A winter's worth of sweater dresses

Knits have a reputation for being truly terrifying to sew. A sewist who is mostly self-taught, I lurched into knits before I had much of an idea of what I was doing, had a series of not terribly successful experiences and effectively gave up trying to sew stretchy things for about ten years.

However since late last year, I've been upping my game by taking a few classes and learning some of the skills that had passed me by.  Mostly I've been concentrating on classes that will give me the skills and confidence to sew my own knit tops and dresses (and eventually, pants) because:

1. comfort is awesome; and
2. stretchy waistbands rock my world.

The first class I took was specifically about sewing knits on your sewing machine (rather than an overlocker). I learnt some handy techniques and useful guidelines - like what kind of needle to use and what stitch will stretch with the fabric (see how much I was flailing around in the past?) I also learnt, after 31 years of being alive and never noticing before, that I had a sway back! What a surprise that was.

I took the second class at the beginning of this year. After running my overlocker for almost the entire time I have been sewing, I finally admitted that I had very little idea what I was doing and signed up for a beginner’s overlocker class. I was allowed to bring my machine with me, but the teacher asked that I get it serviced - and it turned out that it needed a new knife and A LOT of love before it was up and running in the way that it should .

Side note: Get your machines serviced regularly. I am just AMAZED at how much easier my overlocker is to use now that it’s been serviced.

Thus equipped with a functioning overlocker and new found twin needle/lightning-stitching abilities, I have been a virtually unstoppable sewist of knits - to the extend that I made my own sensible merino tops for winter.

I also branched out into making sweater dresses, which I LOVE and yet have rarely had the chance to wear. I think because there never seems to be any around that are really that flattering on me? I don’t know.

The first sweater dress I made is in a black flecked merino sweat-shirting. I used the Colette Laurel pattern which is actually designed for wovens. This meant (of course) that the frock came out quite a bit bigger than it needed to be - so after wearing it a couple of times, and being annoyed by how huge it was I had to take it in.

My adjustment was pretty much a hack job - I just ran my overlocker along the back seam where the zip was, cutting it out entirely and taking in the dress a few centimetres. There's enough stretch in the fabric to allow me to pull it over my head, no additional fasteners required.


My second dress used Tilly’s Coco dress pattern which is designed for knits - the fabric is, again, a merino sweat-shirting (this time with a deliciously flocked back, so cosy).

I am VERY into this fabric; I was eyeing it up at The Fabric Store for ages before I took the plunge as it was quite expensive, but NO REGRETS guys, I am totally in love.

I think I look adorably Seventies in it, I wear it with a white wooden bead necklace and black stockings with white polka dots, and I think I look pretty snazzy when I’m wearing it.


The final dress is in a woollen knit fabric with a polyamide percentage and is quite a stretchy knit, unlike the other two dresses. I used a free pattern for a kimono sleeved fitted dress.


I’m not as in love with this as much as the other two as I don’t think it’s a super flattering style on me and I don’t think that I’d bother to use that pattern again. The sleeves underarms weren’t really cut high enough (although that’s an easy fix) and I should have stay-stitched the neckline because it stretched out while I was sewing (hence the button). If I was to throw caution to the wind and re-use the pattern, I would probably re-draft the neckline to a boat neck.

Hey also, while I was sewing this dress, I had one of those gloriously awesome moments where you accidentally sew part of the garment to the centre of the piece you’re working on - EXCEPT I WAS USING AN OVERLOCKER AND CUT A HUGE HOLE. Luckily I had enough to cut the piece for a second time but honestly - it just goes to show what a bad idea it is to sew when ridiculously tired.

So, yes, knit dresses are the best! I am proud of my sewing skills and I am loving going to work in a dress that wears like an oversized jumper.

---

Brief life note

Guys, I'm a little bit disturbed about my level of obsession with that new Taylor Swift song. It’s the first of hers that I've ever listened to in any capacity and I'm thrashing it in my headphones and having private dance parties in the kitchen at work.

