KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

I don't have time to sit down and pretend like I know how to read these days. Good thing Acclaim Magazine is choc-full of pretty pictures to look at. I managed to get my mits on the new issue before it hits news agencies this week (file that under perks of the day job) and I've been "reading" all weekend.

This morning, I found out my oldest friend's father passed away. Karl lives in my memory as the really tall man (possibly because I was really short as a 6 year old) who took B and me for ice cream on the way home from school whenever I went over to play.

He'll also live on in my parents' memory because the one time they walked me to B's house for her birthday, I took them in the opposite direction towards the school then down to the ice cream shop before circling back to B's house 'cause Karl's route was the only one I remembered.

Thanks to Karl and his delicious ice cream treats, Mum and Dad Pham thought I was a dumbass for many years of my childhood.

Rest in peace.

It’s been nearly three years since I’ve seen my friend who the Germans call ‘Trouser’ so when we planned a catch up dinner out then tasty teas at mine I was mightily embarrassed by the state of my bedroom and did a quick clean up.
The upside of letting your room become a disaster zone is you get to crawl into bed earlier. The downside is you can’t find anything you want the next morning while you’re rushing to get to work. Every time I clean I tell myself I’ll never let it get this messy again. Now I have found a reason to live in a pig sty.
In my pre-Trouser clean up, I came across a cougar head necklace I had completely forgotten I’d bought two months ago! Yippee! I should be concerned about my whoppingly bad memory but, um, what was I talking about? Oh, the necklace – yeah, check it out! Bought online from Dragonfly By Emma.

Apart from my tendency to fall on my face rather than land on my feet, I am very cat-like for a human being. I communicate with telepathy then don’t understand why idiots don’t do my bidding, I sometimes head-butt people as a sign of affection but the main cat trait I have is I’m easily distracted by - ‘Ooh! Something shiny!’
When my beloved sequin shoes from Japan finally carked it I just had to get a new shiny black pair or my life would be over. Converse had a sequin range that I’d been admiring for a several months but their shoes pinch my wide feet so it was eBay to the rescue!
I found the perfect glitter meets punk shoes at iAmTrend ebay store and the great part is I don't cut my dopey hands on the sharp sequins. The glitter feels sandpapery so I like to think of it as hand exfoliation every time I clumsily rub against it. I got a pair in black, which I call my Michael Jackson shoes ‘cause they glitter like his jacket in the famous live Billy Jean performance. And a silver pair, which I call my space boots because a Tibetan man once saw me in them and said, ‘You look like you are from space.’ And I said, ‘Huh?’ and he said, ‘Your clothes – beautiful.’ And I said, ‘Thanks!’

It’s none of my business who my housemate brings home for a one night stand, except when that one night stand walks into my room butt naked at 4.30am in the morning and thinks it’s hilarious that she interrupted my favourite kind of sleep - Friday night sleep after a week of early wake up calls - then it does become my business.
When visiting someone’s home for a sexual rendezvous, the younger generations seem to have lost all sense of modesty and respect. Maybe it’s because of all the graphic sex scenes and casual nudity on television, in movies and on the Internet. Reality is a bit different to TV so I thought I’d write a few basic guidelines for the younglings to follow:

1. Close the front door behind you when you enter - it’s common sense
2. Cover up when leaving your fuck buddy’s bedroom - it’s modest
3. Learn the difference between left and right so you can find the bathroom
4. Don’t walk into other housemates' bedrooms butt naked - it’s rude
5. Don't walk into other housemates' bedrooms butt naked twice - it's really rude
6. Don’t wake all the housemates up then laugh about waking them up - it’s disrespectful
7. If you’ve failed to do all of the above it's best to sneak out unseen the next day

In retrospect, it was really our fault for not making our linearly designed house easier to navigate - the hallway does go in two directions after all (up/down). In my follow up Sharehouse Sex Etiquette (For Housemates) post, I will suggest housemates put printed photos of their heads on bedroom doors and a picture of a toilet on the toilet door to help random sex partners find their way.

At least the pig shaped pencil sharpener looks cute smiling up from her desk.

Joshua Garden from Grafton Primary designed my head tattoo. It’s two infinities that touch to form two hearts. To me the symbol means ‘infinite love’ – yup, what a tough tatt to have on your head – but I hesitated because it looks similar to 88, which equals HH, which equals Hail Hitler. Then I realised no one would be dumb enough to mistake me for a neo-Nazi skinhead so I inked my infinite love. It didn’t bring me much love when I went home to Brisbane.

