Man, if I knew that people were reading this thing, I would have kept on writing! It wasn't until I have started to see people that they have been asking me why the posts stopped so suddenly. Well, the reality is a mixture of the last 3 weeks in New York being more hectic than Obama's press campaign, and the fact that I wasn't aware that these little chapters were getting out to so many people.
I have now arrived back safely in the land of Oz, which is hardly full on munchkins. No longer do I feel like the pygmy giant. But I do feel a little out of place. In a good way however.
Coming back home after this experience is trying to learn how to land a plane after you were once so scared to fly it. The trip started with a crash landing, but this arrival has been much more smooth. I guess that I have been able to see the ground for a long time now. That's not to say that I'm not planning to take off again sometime soon! July, July, July, Jul-l-l-l-l-y never seemed so strange.
Due to the success and readership of this blog, and my new found interest in integrated media, I am planning to start up another popular-culture minded blog featuring the Melbourne music/theatre scene. It's all in the workings in my head, but I will keep you informed for when it translates onto my keyboard.
Thanks for reading. Aloha guys Xx
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Chinese Laundry
I needed some new socks. So I bought some for a fiver from a roadside vendor.
Q: What's worse than realising only once you're on the train, that 'SIZE 6-8' means for 6 to 8 year olds?
A: When you get home and they still fit anyway.
Q: What's worse than realising only once you're on the train, that 'SIZE 6-8' means for 6 to 8 year olds?
A: When you get home and they still fit anyway.
Correction
DISCLAIMER: 2 little points to correct about my foray into the upstate world of New York - Patty is a sassy DIVORCED creative type who has more attitude and personality than a billion Oprahs; and her people mover is silver, not black. My bad.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Morning constitutional
Oh, and the weirdest thing I've seen the past few days?
Walking to work Tuesday morning: 3 unguarded tanks of liquid nitrogen sitting on the corner of Fulton and Broadway in the Financial District. 2 blocks from Ground Zero.
Go figure, America.
Walking to work Tuesday morning: 3 unguarded tanks of liquid nitrogen sitting on the corner of Fulton and Broadway in the Financial District. 2 blocks from Ground Zero.
Go figure, America.
Up-state mental-state
I was lucky enough on the weekend to travel upstate to Patty’s little house on the proverbial prairie. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her (she DOES like in America…), she’s one of my international mamas – a lot of Mum’s closest friends live overseas. Thus, I have what feels like family all over the world. Maria Teresa in Milan; Beatrice in Paris; Dee used to live in London but has now moved to a vineyard in outer Sydney; and Patty, my Manhattan dwelling mama. She currently shares the title with Sharon, my godmother’s old best friend from when she did her stint in the New York fashion world in the 80s. How I envy her. So she’s my adoptive godmother.
Back to Patty and ‘upstate’. Oh, the elusive ‘upstate’.
“Upstate? Where?”
“I don’t know, just ‘upstate’.”
I had no idea where I was going when I was bundled into her big black people-mover (ironic as she’s one of those sassy never-married New York creative types). As usual, I was running late as I got caught up
a) taking leftover cinnamon raisin bagels to Spiro, my favourite homeless man at Strawberry Fields. I had to go to midtown to meet Patty anyway, and Strawberries is only about a 20 block walk, and I had bagels. And I hadn’t visited him in a fortnight. It seemed logical! But we ended up talking for 2 hours. He’s what the beggars like to call “snowbirds” because they ‘migrate’ to the warmer areas in the Winter. The homeless community on the East coast head to the West coast for winter because it’s too cold to live on a church stoop when it’s negative 15. And then we started talking about karma, and he started to cry. I looked over at him and he had tears rolling down his face and into his toothless crevice. “I’m so lucky I have people like you here for me. I deserve this”. How can you leave after a comment like that?
I’m going to miss Spiro. I hope he’s still around and alive when I come back and live here eventually.
Hmm…
And b) –second reason why I was late if you’ve lost track- When I was speed walking back through Central Park to get to Patty’s apartment, I noticed that the leaves were nearly all turned. This was the last chance that I would get to see Central Park in the height of Fall. And I just so happened to have my SLR with me, so I took a little liberty in living a little and slowed down and photographed my memories of this period of my life. The leaves were glossy and auburn.
I get flustered when I’m late, and as a result, I didn’t even notice that we’d already crossed the water into the Bronx (first foray, and from the looks of the industrial surrounds and numerous baseball stadiums, my last). And even then, I didn’t slow down. My leg jitter is back for a start. I trained myself out of it when I was about 16 because I annoyed myself, but Manhattan life has done it to me again. And I like it – I like seeing that I’m having a physical reaction to the city!