I have also had a cold for all this week and I am exhausted tonight - I kept pretending that I wasn't sick and good to do whatever but it looks like that has pretty much worked against me in the long term. *coughs pitifully*

Interesting Times - a wedding

In my last attempt to blog I made mysterious noises about the Interesting Times and how the Interesting Times have been interfering with my blogging time/inclination. Essentially, what it comes down to is that I was rather thinly stretched between making a bolero for Nat for her wedding, getting my stuff sorted to go away for the wedding (think, primping myself so that I was suitable to wheel out as a bridesmaid) AND also packing my stuff (so much stuff) before Shannon and I moved house. Oh, and also I had to read something for book club. I got to a point where all my spare time was taken up with doing Very Important Things. Or being lazy after all the important things I had been doing.

Anyways, enough with the bemoaning already. Let me tell you about the wedding! Natalie and Mark were both totes gorgeous and I could have bitten them both. Shannon wore a suit. It was the first time I'd seen him in a suit and it was a rental and it was slightly too big, so all in all it was a bit of a disappointment insofar as seeing your boyf in a suit goes. I am prepared however to scratch the mental image and start again so that the next time I see him in a suit it will be a beautiful tailor made suit, and that will be the first suit I've ever seen him in. Sounds like a good compromise to me.

I'm the one with the glasses on.

The bolero I was knitting for Nat? - I completely screwed it up in the end. I kid you not, I was knitting like a demon in the last week before the wedding (I was knitting at Webstock) and when I went to block it out and sew it all together I discovered what a complete mess I'd made of the entire thing.

Here I am, knitting at Webstock (count six people back) - this image from the Webstock 2012 Flickr stream

It was literally about four sizes too big and somehow, I'd knitted one of the front panels much longer than the other. Did I mention that I discovered this balls up two nights before the wedding, and that the thing had taken me the best part of six months to knit? I couldn't do anything with it except frog the lot and start again from scratch. It was one of those moments where one feels suddenly, spectacularly, unreliable, and awful and pathetic.

Imagine: I had to call Nat with my tail between my legs and admit that I'd made a horrible hash of her wedding bolero and that she was actually going to freeze on the night of her wedding. Could she ever forgive me? And, because she is awesome, she totally could, and told me to stop worrying. What a wonderful woman! What a spectacularly blessed friend I am!

Two valuable lessons: one, Nat rocks my world. Two, always always knit a swatch. I have unravelled the lot to reknit, and am knitting a swatch now.

The wedding itself was super great: amazing food, fabulous venue (maitre'd was pretty much the most awesome man ever), great wine. The photographer was a crack up. Anna, who Nat and I also went to high school with, was the other bridesmaid and guided me in my duties as maid of honour. I wasn't that good at all, as in, every time I tried to reapply Nat's lipstick I kind of just smudged it more over her face? Anna is good at applying lipstick though. Yay Anna!

Here is some bride and groom action for you:

Also good about Martinborough: when I was hung over the next day I ate a croque madame with extra bacon and felt a million times better. Wedding/bacon/cheese sauce/sunshine = perfect weekend. Yuss.

 

Sporegate 2010: In which Ginger commits a spore-based faux pas

Image credit.
 I can't see a hairy high top here. It's possible they're actually called "Ink Cap".

I live with three other people - the Boy (Shannon),  a woman named Jo and a man named James. Every one I live with is super cool, so I'm pretty lucky in that regard. James is especially eccentric, spends about 90% of his non-working  week at his girlfriend's house or at his studio, and when at the flat is usually gardening, brewing something bizarre, cooking something he's foraged for, or practicing charcuterie.

