Go Ahead, Make My Bidet

An Open Letter To My Boss

2011-07-05T16:21:00.008+10:00

You don't wear make-up or dye your hair, rather you part it down the middle and pull it back into a low ponytail. You prefer to be called by your initials, not your feminine first name. You wear basketball jerseys on casual day. You commute to work from a regional working-class city. You wear your Bonds underwear high enough that it sticks out the top of your business pants. You wear knitted sweater vests.

YOU WEAR KNITTED SWEATER VESTS.

So I think you'll probably understand my confusion when I saw you were wearing a wedding ring. Not a flashy diamond number or anything mind you, just a plain gold band. That plain gold band made my Gaydar hurt.

My Gaydar is pretty exceptional. It's a finely tuned instrument that's really flourished in the last few years, partly because I learned to trust my natural instincts and mostly because Jess and I like to play endless games of 'Dude or Dyke?' while people watching (this can be adapted to 'Hipster or Homo?' at outdoor festivals). When I first saw my boss it started going off like that time-up warning you get in multiplayer mode of Goldeneye on Nintendo 64, all BAAAARMP BAAAAARMP BAAAAAARMP. Then I saw the wedding ring and I was so confused I got a stress headache.

Could I be wrong? Could she just be one of those butch, sporty straight girls with husbands?

“Maybe she's in a committed gay relationship” said my housemate Josie. “I know lots of queer couples that wear commitment rings.”

It was entirely possible. It would explain why my Spidey Sense was going through the roof telling me that there was no way this woman was into men. But then the next day at work, I asked her for help with adding a female customer's partner to her account, and she explained the process to me using all male pronouns.

I went running back to Josie. “Would a lesbian do that? I wouldn't do that.” Josie thought about it. “I might. I hate that I'd make that assumption but sometimes that's just how we're conditioned. I talk to people about doctors all day at work and I find myself saying 'he'."

Okay, so maybe she was gay. I mentioned ye olde faithful Roller Derby in a conversation and she said 'I LOVE roller derby' and from then on the topic was pretty much closed for me.

That wedding ring got me thinking about two things though: does it no longer signify heterosexuality? Am I the one who's making a stupid assumption? Have I been conditioned into thinking something that just doesn't apply anymore?

Secondly, if Jess and I entered some time space continuum where Julia Gillard was no longer standing between us and a tacky shotgun wedding, would I completely lose all queer visibility? If I make the assumption that someone who screams gay to me is straight based on a little piece of jewellery, I'm sure people would make the same judgement about me.

Postscript: A few days after I wrote this, one of my co-workers was discussing the concept of 'bromance' and my boss chimed in with 'Oh, my husband has one of them!'. I resisted the urge to ask if the bromance was with her, briefly doubted my beautiful Gaydar, and then took some Nurofen Plus.

You Know I'm Not Dead

2011-01-26T00:02:00.001+11:00

But I am lacking a net connection that isn't my mobile phone. I've also got an awkward between-haircuts mullet. It's really something.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Totes Goats

2010-10-18T23:17:00.003+11:00

I first heard someone say 'totes' in early 2008. It was my friend Joe. He kept slipping it into conversation and he talks kinda fast, so I thought he was suggesting we go to the pub. I informed him that it was The Tote, singular. He told me it was short for 'totally'. I thought it was the most repugnant piece of slang I'd ever encountered, toppled only by it's obnoxious cousin, 'totes goats'.

It's now somehow managed to become such an integral part of my every day vernacular that I don't think I'd be able to stop saying it even if I tried. Sometimes it comes out of my mouth in front of someone classy and I can see the disgust written all over their face and I want to shake them and say NO, NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, IT WAS ALL JOE'S FAULT.

On a similar note, my therapist asked me what 'douche' meant today. At first I thought she literally wanted to know the definition, but then I realised that I'm the only person she knows who uses the word in every day conversation and I wound up spending half my session talking about how much I liked using it as a verb, eg, "stop douching me around." True story.

