FEMBOTanist

I have moved..

2011-06-06T15:24:00.001+10:00

...here!

There will be no more posts on this blog, but if you follow me to tumblr I will be your best friend, I promise..

STOP PRESS

2010-09-26T12:54:00.002+10:00

FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME I ALMOST THOUGHT THAT JEFF LYNNE WAS KILLED BY A HAY BAIL.

Well, the headline read ‘Founding Member of ELO Killed by Giant Hay Bail’, so you can see how I might have momentarily thought it was everyone’s favourite composer, lead vocalist and guitarist from ELO.

It turns out it was just everyone’s favourite electric cellist from ELO, though most people wouldn’t even know his name. I won’t do him the disrespect of Googling what his name was right now so I can tell you – nor will I show him the respect of actually knowing his name in the first place.

So after drying my tear-wrapped eyes, and feeling more than slightly glad that I would not have to report the news of yet another Traveling Wilbury’s untimely death to Father, I started to ponder what it all meant.

If the electric cellist from THE WORLD’S GREATEST SYMPHONIC ROCK BAND can be killed instantly whilst driving along, MINDING HIS OWN BUSINESS on a quiet country road, what does the world have in store for mere mortals such as you or me?

Should he not have been killed in a manner befitting of his awesome talent?

Should he not have been electrocuted on stage at an outdoor concert whilst playing the opening solo for ‘Livin’ Thing’, completely unaware of the rain puddle forming beneath his feet that gradually lapped closer and closer to the worn power cord of his electrified violoncello?

Conversely, I ask you this, dear reader: who out there has lived a life befitting of instant death by an errant hay bail?

Answer: Glenn Beck.

What a clint.

FIN

End of financial year progress report.

2008-07-06T22:44:00.008+10:00

When a Lewis is invited to a costume party, the expectation is sufficiently high to warrant significant stress on behalf of Amy and myself. Having done the ‘fake tan on an albino person’ hilarity to death in recent years, we were faced with the dilemma of Tim’s stereotype party sans tan and sans a good idea. It was only two weeks ago when I found myself waking hungover at 6AM on a Sunday, still wearing my boots and still clutching a slice of wrapped birthday cake that I realised who we should dress up as at Tim’s party.

As far as I can gather, the only difference between a Lewis and Amy Winehouse is big hair, black eyeliner and enough heroin to lose fifteen kilograms in forty-eight hours. Deciding that two out of three ain’t bad, we made do with the first two and substituted the heroin with two hamburgers with the lot. At Charlie’s house we primped ourselves with giant wigs, false tattoos and some not so subtle track marks. After Charlie had pinned a sufficient number of cats to her jacket and placed her belongings in a shopping bag, we jumped in my car and made our way to Tim’s.

Approaching the front door, we expected no less than ever single friend we had ever made to be standing around in hilarious costumes, each more elaborate and well thought out than the next. Sure - it wasn’t Science Ball, but usually people made a pretty big effort at these parties. Instead, we opened the door to find about fifty people we didn’t know and about three people that we did, and nobody was wearing costumes.

So there we were, crazy cat lady and Amy Winehouse times two, standing in a room full of possibly the drunkest people on planet earth. Caught like deer in the headlights, there was only one responsible thing to do – get Simon to start pouring the Long Island ice teas and drink ourselves into oblivion.

This was a pretty sound decision on my part as I had promised myself after a particularly fine performance only two weeks earlier (boots and cake night) to “never binge drink again”. It’s funny – as the evening transpired into madness, I still looked down upon others through my monocle of smugness thinking that everyone else was drunk and I was just a wee bit pissy. And just like drinking three glasses of Tokay, three LIIT’s soon rendered me unable to operate neither horseless carriage nor the nerves that connect my brain to my mouth. I was truly a contender for the Russian presidency when I walked out of Tim’s house.

Making our way down Albion Street, Charlie, Luke and I were soon faced with a dilemma. If we were to follow the roads it would take us a good twenty minutes to get back to my house. If we cut through the building site near my house, we could be safely home in ten. It didn’t take much discussion to decide that where we were going, there were no roads.

After gently placing my wig and boots into my backpack, I threw my belongings over the cyclone fence and preceded to climb, insane eye makeup and slicked back hair rendering me less like Amy Winehouse and more like Jeanie Little. Amazingly, it turns out that pantihose isn’t particularly conducive to fence climbing, and as I gingerly began placing each hoof between the gaps in the wire, I was beginning to feel less confident about being the first over the top.

Apparently, Luke and Charlie were a little concerned about my technique, but assumed I may have had a method of fence climbing that perhaps on botanists knew about.

As if a botanist knows anything about climbing fences.

The details from this point on are sketchy at best. Only one fact is clear – I fell from a height of roughly seven foot with only my spine to cushion my fall. Apparently I landed flat on my back with all four limbs in the air, although medical evidence suggests I landed directly on my coccyx bone whilst simultaneously punching myself in the spine. Despite harboring quite painful injuries, I felt it was more important to save face and laugh it off, and I was soon joined by my friends who were probably quite relieved they didn’t have to watch the fire brigade cutting thought the fence with the jaws of life in order for the ambulance officers to get to me.

Crossing the paddock, I was told that I walked not around, but through every single shrub in the paddock, stockinged legs and bare feet stopping for nothing. We somehow made it over the second fence unscathed. Soon, we were passed out in bed, and even sooner it was 9AM, I was still drunk and we had the unenviable task of looking through the camera and discovering everything that had transpired the previous evening. Oh, the hard rubbish – Oh, the humanity.

I was so drunk when we left for breakfast that I thought I actually looked good in the mirror. Unshowered, I left with tousled hair and last night’s eyeliner still on, thinking I looked every bit the rock star. Upon inspection of my face in the rear view mirror after breakfast, I realised that was indeed partly true. Lets just say I looked something similar to Courtney Love after getting to fifth base with Kurt Cobain all night and then waking up in a pile of heroin on the side of a highway.

At that point I did what any decent person would do – I drove directly to a three year olds birthday party and complained about my spine and laughed like a drain for three hours until Amy had to take me home.

I'm still laughing.

Sober and safe at Charlie's.

The face of the only woman in the room wearing a costume.

It's the power you want to touch, but you must not touch.

Last photo before going over the top.Please note Brunswick's major tourist attraction in the background.

Two unfortunate internet events...

2008-06-12T22:34:00.002+10:00

and maybe...

2008-05-28T23:07:00.015+10:00

Last Friday, my Uncle Phil peacefully lost his battle with cancer. Today, my family and Phil’s many friends laid him to rest.

Phil worked for the fire brigade for thirty years, and each fire station paid tribute to him today by flying their flag at half-mast. As I passed our local station this morning and later saw his colleagues form a guard of honour after the service, I held my head up high because I was so proud to be Phil Lewis’ niece, and proud to be a member of our family.

I had the privilege of making a speech at his funeral, and as most readers of this blog are my friends and family, I want to share what I said as a tribute to him.

When I think of Phil, his cheeky grin immediately comes to mind. At a serious occasion like today, I wouldn’t be able to look at him because inevitably he would be grinning away to ease the awkward situation, and I know I would crack up laughing. He was just one of those blokes who could instantly lighten the mood.

The Lewis kids always marveled at the myth and the legend that is Phil Lewis. There are far too many funny Phil stories to tell right now, so we hope that you will share some of your stories about him with us later. One of the great things about Phil was that he was a bit of a man of mystery. Just look at his long list of nicknames, truly a reflection of how Phil meant many things to many people.

Despite being such a popular bloke, Phil also liked to be by himself - It’s a Lewis thing. He loved reading The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings, and when our family was lucky enough to get an empty cinema to watch The Two Towers, we all sat at least thirty seats apart so that it felt like each of us were there by ourselves - a very Lewis moment indeed. Phil also loved to go running alone, and was never without his drink bottle filled with his secret sports medicine, a recipe that he will take with him. Though just between you and me, I’m pretty sure the secret ingredient was white wine.

I have great memories of driving to Sydney with my Dad and Phil, always searching for that elusive empty BBQ and grappling with the big questions in life, like “When is it okay to crack the first stubby?” and “Would Albury be too early?” Phil loved those trips to visit Bob and Marilyn, and was content with nothing more than sitting out on the deck with his brothers listening to the cricket or watching the footy, VB always in hand.

Phil once jokingly referred to himself as “Big Hearted Phil’, and this has been often repeated by the Lewis kids as a joke. But it’s not a joke. It’s true. Phil would always help you out if you needed him - just look at his huge list of unofficial job titles and it’s clear that he was always there to lend a hand.

What is so inspiring about Phil is the way he really lived his life the way he wanted to. He never missed an opportunity to have fun or to have a few beers. He seemed to be at every sporting event in Melbourne, and loved a free ticket to anywhere – he even went to see the Guggenheim exhibit at the art gallery - or the Google-heim as he called it. Phil also never missed a chance to go on a holiday with his mates and could always fit in a game of golf during the week.

