Tuesday, June 26, 2012

the other surry

When you live on a peninsula, you stay on a peninsula.  That's the deal with peninsulas.

I live on a peninsula.  Around every corner, down every block, up every street, is everything I need.  A smile, a sunny day, greener grass, a view of that bridge, a friend, a hug, my coffee, dirt, a play date, a chalkboard footpath, Thursdays, the perfect little book store, a fat person to make me feel thin, a thin person to remind me I'm not, six bottle shops because grocery stores don't sell alcohol here, access to a ferry, bright green wild Australian parrots that make you never want to blink again.


Free birds!

But.  One can only not blink so long before you suddenly do and you're snapped out of your I-got-everything-I-need-and-I-don't-need-much haze.  Birds, boats, overpriced alcohol, my weight, loitering near the very best sellers that are written by everyone but me, those days after Wednesdays, chalk on the bottom of your shoes, children, being dirty, the coffee queue, so much embracing, that one foe, views, weeds, squinting, smiling.  Sometimes it all gets to be too much.

And sometimes you just need a really good paper store.

So you have to leave the p word.

And you have to take two mates with you.

And you have to go to Surry Hills like Pixie 2, the American, and I did.

Surry Hills in an inner-city suburb of Sydney that features off-beat designers and cool housewares and PAPER.  It is there that I found my new favorite paper shop.  The one I've been looking for for almost two years.  New Zealand does manuka honey.  Not tags and twine.  I have been deprived.  Until now.

Paper 2.  Lame name.  Worse website.  But the store?  I want to stick it on my peninsula.

Paper porn below.