Of all the ways to potentially screw up a friendship, and friend, there are many, you’d have to give a 9 out of 10 to letting your niece do a dirty big tattoo on one of your best friends’ back. Unlike a bad haircut, the expiry date for trouble should it go wrong is akin to that of a Mcdonalds all-beef patty – infinity.
So you’ll understand, I’m sure, why I would perform circus tricks to change the subject whenever they got together – “Oh look! Whoever would have thought I could do a handstand drunk and in heels!” But this was a runaway train no amount of throwing drinks on myself was going to stop.
Imagine my relief then when I turned up (late, waiting for the valium to kick in) to the first sesh at Korpus, and saw Amanda’s happy face. Oh joy! Maybe there is a god! What a kicking talented niece I have in Jaclyn, our painted lady. Same blood in our veins remember – same blood.
Stress over, I settled into my ring-side seat with my latte and SLR, disturbed only by falling on the ground laughing when a guy in the other booth asked me if I have any tattoos. ”Me?” “Mwwwaaahhahaahaaahaaa!” Hold on while I stitch my sides up. Buddy, I have to ask the audience when I’m deciding which wine to order.
No, no tattoos, I’m here for the show – I like to watch.
I haven’t always been the sooky weeper who caused a water-mark stain on the silk blouse I wore to see Bright Star. In fact, it doesn’t seem that long ago that I was driving past a wedding ceremony after another heinous break-up, and hung out the window yelling “Don’t do it! He’s probably sleeping with your bridesmaid anyway!” Ah cynicism, we had some good times, no?
Well apparently those days are behind me now because walking down Sydney Rd Brunswick on Saturday, I saw this sign taped to a pole and was moved. Is this not the sweetest thing you’ve seen this year? Cuter than a bunch of kittens? I’ll bet he still writes to Santa, too. Natch I disguised a couple of the numbers before loading it on the internet – but I can’t help wondering how many pranks he’s had by now…. And if I was being really honest I’d admit I’ve been this close to calling him to ask if she called him…
P.S. If this turns out to be a marketing campaign for Witchery I’m going to spit….
But of course that’s not a drawing, so here’s an offering from Dr Sketchy’s….
Given that I’ve been (literally) attempting to run my arse off recently, I’ve become accustomed to sweat. But nothing could have prepared me for Grandmaster Flash at the Espy on Australia Day eve. Sweatbox? You got it! I awoke the next morning with an icky feeling in my lungs reminiscent of the old smokers-in-bars days, finally realising my lungs were full of other people’s armpits. Eeuuw. But Grandmaster, you gave great beats, and we danced as if possessed until the end when our shoes were actually sticking to the floor. I didn’t even mind when I found the young dude down the back actually playing all the tunes, and doing the scratching. True!
So just when I thought I couldn’t cope with one more gig/festival/dance-off, I realised the tree is loaded and it’s time to swing into action with the second annual tribute to all things fig. Last year’s began with fig delicacies washed down with champagne, and ended with disco dancing in the lounge room fueled by vodka. Behold, the Festival of the Fig 2010…
37°C today, and sticky. Despite having run between 4 and 6km almost every day since new years, my thighs are chaffing. Speaking of which, want to go for a run but too hot. Meh. Caught the train home from the city and everyone at Southern Cross station was annoying, most specifically the B-O monster occupying the space next to the only spare seat. And young men cutting me off to get to seats on the train.
Honestly, sometimes I just want to make like Eartha…
Here I was pissin’ & moanin’ about lousy Melbourne weather during a Sydneysider’s visit, and setting fire to my Marc Jacobs jacket (ok that is still significant), when all the while fabulously famous people on the other side of the world were getting rained on in dresses worth more than my house. Not to mention all that work of having their faces ironed and stretched.
Actually I was glad of the umbrella action frantically going on in the background, because lord knows the dresses were bore-ring at this year’s Golden Globes. Do they all employ the same stylist? Because I could save them a lot of money: 1. Go to any designer and get a strapless dress with fitted body/fishtail hem; Make it fleshy pink colour – think Nicole. 2. Go to Bulgari and get as much bling as they’ll lend you (directly proportional to the takings of your last film). 3. Instruct hairdresser to create “undone” look of nonchalance for appearance of casual attitude (this will not be at all incongruent with the bling). 4. Go hungry for approximately 2 weeks before the show. 5. Botox yourself stupid. There – you’re good to go. 50 bux and we’ll call it even.
I watched and loved the show anyway, but where’s Biork when you need her? Bla bla yawn. Thank god for Cameron Diaz who pretty much always wears something fabulous and not cookie-cutter like. She would have been my chosen muse for the day had she not been so damn polite about holding the dress up off the red carpet (Rachel Zoe obviously has rules) and thereby not striking a single worthy pose. Le sigh. Is Alexander McQueen really that scary?
So alas, I went with Emily Blunt in her Dolce & Gabbana cookie-cutter frock and hair of nonchalance. When in Rome…
Thanks a freaking lot. No really, it was so great the way you put on splendiferous weather all last week - 27°C on Friday for godssake (the perfect Melbourne temperature), then halved your temperature and pissed down for my Sydney friend’s visit on Sunday.
So how do you suppose I quash the rumour that Sydney is in any way superior to Melbourne? Sure, when I was up there over new years it did also rain and cause the brown dye from my Chie Miharas to create an impression of brown toe-jam on my feet, but at least I was still wearing a bikini under a sun-frock – unlike the woolies & coat I’ve been forced to pull back out of the storage bags I just freaking well packed them into.
