What’s with all the questions?

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where he was driven mad by a girl who wouldn’t stop asking him questions? 

I remember laughing hard, at the time, but over the last few days Seinfeld’s  pain rang repeatedly in my ears while in the midst of my own torture and an overwhelming desire to scream “what’s with ALL THE QUESTIONS?!”  

To make it worse these endless questions and questionnaires were framed by boxes… confining, un-spontaneous, un-imaginative, contrived boxes.  Boxes which didn’t let you express or explore what you really wanted to say, what you might have said if you’d had enough space to breathe.  An awful limitation for someone with a huge freedom need and inclined to claustrophobia.

What was I doing?  Well, I caved in to social and psychological pressure to embark on a trial weekend with internet dating.  Friends genuinely wanted me to ‘give it a go’ as a means by which I could ‘sort the wheat from the chaff’… ‘let the cream rise to the top’… ‘eliminate a large percentage of inappropriate candidates’… ‘improve the odds’ etc.  Such is the faith people have these days in this most strange method of ‘meeting’ and forming attachments. 

I know it works well for some, but I don’t mind saying that everything in me resisted the idea of introduction and conversation via computer.  I struggle enough with Facebook, and only enjoy Twitter because it’s abbreviated and light-hearted. There’s no pretending it’s more than it is.  I am a face-to-face person who has no trouble with spontaneous meetings or talking to strangers.  

Moreover, I never admit to my age so why would I want to put it publically into print?  I don’t want to LIMIT a guy’s age or LIST what he should be, as that’s far too prescriptive for someone as flexible in her tastes as I am.  Nor do I feel in a hurry at the moment to find ‘Mr Right’.  I’ve turned down many possibilities in the last year as I’ve just not been interested in sub-standard.  I want quality not quantity.  Some friends joke I’ve got tired of being a cougar.  Others that the options in London aren’t half as sexy or eager as the Italians I met so easily while living in Tuscany.  There’s truth in both.  But I have many friends to go out with, including a lovely man who is very good to me and takes me regularly to the opera.  The bigger reason for a shift in my ‘romance antenna’ is probably that 2012 was bookended by the worst and best experiences of my dating life.  The former, so destructive I still wonder how I ever fell into it; let alone recovered. The latter, so enriching and enjoyable that it significantly raised the bar on what I felt I should expect. 

So, months after that friendship has changed course for reasons beyond our control, I found myself with a few days off work and the offer of a free trial on a dating website.  That was when the questions started.

OMG you’ve never seen so many questions!  You fill in page after page of questions so the computer can put you (and your supposed matches) in a category.  Your online profile is launched and then you have more questions – hundreds in fact – which I diligently answered thinking it was compulsory.  Then the ‘matches’ started to arrive, dozens and dozens of them, fifty in the space of three days.  It took HOURS to read so many profiles, to the extent I don’t know how anybody with a job actually does it! 

Then the real frustration started. I couldn’t see any photographs, for that was not part of the ‘free communication’ advertised. Oh well, maybe there was something positive to be had in discovering someone’s character before making judgements about looks.  Kind of like a traditional Matchmaker might have done.  But then I discovered most of these blokes hadn’t answered the 250 profile questions I had answered about behaviour, preferences and politics… or if they had they perhaps weren’t bothered to read my answers.  For in an excruciating impression of Groundhog Day, all these questions started to arrive - question after question, page after page until I felt hemmed in, under pressure, and anything but natural or relaxed.  I found my heart racing.  I was utterly overwhelmed.  And that’s saying something from someone who can sing in front of a thousand people with less nerves than most!

My mistake, of course, was that I was treating every approach from these faceless strangers as if they were real people, whose feelings needed to be considered.  I didn’t want to ignore approaches which may have been genuine.  Wouldn’t it hurt their feelings if I didn’t reply?  Send back a smile?  But the damn computer wouldn’t let me write a simple message, you had to go through the hoops, the obstacle course, with every candidate, stage after stage of differently worded QUESTIONS. 

It was all too much.  I felt like I was in the guilty seat of an Alfred Hitchcock with the spotlights pointed on my heart and inner most character.  Would I pass the test?  But what were the bloody rules?  Torture, pure torture.

So now I’m at Day 3, when one guy, who seems interesting, intelligent, sends five questions too many - the first of which is: “how often do you lose your temper?”  I am tempted to write back “NOW, you bloody idiot, because you keep sending me THE QUESTIONS!”  But the computer won’t let me answer in my own words because the computer LOVES the BOXES.  And the only people who can circumnavigate the boxes are the people with paid subscriptions (so I find out later).  I am about to lose it, as I put two and two together he is sending the questions because he LIKES them, and is probably either very guarded or a control freak.  So, with a thud, the penny drops: why am I actually answering?! 

Then, in the same ten minutes, a guy who’s pursued me vigilantly over 48 hours… and with whom I’ve made a date to meet face-to-face in Covent Garden… suddenly cancels two hours out.  The reason sounds fake; so no idea what that's about. 

