W is for...

It's funny how certain people can come into your life when you need them most. It's no secret that I've been feeling a little lost of late and it gets you thinking about things that might have been important to you once upon a time that work, travel, kids and, well life gets in the way of you fully exploring. I have a deep interest in Witchcraft and Pagan beliefs and about 10 years ago I was studying and practicing, but then of course, said life gets in the way. Well my newest friend took me to a catch up with some witch friends of hers, and whether or not anything comes of it, it's brought me back to something that I am really passionate about, probably part of my re-claiming of myself back after having kids and all that.

I came to Wicca though Fiona Horne. It was when I read her first book, that I realised that much this was what I was already naturally doing. Noticing the moons cycles etc, and I had a type of alter for years. I finally found something that I connected with, I'd never felt that before with any type of religious practice.

I already liked her as a singer, and when I heard about a book she was writing on 'urban witchcraft' it spiked up my ears. I also remember when I finally found the book maybe two years later, I was having a bad day and a few things had gone wrong and I was a bit stressed out. I walked into a bookshop and there was Fiona, with snakes coming out of her hair, it was wonderful and immediately turned a bad day into a wonderful journey.

I'm not really sure how the Pagan community feels about Fiona, whether they think she is a fluffy Bunny, making light of the craft, and I have to admit, of recent years, its more of a reality TV and less writing so I can understand if she's not being taken so seriously! But I still love her, and I'm so tired of worrying about what other people think, I like her. I like that she does keeps things simple. I read about others spells and practices which are so complicated, you must have this phase of the moon, these particular tools, this whatever... Fiona talks about the will and intent being the most important, the tools are mealy that, tools. If your will is telling you to do the spell now, but the moon is not in the right phase, well what is more important!!! Your will, your symbolism, what speaks to you.

I also like that she is the antithesis of the old witchy stereotype. Anyways, here's a few photographs I took of her back in the olden days (you know... back in the late 90's!!)
The fist ones were taken of her conducting a spell at a book launch, the second performing at club solo just after Def FX broke up. I love the colour and movment in that shot.

Enjoy!

Rampant Consumerism...

So I overheard something disturbing when dropping Little Miss off at Kinder yesterday...

"I caught him trying to slip his ipod into his kinder bag"

IPOD! KINDER BAG!?

What the fuck does a four year old need a fucking ipod for!!??

My friend C is a single mum. Her ex (who, mind you left her when she was 3 mo pregnant with their second child. Informs her later that he was planning to leave but wanted child 1 to have a sibling. Does this go to show the mentality we are dealing with here!?) Anyways, he come from a wealthy family (and has never had to lift a finger beyond menial jobs... anyway this is not about him) this is about the fact that the two kids, 5 and 7 both have fucking ipods for godsake.

IPODS! 5 & 7!?

So C says to me "how am I ever supposed to compete with that?" I said you don't compete. You keep going the complete opposite with op shop clothes and lots of love and a great role model who works hard and is making it on her own!

Go C... I loves ya!

This is me...

Prince...

A few years ago, my friend S held a 'Prince' Night. Thats right, the little purple man...

This was back when I was still photographing and I managed to come up with these little beauties...

Enjoy!

Songs to get you through a break up with a really nasty ex boyfriend (circa. 1995)

For when you start to figure out somethings wrong... maybe around the first time he makes you cry...

"...you look at me the wrong way and I start to cry."



When things start getting too hard, you know somethings wrong but he's got you brainwashed into thinking that it's your fault.

"I'm on your side Are you too blind to see,
I'm on your side You know I'm not the enemy..."



"When you start your get your strength back... you start getting angry and decide you don't wanna take this shit anymore...

"I'm bored staring at the ceiling while you point out my flaws, Ive watched the wallpaper peeling from slamming doors"



"When you finally get the strength to break up with him... Yeah I know that in this some the protagonist was dumped... but its about the anger...

