more answers than you asked for

I think my body is preemptively adjusting to New York time. That's the only explanation I can come up with for staying awake until 5:30am despite the two sleeping pills I took. And that explains why at 4pm, an hour until I have to get my lazy ass to work, with piles of parcels I have to ship back home to Melbourne before I'm booting off, I finally feel awake.

At some point during this post, I need to slap some makeup on my face and drag my tired feet to tear tickets for four hours. At least I don't have to do anything too serious or for too long. My last two paychecks have indicated to me that I have spent far too much time slogging it for Palace, and that I can afford to get a few full versions of the free apps on my iPhone now.

I can judiciously say that Fieldrunners (aka Desktop Tower Defense with better graphics and on your iphone), is worse than crack. It's a cheap one off payment, it's on you always, and it sucks the (battery) life out of you. Now that I've had time to absorb, I don't think getting the iPhone was the best cure for my media addiction. But now I can do a Sydney Morning Herald quick crossword puzzle 90% of the way through now! I'm only missing the technical stuff (21 down, a large motorboat starting with L - Launch. Who knew?!). With a little more practice, I could graduate to the NYT Monday puzzles by the time I get there.

***
interval - slap and slog time
***

My 4 hour shift got cut to 3 1/2 because it was so quiet, and half of those hours was spent waiting at Don Don's for my manager's food. Fun times.

It's high time I started shipping my ever expanding wealth of stuff home. Somehow I have with me 15 books, 10 dvd's, four cosmetics bags filled to the brim with makeup products, and two trunk loads of clothes and shoes. All in a 3 x 5 metre space, that I was only going to stay for two months in. Granted six of the books are plays and acting related. But did I seriously think I would need 9 recreational volumes of reading material? (That's on top of the magazines, by the way) I can remember exactly what I was thinking. "What if I need some lighter comedic reads? (When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris) What if I wanted a high concept epic that was written by someone who still knows how to use language? (Kavalier-Clay, Michael Chabon) What if I wanted some smut? (Delta of Venus - Nin) A modern classic that I can depend on? (Lolita) Some linguistic porn? (Usage & Abusage - Partridge, seriously, have you ever poured through a language manual? I love the bits when he gets condescending, it's delicious.) etc.

Madness. And clearly a sign of things to come as I'm getting to the age of mobility and moving houses, states, and countries. How on earth am I going to go about moving my life with a 25kg limit? I'll have to get friendly with the postal service workers I suppose.

iPhone photo sharing time!!

As an appendix to my last post, I found this ghastly thing on the back of a bus as it was speeding away from me. Luckily I haven't seen it again, so therefore I haven't had to kill anybody.

If you can't read it, it says "Cancer, cancer go away. Don't come race another day." It doesn't make sense, the rhythmic structure is forced, and it's obnoxious. Clearly this is a campaign that does not work because not only do I not understand what they're advertising, my previously intact natural sympathy for anyone affected by cancer is being tested.

Not to be outdone by cancer patients however, we have this shocker.

Let's be clear here. I'm 100% behind the message, I'm all for punk disabled teens with 'tude. But if you need to use fruity capitalisation in your main tag line of the campaign, you need to step away from the myspace, and act your age. It gets to a point when it's no longer market research, but teetering on "online predator".

Now I know why I'm growing my hair to ridiculous lengths. I want to be this creature. She was walking briskly in front of me and the damn lack of auto zoom on the iPhone means this was the best I could come up with. I've been told she often models for the art college nearby. It was like walking behind an elf around Darlinghurst.

Now I need to go crush up 3-5 melatonin tablets and see if it works any better than that Unisom Sleep stuff I took yesterday. I basically need something to replicate what the sun and the heat does to me around 4pm in the afternoon. Seriously, poor Heath, I feel his pain. The world thinks he was partying too hard and having deviant sex, but the damn boy just needed some sleep.

Type rest of the post here

in transition

That was sticking out of the middle of Taylor Square. A whole row of them. A bit rude I thought. I had to walk down that patch of Bourke St so often it felt like the very ground that I was walking on, Sydney, as a city was just pissing on me. Every time.

You wanna know what else is rude?

That was on Bourke St as well. The good part, the part with all the terrace houses that I gaze into longingly. The one where George the cat hangs out. I named him George. Although I'm 80% sure she's a girl.

I've pet her twice now, we're pretty tight.

So a week in Sydney. It's not terrible. Could definitely be worse. I could have said yes to paying $210 a week to stay in a cramped dilapidated twin share room in supposedly Darlinghurst but actually a block away from Kings Cross. The hunt is still on, although I have a good feeling about this place tomorrow. 5 minutes from work, 2 seconds from the bus stop that's 15 minutes from class. I won't even care if it's not as clean as the photos suggest, if it's livable, I'm moving in.