My Dad Steve played golf with Phil for 25 years. Not just once or twice a month – the brothers played constantly, rain, hail or shine. If you rang either of their mobiles in even the most atrocious weather imaginable, it was guaranteed that they were out on the fairway at Bacchus Marsh or Melton, often unable to hear you through the howling wind and pouring rain. When I talked to Dad yesterday and asked him if he wanted to add to my speech, he asked me how he could put 50 years into words. I think that those words themselves are enough to understand how Dad is feeling.

Our family is so proud of Phil who fought so hard to stay with us. To see his mates show such compassion and love for him was overwhelming, and to see the strength and tenderness with which his family cared for him brings me the comfort that makes a sad day like today bearable.

Last week, we didn’t just lose a member of the family. We lost a great mate. Over the last six months my sister Amy and I spent a lot of time alone with Uncle Phil, and he truly became our friend.

Philly, you were the best. We will never forget your cheeky smile, and the world is a little quieter now without your infectious laugh.

It's just another day, for you and me, in paradise...

2008-05-19T21:57:00.000+10:00

A Saturday morning graph

2008-05-18T19:10:00.000+10:00

Keeping up appearances - A guide for classy supermarket shopping.

2008-04-30T18:10:00.001+10:00

1. When you wish to purchase embarrassing foods to be eaten alone at home on a Monday night, it is always best to purchase a party sized quantity to throw the cashier off the scent. Instead of looking like a sad individual who will later be sitting on her bed eating cocktail frankfurts for dinner and watching Twin Peaks on DVD, it looks like you might be on your way to a children’s party. Buy at least half a kilo. Sure - you’ll be eating them for the next three nights but at least it only cost $2.47 for three meals.

2. After you have collected your cocktails franks, proceed directly to the health food isle. Look at a bag of dried apricots, checking to see if they’ve been preserved with Sulfur dioxide. See that they have, and decide to leave them in order to avoid extreme flatulence later, as if cocktail franks aren’t made of ground up puppies and Sulfur dioxide.

3. Proceed directly to lolly isle and collect a catering-sized quantity of Lindt chocolate with hazelnuts. Don’t forget that low fat bag of marshmallows.

4. Realise you’ve been dehydrated for the last five days and rectify the situation by proceeding to the soft drink isle and grabbing a 1.25L bottle of Coca Cola.

5. Walk directly past toilet roll isle, even though there is approximately half a sheet left at home on the roll.

6. Oooooh! Reduced to clear, close to expiration date Big M’s!!!

7. Proceed to checkout in haze of self-disgust.

8. Drive home staring into middle distance.

Ever wondered how the drug ‘de-gas’ works?

2008-04-22T22:49:00.003+10:00

I did.

This afternoon I walked past a building being demolished on campus where I used to attend biochemistry practicals. I sat there and watched the demolition crew as they tore apart everything but the supporting beams. I swear that I saw an old fume hood fall three stories and smash into a million pieces. The whole process was TOTALLY FAAARKING AWESOME and I spent a good twenty minutes wishing that I’d put half of the time I have spent studying biochemistry towards learning how to operate demolition equipment instead.

Whilst watching the crew go to work I began to reminisce about all of the incredibly useful knowledge I had gained in that building. Like how laxatives, diuretics and anti-emetics work. Unfortunately, between my pre-botanist days of the year 2001 and now there has been a veritable cavalcade of water under my biochemical bridge that has rendered most of this knowledge removed from my brain like so many multi-metaphored sentences that don’t make any sense any more after you’ve hit the fifty-first word.

So sitting at my desk tonight I decided to have a bit of a Google and remind myself just how laxatives and such actually work. As the nearest living relative of A. Lewis, I know that one of her favourite beauty products (aside from the fresh blood of children) is De-gas.

Now here is a word of advice for those playing at home.

Like me, attempt to type ‘degas’ into your Google search box on your toolbar.

Whoops! Accidentally typed ‘degas’ into facebook login instead. Incorrect password for ‘degas’. Hahahaha. Please try again.

Instantly type ‘degas’ into Facebook login again – same result.

Whoops.

Now type ‘degas’ correctly into Google toolbar.

Laugh? I nearly de-gassed myself.

2008-04-21T19:38:00.004+10:00

As most of you know, the level of photographic humour I tend to indulge in lies somewhere between this…

…and this.

I’ve never been a big fan of LOL cats (too much emphasis on lame cutesy text and not enough on hilarious cat with anthropomorphic face ect) until I came across this hum dinger.

Don’t speak.

Dear Jebus.

2008-04-07T22:38:00.003+10:00

Why oh why have you taketh my ipod from me today? Were you punishing me for not but the seven separate occasions it has fallen from my pocket and onto the bike track this week? Could you sense the unbridled pleasure I was taking in listening to ELO’s Balance of Power as I sat at my microscope? Did you know that all I wanted after a hard days toil teaching first year science was to listen to 'I Touch Myself' on repeat all the way back to Brunswick on my bicycle?

Were you punishing me for the repeated daytime sexual fantasies I have about Iva Davies that can be initiated purely by the first two bars of Icehouse’s ‘Electric Blue’? Would you have preferred it if instead of getting freaky behind the test tube rack to ‘Some Like It Hot’ by Robert Palmer and the Power Station Five that I was listening to Amazing Grace instead? Well let me tell you this, Jesus Q. Christ - under this rusted robotic exoskeleton I am still a woman.

In light of this recent tragedy, I hope my loved ones will band together and support me. Perhaps if you were all to take just one adult contemporary record from your parents collection and send me a copy, I could somehow get close to replacing the hours of easy listening that has just passed me by. My only hope of getting to sleep tonight is if some kind of incredibly handsome man calls and sings me a James Taylor song down the telephone line.

Oh God – just saying that reminds me of ‘Telephone Line’ by ELO.

I fucking love ELO.

Anyway, in light of this tragedy of biblical proportions, the first gentleman caller wins my virginity.

FIN.

Of Fatherly Bonding

2008-03-26T23:51:00.003+11:00

“Darl. Darl… wake up darl… It’s 4.30… I couldn’t get to sleep, and then I got a migraine, and then I accidentally took two Mersyndol Night instead of Mersyndol Day so you’ll probably have to drive. I’ve made you a piece of dry toast.”

This is usually how our once yearly road trip to Sydney begins.

Nowadays I don’t get the wakeup call from Dad as we reside in different corners of Brunswick - Dad in his ‘Secret Life of Us’ -style apartment and me in the Women’s Crisis Center of Death. As we do like to make an early start and avoid peak hour traffic when we arrive in Sydney, we usually agree to leave at some ungodly hour in the vicinity of 5.30AM. Due to the nature of the Lewis family’s crippling punctuality and politeness policy, the pressure of the next mornings routine running smoothly undoubtedly results in zero sleep the night before. We both lie in our separate houses completely awake all night, secretly wanting to call the other at 3.55AM to say “fuck it, lets just go”, but being to scared to do so as we assume the other person has just fallen asleep and will later kill the other in cold blood for waking them up.

Welcome to the complicated splendor of being a Lewis.

Once we are on the open road the forecast predicts an 82% chance of soft fluffy clouds filled with adult contemporary easy listening. It is not unusual for the pressure to be literally taken down by The Voice himself by the time we hit the Hume Highway. The next ten or so hours will be filled with every secret song that Dad and I pretend not to love outside the confines of this special time of year. Hours of James Taylor, Willie Nelson and Jackson Browne are interrupted only by some of Chris Rea’s best and most freakiest lounge material. For our most recent trip I took the liberty of making the double CD Daddy/Daughter Secret Shame Hits and Misses 1969-1994 in order to compete with his Dads Gay Anthems Volumes 1 through 4. No, I’m not kidding – that what he calls them. It’s written on the case. I’ll let DGAs (as they are known in the industry) speak for themselves. On what other single compact disc could you find the gems ‘We Are the World’ and ‘This is it’ by Danni Minogue alongside Steve Winwood’s ‘Finer Things’ and ‘Theme to Lonesome Dove’? Today we could be spotted traveling at 110 kilometers and hour down the Hume singing ‘Absolutely Everybody’ (Dads Gay Anthems Vol. 2 - ‘Olympic Games themes’) whilst I dealt out stale lolly bananas to Dad at the rate of one per second. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house for the theme to ‘Same Time, Next Year’. Yes, this is truly a rare and special time for all of us.

Once we arrive, family traditions at my Uncle and Aunty’s house must be followed precisely. Sure – most of them revolve around drinking VB from the stubby because Nana and her flying monkeys can’t see us all the way over in Sydney – but they are still traditions and we adhere to them strictly. For instance, Dad likes to take his two beautiful robot daughters on at least one educational outing not directly related to the consumption of alcohol. Unfortunately we had a bit of a scare last year when Dad and I went to the Human Body exhibit at Homebush where there were totally like, these freaky plastic human corpses OR SOME SHIT, and they had like, I don’t know – some plastic dude cut up into what looked like chops or something, and this one guy like TOTALLY PASSED OUT RIGHT NEXT TO US and it was like really awkward…or some shit. After a scare like that, we reduced our alcohol free outing on this trip to quick visit to JB HIFI on Norton Street (though truth be told it probably wasn’t 100% alcohol free as I walked out red-faced with Baywatch Seasons 1 & 2 concealed in a brown paper bag under my arm). Other treasured Sydney traditions include the standard ladies vs. gents ‘Women in sport/September 11 was faked by CNN’ debate out on the decking, all while my wonderful Aunty Marilyn feeds us delicious cheese and pours me glass after glass of undoubtedly the best wine I get to drink all year.

