Today, for the first time, I went to a doctor who was the same age, or possibly younger, than me. I did not like this! Doctors should be at least ten years older than me, because I am still very stupid and I don't know what I'm doing and how can someone my age prescribe drugs and make sure my body is functioning? To makes things worse, he was a hipster, in tight jeans and a red shirt and scruffy curly hair and a bit of a beard. Doctors should be neatly, though dowdily, dressed, in things like cordouroy trousers and brown skirts and serviceable shirts bought at a department store ten years ago.

Kids today, with their blood pressure monitors and stethoscopes!

Now that's a fusion of fruit flavours.

Brought to you by the Germans, unsurprisingly.

This photo is from 1964. I found it on Shorpy, which is an amazing site and a very satisfying way to spend an afternoon. If you follow the link you can see a lovely big version of the image. That's the best thing about Shorpy: they provide high-resolution versions of all the images, so you can really see how beautiful these photos are.

The photo above has been my desktop picture for the last couple of weeks, and every time I look at it I feel so peaceful and happy. When I was born, I lived with my mother and her father, my poppa-grandad. His name was Doug McLeod. I was the apple of his eye and I was always with him. When he smoked his pipe, I puffed on my bubble-pipe. When he worked in his shed, I sat beside him. The smell of workrooms, of turpentine and wood, still makes me happy. He worked two jobs while my mother and her brother were young, so that they could go to good schools. He worked in factories but he loved art and he drew and painted in his spare time.

This photo reminds me of him. The way that the grandfather is holding the little girl so gently and lovingly, the look of indulgent pride on his face. He has dirt on his hands. He looks like a man who has worked hard all his life and is happy to be harvesting the rewards.

I have been in such a grumpy mood today, and I thought this might help.

1. tedprior  has downloaded me a bunch of classical piano music to listen to at work when I am alone in the office (which is turning out to be often). It is so lovely to have Brahms playing in the background while I work!

2. Shoe sale at Myer: 50% off the second pair. I bought two pairs, exactly the same, of my favourite black mary-janes. (Planet Shoes, style: Katrina.)

3. I put a postcard on my bulletin board. It is a photograph of some female aviators from the 1930s.

4. I got an order of stationery today at work, and there's more coming. I organised my top drawer, too!

5. Today is payday, I've paid back all the money I owed, and I still have some left over. It's a nice feeling.

I just overheard a lady say disdainfully of the hippopotamus skeleton (which is clearly marked):

"Hmph! That's a silly little dinosaur!"

I am really tempted to get this.

A lot of people say they hate New Year's resolutions and that they're worthless. I really like making them, though. I don't think it's a bad thing to reflect on where your life is going and what you would like to improve about yourself. Also, it is an excellent opportunity for making a list, and I will never pass that up.

I'm trying to make mine reasonable, specific and positive-- no nebulous "get fit" or "stop being a jerk" resolutions. (Also, I will NEVER stop being a jerk.) So here is how I would like to change my life in 2009.

1. Fill a sketchbook with drawings copied from artists I admire.
2. Pay off $8,000 of my debt.
3. Lose 10 kg.
4. Sew a skirt.
5. Finish writing Love Puppets 3, 4 and 5.
6. Get rid of 5 large boxes of stuff.
7. Save $1,000 for travelling.

Other things I would like to do more this year:

• Take more photographs
• Spend more time with my friends
• Keep my house tidier

Have you made any resolutions?

I have to admit that the eleven-year-old in me is so tempted to buy this.

It is Christmas Eve here in Australia, and I am at work for half a day. The slowest moving half a day in the year.

I am so excited about Christmas you guys! I love giving people presents, it is the best fun. Also I am going to buy lactase enzyme tablets so my body can digest lactose! That is pretty exciting stuff. Bring on the pavlova!

Hugs and Christmas kisses for you all! I'm very sorry if you hate Christmas or you don't celebrate it, but you get hugs and kisses anyway.

love,
Jessica.

Best film lists are so boring. Sadly I didn't watch as many terrible movies as last year, but here are some stinkers that I managed to catch, arranged roughly in order of terrible to mind-blowingly awful.

Vantage Point

Okay, this one was awful mostly because the "twist" was so utterly predictable. If the interest in your film lies almost entirely on a gimmick, it's best not to telegraph the big reveal from the start. The ridiculously out-of-character behaviour that makes the ending possible is as hard to take as a deus ex machina. This could have been enjoyable action schlock; instead, it's the kind of movie that makes you yell "No shit!" at the screen.

Sample dialogue: "We hate the American pig-dog capitalist dog-pigs for no apparent reason! Curse them and their many cola brands!" (Okay, this is not an actual line, but it might as well be.)

