Loyalty - outdated or time to bring it back?

Anyone unfortunate to have been saddled with my company in the last twelve months will surely have been regaled with colourful and expletive-ridden anecdotes about my time working for the Society of St Vincent de Paul - Vinnies to you trendy, bargain-hunting whores. As amusing and often rewarding as that time of employment was (see: wardrobe; bank balance) I finally came to the end of my time there when my Area Manager and I engaged in some mutually passive aggressive conversation regarding my rather lax attitude towards attendance. Luckily for me, I can smell the end of any relationship miles off and had been making preparations for this parting of the ways for a few weeks, and had luckily succeeded in securing myself a job with embryo (intenional lack of capitals) designs, a couture bridal and evening wear business on South King St, not two shopfronts from the building in which I spent six years of school life (NHSPA) and the building in which I spent two years avoiding Legal Studies/English Advanced (Lou Jacks Cafe).



I feel no guilt over the way things went with Vinnies; they had strung me along many a time and they really should not have been surprised when I, in the end, showed them no real loyalty. My time with Vinnies has taught me that a great job is more than an excellent pay packet and baskets of free clothes: if the people you work with/for are mentally deranged drug addicts, you won't last long - and that's before you even have to start dealing with the customers. I am responsible for the fact that things ended in the manner that they did, but frankly they - or more specifcally, my Area Manager, is responsible for the fact that things had to end at all.



So today I tossed off my scummy jeans and natty blue apron and donned my sophisticated blacks for my first day at the other end of the retail spectrum. This job offers an even better pay packet (let's all hear it for commission) and is in a clean, quiet, pleasant smelling environment. The woman who is my boss owns the business and designs all the dresses herself, and I can safely say that I am going to be able to earn that tasty commission totally honestly - I think her designs are beautiful. I also have had the chance to talk with her fairly extensively about her design principles - admirable; her plans for the business - ambitious; and her personal history - unsual and inspiring (and I am not a person who approves of the use of that word.) As I left the store at 5:10pm this afternoon, I found myself thinking that this was a company I could happily see myself staying with, in one capacity or another, for some time yet.



There's just one hitch: my employment with embryo is Saturdays only - which would have suited me great during the semester. But the semester is drawing to a close, and with my plans to move out of home next year and the recent ransacking my savings account has taken, I need to work at least three or four days a week over the summer to get some cash together and finally meet that elusive* Youth Allowance target. embryo are not looking to expand my role and quite frankly I'm happy for it to stay that way; it means not having to let them down when uni goes back in March.



No, what I need is quick, fast cash, from someone (by which I mean a company or business) I neither like, respect nor frequent, so that when I fuck them over by disappearing just after the Christmas rush, I don't have to feel guilty/give up my favourite coffee haunt for leaving them in the lurch. A CBD cafe, I thought to myself, or maybe a Country Road Christmas Casual. I'd probably be fucking miserable and want to kill myself/the customers (HOW MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF CARGO PANT CAN YOU TRY ON???) but the money, right?



So off I trotted to seek.com.au, my go-to guide for all things employment related. (Truth told, it has only ever rendered me one, very undesireable job, but I figured for these purposes it was perfect.) Hospitality yielded little - I don't want to work in a hotel. Retail was a little more promising and I had saved myself ads for kikki.K, Marcs and Jigsaw (remember what I said about cold hard cash), when I came across an advertisement for a Sales Assistant with Australian lable Katie Pye.

Katie Pye was a kickass designer back in the eighties, doing lots of wacky and wonderful stuff with handpainting and flowers and Mondrian-style prints - totally the kind of thing my mother wore back in the day, which is why there is a bright aquamarine coat dress with floral hand painting lurking at the back of my wardrobe, just waiting for me to be brave enough to wear it in real life. (I wore it once to an eighties party. Its shoulders could have their own postcode.) Suffice to say, it's funky stuff and I like funky stuff and I obviously like working in jobs where I get to tell people what to wear.

In the end, I decided not to think about applying for this one - in Surry Hills, it would be a hassle for me to get to by public transport and I think they were probably looking for someone with more administrative/stock management skills than I have. But the fact that I was thinking about going for it raised some interesting questions for me.

What if I had liked it alot? What if, at the end of working there for three months, I maybe decided I liked it better than embryo? Would I quit embryo then, just because I found something better? Is it worth even applying for a new job, not because you specifically want to get out of your old job, but because it might be that "something better"?

Finding something better is kind of a recurring theme with me, at least when it comes to things like jobs. From year nine to the begining of university I had (including a gap year) six different employers. My two best friends had one. I don't think the concept of "company loyalty" rates very highly with me, which is why I always found it so hard to understand why these two friends insisted on staying in jobs that were boring, badly paid and poorly managed. While they both had different reasons for doing so, for one it was certainly a factor that she had worked there so long and established a relationship with her bosses. I have to say that kind of thing has never meant very much to me. If I think I can get better pay and better conditions - and in an industry that better suits my needs and interests - somewhere else, I will drop whatever employer I have like a hot potato, because my theory is that while I have no rights as a casual employee, I also have no responsibility.

And it's an attitude that extends into other areas of my life too. I don't like to be a settler. I don't buy clothes that "almost fit." (Unless they're vintage and beautiful and worth altering.) (Also note clothing that "almost fits" and comes FOR FREE does not count.) I don't buy what's on special just because it's cheap. I certainly never buy the first version of an item that I come across, if I think I can get it somewhere else cheaper or prettier or both. I was taught to always get at least three quotes for a job. (Came in handy that time the brick got thrown through Jenna's window in year 11...) No, I'm a person who prides themselves on making informed and positive choices, hopefully unhindered and uninhibited by notions of loyalty or convenience. This is good because sometimes I save money and often feel like I've avoided being sucked like the tragic consumer I am into whatever trend-vacuum is exerting its influence over me. This is bad because I often feel like I'm on tenterhooks, I can't get settled, I'm always looking over my shoulder, waiting for the next great offer to come along. I think what it comes down to is that I kind of hate the concept of work so much that what I'm REALLY waiting for is someone to pay me to sit around and read books, or study. Or act. That would be the ideal, quite frankly.

