Well, I'm leaving in 5 days. For my last weekend in Sydney (for a while) I decided to emerge from my cocoon for a couple of nights to go do as others my age do: party and drink a lot.

It was pretty fun. But now I am more than ready for one month of quiet, cold air, icy cobbled streets, meat n' 3 veg, floral patterned arm chairs, porcelain dolls and grandma's hugs. The nice thing about England, my second home, is that it's where I do most of my collecting. I collect pieces of myself that may have fallen off and gotten lost during whirlwinds of chaotic thought processes.

In England, in the little village of Bungay full of tiny flint stone houses and even smaller doors (back from early 20th Century when people must've been shorter) there is no mum, dad, sister, dogs, friends, university, love/lust ... no Australia. Sometimes I need to be somewhere that Australia isn't.

And after a month spent with people over the age of 60, drinking tea, reading books and bickering over the BBC news' main headlines I will feel more than ready for Australia, and come back a whole person again - all the pieces collected and assembled, perhaps a few new pieces added, albeit just to have them jumble up and fall off again. But hey, that's alright, because there's always England next year, too.

I will never understand how attraction works. I'm always trying to understand why I am attracted to someone; trying to analyse and pick at the attraction to see if there's some freudian subconsciousness to it, or perhaps a pattern that can be identified from past infatuations. But truth is, for the life of me, I will never understand why I am attracted to someone. Not only will I not understand my crushes, but I will also be frustrated and excited by them at the same time. I don't think there is such an oxymoron as an infatuation: it's a painful delight (or a delightful pain - however you wish to look at it).

I've had many types of crushes in my time. Perhaps none quite so powerful as those ones during my puberty years (I cringe at the memories). Now when I get crushes they're pretty insignificant, recognisably petty - and very fleeting. I'd like to think that's me growing up. Or maybe my ability to infatuate is lying dormant - but about to pounce on a poor unsuspecting individual any time now.

Yes - each one of my crushes has been different from the other, but they also fall inevitably into categories - like the crush I get on someone the moment I see them - before I even utter one word to them. Those usually come like a brick thrown to the back of the head. You steal one glance and it's BAM. You're done for. Or those crushes on people you never thought twice of, but one day they say something to you, or look at you with a blush, or touch your arm by accident and suddenly you're in la-la land; writing up fantasies in your head. I've even had the crushes on people I had originally disliked or found unattractive. Yet all of a sudden, it's like a switch you had off had been flicked on and despite you asking "why would I like them?" you do - and there's no stopping it.

The feelings can never be stopped. Especially when you try. Rather a crush goes away one of three ways:

1. you get over it; it gets boring
2. you tell them, they like you back, suddenly they're unattractive
3. they like you, you spend some glorious time together, the expectations suffocate you both and you decide to call it quits.

Maybe I'm a cynic, though. But if I'm a cycnic it's only because I go by what experience has taught me.

Yet, that little Disney-tainted, fairy-tale kid inside me will always believe in happy endings and true love.

(I can't lie to you, though - for now, at the age I'm at, I'm all for fleeting crushes, exciting flings and most everything besides something too 'happy-ending' and marriage-like)

But you know... maybe I'll meet someone and that all familiar brick will hit the back of my head. BAM! Here we go again...

Today was my last day of the academic year. I now embark on 3 months of assessment-free bliss!


Unlike all of my other Australian peers, I will not be working on my tan during a long, hot summer - but will rather be preserving my paleness and donning thick coats and longjohns as I'll be spending Christmas in the wintery, white of dear England. I'm taking off in just a few weeks; to visit my grandmother - of course, who is one of my bestestest friends. I plan on nagging her to knit me more berets, cooking her dinner, rummaging through all of her old WWII ration books or 1930's London playbills, and recording her stories about the Royal Air Force on camera.

Actually, there are so many things I can't wait to do. I've already written lists, upon lists of activities I'm set on doing during the holidays. Among the lists are such wonderful tasks such as: writing plays, watching piles and piles more of classic and silent films, learning how to sew (so I can sew dresses), baking pies, starting crafty projects, reading my W. Somerset Maugham novels and much, much more...

But right now, all I want to do is sleep, sleep and sleep.


p.s. I started a new blog where I record all the movies I watch: iwatchfilms.tumblr.com. It coincides with my new habit of recording each movie I watch on a card which I file away. I got inspired by the director and auteur, Bogdanovich, who - for every movie he saw - would record it's title, director, date watched and comment on a card which he organised into a filing system. I'm watching one of his films next, actually: The Last Picture Show.

