They will never take our blonde hair and our red lipstick

These past few days I've been flitting around from last-minute plan to last-minute plan, trying to make the most of being close enough to my gurl to be able to flick the hair out of her eyes with my fingers, while manically preparing for final uni DEADLINES (11.33am this morning - welcome to art school), while welcoming back my own very jetlagged family from God Bless America, while defeating nerves and sickness and drinking too much wine for a school night and seeing a few too many clocks tick over to tomorrow before going to sleep. It's quite safe to say I'm burnt out, but happily satisfied to be lying in this particular  pile of ashes.


My little heart has been relatively whole for a grand total of two days, as almost every loved one has been close to me once again - until this evening, when my friend takes another piece of me with her on her adventures. More than happy to give it up, knowing she's left more than a little bit of herself in me somewhere. 


So while my little darling is flying away tonight, my family flew home just yesterday, all bloodshot eyes and exhausted grins and gasping frightfully at the cold. My home is proper again; Dad snoring from beneath my bedroom, my big sister's light through my window, my little sister talking loudly to a suitor and me, not feeling inadequate anymore for not being able to consume the amount of food my Mum had been making for just two (enough for five, clearly a ratio set in concrete. Impossible habits). 


I'm sitting here in my room, consumed by the remnants of late and trying to summon the energy to clear the last hurdle of a presentation I have to do tomorrow morning. Rather than over-prepare and work myself up into a frenzy like I would normally do, I'm going to sit for while longer and trust my inherent ability to spend lots of time talking about art and music and how everything is just great and just yeah! Sound! I'm nervous but I just think that the thing inside of me that compelled me to make these 'compositional decisions' has its own little voice and will speak for me tomorrow, while the rest of me tries to keep up with the help of the fury of a thousand skinny lattes. 


So that's me, really, at the moment; a mess of caffeine and PVA glue and the queue at Officeworks. A cacophony of horrendous computer skills and hilariously clashing top-and-skirt combos and infallible, desperately determined red lipstick.

As if I didn't already have enough proof that my family really do know me from the inside out, here is the pile of souvenirs that was incredibly generously unloaded before me when we got home from the airport. Take particular note of the book of Frida Kahlo's personal photos (I'll scan some pages at some point, too beautiful to be described), coffee mugs from the Guggenheim, a Frank Lloyd Wright photo frame, Daisy by Marc Jacobs (from the real live duty free shop!) and, in a true demonstration of sisterly sweetness, my sister bought me Bon Iver's 'For Emma, Forever Ago...' on vinyl because she knows how closely it is wrapped around my heart. 


Here are the songs that have been friends to me lately, each with their own little stories to tell:

(Yeah really, Africa - shame, I have none.)