Confusion in her eyes, that says it all

She's lost control again, she's lost control.

That of course, is from a fantastic Joy Division song. I picked it because lately I feel a little annoyed and scared that I don't think I have control over myself anymore.

Rewind only 3 years: I'm fourteen and on a healthkick, doing pilates, kickboxing and running whilst eating very little and mostly salads and carrot sticks. I had incredible flexibility and a healthy weight with very few "lumps and bumps" as they say. I never cracked a single joint in my body, I never had muscle aches, I had and active lifestyle from walking everywhere.

Back to 2010: I'm almost 17, unhealthy, lazy and gross. My weight is up and stays up, yet I still go running everyday and try to fit in a workout whenever possible. I live in Annandale where you can't really walk to anything worthwile, and not many of my friends live around. I can't stop eating instant noodles, I sit in my bed on my fat ass doing shit all. I have no flexibility, I get muscle spasms and shakes, and constant aches in my joints which I tend to crack a lot, because it simply provides me with relief.

It isn't just my body however, it's also my brain. I can't process information very well anymore and seriously my grades have suffered. As in, gone from VHA's all round to hoping I passed chemistry and getting HA's for everything else.

I read once that we our bodies are at our command, we are not at their mercy. I don't feel like that recently so I guess it's time for a massive health kick. Unfortunetly, Nanna loves making fatty foods and always has a steady supply of cuppa soups and noodles so it IS HARD.

My point today is that its harder than normal. I don't feel very in control of my body and the effects of that are simply disgusting. I guess I plan to see a doctor but I wish I didn't have this awful feeling that I am not in control. I'm a control freak. If I don't have control over myself I have no hope.

Does anyone ever feel like 20 years older than they really are? I don't know I probably shouldn't post when I'm feeling depressed because this is the result :S

Well I'm off to do some pilates, practice controlling my core muscles.

PS Decided I won't post every day, as I'm in a bit of a slump now and don't feel inspired.
PPS Sorry about how boring this post is.

PPPS I want to crack my neck and back so bad!

Night!

That's me ^^

Hungry Like the Wolf

I've always had a lot of respect for Native Americans.

There's always been something about that particular culture and heritage that has deeply fascinated me. How can one not be instantly mystified by the image of a chief wearing his headdress? The legends, the spirits, the wolves, the imagery - it's all part of such a rich and beautiful culture.

One of my favourite parts of this culture is the traditions they carry. The ceremonies and rituals, story telling and dancing to the beat of the tribal drum. It's an Abenaki legend that the drum first came to the Creator and asked to sing with the people as the heartbeat of Mother Nature. That's another wonderful thing, their deeply spiritual connection to their land. Another Abenaki legend was The Creator that fell asleep whilst pondering what he should create and dreamt of the Earth that came into being while he slept. I am not usually a "religious" person per say, at least not in the sense of "creation". I know that these are more than stories some how, some way. I have a vague memory as a child of seeing a short animation on SBS about the Great Turtle Tolba. I remember seeing him slowly crawling and the space around him rotating to show the world on his back. I remember believing this before I was told about Christian Creation. Though they are many myths and legends concerning the Great Turtle, every single one of them is more inspired than There was God. He created the world in a certain order on certain days. Then he rested.

I don't really know where I am going with this yet.

I guess I will make it about dreams. From what I have read, dreams are an integral part of their culture especially seeing as the Abenaki legend suggests that is how the Earth was created. Dream-catchers were made to protect dreams. Maybe we should all protect our dreams in a similar way. Guard ourselves from the criticisms of others and always remember what our dreams are. Dream them as lucidly as you possibly can to make them real. However you must protect them from negative forces, but you should always allow the winds of change to pass them because your dreams are not static. They are fluid entities to observe and behold. I guess we aren't always safe when we sleep but we are cleansed from reality when we dream, and that has to be a good thing some how.

I think I might go do some dreaming my self, its getting a little late and Freddy Kruger might stomp all the Abenaki magic out of my mind and start freaking me out. Just incase, here's a poem about dreamcatchers (that I didn't write) to calm me down.

An ancient Chippewa tradition
The dream net has been made
For many generations
Where the the spirit dreams have played

Hung above the cradle board
or in the lodge up high
The dream net catches bad dreams
While good dreams slip on by

Bad dreams become entangled
Among the sinew thread
Good dreams slip through the centre hole
While you dream upon your bed

This is an ancient legend
Since dreams will never cease
Hang this dream net above your bed
Dream on, and be at peace

Good night! Love Lucy.