Anyways, I haven't seen James really since last Sunday when he came back from a trip down South with his family. He rushed into the house while Jo, Shannon and I were eating dinner and he was very excited because he'd found an edible mushroom in Frank Kitts Park that was called a hairy high top (or something like that. Not sure of the name now). It was a big mushroom, but I was a bit doubtful about it's edible nature which wasn't a big issue as right then I needed to go to bed in a huff because of a pre dinner mop-based bickering/snapping session I'd had with Shannon. I had no interest in hairy high tops when my mop-putting-away abilities had recently had such aspersions cast upon them.

James and hairy high tops have been notably absent for the last few days and I have been in a rather intolerant, snippy sort of mood for the last couple of weeks, so this morning when I saw that James had been painting and using one of my beautiful Crown Lynn plates as a dish to mix his paints on, I huffily rinsed it off and put it in the dishwasher. I really had no intention of broaching the subject with him because 1. I am terrible at any kind of communication/confrontation in this regard, and 2. I figured he'd just vagued out, forgotten that he'd even started mixing it, and that it would sit on the deck for the next few days until somebody else moved it anyway.

OH NO I WAS SO WRONG. It turns out that this dish was not just covered in drying out black acrylics or ink! In actual fact it was hairy high top spores that James is using to make some kind of art type thing! We had a spectacular passive-aggressive off in the kitchen, where I told him NOT to use my plates to mix his art supplies on, he told me he had no idea what Crown Lynn plates even looked like, and that the material I'd biffed without a second thought was his spores. After my self righteousness had worn off I felt terrible knowing that I'd washed his spores down the drain. And then annoyed that I felt so bad. But: Can you believe that I could be so heartless? I need to apologise to him. But he's left the house in a huff and I'm not sure when I'll see him again. And then I'm like - "ugh but my plates are so precious to me!" But then I think - "oh but people are more important than things" and "I should try and be more tolerant/communicative".

I told Shannon all this on the way to the bottle shop and he laughed on and off the whole time we were shopping for beer and all the way home. For I know he could be chuckling away in his bedroom as we speak.

Live Blogging Friday

I'm still cataloguing at work which means I am in a little room by myself, instead of a large open plan office with many other people including my boss. YUSSS.

• 9.07am; I have caught up with my blog reading (Master Of Arts is fantastic as per usual - finally read Bea's Fyodor page and just about wet myself laughing). I have also talked to hungover workmate Rachel about burlesque choreography and felt sorry for myself for my extreme and self inflicted exhaustion. About to begin work.
• 9.17am; cataloguing game show The Rich List. Can you believe that a team of two people couldn't name six films on which Peter Jackson was credited as director? They didn't name any Lord of the Rings films. I'm like "OMG, haven't you been in NZ and completely thrashed by the hype over the last 10 years? Jeebers. Honestly." You may be surprised to know that the people inside the television were rather reticent on this matter.
• 9.43am; watching the School of Success and wondering how intellectually open I am. Apparently training oneself to be intellectually open is tantamount to creating one's own luck. Hm.
• 9.55am; mysterious missing uncatalogued film item. Not my fault, excellent.
• 10:15am; film found, put away in wrong place.
• 10.26am; 3D portraits are SO tacky. Middle New Zealand waves the Flag of Bad Taste once again.
• 11:21am; I've completed a whole bunch of random non-work related but pressing things (accountant's bill, addendum to tenancy agreement, email Bex about the weekend). The School of Success programme has given a zest for time management and general achievieness. Also I have chatted with Boy via internet. Somewhat more procrastinatory.
• 11.37am; what have I done with my swipe card?
• 11.40am; I was wearing it all along. I just spent three minutes looking for it and it was around my neck the whole time. Thank GOD I didn't ask anyone if they'd seen it. WHAT a dork. Too much coffee I think. Feeling stupid jittery.
• 11:51am; I totally need to shave my armpits.
• 12.40pm; am done with the School of Success. Lunchtime.... have spent the last few minutes trying to work out all my budgeting/debt etc on Sorted. This is somewhat depressing. However, I'm maintaining that the more information I have, the more power I have over my financial situation. I am TERRIBLE with money. Erp.
• 1.30pm; inadvertently spent too long at lunch. MUST WORK HARD NOW. [Ooh, Wikipedia article just came through, and its about music in Atlanta, Georgia! I never knew I wanted to know about that...]
• 2.33pm; I want a Worm Farm.
• 3.09pm; Kees Meeuws comes across very well in this documentary, funny. And kind of cute in a puppy way (rather than in a Lusty sort of way).
• 3.20pm; obviously I'm very tired, I'm being "moved" by Ans Westra photographs. Beautiful as they are, I've never felt the urge to cry over them before.
• 3.26pm; whoah, just saw Ruud Kleinpaste half naked and painted up to look like a kea. That may now be tattooed on my brain.
• 4.01pm; so VERY done with cataloguing for the week. Just had an Idiot Situation where I was being a clown and pulling faces and waving my ass around through a glass door at a workmate, only to find out that there was a video camera in the corner of the little foyer I was standing in, and if anyone should look up in the main part of the office they would have seen my little performance. "When being a showpony horribly backfires". Now, time for beer.

