Dress, Memory - or, not a book review.

My primary school years were unbelievably formative.  I went to the same school from pre-school right through to Year 7, and my memories of that time are so vivid, so so vivid. Is that weird? Part of me wants to say that the people I went to primary school with made me who I am today.  But I think that might be hyperbole.  What with parents and relatives and high school and uni and motherhood and work and whatnot doing their level best to mould me like unwilling plasticine since 1992.

Still, it isn't over the top to say that, at least for me, the people I was devoted to in primary school had a lasting influence on me.  I think of them often.  I see them sometimes.  I still remember their birthdays.

When we were in primary school, my friends and I were all interested in reading and writing.  We used to read and act out sections of Roald Dahl novels for our reluctant classmates.  Or at least that's how I remember it.

Whenever I see them, particularly my old best friend A, I can see how we influenced each other, even today. I think grown ups, and parents, underestimate the power those first friendships have on you.  Sometimes when I think of P starting school, and forming those early, firm, fast attachments, I feel kind of a pang.  

One of those little girls from my past has grown up to become a writer. A very good one.  A clever, talented, lovely one.  Her name is Lorelei and she has written a book called Dress, Memory, which is a memoir of her 20s, using one dress from her amazing and enormous vintage dress collection, per decade.

I pre-ordered the book, and got it delivered, signed, with a loving message inside. I devoured it in one day.  The book is based on a blog by the same name but is quite different. It is funny, and lovely, and captures all the ANGST and broken hearts and weird shit that goes down in your 20s when you can't work out who the HECK you are and what on earth you are supposed to be doing with yourself.  I for one had a relatively TUMULTUOUS time in my 20s, love affair wise and friend wise and life choices wise and by GOD I am glad not to be there any more.

It was a bit strange to be reading this book because it felt weirdly like it was part of my story too.  Since going to different high schools, Lorelei and I have dipped in and out of each other's lives, mostly staying in contact due to her diligence and commitment to our old friendship, and more recently her unwavering support of my  embryonic writing "career" haha. Pretty much all those girls I was friends with went to the local Lutheran private school, but I went to the state high school.  I missed them, and was jealous of what I perceived to be their continued closeness. It was strange to read their story from another perspective, because I remember bits and pieces, and stories she told, but never the back story, never the full picture. I've always been slightly in awe of her artistic lifestyle and interesting social network, and embarrassed of my suburban existence, but reading it made me realise WE ARE ALL WEIRDOS WHO KNOW NOTHING.  So many of the anecdotes and emotions were familiar to me. VERY FAMILIAR! Oh god THE YOUNG, HEY, THEY KNOW NOTHING, NOTHING I TELL YOU!

I went to the book launch at Avid Reader. We all wore our own "Dress, Memories". I donned my darling dead Nana's tartan skirt in honour of the occasion.

 

It was a great and emotional night. I went with my cousin B and my almost-cousin K.  We got pretty emo.  There were tears and we remembered the olden days when we used to share a house and each others clothes. WHERE  HAS THE TIME GONE PEOPLE WHERE HAS IT GONE?

I have a lot of feelings about this book that it's hard to express, but mainly, I am just so thrilled and proud of my old dear friend for writing it. It's beautiful, clever, charming, and eloquent.  Just like her.

Everyone should immediately click on this link and purchase it POST HASTE.

Birthday Week.

GUYS I am so terribly guilty and apologetic that I have been so quiet on the blog front! I mean I know that you are all just constantly hanging out on the edge of your seats for regular updates from me.  Who wouldn't? I mean this stuff is RIVETING!


WARNING - This post contains ENDLESS REALLY BAD, LIKE REALLY, REALLY BAD IPHONE PHOTOS. OMG WHEN WILL I LEARN AND START USING A PROPER CAMERA!!!???

First things first. If you would be so kind as to look to your right you will see a button  "Vote for me now". If you feel so moved, I would be eternally grateful if you could hop over there and vote for me in the People's Choice Awards. I mean, there's only like 1000 entries or something so I AM A SHOE IN OBVIOUSLY! 

Please and thank you.

