want

About 3 years ago I stopped buying new clothes, limiting my sartorial spending to my local op shops and vintage stores instead. This was no grand statement against fashion (who would listen to a girl known to shop at Best&Less for her evening wear?) but more because I couldn't fight the whingey, tight-arse, greenie voice that kept muttering at me every time I eyed off some sparkly new item in Myers. I swear each time I pulled my credit card out of my wallet I would see a giant blue whale choking on a sequined cocktail dress while a small child in China, his hands bleeding from stitching a pair of cheap patent leather pumps, looked on and Chrissy Hynde sang 'I'll stand by you' in the background. So strong was the image I would be forced to run from the counter, seeking the shelter of the nearest Oxfam store to subdue the middle-class consumer guilt building inside of me.

And so I stopped buying things that hadn't been loved and then tossed by someone before me.

But while I get a small amount of retail therapy each time I unearth some sweet, sweet brogues or a cute check dress at the Salvos, I still turn to the web and the orgy of window shopping it offers, to sate my need for new. So in the torturous spirit of abstaining, here is a bunch of things I will never own. Unless, great joy and love, Chloe Sevigny starts donating to my local op shop.

squid monkey mail

I've started working four days a week. (I know, I'm jealous of me too.) So to keep me company on my first day off this little SquidMonkey braved a treacherous trip from the depths of the Indian Ocean and through the wilds of the Wild Rainforest to his nearest post office where he slipped himself into an envelope and posted himself to Melbourne. We spent the day chatting about writing projects, assembling a bed and then trying to coax Ernest, our temporary cat, out from under the bed.

c-h-a-r-l-i-e

My favourite book is a collection of Charlie Harper's birds. If I was rich and famous one of his prints would be smack bang above the fireplace of my Frank Lloyd Wright holiday house. Right next to my Eames chair and my super-8 collection of other people's 1960s home videos. Life would be good.

I can't cook

Lankwood once asked me, very lovingly, if I ever tasted the food before I served it. The other day I found the burnt remains of one of the mini-pizzas I made for a party stuck behind the oven rack. It had been there for three weeks. I had wondered what the burning smell was each time I heated the oven.

I'm gunna ...

I know it's June and a little late (or early) to be posting this, but I really like this poster. Not because of the design, although the colours a pretty good, but because I like the idea of setting aside a month to read the books you always meant to. All those books that are on your list but when you get to the bookstore your mind goes blank. The books that are referenced in movies and other books and you kick yourself cos you don't get the joke. The author's names that people you've just met at parties drop and you have to decide: pretend to have read them and quickly change the subject or just smile and quickly change the subject.

So I'm thinking I might need to put aside a month to read my list. Maybe one of the cosy months like July or August. A month when it rains alot. But then I think I'll probably need more than a month. I'm a pretty slow reader.

golden

My second post ever and I choose this:

My chosen entertainment for saying goodbye to America.

squid-ink

If squids could talk I doubt they would blog. But it is nice to think of all those tentacles tapping ferociously at the keyboard as they crush biscuits in their beaks, letting the crumbs gather on the floor. Perhaps they would peer over their glasses to check and fix a spelling error. I don't think squids would tolerate bad grammar, but they wouldn't correct someone else's either. Choosing instead to just frown and dismiss.

No, I don't think the internet is the place for squids. Which is a good thing because I like to think of them in the ocean, swimming in the dark and leaving inky trails for all of their enemies.