The Cult Of Roller Derby

2010-10-13T19:18:00.006+11:00

Roller derby, in my opinion, is a cult. It's a beautiful, wondrous, empowering cult that has transformed my life in ways I never thought possible, but it's a cult none the less.

Like all good cults, I've devoted most of my life to it since I joined just over two years ago. I think about very little else. If we had a compound for me to give up my day job and move into, you know I'd be doing it. I've 'recruited' (infected?) friends, strangers and even my girlfriend. And I've met hundreds of amazing fellow cult members, both from my league and from leagues in other cities, states and countries. There is nothing better than meeting other people that share the same obsession that you do. I love talking plates and surge blocks and Texas two-steps until I'm blue in the face. And as much as I love and value these people, I am under absolutely no illusion that I'd maintain a relationship with any more than about 5 of my so-called 'derby sisters' if I stopped playing derby.

Skaters love to wax lyrical about their 'derby family'. It normally makes me cringe. I think it's a dangerous thing to elevate your fellow cult members to that level. I've seen girls leave derby and disappear off the face of the Earth. It's like they don't exist anymore. You run into them on the street or in a pub one day and until that moment, you'd totally forgotten about them.

I'd like to think the same isn't true for me, but of course it is. The people that I don't see outside of derby anyway would be the first to go - without the hours spent training together, I just wouldn't see them anymore. The people I do hang with outside of training hours would attempt to catch up with me, but it wouldn't be the same. I'd have a few awkward coffee dates where I'd discover that I have very little in common with them now that we don't have skating to talk about. I'd probably offend them when I didn't care about the durometer of their new wheels or the effectiveness of compression tights or who's hooked up with who within the league. (It's the reverse when I run into non-derby friends currently. They say 'what have you been up to?' and I say 'oh, you know... derby!' and then struggle to remember anything else I do with my time).

The last cult I belonged to was a little call centre called Sales Force. They were very big on being a 'fun' place to work and hired mainly 20-somethings and held a lot of social events. I got sucked into the Sales Force void for a few years. When I finally came to and decided to get a real job, I lost most of my social group. I tried to maintain contact with my work friends, people I'd been super tight with for years. I'd shared houses and bodily fluids and countless boozy evenings with these people and we just didn't have any common ground without our co-workers and customers to discuss. I think derby is pretty similar.

My inner circle of friends consists of people I've known for years. They're people that I met for one reason or another and have found it effortless to maintain a tight friendship with. The fact that we are no longer housemates or co-workers or even living in the same city doesn't affect our relationship. Those are the people that I think of as family. They're my 'sisters'. If I stopped playing derby, there'd be a few people would go into that category, but sadly I know that the majority of my derby friendships would fizzle out to the occasional 'like' on a status update.

Good thing I don't have any intention of ever stopping skating.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

2010-10-05T10:59:00.007+11:00

I only ever seem to blog about my body when I'm feeling negative about it - so let me tell you, world, I FUCKING LOVE MY BODY. Not because of how it looks (although that's pretty awesome too) but because of all of the amazing things it can do on the flat track, all of the things that have taken two and a bit years to develop to this level, all of the blocks and strides and split-second reactions that can only happen because I've dedicated so many countless hours to practising them.

I'm amazed by how one little hour-long bout has switched my brain from 'I'm fat' to 'how much faster and stronger can I be by the next bout?'. Being a certain size or shape suddenly seems irrelevant. And the control panties can stay in my underwear draw - I didn't even bother with them during the game because I decided breathing was a priority. How funny that I thought that was a negotiable.

Introducing... Sperry Rand Remmington Riviera

2010-10-03T22:27:00.004+11:00

This piece of magenta coloured love is mine, all mine. Oh, the zines to be made! The love letters to be written! I can't stop running my fingers over it. I'm in a very happy place. I'd wanted a typewriter for a while but hadn't gone about actively finding one that wasn't a stupid amount of dollars... and then I was gifted with this one, which is nicer than I could have possibly dreamed up. Swoon. Thanks lady Ada, you're wonderful.

