Sugar High + A Nose Dive

August 27, 2007 at 2:32 am (woe)

Remember Empire Records? I have a bit of a thing for movies that were made in the ’90’s – they are so optimistic. Reality Bites is another one of my favourites. I adore the way in which they consciously try to “keep it real”, but it’s so Hollywood and therefore hilarious. So in Reality Bites Vickie uses toilet paper instead of filter paper to make coffee, Troy throws away Renee Zelwegger’s number after a night of passion, and Winona Ryder’s character is unfortunately duck-shaped in track pants? As Patty and Selma would say, “It’s so like our lives”. I adore watching these movies, and pretending that I am half as cool, or I have half as much fun at work, or I can actually rack up a $400 phone bill while laying on the couch for a week watching airbrushed psychics connect with me through a television screen.

It’s late.

Oh ho, ANOTHER reason that Empire Records was great – Coyote Shivers. He played the rather random guitar man who plays ‘Sugar High’ with Gina at the end. I like his look. Especially his big hair. I like big hair.

Something is bothering me right now. I was attending the funeral of my grandfather’s wife a couple of months ago, and my Aunt made a couple of comments about me to my Mum. I was meant to be out of earshot, but not quite. “She’s striking and definitely very pretty, but I think it will be a couple more years until she is actually ‘beautiful’. But when it happens, she will be exquisite – she just has an air of awkwardness right now.” Gutted, though I suppose it’s sort of a compliment.

juneanais.jpgThe photo on the right shows Maria de Medeiros and Uma Thurman in Henry & June – when the photo was taken, Uma Thurman was 20 years old. In a couple of weeks, I will be 20 also.. I feel like my chance to be beautiful is already gone. I adore the way that human aesthetics can trigger such extreme emotions – love, hate, sycophancy, violence, envy, fascination, .. a great beauty can inspire amazing things. Remember Helen of Troy? I’m not just talking physical beauty, but the whole deal. Somebody with fire and ice behind their eyes, someone who is alive with electricity when they walk by, someone whose voice and the words they speak make you shiver. I suppose I just feel a bit faded right now – I was trying to entertain somebody on the phone earlier, and failed miserably – he was practically falling asleep. I plucked my eyebrows too thin and now I look a bit like a stoned marionette. Since the break-up, I have been eating like a pregnant hippopotamus and I’m convinced I’ve put on at least a million kilos. My mind won’t sit still long enough for me to get anything done, my paintings suck, I can’t sing right now at all (I sound as though I have steel wool caught in my throat), all my clothes are dirty, my housemates are actually making me want to kill them, the muscles in my fingers have wasted to practically nothing and now I can’t play piano very well, I have to get up in 4 hours and gah! It’s cold and my legs literally look as though I am transforming into a lizard-woman. My feeble attempts at being charitable to the homeless people of Melbourne are currently at an absolute standstill as I am poorer than I have ever been. There is the most monstrous chocolate cake in the refrigerator that I am lusting after, despite the fact that the very thought of eating and thus adding to my lumpy-dumpyness makes me want to actually vomit. My parents won’t leave me alone for a second – I want to be free and wild and passionate about whatever I want, rather than constantly being tethered and nagged and interrogated and bothered. Looking like a raccoon is fast becoming my default state, as sleep is hard to come by and difficult to enjoy for long. A friend once described me as “sparkly”, yet I feel so tragically dull and mediocre right now. It’s so deeply disappointing to know that you had potential to do something and that somewhere along the line you lost it.. and will probably never find it again. And then there is the biggest thing of all, but it’s far too complicated to write about.

There. A string of my neuroses – a sort of trial of a stream of consciousness idea we are playing with in my Creative Writing class. I’m sure that they would have preferred us to wax lyrically on something oh-so-existentially postmodern juxtaposed with the wider social implications of (insert some foreign word here). Cynical? Just a bit.