One of my favourite food expeditions in Sydney is the Yum Cha at Marigold’s in Chinatown. Marigold’s is best place on earth to be yelled at by very angry, very efficient ladies pushing trays of delicious dumplingesque goodness. These women are awesome, and I faarking love it. My ability to spot something both deep-fried and pork filled from across a crowded restaurant has earned me the rank of chief food selector and randomiser. My question “Excuse me, what might be in those?” is usually answered with “PRAWN!!! PRAWN!!!” and a filthy impatient look as the waitress simultaneously put the plate on the table, cuts each piece in half, administers sauce and stamps our card in the space of 1.4 seconds. Truly awesome stuff.

As a long-suffering botanist with a penchant for rare conifers and total loss of hydraulic control, I do enjoy a leisurely stroll around the Sydney Botanic Gardens when I’m in the area. I indulged in this pleasure with glee this year and managed to sustain only first degree burns to small areas of my body thanks to Sun Of Earth’s close proximity to the ground in them there parts. My usual pilgrimage to the Wollemi pine was rudely interrupted by some pseudo-scientician posing as an expert on spiders webs, though with the threat of more fascinating lessons about “Australia’s living dinosaur tree” he was quick to disengage eye contact and swiftly moved on…

It is with a heavy heart that Dad and I took the long road home to Melbourne today, show tunes and accidentally stolen front door keys in hand. Every year our trip gets better and despite their persistence in showing sympathies towards Sydney Football Club, it is great to spend a few days every year living with Unkie Bob and Aunty Maz. Though all the pleasures of regular life* await me in Brunswick, I can’t help but think I’ve left something really great behind in the Ol’ Big Smoke. Oh that’s right…that green button that fell off my coat is in my handbag!

Phew…

*Thesis cancer

Waterslide Weekend 2008

2008-03-18T09:33:00.001+11:00

Best... weekend... ever.

Amy has edited together the top 9 minutes and 11 seconds of our trip for your convenience.

Enjoy!

2008-02-12T22:00:00.000+11:00

I'll be there... in Portsea.

2008-01-23T16:14:00.000+11:00

My sister did this...

2008-01-16T21:56:00.000+11:00

... and I LIKE IT!

Thar she blows.

2008-01-03T23:08:00.000+11:00

Well NYE 2007 got off to a fabulous start. What with the 41-degree heat and all, I decided to pop home to Mum’s for a swim before heading out for the evening. After getting in the car I realised I forgot my iPod, so I quickly nipped back inside to get it. I stopped along the way to shut my computer down, grab a nectarine and generally dick about the place for a few minutes.

Upon returning to the front yard I was alarmed to find my car not parked on the street as it was ninety seconds before, but rolling backwards towards the tram tracks and about twenty parked cars. Unsupportive bikini under flimsy t-shirt ignored, I hurtled myself down the road after it, even flagging down a car by throwing my arms above my head and screaming “FUCKING HELP ME!!!!!!” to no avail. Just as my car mounted the roundabout I jumped in, hit the brakes and turned the key, only to be greeted by 10,000 decibels of AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black’ whilst simultaneously having thirteen heart attacks behind the wheel.

Yet ladies and gentleman, boys and girls – not a single dint in her shiny black flesh. My car managed to navigate its way out of a reverse park (albeit a pretty wide one), along the median strip and onto the roundabout two hundred meters away without making contact with neither car nor domicile. Bravo.

If anything, it gave me a story to dine out on for a while.

So NYE turned out to be a fabulously silly extravaganza as expected, which is lucky as I expected no less than wonderful company, endless ping pong, live music in a tennis court, eighteen dashes to the swimming pool, a thousand stars and waking up wearing someone else’s shoes.

Happy, Happy 2008.

2007-12-16T13:09:00.001+11:00

Area Teen's Sister Looking Pretty Good To Friend Of Area Teen

SAN MATEO, CA-San Mateo 17-year-old Evan Campos announced Monday that Jessica Roth, 14, the previously unnoticed sister of best friend Andrew Roth, had "really grown a lot" since he last saw her and was now "looking pretty good."

He is number one!

2007-11-26T10:37:00.000+11:00

Everyone else is number two or lower!

A few Late Show highlights

2007-11-19T19:55:00.000+11:00

20 Inappropriate love songs.

"I love being young."

"Peter Harvey gets to go outside."

"Sandhurst Machinery...have everything you're looking for."

He saves the children.. but not the British children...

2007-11-16T16:22:00.000+11:00

meanwhile...

2007-11-02T12:28:00.001+11:00

Area Homosexual Saves Four From Fire

FALMOUTH, MA-Kevin Lassally, who likes to hold and kiss men, rescued a family of four from a deadly blaze.

Dear homeslices.

2007-11-02T12:25:00.000+11:00

I am a lazy, lazy woman. In the last few weeks I have had the grave misfortune of being employed in a position where I actually care about what I’m doing. Also, I’ve been house sitting in a place where computers do not exist and I am forced to spend an unspeakable amount of time watching Six Feet Under again whilst eating large slices of birthday cake. Consequently, the blogging has all but dried up.

At the start of December I will be back on board with a brand new mac at home and hopefully a good dose of infinite time with which to blog. Fingers crossed that something fun might happen between now and then – perhaps my birthday party may yield a hilarious photo or two. Between now and then I promise to spend a little less time thinking about fossils and a little more time thinking about you, [INSERT NAME HERE].

Keep the faith,

Fembotanist.

Coming to git ya!

2007-10-10T15:09:00.000+10:00

Thanks again, ninemsn... you keep me informed with the important stuff, day after day after day...

2007-10-08T11:15:00.000+10:00

That Full House Episode Where They Meet The Beach Boys Is On Tomorrow At 3 P.M.

WASHINGTON, DC —Officials have advised all Americans to remain indoors, huddle close with their loved ones, and stay completely silent unless it's a commercial.

In the last week I have achieved the following:

2007-09-25T09:33:00.000+10:00

Drank from a penis shaped straw
Planted hundreds of trees
Opened some gates
Manhandled a yabby
Hung out with a delicious dog
Half learnt a complicated card game
Covered my face in Vicks
Covered my face in Aeroguard
Dined in the worst bistro ever
Had a wee on a tree, thrice
Stalled a 4WD four times in front of the police in Yarrawonga
Witnessed a magic trick by a drunken old man in Yea
Saw an echidna on top of a hill
Patted a disgruntled goat
Drank 53 cups of weak Nescafe blend 43
Saw alpacas and sheep just having a chat
Screamed “go back to your hive and protect your queen you fucking cunts!!!” to a hill covered in bees
Got chased by a bee around a hill
Got stung by a bee on my head
Had a sting picked out of my braincase by Warwick
Lost two games of pool
Devoured a delicious beef and reef
Grew several neck testicles
Developed a large left bicep
Laughed all week long talking to a funny, funny man

It's been a good week.

Dublin, Belfast, Sheffield, Manchester and goodbye to London.

2007-09-13T15:25:00.001+10:00

Well I'm home, and a lazy, lazy blogger. When I landed of the first things I said was "Isn't it amazing? I didn't get sick once!". Naturally this was followed by a week long head cold and topped off with a scorching case of gastro. Winner!

Here are some of the last shots from my trip.

Wild kids on a Saturday night eating their delicious corn in Dublin.

Belfast skinny latte - just add a teaspoon of Nescafe blend 43 and stir.

The future is now! Transport for London issuing a refund with coins taped to the letter.

Just a couple of CHAV's on Oxford Street.

Grace's poker face.

My poker face.

On the tubes with my lady.

Bronze Age in Sheffield.

Ladies who like old dead things and such.

The game with the ping pong ball and the drinking...

Two experts.

Here are some shots from the Fac 51/Hacienda exhibition we saw in Manchester. It was fab!

Oh my! It's NeilTennant talking to Johnny Marr at the Hacienda.

It turns out Tony Wilson had died just a few weeks before we saw the exhibit.

The Morrissey mosaic in Manchester.

So for now, the holidays are over and i'm back to my punishing 20 hour a week schedule of reality. Woe is me indeed!

Paris.

2007-08-16T22:08:00.000+10:00

A windswept and interesting way of starting this post would read like this: ‘Paris in August is not like Paris at any other time of the year’. As my previous experience of Paris currently extends only into the month of September 2005, I suppose all I can say is that my experience of Paris this time around was quite different indeed. It was still a crowded, bustling city as I’m sure it is year round, but if you keep away from the tourist attractions and traps, you would be forgiven for thinking that nobody lived there at all.

August is the time of Summer vacations for Parisians, and (as we sadly discovered) the time of mass restaurant and boulangerie closure. This results in a very large number of polar fleece-clad, bum bag-laden middle-aged tourists who view the city from the vantage of their video camera eyepiece appearing in much larger quantities than actual French people. It is times like this when visiting big tourist cities that am so totally overjoyed by Melbourne’s massively inconvenient distance from most places on earth (do remind me of these words around hour twenty of my flight home on Wednesday, as I’m rubbing lip gloss inside my nose to prevent further dehydration).

