Okay, so a few of ya peeps know that I have a weird little quirk of sometimes staggering or fainting out of the blue, when I’m barely onto my third glass of poison or even a third sip, when the sky is blue and the birds are singing, or even sitting prettily in a classroom.

 

THUD.

 

One of the dramatic events occurred about two or three years ago, at a wine and cheese night event organised by MLC, when one minute I was all peppy and talkative, and the next, I was curled up in the next room with chest pain and slipping in and out of consciousness. The doctor at the emergency ward was dumbfounded by my aliment, and sent me home.

 Of course, more events (although without the chest pain) followed. I kept private about these – well, they were a regular occurrence to me, since I was 11 years old and I fainted after descending a staircase. (Joe kicked me awake with his chubby foot)

 Until much earlier this year – we went out for a friend’s birthday, and I decided to put on a corset, and Joe strung it up for me – but not as tight as some of my friends had done for me before. The strings done up, I ate my way through a delicious modern Japanese dinner, and then went to T-bar, high on the night and looking forward to a big night out.

 Of course, I had just barely sipped my beer, already caught up in a conversation between two friends when suddenly I felt the warning signs – a whooshing sound (despite my being deaf) and the edges of my vision were infected by a creeping cloak of sparkling grey-blackness.

 I had to sit down, and fast.

 I quickly told my friends that I need to go to the toilet, and turned around to find somewhere to sit –

 

No guesses to what happened next, but the incident spread to my family, and along with my friends, pressed me to go to the doctor.

 I ended up going to a neurologist, who sent me off to CAT and MRI scans, all of which came up clear, and sent me off to the cardiac unit for a tilt table test.

 The tilt table test. First devised as a torture device, it has a rich and noble history with its straps and…

 Anyway, I was ushered in the room and onto the table – by luck, one of the receptionist was Joe’s friend, just recently finishing an exam for Auslan. She interpreted for me as the doctor prepped my arm for an IVF drip for the second part of the test – I didn’t look, but there was a bit of a drama as the urse hit the motherlode on my arm. Blooood!

 That done, I was strapped down and told not to move at all, and that I would be tilted up and held at 180 degrees upright. I was to tell the doctor (one had entered the room, presumably the expert) when I felt nausea or began to faint.

 So, the point of the test is to see whether I will faint.

 Every two minutes, the nurse would take my blood pressure and write down it down. I didn’t mind so much, as the tilt table had a magnificent view of the western Richmond suburb. At least it wasn’t in some dungeon with dead rats.

 I was increasingly bored – the lizard isn’t quite the patient creature, strapped up on a table. However, as the nurse began the fourth blood pressure pump, I felt the echo return to my ears, and the darkness crawling at my sight of the landscape.

 As the nurse and doctor scrambled for the remote control, my vision went completely black, like someone had switched off my optic nerve – and soon enough, my consciousness followed into the darkness.

 I awoke to the straps flicking off, and they were busy wrapping the test up – I didn’t need the second cycle or the IVF, which would have increased my heartbeat as though I was exercising or in distress.

 The doctor started rattling off the usual spiel, “The test has shown us that you have been diagnosed with Neurally Mediated Hypotension, blah blah” with the receptionist struggling to keep up.

 He told me that while it was not a disease, there was no cure for it – it was something that was genetic with the low blood pressure I had, and that it was also learned behaviour (not my fault, my body’s). I could improve it, however, by drinking 2 to 3 litres of water a day, and to increase my salt intake for the next few years.

 Hang on, salt? I protested, telling him that I already ate shitloads of salt, so much I might as well have a few table spoons a day. He smiled and repeated himself, adding a “shake it all over the food, baby” gesture. Right.

 He then said that I would have to give up all caffeine-related products that would dehydrate me as well as wash away all the salt that I needed.

 Hang on, what?

 

Does… does that include Pepsi Max?

 

The doctor nodded.

 

Those who know of my fainting spells will also know very well of my love and lust for pepsi max, guzzling cans after cans and even bottles of the artificial liquid. Mmmmm, the taste-quenching flavour.

 

Oh, Pepsi Max.

 

Sniffle.

 So there you have it – a fainting lizard (also in a huge sulk right now) that’s 100 years or so out of vogue, but now looking on the bright side of life with an ability to simply stand really still for only 8 minutes, to faint dead away.

Plot, plot, plot…

 

Today I just brought my first “blue” top (the bridesmaid dress I made for Kay’s wedding a long time ago does NOT count), since this was with conscious choice… I’d always shyed away from blue clothes, exceptions being denim, but then usually slate-coloured jeans.

Not sure why, maybe I just thought it was an unflattering colour when I love green so much more… even so, I thought I’d try and give blue a serious go, and what the hey, i found a pretty neat top at Gorman Surprise (outlet on bridge road). Technically, it is a leotard… but it does look pretty awesome with my new pair of “gothic black pants”. 

Think I’ll call it “Sad Charlie Top”, and add it to my gallery of LadyBird Jacket, Yellow Flappy Dress, Melbourne Dress, to name a few*. Nice, eh?

