KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

Modern Family is my all-time favourite comedy show. It’s based on a cast of fabulous and funny characters that I relate waaaaay too much to.

Their family tree begins with grumpy Grandpa who’s divorced and remarried to a gorgeously outrageous Porte Rican woman who has a prim and proper young son. Then there's Grandpa’s two kids and their families. The son is one half of the best gay couple I’ve seen on TV even though his partner is played by a straight actor, they're the amazing parents of an adopted Vietnamese daughter. Grandpa’s girl has the ‘traditional' family – loving (and hilariously stupid) husband and three children (two girls and boy) yet they’re probably the most dysfunctional of the three families. The age gaps, cultural differences and shredding of social norms leads to some teary-eyed, tummy-hugging laughs!

Pretty much all Phams and extended Phamly are in interracial relationships. The mixed languages, generations and cultures makes Phamly events very entertaining in real life. Modern Family captures and exaggerates the loving friction perfectly on the show!

Little Sissy Pham and I talk in many a Modern Family quote so if you ever set a play date with us it’s probably best you watch all 3.8 seasons (there’s still a couple of season 4 episodes to air in January 2013) to keep up with our conversations.

Remember when I told you to never let me shave my head again because it will take me two years to grow it out? Well, I did it again and you didn't stop me! At least this time I went the subtle route. You can't see my head tattoo and if I let my hair down I can hide the fact that I'm not a sensible adult.

This hairdo was inspired by Ms. Rihanna, which got me wondering what I'd originally used as hair inspiration for the head tattoo. I racked my brains all month but didn't remember until I watched Resident Evil 4 on TV the other night. It's a sorry excuse for a game-based action movie (save your nerd memories and stop at Resident Evil 3 if you haven't seen the movies yet). But Alice (aka Milla Jovovich - my steady girl-crush) was my original hair inspiration in the first movie! She totes rocked partial shave before it became cool.


These days I prefer the subtle shave so I can choose to look tough or soft because people treat you differently when you have a partially shaved head. They make judgements before even speaking to you. Like my Viet grocer who used to love chatting with me in Vietnamese until I shaved my hair - he stopped the chit-chat and the freebies. Double blow. Or people almost don't hire you because they see an old picture on your blog and think you may have a bad attitude (though if they'd read the blog entry with the head shaved pic, they'd know my head tattoo stands for infinite love).

Lucky for them (and me) they gave me the gig because I helped nail some epic deadlines with a smile on my face and an endless supply of Snickers to keep the team going. I'm not saying y'all should go out and hug a swastika-inked skinhead in case he or she is secretly a candy-giving fairy. All I'm hoping is that you'll give peeps a chance.


Thanks to Richard at Richard & Maisy Hairstyling. New address: Level 4/190 Edward Street (upstairs from Gucci) Brisbane CBD 4000. Text Richard for appointment. Mob: 0438 893 236

My tarot lady was sooooo confused when I told her I'd spent most of 2012 in the public service. A year earlier she'd predicted a work opportunity with a creative company where an older woman who knew of me would become my mentor. Said opportunity came true (thanks Meg if you read this!) but I wasn't ready to jump into another life-consuming creative job (sorry Meg if you read this)! I needed a time out from life to be with Phamly.

As randomness would have it, I ended up working with Meg's husband on the business.qld.gov.au website instead. Small world, yes? It's been a lovely chilled out year but now I'm hungry for creative work again so today I pack up my desk and bid my team farewell.

Here is a letter I wrote to my wonderful workmates. It's actually quite personal now that I read over it but... this is a personal blog and tarot lady says I need to open up more. So hello world - here are my feelings!

(PDAs is an in-joke. They're all suffering through 'performance development agreements' at the moment.)

My morning routine used to involve 20 minutes of blow-drying and 15 minutes of running late. If it were just me, it'd be okay but I commute with Little Sissy Pham and she uses flex time for all her medical appointments. The simpler solution would have been to wake up earlier but that's way too logical for the likes of me.

Instead, I got a new hairdryer from this decade to blast the heck out of my hair. Who knew hairdrying technology could advance so much in 10 years? All this time I thought it was my stubborn, thick Asian hair that refused to let go of moisture. Hairdressers comment every time they try to dry my hair so I'm not all delusional. Only slightly.

But with my spankin' new Remington Studio Styles Ionic Pro Pack I'm sorted in 5 minutes. For $50 it gets the job done well and people have commented how shiny and flowy my hair looks now. Little Sissy Pham finds the placement of the buttons on the handle inconvenient but she's a fussier Pham than me. Which is why when her hairdryer died a couple weeks ago, I bought her a fancy GHD dryer for Christmas! I have an annoying habit of spending much more on other people than I do on myself. It's crap.

Of course, as soon as I got my own new hairdryer, Little Sissy Pham and I started swimming in the evenings so now I shower at nights and don't need to speed-dry my hair in the mornings anymore. Such is life.

I've gone from not wearing patterns and prints to a number of floral and polka dot dresses. For some reason I always thought prints didn't suit me but I've come to realise I look like Mum Pham and she exclusively wore patterns and prints.
I look more and more like Mum Pham as I get older. I’m so much like her I started to worry and asked Little Sissy Pham, 'What if mum's become an evil spirit and is taking over my body?' to which she squealed 'yay!' and I sulked for the rest of the day.

