the bean garden

a place dealing with humans, mostly. and all of the living, loving, learning, doing and dying that we get up to.

[thebeangarden-blog]

I'm moving...

... to www.thebeangarden.wordpress.com.

See you there, yeah?

[thebeangarden-blog]

8 september

These guys were sitting on the balcony across from mine for at least an hour. 

I wonder what they were chatting about?

[thebeangarden-blog]

7 september

Oh hey! This is me with a plate of garlic snails, at Libertine in North Melbourne. I have come to the conclusion that snails are totally non-slimy vehicles for deliciousness. Kind of like mushrooms, but way cooler because they used to have antenna and live in a shell and leave trails of slime all over the place.

Libertine is a pretty excellent restaurant. Frencher than France, with the flocked wallpaper, and the mustachioed waitstaff, and the jazzy music which sounded like cobblestones and pain au chocolats and le Tour Eiffel. I also loved the horseradish jus that accompanied my juicy piece of venison. I love horseradish. And I love jus. It was pretty inspirational. Oh, and I was a big fan of the veal sweetbreads that I inherited from my boyfriend's plate of wagyu rump with sauce poivre. He wasn't keen on the idea of crumbed and fried pancreas, but I assure you it was creamy and scrumptious and not at all gross.

Libertine. 500 Victoria St, North Melbourne. Go eat a snail.

[thebeangarden-blog]

6 september

Melbourne airport at ten o' clock on a Tuesday night. 

I like airports. In the same way that I like hospitals, and train stations. I suppose it's because I'm a creepy creepster. I like watching people suddenly forced to live their lives in front of everyone. I like watching the dad telling the mum to tell the children to be quiet and keep their unwieldy Dora the Explorer wheelie cases under control. I like watching the old lady at the counter pull the neatly folded e-tickets that you know she printed three months ago out of her beige travel wallet, as her neatly dressed old husband heaves the wedding present carpet bags on to the conveyor belt. I like wondering where the tanned backpack couple with the new tattoos and the raggedy strings of beads around their wrists have been, and where they're going to next, and what they argue about. I like watching the briefcase man at security who travels once a month, rolling his eyes at everyone around him as they make an awkward performance of putting shoes and belts and laptops in to plastic trays. I like the paper cups of McDonald's coffee and the long hugs and the babies being smooshed by foreign visitors for the first time. I like how it becomes acceptable to sleep on the floor. I like the shininess of the duty free shops. I like that it's totally ok to have champagne and cheese burgers at seven in the morning because night and day no longer exist. I like the camaraderie between strangers, united in polite outrage, as they face queues and plane delays and lost luggage together. The only bit I don't like is when I have to drop off another sister, the last one, the third out of three, because she is going on an adventure and I am going home to eat Nutella from the jar. That part is a bit rubbish.

[thebeangarden-blog]

5 september

"W.G. Pearce, Plumber. Estimates given."

Bellair street, Kensington.

I imagine that the plumber wore red socks and smoked roll ups and liked to drink pots of Carlton around the corner at Hardimans most afternoons. He had a wife with big hands who disapproved when he came home smelling like beer and man. She cooked meat and two veg for dinner every night. They were happy, mostly. 

[thebeangarden-blog]

Gordon Ramsay's Dwarf Porn Double Percy Foster Dies In Badger Den

Probably the best news headline I've ever seen.

That is all.

[thebeangarden-blog]

'We're all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorised and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.' - Charles Bukowski

[thebeangarden-blog]

4 september

My sister (she of the red velvet cupcakes; a multi-talented kind of maiden) knitted me some maroon slippers. My mum made the pom poms. I love them.

I think they are quite regal. I can imagine King Henry VIII slipping his pudgy feet in to a pair as he rose from his boudoir for a breakfast of swan pie. 

[thebeangarden-blog]

Prince Leopold of Liechtenstein

This is Prince Leopold of Liechtenstein. He is six years old and he lives in a castle in Vaduz.

When Prince Leopold grows up he wants to be a racing driver. He wants to be the first Liechtensteiner to win in a Formula One car. He wants to be the fastest man in the world.

Prince Leopold's Opa, His Serene Highness Prince Alois Philipp of Liechtenstein, says that when Leopold is older he will have an important job to do. Much more important than driving in a silly car race. He will be running Liechtenstein. The mountains and the fields will be his. The people will look up to him. He will be a man of pride and distinction. His name will go down in history. 

'Can't I do both, Opa?' said Prince Leopold of Liechtenstein.

Opa shook his big grey head. A thick, wet cough rattled through his insides. 

'You can not be greedy, Leopold. We are given one life. That is all. And you are asking for two? No, you can not be greedy.'

Prince Leopold's bottom lip started to do the crying dance. 

'Tears, Leopold? Princes do not cry, do you understand?'