Roller Disco Tonight!

And it is actually really happening this time, not like the time when I thought that there was a disco only to discover that I had completely mislead the whole League. How embarrassment! We all rocked up in our finery only to discover... that we had been shamefully misled. We just hung out and harassed two young boys who were riding their skateboards up and down and drinking a dozen cans of Coke.

 

A little self-obsession goes a long way, yes? Trying to look suitably Hollywood glamour. I'm getting ready... five hours early. Hence the hair curlers.

Faux Pas

Last night I made a throwaway comment in reference to a Little Britain skit, or character, and was pulled up for thinking that it was amusing - namely, because it was "clearly woman-hating". And I can't stop thinking about being pulled up like this. I hate being cut down, I can't let it roll off me, I get completely obsessed and roll it over and over in my mind like a pebble in the hand.

The point is perhaps that I've never conceived it as such. I'm talking about the terrible incontinent elderly village woman of series 3 or 4. Not the best of taste, but the discussion was in context (trust me here), and I didn't describe anything. I always thought the joke was less the incontinence itself, but the amount of liquid that streams out of this woman and the fact she never, ever notices, even when the post office is flooding. [Keep in mind there is also an episode where she vomits everywhere as well. And doesn't notice. And vomits copiously].

But maybe Little Britain is a classic example of misogynist comedy? None of the principle woman characters are particularly likeable - on the other hand none of the characters Full Stop are likeable. Isn't that the comedic part - that these people are all so ghastly? Maybe I shouldn't like it at all... but I do so HATE obsessive Political Correctness. So dull, makes terrible comedy. And really, isn't being boring the Ultimate Offense?

cakemeatcakemeatcakemeatcake

Meat in the shape of cake @ blackwidowbakery.com

Cake in the shape of meat @ Culinary Types

An Embarrassing Situation

So, no Roller Disco after all - a hilarious faux pas, arriving in hot pants and fishnet tights to a brightly lit rec centre where there was nothing going, except for two small boys skate boarding and drinking coke. So, the over dressed group of us skated around for little while, raced aforementioned small boys, and then I headed to Emma's birthday drinks... too many vodka soaked aeroplanes and disgusting Louise's husband by my bawdiness I think.

And wonderful super-fresh Blue Cod for second dinner on Sunday night courtesy of the Boy - the first dinner being courtesy of Henry and Crew at his birthday bowl party. Dessert by Julia and Isabel. I had been told a horrific hot-sugar-burn story about same dessert by the Boy... I used to hear a great many hot-sugar-burn stories when I was working in hospo. These stories mostly involved tricking various unsuspecting commis chefs into licking hot sugar spoons and burning their tongues.

This Friday Night Looks Like...

I've exploded all over my room: so much CRAP everywhere it defies belief.