Despite the lack of fine dining opportunities, the weather permitted Sui and I several picnics on the Seine in hammocks, where we sat reading, eating cheese and drinking delicious wine. We avoided tourist attractions to the point of not even sighting the Eiffel Tower above the skyline until my last day there. Not having to queue for hours or fight through too many conga lines of tourists made for a very relaxing long weekend, despite my feet slipping into their usual European rhythm of forming cloven hooves. When woman can design a comfortable, supportive, moisturising and exfoliating pair of fair trade, vegetarian, fashionable shoes that will allow me to walk 10km a day and render me able to dance til the wee small hours to Phil Collins’ greatest hits, I’ll be first in line to purchase them. For now, I’m sticking with my thongs and a pair of well-beaten suede boots that will surely result in my later life becoming a Christy Brown-esque existence of being moved from pub to post office in a wheelbarrow pushed by kindly family members and friends.

Anyway, I’m back in London now, and moving on to Sheffield on Friday. Why Tropical North Sheffield you ask? I shall be visiting my dear friend Bronze Age in a last ditch effort to get her to call me ‘Miocene’.

Here are a few shots from last weekend....

Australian giants having a tiny drink at a tiny Parisian bar.

An indoor picnic due to rain. Delicious!

Looks glamourous, but we found these flowers in the flower dumpster at the park. Kyatt, you would be proud... but it was no Barkley Square dumpster, so don't get jealous!

Our picnic spot by the Seine.

PAPY DANCE! I have so much time for legitimate street theatre.

The inevitable 'Best of' episode.

2007-08-14T02:06:00.000+10:00

I write this blog for a few reasons, but reason number one is to make myself laugh. Reason number two is to keep a decent record of what is going on in my life right now. That might sound silly, but for some reason I'm much better at blogging than keeping a diary. Maybe it's my messy handwriting, or maybe it's my inability to write something solely for myself, but my hand written diary entries always make me cringe when I read them later.

So sfter 159 blog posts, two narrowly-averted industrial accidents, a trip to the Willie Nelson Museum and somehow virtually no improvement in spelling or grammar, I thought I would dedicate post number 160 to the 20 blog posts that I like the most.

The top 20 FEMBOTanist posts can be found here.

So sit back, turn up the Chris Rea and ease yourself gently into a tepid bath of Miocene fossils, fake tan and adult contemporary easy listening.

Also, be sure to check out Lou's hot rack!

Belfast Skinny Latte.

2007-08-07T19:55:00.000+10:00

MONSIEURE AUBERGINE!

2007-08-07T03:26:00.000+10:00

2007-07-31T09:25:00.001+10:00

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

TOPEKA, KS-Evangelical physicists are now asserting that objects fall because a higher power is pushing them down.

Meet Beefcake.

2007-07-31T08:04:00.000+10:00

Beefcake is my friend Nikki's cat.

Beefcake likes cuddles, wearing jumpers and chasing patterns on blankets around Turnpike Lane.

Fun with jetlag!

2007-07-30T10:17:00.000+10:00

Compare and contrast the flattering versus unflattering filters on Photobooth.

Hot...

...Not.

Slimming...

...Not slimming.

Arty...

...Farty.

For Wes.

2007-07-30T09:38:00.000+10:00

Hotter than hot chicken on a hot day in Nashville.

Lon-din.

2007-07-29T09:33:00.000+10:00

Trying to fit in with all of the smiling, happy Londoners.

Customary librarian sequence.

Nectar of the Gods.

Taking one for Matt Simpson.

Taking one for the team.

Tequila suicides! (snort the salt, drink the shot, lemon in the eye)

Yeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!

2007-07-26T02:20:00.001+10:00

It was a split second decision over three months ago to book return flights to Nashville from Chicago. This decision was made even easier by the fact that Morrissey was playing in Alabama on the weekend in question, and I would be able to visit Dave’s sister Jess in Cookeville and Wes in Nashville. I knew it would be fun just to visit Jess and Wes, but I had no idea how much I would enjoy my time in Tennessee. If someone told me I would be weeping at Nashville airport when I boarded the plane back to Chicago, I would have been as shocked as a red-blooded female at a Morrissey concert after his third shirt removal for the evening (but perhaps slightly less aroused).

Arriving in Nashville, I was greeted by Wes at the airport, who I recognized instantly despite having never met. This disappointed me a little, as I was looking forward to a bit of suspicious eye narrowing when trying to recognize each other. Wes made me instantly feel welcome and proceeded to give me the drive by tour of every fast food outlet in town, just as I had requested. Before I knew it, I was being whisked to Sonic for dinner, where I supped upon not but the finest cheeseburger, and imbibed not but the most exquisite Route 44 sized cherry lime soda. The beauty of Sonic is that you can just pull up your car and order through a microphone, and the staff brings the food to you. The only energy you burn before eating is the single joule required to power your hand into your wallet and pay for your food.

Dinner.

Second Dinner.

After our classy dinner, Wes, his wife Megan and I hit some of the local bars. It was here that I was introduced to drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, the VB of the southern states. Wes and I had the bright idea that by taking Chaser pills (supposed hangover preventing vitamins from Walgreens) we were immune to things like extra shots and nightcap margaritas in the backyard at 3AM.

Turns out that the chasers do nothing!

The following morning we both felt a little worse for wear, so we decided to head to the Waffle House for a greasy breakfast. Upon hitting the interstate, we were immediately trapped in traffic that soon came to a complete standstill. The reason? Dubya was in town, and apparently this was more important than our need for waffles this instant. It was at this moment that I realized freedom isn’t free. Osama Bin Laden would have been overjoyed at the site of us trapped on the exit waiting for Bush to pass us by. If Wes Robinson cannot eat waffles at the exact time of his choosing, then the terrorists have already won.

Waffle house is one of those places that hasn’t changed in any way since sometime in the early eighties, and should be protected like an old growth rainforest. There is always a waitress on her break at the end of the counter, and she is always, always, smoking. Our waitress was fantastic. For those of you who worked at the cinema with me, think Pat from the candy bar. Everything from her coral eye shadow to her amazing southern accent was brilliant. She was 150 years old if she was a day, and she still had the patience to fetch me a paper Wafflehouse hat on request. When she found out I was from Australia, she walked over the jukebox and used her own quarter (or did she just punch it, Fonzie style?) to play me the official Wafflehouse theme song.

Wes insisted on dining in style.

Unfortunately, even a greasy waffle with a side of cheese-covered hash browns wasn’t enough to fix our little red wagons of nausea.

So once again, I spent the following day sampling the best restrooms to vomit in that the interstate had to offer. At least this time I had a fellow passenger to join me on the porcelain express. We had a three-hour drive to Alabama for Morrissey, and despite vomiting blue Gatorade for most of the day, we made it to Birmingham intact and were able to enjoy the show. Morrissey was fabulous, and so was his support act Christeen Young. The three of us decided to stay over in Birmingham and were upgraded to the honeymoon suite, so made the most of it by eating a wide variety of potato chips in bed later that evening.

Hello, Breakfast.

The next day, Wes drove me to Cookeville to stay with Jess and her husband Holly. I’ve heard so much about Cookeville as Dave lived there for three years before we met. It really is a lovely town, and I was soon taken on the driving tour, including the rotating cowboy, pink elephant and Dave’s old house (Taco Bell). Jess was the perfect host, taking me to all of the cultural highlights I requested, like the Walmart gun section and the Dairy Queen. The highlight of Cookeville has seeing Holly’s band Fatmandrool play at the Hawg Barn. Again, just like Waffle House, there wasn’t a single visual clue at the Hawg Barn to tell me that it wasn’t 1982. I did hear someone say the word ‘ipod’ early in the night, but otherwise, we were in some kind of glorious time machine. The Pabst Blue Ribbon was icy cold and $1.75 a bottle. The band was great too, and should totally tour Australia, setting red ‘long John’ wearing trends as they go.

Trying to capture the background scene.

Fatmandrool!

Anyway, now I’m back I Chicago, and will be flying out to London in a couple of hours. London – where I have just been informed Pabst Blue Ribbon is no longer available.

SIGH.

Please a check my...... medical a bracelet.

2007-07-15T12:10:00.000+10:00

The conference is now over, and was overall a pretty good experience for me. It was fun – a little slow to start with but I really enjoyed the poster session and met some other paeleobotanists who were lovely. The third day fossil talks were all Cenozoic, and I felt a sense of kinship not unlike what attending your first Star Trek convention must feel like. It felt good to be amongst ones own.

So on Wednesday morning after finishing up and pulling our posters down, we made our way back to our hostel to pack up and prepare to move on. Stuart was flying onto London the next day, and Lizzie and I needed to pick up our hire car early in the morning and Drive to Carbondale in southern Illinois.

At Around 7pm, we decided that we were hungry and should have ‘one last quick drink’ at Hamilton’s, the bar around the corner from the hostel. We counted on a bowl of cheese fries and a pint before resuming the tri-missionary position and falling asleep at around 9.30pm. What we didn’t count on was running into every single person we had met at both our hostel and the Dawghaus café where we had coffee every morning.

