About this sort of time, since 2005

So, I've been keeping this blog since 2005! Can you believe that? Maybe I should have a five year anniversary party for myself next year. It should have a theme. Do you have any ideas for the theme? Please suggest me some, maybe in the comments. Themes are AWESOME.

This is what I posted here about this time (give or take a few days) every year since 2005:

• 2005: "In Which Sarah Meditates Upon The Role Of The Kangaroo In Australian Society"

I was in Adelaide, with only a few days until I left for the West Coast road trip (which was fab). I had a great meal. I spoke about a song I'd made up while having a bad trip and driving through the Adelaide hills.

• 2006: "Suspend the Bitching"

I was in Wellington, I was working at Fuel and making coffee. Caffeine and sunshine had made me relentlessly cheerful.

• 2007: "Old Bill's Bach"

I was leaving for the weekend with Victoria (now in Europe somewhere), Ange (now shacked up deep in the heart of Newlands) and Bex (who is just as gorgeous as ever). Those were fun times. I'd like to do it again.

• 2008: "Who? What?"

A list with the craftiness! And the ranting! And a picture from a French New Wave movie!

Wow. I was in Australia such a long time ago now, and my "few months of getting myself together" has turned into "a few years of settling down". It's a bit scary.

EDIT: Bex can't post comments when she's at work, but she emailed me and it MUST be shared...

I think that your celebratory blog anniversary should have a SCP-theme, so that all guests must dress up as a direct reference to one particular post. Possibilities could include a kangaroo, Anais Nin, a derby girl, a moustache (or a moustachioed individual, Dirty Sanchez or similar), Dr. Robert Ersek, your mother, Agatha Christie, Guyana Girl, Edith Piaf, a cupcake, a peggy square and a grieving mime.

Wednesday list - staple products for beautification

As a permanently broke person with rosacea who is constantly showering in the evenings, I've developed a very specific set of needs when it comes to my beautification products. It has to be fast, practical, and enhance the look of "rough and ready grace" that has taken me years of studenthood/lack of money to achieve. May I share with you some lady tips?

Trilogy rosehip oil. It's made by local ladies you know, and is completely natural.  It lasts for ages and is super extra good for helping scarred skin to heal (an issue after the hell rosacea breakouts of my early twenties). I like to use it in the evening before going to bed. I get to wake up a Princess!

"Lanolin-Agg-Tval" Swedish egg white soap. So this is some kind of wonder product, and is apparently the beauty secret of Swedish Women. All of them. It's smells like roses, and comes in a rather pretty blue box. The idea is that you can use it as a face pack, lather it up and smear it on your face and leave it for about five minutes. When you wash it off: TADA! Pink and white skin. I also just use it as regular soap and it's so gentle on my skin I just ADORE IT. I've never seen it in a New Zealand store, but I've just ordered a whole bunch of bars of Amazon and I recommend it. Really. 

Sunset styling lotion. After roller skating in the evening, I need to wash my hair. Because it smells like a stinky helmet and is greasy from sweat. But then I'm all tired, and I want to go to bed, and I have to fuck around getting the hair dry and I know that the next morning I'm going to wake up with a flat place on one side of my head and a crest on the other. ENTER: Sunset Styling Lotion. It's supposed to know what you want your hair to do and will set it overnight while you sleep. Too good to be true? I thought so (I was given it as part of a Farmers Card promotion) but since I've been using it As Directed, my hair actually looks less like a non-deliberate rats nest in the morning, and more like the tousled devil-may-care style I seek to emulate.

hair resort. People. This is the ultimate answer to devil-may-care hair. It's  designed to make clean hair look as though it's full of sea salt! (This does make sense, really). I think it has bamboo in it. It's the most expensive hair product I buy but it has awesome power and I can't recommend it strongly enough. Scrunch and go=whoop huzzah etc.

Have anything to share (especially in the realm of rosacea-care)? Please do! xox

What I have been reading

Once again, a weird combination of books - one extreme to the other I must say. On the other hand, a distinct lack of non-fiction in this group... not to say that I haven't been reading non-fiction, just that I haven't finished any in say, the last two weeks or so. I just wanted to indulge myself in the world of not-here, you know? Also I should note that there could be spoilers here. I'm not very good at working out whether I've written a spoiler or not I'm afraid.

I finished Barbara Erskine's Daughters of Fire about a week ago now. The book was leant to me by my mother and as a result when I picked it up I was ready for a little trashy indulgence, a little bodice-ripping, and some general escapism. "Ooh yeah!" I said "Bring on the indulgent trash!"

