Fuck the Critics.

Today an armed man held up a service station and a bottle shop. I walked down that same street about half an hour later, completely oblivious to the fact. I sat in a coffee shop on that same street for two hours; wondering what the waitresses were all talking animatedly about. At that same time, a student was held up and by the man and his keys demanded from him. It scares me how easily my day could have turned from relatively simple and pleasant to a nightmare. It makes my stomach twist and throat throb.

Alice is twitching in her sleep beside me. I hope she is dreaming of something nice.

I know I want to say things today but I'm at a complete loss of where to start. People much smarter than me have been posting some very poignant blogs in the past few days which have really astounded me and forced me into really thinking about things. Some of them wonderful thoughts...some of them I'd rather not acknowledge. They are so without hope. So against humanity. I won't talk about them. I'll try and scoop the good ones out and ramble on about them.

For the moment I'll just post my favourite blogs of the week here and probably discuss them later on
Amanda Palmer:
http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/20819422033/on-recording-marriage-and-the-problem-with-first#disqus_thread
Ashley Judd:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-appearance.html

The hair on my head is growing nicely. It's still less than an inch long but I'm really not phased by it. I'm currently living by the philosophy that I'm not letting anyone think it's unattractive. I'm being confident and unapologetic about it and that seems to detract any negativity. It is just hair after all and I did raise a lot of money for an amazing cause so that's pretty hot in my books. Fuck anyone who thinks differently.

Amanda Palmer posted something on twitter so excellent Saturday morning this week that I had to screen capture it and post it to facebook too. Now it's on my blog (left). I also wrote it on my bathroom mirror. It deserves to be everywhere. What happened after that is history, somehow ending with a tumblr being created of all the people that had twittered in their armpits on a friday night. Seeing all those pits was fabulously inspiring. I actually came to the conclusion of doing it myself actually. Not shaving that is... Then my social concious reared it's ugly head and I was left horridly confused.

I then started to wonder how much of this social concious was formed by the people immediately around me that I cared about and how much was from the distant media and just my own head. I haven't let anyone really hate on my head and they haven't. I've had more compliments on my appearance from friends and strangers alike in the past month than I can remember in my lifetime. This gives me so much hope in a way...people will hopefully respect me regardless of what I do to my body. I was back on the beauty freedom
bandwagon.

I went to help with physics demonstrations today at uni and saw many staff I had not seen for the past month. They did not know that I had done the shave and didn't even recognise me. There was incomprehension on their faces as I tried to explain the Greatest Shave and my fundraising. Possibly even tinged with a little pity. One man I know rather well said with a snigger that he thought I was a boy. He followed the snigger with a quick apology. Hey, I don't care if people think I look like a boy. I'd be offended if someone likened me to cottage cheese but not something that I share pretty much all my basic DNA with.

Basically, I was surprised that some people in the physics department were the ones most shocked by me shaving my head. The people I know who seem to care about their appearance the LEAST were judging me. Maybe they just didn't understand the fundraising exercise?

After, I came to the realisation that just because they aren't following the beauty standards displayed in magazines, doesn't mean they don't follow rules. I think they are aware of how they look. How they reacted to my change of appearance made that obvious. The aim of the slightly socially inept: appear 'normal' and blend in as much as possible. This seems to be the trend amongst many of the hardcore science kids. It has been a long established fact in popular culture that nerds and geeks are unkempt: slightly unwashed, miscellaneous block colour shirt and a haircut so dull that cannot be described or commented on. Their aim is not freedom but invisibility-struggling over mere existence. Nerds are shown in the same way in mainstream media... their always the sweet, bumbling fools. The sidekick to the hero. Not enough substance for a leading role. Living in a shadow of obscurity and lack of self-expression. I couldn't imagine anything less empowering.

Fuck that. I can have imagination and learn quantum physics. I can wear a garter and stockings to my chemistry labs if I want to. Being a scientist and being a human being and being a scientist shouldn't be mutually exclusive. I'll do what I feel and make no apologies. No one can criticize what's done with confidence. I'll live how I want now because who knows when a man with a gun will hold me up in the street and demand my keys.

