Brain food

Reading is good. Lists are good. Guess whats coming...
Top 10 books

1. The Little Prince (pure magic)
2. The Dark Materials trilogy
3. The Poisonwood Bible
4. The Bell Jar
5. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
6. Lord of the Flies
7. Alice in Wonderland
8. Choke
9. White Oleander
10. Rant

(I also like linocuts)

All anyone wants

Found these on Flickr by TheVoiceThatSaid. The man who tells me I'm more perfect than Helvetica=instant marriage. No discussion.

18. Short the pain

One of my many passions in life is body modification. At the moment it doesn't show so much, I only have 4 holes in my ears, a surface bar in my neck and a tongue web ring. (That sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but they're hardly visible) And my favourite favourite, my wrist tattoo.
Below is me getting tattooed by Tyler from Sins of Style at last year's Tattoo Convention.


The next convention is from the 22-24 Jan, check it out here. I'll definitely be there, hopefully adding some ink to my collection :)
Plans include an antique key inside my lip, birds flying out of a birdcage on my back, Alice in Wonderland illustrations on my legs and a phoenix on my feet. I love the idea of the body as canvas, and as the Maori chant goes, "Short the pain, long the adornment."

Here in my head

17. told you i like lists

Here begins my round-up of 2010.
My top 10 songs:

1. Jesus Christ- Brand New
2. Lost- Pogo
3. Daniel- Bat for Lashes
4. Piazza, New York Catcher- Belle & Sebastian
5. For Emma- Bon Iver
6. Ballad of a Comeback Kid- The New Pornographers
7. Being Cool- Kimya Dawson
8. Happy Birthday to Me- Bright Eyes
9. Home- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
10. Walking on a Dream- Empire of the Sun

16. Mr Palahniuk

There are few authors who can write a single sentence that makes you shiver. Even fewer who can write several. Chuck Palahniuk ends each paragraph with one.
No book since 1984 so aptly describes a dystopian reality, however unintentionally.

My top 10 Chuck quotes:

10. "Your heart is my piñata."

9. "Another thing is no matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close."

8. "Besides, it happens fast for some people and slow for some, accidents or gravity, but we all end up mutilated."

7. "Just remember, the same as a spectacular Vogue magazine, remember that no matter how close you follow the jumps: Continued on page whatever. No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day."

6. "More and more it feels like I'm doing a really bad impersonation of myself."

5. "I want out of the labels. I don't want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that's not on the map. A real adventure.'
A sphinx. A mystery. A blank. Unknown. Undefined."

4. "The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on."

3. "Let’s look in the mirror. Really look at your face. Look at your eyes, your mouth. This is what you think you know best."

2. "The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open."

1. "Find out what you're afraid of and go live there."

14. Sandy Claws

I love Christmas.

As Star points out, this is rather odd considering my cynical views on nearly everything, but there you are.

I love the carols, the lights, even the ridiculously large amount of cooked meat. You just cannot be grumpy having consumed twice one's weight in trifle.

14. Cry me a river

Top 5 movies to make me bawl my eyes out...

1. United States of Leland
2. Friends with Money
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. Prozac Nation
5. Finding Neverland

13. Square eyes

[I like lists. A lot. So we're going to do lists for a while.]

My top 10 movies of all time...

1. Fight Club
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. American Beauty
4. Amelie
5. The Nightmare Before Christmas
6. Donnie Darko
7. Alice in Wonderland
8. Rocky Horror Picture Show
9. Big Fish
10. Prozac Nation

I dare you to disagree.

12. Girlfriends

To all my girls who sit with me in bathroom cubicles while I cry and cry and cry and cry.
Thank you.

11. Runt

Yeah, I write blog posts about my cats. Don't judge.

My runty cat Roger is a legend. And he hurt his paw today. So he gets a blog post.

10. Those songs that just stay in your head

Park that car.
Drop that phone.
Sleep on the floor.
Dream about me.

9. Shhh...don't tell anyone I'm not cool

I don't care that I'm a loser...Friday nights in are the shiz.