Tomorrow will hopefully cheer me up, and burn away this dark fog. I wish I had fairy costume to wear, and some sort of mask. Alas, it’s too cold for tulle and near nakedness.
The plan is to catch a train at an absurd hour, wait for mystery friend to go for a business meeting then traipse off to the NGV to see the Guggenheim Collection. I’m also hoping we can take a look at antiquities – the Egyptian artifacts are so humbling. The plan for the afternoon was originally going to involve trampolines of some sort – and aha! I have just found some!- so we shall continue on to a park at St Kilda where we shall go absolutely nuts, I’m sure. Then.. not sure.

I need a million balloons of inane pleasure, adrenaline and lovestruck teenage kisses to lift me up right now from where I am falling.

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I Was a Willow Last Night in my Dream

August 23, 2007 at 10:50 am (mental health days, music, stuff, virgin suicides)

Obsessed with the old Heart record Dreamboat Annie right now – the two songs Crazy on You and Magic Man are absolute theme songs right now. Both of them feature in The Virgin Suicides, in two absolutely gorgeous ways – the scene where we see Trip Fontaine for the first time walking down the hall is practically choreographed to the opening moments of Magic Man. He even takes his glasses off in time with a shimmer of chimes. The first hot riff in Crazy on You plays as Lux runs back out to Trip’s car, practically throwing herself on him. It’s brilliant…

When I was in high school, my friend Winston used to allow herself “mental health days” every so often – instead of coming to school, she’d go shopping, or get a manicure, or sit at home and read all day. In the name of sanity. I think this is a fabulous idea and more people should be encouraged to have this kind of breathing time. I have been having a sort of mental health week – I didn’t go to university yesterday, I stayed at home and painted instead. I also danced around the house in my underwear to Queen’s Greatest Hits Volume II. Incredibly therapeutic, and highly recommended. I can feel my body wanting to crash down into physical depression, so I’m launching a pre-emptive strike against melancholy – filling up my days with much hearty selfish fun, sleepless nights, adrenaline, junk food, mad creativity, kissing, kite flying, et cetera. I hope my former other half is doing something similar… it’s silly, although I have/am coming to terms with the situation generally, I have lost my best friend. I think that part hurts most.

Alright, I have things to do today! I had a great interview with David Jones, but I need back-up options and possibly even concurrent job options. Gah. Bane of my life. There is washing to be done (pfft), running that should be attempted, and packing enough stuff for a whole weekend of bright shiny occassions and lovely people. Onward march!

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Twelve-Sided Died!

August 17, 2007 at 2:54 am (freedom, lucien, me, relationships)

In the words of Teen Girl Squad, “It’s Over!”. Lucien and I broke up, actually and conclusively. The conversation was cold, and not a lot was exchanged other than this: “What is the protocol for breaking up over the phone? Well, I’m doing it right now.” I suppose that’s what he wanted – he had to have the last word, and in some sick little way, he ‘won’ by breaking up with me. He doesn’t even want to be friends with me anymore, but had the gall to say, “If you want to ever reintroduce yourself to me, starting afresh, then.. you can.” I am supposed to want to go back now?…

It boggles the mind. But I am so over the whole thing right now. It’s selfish, and it’s horrible, but I am done with my grieving – he has put me through a topsy turvy week of uncertainty and emotional upheaval, and I am done. This relationship in its dying gasps had become something so full of resentment and misery that I feel gladdened to be without it. My head is filled with optimism; almost joy at being able to live a life on my own terms now. So, to the few people whose counsel I sought during this time, thank you for all the advice you gave me. One of you in particular was absolutely invaluable to me; you know who you are, and thank you so much.. I hope that there is a time when I can be as valuable to you as you have been to me.

I am single for the first time since I was 17. I can do whatever I want. It feels so good.

