dee - viscerate.com

GIRL
Diana Evans
called Dee
since May 25th, 1980
terrorising inner-city Melbourne
consuming flat whites
producing words, hers and other people's
contact dee [at] viscerate [dot] com

SITE
viscerate.com
consisting of personal reflections
photography by Amy Q
archives here

Saturday, November 17, 2001

They've finally caught up with me. I'm fleeing the country, heading to somewhere unpronouncable in central America.

Actually, I'm just going away with the remaining Wench Girls for the weekend. Back on Monday. Don't set fire to anything in my absence.

1:12 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Friday, November 16, 2001

My friend Rb is in the States at the moment, as the final leg of a world-wide tour he's currently embarked upon. He's been sending us irregular updates, filled with his usual sparkling wit. Today's installment should, I thought, be shared. Things he's seen in America that made him laugh:
  • Jews for Jesus (with the star of David as the "o" in the "for")
  • 24 hour bowling (when you just have to at 4am)
  • A sign just outside of Chicago: Alaska 3284 miles (no need for a break then)
  • Mcdonald signs with "Billions and Billions Served" on the sign. They've finally given up counting.

9:33 PM - link to this - (0) comments

I'd almost forgotten what real sleeping in was. Not the decadent feeling of "Well, I'll just set my alarm clock to 9 instead of 8 because I deserve that extra hour", but actually not setting the alarm clock at all.

I woke up at 9 anyway, the Male long gone (I did not do that movie-esque roll over and stretch out to find blank space, but rather muttered: "What time is it?" and when I got no response, realised I'd better sit up and look for myself).

And now I have the wonderful, beautiful realisation that after breakfast and ablutions, I have nothing that needs to be done for the day.

Oh, apart from wandering into Civic and buying a pistol. I might just get one for Nards as well. Good Christmas present.

9:17 AM - link to this - (0) comments

Thursday, November 15, 2001

I am finished.

Finished. The essay, the exam period, the year, my degree. Finished, finished, finished.

Well, except for that pesky Honours thing next year, but that's practically post-grad and it won't have the same interminable, boring undergraduate drain about it. It'll be interesting and challenging and maybe even, DOUG-forbid, fun.

And I'm finished. No more German, no more lectures, no more bothering with lecturers and tutors who don't take me seriously.

I'm fucking finished. RAH!!

Ahem. So. How about those Mormons.

3:53 PM - link to this - (0) comments

The pink Power Ranger is not acceptable. Powerpuff girls are. The pink Voltron member is controversial (I maintain the girl was blue, despite all evidence to the contrary) and very, very cool.

I have 81 footnotes in my essay. I think I may have gone overboard.

10:29 AM - link to this - (0) comments

Wednesday, November 14, 2001

When you're in college, what you wear to the shower is suddenly a valid point. Not that it's one of the Standard O-week Questions or anything: Hey, what's your name? What're you studying? What do you wear to the shower? No, not that. It's just that from day one, you're going to be tripping down the corridor every morning (well, I hope every morning) to the communal showers, and you're going to need to wear something. Although nudity is always an option. But that's a different story.

In general, first-years start out going fully clothed. Occasionally even including shoes. They get undressed in the little shower cubicle, ablute, and then get fully dressed again.

This is stupid, and hence never lasts long.

Soon, like the rest of us, they're prancing gaily down the hallway wearing nothing but a towel. If they're J2, they might even have a tendency to whip the towel off before the shower door is fully closed.

Myself, I've never been a fully-dresser, or a toweller. From the first, I've gone to the shower wearing my Playboy Bunny dressing gown. It's one of those little towelling warparound-and-tie robes. It's black. It has the Bunny on it. It's cool. It was my Dad's, and he gave it to me when I kept stealing the one that he used, which was blue and had an anchor on it. Everyone has always admired my Playboy Bunny dressing gown. It's very cool.

(This post brought to you by the fact that I passed a first-year leaving the showers fully dressed this morning. It's the end of the year, and she's still doing this? Some of them, apparently, never learn.)

9:12 AM - link to this - (0) comments

Tuesday, November 13, 2001

You know you're reaching the depths of procrastination when you consider reordering your CDs so that the spines would form a rainbow.