As things often come in threes, before another twenty minutes has elapsed… another seemingly nice guy, suddenly BLOCKS ME.  Seriously?  Rejected by a guy I can’t see and who I’ve never met for, what I can only guess is, answering his last question incorrectly.  Well, he can seriously go **** himself.  But that doesn’t stop me feeling uncomfortable and judged.  For that question was: “how do you conduct yourself at a party?”  Do you a) set out and make your own introductions, meet new people?; b) remain glued to your date’s side all night?; c) stand in the corner and feel shy? or d) something I can’t recall.  Well, of course I answered option a)… but clearly that was not to his taste!  So he bins me without a ‘how’s your father’.   And though I am likely to be far better off never to meet someone so socially inept… it does highlight what’s wrong with the BOXES.  Real life is not as black and white as all that, because you may in fact do a mixture of a) and b) or whatever else is reasonable at the time.  Yet these artificially generated interrogations don’t allow for individuality or nuance.  And, THAT’S WHY I HATED THE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE.

You can tell I am scarred.  It was held out as the big chance, the thing you ought to do to take your love-life into your own hands. I’d resisted so long and then given in, that after the suffocation of the whole process and three rejections on the hop I felt totally inadequate and somehow at fault.  Friends said, “but you’re used to rejection… treat it like showbiz”.  But that’s the thing, I get enough obstacle courses and rejection in my profession, I don’t need it in my personal life too.

Anyway, why is acceptance of this medium so prolific there’s an inference that if you don’t ‘do it’ you are somehow responsible for not finding that someone special?  

 

I reject that inference of course, but it only took until the next day to see I’d gone out too hard.  I had felt overwhelmed by the volume and the weirdness of it, and I’d been making myself persevere like medicine given by the doctor.  I wasn’t approaching this strange electronic dating game with the kind of cynicism or detachment which must surely be the only way to survive it.  Well, a dose of that, and some superior discernment re the truth or otherwise of many profiles.  I was operating as if I were at a party and each person deserved a polite response.  But seriously, if I hadn’t stopped and gone with a nice neighbour to our local coffee shop where Frankie (the lovely Italian manager) gave me a cappuccino, a brownie and a cuddle in that order… then I think I’d have hyperventilated. 

Instead I had a little cry… laughed at his suggestion that perhaps the guys weren’t real men anyway, but just elaborate CGI to get people to spend money… that I got past the disappointment and the feeling that I was a fly pinned to a boy’s school experiment board…  and I made the liberating decision to cancel my membership.  It’s too time-consuming – especially for a writer who needs space and time to create.  It’s too artificial and stressful.  It’s too sad, as I feel too responsible and open in a world where you can’t judge who is also being honest.  I’d rather start up a conversation in a pub, or smile across the departure lounge at a handsome stranger; as I did in the case of the fabulous guy mentioned above.  The internet dating thing is just not for me.

Nevertheless, as I logged off for the last time, I noticed a final message from one guy who said “I can’t believe you’re X years old… you don’t look half that… what’s your secret?!” 

Hmm, perhaps not such a bad ending after all. 

 

What a day!

Some people say blogging is no different to writing in a diary so is therefore indulgent.  I disagree.  Many bloggers explore and develop a theme, sometimes cleverly, so as with much digital media it’s different strokes for different folks.

Today, however, I confess my post is little more than an enlarged journal entry.  

The day started with fog.  You wouldn’t believe how white and wintry it felt.  I had the central heating on for hours before 11am, drying the washing as I sipped coffee and addressed miscellaneous emails and tinkled on the piano which my lovely friend Adam has kindly loaned me for the winter after my last keyboard gave up the ghost.  By lunch-time the air cleared and I had the windows wide open as I searched for summer clothes again.  

 Around 2pm I was trotting down the Kings Road enjoying the designer shops, when the second stranger in less than a week stopped me unexpectedly, saying: “excuse me, I love the colour of your hair”.  This man was also a red-head, keen to explain his restaurant policy was to offer red-heads a free drink.  Well, can’t argue with that.  But as I was on my way to an audition, which have been rather thin on the ground lately, I had to take a rain-check.  It made me smile anyway.  (And he was more stylish than the guy who spun me on the pavement late last Friday only to say: “ooh, I love a ginger… do you want to come with us?” and pointed to his straggly collection of drunken friends.)

After a happy exchange in Chelsea I skipped off to the appointed venue and from 2.30pm to 4.30pm took part in what could only be described as a workshop.  A dozen actor/singer/musicians worked with the Director around various themes, musical and dramatic, to elicit our ability to play a diverse range of characters.  It was great fun – challenging and stimulating.  We played theatrical games, improvised, moved around the space working scenes, imitating animals, and doing jazz-vocal scat.  I far prefer being ‘put through the hoops’ and really working my craft, than arriving with a ‘party piece’ which may or may not hit the mark in five minutes.  It was tiring, hot work on a surprisingly sunny day for late September in London, but I felt one hundred percent in the moment.  That doesn’t mean every improvisation was balanced or successful, but it does mean I was relaxed and in my element.  I thoroughly enjoyed the process. 

 

After waiting outside the theatre for fifteen minutes I then discovered I had been recalled early evening to meet the Musical Director.  So I scooted back up the Kings Road to relax in one of its many appealing cafes and watch the beautiful people walk by.   It was hard to resist the pull of the pub, in the lovely warm afternoon a cold beer would have been perfect, but I couldn’t possibly drink alcohol before a performance.  Eventually I returned to the theatre and went back into the studio, to sing a prepared jazz ballad and play the piano.  Then we improvised around a jazz chart.  I was asked about my ability to bluff/make-do on various other instruments… which I tried to answer with a balance of honesty and optimism… and then we rehearsed a new scene.  I had been playing a fox and an owl in the afternoon session, so was amused to now be playing a jazz-singing walrus!  The script said this walrus was glamorous so I searched for some husky, sexy sounds and by the smiles in the room things went rather well.  Again I enjoyed myself.  The script is new, imaginative, perfectly geared for a young audience, and probably plays well to my varied strengths as an actor/musician.  Yet the point of the audition was to flex my creative muscles, and by 6.45pm, when I left the theatre for the last time, I felt it had done just that.  What happens next is anyone’s guess – I’ve long since learnt if you’re a walrus and they want a whale, or you’re an apple and they want a pear, there ain’t a thing you can do about it.  That’s showbiz.   It was, anyway, a fulfilling afternoon.  

