another one bites the dust... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

* today's the last day of 2010... how the years seem to fly by, each year quicker than the last! 2010 seems to have passed like the batter of an eyelash, though when i think about it, so much has happened...

i saw in 2010 in the snowy ski resort of Åre in sweden, working at nova cocktail bar with jerry. at midnight we skipped out from behind the bar to see the fireworks over the pretty white town square while the snow fell on our faces....

i did the winter season in that ski town, lived with four swedish boys, served sushi and steak by day and cocktails by night, became a coyote ugly, tried to ski (and gave up)....
mid-season we had our australian visa application denied by the heartless robots at immigration, and i suffered the devastation of the possibility that i'd never be allowed to move back home... nevertheless, i picked myself up and got over that bridge and even managed a quick visit back to oz to be the maid of honour at my beloved cousin donna's wedding and enjoyed two weeks of the hot australian summer. when i returned to snowy sweden, my sweetheart asked me to marry him (and he'd planned to even before id caught the bouquet!)...and i said yes of course.

at the end of the season jerry took me on a romantic holiday to the islands of thailand where we thawed our bones and chose our wedding venue.

we then packed up our lives into four suitcases and moved to london, the land of opportunities and the centre of the world, along with the world's tallest man (and one of jerry's best friends). i fell in love with the city instantly...not only because they speak my language instead of the hurdy gurdy, but because i knew straight away that this is where you can find anything and do anything, including (and most especially) following your dreams.

we found a lovely apartment in islington, i got a job in a pub which i quit after a month and we then discovered the club, where we all got jobs we love with people we love.
i became a nanny on the side, started taking classes in the hurdy gurdy (swedish for those of you who didn't watch sesame street); i organised a suprise birthday party in stockholm for jerry's 30th; visited brighton, celebrated the first anniversary of this, my blog; bought a new scooter, won a best actors award; started belly dancing again; life-modelling again; snuck into an exclusive fashion week party with a stolen invitation; got hit on by prince harry; worked on two movie sets as an extra and an assistant production designer, met some extraordinary people and got accepted into a british reality show called the house of grazia, all the meanwhile planning (and saving for) a big destination wedding.

it's been an eventful year.....
but somehow i think that 2011 will be even bigger.....

to you, my loyal readers, thank you for sharing my highs and lows. the yellow brick road has been fun to keep and i hope you'll continue the ride through 2011 and beyond.
lots of love to you all........ and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
xx me
:o)

christmas coccyx jollyness

❅ christmas never feels quite like christmas unless i'm home with my family, though we had a lovely double christmas here in london.... we celebrated christmas eve at our friends angela & nelson's bed and breakfast, where angela and her mum had been to a huge effort cooking all day for the feast! some other friends including sophie from work and her boyfriend came too and we spent the evening eating, drinking, playing trivial pursuit and being jolly.

jerry got shit-faced drunk and entertained us all with his vulgar humour and idiotic jokes, sophie cheated her way through the board game while we laughed our arses off at nelson, who was dressed up like a 1950's immigrant and made sure everyone knew he was 'pure blood portuguese' while everyone else at the table was a mix of this and that.... one of the trivia questions was 'where's the coccyx?' and nelson answered 'on the hip bone, at the end of the arse!' which was a funny answer already, but made even funnier because jerry thought the question was 'where's the cock sit?' and was astonished that nelson had been given the green chip for his answer! we were all in pain from laughing so hard on stomachs full of christmas food and liquor.

because of our hangovers, we were late for christmas lunch the next day at my cousin dale's house, but in time for desserts, drinking games and secret santa...:o) my uncle, aunty and cousins were there as well as all their housemates and friends and for most of the day jerry was the only non-australian there. we stayed all day and night, eating, drinking and playing games and it was lovely! 

i remember as a kid i would lay out all my new christmas presents on my bed, and leave them there for several days, just to admire them all. i decided to do the same this year with the lovely pressies i received: a faux-fur jacket from mum & dad, a sequined dress that jerry chose himself, some lacey pijamas from my cousin hannah, a perfumed candle from the family of miss A, rose room perfume and hand cream from sophie, an eyeshadow kit from angela and a fruity bath set from secret santa....

merry christmas to everyone! i hope you all ate too much, drank too much, laughed too much and received lots of lovely presents...
xxx

snow, snow, snow!

❅ london's totally snowed under and its so pretty! much better than the usual gray gloomy wretchedness... i'm so hoping for a white christmas!

while trekking through the snow on my way to belly dance class, 3 young boys in the park attacked me with snowballs. one hit me in the head and i was so outraged and furious that i cursed at them, then had to calm myself down, remembering what an evil brat i'd been at their age...

jerry and i ventured to ikea today, way out in the suburbs, to stock up on swedish goodies for christmas lunch; the salmon and the dill sauces, lingonberry, swedish meatballs, marabou chocolate and my favourite; pepparkakor (gingerbread snapps)... for some reason they didnt have any glög (the warm spiced wine) so tomorrow we have to make a trip to the swedish shop for that.

we're spending christmas day with my uncle, aunt and cousins, (who happen to be stuck at a swedish airport because of the snow!) but since christmas for jerry is the 24th, he insisted we celebrate that as well, so we're heading to our our friends angela and nelson's house for a christmas eve feast with board games... some people are too cool for board games and i'm so glad angela and nelson are not because i adore playing board games! i've counted down more than one new year in the middle of a heated game of monopoly, trivial pursuit or balderdash... seriously! ....i'm actually quite fiercely competetive when it comes to such games, but i'll try to control my demons this time since its christmas, just to keep the spirit ;o)

dear heart

Fannie Schiavoni

❅ last night we had dinner at the charming turkish restaurant 'galipoli', with our friend gio from work and his lovely wife fannie (who we were meeting for the first time) and our good old friend abas (who also works there) joined us later on.
we had such a nice time! the food was scrumptious as usual, and we completely stuffed ourselves with it.