Standing In The Way Of Control

2010-10-02T12:21:00.004+10:00

Last week I bought a pair of those bra-high, Nanna style control panties. I bought them for the very specific purpose of wearing under my Toxic Avengers dress, after seeing one too many pictures of myself that made me want to cry.

I'm very sensitive about my belly. I don't want to hate it, but I do. I try to suck it in as much as possible. I wear black to minimise it. I removed my belly button piercing about 10 kilos ago. I will happily walk down the street in the hottest of hot pants but I wouldn't be caught dead in a midriff. I get all tense and clammy when my girlfriend touches it. You get the idea.

Here's the thing: I love belly on other people. I think a bit of tummy is all kinds of sexy. A flat, washboard stomach is totally boring. I like curves. I like squishy bits. I like love handles. Amazing.

The other night I was Facebook stalking the photos of a friend of a friend (as you do) and there were some photos from a burlesque event. One of the dancers was absolutely stunning. She would have been a bit bigger than me but she was proportioned like I am, all boobs and belly. She had a freaking incredible body. She looked totally soft and sensuous. And I couldn't work out why I could look at a girl who's bigger than me and think HOT, yet look at myself in the mirror and start mentally committing myself to a lifetime of personal training. I looked at that girl and thought it would be such a fucking shame if she thought she was fat, how she would actually be less attractive if she lost weight, yet I had absolutely zero ability to apply these principles to myself.

Anyway, I have some roller derby to play in those fucking control panties tonight, so I really hope I can breathe in them.

I'm Addicted To You, Don't You Know That You're Toxic?

2010-09-05T21:37:00.005+10:00

Oh Avengers uniform, why are you so unforgiving? If I bought a pair of those control panties would I be able to breathe while I skated? Does it even matter? Sigh sigh body image complain blah.

Now that I have that out of the way: the game was brilliant. Possibly my favourite home game since Pump Up The Jam a year ago. We didn't win, but that's okay. I felt mostly in control. I really liked playing offence. I spent way more time in the box than I would have liked, but I can work on that. Jess had an amazing debut game. One of the players I respect more than anyone else gave me an amazing compliment about my skating that is still making my head spin. All in all, a freaking excellent night.

Here's my derby goal for the next couple of months: I want to be fast. I want to be fitter and I want better form and I want to have a more effective stride and I want that all to equal faaaaast skating.

Fuuuuuuck

2010-09-02T00:10:00.000+10:00

Do you ever get the feeling that you're so incredibly fucking fucked up that you'd be lucky to get your head around even half of your neuroses in your lifetime? I'm still working out really basic awful self-sabotagey things that I do that should have been glaringly obvious to me centuries ago.

Jess says: No one really knows themselves, ever.
Bella says: I'm just going to go and bury myself in a ditch somewhere because I don't even know why I attempt regular life.

It's been one of those evenings.

Hold The Line

2010-09-01T16:25:00.003+10:00

I think that two of the best things in the world are a) seeing your work in print and b) having people go out of their way to tell you that something you wrote made them feel a certain way. Both of those things have happened this week so I'm feeling pretty awesomely (see, I'm so smooth I can make up my own words now).

Writing wise, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with myself next year. I'm nearing the end of my current course and I had this grand plan to apply for Journalism at RMIT, but a few different people have told me that that course probably isn't what I'm expecting it to be. I have most of the skills I need to get work with the qualifications I have now, but I'm lacking the confidence to put myself out there and the ability to talk myself up. I imagine that doing this degree would just steer me into an awesome job at the end of it, but do I really need to spend another three years and several tens of thousands of dollars to get that?

I think it's time to email some people who know more about this stuff than I do for advice.

Oh Hai, Baby Bella

2010-08-29T19:32:00.005+10:00

This picture was taken almost exactly 5 years ago. I found it while I was looking for pictures of myself with long hair. I'm trying to deter myself from growing out my hair, because the long, thick, bouncy mane in my imagination cannot possibly be achieved with the stringy fairy floss that sprouts from my scalp.

