The lumpy pumpy frumpy dumpy Lizard is grumpy.

I just had a lovely lunch with my father today in the city, after an appointment in a rather tepid office – the A/C was on the blink – and the lunch was at Hako’s on Little Flinders.

I wish we had picked another place, maybe that dumpling place we passed, because it sure has changed since the last time I was there – what, 3 years ago? I remember that night well; it was one of my friend’s birthday dinners, then off to the pub where I did a 180 degrees turn and fell right on my face in a dead faint, and had my corset ripped off from my comatose body. How very wuthering! (Hint: it was hypotension).

The food that night was sublime; fusion Japanese-modern food, with zucchini flower tempura and sizzling steak with yuzu marinade – I believe I had an amazing prawn salad of sorts, and a tempura chicken wrapped thingy that melted in your mouth with the divine salad.

After dithering a little, doing a little walking to wait for the restaurants to warm up (it was noon), we entered Hako’s, and I was hoping to introduce the fine menu to my father and sit back with a satisfied face at a menu well ooh and ahh’ed over.

No such luck. Too late, I remembered, as I travelled the menu, that a friend – a bit of a regular visitor to Hako – told me that the place had changed, and he liked it a heck lot more. The menu had taken a complete 180 degrees turn, perhaps after that night of me greeting the sticky cement floor, and well.

It was boring now. Just… simple Japanese food. Don’t get me wrong; I LOVE simple Japanese food, especially rustic, and you’ll have to drag me away from a kastu don with electric tazers. Today, i was expecting something Japanese and different. Something to arouse my creative taste buds after Iron Chef episodes, give me a few ideas. Simple Japanese food is just like getting fish n’ chips or a burger. Hell, Hako’s new menu had kastu don on it!

And it’s all overpriced – seriously, kastu don in Japan is like Big Mac: you can find a bowl for a mere 4 dollars! But 20 dollars? Come on! It’s like they decided to throw their creative originality out of the window and keep the original prices.

The food was good, of course, but nothing dazzling or something to write home to mum. My father said that it was a new trend that he noticed in restaurants he revisited – them rolling back on the marrow spread or the chicken neck curry (not missed, I assure you) and “revisiting” the traditional fare. Also, apparently the public likes that. I can cook traditional fare at home, and make it taste DANG good, so for that sort of price tag, I want a dollop of adventure on my food, cooked by Iron-calibre chefs not Aluminium-calibre chefs, thank you!

You know me – I treat vintage finds like treasures, like a palaeontologist would treat a dinosaur bone. He wouldn’t chop 1/3 of it off so it could fit in this cool display case. I’d walk away from a pretty dress that would look great on me, only if I would chop off its over-frilled sleeves… some things are meant to be.

I’m fine with some enterprising people who take clothes that are either damaged, or so fugly, and give it a “make over” (pairing it with another sad piece, or with new materials, or vamping it up), and sell it for a higher price. Nothing wrong with that, and often, their re-styling is often quite well done. Pity most of them don’t flatter me – I’m on the lookout for a nice restyled vintage skirt my size.

However, today at Camberwell Market, the mecca for all vintage trawlers and gleaners, there was a stall that I stepped into. I picked out a dress, thinking “oh, what a nice ’80s dress… hang on, it’s really short. Really short.”

I looked at the size – it was 8, so I put it back, thinking it must be some of a throwback to the ’70s mod dresses, the kind that really encouraged men’s hairs to grow vibrantly over all squares of skin.

Looking down the rack, I glanced to the pair that was manning the stall – blondish hipsters (everywhere at the moment, infesting Camberwell market). Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against hipsters – who knows, I might be one myself – but sometimes their attachment to trends despite being “unmaterialistic” and “indie” leaves me rolling my eyes so hard my chin is pulled back like the tide.

Ooooh, what’s this? A gorgeous screen-print thick polyster dress! Beautiful colours – brilliant kingfisher blue, orange and yellow streaks, a little proper belt and… an extremely short hem.

Ok, that’s odd. This type of dress would be long and flowing, 80s again, not so short the bottom of your undies would flash while tram-hopping. I had a closer look at the short hem, and my ears started to ring a warning, and I saw red.

The fricking hem had been butchered. I don’t know how much they cut away, but probably at least a foot, a FOOT of this brilliant material, and to add insult to injury, they had bloody fucking machine-sewn the hem in a ’sealing’ sew like they would do to buttonholes!!!!!!!!! IN BLACK THREAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ON A BRILLIANT BLUE/ORANGE/YELLOW DRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

&^%$#$%^&^%$#@!@#$#$!$%#@$#%!%$#@#$!

