Random raves

Drove to Sydney and spent a fuckton of money on ephemera. It was ooodles of fun.

I purchased my usual stack of books, and found one by Del LaGrace Volcano (and Ulrika Dahl) that I'm actually mostly enjoying: Femmes of Power. I suspect it's more about the subject matter, not that I'm suddenly that much more tolerant of "edgy+++ self-consciously arty pics of my mates". An artist who is definitely more about the subject matter (sometimes) than the actual art, for me. Although, you know, the photography is very competent and vivid. Anyway, good book - a good representative mixture of genders and styles, although given Volcano's leaning towards exhibitionism and camp - and, I suppose, the fact that everyone's dressed up for their piccies - a bit of a preponderance of the high femme or tarty (in the non-derogative sense) looks. The text is also a bit self-consciously wanky, but there are some very interesting women discussing themselves.

As well as all the other things I didn't need, I bought a new Crumpler bag. Now, I have heard certain dykes and men criticise women about their handbags. I personally love handbags (although those not those ones that look like dressed-up bichon frises- you know, the dumpy squishy bags in pastel shades of crappy leather or vinyl, covered with useless buckles and sequins and the like), even though I would never carry one myself. I also have a reallllly bad habit of buying myself bags for various functions.

I have my big overseas trip bag (that contains a very light foldable bag I can use for backup with a 30l capacity), which is like a sportsbag with wheels. Then there's my business trip wheely case. I have a 25l backpack, which is handy when cycling to the market, or for a night-or-two trip. I also have a smaller daypack for small bike trips.  Then my everyday messenger bag, which can comfortably (albeit heavily) hold a ream of paper, and a smaller bag that really just fits my wallet and keys and a small book. Then there's another bag that I bought in London that's in between those two sizes, but which has a really stupidly designed zip, so I don't use it, and will shortly be dumping it into a charity bin. So the bag I bought today is a replacement for that bag, and actually does have a properly designed zip, and enough internal compartments. It will be my new everyday bag, since it holds all my gadgets, and a largish book or two. None of these bags are particularly sexy - they're all varying thicknesses of nylon and are very functional.

I have seen a leather bag that looks a bit like a smallish messenger bag - about a foot in width and slightly longer - with two buckles, internal pockets and nice leather. Unfortunately it costs $800, which is about what all my other bags cost all together. I think it's my attempt at reclaiming the leather school satchel the boys had in primary school, and which I coveted. I even had one a few years back, but I got rid of it when I went to England, alas (also, the style they used in NZ was not that practical for lots of little bits and pieces that tend to fall out of the cavernous single compartment if the bag was tilted in any way).

So there you go, my secret collecting urges revealed. The next thrilling episode will be about coats. I also have more than 6 pairs of shoes, but I think that's it - other than books - for the things I tend to needlessly accumulate. I will emphasise that all my bags, shoes and coats (man, maybe I have a buried high femme... stop sniggering, one and all) get used. To varying degrees.

Oh, and before I set off on my trip, I fixed my MP3 player, which I dropped a few weeks back, and hadn't got round to fixing. The start button is a slider, and it had popped out of the thing it slides. Three small screws - yay jewellers' screwdrivers - and a bit of levering, and it was all fixed. Yet another reason I won't buy an MP3 player with a hard drive rather than solid state memory these days - my gadgets do not get a soft life. So that was an actual achievement for today. I did have real problems getting the screws back into the device, because of the tremor in my hands, which is certainly not getting any better. I'm tossing up whether I should get it seen to, although I've had it for years, it's intermittent and seems to be often stress (both good and bad) related. I also don't think there's much that can be done, per se (yes, I've tried magnesium supplements). Well, we'll see - I'm not dropping books or hot cups of coffee yet.