Japanese Tea Garden
posted on March 9, 2010 by Michelle
7:38 PM | Link to this Entry | Comments (1) | Old Jam - 2009 2008 2002
Lonely Planet
posted on March 4, 2010 by Michelle
I've been trying to tell you something for a while now. Something that oughtn't be this difficult to share. You'll be happy for me, you'll probably even begin to hope for more frequent updates. That might be a false hope - we'll have to wait until the fat lady sings.
I'm sitting at Sydney International Airport awaiting my flight to Japan.
That sounds awfully exotic ( I flew up here today from Melbourne with the lovely Qantas people) and while it is, it's just the beginning. After I spend a little bit of time soaking in the sake and taking bad photos of tiled roofs, I'll be boarding another plane. This time to fly across the Pacific from Narita to the USA.
Yes, I'm coming to America. (if I were Willo I'd say "Brace yourself bitches!")
I'm visiting San Francisco to get my brows waxed.
I'm driving to Las Vegas to shoot guns.
I'm going to SXSW - Rosie? How could I think of this place and not think of you - I'm going to Austin! Texas for the rest of yous. don't worry, if you thought I was a dork at Webstock with Russell Brown, wait til I'm in the same room as Ze Frank. At least I have an outside chance Ze will think my accent is charming, Russell just knew I was drunk.
Then, then THEN.. hold on to your hat, Rosie (and Todd who doesn't read this blog but if he did and if he was wearing a hat it would blow OFF within the next second) I'm going to see Kiki in NYC.
No, really. Kiki. Me. NYC. It's gonna be like Devonport all over again but with more wine and better shoes! and more expensive!!
Is that even possible... it's been so long coming and 2010 has been a personal mountain of crap so far. So.. so.. so can't even tell you how crap.
I am not happy with this post - I may well delete it in the morning. Wesley? where's my neck pillow and my book light?!
9:24 PM | Link to this Entry | Comments (10) | Old Jam - 2009Wednesday Matinée
posted on March 3, 2010 by Michelle
2:00 PM | Link to this Entry | Comments (2) | Old Jam - 2009 2008 2006 2004
Movies vs Real Life
posted on February 28, 2010 by Michelle
I was unsuccessfully looking around for the sign for the Women's bathroom. Fox said it was upstairs; one staff member asked me if he could help; the other staff member was talking to the first staff member about a bucket - all at the same time. This was confusing, "I just want to WASH MY HANDS!" The first staff member said I was welcome to use the downstairs toilet for disabled patrons. I thanked him and went through to wash my hands.
Fox, Willo and I had spent the afternoon with The Scots and friends celebrating Charlie's first birthday and had decided to drop into the Belgian Beer Cafe to buy Charlie her first beer. Being the efficient worker-bees we are, we also decided to take the recycling out as we were to pass the bins along the way. I like washing my hands in general, and more so in the time between touching trash bins and putting my hands anywhere near my mouth. I needed to lather-up with increasing urgency and rid my skin of recycling germs before I ordered my drink.
I wasn't entirely sure which door I needed to go through, but I took my best guess and felt comfortable with my choice as entered the spacious white-tiled bathroom - noticing there was tons of room for a wheelchair I must have picked the correct door.
Half way between the door and the basins though I realised that 'extra wide door' to the right was not necessarily for wheelchairs, but for able-bodied people wanting access to the next thing I saw: the urinals. I was, in fact, in the Men's toilet and then I realised the second urinal from the left being utilised.
The man standing at the urinal glanced over his shoulder and clocked me - that slight action made me feel the option to leave was no longer available. It was as if I had been seen, so I could no longer be unseen. I had to carry on. Yes, that's exactly how it works. Those are the rules!
I apologised and started seriously concentrating on washing my hands as quickly as possible. He said it was okay. He said he didn't mind. Failing to rinse my now-soapy hands fumbling with stupid flip-taps that wouldn't just run the water without being held in the 'on' position - I had to hold the handle up with one hand and try to wash the germs off with my the other hand - stupid taps!