On a side note, one of my favourite musical genres is Jazz, most particularly the blues. Mmmmmmm.

 

*I have a habit of naming some of my clothes and complete outfits - so a normal conversation between me and a friend over the wire might go something like this:

 

Hey cherie, should I go for the 80s and wear the Ladybird Jacket with the Killer Heels or the Grandma Astronant pants with my Gum Heels? All black under each of them d’accord… whaddya think?

While I’m not passing my time writing “Sodomy Is Safe Sex” in my two year old niece’s colouring book, (hey, she’s barely learnt her ABC’s) or talking walks across empty building lots with my cat, or meditating upon the parameters of my body…

I’m gritting my teeth as I type, cut, paste, edit, from 9.30 to 5 (and more than often, 7) during the weekdays, and finding it too tired to lift the pen to draw something creative.

Dreams are my escape, where I soak myself like in a bath (I may remind you that I have not had a righteous bath for MONTHS) and let my imagination flow like a crashing river, sweeping me right along. Even though it makes me mentally tired when I roll out of the bed, it’s an addiction that I never want to give up.

I have a half brother, or used to - I have not heard of any news of him at all, and curiously enough, in my darkest hours, I find myself wondering where he is and what he is doing. I can imagine him lecturing me and telling me off, even though he was in my life for only a few years, something that is shrinking as time stretches ahead for me.

He’d probably tell me off for letting my dreams overflow my being, remind me of the zen parable of the overflowing cup, and tell me that he gave up that burden a long time ago, when he was 19, and felt much more free than before.

What was that burden? I know what it was, but what sort - was it an anchor, to cast off and let fall, to let it hit and stick to the ground? Stay there and not bother to pick it up and carry it along? Everything has their causes and reasons, and while not religious (except if you count craft and manipulations of faith), there is something to be said for time and fate, with each passing second and breath becoming ghosts, set in stone, something that can never ever be undone.

Our present is but a splice, a two-dimensional split right between past and the future. I don’t mind my burdens; I accept them, and I try desperately to use them to change my self into someone I want to be, someone who I like.

Everything is so wound up inside me, like a metal coil - I want to unfurl, lash out faster than an anime flick, slicing through everything and drown in the moment. 

When I was six or seven till the time we moved from this huge old house in Armadale, one of my favourite past times was to take a length of heavy chains, wrap a metal scarf around my skinny shoulders, jump in the pool at the deep end.

Sit there, eyes open (no goggles, I’d gotten so used to the chloride) and just look into the glowing teal-coloured blank world under the surface for as long as I could hold my breath. As long as I could hold my breath.

****************************

 

Vector is a PAIN in the arse, especially with Photoshop. If only I could somehow solve the Illustrator deadlock… but anyway. cute picture above. bon appetit.

Drug of the night: black chook sparkling Shiraz and honey vodka lalalalalala

I was thinking about Melbourne and Sydney the other day, how two of Australia’s biggest cities can be so different and with so much rivalry. Even dating back to before Canberra was formed (a desperate attempt to stop civil war between New South Wales and Victoria by picking a little threadbare town and making it a state in itself, smack in the middle of Sydney and Melbourne).

Even so, many people still consider Melbourne the “old, original” capital for all the politicans, and Sydney the “new, modern” capital for all the tourists and World event venues, and Canberra’s diminutive appearance has done little to temper the wanton patriotism of the city citizens.

However, in my travels (Vietnam, Italy, et cetera) I have noted similarities to the Sydney-Melbourne concept - in Italy, I found Florence to be most similar to Melbourne, and Rome to be most similar to Sydney. Vietnam - Hanoi to Melbourne and Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon) City to Sydney, Tokyo to Sydney and Osaka to Melbourne (the latter is unconfirmed personally).

I find myself preferring the “old capitals” of each country, the second sisters (myself being one!) for the strangest reasons - I found good food or cocktails easy to come by, people more laid back, and public transport staggeringly easy to the highlights of the city, usually being art or cultural exhibitions.

But that’s me speaking as a born Melburian - when I was in Tokyo, I had the rare opportunity to meet two of my father’s past business associates at The House Of Blue Leaves (where Kill Bill’s battle with On-Sen and her Crazy 88 was filmed) and after sampling an abosultely divine foies-gras yakatori, I asked the younger of the two what he thought of Osaka.

His reply was empathic - boring! It was mostly rural country to him, and he found nothing to do there. A bit of a harsh judgement against what people consider to be the second city of Japan, and the food, fashion and art culture capital. Hmmm. A theory formulated in my skull, and I asked him where he was from - Paris - and asked him what the second city of France was, and he said Lyon. I asked him, would Lyon be similar to Osaka? He agreed to that.

I next asked him if he had been to Australia, and he gave me a look - pointing at his shirt. A polo shirt with AUSTRALIA emblazoned on it, from some backwater tourist shop. Hmmmm.

So, which did you prefer, Sydney or Melbourne?

Guess which one he picked - Sydney, of course. He found it more sunny, more friendly, more active. I naturally nearly sprang into a hour-long defensive debate of Melbourne, urged by my Melburian genes, instead munching on a soy-marinated lamb chop. Mmmmm, gorgeous.