I'm 20 in that picture. I'm a couple of weeks away from moving to Melbourne. I had just gone through the break-up from hell. The only friend that I didn't lose with the relationship had just moved interstate. My sharehouse had gone from sour to Crazytown, so I was staying with my mother for the first time since I was 15. I had no job and I was trying to get on Centrelink again and I spent most of my days fighting Ma to lend me money for cigarettes. Obviously it was a really shit-hot time in my life.

But photo Bella, photo Bella looks happy. At this point pretty much everything had fallen apart and I'd already decided to cut my losses and get the hell out of Perth. And even though I'd hit rock bottom, I felt liberated. I had an interesting 6 weeks in the time between deciding to leave and having enough money to leave. I met up with people I'd lost contact with and made new friendships with strangers. I behaved in ways I wouldn't normally because I had nothing left to lose and I was leaving; I was leaving for good.

I know people who have moved to Melbourne and love their new city but miss their Perth friends bitterly. I don't have that. I don't really have anyone there and it's hard to feel anything but resentment about the place where I screwed up every opportunity and burnt every bridge.

A couple of days after this photo was taken I cut all of my hair off with a pair of paper scissors.

Stuff That's On My Mind

2010-08-25T00:07:00.004+10:00

I realised today that another federal election marks nearly three years since I last found myself spending some quality time with Sir Charles Gardiner. I'd be less cryptic but there's that whole behaving-myself-on-a-public-blog thing. I'd be less cryptic but sometimes I think I want to spill all of my ugly history for all the wrong reasons.

Another friend gone, although not someone I had spoken to in a long time or had ever been close to. I had almost zero experience with death until this year and now I'm starting to see how easy it is; how people just get swallowed up without any warning and that's it. It scares me.

Anger is a secondary emotion, according to my therapist. I do like to argue but I'm not really sure what all of that rage is covering up. This evening I had a nice big talk about how I was going to try and let things go more often and then of course we went to Safeway and some silly bint buying a roast chicken cut in line and I nearly ripped her head off. Jess says I am like a yappy dog on a leash she has to reign in sometimes. Jess is amused by this. I am amused by her impersonation of me being a yappy dog, not so much by my insatiable desire to be right (and beat people down until either I win, or they give up).

I tend to tell her I love her about seventeen times a day because I'm not always very good at showing it.

2010-07-26T22:13:00.005+10:00

I've been feeling all hollow these last few nights, like someone scooped out all the stuff that's meant to go in my chest cavity and put this melancholy ache in its place.

On How Piss Is

2010-07-25T22:17:00.004+10:00

I haven't touched alcohol since the afterparty of the Great Southern Slam about 40 days ago. It's something I probably should have done months (years?) ago. I wasn't a particularly frequent drinker to begin with, but about once a month someone would convince me to "go out" and the stars would align and I'd party like I was on sale for $19.99

It starts when someone has a birthday or there's a bout afterparty and I intend to go for an hour or so and have a few 'quiet drinks'. Somehow I always manage to forget that it's physically impossible for me to have a few quiet drinks. I have one or two or four and I'm totally charming and having a great time. Then the urge to get stupidly loose comes on and I will find myself pounding tequila shots and telling anyone who'll listen about the finer points of my childhood and then the venue will close and I will insist on going to Pony or the Peel, where I will proceed to give lap dances to strangers.

If there was a God she'd have a really funny sense of humour, because as well as the gift of being an awful, awful drunk, I've also been blessed with a crippling sensitivity to other people's opinions of me and the ability to achieve a hangover much greater than anyone I've ever met. This means my 'quiet drinks' inevitably leads to me hibernating under my doona for the next 48 hours, chewing Nurofen Plus and wailing "I said WHAT to my boss?" while begging my girlfriend to drive to Trippy Taco and fetch me a quesadilla.