Cinematic Mediocrity

When I was a child, my Gran' would send me about $10 to "go to the pictures".

These days it costs you about $18+ and a whole lot of inconvenience. You see I did not post last night because when I got home I was unbelievably tired and simply couldn't be bothered. I did a lot of other things however.

So I went to school and did a lot of passive-aggressive ranting to pass off as answers to my maths exam (wonder if that will go down well - probably not if a certain teacher I've only encountered a few times marks my test, because I don't understand a word she says and I think it goes both ways; the humour would be lost on her). Then after the exam I walked out of the cold and boring gym into the radiant sunshine that tells my head to let the part of my brain that deals with maths know that her days are securely numbered. Too many people care too much about maths exams, but see I couldn't actually care less. I would be desperately disappointed if I looked back on my skool dayz and realised I wasted much of my spare time studying for a terminally ill subject, known as "Maths B".

A bit of time passes (including choir practice which I normally enjoy but today found it rather PAINFUL) and Hagen was driving us to Cannon Park (it's not really a park but they do have a big cannon for decoration) whilst playing Dawson's Creek soundtrack - later followed by a second car trip with a whole lot of Scissor Sisters. This car trip was made necessary because we all wanted to see Nightmare On Elm Street - a movie you absolutely must be over 15 to see and the cow at the ticket box demanded to see IDs because we all look 14 you know? Hagey babe has an action sampler these days, very cool for a lo-fi toy camera (which all cool people have, of course).

IDs were collected and a race began to get back to CJ's for dinner because the little disk that beeps and vibes when your table is ready had been going for about 20 minutes. The waitstaff weren't happy but let us have a table anyway. I had veggie cactus and flag dip and gorged myself like a little fatty who loves Mexican food.

Anyway - here's the fun part. The movie! Now I rarely ever go to Reading cinema and last night definitely refreshed my memory as to why.
First there was the bitchy incident involving the IDs. Secondly, it's just plain out of the way (by Townsville standards anyway, we all agree). Thirdly, as I go to pay for my ticket (which cost more than any other cinema in Townsville) I am told that they only take credit. Yes, they don't actually have EFTPOS - a useful device that was first utilised in the 80's. Reading cinema have had over 30 years to get one!! SO what do they tell me I should do instead? They say "oh there's an ATM over there". So as my mind instantly wondered why they installed and paid for an ATM to facilitate people that require eftpos, instead of installing eftpos - I simply asked if the ATM charged a fee. Yes it did, it charged $2 - which they don't give back to you. So not only are you inconvenienced by their technological shortcomings but they expect you to pay for it! It was most unfortunate that I had no cash and only $20 in the bank, meaning I would be unable to take money out because you can only get out multiples of 50 or 20 and the f*cking ATM would take $2. Others may find this petty but I find it completely unacceptable. I had to borrow money off people. I had to look like a scab because of Reading. Well you know what Reading? I might write a really angry letter to the editor about you, just because I hate you.

The movie was alright, I enjoyed it. Lots of popcorn and constant anticipating scenes saturated in sickly suspense which became tiring very quickly because if you have an IQ over 20, you know something is going to happen, and if you have an IQ over 50 you know that's why they do it and get very annoyed with it very quickly.

Also Charlotte (as a cat herself) is offended by cinematic stereotyping of cats as evil assholes, and dogs as innocent and pure. Pretty sure more people are killed by vicious dogs than vicious cats. I would love to see an evil kitten be an asshole to a pit bull and live to tell the tail, I mean tale. For that matter, pit bulls are illegal for their ferociousness, are any cats illegal?

I blow my nose at you, Reading Cinema! Eat my shorts!

Love (or hate, for you Reading) Lucy

Okay, Pens down

Those words can either bring apprehension, self doubt, relief or a signal to write like Speedy Gonzales on amphetamines.

I am, of course, referring to the signal to stop writing because the time you were allocated for an exam, is up. Gone. Kapeche.

I was reading last month's issue of Frankie last night, and stumbled upon the Five Creatives on the Meaning of Life article. When Angus Sampson was asked what motto sums up [his] approach to life, he replied by saying: "Time flies when you waste it"

This is quite the antidote to time flies when you are having fun, otherwise it implies that wasting time is fun. Of course wasting time can be fun, it can also be mind-numbingly boring. I discovered this today in my Maths B KPS (that's knowledge and problem solving for the all the readers [that I probably don't have, but this information will be useful when I am world famous and people around the world go back to look at my old blog entries *cough*] that aren't aware of how Maths B exams are title).

