The Big Easy Empty

I’ve had an unusual week and I’m at Dutch angles. I allowed myself to let go of my own values and that’s dangerous territory to venture in to, the result of which has been the materialisation of a Big Empty Nothing in the pit of my stomach.
I’ve found it hard to focus. It’s been tough to eat. I’ve talked too much. I missed by ex-boyfriend. I washed down high-strength codeine with wine at 3 o’clock on my lunch break. I didn’t do the cryptic crossword. I cried all the way home on the train. I called myself mean names and thought bad things about myself.

But, during the same week:
I was chased down the stairs at the theatre by a boy twice in once night. An actor. A lead actor. Of a Big Production from a Well Respected Theatre Company.
Another boy-man, a drummer, in a band, that I’ve secretly liked for a long time, caught my eye and smiled at me, more than once, in the laneway, and started to come into my shop (before I got scared and turned away and looked busy. But next time I may act normal).
And a man-boy has wanted to spend time with me and walked me to my car and offered to spend more time with me in the near future.
And yet another boy drew a picture for me and helped me make a decision and sent me a nice text when I was sad and asked to eat food with me at a place where you pay to do so.
And I have an audition for a TV show tomorrow.

So, why do things work this way? Why do good things bunch themselves together like sixteen-year-old girls and then disappear for months on end? And why do some other things, which start out as really, incredibly good, suddenly decide to become really, really not so good and altogether quite unpleasant? And where is that lovely balance between the two?

But I must say that despite the Big Empty that’s nested down in my stomach, a part of me has actually silently enjoyed the frustration of this past week. A part of me that says, “This may feel bad, but savour it. It means you are alive”.
So me and my Big Empty are, for now, learning to cohabitate. And when it eventually decides to pack its swag and leave town, I will not reminisce about it altogether unkindly.

Feed Me with Lights

At the age of 25 I left the city in which I'd grown up, knowing that I would never return. In the years that have passed from then to now, I have never once ached for it so intensely and completely as I do for New York.

It is an all-consuming, palpable yearning not dissimilar from the pain of a broken heart.
It buzzes in my chest and knocks the breath out of me.

What kind of magic does this city command that it has so utterly taken over my soul?

Of Hands and Teeth

It’s cold and wet and I’m overcome with a familiar feeling of loneliness and solitude. The heater is on. The dog is licking himself in that way that drives me insane. My 26 year-old sweater smells like fabric softener.

The aimlessness is torture.

I’ve never been a person who copes well with inactivity. I fill my days with work, chores, outings, events, to avoid, at all costs, being left alone with my own thoughts. But in the depths of my busyness, nothing excites me more than the idea of an uncluttered day. Because we are wired to strive for happiness in something ‘other’, regardless of whether that ‘other’ has proven itself to be pleasurable or not.

So today, like on all my other days off work, I went out1. I wandered around Sun Bookshop looking for The Trick is to Keep Breathing but ended up being seduced by zombies yet again. Then I went across the street to Cornershop and spent a solid 3 hours reading, eating, drinking coffee, and awkwardly responding to the subtle flirtations of the cute waiter who is slightly too young and too shaggy to interest me enough to want to pursue him. I put off returning home as long as I could. I even walked back across the street to the cinema to see if it would save me from the inevitable. It didn’t and here I am. Sitting in the quiet warmth of my living room, legs tucked under me, on a folded quilt on the ground, feeling… feeling… feeling alone and surrounded by the deafening noise of a million other sorry people rushing about or sitting quietly alone, inflicting some form of pain upon themselves, all in the same state of aloneness as me.

Oh my God. Have you read this thing I’ve just written? Who am I? Please someone take me out and shake the black eyeliner and razor-blades off of me.

And after you’ve done that, stay for dinner and keep me company.


1Because in the three years and four months since I moved to Melbourne, I have spent only one day confined to my house. No. Wait. I did leave the house that day. For breakfast. But I spent the entire rest of the day at home on the couch reading a book. Quite a feat! I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks afterwards.

On Men and Parallel Parking

So.
Men.
I don’t get them.
And lately I’ve found myself more and more attracted to the kinds of men I’ve always reviled. The tattooed and the dirty and the drug addicted. Is this the after effect of a six-year relationship with a ‘nice guy’ (who, as it turns out, wasn’t so nice anyway)? Or is it a rebellion against my Eastern European, Catholic, clothes-freshly-washed-and-ironed upbringing? Whatever the reason, I find myself being inescapably drawn to the suggestion of a no-strings-attached liaison with a man who will expect nothing of me but simultaneously shower me with attention. “Fantasy!” I hear you say. Very possibly so, but a girl can dream can’t she? And by God I have been.
But dirty men aside, what I really don’t understand is the whole courting ritual. Once again I blame my LTR* for my complete lack of dating savvy but really, if a girl is interested, but not overly so, why must men make everything so complicated? Is it that they believe all women want to marry them? That every interested girl automatically thinks of nesting down? Because I can truthfully say that in my case this isn’t so. So why the hot and the cold? The on and the off? The furtive glances across a crowded room and the arrogant attitude? I mean for God’s sake (should I believe in him, which I’m not sure anymore that I do), just tell us what you want and be done with it. But I guess that’s asking too much. After all, I have a 6-month-old secret crush that I express by being openly rude and hostile, so what can I really expect in return? And, deep down, at the very core of my subconscious mind, I don’t actually believe that any man is really capable of loving one woman for the term of his natural life, nor that he really wants anything more than sex, so what am I getting so upset about anyway? If only I could, a) become emotionally self-sufficient and actually stick to my resolve for more than a day; and b) train myself not to view every man through the relationship filter left for me by my parents.
If only.
But if I am to be completely honest - and I always am with you, my reader - what I really want, really truly want, is someone to be nice to me and make me cups of tea and kiss me on the forehead and hug me when I have a bad day and come to me with their sorrows and tell me jokes that aren’t funny and buy me clothes I’ll never wear and speak to me in languages I don’t understand and wave their smelly socks in my face and be impressed by my parallel parking and play with my dog even when I’m not around to see it and watch disgusting zombie films with me and listen to me talk about books they’ll never read and show me work of theirs I don’t care about but will pretend to anyway and, and, and… make me feel like their day is that much better for having had me exist in it.
Is that so much to ask for?
Is it?
Perhaps.