NO SEWING TECHNIQUES AT ALL. You’d think they would do the balantly obvious: use a BLUE thread, and fold up the hem, after doing a sealing stitch to stop it from fraying, and gently sew it around. They could have folded it up, so whoever brought it could have let it down, since it’s such a beautiful dress.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. They wanted to TEAR it off so it looked COOL and RACY and HIP and FLASH (your underpants). AND THEY FRICKING USED BLACK THREAD. AND IT LOOKS LIKE THE WHOLE BOTTOM IS A BUTTONHOLE. FOR THEIR ASS.

Stepping back in shaking anger, I surveyed the rest of the dresses, and my heart leap into my throat as I saw the other poor, poor specimens: mutilated beyond repair. BEYOND REPAIR. That’s right, beautiful limited-edition dresses that were sold thirty years ago, damaged beyond repair. Might as well throw them in a mulcher. They not only chopped off the lengh on some dresses, they also chopped off the sleeves on some.

I hope that stall never sells anything and those two particular bloody idiotic hipsters give up on their so-called enterprise, stop mutilating clothes and ask their parents for money on some other one such as bead jewellery for bikes or feather-covered Van shoes. HISSSSSSS.

Ok, I’m deaf, and so I’ve learnt to focus on the finer details to replace my “loss”*. Where hearing people might focus on the tones in the voice, being able to hold conversations on the phone that are far more personal than the written form (with emails and the such further saturating that world). Despite being unable to detect a person’s tone on the phone, I can detect the ‘tone’ IRL – In Real Life, that is, face to face.

Our masks extend to all over our body, as the subtlest fidget can betray the emotions within. My father are often amazed at how quickly and accurately I can tell if something is on his mind, but it’s just a simple sense to me, made easy by years of being in silence.

Of course, there are some who might be tone deaf blind in terms of body language, with some deaf people yapping away and you are radiating discomfort and piss-the-fuck-off signals, inches away from vomiting blood all over the tone-blind person and running off into the night.

My family and friends can tell, for most part, the weather in me – but that’s normal for most characters who find themselves wealthy with family and friends. My friends and I can even tell if a couple will last or not, based on their body language towards each other – hey, we should get a job in those women’s rags where they bring in body language experts to analyse Brangelia!

It’s difficult to meet with some hearing people for me, because in some odd ways (conflicting with the rest of me) I am shy, and the first sign of discomfort in the person’s body sends me stuttering, smiling, and slipping away. I don’t like to make people uncomfortable, unless they’ve somehow pissed me off. And unfortunately, one of the first few signals that a hearing person might fire off – not on purpose – when chatting to me might be a sense of alienation, disorientation, and uncomfortableness. Anyone would be, if they found themselves talking to someone of a completely different world. So, these signals twig my antennas, and I freak out a little.

However – what truly upsets me – is when someone that’s been in my circle for a long time, shoots out signals that are like emo-bombs on my radar, and I don’t know whether to butter up or flee. They may not be deaf, but still, I wonder how they do not know, after years, how easy it is for me and my friends (oh boy, let my friends tell you!) to see it blaring like a gory scene from SAW VI.

It makes me wonder if they’re (being hearing) really trying to hide it at all, or that they’re sending it out on purpose (since they know me), and I get offended, but I do not show it. I put on my best smile, radiate charismatic vibes, and hide if my presence bothers their Highnesses. It goes on for so long – and it starts seriously bugging me. I can’t tell them I know what they’re not telling me, and I certainly can’t tell them to fix it. It’s not as if it’s some kind of a switch, but it’s not an excuse either.

If it bugs you, fix it. If you can’t fix it, move on. Life is NOT about brooding and seething, because those two are like viruses – they can spread, and that’s a downer, isn’t it? I want that as a hologram, flashing above my head with the tune being DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! Life is about being HAPPY and showing that. No one is holding you back, nothing is either, and those so called blocks – they’re obstacles rather – and you can get over them and be happy! It doesn’t take much effort to lighten up and embrace life, especially if you’re missing people in your life – they would want you to be happy, and hell, the ones around you WANT you to be HAPPY!!!!!!

*It’s like replacing Snoozeberry-flavoured cake with vanilla cake. I’ve never tried snoozeberry, and I never will be able to, and Vanilla cake is a perfectly fine replacement for something like that.

On the Princes Bridge, a few minutes after the stroke of midnight, with fireworks blaring around me – so loud I can ’sense’ them with my ears (I don’t understand the concept of ‘hearing’ something), I pushed my way through the revellers and their cheering, to stand by one of the Victorian street lights that studded the bridge.

My friend came with me, someone that I nearly lost and regained, and I still cannot rid myself of a tiny nugget of fear that I could lose her again. Overhead, the sky was purging its belly of water, and the throbbing in my heeled feet warmed me up in the chilly hair. Hours before, I was floating in a pool, tripping on mushroom chai tea and watching the sky being invaded by thunderstorms – it was a wondrous sight. It was as though someone had slowly poured ink into clear water, as the clouds clashed and swirled.

