I’m not sure how clicking “Save Draft” resulted in the loss of my almost-finished blog post just now, but it somehow happened. Since I can’t handle trying to re-write it again, I’ll start with a fresh topic.

I have a confession to make. I am the proud owner of one of these “Pop” phones by Native Union:

My introduction to the existence of such a device was through my dad telling me about how he and my sister Liv saw these in a store. They’d wondered what silly people would buy such a thing, only then to get in an elevator with someone who had just used one for a phone call. I completely forgot about that story until I stumbled across a whole shelf full of these “phones” in Kitson at Santa Monica back in November. I got so excited and determined to get one in this particular colour that, when I discovered they didn’t have any non-samples in mint, I even made the store assistant ring up the Malibu branch to check that they had some. I’m more than a little ashamed at how much trouble that sounds like, but to put it in context, my sister’s college campus is in Malibu, so that store was only 5 minutes away, right next to places we ate at anyway.

Liv made fun of me and couldn’t believe that I wanted to buy a big clunky thing to attach to my iphone or laptop. “But it will make skyping and viber-calling you easier!” I’d protested, urging her to take me to Crumbs for cupcakes and then going a few metres further into Kitson.

Whenever I buy “luxury items” (read: not necessities), I try to justify them by either how much “happiness” and ease they will bring into my life, and by cost-per-use analysis. This device has exceeded my expectations on both fronts

Sure, I can see how absurd my attraction towards this “phone” thing was, but I’m pleasantly surprised at how easily I’ve kept my promises of using it over and over. Whilst in LA alone, I’d skyped the boy countless times, and whenever I’m home, I’ve used it for every phone (or skype/viber) call which lasts longer than a couple of minutes. My cost-per-use is down to much lower than $0.50, and it’s just so much easier to use this, than to tolerate the earache or headache that using mobile phones causes. Not to mention the icky residue that occurs on smartphones these days, from sweat or makeup on one’s face.

I can tuck this big receiver against my shoulder, put my iphone in my back pocket, and talk to my sister on the other side of the world, whilst tidying my room. Like how old-fashioned phone calls used to be! Comfy, with the tendency to go on for far too long.

Taken on Ilford HP5 Plus 400 B/W film; Nikon F3.

I’m supposed to be moving out of home in a week’s time and I haven’t packed a single thing. My room is a wreck but I keep telling myself that there’s no point in tidying since I will be leaving soon anyway. I think the main thing I need to do is throw things out, rather than pack it all. Because who really needs shoe boxes full of clothing tags when they have boxes worth of postcards? Clearly, I “collect” too many things. The amount of books and clothes I have will be a mission to sort through, let alone everything else. That’s the mystery with me — because I can happily live out of a suitcase for weeks and not miss anything, yet when I’m back home, I can’t seem to let anything go.

I’m also starting to get terribly nostalgic about everything, thinking like, this will be the last weekend I sleep in this room and other pointless, torturous thoughts. I’m just too sentimental. And yet, I don’t think I would care half this much, if I was moving far, far away to the other side of the world. I’m only moving twenty kilometres away, it’s really not a huge deal. Plus I’ll probably be home for dinner at least once a week since I am still tutoring around here, and hockey is five minutes away. I just don’t know how my sister ever coped with leaving the cat!

Case in point — I found him sleeping on my double bass yesterday afternoon. Just too adorable:

Also, I’m pleasantly surprised at how much The Strokes’ new album is growing on me. For some unspecified reason, my favourite track so far is “Slow Animals” (below). I’d almost forgotten about their ridiculous 5-album-contract until I read this the other day. It’s an interesting analysis of what’s happening there, but I don’t know… maybe when it comes to bands from the early noughties, I really don’t like to over-analyse. I’d prefer to hang onto that feeling I had from ten years ago when I first started blogging, first really fell for music of my own accord, and was far too young to register half the lyrical content of  bands like The Strokes, Bloc Party, and of course the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. As much as I have to acknowledge that great things happen in Auckland and New Zealand, I can’t help but constantly feel that we’re so far off from being at the epicentre of anything. Maybe that’s why I wouldn’t care that much for all my stuff if I were moving far, far away.

