Thank you for reading.

Hello. My name is Ash. I am 23 years old. I am a paediatric physiotherapist.  I like sweet potato. Today a man came and put new light bulbs in my house and they hurt my eyes. The hairdresser put a steam globe over my head and it made my eyelashes stick together. I have a new old hat and some sweet shoulderpads. Thank you for reading.

ADDITION: can someone bring me some lollies plz.

EXTRA ADDITION: it’s ok, I went and got some from the petrol station.

Officially a Physio.

I have graduated, after working full time as a physio for 4 months. It’s sort of an anticlimax. This is Alesha and me- she told me to blog about her.
THERE YOU GO LESH.

What WAS exciting was finding out I got onto the Dean’s Honour List, for being in the top 5% of all La Trobe University graduates for 2010. HOORAYYYY.

I got a headache today, because I couldn’t move my head and crack my neck because of those stupid caps you have to wear.

In other news, 40 days left.

Who reads this??

Lomo LC-A+

I’m getting from 100-250 views a day, and about 10-15 people have commented on my blog, total. I’m really curious as to who the other people are who are following my outbursts of bullshit and creativity. If you follow my blog regularly, could you comment this blog? I’m just really curious as to who the other 100 people are. I’m sure they’re not a different hundred every day.

I’m off to Melbourne now, to see my lovely friends, drop one particularly lovely friend off at the airport, do an NDT course, work at the hospital and go to Kerry’s “High Tea” birthday party. I’ll be back Sunday, with photos.

My Diana Mini has been held up in postage apparently, but I’m saving the Velvia and Sensia for it. Agfa attack this weekend. Book to read on the train this week- Albert Camus, “The Plague.”

69 days.

I want to live here.

And I could paint, and draw, and write, and not be bothered by anyone. We would have each other, and wouldn’t need anything else. Fill our cottage with art and music and words. I’d have a step-through bike with a basket, and go and get fresh vegetables in the morning. We wouldn’t have a TV, because there is so much to see and create. Lazy mornings with an endless teapot and books and blankets. Someone please, send me there.

[no idea where this picture is from, sorry to whoever I should credit.]

Steam.

[please note, this was written a long time ago. jamie and i are as sickly happy as ever. in other news I GOT A TYPEWRITER!!!]

Cage

Study sciences. Study specialist math. Study languages. Dux your highschool. Get into a course that requires a 96. Get high enough grades to be accepted into the academic society. Don’t do drugs. Don’t smoke. Don’t have sex. Graduate. Get a good job. Mingle. Don’t get tattoos in places that show. Smile at patronising people. Go to clubs. Wear colours. Eat 3 meals. Take out your piercings. Don’t waste your time on things people don’t understand. Date guys who don’t waste their time on art and music or smoke or look weird. Work full time. Hide your dreams because they are ridiculous and make people look at you with disappointment and confusion. Become a grade 2, a grade 3. Do a masters. Do a PhD. Open a clinic. Get married to someone with a successful career who doesn’t waste their time on art or music or smoke or look weird. Have children. Own a house. Get an investment property. Go to SE Asia for holidays. Read Twilight. Read Harry Potter. Read the Bible. Watch current affairs shows about neighbours from hell. Listen to Fox. Listen to NOVA. Believe in God. Don’t get angry. Don’t criticise. Be organised. Be tolerant.  Be a success. Choose reason over love.

Be what you SHOULD be.

I just re-read this, and realised it’s sort of like the opening to “trainspotting”. It’s not. It’s my frustration. I hate society, and its expectations. I want to escape.

an antisocial commentary.

[THE FOLLOWING IS A SMALL EXCERPT OF A LONGER PIECE I AM WORKING ON]

He opened the black moleskine and printed the words in lower-case.

“antisocial commentary.

she has the lyrics of “meat is murder” meticulously and illegibly scrawled onto her forearm with a sharpie. she smokes pink elephants halfway down and stifles her gagging with san pellegrino. she hopes to find someone here she can be dependent upon but they must have wealth and taste and culture and street cred and tattoos of obscure concepts in obvious places. in her mind he sees her across the room, she glances and does a walt-disney-esque bat of the eyelids and he is instantly hers. he takes her to his sharehouse in the inner northern suburbs and puts a hat on the doorknob to prevent the seven housemates wandering in while he has her bent over a cardboard cutout of the great robert zimmerman and watches himself in the mirror. they smoke a joint afterwards and ash into a plastic water bottle. he offers her some food knowing that there is none, and knowing she will decline because she looks like she has never eaten. he is bored and wants her to leave immediately. she is complete and has her life with him planned out. he’s gotten his load off and so has the guy in the bedroom next door. “

Where is Dick? Dick is Rick.

Today I bought my little sister her own copies of the “The Faraway Tree” series by Enid Blyton. Tonight, we sat down and she read me the first two chapters. I WAS SHOCKED AND APPALLED.