From the pool to the Princes Bridge, I had mulled on the objects I carried in my bag – they had been shoved, hidden under a mess in my drawers, out of sight, requiring a careful extraction worthy of tomb archeologists. For more than a year, it was hanging over my head, a constant reminder of the past. From time to time, I would wrangle it out, unzip the purse, and look at it, trying to decide what to do.

And then on New Year’s Eve, for the first time since I held it a year and half ago, I picked it out of the purse and put it into my bag, along with its precursor – another object that I shuffled away as well, though it was not as strong as this one. I felt it in my bag as I made my way to the party, and I imagine it burning its way out, trying to scar, like a crucifix in a demon’s sack.

And so, at that street lamp, glancing around to make sure no authorities were hovering around – a write-up wouldn’t do for the New Year, would it? – I took the object from my bag, and asked my friend if she wanted the other object, since she too had been burned. She shrugged and took it – she’s moved on a lot further than I have.

I paused, took a breath, barely seeing the fireworks from the Federation Square explode into my vision, and pulled my hand back. Then – snap – I threw it, and my friend mirrored me, and the objects twinkled once in the artificial light, and then disappeared into the darkness that banked the Yarra. Just like that.

Just like that, something left me, as my friend and I plunged back into the crowd, towards the rest of the party.

I don’t miss it at all. An excuse, a burden, a ‘promise’ – cast off like a rotten snake skin, given towards a deity for resolution. She was right. They all were right, and I understand now. I woke up later in the new day, and I felt bold. 2010 is my year and my right of the way, and according to my tarot cards – rituals, frugality, iron grip, journey, jealousy, pacing, extremes from one to the other are the themes of the year to come. It’s gonna be an interesting one.

2010, I toast you and forever!

The other day I had a bit of an epiphany while my fingers crawled over the hangers in the vintage shop.

I love reading blogs about altering your wardrobe with a needle and thread, reviving your clothes, and the ultimate ‘trashion’, such as Outsapop which I read quite religiously these days.

So much, it has inspired me to trawl the shops and markets of vintage wear, nose quivering, looking for a boring, withered and terrible outfit that makes my heart beat very fast and I whisper “…it has POTENTIAL!”

Sadly, the last few months have born no fruit; no drumming of the heart or pings on my drowsing nose (one of the only uses for my long nose). And there I was, rummaging through a new shop I’d discovered on St George Road, thinking idly about pretty stones and how one certain little ex-babysitted brat is doing in a two-month camp in the middle of no where, and I’d written to tell her the secret of where to dig up beautiful amethyst crystals.

Then! That’s when I had the epiphany, sirs, and I had to learn how to spell that just today, about me and my gemstone collection – I never ever brought one of those tumblers (to smooth out rough crystals into those shiny stones at the hippy shop) or readily hopped on my friend’s lapidary (polishing gemstones into jewellery pieces) wagon. Once I buy/pick up something, it stays the way it is. Someone suggests to me that I should polish the amethyst crystal I found at the two-month camp, or the rough lapidary sample I brought at a market, and I give them a blank look. Why should I? I brought it because of its present looks, not because of what it was going to be after a bit of elbow grease. I don’t even polish the battered vintage shoes I’ve brought until my mother, out of sheer exasperation, polishes them herself with dark mutterings.

The clothes I buy from the vintage shops are brought in the exact same mindset; aside from maybe a few repairs or a bit of hemming or a take-in, jobs that take barely 10 minutes, my mind goes blank at the idea of grossly altering them. I mean, they caught my eye. I brought them, and they looked fab on me. Why should I tear them up further? I feel as though I’d be destroying its original principle, and something that had been intact for decades is lost forever in the passage of time – much like a crystal dug up from a 10-million-year-old bed rock, and the original shape is tossed in a 99.99 dollar tumbler to become a polished coloured rock.

However, if it’s already been polished and set and so on, and it still catches my eye, I take my wallet out. It’s the same with fabrics and clothes – I have a huge pile of fabrics that I still CANNOT decide what to make out of them!

Now, I can imagine should my future husband to be (if there is one) drops to his knee, decides to do something unique (as per my gemstone hobby) and gives me a uncut diamond crystal, proudly declaring that it is for my engagement ring, and that I can choose whatever cut I want to make of it (oooh how romantic!).

I’d give him a blank look. “Cut it!?!”

Quite a few things have happened in the end of September and the beginning of October!

As I write, Inky sleathily snakes towards me, trying to sneak upon me, for he smells the snapper fish flesh on my fingers… and notice how he pauses and pretends he was just cleaning his coat – not being a rogue, nosiree!

