Em Musing.

Yesterday I realised I was an adult.

I came out of my first exam of the year feeling like I’d put in a solid effort.

I study externally so there were no fellow students to high-five in elation on the way out. There was no mum to give me a congratulatory hug or dad to buy me a good book like he did every time I had a nice report card. There was…nada, niente, zip.

So I brushed myself off and went and did the weekly grocery shop. That’s the reality of it.

My friend B often has thoughtful things to say, but none so useful to me as this little phrase: “first world problems.” 

Man, it gets me good. Every time I think I’m having a bad day or am unhappy about something, it pays to remind myself that mine are first-world problems, sweetheart, get the fuck over it.

Take today for example. (Now this is going to sound super tame, but consider that at the time these factors contributed to a temporarily unhappy state of being in myself.)

I had been planning a trip to Vietnam with a friend for the past week or so. And while we hadn’t yet handed over our credit cards, we’d nutted out everything from our flight numbers, times and prices to our daily itinerary. So today I found out that this trip couldn’t go ahead anymore thanks issues of a work/monetary nature. That’s little-dampener-on-my-day Number One.

Secondly, and most trivially, (yet this was the clincher, folks!) my beloved called me to say that he was going to watch The Hangover 2 at the movies and would I like to join him also? Well the answer was no, no I couldn’t because I have an exam on Monday and haven’t you seen I’ve been busy all week with study and what makes you think I can take a leisurely trip to the movies tonight, even though I really want to see The Hangover 2 and I can’t believe you’re going to see it without me, couldn’t you put your life on hold for a few more days, I mean, if I have to suffer you have to suffer, right?

Bless his heart, these are the daily trials he deals with at the hands of my moods.

Anyway, it was at this point, while I was at work, processing all this information, that I just about broke down and cried right there.

And somewhere in the back of my melancholy brain, popped up the voice of my bestie, saying “it’s first-world problems”. And lo, in that instant, *poof!* I got the fuck over it. I mean, come on, boo hoo, poor little Australian girl has her holiday plans ruined, she’ll probably just go on another one and oh my, her boyfriend has the nerve to go to the movies while she has to stay home and study because she’s getting a university education. PUH-LEASE!

So that is today’s lesson people. Because if you’re on Tumblr or cruisin’ the internet looking at blogs, I’m gonna go right ahead and sweepingly generalise that you’re also leading a pretty cushy life. Therefore anytime you think you’re having a bad day, you’re actually wrong. There is always someone having a worse day than you. Even if you’re that guy who won the Darwin award and ended up dying because you were scooped up out of the ocean by a water bomber plane and promptly dumped into the trees at a nearby fire.

Penelope Cruz is maybe my style icon. Like, I dyed my hair brown probably to be her, now that I think about it. Imagine my surprise when that didn’t happen. This is she at the Cannes film festival, hanging with Johnny Depp and wearing dresses to die for, as you do.

Did you see what I did there with the title? Genius, I know. This here is the latest cruise collection from Chanel, shown in Saint Tropez. I want the angelic hair and the white dresses.

Sadly my life has been lacking in writing inspiration of late. Some time ago a friend suggested I could talk about an experience had while travelling that restored my faith in humanity. The only thing that sprang to mind was the butt-naked tattooed man I saw roaming the streets of Barcelona. That’s how dire things are.

However one nude story soon lead me to think of another, this one had in Paris circa 2005 when this same friend saw a homeless man pleasuring himself in a nice park and asked her to take a photo of him while doing so. 

So, allow me to seamlessly segue into the city of Paris, which I have been thinking of a bit since my mum, dad and sister recently spent easter there while I was roughing it out working back home in sub-standard weather.

And forgive me that thinking of Paris soon makes me think of Amelie, one of my top five favourite movies. Therefore, here are some lovely photos from the movie with the added bonus of interior decoration ideas to recreate the magic at home.