 

Back up the Kings Road I found myself at the door of the restaurant where I’d been spotted by the lover of red-heads.  The second I appeared Butch called out to me and within minutes I was embraced, introduced and made feel part of the friendliest bunch of Italians I’ve met since leaving Tuscany.  Almost immediately I was given my complimentary G &T… then I was in the kitchen meeting the Italian/Australian chef Domenico, and his assistant Danny (with kisses all round)… then I was meeting the restaurateur’s extended family (including the nice, single brother?!)… then the woman who had booked the large rear table for her book launch (an occasion I took straight to heart)…all the while loving the chance to practise my Italian… and somehow those exchanges morphed into more kissing, more greetings, and a seat at the bar eating exquisite seafood pasta, drinks, and a cross-over conversation between a stand-up-comedian who was barracking for his football team, Swindon, playing against Chelsea on the television, and a rather boastful police-officer who wanted me to know that if he wasn’t waiting for his date "I would really like to count every one of your freckles”.  It was just that kind of day. 

 

Isn’t London lovely when the sun is shining and everyone feels happy?  I certainly bumped into people in the same mood as me, and post any audition (like post a good hair-cut) I’m always a bit pumped and loved every minute of the play, the flirtation, and the food, wine and bonhomie.  For those few hours – as with the play as owl, fox and jazz-singing walrus – I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  And I wandered back down Beaufort Street to admire the Albert Bridge shining on the Thames and felt all was right with the world.

 

Tomorrow I go back to being a responsible Project Manager, though happily that’s dealing with a new entertainment company, so as with many an artiste it’s one hat off and one hat on and I’ll be all the better for the variety. 

 

To prove it’s been a remarkable day, I then returned home to an annoying email about a potential new contract which I’ve been carefully considering for several weeks but just this moment decided to decline… and another email, out of the blue, from an international recruitment company saying “your CV is excellent and well-suited to blah blah” and asking me if I am interested in a senior event management job for nine months on the other side of the world.   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when you’re not in favour, and your luck is not in, you can’t even get arrested… when things change for the better, everything comes at once and suddenly you feel you have some bargaining power.  I won’t let it go to my head.  But it has been a good day.

 

Buonanotte.  Sogni d’oro! 

 

 

 

          RECOMMENDATION:

 
         Frantoio, 397 King's Rd  London SW10 0LR (Ph: 020 7352 4146)

         For the children's show The Ballad of Rudy book online at: www.chelseatheatre.org.uk

 

You'll Never Walk Alone

We all know the song.  The Liverpool Football fans know it word for word.

Recently I was standing outside Liverpool Football Club looking at the memorial to the Hillsborough tragedy and reading these famous words “you’ll never walk alone…” enthroned on the gate.  It was a moving experience, even more so in the light of last year’s revelations that the fans were not to ‘blame’ for the disaster but rather that the mismanaged crowd had been allowed to enter the stadium until well over capacity, drastically breaching safety standards.  Having carried responsibility for public events many times myself I shuddered at the atrociously poor judgement which led to such an enormous loss of life and suffering for hundreds, if not thousands, of families; all of which was made worse by the infamous cover-up.  Over days in Liverpool filled with enjoyable experiences this was one of only two moments of melancholy.

Why was I there?  Well, laugh if you like, but I was there as an invited VIP – booked for a Close Protection training course so the students had someone to practise on.  I was met at the train station by two cars and a team of five security professionals: what is known as a PPO, a Personal Protection Officer, two drivers and two additional bodyguards.  Bodyguard, I believe, is the old-fashioned term, but forgive me for using it.  I like its hulky, sexy, ready-to-do-anything-for-you inference, which frankly applied well to my attractive, healthy team of two women and three men.

I travelled in the first car with my PPO and driver, behind in another dark car were the other three.  It was just like you see in the movies: alert, athletic people with ear pieces and exceptionally good manners, watching my every move and meeting my every need.  Car doors opened and closed, people greeted me, guided me, glided beside and behind me like I was the President: “watch your step Madam”… “can I get you anything”… “are you comfortable”… “would you like to go to the hotel… yes, it’s on the waterfront…. or would you like…”  the options were endless.  I had a few days in lovely Liverpool – which I hadn’t visited for more than a decade – under warm blue skies to do exactly as I pleased while being exceptionally well cared for and made to feel special.

Clearly the team were being watched from somewhere by the managers assessing them.  I wondered if it was a helicopter or a telescope, as texts occasionally arrived which revealed they knew what we were doing, but they were incognito and wouldn’t tell me their position.  Maybe when that stuff happens in the movies it isn’t as much fiction as I thought?