And how he told you that no one else would ever want you and you could never do better than him. Then he comes back and tells you that, although he's been fucking his best (female) friend, that didn't work and he realised it was you that he missed and he wants you to reconsider.

"Every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back I hope you feel it..."



This is for that confused time just after a breakup, that daze you are in when you realise its over, you've gotten out.

The song itself is about stalking your ex... but again, its the ANGER!

"I know that my mind is confusion, I know that you have no more love,
For me and I need a transfusion, or someone to wake me, shake me"



And this ones for when your just so angry, usually with yourself for not seeing that you should have dumped him back at Tina Turner, that you need to jump around the room and scream at the top of your lungs to let it all out.

"Kitty, kitty please come here but don't you touch me don't you dare..."

Favourite and least favourite book of the week...

My favourite book this week (I've read two so its not hard to choose!) was Kelly Doust's A Life in Frocks. I liked it so much I've gone and bought two copies fo friends for presents! I like an author is prepared to admit her flaws and faux pars (I related to her experience of 'out of uniform' days at school and how she got them SO wrong!) and though I'm not sure about her taste all the time (she was going on and on about Sass and Bides Futuregrande Collection, which I had to then look up because im such a fasion ignoramous. I gotta say i thought it was hideous!) But then again im still wearing the same stuff I wore 10 years ago, which I prefer to think means I'm about 5-10 years ahead of my time in terms of fashion trend cycles! I like people who are obsessed about something and not embarassed to admit it! And given that, other than the said Sass & Bide, she creats her own style and loves a good op shop trawl! (see previous entry!)

The other book I read this week was Things Bogans Like, much like its redneck American cousin Stuff White People Like whose only purpose in life seem to be to make me feel embarrased by liking anything slightly mainsteam and not being all impressed by stuff thats so arty and wanky that my bogan white brain simply couldnt comprehend. Look I know the whole things terribly tongue in cheek and the (anonomous) authors are self confessed snobs... But if there's one thing I hate more than Bogans it's Wankers who think they are better than everyone else... You know the type... people who make comments like "I prefer Ebooks beacuse I read so fast that I find turning pages slows me down too much"... Yes this is a real comment from someone I don't like being around because they make me feel like such a Bogan!



One thing I did feel about both these books, they could have done with being about 20 (frocks) to 50 (bogans) pages shorter as they tend to get a bit repetitive towards the end...

I said they tend to get a bit repetitive towards the end...

Tantrums...

Tantrums are exhausting all round! Well except for Bubba-ista who just watched and took the whole thing all in... storing all the ideas in the memory bank for later!!

It was all about clothes, as it usually is with 4 year old girls... Ive tried to bring up a child immune to this crap but it seems its bigger than me! She chose a Summery (read-Slutty!) dress, and although it was mutually agreed upon to wear a Tshirt with it, the problem arose when she wanted to wear the Tshirt underneath and I had said it would go over the top... it's not a big deal I know and to be honest I don't really care, except that I had said that's what we were doing. Its a 15 min walk to childcare, usually a pleasant walk but with a soundtrack of "I wanna see the whole thing..." over and over in THAT voice, and when that didn't work she thought maybe "I don't want the Tshirt..." might change things. I remained strong and clam (on the outside anyways!) and just ignored, but it's so hard, inside I was seething and just wanted to shout at the little brat. And that's the thing, shes not a little brat!

It's 9.30 and I'm already exhausted! Thank the goddess for childcare and a day with just Bubba-ista whose tantrums I'm still able to laugh at and think 'Is that the best you can do, your gonna have to do better than that if you want to get up my nose!'

Good Finds...

Op Shop crawls can go either way. There are many factors that can make or break a successful Op Shopping experience;

You've got to pick you area - I am lucky enough to live in a skanky industrial suburb... I have 3 Op Shops in close proximity, all in the Industrial area away from main roads which = not overly picked over and Huge!

You've got to be in the right mood - The mood for hunting through Racks and Racks, in other words - Patience... Something I do not always possess!

