March 11, 2003 - 6:38 p.m.

it seems like ages since i last updated, so i'll try to recap everything from the long weekend.

on friday night, simon and i went to the corner to see qua / ninety nine / architecture in helsinki. we saw simon's friend luella, who never ceases to amaze me with her ability to make '80s fashions look good again. she was wearing a hot-pink dress with black and white checkerboard-type thingies all over it and asking people, point blank, "do you like my dress?". that girl is amazing.

she is also very skilled at introducing people and adding some pertinent or interesting factoid after the name. whenever she introduces simon and me, she says, "this is simon and erin. THEY'RE MARRIED." on my own, i got: "this is erin. she's a model." interesting, alright.

i don't remember how we got on the topic, but lu mentioned that she had a blog. then she pointed to about 15 other indie kids in the room who also had blogs. it was a very strange thing to know! the opposite of a bloggers meetup, i suppose.

on saturday, we picked up missjenjen and went to the farmer's market at the collingwood children's farm. there were lots of gourmet thingies, which was good and bad: good because most stalls offered samples (yum!), but bad because we wanted (and could only afford) real food.

we went home and added missjenjen to the People We Like list. then we drove to the lost dogs' home in north melbourne to look for a new friend. there were no kitties, and the doggies had signs on their cages that said, "we will grow BIG!" sorry, pups.

i tricked simon into going to the docklands to watch the moomba fireworks, but it was disappointing. the fireworks were great, but the atmosphere was yuck. the docklands are still quite undeveloped, so there wasn't much to see. also, some top-40 radio station was a sponsor, and the speakers were cranked like you wouldn't believe. we decided to walk back to the city and watch the fireworks that way. my favorite was the very last bit - it looked like a golden weeping willow that trailed off across the sky and lasted quite awhile. beautiful.

on sunday, we went to the RSPCA shelter to continue our pursuit of a furry housemate. we almost took home a white kitty with a huge, bushy tail, but i wasn't convinced. something told me to wait.

since we were in the neighborhood (aha! my memory comes in handy!), we stopped by the vegie hut in box hill. it's a completely vegetarian chinese restaurant that i hadn't been to since 1997, accompanied by my host mum. the restaurant wasn't open yet, so we walked next door to a very cool used bookstore and each found a goldmine. the top finds of the evening were a huge academic book on western movies (for simon), a few old australian photography books in pristine condition (for me), and a fantastic old dueling-saxophone record (to add to the dinner party collection).

after dinner, we drove home and watched till human voices wake us. we both really enjoyed it, but i had nightmares afterward. it was a bit on the spooky side, which i hadn't expected.

i spent half of yesterday in st kilda, on a photo shoot. it wasn't paid (they call it a "test" when the photographer and the model (and sometimes the makeup artist or stylist) take photographs expressly for the purpose of bettering their own portfolios). the photographer was nice, but the clothes were horrid (her choice), and the hair was even worse. she sprayed it out as far as it would go and topped it off with two hideous hats - one was a little middle-eastern number with rainbow colors, loops of beads and silver trinkets attached, and the other was a furry black yarmulke.

the bright side to having my hair full of goop was that it was easy to make the transition to going out later that evening. when i finished, my hair was big and long. i made simon take a picture because i don't think anyone would believe me.

we drove out to footscray to see an experimental-music performance (an unsuccessful attempt on my part to share simon's interests), and it was beautiful! i'd never been there before, and i'd heard such horrible things. the entire time we were there, though, i wanted to take pictures. we saw the most beautiful views of the city and of abandoned rail containers in wonderful colors. i am definitely going back, next time with the camera.

now we're on today. i got a phone message this morning, letting me know i did not get the local council job. i was festering about it the entire day, feeling like an absolute loser because i cannot get a real job. then i got a phone call from the age! i have an interview at the age! on friday! not as a photographer, but as a copy editor. but who cares, really, because i will use any excuse to work for the age. so please send more good wishes this way.

and, in case you were wondering, i still haven't heard anything about the department-store amelie campaign. your guess is as good as mine.