If you read this blog or www.blogjuliearts.com it won’t surprise you to learn many of my activities were arts-related but still I was impressed that whenever I arrived anywhere – a museum, a theatre, a bar, a restaurant – a group of people near the front doors discreetly, but carefully, appeared ready for my arrival.  I think my team had ‘cased the joint’ in anticipation… having previously given them a list of places I might visit… but only after direct questioning did I learn Close Protection standards means plans are put in place for escape routes and damage limitation.  Other security guards nodded to my guys with respect, acknowledging their job to look after the chatty, pint-sized, red-head was important or challenging or both.  This made me laugh but also stand a little taller.  Hmm, maybe it was an omen?  A come-back looming?  It reminded me anyway, of the height of my fifteen minutes of fame – which around Neighbours lasted some years – and I couldn’t help but think how much better this ‘protection’ was to what I’d previously experienced.  Perhaps the industry has come on a pace?  Perhaps the right people hadn’t always been appointed before?  But I clearly remember many occasions when there was such a mini-riot in places around London that once I had to hide in a red telephone box in Leicester Square while my loyal Deputy Stage Manager did what he could to move the crowd away who were intent on banging on the door and doing anything they could to get in and touch me.  Seriously, I am not exaggerating.  So once you have experienced such highs of hysteria, anything about fame makes you always consider the perceived elements of success with something of a rye smile.  To be up, then down, in fortunes and fame is a good leveller.   It’s a shame the millions chasing instant profile on the likes of the X Factor don’t realize how flimsy a goal it is.  (But don’t get me started on that subject as I detest reality television for more reasons than boredom.)

Anyway, back to my story.  I was amused when I saw people watch me moving around Liverpool with my team – steering me in such a way that even in a busy museum or shopping street the crowd had no choice but to part – and sometimes a spectator would turn to the other with an expression like “who’s she?”  I felt guilty sitting in the sun with a beer on the pretty Albert Dock while my lovely bodyguards drank nothing but water, but not sufficiently guilty not to do it.  Whenever I was delivered to my charming hotel room in the Radisson, a time was agreed for me to be picked up again, and sure enough at exactly the appointed time there would be a knock on the door.  The lift was opened and held, other people had to wait to go down as my team and I took up much of the space, and when we emerged from the foyer, the Radisson staff nodding at me with indulgence, there was always the two cars waiting.

Ooh, I felt spoilt.  I only wished I’d brought a much higher pair of heels – for in London I tramp home at night so regularly from the tube that often it isn’t practical to wear my best shoes.  Here, however, I could have worn five inch heels as the car was always going to be waiting to deliver me door to door.  One evening I was having dinner in an Italian restaurant called Piccolino, the table reserved, I happened to overhear, in a pseudonym so as to disguise “the Principal’s” identity.  I was seated by a large window with my host from the company delivering the training.  He sweetly maintains “you will always be a VIP to me… videos of you in Neighbours got me through the Gulf War”.  Of course he is too kind.  Nevertheless, to my delight after years living and eating well in Tuscany, Piccolino provided me with the best assortment of seafood I have eaten in two years.  It was absolutely delicious and with great service from a genuine Italian guy waiting on tables as he makes his way around the world.  At one point I moved toward the stairs to find the bathroom, and suddenly two of my protection team appeared at the bottom to check on my well-being and point me in the right direction.  But how did they know I was coming?  I thought they were on a break?  Secret cameras?  Telescope?  No, I think that’s just how clever they are: alert, but not alarmed (to borrow from a slogan Australians will recognise).

Later that evening we went to Liverpool’s stunning Anglican Cathedral to admire the city lights from the top of the tower.  An over-used word perhaps, but our experience was magical.  The moon seemed to have received the memo that a VIP was in town… for at exactly the right moment she came slowly through the clouds… little by little, a partial moon peeping increasingly over the top… the silver lining glowing like a story-book… until suddenly she POPPED above the clouds… FULL and BLUE.  Yes, I wasn’t imagining it.  My PPO googled and we discovered it was indeed the night of a precious blue moon.  For those glorious minutes as she shone blue and golden we fell into silence, a shared sense of hope and awe.  When Nature is that glorious it feels anything is possible.  It was a bonding moment.  I was becoming very fond of my bodyguards.  And go figure, when my PPO is not being a terrific tour guide and companion, she is also an actress.  So we managed a little rendition of Blue Moon and various other snippets of romantic conversation before climbing down the tower’s many steps to explore the rest of the Cathedral with a private guide, another person who’d been hood-winked into treating me like a VIP.

I enjoyed many things about Liverpool: the fearless Mersey River; the interesting history of the docks and the effective redevelopment of waterfront spaces; the elegant Three Graces, one of the buildings topped with Liver Birds from where the city gets her legend; the well-designed Museum of Liverpool and Merseyside Maritime Museum; the scattering of colourful sculptures known as “Lambananas”; Beatles memorabilia; the Liverpool International Music Festival; Sefton Park; Albert Dock; and the Green Room on Duke Street.  Cabaret Lounges are all too rare around the world these days, so I was very pleased to find one thriving in Liverpool.  I managed to meet two of the three partners, including the big man himself, Ricky Tomlinson.  I was happy to discover Ricky’s warmth and humour in conversation and performance is as bountiful as his determination to contribute to society and make his voice heard on many a political topic.  In his down-to-earth style I recognised what I really like about Liverpudlians: a no-nonsense, independent attitude.  Aussies are at home with a straight-shooting, no bull-shit approach, so perhaps that’s why we often get on well with northerners. 

Perhaps too it’s the Celtic influence which makes me appreciate this quote from the wall of the Museum of Liverpool: “If you ask a Scouser to do something for you you’ll get all the co-operation in the world… but don’t tell them to do something for you...” 