Semi-Pro

It's abit unfair to lists this because I only watched the first 15 minutes before turning it off in favour of something that was funny. If your comedy doesn't make me laugh in the first ten minutes, you're in trouble, buddy. And I really like Will Ferrell; I loved Anchorman. Sadly, this is pretty much Anchorman but without very good jokes. I guess Ferrell thought the crazy fashions were enough?

Sample dialogue: "Cock sandwich, that hurts!" (How many hours of improv did it take to come up with that?)

Dan in Real Life

My hatred for this movie might be partially caused by the fact that I saw it at the cinema. Okay, we had free tickets, but there was no escape! I couldn't even go and get something to eat to distract me. (We are not the kind of people who leave movies. Nor are we the kind of people who leave the theatre for anything less than a medical emergency.)

This film was an attempt at a quirky indie family film. It was like a robot saw Little Miss Sunshine and decided that this seemed like an easy template. Cute kids + kooky family + depressed people + love = box office gold! Unfortunately this robot, despite being able to make such sophisticated computations, was only able to produce sentimental goop in place of genuine sweetness. I made the "finger down throat to induce vomiting" sign many, many times. I would have groaned loudly and yelled at the screen but the people around me seemed to be enjoying the film, especially the painful attempts at physical comedy.

Also, Dane Cook is in it.

Sample dialogue: "Love is not a feeling, Mr. Burns. It's an ability."

"Instead of telling our young people to plan ahead, we should tell them to plan to be surprised."

"There's rightness in our wrongness."

VOMIT

The Happening

This is #1 on a lot of Worst lists this year. I'm finding it difficult to express how bad this film is.

Grug and Lee saw this in the cinema, because they hate M. Night Shyamalan so much that they like to maximise their pain. (It's a sickness.) They came home and described every detail of the movie to me. I was prepared for it to be bad, but I was amazed at how bad it sounded.

So when I came to watch it at home, I thought I was prepared. I was wrong.

I'm sure by now everyone knows the plot. It's a plot so stupid it honestly sounds like an Ed Wood film. And honestly, if it weren't for the fact that The Happening is filmed with proper cameras, you could easily take this for the kind of film featured on Mystery Science Theater. The kind where you turn to the person beside you and say, "Why would anyone make this? And who would go and see it?" The script is wooden and stupid to the point of hilarity. The acting is astoundingly bad-- Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel are actors I really like, but it's going to take a while before I can look at them and not think of them woodenly discussing the emotional implications of tiramasu. (Look at the photograph above. They keep those expressions throughout the entire film. I can only assume that Syamalan injected them with tranquilisers whenever they showed sigsn of acting.)

The thing that made me angriest, though, is the film's anti-science agenda. Did science kill Shyamalan's parents? Does he resent it for creating the Internet, the place where he is most mocked? Because he has a raging hate on for science. Wahlberg plays A SCIENCE TEACHER who tells everyone that science is about accepting that there are things we can't understand:

Elliot Moore: Come on, buddy. Take an interest in science. What could be the reason bees have vanished?
Jake: [after a long pause] An act of nature, and we'll never fully understand it.
Elliot Moore: Nice answer, Jake. He's right. Science will come up with some reason to put in the books, but in the end it'll be just a theory. I mean, we will fail to acknowledge that there are forces at work beyond our understanding. To be a scientist, you must have a respectful awe for the laws of nature.

No, Mr Moore, that's faith you're thinking of. Not science. That's why science comes up with, for instance, malaria vaccines, instead of saying "That disease that's killing everyone sure is mysterious. I guess it's God's will or something!"

The film doesn't really have an ending, it has something even lamer than a deus ex machina: a completely unexplained escape for the main characters, and then the most pathetic attempt at a twist I have ever seen.

Also, all the reviews are right: the death by lions is the most (unintentionally) hilarious death in film.

Sample dialogue: "You know that everyone gives off energy, right? It's scientifically proven. They got these cameras that can record what color you are when you're feeling different things. People that are angry give off a different color than people that are sad. See this ring? This ring can supposedly tell you what you're feeling. Let's see what you're feeling right now."

1. Snorkelling on the weekend, I saw 2 huge nudibranches (sea slugs). They were making love! Well, the one on the bottom was mostly concentrating on chomping seaweed.