Knowing that I’m a sleep-wrecking advocate of “trying to do it all”, my sister sent me some lecture notes from her religion class about how we simply can’t “do it all.” Whilst I haven’t gotten around to reading the lectures themselves (I think I can be forgiven, some days I have uni from 11am-6pm with virtually no break!), the email with her views on it have been really interesting. So I’ll rephrase — I’ll try to do everything I can. Good news is, I did make it back into the Division 1 hockey team after all, despite panicking about how badly I had trialled on the first day; I must have made up in round two.

Anyone who knows the boy and I quite well would know that we’re not advocates of marriage. I don’t even believe in little things working out, I’m such a bloody pessimist. Being the lofty thrill-seeking person I am, it’s surely no surprise that I always question the doctrine of monogamy. Without going on a huge tangent, I’ll clarify that I’m not about to ever be a swinger, and I simply couldn’t deal the jealousy and uncertainty of being in a “relationship” that isn’t monogamous. But I often encounter existential issues like “what’s the point?”, or my strong belief that I can’t be with someone unless, for its duration, I believe that I’ll always be with them, and will always want to be. Regardless of if that actually plays out in reality, I feel like, if that’s not how you feel when you’re together, then WHY would you bother being “together”?!

Some time in 2012 I devised a test for “how I may one day use to gauge whether or not I will accept someone’s proposal for marriage” — this is, assuming that anyone would ever be crazy/stupid/brave enough to stick their neck out for slaughter like that. The test is, I’d ask myself whether I would be willing to get a tattoo related to the person. It doesn’t have to be their name or anything, just, something sentimentally, symbolically, intimately related to them. Everyone knows that it’s a dumb idea to get a lover’s tattoo (sorry for the grand generalisation, though I’m not sorry if anyone actually thinks it’s a great idea), but regardless of if I’d ever follow through with something so stupid, I think if I could ever answer that test in the affirmative, then it would be pretty telling. There is so much more on how I feel about all this that I haven’t breached, but I’m looking forward to chucking my casebooks and real book on the floor, and climbing into bed with a book called Sex at Dawn. Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, it’s a New York bestselling anthropological book with the subtitle that reads “How we mate, why we stray and what it means for modern relationships.”  I think the key point to be extracted from praise on the back cover is “that humans evolved to be monogamous” — a topic I’m clearly fascinated by. It seems messed up that I’ve talked about these things for years but this book actually belongs to the boy and he read it sometime recently and has since shoved it under my nose. Let’s ignore the fact that I’m three quarters through Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw and the infamous American Psycho. Those can surely wait, whilst I uncover the thread of how modern human relationships came to be, right?

Here is Master Flakey, cute as ever, always managing to find a spot of comfort in the mess of a life I lead. I’m going to miss him so soo sooooo much when I move out soon.

Given recent events, university starting again, and just basically everything in general, that shiny, clean-slate sheen of the new year has more than worn out for me. I have no idea what anything means any more. I’m trying to avoid the snowball-effect where one lecture’s worth of readings and notes turns into three, into thirteen, into thirty, and the next thing I know is — well I don’t know anything. There isn’t a name to describe the state I’m in, but it’s a constant state of perpetual sadness. The death of hopes, of far-fetching plans — of a part of me. Every day that I’m at uni, I fluctuate between rushing to jazz school for instructed combo rehearsal in my only hour off from law lectures, or meeting a friend for California burritos. And amidst this flurry… where the hell am I, and who am I about to be? I’ve been chilling the fuck out, but I’m still serious about the things I do. I just don’t feel like I quite fit in anywhere. I want to do well, I want to come out near the top when my law marks have been scale-graded against my peers (that’s how they’re marked, on a rough bell curve, rather than raw scores) and I want to pull off a good graduation recital later this year. I want all these things and I want more. But the rest of the jazz cats or the law kids want things that are at least going in somewhat the same direction, and the things I’m after are pulling me every which way. To top it off, I’ve been debating with myself for ages over whether or not I can realistically still play hockey this season, but I’ve decided I will go to Division 1 trials after all. My father kindly pointed out that I would regret it if I don’t, and if it all really gets too much, the worst that could happen is that I’d have to drop out for the remainder of the season. So I’m going to do it.

