seeya!

my dear friend vanessa is currently on a bus heading to cardiff from the airport. i cannot even begin to tell you how excited i am. besides my cousin, she'll be the first familiar face i've seen since february 23. we're going to have the biggest adventure ever over the next few weeks.

we start with a few days here in the diff, then we've got a few days planned in london for shopping and seeing a few sights. then we're going on a bus tour that leads us through france, switzerland and italy. once that is finished we fly from rome to berlin to spend some time with our friend, and vanessa's former housemate, kerstin who we haven't seen in about a year.

i haven't decided whether i'm going to take my macbook with me or not, but either way posting will be light over the next few weeks. nothing unusual there really.

food

i would like nothing more right now than a breadroll from the bakery at glenfield station, filled with pasta salad from woolies and ham off the bone. oh and some scallops from the guy on the corner.

why can't glenfield be sucked into some kind of temporal distortion so it exists in both new south wales and old south wales?

fatshion

i've been trying to blog more about fashion lately. and as a fat chick, of course my focus is going to be on plus size fashion. you all know the story, how hard it is for curvy girls to find fashionable clothes that look good on them. it's gotten to the point where i really want to learn how to sew so i can make my own clothes, because i just can't find anything that replicates what i see in my head as my fashion style.

the problem is, we aren't doing ourselves any favours.

i mentioned a few entries ago the beth ditto for evans range that has been recently launched. all the blogs i've read and most of the girls on the fatshionista livejournal community went crazy for it. but i didn't find a single piece in the collection that i would wear in person. and i think the girls in cardiff feel the same as me. every time i go to evans i notice the collection moving further back in the store, and talking to one of the employees, they haven't sold as much as they thought.

i think out of all the pieces, the domino dress has gotten the most attention. it's the first time that us fatties have had something hip and unusual to choose from on the high street. i think it's cute, but it's definitely not for me. reason being, i'm really lumpy around the hips, and the cut of that dress would just accentuate that problem. you shouldn't be embarrassed about being curvy, however part of good fashion is knowing how to downplay some areas and promote others, no matter what size you are.

so that's why an entry on the fatshionista eljay community made me so angry tonight. you can find the offending entry here. the domino dress just does not suit that girl. i've seen it done so much better. but a majority of the replies are telling her how good she looks in it. she's a really pretty girl, but the dress is not doing her any favours at all. she would look so much better in a a-line skirt and a cute blouse.

i guess half the problem is that we don't get the choice. if i were to go to evans and look for an a-line skirt and a cute blouse, i'd come out empty handed. sure there's a million shirts that make you look either like a tent, or 50 years old, or a whole pile of 80's revival off the shoulder jumpers, but nothing classy, sophisticated and fashion forward.

in other news i saw this dress in d-perk the other day, and the more i think about it, the more i want it. with my turquoise tights from we love colors, boots and an awesome black coat, it's the perfect winter outfit. i think i'm gonna go back and try it on this week. i just hope it sits properly on my hips.

il me faut un nouveau coeur le mien est vide

i have been writing a trip report on paris for the last week, but it's boring me to write, so i can't imagine how boring it would be for you guys to read. anyway screw that, here's a list of key events in point form.

- the eurostar is very 80's. lots of grey seats. i think i fell asleep about five minutes into the trip and woke up in france. i always seem to get the seat with the saloon table. i don't think i took a train journey in france with allocated seating where i didn't have the table. what's up with that?

- i think if i had paid for my ticket to disneyland i would've felt ripped off. but i didn't so i had fun. it's all over priced and you have to line up forever for all the rides, but i guess you get that at any theme park. at least we had vip fastpasses so we could skip as many lines as possible.

- my favourite ride was the tower of terror. i haven't been that scared by a ride in a long time.

- it was hectic keeping up with four kids. i think my mum had the right idea only having one.

- the driver came and picked us up and chauffeured us into paris itself. i think this was the most baller experience of my life. we stayed at the same hotel carrie stayed at when she went to paris with alexandr in the final season. there was a turn down service and expensive room service

- i saw a few things in paris, but left enough over for my future trips. it was fun to visit the eiffel tower at night, even if it made me a bit woosy.

