The Last Bastion Of Absurdity

Several months ago I may or may not have blogged about an ill-fated expedition to Newtown (read: Goth central), where logic dictates the secondhand shops have much cooler shit than they would in e.g. Maroubra (a.k.a. The Hole I Live In). The plan was not a rip-roaring success given that it was Sunday and most of the secondhand shops were named after various saints and thus closed, but a chance encounter with a windblown leaflet led us (after much bitching, moaning and walking in circles) to the Goth Garage Sale Of Doooooooom, manned by a large bloke in leather who looked at us like the teeny posers we totally are. There I bought, an awesome black miniskirt, but that is not the focus of this trip down memory lane. No, that honour goes to my Impulse Purchase Of The Century: The Ubergoth Tie. Not only was it a tie attached to a dog collar but it was made of a) red PVC, b) fishnet and decorated with c) many safety pins. It was absolutely ridiculous.

On Saturday night, I finally had a chance to bring it forth in all its glory. For lo, and also behold: Alex B had declared her party theme to be Things That Used To Be Cool. Now, opinion is divided on whether Goth/Emo/Punk/Whatever is still cool or was never cool, but I figured it was close enough to do the trick. Besides, I've been waiting forever for the chance to wear that black skirt with my new red and black striped thigh high socks. That could not fail to be awesome.

So this week I found out that I make a scarily plausible scene kid. I also got hit on by an entertaining drunk, who remained entertaining to all concerned throughout the stumbling, the telling his mate (Luke, whom I bonded with over Alex's guitar) that "you're awesome man... no really, if I were a chick, I would TOTALLY fuck you" and the total failure to coordinate a guitar pick, right up to the point where pretty much everybody started getting worried and trying to convince him to put down the beer and drink some water. I really didn't envy Luke the job of getting him home at all.

The best thing about this party was the fact that Alex recently moved to my neighborhood, so I could walk home in about five minutes. You'd think this would reassure my parents, but I guess it's their job to worry. It is not, however, their job to forget the surname of the person whose house I'm going to, decide that of course they must be in my grade, look through my yearbook until they find someone with the same first name, and call her up, twice, when I wasn't answering my mobile because it was in another room. But oh, the farce is not over yet! The other Alex, thinking I must have used her as a cover to sneak out some place, assured my mother that I had "just left with some people." This resulted in my parents calling two other people from my school, who naturally had no clue what was going on and all left confuzzled messages on my Facebook wall the next morning.

I, meanwhile, was experiencing the novelty of drinking legally and convincing Stan that I didn't really feel the need to pick up any "hot uni guys" while furtively tugging my skirt down to cover a bit more of my arse. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all and my parents were placated when I came home all in one piece. I meant to blog all this earlier, but something's eaten up our download limit and my dad, in retaliation, has disconnected the net from my computer, so I can only use it on his when everyone else is out of the house.

Now that that's done, I should get back to studying. Or, well, start studying. Because there's nothing scarier than the prospect of sorting through the piles of paper currently decorating my bedroom, and I say this with all the certainty of a person currently typing at a computer which is hiding a spider from my view. Cheers!

When you see this on your flist, make a post and quote Supernatural in your journal.

Sam: What kind of house doesn't have salt? Low sodium freaks!

Also, this meme's come round again, marginally altered... who am I kidding, it's exactly the same meme with a different title. Oh well, who doesn't love a compliment?

Positive Traits Meme by ohlovelyy. My thread.

Today my dad and I made prawn souvlaki wraps. The packaging on the box with the wraps and the seasoning in did quite explicitly call for lamb, but I happened to know we didn't have any, so I rifled through the freezer and - lo and behold! Prawns. So it was the logical thing to do. Prawns, stir-fried in some kind of greek seasoning, on top of lettuce and tomato, covered in garlicky yoghurt. They didn't taste too bad. Except the wraps kept falling apart till I had the bright idea of using toothpicks. God knows it's not like we actually use those for picking teeth.

So the haircut, yeah?