On Thursday night the boy and I went to see Bloc Party. I’d seen them in December in LA with my sister and they were amazing, but the crowd there was awful, and — not to be racist, merely factual — a black chick tried to get in a fight with me. By that, I mean she actually did hit me several times. Just, what the hell, it’s a concert, when you’re in the fourth or fifth row and there’s a big gap in front of you, someone is going to go and stand there! So yeah, that was an experience and a half. But the Auckland crowd was predictably much mellower, and I certainly enjoyed second-row views of Gordon Moakes. I was sad they didn’t play Sunday (see blog title), but Signs was definitely a pleasant surprise. I just have no idea why Moakes looked so sad during the whole set, like something was wrong and he didn’t want to be there, who knows?

After the show I’d managed to get my hands on a set list, but a nasty girl knocked it out of my hands and into the photo pit. Then she went bailing over the barrier head-first to retrieve it. I really wasn’t in the mood to lose any dignity over it, so gave up. Luckily for me, an old friend was in the opening act, and although they didn’t get to meet Bloc Party, he’d seen the whole fiasco from upstairs and promptly went to retrieve a set list from backstage for me. Yay. And from the bass tech, no less, so I’m going to fawn over potentially having Moakes’ handwriting sitting on my desk. I honestly don’t care that it’s from the 5th in Brisbane rather than the 7th in Auckland. Nor do I know where this bass-player-fangirl-dom has come from, because as I’ve always said, bass players don’t typically tick any boxes for me… because I am one. I shall keep collecting “what stories are made of” experiences.

Here are two photos I took at the Met in New York. Both taken on Ilford HP5 Plus 400 B/W film; Nikon F3:

I’m not sure how far on the scale to “extraordinary” my life is, but it is certainly far from “ordinary”. I’ve got so many little stories, adventures, snippets, epiphanies, meetings with the right people at the right time and place… One could say that I’m lucky — and, really, I am — but as my mother always said, you need to be prepared for the day an opportunity comes, so that you have the means to seize it. I guess I grabbed this one with both hands and never let go.

As the boy correctly pointed out, over the past couple of months I’ve had a few “big dreams” come true. I finally went to New York, I finally saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in concert — and then I managed to photograph them too. It’s evidenced in my previous posts and lastfm page just how much I love the YYYs, so when I spotted Nick Zinner spinning tunes the night after their show in Sydney, it was a no-brainer that I had to speak to him.

At first he seemed caught off-guard. I doubt anyone else had actually spotted him, nor bothered to even care; the bar was buzzing with “where the fuck is Karen O” and I’d grown tired of hearing average bands which consisted largely of females oozing sex appeal rather than musical ability. So I wrote Nick a note. I even had to write it twice because I was afraid my illegible handwriting would never be understood. Then I snagged him as he was hurrying away from the sound desk, and I gushed and said all sorts of probably fan-girl-type things that I can’t remember, urged him to read my note later, and who knows how that conversation even ended — but it was over too quickly. The one thing I remember most clearly was how he smiled and seemed genuinely impressed and happy that I’d flown to Sydney just to see them. Although I felt like a fool immediately after for probably embarrassing myself and being too starstruck to even introduce myself, for the next 24 hours, that exchange appeased my sadness that their show at the Metro was over.

I’d never received any replies to the emails I’d sent to them months ago which were probably all filtered out by management, so I never expected what transpired next. The next evening, I received an email from the YYYs’ management, saying that Nick had told them to hook me up with a photo pass for their appearance at Big Day Out in Melbourne. Understandably, I freaked out, flipped out, went crazy, and the rest is history.