But maybe I am learning to settle, a little - or at least recognise what's good for me. Because while I'm happy to fuck over big, anonymous multinationals like Marcs or Jigsaw, another big part of holding off on the Katie Pye application was that, should anything eventuate, it would eventually mean letting down one of two spectacular independent Australian designers. After what I learnt about the embryo story and where she's planning to take it, I just wouldn't feel right about appraising my role there in purely fiscal terms. This is a relationship I hope will mean more than just my pay packet and tax-deductible black clothing; if I behave myself and think less of what they can offer me and more of what I can offer them I could wind up with something more akin to a career than a job. (Note I have no intention or desire to go into designing wedding dresses.) Yeah, I make me sick too. But that's my informed and positive choice to make.





*PLEASE NOTE the spelling of this word, elusive. It means (according to dictionary.com)
1.eluding clear perception or complete mental grasp; hard to express or define: an elusive concept. 2. cleverly or skillfully evasive: a fish too elusive to catch. IT IS NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH allusive (having reference to something implied or inferred; containing, abounding in, or characterized by allusions) or illusive (based on or having the nature of an illusion). STUDENT JOURNALISTS OF SYDNEY, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

A failure of vision?

My whole "use of blog as cultural recorder" thing has totally failed, I can see, which is unfortunate, because I've engaged in a lot of culture this past ten month period that I would have liked recorded and am now afraid I will forget at a crucial moment. What lies behind this failure to realise such a simple vision?
Crippling fear of how bad my writing is when I'm not being flippant, petty or pedantic is one part; concern that I will have to further justify my opinions to others is another; having better things to do with my time is probably also a factor (or at least makes me sound good.) But having spent a good eight hours today doing nothing I know I should feel it's time to engage my mind in something mildly productive.
Well, a hearty fuck that, I say. When I say I did nothing today, I mean that quite literally; my list of activities today reads as follows: 1. Wake up at 10:30. 2. Get out of bed at 11:16. 3. Go to the bakery and buy sourdough. 4. Eat sourdough and read the (wanky) magazine. 5. Facebook. 6. Bed, again: engage in some hardcore ceiling staring; cannot even bring self to read. 7. Shower. 8. Cancel afternoon tea. 9. Walk to brother's school in searing heat to drop off forgotten items. 10. Return home to eat, finish reading the (wanky) magazine, [non]essential and The Inner West Courier. 11. Watch five episodes of Seinfeld; loaf of sourdough almost finished.
And dear god, it was one of the bed days I've had in weeks. Not for me the alarm clock. Not for me the list of twenty five things to be accomplished and another twenty five looming like shadows just around the corner. Not for me conversations about anything. (I think I have uttered about ten words all day, the most commonly repeated being, "Hello, Rebecca speaking." Sometimes I think I should just quit my job and become my mother's PA.) Not for me getting dressed. (Though I did, eventually, because of adventure into searing heat.) Not for me interactions with human beings.
I can understand why reading that might make someone think I had suddenly contracted a tropical disease or else morphed into somebody far less sociable and alive than my sweet self, the fact is that sometimes your brain just needs to crash. After weeks and weeks and weeks of looking down the barrel of my diary and finding nothing but cordoned off sections of time devoted to this or that worthy endevour (academic acheivement, financial enrichment, cultural engagement, attempted artistic fulfilment) I found myself feeling trapped upon an ever turning wheel that I didn't seem to be controlling. As it's now Novemeber, the wheel will soon slow to a more leisurely pace - the kind of pace one might move at walking alone a picturesque beach, rather than madly sprinting from Eastern Avenue (lecture ran overtime to 12:58) to Woolley (mad lecturer insists on starting at 13:00 precisely.) With three exams still to go, however, I'm still moving at a brisk pace, but I figured if I was going to give myself any chance of getting to the end without a collapsed lung, it was time to take a breather round.
I generally find the world a very interesting place. I think my problem is that sometimes I find it too interesting. So many things to do, and see, and people to meet and spend time with, and events to keep up with, and conversations to be had, and knowledge to be attained, and results to be achieved! And while each of these things is fabulous and entertaining and enriching in isolation, en masse it's just like standing in the middle of a large space while people throw brightly coloured and pleasant smelling objects at you: totally overwhelming and eventually a little repulsive - not to mention totally not conducive to sleep.
And so I find that every now and then I have to take myself off and do a little bit of hibernation - burrow myself away somewhere and give myself permission to do just nothing, to make no lists, to achieve no objectives, to think no thoughts. I have to let myself stare at the ceiling for hours, almost to the point of boredom, to soothe my often overactive mind of the crowd of voices and commands and thoughts that tend to cram in there most of the time. And when I've done that - when I've emptied everything in my head out and let it float around above me, and looked at it a little - I can start to appreciate what a truly dull thing life can get without it. So I start to pack it back in, bit by bit, maybe ordering it better or leaving out anything that was making me truly unhappy - and I get back on the wheel, happier, healthier, and much more likely to make it to the end of the race.

Complicated

Not a rumination on that dreadful but nonetheless era-defining Avril Lavigne song, this is rather in reference to the concept, as articulated by Facebook, of the "Complicated Relationship."

Seriously, I log on to Facestalk this afternoon and the first item on my Stalkerfeed (I hope that by appearing cognisant of the bizarre power this technology affords everyone even vaguely in my life to know my every movement and me to know theirs, I become less of a sucker for using it) is that Old High School Aquaintance That I Never Really Liked In High School Anyway And Only Accepted On Facebook To Make Sure She Wasn't Doing Better Than Me In Life (let's just call her Ohsatinrlihsaaoaftmsswdbtmil, or Ohsa for super convenience) is apparently in a Complicated Relationship.

This begs several questions.

The Facebook option of being in a Complicated Relationship (or, as it is indicated in your relationship status, "It's Complicated [with XYZ if you so choose]") is obviously an acknowledgement of the situation that many of us have found ourselves in over time whereby you are seeing someone on a semi-regular basis, you're doing the kissing and maybe even the sexing, but they or you are, for one reason or another, emotionally incapacitated to the extent whereby they still refuse to call this a relationship. Now, you're not single - because you're having the sex, as it was so eloquently put by Paolo in Friends - but you're not in a relationship, because labels ruin things, and being a girlfriend/boyfriend is subjugation and entrapment, and you don't see why it's anyone else's business, which seems to be a favourite line. So It's Complicated. Seems logical enough. Except if that the whole reason It's Complicated is because you Don't Want People To Know ... doesn't putting it up on Facebook - that is, the most public arena the world currently offers us - doesn't that COMPLETELY DEFEAT THE BLOODY CONCEPT AND IS REALLY JUST YOU PUBLICLY DECLARING TO ALL AND BLOODY SUNDRY THAT YOU'RE HAVING SEX WITHOUT HOLDING HANDS OR HOLDING HANDS WITHOUT HAVING SEX?

