The Brisbane Tip Shop Project #1

I spent almost four hours today at ‘the tip shop’. The what shop? The tip shop. Tip, as in, rubbish tip. And shop, as in, the place where you buy things. The common misconception is obviously that I would be buying rubbish, but as I found out today, the tip shop is more like a roughian gold mine.

So first I need to explain how I came to be at this remarkable place. My wonderful artist mother found out about a competition being run by the Endeavour Foundation people who run the tip shop and the Brisbane City Council. You had to apply (then be accepted) and what happens is that you are allowed to pick any one piece of furniture for sale at the tip shop, then you have about 3 or so weeks and a $250 stipend to totally re-vamp it, and then you present it and the winner of a publicly-voted ‘people’s choice award’ wins the competition and pockets a tasty $500!

I KNOW! Its just the greatest most wonderful competition I’ve ever heard of, and I agree with you that it’s almost too good to be true, but it’s real. The tip shop needs some positive publicity to bring recycling issues to light, and it’s a brilliant way for the council to remind people that awesome things can be done with the old tables and couches and cabinets that we grow bored with.

I didn’t even know this place existed, and that’s kind of embarrassing because I’m such an avid vintage and op-shop lover. Apparently it only opened a year or so ago, so maybe my ‘but I was away!’ excuse can get me off the hook here. There is a wonderful tip shop on the Sunshine Coast near where my brother lives, but it’s only open on the weekend and it’s always PACKED with people. I think this new one (read: you know, new for me) in Brisbane at Acacia Ridge is going to get very popular very quickly.

Anyways, my mum entered us as a team! So we turned up bright and early at midday, and behind a high steel fence, within a big industrial shed, was a treasure trove of oddities and retro furniture and bikes and books and walking frames and wheelchairs and kitchen sinks and mirrors and fish.

We latched our eyes onto a big solid wood cabinet and immediately began brainstorming all the radical things we could do to it to make it awesome. Trouble was, that it had a big ‘SOLD’ sticker on it! But nevermind that - the ideas we came up with involved drinks and children’s books’ illustrations and maybe even LED lights… so we need a cabinet! We’re heading back on Monday for anther look when new stock arrives (which is every Monday, by the way) and I’m sure we’ll find a big wooden thing that fits the bill. I can’t give away too much right now, but I am totally stoked we get to keep the finished piece at the end.

I think this project might just be one of the most superawesomest things I’ve ever taken part in creating.

The things that made today even better than it possibly could have been, were that 1) I bought THE GREATEST ASH TRAY YOU’VE EVER SEEN:

It has a golden bull/cow on it! I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

And 2) I bought about approximately one squillion books. Not including the catchily titled ‘Deer Hunting with Jesus’:

  

And let's be honest, if vintage furniture like this doesn't get you excited (and you know what I mean by 'excited') then what will? I mean, where else? are you going to find this shade of 70's Olive in velvet on a footstool?

All in all, I think if you’re the kind of person that enjoys op-shopping a Lifeline and Vinnies and Endeavour shops, then you MUST (read: ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO NO OPTIONS) visit the tip shop. Let it surprise you by not being at all rubbish. I guess I’ll keep you updated with how our project progresses, and probably post more pictures of the awesome things I buy from the shop every time I go back there. I’m sure that will be nice. 
  

Wallaby Vomit and New Cabin Ideas

I saw a wallaby vomit yesterday. IT WAS SO FUNNY. I know what you’re thinking and don’t get all high and mighty just hear me out.

My parent’s own some acreage out in Esk that overlooks the Wivenhoe damn and it’s a beautiful and soulful place that I try and get to each fortnight. We put dry feed pellets out for the wallabies and seeds for the birds, and when I woke up at dawn with my dad, we watched about a dozen wallabies and about thirty cockatoos, parrots and galahs come sweeping down to eat. It’s a beautiful sight, and it never ceases to provide me with excellent time for reflection. 

The funny thing occurred when one of the big male Wallabies had been steadily eating for about ten minutes, and keeping the younger ones away from the food because he’s a big dickhead. I named him ‘El-douchebag-orado’. I don’t really know where that name came from, but that’s his name. So, he’s head-down-tail-up munching away, and then all of a sudden he sits up straight and is dead still for a few seconds, then he just starts beating his stomach with his tiny little forearms and doing this kind of worm-slash-bodyroll move and his tail is flailing around and it kind of looks like he’s having a disco fit. Then he stops, he opens his mouth, and a sloppy moosh of half-digested food just pours limply out of his open jaws.