Anyway, suddenly you turn off the overpass, and you’re in the woods. And we’re passing signs that say “Sleepy Hollow” and “Pleasantville”. Patty keeps on apologizing for the state of the leaves, saying ‘You should’ve seen it 2 weeks ago. It was magnificent. It’s just gone to the shit now’.
But I was looking around feeling the exact opposite. I have never seen such beauty in a dying thing. The surrounds are like nothing I have ever visually experienced. It is beyond the dotted traffic-light coloured trees of Central Park; or the huge yellow something that sheds heart-shaped petals on me on my way to work. The entire skyline is a mix of reddened hues.
You know that expression ‘salt and pepper hair’. Well this wasn’t salt and pepper trees – they were spiced. Spiced with cumin and paprika.
Yet a lot of the trees were bare too, leaving these eerie glows of grey amongst the stimulation. It almost acted like some sort of low clouding. Or as if you’d drawn an amazing coloured charcoal landscape, then got a rubber and just scrubbed and smudged portions of it out. Truly eerie.
The house itself turns out to be in the Hudson Valley, and more specifically Stanfordville. The houses in Stanfordville can be up to 800ms apart, and have their own horse tracks. There’s a deli, a post office, somewhere to buy beer, a church and an antique store. And I loved it. Towns around it (like Schlutzville. Yes, it was called Schlutzville) didn’t even have that. It was lovely and secluded and simple and exactly what I needed to escape. To think that this is a little over an hour out of Manhattan?
Over the course of the weekend, I slept 15 hours straight (I don’t think I have EVER done that. But it shows you how much I’m running myself into the ground), read a book and 3 magazines, went for a huge walk, took a bunch of photos, watched Patty cook up the most scrumptious meals (that I didn’t need to myself for once! I enjoyed being lazy…), ate them and watched 3 movies in a row. No mobile, no laptop, no work.
Now THAT’S a weekend.
Back to Patty and ‘upstate’. Oh, the elusive ‘upstate’.
“Upstate? Where?”
“I don’t know, just ‘upstate’.”
I had no idea where I was going when I was bundled into her big black people-mover (ironic as she’s one of those sassy never-married New York creative types). As usual, I was running late as I got caught up
a) taking leftover cinnamon raisin bagels to Spiro, my favourite homeless man at Strawberry Fields. I had to go to midtown to meet Patty anyway, and Strawberries is only about a 20 block walk, and I had bagels. And I hadn’t visited him in a fortnight. It seemed logical! But we ended up talking for 2 hours. He’s what the beggars like to call “snowbirds” because they ‘migrate’ to the warmer areas in the Winter. The homeless community on the East coast head to the West coast for winter because it’s too cold to live on a church stoop when it’s negative 15. And then we started talking about karma, and he started to cry. I looked over at him and he had tears rolling down his face and into his toothless crevice. “I’m so lucky I have people like you here for me. I deserve this”. How can you leave after a comment like that?
I’m going to miss Spiro. I hope he’s still around and alive when I come back and live here eventually.
Hmm…
And b) –second reason why I was late if you’ve lost track- When I was speed walking back through Central Park to get to Patty’s apartment, I noticed that the leaves were nearly all turned. This was the last chance that I would get to see Central Park in the height of Fall. And I just so happened to have my SLR with me, so I took a little liberty in living a little and slowed down and photographed my memories of this period of my life. The leaves were glossy and auburn.
I get flustered when I’m late, and as a result, I didn’t even notice that we’d already crossed the water into the Bronx (first foray, and from the looks of the industrial surrounds and numerous baseball stadiums, my last). And even then, I didn’t slow down. My leg jitter is back for a start. I trained myself out of it when I was about 16 because I annoyed myself, but Manhattan life has done it to me again. And I like it – I like seeing that I’m having a physical reaction to the city!
Anyway, suddenly you turn off the overpass, and you’re in the woods. And we’re passing signs that say “Sleepy Hollow” and “Pleasantville”. Patty keeps on apologizing for the state of the leaves, saying ‘You should’ve seen it 2 weeks ago. It was magnificent. It’s just gone to the shit now’.
But I was looking around feeling the exact opposite. I have never seen such beauty in a dying thing. The surrounds are like nothing I have ever visually experienced. It is beyond the dotted traffic-light coloured trees of Central Park; or the huge yellow something that sheds heart-shaped petals on me on my way to work. The entire skyline is a mix of reddened hues.
You know that expression ‘salt and pepper hair’. Well this wasn’t salt and pepper trees – they were spiced. Spiced with cumin and paprika.