I have so much more to write about but maybe I'll do that when my brain is a little less mushy and more articulate. I finally got round to writing this at 2am. not the best start.

LOVE, x

My Shave, Books and Music.

Firstly, I am a terrible blogger. I apologise almost sincerely. I don't think I even have the right to call myself a blogger really...I haven't written anything in more than a month. I do have reasons though. I will list them. Here.
1) I was a bit sad and people constantly blogging about sad things shit me.
2) I just started up uni again so I'm not necessarily any busier, just feel like I should look like it.
3) I've made a very decent effort to read more books. I am doing this and it's fantastic. I am enjoying the lack of a computer screen a great deal.

I would like to introduce you to my new favourite band. They're called The Jane Austen Argument and reside in Melbourne. I saw them when they supported the Dresden Dolls earlier in the year...they were absolutely charming and beautiful musicians. They've just released their début album and it makes my heart hurt in a good way.

They are unsigned and sell all their music through Bandcamp which means all the money from sales goes directly to them- how it should be. You can listen to their whole album here:

http://music.thejaneaustenargument.net/  

You will not regret it, I promise you.

If you've never had a look at Bandcamp I suggest you do immediately. It's full to the brim with amazing artists that fly below the radar of popularity but are just. fucking. incredible. Your life will change.

 http://bandcamp.com/

The current mainstream distribution of music is becoming ridiculous. With faceless labels pumping out cold, unloved records you can see why so many people resign themselves to downloading music illegally. It's easier and obviously cheaper... what Bandcamp manages to do is provide a platform for artists to upload and sell their own music online for whatever price they choose (usually cheap as chips or free with the request of a donation) without the middle man giving them shit. How could you not love it? According to the Bandcamp website:

• "Albums outsell tracks 5 to 1 (in the rest of the music buying world, tracks outsell albums 16 to 1).
• On name-your-price albums, fans pay an average of 50% more than the minimum."
• It encourages my faith in people and music and art in general. Beautiful. 
• 
  

I must admit, I knew very little about Neil Gaiman until he married Amanda Palmer. After stalking him on twitter for a month or two I decided that he seemed like the sort of author I wouldn't mind giving money to. I've started with something short and easy; his most recent children's/adult's/everybody's novel The Graveyard Book. It follows the childhood of a boy named Bod, short for Nobody. He is raised by the ghosts of a graveyard as his parents and sister were killed by the story's antagonist Jack. He's a creepy fellow. His writing style is beautifully clear. Almost lyrical. I don't want to say much about the storyline as I feel like it should be discovered for oneself but the ending was so poignant and endearing. I cried in the middle of a cafe at university surrounded by friends as I finally closed the book. I am a hopeless case.

If you enjoyed books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Jasper Jones then I cannot recommend this enough to you. It's definitely not just a children's book.

As I said on my previous blog, I'm taking part in The World's Greatest Shave. I am the only Xanthea to shave her head this year! I know, it excites you more than it excites me. I pretty much just a bunch of friends to come to my house, drink cider and go crazy with my locks. It was excellent fun. My Mother cried but I think she's almost used to it now...and I've raised $1,800 so far! Look!

http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/xanthrax

I am sometimes overwhelmed with people's generosity. It is truly heart-warming.

This is a recent history of my hair in picture form. 

A couple of weeks earlier...WITH A IGUANA!

Mid way through...

Ta-DAAAAhhhh!!!

Speaking of picture form, I'm taking a picture a day of my head and then putting them all together in a time lapse video. My hair will look like it's on crack. I'm pretty goddamn excited. 

There are some novelties to being bald that I hadn't anticipated...these include:

1. The feeling of air conditioning on my naked scalp is indescribable. almost orgasmic. wonderful.
2. People are constantly playing with my head. The hair feels amazing and I'm definitely not complaining about and almost constant head massage.
3. Head on pillow feels like Velcro. THAT is bizarre. 
4. People constantly feel the need to say I look nice. I don't consider myself all that vain but it's really nice to hear all the same. 
5. Complete strangers have started coming up and talking to me and asking me about it. It's a convenient conversation starter! Win! I thought people would try to ignore it and be weird. Most aren't.
6. OTHER THINGS that I cannot think of currently but will mention when I do. Promise.