The following sequence says more than words could ever say.

*SCENE MISSING*

We all ended up at The Anvil, a great bar where we met many wonderful new people who were more than willing to provide us with all of the colours to drink. After many hours of Kath and Kim impersonations (VERY popular around these parts), we said our final goodbyes to our new friends and returned to our lodgings. I drank what I considered an adequate amount of water before hitting the hay.

Suffice to say, water levels were deemed not to be adequate on awakening. Apparently one good spew isn’t enough to cleanse ones body of the previous evenings poisons these days. In fact, if you eat Buffalo wings with hot sauce and spend a night out on the town, whatever enzymes driving the digestion reaction forward must somehow be inhibited. Instead of describing exactly what happened in the bathroom to me many, many times that day, I will instead attempt a chemical equation for the reaction that didn’t take place.

Normally

Buffalo wings + Hot sauce + Protease = firm stool + water

However

Buffalo wings + Hot sauce + 17 DRINKS = (Buffalo wings + Hot sauce)²

Two hours passed in the foyer of the hostel like two minutes. We thought we were going to die, but after a particularly good vomit I was able to convince Lizzie that I was okay to get to our rental company. After bidding Stuart farewell (who on the way to O’Hare had to vomit out of a taxi door) we got a cab into the city to get the car. After lingering at garbage can for a little to long, I rushed into Hertz and was able to extract the staff toilet key from the woman before loosing every last drop of moisture from my body. We were given the keys to our Subaru liberty, and hit the road as a pair of dried out husks. Despite the fact that Lizzie couldn’t move her neck and I couldn’t talk, she drove and I navigated our way along the mean streets of Chicago and onto the Dan Ryan expressway. Luckily, we were on the mend soon enough and ended up having a great drive after the Tylenol, MacDonald’s and coffee kicked in. Witnessed cornfield after cornfield, and generally marveled at the towns we passed through. I will never scoff at Caroline Springs ever again after seeing street after street of the same fucking house devoid of all personality (actually, yes I will – Caroline Springs can still suck my balls).

We were almost back to 100% when we hit Carbondale where our luxurious motel room was like arriving home after a 24-hour flight. Our host in Carbondale was fantastic, and we were taken out for a delicious Midwestern BBQ dinner, where we both subtly drank 14 cokes each to regain our strength.

The next morning we were shown around the local university and taken to see the sights around town. It’s a really gorgeous area, so green and lush. To a couple of botanists from Australia, the ‘bush’ in the USA just looks so strange – like it’s some kind of cultivated garden instead of a perfectly planned collection of species that have never evolved and have always been there thanks to the Divine Creator.

Anyways, around lunchtime I was unfortunate enough to develop a migraine headache. I haven’t had one for years, so it was probably something to do with the Native American burial ground were traipsing all over. I took some pills and decided to fight through it, but I was green around the gills by the time we were passing the Taco bell. So for the eleventy-hundredth time in 24 hours, I vomited in a public restroom. After that, our very kind host took me to his very kind sisters house who let me crash out on her couch for a few hours. Talk about hospitality – I introduced myself by saying “Hi, I’m Emma, and I’m going to vomit in your toilet now…”

Two hours later and I was feeling much better, so after an icecream at the Dairy Queen, Lizzie and I could drive on to St Louis, or as we like to call it ‘the Tullamarine of Southern Illinois’. After getting quite lost and stopping for directions, we were fairly pooped and were tempted to eat at Denny’s next to our motel. That was until we found directions to the nearest ‘Outback Steakhouse’…

If anyone out there is after the least Australian experience (cliché or otherwise) on planet earth, please visit the Outback Steakhouse. We are completely convinced that not a single employee has ever met or even heard the voice of an Australian. We were after a bit of a laugh at the tacky décor, silly menu items and if we were lucky, a poor impersonation of Crocodile Dundee. What we got was service provided as if it was a recorded message – no matter how many times we told them that we were Australian or tried to engage them in small talk the waiters had no idea what we were talking about. They didn’t even know what I meant when I showed them my ‘coalition of the willing and PROUD!!!” tattoo. Or my George Bush shaped birthmark. There wasn’t even a ‘Kangaroos next 10km’ sign on the wall. Just the odd Tina Arena song on the stereo. For shame.

After a hollow experience like that, we were on the road early and ready for more cornfields. How can the world need so much corn? It’s incredible. Here are some corny highlights.

Even Cowgirls get the blues... on the wrong side of the road.

"Delicious corn. Haven't had that in a while."

The Bloomin' onion. Traditional Aussie tucker mate.

"I love you Thelma. I love you Louise..."

Heading to Nashville on Wednesday for more superfun with super friends. I’m having the best time, and I want you to know that you are all dead to me now.

Regards,

Emma.

This must be just like living in paradise.

2007-07-09T01:45:00.001+10:00

After a ‘Die Hard’ length day in transit across the Specific Ocean, I arrived in Chicago on Monday night a little crunchy around the gills but otherwise fine. It was a pretty good flight as far as twenty four hours moving between airports and airplanes go. On the way to LA I had a great seat at the rear of the plane that was so close to the toilet that I barely had to move in order to evacuate, allowing me to drink approximately 3000 liters of water. I shared a row with a mum, dad, three year old and a one year old but was hardly bothered by the continual tantrums and weeping. I was too busy watching movies and episodes of Extras that are still of pants pooing quality the fourth time around. I also managed to catch a John Farnham concert from the early nineties, which naturally I found to be TOTALLY FUCKEN GROUSE MATE. I’m sure I was the only person in the world at that moment to be hurtling at 900 km per hour 31,000 feet above the earth’s surface and being barely able to contain full body tapping as I watched The Voice pumping out his touching rendition of ‘Take the Pressure Down’.

At the end of the flight as we were preparing to exit the plane, I turned to the parents next to me and commented that even though I hadn’t slept a wink, “The flight had gone pretty fast, hadn’t it?” Their dead eyes and crumpled, child-weary faces said it all – easy words indeed from a single 25 year old whose main responsibility for the flight revolved around maintaining lip moisture with lip gloss.

After clearing customs at LA and heading to the American Airlines terminal for my Chicago flight, the fatigue really began to kick in. Despite my efforts to erect a personal bubble exclusion zone with ear plugs and an eye mask, I was soon tapped on the shoulder by the elderly American woman beside me. Upon hearing the dreaded “would you like a chocolate coated peppermint?” I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping at all on that leg of my journey and so began to silently weep tears of rich arterial blood. However, being kept awake with sentences that started with the likes of “I’m a Republican – not that it matters, but…” for two hours allowed me to take in some of the Road Runner-esque scenery passing us by as we crossed the dessert. That baby Jebus sure knew how to create himself a dessert all those 5000 years ago. Really, Australian desserts should be at least 23% more pointy and at least 45% more plateau-licious.

Stepping of the train platform in Chicago thirty hours after my alarm went off in Melbourne, I was greeted by Stuart and Lizzie who were able to photograph the sheer relief on my face as I stepped through the doors.

Sorry to the Melbournians suffering through winter, but I must say that the weather in Chicago is truly spectacular. It’s 25-30 degrees with blue skies and those white fluffy clouds you just don’t see in Melbourne that much anymore (I think they might have water in them). Lake Michigan is Alpine cigarette commercial aquamarine when we sit and watch it every morning from the vantage of our café. The gardens and lawns are lush and green, and most streets are brightly colored with flowers.

We have spent the last few days relaxing and visiting the different neighborhoods. One of the most satisfying activities is walking into the Walgreen’s drugstore and seeing just how many seconds it takes me to develop Bell’s palsy with excitement. The cheap and oh so deliciously unfamiliar candy. The less than half-price beauty products, and Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah, the off-the-shelf pain killers. This must be just like living in PARADISE. I actually teared up in isle three this afternoon when I was able to purchase cocoa butter, two mascaras, a bronzer, a soap box, deep heat, sleeping pills (with a “TRY ME I’M $2!!” label), pain killers, a notepad and two chocolate bars for a measly $33 US dollars. You couldn’t buy that much with $100 at Priceline in Melbourne. Unfortunately, Stu and Lizze won’t let me take a box of sleeping pills followed by a box of AWAKE! Just to see what happens. Amy Lewis, if you want to save heaps on anal bleaching and moustache removal, just ask and I’ll be able to hook you up with some ma$$ive a$$ $aving$.

And please – don’t even get me started on the supermarkets. We keep making late night reconnaissance trips to photograph hilarious bakery items such as 7UP cake and Elvis Presley flavored banana and peanut butter Reeces Peeces.

`

Aside from the dizzying highs associated with the actual act of consuming and dreaming of future products I may like to purchase, Chicago is a truly awesome city just to walk around in. I love jumping on the train and getting off wherever looks interesting. The beauty of the above ground train is that you can usually spot an interesting street thirty seconds before the train stops. Just listening to the conversations of local residents is almost entertainment enough. Chicagonites (I just made up a word, didn’t I?) are incredibly polite and friendly people, which sits very well with my ‘no retreat – no surrender’ manners policy. Dining around town has been fun and is always an eye opener in the USA wherever you go. The food is always hilarious and surprisingly good considering that many of the meals I have enjoyed have been listed on menus alongside such treats as ‘Biscuits and Gravy with Pork Chop’ as seen on a breakfast menu yesterday.