Anyway as you all know it was my birthday this week, and in case you missed it I drew the winners of the Mollie Day prizes!  Check it out if you want.

I got pressies.

I done got me some nice perfume from the kids and an attractive nightie and set of jarmies from the husband which were both very nice.

But I have to say the best loot came from my dear old parentals who are traditionally generous beyond measure with this stuff and didn't fail to impress.

Dad gave me money to buy - wait for it - MY VERY OWN LAPTOP COMPUTER! I KNOW! OMG!

So I done bought one.

It's an Asus something something. I like it. Downside is that it is running Windows 8.  WTF? Windows 8 you are freaking me out beyond WORDS and making me feel ANCIENT AND HOPELESS! WHY SO WEIRD WINDOWS 8? Didn't the success of Apple teach you ANYTHING MICROSOFT? EVER HEARD OF USER FRIENDLINESS INTUITIVE SHIT BLAH BLAH?

I've been raging at it.

Here's hoping I come to grips with it STAT or someone will suffer.  I might just write a VERY STRONGLY WORDED letter to a certain Mr Bill Gates outlining my displeasure.

Be afraid Bill.

Anyway, the other present of awesomeness was from my mum - money for a big ole fancy pants, trendy, the whole works hair cut.

Guys. Don't get freaked out (I mean I know I am a 33 year old, generously proportioned mother of two, respectable public servant and erstwhile librarian), but CHECK THIS OUT!

 

I got an UNDERCUT BABY! Just call me Rhianna. You can share my umbrella, ella, ella, any time you need to, any one of you.


My bloggie friend Kim from Falling Face First has written about her blossoming early-mid life crisis and its resulting pink hair action. I too am starting to rage against the dying of the light and saying HELL NO I WON'T GO gently into that good night.

Look it's a pretty small one but we all have to start somewhere. Maybe next time I will get some lopsided geometric hairstyle action too but first things first.

Another friend K has a group on FB called "F**K Yeah Girls with Short Hair - Oz" for fierce chicks like us who rock a short haircut. You should totes look her up and join.

So we came up to the Sunshine Coast to stay at the Slapdash Family Compound for Easter and I write to you from said Compound as we speak.  This meant we had some built in babysitting and this subsequently facilitated a DATE NIGHT for M and I to celebrate my birthday.  So we went to one of our favorite restaurants ever - The Spirit House, in Yandina. It's a Thai restaurant. A super dooper one.

We've been a few times for lunch but hadn't been there during the night before - just so gorgeous! I cannot rave enough!

Here's some random bad photography so you can feel like you were THERE TOO!

It's set around a little pond like thing and you walk along a path to get there, all lit with lanterns and "spirit houses".

As we walked along I remarked perceptively, "It really reminds me of THAILAND!". Who'd have thought, eh?

We had a cocktail.

And some champagne.

We ate spicy delights.  The end.

I hope that little rundown was as good for you as it was for me.

 Anyway it's been a nice week. We've even been to the beach. We met my friend K there with her two little children today.  As we were playing on the grass near the sand a TV reporter and camerman came up to us. They walked right past me and zoomed in on olive skinned, beach touseled hair K and asked her probing questions like "What do you think people like to DO AT THE BEACH ON GOOD FRIDAY?" and so forth. I'm not sure what they were hoping she'd say.  Perhaps they were angling for something like "Oh, we like to REENACT THE PASSION OF CHRIST FOR THE BEACHGOERS" or "We enjoy the beach at Easter because the sand in our jocks reminds us of CHRIST'S SUFFERING ON THE CROSS!". What they got was a lot of close ups of her baby A eating a hot cross bun covered in sand and grass.

After they'd got her comments and their 5 minute baby close up, they wandered off to find another attractive family to film.

Completely ignoring me and my offspring.

WTF!!?? The bloody cheek. DON'T THEY KNOW MY BABY IS THE CUTEST BABY EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD????  I MEAN LOOK AT HIM!!!!

OK so maybe my outfit du jour wasn't screaming BEACH BEACH BEACH, what with my voluminous sun smart coverall, unshaven, pasty legs and Mum's old beach hat, but the kid has star potential at LEAST!.

