twelve: partisanship

today, i voted for the first time in my life. i'm one of those sappy arts students who like to romanticise the stories of the rising working classes who defied the aristocracy to finally seize their democratic rights. i'm not politically active my any means, but the very history behind the way that each of us received our right to vote, i find quite thrilling. i know, i'm a nerd.

as such, i jumped out of bed this morning and practically ran around the corner to the polling booth. every time someone handed me a partisan leaflet, i grinned like a maniac and thanked them vehemently. then i realised i was holding liberal party leaflets and threw them in the bin.

i voted labor for the lower house, and in the senate i voted above the line for the greens. i know - this makes me sound like a typical follow-the-crowd young person who will sway to the right when i have to start paying half my income in tax. but i doubt i'll ever be able to vote anything other than labor. my memories of the john howard years revolve around a racist media, the over-use of the term "un-australian" (without defining what "australian" even is) and a rising nationalist bogan class.

and this perception is only cemented when i see tony abbott's disgusting "we'll stop the boats!" ads. on the surface the ads appear to be about queue jumpers, but really they're about a notion of who is australian who is NOT, and a fear of australia being taken over by the "other". so if people coming in from asia are the "other", then who is included in the "us"? white people only? the racism and nationalism inherent in those ads is appalling, it makes me want to cry. that's why i don't think that the liberal party, despite their apparently superior economic policies, is conducive to a tolerant and accepting australia.

two funny encounters from election day:

1. a bengali aunty at the polling booth pulled on a bright red labor party shirt OVER HER SARI, placed a labor party cap on her head, and started handing out leaflets! pure comedy.

2. our elderly egyption neighbour informed me that she had voted for "the man" (tony abbott) because "the woman (julia guillard) has a boyfriend! she is not married! very bad... very bad."

eleven

last friday i was at a hollywood themed party. what was significant about it is that NO ONE BELIEVED THAT MY COSTUME WAS REAL.

i was meant to be a flapper, an icon of the roaring 20's, when the american economy was booming following the very successful first world war. flapper's were a new breed of young women who had money to burn and who were laughing in the face of pre-war conservativism, ready to change american culture forever.

of course since the stock market crashed in 1929, and the great depression/new deal era lasted for a decade after that, the flappers were in reality quite a fleeting figure. in hollywood however, they live on for eternity. they embody perfectly the exact mix of elegance and rebellion which hollywood heroins are made of. if you don't know what a flapper is, then i'm sorry but you are a very sad human being.

so anyway, every time i told anyone that i was a flapper they'd say something like "you mean like a bird?" or "what's a snapper?" or "stop making shit up mez". and when i tried to explain the history of it, they tuned out and started dancing. the condescension i faced was appalling!! especially since in this case, i was clearly the more cultured and historically informed involvent (made that last word up).

by the way, the drink is just guava juice. i myself haven't thrown all conservative values to the wind. not on purpose anyway.

ten

over the years i have been systematically increasing the amount of purple in my room.

i really enjoy purple. all shades of it.