take out your diary
Mark it down - today I got my first late-November sunburn.
You can see exactly where my tank top and cardigan stopped. I look like I'm wearing a red dickie.
What we learned today about skin care:
1. The sunscreen in my face moisturizer does work.
2. One's skin will turn red after 5 hours in the sun without sunscreen.
3. Neutrogena's After-Sun Skin Care Soy Lotion smells really nice.
Christine, Sarah, and I spent a lovely day in St Kilda with Ali and her father, who got in last night. We perused the stock of every bakery, talked to every dog that passed us on the sidewalk, bought fun crap at the arts and crafts market, ate, watched kite/parachute surfers on the beach, and walked through Luna Park (the carnival) and ate carnival candy.
In other news: we booked part of our queensland holiday up to the great barrier reef and environs. So it's official: after years of my sister getting to have outdoor birthday parties with swimming and slip'n'slide and balloon tosses, I will finally be having a summer birthday party. It is going to be on a 82' racing yacht, snorkling around tropical islands. There will be no jackets or scarves or hot cocoa in sight. There will, however, be lots of sunscreen.
ohmigoodness
Today I had a meeting with the Artistic Director at La Mama here in Melbourne.
In March, I'm going to be performing a piece I wrote.
The original La Mama is in NYC. The La Mama here comes out of that theatre.
La Mama well-known on the Australian theatre scene and I have no idea why they are letting me in. (Okay, yeah, I think it has something to do with my thesis advisor who knows
everyone.)
My thing is just a small, one-off, quicky evening, basically so I can fulfill part of the creative component I'm doing for my thesis.
Craziness.
Info on the theatres:
La Mama (Australia) There are "About La Mama/History" sections, etc
La Mama (US) The New Yawky stuff
Christmas in July...in December...well, in the summer
Oh gawd, there is an awful commercial here where this perky, obnoxious woman says, "Wouldn't it be great if all you had to worry about were the prezzies?" PREZZIES!? Remember on Pee Wee's Playhouse when someone said the secret word of the day, everyone screamed? It's kinda like that here whenever this commericial comes on.
Now, it's common for the Aussies to abreviate words. Breakfast becomes brekky. Tasmania becomes Tassie (pronounced with 'z's). Biscuits become bikkies - though I'm not sure why they ignore the 's'). The Salvation Army is the Salvo. So okay, they shorten words. Fine. That's fun. But "prezzies" is not okay. It just grates on your nerves like hearing the perky kids singing Barney songs on tv. And it's not like it shortens the number of syllables you have to say.
So anyway, without Thanksgiving here to slow the onslaught of Christmas advertising, our summer Christmas season is gearing up. There are stars and banners hanging across downtown shopping area streets. There are window displays and appliance sales. There are commercials for the perfect Christmas gift: flip-flops and beach wear. Why not have a Christmas backyard barbeque? And yet, Santa is still all bundled up in his usual garb - though I'd bet money that I see a Santa in sandals before the season is over.
Yesterday at dinner (White Lotus - vegetarian asian cuisine), May was telling us how her mother has grown a Christmas tree in the backyard, a little pine tree that only comes up a few feet. So she said how they put the presents out under the tree. Later, Christine, Sarah, and I were talking about it, and realized we were having the same thought: Outside? But don't they get all wet and soggy? - And the answer is no, they don't. Because Christmas is in the summer here, which we eventually remembered. Break out the yuletide sunscreen.
The Socceroos
For 32 years, the Aussies have been trying to get into the World Cup Series in soccer. For 32 years they have failed. For a country that is so serious about sports, being bad at one sport for such a long time is quite upsetting to them.
Wednesday night, Christine, Eric, and I went to the Stork (our local) to hear the live folk-rock guy that was supposed to start at 9pm. When we walked in around 9:30ish, the guy was sitting on the stage writing with a marker on some paper. He was not on a break. He hadn't started yet. The soccer game had gone long and was still on. It was the weirdest thing - we walked into the pub and it was completely silent and everyone was staring at the screen. Everyone, except for lead singer of the band who was still sitting on the floor of the stage, writing with the marker. We made our way easily up to the bar (no one was moving, so we could walk straight to it), got our drinks, and found an open two-seater for the three of us to squeeze into.