2. I got my hair cut. I love getting a haircut in summer, it's so delightful to feel your head all cool and light!

3. I also put highlights in my hair (I did it myself!) which made me panic at first but now I like them.

4. I just found out that my boss is going to be away for a month after this week. Awesome!

5. Only 2 Christmas presents left to buy/make (and I know what both of them will be). I feel super-organised!

Meme courtesy of ohayo_sakura :

"So, say you were meeting a new person--blind date, new friend, who knows. And you wanted them to have some idea of what kind of person you are, and who you are. But you can't actually tell them in so many words. Instead, you have to give them a box, with a dozen things in it for them to look at/read/listen to/taste/whatever. What would you put in the box? And a copy of your journal would be the same thing as just telling them directly, yourself, so that's not allowed."...

1. Lamy fountain pen

2. Black leather Mary-Jane shoes

3. Tea (with milk and sugar) in my favourite mug with bears on it

4. Kokeshi (Japanese wooden dolls)

5. My rabbit Muffin

6. A swatch of cute printed Japanese fabric

7. Moomin jewellery box

8. Bison plush

9. A bottle of green ink

10. My sewing machine (this is a big box)

11. A blank sketchbook

12. My button jar


This was really hard! I was tempted to cheat and say 'my iPod' or 'several books including...' but I resisted. Honestly it would be extremely difficult for me to pick 12 favourite books or 12 favourite films, so I decided only to use objects and not even try to narrow these down.

It's a really interesting experience to write this because it makes you realise how you try to construct your persona to others on a daily basis, while also trying to uncover an 'authentic' self which you can express.

1. We ate mangoes last night while we watched a Russian animation called The Hedgehog and the Fog.

2. We have started watching documentaries again. We have most of the Attenborough Life series on DVD, and we just finished the Trials of Life. I'm not sure which one is next (I like it to be a surprise!) but I am really looking forward to it.

3. Two weeks till Christmas! I have most of my presents sorted out. I can't wait for the holiday! (Because I work for a university and don't get public holidays, I get them all at the end of the year, so I get nearly two weeks off.)

4. Last night I copied Richard Scarry illustrations, and it was fun.

5. Summer means fruit, and although it's been unseasonably mild so far, things are starting to get riper and better in the fruit aisle. (Witness the mangoes of point 1.) Peaches and pomegranates and cherries and strawberries, they are better than chocolate and they make me feel good.

My baby brother (24) is doing Movember! He has the most ridiculously sparse, fine facial hair I have ever seen, it's like blonde peach fuzz. I told him if he doesn't reach 2cm I'm taking my donation back.

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you!

I would like to talk to you about your attitude to pumpkins!

I understand that in the US, people do not eat pumpkin as a savoury vegetable. As far as I can tell, it is mostly used for sweet pies, and even then it comes out of a can! This is crazy to me. In Australia, our pumpkin does not come out of a can. No sirree. We buy it in the fruit and vegetable section, and it is in big chunks in its shell. And there are lots of different types! Personally I like the Jap pumpkin, which I think we are now calling the Kent pumpkin because it was considered offensive to Jewish American Princesses.

The pumpkin is a pretty staple vegetable in Australia. It often accompanies a roast, along with other beloved standards such as potatoes and peas. In fact, it is my favourite part of a roast dinner! We do not often put pumpkin in our sweet foods, although I have a very nice recipe for pumpkin bread. Oh, and it is fantastic on pizza! Try it with sage and feta.

Apparently the pumpkins in America are bred to be large, brightly coloured and not very nice tasting. I understand that pumkin farms exist only for Halloween! This is a sad state of affairs, to my mind.

I would like to hear about your pumpkin attitudes, and how they relate to your culture. Let us have a roundtable on pumpkins!

I need to start taking better care of myself. I have an ulcer on my tongue (ouch!), a headache that keeps coming back, pimples suddenly appearing on my face, and a general feeling of crapness. I have a feeling that this is due to too much stress and not enough relaxing. A lot of big things are happening right now (getting engaged, looking for a new job, preparing for my first exhibition) and I am working really hard making art. I guess I just need to start eating really well (fruit is the only good thing about summer, so I should start taking advantage. Oh, and asparagus is just coming into season, too!) and exercising more. I want a dancing game to come out on the Wii!

Three things I find attractive on a man: beards, pretty eyes, cute smiles
Three things I can't stand to touch: cockroaches (oh jesus the thought makes me feel sick), greasy hair, newspaper (seriously it makes my skin crawl a little)
Three things I want to learn: to paint, to save money, to make things out of wood
Three things I wished I'd never learned/had to learn: all the horrible things that can go wrong with your body and there's nothing you can do about it; there is no evidence to support the idea of a benevolent deity and an afterlife and plenty of evidence against it; socialism doesn't work very well in real life due to people being awful
Three things I want right now: pop rocks (I am a bit addicted at the moment), a better job, a cuddle
Three things I want out of life: to have babies, to publish books, to be happy and make people happy