And then you realise there's far too many black ones to make that workable anyway.

8:13 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Like Melissa, I want, want, want, need to see Lord of the Rings. The need to view it now is coalescing like a swallowed marble in my stomach. (With blackest moss the flower pots... 3 points.)

You see, it's very simple: Tolkien was my real introduction to fantasy. Oh sure, I read Victor Kelleher as a pre-teen, and it fed my imagination, but it was Tolkien who really started me off. How? Well, there used to be this game called Hugo's House of Horrors. It was one of those walk around, type in commands adventures. It was the first one I ever played. It was also, incidentally, how I learned to type. It was slightly fiendish - took us days to figure out how to get in the sodding front door (tip: break the pumpkin). Anyway, towards the end you come across this little old man with his fishing rod. He shows up in games two and three as well. He asks you silly questions. Like the first one, which was: "What is the hero's name in 'The Hobbit'?"

"Huh?" I went. "What's the Hobbit? Muuuuuum!!"

Mum told me it was a book by some guy called JRR Tolkien. She suggested I go and talk to Mrs Thiedecke, the school librarian and my bestest friend. So I did, and Mrs T pulled a book from the shelves and handed it to me.

I have a theory that the first dragon you ever see is how you will see dragons forever. This cover was mine. It's stunning (and search as I might, I can't find a picture of it on the internet), featuring Smaug standing on top of the mountain, wings spread, spewing into the dusk sky not fire, but some sort of insidious vitriol, curling through the air. It is absolutely glorious. I looked high and low for that edition when I was purchasing my copy of the Hobbit, and finally found it at a second-hand store. I bought it so fast, it made my head spin.

In any case, I devoured it (and finished the game) and moved on to the main series. It was mind-expanding stuff. I adored it. Later, after years of fantasy-reading, I would return to it, and be disappointed. It wasn't as glorious as I remembered it. It was a bit dull, and the characters were a bit cardboard, and there was lots of 'the good stuff' left out in favour of lengthy descriptions of rowan trees. I hold the bright, fervent hope that the movie will be everything the books were for me the first time round. And considering there's such a major part made of Arwen, I think I might just be in for satisfaction.

Please, let it be good. Maybe I can hibernate between now and Boxing Day. I'm dying here.

6:51 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Monday, November 12, 2001

When I grow up, I'd like to be:
  • taller
  • a cyberpirate
  • hostess on a gameshow
  • enjoying a jetsetting lifestyle
  • a cannibal
  • a psychic superhero
  • a werepoodle
  • David Bowie
  • something really metal
  • an anime schoolgirl
  • not intimidated by cheerleaders
  • a cheerleader
  • older.

7:56 PM - link to this - (0) comments

There are fifteen things I would rather be doing this afternoon, and nothing I should be doing more than studying for the exam tomorrow. It's suddenly occurred to me that my usual 'I went to the lectures, I can bullshit, I'll be all right' attitude isn't going to get me through, because I didn't actually go to all the lectures.

Oops.

2:02 PM - link to this - (0) comments

I've got the moves. (Oh-way-oh.)

12:32 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Sunday, November 11, 2001

I rarely get notes from the GM in Werewolf. When I do, they are invariably involving something very, very fucked happening to my character. This one was no exception.

"Soon you will be attacking your pack (you have no say in it.) You will not hold anything back, attack them as if they were bad NPCs. You cannot say things like 'Sorry guys, I can't help it' even out of character. You will fight for six turns. After that, you can take a turn to yell STOP! or FUUUUUUUUCK!!! if that's more appropriate."

So, I turned to the leader of my pack, plunged both clawed hands into his chest cavity, and smacked his head on the ceiling. Even he respected the pure class of that move. Then, unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - the little Tibetan warrior guy in our party picked me up and threw me down the corridor. I hit the wall so hard, it knocked me out.

And that was just the beginning of the fun and games. Today's Werewolf session was seriously entertaining. I love this game.

PS: Today, I finally came up with a title for my novel. It didn't quite hit me out of the blue; I'd been thinking about it for quite a while. I always had faith that as I wrote, some title would make itself appropriate. So how do y'all think 'The Lost Throne' sounds as a title? I quite like it.

6:37 PM - link to this - (0) comments