abas is love-struck with a girl he's forbidden to date, who happens to be a psychologist of the crazy paranoid kind, who keeps psycho-analysing him and accusing him of recording their conversations to blackmail her with! its all quite amusing. even more amusing was gio with his razor sharp-wit, especially when his jokes were at abas's expense! i was roaring with laughter all evening!
and fannie is the sweetest loveliest thing, a gorgeous swedish blonde who happens to be the most talented jewellery designer! her jewellery is sold by dolce & gabbana (among others) and worn by celebrities like rhianna and lady gaga, who she follows around the world on tour to do their costume design. for all her success, she's the most humble and sweet girl! how much i admire and envy people like her who manage to make such a successful career out of their hobbies and passions.

i received a message last night that my mum's unwell. her heart problems have come back again, despite the stents and the medication and the healthy lifestyle and diet and loads of natural medicine that she doses up on daily. the doctors put it down to genetic weakness. how unfair that seems, to be so powerless in it.
i just can't bare my mum being ill, and even worse being so far away from her when she's ill. i dreamt all night of being home again, and couldn't help crying to jerry, who sweetly offered to send me home to visit her, although she protests it's not necessary to spend the money.

ive been told i should start getting my heart checked as soon as i turn 30 because there's a high likelihood mine will be similarly weak.... i never really believed it to be honest.
What a strange concept- the human heart...we refer to it constantly and link all our most amazing feelings and experiences to it; but how bizarre to actually imagine your own!

♥

christmas cards

❅ i had the idea to send out christmas cards this year, something i never do... after the fifth one, i gave up, exhausted.. surely it's not worth it, since they'll end up in the rubbish directly after christmas anyway...
yesterday i did my christmas shopping in one sitting on ebay- so much easier, but much less in the spirit of things, isnt it?! jerry and i will do a westfields shopping day to buy for each other. im forcing jerry to choose something for me himself so that its a surprise. if he's chosen it it'll be so much more special, and ill wear it anyway, even if i dont like it, just because of that. of course the only useful thing we can get each other is clothes, since we're such bloody nomad gypsies. i look through the magazines with the 'gift suggestion' pages- kooky tea-towells and wall hangings, beautiful throw rugs, interesting coffee table books, retro vases....wow, thats such a different world to me... how nice it would be to own a house to decorate and pour your love and creative flair into.... is it too much to wish for a house for christmas?

london looks so pretty with all the christmas lights and decorations, especially in the rich neighbourhoods where i work, where people can be bothered spending money on lights and hanging them up... chelsea is quite spectacular! ...down our end in kings cross, people are not as festive. we dont even have a tree. jerry asked me if we should do a christmas eve dinner in our apartment for some friends. 'everyone's going home for christmas except us!' i replied. he then listed off a bunch of names of people who are not going home, which was all our muslim friends from work. 'yeah, we can do a muslim christmas, why not?!' ...that'd be pretty quirky actually!

i so miss christmases back home in oz, and i promised myself that next year i'm going home for christmas no matter what...
my brother, who's been living in costa rica the last four years (ever since we moved there to open the cocktail bar) has just received the wonderful news that his wife's visa is finally approved and they're moving back home on the 1st of january! i'm SO overjoyed for them! i think this new year holds some surprises and adventures for all of us....

:o)

the slap

photo by Jan Saudek

❅ the weekend was so busy at work! we were running around like mad hatters but it was a fun crowd and it was nice to have some excitement and madness.

i had a table of mexican boys who were very charming slash sleazy, trying to salsa with me each time i walked past, begging me to have a drink with them and showering me with spanish flattery. then they got drunk and a little less charming. one said to me out of the blue 'youre beautiful, but you're not the most beautiful woman i've ever seen.' ....okay, thanks for that ..? back-handed compliment of the week!

in the middle of the rush of pumping out cocktails, jerry got his face slapped across the bar by an angry customer. all i saw was the scuffle as sandy, our boss held jerry back, and in the next second nelson, one of our hosts, grabbed the guy by the scruff and dragged him kicking and screaming through the crowd. he even came back to kick out the guy's brother as well! after jerry got over the outrage and shock, he seemed quite amused. i so wish id seen the slap!

back on the home-front i had a questionnaire from the house of grazia to fill out... questions like: describe your ultimate night in/ describe your ultimate night out, what's your idea of being pampered? who's your favourite designer? where do you buy your clothes from? is there anything beauty-wise that you've always wanted to do? if you could have one fashion item what would it be?.... i started to get excited! ....not only by the thrilling suggestion of freebies (!!!) but that it sounds like i'm going to get pampered, made over, and let loose out on the town on an all inclusive with a new outfit!!! how much fun!!!

describing my ultimate night out was quite hard.. what would you say?!... i mean how far should i go? shall i bring private yachts into it?... the caribbean? ...a trip to vegas? no, surely i can do better than that!... of course no matter what, it has to end with me in a casino winning on roulette...
what would i do beauty-wise? well firstly, i'd have that 'heroin-chic' bleached-tipped hair look that ive always liked but that jerry hates, and then..... here's the chance (maybe, finally) ........... for botox!!!! ;o)

wish me luck!

:o)

winter wonderland

❅ we finally made it to winter wonderland in hyde park.
i love the vibe at carnivals like that... all the coloured lights, the smell of fairy floss, sugary donuts and sausages all mixed in together, peoples happy faces as they stroll around snacking and spending money on rigged games that they never win, the intermittent sounds of gleeful screaming as the roller coaster carriages whizz past, the young couples holding hands as they skate the ice together, the carnies (that always have that same look) calling out to you, tempting you to gamble your money away, the old fashioned saloon style stalls wafting smoke from roasted chestnuts..... jerry and i bought a paper cone full of chestnuts and some hot mulled wine and wandered around enjoying the sights until we couldn't bare the cold anymore...
if it was summer i would've begged jerry to go on all the scary rides with me.

i used to love doing photo-shoots at amusement parks. i dressed my cousin up in vintage once and did a fashion shoot at the 'melbourne show' and we had a ball.
in fact, my whole childhood is filled with wonderful memories of 'the show'. in the beginning it was all about the show-bags full of junk food, the toy prizes; enormous blow-up baseball bats, headbands with the glittery stars on springs, kaleidoscope glasses, how many rides you could squeeze out of your saved-up pocket money, 'tasting' all the free samples in the dairy pavilion, begging mum and dad for a coloured baby chicken from the animal tent and crying when they refused.

then in high school it was about dressing up in your best outfit, sneaking in without paying, kissing boys in the dark part of the ghost train, stealing show-bags, smoking cigarettes for everyone to see how cool you were, getting into fights with the town bullies and spending the rest of the day running away from them, trying to steal one of those coloured baby chickens...

i had friends who weren't allowed to go to the show... i pitied them enormously, and i still pity them, that they don't have all the memories that i do.

and i still want one of those coloured baby chickens.