Apart from walking everywhere trying to find a room, I really haven't achieved much else. I've confirmed that stainless steel pots are absolutely useless if it doesn't have a non-stick surface. And I've found a half decent cup of coffee, a kiwi girl at this cute little cafe/fancy 2nd hand book shop. (I gave her my number, after declaring to the entire room that I need a place to stay). Found out that I DO love most Coles house brand products with the exception of their flavoured tuna. And watched every media file on my computer 5 times over, most of which I'd already seen multiple times. Read very little, written nothing. I'm thinking once I get a desk and chair situation happening I can be a lot more productive.

I do my first shift at Palace Verona tomorrow, very excitement, they have a huge bar with three split sides of tickets/coffee/drinks that actually makes a lot of sense. Plus I've felt bad about going to scam tickets before actually doing a shift so finally getting to see movies again would be good.

I'm waiting for In Bruges to finish download so I'll have something new to watch tonight. continuous repeats of Studio 60, seasons 2,3 and 4 of the American Office, and Clarissa Explains It All is so unhealthy. It might sound like a lot but I have a highly media saturated mind, it needs a constant buzz to keep me from thinking about anything that needs some real doing.

And I miss my boys. They had their first birthday three days before I left, so they are no longer kittens.

My bed feels so empty. Charlie is not slightly elevated, he's sleeping on my legs. While Miles is sleeping against them, successfully blockading me in my sleeping position all night.

I should probably venture into the CBD at some stage, if only to go to the Apple store. I'll do a macgasm post for you all about it one day. I wonder if there will be little old Indian ladies buying their plane tickets on the iMac displays

And don't even get me started on the stupidity of that poster, I had to stare at it for 10 minutes while waiting for my bus, wanting to punch both Jack and Jill's heads in every second.

hold your breath

***

I've just realised I haven't really posed a recap of my trip have i? well here it is, hong kong in camera phone pictures...

You line it up to your face, and tweeze your eyebrows according to the line. I love sasa. there was also these cheek templates, you can choose to have a round circle, an oval, or a harsher dash across your cheek, space it from your nose, and apply blush.

there were two shelves full of different kinds of these. double sided sticky tape you place on your eyelid to create a crease, what asians call "double eyelids" as opposed to their chinky "mongolian eyes"

As I was taking this, 5 of them were still smoking

I love instant noodles, and the leaps and bounds asian instant noodles have taken since the last time i was in the warm cradle of preservative broth. now they come with eggs, in sealed foil. and not just any old boiled egg, the old home styled tea eggs i used to have as a kid. the yoke was a bit flaky.

I hate drinking, everyone knows that. well, a few things happened and my face met the pavement of Lan Kwai Fong. moet was involved. this ugly bruise was what resulted

I love fast food. this was fast food asian style. i learned to keep away from the rice burgers this time (teriyaki beef surrounded by two rice buns, sounds good, don't taste it) this was just a simple beef dish. cheap meet, drenched in sauce. I just really liked their fruit punch, they had this at maccas too. diced tinned fruit in tutti fruitti soda punch.

and that was it. that was all the photos i took while abroad. all on my phone. a few lucky peeps wrangled some souvenirs out of me, lucky bastards, i didn't even buy anything for myself. cept for the perfume. speaking of which, my perfume, the one i've been using the last three, four years, has been discontinued. fuck i want to be famous just so i can kick giorgio armani in the arse and get him to make them again. i don't smell like myself anymore, it's disorienting.

***

only other thing i got out of the trip was the realisation that, for no apparent reason, i've become the fat girl. i've never been the fat girl in my life. actually when i was younger i was always a little too thin, and then something happened, puberty probably, and i filled out a little more, i felt good about the filling out, i got bigger boobs out of it. modest yes, but bigger. i remembered joking around with friends that when i see someone overweight, i wonder if there is a moment when they look in the mirror and start to realise that, maybe they've over extended themselves a little? the tipping point where they think, shit, i've really gained a few there? and now i'm looking in the mirror, and thinking, is this the moment? fuck, how did it happen? and before you start writing in on how i'm not and i look "womanly" and blah blah, it's ok, i'm happy with my body, i really am. but i realise i have gained a bit since this time last year, and that was a few inches more on six months before that. i was wearing this pair of pants that i loved back in year 12, they used to hang on me, and tonight through the two films that i saw i was squirming around because they were so tight, and sitting a little high. i always thought i really packed it on during my late night "study sessions" back then. anyway, useless waffle. point is, i want to get healthier. start running, join a yoga class that sort of thing. i won't starve myself, god knows i can't. so don't worry.

***

MIFF started. that's pretty awesome, already seen three films out of it. Sicko for the opening last night, Breath (Kim Ki Duk) and Lagerfeld Confidential tonight.

I've never liked michael moore, but he does have a certain sense of humour about him. sicko hit a few of the right spots, and hopefully it draws some attention to this blindingly obvious problem. I kept hoping he would come down and evaluate the australian health care system, just to prove that we're not going in the way of the americans, but he didn't, and i'm still not so sure, we certainly don't get free treatment for everything.