I've found a whole bunch of random music on my hard drive... Can't help wondering where it came from. I don't remember downloading it or ripping it off any discs at any point. Hm, mysterious. At the moment I'm listening to an album called The Wolves, by a group called The Secret Knives; quite enjoying despite it's mysterious origins. Oooh, ooh conspiracy theory: maybe their Thing is cunningly implanting their music into the hard drives of unsuspecting passersby... hence the "Secret" part of their name.

Meanwhile, I'm also attempting to use this muxtape thing, which would be great if it wasn't so freaking temperamental to use. Keeps randomly generating me new user names while I'm uploading songs. Which is weird. Anyway, my plan is to use it and kind of make a soundtrack to my blog, which could potentially be really fun, if the fucking thing worked properly.

Catching the bus home late: Love overhearing the conversations behind me. There was a man and a woman... the woman (or girl really I guess - probably about my age) talked incessantly about - - - Cats. Pedigree cats in fact. She was clearly a Pedigree Cat Enthusiast. Her Gentleman Friend spent the entire journey cooing over her. She talked for most of the journey about how sad it was that one of her favourite cats was already halfway through it's natural life and how cute this one was and how she would get herself and her sycophantic gentleman friend to the Cat Show in the weekend. Just before I had to alight (!) they're conversation had moved on to how she must know what it was like to be a movie star because she was popular at high school, with her own "fan club". Her: "They were only my fans because of the way I looked". Him: "Well, of course." Horrifying and fascinating, they were hilariously awful... their entire conversation was completely lacking in any self awareness or sense of irony.

OH GOD. Cats. Not as a joke. For Real.

I swore I would never wear track pants

Yet I have become unaccountably attached to my Bendon "lounge pants", which are a cross between presentable pyjama pants and presentable track pants. They are so comfy, I dream of them. Suddenly, track pants make so much sense to me; the comfort, the feeling of uninhibited movement, the release from the constraints of tapered pants and/or stockings, the feeling that I can really let it all Hang Out.

Now that I've revised my opinion of trackpants, it's time to challenge my prejudice against ugg boots. I should give them a go! Lots of track-pant-wearing-types also swear by ugg boots, and now that I have become a track-pant-wearing-type, it's time for me to fully embrace my new sub-culture.

In next to no time I could be wearing track pants and ugg boots to the supermarket.

And then to North City Plaza on a Saturday morning after dropping the kids off to rugby/soccer/hockey.

In fact, I could wear this ensemble anywhere where clothes are required. I could wear track pants and ugg boots to work and get changed in the toilets and then get changed back into the track pants and ugg boots before I leave for the day. I could just wear large mumu type things everywhere I went and wear the track pants and ugg boots underneath my mumu. My mumu would be hot pink with large frangipani flowers all over. My ugg boots would be matching pink dyed sheepskin. My trackies would be pink too, because I value matchy-matchy, and nothing says class and style like a matching mumu/ugg boot/track pant outfit.

Mmm. Meow.

In which Sarah discusses the series of uncanny events that characterised the weekend just past

Saturday night: I ran into three or four people I hadn't seen in a very long time (very sweet Mariko and a drunken chat with Rita ex-honours), and was cornered by somebody I'd never met and probably shouldn't have! Yes! Shannon's ex-girlfriend came over to introduce herself and clear the air, because "she wasn't sure what I thought of her you know and she'd seen me around and stuff and she just thought she'd say hi because..." (insert drunken rant here...) I was, of course, paralysed by politeness, and after what felt like an interminably long time was forced to put an end to the conversation by saying how nice it was to meet her and I hope that she had a good evening, before pronouncedly turning my back to her and starting a conversation with Bex who was watching Al's band and standing next to me. Bizarre and awkward situation to say the least. Uncannily, I saw Colin the next day and he reported a similar situation with his boyfriend's ex (ie unsolicited and drunken communication) although his story involved more hollow and violent threats on the part of the ex. So, I'd like to state for the record, that I will not be stalking Andy's new girlfriend when she arrives in NZ and I will not corner her drunkenly anywhere and will not say or do anything to her that could be misconstrued as creepy or stalkerish. She is of no interest to me. Despite her fascinating love of puppies.

