Friends, acquaintences, and other social matters.

The View From the Afternoon

I woke up extremely happy this morning. That is, asides from the fact that I’d only finally gotten to sleep after 3am due to the drunken imbeciles who decided to keep ringing me up and pay the tree in my front yard a very loud visit, because I refused to come out and say hi. You know who you are. GROW UP.

Anyway, rants aside yesterday was one of the best days that I’ve ever had – my 19th birthday is actually tomorrow (23rd), but Lottie decided to treat me to an early present of an afternoon to secret locations that’s kept me guessing for about a month – and we even ended up with our own stalking fan club of sparrows! (scroll below). The only hurdle that I had to conquer was a Jazz theory test at 10am; but at midday on the dot, I was greeted by a car of balloons and bangin’ tunes* right outside the KMC where my classes are. It was lucky that the only thing I’d had to eat all morning was a mere banana, because our first stop was the Sale Street bar for an amazing lunch and beer. By amazing I meant it not only quenched my thirst for Monteiths and imminent hunger, but made me extreeeemely bloated to the point of shameful shirt adjusting, and is probably the best beef burger that I’ve ever had. If only Burger Fuel were as generous with their aioli as this! Not only the beef, but also the pot of aioli had a melted layer of baked cheese over the top… I’m craving another one now, just thinking about it.

The waggu beef burger sounded so good on the menu that we both ordered the same thing. And buddy Monteiths beers – Original Ale and Radler. It’s a shame that it was so dark inside and I couldn’t get a picture of the interior – the decor’s amazing. That light in the distance behind Lottie’s head below is actually caged in a frame of cutlery!

Next stop was at the newly opened Topshop at the top floor of The Department Store that’s located on Auckland’s North Shore. I made sure to take physical proof to document Lottie’s first day driving across the Harbour Bridge and back! We were quite disappointed in how ridiculously small Topshop turned out to be; and the sales assistants kept slowly putting out new garments every 10 minutes or so, which made it really frustrating because it caused all the customers to turn into tactical operators, due to the limited amount of stock, especially in the most common sizes. I ended up buying a very versatile black skirt and black dress, which I’m sure I’ll wear soon (I’ve got plans for that dress…) and post.

Technically the weather was “shit”, in the sense that up until 4pm it was pouring with rain with no apparent end. The only problem with calling it “shit weather” is the fact that that is precisely my favourite weather. Ever. The only way it could’ve gotten better for me was if it developed into a thunder storm, complete with lightning displays, haha. The picture on the right below is actually out of chronological order, and was taken on the Harbour Bridge between 4-5pm… see the drastic change in Auckland weather?!

We paid the mall a visit, before heading over to a cafe that I don’t actually know the name of… but that’s probably a good thing otherwise I may shred their reputation based on the poor treatment that the waitress offered us: they had two sliding door entrances, and upon entry, we asked for a table, only to be greeted by a “wtf are you doing in here” glare, followed by “we’re actually closed and only doing takeaways, so you’ll have to enter from the other door”. What an mf-bitch. I would’ve been shot if I ever did that to a customer. (Off topic, but speaking of which, this is my FIRST weekend being cafe-job-less, YAY!)

Luckily, they had amazing ice cream – I’d chosen double chocolate (of course), and Lottie had tried peanut flavoured scoops… which I still think is a really bizarre flavour for ice cream. Creamiest, thickest chocolate flavour, ever.

The next thing we knew we had a couple of sparrows land on the windscreen wipers watching us eat. Joined by a couple more. And a couple more. We even had to wind our windows up because they began to hover at eye level, having a peek inside the car – as if to see whether it was safe to enter and nab some waffle cone! Craziest scene ever. 30 minutes and a lot of bird poop later, we called it a day and tried to beat the traffic back East.

Spent the rest of the night curled up in Lottie’s bed with girly indulgences such as magazines, Skins on dvd, web-scouring, chocolate slice and and and CC & DRY, yay!

This is going to make it hard for me to come up with something for Lottie’s birthday in 5 months…

And now it’s time for me to sulk about the amount of jazz I need to work on for my assessments this week, next week, and the week after… and the fact that it’s my last day being 18. I am soooo not ready to be in my last year of being a teenager.

One last thing: I found this online the other night. It is SO TRUE.

Make that two last things: I was ecstatic to get home at around midnight to discover that Euan and bought me a No Wow album with a limited edition documentary and live footage of The Kills. AND compiled me a usb full of live footage, because he initially thought he couldn’t get hold of the dvd. Haha. Double score.

I act uninterested but I’m not fooling anyone

Saturday night was the 2nd EP release of a friend’s band, Artisan Guns – their latest is called Hearts, and the gig was hands down their best show yet. Took my camera out for a spin for the first time in ages; I must say I did miss it, but for a change I was hanging back and being chilled out about the shots I got, unlike some other photographers that came along with flashes and all. Unprofessional. All their blinding flashes from both sides of the stage just irritated the band and audience, asides from just being a pure pain in the arse, they weren’t particularly polite nor apologetic either. I was happy to see that the shots I’d peeked over their shoulders were all fairly bland and unexciting… using flash kills all the atmosphere, silly! Especially when the boys did such a lovely job of decorating their stage, and draping it with their own handmade pool flags – like in their video for their single.

We had plans to take a whole bunch of post-party shenanigans, but some drama arose and Lottie and I were forced to abandon such plans. To be frank: I was pissed off. Speaking of which, we’ve started a tumblr so go follow us @inyournightdress.tumblr.com!

