KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

I got my first pay from my new job about a month ago and to celebrate I treated the Phamly to gifts for taking care of me while I was unemployed. Dad Pham is going to get some cashola for a trip to Melbourne in September for Mum Pham's one year passing Buddhist ceremony (he doesn't know this yet and doesn't read the internet so don't tell him - it's a surprise!), Big Brother Pham and Sister-Not-In-Law Pham got the kitchen shelf they wanted for their new house and Little Sissy Pham got a(n expensive) blood test and Disney car eyes for Oscar (her car) to match Luigi (my car). Then I bought myself a kick-ass new stereo for my bedroom because I'd left my Melbourne stereo to a friend.
It's a Sharp CDSW440NH and even though it comes with a CD player, radio, auxiliary inputs, tape deck (what the?) and has the cleanest, crispest, boomiest sound I've ever heard from a mini hifi system, all you need to know is that the speakers light up blue when the bass goes boom ba doom boom! I LOVE it SO much. The only trouble was when I first brought it home and plugged it in,  it kept flashing the blue light in off/stand-by mode. I was afraid it would become the flashing lights of doom and bringing back my insomnia.

Or I just sit in my room typing out blog posts and listening to sweet, sweet music on my new mini-hifi system. (If you look closely at the pic below, you can see Little Sissy Pham and I being blasted in our happy faces by The Black Keys on the radio.)

• it's okay to blog as a hobby (phew, because if I try to turn this into a career I'd be back on the dole in two seconds)
• the best blogs aren't about quantity (number of posts or readers),  they're about the quality (having a unique voice and point of view)
• you do it for the love of it.

I particularly like her last point. I love having a creative writing outlet. I think I'm super-lucky to be working with words in my current day job but it's nice to have a little space to call my own where I can make the rules, set the style and write whatever I want to write (as long as I don't hurt anybody, that's the first rule of Pham Club).

Mum Pham had a particular thing about my lips. Little Sissy Pham, being born with Dad Pham's colouring has a naturally dark pink tint to her lips. I, having Mum's pale complexion, have a naturally blue/green tint to my lips.

In my current incarnation as a suburban Brisbanian, lipstick is too much for the office (I'm not in fashion land anymore, Toto) but plain lip balms leave me looking like the living dead. The solution came from Nivea's lip care range - the new tinted 'Fruity Shine' in pink guava is the perfect shade of pink for my complexion. I've had red tinted lip balms before - possibly Bonne Belle? Can't quite recall which brand because it was years ago and the bright red tint looks clownish on me while great on most of my caucasian friends.
If you've read my guide to lip balms you'd know Maybelline Baby Lips is my all time fave lip balm. While they do have a tinted Baby Lips range, it's sadly not available in Australia that I can find. The only reason I know they exist is because they popped up in this make up video Aussie model Bridget Malcolm posted on Facebook. Thanks social media for letting me know about yet another thing I can't get, use, eat, drink, wear or sit on in Australia.

For those of you who won't care, I finally found a favicon to match my blog.  Favicons is short for favourites icon in the way blog is short for weblog but only a dork would know that so, quickly, erase this sentence from memory after reading. Erased? What? Nothing.

A favicon is the little website icon you see in browser's address bar or before the page title in the tab or, like duh, in the favourites menu or bar. I used to have a scrabble letter P for Phamly because, in case I hadn't told you twice already, which I did - Little Sissy Pham and I are obsessed with Zynga word games.

Anyhoo, the scrabble P never did sit right with my blog because scrabble implies intelligence, being well-read, having a great vocab and impeccable spelling. None of which is relevant to this blog whatsoever! So last Sunday, while I was waiting for my 'retro-future' silver nails to dry (quoting editor colleagues who are intelligent, well-read, have great vocabs and impeccable spelling here), I trawled the internet for a favicon that suits my blog.
I, of course, found it in the nerd department. The favicon I've picked is 'logic not' - you know, from when your math/science teacher explained/bored you with the AND, OR, NOR, snore partially overlapped circles? These circles are venn diagrams - you may want to erase this dork fact sentence from your memory too.

