Curious Tuesday

1. Who is your favourite musician, NOT in terms of talent or aptitude, but based on pure sex appeal?
DAVID BOWIE ALL THE WAY!!

Although, that being said, he's also a favourite because he is talented. Best all rounder, really.

2. What were some quirks of your past lovers that drove you crazy?
Giving me crap for being vegetarian, lying about already being in (long term!) relationships, losing all personality traits that I found endearing/attractive before we started dating from the moment we were officially 'together'

3. If there was a movie made about your life, what song would you absolutely INSIST be on the soundtrack?
Friday On My Mind- The Easybeats OR Suffragette City- David Bowie

4. What is your favourite quote right now?
Look up Oscar Wilde's last words.

The Divine List, May 25 2010

The new Hole album, mohair, snuggling into my quilt, finding money in old handbags, last minute morning cuddles, watching rabbits in the pet shop, unexpected bargains, no-reason gifts, midnight chocolate cake, reading Mr Men books and fairytales in Borders, UK Glamor magazine, prescription eyewear, perfumes that smell like romance, sharing jeans with my boyfriend, cashmere stockings, hotel beds, fresh bedlinen, bed hair, smelling your shampoo on your clothing, These two websites (here and here)

Ode to Melbourne

degraves st chic by kittencaboodle featuring Converse shoes

So, basically this environment at the moment has left me less than inspired to write something meaningful or worthwhile at the moment... perhaps mostly because I fear that "uh-oh" moment in which I have someone walk in on me typing furiously and that they read over my shoulder and critique my opinion (a personal hate of mine) or just generally disturb the creative process before I've clicked that little "publish now" button at the bottom of my screen.

So what's new? as it turns out, I need glasses. Most people would be pretty annoyed to discover that they have a problem with their vision, but I have wanted a real pair of prescription glasses since I was about 6 years old. I was a weird child, ok? but it seriously raises the point that glasses are extremely fashionable and they can change the mood of your outfit instantaneously. They can make the serious look quirky, they can make any old casual outfit look edgy and artistic and they still add that tiny touch of mystery to your face. I'm a fan.

I'm picking up my brand new Ralph Lauren 6002s on Friday, I absolutely cannot wait. In fact, here's a picture:
Cool, aren't they?!?

I'll also invest in a stylish back-up pair and perhaps some prescription sunnies... I was thinking a pair of D&Gs and some raybans. Cliche? maybe a little, but why not?

So as you can see from my Polyvore post at the top, I'm getting ideas into my head on what kind of outfits I'll plan around my new eye goodies. Funnily enough, that was also an excuse for me to use some of the items I own in real life on a Polyvore set so I didn't feel bad for posting so many designer finds I can in no way afford. I'm not a designer snob, just very ambitious (and very poor). This post is also a sort of love letter to Melbourne, a city I both admire and loathe simultaneously, often for the same reasons. I love the food here. I love the culture and the fashion and the way things work.... but I also hate the culture and the fashion and the way things work around here a lot of the time. I don't know whether it boils down to homesickness (which I do feel pangs of from time to time) or just a need for something different yet again. Kynan seems to have the same love/hate relationship with this city and he grew up here, so maybe I'm just becoming more Melbourne-ized?

I'm hoping this week I'll finally be able to take my beloved GHDs and other cosmetics out of storage. Pray for me.

In any case, I send warm hugs and mohair kisses if you are sitting through this post right now. Have a strange and extraordinary night.

xx Bunny

curious tuesday/life update

Ok, so while it is no longer tuesday (it is, in fact, sunday) I have limited access to the internet... so I'll be answering this now:

1. Who is your #1 crush?

my number 1 crush would have to be my partner/boyfriend Kynan. 3 years on and I still find him ridiculously sexy and still get more excited than a toddler on christmas morning when he comes home.

2. Have you ever tried online dating? How did it go? Any tips?

Though I've never tried online dating per se, when I met my partner/boyfriend (I hate the word partner!) we lived a distance away from eachother for the first six months or so of our relationship. We communicated mainly over the internet and over the phone... god, were those bills expensive. So though we weren't an 'internet' couple, we did correspond that way for a while. I'd still recommend knowing eachother face to face before you attempt a relationship, though.

3. Are you sentimental? Do you keep the things other people give you?

I'm a real hoarder, if someone gave it to me, it stays in my house... no matter how small or useless said item is. This only becomes problematic when I have to move house and there's too many things to take with me.

4. As a child, what were your primary interests?

I was big on drawing, painting, singing, playing outside in the garden (thinking I was some kind of magical creature or a time traveller)... but I was also a big fan of barbie.

