fruit legs, shaved bats, vegemite & melbourne appearances….

recovering from The Jetlagz in the company of peter nicholls and clare coney, my adopted melbourne rents.

i’ve been hiding in their beautiful suburban victorian melbourne house, bonding with the dogs and cats and the fruit bats which fly directly over the house every night at twilight. i eat all my meals en famille with peter and clare, and their sons jack and luke (25 and 21 respectively) when they come around, and i soak up the familyness. jack’s girlfriend lucy came over for dinner the other night and told the story of the italian mafioso sending a crony to her bookshop demanding that she wrap a bottle of $800 cognac (in a box “shaped like a footie”) in their bookshop giftwrap. she said no. then the waiter came over and begged, and she took pity on him. clare and peter tell me stories and i tell them stories and then peter has a cigar and i have coffee and we all go to bed.

here is a picture of the melbourne fruit bats, which i didn’t take.

but this is what they look like.

clare says that even though they’re not vampire bats, they get used in every vampire movie, because they look big and impressive.

via flickr

we went in the backyard spa yesterday. peter went in naked, clare and i wore bathers (as they say over here), and luke was too embarrassed. he HAD just shaved his legs, and i told him that there was no better way to herald in a newly set of shaved legs than IN THE SPA with a rock star, but he flatly refused.clare doesn’t shave her legs. neither does peter. and i don’t. but jack does. and luke does. he came asking clare for advice about how to prevent shaved-leg razorburn and itchiness. she responded: you’ll have to ask your brother.

i love this house.

luke and i have a date tonight to watch short bus….which i’ve shamefully never seen. luke says it’s his favorite movie.

i’d imagined spending these past few days wandering around fitzroy and shopping and catching up in cafes up and down brunswick street…instead i’ve been holed up for three days straight, experimenting with eating vegemite sandwiches. i feel like it’s my duty to try to like the shit.

i have been experimenting with putting EXTREMELY thin, almost invisible layers of vegemite on toast with other things that taste better immediately surrounding it.

i feel like the evil mother in flowers in the attic trying to arsenic myself to death.

yesterday i made a vegemite toast with lots of butter and a tomato. today i’m going to try avocado. i think it might be working. shall update.

i am a flexible individual.

here is the nicholls/coney front hall, where i’ve been working amongst the comfort of a million books:

here he’s only got two, because we couldn’t find the third.

he’s a smart dog. clare informed me that border collies can learn over 1,000 words and command. that’s more than many people.

i’ve also spent the last few days putting together a real-ass wedding blog, with the whole story and lots of pictures.

it’s occurred to me that i’ve spent far more time now working on the blog (probably by a factor of 5) than i did in the actual pre-planning of the wedding, which probably took a total of 45 minutes if you stack everything up.

what this says about me, i do not know.

on to business.

if you’re IN AUSTRALIA: the new record “amanda palmer goes down under” is READY FOR PRE-ORDER!!!!!!

you can get it from JB hi-fi, signed by MOI, here: http://bit.ly/AFPjbhifi

go get it. it’s fucking awesome. and the artwork is gorgeous.

if you’re planning on buying a BUNDLE (we’ll be unveiling very soon), DON’T WORRY,

you’ll have all sorts of options (including an import pressing of the album on CD). plus we’re gonna put a download from bandcamp in your handsies any time you buy something from us. if you just want the straight-up aussie pressing of the CD though, order it.