Christmas was some weeks ago now, but I’m feeling a couple of things are worth discussing, so why not wrap it all up together with a New Year update that should probably be two entries but I feel a lot like both have been put off for too long and would prefer to just get it all out of the way at once?

Uh…

I’ve been gifted a new iron! It’s an industrial gravity-feed style which is mostly wonderful aside from being unable to set it up at this point in time. The water bottle needs a hook to hang up quite high (gravity and all, y’know) and I’m skeptical about poking hooks in the walls or ceiling, since they’re plaster, I don’t really know how well they’ll hold up to the weight of it. So I’m stuck using the domestic until an alternate hanging method is devised.

Personally I think a portable IV stand would work best; they’re height adjustable, reasonably sturdy, easy to store, and feature a certain medical aesthetic I’ve always been fond of. Mid last year I asked around about where to obtain one for unrelated reasons, but the request was apparently not taken seriously.

This is a serious request, I do not ever joke about acquiring medical goods:

If you know where I can obtain a portable IV-stand for a reasonable price (say, less than $100AUD) within Australia, please get in contact with me. I actually need it for valid and legitimate reasons this time (as opposed to last times reasons pertaining to costumes and fetishism).

As for other gifts, well, Sabi gave me the best hand-painted mug…

_{College: Where Bertrand learnt not to let his dorm peers “crash” on his room mate’s bed.}

It depicts her characters; Bertrand and Haruhisa, along with my characters; Khye and Mhak, in some sort of college AU where Khye and Bertrand are roomies. Mhak and Haru have somehow convinced Bertrand to let them crash in Khye’s bed, sex, violence and hilarity ensues.

To go with the mug she even got me a box of River’s brand barley tea.

_{I can’t even look at this without laughing.}

Ugh, feel so spoilt.

Tech Support gifted me some new sunglasses, because none of mine were polarised (and I’m pretty sure non-polarised sunnies are worse for your eyes than straight-up not wearing any; you ever had sunburned retinas? Shit is not fun). Understanding my finely nuanced needs for practicality and garish animal-prints, he said he wanted to get me aviators, but “trashy” ones (they have shiny gold frames exquisitely balanced by ugly leopard print handles).

_{They made me feel like Dave Strider.
Tech Support wasn’t really sure what that meant.}

For Tech Support I gifted another ridiculous coffee machine.

_{Because clearly the kitchen didn’t already look enough like an impromptu meth-lab.}

About a week after Christmas it was New Year, for which I finished the goat to wear to an Angels and Demons themed party.

“Wasn’t the goat already finished?”
Yes, but that would have been a naked goat.

Two straight days were spent digging out fabric from the scrap pile and trying to make something cohesive of it. In the interest of being completely broke thanks to the amount of money spent on a certain stupid coffee machine, it was deemed “against the (self-imposed) rules” to purchase any new fabric for the Goat’s clothes.

_{There was not a large enough piece of any one type of fabric to do an entire tunic so I improvised a little.}

So there’s a tunic, an awkward smock (somebody likened it to a tabard and also a fichu but I feel too awkward to actively refer to it as either), and some crotch-pants.

_{The awkward smock is long at the front, while the back finishes at the waist with a series of wraparound ties.}

Seriously though, the crotch-pants are my favourite thing. The pattern was such utter bullshit it should not have worked at all. But it did. I’m thinking of refining it for something with a proper waistband and fly (as opposed to gathered elastic- which was a comfort and practicality choice because the armsocks feature long ass false nails and holy shit I did not want to be fussing with ties or buttons or zips or belts under those circumstances thank you very much), to make in a more sturdy fabric for casual/day-to-day use. But we’ll see. Time. Effort. Money. Life. You know.

_{They are cute as fuck though. Plus you could realistically fit, like, 10 monkeys in the crotch.}

Then there were clothes and a face… a face that needed to be painted.

_{Concealing thick black eyebrows is awful. So is taking selfies with a big stupid headdress on.}

Including make-up, it took around 4 hours to get dressed.

Part of me wanted to throw on some contact lenses too, but I hadn’t worn any recently and I find it takes a few days for my eyes to adjust (ordinarily I’ll wear contacts a few hours each day in the week leading up to whichever event they are required for) so that was a no go.

But it didn’t matter.

_{Each item of clothing features the same floral trim binding for consistency. Totally no one will notice that anything is amiss with the tunic. Nope. Not at all.}

The little basket contained home-made, vegan, gluten free, zombie gingerbread men to share at the New Year festivities. Fucking hipster.

_{The box for the cookie-cutters call them “ABC” but, I think we all know zombies when we see them.
Recipe roughly followed from here.}

I probably drank too much and got a little rowdy at New Year, but the photos on my camera the next day imply that it was a pretty solid celebration.

_{Casually flippin’ the bird in that last one with zero recollection as to why or at who.}

Happy 2014!