Liverpudlians have spirit.  I like their accent too – originally born from affection for Shirley Valentine.  One of my more humorous observations is that the women in Liverpool really like to dress up.  I mean, really dress up; as in make a tremendous effort.  London by comparison is low-key.  High fashion and towering heels are deployed sparingly, selectively.  Even in regular visits to the Royal Opera House most of the audience will be dressed smart-casual to professional-formal.  (Of course West End Opening Nights and Film Previews are an exception, or anywhere one is expecting the paparazzi.)  Yet in Liverpool on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night you will be surrounded by the highest heels you have seen outside a Russian mllionaire’s party and hair dos to match. The hair-dressers must be making a fortune.  To my mind the hairstyles and glamorous dresses are more suited to a lavish wedding than a bar or nightclub… but far be it for me to criticize girls putting their best foot forward, even if, personally, it seemed a little over the top.  I tell you what though, next time I go to Liverpool, bodyguards or not, I’ll be packing high-heels and a chiffon number.

I should end on a particular highlight: my visit to Crosby Beach and the zone called Another Place.   I wanted a pre-breakfast jog and my bodyguards obliged by arriving early and escorting me from the hotel to a beach-side car park.  Ear pieces were set in place, plans discussed and confirmed, one protector jogged beside me, another behind, and a car followed on the road until sand-dunes made it impossible to continue.  Mile upon mile the team stayed in radio contact and at one point my former driver suddenly stuck his arm out from the dunes to offer me a bottle of water.  Talk about funny.  How did he get there at just the right time?  I felt like Madonna.  And not only on the jog did I get to know a little better the charming bodyguard who had previously been driving the back-up car, but I was surrounded by a stunning view, fresh air, and Anthony Gormley’s startling art installation.  Scattered across a wide expanse of sand there were a hundred bronze figures staring out to sea - some half covered by sand, water or molluscs, but all so lifelike that in the still, eerie glare of the sunny morning I sensed they were waiting for something monumental to happen.  The subliminal message was part science-fiction, part spiritual and definitely artistic, and I felt glad to be starting my day with salty air and invigorating exercise.  Like the statues my bodyguards were standing ready to drive their car onto the beach to save me, or scoop me up in their arms if I hazarded a torn muscle.  How could someone with a larrikin spirit not enjoy every step of such a journey?!   As my friend Fiona would say, “it was too funny”.

When finally the training exercises were complete and my team took me back to the hotel, I emerged from the lift on the ninth floor and for the first time in days I was alone. 

I felt an inexplicable wave of sadness.  No.  I felt lonely.  I was without their care, their company.  I had so quickly gotten used to someone watching out for me… someone, a team in fact, making me feel special.  For those days we’d been a little family and instantly I missed them.

Of course I adjusted fairly quickly to being alone again.  A five star hotel with a view and a mini-bar helped ease the blow.

Yet it reminds me that whatever happens in one’s life or career, we should never forget to be grateful for the people who support us, back us up - whether a Close Protection team, a husband, wife, lover, friend, parent, relative, acquaintance, stranger, colleague or unseen angel.   We are all poorer if we take this care for granted.

Thank you Liverpool.  Thank you my Close Protection team.  Travel safe and whenever I hear “eyes on” I’ll remember you.

 

Recommendations:

             http://sefton.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=6216

             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Place

             www.thegreenroomliverpool.com

             http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/

             http://www.clairestringer.com/lambas.htm

             http://www.radissonblu.co.uk/hotel-liverpool

             http://www.liverpoolcathedral.org.uk/about/cathedral.aspx

             http://www.liverpoolfc.com/

 

 

Knickers

This blogger has been AWOL for a bit.  I’ve been concentrating on creative projects, indulging the summer sunshine, and generating more work.  By work, I mean paid work, as writers never stop writing any more than actor/singers stop preparing to perform.  My efforts seem to be paying off, for suddenly lots of stuff is coming in at once and I’m juggling.  That’s so typical, feast or famine, like buses and boyfriends.

As I prepare to gear up for a stimulating few months I’ve been rushing around getting odd jobs out of the way.  I’ve even caught up with my washing, which one must do when there are more clothes in the laundry-basket than hanging in the wardrobe.  Consequently I was standing in the courtyard adjacent to my apartment recently and my thoughts progressed through three related ideas.

First I heard the voice of my dear Mother, who, when doing my washing on occasion, will reliably say: “I don’t know how you wear these stupid things.  Aren’t they uncomfortable?”   She is referring to my G-strings which she believes are too skimpy.  For some silly reason Poms and Yanks call G-strings ‘thongs’ which causes confusion for Aussies when talking about the things on our feet… but I digress. 

My second thought: “I love having a real clothes-line.  Fabrics dry so much nicer in the sun.  I hate it when stuff is hanging around the house like a Laundromat, it’s claustrophobic.” 

Then finally: “OMG my knickers are a disgrace!”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a sad and sorry result of an unusually long period of no income.  I won’t say ‘unemployment’ as strictly speaking artistes call it ‘resting’ which is ironic as often one spends more time, energy and angst trying to get a gig than when one actually has one.

The Degradation of Underwear is an undisclosed and traumatic side-effect of the global recession.  I don’t know why I haven’t heard about it on the BBC?