Suffice to say I am terrible at maths. I hate it. I have a personal belief that negative numbers do not actually exist and seeing as something as mundane as negatives are not real you can hardly imagine fancy things like integrals being real. This is what the test was on. Integrals and something to do with "maximising" and "minimising" and "stationary points". None of which actually exist. Needless to say after I finished my D level questions (questions you must get mostly correct in order to fail) and my C level questions (questions you must answer as well as D level to pass) I started on my B level questions. By started on, I mean stared at blankly for about 30 minutes. After staring at them I glanced at the A level questions but it was awkward because they were better than me and were looking at me with condescending expressions. Any who the point of this paragraph is that I had about 20 minutes left of the exam when I had done and checked all I could.

I wasted this time but my goodness, the time DID NOT fly, nor was it fun. Unless you find staring at a massive GIF image of a clock projected onto a stage in the middle of a cold and sterile gym filled with folding desks and frustrated students fun then being in the aforementioned situation is not desirable. So really time flies when you have fun, but does not fly when you waste it. I drew a picture of a guy a few rows in front of me in that 20 minutes whilst maths teachers looked at me with disgust/jealousy of my fully sic drawing skills. I think it was the latter. I was relieved when they said "Pens down".

Exhausted from doing nothing for twenty minutes I was glad it was lunch. I had a cheddar mite scroll and me, Courtney and Charlotte walked to Charlotte's home. Charlotte got an iPhone yesterday (not an iphone but an iPhone. Her iPhone corrects the lowercase 'p' - did I mention it was an iPhone?). Also Georgia wrote me a letter which was lovely. Here's to Georgia!

So after having a relaxing time at Miss Charlotte's residence it was time for round 2 - QCS practise SRI. Time chose a different way to "fly" for this exam - I think it was flying Jetstar or something because the flight time was relatively quick but my goodness it was cramped. In an hour I had realised I wasn't even halfway through. This hour went very quickly - time flew but I wasn't having fun nor wasting it!! At "okay you have 10 minutes" i still had two units left with three questions each. I looked at one unit - maths uh blergh SKIP and moved onto the last unit and managed to do two questions. I didn't finish. There wasn't enough time!! Time flew! When they said "pens down" I started writing like Speedy Gonzales on crack.

Maybe time always flies. I suppose it just takes whatever flight is available. Sometimes you enjoy the flight and it goes quickly, or perhaps you sit there doing nothing and wish that time would go a bit faster. Sometimes you'll get a window seat or be sitting with nice people who don't suffer from motion sickness. Your flight could be delayed or maybe even crash. Hell, maybe some day you'll fly first class. How has your time been flying? Leave a comment!

For now, I might just fly out the window.

Love Lucy


This is the picture I drew. Yes I took it with a digital camera, no I do not have a scanner.

She's a riot

So I wasn't old enough to realise at the the time but how good were the 1990's?

I am not really referring to crap teen movies or really bad Australian game shows, no I am talking about that 90's grunge.

There really isn't anything like it today. There is however, a lot of people that try to imitate it. Like a corpse though, when the 90's come back to life it's a horror. You don't get that minimalist era, you get a flesh-eating mutant that simply doesn't belong in contemporary society.

What was so good about the 90's though? Well like I said, they were grungy baby. You don't get any third-wave feminist RIOT GRRRLS these days. You don't get a sense of individual uniformity either (like in the Calvin Klein ONE advertising campaign [that's a link btw guys, any coloured text in my blog is a link except for titles, no one noticed in Mariachi, Baby!]).

The best parts of the youth-society got chucked out the window in 2000. The cassette culture went out the window. So did zines. We should bring back cassette culture. By a cheap cassette recorder and crapily record your own music and hand them out to all your friends to play. I love cassettes and I really wish cassette culture was still around. It seems redundant now that you can record your own music on your computer and upload to youtube or myspace or whatever. Wouldn't you rather that crackling crackling warmth of a cassette? Something to hold in your hand, and keep forever? I know I would.

As for zines, they've been replaced by...can you guess it? Blogs. Hate to say it but I am part of a blog society and though I didn't cause it, I am definitely a part of the decline in zine culture. Maybe I should start making zines as well as blogs. If you think I should start making zines then please comment and say so.