It’s almost like a “Cat or Dog” question, isn’t it? I prefer Melbourne, so I might always prefer the second sisters of every country (Oh, including Ubud in Bali!) and I have to concede that Sydney people can bring up a great argument for their city, and for other cities around the world - and I do like parts of Sydney, however messy and illogical it may be to me!

P.S. I reckon I might prefer to live in Osaka when my time comes to fly to Japan, but as always, it’s up in the air depending on where I get posted for a job - either Tokyo or Osaka, and I will love either of them!

Last weekend, Elissa and I made a rare trip down to Foxwood where we passed the time watching Dexter (oh how I have a thing for anti-heroes), eating, drinking and doing… stuff.

No absinthe-fuelled lesbo orgies by the fireplace, alas.

However, we did get to witness a marvel of nature: Flant Day, aka Flying Ant Day. Basically, it went down like this in multipile ant colonies.

Cindy No37862 preened before the waterdrop-mirror in her alcove. “Are you ABSOLUT-ELY sure I don’t look fat?”

The servants were too trained well to make shifty eyes or betray their twitching antennes, and shook their heads demurely.

“oh Well. Like, whatever. I’ll drop a few grams once those wings drop off. Right?” Cindy No37862 spun, “god, i hope that bitch Andrea No80243 drops her wings in the middle of the air. Ohh, or even better, a bird eats her.” A gurgling laughter rose in her thorax.

The servant ants kept still, but they were sliding dangerously close to death, placing such restrain upon their bodies, anything to stop themselves from rolling back their antennas.

They sure as hell hoped the birds ate every last one of those Queens, including this certain charge. 

“Shit! Is that the time?” Cindy No37862 whined, and turned to the servants. “Like, this is a once in a life time for me. All those other bitches will be up in the air, slutting it everywhere for the nearest males. Shit! I promised to meet my girlfriends at the bar now!” Her polished pincers clacked. “You ought have let me know the time, and if I don’t get a boyfriend, someone’s gonna answer for sure.”

Times like this, hive intelligence sure came in handy just for the worker ants’ not-so-patrotic thoughts.

“God! You’re like, so useless! I should tell Mom! Whatever!” Cindy No37862 suddenly paused as she caught herself in the water drop.

“Seriously, I don’t look fat, right?”

So, yeah, hundreds of ant queen wannabes took off, flying all around us as we walked the farm, mad as hell bent on finding a male and getting their own colony to rule. Caps to Elissa, who is the resident invasive biologist expert on ants on my block, who’s still buzzing about it…!

Arrrrrgh. I can’t stop thinking about those plastic clogs I found the other day at Fat on Brunswick Street…

I’ve always wanted clogs, but I’ve a thing about pointy shoes (not sure why, and there’s too many possibilities to list here), and I dislike very round or square toes, as they make my already-too-big t-rex feet (size 10) look like I’m wearing lifeboats. Too many clogs i found were too… hippy or too chapel-street, with fancy frills or boring shapes.

Then.

 

By Melissa Plastic Dreams, a fabulous line of plastic fantastic shoes - I already have a pair of black boots that I love, that I named my “gum heels”, gosh!

The problem is, for all the 99 dollars they are (ONLY 99 DOLLARS!!!), they are just HALF a centimetre too smallish for my mammoth feet, and my heel JUST overlaps the back edge.

Whiiiiiiiiiine. Sometimes I think I ought to consider foot surgery, too many times have saleswomen cower under my height, telling me that size 10 is not available, but there is plenty of 9 (fricking point) 5….

I really want those shoes. When I tried them on, I immediately felt like Baba Yaga of the future, clomping around (bouncing, really, since they’re beautiful plastic) and hunting down little children for my oven. 

I just remembered. Roland Dahl’s book, The Witches (my favourite book of his, but you probably already guessed that) details one characteristic of witches: no toes.

Lucky witchy bitchy witch bitches.

I got an iphone! I am writing (more like poking) this post on my way to work!

In summary, AWESOME.

It won’t be long till they switch on and exterminate all humans for the glory of the 21st century bebop. Can’t wait.

Next materalistic consumerism purchase: plastic Baba Yaga shoes?

PS I didn’t break my old phone, erm, that much on purpose just for the iPhone. Just saying. Déjà vu.

Welcome to Tokyo.

Incense, tourists, weird shrines… oh my!

Must at all shrines: Yakatori!

Trains - the ultimate transport of Tokyo.

My father having some freshly-caught sushi (mere hours ago) at the Tsukiji fish market.

The infamous tuna - sadly, we had missed the auctioning frenzy for them.

AAAAAAAAAH TOOOOOOOOKYOOOOO TOOOOOOOOOYS

The yakuza tengu of the skies… EVERYWHERE.

Adverts for Host Clubs - I actually seriously considered how to dump my father and duck into one… 

How to purify yourself before praying at a shrine… how very kawaii.

Kyoto is actually considered the home of Astro boy. GO GO GO!!!

The pinnacle of Japanese Cuisine. Divine.