Lonely Hearts Club Band

Shakuhachi fringe shoulder dress - $110 on sale

Suede/fake snake leather bootie things - $70 on sale

I am having serious trouble finding the energy to post at the moment - that's how it is when you've melted in a vast pool of your own sweat, and are reduced to little more than a shiny smear of runny mascara and a tangle of matted humidity-struck hair. Right at the moment (humidity approximately 9000 percent) the pelt on my head has felted together and resembles nothing so much as a wad of moulted hair dug out of a shower drain.

Looking greasy, pissed off and felted of pelt.

Since I'm moving slowly like a sloth in order to conserve energy in this sweaty monsoonal swamp, I'm gradually catching up on what's been going on around here. Last week it was Christmas, this week it's my birthday. If you cast an eye upon my little profile blurb thingy there you will find I am no longer a "mid thirties" mama - now I'm 38 I think I can more truthfully say I'm a late thirties mama, but that doesn't have the same alliterative allure. Besides, "late" sort of implies "dead" and (touch wood) that doesn't apply to me yet.

This ensemble, the result of a hurried couple of hours pawing through the sale racks of our local mall, was my desperate attempt to come up with something suitable for going out dancing. Finding things to wear to go out at night is usually no problem, I know just what to wear to dinner (fancy or not), a dinner party, a cocktail party, the opening of a show, the premiere of a movie, to see a band at a bar, for a night of reckless drinking, to a party in someone's house or anywhere else. Finding things to wear to nightclubs frequented by youths when you are old enough to be the mother of said youths is a trickier proposition. After all, who wants to be stopped at the door by some refrigerator shaped guy in a headset, and told, "Sorry ma'am, members only tonight" or see teenagers scuttle in fear and disgust at the sight of someone parenty in nature stepping foot on the dancefloor.

Notice my oddly leaning poses above? All in an effort to show off these luxuriant fringes.

Only 4 or 5 years ago, in the mystical time BLD (before little dude) my friends and I still went clubbing pretty much every week, and were never, ever, ever stopped by a bouncer or forced to stand in a line. The rope was always magically unclipped for us, the cover charge waived, and if anyone had dared to suggest such a thing we would have tossed our hair at them and flounced through regardless. We were also still young and lithe enough to wear anything we felt like and still get away with the flouncing and the hair tossing - just a shirt and a pair of heels with pants foregone, or cargo pants and vintage silk cami, or torn jeans and an antique kimono with nothing underneath. If I tried that now I fear it would be all too reminiscent of late-period Courtney Love, and probably generate just as much speculation about my mental health and/or drug use.

My husband calls this dress "Sergeant Pepper's" because of the mutant epaulettes - I'm trying to imagine what rank they'd denote, and what kind of powers that rank would confer. I'm all for the fringes regardless, because if my hair is going to be a humidified horror show then it's nice to have something else swingy and silky hanging around instead. In any case the dress did allow me to pull rank enough to get into clubs without questions, make my way into the dj booth in order to sort out the music situation, and dance all night without causing panic among the youths that I was going to dob them into their mums for doing lines in the dunnies. Just like old times!

Somewhere in the late nineties (check out those super-thin nineties eyebrows).

The one thing which struck me as new on my Old Person Safari Tour into the nightclub jungle was the sheer number of photos being taken. Every time I turned around another gaggle of girls was posing in approved Facebook formation, making sweet sweet love to someone's phone camera. I have barely any photos of myself out in clubs - except some from the social pages of 3D World (does that free paper still exist?), and a handful like the one above where someone brought their camera out in their handbag for reasons unknown. When you had to actually buy film and pay money to have it developed, none of us really wanted to risk the out of focus, out of frame photos that invariably result when trashed people hold a non-digital camera at arm's length to take a self-portrait. Not to mention, who could be bothered dragging a camera round with them all night, chunky plastic beasts that they were. I do have a stack of rather grim polaroids of wasted people after nights out, but no pictorial record of all those magic nights dancing til dawn. I'll just have to rely on my oddly fragmented memories of those...

xx

skye

PS. Does anyone else my age (particularly with child/ren) still have the occasional urge to go out like that - or am I just irredeemably tragic?

PPS. Here's one for the armpit fetishists, haven't thrown them anything for ages, poor fellows:

Merry...February?

Behold! A Christmas post - just what everyone wants and needs right now, an entire month after the day has passed from memory in a blur of pudding, goodwill and familial dysfunction...

The little dude (in santa-mode, as per most of December) skipping across the road to the beach, followed by a couple of shadowy figures.

The Christmas card photo.

The Christmas card photo I would have used if we lived in Slightly Disturbing World.

A magnificent cardboard box sleigh (can't claim any credit for it, husband whipped it up in a matter of moments).

Excessively cute and Queenslanderish Christmas tree at my sister's house.

Excessively cute and Queenslanderish Christmas little dude at my sister's house.

It's not Christmas without crustaceans.

Definitely Christmas then!

My Gold Coast Christmas table, as styled by a herd of My Little Ponies.

The majestic festive butt plug. Bought it on the Myer sale, brought it home and thought, why?

I wish you joy, (and most of all I wish you love), and that 2010 is already wonderful for you!

xx

Skye

PS. Hey, I know it's not much, but it's better than nothing! No need for that kind of attitude, little dude.