Relevance

I was talking to a friend recently about her manager. A woman in her late forties, divorced, alone and plodding along in a irrelevant job in a small suburban store. The woman had a volatile temper, and would easily become distressed and upset at minor trifling things...rather mousy and easily dismissed...yet my friend told me, that same woman had once been glamorous, beautiful and powerful...for a period as long as twenty years she had been the buyer for a luxurious department store, and had teams of people attending to her beck and call. She was the woman that others wanted to emulate, that was admired and that was forever and always jetting around to Milan or the latest shows in Paris. It is sad, how carelessly and callously the world tosses to one side people who it deems to be no longer relevant. As a friend is fond of saying the new waves pushes forward the old waves and takes their place. So it is with everything in life, unless you are happy to be forgotten, to be left behind, you must use your efforts towards something meaningful.

Summa Field Dayz

Yesterday I went to my first music festival. Summa Field Dayz which was held in Doug Jennings Park, the Spit Gold Coast, just off Seaworld. I must admit, despite the fact that I have never really shared my friends enthusiasm for live music, and bands, I nevertheless found myself very much looking forward to the festival itself - perhaps 70% curiosity, 30% hoping for a good time.
We boarded a Brisbane Bus Line bus, which after 7 minutes, turned into the venue. A significant crowd had already accumulated outside the gates - super young, super naked and super buff. I felt fairly conspicuous, with my flower hat, and shift dress and group of Asian friends in tow. Having been checked in by a matronly and dour ticket inspector, and collected the freebies at the entrance we made our way to the various stages. There were two open air stages, one under a colossal white tent and one which looked like the michellin man transformed into a cube. There were tents with various eating options along the outskirts, and carnival rides - one imaginatively called alien invader in the center. We started in the white tent, doff doff music - trance, a lot of electro lights and rather suffocating heat - two djs behind a elongated table, which had an electric facade and which constantly changed colour in a rather trippy way. Personally trance is not a personal favorite of mine, I tend to prefer R & B, pop or dance. Bobbed for about two hours, by this stage sweat was streaming from all orifices, and all semblance of sophistication had melted from me along with my make up. The Michellin Cube venue was pretty similar, in musical talents. The open aired stage had more to offer in terms of good music and crowd response - though under the sun a lot of the people were starting to look decidedly roasted and toxic pink...eek..there was also a lot of dirt being kicked around (from the dancing), which in addition to the sweat created a shiny shellac over my skin...I don't think I have ever been this dirty in my entire life.
After Infected Mushroom we wandered around, and decided to see the Presets as a final hurrah, we wandered into the large crowd, not a big fan of their music, but the mood and energy of the crowd especially the collective singing and clapping in tune lifted the experience and made the experience fun.

3 months without frivolous consumption

One of the goals I set myself for 2010, is to live more thoughtfully and with greater simplicity. As a direct consequence, I have resolved to refrain from frivolous spending for the next three months, with the moratorium to be reviewed and evaluated in early April. Hand in hand with that goal, is the resolution not to visit ebay to buy, or browse the buy sections - as it just leads to unnecessary desires for products I don't need and yet desperately want for no valid reason.
So far it is day four and although I have not yet broken this promise to myself, I am however finding it to be a significant struggle, as it involves a complete overhaul of previous ingrained habits and behaviors. Additionally, as I am away from work and on holidays I have a significant quantity of time to dispatch and therefore find my fingers itching towards the path of least resistance. I suspect the review of beauty products, and beauty videos on youtube and vogue forums and browsing sasa.com and strawberry.net is not exactly helping my plight either. NEED to stay STRONG dammit, I need to refocus, regroup and keep this promise to myself.