I still don’t know if any of it has sunken it at all, and maybe it never will. The boy stresses the fact that I met my childhood hero and he was actually amazing in real life, actually took the time to read my note, check out my website and decide that, hell yeah, I like her stuff, let’s give this girl a shot at something she always wanted to do: photograph her favourite band. It all seems too surreal and movie-like and I can’t really deal with how overwhelming that feels so for now I’ll put it in a box and keep it as a gift of happiness. One thing’s for sure though — I’m more motivated than ever to do all the things I want to do. I always feel like I don’t have enough lifetimes to do all the things I want to, or that I feel greedy for trying to do too much. But I’ve only got one lifetime so what the hell, I’ll do what I want… it seems to be working out so far. I’ll figure out this musician/photographer/law school thing somehow. I’m just really happy and thankful that this all happened.

We only got back to New Zealand yesterday at 5.25am so my body, mind and room are still all a wreck, but much more of this to come:

P.S. I stumbled across this quote last night and I found it too relevant not to share — I just can’t believe I’d never thought of things from this perspective before.

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” – Earl Nightingale.

Something silly and awful has happened with my webhost and of course I hadn’t backed up anything – so I’ve lost my last blog post. Just as well I didn’t post more often, I would’ve lost more, right? I can’t remember what I said in it besides the main points, but I will post those photos again once I’m back in New Zealand.

I’m currently sitting at Sydney airport, waiting for the boy to arrive. There was only one seat left for the sale price I got my ticket at, so I have to wait a couple of hours for him to join me. We’ve got a super exciting couple of weeks ahead of us, and I can’t wait to see Amanda again in a couple of nights! I first mentioned the trip mooonths ago, and now the day is finally upon us. In two sleeps’ time I will see my favourite band who I have loved and wanted to see for literally half my life! The icing on the cake with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is that my sister has kindly pre-ordered their new LP (due out in April), for my birthday in May. I believe that she managed to order it in time for me to get one of the 1000 signed lithographs that comes in the bundle. Wheeee! I’m such a fangirl lunatic right now.

We’re only in Sydney until Friday and then we’ll be in Melbourne until the 4th of February – going along to Big Day Out (yes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs again!) and Laneway Festival – so time is precious. Please feel free to email me any recommendations/tips for anything in these two cities. Whilst I will easily be crossing off the big “main things” and definitely be doing the art galleries and museums, I will be eternally grateful for anyone who recommends amazing restaurants/bars or events that are happening which only locals are aware of.

Main things from the last post that disappeared into cyberspace’s black hole:

1. New York was amazing. The bands I saw and the things I did and ate and photographed and, and, and – I will post about it all once I’m back in NZ!
2. I got into law school. So I, umm, made my life harder as usual, by enrolling in something that’s equivalent to about 150-170% of a “full time workload”. Jazz and law. Law and jazz. They just don’t really want to like each other. It’s going to be hell, but I want it.
3. PHOTOS, PHOTOS AND MORE PHOTOS to come.

I’ve done it again. I have started to call it my “spontaneous disappearing act” and I think it’s rather suitable. Just a little over two years ago, I dashed off to LA and San Francisco on a whim to see my sister and travel alone – and five days ago I pretty much bought the exact same flight deal. In two sleeps’ time I will be leaving for two weeks… after my third sleep (if I actually fall asleep on the plane) I will be in LA and in the middle I’ll be spending a week in New York City!!! I’ve aaaaalllwaaaaays wanted to go to NYC, but I’d never actually planned what I would do there because the thought of only fantasising about it was too painful. So now I’ve got to throw some ideas together pretty quickly. I’m sad that Aaron Parks is playing a night or two before I arrive in NYC, but I’ve got a handful of other people I want to see while I’m there, so hopefully it all happens! I will also be taking a LOT of film with me because I figure I would never regret bringing too much, but will definitely struggle if I feel like I am running out.