The second question, more just a matter of me being semantically finicky, arises from the sentence itself: "Ohsa is now in a complicated relationship." Well, excuse me, but what the hell what Ohsa doing before with everyone else in her life? Clearly delineating them into easy categories where each person serves a single, simple purpose which they performed every time they meet without fail? That's the relationship you have with baristas and bus drivers maybe, but not, you know, people who actually have an influence on you. (Not that baristas and bus drivers don't influence you. They influence me greatly. Just in uncomplicated ways.) I have complicated relationships with lots of people but that doesn't mean that we're engaged in intense negotiations over sexual politics. Now I know this isn't really Facebook's fault (or even Ohsa's - but she's pretty annoying so I like to snigger at her nonetheless) but still. I thought it interesting, because I'm into things like that.

Interesting unplanned third point: between writing my last paragraph, I logged onto Facebook once more, only to be informed that Girl I Have Met Once or Twice At University and Yet Again Do Not Particularly Like (henceforth known as Gihmootauayadnpl, or rather Gihmoot) is "no longer in a complicated relationship." This, like the information in Ohsa's update, is displayed with an accompanying little love heart - not the broken one you see when people break up, but the nice whole one you see when people get together.

How do these two seemingly contradictory events work together? By Facebook's logic, being in a Complicated Relationship is worthy of a heart, therefore it must be a good thing for the people involved. But getting OUT of a Complicated Relationship - and, Facebook presumes, In A Relationship - is also worthy of a heart, and therefore must also be a good thing.

Well, what if being in a Complicated Relationship isn't good? What if being in a Complicated Relationship is leaving Ohsa with unanswered questions and doubts about her self-worth and the worthiness of her emotional investment? What if being in a Complicated Relationship makes Ohsa feel like she is giving everything to a person who can never commit meaningfully and is simply stringing her along for her sexual and/or emotional benefits without taking on any of the responsibility that comes with being In A Relationship - the responsibility to prioritise the needs of that person, the responsibility not to be infidelitous (assuming that they are not In An Open Relationship, another of the myriad of relationship options Facebook affords us, politically correct souls that they are), the responsibility to openly and happily acknowledge the relationship? What if Ohsa is going through that thing that happens when long term couples break up and then still sleep together and hang out together and have keys to each others houses but aren't actually together because for whatever reason, a simple question of naming leads to a total change in behaviour? What if Ohsa's status as Being In A Complicated Relationship is simply her way of trying to reassure herself that she's in a Relationship at all? And, as I think I pointed out earlier, doesn't that just defeat the purpose of this particular kind of Complicated Relationship?

Similarly, who makes the decision that for Gihmoot, not being In A Complicated Relationship is suddenly a move up in the world? I stalked her down just to make sure I wasn't going to misrepresent her here in an arena she will never encounter. Her relationship status no longer exists - you know, that tricky thing people do when they take it away completely because they're so utterly confused or depressed by whatever their Actual Status is that they can't bear the thought of other people looking at it every day. So Gihmoot is no longer In A Complicated Relationship - but according to her profile, she's also not in a Relationship at all. Maybe she has completely ceased all interaction with other human beings around her, I don't know. This does not necessarily warrant a perfectly formed pink heart in my mind. Why does Facebook - who said Being In A Complicated Relationship was a good thing now say that getting out of one is equally good? What if Gihmoot's Complicated Relationship was nonetheless mutually satisfying and rewarding for both parties? What if neither of them wanted, for whatever reasons, to subscribe to approved-of avenues or definitions for their interactions with each other? What if they cared deeply for one another but lived in different cities or states or countries and for that reason could not commit to being In A Relationship as it is commonly conceived of in our limited vision of said? What if Gihmoot is crying into her pillow tonight over the loss of her Complicated Relationship? What if Ohsa is crying into her pillow tonight over the existence of hers?

What, then, of all our other relationships? If only Facebook would allow me to define the relationship I had with each of my 237 "Friends"(please note very deliberate use of inverted commas there.) Why is this one relationship, instantly understood to be romantic in nature, priveleged above all the rest? I restate: I am in a lot of relationships in my life, many of them complicated, or in the very least complex, and some of them are with people for whom I have, or have had, or may one day have, romantic feelings but generally they are not. Can I set my Relationship Status to Multifaceted?

Finally, what are we to make of the mere fact that I can know any of this at all? What are we to make of the fact that last week, when a friend of mine who knows almost none of my other friends (he can be Fomwkanomof...OK, Fom) broke up with his girlfriend, I was confronted by three of our vaguely mutual friends (that is, mutual friends on Facebook), not on as close terms to him as myself, who had heard of this development within hours of its eventuation because the couple in question, you guessed it, changed their status on Facebook? What are we to make of the fact that if I were to change my currently Single status to It's Complicated or In A Relationship or even if I were simply to remove it at all, at least 237 people (in fact far more, seeing as I am too much of an internet whore to ever set my profile to private) would have access to that information. 150 of them might notice it. 100 of them would mentally notice it and discuss it amongst our mutual friends the next time they met. 50 of that 100 might even go so far as to send me a message about it, and there would be at least ten people inconsiderate enough to post on my wall about it, and the fact is that in that 237 people there are maybe only 20 anyway who I think would have any selfless interest in my love life as something other than fodder for gossip, and I probably would have told them in person anyway.

This is not: a rail against Facebook, or against the concept of Complicated Relationships, or against the concept for Relationships. Mainly I was just perturbed that Ohsa was obviously getting some, and she's a total pain in the ass.

Some Things On My Mind At The Moment

1. Looming exams and lack of preparation for said
2. Increasing expansion of waistline and lack of activity to counteract said.
3. Exploding wardrobe
4. Disappearing bank balance due to exploding wardrobe
5. What to do during the summer holidays
6. Moving out - yay or nay?
7. The fact that the ability to predict the future would greatly resolve much of this anxiety
8. The fact that predicting the future is impossinle, thusly leaving me to my own devices --> increased change of fucking up and making Wrong Choices.

