one reminds me of 'Back to the Future', as I imagine it would most people.)

- Yesterday When I Was Young JULIO IGLESIAS
(Okay, this one is probably the most embarrassing...I mean, JULIO! But it's a pretty song...oh FINE, it's sappy as all get-out.)
- And I Love Her JULIO
(Julio's version of the Beatles' classic...yeah, see above.)

Now, here are the non-guilty-pleasure tunes I adore, and can never tire of:

- Wintersong SARAH MCLACHLAN
- I Love You SARAH
- Good Enough SARAH
- Full of Grace SARAH
- Possession SARAH
- Angel SARAH (yes, I hear you say, the dreaded 'Angel'...but despite its ubiquitousness, it's nonetheless a stunning piece of music)
- The Power of Goodbye MADONNA
- Live to Tell MADONNA
- Wicked Game CHRIS ISAAK
- Freedom 90 GEORGE MICHAEL
- I Can't Make You Love Me GEORGE MICHAEL
- By My Side INXS

- Superwoman ALICIA KEYS
- You Don't Know My Name ALICIA
- Dream Brother JEFF BUCKLEY
- Forget her JEFF
- Lover, You Should've Come Over JEFF
- Everybody Here Wants You JEFF
- Overcome LIVE
- Twist in My Sobriety TANITA TIKARAM
- Dumb NIRVANA (the MTV Unplugged version)
- Plateau NIRVANA (the MTV Unplugged version)
- Let's Dance DAVID BOWIE
- Like a Rolling Stone BOB DYLAN

- Pink Bullets THE SHINS
- Saint Simon THE SHINS
- Detlef Schrempf BAND OF HORSES
- Jumper THIRD EYE BLIND
- Earth Song MICHAEL JACKSON
- Autumn Leaves EVA CASSIDY
- Songbird EVA
- Amsterdam COLDPLAY
- Strawberry Swing COLDPLAY
- The Scientist COLDPLAY
- Just a Friend of Mine VAYA CON DIOS
- Ochi Chernye SOPHIE MILMAN

- Ruby Nights BIC RUNGA
- Birds BIC
- Say After Me BIC
- Captured BIC
- This Woman's Work KATE BUSH
- Leise Flehen Meine Lieder From Schwanengesang, D 957 (Trans. Liszt) SCHUBERT
- 3 Gymnopedies - Lent Et Grave SATIE
- 9 Crimes DAMIEN RICE
- That I Would Be Good ALANIS
- Breathe Me SIA
- In Dreams ROY ORBISON
- You Got It ROY
- Mr Tambourine Man THE BYRDS

- Bridge Over Troubled Water SIMON & GARFUNKEL
- Sparrow SIMON & GARFUNKEL
- Bleecker Street S&F
- What a Wonderful World LOUIS ARMSTRONG
- Losing My Religion REM
- Everybody Hurts REM
- Nightswimming REM
- God Only Knows THE BEACH BOYS
- Setting Sun ESKIMO JOE
- Luka SUZANNE VEGA
- Fade Into You MAZZY STAR
- Black Balloon GOO GOO DOLLS

- Immortality CELINE DION feat. BEE GEES (dudes, I couldn't care less whether it's daggy to like Celine - her voice is flawless and this song is lovely)
- Somewhere Only We Know KEANE
- Bedshaped KEANE
- Everybody's Changing KEANE
- Kashmir LED ZEPPELIN
- Brothers in Arms DIRE STRAITS
- Fall for You THE WHITLAMS
- Sounds of Then GANGAJANG
- Great Southern Land ICEHOUSE
- Land Down Under MEN AT WORK (tee hee hee!)
- Gravity of Love ENIGMA

I hope you've been...riveted by this exhaustive list. Heh heh.

Now it's YOUR turn! What are your guilty pleasures, as well as non-guilty-pleasure faves...?

P.S. Speaking of guilty pleasures, movie-wise, if 'Kindergarten Cop', 'Twins' or 'Home Alone 2' are ever on TV, I'm compelled to watch. I don't know what's the draw, and I have no particular fondness for The Governator or the Macaulay kid, but there you have it.

And now I shall crawl in a hole and hide from your mocking stares.

Musings...

2009-08-27T21:16:00.006+10:00

I've had a long, hard day at work, I've had a long WEEK at work, and oh MAN am I thrilled that it's Friday tomorrow...! Friday Friday Friday Friday Friday Friday...it's hypnotic, no?

SO, musings, right.

1. There's nothing quite so satisfying as coming home from a day like today's, when your heel-clad feet and legs are killing you, and stepping into a long, hot shower, after which you get into PJs and fluffy robe, proceed to the couch and veg out under a blanket. Particularly since it's a windy and insidiously-cold winter here right now. Yes, people, Australia has winters too! We're in Melbourne, i.e. the south-eastern part...brrrr!

2. While we're on the subject of work, I'm always highly amused when random people there - usually corporate 'bigwigs' who deem themselves far too important and oh-so-intelligent (read: wankers) - insist on using "so therefore" in conversation. UGH. Learn English, twits.

3. I noticed two teen girls chatting on the train this morn, both with headphones in their ears. Riiiiiiight, because THAT'S an effective way of communicating...! BRAVO!! Thankfully my friends and I knew how to talk to one another during our adolescence. Hmmm...seems I'm turning into a grumpy, dripping-with-sarcasm geriatric who'll soon start throwing around platitudes like "back in my day..." / "kids these days!"

4. "[Bah-da bah-da-da-da] Monday Monday, so good to me [bah-da bah-da-da-da]...Monday mornin', it was all I hoped it would be." Huh...wow. The Mamas and the Papas really must've been stoned out of their hippie-trippin' minds when they wrote THAT.

5. I vividly recall beginning to openly weep on the Frankfurt-Dubai flight, listening to bits of Johnny Cash's "Live at San Quentin Prison" album. Yeah, I don't know. It HAD to have been the high altitude screwing with my tear ducts (and emotions?). I mean, I love Johnny Cash and all, but... Speaking of altitude, I am pleased to report that the pesky jet-lag that JUST WOULD NOT GO AWAY, is now thankfully a thing of the past. Blasted transmeridian travel!

6. Why does it feel like it's been months since our return and not a measly two weeks? And why does the 41°C heat in Dubai (at 11PM, no less) feel like it's simultaneously gonna strangle and vapourise you? And why don't I pipe the hell down?!

7. I know I'm breaking the rules by posting this instead of a run-down of our overseas trip (as I thought I would in the last entry), but...meh. Okay, so not 'meh', more like OH MY GOD I AM SO BUGGERED AND FLAT-CHAT FROM WORK AND AAAAIIIIIEEEE!!

8. I'll be more normal and less "RAH!" next time, promise.

9. ...And I'll write about the trip. I WILL!

10. "Oh, and by the way? Y-O-U-apostrophe-R-E means 'you are'. Y-O-U-R means 'your'." Hee! One of my all-time fave Friends quotes (Season 4, ep. 1).

...Going to the chapel and we're gonna get married.

2009-08-17T11:36:00.008+10:00

So, finally I get my ass into gear and POST something.

I'll be short and sweet in this post, then put up a lengthier one in due time about the grand ol' overseas trip (from which we returned last Mon night around 10PM).

The short and the sweet?

I'm engaged!

My sweetheart proposed to me Aug 2 in Serbia (Novi Sad), at the stunning Petrovaradin Fortress... I was shocked, totally caught off-guard and above all euphoric.

I said yes.

(Uh, DUH.)

Heh heh.

We're going to have a small wedding (around 65 people) December next year (summer in the Southern Hemisphere!). Haven't decided on a specific date as yet but will soon enough.

Oh, and my, uh, fiance (hee!), had everything planned months before the trip, engaging the help of his sister and her hubbie in finding the right ring.

It's as though he'd asked me exactly the kind of ring I wanted. I'm not much for jewelry (I'm more into cool/interesting/colourful beads and 'fashion jewelry') but I always knew that for my engagement ring and wedding band I wanted something simple and elegant in white gold.

That? Is precisely what I got. It's encrusted with teeny-tiny diamonds, atop which sits a princess-cut diamond.

Behold:

[Oh, and just in case you don't know, Serbian Orthodox people wear the engagement ring/wedding bands on their right hand(s) - same as Russians, Greeks, et al. Thus endeth our lesson for the day!]

Next time: how the trip panned out. I promise it won't be too painful. No, really.

No-time-no-time-no-tiiiiiiiiiiiimeeee...!

2009-07-29T23:09:00.003+10:00

...Yes.

My boyfriend and I are, and have been, gallivanting around Croatia (and soon Serbia - Novi Sad and Belgrade).

'Nuff said.

Been on the Adriatic 10ish days, now we've come again (to a different, more northern part - close to the Istria region) to spend some time with his kick-ass first cousin who's a total sweetheart.

Clearly, I've no time to post anything, much as I'd like to.

Apologies!!!

Will post a lengthy update upon our return to Melbourne in a few weeks (God willing!).

Hope you're all fabberriffic...!

Left on a jet plane, landed on solid ground (thank God!)...

2009-07-01T06:59:00.003+10:00

Hiya folks!

I was in a mad rush the last few days before my boy and I left for Croatia and Serbia, and as such didn't get a chance to post anything.

Quick update:

1. Flew up to Sydney Sat 20.06. to see Simon & Garfunkel live - they were magnificent (more on that another time). Our overseas flight was 23.06. around 10PM.

2. I'm now in my hometown of Karlovac and it feels...surreal. A little strange. Strange but good. In a way it's as though I'm waiting for the fireworks to kick in but they're...lagging. No matter, it's still good to be back in the town that made me. Maybe it's because it's been six years and it's still all sinking in...

3. I miss my boy! He's joining me in Zagreb this Sat (I left his folks' place a little earlier - yesterday afternoon - so I could catch up with a friend that's leaving on a major trip).

4. Have I mentioned The Strange? Right.

5. I'm already starting to get a tan and I'm not even doing anything. Father's genes, I tell ya...

6. We're going to the picturesque, sparkling Adriatic Coast July 13 and will be staying right near the beach for a total of, wait for it, ten (!) days. Looking forward to THAT.

7. Hope you've all been keeping well and I'll endeavour to visit all of you, my fave bloggers, when time permits (you know who you are!).

8. Au revoir!

Ode to Congestion and Imbecility

2009-06-17T11:47:00.006+10:00

Yesterday, out of nowhere, I was hit by a sudden jolt of creativity (not lightning, thank God) and had to, just HAD to write a poem.

A poem, people.

I haven't written a poem in years. But this isn't your standard thought-provoking poem, no. I don't even wish to tarnish the good name of poetry by categorising what I've written as such. My poem (whoa, there I go!) is unabashedly tongue-in-cheek, loud and snarky.

And that's JUST the way I wanted it!

...SO, without further ado, behold my snarktastically-fused, uh, 'poem' (I mean, DUH, it's about peak-hour traffic for Pete's sake, the snarkiness is inherent!).

Ode to Congestion and Imbecility

Bah!
Traffic
Dear, pathetic, painfully puzzling traffic
Riddle me this...
Why dost thou hurt me so
Ever so much
My nerves you touch
With prickly needles of assitude
Touch?
Nay, destroy
Annihilate
Inflate
You make them procreate
And multiply with nervy hate
Egads!

Car after car
Cruising
Stuttering
Mindlessly sputtering
Starting and stopping
Suddenly braking
And again
And then some more
Ugh
Brake, brake, brake
For f--k's sake
Why?
For no damn reason
Ah, but wait
There doth indeed exist a reason
To drive well they know not
Driving is but an enigma
To these feeble-minded sods
Oh!

Drat
Whatever is that contraption in the distance?
Ah
A rackety, ancient truck
With an inch-thick coating of greasy dust
And patchy rust
Cracking its shell
Dumb truck is holding us all up
It starts to a crawl
Geriatrically slow
Such pain
Mustn't succumb
To this rage of the road
Else I may turn into a crusty ol' toad
And promptly implode
Oh, the humanity!
It shan't happen
No!

Oh, but the satisfaction of sending a withering stare
As my car passes alongside a fool's!
How sickeningly sweet the power of a righteous glare!
Ooh
What's that?
This vehicle to my left
He wants to slide in front of my own
Scorn!
With nary a metre to spare
The dimwit wants to cram it in
Where is the logic, I ask
Now I know why people carry a flask

I may just rip out my hair
But this would scare
My good-naturedly chuckling boyfriend
Love, hark!
He who is a godsend
During these maniacal voyages
Wherein we drive to work
And curse and smirk
At many a jerk
And so I say
Screw ye all who know not
The ways of navigating the bitumen paths
For I have next to me
My partner in crime
Always, for all time
Sublime
(Oh, how it is)
Joyful laughter
How it medicates one so!

Imbeciles of the roads
You are all aimless toads
Yes, toads
The crusty ones of a few lines ago
Yes, those
Hear ye my cry!
My resigned sigh
You may try
But crush you cannot
My boundless spirit
Can you hear it?
Why, you ought to fear it!
And be not near it
Dear traffic
Now endeth this ode
For you are a goad
Hmph!
So there.

Meh. Feh. (...Snuh.)

2009-06-11T17:20:00.003+10:00

Yeah, it's a little bit like that today.

I want to write about how I'm going overseas in - gasp! - less than two weeks, but lack the energy to be all "funny ha-ha" about the preparation leading up to it, yadda yadda. I WILL write about it, make no mistake, but...not today. Today is a day I want to - nay, NEED to - reserve for finalising pre-trip lists (sheesh) and continuing to separate clothes for the northern summer that awaits--

Wait, what 'day'?! It's 17:20 already, gah. Okay, evening. Hmph, GREAT!

Okay, you know what? I kind of actually love compiling these pre-trip lists; mind you, the one about what we need to buy before we leave? Yeah, that one is starting to get me juuuuuust a smidge panicked. And it's not like it's a lot of things by any means, mostly bits and pieces and what-have-you, but...still.

Serenity now.

And on that farm he had a pig, E-I-E-I-O, with an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there...

2009-06-01T11:58:00.023+10:00

Here-oink, there-oink, everywhere an oink-oink...!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm sure you know where this post is going. Yes, the dreaded swine flu; cue groans and scoffs.

It's like this: I'm starting to get a wee case of paranoia, yes sirree.

Y'know, I'm a reasonable person most of the time; I'm cool, mellow. Paranoia? Not in my realm. 'Cept now, and it seems to be sprouting wings, wings not unlike those of the terrifying freakazoid monster in Jeepers Creepers.

[YOU try going to sleep after seeing THAT on TV in the dead of night. According to Google, the monster is a demon-like, mutant zombie cockroach. Ahem, WELL, I already have an irrational fear of cockroaches - now we can add a make-believe horror movie monster with disgusting, flappy, protruding vein-filled wings to that list. Eww...my God, just LOOK at it!]

So, right, swine flu. Now, I normally wouldn't care (well...no one wants to get such a specific strain of flu, but you know what I mean) because it seems to be panning out well so far in terms of treatment, recovery, et al; however, my man and I are going overseas on June 23 and the absolute last thing we need is friggin' swine flu raining on our parade. My bro is also going a few days after, so we're all in the same, slightly (heh, slightly?) paranoid boat.

I find myself checking the Melbourne online newspapers with an impending sense of doom ("Extra extra! Swine flu proliferating rapidly and heading right for us with dramatic 'whoosh' sound effects!"), and when I discovered yesterday that a high school that's all five minutes from our place has been closed down due to confirmed swine flu student cases?

Well, I may as well have written myself off then and there.

And newspapers really know how to incite fear in their readership, the manipulative bastards; I mean, seeing 'BREAKING NEWS' in bold, bright-red alarmist font tucked beneath yet another swine flu related headline almost makes darkness appear before my eyes. Shit, what is it now? It says 'breaking news'--

Oh no, I knew it, we're all going to DIE!

Paranoia, hysteria, hypochondria - take your pick, Internet!

It doesn't help that I've actually been sick with a cold since last Tuesday (I stayed home sick as I felt shyte); was feeling much better later in the week, and Sat too, but yesterday it all started coming back. I felt certain that my symptoms escalated once I did a standard grocery run yesterday afternoon, chuckling self-deprecatingly to my bro (who was lovely enough to drive me in the absence of my boy). I was very conscious of my breathing as I walked through the shopping centre and pursed my lips in deep concentration. How dumb is that? As if controlling my breathing would somehow prevent me from getting infected, I mean my God.

[At this rate, I'll be seeing this happy chap in the mirror as my crazy paranoia spirals out of control.]

And then I got quite a severe headache out of nowhere last night (I usually don't get them), and sure enough, part of me - the paranoid, loony, cartoonish part - half expected that I'd suddenly crumble in a heap to the floor, jerk around aimlessly as if in an epileptic fit, and involuntarily speak in tongues, yelling out incoherent monosyllabic slurs with a few oinks thrown in for good measure.

Oh, but how I love cartoonish embellishment!

Funnily (er...) enough, the last time I went Serbia and Croatia in '03, SARS was raging away.

Huh.

Mayhap I'm a big fat jinx, Internet. Egads!

Seriously though, I just really reeeeeally don't want this shit to strike ahead of our trip (well, at all, ideally) because it'd totally be Murphy's Law, and Murphy's Law can suck it with the shitty timing and the lameness and the screwing people around. Pfft!

One precautionary measure we've decided to take is driving into work every day for the next 3ish weeks - realistically, one is more likely to contract the virus in a train carriage full of commuters (a lot of whom have complete disregard for basic hygiene - cover your MOUTH AND NOSE, asshole!).

What about you, Internet peeps? Are you all 'care factor zero' about the swine flu or is it niggling at you subconsciously (hell, consciously)...?

Piglet from Winnie the Pooh was never my foe before...

Work computer? F--k off.

2009-05-21T13:33:00.005+10:00

'Dear' Computer,

Yeah, you heard me, you lousy piece of dreck. That profanity was directed at you, dammit! Yes, YOU. Not at a living, breathing homo sapien but you, a barely functioning machine. Don't flicker your pathetic, non-LCD glow at me as if you're hurt. You're an old laptop that's been around far, FAAAR too long to be useful any more. And you are FAR from useful. You sucketh. Majorly, badly, irritatingly.

What are the ways in which you suck? Why, please, let me enlighten you!

You are painfully, excruciatingly slow and it perplexes my technologically-savvy self. Slow doesn't even begin to describe what you put me through, ya shit. When I go to minimise a window, said window doesn't just disappear into temporary virtual nothingness like it does on any normal comp and my blessed MacBook, oh no - it staggers into its oblivion, pumping its fist and spitting out "you ain't gettin' rid of me THIS easy, fool!" Your windows staccato away in miserable, time-hoovering patches; first the toolbar part, then the middle of the page part, then more of the middle-of-the-page part, the almost bottom, and finally, mercilessly, the VERY bottom. Good job!