The trouble with spontaneously ditching one’s life for two weeks is that suddenly everything needs to be rescheduled or cancelled. I’m losing a nice chunk of pay from the time I’m gone and will be spending thrice that, so I had better spend wisely. Especially with Australia on the cards for Jan-Feb. Gah. But I strongly believe that travelling is one thing from which you will gain more than you spent. Anyone else with a case of wanderlust will more than agree, I’m certain. For those who are skeptical or hesitant about travelling alone, I think people just need to get over the “I need a buddy” mindset and try it out. It can be daunting, for sure, but I’ve met some really amazing people, been invited along to things and experienced so much that I swear I wouldn’t have stumbled across had I been with even one other person. However, in saying that, I’m not looking to missing the boy for two weeks. Of course I’ll still have an amazing time without him, but then I think, damn, who’s going to be my perfect person in all my photos; who will take a nice picture of me with something I want, rather than slap me in smack bang in front of it like other people do; who will hold my coat when I put my coat on; mostly importantly, who will hold my hand?!!! I guess the answer will be that no one will, and I will remember how I made do without him for all those years and travels prior, but I really wished that he was coming with me instead of writing his honours dissertation. I suppose he’ll at least get two weeks’  of decent work done without me distracting him, which means more adventures here when I get back.

As if to make me miss him even more, the lovely, lovely thing surprised me with a bouquet of flowers today:

 I’m kind of sad because I won’t get to see them for long since I leave so soon, but I like letting flowers dry out, so I will preserve them that way. We’d run out of vases since it’s spring, so I had to beautify an old gherkin jar, haha.

Just thought I should casually mention that the reason I’ve not been blogging is because I’ve been too busy: passing out at Radiohead, moshing to The Black Keys, shooting Sal Valentine & The Babyshakes and pining over Baths‘ sweet, sweet lyrics in person. I think the latter was quite suitable for this post, don’t you? Hopefully I’ll eventually address these distressing and heart-wrenching experiences, but for now I get to see my sister reaaaal soon and I will try try TRY to blog from LA/NYC!!!

I’m pretty bummed that I haven’t got any decent photos to post because they’re all on film and I haven’t gotten any developed. So for now I’m afraid phone photos will have to suffice, even though I find it completely unacceptable!!! Just thought I’d post a couple of pictures to show how much I’ve really been living in that dress I talked about - I’ve worn it to class, fancy dinner, to do a 21st birthday speech in, and the other day I wore it to my first and most important exam. Which I feel like I botched completely because I simply lost my brain it in, but for once I really hope that my gut feeling is wrong, argh.

So this was before I felt like breaking down, before my exam:

I wore it as a top when the boy and I went out for nice dinner by the sea. I don’t usually do “outfit photos” or whatever, but I liked the outfit so much I did, for once. I have a severe thing for leather…

This is what we observed as we were leaving our exam the other day. Mum had kindly dropped us off and then picked us up from our exam (how lovely, right?), and on the side of the road we saw four Asian men – presumably tourists – taking photos of the “University of Auckland” sign. I have to say… it’s actually one bloody ugly sign at one of the least photogenic corners of the university. They really need to erect a prettier one for when I want graduation photos, haha. We’d already gone around the corner and couldn’t take a picture by then, but these men later proceeded to take photos with themselves in it. I didn’t realise that Auckland University was worthy of touristy photos. It’s not like UW or Cambridge or Harvard or basically anywhere else more famous and more beautiful?

The main thing I accomplished this past week was finishing my jazz research dissertation. I don’t know what it is about music essays that make them so painful and difficult to write. Especially essays about jazz. It’s ridiculously hard to find “academic” writing which is useable when it comes to jazz. I had nine pages of handwritten notes but it took me so long to churn out the actual essay itself. I had thought that my essay last semester on “How can we explain the Romanticising tendencies of nineteenth-century music critics?” was hard enough already. I had hated writing it because it’s awfully broad and difficult to write about “Romanticism” in general, let alone trying to attribute reasons as to why nineteenth-century music critics wrote in a “Romanticised” way… this entailed first learning that music critics did this at all, reading them, then trying to pass off reasons as to why. I’m pleased to say that essay was graded with an A. But this one… well heck, we didn’t even get given a precise “essay question”, per se. All I knew was I had to write about someone and their innovation in jazz. How broad is that? For both of these essays, I spent ages thinking offhandedly, prior to actual research and writing, and then spent a whole week staying up until dawn trying to “write something”. Ended up writing most of it on the last day of course – but unlike other essays where I have a bad habit of writing at the last minute, these essays took an entire week of intense stress and seriously questioning myself “what am I saying, is it somewhat correct and how do I say it?” I don’t know what kind of grade this will get but I have to do a 20-minute seminar about it on Tuesday, which will be worth 40% of my total grade, so I’m pretty freaked out that my entire grade is based on what I said in a handful of pages.