Start a few fires and have my way

I got an expensive haircut today: my sister’s hairdresser doesn’t work on Fridays and I was impatient, so I paid a little more for a “more experienced” (aka more expensive, and apparently more popular) stylist; which resulted in me having to wait for a whole 40 minutes from the appointment time I had made, before he finished with the previous client!

These are photos pre-cut. I can’t be bothered with any post-cut photos yet, oopsies.

I’m feeling rather strange about the fact that I watched two compleeeetely contrasting movies today: Nine and Valentine’s Day. Mum picked me up from the city as I finished uni slightly earlier on Fridays, and we managed to catch the only remaining screening time of Nine. As I hadn’t had lunch and was feeling peckish, we decided to be naughty and snuck in food from Burger Fuel – though I must say, I don’t think the Bacon Backfire (huuuge burger that has bacon, chicken and brie in it!) that we shared was half as good in the dark though… It’s just not quite the same as being able to see the yummy, unhealthy goodness ooze into your mouth… mmm.

Anyway, the movie itself – compleeeetely different from what I had expected. I was very curious about it, but wasn’t prepared to pay for it (and I actually didn’t), but the main reason I agreed to see it was because Mum really wanted to, and had no one else that was willing, haha. I think overall, I only mostly enjoyed the visual and audio appeal. I liked Fergie and Kate Hudson’s song and dances the most, but the entire movie was just a bit too frustrating for someone who isn’t exactly a musicals fan.

Then, just before, Charlotte and I caught a late screening of Valentine’s Day. Yes, yes, I know it’s almost a whole month after Valentine’s Day, but I don’t think that two girls catching a lovely, light-hearted movie at the end of a tiresome week needs any justifying!

In other matters, Mum caught this photo of me earlier today, which shows what I wore to uni: MinkPink singlet dress; grey slip (the singlet is freaking see-through!), Aqua Dr Martens; Mi Piaci Laine bag; Le Specs; and my good ol’ bass on my back – weighing me down all day week!

She’s a snake and a charmer at the same time

Whilst making all the new headers for my random image rotation banner, I remembered that I hadn’t posted this photo! It’s one of my favourite in a long time. I spied this couple from the 2nd floor of the Downtown mall foodcourt one night when me and my friend David were in search of a soft serve for him. We had a window seat and I thought they were super cute standing there in the empty square hugging that I had to snap a pic. The look of them almost makes me very, very lonely, until my non-committal phobias kick in, haha. The overlay-looking effect is the reflection of the foodcourt chairs in the window I’m looking through.

I went to a friend’s 18th birthday party last night, but I don’t have any pictures because I didn’t take a camera (she has plenty, so I’ll steal and post some later, maybe). It’s kind of funny because all her birthday parties year after year are like the same event. With virtually the same people. Except every year we’re all a little older, a little rowdier, and of course alcohol was suitably pulled out last night. I drove so didn’t really drink much – but they made some crazy-ass punch!

The other, completely irrelevant thing on my mind is the fact that, as luck would have it, the first, serious tattoo I’ve actually contemplated in a certain place… already graces the body of Erin Wasson. Now that’s hard to top. Except hers is upside down to what I’d like. To have you having to google-imaging it, I’ll stop being mysterious and say that the item in question is a feather. I haven’t drawn up anything of substance, but I want a light-looking feather, and I want half of the chinese character of **for some reason my WP won’t let me publish a chinese character so click here for it** (meaning feather, in case you hadn’t already guessed) blended in, subtly. See how the word even looks a little feather-like? And it’s relevant because it’s in my chinese name, as wel as symbolising a lot of things. Ahh, now I just need the decisiveness, guts and pain-tolerance!

You and me in the photobooth, waiting for the flash, close the curtain urgently

I’d totally forgotten about my plight with these shortbread cookies until I was cleaning out the memory card and found photos which my mum took of them. These were the nicest batch, and dare I say, my batch that I’d mixed from scratched and made myself. I know, I know, shortbread is freaking easy to make, but it was more the fact that I actually went to the effort of making them that’s really worth something – I’m really lazy and generally don’t enjoy much baking/cooking, etc…

Anyway, the story behind these Christmas shortbread cookies was that I’d made them to give to friends who I simply couldn’t afford to buy Christmas presents for. The problem was, at some point, mum took over mixing the ingredients, and she’d doubled all the ingredients except the flour! But being the amazing cook she is (and me the shitty one), she didn’t like the idea of me entertaining the idea that perhaps she’d done something wrong in the process, as the mix was just faaar too soft to even cut up! Thus began the tedious task of refrigerating them back and forth until I had finally shaped them all and baked them. It wasn’t until much later that she suddenly had a lightbulb moment and went “OH…” haha.

Those who managed to eat some in the end said they were good anyway; but I felt a little bad that there were many friends I’d failed to deliver to, just because we were never home when I was free or had the shortbread with me!

In other matters, tomorrow I’m driving down with a friend, my sister and her friend to Raglan for a couple of nights. We’ll be camping at the local holiday park, and who knows, I might even brave it out and attempt to surf. Maybe. I’ve always wished I could surf… although unfortunately the weather at the moment isn’t looking too fantastic, I’m just hoping it clears up soon, but it’s a guaranteed good trip in general! In fact, this is shaping up to be an exciting week overall: Tues-Thurs is Raglan, Thursday night I will be photographing the Peaches gig (I’m actually quite gutted that I’m missing out on The Mint Chicks because it’s on the same night), and Friday will entail about 14hours of photographing Auckland’s Big Day Out. Not to mention I can’t get out of shifts at work for both Saturday and Sunday…

To be honest, I just can’t wait to see what whacky shots we come up with on the trip and how good proper stage lighting will make my gig photos; so please, please, please all have your fingers and toes crossed for me that my sore throat gets better ASAP!

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