Having written all of this down, I'm not really sure why it took so long for me to realise that booze and I needed to part ways. I guess I was scared of missing out on some of the awesome things that happen on the rare occasion I drink and don't turn into an obnoxious trashbag, or in that magic window between Drink 2 and Drink 5, pre Encyclopedia of Bella Dramatica. I didn't think I'd be able to dance or do karaoke or break into Northcote swimming pools and go skinny dipping at 6am without Dutch courage. I actually didn't think I'd ever be able to go to a social event again because I'd be so bored. The good news is that I'm discovering that I can actually dance and sing and have fun sober (well, check back on the skinny dipping when it's a little warmer.) It's a whole lot scarier and it usually involves me going NO NO I CAN'T DANCE and then I try to dance and I'm a bit THIS IS WEIRD but then I get into it and I realise everyone else is sloppy as fuck and I'm all I CAN DANCE HOWEVER I WANT AND NO ONE WILL EVEN NOTICE.

The even better news is that I can do other stuff when I go out and don't drink, like have conversations with people that make me smile instead of cringe the next day. It also prevents me from doing stupid shit like smoking cigarettes, or talking to people I don't actually like without the aid of cider. I generally want to go home after a couple of hours, but seeing as that's what I usually wish I could do when I've been drinking, I'm okay with that. I don't know if this is a permanent move or not, but either way I'm enjoying the holiday. It's nice to know I can still surprise myself.

12

2010-07-18T18:24:00.003+10:00

I want some pretty important and epic things right now, but most of all I want to be a dress size smaller (and the importance I place on that is terrifying.) I assumed I grew out of this hideous preoccupation with my body years ago and I don't know why it's back and I don't fucking want it and I'm really sick of tears every time someone tags me in a picture on freaking Facebook.

PS. Day 38, no net at home. I swear, I'll be less blog neglecty when getting online doesn't involve going to the RMIT library.

Like A Miniature Buddha, Covered In Fleece

2010-07-03T12:34:00.005+10:00

When I get angry or feel like something's unjust I absolutely cannot keep my feelings to myself and I have to give everybody a slice of my opinion. Jess never gets like that - 99% of the time, she's as cool as the proverbial cucumber.
"Don't you ever get mad?" I asked her. "Don't you ever feel like it's impossible to keep your feelings to yourself?"
"Sure. But do you ever regret saying something?" she said.
"All the time."
"Well, I never do".

2010-06-19T11:22:00.001+10:00

Question: if your mother gives you a coffee mug with 'Out of my mind - back in 5 minutes' written on it and says 'Isn't this PERFECT? I saw it and I thought it was SO YOU!', is she just being sweet and slightly thoughtless, or is she trying to joke about your past, uh, psychiatric troubles? How long is long enough to make jokes about that kind of stuff (and is it ever okay to do it via coffee cup?)

Ma, if you're reading this, feel free to clarify.

Vic Is Sick

2010-06-18T14:33:00.004+10:00

I have seventy million things I want to blog about right now and no net connection at home until Monday. I'm at an internet cafe feeding my rampant social networking addiction and wondering how on Earth it can take an hour to read my league's forum if I only check it once a day.

Anyway. Real life is awfully fucking dull after getting home from the Great Southern Slam. Wednesday was my first day back at work. A couple of my workmates (I'd say 'colleagues' but that would make it sound like I had a grown-up job and that would be misleading) remembered I'd been away for the weekend and asked me how my rollerskating thing went and I told them we won and they congratulated me and then I went back to stocking shelves. I'm dealing with the overwhelming blahness of reality by going to my mental happy place a lot, where I'm with a thousand other people who have the same obsession with a sport that normal people don't understand, and who treat me like a rockstar because I skate for VRDL, and can talk about wheels and plates and point differential for hours on end.

Anyway. I've come back from the Slam even more obsessed with derby than ever. I've never been more inspired or motivated and I just want to spend every minute of the day becoming the very best skater I can be.

9 Years

2010-06-01T23:54:00.005+10:00

I watched Looking For Alibrandi last week and I wondered if it was possible to trade in my shitty father for one that'd just been absent my entire life and looked a lot like Anthony LaPaglia.

