The best idea ever

Seriously, it’s a better idea than that time I thought the mash could use more butter.

I was struck by the thought I have been smoking for 20 years. Now, quite frankly, smoking and I are the real deal. Long have I claimed that Peter Stuyvesant is my “plus one” in life and dammit, it’s time those nearest and dearest recognised this special moment.

So smoking and I will have a 20th anniversary party down in Chinatown (20th anniversary gift) to celebrate 20 years of that first smoke in the morning, getting into kinky threesomes with coffee, looking for change behind the couch to buy another pack and long flights around the globe desperate to consummate our lurve. And force my friends to watch.

Do you want to come?

* So it’s 20 years if you don’t count the odd childhood cigarette under the age of 10 and the “long weekend” that was being pregnant and raising the Seagull to the age of 1.

Tatami’d

The highs of Amsterdam dictated I needed a soft space to fall before home and Osaka will always be that place. I made my way from the airport (after the most polite bag search ever) to Shinsekai, my most beloved spot in the world, and crashed on the tatami of my tiny room.

On waking, I skittered about my favourite streets and lanes, pausing to eat takoyaki, buy little tschokes from a roadside stallholder and peer in windows before sitting down to eat a pancake dinner in a strange little cafe that rivalled Pellegrinis in its refusal to redecorate.

Osaka is still as beautiful as remembered. The cooing of the ladies on the train PA is still soothing. I still knew my way around, my favourite diners were still open and still serving my favourite food. The people still blush and smile without guile.

And the shopping is still amazing. I could spend my yearly salary and still not have my fill – forgetting how heady that first 24 hours of shopping is in Japan. From roadside trash vendor to boutique to department store, I would (and did) happily test the limits of my credit history.

For example, I fell utterly in love with the randoseru, a leather backpack for Japanese primary school students.

This is a randoseru:

For those unaware of the Amoir love stakes, here it is presented as a prioritised list:

1. Randoseru
2. Smoking
3. Mashed Potato
4. Dubliner vs Paul Banks in death match
5. Sitting
6. Butter
7. Godzilla
8. Misc. carbohydrates
9. Zombies

I actually tried to purchase said love at Daimaru only to discover my credit card wouldn’t work. Why? Because I was trying to buy a bag worth A$800 after a month of living off said credit card. Also, I suck at converting currency.

This lead to much embarrassment and me exiting stage right to console myself with a pork cutlet sandwich while thinking the Seagull doesn’t need a bag worth more than her mother’s combined bag collection multiplied by oh, I don’t know, infinity. But if you see me in an ice-filled bathtub, missing a kidney and clutching onto a randoseru, you’ll know what’s happened.

It combines my love of smoking and travel…

Qantas to sell cigarettes on overseas flights.

Now to work on “Cancer Air”, the Smokin’ Airline.

9. Love like a tiger

From Heading East: Found on Bergen & Smith possibly the most sad list of new year’s resolutions.

I wonder if I love like a tiger. Those who have shared a bed with me may argue that I love like a sloth. Or Howler Monkey.

After my 2007 failutions, it should be noted that my 2008 New Year resolution was to continue smoking (especially after Giving Up Smoking the Amoir Way pts one, two and three.

p.s. I beg of you to check out Heading East. It’s an amazing blog, filled with exquisite stories and expression.

On the road with the Effusive Complimenter to Japan. Or something like it.

Naturally she had turned up at 4am. Just as I had let my head hit the pillow. And she came in and pirouetted around my bed, splaying limbs akimbo. She refused to sleep instead forcing me to play “retarded kittens”. I shan’t explain more than it requires me to say “eeehn! eeeehn! eeehn!” and pout a lot.

Naturally, we also slept in the next morning. The same morning we had to be at the airport rather early. The same morning we had to get through a city that was in the midst of closing down and shutting off much needed freeway entrances.

