Craptastic

Oh poo bum, it's all messy, isn't it? The election, I mean. I checked into the ABC last night before bedtime (oh, how I miss Aunty!) and decided not to stay up late. This morning is no better.

So I've brought my breakfast into my flat, probably illegally, since there's all sorts of rules around this college, and one of them is no wearing hats in the dining room -- I was told off for wearing a beret whilst eating the other day -- and I'm going to write about lots of things to cheer myself up a bit while my washing washes.

Phew, that was a long sentence, wasn't it? Lord knows if it's correct or not, I'm not in the mood to check. I'm eating jam on fruit toast, and drinking hot chocolate. They have a beverage machine here, so I can have endless hot chocs if I like, and they have an icecream machine, too, but I haven't lurked in that direction yet.

Yesterday was just a weird day, from go to whoa. Full of things going wrong, and bad decisions. I tripped in the carpark of the New World supermarket, and although I didn't fall, I banged my knee on a car, and there's nothing like a nagging scrape on the knee under your jeans and a slight lingering shakiness to make you feel a long way from home.

On the way home from the markets I met a very friendly cat, black & white with a wide jolly face, who, when I clucked at him with my most non-threatening cat hello, came right up to me, chatting to me. He (I'm assuming himdom, because he looked male) and I had a lovely chat and pat and then I realised that he had a hole in his side, not fresh but roughly healed, and then looked harder at him and noticed his general scragginess. We lingered a bit longer until some other people walked past us and he ran off. I wish I could have taken him somewhere, but with no car and no place to bring him etc, it would have been very difficult. But he haunts me, and If I see him again, and he still looks scraggy, I will act. I'm presuming he was part of a student group house and was dumped, or ran away when they changed houses or something. I've been told since that there are a lot of abandoned ex-group house pets in the university area.

So I was already feeling a bit rattled when I got to the Print Room studio. My plan had been to proof the next poster and launch straight into printing it, with a view to finishing it by the end of the weekend. But it just wasn't working, and I fiddled and fiddled, and proofed and mixed ink, and fiddled, and suddenly it was 5.30 and I had a pub date with some librarians. Sigh.

I have to say, however, that there were bright spots in the day. The crepe filled with gooseberry and pear jam for breakfast was excellent, as was the lemon brioche I had for morning tea. The Evansdale Karitane Mellow Blue cheese I bought and started last night while checking on the hanging of Australian politics is superb (and NZ$6 for an enormous chunk). Yay for the markets!

I met my two new friends, Allison and Lorraine (apologies if I misspell) at the pub, when we scoffed hot thick wedges of potato and drank alcohol, and then went to the uni bar, Refuel, for the 5th birthday party of Dunedinmusic.com, an all-day event that was just warming up its evening session as we arrived.

Of course, all day I kept forgetting to take my camera, but Allison gave me hers to take photos of the gigs, and I'll post them when she sends them to me. The first couple of bands were ok, but we were settling into a booth and having fun observing the slowly growing crowd.

Then a band came on that just forced me to get up and closer to the stage. At first the drawcard was the lead singer, who was a cross between Cindy Lauper and Madonna and someone else who I can't think of but has a shit-hot operatic voice. She was dressed in a hot-pink bra and corset, with breasts that almost poured out of the whole shebang, and as she leaned forward to play the organ keyboard, every person in the audience leaned further in to her, and her voice would wave over you in rills. It was absolutely hypnotic. And then, once I got used to her spectacle, I noticed the rest. It was only a drummer (excellent drumming) and a bass player, whose fingers just never stopped moving. The music was hot, the stagecraft was wild, and their name is easy to remember: CULT DISNEY. I tried to get a recording, but they are currently in recording, so I have Allison on standby to get me their CD when it comes out. But I think it will be tame compared to the live experience.

This was followed by The Chills, reincarnated and in fine form, playing a small (they only had half an hour) selection of their songs, including a wonderful cover of the Cat Stevens number Matthew & Son. Bliss! Then I just couldn't stand any more, because I've been standing all day every day for three weeks straight, and I needed to get horizontal. So the concert went on for hours afterwards, and I hope everyone involved had fun, because the small bit I saw was ACE.

Almost time for the library to open and for me to get working. Donald-the-Special-Collections-Library has been very busy lately, as he is changing exhibitions in his lovely gallery space. He's taking down a show about their Railway holdings, and putting up what promises to be a fab show about Pulp Fiction. He was in the paper yesterday with a photo of him surrounded by lurid book covers. I'll share more of that with you when it's all installed.

He took time out the other day to share with me a couple of his treasures, and one of my side-loves: examples of foreedge painting. Sometimes books aren't just guilded on their page-edges, they also have secret paintings. Often these are quite innocent, and merely book-enhancing, like this copy of Virgil:





But occasionally (and probably more often than private library owners will reveal), you come across something that just makes you laugh out loud:







Isn't she gorgeous?

Hi ho, hi ho, off to work I go.