People who are unemployed - or under-employed which is just as common - manage all sorts of house-hold expenses with creativity and perseverance.  One doesn’t mind saying to one’s friends “please, can we go to a restaurant which is less pricey” or “no, I can’t afford to go sailing this summer” (damn it)… but as the weeks tick by one doesn’t notice how gradually one’s undergarments are deteriorating.  It’s a sinister reduction in one’s standards which clearly any self-respecting woman remains in denial about for as long as possible.  But when the THUD arrives it is a shock equal to walking into a nightclub bathroom to discover mascara half-way down your face and lettuce in your teeth.  

When a girl is stretching the pound (or dollar) she will go without food rather than go without face cream and a hairdresser.  But the loss of status in her nether regions insidiously progresses until such time as she’s standing at the clothes-line aghast:  “Seriously it’s just as well I don’t have a boyfriend at the moment... or have time to get one… for these knickers are not fit to be seen!”  I am embarrassed even to hang them on the line, though thankful at least the courtyard is not visible to the street which means only three apartments will learn this shameful fact about me. 

Of course I do have the emergency stash – a pair of bra and panties which are new and sexy.  I’ve been saving them for a special occasion.   But little did I know when I bought them months ago that: a) it’d be so long before I went sexy underwear shopping again; or b) they would lie neglected at the back of the drawer. 

At any rate, I’m not talking about special knickers for a hot date.  I’m talking about day-to-day standards of dress.  This is a serious confession but the exposure goes beyond embarrassing.  It is a frightening dimension of the international economic crisis and a matter of significant concern for those suffering the worst of its impact – the underemployed freelancer, the unemployed, and God knows probably the small business owner.  Hitherto, pottering along in ignorant bliss, I had not realized this collective scandal was being so comprehensively hushed up. 

I suppose the Degradation of Underwear is like mental illness – no-one knows what to do about it and it’s delicate to discuss.  While still at the clothesline I ponder on the cruelty of the rising cost of living when wages and benefits are effectively going down.  I don’t personally blame Prime Minister Cameron and his colleagues for the state of my underwear drawer, of course, though there might be some greedy bankers who are indirectly responsible.  I feel sympathetic to the people who do not have work on the horizon as I do, and genuinely alarmed to realize crowds of people across Europe and God-knows-where are walking around in atrociously poor undergarments. 

I mean, imagine?  Oh dear, maybe not!

Reverting to an academic rather than visual approach, I begin to wonder whether this phenomenon is taken into account by the clever numbers-people who work out indexes for comparative living-standards?   Economists and statisticians talk a lot about the affordability of utilities (rightly so in a cold climate) but even in a general ‘cost of clothing’ analysis are they making suitable provision for the important ingredients which round up all our bits and point them in the right direction?

In an instant I have decided that if I have to endure any future periods of unemployment I will simply go without.  I’d rather be an anarchist or a flasher than assault my self-esteem by going around with faded, loose, daggy, saggy bras and knickers a minute longer.  Good God, as if getting older weren’t bad enough.

Given I will soon have means to pay attention to my credit card, the next thing on my agenda is a shopping spree to M & S or  Victoria’s Secret or some other refined establishment which I’m sure to find on Google or the High Street.  I’ve talked in my blog before about a girl feeling so much more confident when she’s having a good hair day, but realize the state of my knickers has an equally strong impact on my sense of empowerment.

At any rate, my neighbours will see evidence of the increase in my good fortune.  That helps with the shame.

 

 

Not very grown up

I’m not really very grown up.  Opinions differ as to whether this is a good thing.

For example, I can barely spell the word superannuation.  Save for retirement?  I have a vivid imagination but what does it mean?  I can’t sit still for a day let alone an entire chapter of time. 

At Gatwick airport an ex once happened to comment “don’t worry, that will be covered by your travel insurance”.  “What travel insurance?” I replied.  I won’t bore you with the subsequent exchange but suffice it to say I should have known there and then the relationship would never work.  Not simply because he had travel insurance and I didn’t, but because he was so aghast I would travel without it the judgement which dripped off him was never going to work with a free-spirit. 

I didn’t care if he did or didn’t have travel insurance?  So why was I cast in the role of idiot?  He even said “well don’t expect me to sit by your hospital bed if something happens, as I won’t be covered to extend my journey”.  It was said as a joke, but…

FYI, so my mother doesn’t have a heart-attack, I do take travel insurance when snow-skiing or travelling to the United States.  I don’t want to bleed to death because appendicitis costs the price of a house.  I have some sense of risk.

Anyway it seems I’m not very grown up about stuff like keeping my belongings together.  As long as I can remember something I want is packed in a box elsewhere.  In New Zealand I was often looking for something left in London.  When living in Italy I always wanted a book or a piece of clothing left in Australia.  And now I’m back in London I want one of the many juicers I have in Australia and the Roland keyboard I’ve left in Italy because this damn Casio has stopped working and how can I rehearse without an instrument?  

Again my long-suffering mother has been patient in this regard, storing my ‘junk’, as she calls it, for extended periods over decades.  Rebecca, my sister, complains my piano in the family beach-house at Kiama obstructs the full thrust of her billiard cue (well good for her, because thrust as I might those damn little balls hardly ever go in anyway).   And who would know when the call will come from my patient Italian friends to say they are sick to death of storing my ‘junk’.