This favicon makes perfect sense for my blog because my blog makes no sense at all. I write about whatever I feel like. I make big bold statements that are completely untrue or partially made up on the spot, but because I use my grown up voice people 'respact mah authoritay' when really I have just made them that little bit dumber for having believed me. Even the 'dynamic' navigation I've picked for this blog is illogical and pretty much designed to discourage people from actually reading any of my posts. Logic not favicon = perfect!

Drinking tea in Brisbane is like a test of your faith and commitment to the hot beverage. In other parts of the world, namely Melbourne, where the weather attempts to refrigerate an entire city, it makes more sense to drink cups of tea to warm yourself. Brisbane is more like running out of ice cubes then licking frost in the freezer kind of weather.

Apart from tights and jeggings, another way to avoid wearing real pants is leggings. Not all people can get away with wearing leggings as pants and I pray I’m not one of them because I do wear leggings as pants quite often (under long tops that cover me bum, please note – I never had a svelte 16 year old girl’s body even when I was 16).

My favourite pair of leggings is the Shiny Night Fever in Black by American Apparel, which I’ve had for about two years now. They’re nicely broken in but have not gone thin and flimsy like other brands I’ve tried. Unfortunately, the above pic is the only photo I can find that shows me wearing them and I am waaaay too sleepy to put them on for a photo session. I should actually be in bed already - it's a school night! I wear them ALL the time so it's strange there aren't more photos. I guess I should appreciate the fact my friends would rather take photos of my face than my butt, even though there's not much different between the two. Growing up, my siblings didn't call me BFCBC (big fat chubby bum cheek) face for nothing!
The Night Fever Black colourway sells out all the time and I'm not sure if it's in production anymore but I also have and recommend the Boa Black. If you're into coloured tights there is a plethora of different styles, colourways and fabrics to choose from so give yourselves a good hour to trawl their website if you want to go to there.

And remember, kids, say no to pants!

Wow, after living in Melbourne with Myki, I can't believe there is a plastic public transport ticketing system that works. Well, when the human using it knows how to work it.

I epically failed on my first day back traveling on Brisbane public transport. Little Sissy Pham bought me a Go Card because she wished I'd leave the house more. Since Myki wasn't available on trams or buses for the longest time in Melbourne I never got around to using it so I wasn't used to touching on and touching off with a ticket.
One day, when this little piggy went to the job market and met with a company to talk shop, then went to catch up with a friend before returning home, she forgot to touch off not once, but twice! You will see my stupidity represented in the transactions below. Goodbye money, it's not like I needed you that desperately while I was unemployed and on Centrelink.
As George W. Bush once said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." What I mean to say is we are both idiots. I have since learned how to use a Go Card properly but I still can't believe a man who couldn't gather his own thoughts was allowed to run one of the most powerful countries in the world. Obama 2012!

EDIT: Spoke too soon and jinxed the system. The day I had this blog post scheduled to publish, my Go Card failed! It let me touch on but not off - twice. That's 2 x d'oh! I had to buy a replacement card, which doesn't cost me anything because the $5 I pay is credited on the card as emergency funds. The other good part is Translink customer service is awesome. I called them three times (twice for d'oh! and third time with the new card details) and went straight to an operator two out of those three times. I also called 'em at 8.30pm at night for the last thing and woohoo! Someone was around to solve my problem! I should get a refund of my overcharged money transferred to my new card at some point in the near future. Lose-lose-win-win!

The thing about working in music and street fashion for nearly all of my 20s is I own a lot of sneakers and inappropriately short skirts, dresses and shorts. Not so great when you look for work in the public service. I had to buy an outfit for job interviews and when I scored a second job interview for what turned out to be my current role, I had to wear a vintage dress disguised as office-wear with a black cardigan, pantyhose and dress shoes. Barely passable. So when I got the job I had to buy at least three more outfits before I started for a five-day work week.