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Short, Sharp Shock

August 15, 2007 at 1:12 pm (green, photographs, rehearsals)

I’m looking at my journal for the first time ever on the computers at university, and discovering (to my horror) that it is bright green. Not a leafy sort of unpolished emerald venturing into olive territory, but something a little bit more full-on. Not sure, but I know I don’t not like it.

Mikado rehearsal last night. I was acting strangely, and even I could tell. The director was delighted with how animated I was, commenting that he’d seen not one but half a dozen facial expressions in me that he’d never seen before. I was smiling and dancing and running around, then having moments where I had to literally duck behind a curtain just to breathe – the photographer was snapping me constantly; I must have looked alive, for once, and just a tad crazy. Elle and I ate an entire cheese and tomato Turkish bread by ourselves afterwards and waddled home clutching our stomachs – it is not healthy in the slightest to eat nothing all day then gorge oneself before bedtime, but it was a choice between two different types of physical pain.

A girl at rehearsal who doesn’t exactly thrill me was ranting about the photographer all night: “He’s such a perve, they should so fire him.” This guy was doing headshots and wanted to have some fun, urging us girls to prowl like a tiger, or give a smile like “the cat that got the cream”, et cetera. I thought it was cheeky, and an exercise to get actual emotions out of us, rather than the practiced, fake, guarded smiles people normally give. He’s been taking unposed photos of the rehearsal process so far, and I have spied him taking photos of me as I was doing seemingly everyday things. It will be strange seeing myself in that way – I have always had an issue in that I can’t picture myself in my head – maybe seeing myself as an almost outsider will cure that.

But alas;- try as I might, nothing good is coming of me at the moment. I suppose my head is such a muddled state of elevation that I can’t quite.. well, write! Maybe next time.

NOTE:- I just realised that today, August 15th, is Pajama Empress’s 1st Birthday! Yay!

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Secret Agent

August 14, 2007 at 3:12 pm (junk, lucien, musing, performing)

I’m embarking on something strange and scary – Lucien and I broke up, got back together, lamented an impending ‘necessary’ break-up and then ultimately sort of broke up, all in the space of about 5 days. The eventual conclusion that we arrived at was this: I have been in this relationship since I was 17, and I have not really emotionally matured at all in that time. I feel smothered, stifled and but also supported to the point where my own ‘muscles’ haven’t developed. So we’re taking it down a couple of notches, or a lot of notches – for all the people in our hometown (including our parents) we are maintaining the guise of being as together as we were a month ago. In actuality, from now on we will be more like friends who happen to date each other – we’re not going to see each other so much, or feel any/much obligation to each other, won’t tell each other all our secrets, will see whomever else we choose, do whatever we want, make choices without consulting each other, et cetera. Basically we are now both single and separate, but still seeing each other, when we feel like it. To do our respective self-discovery things, we may still need to break up or take an extended break, but we’ll see.

I’m not sure if there is a word for what is going on in my romantic life right now – open relationship doesn’t quite cover the whole scope of what is happening.

The idea of doing whatever the hell I want is thrilling me right now – a couple of days ago I was embroiled in the biggest existential crisis of my short life, but now I don’t feel “condemned to be free” – it feels brilliant.

My dramatic ambitions have been rekindled – talks with Frederick have left me with an overwhelming sense of “life is too short to be unhappy”, so I’m going to try hard. My Dad has jumped on the bandwagon, finally, and has been on the phone to his various cousins who are sportscasters, actors, producers and casting directors. He’s trying to set me up with my two cousins who are successful Australian actors, in a sort of mentoring relationship – should be brilliant.

Today is not a day for articulate postings – I am sick, laying on the couch eating lasagna with my fingers, Rocky is on in the background, trying to plan what I can possibly wear to rehearsal and being too lazy to get myself a glass of water. It is seriously going to take me from now until I have to go (in several hours) to actually peel myself off the couch, have a shower and get going.

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Frisson

August 6, 2007 at 12:48 pm (mikado, musing, prose, random)

Tremblant avec l’anticipation, avec crainte, avec plaisir.