As in all of the Erskine books I have read, the story hinges on supernatural possession by a strong female figure from England's past. In this book it's the Celtic warrior queen Cartimandua. An historian writes a book about the queen and is then possessed by her spirit through the medium of an Iron Age brooch called the Cartimandua Pin. Two other people are possessed by other figures from the Cartimandua story as a result of handling the Evil Pin. Everyone hangs out in Iron Age forts and the country and two people try to record a radio play and the historian's boss isn't impressed by the main historian character's historical methods (understandably) but really he's just misguided and secretly in love with her but can't work it out because she was best friends with his wife who died of cancer.  A student has a crush on the main historian and takes her home to meet his mum who turns out to be a nutter. Some of the people from the past who are possessing the future-people are evil. Some are just misguided, and desperate to tell their true story (although why they waited almost 2,000 years I have no idea).

I wasn't expecting an work of high art, but I was disappointed nonetheless. I became unbelievably frustrated as the story constantly repeated itself and some serious editing wouldn't have gone astray/ It rather seemed as though the author desperately wanted to write a story about Cartimandua but had got stuck in a weird thing where she didn't feel as though she could just commit to writing a historical romance and was padding out the bits she really wanted to write with some "present day conflict". Furthermore, there was very little bodice-ripping, and a little more wouldn't have gone astray during some of the more tedious inter-possession scenes. I mean, really, write for your audience. I couldn't recommend this book to anyone with a clean conscience. Kids, don't do it.

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And this morning, I've finished Hodd by Alan Thorpe. This was a library book, so I was reading against the clock (also it was stupid heavy to carry around in my bag and I was over the shoulder pain).

In Hodd, Adam Thorpe is essentially offering a reconstruction of the Robin Hood story. The text itself is posited as a rediscovered post-World War I printers proof of a translation of a badly copied medieval Latin text (so: a text within a text within a text). Something po-mo is going on here. I would draw some superficial parallels with Coetzee's Foe, but I'm afraid I would expose the fact I haven't read Foe for sometime now and the comparisons would be very superficial indeed.

The main character is the nameless Author, and the text is the Author's written confession. The main part of this confession is the Author's involvement with Robert Hod's (Robin Hood's) gang, the violence and heresy that he participated in, and his attempts to expose these aspects of the myth - the twist being that his involvement (as a minstrel) was what perpetuated the Robin Hood "jolly-jolly fighting for the Poor" myth in the first place.

I love stories about myth construction and myth-origin and as a result, I was biased towards this book from the start. However, despite it's cleverness it was genuinely interesting. The writer's attention to historical detail was so complete that it didn't come off as belaboured at all - and in terms of writing with a historical bent I think that's deeply admirable. READ IT, DARLINGS. Unless you really hate footnotes.

Another day, another anxious

buster keaton on a bicycle has nothing to do with this post

I’m procrastinating again (again), but I’m afraid that it can’t be helped. It’s just one of Those Days. I spoke about my Feelings this morning to the person who the Feelings were in regards to, and that always throws me out. I know it’s good to say the things you Feel but my words become horribly awkward and I kind of feel as though I’m squeezing them out through a hole that is far too small for them to fit through; like a tiny blocked valve. And then, immediately after I have expressed my Feelings, I feel as though I’ve fucked up absolutely everything and I want to grab them all and stuff them back into my mouth as quickly as possible (which suddenly seems like a horrendously wide, gaping mouth of stupidity and quelle horreur).

The tearfulness and the herbal sedatives and then working in front of this computer have combined to give me a combination head/eye ache that is absolutely the grossest. Its increasingly apparent that I need new glasses which is kind of an exciting adventure, but mostly an economic pain in the arse.

Nat is looking after me tonight with wine and common sense. She’s lovely and I’ve known her for almost fifteen years! That is a long time to know someone – more than half my life. It’s very nice to know someone for a long time I think.

Tyre says BLAM! and not in a good way

So, this morning I had a puncture on the way to work. This is my first puncture ever and it makes me very sad that my poor velo is out of action.

I was riding along, my head was in a happy place, I was loving the sunshine and thinking about eating well tonight...

And suddenly I was finding that riding was rather noisy, and the bicycle was very hard to pedal.

I climbed off the bicycle and looked at the back wheel because I thought it sounded as though there was something trapped in the spokes.

Nothing trapped in the spokes.

I climbed back on the velo and rode a little further along the road and then I had a light bulb moment and realised that I must have a puncture. And not just a puncture! Further examination indicated that the back tyre was, in fact, COMPLETELY FLAT and the inner tube must have popped spectacularly to have deflated so quickly. A flat tyre is a very very sad thing my lovelies. The saddest.

I pushed the bicycle the rest of the way to work and it made sad squeaky noises all the way.