eating out

it's easily my biggest weakness: expensive food. fancy food. over the top, hundreds of dollars worth of food. a meal that will cost about what a normal person would spend on a month's worth of food.

last nights effort was, after a day of looking at Places To Eat in my locality, discovering that there was a chefs hat italian place walking distance from both my bus stop to the city, and my apartment, having Desperate Need to eat pasta. 

i'm now ranking the place - Dieci e Mezzo - as my favourite canberra fine-dining-y eatery.  the food was incredible. In-Cred-I-Ble. the oysters were big fat bouncy rock oysters, exceptionally fresh (without a doubt the freshest i have had in canberra), and the side sauce thing was not overpowering.  also, served on the side.  never put that shit on the oysters, Fancy Places. i like always having one or two oysters completely natural.

the main was a tortellini with pumpkin, goats cheese and these things called 'mustard fruit' which were intensely salty, but perfect with the pasta.

dessert, a panacotta made on almond milk.  oh god.  and extremely well priced, for a restaurant of that quality. only issue, very little vegetarian on the current menu - but apparently they change the menu about once a month.

THIS is their website. go and marvel at their amazing menu. go and eat there. i would possibly rank the meal i had last night as the best i've had in canberra. and that is a Big Call.


*****

in vaguely library related news, here is an article i read about cover hacking of books.  it's a pretty good article.

(so far i am not doing awesomely at Blog in June. mentally, i keep thinking of Death in June every time i type it.  Death in June are different).

fancy coffee

today, Dom & i went to the South Side and got fancy coffee.  cold pressed, strange contraption-y, bizzaro, delicious coffee.  the barista gave us a second Fancy Coffee for free!  i now have had about three too many coffees and feel kinda sick and confused as a result, but the fancy coffee made me happy none-the-less.

already failing at Blog In June, i didn't post yesterday.  i did, however, get into a fight about men wearing dresses & skirts, and how clothing shouldn't be gendered.  sometimes. i am shocked and alarmed that there are intelligent educated people out there who genuinely take issue with men choosing to wear 'female' clothing.  socialised notions of gender are bullshit.  regardless of what gender one identifies as, who gives if you choose to wear a skirt, or a suit, or high heels?  what has it got to do with your gender?  or your sex?  it's a skirt. it's an item of clothing that, rather than joining between the legs, does not join. it allows for freer walking, and some people, regardless of their gender, prefer them to the feeling of pants. personally, i like skirts, dresses and pants, and i don't feel that i feel this way due to the fact that i am a ciz-female.  it's because i like skirts, dresses and pants, and societally, i have zero problems wearing any of them, due to the way ciz women are free to wear whatever they want without fear of persecution.

i read a fascinating article about how the gendering of female clothing is an excellent example of misogyny - how 'threatening' female clothing is to masculinity, because taking on a marker of female identity, for a male, is a far more challenging thing than for a woman to take on a marker of masculinity.

needless to say, i got pretty angry during the fight last night.

blog every day in june (or not quite)

because i am a weak person, i have given into peer pressure and will attempt, along with many of my fellow library colleagues, to Blog Every Day In June.  it is the end of the first day of june, and i am at work. today, i've printed off a lot of stickers, and put a lot of boxes onto shelves.  i am more likely to not talk about work here, unless one counts ranting about my final masters subject that i still stubbornly haven't finished. it is more likely again i will not blog every day in june. but i will try and do it at least a few times.  go team.

however, i do have a lot of current, up-to-date rants in me, including 'why i now find second-wave feminism to be vomit-inducing', 'why i think dr who is a metaphor for post-imperialism in britain', 'what i thought about the avengers', & 'why i hate that all the bipolar memoirs out there are written by Highly Successful People From Priviledged Sociology-economic Backgrounds'.  i am sure everyone will be biting nails in eager anticipation of whatever exceptionally fascinating insights and updates i may be sharing.  

attempting to start blogging again

just so i don't bore all of my penpals half to death with sending them long rants about Stuff.  that is why i have a blog!  i like blogs for that! long, pointless rants.

i have a cat now. her name is Snip, but i call her Tiny Cat.  she is both orange, and amazing. this is a point of departure from when i wrote before i went to the US last year. it will probably take some time for me to remember how to blog again, or how to write like i used to - there's an element of dribbling, and i think that will fast become clear.  and i'm not sure how easy i'll find it - large parts of my life remaining excised from this format due to the fact that this is hardly that difficult to find, if people know where to look, and all men have secrets - and here is not mine.

the previous incarnation of this blog was called 'sky between branches'. i shut it down for various reasons, mostly due to the fact i wanted to leave who i was, and what i had been doing, completely behind me.  i don't want to do that this time, because i am happy with where i have come. strangely enough, a complete mental breakdown due to a case of misdiagnosed late adolescent depression, wrong medication leading to a far more severe bipolar, and several doses of mania and depression more severe than i've ever experienced, is still not as painful as the situation leading up to what ended my last blog.   the process of dealing with the way i was treated by the ex partner is painful for me to re-read -- or to even be in close proximity to. i never want to have a person make me feel the way i did then; like my flesh split and peeled back like an orange and my muscles and bones were left exposed and drying in the heat.  i felt like there were pins in my eyes, thumb tacs under each toe.  i smashed bottles and screamed at the sky. i would never have been as stupid to rand about never trusting a man again, but i can sure as fuck say it's been a lot harder to trust anyone than i thought was possible.   but re-reading it, i know that it's all very much behind me.  that relationship, the aftermath, i'm out of the shadow of whatever happened then.  more memories. more instances of people who are no longer relevant to me - only the memories i hold of what happened are relevant.  with that situation, those memories will be ones i sort through for years, trying to isolate what hurt me so much.  every doctor i've seen diagnoses him with psychopathy.  it makes a lot of sense.

i've restructured how i live. i've long tossed out my notion of polyamoury as a life choice for me.  the desire for wild nights and wilder adventures faded as soon as my moods started stabilising on the correct medication.  i have a cat now, and i grow plants, and i want to be this person, (only with more regular house cleaning and budget skills) and not the one i used to be. i am hopeful, and optimistic, and i think i am still worthwhile and deserving of actually finding happiness at some eventual point.  if 'finding' it is a goal. if there is a goal.  i'm not sure i'm making sense.

i'm reading Americana by Don DeLillo.  i love names which have capital letters in the middle of them.  mismatched capitals in formal english amuse me.  aside from that, the book is also marvellous.

tomorrow, i'm going to a wedding. weddings make me nervous, and anxious, and insecure. they are like high-tension parties, where everyone is slightly more than they are in an average social event.

it is past 2am, and i'm still awake. my sleep cycle is shot, due to medication issues, and having a cold last week. i tend towards nocturnal; it's soothing and safe in the dark, everything is quieter, and i can sit here, with my cat, patting her like the little plushy soft cat she is, surrounded by a completely insane number of books.

i hope you are sleeping well, dear readers, if there are any out there.  either unread, or heavily read - both is somehow strangely comforting to me. i like just flinging out the words and seeing which ones stick to the wall and what ones slide down.