The conference is in two days and seems more and more like going to school in the middle of a holiday, but I’m sure it will be a good experience and very inspirational for us all. Now where did I put my glasses with the eyes painted on…

A question.

2007-06-21T17:26:00.000+10:00

WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

FIN.

www.myboyfriendandhisfriendaremorethanfriends.com

2007-06-15T12:51:00.001+10:00

For more information, please see www.myspace.com/superfriends_superfun

2007-06-11T23:00:00.000+10:00

I Believe In Evolution, Except For The Whole Triassic Period

This must be what it feels like for Richard Dawkins when he gets a hurtful letter.

2007-06-11T14:00:00.000+10:00

I received the following comments to moderate this morning - one of them for a recent cocktail post and another for the one where me and my super hot Scientist friends are shaking our heads violently down the lens of a camera.
For your enjoyment...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "More cocktails...":

Well done to you- so much for bagging me out for having a beer you self righteous fat pig ;) F$%@ you!!! no...really #$%@ you!!! that's right...more Christian values...still don't get it - awesome!!! Don't want to speak to you ever again!!!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Feelin' hot hot HOT...":

You still look fat - you F#$k!!!!

Glad to hear you are enjoying life and thaks so much for messing up my personal one, guess you don't really care about that cos it's my fault...mostly cos of the Christian values I guess- thanks Fu@#er!!!! lots of XOXOOXOOX

Now, I'm one hard-assed, pro-choice, athiest-flavoured woman, but I don't remember bagging out any Christian value-sanctioned drinking of beer lately. Im also not sure how fat fuckish I've been of late either - all of this crystal meth I've been snorting off a framed photo of the Virgin Mary has been keeping me sacrement wafer thin.

What ever could this be about?

"Kettle's boiled.."

2007-06-05T15:46:00.000+10:00

Six years later and I have finally got my hands on the Baw Baw 2001 Ski Trip photos. The photos are so old that Cam and Nick look positively foetal amongst a sea of my 19 year-old protozoan classmates and I.

I'll post a few over the next week, but i'll start with my favourite Scrabble photo.

A little street theater..

Deep in conversation with foetal Cameron Fink.

and hasn't our sense of humour evolved!

Feelin' hot hot HOT...

2007-05-18T17:37:00.001+10:00

and a few more cocktails...

2007-05-17T16:49:00.000+10:00

always a winner.

After several recipe alterations and a name change, this still kind of tasted like wee!

Tasted better than our faces suggest...

"If you see a faded sign on the side of the road.."

Dear Jerry Falwell,

2007-05-16T19:51:00.000+10:00

You are dead.

Regards,

Emma Lewis.

The future.

2007-05-14T17:50:00.000+10:00

I’m twenty five years old, I’ve spent nearly eight years at university and I’m still not really sure what I want to be when I grow up.

This is something that I think about all the time. However, instead of making any big decisions, I just did an Honours year studying fossil conifers. Then two years looking down a microscope at leaves for my Masters thesis. I’m even eyeing off potential PhD projects involving exotic field trips (duration one week) and three years of sequencing plant DNA and data analysis (duration three years minus one week).

As you may have guessed from my recent past, I think that time wondering about possible careers is best spent pursuing an academic career in a narrow field with few jobs and little prospects. You wouldn’t want a job at the end of nearly a decade of study, would you? I just figured that I may as well learn how to use an electron microscope and get an extra degree whist weighing up my options. Don’t get me wrong – I loved the projects I’ve done and wouldn’t swap the experiences I’ve had in the lab for anything. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – my life is a fantasy camp. The thought of leaving the lab and saying goodbye to the endless laughter, joy rides in mining trucks and weekly industrial accident cover-ups makes me want to be a plant scientician forever. Unfortunately, I still just don’t know if academia is the life for me. So as my project nears completion, I am forced to decide what to do next with my life.

The following list represents the things I’m not willing to do for any amount of money:

Work in a discount variety store of any description
Work in a shitty suburban cinema, even if I was the manager and making more money than Donald Trump
Watch more than three consecutive minutes of Medium or CSI
Eat own poo

Conversely, here is a list of things I love to do and will gladly engage in for cash:

Write abusive letters to the editor of the Herald Sun about Tony Abbott being a complete cockchop who can shove his Christian family ideals right up his Uranus
Listen to talkback radio just to hear Beryl from North Balwyn’s opinion on “that Michelle Colby”
Watch the entire back catalogue of Prisoner on DVD
Photoshop myself into photos of The Highwaymen

Unfortunately, not many employment opportunities come with the above selection criteria.

So what am I to do with myself?

How about run off overseas for two months with no money and only one legitimate reason for being there in the first place? So I’m off to Chicago in July for a botany conference, then flying on to London to find myself* in Europe for a little while. I guess I’ll just finish my thesis and choose a career when I get back.

Haaaaaa!

*possibly eat own poo

More cocktails...

2007-05-14T16:38:00.000+10:00

The long islands went down very well before dinner.

The K. dix will put hair on your chest.

No dinner party in 1986 was complete without one.

Is 4.51PM too early for one of these?

Welcome to cocktail week!

2007-05-13T14:24:00.000+10:00

To celebrate New Years Eve last year, we of The Family had a 48 hour cocktail party at Lake Bunga. After compiling a short list of twenty seven cocktails...

.. and picking up a few different things...

...we were able to enjoy a very enchanting couple of evenings.

This week I will be posting each cocktail's recipe and serving suggestions modelled for you by Emily, Kyatt, David and myself.

The mocha mint was delicious, if not the colour of rancid bilge water!

This was pretty good too if my memory serves me correctly, and clearly the colour of lovely.

Delicious - and so was the drink.

Yooohoooo...

2007-05-09T16:54:00.000+10:00

This looks like it could be interesting... kind of like a Melbourne version of The Sartorialist but more trashy and less serious Manhattany.

Meanwhile, my life consists of mostly

and not nearly enough time painting myself orange with policemen who look like burns victims

or vacant smiling into the middle distance in awkwardly staged photos with my chums on Saturday nights

Lou really wins the award for least convincing smile in this photo with this one.

Wow.

Love me, love James Taylor - Part I.

2007-04-29T17:05:00.000+10:00

I am fully aware that Dad is the only person who will actually watch these, but that's okay with me.

Todays presentation is dedicated to Steve Lewis, who today played two games of football in the rain after staying up very late last night.

A Lewis family favourite.

2007-04-23T13:40:00.001+10:00

There have never been three points sweeter.

2007-04-14T20:17:00.000+10:00

Thanks Fev.

Hilarious...

2007-04-10T16:40:00.000+10:00

... but don't you know exactly how this woman is feeling?

I found this photo looking at a great post by Chelsea Peretti.

I have a penchant for pictures of people who are desperately in love with their cat, only to have their feline counterpart staring off into space, clearly plotting a murder/suicide for both owner and self.

Pet Shop Boys: Why I love thee.

2007-04-08T20:22:00.000+10:00

1. The Issey Miyake blow up jacket that Chris is wearing during 'Rent'.

2. The white fur coat that Neil is wearing during 'Rent'.

3. Armani, Armani, A-A-Armani.

4. Pointy hats.

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!!!

2007-04-05T13:57:00.000+10:00

WE JUST GOT TICKETS TO THE SYDNEY SHOW THAT WAS JUST ANNOUNCED!!!

ITS TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!

WE HAVE TO DRIVE 20 HOURS IN TWO DAYS!!!

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!!!!

Put a spring in your Sunday with Carlton Banks...

2007-04-01T17:19:00.000+10:00

I cant wait until the 2nd annual Nick Haslett 31st Birthday Memorial Weekend Watersliding Extravaganza.

2007-03-26T15:14:00.000+10:00

Birthday boy Nick taking off...

...and again

Check out the little girl with the thumbs up.

Cam and Sam on the greatest waterslide ever, the Green Room @ Whitewater World

Just another bunch of thieving cunts, 2007.

Call 1800 DOCTORB. The B is for BARGAIN!

2007-03-05T13:32:00.000+11:00

I just had a blood test experience that made my last pap smear seem like a candlelit dinner for two followed by the romantic insertion of a pair of lab goggles into my fajutza.

You would think that a medical professional who extracts blood from patients who may be

1) Terrified of needles
2) Terrified of pending blood test results

would be armed with some kind of personality that would help to deal with these circumstances.

Sure - I have highly specific tastes when it comes to medicine. I like my blood to be drawn exclusively by mumsy overweight women in billowy blouses who are equipped to indulge my acute case of Munchausen’s syndrome whilst asking me how my mother is, all the while distracting me from the pending needle.

I would also prefer it if she smelled a little like baby powder.

Until this morning, that was exactly the sort of medical attention I was used to recieving at my local clinic. Luckily, I was unconcerned with the needle and not particularly worried about the test results, so the absent compassion of the Westinghouse fridge in a smock that stuck a needle in my arm without looking at me once was more hilarious than it was troubling.