I KNOW, RIGHT!? IT WAS ABSURD!

It’s easily the most absurd thing I’ve seen since getting back to Australia. I can’t believe I thought things in this country were relatively normal. And no, sorry, I don’t have a picture of it, because I was too in awe (read: laughing maniacally).

The other cool thing about this acreage (it’s name is The Rusty Roo) is that I’ve found a beautiful shady spot in amongst the deep bush where I’ve decided to build a small lean-to / shack / shed out of natural materials. I’m going to cabin porn for inspiration, but if anyone has any ideas I’d love to hear them. I’ll be starting work on the weekend of the 31^st, and I’ll take some hipster / posey / rustic pictures. I’m very excited.

Back in Black

Well, good evening everybody. It seems to be a bit of a public consensus (with ‘public’ here meaning my mum and four friends) that poise has been paused for long enough. Although perhaps the alliteration could be paused a little longer. Stop it! Alright, let’s get serious. And when I say ‘serious’ I mean the party I had for my coming home:

There’s nothing quite like coming home after a long trip away. It’s an equation, where the awesomeness of coming home is made more intense by varying factors of: how long you were away, how rough your trip was, how good the weather is when you get home, how much you love the people waiting for you at home, how many friends come to your party, and how much you missed the food/beer/wine from home.

So I think you should understand when I say that my party was SERIOUSLY. FUCKING. AWESOME. No, I mean really. Seriously guys come on. It was wonderful. Thank you.

The thing is, that was about four weeks ago, and I’ve actually done a whole lot more great stuff since then. I’ve been to some amazing exhibits at GoMA and QAG – including the closing night of their Matisse exhibition. The Queensland Writer’s Centre have facilitated some amazing discussions/seminars about the industry which I’ve been lucky enough to attend. I’ve seen some incredible movies and the Brisbane French Film Festival is just coming up now! I’ve discovered and re-discovered some way cool Brisbane haunts that I want to talk about and I’m also studying a whole shitload of crazy interesting new things at university that are just poised to explode your brain. I bought some great new Brazilian Walking Lilies and I’ve got a totally fucking killer herb garden that you just need to see – and the basil from which I make a cache of tasty new veggie and vegan recipes. I’ve been to half a dozen book readings organized through Avid Reader (including Alain de Botton’s talk) and I’m part of a new bookclub which I’ve already been to so I simply must tell you about what I’ve been reading. To top it off, there are some amazing live acts coming to Brisbane, and Blonde Venus is having a sale that every lady in the state should try and get to. As ever, I anticipate the rambling will sometimes venture into the critical and hard-hitting stuff that gets us all riled up, and I just got back from an International Women’s Day talk that focused on women in the law - boy oh boy was that girltalk interesting! I’ve also made up some new words that you’ll have to familiarize yourself with if you continue to read this rambling. 

Woooaaahhhhhhhh yes. YES! Life is great, and if I don’t write about it here then it just takes up space in my Moleskines. (Oh oh, the hipster sirens are sounding! - It's about time for the regular bag-of-dicks check-up to make sure I don't need euthanising.) Sorry about that. 

Of course, all of this means that poise won’t really be a “travel blog” anymore – and that’s cool with me. Everything adapts and I’m proud of little poise and I’m confident I can carry her home with me. We’re going to get a little freshened up for you, I’m thinking some new tabs and a bit of a facelift. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to see the crow’s feet and the laughter lines – hopefully more than ever, actually. Time will do what it does best, which is tell. I think it might also be a little touch-and-go for a while, but touching is great and so is going, so I’m flattered more than ever if you read.

I’ve officially started a tumblr for poise too, because I was tired of sitting on the sidelines of the wonderful internet sensations that sweep through our nets and that tumblr captures much better than blogger can. I bought a new iPhone too, so my twitter is going to get into shape (it’s mainly editorial, in the sense that I re-tweet interesting things other people say instead of posting about what cereal I’m eating and dumb shit like that).  I’ve even done some writing for other people/places on the internet too like The Lit Pub, so overall I feel like coming home has just broadened my horizons.

I suppose this is a lot of promises. It’s like an election campaign where I win depending on how many people subscribe to my RSS feed / bookmark my page / add me to their blog list thing.  Good thing I’m not a sleazy politician, otherwise this place wouldn’t be remotely interesting at all, unless I was Nick Xenophon, who is the coolest dude in Canberra, in which case poise would be way cooler than it even is now. I digress.

Stick around, friends. I love you dearly.