- i got to go on the metro which i was quite excited about. it was quite efficient, but the trains were old and dirty. i much prefer the tube. i need to just admit that i am a gunzel, because this trip made me realise that i want to go to moscow, just to ride their subway system.

- i took the longest possible trip home ever. train from paris to calais ville. instead of catching the shuttle bus from calais ville station to the ferry terminal, i walked which took FOREVER. from calais i caught the ferry to dover. then i caught a train to canterbury and from there a train to london. finally after an eight hour layover in london, i caught a bus to cardiff. at the coach station in london, the bus before ours was going to riga, latvia. the very thought of being on a bus for that long made me want to cry.

- all in all it was a great trip. i'm a very independent person, and i quite enjoy spending time by myself. however this trip made me realise that traveling alone in country where you don't speak the language sucks. i was only really by myself for 24 hours, but it made me so grateful that my next trips to the continent will be made with two of my best friends.

- i genuinely missed cardiff. that freaked me out a little.

maybe baby

yesterday morning i woke up having contractions. well that's what i thought in my half awake and fully in pain state. i did some counting in my head and realised it was entirely possible. i was going to be one of those girls you read about in that's life. who was so fat they didn't even notice they were pregnant until they popped out a baby into the toilet. even though i'd had my period regularly in the last nine months, i still had myself convinced that i was about to very unexpectedly about to be a mother. and what would i do with the baby? oh god. i'd have to go back to australia. maybe i could convince my mum to be the baby's "mum" and it could grow up thinking i was its sister. that wouldn't be traumatic later in life for anyone.

turns out i just needed to go to the bathroom, but oh man. those were some bad stomach cramps. then i was talking to my housemate andrea and she said the exact same scenario had happened to one of her friends. so there you go. my fear was entirely valid and not just because i'd been reading about dooce's recent birth experience just before bed.

i get the decades mixed up

i don't know why, but for some reason i decided to read over the emo-diary i used to keep while i was in uni. i'm reading around the end of 2003. that year was the height of my depression. i spent most of the year either fucking around in efforts to boost my self esteem, wearing long sleeves to hide all the cuts, and writing about boys who would never love me even half as much as i did them.

fuck, i've come so far since those days. i have grown up so much.

i just came across one entry in particular, written from the country town i spent my uni days in, listing all the places i'd rather be. places like home in sydney, or at my various friends places all across the globe. but one city stood out in particular. cardiff, wales. i didn't realise that even back then i had cardiff on my mind.

i'm so glad i could get here. i know it took me longer than i expected. that boys and jobs and life got in the way. but i'm here. 2003 melanie, i'm actually here. and europe is so much more than you could ever have dreamed of.

oh melanie, there's so much stuff i wish i could go back and tell you. that you are smart and you are pretty. but you're lazy and you need to actually do assignments. that there are boys who love you, and to stop wasting your time on ones who don't. to get off the internet and go down to the pub and hang out with your friends. but most of all i want to tell you that you make it. you might not be a radio superstar, but you have a pretty good blossoming career as a telecommunications superstar. you might be 26 and single, but you will in the next few years experience love like you've never known before, and you will be loved back.

but most of all, you're here. you're actually in cardiff. and in the last few weeks you've been to france and stayed in swanky hotels and in less than a month you'll start an adventure that will see two of your best friends come to visit you. and you're having the time of your life.

we should talk about friends for a second, because at the moment you're pretty low on them. trust me, over the next few years you'll meet some great people, who will hopefully be with you for the rest of your life. you've also kept friendships with the three girls who mean the most to you, and have re-established your friendship with your favourite high school friend.

don't worry 2003 melanie, the future's good for you. but for now, stop cutting yourself, get off the internet, go and buy some cooler clothes and stop being so fucking emo. oh and next time you're home, go and hug your mum. she's actually a bit worried about how depressed you are.

stolen from this week's post secret

preach on, anonymous sister. preach on.