All the while, I'm gritting my teeth, sighing in a barely audible way, and trying damn hard to prevent my fist from "accidentally" ramming straight into your screen. Don't think I won't do it, one (glorious) day. What else am I trying not to do? Let out a piercing, blood-curdling swear which, let's face it, would have me labelled as The Crazy of the office. And wouldn't you like THAT. ("B-b-b-but it's the LAPTOP, it's HIS fault...just look at it, will you?! Look! It's mocking me, don't you see?! HEY! Get your hands off of me...! Oh, don't even think about dragging me away in such a dramatic fashion! Nooooooo!")

So, there's the minimising, yes. Then there's also the part where, when I click once on an email in my inbox - merely once, no double-click - this somehow totally befuddles your processing unit to the point of no return, and the good ole' hourglass icon appears as if to spite me...and after just ONE CLICK. One. Wee little hourglass is there forever, nothing is loading up, and I feel myself rapidly age, muttering things like 'back in my day' and poppycock and nincompooop and 'God sarn it'. A million years later, things have calmed down (gee, thanks) but I am now so traumatised by your lack of computorial power that I don't even want to double-click, EVER, for fear that your inner functioning (pfft!) will get completely scrambled, and your screen will flash to black with one of those cartoonish white dots appearing right in the centre as a final 'fuck you'.

Which, in a way, would be fantabulous because it'd mean you'd be dead and I could get a computer that, oh I don't know, actually works. Yeah, but now you'll never die knowing that.

With that email 'quirk', methinks that you and Lotus Notus (yes, that lousy 'system' is STILL being used)...well, quite simply, that you're in cahoots and conspiring against me. The utter craptacularness of Lotus, coupled with your snailworthy speed, makes for a volcano of lava crap. In super slo-mo. Super SUPER slo-mo.

Another thing you do that pisses me off to no end is when I try to open an Internet Explorer window and I don't see it immediately. Hell, not even immediately; at all. Make that any window, actually. By the time it's appeared, I've been to the bathroom, fixed myself a snack, done a nonchalant little groove at my desk and reapplied my lip balm. Oh, THERE you are, Internet Explorer window! Oh, wait...you're still all white and loady. Never mind, I can wait. God.

What's the moral of this story, oh craptastic computer? You're slower than a wounded turtle (aw, turtles!) and nary does a day go by that I don't get the violent urge to rip you free of your cords and haul you into the air until you drop and smash and shatter into a gazillion, chip-installed little worthless pieces.

But no - I have to just imagine that happening (see 'The Crazy') while my knuckles turn white from my unnaturally clenched fists...before I decide to exhale, make up some half-assed mantra in my head and stretch fully back on my ergonomic chair (which isn't really all that comfortable at all but allows one to stretch back horizontally from 90 to almost 180 degrees and BOY is that ever so much fun!).

Computer, you hiccup and you fuck up and you make the screen do apoplectic things and GOD are you slow. Just...ugh. Oh, I'm sorry, what was that? Enough with the slow? No, YOU enough with the slow!

Day in and day out I wait for you to make up your mind about exactly what you're going to do, you indecisive bastard, and I can acutely feel myself aging to Benjamin Button proportions, feel the pores on my youthful face expand and tighten, expand and tighten, feel creases insidiously embedding themselves in my forehead...feel an almost imperceptible twitch grip my face. This is the legacy of our technological age, people!

There are blissful moments, the eye(s) of the storm if you will, where you actually work like you're supposed to and follow the commands I put forth with the mouse or keyboard, and coincidentally enough it's when I'm eating a yummy lunch, relaxed, and reading the news, my fave blogs, et al...

Hmmmm. Perhaps I'm projecting my feelings of calm and food-induced rapture onto you and you respond in kind? Does that mean you're a piece of shit the rest of the time because I'm somehow, through morse code-like blinking, subliminally communicating any and all dissatisfaction about being at work and you can't deal?

Nah.

Hatefully yours,

Mortal Enemy Beeyotch # 459.

Duck and cover

2009-05-18T11:30:00.007+10:00

Recently, I was trawling a Melb-based, USA Foods store website (will have to physically visit to try the Twinkies and saltwater taffy oft mentioned in The Baby-sitters Club books of my childhood) where I randomly and, rather scarily, unearthed - wait for it - "Hannah Montana Concert Candy/Guitar Lollipops."

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are nigh, my friends.

Happy Monday to all...gah. GAH!

Money really MUST be funny in a rich man's world

2009-05-15T13:53:00.007+10:00

Hark! All hail thee, King Rudd, for thou hast bestowed upon me much monies and pots of gold... Oh, such gaiety!

Ahem.
(And yes, that is soooo my current Facebook status!)

For those of you non-Aussie peeps, Oz PM Kevin Rudd (or 'KRudd' as I've affectionately begun to refer to him), has been giving away $900.00 stimulus packages to Aussie taxpayers whose income is $100K and below. Since I fall within that happy bracket, I am now a VERY happy camper what with getting to snatch 900 buckaroos growing on the Government Tree.

My cheque arrived at my old address on Mon but I didn't get to pick it up 'til last night (my boy and I moved some weeks ago and have been making periodic visits to our old apartment for mail, because I've been disorganised and ran late in organising mail redirection...bad me!).

I've cashed the cheque into our high-interest savings fund which has remained untouched the past 9ish months, and the sole purpose of this account is to keep us financially cool when we go Serbia and Croatia in just over a month (and patches of Italy).

So yes, I'm rich...RICH, I tells ya! Cue evil Mr Burns laughter (oh, how I love Mr Burns with his hunchbacked magnificence and zig-zaggedy teeth and three liver spots on his forehead in a triangular shape!).

Also, it'd seem my post title is quite apt, given Eurovision is this Sunday (hee!) and ABBA were catapulted to stardom from their appearance in 1970-something.

Okay, that was totally unplanned, I swear. I wasn't trying to be deliberately clever with the title, I was just thinking of 'money' songs. Really! I could've used the one that's The Apprentice theme song... "money-money-money-money...MAAAHHNEEE!"

(Oy, now I'll have THAT stuck in my head for the rest of the day. D'oh!)

Ah, Eurovision: bringing high camp, lameness, mostly craptacular "music" and hideous, eye-gougingly-worthy outfits since 1956.

You better believe I'll be watching. Hell, it was, like, the thing to do every year back in the old country...it's an unspoken tradition of sorts. This year, we're having a Eurovision night (my boyfriend, brother, boy's sister and her hubbie) where we'll have drinks, snacks and plenty of snarky ammunition to fire alongside--

Oh my God.

I just discovered (thanks, Wikipedia!) that the brilliant Sir Terry Wogan will no longer be commentator...

...WHAT?!

His acerbic, deadpan commentary was always half the reason to watch Eurovision. After all these years, he's stepped down... That blows.

Although, I can understand the man - I mean, imagine having to avoid screaming out "Oh, COME ON!" every time the countries vote along political lines and allocate the most points to their neighbours. It does begin to grate majorly (but gotta love that predictability).

Hmmm, I'm thinking...perhaps a drinking game might be in order? Mighty tempting prospect.

Shiny, garish and completely inappropriate outfit? Bottoms up!
Half-assed choreography? Gulp!
Scary, robotic grins all around? Gluh-gluh-gluh.
Overzealous drummer trying to steal the show in the background? Raise that glass!

We'll be punch drunk by the end of the second entry.

Confession time, slightly embarrassing (read: lame)

2009-05-05T17:43:00.006+10:00

I used to love the über-energetic video-clip choreography of the Britney and NSYNC variety, so much so that I'd painstakingly pause and still-pause (if necessary) any given moment in order to perfect and replicate the moves in the comfort of my bedroom.

I was 14, perky and had the world at my feet; for all I knew, a pop career was in my midst!

I figured knowing the choreography inside-out was a handy thing to have up my sleeve in case I ever ran into either of the two pop sensations (hey, it could happen!); I mean, all I had to do was break out into a Totally!Improvised!And Spontaneous! reenactment of their moves (a la Highschool Musical, a movie I'll rent only if paid good dough), impress the bejesus out of them, and it'd be a sure-fire way of becoming part of their all-singing all-dancing troupe(s).

But of course.

Elaborate jesting aside, though, I just luuuurved dancing and, whilst in the throes of executing the seamless choreography (heh), I might have just felt an eensy weensy bit like a pop starlet myself. Except, y'know, without skankerrific clothes and shit, and an adoring audience. So, not really all that much like a pop starlet after all.

‘Smart Bitches, Trashy Books’ indeed - the laughs, they keep a-coming

2009-04-18T19:15:00.017+10:00

A few months shy of 16, we began our move to a newly bought house - one of the gazillion moves since coming to Oz (how I loathe them). In the process of moving from our inner-city suburb apartment to the relative periphery of Melbourne (go suburbia!), there was packing-ahoy. One day, we were dismantling the beds, yadda yadda...my mum and her partner were doing that in my room while I was packing up some final knick-knacks in the lounge room.

All of a sudden, I heard my mum calling me over in a stern tone. I thought "uh-oh" and "shit" and other profane things - especially since she used my full first name and not the cutesy nicknames she’s had for me since forever, so I knew I was in some sort of trouble. My mum tends to have a most disconcerting way of saying her kids’ names when she’s pissed off so you just KNOW you’re in for it.

Tentatively, I walked into my bedroom to find my mum holding up a paperback and looking majorly pissed off – my stomach sank.

Oh no, I thought, here we go.

Mum was holding up one of those books. A dirty book, a trashy book, a romance novel; call it what you will but it was in her mind a ‘dirty book’, simply because she couldn’t fathom that her almost-16-year-old would be reading things with – gasp! – sexual content. The book was either a Harlequin or Mills & Boon romance that I’d picked up one day in KMart, bored and in need of a quick read. And hey, it was a romance – score! At 15-16, all I wanted was a boyfriend and some romance and both seemed so damn elusive. Stupid-ass adolescence.

But back to the book: ‘twas called – wait for it – 'Operation Gigolo'.

I know; oh, I know.

Thing is, when I bought it, I had no idea what the hell gigolo meant. I kid you not. For some reason, the word had never entered my world (go figure) and I’d never heard it (or maybe I heard it in passing and it didn’t register). What’s worse, you’d think one inquisitive teen would have then consulted the dictionary to see the word’s definition – I can’t remember I did. Horrible! Maybe I did, who knows; can't remember. But that's not the point: the book itself wasn’t about a gigolo, simply about some woman who asked one of her colleagues to pretend he was her bad-boy lover to spite her parents…or something. Something stupid like that. Oh wait – they were gonna get divorced and she was trying to get ‘em back together. Aaaanyway, I’d read it at night (oooh, sneaky) and in between reads shove it under my mattress, the safest place I knew.

Ha!

Fast-forward to the awkward-beyond-awkward moment where mum’s partner continued to dismantle the bed, not getting involved and avoiding eye-contact with either of us ladies, I stood stricken at the door, and mama still had a kung fu grip on the book, holding it up as if to shame me. Heh. And then the lecturing began – in our mother tongue, of course, but here’s a pretty faithful English translation of the sorts of things I remember her spouting off and my corresponding thoughts. Because, really, I pretty much couldn’t get a word in edge-wise or even attempt some 'smartassery talking back' in the vein of 'Teenglish' (plus, we were talking in Serbo-Croatian, heh).

How could you read such garbage?!
Uh…I dunno.
I mean, gigolo?! Have you gone mad?
Er…
Reading about gigolos! Well, if someone had told me that THIS is what I could expect from my daughter…
Gigolos, hmmm, what ARE gigolos? Hold up, mum disparaged me, dammit! Man, she’s acting as if I’M the one who took a gigolo and am having my way with him. God.
Really, daughter. Instead of reading classics like Hemingway and Shakespeare, you read THIS!
Whatever, I’ve already read and thoroughly analysed Romeo & Juliet in tenth-grade English, so there. And Shakespeare, I mean, COME ON – how do you expect me to enjoy something that I have to translate first from Ye Olde English, before I actually get what the hell the man wanted to say in the first place. Sheesh! And Hemingway, hmmm. Any good ‘naughty scenes’ in there? Yes, no?
All right, WHEN DID YOU GET THIS BOOK?
Geez, mum, keep it down will ya?

Why, WHY would you get something like this?
Okay, seriously, are you repeating yourself? For the love of all that is good and holy, mother, this isn’t a blasted training manual. There’s no explicit kama sutra images in here, or any images for that matter. I’m not even having sex yet nor do I plan on it any time soon – back off!
Imagine how embarrassed I was, how embarrassed [mama’s partner] was when he found it under the mattress… Your sneaking around and hiding it under the mattress makes it even worse.
“…Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows everywhere…” Oh, I’m sorry. You’re STILL yelling at me? Forgive me if I amuse myself cognitively and shut out the endless shouting over a stupid BOOK. La la laaaa… But really, curse my foolish, feeble brain for forgetting the book was under the mattress...d'oh!
How did you get this book?
Well, see, there’s this underground book dealer, not unlike a drug dealer really, and I snuck out one cold winter night, met him in a dark alley, he pulled it out slowly from his leather jacket, all the time checking the coast was clear, and I shoved a few dollar bills into his gloved hand and ran like hell. Adventurous, no? Yeah, I thought so too.

How did you get this book?
Okay, ad nauseam much? Fine – Ingrid lent it to me. Oh, what a pathetic, panicky liar I am.
INGRID? I don’t believe you.
It’s true! See, Ingrid is a nice girl, one of my best friends, a girl you love, a straight-A student like me, AND she reads these books too. What have you got to say now?
Ingrid lent it to you…?
Well, it’s not as if I’m gonna tell you that I bought it myself, right? Oh man, imagine the harrowing disappointment then…! Ooh shit, note to self: fill Ingrid in on this fabrication just in case she’s cornered by mum!
I just can’t believe you would both read this instead of the fine literature that’s out there…
Yeah, Shakespeare and Hemingway, right? Sure, uh huh. Oh well, so very sorry to be such a bloody disappointment. I guess it’s all downhill from here on out now that I’ve exposed myself to the filth that is this book. Argh, my eyes, my eyes!
I’m going to read this book now to see what sorts of things are in here.
Oh, is that how it goes? No, mum, you’ll like it! And then you’ll think how I liked it. Dammit. Mum, just chuck the damn book, please. Can we stop talking about this now? I can’t keep my face constricted in this remorseful way any longer or I might just burst out laughing. And then I’ll REALLY get it!

Well, you get the picture. Mum somehow got over this major faux pas of mine, though the ensuing weeks involved a lot of random head-shakes, tut-tutting and the like. Y’know, we’d cross paths in the kitchen, our eyes would meet and she’d summon The Look: that which all mothers are well versed in and which make their children stop short. To which I would roll my eyes and say “mum, PLEASE, let me draw you a bridge so that you can get over it already, gah!” – I was a good kid and there were few times I dared raise my voice to mum (if at all, ‘cause I’d quickly get shot down), but I did have the gall to talk back sometimes, often in a sarcastic, smartass-y way; I was an angsty teenager but I also knew what my limits were with mum. There were a few 'The Look(s)' I could toe the line with, but I always knew if I was close to crossing said line. And then I meekly retreated.

See, good kid.

So: the book-finding incident was a muchos embarrassing moment for me, one I laugh and laugh about now, and tease my mum about of course, all ‘how could you have put me through that incessant lecturing over a measly romance book, bah!’ – and then we laugh about it together. Hi mum! Yooo hooo! See, I turned out all right after all…no damaging effects from Operation Gigolo, no sirree! Tee hee hee...!

My affinity for romance novels stems from the time my lovely cousin Dani thrust a book into my hands (Lavyrle Spencer’s “Hummingbird”), imploring me to read the chunky book before me, with all the enthusiasm a 14-year-old girl can muster (which, let's face it, is zeal-overload at that age). 'Sure,' I thought offhandedly, took the book and went on my merry way.

And I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading about some mustached fellow and some lady, and I can’t-remember-what-the-hell-happened…but I was completely engrossed and fascinated, and gushed over the heroic, burly male protagonist of the story (dream man? I think so! But lose the moustache, mister!).

And ooh, were those naughty scenes good! A definite turn-on. And, y’know, it was quite a novel (heh) experience for a 14-year-old and at that age anything relating to love was all about intense crushes and infatuations, and ‘ooh-I-really-really-want-a-boyfriend-why-don’t-I-have-a-boyfriend-someone-like-JC-from-NSYNC-oh-wait-my-mum-wouldn’t-let-me-date-anyway-‘cause-she-has-to-be-both-a-father-and-a-mother-and-I’m-too-much-of-a-goody-goody-to-defy-her-oh-well-read-the-book-kiddo’…

When we were living up on the Gold Coast for almost six months (see what I mean about constant moves?), I read a few Sandra Brown books, one of which was called ‘Send No Flowers’. It was an average romance novel but I thought it was the most exciting thing in the world back then. Ah, blissfully ignorant teenagedom!

As the years of my adolescence passed, with a first kiss at 15 ('finally!' I remember thinking) and having my first quasi-boyfriend at 18, my interest in romance novels waned. I kinda stopped caring, and a lot of the stuff I had read was very formulaic (no shit). And then, in my final semester of my final year of uni, while I was battling with my damned thesis and trying not to rip my hair out from the stress of it all, Dani came to the rescue. All hail my sis! Once again, I was presented with a romance novel, a historical Regency at that, and Dani was effusive in her praise of this jolly fine read. I shrugged, said 'sure, why not?' and skipped off into the gut-wrenching doom of my thesis-finishing-hell.

(Yes, I indeed do like to hyperbolise when I write these exposition thingies!)

Anyhooooo, the book kicked ass! I was a little wary initially of the title (Amanda Quick’s 'Ravished'), but I thought better than to judge a book by its cover/title. So, when I wasn't killing myself over the 10,000-word bullshit of the dissertation, I read the book. And people? It relaxed the bejesus out of me. I would read it before sleep, on the train uni-bound (and then again, home-bound), and whenever time allowed for it. I guess you could say that the book saved me, that it unleashed a force so powe-- okay, I'm back. The book in question kicked off a seemingly endless quest for other books by the same author, quite a few of which were as good as that first one. And then I found another author (again, as recommended by Dani – Gaelen Foley) who was just as good - if not better – than Quick. I read her Knight Miscellany series and was quite impressed, even though I was nitpicky about some elements but let’s not go into that now!

Oh okay, maybe I will a little.

One thing I’ve noticed with both Quick and Foley is how they tend to be repetitive at times; like, they’ll say the same thing about one of the protagonists, their characteristics, and go on and on about it throughout the book. For e.g. in ‘Lord of Fire’ (which had a very yummy male lead in Lucien Knight, raarrr!), Lucien was described as having beautiful gray, wolf-like eyes. Cool, gotcha, I’m with ya. But then, what do you know, we kept on hearing about his remarkable gray wolf-like eyes until the very end, beaten over the head with it by a proverbial bat. His wolfish eyes gleamed…she looked into his wolf-like eyes…he looked at her with that unmistakable wolfish gleam--

Yeah, I get it – dude’s a wolf. Sheesh.