My phone was uploading my past week’s photos to Dropbox and I thought it was entertaining how I procrastinated with Instagram especially during the wee hours of the morning, so here is a pictorial run-down of my essay-writing week…

Decided to use the fountain pen I received for my birthday. I refilled it so much I lost count how many times (as mentioned above, nine handwritten pages of notes, urgh).

I wore my jelly shoes around my room because they make me feel so nostalgic and it’s still way too cold to wear them to the beach! Which I think is the only socially-acceptable place that a 5’7″-21-year-old can wear jelly shoes at, yes. Eating in the middle of the night…

Rediscovered my Pilot “Petit 1″ fountain pens which I plan on using again. Glass bottle coke from the boy helped me stay awake.

I couldn’t believe it when I realised that morning that I had been reading Time magazine for half my life. Dinner at the boy’s house, yum.

Egg pancake mummy made.

The cutest and most affectionate cat ever that slept on my lap most nights as I wrote my essay.

Blueberry pie! Another dinner.

And these are at the boy’s house last night and today. He kindly let me use his spare monitor because my netbook’s screen just wasn’t cutting it for studying. And contrary to popular belief, studying with the boy is actually really good for me, he’s not distracting and in fact keeps me on task. Not what most people expect. He’s just so bloody hardworking that I need to keep my head down and keep working too.

I’m feeling a bit guilty for being a bit of a shop-a-holic lately, but after reining in my shopping habits for the past few months, my aesthetic inclinations could be tamed no longer! Although now I’ve got to stop. It’s funny how our views of money changes with age. We felt rich at primary school if we had a gold coin to go to the dairy with, and later $20 notes were a big deal. These days, who knows… I remember my first “big” sartorial purchase as if it was only yesterday – a $60 pair of Levi’s jeans that Mum bought me. At the time $60 was like ohmygod-expensive and I thanked mum endlessly and promised I would wear them until they wore out or I grew out of them – whichever came first. Unfortunately I grew out of them too quickly since I was only ten at the time, but by then the dark denim had already faded at lot, especially at the knees, and my sister got a beautifully worn in pair of jeans (that sounds really mean, but jeans are nice when worn in!). I didn’t convert to skirts and dresses until I was 18, so before then, jeans were pretty much a staple. Anyway, the main thing about buying those jeans was the motto my mum’s instilled in me – sometimes it’s worth investing a bit more money (on anything I guess, but in this instance, clothing) when you know you are buying a high-quality piece that you will treasure and wear (or use) over and over and over again. Even though this piece of advice has led me to buy some garments and shoes at outrageous prices, excluding dresses that were for special occasions, I have definitely gotten my money’s worth on everything pricey that I’ve bought. For example, I wore my Mooks jacket for almost a year and a half straight, and those aqua patent Dr Martens of mine have been worn to pieces in seven countries, if you will allow me to count Hong Kong.

This leads me to the two big things I bought last week. A Stolen Girlfriends Club dress, and a pair of beautiful Beau Coops boots. I was a bit chuffed that the size 8 dress had sold out just as I went to buy it, but the size 10 fits like a dream anyway, so all is well. My trick to justifying spending so much on a summery dress is that I had bought a voucher for SGC for a hundred dollars off the voucher value, and that it will have a decent re-sell value. Haven’t taken any photos of the boots yet, but here is the dress. SGC definitely package their products well, and I really like the ribbon that it came with. My only complaint is, does such a little dress need to come in such a hefty box?! Poor couriers’ vans must fill up pretty quickly! Needless to say, I have lived in that dress since Thursday and it is Sunday now; I’ve already worn it to a birthday barbecue, to uni and to coax my sick cat out from under the backdoor steps!