:o)

one small cloud can't conceal a sky full of stars

❆ winter wonderland in hyde park sounds so lovely. jerry and i keep planning to go, but its so icy cold outside that we just cant bring ourselves to leave the house unless we absolutely have to.
with this miserable weather and nothing fun going on in our lives right now, we had begun feeling glum and boring.
what i really need, apart from some sunshine (which is unlikely), is a new project... something to aim towards and look forward to...

i sat on the sofa today at my nanny job, put postman pat on TV for miss A, and opened a fashion magazine to the horoscope section.... 'this month's motto for capricorn: one small cloud can't conceal a sky full of stars'.... that small sentence was like a slap in the face. here i am letting london weather get me down when i should be putting my energy into counting my blessings... at the mention of stars, i havent seen any in months! that's so sad! either i'm not looking up or there's too much smog in london skies for stars to shine through. either is quite possible.

as miss A and i arrived at peggy porschen's parlour for our regular soy latte/babyccino, my phone rang. it was the phone-call i'd been hoping for, praying for, meditating on, dreaming about.... yes..... 
the house of grazia!!!!! they were informing me that i'd made the casting, that the producers loved my interview, and that i was invited to stage 2: the psychological examination and police check.
i was so happy i wished i'd had a bottle of champagne to pop. instead i ordered a lemon chiffon cupcake and scoffed it with glee.

i'd done the interview at the house of grazia headquarters 12 days earlier and felt like it had gone well. it was a long interview and the whole thing was filmed, which i was fine with, but they put me on the spot with some very personal questions. they really grilled me on past relationship infidelities and messy breakups. i'd tried to brush off the first question with 'we broke up because he was untrustworthy', but the interviewer wouldn't stop 'til she'd squeezed out the juicy details; that he'd cheated (though i excluded the story of the twenty taiwanese girls), that he'd been a compulsive liar and a drug addict. the real story could fill a short novel, or more like a whole season of some trashy soap opera like 'days of our lives'... i didn't think house of grazia were quite ready for it...
i was honest and open with the rest of the questions they asked me and left with the impression that they'd liked me...

im still not exaclty sure on all the details. all i know is ill be spending five days, with four other women, in a retreat in the country called 'the house of grazia' where a team of people will help me get my career on track and film the whole thing to make into a reality TV show.
...just the type of project i need!
:o)

  

the kissing series

photo by holger pooten

❆ london is totally snowed under. it's as bad as sweden out there! apparently its the earliest that snow has hit london in 50 years... back home in melbourne, the summer is wet, steamy-hot and tropical. it seems the weather's screwed up everywhere, thanks to global warming! 

i was so glad i had the day off so i could admire the pretty white streets from the warmth of my centrally heated lounge-room, while browsing gumtree for something fun to do... there was nothing very interesting going on though, except a fine-arts photographer working on a 'kissing' series and looking for couples to pose for him in public london locations. he was specifically searching for 'passionate kissers with a certain aura'.... i liked that idea. and i loved the photo he posted with the ad, so i convinced a very unwilling jerry to let me volunteer us... the photographer offers £40 and a print of your kissing photo! ...what a beautiful art-piece and keepsake!

this weather has turned me soft-hearted and soppy! after finishing the wonderful 'downton abbey' TV series, today i tracked down and began downloading all the english period dramas that i haven't seen... i just love period flicks: the piano, pride & prejudice, dangerous liaisons, atonement, brideshead revisited.... its not just the history that fascinates me, its the rolling hills, the forbidden romance, the wonderful dresses, the strapping young men galloping around on horses...

since i was in such a romantic mood, i nagged jerry into helping me with our wedding invitation wording. we want it to be casual and quirky and to somehow make reference to the sea and the beach, since that's where we met and that's where we're marrying... it proved very tricky and of course ended in an argument and me announcing that i would create the wording with the help of my mum and that it would reflect my personality, and probably not his.
 
the wedding countdown has hit the six-month point and i'm realising i haven't organised anything! i'm sort of hoping it all just falls into place of its own accord really....
that would be nice anyway.

:o)

jerry's surprise birthday party

❄ i woke jerry up at 10 oclock on friday morning telling him to get ready because i had a surprise for him. 'ahh, why are you waking me up so early?! i have to work tonight!' ...'no you dont baby. we're going to the airport....'
over the last few weeks i'd organised a surprise birthday party for him in stockholm with all his friends and family. id booked flights, a room in a swishy hotel in the centre of town and sent out facebook invitations telling everyone to be at the restaurant 'undici', waiting for us to arrive on friday night....
i'd been so careful at keeping the whole thing a secret and shit it was hard!

on friday morning i'd packed his bags while he slept and laid out a warm outfit for him in preparation for the swedish winter. on the way to the airport i told him that my birthday present to him was a trip to stockholm for the weekend. he was totally ecstatic! i lead him to believe we were staying with friends as we usually do when we visit stockholm, and that him and i were having a romantic dinner at a restaurant where two of his best friends work, where they'd be looking after us.

he was one big smile the whole journey. he misses his friends so much and never gets to go back home because of school and work, so i was happy to hear that it was the best present he's ever received. it was so nice surprising him for the second time with the luxurious room at the lovely 'hotel stureplan'. we quickly got ready and walked around the corner to the restaurant. as we walked in the front door, 25 people were blowing party poppers and screaming 'surprise!!'.

it was a fantastic night! so nice to see all our old friends who i haven't seen since we left sweden. and lovely to see jerry's family who we don't get to see enough of...everybody was so happy and drunk and excited to see us...the night for me is a blur of dancing, doing rounds of shots, hugging and kissing everyone, telling them how much i loved them and missed them. jerry's stepdad (who spent the night spinning all the girls around on the dance floor) was the first to get kicked out of the club later for being too drunk, jerry's brother was the second and i was the third. to be fair, they're SO strict about that stuff in sweden! ...and i lasted until 4.30am anyway so it was a pretty good effort....

the main thing was that jerry had an absolute ball, was touched to his heart by the ones he loves and had a birthday that he'll never forget... 
he told me he didnt know how he could possibly compete with that for my 30th birthday coming up in january... i told him its not a competition and that i got as much pleasure out of his present as he did...which is true.