(Well, he may as well have turned into one from the constant assertions.)

So now, at 24, I still read romance novels; can’t help it, I love ‘em. I don’t just read them – I devour them like the guilt-inducing textual pleasure they are. If that’s wrong then, dammit, I don’t wanna be right. Except it’s NOT wrong (heh) – there are some damn good romance novels out there with great plots, awesome writing, and multidimensional protagonists.

And just so you know, yes of course I still read 'serious' books – I've got HEAPS of unread Dostoyevsky, Herman Melville and D.H. Lawrence lying about the apartment...kidding, kidding. I mean, c’mon, I read Jane Eyre when I was ten – you’re talking to a bookworm here who’s read quite a number of classics and ‘serious lit’ books (how very boastful of me), but having said that I freely admit there are still a shitload of other classics that I’d love to and plan on reading, of course (or am trying to get through and have temporarily discarded).

So yes, I love me some romance novels – I haven’t read a contemporary romance in ages, though. I’m all about Regency England, or Victorian England or—historical romances, really. It’s just so much more fun (especially when the author knows what she’s doing) to lose oneself in another time, with hackneys and breeches and elaborate gowns and potentially deadly duels at dawn and riding and Society and all that propriety stuff (pfft, propriety-schmopriety!). It’s especially inspiring when the female lead is a strong, independent woman (bluestocking, if you will) and quite the feminist, given the male-dominated time and the meager rights women had before the blessed 20th century. And the hero can’t be a misogynistic bastard; an alpha male, sure, but sensitive, witty, and kind (oh, and sexy of course - er, DUH).

The other day, I randomly discovered a brilliant web site, called Smart Bitches, Trashy Books: All of the Romance, None of the Bullshit. It’s a portal where two smart, witty ladies (Candy and Sarah) review romance novels. I started reading some of the lowly-graded reviews…and laughed and laughed and laughed. Couldn’t stop laughing, bloody hell. They’re spot-on about everything, and review in the most hilarious, sarcastic and snarktastic way imaginable. In fact, I couldn’t resist temptation yesterday and read a few reviews during my lunch break at work – well, let me just say that I was pissing myself laughing, ‘cept of course I had to stifle my laughter as there were colleagues around, so I was just shaking silently in my chair, my face contorted from laughter. I could barely get a hold on my laughter, and somehow the fact that my boss was nearby made me (silently) laugh even harder, because I imagined what would happen if he were to notice, then ask me what was so funny, and me responding with a straight face ‘oh nothing, mate, just reading...Smart Bitches, Trashy Books’.

But of course!

There were also moments mid-read when I’d stupidly take a swig of water, not realising I’d stumble on possibly the funniest part of the review, and oh BOY was I good at retaining that water in my mouth, blowfish-like, and not letting it fly across the pod of desks at whichever poor sod happened to be in the way. Some of my finest work, that.

Thanks to the Smart Bitches (heh), I discovered about “author” Cassie Edwards and her beyond-atrocious “writing” – I mean, sweet Lucifer’s horns! It’s been said before but I’ll say it again – THAT’S considered publishable writing?! Fuuuuuuuck. The 12-year-old version of me could’ve written something better; hell, what twelve, EIGHT!

But really, that’s scary...the absolute craptacularness of her plot, characters, and…attempt at writing. And I got all this from the Smart Bitches’ kick-ass reviews. Poor girls – can’t believe they put themselves through reading a whole book of THAT. I mean...wow.*

So now, next on my to-read list are Julia Quinn and Nora Roberts, who are apparently amongst the best in the romance genre (as per the Smart Bitches' expert advice!).

In the end, let me just say that you may smirk and guffaw and point from your high and mighty, literary-snob reading stools, but let's just get one thing straight: good writing, good plot, and very intense love stories make for one happy reader. And, let's face it, love makes the world go around, so why not write and/or read about it? Exactly.

In the words of Lionel Hutz, I rest my case...or case closed.

*I have since found out (again via the SBTB website) that Cassie Edwards has been dropped by her publishing company after it was discovered the loon had plagiarised. Oh, and she apparently had no clue lifting entire chunks from someone else was plagiarism. No, really. Good Lord. Well, good riddance to her!

A wee bit o' change...

2009-04-14T14:53:00.008+10:00

I've officially changed the name of my blog from "La Fleur Balkanique" to "Licking the Wooden Spoon."
('LFB', though, is still my unofficial name for the purposes of this blog. Heh.)

I coined that phrase some years ago, temporarily forgot about it, then it hit me all epiphany-like the other day...and I thought it'd be the perfect blog name.

[I was asked in the comments why that particular name and here's my response, pasted:
"Well, aaaaages ago, I was thinking 'hmmm, if I were to write a memoir one day, what would it be called?' - and that's what I came up with. Why that particular 'activity'? Well, it harks back to childhood when my bro and I used to impatiently wait for my mother - cake baker extraordinaire - to finish a beautiful, custard-like cake filling...
...so once she'd tip it out of the pot, bro and I'd go crazy with the wooden spoons, trying to gather as much of the remaining filling as possible (there MAY have been some impromptu wooden spoon sword-fighting involved when it seemed one was getting more than the other).
So, really, 'Licking the Wooden Spoon' is all about the simple, seemingly trivial things in life that bring so much joy.
...That sounds...trite. But t'is true!"]

Wow, I'm getting better at the updates, huh?

This is a new era.

And now, I'm off to the grocery store...but first I gotta wash dishes. And chuck some laundry into the machine. It's not all rest on this day off. Plus, I reckon the couch now has a permanent imprint of my caboose since I spent most of yesterday and today on it. Ah well - live and let live.

Lying on the couch in PJs on a Monday = bliss.

2009-04-13T14:54:00.003+10:00

So yes, technically it's a public holiday but no matter - it's Monday, the most suckish of suckiest days ever, and I'm in my pajamas on the couch, under a blanket, with the laptop...er, in my lap. On a throw pillow in my lap, to be precise, because this MacBook Pro is one hot bugger. I'm also listening to my iTunes mix and have my bro's big-ass, professional headphones on...the sound, oh Lord the sound!! You hear all the many musical nuances that might be missed when just listening 'aloud' on the laptop, or on a not-so-great stereo.

Now, I was thinking earlier how horrible I am with updates - muchos, muchos horrible - and figured, since I'm free today and tomorrow (yes, tomorrow too!), it was as good a time as any to post an update.

Given that, however, my brain has gone out to pasture what with being in quasi-holiday mode, I thought I'd apply a quick-fix and simply copy-and-paste something I did on my Facebook profile recently (today is ALL about the laziness, oh yes!). If you're a Facebooker, you would've seen the '25 things about me' questionnaires being done in full swing some months ago - I love that sort of shit and was all for 'baring all', so to speak, in front of Facebook acquaintances that might not know me all that well (as quite a few of them are old primary- or highschool mates I haven't seen in ages).

And, in the end, it's all a bit of a fun and I'm nothing if not that. Heh heh.

Here goes (I've left it with the emoticons, even though I don't use them generally in this blog):

1. I have, on more than one occasion, entertained the idea of becoming a published author one day...and I still do. It's ultimately what I want to pursue.

2. Music and writing are my two passions - they are the two things I can safely say (and without any conceit whatsoever) that I KNOW I'm damn good at; at the same time, one always needs to hone one's craft otherwise it'll fall by the wayside.

3. I sang before I spoke; well, hummed to be accurate. At about 9 months old, I hummed the chorus to an old Balkan hit ("Decko, 'ajde oladi" :D) after hearing it on the radio - my mother and her friend, who happened to be there at the time, were astounded at this marvel. :P
I adore music; always have, always will. Recreationally, I sing soprano in a chorale and play classical guitar (used to play clarinet as a kid).

4. Henry Cavill is my celeb-I'm-hypothetically-allowed-to-sleep with. ;)
It used to be Christian Bale...and then I saw Henry and switched instantaneously. He's gorgeous; hot; sexy; masculinity-epitomised. And all other good, yummy things. And if you don't know who he is, well, better for me 'cause then he'll be ALL MIIIIIINE. Hahahahah. Well, mine and my cousin Dada's - we share him. :P
And yes, my boyfriend also has his three famous girls - all actresses - HE'S hypothetically allowed to sleep with, heheheh.

5. The three best books I've read in a long time (which are now my three fave books) are all from the brilliant Paullina Simons: The Bronze Horseman, The Bridge to Holy Cross & The Summer Garden (trilogy). If you haven't read it, YOU MUST DO SO IMMEDIATELY. It's brilliance-epitomised. And boys, you'd enjoy it too - it's not corny or sappy shit (not in the least), but realistic, organic and achingly beautiful storytelling. I don't think I've ever been touched by (a) book(s) in such a way as I have with this trilogy.

6. While we're on the topic of books: I 'fall in love' with fictional male protagonists, albeit temporarily (i.e. for the duration of the book). This is one of the reasons I joined the Facebook group "If Alexander Belov/Barrington really existed I'd die happy" - damn right! :P

7. I cry easily - not 'at-the-drop-of-a-hat' easily, but...fairly easily. I'm a big ole' softie, what can I say!

8. Whenever I'm at the airport, I get giddy at the thought of travelling - especially when I'm just there to pick someone up or drop them off.

9. I lived through a war in the early 90s; war is f--ked...natch. Thus, I am one of the biggest pacifists you will find. I have no business in my life for pro-war dickheads - they can go to hell, the lot of them! :D

Most people outside my close circle of friends don't know that my dad died 15yrs ago in the war that followed the break-up of Fmr Yugoslavia - hence why I loathe wars with every fiber of my being. That bullshit war was responsible for taking away one of the most beautiful, amazing people whom I adored more than I can even describe.

10. I cannot STAND ignorant, racist dickwads (or cretinous nationalist extremists, whether they're my own people or belong to other nationalities) - being of Serbian ethnicity and growing up in Croatia during a most turbulent time, I've experienced first-hand what it means to be denigrated against just because people have a skewed, prejudiced view of a whole nationality based on a select group of people doing shit. Newsflash, people: there are good and bad people in EVERY nationality and everyone has committed bullshit at some point of another - it's a vicious, unfortunate cycle. And things are never as one-sided as the media likes to propagate.

I say this as someone who went through bullshit in the war for 'being a Serb' - give me a f--king break. I have not and will never stand for anyone making me feel like being Serbian is something horrible or to be ashamed of. I mean, WTF? I've said it before and I'll say it again: we are all people, and every nationality in this world has value and worth. I'll be the first to call bullshit on those belonging to my nationality for crap done (hell, I hated Milosevic too) but I expect others to do the same and acknowledge the crap their people have done. Nothing is black and white. At the end of the day... Make love, not war.

11. On that note, I grew up with an upbringing provided by the two most wonderful parents, who were thoughtful, strict, loving, and ALWAYS drilled into us the creed to respect and love all people in this world. I am eternally grateful to them for bringing us up in a way that should be such common sense - SHOULD be and yet isn't. Hatred will never end as long as there are extremist people poisoning their offspring with their 'views'.

12. I love and am good at dancing - I'm amongst the first out on the dancefloor 'shaking my groove thang'.

13. Besides becoming a published author, another dream job would be backing vocalist - I'd get to do what I love (i.e. music) but remain essentially anonymous. No fame-mongering here! If I were in a position to choose (heh), the musicians for whom I'd love to do back vocals would be either of the following: Alicia Keys, Sarah McLachlan, Justin Timberlake, Bic Runga, George Michael, Madonna and Chris Isaak. Ah, dreams! :)

14. I love love LOOOOVE food; I'd say I'm a gourmand but that sounds pretentious, hahahah (plus I'm not gluttonous!).
One of my fave meals - and there are a lot - is calamari (but good, proper calamari, not that gummy, frozen-food crap that stretches out forever and some restaurants deem good enough to serve) with a side of fries/chips and tartare sauce...suuuuuch comfort food!

15. Nando's is my junk-food of choice, mainly because it's nowhere NEAR as 'junky' as Maccas, Hungry Jack's/Burger King, etc etc (I almost never eat at those joints). The chicken in the burgers is grilled and juicy, and the pommes frittes is yuuuuum (peri-peri salt, anyone? :D).

16. The places in the world I'd most like to visit are: St Petersburg (well, most of Russia), Gibraltar, London, most of Ireland/Scotland, Tahiti, San Francisco, NYC, the Grand Canyon, Vancouver, most of Japan, most of Spain/France/Italy, Berlin, Coppenhagen, Prague, Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, Macchu Picchu, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Havana (most of Cuba)... So in other words, a hell of a lot of places.

17. I used to be 'obsessed' with NSYNC from about 14-17 (so did my aforementioned cousin Dada...sorry I have to out you in such a public domain, m'dear...NOT, bwahahah! :P) ...posters, CDs, website-surfing - you name it.

18. I'm big on quoting things - Simpsonisms, random stuff. My family and friends know this quirk well. :D

19. I think the early seasons of The Simpsons (especially 2-6) are pop-culture at its finest and a perfect example of brilliant satire. It's subtle, witty and laugh-out-loud funny, and anyone who dismisses this show as a flat-out stupid cartoon needs to be slapped. Repeatedly. ("Glove-slap, shut your big trap!" :P)

20. My favourite part of going to the movies - well, besides seeing the film itself - is the smell and subsequent taste of popcorn (all washed down with the beverage of fab fizzy American chemicals, Coca Cola). Mmmmmm. :D

21. When I was 13/14 and Britney exploded on the scene, I thought I wanted to be a pop star. Tee hee hee! I figured because I knew how to sing and dance it was the obvious choice, hahahah (I also thought it'd be an easy way of meeting the NSYNCers :P).

Besides considering whether I wanted to be a pop star (hahahah), I also wanted to do the following things when I was younger: Doctor/surgeon and a storm (tornado)-chaser. Er, YEAH. :D
(I had quite a fascination with tornadoes/hurricanes/cyclones for a while there, and toyed with the idea of going to Texas and storm-chasing in one of those big-ass SUVs...I must've been around twelve.)

22. In highschool there were times when I was bullied by the seemingly 'cool' girls in school (read: stupid, clique-y & moronic show-offs). Why? Because I was a good student (though not a nerd, thank you very much! :D), confident for my age and unafraid to speak my mind. I was also thin and not ugly. The horror! The first time around I dealt with the bullying head-on and it stopped (Year 7), but then it started up again in patches in Year 9 and I just...ignored it? Can't remember.

I think by that point I had grown even more secure in myself (in spite of the standard 'hardships' of adolescence) and realised that their impact on my life was totally insignificant. Those twits (or should that be 'twats'...? :D) got off on bullying people that threatened their mindset (?) in some way, and the mere act of bullying fed their stupid insecurities. To those people I say, good riddance and good luck - 'good luck' because leopards don't really change their spots (which was blatantly obvious at the 5-year reunion, hahah) so you'll need luck to get ahead in life with such an underlying attitude. WHATEVERRRR. :D

23. I feel like slapping 'kids' (15- and 16-year-olds are still kids) who feel the need to binge-drink/get 'blind'/et al. It was happening even when I was 15 but...seriously, I don't get it. Where's the allure? Is it so damn hard to have a good time, oh I don't know, SOBER? Grow up!

24. I'm a romantic at heart but also a realist - romance in a relationship is a wonderful thing so long as it complements an already-existing foundation (i.e. one of love, honesty, understanding and loyalty). And by romance, I don't mean getting flowers or being taken out (those things are nice of course, but...unnecessary in the grand scheme of things), rather small, intimate gestures of love where you know and see it for the pureness it is but don't need to verbalise it. Now THAT'S the true meaning of romance in my books!

25. Last but not least...what do I include here? Perhaps I might just encapsulate who I am...?

In a nutshell, I'm fun-loving, honest to a fault, no-nonsense, stubborn, loving, flexible, periodically lazy, emotional, a joke-cracker, fiercely loyal, argumentative when crossed, sensitive but tough-as-nails, animated, loud (not in an obnoxious way, though :D), musical, determined, diligent and passionate. I consider health and safety to be paramount, and live by the mantra that we should always be grateful for the blessings we've been bestowed (in my case, my beautiful boyfriend, my family and friends, and - quite simply - life).

Well, about damn time I post something new...

2009-02-04T01:03:00.014+11:00

The briliant goddess of witticisms and intoxicating humour over at Jive Turkey did a bit of an interview thingie recently; she was asked five questions by some nice blogger lady, answered 'em on her own blog, then asked if any of us wanted to be interviewed. I jumped at the chance and...here we are! (Kudos to Jive Turkey for her way-too-prompt 'sendage' of the questions...grazias!)

Ooh, and do scroll down to the bottom for instructions if you'd like to be interviewed as well...ensuring not to brazenly ignore my fascinating, insightful answers as you do!!

1) What's a big mistake you made in the past that you DON'T regret - and why?

When I first read this question, I immediately thought "you've got to be kidding me...now that's a bloody hard question to answer." And it doesn't get any easier the more I mull over it but...I'll try, heh.

Big mistake I made that I don't regret...hmmmm. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is university. It's been juuust over two years since I graduated from uni with a degree in International Studies, and at this stage of my life I think I made a big mistake choosing that particular line of study. I haven't been working in my field for almost two years; I fell into HR at one of the Big Four banks over a year-and-a-half ago and managed to score a permanent position after initially temping.

Fresh out of highschool, I started a Bachelor in Primary Education '03 which I quickly decided wasn't right for me, in spite of loving kiddos. I then applied to switch unis/courses the following year and got into Int'al Studies, which had been my first preference. I was rapt and ecstatic and all that good stuff...and, besides the professional internship and field study thesis that were mandatory elements of the degree program, the whole thing overall kinda ended up being...well, a bit of a dud. There was just such a focus on theory-theory-theory (and then some), endless essay-writing...and so on and so forth. During second year, I actually ended up choosing Introductory Accounting as an elective, simply to mix things up a bit and to...not have so many essays to write, really. I then proceeded to fail accounting because I'm no maths geek, but even with my fairly solid math skills I found accounting to be one of the most dreadfully boring things ON THIS EARTH and the seemingly endless lectures and tutorials were almost like a berceuse...albeit a PNL- and numerically-flavoured one. So whilst I got a fair bit of snooze time in my classes, I failed (big surprise...a 45 ain't half bad though, ha!). I had crammed, as you do, for two weeks before the exam...but there was to be no catching up on weeks and weeks of missed or slept-through classes.

But that's neither here nor there! The bottom line is, I feel like I didn't really learn anything in my degree and that just seems like a horrible thing to say since I'm now paying back thousands and thousands of dollars for something that provided me with...nothing? Essay writing MadSkillz?! Pfft! I think the thing with me is that I had always been a straight-A student and it was almost expected that I would have a certain path...a smooth, by-the-book path. Hell, I expected that. And I did have somewhat of an identity crisis last year, all 'what-the-hell-do-I-know/what-do-I-have-to-show-for-all-those-years-of-being-an-overachieving-quasi-nerdlinger... The way I had conjured things up as a teenager, I was gonna do spectacularly at uni, get employed on the spot and happy-happy joy-joy. Not so, obviously; on those last two counts anyway.