I hate feeling sentimental about my dad. All of the fond memories come from the way he smelt (expensive laundry liquid mixed with cigarettes) or the way he used to cry when he dropped me off at the airport and pretend he just had stuff in his eyes (Mum says she's never seen him cry) or the awful dad jokes he used to make (my favourite: one about walking on hot Coles when the air-con conked out while we were food shopping).

There is absolutely nothing to get sentimental about when I think about 99.5% his behaviour, or his theories on lesbianism being contagious, or the way he thinks you can make your ex-wives and children disappear by simply saying they never existed in the first place. I don't want to remember the nice stuff because I don't want it to hurt. I don't want to remember the nice stuff because this is the stuff that's important.

I've taken to telling people my father is one of those deadbeat dads. Deadbeat conjures images of men that refuse to pay child support and get chased down by Today Tonight cameras, which is pretty funny because Frank Blank Bates is anything but. He's just Bella Senior - standards so high that no one could possibly ever meet them.

So if you see Michael Andretti rolling around Glebe in a Ferarri, let him know that there's an opening for a father figure down in Melbourne. No hurry.

Down With The Sickness

2010-05-25T12:55:00.002+10:00

Ugh, I don't want a cold. Not now. It's too close to the end of semester and it's definitely too close to Nationals. I'm gonna stay in bed, crank the heater, chow down on a box of Codral Original and get some writing done. That should leave me healthy enough to train this weekend.

The only nice thing about being sick is having that really hot girl that I go out with look after me. She home delivers soup and all. Amazing.

Ring-In Rosie

2010-05-22T00:41:00.003+10:00

I have 10,500 words due for my respective classes over the next 3 weeks, so I'm sure the constant urge to blog about trivial shit will appear real soon. I'd say I'm totally screwed, but if there's one thing I've learnt from this course, it's that I'm really good at pulling shit out of my ass at the last minute.

Tomorrow night is my first bout in 5 months and I have those nervous excited can't-sleep butterflies like I haven't had in a very long time. It's like it's all fresh and new again.

Borderline

2010-05-13T21:57:00.006+10:00

I'm all over the shop, from sad to angry to impatient at the drop of a hat. I'm fine with blaming grief for the sad, but I'm not sure if it can be held accountable for the rest. I'm finding myself getting very short with everyone, from complete strangers to my beloved girlfriend, and I don't mean to, but I just can't stop myself. Today we were in a shop and Jess dropped some item of clothing I'd been making her carry for me and as I turned to give her that glare o' death I'm so good at, I saw her flinch, like she'd been expecting it, and I wondered what kind of monster makes the person they love more than anything feel like they have to walk on eggshells.

I have been making rules for myself again, which I will never be able to stick to but I need to commit to memory and then write on post-its so I can remind myself of my shortcomings over and over. I wonder what it takes to love yourself the way you are, instead of constantly chasing after the unobtainable. Lord knows if I got there I wouldn't be happy anyway, I'd just start setting the bar even higher.

Bright Star

2010-05-12T22:06:00.008+10:00

If I hadn't of met you, I wouldn't know that a unitard is always appropriate, and that a half-time costume change is essential. Thanks for teaching me that you always have to be careful on skates around skeletons. You're one of the fiercest ladies I ever met, and although I didn't know you very well, I'm so fucking honoured to have been able to call you a friend.

Shine on, Two Ton.

Two Ton

2010-05-09T22:40:00.002+10:00

I feel like my heart is caving in on itself. A friend from Sydney was in a car accident this morning and is in a pretty bad way. I don't know her very well, but Teyla's larger than life - the kind of person you meet once and never forget. All I can do right now is wish with every fibre of my being that she's going to be okay.

Cerebellum

2010-05-04T18:56:00.004+10:00

That something that I have been waiting an eternity for the postman (postlady? postperson?) to bring arrived today and now my legal name and the name I chose for myself are one and the same.

I'm very, very tempted to send a copy of it to my father but I'd never give him the pleasure of knowing I still think about him.