:o)

babyccinos & love letters

❉ this week i started my new nanny job looking after the adorable 'miss A'. she's two and a half and the only child of a super laid-back family, living in kensington. the best thing about the job is that its just me and the kid and we can do as we please... on tuesday i took her to the delightful and very posh 'peggy porschen parlour' for a vanilla chiffon cupcake and a babyccino.

we sat down at the little white table in the corner of the parlour, surrounded by huge tiered rose-petalled cakes, pastel lollies and treats too pretty to even consider eating, and miss A announced 'im waiting for my babyccino'. the waitress hurried over with it, miss A lifted the little cup with her tiny hand and with pinky finger extended, she sipped that babyccino like a proper lady, while i laughed in amazement. a lady at the counter watched in admiration and told me her baby was only 6 months so she'd have to wait a while before she could bring her out for babyccinos. within the space of that short sentence, miss A had managed to shove a fork into her mouth so hard that it pierced her tongue and blood was running down her face! her horrified wailing brought the attention of everyone in the shop and i felt like the most neglectful nanny!

yesterday was jerry's birthday. he was so disappointed at turning 30 that i was banned from saying happy birthday after the first couple of times... we went out for his complimentary birthday dinner at babylon, (virgin really look after their staff!).. we sipped cocktails at the bar while chatting to our old colleague rich, then sat in a cosy padded booth and enjoyed the most delicious meal: chevvre cheese, wild mushroom tart, roasted pheasant (for jerry) with a scrumptous red wine and a 'happy birthday' dessert platter... jerry's family had given him a helicopter flying lesson which he was totally stoked about. my gift is still to come but i'd written him a soppy card (as usual) quoting don juan de marco. i know its a bit corny but i still think its beautiful:

'There are only four questions of value in life;
What is sacred?
Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for?
What is worth dying for?
...The answer to each is the same - only love.'

i asked jerry if he's kept all the love letters, romantic valentines and sweet birthday cards that i've poured my heart into, spent hours composing, that are the embodiment of my immense love for him... 'aaah, i think some of them are in that tequila box in rasmus's basement...'
hmmm....

:o)

a week on set: miss mia meows

❉ oh how much fun it is to make films! i had the most amazing week! (although i worked so much i had no time for a life outside of)... since we were working underground from 8am to 8pm each day, i didnt see daylight all week and began feeling like such a vampire!...
we had our own little world down there in 'ginglik', a grungy basement bar that apparently used to be a public toilet back in the day... i'm sure those walls have seen some bizarre things over the years.. maybe nearly as bizarre as the miss mia meows film set!

tuesday: miss mia, after killing a man, flees to madame big mo's to plead for help from her transvestite friend poison, who's the in-house singer. the bar is full with the usual crowd.
we set up the bar (which looked very ratty to begin with) and transformed it into a colourful wonderland, with velvet and satin drapery, fairy lights, posters, golden frames, mismatched antique chairs and tables covered in silks and sarongs, fringed lamps and candelabras... it really did look amazing!
then we set up the rest of the dressing room, which was decorated like a retro boudoir. i got the job of creating the wall collage, which was to be an explosion of vogue fashion magazine pictures and gay porn... 

then the extras arrived! i was placed in the boudoir to take care of their costumes and there were some spectacular ensembles! margherita (the production designer) had her own fabulous collection (including her mum's handmade hat collection from the 1960's) and then they'd borrowed and hired a whole load of stuff as well. the extras were already a quirky bunch of people but we transformed them into transvestites, dominatrices, gypsies, goths, belly dancers, burlesque beauties, fortune tellers, pretty spanish gay boys, toy boys, fag hags..... every weird and wonderful creature you can imagine! one of the extras didn't show up so the director asked me if i'd fill the role....
'...of course i'd love to!! '

wednesday: i was dressed in a royal blue velvet dress with a real blue fox hanging over one shoulder, draped in pearls and passed on to the hair and makeup ladies who did an audrey hepburn slash amy winehouse beehive hairdo and vintage-glam makeup. my first scene was to waltz dramatically into the bar, stop with hand on hip, scan the room until i glimpse my two young toy boys, walk over to them and drape myself between them on the sofa, after which they'd feed me grapes and kiss my velvet arms.... i stood behind scenes, waiting for my queue to walk in. maurizio, the director winked at me 'shake that arse like you're brazilian, girl!'...

thursday: a russian fortune teller sits in one corner of the bar and miss mia goes to her for a tarot reading.

i asked them if they wanted me to arrange the cards so they actually meant what the fortune teller was saying in the script, just for credibility. all of a sudden, 20 people were asking me to read their cards. the director dragged me backstage... 'please can you read mine?!' 'ok, you and no-one else, so keep it a secret'. i laid out the cards on an old suitcase in the dark and whispered his fortune to him.

next was the party scene, set later on in the night when everyone was wasted. i had slept with the beehive in so as not to have to redo it the next day. all the extra's, including me, were taken into hair and makeup and roughed up, their lipstick smeared, their eyes made panda, my stay up stockings were loose and dangling, my dress hanging off one shoulder and the pearls a tangled mess... probably close to how i look in real life when i'm out partying :o)
we were dancing most of the scene, with fake cocktails in our hands, looking as drunk and disorderly as possible. i've probably had too much practise at that and found it very easy.