The bottom line, however, is that even NOW I have no clue what I'd do at uni if I had the choice to do it all over again. I love writing, I love music - ultimately the former is something I want to pursue professionally. But would I choose to major in English lit or linguistics? I don't think so, simply because I don't think one needs that as a basis for becoming a writer.
...SO, after all this yammering, it's because not knowing even now which way I'd go that I don't regret having chosen Int'al Studies - it seemed like a good idea at the time, I had a profound interest in it and...those were all good enough reasons for a 19-year-old kid. Oh man, I can't believe I'm about to turn 24 in a matter of days, eep! Slight digression aside...it was unequivocally a decision I made and one I learned from - I think it's important that I stuffed that up, so to speak, because everyone has to stuff something up at some point of their lives...one can't always listen to the good-natured advice of one's loved-ones, however much one might feel like one should. And that was waaay too much third-person rambling, right there.

Aside from identity crises and similar bullshit, I have a good feeling 'in me belly' about what awaits me, and I'm going to work damn hard to bring to life that which really, truly drives and inspires me. (Hmph, corny much?)

2) What's one thing you absolutely, positively have to do before you die?

Dammit, Jivey, you're killin' me here! Heh heh.

So, does this reeeeally have to be just one thing or can I fluff it a bit...? Nope, just one? Gah!
Okay, if I had to pick one thing (besides the obvious stuff such as to have healthy, happy children with my better half one day - snuck that one in there, tee hee!), it'd be to publish a book. I'm not saying what kind but...God I love writing, and if there's one thing that I'd love to accomplish in my life, it'd be that. I've loved writing since I was a wee one (first it was in my mother tongue, Serbo-Croatian) and, along with music, it's absolutely a passion of mine. I'm realistic about the cutthroat publishing world and all that, yada yada yada, but then I also think "hold up, how many people had this exact same pipe dream and made it happen through sheer diligence, perfecting their craft and doggedness?'"
Ah, we shall see; "...that's all I have to say about tha-at," in the words of Mr Gump (if loving that movie is wrong then I don't want to be right!).

Freakishly enough, the first two questions are things I've been thinking about quite a bit the past few months...by God, Jivey, 'tis almost as though you KNEW what to ask me! Hahahah.

3) In your opinion, what is the best thing about getting older?

A number of things: the scrumptious savoury food that's been around for eons, natch, but which just seems to taste better and better with each passing year (this coming from a sweet-/chocaholic who used to eat Nutella out of the tub with a glass of milk handy, and although I still love good ole' Nutella I consume it sparingly...my sweet tooth is a-waning!); the deepened understanding one gains of oneself and the world at large; the ability to be self-deprecating (although there are plenty of peeps for whom this is a muchos foreign concept); meeting the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life, God willing health and safety, and all the beautiful intricacies that come with that; getting to travel everywhere and anywhere (when money and time permit); the ability to have (a) therapeutic outburst(s) of profanity without being scolded by la madre ... and much, much more.

4) Who was the first person you ever had a crush on?

Why, FINALLY these questions get a little easier, phew...!

Okey-doke, heeere we go: I was roughly...four-and-a-half, five-ish, and my late father and I went on a mini-holiday to an island on the Adriatic Coast ('Mali Losinj'; I'm pretty sure it would've been around '89); it was a half-work/half-pleasure thing for dad so he decided to take me as mum had to work, bro was already in school at that point what with being 4ish years older than moi and...I hadn't yet started school, DUH. Aaaaaanyway, there was a boy I met there by the name of Nino who was just way too cute (not that I can remember now what the hell he looked like...but cute he was). I've no clue how I met him but, minutiae aside, I do remember one 'incident'; i.e., some random puppy starting running towards me while Nino was in my vicinity and I pounced on daddy, begging him to lift me up, like, YESTERDAY (I used to be scared of dogs and puppies - don't ask) - sooo, dad did just that amid much eye rolling and scoffing at his princessy daughter, and I do believe that Nino laughed mockingly at me...the little twerp! Heh heh. Hell, I would've laughed at me so I can't really blame the little fella.

Suffice it to say, about a year or so later this crazy, irrational fear passed and now of course I love dogs/puppies/cats and animals of all kind...'cept for snakes, cockroaches, rats, spiders (the big, hairy ones only), and any and all other slithery, disgusting-looking animals that I may have failed to mention.

5) If you could either be really, really good at math or really, really good at breakdancing, which would you pick?

Math(s); though I fancy myself adventurous in some respects, breakdancing increases one's risk of breaking many a bone. Math merely increases one's risk of breaking a...mental sweat. Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week...please, no applause!

(Disclaimer: Far be it from me not to justify my maths skills, heh... It's not that I'm not good at mathematics; I can definitely hold my own and know the fundamentals, but it was never one of my fave subjects in school (no shit) - that honour was reserved for English - and it more often than not made me want to chuck my textbook against the wall.)

...Th-th, th-th-th THAT'S ALL, folks!

(How'd I do?)

If you’d like to play along, just follow these instructions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” (And realise I might take a while to get back to you.)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. (Eventually!)
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Be sure you link back to the original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

(The above directions were copied directly from Jivey's blog!)

"...And the songbirds keep singing
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before..."

Quantum of solace...?

2008-11-01T04:11:00.009+11:00

Fifteen. 15. Fifteen. It's been fifteen years since my father's passing. 1993 - God, it seems like it was forever ago. 2008 now, 1993 then. A different time, more volatile and unpredictable. Just the fact that it's been 15 years seems so monumental. It was the same feeling in 1998, the same in 2003 too. He was 36 in '93; it's amazing to think he would've been fifty-one had he lived.

I don't know how I feel about it being fifteen years since dad (tata) died. I'm almost...confused? Bewildered? It's making me think that in another five years it'll be TWENTY years since his presence has been missing from our lives. And then I go off on a selfish tangent and think 'good Lord, I'm going to be twenty eight in 2013!'. I remember when I was...fifteen, right. Hmm.

So I ruminate on the years that have passed, the years that were with him, pre- and post-, BD and AD (before dad & after dad, if you will)...

And I remember the bad times. It's almost inevitable that I do.

I remember that day. One of the bad times; maybe the worst time besides finding out dad had been wounded on Sept 13 '93 (at the railway station where he worked), and later that he'd passed on. My brother and I, with our cousin, throwing pink flowers down onto the casket, our faces distorted by hiccupy tears and a pain we had never known before, one that blinded and suffocated us. And yet all we could do was stand there and watch the scenes before us, like a crackly, vintage film reel. Where else could we look? I glanced up at my classmates - the whole class had come with the teacher, my brother's too. They looked awkward, conflicted, sad, uncomfortable, disbelieving. Fearful, maybe? 'If Nevena's dad could die, what about my own parents?' A whole bunch of eight-and-a-half year olds forced to confront the mortality of their protectors.

My mother, swallowed in black attire and a black hat with a front-facing net, her big expressive doe-like eyes weighed down by relentless, heaving tears and almost reduced to slits, her skin paler than alabaster... My mother, my pillar, at tata's funeral - a shadow yet a force, a whimper yet a scream. My mother, wracked by desperate, convulsing sobs, doubling over from a pain none of us could neither fathom nor verbalise. My mother, shakily throwing earth atop dad's coffin, staggering forward jerkily toward the earth's opening, staggering forward without warning despite being restrained by two grown men, her brother and uncle, a sustained animal wail flowing from her diaphragm... Staggering forward because, in that heartbreaking moment, she wanted to join him.

Dad's coffin being lowered into an abyss, slowly away from our sight, away from our living physical selves, into the damp earth from which spurts growth and life. But not there, not that day. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. From dust we emerge and there we return.

Watching the man in our lives leave us for all time; that was the real thing, a closure that was undeniable. On that day we knew that never again would we have him be a presence, THE presence, one we almost worshipped. His voice would not penetrate the walls of our home, HIS home; his wide, boyish grin and twinkling almond eyes would not brighten our own faces... At 36, a life snuffed out in too quick a moment, the body succumbing to wounds it could not take. It was war, and hundreds and thousands had similarly been victims. All were faceless but for my father.

Waking up in the mornings in the hope that he'd be in the living room or the kitchen or the bathroom or the hallway or...opening the door of my room was always a moment of bracing myself. 'It could be true, he might be there!' - I'd try and convince myself, unconvincingly. With a feeble smile and feeble resolve, the door opened to what I knew would be there anyway: nothing. No dad. Nice try, kiddo.

Getting my appendix out some four months post-funeral; the day of the operation I wasn't allowed to consume any beverages, not even precious h20. An hour before the operation I had somehow managed to coax the nurse into wetting a handkerchief from which I then proceeded to suck the water out of. And I demanded more and more until finally the nurse had put her foot down as I virtually inhaled the final droplets in the operating theatre. And then they put the gas mask over my face and began counting, I think. Or something. And as I was slowly beginning to lose consciousness, dad came into view. I thought of how he'd been in hospital over forty days before his passing, and how cold and lonely that felt and sounded.

After the operation, I was so thirsty; it was late at night and the nurses didn't appear to be on duty. I got up, thinking I had enough strength...and promptly slumped to the floor from the immense weakness in my legs. Instead of trying to get back into the lumpy, uninviting hospital bed (can you blame me?), I dragged myself to the sink from bed to bed...a very stupid move because the force needed to do so made my abdomen hurt like hell. I thought of dad again and whether he had felt any of his pain. I prayed he hadn't. I don't remember how I got back into bed.

Dad having a brief crisis period, drinking-wise. It was during the war and his alcohol consumption started increasing in frequency and was about to get out of hand until mama put her foot down and presented tata with an ultimatum. From thereon, he didn't touch a drop of the stuff. He stopped some nine months before he died.

On the train with mama, returning to Karlovac from Zagreb, a regular trip; the ticket inspector coming, mum opening her wallet. Me: looking at the wallet, looking at Mr Ticket Inspector man, looking at mama, back at the wallet. A particular spot in the wallet, of course. Dad's photo. I tried to will mum to angle the wallet more towards Mr Ticket Inspector man so that he'd notice. 'Did he notice?' I wondered. I wanted so badly for him to notice, so convinced was I that he just HAD to have known my father. Who of the 'railway people' wouldn't have known him? He was popular, handsome, exuded confidence, endlessly friendly, diligent...everyone had to know him then, right? The ticket inspector would nod at us after obligatorily exchanging some pleasantries and the ticket-check, and that'd be that. I'd defeatedly slump back in my seat, mama none the wiser. Until I'd told her years and years later.

Looking at the faded-yellowy building next to the main red-brick building of the railway station, where he used to stand tall and proud on the second/third floor balcony, beaming down at the train he knew we'd be on. For years we had gotten so used to that welcoming image, expected it. Oftentimes we used to open the train window and wave and call out to him. After dad's death and before we left for the country tens of thousands of kilometres across the globe, I still always looked up with earnest and hoped that maybe, just maybe, he'd be standing there in a relaxed lean against the railing, gazing down at the incoming train.

And I remember the good times. The blissfully happy times. There were many, thank God, and certainly I won't be able to capture them all here.

Being in his embrace 90 per cent of the time. His warm, strong clinch, full of love and comfort. Climbing onto him sloppily as he lay on the couch without asking or having to ask, plopping down onto his chest and remaining there as long as I wanted or needed to, and lightly drumming the rhythm of his heartbeat somewhere near his shoulder.

Watching the loving dynamic between him and mama. Their teasing, their hugs and kisses; their love that combusted into tiny, unceasing particles of energy which floated and wafted throughout our home, always. They were a living example for me of what love was and what it could be. Their love was palpable even during dad's bout with drinking.

Teaching me how to dive during what would be our last summer vacation together; our last vacation, period. It was July '93 and Croatia was deep in the guttural throes of civil war, but for the briefest time we escaped reality in our turquoise, summery enclave in Crikvenica, with towering pine trees that let the sun peek through in patches, and enhance and proliferate its woody scent. I can't recall how many times I inadvertently jumped 'onto my stomach' trying to perfect the dive - oh the pain! - and dad would make me do it all over again, properly, until I'd had it down pat.

Driving in our orange Fiat Bambino on roadtrips, whether to Kijani or somewhere in the Adriatic, my brother and I singing very lame and made-up-on-the-spot songs which almost drove mama and tata up the proverbial wall, gleeful laughter ringing out in the compact confines of the vehicle, and my brother and I zealously egging tata on to 'drive without hands!' and he'd oblige us after some initial faux-parental protests of course, much to our delight.

Being in Kijani, dad's birthplace and first home ensconced in lush, mountainous idyll, and loving the time spent with our paternal grandparents, dad's brother and sister, my cousins...

Watching the subtitled Sesame Street and The Muppet Show on Saturday mornings while he read the paper beside me.

The hours upon hours we spent singing together. Mama and tata recognised my musical talent and wanted to nurture it, so when I was four years old they took me to an audition for the Karlovac children's town choir (Cicibani) and I got in. Dad came along once (well, they came to performances many times, heh) when we were performing somewhere near Krnjak, a whole-day excursion...it was during the summer and there was a ginormous pool for the whole choir.

Dad and mum taking us to the crystal-clear Mreznica or Dobra rivers during the summer; dad going with us on bicycle rides. Dad teaching us how to play soccer properly, and he would know: he was the captain of an amateur soccer team in his 20s.

Going with dad to Mali Losinj on a work-based trip...I think it was '89. I still remember the house we stayed in, only about 20 metres from the beach. I remember the tall, straight-down, navy blue slide into the sea on which people had to have water-filled bags under them because it didn't have a water-running-down system built in. I remember dad washing and drying my then light brown hair, fixing it up into a ponytail with clips on the sides. And returning from Mali Losinj on the train, very tanned, very excited to see mama and bro again and grinning my gap-toothed smile at them, illuminated in a bright yellow tee and yellow Tom and Jerry bermuda shorts.

I don't have anything new to say, I don't think; should I? What to say that hasn't been said before? What to say about today's day? In my opening, I took a stab at it, but...really, it's an opportunity to continue focusing on all the good he created and to emphasise how very fortunate we were to have him in our lives in the first place.

And we'll commemorate him in a very humble way: planting a tree for him, our angel. If we could plant an entire forest, we would. God knows he deserves all the natural beauty of the world from which he had to depart far too soon.

"...I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless
And maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cool hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here..."

(Sarah McLachlan, 'Angel')

"...Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair..."

2008-09-12T19:42:00.024+10:00

There are a number of cities I can see myself living in (with my beau in tow, of course!); I haven't visited most of these cities before, mind you, but I have this inexplicable love for them nonetheless. And I plan on visiting all of the unvisited one day, God willing!

Numero uno? San Francisco. It just looks like the most perfect, geographically-beautiful city. The sloping hills, the ocean - contrasted by the bright red of the magnificent Golden Gate bridge - the cable cars, the wharf, the European feel to it, the hippy history of the Haight-Ashbury district, the sprawling parks, the architecture, the eeriness of Alcatraz all by its lonesome...I've mentioned the cable cars, right? Love me some cable cars! (Seriously though, love trams - dislike them in peak-hour traffic, natch - especially Melbourne's ooooold, cable car-like ones.)

I love how, not unlike Melbourne, San Francisco seems like a really cool, laidback place where people don't take themselves too seriously. Perhaps I'm wrong about that vibe but judging by everything I've heard about the city, I'd say not. It also seems to be quite cosmopolitan, like Melb.

I first developed a fascination for San Fran way back in the old country; well, truth be told, I was fascinated by all things American as most Balkan kids were, and I followed many a sitcom such as..."Full House," for one. I KNOW. My kiddy crush on John Stamos/'Uncle Jesse' notwithstanding, I loved the Tanner household (good Lord, I can't believe I remember the family SURNAME...!) and their pretty, pretty dwelling (Art Deco? Edwardian? Victorian? I suck at guessing architecture periods/types!). Watching the show and the family 'shenanigans', I too wanted to live in San Francisco! Now, I'm sure the actual show was filmed in some Hollywood lot, but that's beside the point!

My love was further 'fortified' by the umpteen viewings of action flick "The Rock" - set in San Francisco for those in the know - with my four-years-older brother (this was back in our teenage realm, FYI), who - astounded by the fact that his little sis liked an action movie almost as much as he - made sure to milk my liking of the movie by doing a whole 'viewing buddy' thing whereby we would watch the movie and watch it...and watch it some more. And then we'd do 'rat-a-tat-a-tat' quoting of key scenes, giving the actors a run for their money, tee hee hee!
As an aside, the movie had San Francisco as a backdrop to the action-packed suspense of a potential anihilation by deadly nerve gas, with Ed Harris (looove him) as a bad guy, and Sean Connery (looking fit and fine) and Nicolas Cage saving the day. As you do.

Oh, and you betcha bottom dollar that, when I do one day get to San Francisco, I'll be wearing flowers in my hair. I don't care if that's a cliche or whatev - flowers it shall be! Perhaps I'll limit it to one pretty flower with my hair braided all prettily at the front, hippie-style. Haha!

Moving on...!

Old London town: I mean, it's LONDON, people. My darling and I are planning on visiting it next year when we go to Serbia and Croatia, and we've even discussed the possibility of doing the good ole' Aussie 'rite of passage' and going to work there for a couple of years. By that point, my Eagle (that's my boy's nickname for the purposes of this blog!) will have accumulated quite a lot of multimedia experience (he's a graphic designer) and I'll be doing...God knows what. Kiddin'! But I have a feeling we'd do well there, plus there'd be the added bonus of the proximity of the Balkans!

Oh, how I'd love to now find myself in a traditional London pub, drinking a big ole' pint of beer and eating up some yummy fish and chips...yummo!

Next city is...St Petersburg, once known as Leningrad. The Venice of Russia. Have always been intrigued by this fine-looking city and more so as of late having read "The Bronze Horseman" by Paullina Simons (highly recommended, by the way - such a beautiful story). Well, I'm not sure if I'd actually want to LIVE there per se, but I could definitely stay there a number of months. And we'd be able to get by on basic Russian, given we're native speakers of Serbo-Croatian.

Vienna/Wien: technically I'm cheating with this one because I've been there; June '03, en route to Zagreb. Such a beautiful city, loved it. Glorious atmosphere, awe-inspiring architecture, wonderful town squares... The only problem would be that neither Eagle nor I speak Deutsch. Well, we know a few choice phrases... Das ist fantastischen... Gutten tag/nicht... Ich liebe dich... Think we could get by on that? Heh heh.

Vancouver: just looks so picturesque and gorgeous; the sea juxtaposed with the breathtaking mountains...