Naturally, for it is par for the course, we smoked madly, shrieked and gave sterling insults to other drivers on the way to the airport. I decried one has being poorly accessorised. It matters not that I had no idea what they looked like, let alone how they accessorised. You can just tell some things.

Somehow not only managed to make it just on time but managed to actually look sufficiently helpless enough to convince a airport worker to escort me to the front of a check in queue ahead of 100 other people. Yes, I expect you to hate me for that….I don’t wear accessories though so you’ll have to come up with another insult. May I suggest flibbertygibbit?

As it was, karma had a delightful side swipe for me. While waiting an interminably long time for my connecting flight in Sydney, I was desperate for a smoke. Apparently they have lovely smokey and dingy rooms for the afflicted and cruelly name them “lounges”. After wandering in increasingly frantic circles, someone directed me to it. Oh, how I skipped! How I skittered! I was like a little pony tottering with joy! There was a song in my heart, I tell you, and it was singing glories and hallelujahs to the impending post-binge headrush I was going to give myself.

Until I found out Sydney Airport had permanently closed it. THE DAY BEFORE! (Yes, caps are required, Goddess. They just are.)

Naturally the universe was telling me something and, for once, it wasn’t about hemming my trousers. So began my love for the nicotine patch. What joyful felicity that lil sprite brings…

I almost cried when I got off in Osaka and saw this:

In news that will bring joy to many a person’s heart, I find my vocabulary has been reduced to 1% of previous capacity as I am restricted to what is in the phrasebook and, in my short few hours here, have not come across many English speakers.

Case in point: found my delightfully dingy accomodation. Spoke with night manager. Who can’t speak a word of English (which he shouldn’t have to). I booked over a week ago. I know this IS the hotel I was supposed to be staying at. But despite looking EXACTLY (and I mean evil cousin Sabrina from Paris exactly) like the hotel, it has a different name. So I had to book in again.

However, there is something liberating about only having to provide single answer responses or questions.

Kitsen? (smoking?)
Arigato (thanks)
Eeenh! (I’m a fuckwit Westerner)

Mighty Girl Mondays Pt 6

Every Monday, I’ll be selecting a topic from Maggie Mason’s book “No one cares what you had for lunch”. As the whimsically witty and multitasking creator of Mighty Girl and Mighty Goods, it should surprise no one that she’s also a contributor to ReadyMade Magazine’s Blog and The Morning News.

Today’s blessings

• I really was amused about fainting
• By fainting against the wall I was able to avoid doing an upturned turtle routine on the floor due to my somewhat ridiculous backpack. This is also known as the Venkman.
• Fainting provides a wonderful excuse to binge up on sugary treats…all in the name of medicine.
• It also leaves you feeling amiably confused as fuck
• A friend returned from Japan with a packet of Peace cigarettes for me
• I did a happy dance realising I’ll be there in a short time
• A friend gave me a lift home
• So I walked through the amazing Fitzroy Gardens
• Then lolled in the bath and gave the empty apartment a vigorous rendition of Tailights Fade by Buffalo Tom.

Things to love: How to perk up your Sunday the Amoir way

I have a touch of melancholy at the mo’ and feel more burdened than Conor Oberst at Frownapalooza getting dumped by a girl, rejected by his dad, having a bad hair day and having his ironic t-shirt misunderstood by the low-slung set.

There is, naturally, a way to remedy this.

Amoir’s sure-fire 10 point plan to “c’mon, get happy you emo–fucktard“.

1. Find $5 in your jacket pocket after a chat with Lakshmi.
2. Dress in something other than that tattered Jane’s Addiction t-shirt and knickers.
3. Put on make-up.
4. Break out the high-heeled boots.
5. Sashay up Exhibition and nearly take a tumble in front of a young Asian crue. Then, just to cement their suspicion you’re as mad as a hatstand, uncontrollably giggle at your clumsiness.
6. Sashay a bit more guardedly to Pellegrinis.
7. Enjoy a delightfully strong cafe latte which is promised as “the best ever”.
8. Have that chap refuse your money. He always gets softly flirtatious when you’re made up.
9. Give the fiver to the homeless chap on the corner.
10. Sashay dreamily through the orange-hued gardens (Autumn’s coming!) and realise things are pretty fucking good so stop complaining and just work through it.