Shaking off the water and keeping my eyes to the floor _TO_THE_FLOOR_ I turned and cursed to see there was only a hand dryer and no paper towels. Drying machines take too long, _too_long_. I pushed my hands underneath the nozzle and it began slowly drying my wringing hands in the jet of warmish air.
The man had finished in the urinal section now. He had washed his hands and was now wanting to use the hand dryer too. I thought he's wait his turn - there must be some sort of air-dryer etiquette - and if there is I'm sure that sharing a hand-dryer is considered poor form. He pushed his hands into the air stream between mine and the source and looked at me and said "So, how're you doing?"
"Obviously not well," I said "I'm a woman in the Men's toilet."
"That's okay, I don't mind in fact, I quite like it."
And this, people: this is my life. My life is not a movie.
If this was a movie I'd be some quirky square peg in a round hole who is stupid-smart, good at math and creative up to the eyeballs. I'd buys clothes from second-hand shops, pairing items together in an unique way but I can manage to pull off and look wonderful. He would have been some intelligent, good looking guy who is bored with the string of main-stream vapid blondes he'd been touting around town and is instantly fascinated by the quirky girl who had stumbled into this bathroom, and spends the rest of the evening (not hanging around in the toilet - out in the bar, walking along the waterfront, riding the ferris-wheel) kinda fighting a bit, laughing a lot and falling in love.
No. No, my life is not a movie.
Mine is a real life. It's full of recycled germs and wrong turns. It stars a middle aged, over-weight, under made-up woman with her badly cut hair dragged into a pony tail. She is a woman who, while knowing that 'Homme' means 'male' in French, will still barrel into the a toilet marked as such and not even have the where-with-all to slam it into reverse and get the hell out of there when the truth is revealed. She is the type of person who will commit to a course of action which ends up standing next to a creepy, unattractive stranger who is touching her semi-dry hands with his wet post-peeing-penis hands under the same warm-ish air from a bathroom hand dryer.
2:20 PM | Link to this Entry | Comments (9) | Old Jam - 2009 2008 2006 2005 2004Wednesday Matinée
posted on January 20, 2010 by Michelle
2:00 PM | Link to this Entry | Comments (2) | Old Jam - 2009 2008 2006 2005 2002
Wednesday Matinée
posted on January 6, 2010 by Michelle
2:00 PM | Link to this Entry | Comments (1) | Old Jam - 2006 2005 2004 2000
I will go awn
posted on January 5, 2010 by Michelle
I was talking to a colleague today about James Cameron's AVATAR topping the US$1bn mark and noting that it only had to earn another US$600,000,000 to become the second largest money making movie ever - the first being Titanic - and that was one of his too.
She scoffed and said that Titanic was the worst movie she had ever seen. EVER. And the main reason for that was because of Leonardo diCaprio who, at that stage of his career, she said, still hadn't learned to act. Which I thought was a bit harsh - especially in a world were they still let Nicolas Cage make movies.
Her broad, sweeping statement about a movie that is clearly (millions of unmarked dollar bills: clearly) beloved by millions of fans, got my hackles up - which is weird because I'm not a Titanic fan (the movie, not a reference to my size) nor do I have actual hackles anymore - but I've seen such films as Deep Blue Sea and The Phantom of the Opera (7.2 IMDB? really??) so I know a thing or two about bad movies.
And there's a lesson in this story for everyone - don't interact with colleagues. Just don't. It never ends well and you won't get the mileage out of your hackles you were hoping for when you had them fitted.
[Blogger's Aside: I started remembering Phantom and comparing it to Titanic and now I'm losing feeling in my legs, there's a strange white light and I think.. is that, Uncle Jack??
SNAP OUT OF IT MICHELLE - you can't die from thinking about bad movies...
or.. can you?
(okay that doesn't work so well without the spooky music to accentuate the tension)]
ALSO: I apologise for not having a point to this blog post. My hackles didn't really rise that much either - I did find myself becoming defensive of Titanic, feeling I needed to rescue it from my colleagues opinion. Then I realised the highest earning movie of all time really doesn't need the help of someone who didn't really like it much to begin with. That behemoth was big enough to take on all-comers.
9:35 PM | Link to this Entry | Comments (1) | Old Jam - 2005 2004