I guess if I were to turn into mum it won't be so bad. After all, Mumma Pham was one stylish lady. These are just some of the many patterned jersey dresses I've bought from ASOS.com recently.

Last year's Harvest was an emotional affair because it was my very last day in Melbourne before moving interstate. This year, I went back for sentimental reasons and ended up having the best ever festival experience of my life. As an ex-music publicist and obsessed fan, I've been to so many music festivals I thought once I quit I’d never go again. Until Harvest.

What makes Harvest stand out? Harvest has eliminated all the bad elements of festival outings and enhanced the good.

The Werribee Park site in Melbourne is so beautiful. No mud, no dust - it's all green grass and flourishing plants in November. Melbourne weather even blessed the festival with two glorious days of sunshine and thanks to the trees, there was plenty of shade to keep my blonde-hair and blue-eyed pals from burning to a crisp.

The food is divine - all gourmet and high quality food stalls. None of the overpriced rubbish that seems to be the norm at most big festivals. I seriously wished Harvest wasn't a one-day festival so I could try more food! There were also art installations and chill spaces around the entire festival which made the experience even more relaxing – though with added kooky fun. It’s not every day I get to sit in a human-sized bird nest to enjoy coffee and waffles.

In its start-up year Harvest queues for drinks and toilets were quite insane but the festival listened to the feedback and this year they had a way more effective drinks system and toilets aplenty. No queues whatsoever. Thanks for caring, Harvest!


All this and I haven't even started gushing about the amazing line-up! The team behind Harvest Festival put together a line-up for genuine music lovers. They're not going for the so-indie-you-don't-know-them-but-pretend-you-do line-up or the so-mainstream-you-don't-like-music-but-you-go-because-it's-fashionable-and-get-blind-drunk-and-pass-out-before-midday crowd.

I explored the festival site with Dandy Warhols as my background music, I got to see my favourite band in the line-up, Liars, front and centre, discovered Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane, stoner rocked with The Black Angels, chilled out to the beautiful sounds of Beirut, had a blast dancing to Beck (my surprise favourite performance of the day – I knew he’d be great but I’m not a Beck fanatic so didn’t expect him to be my festival highlight), stopped by Fuck Buttons for a bit of party-electro but decided the indie experimental Grizzly Bear was a much gentler ease into the atmospheric glory of Sigor Ros. Everyone was top quality.

Thanks Harvest for the most beautiful festival experience I’ve ever had. I’ll see you next year.

Love.

I went back to Melbourne for my first proper visit since moving and enjoyed me some Harvest 2012, Melbourne Aquarium, a real life data centre, Bleeding Knees Club @ the Corner, got a talking-to from tarot lady and did so much catching-up with friends over food I vomited in my mouth from overeating. Twice.

When I left Melbourne last year I wasn't in a great place (read: In loving memory of Mum Pham). I'm glad the general vibe everyone got from me this time is one of a sun-kissed, happy and healthy girl. I feel more me than I have all year.

Seeing my Melbourne friends reminded me how much love and fun and life I still have inside me. It's been too long since I've gotten this type of reaction from my friends:

Tarot lady says in 2013 everything's coming up Milhouse (my interpretation of her words, she didn't actually say that). I believe her because now I've got my  'anything is possible' attitude back, anything really is possible.

I had a trippy night out with my second cousin, Peter, in Melbourne. My mum and his dad hung out when they were young. History continues with us, the two kids who look exactly like our deceased parent. I kept freaking out when he looked at me with his dad's eyes, and he kept wigging out when I pulled a Mum Pham face. It was spooky yet fun.

I'd been waiting half a decade for Peter to turn 18 so I could take him out to gigs, but just as he reached legal partying age I went and moved up to Brisbane. So I set this right on my recent trip to Melbourne by taking him to see Bleeding Knees Club at the Corner Hotel.
Boy, do I thank the rock gods for delivering unto me a skate/surf band who fit a year's worth of rock & roll experiences into one short and sweet set for Peter. Naked guy (pictured), moshing, crowd-surfing, drinking beer out of sneakers and two near knock-outs - all set to the catchy tunes and charming banter of the BKC boys. FUN!

This was Bleeding Knees Club's last tour before they take a time out to write album #2, but next time they're down your way I highly recommend you go see and partay.

Most of the time I think I'm a good Aunty. And then I hear myself speak.

I caught the bus to work the other day. The same bus my eldest niece takes to school. In the space of 5 minutes I'd told her that Little Sissy Pham is an alcoholic (as a joke - the only person more sober than her is me) and that the bus wasn't packed as usual because adults slack off on Fridays (not a joke). These are just two of the multitude of things that spurt from my mouth without my brain's or Little Sissy Pham's approval.

Lucky for my nieces, I'm not their only Aunty option. There's Little Sissy Pham and their mum's sister too. It's okay though, I make up for my personality with material things like these novelty penguin-shaped presents from Melbourne aquarium. Eldest niece got rose-scented hand cream and Middling niece got a waddling, wind-up penguin toy. I didn't get mini-bro anything because she can't understand language so I haven't damaged her outlook on life and don't owe her any quick-fix gifts. Yet.