I’m not entirely grown up when it comes to dating either.  I regularly date men most consider too young for me.  I figure if they don’t mind why should I?  Makes sense.  And often it’s no problem.  However sometimes things unravel.  I brought my Italian boyfriend to London late 2009.  His only English, typically, consisted of song lyrics or international words like download, computer and internet.  All was going well until I tried to get him interested in going to see Churchill’s bunker on Whitehall.  I simply couldn’t get him to understand that the chief of the Allied forces had operated from there in WWII.  I couldn’t even get him to register knowledge of Winston Churchill.  And why was he talking about Garibaldi?  Was his grasp on history that confused or was my Italian worse than I thought?  I remember walking toward Trafalgar Square thinking “perhaps they don’t teach modern European history in school anymore”?  Then chastising myself with “it really isn’t PC to look down on someone for their lack of knowledge… I mean he doesn’t care that I am university educated”.  It was a great shame that chasm began to open between us, because the Italian Stallion was very well qualified in other respects. 

Generally speaking I’d rather be too “ungrown up” than too “overly grown up”.  I am in no hurry to worry about anything too much in the future.  There’s enough to worry about today.  Moreover if you think old, you dress old and act old. What’s the point of that?  Damn age is going to catch up with you sometime or other, so why rush it? 

Now that’s not to say I don’t like to plan.  It’s just that my planning is usually around creative or adventurous pursuits – getting my books published, getting back to New York and Italy, turning some notes into the play I’ve been wanting to write, getting focused again on my children’s stories, getting my hair done and going on a better date...    

It would seem, compared to others, I don’t focus on planning for practical things like investments, mortgages and business deals.   Well, not unless I’m in a management role and chasing a sponsor or partner for, again, something creative…

I am grown up though, or disciplined, when it comes to sitting down and doing the work.  I’m not a procrastinator.   This is a big help if you are a freelancer and often work from home.   I’m also disciplined with money – not in terms of saving particularly, or chasing the big dollar, but in terms of managing what I have and surviving, sometimes on a shoe-string.  And then I love it when the dollars start coming in again and I can splash it around, take some more adventures, enjoy it with friends…

So thinking that way imagine, from the same budget, how many more air-tickets I have bought over the years to go to interesting places compared to people who always buy travel insurance? 

Hmm, there’s smart and there’s smart.  And I guess it all depends on perspective.

Before moving outdoors to enjoy the glorious summer day that has arrived in London just in time for the Wimbledon final, I will just add that my ironing board is not very grown up.  It is a miniature which has to sit on a table and only really works to iron trousers.  It’s crap for ironing the lovely Laura-Ashleyesque sun-dress I have on today. 

So, when I next get a grown up job and some grown up money, I am going to reward myself with a grown up ironing-board. 

That’s nothing to do with age or maturity.  I just think it’s time.  

 

 

A bible, a book, a ball & a blubber

What a twenty-four hours!  I feel like I’ve been on a roller-coaster and am now slumped and beaten on the floor. Here are the eventful developments.

 

A bible

If you’ve read my blog before you’ll know I hold New Zealand and Kiwis in genuine affection.  I love how strongly they box above their weight.  By way of example, and as reported on Facebook:

“New Zealand just passed two new laws - gay marriage and legalized marijuana.  The fact that gay marriage and marijuana were legalized on the same day makes perfect biblical sense because Leviticus 20:13 says:

If a man lies with another man they should be stoned.

We just hadn't interpreted it correctly before!”

Well, you’ve got to laugh right?  Go New Zealand!

A book

My great friend Felice Arena releases yet another book in the Andy Roid series in Australia today.  Nothing stops this juggernaut of creativity from writing and imagining more terrific stories for children of all ages.  I’m so proud of him.  And your children, nephews and young friends will seriously think you are ‘bionic’ if you refer them to this interactive website: www.andyroidhq.com

This series by @fleech is available at Penguin: 

www.penguin.com.au/contributors/2942/felice-arena

And lots of other books at: www.felicearena.com   

 

A ball

London’s weather sucks.  There’s no point pretending it doesn’t.  But at least at this time of year we have Queens and Wimbledon, which for tennis fans is a treat. 

So despite waiting and waiting at Queens to see Lleyton Hewitt – play repeatedly delayed because of bad weather – I was thrilled this battler of all battlers made it to the semi-finals.  When it comes to fight-backs Lleyton is legendary and I never think of him or see him play without feeling inspired.

Writers seeking publication and actors fighting for auditions should remember how tough an injured sport’s star has to work to recover lost ground and we might not take our rejection so personally.  

Anyway, I’m just a big fan.  I enjoy all his games.  They are always so eventful and entertaining, with long rallies and clever shots.  His wife Bec is charming, sincere and down-to-earth (which I know first hand) and she wouldn’t have married him if he wasn’t a great guy.  So I have been totally pumped for this English summer of tennis.

Apparently to reward my enthusiasm, a free-entry Wimbledon ticket came my way.  How lucky is that without queuing?!   So into the sunshine I strolled yesterday only to discover I needed a different ticket to see Bernard Tomic on Court 3.  Drat and double drat.  I was all ready to join the Fanatics and cheer him on.  Oh well, I’ll just chat to this nice man on the gate and see what happens… and before I know it I am seated in an empty seat on Court 3 cheering as loud as the best of them.  I know – awesome luck and timing for merely a smile!

Anyway, forward and back goes the tricky little yellow ball... until Tomic takes the match from Sam Querrey after five hard sets. That makes my day.  Long awaited warm weather and sunshine, a Guinness later on Henman Hill, the brilliant atmosphere of Wimbledon, and I am truly in seventh-heaven. 

So I gear up today for another great match: Lleyton Hewitt and an unknown called Dustin Brown.  I am so excited about watching Lleyton take Round 2 and go on to Round 3 and the finals that I clear my diary and place a not insignificant bet on his likely victory.  (Irish heritage: I like the odd flutter.)