friday: so that the actress playing miss mia could go home and get some sleep (it seems everyone was running on a couple of hours per night), i was asked to be her hand double for the final scene. though i told then i had man-hands, she assured me hers were even worse since she was a seamstress. my nails were painted vixen, and thrown into the camera.

the rest of the day was spent packing up the whole set. all those hours of decorating were torn down within seconds. my masterpiece glam-porn collage was eradicated, and everything was loaded upstairs into a van. as we climbed those stairs and saw daylight after a whole week without, it felt like a true possibility that we could melt or vanish... i was so sad to say goodbye to everyone. after a week working on the project together we'd become so close. we'd all been wrapped up in our own little world together, all sleep deprived and stressed and exhausted, but also happy and inspired and buzzed. there'd been such a nice feeling on set the whole week because of the people. i was so glad i'd stumbled across the job... we exchanged contact details and promised to see each other at the film screening in march...

back to the real world! i finally have some time to spend with jerry, to do some washing, to gather my thoughts and get back on the yellow brick road....

:o)

miss mia meows day 1

❅ sleep deprived and confused, i found myself in the middle of shepherds bush common at 7.30am... according to my iphone's googlemap, the bar (and film set) was supposed to be located in the middle of the park (?).... low and behold, there was the entrance; a mysterious staircase leading underground, with my to-be film-crew colleagues waiting outside in the freezing cold.
'miss mia meows' is a short film made by third year LCC university film students for their graduation piece. what have i got to do with it? i'm a production design assistant...!

i was so excited to get cracking at film making, with some hands on experience... and to meet the characters behind this wacky film. the directors and producers are lovely and fun and very creatively inspired, from every corner of the globe... and the bar was a perfect setting..
we spent the morning loading in furniture and props, hanging curtains and picture frames, and moving round chairs.. then i volunteered myself for a calligraphic project which they were so impressed with that i was promised a wall collage project tomorrow... !

while painting away at my sign, i watched margarita, the gorgeous italian production designer, arranging the boudoir, where the first scene takes place. if only i could have a dressing room like that in my house! it was the coolest room ever; light framed vanity mirror scattered with venetian perfume atomisers, button up lace gloves and antique picture frames, hat stands covered in vintage ladies hats, old singer sewing machines, mannequins in 1950's brassieres, clothes racks full of beautiful dresses and tailored coats, a blue chesterfield couch and an altar wall covered in kitsch mother marys' and sparkly jesus statues surrounded by flowered fairy lights... ok, so i probably would give the alter a miss but the rest would be grand!

and more than a lovely boudoir, i want to be a production designer, ive now decided. what a fabulously fun and creative job! 
tomorrow we start filming!

:o)

breakfast at tiffany's

 


✬ i woke up even before the crack of dawn to get ready for my tiffany's job, in particular, to curl my hair. at 5.30 am, they were supposed to send a taxi to pick me up. i waited outside in the rain and gale-force wind and the hair turned instant medusa.
the taxi driver was the most incompetent taxi driver in the world. he either didnt understand the GPS's instructions, or just chose to ignore them. it took 15 minutes for him to do an entire block of kings cross to end up right back at my apartment. i realised i was going to be late for breakfast at tiffany's because of this wanker. i ripped out my iphone, connected to google map and began telling him which way to drive.
i was half an hour late.
we were working at a coffee stand, giving away free coffee, cupcakes and newspapers to celebrate the grand opening of the new tiffany's store in canary wharf. my supervisor was manic 'quickly, put on that white shirt, tie and tiffany's apron....and tie your hair back'. ah, why had i bothered at all with the hair?!

the queue for that free coffee stretched right down the length of the shopping mall, and stayed that way all day. some people queued for half an hour just for a free coffee. i mean i know everyone loves something for free, but it's not like we were giving away free diamonds.... and it's amazing that even when you're giving away free things, people will find something to complain about. one lady got pissed off because we didn't have fat free milk, then a man chucked a tantrum because we ran out of hot chocolate.
i was exhausted by one o'clock and happy to go home with my souvenir tiffany's apron and cupcake.

:o)

elephant and castle

♖ excited about my interview for the 'runner' position on the film set, I decided to wear something other than my standard uniform of black jeans, boots and leather jacket and instead put some effort into my outfit so as to look like someone creative and cool. i put on my white russian gypsy dress over pattern-ribbed tights, my turban beanie and topped it off with riding gloves and aviators. then i realised that it was freezing cold outside (despite it looking sunny from the window) so threw on the good old boots and leather jacket anyway...

on the way to the tube station the most embarrassing thing happened to me. i stopped at starbucks to use their toilet and apparently didn't lock the door properly because half way through my piss, a woman hauled the door wide open so that the whole cafe could see me with my gypsy dress lifted up, doing my germaphobe squat above the toilet seat! all i could say was a slow motion 'oh...my...god!' ...the woman was more embarrassed than me which made me feel better..

i was meeting the girl at London College of Communication near elephant and castle tube station. what a quirky name for a london suburb! before moving to london i saw it on a map and instantly said to jerry 'oh we have to live in 'elephant and castle'!'.. i was then told it was one of the dodgiest and dangerous places in london, so never set foot there until today. i got out of the tube, clutching my bag tightly, curious as to what inspired the city planners to give it such an offbeat name. outside the tube station, past the crumby hot food stands, sat a weathered old hotel with a small coloured statue of a circus elephant with a miniature castle on its back.... that's it!?! ...can't be...how lame.

the interview went really well and i got the job on the spot. the film sounds very wacky and interesting, as do the characters making it.. my job will be as assistant to the production designer, who's in charge of set design, costumes, props, etc...! i can't wait! it's gonna be one week of shooting, with very early starts, and no money... but a great experience and a big star on the CV..