Watching Bette Davis films has taught me...

 

1. that all the cool bitches drive.

2. when all else fails, run away to an exotic location.

 

3. to be creative when talking on the telephone.

4. that letters composed on a typewriter are classier.

-- & many more, of course, but I am currently a walking exo-skeleton of my former self (university assessment block is sucking out all my flesh and juices) and I think I may indulge in a much needed nap before eating cereal or toast for dinner and skipping off to my nighttime sign language class.

TOODLES!

Prototype future #012

I will first learn how to drive so that I can live my dream nomadic life in a Tumbleweed Home.

In it I will keep an extensive collection of 2nd hand books and all of my classic favourites on DVD. Amongst the collection will be Barbarella, The Children's Hour, Of Human Bondage, An Affair to Remember and silents from D.W. Griffith and George Méliès.



I will keep a book of prose. I will write scripts for stage and screen. I will travel to theaters and get my plays made.

(& when I do write I will use lovely sharpened pencils and erasers that smell of primary school)

I will cook and bake all sorts of lovely foods. You'll know where my current place of residence is by following the wafts of sweet pastries or chinese noodle soups.

-- My day dreams are like playing dress ups in my head. But I'm not trying on different outfits, my life is.

Simply whining melodramatically about the banality of institutionalised education
and covering up negative thoughts with classic movies
until my thoughts are in black & white and my movements are underscored by dramatic musical accompaniment.

I have to focus on doing things so that my brain can't talk so loud.
So I've baked chai flavoured butter biscuits -
and made beetroot salads, cooked tom yum noodle soup and grilled chicken pasta.
Perhaps my proudest culinary moment was passing over a plate to my kid sister;
upon it was my first - and near perfect - egg-in-the-basket.

Upon reflection - joy is not in the bulk of life
but more so in the small things you do or experience.
It's the 'little pleasures'...
I guess a cliche has to come from a truth.

Grandad & Grandma Graham

I can't tell you how in love I have been and always will be with the past. Ever since I was little I hounded my grandma for stories about her youth; how she grew up in the 30s - where an idea of family fun in the evening meant improvised sing-song on the piano accompanied by mandolins, or stories from the war when she worked at the RAF and fell in love with a certain pilot who turned out to be my bean pole of a grandfather. I'd spend hours locked up in my grandmother's storage room where I perused through piles of family albums. I would find gems; like a thick, browned photo of great-great-grandfather sitting solemnly with two greyhounds by his side. He worked at Great Yarmouth, and worked a little on the Jack the Ripper case - he even recieved a letter written in blood (supposedly) from the killer himself gushing about eating organs from his victims, and other such gruesome frivolties (and no, it's not still in the family - great-great-grandfather was a bit of a gambler and lost the letter in a bet). I especially love the photos of the late 1800's and early 1900's where my british relatives would get dressed in frilly huge hoop skirts, hats, umbrellas and tight dinner suits (for the men) to go for a picnic to the beach! My grandmother let me take a few of the photos. Mostly ones of her and my grandfather together. The earliest I have is a photobooth picture my grandmother took when she was about 10 years old by the sea side.

( Read more... )

She walked over to the bench top and laid her small pointed fingertips upon the puddle of spilled honey. She left them there; still for a moment so that the honey pooled and settled. Soon enough it seemed the honey had grown accustomed to the foreign objects and cemented around her pale fingers. Then, she abruptly lifted them upwards. She imagined the honey shrieking as it felt it had something of itself removed. Strands of sickly sweet goo hung from the pads of her fingers like desperate spindly arms clinging at loved ones they dare not part from. Soon those strands gave up and fell back down where they settled back into a serene pond - as if they had never known or lost those extra limbs that were her fleshy fingertips.

She looked at her fingers - they were gleaming; sticky with residue. The honey had forgotten her, but she had not forgotten the honey.

Maybe I'm decades late on this one -
but I just discovered Bette Davis.



The other night I delved deep into my Foxtel recordings to find a whole bunch of TCM films I had yet to watch. Amongst them was What ever happened to Baby Jane?. With my feet up, ice cream bowl resting on my chest, so that the cool creamy goodness would fall effortlessly into my mouth (in true lazy boy fashion) I began to watch.