I don't know how to stop these things so I will now. Cheerio chaps, I will strive to more regularly update my life to you invisible people. Who knows, someone out there one day might be interested in the incongruent ramblings of a 20 year old bald vegetarian girl. Stranger things have happened, right?

LOVE x

Shaving my head and Perfume.

In less than one month I will be doing something I will potentially regret. I am shaving off my head of hair in The World’s Greatest Shave for a charity called The Leukaemia Foundation. The money I raise goes not only to research but helping out people with cancer such as providing psychological aid to patients and transporting those who can’t drive to and from chemotherapy appointments. It’s a really amazing event that many people get behind in Australia. Here’s the link to my page if you want to have a look or even donate:

  http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/xanthrax

I was super surprised and overjoyed when I put the call out over facebook. I raised $300 in about an hour from my friends online at the time alone. I’m lucky to have such a large base of supportive people around me. Either that or they’re all keen on buying the right to sign their names and penises on my clean-shaven scalp.  I’m starting to assume the later...  

It seems to have become a rite of passage for university students to take part in this a bit left of centre who don’t give much of a shit about what has been deemed attractive. I guess I fall into that category in a way. I’ve never been afraid of dying my hair bright, permanent colours or attempting a late night haircut by yours truly. These sessions usually have rather abominable outcomes I still enjoy having my own freedom to do what I want with my own body. Who really wants to a hair dresser anyway and be sold overpriced lotions and tonics and be told you have a dry scalp anyway?

Regina Spektor thinks so too so it must be right.

       

Even with my own opinions of hair related self liberation,  I have never done anything quite as extreme as shaving my hair. I’ve always been flippant with what I do with my hair because it is only a temporary change to your appearance really. My hair’s a pretty average dark brown colour naturally; dense and has a complete mind of its own. After I stopped ballet I cut it short with a fringe and pretty much left it to do what it wanted each morning.  I’d wake up one day with a quasi-quiff and know that no matter how much I tried, I wouldn’t be able to get rid of it no matter how much I tried. Sometimes I’d wake up from sleeping on my side and one side of my hair would be sticking out perpendicular to my head and the other side would be sicking straight up, like that side of my face was continuously sliding down a wall. I had a look in the mirror, deemed it a lost cause and left for school.

This is one of my better hair days of 2008: my last year of high school (right).

Just as an aside: I am wearing and Ingrid Michaelson shirt. She is amazing. This is one of my favourite songs of hers but there are many more that are also wonderful.

These days I’ve let it grow a bit and I’ve only just realised that it doesn’t look half bad. 4 years of short hair experiments and failures and I’ve finally got to something that always looks half decent. 

This is my hair about a month ago (left). I just realised that I am eating in both of these photos. it seems to be a relatively regular occurrence.  

Typical. I begin to appreciate something when I am about to lose it.  My emotions are too mixed to make any solid opinions or comments yet.  I just didn’t expect to be this sentimental about the entire affair.  I’m sure I’ll let you know how no hair is going soon.

In other less ridiculous news, I just finished reading Perfume by Patrick Süskind. It based around a French man named Grenouille in the 18^th century, cast out of society for his lack of a personal scent. The scent he lacks is made up for however with his own super-human sense of smell.  This skill, along with his complete lack of human empathy leads him into doing some exceptionally evil things I’ll leave you to discover

If you’re looking for a light holiday read, I’d say look somewhere else. This book is furiously engaging and conveys beautiful imagery though impeccable language but it is in no way a happy book. The way scents are described I found so emotive and breathtaking that I’d recommend the book on that premise alone. I’d say read it if you’re a bit of a literary nerd who enjoys macabre novels but prepare yourself for some pretty bleak happenings.   

Yeah...that’s it for me now.

LOVE x