5. What are your top 3 guilty pleasures?

- Sleeping in. Ok, so it's only til 9am, but that's a lot when you follow my schedule.
- Consuming as much cake as my budget/appetite allows.
- Charlaine Harris novels. I'm totally addicted to the Sookie Stackhouse novels and I'm hanging until a soft cover version of the latest book hits our shelves in Australia.

So what's happening in my life these days? I'm having trouble living with the world's biggest carnivore (no kidding, a meal for this lady is a huge hunk of steak... not even a side of potatoes or carrots or anything!) and there is literally NOTHING vegetarian in the house most days unless I want bread and butter. I'm very hungry half the time and very poor the rest of the time from having to buy so much freaking takeaway. The days that I cook, she wolfs down the food in about ten seconds, but she herself refuses to cook because she can't be bothered doing the dishes. I won't clean a pan that's had meat in it (and why should I??) so it's lucky that's the only thing she will clean, but she insists we eat off paper plates and when we do buy fresh food for me to eat, she eats it first and I still go hungry just as fast. ARGH.

I've been looking up good recipes that are vegetarian but also old-fashioned (so it caters to a certain person's demands), cheap and don't immediately seem like "vegetarian" food. So that means no chickpeas, tofu or tempeh obviously. In fact, nothing from Japan, China, India, Morocco or anything else that tastes 'exotic' to someone used to meat and three veg. So far, the only things I can get away with are pasta (with a basic Napoli sauce, that is) and vegetable soup.

But it's not all bad news. I've been exploring around this area and around Fitzroy again for the first time in quite a while. When Kynan and I started dating, Brunswick St (and Smith St, to a lesser extent) was the first place he bothered to show me. We went on a little excursion to Brunswick St yesterday, had some lunch and went for a bit of a shop. I saw the leather jacket of my dreams in a vintage shop, but it was overpriced to the hilt!! I'll have to go back to Newtown (Sydney) if I want another one, at this rate. Had lunch at a cafe called Juanita's (Spudbar was closed), looked at guitars, sampled at T2 and just relaxed. Awesome. Then down to Lygon Street, through the city and eventually back to Northcote for food at what is quite possibly the best fish and chip shop in Melbourne before heading home.

The thing about this side of Melbourne is that there are just so many awesome places to eat and shop... unfortunately, many scenesters and hipsters agree and it all becomes very exclusive when all you want is a decent cup of coffee, some lunch and maybe a pair of jeans that fit. I'd love to move down this way for at least a while (though not quite as far away from civilization as we are in this [nameless] suburb).

Let's just hope I manage to consume some actual food this week.

Those damned hippy vegetarians are at it again

So the main problem that most people apparently have with vegetarians is their preachings about how meat eaters are all murderers who are going to go to hell. I can totally relate to that. After all, who wants their dietary choices criticized by someone who does things differently?

As someone who refuses to eat something I couldn't bring myself to kill (for more reasons than one), I still find these people just as annoying, you're not alone if you want to slam this person's face repeatedly into a wall in an attempt to shut them up or if you secretly wish they would be eaten alive by some form of carnivorous animal in a glorious moment of irony.

That being said, most vegetarians I know (the sane ones) don't bother to tell off people who eat the less animal friendly options at dinnertime... why? it's a life choice. Just like it is my life choice to avoid eating something that was once alive, it is essentially your choice whether or not you choose to... and I still find certain amounts of validity and respect in others beliefs that "if no-one eats this steak/chicken/etc, it would have died for nothing." Like I said, your choice. So why am I bringing up the flaws of other vegetarians? because I pride myself on being an open minded person when it comes to most things. I'm also big on food and I appreciate the time, cost and effort put into a well-cooked meal, even if I'm not the one eating it. I'm also sick and tired of well-wishers informing me that I'm "going to get sick" or other such nonsense.

While eating a plate absolutely full of fresh vegetables which had been lovingly steamed and then sauteed in herbs and lemon, I was told that what I was eating "wasn't healthy" because it didn't have a piece of meat on it. I glanced over at their plate... there was nothing on it but a steak big enough to choke a lion, not even chips (that counts as a serve of veggies for most suburbanites, so who am I to judge?). I've been told while eating massive amounts of spinach, nuts and even eggs that I'm not getting any iron or folic acid and will become anemic. I dare that person to google what kinds of nutrients you get from spinach and other green vegetables (besides the aforementioned iron and folic acid, obviously). Or the time someone smugly told me that they've found a link between tofu and other soy products and cancer.... when I was eating a peanut butter sandwich! (For the record, I rarely eat tofu as it's expensive). Yet if I were to loudly ask someone while they were eating their meal "how's that filthy rotten corpse taste? God, I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole! you know it's been dead for months, right?" I'm pretty sure I'd be kicked out of any restaurant. In fact, I'm pretty sure most people would have something to say about that. How about if I pointed out the links between stomach and bowel cancer and ANY kind of meat product? Or the fact that the amount of grain eaten by your mass bred cows for meat production consume enough grain to feed more than two thirds of the world's population... and therefore (if I use the same skewed logic others throw my way about how I will "die", etc.) you are perpetuating world hunger and responsible for those poor kids in africa dying or starvation. You'd want to punch me. In fact, I'd want to punch me.