The film was riveting, horrifying and mind blowing. So mind blowing in fact that I had to stop half way through due to a piercing headache. I spent that night wriggling in bed due to an excitement-induced migraine and images of Bette Davis' psychotic eyes kept popping up during some bizarre visual mash up playing in my mind.

The next day I couldn't wait to watch the rest. I must say that not many modern day gore/horror films can scare me quite like a classic psychotic thriller. What struck me most about the film was Bette Davis. How her acting was so piercing, bold and intimidating that, for me, it induced a migraine attack.

As I do with all my new born fascinations I hastily typed her name into YouTube. After being misled by the Bette Davis Eyes song (which I am now shamefully humming 24/7) I stumbled across clips of Bette in films at all different ages. She seems to take on a character like a new skin - she's so believable as a different person that I felt I was watching clips of a diversity of people. And boy, was she strikingly beautiful - and yes, ugly when she wanted to be - but doesn't that make someone more beautiful?

For some reason I find something endearing about her intimidatingly independent, brass and somewhat frightening personality off-camera. I giggled mischieviously at her famous cold-hearted quotes, such as:
"Strong women only marry weak men." and
"Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I'm not a bitch. Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies."

I couldn't help but put her high on my list of strong women who inspire me ...(even if she inspires me to step all over people and do whatever the heck I want in order to be brilliant).

From the dainty, pint sized white-blonde pixie with expressive pin-thin eyebrows, to the gracefully enigmatic dark haired, full lipped tyrant and the white washed monster who paraded around the inside of my eyelids during a headachey trip - one thing never changes; that certain thing they call 'je ne sais quoi' that shone out through her big, full-moon and frighteningly wide eyes. Those Bette Davis eyes.

Today for show & tell I bring you a short film I slapped together (comprised of footage from Bun & Toast's last days in NYC) ...



AND a mixtape I put together made up of songs I've recently favourited on 8tracks - which, may I add, is my new favourite website. (I'm cheating on you LJ -- & I think facebook and I currently have an unhealthy relationship. What to do?)



In other news I think I'm returning to introverted bliss. I've spent a good few months partypartying & socialising. But I'm thinking it's time to get back to my incessant-internet-surfing, tv-watching, movie-obsessing, icecream-eating, nerdy-in-front-of-mirror-dancing self. I'M SO READY.

p.s. Just watched Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was pretty cute. I think Kat Dennings is my long lost BFF that I've never met IRL - SHE BLOGS, GUYS. SRSLY. www.katdennings.com

The problem with being alone.


I will be the first to admit that when in the confines of my own home, in the comfort of my own room - I am very happy to be alone. The joy I find in rolling around like a kitten on my carpet floor, listening to my vinyls and talking to myself, far surpasses the joy I experience at many good parties I've attended. So much so, in fact, I have been known to regularly pull out of social outings (last minute of course, much to the disdain of my friends) in favour of eating chocolate ice cream and watching illegally streamed internet movies in my bed.

However, I would just like to point out that being alone OUT THERE is very different story.

It came to my attention yesterday when my friend pulled out of going to an art performance with me that I am terrified of being alone at social events. I was looking forward to this particular outting, and felt I'd regret it if I were to skip on it. But now that I had no one to go with I was pulling at the skin of my dry fingertips with anxiety.

HORROR! I frantically read through my contacts list 3 times over, thinking about who to ask - and those who I did ask replied with "sorry"s and "already have plans!".

I gave myself an ultimatum: I either grow some balls (yes I used this exact wording) and go alone or I stay home and watch Spongebob on YouTube.

An image of myself, small, insignificant and donned in daggy clothing appeared in my mind. I stood in the gallery, everyone talking to one another in their elite social circles draped in the most intimidatingly attractive outfits. I envisaged a huge void around me - no one would approach me in fear of being sucked into the netherworld.

So, I optioned for the latter. Spongebob couldn't judge me, after all.

I suppose you may have been expecting this to be a story about victory over fears. But it isn't. Perhaps the happy ending can be that I indeed made it to the performance, because one of my friends pulled through and managed to come with me.

Afterwards, when going home, my friend and I discussed this irrational fear of social situations and why the thought of being alone or having to make friends with strangers was such a nerve-wrecking one. After all, what's the worst that could happen? Rejection is easy to get over - perhaps it's your own awkwardness that is the most painful.

Surely with practice this awkwardness will slowly diminish? If that's so, the key to being alone is practice...

But then one has to ask: does being alone in your bedroom count as practice?
If so, I should be a fucking pro by now!

