nice

Have a swell weekend, I'm going to wear gloves and wooly socks and plant some bulbs in a terrarium, and go to an expo for work and drink tea and listen to Mountain Man.
For those of you in the northern hemisphere here's something Summery and great (watch it in the South too, just be warned it may make you wish for the beach):

tea time

For my birthday I was promised a high tea with a lovely lady. I can't wait!

Where in Melbourne shall we go? The last high tea I had was in Auckland at the Langham, it was lovely and grand, with men in tailcoats and gloves pouring our tea, and gaggles of ladies lunching.

H8 LYF

Lou, this makes me s my p with jealousy.

power animal

Have you ever seen the movie Thumbsucker? Keanu Reeves is in it, he plays a dentist who introduces the concept of the power animal, his is a wolf.

Han and I, and many of our friends, have a bit of a thing for small, wide eyed primates. Han in particular loves Lemurs (that's her thumb in front of the lemur enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo below), and I've always felt a special affinity for the Slow Loris. This week has been taken over by Pygmy Marmosets however, because they are TINY, and generally have hilarious facial expressions. One was born in a zoo in NSW recently weighing about 20g, that's LESS THAN A HUMAN THUMB.

tiny, with flowers

Well, I've moved into my new office, though am not quite settled in yet...
In more interesting news, a friend from work had a baby yesterday, Congratulations B on baby Antonio!
I've just sent her some flowers from my favourite Mr Lincoln...

The picture above is of the inside of Mr Lincoln I found it on google images...

I wish I had thought of this 5 months ago

But anthropologie has nice swimsuits. Affordable-ish ones that get shipped pretty much anywhere. I like the stripey ones best.

I wish I had thought of this months ago. Now it is winter. Buggeration!

take me where real animals are playing

The Kinks are my alltimefavouritenumberonebestever band because of this song:

"From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar"...It was the soundtrack to happy days sitting on my Daddy-o's shoulders. Seriously, this song makes me happier than any song ever has at any time in my whole entire life. Especially the gratuitous and joyful "la la la la la la la la la" bits. Go listen to the Kinks. They rule.

Also be sure to listen to "Animal Farm", from which I snipped the title of this post. Also, be sure to notice that the logo on their drum kit has little pants and shoes.

take care

I just read about how making food can be "a way to do your best while helping your fellows". Its true. I think there is nothing more comforting than cooking with a friend if you're feeling sad, and cooking a meal for someone who is going through a tough time seems a rather primal impulse to me. Its a combination of being simultaneously distracted and focused, the sense of accomplishment you get while eating something divine you created, nourishment (as my Mum would say, its "good for the soul"), being able to legitimately cry while slicing onions and, um, bonhomie, I think.

notorious

Anita Berber was a weimar-period caberet dancer, among many other things. She is the subject of this painting by Otto Dix, was probably the first person to dance naked onstage and is widely considered to be an important predecessor of modern performance art. You should read this article to learn more. Also of interest is this film, Anita - Tänze des Lasters, which is about a woman who "goes insane, believing herself to be the notorious Anita Berber, a nude art dancer/drug addict/scandalous figure of post-WWI Berlin."

It all sounds VERY interesting. Oh, and you can see some archival footage of her on this (German) news story.

words

a few lists...

Words I use all too often, particularly in the context of this blog:
Lovely
Totally
Nice, Sweet, and plenty of other empty adjectives.
I've so far managed to steer clear of Gorgeous though I did catch myself using Funky in a sentence the other day, I think air quotes were also utilised so I guess it's okay?

Words I enjoy using too often:
Entirely
Truly
Chuffed
Bummer

Words I appreciate but am yet to work into every day vernacular:
Ergo
Hitherto
Innocuous

Abbreviated words that I despise:
Soz
Totes

Abbreviated words that should fall into the above category, but for some reson don't. Probably because they're used frequently by people who I follow on Twitter and like, totally respect:
Cray
Obvs
Natch
Probs

Words that I wish I had an alternative for, because I feel weird saying them out loud:
Blog
Horny

blush

Work's been topsy turvy and all over the place and I'm not really on a computer all week (it's actually quite nice). But anyway, I'm still around, and have some pretty pinks for you to prove it.

Will be back, next week, with maybe something more interesting to say. I got an exciting new magazine in the mail this week, and it's my birthday in a few days, and the weather has been lovely in Melbourne!