Sometimes when I’m overtired and laying in bed trying to sleep, my mind starts playing tricks on my senses, specifically with shape, size, weight, density.. all manner of variables, and how they relate to my body. I usually sleep on my side with my arms wrapped around myself, one hand on my opposite shoulder, the other hand on my opposite hip. The hand on my hip suddenly felt tiny and fragile like a bug, resting on something hard and immense like concrete. The hand on my shoulder felt inflated; big, soft and almost billowing, while the space of my shoulder hunched up against my neck felt like a tiny hard crevasse squishing and twisting my fingers. The bed beneath me changed from being like cotton candy that I was falling through to a metal grille that my body was draining through; and my body felt almost simultaneously so small and pliable and then suddenly rigid and long. It is bizarre.

Other than that, not much. Last night I ran through some songs with a couple of the other principals from The Mikado – an exercise in terror. There is one line I am having a lot of trouble with which we went over half a dozen times and I still can’t get it. It’s just simultaneously very high and very fast, it comes from nowhere and it has some annoying vowel sounds – probably not the hardest thing I have to sing, but it’s just the knowledge that I will stuff it up that makes me stuff it up. When I finally get it, I promise I’ll post a sound clip.

Right now I’m reading Cane River by Lalita Tademy; a novel/memoir about the author’s great-great-great-great grandmother’s experiences, and those of her daughter and grandaughter as slaves in the American south. One thing I am loving about the book is all the French names: Suzette, Apoline, Oreline, Tranquillin, Philomene, Françoise, et cetera. If I ever had a daughter (probably not) or even a dog, she would have to have one of these beautiful names. I told my Mother that my imaginary daughter’s name would be Marie-Apoline, so my Mother asked me if I was on drugs. Sigh.

Anyway, I started creative writing this semester – so far it’s brilliant fun. My tutor’s name is Emmet Stinson, and he’s so positive – such a far cry from the black skivvy crowd that made me want to kill them. I think I really like his classes. Anyway, I figured I’d post the first exercise I did as part of this class – we were supposed to go to a public place and write an observational and reflective piece on what we saw there. Mine borders on fiction at point; I wrote more what my imagination saw, rather than my eyes. Here it is:

From my perch, a split burgundy vinyl stool, I nod and smile on cue. Some hurried scribbles attract attention: “What are you doing?” Homework, sans all the negative connotations from high school. Three shades of amber in glasses, on a table sticky with more of the same and raspberry streaks. My glass is predictably the palest, and fuller than the rest. The small table is round, topped with burnt orange laminex, the same as the benches from the house my father grew up in.

An enormous white blonde girl floats nearby, triggering a nasty mental image of an inflated jigglypuff; she laughs loudly at Morgan and his hat, shooting scowls and glares in my direction. The object of her unrequited affection is standing next to me, laughing flirtatiously at my little sister’s jokes for effect. The iciness is palpable; his lips curl into a sneering, petulant smile and he puts an arm around my shoulder theatrically, causing me to squeal with indignation. Jigglypuff’s eyes peek from between unrelentingly severe lines of black, then narrow until they turn into empty slots, radiating burning-cold scorn.

Benjamin stands rigid against the wall; with his stillness, sullen mouth and protruding cheekbones, he could easily be carved from wood. Same as the dilapidated yet ornate archway which frames the sunken throng of rowdy trivia participants.

The Nash, in Geelong, on a rainy Tuesday night, after rehearsal. Every person unfamiliar to me looks vaguely animalistic; the man serving hard alcohol to my underage sister sprouts a steel wool goatee, jutting out as a rectangular appendage below his lips.

Someone is staring at me from the mirror behind the bar; I notice her lack of makeup, tired eyes and winter weary hair. All night old friends and new friends alike have expressed a sort of admiration or reverence for the leading-lady-of-the-moment, but she really doesn’t sparkle like they are meant to.

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