Sunday afternoon involved a huge premenstrual/over tired meltdown, walking the streets of Newtown during the fair with tears streaming down my face under my sunglasses because I was Lost! and Alone! and it was like Ruth laughed at me on the phone, and although I know it was just general Derby AGM hysteria, in my premenstrual overtired anxiety spiral paranoid overwrought state it was just enough to send me into torrents of tears which then, of course, become about EVERYTHING ELSE wrong in my life... Josh rang later to tell me he'd left the key on the dining table and was going to Dad's house and when he asked me how my day was I don't think he was listening when I told him that it was fucking dreadful... thus didn't make any comment. He was here when I got home though, so I could bawl my eyes out to him when he gave me a hug. Nice brother.

Tom's face has gone all weird from some kind of temporary palsy that has paralysed him on one side. When I first saw him I thought he'd had a stroke, which was a bit spooky. Also, his scooter was stolen this weekend. Scooter Stealer, a Pox on you and your family for seven generations! Meanwhile Tom looks a lot like Quasimodo but refuses point blank to let me refer to him as such. SO not fair.

Good good day!

Everything's falling into place... super. Lots of achievement at work, feeling much more on to it than I have the last week or so (really, since I've been back). I harassed an elderly Northland woman into showing me her collection and felt really in touch with the retail bitch within. Deliciously pushy.

I can't wait for my flatmates to move out and for Bella to move in. I swear, sometimes I just want to shriek they are SO FREAKING DULL. Dull-ness is THE Cardinal Sin. I think I could excuse nearly everything else, but people who are so wilfully boring... I could be using that patient tolerance, you know? For someone who is more deserving of my patience and tolerance, and would be more appreciative also. Honestly, I really have tried... but in the weekends, when the weather is amazing, and they'd rather sit inside and watch some absolute fucking drivel of an American movie... all the tolerance and the patience in the world is necessarily put to the test.

Dull, dull, DULL.

And the white bread that turns into powdery orange mould before it's used up freaks me out no end.

And they eat canned fish. EWWWWWWW.

And when they "cook" they mix two cans together. And we share food, so I have to partake in the resulting slop.

And when one of them eats anything I make the first thing he does is smother it in tomato sauce, and then he thrusts it between two of the six slice of white papier-mache-esque bread that he eats at every meal.

And he uses metal instruments in the pots and pans and it makes a terrible screeching sound.

And he unplugs the router and decoder all the time so it is always a huge, massive mission to access the internet.

Enough. I was actually having a Super Day before I started on this rant. Now I am hungry for salad and blue cheese. YUM.

Negotiating Social Situations

After running into Shannon on Friday night and feeling the unique feeling of a hand twisting handfuls of my internal organs, very hard, Saturday night social event negotiation occurs. I'm allowed the goodbye party for Jeremy at Bex and Al's house, and I figure that this means that he gets the next social event that might mean we run into each other. But this opens up difficulties: What About Bars? Custody battles for social situations. At least not acrimonious.

So last night: moral support for Bex against the Suspected Hordes of Bogans (at the last party a stripper set fire to Jeremy's chest hair before some girl vomited all over the carpet and a pugnacious friend of J's picked a fight with Al). In actuality, not that bad at all, very civilised dancing to blues band in the lounge and meeting the flat of travellers from next door, one of which described Newtown as having a lot of "local colour" - meaning, one suspects, the brothel across the road and the tinny house next door. Salubrious neighbourhood (she says from her eyrie in Thorndon, squintily regarding the city below with a hayfever sniff). Listened to Depressed Mark list his tales of woe, an impressive list. Strange that I fell back on all the irritating little 'nuggets of wisdom' that drove me NUTS when I was depressed. I didn't drink very much because I was still nursing my hangover from the night before, although Ye Olde hair of the dog was quite impressive in it's effectiveness.

