Flowers and masks

We did it! We have our new ink! We took lots of piccies so I'll let them tell most of the story.

Since my tattoo was only going to take about 40 minutes, I went first.

That's Tim, our tattooist at All Star Tattoo. Some could perceive that look on my face as apprehension, but it's not, it's toughness and strength.

Here is my finished product later that night. I chose to have part of a painting by Audrey Kawasaki, her paintings are amazing. At the time I saw it I felt like this part of the painting really signified a time in my life when I was really discovering who I was and letting myself be that person without reservation - taking off all the masks and letting them fall away. I love it.

Shan was really nervous. When I asked if she was nervous about the hours upon hours of pain, she said no - she was scared it wouldn't look good. Here, Tim places the outline. He got it right first time on both of us.

The outline of the flowers is complete here, this is about half an hour after they started.

This was the 'ouchy' spot. Shan was reading a magazine through most of her tattoo, except for this spot when she was squeezing my hand like a mo-fo.

About an hour after starting, the outline is done and Shan takes her first break.

Tim shades all of the flowers. The colours look really amazing on Shan's pale skin.

The back of her arm seemed to hurt a little bit.

Done for the day. After 4 and a half hours, she was ready to go home.

The semi-finished product. It looks totally awesome.

As much as I hated seeing Shan in pain, I love that she loves her new tattoo. And she does, it's everything she wanted. But now I think she's kinda hesitant to get it finished. We'll have to wait a month or so til the memory of the pain subsides a little before we go back to have the shading on the inside of her arm done. I won't judge her if she cries during that part. She won't though, I would, but she's way tougher than me.

You can check out all the videos I took of Shanny getting her tattoo here.

Cindy City

Knowing my love of Brisbane and Augusten Burroughs, my friend Richard forwarded to me the following link which perfectly talks of our city just the way I see it.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25125686-5012694,00.html

"Brisbane is Cindy Crawford sitting on the porch reading a book while plump older sister Sydney tap-dances on the sidewalk in a leotard that’s too tight, hoping a talent agent drives by. Melbourne is the moody, black-haired sister lurking behind the tree with her volume of Sylvia Plath poems, making smartarse notes in her notebook and unable to decide which is worse: beauty or ambition."

Expose to sunlight for 45 seconds.

On Friday morning, Shan and I went to a local screen printing supply shop to find out what we were doing wrong with our screen printing. No matter what we tried we just couldn't seem to get the process right for the new emulsion technique we were trying.

I came across this company a few weeks ago when I was looking for a Valentine's surprise for Shan. I found a company who did screen printing lessons in Brisbane, but only the basic, stencil technique. However she was very lovely and pointed me in the direction of a company that she thought could help.

Turns out the guys at the Gabba Screen Printing Supplies place are totally awesome! We got there at 9am and he took us through the entire process from start to finish, showing us each step we could be getting wrong, and answered all of our questions no matter how simple or silly we thought they were. He spent an hour and a half with us and even gave us printouts of descriptions on how to build the best light boxes. We will definitely be going back there for all of our suplies from now on.

Shan listens intently...

The cutest part of the demonstration was how much Shan kept smiling through the whole thing. She doesn't get too overly excited about many things in front of strangers but her excitement was totally infectious and we went home really pumped knowing our t-shirt empire dream was back on track to becoming a reality.

Hit on by a chicken breast named Pat

Yesterday morning as I was preparing to make lunch, I unwrapped a chicken breast from its butcher's paper and a small slither of paper fell out. it read "Pat - 0406 *** 719" in awkward teenage boy handwriting. I giggled.

When Shan woke up I was quick to show her how cute I thought it was that I'd now been hit on through a chicken breast medium. Shan's reaction: "But you were all sweaty! and you're gay!" And she's right - on both counts. We'd just done a 45 minute spin class at the gym so I was wearing my gym shorts and a t-shirt, my face was still a bit red and my hair was all side-parted and flat from wearing a sweatband (yes, I am that person). Plus, I'm a short-haired, boy's t-shirt wearing, rainbow flag carrying lesbian! Obviously this is what teenage boys are after these days because Pat from Woolworths at Spring Hill was keen and I have his number on my fridge to prove it!

I've got a bell and I'm not afraid to use it

Feb 3: toilet humour

Feb 2: mmm Cold Rock icecream (always cookies and cream with cookie dough for Zanne)

Shan

A marketer's dream

For lunch today I went to the little supermarket near my office to get some chicken for my pasta. It turns out today is "market day" in the supermarket so all the staff were dressed like farmers and the shop was covered in country paraphernalia. I don't know if it was the flannel shirts or the cowboy hats but I was totally caught up in the whole thing and walked around grinning on the inside (and sometimes on the outside) and left the store with two bags of fruit and vegetables that I hadn't planned to buy.