How very dare they.  I almost shouted out after them "I say there! You with the camera! HAVEN'T YOU FORGOTTEN SOMEONE!!!???".

Anyway Happy Easter readers! Hope you never have to suffer the indignity of being ignored by a regional television station's camera crew. How ever will we live it down?

Until next time!

Doppelgangers.

Remembering that this blog is a forum in which to air my hitherto private navel gazings, and in the face of ghastly and hideous instability in the Middle East, I present to you the following diversionary and self indulgent dissertation. Don't read any further if you aren't interested in me, how I look, or what famous people I might look like or have looked like over the years. Or if you are actually interested in developments in the Gaza strip because I'm basically trying to distract myself from that sort of heavy shit. OK.

Over the years people have told me I look like a range of famous people.

At school I worked part time at the local cinema. The year that Madonna's movie version of Evita came out everyone decided (what with my bleached blonde hair and my propensity to wear it scraped back in a low bun) that I was Evita's doppelganger. The manager of the cinema went so far as to encourage me to embark on the humiliating experience of modeling as Evita for a spread in the local rag as a PR stunt, sweetie. The photographer was definitely successful in capturing my youthful double chin, I'll give him that.

Not me, obviously. I can't find the newspaper clipping, maybe Mum's got it.  It's awful anyway.  Incidentally, many years later I was to win a free place at a librarianship conference by writing a poem entitled "Don't Cry for Me, Factiva".  Those of you in the library know will get the reference. Maybe I am really connected to Evita somehow. [Source]

A few years later, after I had chopped my hair off, people used to tell me ALL THE FREAKING TIME that I looked like Australian Democrats babe Natasha Stott Despoja.

The spunky senator doing her thing. [Source].

I kid you not, one time I was innocently going about my business purchasing a CD from JB HiFi (that's right kids we used to have to GO ON DOWN THE SHOPS to engage in this sort of activity) and the shop assistant refused to believe I wasn't the aforementioned Doc Martens wearing political sexpot , or at the very least her ugly younger sister. She made me show her my driver's licence to prove I wasn't before she let me continue with the purchase. I wonder what I was buying? I have no memory of the exact album and can only speculate. Going through my ancient cd collection reveals several possibilities. There's a fair chance it was something like this..

[Source]

Or maybe this....

[Source]

Or could even have been this...

[Source]

OK, so my musical range was a bit limited at the time.  Love you Tori.  But I digress.

Around the same time I was also accused of resembling that momentarily famous warbler Dido.

[Source]

I guess Dido and Nat kind of had the same hairstyle as me at the time which, frankly, is where the resemblance ends. I did wear Docs though.

More recently my loving husband, in the days when he was still winning me over with his unique charms, told me I looked like Radha Mitchell.

I think she was in that Aussie movie Love and Other Catastrophes that we all loved sick back in the day. [Source]

And finally my Aunt L reckons Nicole Kidman looks like a combination of me and my mum. This is probably the most hilarious one. Mum and I say yeah, if you stretched the bejesus out of the photograph until Nicole was as wide as she is tall. Haha! Dead ringers!

This pic is from an article entitled "Nicole Kidman Admits Using Botox".  You don't say.  Although, perhaps Botox is the only thing standing in the way of Mum and I becoming even more like our Nic.  I'll get onto it ASAP. [Source]

I'm thinking the reality of the situation these days is that the celeb I most resemble would be a sort of Frankenstein creation.
A melange of Suzy Elelman's dress sense...

[Source]

Angelina Jolie's eye bags,

OK so I couldn't find a bad photo of Angelina.  Here's one of her looking all maternal and shit. [Source]

Katie Holmes' downtrodden posture,

From hilarious blog Suri's Burn Book

Posh Spice's haircut,

Posh with her bob.  Or "Pob". [Source]

 and Kevin Federline's bum,

Say no more really. [Source]

But I guess this is all academic really, since unless you know me in real life, I am remaining an internet woman of mystery by chopping my own head out of photos.


Do you look like a famous person? Are you a famous person? Do you have a Pob like me?