Another cough squeezed its way out of the old man's lungs. 

'Now push me to the window, boy.'

Prince Leopold took his Opa by the handles. Boy, man and wheelchair squeaked their way across the shiny wooden floors.

'Climb on, Leopold' Opa said, and he patted his lap.

They sat by the window, and they looked out at the mountains and the fields that would one day be his.

Opa pulled Prince Leopold's head towards him, kissed it, disappeared his face in to the little boy's neck. 

Prince leopold felt the wetness on his skin, but he didn't ask his Opa what it was. he didn't want to bother him. 

[thebeangarden-blog]

3 september

A time honoured tradition of honouring the retiring greats of Australian football - print their big bald head on to a piece of card, gouge out their eyes and give everybody one to take home with them. 

But Barry Hall, we will miss you. Because no one makes a head lock look as cool as you.

[thebeangarden-blog]

2 september

In bed the other night with my boyfriend I said that my favourite thing in the whole world is probably bread crumbs.  I believe everything is better when it is crumbed. 

For my birthday he wrapped up a box of Krummies.

This is why he's my favourite man apart from my dad.

[thebeangarden-blog]

1 september

I got home from another night of pouring pints of Guinness and quietly hating humans to find that -

a. midnight had struck. It was my birthday and I was twenty four years old.

b. my delightful and magnificent sister had left out twenty four red velvet cupcakes, five rabbit head balloons, and one gift-wrapped box of gifts.  

My sister is a champ and I love her.

[thebeangarden-blog]

early mid-life crisis?

Disclaimer: this post contains some self-indulgent, middle-class whinging.

So I'm twenty four next week and I think this has resulted in some inner turmoil. Twenty four sounds old. Twenty three I have been ok with, up until now anyway. It comes just after twenty two, and twenty two is just twenty one plus one. So yes. I've been ok with it. But twenty four? That's mid twenties. That's you should have some idea of where your life is headed by now. That's some of your friends are doctors and you still eat nutella with a spoon. I feel like days are disappearing very quickly and I don't like it.

Because I don't know where my life is headed. Not at all, really. I'm five weeks in to a masters of journalism course, and yes, five weeks is more than no weeks, which is how long I was enrolled in my last masters course for. But I still don't know if it's what I want to do, if it's what i'm cut out for.

Oh and last work i earnt $117. I had to pick up a pint glass of vomit for those dollars.

When i was nineteen, i think i thought that almost-twenty four would look a bit better than this.

Anywho. I am where I am. And I am fortunate, really, because at least my mid-life crisis can not manifest itself in any of the cheap cliches... no sports cars or comb overs or affairs with my secretary for me, no sir.

But i am taking a stand. Yes, a stand. No more watching the days whizz by and wondering why I am not getting richer and thinner and more successful. No. I am going to document the days. Each and every day. Starting from my twenty fourth birthday, which is next thursday, I will take a picture of something i see and it will appear on here. It is unlikely that many of these things will be ever so exciting, but each shall be documented nevertheless.

So when it comes to this time next year, and I am almost twenty-five and wondering why I am still cleaning up pint glasses of vomit and eating Nutella with a spoon, at least I will know where my time went. 

[thebeangarden-blog]

a bit about 'the god of small things'

"But what was there to say?

Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-coloured shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief.

Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much."

- Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

this is probably one of the best paragraphs i've ever read. it had an actual, physical effect on me, like someone sat down hard on my stomach. you will probably have to read the whole book to understand why it's brilliant. yes, you should definitely go and do that.

i knew it was a good book while i was reading it. really good. but it wasn't until i got to the end that i realised how magical and clever and devastating it actually is. the woman is a genius, a master. i hate her. i dream of being one third as good as her one day. 

[thebeangarden-blog]

real life is not as fun as living in a magical tree

that quote i just posted, about marrying elves and living in a tree? it really reminds me of the folk of the faraway tree (one of enid blyton's greatest creations)...

i wish i lived in a house that was carved in to the trunk of a magical tree. i wish i got to hang out with moonface, and silky, and the saucepan man. i wish i was eating pop cakes and google buns right now, instead of sultana bran. and i wish i got to use the slippery slip every now and again. because stairs are for chumps. 

enid blyton, you gave me unrealistic expectations of forests and boarding schools and farms and life. i'm not ok with it, you old hag. but i'm pretty sure i still love you.

[thebeangarden-blog]

"i want to be magic. i want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. i want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. or under a hill. i want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. i don't want to pretend at magic anymore. i want to be magic." - charles de lint

[thebeangarden-blog]

questions you don't want to be asked...

... by the seven year old girl you have just met, and are supposed to be tutoring in english.

do you have a boyfriend?

is he a big boy?

does he kiss you on the mouth?

does he kiss you on the mouth?

does he kiss you on the mouth?