For someone who works in PR and marketing I thought I was immune to cheap ploys but apparently no. No I'm not. I was completely sucked in and now wish every supermarket had dress-up days.

Nacho Sunday

Shanny said I'm not allowed to have nachos until I blog. So here I am. Nacho Sunday is a little ritual of ours. It started right after we moved in together and has become our favourite time of the week. Nacho Sunday is the last thing we do on a weekend. After we've visited our families, hung out with friends, done the shopping and cleaned the house we buy all the ingredients and settle in for the night with a big plate of delicious nachos. Shanny gets all the ingredients ready and I cook it up. We put on a movie, sit on the floor and eat the most delectable meal in the whole world and then settle back with our bulging stomachs and talk about how much we love Nacho Sunday.

Here is a picture of our very first Nacho Sunday. My hair was so short then!

Yesterday my baby nephew Jimmy turned two. I wasn't in the country when he was born so it's nice to be able to share a few important times with him. My sister has 4 boys, him being the youngest and I have to say, most cute. With his curly strawberry blonde hair and big brown eyes he looks like a little doll. This is Jimmy with my Ma.

After Jimmy's party we swapped my family for Shan's and took her baby nephew Noah and her sister-in-law to Sizzler. I have to say, Sizzler has changed quite a bit since the last time i went and the food was actually pretty good this time. Or maybe it was just the company. Noah is by far the cutest 9 month old in the ENTIRE world. He was enamored with the salad bar and kept wanting to touch the ice. Here's his reaction to it:

until next Nacho Sunday :)

Hurtling towards 30

Hurtling -- To move with or as if with great speed and a rushing noise. I hear that noise. It's the sound of my life slowing down and speeding up all at the same time. You have more and more moments of realisation that the small, secret dreams you had as a kid actually aren't going to come true. I realised at 21 that I actually wasn't going to be a moviestar. I realised at about 23 that i actually wasn't going to be a rock star. Although I never actively pursued either of those dreams with any kind of vigour it was still a disappointing moment when I realised that I'd left it too late.

However at the same time as losing those secret dreams I've gained so many new hopes and dreams that actually have a really good chance of coming true. I've met the girl of my dreams, the person who knows just the right things to say and just the right words to use to make me feel like heaven on the inside. I've got a girl who sees the world like I do, who sees a future like I do, and who also wants to name our first son after our favourite character in our favourite book. She wants to travel with me, make music with me, wear hats with me and eat nachos with me and that, to me, is what real dreams are made of. I've never felt more happy, content, excited and passionate in all my life and I don't think being a moviestar or rockstar or any other kind of star could make this dream I'm living in any better.

bmx bandit

Sheesh! Another guest post of daily pics from me but no new post from Zanne - she knows how to keep us hanging eh? It's all that falling asleep at 9.15 me-thinks.

Jan 28: view from our mirror ball

Jan 27: suited up for my bike ride to work
Shan

happy birthday!

This weekend has been all about Zanne's birthday - it has been radical! Saturday night we hosted a birthday cocktail party, Sunday night my family hosted a birthday bbq for Zanne and my brother Kris (their birthdays are two days apart), today (Zanne's actual birthday) I surprised Zanne with a short sailing excursion at the Gold Coast which was followed by a birthday bbq with Zanne's family. Good times woooooooo!

Jan 26 (second pic): Zanne's birthday is also Australia Day and the beginning of Chinese New Year. we live next to China Town and had a perfect view of the fireworks - a great way to end the weekend!

Jan 26 (first pic): Zanne's surprise birthday present - a morning sailing on the Gold Coast

Jan 25: Zanne playing with my super cute nephew, Noah

Jan 24 (second pic): Zanne in drag at her birthday cocktail party

Jan 24 (first pic): Zanne's birthday cocktail party had fabulous props, princess decorations and water bottles for the too-drunk

Shan

knifeknife

Jan 23: amongst the party goods for tomorrow's cocktail party a packet of forks labelled "knifeknife"

Jan 22: day one of my new job - induction material, induction material and more induction material

Shan

New Years and Holidays

My cute girlfriend is standing in front of the mirror in our lounge room debating which headband to wear to my birthday party. I think they both look cute so we've decided on...both. I think she's just super excited about starting her new job tomorrow and has energy to burn.

So i know it's already January 21 and I havent been able to write at all so here's lots of stuff about all the stuff that has happened. stuff.

The New Year started in style. Our girl gang, Cassie Inc - Brisbane's favourite crotch of lesbians - went to a girl night called Scarlet just up the road from where Shan and i live. It was our first New Years together so we tried to make it special. We made tshirts :) here's a pic of all our girls. A couple of the girls were out of town for New Years. That's our little hand single to tell each other when we've seen another lesbian. hehe.