*LTR - Long Term Relationship

I can't offend you more than I offend myself..

I’m feeling a lot of doubt, in myself as a person, as an actor, as a woman/girl/female (it doesn’t feel right referring to myself as a woman but that’s an issue I’ll have to leave for another day).
I wonder, all the time, so much so that it’s almost not worth mentioning, whether I’m deluding myself with this whole acting malarkey. But that inevitably leads to thoughts of whether I’m deluding myself with this whole life business.
Sometime in my past, somehow, I latched onto the idea of acting to give myself a purpose. And now, at 28 years old, I’m returning to the moment when that decision was made and once again asking, “what now?”
And so indeed, what now? If not an actor then what? A director? Well, that’s just as delusional as the so-called career I’ve already got. An Olympic equestrienne? Hah! A teacher? Where’s the bottle of cheap wine and sleeping pills please. A writer? Well we’re back to the impossibleness of the realm of the actor and director. So….
A prostitute? Financially lucrative but I’ve never been much good with men. And I have tiny breasts. A dog trainer? Wonderful fun but pays just enough to keep a small poodle in kibble for a couple of days with owner living in cardboard box. Hmm…. I’m drawing a blank. What else interests me? Retail sales manager? I can see my future now. Forty-five and dressed like a girl, telling some insecure brat that she looks ‘hot’.
What else? What else? Fucking God please tell me what else?!
I. Can. Not. Think. Of. Any. Other. Profession. That. I. Would. Be. Good. At.
What do I do? Starve myself to death to avoid my inevitable descent into middle-aged mediocrity? But I’ve already tried that and I’m bored with the self-indulgent narcissism it demands.
What would I be great at? I could watch DVDs for a living. Read books. Look up celebrities on the internet. Browse for weight-loss tips. Tan once a year. Do cryptic crosswords. Eat breakfast at a cafe everyday. Forget to call my parents. Stay up late. Download TV shows. Park illegally. Take mediocre photos and post them on my blog. Buy clothes. Buy cosmetics. Try to find the cure for acne. Eat my own weight in popcorn. Pick up other peoples rubbish while tsking audibly. Write down ideas for outfits I will never wear. Read Amazon book reviews for book I will never buy. Look up IMDb profiles for actors I have never heard of. Doubt myself. Doubt myself. Doubt myself.
I’m so exhausted with the thought of the meaning of the pursuit of fulfilment in life that I cannot even bring myself to think of a way to end this bitter diatri…

You know what is wonderful?

... not knowing how much I weigh and not caring because noone else does. You know what is exhilarating? Riding my bike through the East Village in cut-off 501's with my hair blowing in my face and no helmet. You know what is delightful? Getting a text message that says "You are the coolest girl ever to breathe the mix of gases that enables a human to live on this planet." You know what is astonishing? Dancing at a dive bar to cheesy 80s music and poking a munchkin in the back who turns out to be Mary Kate Olsen. You know what is magic? Sitting in Doma Cafe in the absurdly beautiful West Village eating breakfast at 9 o'clock at night and listening to Bjork's All is Full of Love. You know what is breathtaking? Walking through Central Park on a sticky July night and watching fire flies light up the hillside. You know what is unexpected? Meeting amazing, inspiring people who completely change the way I look at life. You know what is gut-wrenching? Knowing that in less than a week it'll all be a memory.

Street Style - East Village

Pee is Not Fertilizer

Down the road from Beacon's Closet.

Not after money, just having a good time

On Bedford ave in Williamsburg, very obviously high and very disturbingly entertaining.

How to Tell a Girl You're Interested

Today, hungover and tired I took my first walk through Central Park and stopped at the Ballplayer's House Cafe for a combined breakfast/lunch at 3pm. I hassled my Californian Jack Black-lookalike-only-younger-and-thinner waiter about what I should order in my listless state and then set about ingesting my Vegie Burger goodness along with the accompanying packet of crisps while reading Joseph Campbell and eavesdropping on uninspiring nearby conversations. After wiling away a good part of the day in this lazy, indulgent fashion, I packed up my stuff and put a $20 bill in the bill folder and waited for my change.
I waited.
I waited.
I waited.
I worried that perhaps they assumed I wanted to leave a big tip.
After making subtle googly eyes at random staff members, my waiter finally returned with the folder before quickly disappearing.

Inside the folder, along with my change, was this:



I should be honest with you and admit that I don't intend on calling him. But man, did he sure make my day.