"The time has come, my little friends, to talk of [other] things..."

And just like that, with a mis-quoting of Lewis Carroll, she was gone.



Well, sort of.

My, it's been a while! Important things that I've been doing include:

- Booking a flight to the UK for September the 3rd. There is hope that I will be boarding this with a shiny new visa for permanent residency in my passport, wish me bureaucratic luck won't you? *deep breaths*

- Cutting much of my hair off. This only happened today so I have no photos as yet. They will follow very soon, mostly because I am a very vain beast at heart.

- Booking a weekend in Melbourne to catch up with a dear friend before I away to the other side of the world. Oh, my glamourous, jetsetting life! Anyone who happens to also be there on the weekend of the 9th should perhaps get in contact so's we can hang out and drink vodka (or your spirit of choice).

Not so important things that I've been doing include:

- Cooking. A lot. Winter and my ongoing veganinsm have inspired my love of food and I now find myself spending weekends buying things I've never cooked with (choka, brussel sprouts, curry leaves anyone?) and scouring my cookbooks for the best way to eat them. It's fun in a very middle aged, un-rock and roll kind of way.

- Being in local street press and realising that it's really quite depressing that I haven't properly made anything since my grad collection. I think I fell in to the Perth-rut that I swore I wouldn't fall into. Shite.

- Working, sleeping, going to the gym...standard life kind of things. See: Perth-rut.


So how're you? Tell me everything.

It always happens this way, I don't know why I'm still surprised.

I have come to find myself thoroughly employed. By day I am as milder mannered a Merchandiser for Rusty Surfwear as I know how; accruing my annual leave, gaining mucho experience and getting my foot in the door (as they say). But by night I will transform into a wild and unruly bar girl at a place called Deville's, where (if it's anything like it's little sister) I will get to cheerfully serve outrageous beverages to Perth's best and finest. Or, preferably, it's cutest and hippest.

I am like some kind of job-getting super-person. My bank balance will thank me for it.

I know that it's an ad but this gives me goosebumps:



...

While we're on the topic of ads, has anyone seen the ones for Dove deodorant where the main selling point seems to be about beautifying ladies armpits? Is this a long standing point of insecurity for women that I've completely missed because I've been naturally blessed? Or is the beauty industry *gasp* creating new insecurities with the purpose of selling things? It's such a fucking surreal thing to worry about.

It is enormously satisfying to answer the door wearing a practically see-though negligee and find a couple of startled Jehovah's Witnesses standing there.

Let's try this again.

San Francisco

Tokyo

Sydney

and beyond...

So I'm home.

I had a big picture update to make up for the fact that I couldn't find a place to start with a word-based update but the links were fucked so...later.

In the mean time, you can amuse yourselves with thoughts of my new (red!) hair and my new found love of vegan baking.

Firstly, the cat was found and then lost again and then re-found and it's been generally decided that she's an idiot. Silly beast.

Secondly, I'm in San Francisco. It's fucking brilliant and I'm totally in love with this city. Who wouldn't love a place that has wild parrots that live in a city park, a fortune cookie factory where you can get your own messages put in the cookies, a seaside arcade parlour with Victorian nickelodians and eucalyptus trees everywhere (it's nice to have a reminder of home). The hostel that I'm staying in is ridiculously friendly and cool, which is a nice change after my New York place of rest. I've met a bunch of people who I can have more than the standard "where are you from, where are you going" travel converstaion with and we've been hanging out and discussing life, the universe and silly things as seems fitting in SF.

Things I've been doing include: hiring a bike with a girl from the hostel and cycling around the bay and across the Golden Gate Bridge, drinking in the Mission with couple of girls who work at the hostel (both called Emily, which makes things easier) ending in shots of something called Underberg (which was hellish) and a taxi ride with a hilarious Indian driver who cranked the dance music, flicked the interior lights and braked in time whilst crying "shake it like your mama gave you!" in a thick Indian accent, walked around the Haight with all the hippie left-overs and hung out in the sunshine pretending it was the 60's, walked a labyrinth in a cathedral on top of a hill, caught the cable-car like a real tourist, had proper b&w photobooth pictures taken on the pier, seen an awesome exhibition at SFMoMA, walked up a lot of hills, bought books in an anarchist, community-run bookstore and had a couple of drinks with my friend Mona from London in a bar called Mr Bing's Cocktails (it had a neon sign with a martini glass so we figured it was legit).