During high school I think I struggled with decisions less. Maybe I knew what I wanted more. Actually I think I was just less aware of my options. These days I see options spread around me in every aspect of my life, from what to wear in the morning to what cleanser to use to what to do on my holidays to what to do with my life. It might seem like a quantum leap from fashion to life-path but I think it's the same attitude both equally stressful. It's a lack of ability to distinguish combined with a plethora of choice. It's the inability to prioritise combined with the impatience of youth. It's the desire to experience combined with the desire to get it right the first time round.

I seem to labour under the delusion that I have limited time. I mean, I do. We all do. We are mortal. But what I mean is, my life, my choices, my chances, my options, my development physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, professionally, sartorially - it doesn't stop at 23 or 25 or 30. But then I don't want to get to those ages and feel I've missed out on doing something important.

I think this choice anxiety is couple with the knowledge - or perhaps the misguided belief, who can say - that to make it as an actor - as a female actor - you have to get in there young. And I don't want to me that person who sits around for how many years talking about a dream without actually going out to do something about it.

I guess the scariest part is that it's usually not until you've made it that you can see that the choice was the wrong one. I think I am congenitally afraid of failure. But not doing something because you might fail is but a short step away from not doing anything at all. I believe the Chinese say we must not be afraid of growing slowly, only of standing still. I agree with that in sentiment but I think in practicality I probably often choose to stand still for fear of getting chopped down altogether. It's that old attitude that I used to have such disdain for - that trying nothing and therefore going nowhere feels less damaging than trying to move and moving slowly; because at least if you're not trying you can futilely cling to the belief that you could be going somewhere, you're just choosing not to - thereby allowing yourself to believe you're still in control.

This attitude really only holds up until everyone else around you gets their act together enough to start moving, leaving little old you feeling drastically and embarassingly left behind.

Books

I love books. I always have done. I am not cool enough to love lots of obscure bands and have them on vinyl - for this I blame my classical violinist father - but the sheer ecstasy of shelf full of brandspankingnew books, oldleatherbound books, mediumbatteredpaperback books - now that's something I can get worked up over (and for that, I suppose I should blame my writer mother.) So I have always done lots of reading. When I was younger I could start a book after a Saturday afternoon trip to Dymocks and have it finished in time to talk about it at school on Monday (not that anyone wanted to hear.) But - and I'm sure I'm not alone here - I found this a harder feat to accomplish as I got older. For one thing, the books I wanted to read stopped being The Babysitter's Club (don't ever let anyone say I am a literary snob) and started being more along the lines of Dickens or Tom Wolfe - hardly a quick read over Sunday lunch. Also - and this is the more annoying part - life just kind of took over. Jobs and assessments and rehearsals suddenly meant I could no longer lie in bed all day on Sunday to get lost in my little printed world - especially if it wasn't on a reading list for a course. I think it was around the middle of year 12 that I woke up one day and realised I hadn't read a book of my choosing in about two years. That was tragic. I have to say one of the best things about taking the gap year was choosing my own reading material. Then I started uni and was forced to consume Australian literature in quantities I would never do of my own volition...and it's back to wracking my brains for the last book I read that was actually a matter of choice.
But now holidays loom - actually need better word than loom; loom implies, by onomatapaeic association, doom - and I am determined not to waste them staring idly into space for the entire time. Somewhere between rehearsals and theatre outings and shopping, oh god, so much shopping - I'd like to read lots of books. So I'm making a list. I won't get through the list this holidays, or next, but I'm going to carry this list with me forever and every time for the rest of my life I get bored I will look at the list and think, now there's a book I still haven't read, boredom be gone!
So if you know a book I haven't read and you think I should, leave me a comment and let me know. As I always say, suggestions welcome, if not necessarily taken.

Old Flames Never Die, They Just...

...get to that stage like where you've blown out the candle but the wick still has that little glowing bit on it that you have to lick your fingers and pinch to get it to go away. It's totally useless, it produces no heat, it can't even spontaneously reignite or anything, but they're always there, and I, poor sucker that I am, haven't quite figured out how to pinch these babies out of my life.

Some Plays I Am Doing

Well, really just the one, in this blog.

So since like the begining of March, Ellen and I have been directing a show called Gone Missing with the year 12s at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts. This has been a ridiculously nostalgia filled venture, us being year 12s at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts only two years ago ourselves.

So we found this script randomly while browsing the fairly limited drama section at Kinokuiya and I personally really like it. It's a verbatim piece constructed from interviews the actors did with random people in the street about stuff they had lost. For someone who has managed to lose her script, her diary, her keys and probably at least ten pens in the last four days, this seemed fitting and very moving. Also it was just nice to be kind of back in the saddle again and taking creative control of something after a year of sitting around on my fat behind doing sweet fuck all.

I like to think we have made some kind of dint in the creative development of these kids, that we've taught them something they didn't know before, that we gave them an opportunity the teachers might not have, that they'll look back on this experience and think, wow, I totally expanded as an actor during that process. I'm not sure it's worked out like that. There have been...blockages. And unexpected obstacles. And moments where I have been so on the brink of going completely beserk and throwing drama blocks across the room because people don't seem capable of following the simple directive TO BE QUIET.

Having said that though, I would probably do it again in a snap. I'm a sucker for punishment. I mean don't get me wrong, I will be Having Words to Appropriate Authorities about the Issues We Have Experienced. But there's something about being behind the steering wheel of actually creating a piece of theatre that makes you appreciate the final product so much more. Also I am probably a control freak by nature so any outlet for me to get to tell people what to do is always going to go down well.

Seriously though, I think that even without doing any acting for this show I have made myself a better actor.

Explaining this pithily in writing isn't going very well. I think I am better at rambling obsessively over miniscule and meaningless moments (check out that alliteration) than I am at expressing the things in life that are more important to me. Well, I suppose that's to be expected in the public arena, isn't it?

This has moved quite far away from its intended subject matter.

OK so basically, the show is on tomorrow and Wednesday night. It does seem like an awful lot of effort for just two nights but I guess I'm a believer in the product being the process. Hopefully what they will walk away with is a lasting memory of the effort it takes to put together a decent show. Which it will be. No, this blog is not at all a way of releasing my nervous energy pertaining to the fact that in 24 hours time we will be 11 minutes into the show and in our final run today I had to stop them three times because they couldn't seem to stand on their spike marks. Shut up.