:o)

the great indoors

 

❉ how to enjoy a freezing cold, grey, windy, drizzley day in london..?
1. be unemployed (or partially so) so that you don't have to go out in the elements...(don't listen to all that brainwashing...unemployment rocks)
2. position yourself in a nice and cosy place in your house where you have a view out your window of the dark and moody city scenery...(im lucky enough to have a semi-panoramic view from our 5th floor balcony window)
3. drink cups of hot peppermint tea with honey, continuously...(i wouldnt recommend doing it with coffee)
4. enjoy the wonderful world wide web, where you can be amused, entertained, shocked, enlightened, inspired.... i spent the day photo-blog browsing, downloading the period drama 'downton abbey', applying for fun-sounding jobs and replying to long lost emails from old friends...

luckily for me i have jerry to force me out of my pijamas and to the gym once in a while.. otherwise i'd be morbidly obese.
and on the job front i have lots of exciting possibilities... an interview for an assistant position on a film set for a very quirky looking film called 'miss mia meows', a hostessing job at a tiffany's event and a positive response from the house of grazia, saying they'll call me in for a casting/interview in january...!

last night we had a dinner party at our house with our friends nick and lucy.. i forgot how nice it is to do dinner parties!....a bottle or two of wine, good company and great conversation.. nick and lucy are house-hunting and we totally sold islington to them in the hope they'd become our neighbours and then we can do regular dinner parties....

:o)

autumn

❉ autumn is quite beautiful in london with all its parks full of trees losing their coloured leaves... sometimes its hard to notice the beauty though, when the drizzle is accompanied by wind so strong that you have to hold on to your umbrella with two hands and all your force just to stop the wind smashing it into your face.
i must make myself love and appreciate each season like the japanese do... they have festivals and rituals and wonderful haiku poetry dedicated to the unique beauty of summer, autumn, winter and spring. it was one of the things i marvelled at most when i lived in japan, how much they embraced each of the seasons.

in spring we had drunken picnics under cherry blossoms, ate cherry blossom rice cakes and admired the girls wearing cherry blossom kimonos. in the autumn i went to kyoto which is most beautiful then because of all the deciduous trees. my girlfriend and i went to the onsen, (the japanese bathhouse) where all the yakuza wives happened to be, naked in the hot pools with their tattoos and diamonds.
we saw real geisha down the cobbled back alleyways in the evening, walking in their clogs between tea-houses. at the sunday market we bought beautiful antique kimonos for $10 each.
no one whinges about the seasons in japan and i found myself enjoying them too! as much as i love summer, it probably would be boring having it all year round...

apparently this winter in london is going to be the coldest in a hundred years. they always say things like that though don't they...anyway it's time for a winter coat.
i went shopping on thursday with igne, a girlfriend from work and though both of us were dead-set on finding coats, we came back with shoes and dresses and everything but coats. we decided to stop by her boyfriend's work, 'number 5' in mayfair, for one drink before heading home. we ended up drinking a whole bottle of champagne each as well as a million shots and i was sent home in a taxi. jerry found me downstairs hanging out the taxi door vomiting into the street. my last memory of the evening was playing (and singing) 'heart & soul' on the pianoforte in the restaurant (i cant play the piano).... apparently the maitre de and staff were very amused with us.

here's some autumn haiku poetry by basho.... isn't it beautiful?

shaking the grave
my weeping voice
autumn wind


turn this way!
I too feel lonely
late in autumn


taken in my hand
it will vanish in hot tears
autumn frost

:o)

the house of grazia

photo for grazia magazine, miranda kerr 2009

❉ for some reason my iphone message-bank hasn't been working and all of a sudden yesterday it decided to tell me i had 6 messages waiting to be listened to, stretching from two weeks back! WTF!!! as i listened to each message my anxiety grew and grew..

message #1: a guy calling about a hostessing job i'd applied for on gumtree. luckily this was a fairly recent message and i could ring back directly without seeming like too much of a lazyarse.

message #2: an insurance company calling on behalf of that car i crashed into with my bike ages ago....DAMN IT!!! i'd been honest enough to leave my name and number on the windscreen after the crash, then when they called they were arseholes to me and i regretted having been so honest. i thought they'd forgotten about it but obviously not!

message #2: 'the house of grazia' (as in the fashion magazine)- calling regarding a lifestyle TV show that i'd applied to be in, where they choose four women who need a change in their lives, (eg. career/ relationship/ style makeover etc), they take them out to their country estate spa/retreat and with a team of stylists, career advisors etc, they help the women to make over their lives!  and they film the whole thing to make into a lifestyle TV show. they'd been interested in my application TWO WEEKS AGO!!!! ahhhhh!!! id put so much effort into that application because i wanted it so badly.....

couldn't help but feel like i'd been dealt a really shitty hand. i decided to get rid of my phone's message-bank, to not call the insurance company back and to just wait to see if they called me again (does that deserve bad karma?) ...and then to call the house of grazia three times to beg to be reconsidered for the show. apparently they haven't finished casting.... fingers crossed!!!

x

murder mystery

✥ last night was our staff 'murder mystery' party, hosted at the royal garden hotel. it was a 1930's theme and i'd already volunteered myself and jerry (against his will) to take part in the show as characters.

when i first met jerry he hated (and refused) to dress up in costumes but i think because of my good influence, he secretly now enjoys it. he even instigated a day of shopping at H&M for a hat, bow tie and sleeve garters for his costume...
he looked so handsome all dressed up! he must have fancied himself in that garb as well because on the tube on the way to the party he announced that he might start wearing this sort of thing on normal occasions!..

we studied our lines along the way... i was molly hatchet, an american gangster mole and jerry was albert fortescue, a spaniard, raised in the finest english schools to become a gentleman... we were both really nervous about it and decided to do a couple of stiff shots at the pub across the road before hitting the royal garden.

it was so much fun to see all our colleagues dressed up and in a social atmosphere! the dinner was a proper 3 course deal in the grand function room and the actors who hosted the show were brilliant! i was one of the last characters to do my performance and by that stage i'd had a few champagnes and was feeling loose enough to put on a texan drawl. i'd lost my voice but the huskiness sounded good into the microphone and ended being quite fitting to my character... the judges obviously liked it anyway because at the end of the night i was given the oscar and the best actors award! jerry ended up being the murderer, which he didnt even know himself...

after the dinner show we all got drunk at the bar and my memory gets a bit shotty after that. i do remember covering everybody in red lipstick kisses and collaborating with the gardener on a new idea for the roof garden: a venus-like shrub-carved statue (for which i would be the muse of course ;o) surrounded by fountains and flowering creepers...

jerry and i were both so monstrously hungover today that jerry had to wag school and we stayed in bed all day eating home delivery pizzas and watching movies...