Firstly:

I gots a STUDIO! In Northcote, a suburb that is largely untouched by the migrating yuppies (for the moment being), often considered “the Fitzroy suburb of the old”. My studio is a steal at 35 dollars a month- for two 1-metre squares of space. With many thanks to my father, I moved in with a table, chair, cushions, easel and boxes of books and art supplies.

Then a day went by where I had to defend myself against my nieces – Nancy with her dinosaur obsession, Maxie with her stubborn and sensitive nature (say no and watch the waterworks), and Alex, who found purpose over and over again to puke milk on everything, including my shiny silver skirt. Thanks a lot.

Then! The next day, I scurried to my studio, and spent the whole day. Then Friday, the same. Saturday, that as well. And Today as well! Tomorrow I have to step into the ring of nieces once more, but after that, STUDIO TIME! 7 days a week if possible! WHOOOO!!!! I honestly cannot think of any other things to do… other than go to the studio!

I doodle, I draw, I sketch, I paint, I read, I doze… it’s so quiet though, I forget I’m deaf, and I’m sure I make a few rude or weird noises during those quiet times. Sorry, invisible neighbours.

And SECONDLY!

I gots a BIKE!!! It was an agnoising 3 weeks of fluttering around on the internet and bike shops, desperately trying to find a nice bike, one that would suit me perfectly – I had a vision of a super-cool vintage bike that would be older than me with a lovely emblem on its front. Something I would be proud to put between my legs. Mmmmmmmm….

I looked around on ebay, missed out on a few with some cursing, and then suddenly, lo and behold – I found him! So gallant! His pictures seemed too good to be true, so I rushed over to inspect it, and my heart melted. He was the one. Even as I type, ignoring Inky ignoring me, I gaze at my darling with a simpering smile.

The hour of the auction arrived, and I stuck myself at my desk, eyes bulging and chewing my upper lip, my heart pounding… clicking on the refresh pages hundreds of times… flashing out and pressing “PLACE NEW BID”… and then, in a blink, I missed it – the auction had passed – and IT WAS MINE!!!

I jumped around in joy, grabbed my helmet and made to run out into the dusk to pick him up, when mum placed herself stoutly in my path and told me that it was dark and it was a new bike, how would I know if it would carry me home responsibly?

I bowed and soon enough, it began to rain hard… I started to count the minutes till the next day into the afternoon, where I made tracks to the address: handed over the cash, and then – he was MINE!

Isn’t he stunning? A french-made Peogeot bike, (from 1977, my friend suspects), with 95% of the original parts, a bit of surface rust (but hey, I like my men rugged!) and some chips and bruises. I don’t trust clean-cut-crisp men – I love men like Indiana Jones, especially after they’ve been chased by tribes and giant stone balls! His name shall be Peogeot, and I’ll have to take him in for a service – fix up the brakes and re-wire the lights (which are self-generating! AWESOME!) and take my time to polish him up a little, remove some rust here and there. Oh mama, when he’s between my legs, I’m in heaven!

I took him out for a long ride today, and man is my whole lower parts sore… Peogeot sure rode me instead! Hehehehe…

Today I started the search for an art studio, with my father’s car as my fine mount for the journey.

Of course, I will have to let go of the mount and purchase a small little pony, perhaps from Pony Bikes, complete with an absolutely necessary accessory for my wardrobe: a modern white army flight helmet, the sort that the army dudes wear to direct those eagles to the ground. I can see it now… imposing white helmet, mirror shades, nifty bike with a pretty basket, and a very elegant dress (with clips so it doesn’t flash lucky passerbyers). Mmmmmmmm!

Back to the art studios… I’m looking for a cheap place with plenty of light and the heady smell of oil paints*. I saw two today, and both were quite different. One was smaller and more intimate, as well as being near the outdoor swimming pool (I prefer those far much to an indoors one), but it was much darker and the prices weren’t so good. However, the second place had so much light, and was quite cheap, and seemed to be crowded with much more artists, but I might get lost in all of that – and it seemed more professional to my meek dabblings. The former is available immediately with a month by month lease, while the latter has a waiting list and contract plan.

There’s three and four more names on my list that has yet to get back to me, so nothing has been made certain… but for my eagerness to move my work out of my mother’s home and into a small, personal space I can escape to and lost myself into my work, and chat to other artists for inspiration and worldly matters.

I can hardly wait!

*Trivia: I do not like blue cheese, particularly the strong vintage kind, because they do smell and taste like oil paint. How do I know? Because I had a habit of chewing on pencils at school, and when I was doing oil painting I’d pause to nibble on the brush handle, but one or two times I put the wrong end in my mouth, which would cause me to bolt to the sink to wash out the foul taste frantically.

I should totally patent this idea.

Like, I totally LOVE True Blood. So trashy and horrific and excellent! A bit like The Bold And The Beautiful if it had vampires…