You've got to have the time to browse and be unencumbered by pesky hangers on like Kids/Boyfriends.

You've got to be picky and have a few people of different sizes that like the same stuff as you, either that, or know whats good to take a risk on selling on Ebay.

The planets were aligned the other day and I managed to find a few worthwhile bargains, Here's some of the choice items I came upon;


This Hot Roller skating Tshirt in both Black and my fave, Purple! Score!!

This Cute Drag Racing Checkered Flag diner style shirt... Cept it's Size 6... I would need two of these joined together to have any chance of fitting it. This one is going straight to Ebay!










This one is an advertisement for TV1 but I can forgive that for the Cute SHAG style Pic.












Not Sure if this is Genuine Vintage or Reproduction Vintage, But the Tag looks old and I live a good Hawaiian Shirt!












This one comes under the "so ugly its fab" Heading... again too small but who can resist! There's always the dress up box!!

Old Friends...

I managed to catch up with two old friend this week, both of which I hadn't seen in a year or so and it was lovely. I always get a little paranoid when I don't manage to keep in regular contact with people, I guess in light of the last post I can see where this comes from! I get all worried that I've done something to upset them or that it's going to be awkward or whatever. But we took up where we had left off, as always seems to happen.

I like these encounters with people who knew me in my former life, It not only reminds me of who I was/am (JA said to me the other day "you are still you" and I thank her for that! it was what I needed to hear as I have been feeling pretty lost lately and feel like I am finally clawing myself back again.) but also makes me realise that with real friends it doesn't matter if its been a while and it really is quality over quantity.

And that I am lucky that I have a lot of real friends.

I am a very lucky person!

Ultra...

Here is one of my very early influences. I cant remember how old I was when I read this book but I was early to mid teens and it came out in 1988 when I was 13 so somewhere around then...

I never felt like I fitted in with the present so maybe that's why I became obsessed with the past? I cant remember what attracted me to Andy Warhol's art but it was probably the Marilyn connection because she was one of my first obsessions!

Anyways, Ultra Violet, who was really on the fringes of the factory scene but has managed to still make a career out of her limited involvement, became one of my first real influences when it came to fashion, attitude, and what life really could be like outside of a small town. Reality never lives up to anything that you think, But its nice to believe there might be more out there!

She wore nothing but purple (which was always my favourite colour), actually there is one image that always stuck with me, of her using beetroot to get the right colour lipstick, pulling it out of her bag and cutting a piece off for a touch up whereever she was! And even though she was part of that scene, didn't let it swallow her like it did so many others. So this is Ultra then...

And this is Ultra now...

Looking and thinking about this post has brought back memories of an Ex-friend, O. We had been friends in primary school and re-connected when we were 16. Again, one of the first times I felt I found somewhere I fitted in (I seem to be going though a lot of that lately!). She was interested in art, and 60's music too. She introduced me to the Velvet Underground and Old Movies and the Camperwell Market. But it wasn't to last... she dumped me, in the heartless ways that teenagers dump each other. She wrote me a letter. This long drawn out thing that I wish now I had kept because I'd love to read the melodrama in it! It was all so weird. It was like breaking up with someone who I was never romantically involved though we were closer than any boy/girl style relationship when your 16/17 so it really did hurt a lot more. I think I was just bewildered by the whole thing.

I've had a couple of other similar situations since, where a very close friendship has soured and it always hurts worse than a romantic break up because you expect that of the romantic relationship, not of friendship. But at least those times it had all been brewing and simmering for a while and to be honest it really was a relief. But O was just weird... It came out of the blue and I think it was one of the first times I really had my heart broken.

She did try to come see me again a while later, I think to try to explain but I gave her such the brush off I wouldn't have a clue what we actually talked about. I've always had a mean streak that lasts long after a relationship has ended!!!

No rooting allowed!

The flyer for the Sharpies event has been finalised...

Cept I had to sacrifice the word "Rooting" due to council communications policy!

You can book here