Cigarettes Will Kill You

2010-04-29T12:30:00.004+10:00

It turned 25 on Wednesday. I always said I'd quit smoking by the time I was 25, because when I was a teenager I thought it was the kind of age you'd get married and have babies at. I find that hysterical now - it's so weird to think that 16 year old Bella had such a warped idea of what 25 year old Bella's life would be like. Makes me wonder what totally off-the-mark ideas I've got about being 35.

Actually, I don't know why I'm surprised - 18 year old Bella thought getting her own name tattooed in the tramp stamp position was a super idea.

PS. I quit smoking 5 months ago. Just in case you were wondering x

Roller Derby Saved My Soul (But Not My Shitty Self Image)

2010-04-26T22:39:00.007+10:00

Being injured has really fucked with my body image. It didn't take long into the ten weeks I spent off-skates to start feeling like a fat lump. I was really starting to hate my body again for the first time in years, but I knew that it was just a mind trick - what was really bothering me was not what I looked like, but the way that not exercising made me feel. I knew as soon as I could return to derby I'd feel fine again.

Or so I thought. I've been back on skates for about a month now. I train for 3 hours a pop, 3 times a week. I've joined the gym and started working out on the days I don't train. And I still feel fat. I've become reacquianted with that panicky feeling I knew so well for at least a decacde before I found derby. It's that desperate need to have some kind of plan to get skinny. That voice in my head says maybe if you stop eating sugar you'll drop some weight. Or what if you started counting calories again?. And then just eat that apple pie now and you can decide what you're going to do about your weight tomorrow.

I'm not a dieter. I will never be a dieter. I eat because I'm happy, I eat because I'm sad, I eat because I'm bored. Hunger rarely comes into it. I've also never been a naturally skinny girl. I've always been curves, hips, tits, and I have almost exactly the same figure as my mother, which tells me that this is what I'm meant to look like. But that urge to be a size 10 doesn't know anything about logic or reason.

I'm a feminist. I'm the girl who snubs the way society tells me I have to look, who doesn't shave or wear make-up, who is turned on by people who don't look like Cosmo says they're meant to. I am the girl who writes articles about how roller derby saved me from hating my body and tells all of her friends that finding a form of exercise they truly love beats dieting any day. So why do I feel like this again?

There is a little, sensible voice somewhere buried deep under a lot of negativity that tells me loving myself the way I am will feel a million times better than losing weight ever will. I wish I could find a way to make that voice louder.

Fuck Youuuuu, State Government

2010-04-23T13:12:00.004+10:00

Apparently those $650 per semester payments to help full-time tertiary students with their expenses are only for university students. Clearly those of us who study full-time at TAFE don't have expenses.

Me and my last 15 cents are going to go and cry in a corner now.

Things That Make My Little Heart Want To Explode With Joy, By Bella, Age 24

2010-04-21T16:31:00.007+10:00

Dancing around my kitchen to 'We No Speak Americano' by Yolanda Be Cool and Dcup. I love that song almost as much as I love the completely polarised opinions everyone has on it.
Riding my bike down Royal Parade in this gloriously unseasonal summer weather we're having, while the trees do their autumn* thing and yellow leaves flutter down around me.
Making a curry and having the bits of potato actually cook all the way through. This normally never happens. It happened today. It was so good I ate lunch twice.
Getting a whole bunch of freelance writing work and feeling like I'm finally doing what I'm meant to be doing. And that I'm awesome at it. Yee-hah.
'Fader' by The Temper Trap. It takes me straight back to the summer I was 15 in the same way the New Radicals 'Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too'** does. Except I actually was listening to the New Radicals the summer I was 15, and obviously that Temper Trap song didn't exist in my world until about a month ago, so I'm not really sure how it manages to evoke that exact time and place but it does AND I LOVE IT.
The way I keep falling in love with the same person over and over and more and more. I didn't even know that was possible. Fucking delightful.

* In Year 2, Mrs Matthews gave me detention for not correcting my misspelling of the word 'autumn'. I just assumed it was her mistake, because why the hell would there be an 'N' on the end? I still remember this vividly every time I see the word. Mrs Matthews was a cunt.

