Little Flutters

I’ve had people ask me why I’m moving back to Australia after two years in the States. I know D.C might have better photog opportunities and I am going to miss the cheap, big food portions. The answer is here.

And I didn’t even realise it.

• During my primary school years, every lunch time my friends and I would survey the surface of our football fields.  We were on the hunt for ant nests, and when we found one, we went at it with anything we could find; sticks, rocks, our aprons. We had seen pictures of queen ants in books and while we dug through antechamber after antechamber, we saw many eggs but never a queen. Poor buggers. I committed genocide before turning ten.
• My cousin had a creek literally next door to her house and whenever the terrors (my siblings and I) was over, we’d find all kinds of plastic containers and fill them with the little tadpoles that were practically jumping over the brim of the little creek. We’d take them home and then wonder why they all died. My aptly named Fatty was the last one, the baby frog consumed its’ own body fat long enough to grow little legs but then called it quits. I cried and it had a royal funeral next to the strawberry patch. If only I had thought to feed it.
• In Year 2, the clever thing to do was to go up to someone and say really fast “doyalickadickaday?“, if they hadn’t heard the joke before, they would normally say yes and you would give an exaggerated laugh and tell everyone within ear shot that so-and-so licks a dick a day. We knew what a penis was but thought it was gross – like touching a snail or making a fart joke. The complications and sick implications of the humour came out when I older, was looking back. It’s like biting your tongue and saying “I was born on a pirate ship.” Do it now! Tell me what it sounds like.
• And on a lighter note, I was six when my family moved to Australia. Since we had just shipped everything we had to another country, there was one room that was stacked high with boxes. You heard of Picasso’s blue period? Well, this was the time in our family of the great Aladdin period. After coming home from school, my four year old sister, my three year old brother and six year old I would take turns to climb onto the highest box possible. We’d stand, holding a blanket length way (our magic carpet) then jump as if gliding through air, singing as loud as one can “A whole new worrrrld!” Once you landed on the mattress, you had to proclaim with absolute certainty how long you were in the air. Eight seconds was the record. Which is just impossible, but back then, it was magical.

Yeah, you heard me. I’ve been reading Sam de Brito’s blog All Men are Liars for six months now and his articles are always interesting, timely and honest. He’s like the National Geographic in my blog reader, well-researched, informative and something I can strike up a conversation about later on.

The reason I’m bringing him up is his latest work on the word pussy. I swear, this is not a feminist whinge. It’s written by a no nonsense type of bloke. And I loved every word. The below is taken mid-stream but you should seriously click on this link for the rest. Your brain would thank you for it.

However, if a person really lacks strength, if they’re a wimp of the highest order, they might attract the next level of aspersion: pussy.

That’s right, you heard me, you pussy.

Some would argue this is merely a contraction of the term “pussy cat”, which strikes me as sweetly naive, considering its double-meaning has been mined by comedians for more than a century…

So, while I’d love to think guys screaming “pussy” at the opposing team at football matches are referring to tabby cats, somehow I doubt it.

This is kind of funny because so many men spend their lives chasing said pussy, yet, when they want to diminish someone, they label them with the object of their desire.

If you don’t own Black Books, or even watched it, you haven’t lived.

If you’re in the mood for a more of a giggle, youtube Stephen K Amos.

So, it turns out that when you’re learning Spanish, working on your portfolio, packing or selling things and planning a three month trip around the world, you haven’t got much time to blog. I’m going to be more open about my life over the next couple of months, simple and honest, because I don’t know if I’ll have time to do anything else.

I’ve been planning a trip to Europe for the last six years, it seemed to be the Mecca of self-discovery, the thing for Aussies to do at least once. And in two months time, I’m going to eat my weight in pasta, cheese and bread. But it’s so much more than Europe!

My partner and I are meeting my in-laws in Peru, doing the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu then heading off to Brazil and Argentina for Iguazu Falls. From there, it’s lots of little trips to Paris for the two of us then driving through Bordeaux, crossing the border into Spain for San Sebastian and Barcelona then south of France. Italy for a month of food, brew and laughs. Greece for a week. Turkey, Egypt then a safari in Tanzania. Good food in Thailand for a couple of days and then settling back in Sydney indefinitely.

I’m really happy that we’re setting aside the time to do this long ass travel. It takes a bit of planning and we’re hardly seeing each other now but oh my god, are we going to be sick of each other during this trip. I can’t wait.

Oh, here’s a video of me eating a peep. Exciting stuff!

Peep-a-boo from Tash Jayasinghe on Vimeo.

Made 37 years after the book was written, this was the first film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Marvel at the special effects of 1903.

It’s really cool that the British Film Institute put this on YouTube. Otherwise it would just  gather dust in their archives. Well done, I tip my hat off to you BFI.

Funnily enough, Cecil Hepworth, one of the directors of the 1903 film, cast his wife as the Red Queen. Just like Tim Burton did for Helena Bonham-Carter in the most recent Alice in Wonderland.

I saw it over the weekend. It was AMAZING! To be completely honest, Burton doesn’t have to do much to amaze me but this film was so magical and colourful, my mouth was agape for much of it.

Oh, and about the video above, the scene at 4:05 mins scares the bejesus out of me. Still does. I’ll probably have nightmares tonight.

I’m leaving the States in June for a three month stint through South America and Europe, finally settling back in Sydney.  Isn’t it amusing how when you have a deadline, suddenly a thousand things pop into your head?

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been writing a list of things I want to do in this land of opportunities. And since I, like everyone else alive, likes the feeling of accomplishment, I included some of the things I’ve already done.

Most of them involve food, and 80% of food cravings come from the Simpsons or other American films, but hey, don’t pass judgement on my needs.

If you tasted American bacon, you would go ape shit for the crazy food combos too.

So with pompous glory, I present to you, my list of American things to do before I leave the country. Stuff I’ve done is in orange.

• Shoot a gun at something that is not alive.
• Make red beans and rice from scratch.
• Watch Alice in Wonderland. That’s not really America related but important nevertheless.
• Check out all the photog stuff at B&H in New York.
• Finish the largest Big Gulp known to man in one day. Be walking distance to a loo.
• Do a keg stand and drink beer from a red plastic cup.
• See the Grand Canyon.
• Visit every Smithsonian museum in D.C.
• See Obama, at least from afar.
• Buy lots of Halloween shit to take back home.
• Have the best cup cake in the world.
• Learn conversational Spanish.
• Play a game at Chuck E. Cheese.
• Eat at In-n-Out.
• Have a true blue American chopped salad.
• Go to a Unity Woods yoga workshop.
• Eat a peep.
• See Ballet at the Kennedy Center.
• Have a New York style pizza slice (that is hopefully bigger than my face).
• Go to a basketball game.
• Go to an ice hockey game.
• Eat at White Castle.
• Send a postcard to PostSecret.
• Go to New Orleans.
• Spend at least another day in New Orleans.
• Eat at Taco Bell.
• Have a cocktail named after an American president that I don’t know.
• Visit the theater where Lincoln was assassinated.
• Hike through Great Falls park.
• Go to a goth club.
• Have dinner at one of those places where they dress up as knights, serve  medieval food, talk funny and then fight each other, to the death, all for my amusement.

This was my man’s project for the weekend. I’m so glad as video editing is time-consuming and he just churned it out. Woot.

Pre-Chrissy in NYC from Tash Jayasinghe on Vimeo.

Aruba from Tash Jayasinghe on Vimeo.