Yet a lot of the trees were bare too, leaving these eerie glows of grey amongst the stimulation. It almost acted like some sort of low clouding. Or as if you’d drawn an amazing coloured charcoal landscape, then got a rubber and just scrubbed and smudged portions of it out. Truly eerie.
The house itself turns out to be in the Hudson Valley, and more specifically Stanfordville. The houses in Stanfordville can be up to 800ms apart, and have their own horse tracks. There’s a deli, a post office, somewhere to buy beer, a church and an antique store. And I loved it. Towns around it (like Schlutzville. Yes, it was called Schlutzville) didn’t even have that. It was lovely and secluded and simple and exactly what I needed to escape. To think that this is a little over an hour out of Manhattan?
Over the course of the weekend, I slept 15 hours straight (I don’t think I have EVER done that. But it shows you how much I’m running myself into the ground), read a book and 3 magazines, went for a huge walk, took a bunch of photos, watched Patty cook up the most scrumptious meals (that I didn’t need to myself for once! I enjoyed being lazy…), ate them and watched 3 movies in a row. No mobile, no laptop, no work.
Now THAT’S a weekend.
Mama who bore me for Broadway: No sleep in Heaven or Bethlehem
And now our bodies are the guilty ones. Wo-oa-oa-oah…
My Spring has definitely Awoken. I just cried (by myself mind you) the entire way through Spring Awakening. I haven’t done that since Rent. And if you know me, you know how much I love Rent.
Australia, just you wait til this makes it down under. I’ll be there opening night.
Oh, and when I was running for my subway home, the playbill fell out of my coat pocket. I guess I’ll just have to go back for another one. If you get my gist J That and Silas from Weeds normally plays the lead role of Melchior, and he was being understudied tonight. (I can’t give you his real name as the playbill is being trampled underfoot on the C/E Brooklyn bound line). And equally if you know me again, you know how much I love Weeds. And by that I most definitely mean the TV show, not the plant. I actually don’t like Weeds in that sense. I’d rather be awake and watching it than asleep and smoking it.
I saw Mary-Louise Parker on 5th Ave about a fortnight ago. I just about choked on my bagel.
My Spring has definitely Awoken. I just cried (by myself mind you) the entire way through Spring Awakening. I haven’t done that since Rent. And if you know me, you know how much I love Rent.
Australia, just you wait til this makes it down under. I’ll be there opening night.
Oh, and when I was running for my subway home, the playbill fell out of my coat pocket. I guess I’ll just have to go back for another one. If you get my gist J That and Silas from Weeds normally plays the lead role of Melchior, and he was being understudied tonight. (I can’t give you his real name as the playbill is being trampled underfoot on the C/E Brooklyn bound line). And equally if you know me again, you know how much I love Weeds. And by that I most definitely mean the TV show, not the plant. I actually don’t like Weeds in that sense. I’d rather be awake and watching it than asleep and smoking it.
I saw Mary-Louise Parker on 5th Ave about a fortnight ago. I just about choked on my bagel.
Northern European Experience #28397493021084
More Danes just turned up on my doorstep. Am I eternally doomed to be followed around the world by Scandinavians? Well… Not DOOMED per se. That’s a tad harsh. Perhaps ‘granted’ is more apt.
Mette and her boyfriend Andreas rang my intercom at 7am two mornings ago, telling me that they were outside with their bags. Now, if you remember, Mette was one third of the Danes that I met in Scotland, and hung out with in Edinburgh playing cards. Then when I returned to Denmark (again), Nicolas and I with Lottie in tow went out drinking Tuborg with them again.
And now, they are nomads on my couch; with me – the ‘oh-shitty-tour-guide-because-I work too much-one’ – dragging my arse out of the warmth of my bed while it’s still dark, and returning droopy eyed from Wall Street when it’s dark again. That said, it gets dark here at about 4.30pm nowadays, so that’s no feat!
But the most interesting situation happened on Tuesday night. On Tuesdays, I get up at 7, walk to work at 8, get there at 9, work til 6, walk to school, and start class at 7, and finish class at 10. So I’m pretty buggered! I’ve made buddies with two fellow gingers from class, Therese and Carrie, and we decided to go out to one of my favourite little Aussie pads for a beer (Ruby’s on Mulberry for those NYCers). Aside from the fact that they were playing Computer Camp Love by Datarock, which is a schoolies nostalgia trip, they didn’t ID despite the fact that the girl that was waiting that night KNEW I was underage (I had breakfast here before my tattoo on my 19th and we chatted for an hour). So it made a good night.