I am not a big fan of what people call “selfie” photos, but I can’t be bothered putting it back on, so these were the pics I took to show the boy the dress. It’s also gotten seals of approval from both Mum and the boy’s mother, and compliments galore, so surely I can’t really go wrong with living in it all summer.

The boots and my mixed views on wearing heels in various places will be discussed in the next post. But for now – has anyone ever joined and/or used one of those sale “groups” on facebook? I’ve been using one a fair bit recently, and it’s been a mixed experience in terms of selling and buying clothes. Here is a list of observations and thoughts that arise on a daily basis with this group:

• I cringe every time someone says “[item of clothing] brought of [store/place/person]“. It always makes me do a double-take and I think, goodness, it’s bad enough that people don’t understand the difference between “bought” and “brought”, but how the heck do they mistake “off” for “of”?! Even “bought of” wouldn’t sound anywhere near correct… It’s really sad when the one-person-per-day who correctly says “bought” makes me happy and restores some faith in the future of female intellect in this country.
• I’m guilty of this myself, but it is absolutely astonishing how many people sell things that have “never been worn” or have only been worn once. I’m sure most females in first-world, privileged positions have done this at least once and it begs me to question – when will women ever cease succumbing to the “impulse buy” or buying things just to wear on one occasion? How many times have we heard females we know utter words such as “I need [a dress/shoes] for [occasion]“? It’s crazy. And yet we keep doing this.
• Some people sell really high quality, designer clothing (or shoes) at cut-throat prices, yet on the flip-side, others are trying to sell chain-store, boring and mediocre items for not-so-cheap prices. I would much rather my real suede shoes from Zara (I know not “designer” but still high quality) keep sitting in a shoebox instead of being sold for $20, sorry.
• There are certain trends that course through this group. Namely, the SGC Acid Doll dress, the SGC garden print t-shirt dress, Karen Walker hydrangea shirt/dress and the Ksubi Baddies singlets. Each trend began when someone posted said item for sale, and ever since, several other girls have made posts that say “Looking for [aforementioned item]” with variations of “please please please” or “will pay good $$$”. This is followed by bundles of other girls posting these same items for sale, and more often than not, intense bidding wars take place, followed by other people saying “also looking for this!” – crazy, right?! I find this incredibly bizarre because all of these things have been sold in stores and online for up to a year, and I know that they are being sold at lower prices on this facebook group, but the way people behave it sounds as if they’d never heard of such things before until now. I really do not understand why people would be willing to pay over a hundred dollars for items that have (sometimes, but not always) been shrunk, faded or have peeled prints…
• Slightly relevant to the above point, I actually own the Acid Doll dress myself. The boy’s youngest sister had told me the other night that the middle sister wondered whether I purposely frame it into the background when I post photos of things I’m selling. Aside from snorting a “no, my room is small and there is nowhere else to hang it without getting it crushed!”, it’s actually quite ironic that she pointed this out – because I’m REALLY sick of people asking whether or not I am selling it! Even if it’s just the vaguest blur of colour in the background, I have gotten handfuls of people asking if I happen to be selling it. I don’t understand why logic doesn’t prevail when I have already told one person “no, otherwise I would be listing it”, and someone else comes along and asks the same thing, in the comment immediately after. I thought the idea of threaded comments were created so that people could see the progression of discussion. Clearly this has not caught on with everyone.

Surely other people have had similar experiences too?

I know it’s been a long time, but I’m too lazy to to post a playlist right now, plus we have just acquired a very large playlist of new music I’m trying to sift through, so it would be a mess… but go and listen to Chet Faker here and click through to his Soundcloud as well. I had said to the boy a week or two before the Laneway lineup was announced that we ought to track down a gig of his when we are in Melbourne, and what do you know, turns out Laneway agreed with me.