NYC: I've no clue what I'd do in New York City, career-wise. But it's a city that, despite its 'biggest city in the world' / 'city that never sleeps' identity (or maybe because of it), seems to be very much multilayered and...it just invites curiosity. There's more to it besides the so-called concrete jungle (though there's some great architecture there too) - Central Park, the Hudson river...I just don't know how I'd deal with the rat problem . I'm not as into NYC as all of the above cities but it certainly piques my interest.

That's about it, for now. I'm sure there are more cities that aren't coming to mind right now and I'd look at a globe...but I don't have one, heh heh. Jesting aside, I'm obviously more than capable of visualising the world cognitively, but I've got errands to run now!

"...Let the music reach me tonight
Push me over into something new
I've been riding all day on a bus
Just to listen to you

I love, I love, I love I love the look
In your trespassed eyes
I love, I love, I love I love the way
You can make me cry

Sink me into stirred-up sea
Something I can drown in
Only you can do this to me..."

(Heather Nova, 'Valley of sound')

Hmmm...

2008-06-26T00:17:00.002+10:00

It's been over two months since I wrote a post - laaaaziness, ugh.

Brevity shall be the essence of this post, heh. I've no desire to write anything lengthy at all. I actually wasn't going to write anything, but...

The wind is howling outside; howling, people. It's been like that since morning and it refuses to let up. While returning from my cousin's gorge new home earlier tonight, my car was being slightly moved around by the wind. Always fun.

I have this week off - feels so goooood. It's been nice sleeping in, veging out in PJs and my new, ultra-soft bathrobe...! This shall all change come Monday because--

I got a new job; a permanent, fantastic-sounding job. I'm parts excited and terrified, but mostly optimistic.

I'm listening to Sarah McLachlan - love love LOVE Sarah McLachlan and her sublime, wonderful music. Same goes for Bic Runga. Simon & Garfunkel, too, Roy Orbison...especially "In Dreams" and his duet version of "Crying" with k.d. lang. "I Can't Make You Love Me" from George Michael is also a stunning tune that often tops my iPod/iTunes playlist. So much gorgeous music out there...

I feel like dancing... when I was in my last two years of high school, I was dancing vigorously in my room pretty much every night, and had the toned calves, thighs and ultra flat tummy to show for it. Not that I've 'let myself go' but I've been veeeeeeery lazy exercise-wise, which is unlike me as I always used to be so damn active. Blast!

Tomorrow (well, it's after midnight so...) I have to take clothes dry-cleaning; take boots to the shoe repair man. Do some other errands. I'll make yummy rump/eye fillet steak with mash potatoes and mixed salad for dinner, which is one of my fave meals and my boy's too.

I'm most likely going to get a brightish red semi-permanent rinse done at the hairdresser's this Saturday...if I can snare an appointment, that is. Haven't coloured my hair in eons.

Am finally reading Austen's Pride and Prejudice and loving it. I know, it's taken me bloody forever to read one of literature's classics, and there are so many more that have to be read!

Speaking of P&P, Colin Firth is yumminess. I'm refusing to watch the BBC version of P&P until I've read the book but...yowza! Mr. Darcy, here I come! What a fine, fine man Firth is...
...smouldering and devillishly handsome. Okay, enough, heh heh.

I feel like drinking Radenska Peach Iced Tea, mmmmmm...so good.

To all in the blogosphere, I bid adieu... time to catch some zzzzzz's.

Random thought(s)...

2008-04-14T11:46:00.002+10:00

This morning was such a sleepy one...the colder it gets, the harder it is for one to drag oneself out of the comfort and warmth of bed.

I love wintery weather, though. There's a serenity to it, a quiet, and it's the most mysterious of all seasons. And there's nothing quite like cuddling up under a blanket with your sweetness after a long day, just enjoying the simplicity of doing nothing, sitting in silence, or watching something on TV (like Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares...my God, I LOVE that man! He's just f--king brilliant and soooo snarktacular!).

Mondays, ugh...wish I weren't at work today, but who does on a Monday morning (granted, it's almost noon). Good ole' iPod sure helps ease the pain.

Windswept and content

2008-03-10T22:27:00.005+11:00

(Below is a piece I wrote end-of-2006/early '07 - before my boy and I moved in together [I mention this because of a paragraph towards the end that mentions 'his' room, heh] - and I was always reluctant to share it with anyone because it is, in parts, perhaps a little too intimate, and I don't really like putting things on my blog that relate to my boy for that very reason...
But I was thinking about the piece recently and decided to put it up, even though I've edited it here and there; self-censorship, yes. After all, t'is my prerogative to conceal the bits I deem too private...okay, pun totally not intended!)

Happiness: Some people believe that it is elusive, and something that only a few ‘lucky folk’ can attain. They’d be right, I suppose. After all, we are all too aware of the negativity plaguing our world in the form of war and famine (to name just a few). Happiness must surely be a foreign concept to the people who have been subjected to such despair, or who continue to be exposed to such a world, the only one they know.

But on a more personal note, what does happiness constitute? What does it mean to me, a 23-year-old young woman…?

Happiness is love; pure, honest love. Loving and being loved; by your family, your partner, friends…knowing that you are incredibly and undeniably blessed to have such precious souls gracing your life, people you cherish completely.

Happiness is him. His eyes, his lips, his face, his body. His being, his character, his intelligence, his humanity, his talents, his wisdom; everything.

Happiness is those first snoozy moments when slumber slowly begins to cease, and you feel yourself awash with warmth as his arms slip around you tenderly, and he sleepily murmurs something into your shoulder. Happiness is turning towards each other in the protective cushioning of the bed, sprinkling each other’s faces with gentle kisses, and smiling unabashedly as you do so. It’s the adoring gaze he gives you and that you feel yourself giving him.

Happiness is caressing each other in those early hours of a new day, and pressing your bodies together to get as close as possible.

Happiness is sex, making love, and the sheer beauty, excitement and desire with which it fills you as your bodies and minds link rhythmically, and you revel in it all.

Happiness is laughing with the people you love, running short of breath and clutching your sides to get some sort of hold on yourself, even though you’re feeling all kinds of wonderful.

Happiness is running about a field, kicking around a soccer ball, and allowing your lungs to engulf themselves with precious air as you run at full force, feeling warmth and tingles surge through your body.

Happiness is being healthy and safe, and hoping and praying – believing – that health and safety will continue for a very, very long time, for you and your loved-ones.

Happiness is cooking and eating the meal you have prepared with him, and the sounds and smells of the chopping, slicing and sautéing. It is the look on his face when you show him the cake you have baked for him.

Happiness is music, an elixir of sorts, and one that generates a pureness of thought and emotion, one that has the ability to transfix and illuminate you, one that has the power to unite, to liberate, and to transfer you into cognitive zones previously uncharted.

Happiness is waking up on a cold and rainy Saturday morning, lazily blinking away the hazy remnants of sleep, and hearing the rain gently pattering against the glass of the window that shields you from the coldness, and you shift under the blanket and bedspread, intertwined with your sweetness, feeling the insatiable heat from his naked flesh.

Happiness is being overcome with tears because of something he says that makes you eternally grateful for him, the most priceless treasure with which you’ve been (and could ever be) bestowed…and the way in which he holds you as you cry those tears of joy. Oftentimes, he need not even say a word – it is merely enough to gaze at him as he creates music through the woodwind instrument he loves so, or as he talks about something with earnest and fervour…or as he listens to music in his sanctuary, and the look upon his face as the music drifts through him, over him, into him…those seemingly simple moments propel my love even more, and make me want to embrace him tightly, kiss him endlessly, and stare into those warm, doe-like chestnuts that beautify my world.

Happiness is writing; a musical composition of sorts, and the concoction of clefs, sharps, flats, quavers and rests that depict the words that come to you, on a staff that extends and runs across many pieces of paper. Perhaps it is not always symphonic, but it can certainly be meaningful or evocative of something poignant, passionate. Happiness is being hit with inspiration at any given moment, and rummaging around for pen and paper to transfer thoughts embedded in your mind.

Happiness is the low and smooth timbre of his voice, the sound of which caresses your ears and heals your soul. It is a music that no musician could hope to recreate, that no instrument can replicate…it is a sound innate to him, uniquely his, and nothing can compare to it.

Happiness is lying back and staring at his long, muscular body, with its soft crevices and creamy porcelain skin...

Happiness is being at work on a Friday afternoon, eager with anticipation about the evening before you, and the two days after which are at your disposal. The sublime weekend.

Happiness is watching him manoeuvre himself as he photographs, and the position of his body as he does so, the sleek sound of the moving lens as he zooms in on a detail only he can see. Happiness is seeing the reproduction of his photographs and again witnessing his talent through the still images.

Happiness is being up in the mountains during the winter months, and breathing in the crisp, biting air…hearing the sweet sounds of the forest by which you are surrounded, the shuffling rustle of the commanding trees, the chirpiness and song of the many animals whose home is the woodland you walk upon. Happiness is stumbling and trudging along the forest path, hearing the crackle of shoes pressing against sticks and rocks.

Happiness is having had a glorious father in the crucial early stages of your life, in spite of his tragic and untimely death. Happiness is knowing that he and your incredible mother shaped you into a human being that loves and respects people of all backgrounds. Happiness is your wonderful and sweet older brother who still exhibits a streak of childlike innocence, a quality you hope remains with him always.

Happiness is the waft of scrumptious pancakes in the morning.

Happiness is lying down together on his bed, on a weekend afternoon, listening to sounds of the seventeenth century emanating from his stereo, and being gently swayed into a contented sleep whilst enveloped in his arms.

Happiness is suddenly being overcome with desire and needing each other at that very moment, fuelled by loving flames that sear through and burn together into a blaze by which you are willingly held captive.

Happiness is anything but unattainable. It is always there amongst the people who make your life wonderful and worthwhile. It is there in the simple moments that make you smile, that make you yearn. It is there because you are alive, and because you’re allowed to live.

Happiness is life. Life is happiness.

Dissonance

2008-02-12T20:29:00.008+11:00

 The prose below is dedicated to my father, who graced the lives of everyone he knew, and to all those who have lost someone to whom they were close, irrespective of how much time has elapsed.

"He might be gone but he's always watching over you. He'll never really be gone. I know that this must be of no reassurance right now, but..."

Give them a nod. Look at them. Indicate you've heard them, c'mon. Uh huh, yes. Thank you. That means a lot.

But where is he? That's right, gone. Not here, not anywhere. I can't see him, I can't hug him or speak to him, or have him smile at me beatifically, like he always did, with his eyes lighting up, bright, beautiful and sparkling. He's not walking around here, he's not existing.

More people, more crowding, more condolences. Every time somebody new comes, a fresh bout of tears cascades from my drained eyes. More tears, so many tears. As if they've always been part of our faces. I cannot remember not crying. Sorrowful faces, pitiful faces; faces etched with anger, confusion, disbelief...so many emotions melting and shaping people's features. People. They know me, love me. They knew and loved HIM. Bereaved of him so cruelly and suddenly. We had him only yesterday. He was alive, here, like us.

So tired yet so acutely aware of the surrounds. May I close my eyes, please, just for a moment? I cannot bear to keep these heavy lids open any longer. My features have swollen and reddened from this grief that has gripped me. And maybe you'd like to avert your gaze from the redness prickling my eyes, bloodshot and fatigue-laden. They're stinging and my view's so bleary. Maybe it makes you uncomfortable; maybe it leaves you at a loss for words. That's okay. I understand. I'd rather not speak, either. Sitting in perpetual silence is a comforting thought now. What to say? The light overhead feels like it's burning through my cornea.

Perhaps if I allow my eyes to close, I'll awaken and this will all have been a nightmare. Yes, my mind could be playing cruel tricks on me. I bite my lip, wonder if I'm losing my mind. Well...if I were indeed going crazy, I wouldn't know it, but it'd be easier; I wouldn't have to think about death, subdued by forces beyond my power. What inane thoughts... I almost want to chuckle. Or cry, again. I cannot bear it. Laughter seems like such a foreign notion. I've forgotten things I used to do. They won't be much use to me anyway. I’m convinced they won’t.

"…Such a good man. How could this have happened?"

This gathering is suffocating me. So many voices all at once; no quiet, no gaps of silence, just a constant drone of speech. My breathing is tempered somehow, but I'm threatening to heave. A lump is lodged in my throat; always there, always on the verge of erupting. Can he see us now? Is he crying with us, watching us cry for him? Crying because he can no longer be here with us, continuing on in this life? A life of love, family, passion and laughter. Where has it all gone? Is he crying, knowing that it is the loss of him that has shattered us all, and he is helpless to help?

Why don't you show yourself if you are watching over us? I can feel you at times, but where are you to be seen? Is there something I must do for you to appear? Please show yourself, I cannot stand it. Can you not see how I cry for you? How we all do? Are you there when I stop, when the sobs that clench my throat recede into quiet sounds, and my body slowly relaxes from the hollowing cries that bind me? Is that you comforting me, is that why I stop?

Nightmares seize my sleep. I’m trapped inside a cold dungeon. I see a moon, gigantic and bright, right in front of me; it’s spinning, and I hear ominous voices speak of death and obliteration. Terrifying dreams from which I wake screaming, my body beaded with warm, clinging sweat. How odd that I find the perspiration soothing. I lie back in bed – a place for rest – fidgety, fearful and depleted. Will I ever dream peacefully? Time seems like such an encumbrance; the future stark, desolate.

Everything is amplified, every sense on alert; dolor, hurt, anger, shock, bewilderment, devastation, denial, numbness, shaking and shivering...how can I feel this all at once? It hurts unlike anything and there's no way to express it, no way to eject it from my being. It has devoured me all in one gulp. My eyes close without my really realising it.

I'm at sea. The ocean's opus hums all around me, and I'm in the middle of the expanse of water, no shore or island in sight; just me, the ocean and the thunderous sky above, menacing and dismal. How did I get here...? I'm staying afloat, my arms and legs battling in unison, and the tiredness is slowly settling in. The waves are becoming more ragged with every passing moment, their choppiness splashing at my face. There is no plank upon which to rest, float, and hope is slowly waning. I'm left to fight for myself, or...  How easy it'd be to just slip away, quietly and selfishly, to let go of this agonising pain that has imprisoned my body and mind, to descend slowly and sink to the sea bed beckoning to me from its shrouded cove. How easy...

I flinch. Something inside me stirs, and the tears trickle out again, getting lost amidst the already drenched texture of my face. Wails are drowned out by the sea sounds. How am I not drowning? I'm swimming, my limbs frail with exhaustion, but sure enough I'm swimming.

And you fight. You fight for yourself, for your loved-ones. You fight through the enraged moments that entangle you; through the anguish; through the mornings when you want to remain bundled up, cocooned away from the light of day, immersed in a soothing, cold darkness that mirrors the darkness within you; through the days when you coast by zombie-like, so long and draining do those days seem; through the moments when you think it's just too hard, when the grief eats at you, pecking away like a merciless vulture; through the days when sunlight is your enemy and the ominous clouds your friend; through the days when despair ensnares you, trapping you like the sly, poisonous flick of a snake’s tongue before your face.

"If there's anything you need, anything..."

How will I go on without you? How is this supposed to work? Why YOU, why us...? Are we being punished for something? What could we have done to stop this from happening?

Bereft of serenity…is this how it will always be from now on? An endlessness of questions. Nothing to condole this heartbreak.

* * *

Music punctures the stillness of night. Someone delivers the punch line of a joke. I let out a throaty laugh but stop. I feel guilty. Shifting in my seat, I turn around to look at something, anything. Why am I laughing? Several months have gone by, I'm 'allowed', but still I feel that pang, chiding myself for...living. Yes, exactly that...I feel guilty; my life has continued on, I've begun to deal and survive his passing. The pain remains, as intense and present as ever, but I don't feel it as frequently as I did in the aftermath of his passing. I'm always reminded of its presence, though. And I'm terrified of the pain leaving, however much I want it to be gone; terrified of forgetting the nuances of his voice, the gesticulations that accompanied his talk, the body language: the little things. Terrified that, by not seeing it, it'll erase itself from memory, and then only his face and his words will remain, the knowledge of who he was.

In the months that pass, you stave off the pity directed at you but, at the same time, a part of you craves it, needs it to be there. And you hate yourself a little bit for that but you can't help it, because it means that your continued grieving is justified, that your friends aren't forgetting, and that you can go at your own pace and wallow because the mourning cuts you a whole lot of slack. You’re mentally and emotionally adrift, still. You like it when someone expresses shock and dismay upon hearing about his death, and you find yourself feeling a tad defensive when someone else doesn’t do the same, rather gives the awkward “Oh…” response, one that isn't followed by "I'm sorry." You sometimes find yourself resenting those who appear to have had better fortunes, led easier lives. You smirk silently at what they consider to be problems. And you immediately admonish yourself for being permeated with such thoughts. But it’s all part of the process; the process of grieving and surviving. More often than not you feel and think things that would not be there under normal circumstances.

"He'll always be looking down on you, you can be sure of that."

I smile. And I believe those words, believe in their truth. I cannot remove myself from the pain, but my soul is strengthening regardless. Music provides a temporary healing power and nourishes my being. Writing offers an expulsion of the demons that harbour a nest within me, and I am freed from their burden, their claw-like clutches.

* * *

Now, almost fifteen years without him in our lives, I've learned to emphasise the happy times and avoid remembering those that plunged us deep into a heavy fog, one we fought hard to lift. But we fought, just like so many others did and continue to do every day. We came through for one another in moments of incredible fragility. He'd be proud of us for that. Well, not WOULD, but I believe he is. I can’t not believe that his spirit – his heart and soul – has not lived on, that he is not our guardian angel… I know it with a certainty I cannot possibly justify, but it is a feeling – some sort of spiritual consciousness, perhaps – I get now and again. What would be the point of this life if we all just dispersed into nothingness at the end of it all…? Would it mean our lives had meant nothing, that we meant nothing? That the lives we led, the love and joy we had, that it counts for nought? It must be more intricate than that. I certainly do not purport to know the meaning of life, nor would I be so bold as to philosophise about it now, but I know that I have faith, in spite of the times when I’m still befallen by spells of melancholia. I take it as a part of life, MY life; the ‘hand that I’ve been dealt’, but one that I know I can shape into what I want it to be, and already have. Love, fortitude, determination and passion help. It’s not that hard. It’s not always that easy either, but…you take it as it comes. Sounds so simple (and hackneyed, at that). Oftentimes, though, the simplest things offer a way out from the trappings of sorrow and solitude. And – even more often – we’re completely unaware that they’re even working, until one day we’re able to breathe in, fully, like we used to.

Heath Ledger, RIP

2008-01-23T10:05:00.000+11:00

Truly sad news and such a shame. I wasn't much of a fan, but I respected his acting prowess and the fact that he was an Aussie boy 'made good'; a Perth-native who'd made a name for himself in Hollywood, was a critically acclaimed, Academy award nominated actor, and had an adorable kid.