Not at my sister’s reading ability, or the actual story, but the names of the characters have been changed!!! MY BELOVED DICK AND FANNY NO LONGER EXIST!!!!

These are changes I am aware of-

• “Dick” has now been replaced with “Rick”  (Due to the obvious slang association).
• “Fanny” is now “Frannie”. Dear God. We all know why this is.
• “Jo” is now “Joe”- because apparently Jo is a girl’s name now.
• “Bessie” is now “Beth”. That is just pointless.
• “Dame Slap” – who used to use corporal punishment on naughty children is now “Dame Snap”, and she simply yells at people. I’m guessing this was to avoid promoting corporal punishment.
• Instead of saying things like “Good gracious!” , “I say!” and “Why, it’s simply ENORMOUS!” Joe now just says “Wow” a lot. That makes me want to kill myself.
• Mother packs the children doughnuts in the new version. In the old version, they got sandwiches, chocolate cake and apples, and it’s quite likely that doughnuts didn’t even exist.
• Instead of looking “fine” dressed as a clown, Fanny (Frannie) now looks “the real thing.” SPEW

This is political correctness gone mad. The book has lost so much of its charm, and I’m sure Enid Blyton would be rolling in her grave. I’m sure there are other changes, if you know of any, please let me know so I can add them.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Perhaps if I stop thinking, it will stop counting.

 

 

I feel somewhat like a zombie today. I speak to people, and look them in the eye, but I’m not really looking. I look beyond their faces, through distance, and through them. My mind is somewhere entirely different. I don’t exist here. Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I like it. Maybe I’m just talking shit.

I’ve started to read again. Today I wandered around Hobart and bought the works of Oscar Wilde, Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, A Short History of the World by H.G Wells and the poems of T.S Eliot. Yesterday I read Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut. I can’t stop, and I haven’t felt like this since I was about 13, and had to go to the optometrist because I was “over-reading.” I’d read all of Dickens by the age of 12.

I didn’t read, at all, my entire way through university. I guess this is because I would read about the anatomy of the cerebrum, then about the cause of Parkinson’s disease, then about research methods, then about what ever who-gives-a-fuck topic they gave me next. I hated reading, and I hated books.

I’m excited by this newfound love I have. Let’s hope it lasts, because I’d love to regain my vocabulary.

I also nabbed four (1 year)  expired Agfa 200 films for $4 each, a 200 fuji slide expired by a year, and 6 month out-of-date fuji chrome 100. I’m going to save them for the new Diana mini I’ll be picking up as soon as I get back to Melbourne.

I got an LC-A+ film developed today, but I can’t scan any until I get back from Tassie. It was a 400, and the photos aren’t particularly interesting, but there are a couple of good ones of friends.

I’m sitting in a Library, and there is a timer in the corner. I have 14 minutes. Perhaps if I stop thinking, it will stop counting.

Stained glass novels.

I despise organised religion. However, I find some of its creations stunningly beautiful.

I decided this morning to write a novel. I don’t care if no one reads it. It will say what I want it to say. So far, I have an idea, a protagonist and an ending. I’m fairly sure the rest is just filler.

Stay tuned for excerpts!

I want a typewriter.

Does anyone have a typewriter they want to get rid of or sell for cheap? I’m fair broke, and all the ones on ebay are going for up near $100. I could pick up from Ballarat, Geelong, Melbourne or Bendigo. It would have to be in working order, of course, and I don’t really want an electronic one. Thanks! Tell your friends! Tell your friends’ friends!

INDEPENDENCE.

I’m writing this whilst sitting on my brand new black leather couch, in the gorgeous little minors cottage I am now the occupant of. It’s a beautiful night, the sort of Aussie summer night where you open the doors to the house to let the breeze in, whilst slathered in Aeroguard and armed with a can of Mortein. I have a Diet Coke with ice, I’m playing Portishead, I have a new, considerably higher income from a job I so far adore, and I HAVE INDEPENDENCE!!!

You would think that in my situation I would be content. The truth, however, is that I am far from it.

I am in love with someone who lives a mere 24 hour flight away. Sitting here, the silence isn’t soothing, but a deafening reminder of the fact that he isn’t here with me. I feel like my life is on hold, like everything I am doing up until I see him again is just filling in time.

Today, I filled my bookcase, and subconsciously put Ginsberg, Wordsworth and Kerouac on the top shelf, because they are our favourites. I placed a photo of London by my bed. Our scrapbook went straight onto the coffee table, and his T shirt into the top drawer of my bedside table. I thought about where he would put his clothes, and whether we would both fit on the couch.

I have never felt like part of me is missing, like I do right now. I feel incomplete, even lost. I wish I could drop everything and jump on a plane tomorrow. I know I’m not brave enough.

So I will sit and think and set up my drumkit, drink far too many diet-friendly carcinogens and go to bed wishing I was somewhere else.

This sucks.