Signs the Universe possibly wants you to quit smoking: you find an intriguing apartment. Well within your desired price range and location. The catch? It’s a non-smoking apartment. *sigh*

Late night shenanigans

There is nowt more thrilling than a late night visitor. There’s something so tantalisingly clandestine about it all, like a secret treat one hides from friends. Arriving in the thick of night, a guest comes offering diversions (and, as it happens, possibly perversions).

Last night/this morning it was another of those occasions where you inadvertently let off a beacon and, somehow, start alerting your brethren to you presence in the world. Just a small, quiet beep that softly rings in their ears. And my phones were swamped with text messages and calls from friends flung far and wide.

One was the delectable Schnootle. This woman is, without a doubt, a rare treat in the world. Why this woman has not been elevated to public worship is beyond me, mayhaps a sign that there is no justice in this world and, as the Purdy Jane says, “the general public? …meh, pack o’ cunts”. Every email a frenetic barrage of euphony, every phone call a languorous drawl of Mint Julep.

She tottered in around 1am after a series of evening phone calls (which gave me the motivation previously missing to clean the apartment) bearing whimsical shoes and gifts of books and films. All fabulous (and that must be pronounced with particular emphasis and luxury…drag out that f, linger your tongue on the vowels, for it was that damned faaaabulous).

We gathered at my table and flung books at each other while she stunned me into a state of envious stupefaction at just how well read she is, in part due to her ongoing work as a book reviewer, in part due to the fact she’s just fucking brilliant. Under a pall of thick smoke, we sipped ginger beer brewed by the lad who doesn’t get mentioned on this blog and vented spleens, hearts and everything else that should be covered by the Schadenfreude Times (for we would both co-edit that title). Topics of discussion: Russian prison tattoos (for I am devouring the second encyclopedic volume of that topic), the absence of brilliance in music, my predilection for Irish gents and the Marchesa Casati. Naturally, the Schnootle was perfectly able to drop in the most salient and fascinating of conversational tidbits.

Though she doesn’t know it yet, I am planning a writing project for the two of us to work on. Apt, given that she is the person I think about most when writing and feel motivates my best work.

Save your fireworks. With such friends and conversation to be had I cannot wait to see what 2007 brings and I can guarantee you it will outshine any spectacle in the sky.

A conversation

Me: Fancy une fumee?
Effusive Complimenter: Sweet, no. I am trying to give my grounds and messuages a small period of rest before I lay them waste on Sunday.
Me: Poor alveoli – they have no idea of what awaits them.
Effusive Complimenter: Oh, they have some idea…the poor singed little dears fear the coming of December as the minnow fears spring, and the coming of the eel.

You too would allow this woman to strap a yellow box to your head. She’s as persuasive as the Goddess with that silken brogue of hers.

Giving up smokes the Amoir way, pt 3

The final step is to run out in the crying wind and piercing rain to buy a pack of smokes and hungrily consume one while thrilling in the weather as you skulk down Batman Ave listening to “Turkish song of the Damned”.

Please note this is possibly the most joyous part of the whole entire fucking process.

The most joyous part for you: I promise to never mention giving up smoking again in this blog, even though much fun was had trying the Sunny von Bulow approach. I just cannot do it. Smoking is a part of me. Well that, and my alveoli are totally cruising for a bruising.

Reason # 29384729384729 I adore my friends: I went for a lovely walk with the Effusive Complimenter today and told her of my dream. Her response? “So tell me more about what I was wearing.” Apparently to appear in someone’s dream donning an Orwellian black and grey PVC nurse outfit makes her happy.