Some Plays I Have Seen (And Possibly A Movie)

Right, so a conversation last night totally reminded me that this even existed and that one of its primary functions was to serve as a recorder for the multiplicity of theatrical entertainment I was meant to be engaging with this year. Haven't really been keeping up with that. Whoops. Now I am afraid I have forgotten everything.

I saw The Year of Magical Thinking with Robin Nevin, directed by Cate Blanchett (salivate) at the STC. This was beautiful. I think my favourite thing about it was its simplicity. The sheer beauty of just having a single actor on stage engaging with a very powerful and moving story is nothing to be sniffed at and I thought Nevin's performance was top notch. I sort of want to be her, in fifty years time. My least favourite thing about this performance was all the stupid people coughing the entire way through. For God's sake, get a menthol and shut the fuck up.

I saw The Hitchcock Blonde at the Star of the Sea Theatre in Manly, starring the one and only very fantastic Eleni Schumacher. This is a totally biased review because I have known Leni since she was like, 15. But with that disclaimer I would like to say I was totally blown away by the depth and maturity of her performance and thought she was head and shoulders above the other actress, whose name I don't remember and am also afraid of putting up should she be the sort of person who googles herself, which, let's face it, most actors are. Eleni's performance was infused with the sort of truth and strength that most actors spend their entire lives waiting to attain and if she doesn't go further in this field it will be an abomination.

I saw The Black Balloon which restored a little bit of my faith in the concept of an Australian film industry. Here finally was an excellent story, well written, deftly executed, perfectly paced and beautifully acted, and without an excessive amount of time spent dwelling on questions of "Australian identity." Hallelujah. Kudos to Rhys Wakefield for making the leap from Summer Bay babe to actual actor, and to Toni Collette for continuing to be a ray of light in every film-goer's life. And double thumbs up to the entire movie for making me cry, which never happens.

I'll just take this opportunity to point out that I have a little first hand experience of having a sibling with autism, albeit nowhere near as severe a case as the one depicted in the film. Nonetheless, the experiences of the film rang almost painfully true for me as I sat there watching it. I'd just like everyone to think about that before they think about criticising the film. That it was able to depict such a story in a way that was not preachy, or schmaltzy, or excessively flippant, or patronising, is no common thing and I think should be deeply admired.

All for now. Time to read SEVENTY PAGE SCRIPT just emailed to me. (Thanks Oli, have no ink left now.)

Speaking in tongues

Today's theme is codes. And speaking.
You know when people are talking to you, and they're talking about something, and you're talking about something back, but you know that what they're saying is really about something else and they know you know that, and they know that everything you're saying is not really about the first thing but about the second, hidden thing, and you're basically just having this entire conversation which is apparently about one thing but really you both know it's about this other thing, but because you can't acknowledge that, you'll never actually be able to talk about that second, probably much more important thing?
Yeah.
Story of my fucking life.

FUCKING STUPID PEOPLE EVERYWHERE WHY DON'T YOU ALL JUST FUCK OFF

SO, I thought I'd change the tone around from the last few entries which have been distinctly melancholic if not downright angst ridden, and switch myself over into angry hellbitch ranting raving mode.

Basically I hate stupid people. Everyone who knows me knows I hate stupid people, it's a core tenet of my personality. And quite frankly I don't care if you think that makes me sound elitist and rude, the fact of the matter is that you have a brain with just as many cells as mine or anyone else's and if you can't be bothered to use those cells to some effective purpose then essentially you are just taking up valuable oxygen and I see no use in your existence.

Now let me just qualify all this by saying that the opposite of stupid is not smart, it's aware. I don't really care if your IQ isn't at genius level or if you just plain hated school; as long as you take an active interest in something in life other than excessive drinking and can express an opinion on it using at least one word of more than two syllables, odds on we'll get along fine. But if you insist on being one of these unfortunately all too abundant people whose only discernible aim in life is to consume your body weight in alcohol/narcotics and then talk loudly about it afterwards in a manner that implies all those who choose not to indulge as though we are substandard beings, THEN YOU ARE A FUCKWIT and I probably think you are a waste of space.

We're in a WORLD here, people. Shit is going on ALL THE TIME, near us and far away from us, good stuff and bad stuff, trivial stuff and serious stuff, fun stuff and boring stuff, important stuff and filling-in-the-gaps stuff, but it's STUFF. Some of it is really, really interesting. Your little world, on balance, is probably not. Grow a personality, honestly. This may come as a shock to those who consider me occaisionally shallow, and I'll be the first to admit that I skipped over the newspaper articles on government corruption to read the reports from Paris fashion week, but at least I went back and read the articles on government corruption - and I also have strong opinions about this seasons skirt lengths.

So that's one kind of stupidity.

The next kind of stupidity can best be exemplified by the variety of charming excuses for human beings I work with and for. I cannot pithily describe the many levels on which these people are pissing me off. Lack of communication probably best sums it up. I am regularly sent into situations on which I have no background information and am expected to work miracles. I am apparently also meant to attend in a supervisory fashion to men more than ten years my senior and have them do my bidding. I am being asked to be in charge, and being treated like a child. I am being shown the deep end and told to swim - and then getting told off when I don't. Along the way, I've been forced to listen to some personal stories that far overstep the boundaries of what people who have spent less than 14 hours in each other's presence should feel comfortable in sharing. Which is SO emotionally manipulative because it makes it virtually impossible for me to conscionably resent or dislike this man, which I am totally entitled to do because he is making my life difficult. Stupid co-worker #2, on the other hand, has not even been intelligent enough to tell me emotionally manipulative stories, but has instead simply waltzed into MY shop and raised his eyebrows in a snooty fashion, and implicitly questioned the way I do things, and demanded I close early so he can catch his bus, and taken too long on his breaks, and not hung up any of the multitude of clothing items thrown on the floor by YET MORE FUCKING STUPID PEOPLE, and then, only after giving me the impression that he might have some sort of right to do these things, do I discover that this is a man who cannot even cash up a till at the end of the night.

FUCK.