So why is it ok to comment on my life choices but not for me to do the same? More to the point, why am I not compelled to comment on yours on a daily basis? Could it be because I don't care what you eat? That, unless your name is Kayleigh, it's none of my business? Or that it's just plain rude and inappropriate to tell someone that they're living their life wrong. Especially when every doctor, nutritionist and other trusted medical professional I've seen thus so far has said that I have a healthier diet than a thirty year old who follows a meal plan. So if you're that concerned about me to ask, rest assured that I'll probably outlive you as I'm rarely ill, my cholesterol levels and blood pressure are perfect and I'm getting a huge variety of nutrients with every bite of my home-cooked meals. I'm also an incredibly good cook, so don't think I'm missing out on something.

Please, just worry about yourself and leave me alone to eat my lentils. I enjoy them as much as you do your chicken parma on a friday night. I don't think I'm better than you for leading a different lifestyle, I don't judge you and I expect the same respect from each and every person who I share a meal with. Otherwise, you risk me asking you equally uncomfortable questions such as "how's your colon? still able to empty your bowels after eating all those cute baby cows?" nobody wants to talk about that over dinner.

Sugarpill cosmetics competition

Ok, so one of my (and many others) favourite bloggers, Gala Darling, has announced a competition with sugarpill cosmetics!

As you can imagine, I'm first in line to enter this... I -love- sugarpill and pretty much any other kind of makeup that has a selection of such amazing colours. You have to enter the competition via polyvore, another plus for me, so here are my entries. Wish me luck.

taste the rainbow by kittencaboodle featuring Marc by Marc Jacobs

sugarpill2 by kittencaboodle featuring Marc Jacobs bags

strawberry explosion by kittencaboodle featuring Charlotte Olympia shoes



which one is your favourite? let me know!!


xxx bunny.

More on 'body image'

Ok, so as an avid magazine reader, I obviously buy Cosmopolitan. It makes sense, really, as I get my monthly dose of trash while I wait for Marie Claire to come out (and UK Glamour magazine) to repent.

In one section of Cosmopolitan, they have a little survey filled in by the celebrity they interview each month. It's just a basic one: tick the boxes, elaborate when necessary, what a no-brainer, huh? They alternate the questions each month but the one that seems to linger is the little tick a box option to describe how they feel about their body. The options are usually something like "I love it", "I hate it", "It's ok, but I'd rather change... (elaborate)" and "It's not perfect, but it's real". That seems to be the war cry of enraged women everywhere. The thing they angrily protest when they see itty-bitty models in clothing they covet or when they talk about how people like Beth Ditto are apparently bad influences because they encourage obesity. They finish their impassioned speeches with "I'm a size (whatever). My body isn't perfect, but it's real."

Now if this is you, I hate to break it to you, but you just lost your own argument. Everyone's body is perfect. If it functions and you're free from terminal illness, etc. then you have a perfect body. The human body's function is not to look pretty as far as mainstream fashion goes, it's to keep you alive, relatively free from illness and hopefully allow you to reproduce. We're all perfect, but we're not all going to look the way that we want 100% of the time.

Here's some tough love for those people out there: if you're unhappy with the way you look, you're probably really unhappy with something else... like your love life ("if I was skinnier/taller/generally prettier, maybe he might like me"), your levels of self confidence or feeling left out by your loved ones. If you magically lost the weight or grew an inch or a cup size, your problem won't magically go away. You won't be a better person and, sadly, most people won't even notice the difference.... and you'll find another 'flaw' that you think needs fixing. Not that I'm exempt from wishing I had clearer skin or longer hair or a million other tiny complaints now and then, but I channel them into something useful. I don't let it take over my life and my priorities. I understand that there are many paths to happiness, but not one of them comes from being the slimmest or the most attractive according to this season's catwalk trends.