The weather's been perfect, all sunshine and fog, and the whole city feels like a breath of fresh air after New York. Which is not to say that NY was no fun, there was food, drink and merriment a plenty, but it's a really tiring city and one in which I felt like I needed to keep my guard up all the time. On the positive side, I did get to hang out with my cousin and her (stupidly cute) dog. We went brunching and flea marketing and drinking in the Lower East Side. It was fantastic to see her; we figured that we hadn't seen each other for about 8 years but we get along like a house on fire and it was nice to have a British accent to help ease me into the American drawl. I also caught up with another British friend of mine who's been living there, she took me to a subterranean bar filled with games, jazz and PBR one night, followed by dim sum in the depths of Brooklyn a couple of days later and finally a cupcake and dumpling date (in separate places) in the LES. If it seems like all I did in New York was eat you'd not be too far off the truth, though I did see some excellent exhibitions and do some excellent shopping as well. A girl's got to have balance, you know?

Anyway, that's been my partial travels in list form, my brain's clouding over now so I'll leave it there. I'm off to Tokyo next and then to Sydney to see all you SG folk and regale you with my worldly tales and shower you with kawaii Hello Kitty miscellanea. Or something.

On a less exciting note, I fear one of my kittens has run/meandered away in my absence.

This is not good at all.

It's hard to believe that I've been away for more than two weeks already. Time flies when one is having fun, indeed.

I'm here in sunny London; full of cranky Christmas shoppers on Oxford St, black cabs and cosy pubs with lit up windows. The ever generous Charlotte (queen of The Ship and generally lovely lovliness) has lent me a spare room in her flat above the pub and so I'm firmly ensconced in Soho again. I've got my angry London-walk back and, allegedly, after a couple of pints I'm getting my indefinite British accent back as well. Innit.

Everything is lovely and wintery, as you would expect. There are fairy lights in all the trees, people walking around with big presents, EastEnders omnibusses on the TV and fun fairs in Leicester Square and Hyde Park. Charlotte has set up a big spruce in her living room. We called him Bruce, as you do, and he's making it all feel very festive round here even if he is decorated with New York taxis and a disturbingly provocative zebra. We call him porn-zebra. We're inventive like that.

I haven't actually been doing that much since I got here, just hanging out with The Ship gang and my old friends, drinking awful lager and trying to train myself to drink Guiness. That's actually a bit of an understatement, I've been doing much more than that it just mostly consists of walking around, revisiting my old haunts and trying to get lost. I ended up at a house party in Russell Square the other night only to discover that the hostess is a designer for Giles and has worked for McQueen as well, at which point I may have drooled a little and threatened to steal her life. The night ended with us playing dress-ups in her wardrobe, it was heavenly. Oh and I went to see Bloc Party up at Alexandra Palace as well, which was amazing. I spent the entire concert crammed down the front, singing along at the top of my lungs and dancing as much as possible in the tiny space I had. They were fantastic and the view from Alexandra Palace out over London made the whole evening even better.

There's been some mental stimulation as well in the last couple of weeks, I spent a joyful couple of hours at the V&A the other day, oggling the couture exhibition (real New Look Dior! *swoon*) and discovering their opulently decorated cafe, and the Tate Modern has been beckoning me. After Christmas there will be some quality time spent.

Plus, Kat and I just got back from Florence, which kicks up the mental stimulation quotient I think. It was absolutely freezing! I spent most of the time trying to warm my feet up because the only shoes I took were my Cons with holes all down the sides. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Kat and I played tourist for a couple of days. We climbed the Duomo, visited the Uffizi and saw the David (well the fake one in the square). Kat being the eternal science geek, we also went to the History of Science Museum to see Galileo's telescopes and mummified finger (ew). There was also a completely unexpected room full of 18th century (I think) gynecological instruments and wax models, which was mildly startling but was balanced out by the pleasant surprise of a room full of penny farthings that followed later. It was also discovered that Florence has ridiculously high levels of cute old bikes, unidentifiable puddles and women in huge fur coats with silly dogs (possibly responsible for the puddles). On occasion all three of these things intersect, it's crazy.

Anyway, I hope you're all shiny and good. Have wonderful Christmases and, if I don't get around to updating before then, fabulously exotic and glamourous new years'.