Let's please not forget my charming boss, who is the one for getting poor misguided me into these situations, getting me flustered and upset about the fact that I spend my Saturdays in a tiny room filling up with bags of junk faster than I can empty them, with a middle aged man who seems to have all the motivation and foresight of a 13 year old McDonald's employee (quote: "You don't want to do too much today, or they'll expect you to keep doing that in the futute.") I'm NINETEEN! I'm a SALES GIRL! I AM NOT TRAINED FOR THIS! OF COURSE I AM GOING TO FAIL MISERABLY!!! This is NOT my main priority in life! I don't want to be worrying about this during the week! During the week I am an intelligent, capable, interesting, friendly and successful person with friends and interests and books and things to do and places to go! THIS IS WHERE I COME TO EARN THE MONEY TO GO TO THOSE PLACES! YOU ARE NOTHING TO ME EXCEPT A CASH MACHINE! I will do my job to the best of my ability. I will be polite and corteous to my customers and provide the service I am here to provide, because my job itself is actually reasonably enjoyable. BUT TREAT ME WITH SOME SORT OF DIGNITY OR I SWEAR TO GOD, ONE DAY YOU WILL ARRIVE AT ST VINCENT DE PAUL GLEBE AND FIND NOTHING BUT AN INCINERATED BUILDING AND A DERANGED TEENAGER SCREAMING "I DON'T WANT ANY MORE FUCKING DONATIONS!!!!!"


So that's another kind of stupidity.

And it's just...UGH. It makes me feel small and frustrated and wound up in knots that so much idiocy exists in this world. No wonder the human race is doomed. Obviously this kind of behaviour is going on everywhere, all the time, in all sectors of industry, from street cleaners to government. How utterly depressing.

Sigh. I think all is not lost, however. Because there are some non stupid people in this world. Me, for one. I mean, obviously if I were running the world everything would be better. People who are even less stupid than me are my friends, who are the best, and my family, who are pretty good, if only because they passed on their non stupid genes to me. And I know instinctively that there are a whole host of non stupid, very interesting people out there in the world, who I would love to meet. It's just a shame that all the stupid are preventing this from happening.

Fat

I feel fat today. Notice I said feel, not look, because I believe fatness is, or at least can be, an emotional state. I mean I don't think I look much fatter than usual - I just did an hour and a half's dance class so logically I should not look fatter than usual.
No, fat is definitely a state of mind. I have excess mental activity and deficient physical output. I am a thinker, for certain, but this detracts from my ability to be a doer. I am not by nature a doer. I don't do half the things I say I will, leaving me with a persistent sensation that I really could be the greatest thing in the world...if only I could be bothered.
What is it that prevents us from enacting all the amazing plans in our head? Why do nine out of ten of my friends rate "procrastination" as one of their primary talents? Why do we constantly sabotage ourselves from being better, doing better, feeling better?

My "to do list" runs from here to eternity, including items such as "Call IKEA" [see previous entry], "Change uni enrolments" and "Clean desk" right through to "Go for run!!" "Call Jenna!!!" [incredibly close friend who have not spoken to since New Year's] and "Book tickets for STC show!!!!!!" Why do I never do these things? Why are my days instead spent watching Friends reruns when there are things to be done, problems to be solved, lives to be lived?
What the fuck are we so afraid of?

The vagaries of IKEA

Anyone who knows me should probably know that one of my favourite places in the world is IKEA. I love the boxes. I love the way that everything goes cleverly with everything else. I love the fact that everything is labelled and indexed, leaving no room for confusion. I love the idea that with enough purchases, my life could stop being one endless search for keys/bobby pins/bank statements/meaning and instead be a luxurious and enjoyable wander through various stages of the day - cooking, studying, dressing, entertaining, travelling, etc.
Going to IKEA tends to make me feel pretty relaxed. I just like looking at all the pretty things. I find it soothing. And reassauring. I like telling myself that, one day, in the imaginary future, sometime around the time I become a respected actor and find myself in a loving and stable relationship and capable of paying bills on time, my house too will be a series of clean lines and well ordered magazines; extensive bookshelves and interesting art; comfortable couches and a wellstocked kitchen; clothes on hangers instead of my floor, and all the associated glory that comes with said.
However, after spending four hours in the place yesterday, surrounded by boxes of all shapes and colours, I think my passion has temporarily faded. For one thing, the whole reason I went to IKEA was to buy a desk. I knew which desk I wanted. (My next favourite thing to visiting IKEA is reading the catologue.) I went to the desk section. Damn desk is sold out. I mean, when does IKEA sell out of anything? Most discouraging. Then I bought a bedside table, and a lot of boxes, the uses of which are contingent on me building this bookshelf that I bought from IKEA sometime just after I came home - September probably. The bookshelf IN ITSELF is a WHOLE SEPERATE ISSUE (why did I get it in dark brown when everything else in my room is a pale beech colour???). And currently my room is just knee deep in boxes, packed and unpacked, of clothes that need to be altered, bookshelves that need to be created, photos that need to be stored and such a dazzling array of miscellaneous paperwork I hardly know what to do with myself.
The chasm (I think this is my new favourite word) between my dream home (compartmentalised) and the reality (shit spewing out of drawers and cupboards as though it were genetically mutated and trying to take over the world) is so depressing as to actually make me simply want to crawl into bed (IKEA sheets, naturally) surrounded by a pile of junk, and just...disappear.

Just hypothetically

What do you do when you think you know exactly how you want your life to go but you know that, essentially, it's not really up to you?
What if you can see all these amazing, perfect things in your hypothetical future?
What if none of them come true? What are you left with then? Were the dreams foolish? Or was it in fact you who was foolish for not chasing the damn dreams to begin with? For waiting for them to chase you?
This may seem like a solid contender to win the Statement of the Bleeding Obvious 2008 gold medal, but it is only really dawning on me - in a real, meaningful, fist in my gut sort of way - that I can't imagine my life into perfection. That creating conversations in my head does not lead to their eventuality. And that all I do by doing so is create an even greater and more dangerous chasm between reality and...whatever it is I think I'm headed towards.
It might not happen. It probably won't happen. But what will happen? And why does it scare me so much?