Well, if I’m not now left blubbering…

 

A blubber

Yes, more than a little blubber.  I’m gutted.  The Court 2 match was freakish to say the least – the tall Jamaican (a giant compared to Lleyton) stuck to his tactic of doing anything and everything possible to stop the Legend getting into a rhythm… and after four sets it worked.  Hewitt put up a good fight, just as you’d expect, but ultimately Brown took the match and in doing so has created a name for himself for having an unpredictable style and a brutal serve.

Good luck to him of course.  (I have to say that.) 

But here’s the thing: Lleyton is Lleyton so, though this loss will hurt, he will no doubt take from it all that is positive about his recent performance.  He will power on.  He is in good physical form – against all the odds and after numerous operations and long recovery periods.  He made the semis at Queens – against the odds – and he knocked out Wawrinka in the first round at Wimbledon when few predicted he would.   The odds on him at betting shops have dropped drastically since that win, so clearly even those with money to gain know he’s back in form and clearly someone to watch. 

Whatever happens, though, Lletyon Hewitt has added enormous quality and verve to the professional tennis circuit for more than a decade and he gives true resonance to the term ‘under dog’.  In everything he does… in every physical injury, pain or defeat he resists to go on and try and try again… win and win again… and in doing so he wins more and more respect from the people who share his love of the game, and millions around the world who appreciate his rare breed of talent, resilience and perseverance does him and the game great credit. 

I’ve been away a while so I’m not close to what’s happening in the politics of Canberra today, but Lleyton Hewitt (and lovely Bec) make me proud to stand in the audience of Wimbledon and cry:

Let’s Go Lleyton Let’s Go!

and

Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!

And if it makes others cringe… providing it’s done in appropriate breaks of play… I don’t care.  ‘Cause if the world could bottle Lleyton’s spirit we’d all be a lot better off.

So with that I’ll stop blubbering, post this blog, and go back to the Tsonga-Gulbis match… which, after all, is what they mean by “focus on the next ball”.

Thanks for that lesson Lleyton.  May you go onward and ever upward!

 

 

The Cutting-Room Floor

Imagine life is a movie.  

I often do, so I’m told.  And it’s not hard if you let your imagination run.

Imagine that life, as in art, is filled with choices about what stays in and what goes out… what is first rate and what is second rate… which ideas, passions and actions get to see the light of day… get to blossom and absorb your energy… and which get abandoned on the cutting-room floor never to be thought of again.

(Well, except for the Bloopers which is another story…)

Imagine the freedom of leaving all mistakes behind…

Perhaps you saw the quote in my arts blog ‘The Permanent Present’: “Breathe in the rich blessings of each new day – forget all that lies behind you.”  I came upon it as part of my new year’s resolution to read something spiritual or inspirational every day, and I love it.

Imagine conducting the business of life through trial and error without present or post judgement…

 
Imagine letting the things of lesser quality go…

Imagine redoing things until you get the best take…

This theme occurred to me in a random moment (as most ideas for this blog do) when stepping out of the hairdresser's recently. 

My hairdresser, Toni, is a terrific woman – professionally and personally. When I step back into the world after a few hours of pampering in her salon, I am transformed.  I feel a million bucks.  And I look to all-the-world like the best version of myself…

To the salon I slouch.  Out of the salon I strut.  Heads turn… cars slow down to let me pass in front… I know I look good.  Height and confidence soar… such is the impact on a woman of a ‘good hair day’.

So I wondered, imagine if you could always feel the ‘best version of yourself’…

If even most of the time you could hang on to the best version of yourself...

Of course I mean the best version inside and out.  Integration is key.  So imagine if you fully understood which elements combine to help you be that ‘better person’… which elements or associations obstruct the formation of the ‘best version of yourself’…. and you pursued it the way a director pursues a good edit and a great film…

I have a question,Girls: do you always take your hair on an outing after you’ve had it done?  I never go straight home.  It gives me a ‘gotta be out there amongst it’ feeling.  And inevitably something fun or adventurous happens on those evenings, oftentimes unplanned. 

I guess I feel the lift more keenly when I’ve gone longer between treatments… when my hair is an absolute fright going in… so in my future life when I have a personal hairdresser on tap (yeah, yeah, I know, dream on) the high might not be as noticeable.  Yet there’s still something to be learned from this experience. 

On the one hand this concept is about growing and building character.  On the other it’s about attitude and perspective. It’s about positive attracting positive.

Rather than tell you naughty post-hairdressing stories… which in Italy, in particular, were memorable as Italian men seem to love red heads… I will jump from the (nearly) profane to the sacred, and share a meaningful reflection I found this week. 

It comes from a bookmark being circulated by the organizers of Spirit in the City.  Like Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Murray at Queens, they are fighting the dreadful weather to try and hold an event in London today… good luck to them! 

This bookmark contains some beautiful wisdom expressed by Mother Teresa, about leaving behind what’s on the cutting-room-floor and chasing the ‘best version of yourself’…

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centred; forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God; it was never between you and them anyway!

 

And the clarity to come up with those words could only have come from a woman filled to the brim with love and forgiveness; a woman who saw goodness and value in everyone.  

She certainly became the best version of herself.  And she probably didn’t go near a hairdresser.

 

Recommendations: 

·   www.spiritinthecity.org 

·   For hairdressing email Toni at artoni22@hotmail.co.uk or phone 07810 454 389 (and mention this blog for a £5 discount).