We have all our nicknames on the back.

So we went to Scarlet and all rang in the new year together which was great. We spent most of our time in the karaoke room. good times. At about 1.30am Shan and i decided to leave and as we walked outside past the side of the pub we noticed someone passed out on the ground being tended to by a paramedic. As we walked past i recognised the clothes and realised it was one of our good friends, one of the girls we'd gone out with that night. I ran back inside to find her gf and Shan stayed with her and got the ambo to wait until we could get back. her gf went with her to the hospital and we followed behind, walking there to make sure she was ok. She was allowed to go home at about 6am. Turns out she just drank too much on an empty stomach and got sick. She was off dancing at the time so no one knew she'd even been taken outside. Here's the lesson kids: Don't drink on an empty stomach and ALWAYS make sure your friends know where you are!

On the 3rd of January Shan and I left on our summer holiday. We spent 7 days at Broken Head, which is about 10 minutes south of Byron Bay. It's one of the most beautiful beaches in area, as well as being a really quiet campsite even when it was full. We took only our tent and ate out every meal to avoid having to keep any food. We spent our days eating late breakfasts, walking on the beach, having naps (i <3>

Shan wrote that she loved me in the sand. i love her too :)

Next to the "No Gays" rock someone had carved another rock with "Homophobia is Gay"

Another sunset...

and another...

Hanging out in the tent, me trying to get shan to pose.

Halfway through our holiday we had to come back for a day to go to the Sunset Sounds festival in Brisbane. We were both really keen to see Soko. Shan was super excited to see Tegan and Sara for the first time. And i was looking forward to The Kooks. And they were all great. Soko was kinda weird as she cried, actual tears, throughout her whole set. We felt bad for her but then also really uncomfortable not knowin whether we should cheer louder or encourage her to leave the stage. Later in the afternoon she was walking through the crowd so I swallowed my pride and went and asked for her autograph, saying my girlfriend really liked her. I told her she could do it on my back and she asked me to hold her beer.

She wrote "Hey girlfriend, bisous" with a picture of a cat. tre cute. it's hanging in our loungeroom.

Ok i'm too tired to write anymore so i'm going to sign off for now. I'll finish my update tomorrow.

wooooosleepwoooooo.

hehe and it's only 9.02pm, just enough time to brush my teeth and lay down, ready to fall asleep by 9.15pm. like clockwork i tell you!

yes we can

Another day, another bulk upload of daily photos... We have an excuse for our poor start at the blogging - our computer got a virus and had to visit the "hospital" for a week. I'm not sure what I did to pass my time pre-internet, I pined for our computer the whole week! Lucky I had all six seasons of Sex and the City on dvd to get me through.

Shan.

Jan 21: president obama's inauguration was our morning news - woooo! I love that Channel 9 added the caption "historic moment", I'm sure we all came to that conclusion ourselves!

note our poor television reception by the by. thanks again to our building manager for "fixing" it. Jan 20: time for celebrating. I got a new job woooo!

ps. my cheeks are ridiculous. Jan 19: and our record collection is coming along nicely Jan 18: best garage sale purchase ever - for only $5!

Jan 17: wall of skateboards at antique store. radical!

Jan 16: sunset at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane

Jan 15: the computer is still broken *pout*

Jan 14: "the opposite of well is sick..."

Jan 13: day one of computer virus

spacing v. me

Hey there. I'm Shan, I'm a guest here.

Zann has kindly offered up her blog to facilitate my creative project for this year: a daily photograph. So, the plan is to post a photograph here each day or so. Just quietly, I suspect that my enthusiasm might fizzle out when it becomes obvious my life isn't really thaaaaaat interesting. I also suspect that many of said photographs will include my love (aw!).

Anyways, here are my photographs so far.

Jan 12: beneath the South East Freeway, Brisbane

Jan 11: Zann's new love

Jan 10: for my Step-Dad, Nev

Jan 9: Zann and her apple turnover, post-siesta (note the bed hair). Camping is radical.

Jan 8: in our tent, reading by torch light

Jan 7: our friend Kristen took this pic of us moments after Soko autographed our Sunset Sounds poster at Zann's (very cute) request

Jan 6: Zann eating the Big Prawn, Ballina Jan 5: at a secluded beach we came across this rock which read "no gays". amusingly someone has changed "no" to "go". GO GAYS!

Jan 4: sunset at Broken Head beach, site of our camping adventure

Jan 3: playing scrabble at our campsite

Jan 2: packing for our camping adventure

Jan 1: Zann's Nan playing cricket at family get-together attempt no. 2 (sans homophobic uncle)