:o)

calmerkarma & halloween

✥on thursday jerry gave me his shift at work, so that he could study and so that i could do a little bit of work in my week of unemployment..

the club was hosting a chinese themed event, and the place looked amazing! pillars wrapped in red chinese silk, vases of peonies and strings of chinese lanterns creating a soft pink glow.. they'd really transformed it. while us bartenders were stuck in peasant rice-farmer hats, slaving away on the lychee cocktails behind the bar, the event hostesses were standing around getting paid to look beautiful in coloured satin cheong-sam dresses, hair in chop-sticked buns, giving away fortune cookies... throughout the night they mingled with the corporate guests and drank as many of those cocktails that they so desired.... i snuck a fortune cookie from one of the girls, praying it would promise me great wealth and prosperity or perhaps a great new career opportunity...
'you will soon go on a foreign trip'.. hmmm, still cool but not what i was really after...
i turned to the pretty blonde chinese girl, 'which agency are you with?' ...sometimes we have to make our own destiny, dont we!...

i looked up the calmerkarma agency website the next day and felt like i'd hit the jackpot. bedazzling theatrical entertainment for themed events including circus & cabaret, bollywood, burlesque, fortune tellers, stilt walkers, jugglers....everything fun and weird and wonderful....
i called the number directly.
me: 'i'd like to work for you doing the events, you know like the chinese girls i met last night...'
lady: 'ok, what are your skills?'
me: ...'oh, um, well... i can juggle'.
lady: 'what can you juggle?'....
me: '....balls..?'.
lady: 'we have people who can juggle eight crystal balls, swords and fire, while on stilts'.
me: 'ok...... well i can read tarot cards'...... that seemed to spark her interest.
lady: 'send me a picture of yourself.'

last night at work we hosted a huge halloween party and the costumes were amazing! everyone had gone to so much effort! a makeup artist was hired to do up us staff as zombies and all the bartenders wore blood spattered aprons. there was such a buzz in the air that it would've been a really fun night if i hadn't lost my voice, if all the card machines hadn't stopped working and if my guests hadn't pounded me over the edge without tipping me..
ah.. you win some, you lose some...
:o)

juliet

❀ ive decided to sell juliet, my vintage ladies bicycle from verona. romeo went missing a few weeks ago after jerry left him outside to make space to park the new scooter... some desperado must have picked him up and carried him away since there was a lock through the back wheel. though jerry didn't feel the loss, I was devastated.
now i can't help but feel sorry for poor juliet, abandoned by her lover and neglected by her owner (after my crash, i've been too scared to ride a bike with no brakes in the rain...)

so tomorrow she'll go to a good new home... 'parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.'*

'it's only a bike', says jerry.... to me she was a friend.

* shakespeare of course

the bliss...

✬ aah its bliss, this short space of time when unemployment is fun, when the idea that i can do anything i so choose with my day makes me just bubble with happiness. sleeping in, eating breakfast in bed, painting my toe-nails in bed, web-surfing while in bed, staying in my pijamas all day... why go outside in that gray, rainy miserableness when instead i can have a rip-snorting time in my room, listening to music, sipping coffee, editing photos, ebay shopping and blog browsing....

that probably sounds boring to lots of people but to me its the perfect day! in my web searching i came across some amazing photography, i applied for some more film-extra roles and i became a member of a mysterious 'secret cinema' which i wasn't supposed to breathe a word about (oops!).... on ebay i bought a belly dancing coin belt to wear to my class and a polaroid camera (some scoundrel outbid me on the last one!) and i snacked all day (in bed) on my homemade hummus and baba ganoush.... i've said it before and i'll say it again, i'd be more than happy to be a houswewife...

i was forced to leave my bedroom sanctuary for my evening swedish class but that was also fun since i'm the top of the class. i'm that annoying sucky student who always has their hand up to answer the question. it's the exact opposite of when i'm actually talking to a swedish person, in which case i do anything to avoid speaking swedish. when i come home from class and bashfully practise what i've learnt on jerry, his grin stretches from ear to ear, partially at how stupid i sound, but also because he's so happy that i'm learning his language.

lately we've been getting along so well and the smallest things make my heart just melt to butter and coo over him like he's the cutest little fluffy chicken. for example the other day i was watching him standing at the fridge in his underwear, munching on grapes, with his hair sticking up in all different directions, singing out-of-tune to himself and for some reason my love for him just instantly doubled...

:o)

angel

✻ although it would be handier living closer to work, jerry and i are happy living in angel. it has a down-to-earth and slightly bohemian vibe but is still clean and classy... there are some annoying junky street poets and some foul-mouthed teenage mothers pushing prams at the church st. market but then as soon as you reach upper street, with its huge array of funky cafes, gift shops and eateries, you feel that certain buzz of being somewhere cool and happening.

our little neighbourhood is a mish-mash of characters of all colours and classes. the kids from the high-rises ride their bikes in circles and play football on the road, making me constantly feel lucky for having grown up in the country in houses with backyards, gardens, trampolines, cubby houses....

on the corner of our street are all the ethiopian restaurants, internet cafe and afro hairdressers... the smell from those restaurants is so mysteriously seductive, yet we can't quite build up the courage to eat there... when i first heard of an ethiopian restaurant i couldn't help but laugh. how is it that they have a cuisine when all we hear about them is how starved they are. i guess that's pretty ignorant... of course they must have cooking traditions...

angel is full of old corner pubs and quirky wall murals which remind you of the long history of london... today was beautiful and sunny, and feeling a little bit freed from my nanny shackles, i took my camera out and went snapping... oh how nice it is to be semi-unemployed!... until the rent's due anyway...

f#ck it, let's go bowling...