Fortunately for me, Amanda & Natasha have iron wills much like my own and understand that bad weather can easily be forgotten with a drink. Or ten. So no thanks to you, the plan proceeded and we determinably sat on the deck at ichi ni imagining just how beautiful the sunset would have been, had we not been watching it through plastic sheeting/rain/clouds.
And since the inclement weather forced us to seek a more sensible venue for a nightcap, I guess I can also blame you for the naked candle at Wesley Anne that set fire to my mint green Marc Jacobs jacket.
So thank you Melbourne, thank you so very ***** much.
While eating my way through the blue mountains and enjoying the superlative company of my friends, the very last thing I expected was to find and purchase the most perfect and covetable example of a 1970’s belle époque dress imaginable. But I did, in emerald green. I die. Somewhere between the breakfast table and the nymph’s waterhole was an antique store in Blackheath and it was a veritable goldmine. So taken was I in fact, that I didn’t even notice Tara Moss strolling by behind me. Possibly I was too busy emitting a low growl to ward off other shoppers from my jackpot corner.
Sigh. It’s perfect apart from a lining which could stand up on its own, so that will have to go. Also, despite appearing 8 feet tall in my self portraits…well, let’s just say I’m not…so the maxi length thing, it may have to go too – if I can bring myself to take to it with the scissors…
Alas, the time has come to separate my arse from my beach towel. Oh terry-toweling, I knew you well.
Truth be told, if it wasn’t for the prompting* from a certain Patsyfox devotee (that’s you Webb), I would still be spending my days in a bikini, promising myself to at least cut out the drinking during daylight hours, and canvasing more friends/acquaintances to find someone who has a copy of season 2 of True Blood. I shouldn’t complain – if my liver wasn’t at capacity by xmas, it certainly is now. And god knows, I’m running out of available credit. To the pencils I return…
So as the blue mountains/Sydney NYE fireworks from a rooftop party/Sydney in general fade from my depleted memory bank, I look to the year ahead and give it a big hug.
Coming up in March as part of the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival and celebrating the first birthday of Patsyfox: “On The Street…Patsyfox” An exhibition of drawings from throughout the year. Where? Guilford Lane Gallery. When? 10th-21st March 2010. Is there an opening party? Of course there is! Thursday March 11th. Be there early, for I will surely drink the rider.
That’s not all. Launching during LMFF is The Patsyfox Drawing Salon! Workshop classes to be held during the festival in the Patsyfox exhibition space, then short courses begin in the evenings, for beginners and advanced, all taught by yours truly, naturally. Watch this space, because I will be plugging both of these things relentlessly…
So best I shake the sand out of my pencil case and burn some rubber in the sketchbook… In memory of my beach towel, I bring you Bondi Patsyfox…
I never thought I’d say this but I actually think I’m sick of drinking. There – I said it, pass the thermometer. I may have passed over without noticing it but I think it’s true. Maybe it’s the cheap lick-envelopes I bought to post my xmas cards. Maybe it’s just genuine liver-at-capacity. Not that I haven’t been enjoying getting to this point.
In a year that has seen my brother Tex and sister Suzanne erased from this earth in the same spectacular moment, I have discovered many things, including an iron will to continue. Not that the event hasn’t left a meteor-sized crater on my landscape – It’s just that I’ve stared in the face of the unthinkable and am still here. I watched them drive down the driveway and their tail lights disappear down the country road, thinking to myself that five family members in one piece of metal was a lot. And it was. As I drove frantically through the countryside an hour later trying to find the missing three, I used the law of probability as my comfort. Unfortunately what I learned from this is that shit happens. To all of us. Deserved or not.
So to the memory of Tex and Suzanne, and my father before them, I raise a glass to a life lived as I want it. Why not?
I came across this video the other day on Sarah Wilson’s website and was struck with the irony of sliding doors – near misses and direct hits. I admit I watched with some bitterness that my family’s car wasn’t one of the near misses. C’est la vie.
I wish you all much merriment and joy and a fabulous 2010. Personally I think it’s going to be a good one.
Thank you to all my insanely fabulous friends – you know who you are, and how much i have to thank you for.
It’s been a suspiciously smooth day today – coffee with my old pilates buddies, discovery that the cheap printer has 300g matt paper for my xmas cards in stock, a park out the front, and can print them right away, and while I wait I can have coffee at the newly opened cafe next door which is selling (good) coffees for one dollar. And for the entire duration of that cafe latte I didn’t see one pramzilla. When the mailman came, who I’ve considered beating off with a stick, there were no bills! Is it wrong that this makes me so suspicious? Then while enjoying an afternoon cup of tea, a call from my friend Kim, announcing a tree change.
Cheekbones like Faye Dunaway, talented, younger than me - there’s not a lot to like about Kim Kneipp. Designer-cum-slow-fashion-stylist, she puts her career and finances where her mouth is, turning away work that doesn’t fit her ethos. And it’s working out just fine. Frockerphiliac doesn’t offer your run-of-the-mill styling services of endless shopping and latest “it” looks – it’s more stylish than that. She works with clients to create an image true to them, and does it within a sustainable framework. This can involve minor or complete reworkings of garments within their wardrobes, or sourcing garments from op shops, markets, and ethically sound labels. It’s a little like, as Gwenny would say – except without it making me want to stick pins in my eyes – “shopping your own closet” – a concept I’ve become intimate with recently (which made the dream about the 2 blonde lesbians stealing all my clothes that much more disturbing). Oh and when she revamps your wardrobe, she doesn’t muck around – I’ve heard stories of drills being pulled out of back pockets and racking being installed… You’ve been warned.
You can read more about her in the latest Frankie magazine, or just gaze upon her here.