( A couple of pics from my phone, cos I cbf finding my camera )

Right, I'm off to queensland in about four hours, so I'll leave you guys with the promised photos and rambling, and I'll answer any comments that need answering in a weeks time.

When you think about it, the formal itself wasn't the sort of event that would be fun. I mean a few hours on a boat in the company of boys we don't know and their skanky dates while listening to shitty music is not your normal idea of a good time. I think the real point is the dresses. This one night of the year we all dress up and totter around on ridiculously high heels going OH MY GOD SHIRLEY THAT'S SUCH A PRETTY DRESS I LOVE WHAT YOU'VE DONE WITH YOUR HAIR. When I first got there Samira said "I feel so... pretty!" in such a surprised tone that we all laughed, but she's right. It's a confidence booster. When you're feeling low and you're overwhelmed and you secretly suspect that nobody actually likes you, you can sit down and remember that this one night you were a princess.

( OMGZ THEE POLKA DOTZORRZ )

OMGWTFPOLARBIZZLE I'M HOME GUYS. I made cool drama geek friends and did yoga with the flu. W00t!

We got absolutely NO free time. There would be about twenty minutes after meals and before workshops, and lights out was ten minutes to half an hour after they finished. Which was mostly after ten. And breakfast was at eight, except for today, when it was SEVEN. Zzzzzzzz. Neada's dad drove us to the camp. We had a profound discussion of monopoly with her little brother. Liv didn't show up till after dinner, which was fairly edible. The semi-bald camp director, Paul, greeted us all with a stern talking to about the drugs he sincerely hoped we weren't going to take, because we had to prove we were better than those decadent private school lackeys.

I somehow managed to get signed up for three movement workshops. And the flu. Yoga was a bit pointless, but Mime And Physical Theatre was pretty good. It involved some of the requisite "now we move around the room being water" and a game with tableaus which were really powerful. A thing I noticed from those was that taking a place on the edge does not make you a tree. In fact it can revolve the whole scene into a new perspective. Always try to add to the scene rather than just joining in - if there are already two paramedics working on the body, they don't need another civil servant - be a horrified bystander or a relative. The Joining In Syndrome is something you really notice when playing Space Jump - it's either out of fear or because we're too lazy/tired/indifferent to bother with our imaginations. Lemmings! Oh, but you have to hear about the Toast at some point. I'm going to be cryptic about that because cool things await.

The really interesting workshop was Buto. It was invented by a guy who lost most of his family in Hiroshima, so it can be a bit dark - the very first performance was banned in Japan because it involved a semi-naked man and a live chicken. It represented abuse. Mmmhhmmm. The teacher did have many interesting and useful things to say about energy and focus and body control.

Apart from the lessons we were split into region groups for roll call and performance groups, which were given old HSC topics to playbuild. All the performances were so very, very awesome - and the girl sitting next to me taped them, so I will at some point make use of the snappy new video thing lj seems to have come up with while I was gone to show you guys. I won't elaborate any further because when I tried to tell Avi about an awesome creepy scene in ours he just went "Hmmm... why doesn't this Hero Creator thing have any asian eyes?" so apparently my powers of squee are not equal to communicating the sheer awesome that is drama. This is where the lemmings and toast come in, too, so you'll just have to wait!

I have a shiny certificate (seriously, I didn't know it was possible to be blinded by black ink) and some new msn buddies. Well, some of them are hypothetical RL friends, but many live in Serious WoopWoop, and some are photographed beneath the cut, with commentary (they're thumbnails, if you have broadband you might want to click some of them to see them better [especially Zombie Liv]):

( It's drama. What do you mean, 'are you insane?' )

And now for something completely different!

George Bush Remix (InsANE).

The current A Softer World comic made me giggle.

And a quiz, although the questions didn't give nearly enough options.

Your EQ is 127

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick! 51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese. 71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely. 91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that. 111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt. 131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin. 150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.

Okay, photo time!

( Heavily Picturesque and Annotated )