Is all really. Bex has a new hair cut that looks very noice.

New Years Eve and the Pathologically Dramatic

Moments before things take a horrible lurch to the left

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Setting out for Henry's farm in the Wairarapa for New Years Eve, I decided to heavily sedate myself with 'Kava-Ever-So-Calm' to control my sudden urges to bawl my eyes out (I was riding over with some friends of Julia who I didn't know AT ALL and was desperate not to make a complete fool of myself). 

So, very quiet all the way there; arrived; drank copiously and Like Unto the Fish and on an empty stomach;  felt awkward around the people I didn't know (many) and like a sympathy whore with those I did know (few); staggered, plastered, to the tent just after midnight, where I threw up copiously: all over myself, the inside of the tent and just outside in the vestibules, and (the piece de resistance, Methinks) in my shoes. 

You'd think this an Concealable, if unbelievably Pathetic Occurence, with little faux pas value. Not so, unfortunately, as Henry's very sweet girlfriend Julia grabbed her friend Emma to find me when she noticed I hadn't been around for a while: I was completely KO'ed and didn't hear them banging on the tent or calling my name, but when they looked inside my tent they found Me, passed out and covered in my own vomit. Tres classy, tres chic.

This morning I threw up three times before breakfast and had to clean my own vomit off all of my belongings, but felt much better after a swim in my underwear in the fabulous key hole shaped pool, gossiping discussing and overanalysing, playing word games, and explaining Thunderbirds to an American PhD student, who was visiting from New York and reading Diderot beside the pool. 

My ride back with the same three, rather fabulous girls was great fun and involved an unplanned diversion to Martinborough where hot chips and iceblocks were procured, so now, having been back something like an hour, I feel a million billion times better than I did yesterday, and am about to have a shower and wash all my clothes before painting my fingernails and toenails rose pink and watching Civilisation: A Personal View by Lord Clark which I suspect will be as snobbish and elitist as the Nancy Mitford book I'm reading at the moment. Super fab.

Shame on my name

I'm promising myself no regrets as I lie in bed with a monstrous hangover - was embarrasingly drunk (and then embarrasingly throwing up in gutters all the way home from the bowling alley) and now I'm just wretched with embarrassment in general. Was going on a work do, thought it would be a good idea to have some quiet drinks at home, forgot to have any thing to eat, drank too much red wine/white wine/sake and ended up legless before I even got to the bowling alley and then was far too drunk to make aforementioned move (although I did decide it would be a good idea to sit next to him and basically slump in my seat drunkenly) and had to be walked home by my lovely workmate Mikey, at about nine o'clock. At 3am I woke up with my dressing gown draped over me, fully clothed, with a basin and a jug of water beside me.... Shame on my name. And now, catharsis complete, I officially write off any chance of scoring workplace crush. Need to sleep.

Last night...

I went to a dinner at Anita's house. When I arrived she wasn't there and I managed to make at least three faux pas before she even turned up (she was rescuing David, lost deep in the heart of Collingwood).

How many things do you think would be the Wrong Thing to Say to a room full of Trotskyist Vegans? I must have said them all... my desire for a full time job, a comment of the faddish nature of the rise of dietary needs (tongue in cheek - given my dairy free nature), a comment about my 2010 wedding. A story about a friend's flatmate's horrible pet rats killing a mouse that lived in their house. Sometimes my life is like an episode of Seinfeld.

I'm loving working on my Masters project, I have a person who is willing to supervise my work and it feels like everytime I start working on it I have new and more fantastic ideas - its growing out of control! Like some kind of mutant mushroom putting out more and more finger- like tendrils, feeling their way into the moist, warm loam and growing, GROWING!

There's a big weird mushroom thing in a bakery on Brunswick Street.