THIS is what I mean to post the other day...I mean the cat chasing the spider is cute and all but this is just a total pisser! Font Conference, love it!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=i3k5oY9AHHM

Been watching Sex in the City and have decided it's all the same shit we go through, they just wear better clothes.

I've started an enormous project....enormous. Might take me 20 years! For more info go to www.dearjane.com this quilt is amazing. I've admired mum's for years as she's been making it but she informs me she's taking it to the nursing home with her (and she'd apparently living to 120) and I've decided I'd rather not wait 60 years for it! I figure by doing it myself I'm still about 40 years ahead!

So here are the first few blocks! 4 1/2" square and all hand pieced. Some of them have about a bazillion pieces and are a complete bitch to cut out but once they're together they look so purdy!!!

I'm SO excited!

My darling godfather called last night to see if I'd like to go to a dress rehearsal of Wicked! on Thursday night. Would I?!!!! I'm taking Ivonava with me, need to make up for the Helen Garner sadness on Friday night lol. Can't wait, this is just the BEST score I've heard for years.

Saturday night I rented the Tim Burton Sweeny Todd on DVD. Now I'm a bit funny about people putting music theatre/opera onto the screen (particularly Sonheim, one of my favourites) but I held faith that it was Tim Burton and he'd be lovely and black about it at least. It was WONDERFUL! An absolute visual feast and Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter were just perfect! That show always blows me away how it's so twisted yet a song like Not While I'm Around crops up in the middle.

One of the projects I'm working on at the moment is the American tour for the Childrens Performing Company of Australia. I've been involved in the last three of their overseas tours (always happy when they go somewhere english speaking, trying to explain a peanut allergy to a place in Venice was tough!) organising public performances, sight seeing etc.

This time they're going to New York amongst other places and want to do performances there and are possibly also going to be involved in the New York Music Theatre Festival which is on at the time. I've been doing some research about youth theatres in the hope of finding one there we could do workshops with and get cheap theatre hire from. Have been dealing with one but my contact there is now on leave until end of June. Been trying to get hold of the person who's handling her area in her absence to no avail. I was up super late last night and called him at 2am. And booked a theatre in New York, on Broadway. It's only been today that it's actually blown me away (was a bit tired and drunk at 2am!!!). How hilarious! I've booked a theatre on Broadway! He's sent the contracts and specs through so I've got to go through all the fine details now but it's amused me no end today!

I should have known, I mean it was an opera based on a book written by Helen Garner. Can anyone remember the last 'light and fluffy' Helen Garner book they read? No?

It's not that I don't think she's an intelligent, literate woman, she really is but there's never any joy in what she writes. We all have our ups and downs in life but I think we could all admit there are some great times as well as the not so great times in the journey.

The show was The Children's Bach put on by ChamberMade Opera. It was a beautifully crafted piece, and well performed and the staging and lighting was wonderful. The music wasn't my cup of tea (and I've listened to more than my fair share of modern opera!) - one friend was heard to comment there was no music in the foyer afterwards! The content though, well, was just relentless. Relentlessly sad and bleak. Yes it moved me, but not in the right direction I fear!

Given the week I've had I really shouldn't have gone anywhere Ms Garner!

I've recently started reading the 'Lunch with...' series by Derek Hansen. Have read the first two and just started the third. Mum had always said they're great and I'd enjoy them and it's taken me ages to get around to them. They are great - really wonderful storytelling.

I've recently been given a heap of books from two different friends, they know the books will go around a few people. I enjoyed reading a Kathy Lette book and really enjoyed it. I've previously wanted to smack her, perhaps now I'm old and cynical enough to 'get' her. I don't know if that's a good thing or not!

Am also hanging out for the new John Honey and Michael Jacobson books, two of my favourite authors.

Tonight I'm going to see The Children's Bach, a Chamber Made Opera production of the Helen Garner book. I love what Chamber Made do (with one notable exception which goes down as the worst night in theatre nearly!) so it should be an interesting show.

It's been raining in Melbourne this afternoon (hooray!). I left work about 6pm and was walking down Little Collins St to Flinders St station to get the train home. Hindsight reveals I perhaps should've taken the tram with the dodgy street naming drivers as previously mentioned!

Anyway,....Little Collins St has lots of different surfaces. They were wet. I was walking at my usual pace, just short of running for normal people - it's a genetic trait from my mother. Heel hit a slippery spot. Knee on one leg went one way, ankle on the other went in opposite direction and down I went. Those 60gig iPods have both excellent 'skidability' and must be made from bloody titanium! It didn't miss a beat. Some lovely people stopped and helped me up (talk about restore one's faith!) and I continued on my way, albeit at a slightly adjusted pace. One wanted to call me an ambulance......very sweet she was so concerned but everything was functioning and there was no blood!

Feeling sore now.....might be time to hit the Nurofen.

The week just gets better and better really!

This one actually makes me giggle. The trams in Melbourne. Some drivers announce which stop their stopping at, Elizabeth St, Queen St etc. I imagine if you didn't know Melbourne this would be incredibly helpful! Unfortunately nine times out of ten the actual announcement of these stops is COMPLETELY unable to be understood. I'm not talking about a word said with a heavy accent you have to tune into to listen too, I'm talking just doesn't even resemble a word!

Poor tourists. I often have people asking me where they are. Kinda also amuses me as it's not like streets go on a curve in the city, if you get on at Bourke St good chance you're still on it a few blocks later. Ah well....maybe I should start cheering when I can understand the drivers. Positive reinforcement and all that.