Seeing as how I'd only met the two people who interviewed me, I didn't have a clue how formally dressed the office was or wasn't. It didn't help that when I went in to sign paperwork before starting, everyone in my future team was wearing Hawaiian shirts and/or hula skirts for an endless summer themed morning tea. So I did what I don't normally do: take advice from someone who knows better. Little Sissy Pham has been working in the real world for as long as I have been running around fantasy land in tights so she came shopping with me. In a movie, this would have been a 30 second montage with perky music. Not in a movie, it took three hours with a toilet break.
I thought Target, Big W and K-mart would champion my previously unemployed budget of about $150-$200 for a weeks' worth of outfits but my saviour turned out to be Australian label Barkins. Barkins have a large range of work wear, day wear and cosy looking casual wear. I went to their store at Jindalee DFO in Brisbane this time. For some reason their website doesn't list this store nor the outlet on Smith Street in Collingwood, Melbourne. So maybe assume there's one hidden in your area somewhere and call up for store locations. Barkins have corporate looking outfits but me being me, of course, chose the more casual and colourful approach to workwear.

I managed to find three outfits that I actually liked and when I took 'em to the counter they only racked up a $99 bill! And to top it all off Little Sissy Pham's boyfriend bought all three as a late birthday present for me!! How lovely. I guess he does kindda owe me for all the vegan (or "bloody vegan" as I like to mutter while I cook) meals I make him when he's over. Plus, I've been a bit of a charity case lately. Dad Pham bought me a car to get around Bris and a desk for my room, Little Sissy Pham bought me a chest of draws for my clothes and fronted money for bills before I could pay her back. Even Big Brother Pham kept topping up the tank whenever he borrowed Luigi (my car). So when Little Sissy Pham's boyfriend offered to pay for my new work wardrobe, instead of letting my pride protest, the charity case in me jumped up and down yelling, "Yay!" The moral of this story is make sure your sister is dating some one who pities you.
I am probably the most casual and least professional looking lass in my office but, you know, I shower and attempt to tame my frizzy hair (it really dislikes Brisbane humidity, here's hoping it doesn't mutiny and leave my head again) so I am not offensive. Or so I hope.

I've known Dad Pham my whole life. Or so I thought. Things have been a little different for me living at home this time around. Mum Pham used to rule the roost so I'm only just discovering some of his quirks now.

Dad Pham can cook as well as Mum Pham but he is super lazy so never used to do it. These days,  he cooks dinner during the week. He makes simple dishes because he wants to get the cooking over with and sometimes this means he makes dinner in the morning.

It stresses Dad Pham out to pick a dish for dinner because he doesn't get food cravings so never knows what to cook. These days I plan our meals.
Dad Pham wants me to argue with him every now and then, but not too much. I guess because he and Mum Pham used to argue over little things. So I do it even though I think his way of doing things is just fine.

I go for walks with Dad Pham every night after dinner. His walking route, which he also does every morning, is limited to pacing back and forth outside on the footpath between 7 houses because a few houses to our right is a dog that likes to bark (Dad doesn't want to disturb the neighbours) and a few houses to our left is an over friendly neighbour who invites Dad Pham into his home every time he sees him (Dad doesn't want to be disturbed by neighbours).

Dad Pham is so buddhist, he thinks of farting and burping as 'getting rid of negative energy.'

I probably don't have the most mature taste in....well, anything. My get-ups can be judged by how many kids in supermarkets or on the streets point me out to their parents and sometimes yell in delight. I know I've got a winner when a child accidentally walks into a wall because he or she is too busy staring at my child-like adulthood.

I thought leaving Melbourne I wouldn't have much use for umbrellas so I gave my SpongeBob SquarePants umbrellas to a dear friend so she could remember my immaturity whenever it rained. Luckily, Little Sissy Pham gave me the SpongeBob umbrella I gave her a couple of years ago because she lives in Brisbane where it normally doesn't rain so much (or maybe that was the drought Australia went through). Her loss! Muahahaha - or should I say "Dahahahahahahaha!"? Now that Brisbane's in wet weather season, I've been using SpongeBob to keep the rain at bay almost every day.
I guess I could be nice and get Little Sissy Pham a new SpongeBob umbrella from Ebay but I think she secretly wanted a grown up umbrella because I see she her using a sensible black one these days. Hmmph, Spongesnob. If you do buy one from eBay make sure you get an adult-friendly one. Most of the SpongeBob ones are for kids.