Blackwatch

I should have written this a week ago, when the emotional impact was still fresh in my mind and heart, but I think I couldn't write it last week when the emotional impact was still fresh in my mind and heart because it's literally taken me that long to absorb and process it.
As part of my New Year's "Be Involved" campaign (see entries below) I fought tooth and nail to get tickets to Blackwatch, one of two works by the National Theatre of Scotland being performed at CarriageWorks as part of the Sydney Festival. I literally managed to score the last single ticket left in Sydney. This production has already toured extensively around Europe and America and has received universally positive responses wherever it went, which is obviously part of the reason I was so intent on getting a ticket. On another, concurrent yet perverse level, however, it also made me sort of apprehensive, because I have had some bad experiences with art/theatre/literature/etc that is meant to be The Best Thing Ever and then is somewhat underwhelming (or, in the case of The God of Small Things, just plain hateful.) So I approached the performance - on Friday 25th of January - with excitement mixed with just the tiniest bit of cynicism - "surely no theatre is that good" and trepidation -"what if I'm the only person in the known universe to not like this show?"

Well. Suffice to say I shouldn't have troubled my pretty little head. I can safely put my hand on my heart and say it was one of, if not THE, most amazing peices of theatre I have ever seen and I am sure it is an experience that will stay with me throughout my hopefully long life in said industry.

Because the National Theatre of Scotland have unfortunately packed up and departed our fair shores without most of my constituents having been privy to this performance, I feel no hesitation in spelling out any plot details.

The play is derived from interveiws, conducted by the writer, with a particular group of soldiers who had left the Black Watch after being on a recent tour of duty in Iraq. The Black Watch is the oldest regiment in Scotland and possibly in Britain - important facts like this tend to escape me, go Google it or something. Anyway. So they're in Iraq. And these are tough, Scottish highland boys who want to be soldiers - who have been soldiers for many years - who have been to Iraq before, and Kosovo, and other places. They're not stupid. This is their job. They enjoy it and they're not expecting it to be easy. But from the begining of the play, we know they've left and they're not going back. Why?

The play explores this issue in conjuction with the fact that part way through their mission, the Black Watch - previously a distinct and distinguished and honoured regiment of the British Army - was being amalgamated into the general corps. So they're out there, in a desert, 42 men doing a job that hundreds of Americans had been doing before them, wondering why they're doing it, and then the one thing that they're fighting for - their identity as The Black Watch - is taken away from them.

Combining verbatim interveiws, fictional scenes, battle sequences, video projections and more expletives than even I could shake a stick at, Blackwatch is not really a political play. That is, it does not set out with a political agenda (and thank fuck, and someone should tell Australian thespians to sit up and take note that not all theatre has to Be About An Issue to be about an issue) but it cannot help but come to the conclusion that the Iraq war was and is a monumental fuckup. But more importantly, it is about the people. About why these men are fighting, and what it is like to be fighting. The characters refuse to be pigeonholed, which made it so unbelievably watchable. And emotional. And...connecting.

By the play's wrenching conclusion - the audience watches three characters blown to pieces by a suicide bomber and they fall, suspended on wires, from scaffolding, covered in blood, for a full minute - I felt truly bound to every person in that theatre and in that cast. I wanted to turn to the woman next to me and offer to give her a hug.

As a theatre student, you here a lot about actor-audiences conncections and the catharsis of theatre and all this sort of thing. You know, that truly great theatre involves the audience in a genuine and truthful moment and allows us to surrender ourselves to a different reality. That by allowing theatre to generate certain emotions within us we can feel a certain therapeutic release. You know the stuff. And it all sounds great in theory, on paper, in class. And sometimes you even get close, watching stuff in class or at the STC or wherever. But in the back of your head, you're thinking, it's probably just a little bit of crap. Theatre can't really change the world. This is a self indulgent art form. There will always be a point at which the audience stops and the stage begins.

Well, ladies and gents, I am here to tell you, it ain't so. It doesn't happen very often, but truly, there are diamonds in the sea of shit that theatre can be. Sitting there in this old warehouse, watching these young Scottish men mime the words of love letters, I truly believed that if I could make one other person feel as intensely as I did that night with any work I do in the theatre, life will have been just that little bit more worth it.

You know that feeling

When you sleep in, and there's no pressure to get up, and you can just lie in bed, undisturbed, and the sun is coming in through the windows, and there's a bit of a breeze as well, and you're just lying there, letting the day wash over you, letting the fact that you have nowhere to be just wash over you, this comforting thought that you are exactly where you want to be, just in this second, this moment in time, and you just feel this twinge of complete and utter happiness, and it's actually quite a scary, overpowering feeling, so whole and undiluted that for a second there you could actually cry you're so happy. Does anyone else ever get that? And you just want to laugh out loud because everything just seems so perfect and safe. And the only thing that could possibly, possibly make this moment better is someone to share it with.

Specktacular!

My dear darling cousin Naomi, being the kind and generous soul that she is, for Christmas/birthday bought my sister and I tickets to the Spicks and Speck'tacular - the live show of Spicks and Specks - at the Enmore Theatre on the 12th of January. It was a highly entertaining evening and was a brilliant remedy to my somewhat tired and work-weary mind. Adam Hills is a lovely fellow - very sedate and likeable while being funny at the same time. Good old Myf and Alan slot in nicely to the whole act too.
What DOESN'T slot in nicely are STUPID audience members who get up on stage (they played the game with audience members as contestants) and think they are funnier than the three professional funny people COMBINED and spend the entire evening trying to out do them, thinking that regular expletives and stupid dances will somehow win over the crowd. Sweeheart - NO ONE PAID $42.90 TO SEE YOU. GO HOME.

27 Dresses

Please don't expect me to make some sort of serious, mature, reasoned analysis of this film, because it's just not going to happen. Basically, Katherine Heigl is hot, James Marsden is hotter, the plot is of the "just add water" variety and everyone is happy in exactly the way you expect them to be by the end. It's not as clever as 10 Things I Hate About You but it's not as stupid as How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days. It was exactly what I felt like watching at the time and despite its predictability, the audience can't help but get involved in the emotional lives of the characters. There were even a few indignant gasps and shocked "Ooh"s from the audience, which I thought was nice. Like I said, Katherine Heigl is hot, plus she's also incredibly natural and likeable on screen - an actor playing a "normal girl" you can actually relate to. Her on-screen sister is a bit of a pain - a B-grade Cameron Diaz. There's a bit too much of lines like, "I'm not doing this with you right now", the likes of which positively grow like mould on American romantic comedies and infest my brain to the extent that they're the kind of ridiculous, meaningless things I say whenever I'm having relationship issues of my own. Stay for the closing credits - they're the most subtley entertaining part of the entire film. And, if all else fails, live for the 70% of minutes that this gorgeous, gorgeous man appears in:



















Mmmm. Yummy.