Pictures from here, here, and sorry I can't find the link to the last one, but it was saved as space-girl which could help?

and

Would you rather punch someone in the face or best them in a verbal battle of wits? I've never punched anyone before. But I don't think I've ever hands-down beat anyone in a battle of wits either.

Photo from weheartit.

babes

Backyard Bill needs to stop it with all the hirsute babes. It makes me sad that there aren't any effortlessly stylish, bearded dudes with nice apartments in Auckland.*


Also, I think I love beards. Fascinating.

* I'm sure there are, but they're probably all hanging out with their girlfriends in secret grown up bars I don't know about.

Pictures from Backyard Bill (obviously).

An afterthought: on reflection, I don't think these guys are "effortlessly" stylish. Noone could wear outfits like these without effort. END.

nice pants buuuddy

thanks refinery 29

FOR SHOWING ME THIS:

she wakes up every day with good intentions but ends up eating cakes

This afternoon is grey in a right in between Summer and Winter kind of way. I've decided (once again) not to go to yoga tonight, but to eat something comforting and find something un-productive to do in the warmth of my home. I've been enjoying the drawings and polaroids of Mina Fina, whose name I love and who I discovered after googling the quote which has now been reappropriated as the title of this post. I've been thinking lately about this song called Jamelia, by Caribou, the beginning of which I don't especially like but then the second half makes me really happy. I'm listening to it right now and it's nice.

knock off

Pot luck and knitting roopu season has begun. I love knitting because I taught myself how to do it. That's not to say I'm good at it, because I'm not. But I love a challenge and I also love getting in a huff about some stitch slipping and throwing the whole thing in the corner.

This year I want to deviate from my usual scarves and hats and knit something with sleeves. Something that will take me a bloody long time to finish. Something, shall we say, like this?


Or perhaps, something like THESE?
(I mean the woolly knickers)


Now, my plot to blatantly rip off stolen girlfriend's club isn't as far-fetched as it seems.* I can cable knit. I have heaps of spare time. All I need is a free pattern, the ability to knit sleeves, waistbands and button holes, and a healthy does of sticktoitiveness.

*I don't actually plan to rip these off exactly. I couldn't, anyway, all the free patterns online are ugly.

because we need more ways to spend our money on the internet

Today saw the launch of the Pour Porter online shop which I've been anticipating a little while, since first discovering the geometric and beautifully coloured work of Laura Manoogian, and the oddly functional pieces by FFiXXed which I wrote about a little while ago.

Pour Porter stocks, in their own words, a small, tightly edited collection of clothing and accessories. I love the aesthetic already, and with more designers set to be available in the next few months, and new pieces regularly, it'll certainly be a site frequently visited by me.

It's great to be naked. Just a couple naked dudes at the Grove.

Stop it Jon Hamm.

Just STOP IT. He's Don Draper and he's really, really funny. And he's friends with Paul Rudd. Can you imagine the highjinks? You can certainly read about them, thanks, interview magazine.

nostalgia

I think most children of divorced parents find it incredibly bittersweet to look at photos of their childhood. I know I certainly do. I feel this pulling in my chest when I see photos of us all together. That's not to say it makes me feel terribly sad, but there is an indefinable tugging sensation. I think that when my parents separated, my heart was broken for the first time, and looking at those photos makes it ache a little.

One thing I love about my parents is that even though they are separated now, they were together for a long time before they had children.

At around my age they were married and travelling the world together. When they left New Zealand, my Dad had to hide on the other side of the ship so my Mum's very strict Croatian parents would not know they were going away together. They even worked on a kibbutz in Israel (Mum didn't like it and Dad had to spent a lot of time keeping the other men away from her. Did I mention my Mum is really, really pretty?)

When they returned to New Zealand they lived in a dank little flat in Wellington and my Aunty remembers them dancing in the kitchen together while making pumpkin soup. We've found photos they took of themselves, cheek to cheek, holding the camera at arms length. It makes me feel hopeful, knowing that they were that in love, for that long a time.

I found this picture of my dad with either me or my older sister at the beach. I think its quite lovely. xx

got a bob

My hair is shorter now, thanks to our amazing pal Kate. It is fun to shake my hair around and I feel much lighter-of-head. Furthermore, my hair seems to be celebrating the change by going rather wavy. Fun!