I had given the Danes my keys because I knew that they would be in-and-out during the day. I told them to be home by 10.30 so that I wouldn’t be locked out. Come 10.45, they still weren’t there. So I called up Therese, and joined them for a late night gyro. Well, they ate meat shaved from a stick, I just drank green tea. I hoped that when I returned a half hour later, they would be there.
Wrong.
So I sat on my stoop until just before midnight, when they tripped up my 5 flights of stairs, their slowed-vinyl accents trembling up the stair shaft.
They’re lucky that I’m not so New-Yorker that I can still keep my relative cool and just shrug it off. But I’m not giving my keys away again!
They left this morning though, so I have the place to myself again! The up about having people pop in to stay all the time is that it forces me to clean the place. Because despite being a neat freak, I sicken myself with how messy I let the place get every now and then… Mostly tea bags and already read magazines and tear outs and such… And four billion scarves. Scarf sellers are more common than pretzels sellers here, and it’s freezing (34 degrees in the morning. I’ve gotten used to talking in Fahrenheit now, so I can’t convert that! About 2 degrees?) And so if you forget a much needed scarf when you run out the door, you just buy a $5 one! I have amassed quite a rainbow by now.
I’m enjoying the cold though. It’s different to what we’re used to in Melbourne. This one chills you to the bone. It’s off still, and you can feel the marrow within you freezing and cracking when you try to nimble yourself. And you know what my circulation is like – I’m liking purple at the moment; so much so that I like to colour coordinate my skin to it.
Apparently it’s 35 Celsius back home. I can’t wait. Only a month now! But now is not the time for nostalgia. Now is the time for living.
Mette and her boyfriend Andreas rang my intercom at 7am two mornings ago, telling me that they were outside with their bags. Now, if you remember, Mette was one third of the Danes that I met in Scotland, and hung out with in Edinburgh playing cards. Then when I returned to Denmark (again), Nicolas and I with Lottie in tow went out drinking Tuborg with them again.
And now, they are nomads on my couch; with me – the ‘oh-shitty-tour-guide-because-I work too much-one’ – dragging my arse out of the warmth of my bed while it’s still dark, and returning droopy eyed from Wall Street when it’s dark again. That said, it gets dark here at about 4.30pm nowadays, so that’s no feat!
But the most interesting situation happened on Tuesday night. On Tuesdays, I get up at 7, walk to work at 8, get there at 9, work til 6, walk to school, and start class at 7, and finish class at 10. So I’m pretty buggered! I’ve made buddies with two fellow gingers from class, Therese and Carrie, and we decided to go out to one of my favourite little Aussie pads for a beer (Ruby’s on Mulberry for those NYCers). Aside from the fact that they were playing Computer Camp Love by Datarock, which is a schoolies nostalgia trip, they didn’t ID despite the fact that the girl that was waiting that night KNEW I was underage (I had breakfast here before my tattoo on my 19th and we chatted for an hour). So it made a good night.
I had given the Danes my keys because I knew that they would be in-and-out during the day. I told them to be home by 10.30 so that I wouldn’t be locked out. Come 10.45, they still weren’t there. So I called up Therese, and joined them for a late night gyro. Well, they ate meat shaved from a stick, I just drank green tea. I hoped that when I returned a half hour later, they would be there.
Wrong.
So I sat on my stoop until just before midnight, when they tripped up my 5 flights of stairs, their slowed-vinyl accents trembling up the stair shaft.
They’re lucky that I’m not so New-Yorker that I can still keep my relative cool and just shrug it off. But I’m not giving my keys away again!
They left this morning though, so I have the place to myself again! The up about having people pop in to stay all the time is that it forces me to clean the place. Because despite being a neat freak, I sicken myself with how messy I let the place get every now and then… Mostly tea bags and already read magazines and tear outs and such… And four billion scarves. Scarf sellers are more common than pretzels sellers here, and it’s freezing (34 degrees in the morning. I’ve gotten used to talking in Fahrenheit now, so I can’t convert that! About 2 degrees?) And so if you forget a much needed scarf when you run out the door, you just buy a $5 one! I have amassed quite a rainbow by now.
I’m enjoying the cold though. It’s different to what we’re used to in Melbourne. This one chills you to the bone. It’s off still, and you can feel the marrow within you freezing and cracking when you try to nimble yourself. And you know what my circulation is like – I’m liking purple at the moment; so much so that I like to colour coordinate my skin to it.
Apparently it’s 35 Celsius back home. I can’t wait. Only a month now! But now is not the time for nostalgia. Now is the time for living.
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