I have this fabulous friend called Rose, who is absolutely fabulous. She's a Brisbane based photographer, who is like my bestest friend and who is completely awesome.

I want to get married in this dress, for serious.

Visit her on flickr or on her blog

She finds him one winter evening at a gallery in the middle of the empty city. It is so out of context his head reels. She stands in front of him in a taffeta ball gown and the highest heels he has ever seen on a woman outside of the pages of a magazine. Her hair is twisted up into a fiddly knot, and it takes him a moment of blinking silence to realise who is standing in front of him. He hasn’t seen her in eight years.

She looks down with a shy smile, “I saw your name in the paper, and I needed to come, just to see if it really was you.” Her tone is apologetic, but the blue of her eyes shines. He is so used to seeing her in some sort of tiny bikini, her skin tanned and glimmering, her hair a tangled mess of knots around her shoulders. He remembers the summer they were sixteen, her lips under his, misty beer breath mingling in one common space, her fingers gritty with sand as they rubbed unconsciously across his bare chest. He remembers, mostly, the way her skin glowed luminously in the moonlight. It is all in direct contrast to what she is know, this person he does not even know, who is standing in front of him nervously. He is aware of the fact that he has not said a word, is more than aware of the fact that his tongue is sticking gummily to the roof of his mouth as his salivary glands give up their job. He clears his throat and attempts to smile instead.

“Liv,” he attempts to curl her name around his tongue, rubbing the short hair at the back of his neck while looking down at the beat-up canvas of his shoes, “I – uh – what are you doing here? I mean, wow. It’s great you’re here, but why are you here?” His infliction seems to refer more to her dress than anything.

“I needed to make sure you’re still real. That I didn’t dream you up.” The words that you still love me hang ethereal around them, binding them in the sweet caress of two people who know each other intimately. She touches his soul with her big blue eyes.

He takes her by the hand. Her skin is pale as though she spends most of her time out of the sun; he can see the brilliant cobalt blood running through the parchment of her skin. Her thin fingers are cold in his as he leads her to the back wall. Her dress gushes against his legs as they walk through the sparse crowd to the painting he has hidden right at the back of the room. He has used watercolours on a giant canvas to paint a picture of a young girl with blonde hair that flies in invisible wind peaking out behind her hands at the viewer. The sea is behind her, a white and frothy wave frozen in perpetual motion. He has painted a snapshot from his memory, and she recognises herself in the face of the girl. It is all she needs to know.

© Rachael Young 2009

I'm attempting to find the inspiration to write.

I have a confession to make

...

I'm obsessed with TV cooking shows. We don't have foxtel (cable) so I'm stuck watching the shows that are on afternoon pay TV. I most specifically love Hewie. He's so lovably kiwi. And he makes adorable mistakes all the time and laughs at himself. He's like someones awesome old jolly uncle. I wouldn't cook the food, but I enjoy watching him make it.

Can't write. Can't read. Can't breathe. Don't know how I'm going to find another 10k to graduate. Don't know how I'll find the money for post-grad studies. Don't know what I'm going to do when I graduate. Don't know. Don't know. Dontknowdontknowdontknow. Not the end of the world, I guess, but I want plans and goals and something to strive towards. I'm a procrastinator by nature. I'd much rather be in a comfortable chair reading something than sitting down and working towards the only thing I know I can do: write.

I don't know how James Patterson does it (Well, I do actually... he hasn't written his own books for years. Definitely not someone to strive to be.)

I just... want. And I feel like, with the one obvious exception in Boyfriend, I have no support system to get me where I want to be. To what I want to do. I am Lost. With a capital L. God, I wish for the days of high school, when it was all so easy.

All I want is something I can be proud of.

Sunday went really well, I think. It rained, but that still didn't stop us. We had probably about 35 people in our tiny little house. Everyone had a good time.

I haven't done any uni work in a week and a half. I'm very behind. It's obvious to me that I just really don't want to be there. I'm less stressed about money because I got my tax back, but I'm just so over the study.

But then... I get books like thin in the mail thanks to amazing people on eating disorder forums, and I want nothing more than to write my PhD thesis, the one that has been floating around in my brain since I was 15. I guess I just have to grit my teeth and get through the next year and a half til I graduate. There's always going to be money problems, unless something amazing and we win lotto on our housewarming-gift lotto ticket.

It all makes me very glum.

If anyone around would love a custom, (almost) one-of-a-kind theme, you should check out appleleaf on etsy. She doesn't have blogger layouts yet, or I'd totally buy one (and I'd quite like to be getting married now just so I can have her wedding site layout!) but she has a couple of really nice wordpress ones, and a couple of very cheap custom designs. I used to love her livejournal layouts.

I'm busy getting our house ready to have almost everyone we know over for a barbecue on Sunday afternoon. I love entertaining.

I'm a little nervous because it's the first time our friends and families have seen our house. There's still a lot to do to get ready. Most of it cleaning, which is nowhere near my favourite thing in the world to do.

Cross your fingers for me that it doesn't rain on Sunday like it is now! I don't know how we'd get 40 people into our living room.

Just a Minute

Feeling: Incredibly sore.

Loving: Being in bed and not at work.

Reading: Book Lover - Jennifer Kaufman & Karen Mack.

Wanting: A toasted cream cheese bagel and an organic Hot Chocolate.

Dreaming: of the end of the semester (already).

Having: The laziest day ever.

Waiting: for 5.30pm when I can pick up my man.

I collect new books the way my girlfriends buy designer handbags. Sometimes, I just like to know I have them and actually reading them is beside the point. Not that I don't eventually end up reading them one by one. I do. But the mere act of buying them makes me happy - the world is more promising, more fulfilling. It's hard to explain, but I feel, somehow, more optimistic. The whole act just cheers me up.
Book Lover: A Novel - Jennifer Kaufman & Karen Mack