Mum Pham slapped my face in a rage. Later on, when she could speak again she explained it was the shaved head she hated, not the tattoo. Dad Pham loved that I was expressing myself, though later on he told me ‘infinite love’ cannot exist because the only a vacuum of nothingness can be infinite as soon as you put a quantitative element like love to it, it is no longer infinite. I said the tattoo is forever. He said, you’ll die one day and the tattoo will rot and end with your body. Thanks Dad Pham.

The story for this tattoo goes something like, I went out one day to buy bulk toilet paper for a warehouse party we were throwing that night and came home with a tattoo instead. Not my brightest idea to say the least because we were toilet paperless for a party with 300+ guests and also because in my spontaneousness I put the permanent tattoo in the wrong spot.

The six-pointed star isn’t The Star of David. It’s actually the star of Jade Pham. Our Phamly fortuneteller showed me how the six major stars in my birth chart formed a six-pointed star. It represents a lot of things – like my personality, life and entire fate but I’d like to share with you this one meaning: The upwards-facing triangle (man) and down-facing triangle (woman) combined makes me "the perfect balance of male and female. She won’t be prone to hysteria like women because she’s got enough masculinity in her to keep a cool head. She’s also got the will and ambition of men when it comes to career but she’ll be more successful because she’s flexible like a woman.” I’m sure many extreme feminists now find my first tattoo highly offensive.

The colour is derived from my Vietnamese name, which translates literally  to 'Precious Green Jade'. Grandpa named all three Pham siblings without ever meeting us in person so I've always wondered how he knew 'Jade' would suit me to a tee. Mum Pham's always saying how I have a "hard head like a stone," which in English means Mum thinks I'm stubborn as a mule and in my world means pain because she's usually rapping her knuckles on my head when she says it.

My Uncle has a theory on why I've never had a boyfriend. It goes something like, "You're too independent and too intelligent. Guys don't like to feel dumber than their girlfriends, they want a girl who'll rely on them, that they can take care of so they feel useful."

My tarot lady has a theory on why I've never had a boyfriend. It goes something like, "You don't love yourself. It's your fault you attract assholes who take advantage of you."

Dad Pham has a theory on why I've never had a boyfriend. It goes something like, "You're too tough, they probably get intimidated and run the other way." Followed by a fit of wheezing laughter.

My theory goes something like this: It's not me, it's men.

I probably shouldn’t be drawing attention to my ears considering the lengths Dad Pham went to to hide them. He used to tape them down to the sides of my infant head because they stuck so far out they made me look like a clown. He had hoped my ears would fix themselves with a little help from sticky tape. They didn’t.
I had a hang up about my ears poking through my hair for the longest time as a kid and then puberty hit and I realised I had many worse features to occupy my self-consciousness. My ‘fools’ ears’ were forgotten until my housemate revealed he has no ear lobes. What a freak!
Say hello to my new star earrings from The Mookie Market as seen on my less freaky sticky-outie ears. These plastic fantastic stars come in five colours, of which I ordered three in lavender, pop blue and pop yellow. They arrived in a package labeled ‘Costume Earrings’ – I don’t know how I feel about this.

When I used to carry a handbag people assumed I was limping because I had a heavy handbag. Now I’m using a backpack they don’t know why I’m wonky. The trouble is I’m pigeon-toed.

My left leg is longer than my right and points inwards. It means I walk funny and swim funny and dance funny and look funny and my shoes wear out unevenly but I don’t mind any of that. The only part that sucks is when I wear heels for too long it puts too much pressure on my left knee, which is why you’re more likely to see me kicking around in sneakers like my new Keep Shoes.

It’s a bit unfair that I get paid to talk about cute shoes day in and day out, and then I get a free pair for myself but, oh well, life’s tough like that. You just gotta suck it up and roll with the punches. The Homer was available at Hype DC online but looks like they've sold out 'cause I'm a slow-poke blogger so maybe try your luck away from the internet (shock horror!) and head in-store or check out what other Keep Shoes they have in stock.

You’d think some one that’s totally into buyin’ and stylin’ would have a walk-in closet the size of a small apartment, but no, I wish! I cull my wardrobe every 3-6 months to make room for more crap because I’ve been living with 10 milk crates and a pole since my warehouse days. Thought I'd share it with the blog world because it's also a cost efficient wardrobe (free) for broke-ass students and other poor folk.

The milk crates are slightly pimped - it’s me after all. They’re yellow and orange milk crates with an open face for shelving that I spray-painted fire engine red. I went through a really red phase that year. The pole was donated by a friend who moved to Europe where they have poles aplenty so he didn't need to bring his own.

One day I’m going to grow up and get a real wardrobe but right now I’m resisting because sharehouse living and no savings in sight for my own place means I’ll be moving around for at least another half decade and milk crates are so easy to pick apart/assemble and double as moving boxes. To quote Charlie Sheen, “I’m bi-winning!”