I guess I am actually opposed to the rise of technology. I wish I lived in a world were people didn't download mp3s and burn CDs. I wish I lived in a world were people recorded cassettes for each other and shared them around. I wish I could buy a brand new record for less than $40 or so. I wish I didn't have this stupid computer, when I could instead have a sweet old typewriter to make zines with. Yeah. I wish it didn't cost me $50 per roll to have Diana's 120mm film developed. I guess I just wish it was the 90's.

About my day? Exams, what can I say? Chem = fail. Accounting = pass of some sort. Other than that I hung out with Courtney in the 2 hours I had between exams and I realised that if I fail at school and end up on the dole, it's all the people that studied their asses off to pass who will be paying their taxes for people like me. Jack hearts socialism.

Well I better go an put on my sweatshirt and sling my backpack over my shoulder whilst listening to some Nirvana or Bikini Kill on my cassette Walkman. That's another thing, backpacks used to be cool and satchels were lame. Now satchels are cool and backpacks are lame. Society you dizzy me, I think I might go back to a simpler time, to the year I was born at the age I am now. Rocking in the '93.

Chilllllout 90's kids!

Mariachi baby!

Today was, in fact, my very first study day. Did I study much?

The answer to that would have to be no. It was too nice a day for that. I intend to spend all night studying however - into the early hours of the morning when I have to actually get to school on time and get my double shot of examinations to immunise me against becoming a homeless man. I mean person.

Anyway, what did I do today however? Good question. I was actually feeling incredibly cultural, I was feeling Mexican. I downloaded some Mariachi music and read about Mexican festivals and celebrations and foods and beverages. It was splendidos. It was a sunny afternoon and the sunlight hung low in my room, filtered through my window by a canvas blind. A light such as that would normally depress me (in my sense of the word, I mean depressed not morbid) but today I imagined it was just another sunny day down Mexico way. Visions of crowded streets and masses of people travelling along dirt roads, entering old buildings, drinking Coronas...It was rather lovely. I searched online to try and find a hand-loomed Mexican poncho but they cost a lot, which I did not expect. I pretended my duvet was one, and I drifted off into a mid-afternoon nap which is another Mexican tradition. They call it siesta.


I do love cultures, and often find myself immersing myself in them. Okay I am going to have to interrupt myself right here. My unbelievably discourteous neighbours are playing disgusting HIPHOPBEATTTZZZZZ arrogantly loud, and the constant thud of whatever synthesised bass they use in such music IS DRIVING ME INSANE! To the point where I have to write in capital letters.

That is one culture I do not enjoy. The hip hop/rap/"rnb" crap people listen to these days. I despise the use of the acronym "rnb" to describe voluptuous skanks singing slow and monotonous pop music. It is not rhythm and blues, it is crap. I don't mean to sound racist when I say this but just because they are black, does not mean they are singing the blues! To sing the blues you have to have soul. I apologise deeply if this is how they find out but people like Mariah Carey or any of these people simply do not have souls and therefore could never ever sing like people that do (like Otis, Ray Charles, Little Richard...).

Okay so now that I am sufficiently side-tracked let me get back to culture. I love nothing more than cultural festivities and was very annoyed that I missed most of my town's latest cultural exhibits. I missed some this year and I'm sure there was another. I hope I haven't missed the Greek Festival! I did go to the Italian festival however it was not as Italian as one might assume.

Oh, and I watched Eurovision about 2 weeks ago. If that isn't culture I don't know what is. The point is I love the spirit of a festival. The music and the stalls and the foods. The scents and wares of cultures far far away kept alive in our community with plastic folding tables and travelling gypsies. It is truly something to behold.


I must leave now - feed my goldfish Ziggy and study chemistry and accounting and maths whilst listening to some Mariachi and wishing I was in Tijuana smoking Marijuana dancing El Jarabe Tapatio with Antonios Banderas.

Adios!

Me with Charlotte ("Sally Cinnamon") and Courtney, from the Townsville Bulletin.

Legal Eagles

Okay Monday, we'll start this hell together.

So I am actually in class at the moment - our teacher is marking assignments and I honestly have nothing better to do.
I lied, I could probably study but I am not. I don't have any more legal studies assessment however, and I am absolutely astonished that this site isn't blocked. The bell just rang. I'll post more later. I have accounting now and I have a lot to do there.