I remember first seeing him in 10 Things I Hate About You and I deemed him quite cute (but I was always a Joshua Jackson girl deep down!); plus, that was one of the better late 90s teen flicks.

It's strange how, when you find out someone famous has passed away, you're shocked and saddened, and you didn't even know them as a person. You knew of them, you'd seen some of their movies, and they were a presence in that way and only that way. I thought he and Michelle Williams had made a lovely couple and was happy for them after catching part of a rerun of them on Oprah (while they were still together, obviously); they seemed quite grounded in spite of the whole fame thing. Plus, their daughter Matilda was cute as a button.

Without speculating on whether the death was self-inflicted (the latest reports are that he may have had pneumonia), it's a devastating loss to his loved-ones, and one of the (many) sad aspects of Ledger's death is that anonymity is obviously non-existent, and his death has been - and will be - relayed the world over, so those closest to the deceased will not, in effect, be allowed to grieve properly and thoroughly, especially if some cretinous media figures probe and 'want to know how [the family] feel(s)' (isn't this sort of bullshit immediately nixed in Journalism 101?). It comes with the territory of the career he chose, yes, but it doesn't mean it's right. Death in the public eye means that a horde of photographers are snapping away as Ledger's form is wheeled away on a stretcher in a body bag.

Hopefully Heath's family and friends will be allowed to mourn in peace, because they are the ones to whom he meant - means - the most.

Life is life

2007-12-01T18:52:00.000+11:00

There are some things in this world that annoy the hell out of me; pet peeves, if you will. They annoy me so much, in fact, that they’ll more often that not elicit such lovely reactions as gritting my teeth, fuming, dirty looks and other things of that ilk. And now, I shall delight in detailing all of my pet peeves – you have been warned!

As of this writing, I am on a tram (I always try to keep my trusty notebook – well, one of the five that I own – handy for jolts of inspiration!). It’s been an excruciatingly long and relatively unproductive day at work, so it’s not like I’m in the chirpiest of moods to begin with. Plus, I’ve got no music or reading material, so I’m even grumpier. Across from me sits a lady to whom I don’t pay much attention...that is, until she whips out her mobile phone (which has as its ring tone Usher’s “Yeah!”, a song I can’t stand at the best of times). The lady then proceeds to invite the whole tram in on her phone convo. By the end of this ever-so-enlightening call, I already know her life story, that she’s going away soon on an island getaway, etc.

People (well, people I don’t know): I don’t care what you do or where you’re going. I don’t particularly want to know that you’ll be jetting off to Aruba on a long-deserved vacation – congratulations, good for you, pack that sun lotion. But here’s a newsflash for ya: NO ONE. CARES. So please, for the love of all that is good and holy, pipe the hell down. The lady that is still sitting across from me (having finished her conversation) evidently has no notion of being discreet, because she spoke in an unnervingly loud voice, and no amount of elaborate seat shifting from yours truly (or exasperated sighing to boot) had any effect on her whatsoever. She continued yapping on, oblivious to the fact that almost everyone around her was either rolling their eyes (me, mostly) or looking as though they were trying to contain themselves from swatting her over the head with their books or newspapers. Oh, what’s this...? She just yawned without covering her mouth...and she is about to leave the tram, yay!

To boot, this lady is one of those people with a perma-smug expression who tries to purse her lips here and there in a vain attempt to make them look pouty, while lugging around a posture-damaging, way-oversized Jimmy Choo bag (one that, it must be said, totally clashed with her outfit...but hey, I’m no Carrie Bradshaw – thank God!).

When people travel on a tram/train, they want to spend that time in as much peace as is humanly possible (especially after a long day at work), hence why most people have their iPods on (or, in my case, a Sony Discman that was a gift from my bro some three years ago – still works like a charm! I must say, I’m still a CD girl at heart, heh) or lose themselves in a book which can work wonders for shutting out the rumblings around them.

While I’m musing about public transport and its charms, here are a few other MAJOR pet peeves of mine: when moronic people sitting opposite/next to you cough and/or sneeze without covering their mouths, thereby giving you and other unsuspecting folk a generous sprinkling of their oh-so-great germs. The coughing/sneezing and blatant disregard for basic hygiene is something that immediately gets my blood boiling, and makes me want to throttle the cougher/sneezer. I mean, I’ve had enough damn colds this year and I’m really not up for another one. But it’s the fact that someone would release his or her bodily fluids onto someone that really shits me beyond belief. You’d think that people would know that one needs to put their hands over their mouths/noses when they cough or sneeze – you’d be wrong.

Let’s move on, shall we? What else gets on my nerves...ooh, I know: waiters/waitresses with a chip on their shoulder for no real reason. Listen up sweetie, if you hate your job that much you really should just quit rather than sticking around in HOSPITALITY, for crying out loud, an industry that demands (or ought to) outstanding customer service.

Other things, in no particular order...

People who misspell, can’t distinguish between possessives and contractions (you’re/your; they’re/their/there; et al) and generally people who don’t have a proper grasp of the English language (which is even worse when people are born and have grown up in an English-speaking country). Grammar is something that should be known and drilled into students from the get-go, and I won’t be changing my mind on that. Another thing that bugs the hell out of me is when I see grammatical mistakes in newspapers – I’m ready to ring the place up and offer myself as a proofreader/copy editor. How can one be a journalist if one doesn’t know the basics of one’s own language? Unacceptable!

Yes, I’m being persnickety about my pet-peeves because I can and it’s good fodder for the blog! It’s been a shitty day and this is rather cathartic.

Peeves continued:

Public transport that seldom arrives on time, with scheduled arrivals/departures more often that not being cancelled...then getting a fine on the one day that you're unable to produce a ticket due to extenuating circumstances, and there being no way in hell of appealing said fine, despite the consistent crappy record of the public transport company who are really not doing much to improve things. Oh, and the trains/trams are filthy and are often the scene of violent attacks, public drunkenness or pathetic teens who do chroming – yay!

People who speak loudly on the phone and-- oh, I’ve mentioned that already, have I...? Well, that’s how much it irks the bejesus out of me. I forgot to mention that this isn’t limited to public transport – colleagues in the office are also culprits. There’s a girl at my work who insists on upping the decibels when she speaks on the phone...grrrr...plus, every time she speaks to her mother she always sounds so damn narky with her. “Keep it down over there!” I hear myself say...in my head, arrgghh!

What else annoys me...ah yes, people who walk around downtown looking like they (a) are plotting a murder, (b) would hurt even the cutest chipmunk if it flashed its adorable teeth at them because they’re miserable bastards or (c) don’t look where they’re going and keep knocking into people. Always fun.

People who stand in front of the door (of an elevator/train/tram/et al) and block the exit of departing passengers, or those who simply push on in – where’s the damn fire? Wait your friggin’ turn, let the people get off, THEN you can go and sit your impatient ass down on a seat. Gah!

What else annoys the hell out of me? People with body odour. Ugh...I cannot begin to tell you how my blood pressure escalates when I'm on public transport, and some tool sits next to me whose stench practically engulfs me within the first two seconds of him (or worse, HER) sitting down. I immediately begin plotting my escape (so paranoid am I about the odour somehow transferring onto me, blearrrghhh!), but dammit, how moronic is it that these people have not introduced one very simple innovation into their lives: good ole' deodorant. Shower, spray armpits and you're good to go. It’s not that hard, folks: there’s a wide selection at your local supermarket(s) from which you can choose a nice-smelling deo that’ll keep you fresh and not make strangers around you want to destroy their sense of smell as swiftly as possible.

Then, of course, we have bad breath; look, we all get bad breath here and there, but some of us actually know how to control it (i.e. brush teeth, or if away from home, breath freshener and/or heavy-duty mints). When faced with someone whose breath could substitute for chloroform, one must try to strategically - but still nonchalantly - place themselves into a position that will ensure they are somewhat able to breathe normal oxygen and not the spewy CO2 emanating from the bad-breath-ridden culprit. Oftentimes such a task is not easy, as we all know. God help me, but if I had bad breath and wasn’t aware of it (which...is that even possible?), I’d want my family/friends to give me a heads-up, because if they’re not gonna be honest with you you’re screwed. Thankfully, my fam/friends rock so I’m cool. And I know how to control bad breath if and when it comes.

What else, what else...ah, of course! The precious act of driving, and, specifically, as it applies to freeways. One thing that makes my blood boil is driving behind a dickhead who chooses to enter a freeway at 60km/h...clearly, said dickhead has a death wish, but I'd rather not get caught up in it myself, y'know.
More freeway peeves: when I'm driving 100km/h (the legal speed limit on Melbourne freeways for you foreign peeps), in the LEFT LANE, and some maniac starts tailgating me like crazy, and I wish that we were that advanced technologically that my car could for a couple of moments commence driving itself around curved parts so that I could stick my head out the window and scream obscenities at the psycho tailgater. Phew.
Other things... People who cut me off, of course. People who don't follow the basic road safety rules, thereby endangering people's lives – you all suck!

When the tram takes a bloody lifetime to get anywhere - yeah, I know, rush hour traffic, blah blah...but still!

When women cake on make-up in the morning, drag queen-style. Save it for a low-light situation, sweetie. Better yet, look into that whole 'dewy, fresh look' thing that's, oh I don't know...nice?

When women put on foundation on public transport. FOUNDATION, people. I can handle a subtle sweep of crayon eye liner now and again, but foundation? I mean, really?

Women who have a perma-scowl. ‘Nuff said. The world isn't THAT bad a place, dears.

I think that’s it...for now. Bwahahhahahhahahaaa...no, I think I’ve exhausted the lobe in my brain that deals with pet-peeves. Frontal lobe? Senior-year psychology knowledge presently escapes me.

Mid-week [sigh]...

2007-11-14T11:49:00.000+11:00

Melbourne is today pretty much completely shrouded in a very pale lilacish-gray fog. The mist has come down on the city and blocked the glorious sunlight we've been experiencing over the last week or so.

But it's apt, somehow. It's Wednesday, after all - the day that inches closer towards the weekend, reaching and straining for it with both hands but failing to get to it. Wednesday is a day filled with mulling over and stressing about end-of-the-week project deadlines, not to mention trying to snap oneself out of the inertia typical to a Wednesday work day, and psyching oneself up for the seemingly-long day ahead (which this one may pan out to be).

Today is a perfect day for snuggling under a blanket on the couch next to the heater, with a book or a magazine, and a beverage of one's choice perched on the coffee table. Perhaps some munchies, too. Maybe a steaming pot of hot chocolate...mmmmm.

Time capsule

2007-11-01T07:46:00.000+11:00

"...And when I die, I keep on living
You'll always have my love seeing you through
I'll be your angel up in heaven
Forever all my love will shine on you..."

"...Never had I imagined
Living without your smile...
...And I know you're shining down on me from heaven
Like so many friends we've lost along the way
And I know eventually we'll be together..."

("When I die", No Mercy; "One sweet day", M. Carey & Boyz II Men)

Nov 1, 1993 - Nov 1, 2007

Fourteen years gone as though they never even happened, but still I know you're with me. And still I love you the same as ever.

Viva la musica

2007-10-09T14:39:00.000+10:00

The following are tracks that I've had on high-rotation lately, in no particular order:

- Us and them PINK FLOYD
- Breathe your name SIXPENCE NONE THE RICHER
- Make you happy CELINE DION
- Saint Simon THE SHINS
- Stars SIMPLY RED
- Broken road MELODIE CRITTENDEN
- Just another day without you JON SECADA
- This woman's work KATE BUSH
- Good enough SARAH MCLACHLAN

- Hook me up THE VERONICAS
- You'll see MADONNA
- This used to be my playground MADONNA
- Somebody's crying CHRIS ISAAK
- Collide HOWIE DAY
- I shall believe SHERYL CROW
- Far away CHANTAL KREVIAZUK
- Man on the moon REM
- Too lost in you SUGABABES
- The day you come POWDERFINGER

I've been doing a lot of writing lately, and I almost always have music playing whilst I write (usually I prefer instrumental/classical pieces, though, as they don't distract as much). I totally recommend any/all of the above tunes, many of which you probably know anyway. Which songs have you all been listening to?

I shall be putting up a new post fairly soon. Thank you to everyone who's visiting the blog (i.e. my friends and family, mainly, hehe)...!

“[War]…what is it good for, absolutely nothing (sing it again!)”

2007-09-03T21:41:00.003+10:00

[NOTE: My sincerest apologies for taking so long to put this post up. Frankly, I was wallowing in laziness and procrastination, and I meant to be speedy when it came to polishing it up...it just took me over a month to do so. I was deliberately being picky with this blog entry as it deals with a sensitive subject matter, and there were times when I just didn't want to deal with it. Having said that, I'll work on churning out posts more frequently henceforth!]

I find it quite remarkable how certain words can hold so much meaning within their vowels and consonants, and evoke the same sensations over and over again throughout your life. There are words that always have a certain degree of ambiguity about them, until something happens which forces us to associate them with events, and to think of those events whenever the words are uttered.

'War' is one such word, and one that for many people is simply an abstract notion, some far-off thing that happens in and plagues 'barbaric' countries and people, whereas their grand countries remain untouched by the filth of it all. They are blissfully cocooned within their warm, comfortable lives, never knowing, or having known, the lunacy of senseless, pathetic battle. And thankfully so.

I wish I had been one of those people, who never had to know what that word actually means, and how it feels to have that word brought to life, erupting into existence. I am one of the many - countless - people tainted by a war in which I was a victim, both in a passive and active sense. You'll know more what I mean by this as I write further.

I'm referring of course to the war(s) that followed the disintegration of a once venerated Yugoslav Republic; the war in Croatia began in 1991, and '92 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Some believe that it was inevitable; a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, a dormant volcano threatening to burst its top with searing molten lava; perhaps, but I know that it was also one hell of a rude awakening for many of us who had been naive, and who simply did not want to believe that something like that could happen, because, well, we had been unified for so long and it was good. Why would a good thing be ruined? Three of the major ethnicities living together, a melting pot of cultural elements that were all beautiful in their own way, comprised of differences that weren't really all that different. We all like to think that there is something within our heritage that defines us, that is unique to us, and sure, there are aspects like that, but none of those differences are something that one should be involved in conflict over. There is a clear sense of egotism and superiority involved in wars, when there exists an underlying of ‘ethnic/religious tensions’ (which is, let's face it, 99.99 per cent of wars). And there is inhumanity on a grand scale when people fight ‘in the name of something’, and almost mindlessly follow political figures who attribute to themselves undeserved grandiosity and exude a disgustingly blatant self-importance.

Back when these unscrupulous, crazy politicians began tearing through long-established socio-political fabric, I was simply your typical, happy-go-lucky kid who wanted to spend her days playing outside, running about with her friends, bike-riding, and swimming in any of the four beautiful rivers that permeated throughout her hometown, rushing through with life and vigour. And yes, I’m aware that I’ve made my child-self sound like quite the cliché!

My hometown was one of those quintessential, picturesque South-eastern European towns that go largely undiscovered in favour of more prominent metropolises. I was born in Karlovac, the town built in the formation of a star with six rays during the 16th century, as a fortress against the Ottoman Empire. It was built on the four rivers of Kupa, Korana, Mreznica and Dobra.

I remember the countless walks along the Korana shoreline, climbing atop the main diving board, sitting on it and dangling my legs over the side in that devil-may-care, childlike way; mind you, the rivers Mreznica and Dobra were my favourites (perfect, crystal-clear rivers), and I loved swimming in them and frolicking about, until my fingertips would become wrinkly – always a sign of excessive water indulgence (in addition to the ever-so-subtle chattering of teeth). Karlovac was a wonderful place to grow up in. And I still love it, dearly. It'll always be my hometown. And whenever I return, it’s like I never left, somehow – I know how to get from one end of town to the other, I know how to orientate myself and navigate my way around without hassle. At the same time, it’s odd because I feel like I’m having an out of body experience strolling the many streets I’ve grown up knowing…as if I’m viewing myself from a short distance away, seeing myself doing everything. And it’s so much smaller now, and maybe that’s because I’m no longer a kid.

The reality is, though, that I could never return, nor would I want to. Being there, the great contradictory effect is felt and seen – I grin like a Cheshire cat, and yet I cry and cry. As much as I love it, I will always associate it as being the place where my childhood innocence began to fade listlessly, where my life was divided into the epochs of 'before war' and 'post-war'…and where I lost a person who had meant the world to me.

Several weeks back, I stumbled across a website that had a very detailed timeline of the war, and, specifically, chronicled the war as it had happened in Karlovac. I sat in front of the computer, stunned, sad and fascinated in spite of myself. For the time that I sat there, mute and fixated on the words before me, I felt as if I had been thrown into a sealed capsule of sorts (with only a limited supply of oxygen at my disposal), and although I could hear the sounds around me and my peripheral vision was registering objects in my vicinity, I was in another dimension, frankly. The strangest part was that it felt as though I was THERE, as I was reading it all...as if for the briefest of moments, I had returned, not as a child, but as I am now, a young adult that hasn't been living there for thirteen years. Each word I read began to project itself onto a screen in my mind, images began to swirl and form, almost too naturally. If it hadn't happened to me and my family and friends, it would've sounded like any other account of a war that had gripped a town. I would’ve relied solely on the images and words before me to get an idea of what it might have been like. I would’ve made sympathetic noises and all that, but it would’ve ended at that. The accompanying pictures that I couldn't help but click onto felt like they were scalding my retina, and yet I was transfixed, and I searched the images almost clinically, trying to see anything else that was familiar beyond the streets and buildings I still know well.

I smiled ruefully as I came across countless paragraphs with the phrasing 'Serb insurgents/rebel Serbs', knowing that it had nothing to do with me, but nonetheless feeling a pang of hurt (or unfounded guilt...?). I guess that’s inevitable when you grow up with 'the enemy syndrome'. Must be. There's also a couple of 'Serb terrorists' thrown in there for good measure. That one’s quite disconcerting, especially in this day and age when the phrasing has such particular connotations.

The majority of pictures on the website were black and white, which gave them an almost ethereal and ancient quality, as if they were from another time, another country, another town - not mine.
Every now and then, the number of civilians who were killed or wounded pops up, and I recoil silently. And I realise that there will always be just a little bit of bitterness entrenched within me, about the war, and more so about my childhood that was never allowed to flower to full bloom. I remember the days when we’d play outside, trying not to feel constricted (almost forgetting that we were), and without warning the town emergency siren would begin to wail, emerging louder and louder, encroaching on our space, on us…I hated that warning sign with a fervour unbecoming of a child – I loathed it for everything it represented, everything it meant. I hated the dread it filled me with, hated its ominous and sickening voice that I tried to block out by singing soothingly to myself. It meant that, yet again, we had to make our way down to the bomb shelter of our apartment building. We had to obey it or face the consequences, pretty much. What I hated even more, however, was the acrid fetor of gunpowder that attacked my senses every time it was safe to leave the shelter. I felt as though it was seeping into me, invading me, ALL of us, and we were too vulnerable and numb to fend it off. I’ve wondered, oftentimes, whether I’m more indignant about that now than I was back then. Was I more accepting of it (in a sense) because…it was what it was? Was I more prepared to understand it then because it seemed to be something that was greater than us all, and we didn't really have much choice in the matter?