I hate the fact that talking about body image means that people deem their physical appearance as more important than anything else. There are people dying in the street (in developed countries, not just the ones you hear about through world vision!!), there are people being murdered, raped and being denied basic human rights. People starve everyday and our finances are a mess. Our planet is going to be die because we're destroyed the environment, but all that ever makes any bloody opinion page is how it's a "negative message" to show skinny models, and a "negative message" to show fast food ads during children's television programming... TAKE A LOOK AT YOURSELVES! What happened to aspiring for actual talents, skills and intelligence? What happened to caring about the community, politics or the environment or a million and one other more important things? So the next time you reach for a slice of cake and think "should I?", just eat the goddamn cake and worry about more productive things.

xxx a very aggravated bunny

In between

So today I started making a mohair scarf for myself... not in the luxurious dark grey I had envisioned, but instead in TURQUOISE!! I'm incredibly excited about how it will look when it is finished.

In fact, today was one of those great in between days when nothing that significant happens, you probably won't remember it in a year, but you have a bit of fun doing nothing all that much.

I had hot chocolate in the park with my friend, I tried on every pair of Chanel sunglasses in an OPSM without buying any (though she put a pair on layby) and just generally frolicked in the (freezing!!) sunny weather.

I'm so excited about my turquoise scarf that is in the works that I made a polyvore set of things that would look amazing with it. Hope you're all having a fantastic time, wherever you are.

in between day by kittencaboodle featuring Botkier bags

xxxx bunny.

The Divine list, 8 May 2010

Prepaid VISA cards | This makeup tutorial by Mishka | Trying on gloves, scarves and hats (then putting them back on the shelf and walking out) | Autumn weather. I love that it can be simultaneously cool and sunny. | Eating off paper plates when no-one can be bothered with the dishes. | Cornflakes. Especially with sugar on top. Yum. | Soft wool that feels like kitten fur. | Tea and biscuits at any time of day... the whole old lady thing is rubbing off on me a little bit | ElectricRainbow's deviant art page! | Banana bread | Finding clothes I haven't seen in years and planning where and when I'll wear them! | Aesop rose geranium body cleanser. I was given a bottle for Christmas and have been trying to ration it out... without much success. | MAC eyeshadow in carbon. best classic black. | Singing showtunes loudly in an empty room (though I think the neighbours probably hear me) | Reading through Moonage Daydream (a book about David Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust that my partner bought me last year) and stealing fashion inspiration | Listening to 80s Madonna songs in elevators and dancing along. | Children's furniture from IKEA! they should make some of that stuff in adult sizes. | Having questions waiting for me on Formspring. | Finally, this video.

Have a lovely week my darlings,

xx bunny

For those who were wondering...

So what’s new at the moment?

Well, as of last Friday, I’ve been living with my partner’s (almost) 95 year old nanna.

This is both a good and a bad experience. The bad part is that, obviously, we’re completely at the mercy of somebody else because it is, after all, her house and we’re just guests. The good part is that I get to relax a little more, I’ve learnt how to knit and I spend a lot of my day drinking little cups of tea and eating biscuits. I’ve become skilled in the way of the nanna… god help us.

I’ve decided that I’m going to make myself a divine grey scarf for winter (what else am I going to do when I’m cooped up until we move out??) and experiment some more with my bizarre cooking adventures.

Having never grown up with grandparents of my own, it’s strange spending so much time talking to an old lady now… especially someone who is nearing 100. She talks about her late husband a lot, and the war, the great depression and what this suburb was like 90 years ago… the doctors used to come around on horseback(!) and the areas now cluttered with houses, apartments and shops were almost entirely farmland and paddocks. Crazy stuff!

She’s very frank and has an opinion on most things. Being older, she’s not exactly going out into the world to experience everything anymore, but instead immerses herself into the world of current affairs shows, the news and the bold and the beautiful... but because people did such outlandish things even when she was young, she talks about some of the most sensitive subjects imaginable without blinking… just yesterday she was talking about women who were getting abortions when she was my age and how many people were getting them… it’s a little scary to think that it’s such a taboo subject now when it was commonplace 70 or 80 years ago.

Generally, I don’t like old people that much. I find myself being judged for being a woman, for doing things my own way and for the job I choose to do. I don’t like strangers telling me that I’m living my life wrong and therefore I am going to go to hell or am just a horrible person… especially when I find that I’m generally pretty upbeat and cheerful and not at all one of those ‘scary Satanist teenagers’ that they think I am. If I want to dye my hair, dress like a freak or have pre marital sex, I believe that it’s my business. I don’t drink or take drugs so, frankly, I’m not doing anything that bad, am I? Still, I love tough as nails old ladies who love a good laugh at the expense of their peers and aren’t afraid to do what they want… the thing I hear the most in this house is “I’m 95 years old soon, I think I’m old enough to do what I want.” Damn straight.

Anyway, this is probably my first personal post in a while but just in case there was anyone out there reading, that’s why I’ve been offline for the last 7 days… I’ve been busy moving stuff and learning the ways of the old people.

Much love,

Xx bunny.