Surely the ability to communicate with others past hooting and clicking is a basic requirement of working with people, let alone being allowed near them with a syringe?

For your reference, here is a photo I snapped of her on her coffee break, so avoid her if you can.

I’m about to walk into his office now. Which do I choose?

2007-02-23T17:13:00.000+11:00

How should I start a conversation with Carlos, my friend and fellow lab member from Colombia?

“Hey Carlos! What are you up to this weekend?”

OR

“Hey Carlos, did you hear about all those clowns that got shot dead by a crazed gunman at a Cirque De Sole performance for poor children in your home town yesterday?”

DISCUSS.

Wanring - this titel is misplet.

2007-02-23T16:55:00.000+11:00

At an Australia Day Eve party a few weeks ago some friends of mine were booking airline tickets for Nick’s birthday extravaganza in Queensland. Instead of lining up at the laptop and drunkenly mashing my credit card number into the keypad with my cloven hoove, I decided to proceed with caution and wait until the following day to book my tickets. There were also other important factors to consider. My thesis is keeping me very busy at the moment, and is due in not but one month after the trip.

Awaking the next morning I had completely forgotten about the proposed holiday and went about the business of attending Claire’s Australia Day party down the road. After enjoying three* glasses of white it suddenly occurred to me that the best idea would be to proceed drunkenly into Claire’s bedroom and book tickets right then and there.

Back in the lab on Monday I happily printed out my itinerary and slipped it into my diary. I was showing no signs of regret - I had made the right decision and couldn’t wait to be placed in a rubber ring by a hot lifeguard, line up in wet clothes for forty minutes, spend the following three seconds sliding down the slippery slopes of fun, get a massive wedgie (both bums) and then be plucked out of said ring by another hot lifeguard. only to repeat the process thirty-eight or thirty-nine times that day.

Fast forward a month to last night after dinner when I check my email account and am surprised to find a courtesy email from Virgin Blue reminding me that my flight was taking off TOMORROW NIGHT as opposed to TOMORROW NIGHT ONE MONTH FROM TODAY as I needed it to be.

Momentarily I was distracted by the thought of leaving the flights as they were and spending the 23rd of Feb until the 25th of March at Wet and Wild Resort, but doubted that my supervisor would allow me to continue my electron microscopy from the summit of Splash Mountain. Luckily my grovelling phone call to Virgin at 11.00PM was successful and I was allowed to change the flight at a ‘small’ extra cost.

It made me think of the Steve Lewis ‘Is it worth spending that money?” equation, where you ask yourself “how many stubbies can this money buy?” and base your decision on what you would prefer. For example, I could buy that warm winter coat right now or alternatively drink 150 stubbies at home tonight (now you see why Dad still has holes in his work shoes). Basically, it cost me approximately 45 stubbies of VB to change the flights, which is ironic considering that is the approximate amount of beer my friends and I will drink on the two hour flight from Melbourne to the Gold Coast on Friday one month from now.

So let this be a warning to you, fellow grown ups.

Under no circumstances should you book tickets for a Two Night, Three Day Wet and Wild White Water World Waterslide Weekend Extravaganza™ when barely able to read the numbers on your credit card through the drunken haze of Australia Day merriment and cheap Sauvignon Blanc.

* seven or eight

Chachi sent me this...

2007-02-22T14:43:00.000+11:00

...and I love it!

Note the posture of the stick man. Wonderful!

2007-02-21T17:00:00.000+11:00

Giuliani To Run For President Of 9/11

NEW YORK—Supporters of the former mayor praised Giuliani for his "early and unwavering commitment" to 9/11

43 days to go.

2007-02-19T12:33:00.000+11:00

Oh, the GLORIOUS, GLORIOUS humanity!!!

2007-02-15T15:31:00.000+11:00

burn baby, BURN!!!!!!!!!

Go Tara! I mean Tyra! Purple monkey dishwasher!

2007-02-05T20:54:00.000+11:00

Some great new advice websites for sharehouse living.

2007-02-02T22:15:00.000+11:00

www.why-are-the-walls-of-my-bedroom-padded-with-megaphones.com

www.is-that-a-pube-or-an-eyelash-on-the-soap.com

www.im-only-eighty-eight-percent-sure-that-nobody-can-see-me-waxing-my-fajutz-when-the-left-bathroom-window-is-slightly-ajar.com

www.a-retarded-man-knocked-at-the-door-and-i-gave-him-eighty-cents-from-the-kitty-i-hope-that’s-okay.com

The Family... Gardners Hut circa 2007.

2007-01-29T14:51:00.000+11:00

Photography by Stuart 'sex machine' Gardner.

Hut trip photos..

2007-01-25T16:26:00.000+11:00

My amazingly subtle poker face.

"Diamonds and Pearls..."

"Do you know who my father is?"

Hairwash in the river.

Get well soon, baby cousin.

2007-01-25T12:07:00.000+11:00

Gatorade Pledges $240 Million In Thirst Aid To Underquenched Nations.

2007-01-24T15:44:00.000+11:00

A great slideshow on U.S. relations from The Onion.

A train of thought.

2007-01-23T13:39:00.000+11:00

*sound of tumbleweed blowing through lab*

*sound of a scientific discovery...*

*..that had already been discovered*

*sound of spongy mesophyll*

*sound of low secondary vein angle*

*audible sound of chord being struck*

FIN.

If you love me, you will read the book I just finished.

2007-01-04T12:09:00.000+11:00

After walking around Borders the other day I noticed that the only highly visible books written by women were romance novels and Harry Potter books. This seriously pisses me off - it must be nearly impossible to be taken seriously as a female author. I complained to Dave about this and consequently recieved PopCo for Christmas. I haven't been able to put it down since.

Scarlett Thomas totally has her shit together. I should be able to come up with a more eloquent description of her considering I've just read her wonderfully written book, but that's all you get when I'm on holidays, I'm afraid.

This week I'm in Sydney on a half work/half play adventure so I plan to do some serious thesis writing punctuated by some serious pleasure reading.

Bliss!

Lewis family matters.

2006-12-24T15:54:00.000+11:00

A conversation with Mum on the phone this morning.

Mum: I can’t believe your father didn’t come over and mow the lawn before Christmas like he said he would.
Me: Call him and tell him that!
Mum: No! And don’t you tell him either! I want to see if he remembers!

Later, during an unrelated phonecall with Dad…

Dad: So hows the Brunswick house going?
Me: Really good.
Dad: And what did you do today?
Me: Oh, you know, pottered around the garden, MOWED THE LAWN
Dad: Oh yeah..well that sounds nice.
Me: Yep, sometimes it’s hard to MOW THE LAWN, but in the end we found it quite easy to MOW THE LAWN.
Dad: Excellent. Well, see you tommorow!
Me: Yes, see you toMOWow.
Dad: Bye!

FIN.

A song to sing on your ride to school tomorrow

2006-12-19T23:10:00.000+11:00

I wrote this song today after Stu and I rode into uni together.

For the Kylie fans, it’s sung to the tune of ‘Hand on Your Heart’.

"Hand On Your Bell"

Put your hand on your bell and tell me
That you’re passing, ooh
Oh, put your hand on your bell
Hand on your bell

Well it's one thing to ride your bike to Parkville,
But another to get there fast
I thought that you were just behind me
And now both my legs are in a cast
Oh, look me in the eye
And tell me your just riding through

You know it's one thing to say you’re passing
But another to mean it from the heart
And if you didn’t intend to kill me
Then why did my head fall apart?
Oh, I wanna hear you tell me
Watch out on the right

Put your hand on your bell and ring it
When you’re passing
Out on the right
Put your hand on your bell and ring it
On your way through, ooh

Oh, put your hand on your bell
Hand on your bell

They like to talk about good riding
But most people never read the signs
They wanna, go left down Tin Alley
But can’t even ride between the lines
Oh, I wanna hear you dinging
When you’re riding past

Put your hand on your bell and ring it
When you’re passing
Out on the right
Put your hand on your bell and ring it
On your way through, ooh

Oh, put your hand on your bell
Hand on your bell

Oh, look me in the eye
And tell me your just riding through

Put your hand on your bell and ring it
When you’re passing
Out on the right
Put your hand on your bell and ring it
On your way through, ooh, ooh whoa whoa.

-o FIN o-

2006-12-14T18:59:00.000+11:00

How Did I End Up On The Cover Of This Romance Novel?

Last week at the supermarket, while shopping for my weekly supply of three dozen eggs and 12 pounds of mutton, I spotted a rack near the checkout...

Always be prepared.

2006-12-14T15:09:00.000+11:00

I love this.

Turns out the star stormed off stage at the beginning of the opera, forcing the understudy to join the show half way through in his hometime duds.

Thanks Carlos for making my day yesterday with this one!

What's that I hear???

2006-12-14T14:28:00.000+11:00

Is it... RAINING???

Laboratory beauty tips 101

2006-12-14T12:13:00.000+11:00

Hey ladies!

Don't you just hate it when you spill 100% ethanol all over you manicure after embedding leaf sections with LR White? Well don't worry about that chalky nail residue appearing that reveals every detail of your badly chipped polish. Simply go to the fumehood and grab that acetone spray bottle!