Sometimes I have the biggest urge to reincarnate right here, right now.

I believe in reincarnation. I believe in reincarnation within the one life. Doesn't make sense? Well, most of my thoughts don't. Let's just say I'm speaking metaphorically.

I think a lot of us (the human species) get caught up, can't let go, feel stuck and frustratedly stagnant because we don't accept, or tolerate or allow change.

Something I'm constantly relearning about myself, about others - and perhaps about everything in general - is that nothing is concrete. A person is just as fluid and unpredictable as natural running water.

If this is the case, why do we cling to definitions and personalities? We seem to believe our carefully constructed image - how we want people to percieve us - is more important than who we feel we really are. Whilst in reality today I may define myself as a loner who enjoys computer games, block printing and sobbing about life - but who's to say that tomorrow I'm not a social butterfly who is manipulative but carefree and enjoys rock climbing and prank calls?

We should think of personalities and social labels as costumes that we can don one day, but throw away in favour of something completely different the next. Once we see the image, or the ego, as just a costume then everything is that little bit less serious and there's no guilt in changing who you are whenever you feel the need.

I feel the need. Yet, I claw at the Hannah I have defined and grown familiar to - the Hannah I know everyone around me has grown familiar to. If I am to suddenly don a new costume, the people I love or hate will no longer recognize me.

So, really, to reincarnate is a feat of absolute courage. Because you are willing to shed the clothes that connect you with the world you know and the people in it. To reincarnate, first comes death. You will kill yourself before you wear that new skin.

Well, metaphorically speaking.

She taught us how to love.

We sat around the tables in class. The sterile room was dark except for bright, flickering images projected against the wall behind her. She was our teacher. She spoke in long, winding, delicious sentences. Great twisted piles of silver, shimmery snakes were suspended in front of each student. And as she spoke I imagined those snakes to move and slide against one another. I would reach out to them and their gentle movement would give me a warm sensation. They danced and swam in the air, caressing my finger tips and arms; sending me into pure ecstasy. I felt so warm, as if I were being baked - being made ready to eat. My chest was peeling back, I was exposed and open hearted.

In my dream, I took a class on how to love.

My paid LJ account is about to expire. Which I feel is good timing, because - as cliche as it sounds - something in me, or an old 'me' is about to expire, too.

It's not melancholy or morbid or poetic. It's just metaphorical death.

Ha ha!

But yes, I don't know what I'll update about during my transition. So perhaps this livejournal may die, too.

I can't predict that though.

I can't predict anything!

I like it that way.

I'm no good at LJing anymore.

But, to keep you updated (this is me thinking I have readers) here's some news:

First semester of university is OVER! I am officially on my 7 week holiday. So excellent. I feel so relieved and happy - which is a little worrying, should I be missing it?

I just got back from a 10 day trip to Malaysia with my family. We went primarily to visit my chinese relatives. Which proved eventful. I have many chinese relatives over there - none of whom I recognised. But they were all so loud and boisterous; they were a lot of fun!
We ate so much great Malaysian food when we were over there: mee, roti, curries, red bean buns, kways. We also went to Sukau and stayed on the river. We went on safaris at dawn and spotted orangutans, proboscis monkeys, snakes, crocodiles & pygmy elephants. I also peed in virgin rainforest! Huzzah! I have peed all over the world!

Morgan and I are leaving for New York in just 4 days. I am way excited! You should be following our blog: bunandtoast.tumblr.com to keep updated on our trip. There are links to our twitter, etc from there, too.

And to keep updated with me, personally, try following my twitter @hannahmarymei - because I hardly update here anymore! :(

My brain is feeling pretty jelly-like and extra-stupid today. Must be caused by involuntarily waking up @ 7am.

On with news! So, on the plate we have:

1.
m0rgasm and I are officially heading off to the BIG APPLE this June 15th. We are more psyched than you could ever imagine. Also, Morgan will be losing her travelling virginity on this trip - and I can't wait to watch her explode in happiness.


2.
Bun & Toast is doing pretty well, we have some projects we're doing - both for ourselves and for others. (By the way, yes - we do commissioned projects! Anything from illustration to photography and media production) And our trip to NYC will definitely enduce some spontaneous art attacks with our American friends. We cannot wait to meet and make connections with other artists/designers/filmmakers from such a cultured city!


3.
Although I sometimes feel as if uni has faded into the background for me, I'm keeping on top of it all and have been really happy with the results!

Joy, joy, joy ... basically.