What you need:
1. Steak roll (not made by you, the point is not to leave the couch)
2. Series Channel...preferably featuring TopChef
3. Frozen yoghurt for laters

Then, when you've lost all feeling in your limbs and gained 5 kgs, go have an hour-long bath and listen to The Cure.

See what I mean?

8. Weezi

So it's Emma's turn. I'm not entirely sure how long we've been friends...10 years? More?
All I know is that no one knows who I am the way she does. She was there through the awkward tween phase, the hippie phase and the skanking punkrock phase. Epic.

I love that we can laugh over how alternative we thought we were, how fat we were in Stilbaai and how we were going to start a band despite the fact that Lau and I couldn't play instruments... I love that she felt bad for having shells in her bathroom, and so we went to the beach to return them. And pinned monopoly money onto a tree for my retarded photography endeavours.

Thank you for Wynberg Sports Club, for Nofx and Sublime, for putting eyeliner on me when I didn't know how to, for letting me cry on you for 2 years, for understanding that I'm sometimes not so understandable, for milo, and the shittiest waitressing job ever. For letting me be your 3rd wheel, for arty movie nights, for hooting at men in shorts, for photography projects, for breakfast double dates, for Centre Stage, for Icebat, for housesitting. Just everything. Grade 9 will always be the greatest year of my life.

Love you always Em. x

7. Mr Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister is the most talented man in the world. He also has a rather cool name.

He staples sausage and carves words into his skin...all in the name of design.
He lives typography like a religion and I'd follow him like a disciple.

6. Beth

This one's special.

She's the other side of my coin.
She gives me big snowbeast hugs at college, and tells me I'm good at design, and lends me pretty things.
She's Alice, and maybe I'm the Red Queen. I like to think we'd play croquet with flamingos if we could.
I know she misses Sydney so much, but home wouldn't be home without her. When boys are kuk, she's my boyfriend replacement. And prom was so much better with her :) She's also one of the only people I can eat a McDonalds breakfast with. Now that is love.

So here you go Bethi, know that you're irreplaceable and talented...and that my world is not complete without you. Love you. xx

5. Sleep

Because I don't get enough of it.

4. Try it sometime

So on Saturday I stayed in my pyjamas until 3 in the afternoon. Fuck meditating in a cave for 10 years...I've discovered the secret to happiness.

3. Sunny daze

Just so you know...I love winter.
I love the howling wind, walking in the rain, storm clouds...all of it.
But today, as I was lying on Kim's lawn, I realised how awesome sunny days can be. Spring makes my fingertips tingle, like I'm about to find out something exciting.

Maybe after months of grey, I'm ready for the sun.

2. Dr Geoff

Meet my dad. He’s the other side of me.

He’s the protector, the rock.
He gave me my sense of humour, my ambition and my love for arbitrary band names.
He doesn’t understand what I’m studying but still makes every parent’s evening.
He wears a lot of flannel. And inexplicably made my mom an egg holder.
He is by far the most determined person I know.
He reads books that should never have been published. I mean, The History of Salt? Followed by the History of Cod? *shakes head*
Oh and he can sing the entire Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack.
Yeah, he’s rad.

1. Poetess

Meet my mom.

When I wonder who I’ll be in twenty years, I just look at her. She epitomises what a mom should be. She lets me question, and listens to my rants, and tells me I’m good at things. She makes me cheese sandwiches at 3am when I’m up working. She gives me cool books, and reads poetry out loud. And when it hits, she sits with me until it passes. She’s that teacher whose every word you hang on, who turns words on their head. She gave me my fragile, creative and emotional side. She’s just the right balance of making me feel happy with who I am now, and wanting to be something better.

And it goes a little something like this

I’ve always been told to count my blessings.

But when days happen to be filled with traffic, idiotic people and malfunctioning printers, I’d much rather eat a pair of toenail clippers than be positive. So this blog is me giving optimism a try- attempting to find 365 things that I am grateful for or add value to my life. Some are things (or people) that I couldn’t live without, whilst others may be a bit less epic. But they all bring joy in some form. OK then.