Entertainment

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was "To be involved." (The others were: To be more fiscally responsible, To be healthier, To be nicer, and To write in my journal [real one, not heartless electronic version].) Now, while the others are all fairly self explanatory, Being Involved is a multi-faceted resolution which covers many aspects of my life.
At a recent audition, I was subjected to an hour long lecture about the importance of being aware and involved in the various artistic and cultural activities that take place around us every day - to see plays and movies and concerts and read books and hear lectures and to generally to be a well informed and interesting person, so as to better enrich one's mind and therefore create better art. This made perfect sense to me. Unfortunately, while I generally like to think of myself as a well informed and interesting person, the fact is that I have only seen about four movies in the last twelve months and one of those was Bee Movie. What's worse is that when anyone asks me what good movies I've seen/books I've read recently I tend to go completely blank and wind up mumbling something about "Well, I haven't seen it yet, but I heard Elizabeth is meant to be good..."
Thusly, my Be Involved resolution includes, amongst other things, seeing more good movies and reading more good books and seeing plays and other culturally and academically enriching activities - and probably by association, I should give up giving over huge chunks of my time to watching things like Friends and Gray's Anatomy.
So I don't wind up forgetting everything and embarassing myself at the next audition (having to admit to NIDA that I haven't seen a single Australian film all year was NOT an experience I care to repeat, even if I did try to explain that I wasn't IN the country for nine months) I'm going to write it all down. Here. I'll be like my own little Margaret and David.

2007 - A Year in Review

Things I Learnt in 07

1. That to love someone and leave them anyway is hard.
2. That to live your life for someone else's benefit is wrong.
3. That long haul economy flights are, simply put, slow painful torture that we pay a lot of money for.
4. That daylight as a source of happiness is not to be underestimated.
5. That living with strangers is a gamble which does not always pay off.
6. That the amount of money you spend on your child's education rises in direct proportion to how spoilt, ignorant, boorish, bigoted, poncy and unaware of the real issues in the world they will turn out in the end.
7. That I was blessed with quite extraordinary friends throughout high school, the likes of which do not always exist in large groups in the real world.
8. That London is a truly amazing city.
9. That the Oyster card is a truly amazing invention.
10. That red wine can give you a TRULY awful hangover.
11. That family are your greatest blessing and curse.
12. That who you were friends with in high school is irrelevant.
13. That a lot of the stuff you thought defined you in high school means nothing to complete strangers.
14. That children are the greatest source of humour and wisdom.
15. That if Italy were any more Italian, it would have to explode with the sheer post-modernity of itself.
16. That I speak with my hands for a reason.
17. That I am an Italian citizen.
18. That independence and loneliness are only a frozen pizza away from each other.
19. That I want more out of my life than mediocrity.
20. That I will not be deterred despite naysayers.
21. That I am actually quite proud of Australia, despite its many, many faults.
22. That MSN is a hugely inadequate medium for communicating emotion. Actually, you would have thought I had learnt that in 2006 but apparently not.
23. That you can only offer a drowning man a raft - he must grab hold for himself.
24. That Paris is NOT always fun, OK?
25. That I love Shakespeare and it's probably just as well he's dead or I would be one of those creepy literary stalker-crush girls.
26. That all-female workplaces are a health hazard.
27. That normally reasonable people turn into bizarre monsters when they have children.
28. That one must confront life, rather than shrink from it.
29. That a companion makes the most mundane things enjoyable.
30. That if you want something badly enough, you can ignore any manner of disastrous weather conditions.
31. That all Scandinavians are cool.
32. That trains are fabulous places for reading, thinking, talking and eating, but generally NOT for sleeping.
33. That if Europe were a giant playground, all the cool kids would be in the sandpit, building their own little world.
34. That you should pack nothing in a suitcase for an overseas trip, as you will merely want to buy doubles of everything you already own, simply because it is from overseas and therefore much cooler.
35. That I am an emotional spender.
36. That I am an emotional eater.
37. That most Australians who one meets in Europe in Summer are twats.
38. That even when you think you're over it, you're probably not.
39. That you should SLEEP WITH YOUR FUCKING VALUABLES UNDER YOUR FUCKING PILLOW. For God's sake, how stupid do I want to be?
40. That Amsterdam is the best place in the world to forget your troubles.
41. That you can be anyone you want to be.
42. That true friends will not be fazed by who you become.
43. That you can know a person five minutes and feel you've known them a lifetime.
44. That you can know a person for a lifetime and feel you don't know them at all.
45. That you should reach out to people with whom you have seemingly little in common, BUT
46. That if you have reached and reached and reached repeatedly over six months and still gotten nothing back...it's probably because you actually do have nothing in common.
47. That five girls in a room can be fun in a STRICTLY NON-PORNO way.
48. That six months is long enough for a place to become a home.
49. That six SECONDS in New York is long enough to decide you want to give up any previous intentions in life and decide to move to some brownstone in Greenwich Village.
50. That BANKS FUCKING SUCK.
51. That people in New York are all extras from Friends or Seinfeld or Sex in the City.
52. That you do not have to like your extended family.
53. That LA is sort of surreal.
54. That you can never come home.
55. That things do not freeze in time, and that people will move on with their lives without you.
56. That this hurts, even though you know it shouldn't.
57. That you can put the past behind you and move on.
58. That dull work and overactive imaginations do not mix.
59. That when opportunity arises, you must seize it.
60. That old friendships never die.
61. That simple pleasures are the best.
62. That I might possibly have a substance abuse problem...with clothing.
63. That I want the whole world to be spectacular.
64. That I believe in the possibility of better things.
65. That no one can take that away from me.
66. That you should take true friends' appraisals of your personal faults very seriously.
67. That Sydney is a beautiful city, with an appalling public transport system.
68. That it is too easy to fall out of contact with people.
69. That the term "catching up" is evil and is used as a substitute for having actual, continuous relationship with people you used to see every day.
70. That when you arrive people will leave.
71. That with privilege comes responsibility.
72. That all people are deserving of our respect and hospitality.
73. That I write too many lists.
74. That it can only get better from here.