As I scanned the information on the website, I went in search of the date when the war ceased to be something that we had to learn to live with, part of the quotidian, but morphed into the merciless beast that clenched onto my father and took him away.

13.09.1993 = my father was seriously wounded by shrapnel from a grenade that had hit the platform of the Karlovac railway station where he had worked for over fifteen years. The passage on the website states “three people killed, twelve wounded” (who are the rest of these nameless statistics, I wonder…?). He was operated on, but some weeks after was diagnosed with meningitis and lapsed into a coma, from which he would not emerge. On the 01.11. that same year – the day of All Saints – he died. Before this, I had blindly clung to hope that he was going to pull through – for me there had been no other choice. Death was not an option, and I never even let the idea penetrate my thoughts. There was just ‘no way’ that my father, whom I considered to be beyond heroic proportions, could possibly succumb to something as final as death. Death was for the elderly, the sick, characters in TV shows…for people I didn’t know. Death, as far as I was concerned, existed elsewhere. Not in my world.

Finding out about dad’s death was a hollowing blow, the cruellest and most horrible awakening ever, and even writing that feels like I’m trivialising the moment and the agonizing sequence of days and months (years...) that ensued. Nothing mattered from thereon. I couldn’t cope, and I was embittered, angry…so incredibly angry. I was so caught up in the grief and self-pity…I couldn’t believe I no longer had my beautiful father, around whom I felt as though I could conquer the world. I had been “Daddy’s Little Girl” through and through, constantly gazing at him in awe and wonder, hanging on every word he uttered, and was always close by, clinging onto him, wanting to cuddle, listening to his stories and asking a plethora of questions.
Whenever I’d see a father and a daughter, I’d feel so alone, so jealous, envious…and step back into a ferocious vortex of feeling so very, deeply sorry for myself. I was almost nine, though I had begun to feel myself maturing since that damn war had begun. When dad died, I felt positively old, burdened, and overwhelmed. I was so aware of myself, so attuned to every little thing, and it felt unnatural - I just wanted to shake it off and escape out of myself, to disappear, even if for a moment. Every morning I’d wake up in a cloud of confusion, sure that everything had been a nightmare, convinced that I would see him sprawled out on our couch, and I’d scuttle out of bed with a tentative smile but, sure enough, reality soon left me gasping for air. In fact, many years after, long after we had settled in Australia, there’d be moments when I’d have to take a deep, heaving breath (almost as if I were a borderline asthmatic), which started after dad died…it’d just come out of nowhere, but I knew what it was a consequence of. It stopped several years ago - I don't remember how or when exactly, but it did.

* * *

The day I had discovered that 'chronological list of events' website, I got home from work, having scanned through a lot of the info during my lunch break, and I felt slammed, not admitting to myself why. As soon as I heard my darling’s beautiful, earnest greeting, a part of me unravelled, but it wasn’t until we kissed hello and embraced that I crumpled in his arms, and the tears came. And I cried, almost silently. It was comforting letting out something I hadn’t known I had even been holding in. And it was also comforting to learn that I’m not that ‘tough’ when it comes to thinking about the war – that I’m not able to flick a switch and have myself believe that just because I’ve told my story so many times over the years, that telling it has made it redundant somehow. It cannot, and it also hasn’t lessened the way in which it impacts upon me almost fourteen years later. But I still hate having to say it, because I always feel so awkward verbalising it.

I laugh resentfully every time I hear someone utter that ever-so-hackneyed phrase, ‘time heals all wounds’. Yeah, on TV maybe. There is no cure for losing someone who means the world to you, and – while time makes things easier – it in no way lessens the cruelty of not having your loved-one. With time, one learns to deal with what one has been dealt, somehow. I can’t quite explain it, but it’s some divine strength that envelopes you in those most fragile of moments, that allows you to pry yourself up from the floor that you’ve befriended, and there is no way to really rationalise it. Something tells you to ‘get a grip’ in the nicest way possible – is it your subconscious? God? Your loved-one’s spirit? All three of those? In the wake of my father’s death, I became deeply resentful of the mere notion of a higher being, believing that my father’s death would have been prevented had 'a God' existed. I spat in the face of faith…and yet, somehow, my faith crept back in, slowly, and without my even noticing it. My family had never been religious (my brother and I were christened in a Serbian Orthodox church as babies, more out of tradition than anything else) and I still wouldn’t call myself religious by any strict standards, but I’m a ‘quiet believer’, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

I have written about the war and my father countless times, explicating it all in lengthy terms, and sometimes I think it gets to the point where I feel as though I go into ‘robot-mode’, running on auto-pilot, but as much as I’d like to convince myself that it’s that simple, each time I pen anything war-related it’s as though I’m writing it for the first time, and the same sense of disbelief hovers over my words, only for me to see. And there have been many times when I’ve delved into a state of self-pity, questioning things that are answerless, futile, and I’ve been all ‘woe is me’…I suppose that’s normal, although it’s not a state one willingly falls into. But I’ve always prided myself on the ability to snap myself out of it, sometimes quickly, sometimes eventually. And being emotional, that’s something that is an absolute repercussion of dad’s death. Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot for me to start crying. Sometimes I’ll cry if I watch “Father of the Bride” – a comedy – and it’ll get to that part where the daughter calls her father (as played by Steve Martin) from the airport to thank him for everything and to say goodbye before she departs on her honeymoon…and it doesn’t matter that I’ve seen the scene more times than I care to remember, but I never fail to tear up at it…and I think how I cannot believe that my dad won’t give me away at my own wedding, that we won’t do the traditional and obligatory father-daughter dance…the list goes on.

But at least I had him for those first eight-and-a-half years of my life, right? At least I've known what it meant to have such a wonderful father, and...there are so many kids who lost both parents in that war. I know a young man, originally from Bosnia, whose father was killed in the war, and not long after, while visiting the grave site with his mother, she was shot dead in front of him. It sounds too gruesome and unthinkable, especially knowing it happened to somebody you know...but this young man is such a positive person, such a divine human being, that one would be forgiven for thinking he'd 'had it easy' or something, if they weren't familiar with his 'life story'. He is now happily married, successfully builds houses for a living, and has generally carved out a happy existence for himself. How did he recover? Only he knows, I imagine. My guess is with the love and support of his extended family and friends.

I’ve often wondered what kind of a person I would’ve been had my mother, brother and I stayed in Karlovac and not migrated to Australia. What would it have been like growing up in a town in which my father is buried, where the cemetery and his grave point toward the mountain range bearing his name…? Could we have continued to live in a town that was not the same without dad in it, the town that had begun to shed its unspoiled beauty as the war went on, tarred completely by his death? Would I have stopped caring every time I saw an apartment building with grenade etchings, pock marks of brutality that stir up the memory of something that cannot be forgotten, that is impossible to conceal…? Would I have stopped noticing those pock marks altogether?

Would my father like the person that I’ve become now? I believe so. I would be nowhere, however, without my beautiful older brother (four-and-a-half-years my senior)...and my ineffably incredible mother to whom I am eternally indebted for all the sacrifices she made for bro and me, for the love she has always selflessly given and continues to give, and for single-handedly raising us when her life was falling apart all around her, managing to nonetheless shape us into people that we know she is proud to call her own. She never allowed herself to crumble when she very easily could’ve; all she saw in her field of vision was my brother and I, and I know that we kept her going - for her there was no other way, but she neglected herself considerably in the process. I will spend the rest of my life trying to be the kind of person that she is, and that dad was. People like my mum and dad are truly one in a million, and I am grateful to have been blessed with such souls, such amazing people who instilled in us the pure fundamentals of loving people for who they are, and never judging them based on the colour of their skin, their ethnicity, et al.
So you can imagine what a shock it was to my brother and I, in the early stages of the war, when we began hearing derogatory crap from a family of kids in our apartment building, who decided that calling us “chetniks” and telling us to ‘get out’ would become their new favourite pastime.

Was it really the collective-mindedness of a society that fostered that bloody war? I’ve always vehemently rebelled against this view, but am I naïve, and destined to be so about this particular war…? Am I simply sentimentalising it because I am one of the people to whom that ‘reason’ doesn’t apply? How is it that some people can be so slowly and mechanically poisoned, their weaknesses manipulated to suit the selfish, dangerous agendas of political messiahs…? Why is it that some people are so weak, whilst others are able to face the truth even when it is being obscured?

I remember writing a letter to then-Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, pleading with him and employing all of the persuasive techniques I had accumulated in my then-seven years of life (ha!). I never ended up sending the letter – it’s endearing, though, that I thought the letter would (a) even get to him, and (b) have the power to overturn the events of the war as we knew it. Try telling a kid that a war is as convoluted as everyone is making it out to be.

There are people in this world who laugh condescendingly at us Balkanites (and we along with them, at times, with the slightest hint of inherent bitterness), scorning us for the domino effect we’re able to create geopolitically (think WWI), claiming we are barbarians who need to have a war ‘every 50 years’…what the hell for, is it a detox of sorts? A detox from what? The civil war(s) of the 90s were yet another nightmare that proliferated so thoroughly, so severely, that no normal, loving person would have wanted it or been in favour of it. And when one thinks about it, all of the psychotics who spoke in our name and painted canvases reminiscent of Picasso's 'Guernica' across the Balkan landscape, well… they were louder, they were more aggressive, more blood-thirsty. They drowned out all the war nay-sayers, until our voices were but a quiver amidst the clamour. Yet we remained brave and hopeful, so gullible we were to believe that it wouldn’t go to the extent that it had. Why should we be surprised that we, all of us, were depicted in a certain way when we were only being represented by one portion of the people?

There is never a ‘winner’ in any war, and anyone who believes otherwise would do well to live in a war-torn country for a while (and get their head examined, too). How can anyone ‘win’ amidst inhumanity and bloodshed? What, precisely, does one acquire through this proverbial win? Is there anyone in Serbia, Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina who deems themselves a 'winner' and who could stand up now and proclaim themselves as one? My grandpa (dad's dad) - who clearly could not fathom leaving the region that had always been his home and trickling out of it in a miserable cordon - disappeared, never to be heard from again, and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that we finally learnt his fate; one that we had suspected over the years, yes, but people tend to steer towards holding onto a little glimmer of hope, however unrealistic and far-fetched it might seem. My father died because he was in the 'wrong place at the wrong time', because of a war that he didn't stand for or believe in...and he was just one of the many - too many - people. Who, exactly, was the winner then? Who was the winner in that cesspool called 'war'?

There are so many of us that are scattered all across this globe because of that damned war, in countries that had previously only been countries in name only, merely superficial words on a map that we were never meant to discover the true meaning of. Australia…land of the kangaroo, the koala; an English-speaking nation in which the nasal twang of an accent brings to mind images of lovable Aussie larrikins with their cork hats and leathery perma-tans, guzzling beer after beer at the local pub and shouting nonsensical gibber-gabber. Australia - located at the end of the earth.

Some expat-Balkanites are still Europe-bound, some have gone the way of the Americas, some are on the continents of Asia, Africa…who would have thought? And I remember saying not too long ago to my friends how I used to love watching Sesame Street and The Muppet Show as a kid back in Karlovac, thinking how ‘cool’ English sounded, and how I really wanted to speak it…and sure enough I speak it now, fluently, and as though I have always done so. Again, who would have thought?

Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, the filthy residue of the 1990s war(s) still lingers, the blistering decay of a macabre battle hanging over us. It is a lasting imprint of a time in history, not very long ago, when some people turned into monsters…and some remained the same, in spite of the murkiness and pitch-black darkness that swiftly descended over them, uninvited.

[Images taken from http://www.karlovac-touristinfo.hr/engleski/index.asp]

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

"Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battles raged higher...
...There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones...

...Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms..." (Dire Straits, 'Brothers in arms')

"...Hey, be strong you
Crying is the easiest thing to do
That's only God playing for us
The autumn's sonata..." (D. Balasevic, 'When I leave'/'Kad odem')
(...Hej, budi jaka ti
Najlakse je plakati
To nam samo Gospod svira
Jesenju sonatu...)

"I hope you've had the time of your life." ...Really?

2007-07-22T21:07:00.014+10:00

So...Saturday night I went to my five-year high school reunion. Hmph...where do I begin? Well, I went with my two best friends, Juliana and Ingrid,* with whom I had gone to that particular school up until the end of Year Nine (after that I moved up north to the Gold Coast and upon returning to Melbourne - five-and-a-half months later, mind you - I had to go to a different school as we were living in a suburb that was too far away from my old school).

So, since I hadn't been part of my former school's graduating Class of 2002 but a different one, I got to go as Ingrid's guest (Juliana took her beau).

Now that I've given you some (lengthy) exposition, allow me to 'set the scene' for the night's proceedings. My boy kindly dropped me off in the car park where Juliana and Ingrid had already been 'loitering' a couple of minutes; I bid him adieu and as he drove off, back to the warmth and safety of our apartment, I watched the car go for a mere moment, silently cursing that I would, within a span of minutes, be entering a twilight zone of sorts. And there really is no better way to say it than that, because, hell, it did feel as if we had all entered a time warp. The only difference was that now we had the glorious option of leaving whenever the deuce we wanted to, as opposed to back in 1997, '98, '99...etc. But also, I had Juliana and Ingrid with me, otherwise I wouldn't have gone (and, well, couldn't have gone, as per the first paragraph).

Are you exhausted yet?

The first familiar faces I saw were those of a former teacher and classmate - the teacher had been everyone's favourite, and she looked great and hadn't changed a bit (and neither had the classmate, who was largely responsible for organising the whole event). All of us chatted, and Aforementioned Awesome Teacher at one point inexplicably told me that I looked like, wait for it - a model.

Zuh?! Cue head spinning à la The Exorcist (ew, gross!).

Taken aback, I didn't know how to take this compliment except to scoff, shake my head while looking down at my feet, then finally and politely say 'thank you' (I tend to protest at times, like most people). By no means do I consider myself to look like THAT WORD THAT WAS SAID but I'd be lying if I said the compliment wasn't extremely flattering, nonetheless. I think like many women, I definitely have days where I think my parents' genes have mixed perfectly and been good to me, and then there are days when a mirror is avoided at all costs, and I notice alleged flaws that I obsess over stupidly. But I'm finally now at that age where I'm happy with myself, and as long as I'm healthy then that's all that matters. (And as long as I can continue to eat bread without my so-far-so-good metabolism biting me square in the ass, then I'll also be happy. Because bread matters, too. Tee hee! But health is imperative, of course.)

Aaaanyhoo, moving on!

Slowly but surely, people started filing in, most of them not making us recoil in horror. But it wasn't long before they began to arrive. You know who I'm referring to; 'they', the bitchiest of the bitches, show-offs to the 'nth' degree, bullies (of both the mental/emotional and physical kind), and, above all, stupid to boot (well, in most cases).

I'm being kind, truly; I'm also being a bitch, heh heh, but it doesn't count when it's in reference to those chicks. Ack!

The first one to arrive from 'that group' was a girl who had actually bullied me in seventh-grade; I had always been a high achiever when it came to all things scholastic (perhaps at times an over-achiever), and I was seen as something of a nerd. Pfft. NERD POWER! The girl (let's call her...Twat) would constantly sneer at me in class, scoff when I'd answer a question correctly, and call me "Miss Perfect." (Wow, what an original insult, Twat!) It didn't help matters that her locker was right above mine, and it got to the point where I'd be dreading going to my locker (and to school, overall), and I used to time my arrival at the locker according to when she'd usually arrive so I could avoid her...yeah. How sad, right?

I did end up confronting her about her bullying bullshit (with the help of my wonderful English teacher) and she stopped after that (I hadn't allowed it to go on too long, thank God). But in Year 9, there were still instances where it'd happen again, with the 'aid' of her other mates.

So anyway, back to the reunion.

Twat came up to myself, Ingrid and Juliana (wearing, of all things, black short-shorts which, in my books, don't constitute a semi-formal dress code, but hey!) and proceeded to greet us with a way too cheery and totally out-of-character "Heeeeeeeyyyy!" And THEN, she actually kissed us on the cheek, which...hey man, I can't stand you, you BULLIED me, what's the deal?! Sod off! At one point she actually said "I was sort of scared to come tonight" (grinning sheepishly), and the three of us replied with a fake laugh (we mastered it that night), one along the lines of 'yeah, no shit Sherlock'.

That out of the way, we continued to mingle, trying to shake off the arctic atmosphere of the bar; it appears that the owners of this place have yet to learn about the neat little concept of 'central heating'; seriously though, I had my trusty coat on for most of the night.

Nice people came, more morons came too - for every normal person there were at least three idiots to compensate for the niceness. In fact, at one point Twat returned to speak to us (we had been chatting to a former friend of ours who has a very infectious laugh!) and Twat had obviously had several drinks in her by then, so she drunkenly shouted how much she hated us in high school, cackling away apropos nothing, to which we responded "Aw, come on now, we hated you more," and she said that she hated us more, and I finally and emphatically retorted "We hated you more, believe me" (and yes, I felt positively giddy saying that, heh).

And then, get this...Twat actually apologised (!) for having been an asshole during high school, which came as a great surprise to us all. Whether she meant it or not is a whole other story, but...at the very least she acknowledged her shittiness, even going so far as to classify herself as a bully, which of course she had been. She gets some brownie points for that display of remorse, so henceforth I shall refer to her as Semi-Twat. Ah, aren't I nice? Semi-Twat stumbled away from us, most likely to go down some more alcohol so as better to converse with others through her inebriated stupor.

Aw...is that mean?
Pfft, whatev, chick bullied me!
(Heh heh.)

Oh, and my apologies for some of the expletives in this post. I'd like to think they're apt, no?

The rest of the 'popular chicks' rocked up and only two of them looked fairly pretty (good hair, too - see, I can be nice!), probably prettier than they had been back in school. The rest? Pfft! Not worth a second glance. They didn't say hello to us, which, in a weird way, I kind of respect - I mean, they weren't being dishonest at least.

We exchanged a couple of dismissive glances here and there, and a couple of times I muttered to my girls things like "Wow, it's just like being in high school all over again!" I must admit, I wasn't above giving them thinly-veiled dirty looks (or 'greasies', as we used to call them in high school). Thing is, I wasn't going to say hello to them and I didn't want THEM to say hello to us, so it worked out perfectly. Juvenile though it may sound, it's the way I felt. Why would I want to go and pose trite questions to people I really didn't give two hoots about? But it definitely felt good being brave enough to give them looks that we sometimes hadn't had the courage for in high school. Woo hoo! It's amusing the bravery that comes with being out of school, that you have no qualms about setting an almost challenging look upon the so-called enemy, one that clearly says 'whatcha gonna do?'.