Just a few sprays and your nails are back to normal*!!!

*To prevent tissue damage, simply follow up with a three hour hand rinse followed by a seven day, once hourly hand moisturiser application.

Mark Thomas Hewitt...

2006-12-13T14:09:00.000+11:00

...I will win this advertising war.

Industrial accident Friday #314

2006-12-08T18:00:00.000+11:00

What do you do when you want to leave work at exactly 3.45PM on the dot?

Start treating clay blocks with peroxide solution at exactly 3.44PM!!

Dude – what was I thinking? I’ve done this procedure a thousand times without incident. After pouring the peroxide into the buckets, the rocks fizzed a little as they always do. Three seconds later, massive plumes of Sulphurous vapour and bubbling fossil sediment were flying everywhere. Luckily it was within the confines of a fumehood and a primarily empty lab, so there were no grown ups around to see me frantically running back and forth with arms flailing. It was also lucky that Carlos was right there to help me clean up the mess and change my lab goggles every time I kept steaming them over with terror sweat. Nothing gets terror sweat out of lab coats (except more terror!).

Luckily, everything worked out okay, and now I’m back home to get ready before going out for some tasty Thai at Leela Wadee with the Thursday night dinner crew, as we have moved Wednesday nights Thursday night to Friday night for one night only.

See you next week from the vantage of my brand new home!

Missed me, my dear friends and blood thirsty Internet stalkers?

2006-11-27T17:43:00.000+11:00

I’ve been looking after a friend’s house with no computer for two weeks, so I’ve been busy working on projects other than this blog. Sure – most of the projects revolve around cleaning up cat vomit and watching ‘Heathers’ on VHS, but I’ve been busy none the less.

Oh yes, I have truly been living the good life in West Brunswick. I love the super cheap bakery around the corner where everything is less than two dollars. I love the cheerful lady who works at the supermarket. Most of all I love staring into Stuart’s bathroom window over my back fence each night and recording each movement with minute detail. I love West Brunswick even though it’s about forty minutes drive from Sammy’s Charcoal Chicken in Eltham. Man alive do I love Sammy’s chicken rolls. I insist that my birthday cake next is made entirely out of them. Mark my words Hughes family, it will be a cold day in hell when I walk into your kitchen without a Sammy’s chicken roll in my hand.

But enough about chicken. Even though I’m back in suburban paradise™ for now, I’ll be back in West Brunswick in only a few short weeks. In December I’m moving into a nifty little share house with some other lady botanists. Waiting for me is a lovely big room with wooden floors, wooden blinds and a fireplace that you can’t put wood in because it doesn’t work.

Right now I’m looking after mum’s house until she gets back from her holiday, so I’m making the most of the place while I still can. Its just me for the early part of the evening, so I’m going to light a few scented candles, pour myself a vodka tonic, put Kenny G on the turntable and enjoy a nice romantic explosive decompression at 30,000 feet. Monday night is ‘Air Crash Investigation’ night! Whoopee!

Regretably bikesexual on a rainy Spring morning.

2006-11-15T14:37:00.000+11:00

Why didn't I wear a raincoat?

...and why didn't Stuart?

The best part about housesitting is leaving all of your closed toe shoes somewhere else, resulting in your hooves freezing into solid red stumps after a fifteen minute bike ride in the rain.

Wasn't it thirty degrees the other day?

More fantasy tan nights.

2006-11-03T23:41:00.000+11:00

The cold, dead eyes of the red eye reduced.

Papa Lazzaru and Aunt Jemima.

Faces of leaf evolution 2006 - making the Cookson Lab proud.

Me and Megatron Basketball's MVP 1980-2006, Steve Henderson.

Burning up with Rollergirl and Radiation therapy boy.

How to take a theme seriously.

Lou and Emma worked hard each day at the library...

2006-11-03T17:20:00.000+11:00

...but often let their hair down at night.

A shout out to Steve Lewis.

2006-11-03T16:54:00.000+11:00

This ones for you, Pops.

First batch of fake tan shots.

2006-10-30T11:07:00.000+11:00

Official new headshot for my CV.

Amy on the dance floor.

"Um... like.. who the fuck is that, and what the fuck is she, like, wearing?"

"Thats's not a hole in the wall... that's Rollergirl."

Possible Veronica's album cover #1

Possible Veronica's album cover #2

Two like, anorexic bitches who came to like, steal Cam.. or something? Fat moles.

Just another shot from Friday night dinner... how did this get in amongst the party shots?

More to come over the next few days...

Family love indeed.

2006-10-29T16:53:00.001+11:00

Look at the photos my cousin Patrick put up on his myspace profile after our 25th bithday last night.

Bless!!

...I also LOVE the emo shot.

granny would be so proud.

A most troubling sequence of events.

2006-10-26T16:21:00.001+10:00

1. Use Veet Pre Wax Spray to prepare the skin for more comfortable waxing.

2. Apply Veet Pre Wax Spray over the area you wish to wax.

3. For bikini area, spray onto a cotton pad and apply onto the skin.

4. DO NOT USE ON PERIANAL OR GENITAL AREAS! EMMA, THIS MEANS YOU! DO NOT SPRAY DIERECTLY INTO YOUR OWN GENITALS!

5. Consult your mortician.

An Etymological Challenge.

2006-10-23T23:33:00.001+10:00

Amongst the company I keep, the term ‘frantically masturbating’ comes up quite often in conversation. Despite the frequency of its repetition, I cannot for the life of me remember where this originated. I’m sure it’s from TV or a movie - but which one? Typing ‘frantically masturbating’ into Google yields nothing more than a disturbing amount of first hand accounts of some good old fashioned, no-holds-barred frantic masturbation… so I’m fresh out of ideas.

So I put this challenge out there folks – tell me where it came from, and I’ll release the uncensored version of this

An image we ALL frantically masturbated over in 1994.

Ta!

Word up, homeslices...

2006-10-20T17:55:00.000+10:00

Dear baby Jesus,

2006-10-20T14:13:00.000+10:00

A few months ago, you sent down a rumour from heaven that Icehouse would be playing at the Big Day Out 2007. Since that day I have sat here patiently in prayer waiting for your confirmation of this biblical event. I have been diligently checking both the heavenly gossip forums and the official BDO website on a daily basis, lest I receive any bad tidings. I even began studying again the sacred Smash hits magazine Icehouse scriptures that I found in a box in mum and dad's shed marked ‘Emma's bedroom crap’, words that the great prophets wrote with your guidance back in 1987AD. Words that still guide my passage here on earth to this day.

Your holiness, let it be known that I am willing to sacrifice both my place in Heaven and my entire back catalogue of Bruce Hornsby records in exchange for just one five song set (and possibly two encores) that would include (but not be limited to) ‘Electric Blue’, ‘Crazy’ and ‘I Can’t Help Myself’. I also pray that the ghostly spectre of Iva Davies will be appearing in a similar fashion to this…

…and not at all like this.

As sure as the world is flat and that Charles Darwin is the devil himself, I believe that in addition to serving you tirelessly, I was placed here on earth to attend at least one Icehouse concert.

All I ask is that you answer my prayers.

Yours and committed to the Harvest,

FEMBOTanist.

"Admittedly, that conversation was a little one-sided due to the ball gag."

2006-10-20T13:21:00.000+10:00

I Can't Stop Thinking About The Foreign-Policy Discussion We Had In The Shower Yesterday

Some polite English humour...

2006-10-11T22:28:00.000+10:00

Starring that person now referred to as 'House'.

I found him sexy first, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before you did, you fat anorexic bitch.

I KNEW IT!!!

2006-10-09T23:27:00.000+10:00

Since 1986 I’ve been thinking that the backing vocalist on Steve Winwood’s “Back in the High Life Again” sounded just like James Taylor… turns out IT IS JAMES TAYLOR!!! AMAZING!!!

P.S.why can't I be part of this rockin' posse with JT and Bonnie Raitt? I guess we'll never know...

Blue shadows...

2006-10-07T00:03:00.000+10:00

I know four minutes and twenty seconds is a large time investment for a youtube video, but being midnight on a friday, you probably don't have much else on right now.

This is so delightful in so many ways...The Three Amigos is such a great film. Watch out for the owl...awwwwwwwww.

Goodnight my pretties.

Acid + Base = salt + H2Whoa.

2006-10-04T17:34:00.000+10:00

You know those moments, when you like, create all this Hydrofluoric acid waste and have to make it like, pH neutral before you tip it down the sink and then like, you don’t do a titration or anything, and just like, throw in some random amount of Sodium Hydroxide and then its like, ph 7 when you test it with indicator tape?

Well it just happened to me then.

Winner.

Dude... I wish you played for Carlton so my dad would let me marry you.

2006-10-02T22:14:00.000+10:00

*sigh*

Let focus on the cyclists, and not the cunts in monster trucks...

2006-10-02T21:29:00.000+10:00

Man, The Age keeps pumping out the gold today.

I love it.

Whatever happens, dont reward four wheel drivers for not squishing pushbike riding hippies in their bull bars, for like, one day.