 ❉ things to do tomorrow:
- quit my nanny job. why...?....its a long story, beginning like this: i was sneakily reading a fashion magazine while supposedly playing with the child. in the mag was an interview with alexa chung. she was asked what her most dreaded thing was, to which she replied: 'to have to do something i hate and pretend to like it.'.... that answer was like a punch in the guts. it made me realise how much i hate that job. firstly, because instead of just supervising the child (while reading magazines), i'm expected to actually get into her play house and make pretend meals on her plastic kitchen set, enjoy tea-parties with her dolls and do the voices for building block robots....all day, with a happy face and a chirpy voice because somewhere, around the corner, the mother is always lurking....
secondly, because the mother seriously asked me if i would please call poo 'duties', piss 'wissy woo' and farts 'windy woos'.... i'm not willing in all three cases. dealing with them in nappies is bad enough.
lastly, because i just cant fake it anymore. i can't pretend to have fun playing doctors and nurses with a misbehaving two year old and a stay-at-home mum watching anymore.  

so ive decided that tomorrow ill quit. life is far too short for that shit.
instead i will spend the day taking photos at the market in angel, making home-made hummus and tzatziki, skyping my mum, reading books and drinking peppermint tea.... oh doesnt that sound like such a better way to pass the day!??
i may also have to spend some time looking for a new job i guess...
;o)

winter cocktails and flannel pijamas

❆the winter cocktail menus have come out at the nightclub and i was totally chuffed that my cocktail invention 'lady marmalade' made it onto the list. it's citrus vodka, cinnamon syrup, orange juice and orange bitters shaken with a spoonful of tawny orange marmalade and dark chocolate liqueur, served martini style with a chocolate shaving garnish. i'm quite proud of it, if you can't tell ;o) ... and i'm gonna get so much satisfaction every time i hear guests ordering it....i'll probably interrupt their order just to gloat that it's mine.

jerry and i have had a busy week. his course is getting pretty hard-core and my nanny job has worn me into the ground... but we still managed to fit in some fun stuff. i had my swedish class which was easy-peasy and made me realise that i know a lot more swedish than just the swear-words, then we went to a live blues/fashion charity event that one of our colleagues was modeling for; we went out for dinner with an english friend of jerry's from sweden and his aussie girlfriend to the lovely cuban restaurant 'cuba libre', and then of course, with the weekend comes work at the club, which i classify as fun...

we also squeezed in some shopping in oxford street where i bought jerry his first pair of pijamas. can you imagine never having worn pijamas?! there's nothing better than lounging around the house on a cold winters day in a pair of cosy flannel PJ's. i bought myself a new pair too, despite jerry's protests that i look like a clown in them and couldn't i buy some sexy nightware instead?... no way! that stuff isn't comfortable! i'm all in for no makeup around the house, pissing with the door open and morning breath kisses. for me that's real love.
:o)

polaroids

❅the rain is pouring over london town.
jerry and i drove the scooter wearing our matching head to toe navy rain jacket and pants, over the rest of our winter woolies so we looked like two balls on a bike. then the rain stopped and the sun came out and we felt pretty ridiculous.

jerry went to school and i went down chiltern street to browse the bridal boutiques. it really is mission impossible to find a wedding dress that i like that doesn't cost more than the whole wedding. i decided screw it, i'm gonna stop worrying about it now. the right dress will find me ;o)

i've been inspired by some other pretty blogs to redesign my own...do you like it? in my blog-browsing i also stumbled across some amazing photography, in particular a polaroid photo collection. polaroids are so cool aren't they? they have such atmosphere to them. so i jumped straight on ebay and put down a bid for one. i'm hoping it will get my creative juices flowing... in the meantime i'm using the iphone ap 'hipstamatic' which gives a polaroidish sort of effect..

:o)

2nd anniversary ♥

♥ saturday was jerry and my second year anniversary and both of us completely forgot about it on the day! ...pretty amazing that two years have passed. it feels both like a moment ago that we first met and like a lifetime that we've known each other....
i know i've already told the story about us first meeting on the cruise ship in my 'anniversary' blog last year, but i thought i might tell some more stories about our first encounters....

the first crew-party we both went to was a masquerade party where i ran into him at the bar and welcomed him on board. the second crew party (the following night) was a toga party (we were cruising around greece). i of course dressed up in a makeshift toga costume (my cabin towell), got pissed and danced around making a scene, as usual at those crazy crew parties. jerry wasn't dressed up and was hanging back on the sidelines, behaving himself, with erika, his swedish friend. i remember asking him where his toga was and he said he didn't have enough friends on the ship yet to get away with wearing a fancy dress costume....

at that point we'd only had a couple of short conversations and i had no idea that he had a huge crush on me. at the end of the night when the DJ announced the last song (a slow romantic one), everybody grabbed a dancing partner. jerry happened to be the guy nearest to me so i grabbed him. he told me that in sweden they don't do 'the last dance' and that he'd only seen it on american movies. he asked me if this was 'first base'... 'no, this is first base', i told him, holding his hand, 'this is second base', giving him a peck on the cheek, 'this is third base', squeezing his breasts, 'and fourth base is 'slicka min snippa'...(a dirty expression i'd learnt from a swedish colleague and one of the first things i'd said to jerry at the masquerade party the night before after learning he was swedish.) .....what a flirt i was, considering i wasn't even interested in him then!

we docked in istanbul a few days later and a group of us went out partying together. in the early morning we ended up at a shisha lounge where we lay on cushions drinking mint tea and smoking apple shisha. jerry made sure he sat next to me and gradually slid further across his pillow until he was on mine, leaning his head against my arm, with my room-mate nudging and winking away at me...

it's a funny thing when you think about it, that some creatures, including humans, choose a partner to stay with the rest of their lives. swans do it too, so do wolves, sea-horses, eagles, gibbons and lovebirds. it's a really special thing to find that one creature who will stay by your side, keep you company, be your closest friend, your rock, your touch stone, your treasure, your soul-mate, forever...
i feel pretty lucky to have found mine.