Okay so I'm at home now and wondering just how behind America actually is because it says I posted today's blog sometime yesterday when it is in fact, late Monday afternoon.

Today went alarmingly quick. You see, today was our last school day before our block exam weeks. They make it sound like you have all this extra time, when really I have eight solid days of multiple exams (each at least 2 hours!!). So I have tomorrow off, but so does everybody. I will need to study my little butt off.

School for me is more than depressing. It is depressing in a sense that even though I would have to consider myself a person of more than reasonable intelligence, my lack of interest in any of my subjects means I have the grades you might expect from a retarded strumpet. I originally had planned to do subjects I am actually interested in but then for some unknown reason though it would be best to do subjects I hated because I would get a better O.P. Whoever lead me to believe such information clearly lied.

The only subject I don't hate is English. I love English, I get A's for English. I only want to be a writer. I used to want to be a dentist and elected Chemistry because it is a prerequisite. Now I realise I just want to be a writer and that I could have done art and drama and music and french instead of chemistry, accounting, legal studies...modern history. I also would have done Maths A instead of Maths B. Who needs to learn anti-derivatives and logarithms when you could simply learn how to tie your shoes and count to 50?

My life is honestly mostly regrets. I regret every decision of high school so far but I'm trying to see past it. Into that wonderful wide world out there where I don't care if even my friends think they have superior intelligence to me because in that world, no one gives a rats ass about what O.P. you got or if you had a cum laude.

I call it the bigger picture - I just wish I was a better photographer.

Love Lucy.

Hold on my heart

It was a normal Sunday - yet not a day to worship the sun.

The fifth day of winter, and I needed my coat. It's tropical here, and cold is scarce and usually early in the day.

I had work this morning, in a two-storey shop selling mid priced clothing, accessories and lingerie - in the middle of a dilapidated outdoor shopping mall currently undergoing renovations on one end. The end closest to the shop in which I work is mostly untouched, basically filled with derelict empty shop fronts that were prospering only 10 years ago.

On Sundays however, merchants and creative types set up their stalls along the uneven brick strip and offer lead lite wind chimes and savoury nuts or tie-died skirts from Bali. This is why I love working on Sundays. The markets are one of the most beautiful things in my town.

Personally, I don't really like the shop I work in. It is a dull chain store with too much room and not enough love. I sold about $400 worth of goods with an average sale of about $38.

I spent a fair amount of time looking out into the mall however. A duet of young men leaving their mid-twenties playing a set of mellow, Sunday-morning songs with a guitar each. One had a strap of bells tied to his right ankle, and banged a single bass drum with his left. After a while he played an enormous double bass, and a harmonica. I never was able to learn an instrument to the point where I was ever any good. I always pulled out, couldn't be bothered practising. I only wished I could play and instrument, I never actually enjoyed playing any of them. I played flute, piano, guitar - even recorder at school. Not a single one took my fancy. I wish I could find one because I love music, and this morning I found myself desperately envying those men.

Music for me is power. I could starve if I still had music - maybe for about 40 hours for World Vision (which I did, in fact, just last year). I have new music lately. Might I recommend Tame Impala's debut album "Innerspeaker". The whole album is bliss, their website describes it as "an explosive, cosmic wonderland of ecstatic harmony and perfectly accessible journeys into innerspace". Beautiful really, I love almost every track. I'm also "digging" (for all you cool cats out there, down with the lingo) the single "Telepathic Head" by Machine Translations. Oh very good indeed. I need to make a new CD to play at work to complete my Sundays.

So in the back of my mind went troubles and exams and loneliness. Time slows to half, crowds weave in and out through stalls - buying fruits, organic candles or $30 Chanel counterfeits. I absorb the Sunday atmosphere, on my break I listen to Eastern European music and wish I was in a market elsewhere. Our markets are small, they'll do for now. One day I will have a Sunday off, but I'll come down anyway and maybe buy "Dope Sope" or some Parmesan cashews. Hopefully when that day comes I'll have arms nice toned enough for a singlet, and abs fit enough to wear a long, hemp skirt around my hips. Then my Indian patchwork bag I bought from a stall at the Australian Italian Festival (ironically) slung across my body and a little Tame Impala in my ears and I might be in heaven.

A first public blog. All the best to you and your Sunday for reading.
Love Lucy

This is the markets. I work in the shop behind "Discount Jeans", the one with the grey sign that says "Barkins"

My friend tells me I look just like the woman buying fruit. Fancy that?