(Anyone else suddenly have the 'COPS' theme song in their head[s]?)

Don't get me wrong: it's not that I didn't want 'bygones to be bygones' or any such thing (after all, I did have a chat - however forced - with Semi-Twat, and was more than amused by Semi-Twat's BFF who requested my girls and I pose in a photo with her, after approaching us with a 'Hey girls, do you remember me?'); I just...didn't care. I was observing it all from the sidelines, from an entirely different perspective to the one we had all had back then. I must confess, though, I think a part of me wanted them to look at me and to see how much I didn't care, so that they would realise their sad little group was no longer relevant, and that me and my friends could completely be ourselves without fear of retaliation.

Which is to say, sod off girls!

At one point, the teachers were giving away raffle prizes and one of the girls (McDumpy) was causing a scene, trying to make herself the centre of attention (colour me shocked), screaming and generally carrying on - I turned around to where Juliana's boyfriend was, understandably perturbed he was by this display, and I said to him in a voice loud enough so that the popular chicks could hear (in Serbo-Croatian; most of those girls are Macedonian), "Do you see now the absolute cretins with which we had to go to school?" and I stole a look at one of them who had heard me loud and clear.

Tee hee, fun times! (I know I know, I'm being juvenile but...I'm afraid I just HAD to indulge my juvenile side! Try it sometimes, it's a hoot.)

Oh, and may I just say that The Group (how ominous-sounding) always huddled together as if they wouldn't be able to survive were one of them to scuttle off elsewhere. Ugh. Case-in-point: one of them, let's call her Unremarkable Fake Blonde, SOMEHOW found herself all alone in the middle of the bar, and she yelled out, to no one in particular, "Where are my friends?!" all faux-panicky. Ew. The Group was always together, hip-joined, trying to do as little as possible, and scanning the room from their strategically-placed position of the bar bench.

Okay, this post is turning into one of epic proportions, but there are still a couple of things I must (MUST!) note down.

One of them is dance floor shenanigans. Don't say I didn't warn you.

McDumpy - who must've been on something, so spaced-out did she appear whilst 'dancing' - continued her periodic screaming, getting in everyone's faces, and high-fiving some of the 'cool boys' (bwahahah) who are still very much boys and who would no doubt, sad as it is, be desperate enough to 'try to score' with the show-offs even after all this time.

Semi-Twat and Co. were executing 'dance moves' that would've made seasoned strippers blush, writhing around lecherously, much to the delight of the boys who were validating their behaviour with whoops and wolf-whistles. Poor sods. The rest of us judgmental folk (heh) watched with an appropriate dose of disgusted amusement. It was like road kill - you know you shouldn't look but morbid curiousity makes you do so anyway!

Oh, and let's not forget the all-important PowerPoint presentation that ensued (KILL ME NOW). As if powerpoint presentations aren't bad enough when it comes to having to sit through them at work (aye carumba!), we had to stand and witness some more pathetic displays, as projected onto a huge white screen. Oh boy.

So, said presentation was pretty much a montage of images from school, juxtaposed with millisecond-lasting 'special effects' (some flashy things that looked like they had been transported from the world's first supercomputer), and the slideshow kicked off with that platitudinous Vitamin C song, 'Friends forever (Graduation)'...holy hell. I couldn't help but smirk as those first familiar notes started up, and I rolled my eyes heavenward, mostly because I had actually liked that song way back when I hadn't known any better (and, shock-horror, I actually owned the CD single, how embarrassing).

A sample of lyrics, if you will:

"...Because we're moving on and we can't slow down
These memories are playing like a film without sound...

...So if we get the big jobs and we make the big money
When we look back now will our jokes still be funny?
Will we still remember everything we learned in school?
Still be trying to break every single rule?

Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man?
Can Heather find a job that won't interfere with her tan?
I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking its our time to fly...

Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now?
Can we survive it out there?
Can we make it somehow?
I guess I thought that this would never end
And suddenly it's like we're women and men
Will the past be a shadow that will follow us around or will these memories fade when I leave this town? ..."

I hope that wasn't TOO nauseating for you all. I mean, 'little brainy Bobby'? (Good band name, though.)

Listening to that wouldn't have been that bad had the sound not been full-blast (and crackly to boot); there was also the constant 'woo!'-ing from the show-offs, whose images made-up virtually 80 per cent of the slideshow, if not more. It was like Beverly Hills 90210 when they'd show videos at school things that ONLY involved Brandon, Dylan, Kelly and the like, as if hundreds of other students didn't exist.

In other words, hilarious.

I enjoyed making as many snide remarks as my overwhelmed mind could conjure up throughout this propaganda-projection (Juliana and Ingrid will vouch that there were quite a few!) and shooting exasperated looks to my girls. Then Greenday's 'Time of your life' started up and I wouldn't usually mind that song, but again, it's like the organisers selected the most obvious, anvil-hitting choices to accompany the montage. We GET IT, school days are over, growing up, blah blah. GOD.

It was really quite surreal seeing all those people in the one spot (most of whom hadn't changed one bit), having not seen them in a long while. As I said in the beginning, we had the choice this time to get out of there, to escape into the worlds we had created free of the often suffocating boundaries of the high school social system (wow, did I just write that?), which, back in the day, was responsible for bringing on those initial pangs of adolescent insecurity - oh so fun.

And I've asked myself many times, whether I would have wanted to be one of 'the cool girls', and I've wondered whether this is just a western thing, this whole notion of cliques and what-not (and whether the friendship-uniformity of school classes in the Fmr Yugoslavia has ceased to exist since I left, whether bullying has become an issue there too). Honestly, I wouldn't have wanted to be one of them, no way no how. I certainly would've liked to not have been bullied by them, to have had some semblance of a cordial rapport with them.

But then, why would I have wanted any sort of rapport with THOSE sorts of people? Maybe it was better the way it was.

I have been lucky enough to have forged long-standing friendships with two incredible people - Juliana, whom I've known since coming to Australia (fourth-grade), and Ingrid, whom I met in seventh-grade. The three of us have been best friends for a long time now and I know that won't change, God willing health and safety. These are people to whom I can say anything, who know everything there is to know about me (and vice-versa), who make me laugh so hard that sometimes I have to wave at them frantically to stop, so stifled am I that I cannot actually tell them in so many words because I can barely breathe from the fits of laughter...heh heh.

They are always there; they are endlessly caring, thoughtful, loving, accepting people, people who love people (hmmm, I almost went into a Streisand song there!).

I must say, it's been sort of therapeutic writing all of this after the reunion (quasi-)ordeal. So, is there a lesson to be learnt from all of this? That, apparently, being a bitch and a show-off in high school is a prerequisite for being cool, and that being cool equates to being a bully.

Jesting aside, it's clear from the other night that some things/people really don't change and some will constantly be reliving their glory days (AHEM). But I wish them well all the same and I don't hold any ill feelings towards anyone, despite my 'snarktastic' remarks throughout this post. In the case of Semi-Twat, for instance, perhaps she's learnt the error of her ways. (Wow, how superior do I sound there? Bwah!) (And just because I don't hold any grudges doesn't mean I mightn't have some fun by being a thinly-veiled bitch should I happen to come across them again. Though who knows, they might not be able to cotton onto such behavioural nuances...muhahahah.)

Finally, I'm happy everything turned out the way it did, through high school and beyond, and that I've grown up with wonderful friends I wouldn't trade for anything.

Sorry, is that corny? WE-ELL, so be it! I've been snarky so far so I guess this balances it out somewhat, right?

"...Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go...so make the best of this test and don't ask why...it's not a question but a lesson learned in time...
...So take the photographs and still frames in your mind...hang them on a shelf in good health and good times...
...For what it's worth, it was worth all the while..." ('Time of your life', Greenday)

*Using my friends' middle names to protect privacy, heh heh.

A quick note

2007-07-18T19:17:00.000+10:00

Just wanted to let you know that I'll be putting up a new post very soon. I've been very busy with work, so when I come home I try to avoid using the computer after spending most of the day on it. :)

I've been working on a post for the past week-and-a-bit...and I simply haven't had time to dedicate to it the attention I think it deserves.

Oh, and I am healthy again, thank God! Was feeling significantly better by the end of that week, in fact.

One new thing, however, is that I recently chopped my long locks. For those who don't know me in 'real life', I used to have long, brown hair that was very wavy/curly, but it had begun to grate on my nerves as of late. So, in the spirit of the world's newfound love with bobs and such, I decided to get a haircut that's a cross-between Rihanna's new one and Katie Holmes' newie. So, it's shorter in the back and longer in the front like Rihanna's, but it's layered/shaggy overall like Katie's. A pretty cool combo if I do say so myself, and I'm thrilled that I went ahead with the chop. It feels fresh and so much healthier now...not to mention it's waaaay easier to maintain. :)

Cheers!

Winter weather = inevitable cold/flu

2007-07-03T14:15:00.000+10:00

Bleaaarrrrggghhh...
Yes, I am sick. Needless to say, I feel craptacular - my sinuses are hurting, nasal passages are blocked, and in the midst of all this, my nose has been running perpetually. Tissues have indeed become my good friends as of yesterday. Mind you, whilst at work yesterday, I blew/rubbed my nose so many times, each new tissue was beginning to feel like sandpaper, ugh! There's actually a Kleenex ad here in Oz where a person with a cold is taking tissue after tissue (of some no-name product), to the point where they start coming out of the box as sandpaper - and then Kleenex introduces their great product of tissues with aloe vera and Vitamin E. My darling actually went to the supermarket to get me some last night, and I thought he'd only bring me one box, bu he came back with three. Considering how quickly I am getting through the first one today, that was a very smart move on his behalf.

And yes, they are soooo much easier on the nose!

I woke up at midday. I had my quilt up to my forehead, as I had briefly woken up earlier and the light streaming in through the window was, frankly, blinding me. Why I didn't simply go and put the blind down further is beyond me. I had managed earlier (close to 8am) to muster enough strength to dial into work and tell them they were going to be one person down again. We've all been absent here and there in the past week or so, and I'd say I probably got my cold from a colleague who last week was coughing all over the place, the poor thing.

When I finally did get up (leaving in my wake a trail of used tissues), I was stumbling around as if I had a stick wedged between my thighs, which...yeah, that's exactly how I would describe the way in which I moved about (and still am moving about!). I could barely keep my eyes open, my lids were so heavy. At every step, I was seeking out more tissues. Suffice it to say, the coffee table in the lounge room is tissues-galore (I'll chuck 'em out soon, I promise).

I've now typed 'tissues' so many times it's starting to unravel on me...'tis' 'sues'...who's suing the what now?

Ahh, the mysteries of the cold-affected mind...!

I'm on antibiotics, so hopefully they'll kick in. I have no particular desire to spend the rest of this week lying like a dog around the apartment. I feel like all my reactions are delayed, my mouth is constantly open (I have to breathe somehow), my eyes are all bleary...in short, I look and feel like shit. Pardon my filthy language. ;) :) And while I was on the couch, bundled up in a comforting blanket (and watching daytime - Dr. Phil, for one, hehe), I had a sneezing fit that almost rendered me unconscious. I'm feeling a little better now, which is why I can be in front of a computer...although I'll soon be getting off.

Oh yeah, and for all of you who think Melbourne winter is not really a winter because it's in 'sun-happy Australia', rest assured that it can be quite fickle and insidious, even when it doesn't drop below zero. Sure, there's no snow (except in the mountains), but it can still get coooold. While I'm on the subject of snow, I miss it (I'm going to preempt your Canada-borne "you're CRAZY!" comment, T!). I was a winter baby, I grew up with snow, and then I get to Oz and find out no snow will be falling in front of my door...?! What a jib!

On a completely unrelated note, last night - while I was still fairly okay health-wise - I made oven-roasted potatoes with red and yellow capsicums, carrots and onions, all garnished with dry vegetable spices and mild chilli, and sprinkled with garlic...it turned out gooood, all the vegetables were at that yummy, just-about-to-melt point, and the potatoes were delish (I have to brag just a smidge, as it was the first time I made it!). Last week, my beau made a vegetable stew ('sataras' for all you Balkan people) that was so good we ended up eating it three days in a row...ahhh, yummy leftovers!

Enough from me...I think I'm starting to fall asleep.

"...Pour a cup of black coffee, and I love to watch you do that every day, the little things that you do..." (All Saints, 'Black Coffee')

"...People of the world - spice up your life - aaaaaaaa...slam it to the left...!"

2007-06-29T17:18:00.000+10:00

There's been much hype over the past week pursuant to the alleged Spice Girls reunion and subsequent world tour, which we now know will definitely be going ahead. And I must confess...I'm a teensy bit thrilled. Not that I'm a fan. I'm more what one would call a quasi-fan. I know I know, it's them, and we'll have to hear more yammer about 'girl power' and what-have-you, but I am a staunch defender [pumps fist in air] of the quality of their pop songs. I've always loved good, catchy pop, and they definitely have some zingers in their repertoire. Plus, they became huge when I was in sixth-grade, and I sort of...grew up with them. I still remember everyone 'going nuts' [cough] at our grade six graduation (hee!) when 'Wannabe' was blasted out in the gymnasium (decorated to within an inch of its life). "Yo-tell-you-what-I-want-what-I-really-really-want... I wanna-ha-I-wanna-ha..." :D

This brings me back to the tour news. I'd definitely go to their concert. At this point in time, they're apparently only coming to Sydney. Oh, please. Sydney is so overrated, people. ;) And I say this purely tongue-in-cheek as a fiery-Melburnian who must fuel the Melb v Syd debate about which city 'rawks' more. Ah, don't get me wrong, I'm sure Syd is great (yes, I've never been, in all this time I've been in Oz, but I'm planning on it); Melbourne just doesn't get as high a profile as Syd does...I mean, let's face it, in movies? Which city is always used to represent Australia? Precisely. You'd think Oz is all Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Not that I'm bitter or anything! I mean, Melbourne has...Fed Square. ;)

Anyhoo, I've totally digressed. So yes, a couple of months back when my best friends ('Juliana-Ivana' and 'Ingrid' - you know who you are girls!) and I were mulling over the issue, we decided that it would be a cool, kitschy thing to do - attend their concert, I mean. When will it ever happen again? Granted, there have been many musical acts who've gone into retirement more times than even they care to remember, and then returned for that 'grand finale', "we're-totally-not-kidding-this-is-the-last-time-ever-yes-really-it-is-why-are-you-looking-at-me-like-that" tour, but I just don't think it would happen in the case of the Spice Girls.

So, let's say that they do end up only coming to Syd, I'm not sure I'd be willing to fork out money for both concert tickets (which will most likely exceed a hundred bucks) AND plane tickets. And when I casually suggested a road trip to my dear T, she responded with "sure, if by 'road trip' you mean 'flight'". Heh. There's still time to talk you into it, T!

One thing I've mentioned to my pals is that, although I'd love to go, I probably wouldn't be prepared for the sight of Mrs. Beckham, prancing and flailing around skeletally and maintaining that perma-pout she's been perfecting since, well, 1997. And I think to myself, for crying out loud, she used to quite an attractive woman, and then she went and plasticised herself - Posh's current look is what happens when women have a skewed, negative image of themselves.

I was always more partial to Emma Bunton (as most kids probably were), who had/has a great voice - in fact, she released a great solo single several years ago, "What took you so long"; it's a real pop gem, so do check it out if you've never heard it before.

To finish off, I'll type up a list of my fave Spice Girls songs...if that's wrong, then I don't want to be right! ;) :) Mind you, I haven't listened to either of the following in ages (nor do I have any of their albums) - but you better believe that if I hear any of the following on the radio, I totally sing along. :) Oh, and I type this list fully acknowledging that a lot of their lyrics are suckish. :)

- Goodbye
- Say you'll be there
- Naked
- Stop
- Viva forever
- Wannabe
- Too much
- Spice up your life
- 2 become 1
- Mama (this one I put because I sang it with one of my dearest friends - who I've known my whole life - in the car on the way to Zagreb airport, '98; my first visit back to the country of my birth)

"...I know you're gone, you said you're gone, but I can still feel you here..." ('Goodbye')

Corner of the Earth('s blogosphere)...

2007-06-28T20:47:00.000+10:00

Several days ago, one of the people closest to me (my brother's girlfriend, whom I adore as if she were a sister - hey T! ) suggested I create my own blog. I "pfft!"-ed, sneered and said "I don't know, man". Now, I was by no means being a 'blog-snob' or any such thing; I simply thought that, one, I don't have the time or the discipline to do it, and, two, who the hell is going to read it anyway?

But T brought up the good point that, as a budding writer, I need to be disciplined anyway, and what better way to improve both my 'disciplinary skills' (er...) AND my writing skills than by opening up a blog. So, here we are... (and yes, T does have her own blog, just in case you were wondering, and is a damn fine writer at that)

The title of my blog refers to an inside joke (well, not so much a JOKE as mere terminology that classifies a maybe-sorta plan that MAY happen in the future) between T, my brother, my boyfriend and myself. But the 'Balkanique' (for those not well-versed in all things Gallic) does actually say something about me, which is my background - I was born and (partially) bred in the Former Yugoslavia, migrating to the one, the only, Land Down Under at the tender age of nine (-and-a-half). I've been in Australia almost thirteen years now, and it's a wonderful country, no doubt about it. I cannot deny, though, that 'Balkania' (as I affectionately like to refer to it sometimes!) still inhabits - and will continue to, undeniably - a considerable portion of my being. It's my 'motherland', the 'old country'...uber-corny as those words may sound. I've visited twice since coming to Australia, and both times stirred within me an all too familiar feeling of bittersweet comfort and melancholy, and one that I won't bother to dissect now...it'll have to wait for another post, perhaps.

Literally translated, this blog is entitled 'The Balkan Flower' which...seems oddly appropriate somehow. Not that I think of myself as a FLOWER, but, y'know...my name in Serbian/Serbo-Croatian is the name of a flower, so...insert your own symbolism there. But really, it was the only thing that came to mind when it came time to choosing a blog name. And so it shall remain! :)

In a snapshot, I am a 22-year-old female that hails from Melbourne, recently moved in with her beautiful better half, and tries to refrain from using colloquialisms such as 'better half'. ;) On a further note, I adore - ADORE - music (singing, listening to...) and writing (prose, poetry), and I've no doubt that there'll be many references to both peppered throughout this blog. And although prose and poetry are my favourite genres to write in, I've recently started dabbling in fiction, which I love to read, but write? Not so much. And that is precisely why I want to challenge myself and see what I can do with whatever I set for myself.

Anyhoo-dee-doodle (all you Simpsons fans should instantly recognise that Flanderism...!), this 'inaugural post' has panned out to be much longer than I had anticipated, and I want to go watch the season finale of "The Amazing Race", so... :) Plus, I still have to get ready for bed...Friday's almost upon us, thankfully...!

"...There's a place for us, sitting here waiting for the sun..." (Powderfinger, 'Waiting for the Sun')