** Probably the only album I thought was awesome at 15 that I still think is just as awesome now.

Writing, The Universe, & Purple Hair

2010-04-16T15:41:00.005+10:00

The last couple of days I'd been thinking about throwing in the towel on this writing business and getting a real job like people rapidly approaching their 25th birthday should. I'd been feeling pretty down about my a) talent b) ability to motivate myself c) mounting pile o' rejections and d) the sad state of my bank account. Then yesterday I got an email from a magazine I submitted to ages ago asking me to write a piece for them. I hadn't heard back from them in so long that I assumed they didn't like my stuff, but apparently not. It's funny how the universe sends you a sign just when you need it. I don't even know if I believe in the universe sending signs (that sounds like something my dad's third wife would be into, along with Reiki and crystal healing) but yeah, the timing couldn't have been better.

I'm starting to realise that novel writing is not for me. I need constant deadlines and the satisfaction of seeing my words in print and new challenges every week. Sitting around for months upon years, trying to find the motivation to love the same characters over and over is not something I have the patience for at this point in my life. I am going to finish my YA novel, because it's what I set this year aside for and I think seeing the project through to the end will be good for me, but I'll be happy when this year is over and I can start focussing on journalism again.

I am going to go and celebrate my new outlook on this process of putting words together by dying my hair pastel purple and making myself just that little bit more unemployable.

Holy Money Holy Love

2010-04-14T23:27:00.001+10:00

I want to do something meaningful with my life and I want to live comfortably and I want to have the finances to do the things I love and I never want to waste my life working a job I hate. Surely there's a way of doing all of that at the same time.

Down & Out In Brunswick South

2010-04-14T19:01:00.000+10:00

I'm poor. Really, truly dirt poor. I was living on the bones of my ass and holding out for pay day, then pay day came and I paid all of the bills and now I'm exactly where I was yesterday, except that pay day is 2 weeks away now. Tonight I'm going skip dipping out of necessity rather than novelty. I think it's time to suck it up and look for a new job.

Right now I'm waiting for my favourite person to stroll through my front door and into my room and whisk me away to Lentil, where we will talk about our day, and do all of that mushy gazing into each other's eyes shit, and eat a Highly Excellent Dinner for people with finance issues. My favourite person is to me what a poncho is to Vince Noir. And that kind of makes being several kilometres below the poverty line seem okay.

So Give Me Coffee & TV

2010-04-12T22:47:00.000+10:00

Every time I go to Geelong or Ballarat I fantasise about packing up my life here and getting a sweet little house out in the country with my girlfriend and some cats. I'd spend all my time skating and writing and being a most excellent house frau.

2010-04-12T13:54:00.000+10:00

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Hazy Shade Of Winter

2010-04-12T12:07:00.000+10:00

It's cold today, proper cold for the first time this year. It's taken longer than usual this time, but it always happens without fail - April comes and it's freezing and I think that my Perth bones can't possibly handle weather any colder than this. And then real winter hits and I grit my teeth and hole up with a hot water bottle and a space heater for the next 3 months.

I don't do well in winter. I don't like cold weather and I don't like the lack of sunlight. All of my favourite memories are of long, hot summers - Perth summers where James and I would stay up all night playing old Lucas Arts computer games and making Mexican food for dinner at 8am in the morning and sleeping all day. The summer I first moved to Melbourne, when Natty and Thomas and I partied like it was 1999 and went to a New Year's Eve party at some rich girl's house and ate hash cookies and floated about fully clothed in her pool. The summer where I was between houses and I'd stay with Coma and Eddie and we'd go to Port Melbourne beach every day to 'throw the tennis ball around' and go on missions looking for Wayne Carey's house and I would send ridiculously long daily emails to a girl I liked and make Coma read and re-read her replies for hidden meaning.

Winter has always been for the relationships that probably should never have happened, for hiding in an enormous tweed coat because I couldn't stand anyone looking at my body, for working graveyard shifts to avoid having to leave my bed in the mornings. It's funny, I've been talking about moving to London when I finish my diploma a lot lately and I have to wonder why someone like me wants to keep relocating herself somewhere darker and colder.