The Kim Ki Duk was his usual study of human interactions and twisted mentalities. That's not to say it was anything short of brilliant. I've never disliked a movie made by that man, and the line in front of RMIT Capitol attests to his popularity here. granted i haven't actually seen any of his commercial work for the mainstream Korean media, but i'd say he's keeping happy enough with his art now to not bother with them anymore. There's another one of his films in the festival this year which i'm seeing tuesday night, can't wait.

The Karl Lagerfeld doco was...well...the subject matter was very interesting, otherwise it was pretty dull. it was pretty badly made, a lot of cliched shots of the roaring sea, later justified by young karl running in and out of the waves (at least i hope it was karl, otherwise that would've been just 5 minutes of pure crap). it reminds me of what nick hornby writes of biographies in the Polysyllabic Spree, cut the crap. who cares if someone who later became a genius at one stage of his childhood did something really mundane? or something to that effect. if you have little material to work with (which i suspect this filmmaker did, a lot shots from a distance, fillers, very little actual interview) don't fill it with crap. a shorter film doesn't make it less worthwhile. lagerfeld himself was a riot. he has a giant library that requires those wheel things to open up the shelves, books fill his bedroom, as do silver rings which he wears in abundance on his finger ("he used to be able to pat you, now it hurts"). he has a million ipods, and talks candidly about practicing homosexuality since he was 13. when he came home one night after being assaulted by a man and a woman, one can assume sexually, around the age of 11 or 12, his mother said to him "look at yourself, it's your own fault". there's a sign that hangs in the bathrooms, in the iconic Chanel white on black printed in French "Pissing everywhere isn't very Chanel". i wish a better filmmaker had made it.

aside from all that, well, a lot of things happened. among which my relationship status on my facebook. i know it's only a matter of time, but for now it just damned unbearable. i really am the shittest person i know.

plum sauce pork ribs

work at palace has been really good. they've been giving me a lot of shifts, which could either mean that they are really really under staffed, or that i haven't screwed up too big yet! either way, yay for me! the world is wonderfully small though. i won't bore you with the deets but needless to say, many people turns out to be friends of friends and i went to school with two of the girls...blah blah blah prawn crackers!

seriously prawn crackers, we got them for free with out take away order today. Red Hot Wok on Toorak Rd, South Yarra; tasty food, tiny servings, but free prawn crackers! seriously they do pizza hut like deals with soft drinks it's kinda strange. and all the waiters are uniformly unfriendly. no one smiles in that place. ever. it kinda scares me.

since i'm rambling. i really want to do this. i'm in need of more hard drive space, and i think i have a large skine that's not getting enough use i could cut up...

along with my stupid sickness, and general lack of energy, my room has accumulated a collection of drink bottles, cups, scrunched up tissues, clothes, laundry, uni stuff, and a corner where the boy always dumps his stuff. just today he looked at me lying on my bed and said
"what's that corn doing on your bed head?"
i think i need to do a massive clean out soon. and i can start bringing my books home. i've been missing my babies.

i don't think very much anymore. which is why this blog is becoming rambling updates and not much else. i don't know how to think anymore. if anyone has any ideas for a ready made essay on blake shoot it my way. it's making my head hurt. and it really really hurts.

oh oh yes the boy turned 21. he looks the same, acts the same, threw up once, cut his finger and crawled into my arms, and quit a job. well on his way i daresay. photos of all shenanigans on my flickr. for all you losers who missed it, there was a lot of drinking, choofing, and sneaking hungry jacks into the pub (you're welcome rhys). word has it, a good time was had by all. oh by the way, the photo of mel's boobs on the first page of my flickr is getting so many hits it's ridiculous. like 60 as opposed to the 2 or 3 of all the rest.

actually he is at amber's 21st right now, or should be on his way here by now. i think i hear him!

*hitting publish*

20 minutes later...

no no, he's not coming for a good while yet. he says next half hour. but what's the bet? 2am? any takers? i'm saying at least 2, maybe 2:30. maybe i'll lie in bed and watch streetcar and revel in the fact that at least he's nothing like stanley. and how hot brando was, and vivian leigh, nutter as she was.

gling glo, can't help loving that man of mine

independence day

so officially, as of 14 March 2007 at 12:00p.m. your's truly left home. not unprovoked i might add. an imac G5 is now without a screen and many accumulated little pieces of junk has been scattered across all sections of the bedroom. photos have been torn up, broken glass everywhere. behold gladies, the wrath of Mrs. Qin

so until further notice, i shall be situated at residence of the boy. thus turning lazy alice, back into commuter alice. it is however, still cramped corners in house gubbins, so my horde of adoring fans, please be my eyes and ears and be on the lookout for a room in/near the city/uni. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

i'm looking out this window and i see...hope? a future? fair weather?

just some birds and some washing on the laundry line.

i'll get there though. don't you worry yourself about me.

i was camera whoring the night before it happened. so unwittingly, my "girl with sleeping boy story" has become "the last night" in my room.