blissful Saturdays

I stumbled across the most charming little book in Better Read than Dead the other day, it's a collection of haiku for unattached gals, 'Haiku for the Single Girl'.  Each haiku is accompanied by a line drawing and they are funny, sad and insightful.  Some of my favourites include:

* Eyelash extensions/Really? This is the standard now?/  Shit, man. I give up
* One night my mom asked/"you do still like boys," (pause) "right?"/ Yes, Mom.  Sadly, yes.
* As I get older,/I can hear all my "whens"/Transform into "ifs".

My favourite one is this one, and the measure of my love for it is the fact that I just ran around looking for my camera, took a photo and uploaded it.

I cherish my Saturdays.  Soon I'll have a part-time job that will take up this precious day, but for at least another two weeks, my Saturdays are mine.  S&S are up in the mountains and my other flatmate is at work and house is all mine.  I get up early, buy a paper and head straight to Black Star Pastry.  Ever since it was glowingly reviewed in the Herald's weekend magazine, my beloved coffee shop has become far too popular.  So my only option is to wake up at the crack of dawn and get a coffee before the line snakes out the door and along the pavement.  Most Saturdays they have vegan chocolate beetroot cupcakes but I exercised self-restraint this morning and didn't get one.  I'm regretting it now.   Coffee and paper in hand, I head back home, put on good music, make breakfast and then read the paper cover to cover.  It is blissful.

New to my Saturdays is French class.  I've given up class at the Alliance - too pricey and too many students in the class.  I'm studying with my same teacher though, and five others from our original Alliance class.  Last week we cooked crepes and reviewed l'imparfait.

If you're on Facebook and friends with me, you'd have noticed all the Laura Marling videos I posted yesterday.  I had the privilege of seeing her in concert on Thursday night,  and I still don't have the adjectives to describe how phenomenal the concert was.  I went with French-class friend Steve.  Steve has enabled my CD-buying habits - another thing I'm going to miss when I'm on a student budget.   Laura Marling played at the Opera House, and oh, the sound was magnificent.  There was no supporting act at all, just Laura and her band.  She played two sets: the first was her new album from beginning to end and I'm sure I spent the whole time just wonderstruck.  The second set was even better, she had the audience in the palm of her hand.  What an evening.  The voice, the guitar, the band, the venue.  You can read the SMH review here.  If you want to look her up on Youtube, I'd suggest "Rest in the Bed" and "My Friends."  And this clip here was taken at the Sydney show.