Pretty soon, there were screams and cheers again when things would happen in the game. I'm not sure I've heard, "Come on, Aussie!" so many times in such a short period. If you have the opportunity, you need to watch sporting events with the Aussies. They make the funniest comments that don't all necessarily make sense, but they're said with feeling. Anyway, they beat Uruguay in the overtime shootout penalty kicks, and the place went nuts.
Christine and I were most excited because we got our first live "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! - Oi! Oi! Oi!" since we've been here. The place cleared out a bit after the game. Anyone who might have enjoyed the band probably needed to go home by the time the game ended at 11. They played a short set because by then, the pub had to close for the weekday curfew at midnight, or something.
Oh, and yes, "The Socceroos" is their official name. Seriously.
Aussies end 32 years of heartbreakIn other sports news: I picked up a Powerade the other day, feeling a little low on my electrolites. The flavor I found is something you'd only see here: Wallaby Gold Rush. (Speaking of, one of these days we're going to go to one of the old gold mining towns around here. I'll letcha know if
I find anything.)
There was an old woman who lived without orange shoes...
You know how sometimes when you go to turn on a faucet for the first time and the water pressure is all wrong, and you turn the handle too much, and the water just comes crashing out, splurting all over everything, so you shut it off real fast, but it's too late because everything is all wet already?
That's how it's raining right now. Except we don't have a handle to turn it off.
We're very aware this evening of having a tin roof over the ceiling.
In other news: I bought some black market envelops off a surly guy working at a 7-11 last night. Yes, I could have bought the envelops earlier in the day when the Post shop was open, but that just didn't happen. I found shops still open to sell me comforters, tupperware, canned meats, generic perfume, and printer cartridges. But no envelops. Sometimes a woman has to take these matters into her own hands and go underground. For envelops.
And in other, other news: Christine and I spent approximately seven hours shoe shopping a couple days ago. In fact, it took us four and a half of those hours to get to the first shoe store. We were looking for gym shoes and hit a string of outlets on Sydney Rd. Funny thing about feet here in Australia - they only come in whole sizes. I wear a size 6.5 shoe. You can see where this is going. Christine found gym shoes. I found nothing, but not for lack of trying. Actually, I found a cute pair of orange trainers. Brazilian. Very exotic. And I don't have a pair of orange shoes. Well, I don't have a pair of
entirely orange shoes. Christine didn't let me buy them. Lets all thank Christine because I really don't need a pair of orange sneakers. They were cute, though...
poms vs bogans
I've realized I can now hear the difference between Australian and English accents. Now, I could decently guess before I came here, but I was never really sure. They sounded similar enough, right?
But now, watch out. I can separate the tea-drinkers from the...uh...other tea-drinkers.
Usually.
The issue comes in sometimes with middle-aged and older Aussies, who were sometimes instructed in the "proper and educated" way to speak, which meant English, especially in the theatre.
Bonus round: I can usually hear the difference between Aussies and Kiwis. But Oz and NZ have a very similar relationship to that of the US and Canada. read: lots of jokes, often involving sheep for the Kiwis, and well, beer-drinking idiots for the Aussies. Okay, so there aren't ridiculous amounts sheep in Canada...but they do have moose. And plaid. And hosers, eh.
world's best invention: in your frozen food aisle - or - more than you wanted to know about where I put my feet
For all you crazy kids in the Northern Hemisphere, it's going into summer here. I am sitting in a gauzy (read: see-through) skirt and tank top. It's very much an "inside the house where no one will see me" outfit, but the weather calls for it. A few days ago it got HOT. It got hot for the first time, really, so we weren't prepared. I was wearing an outfit very similar to the one I'm in now. And we were trying to maximize the cross breeze that the realtor wouldn't stop going on and on about. After we all separately asked Sarah if her bedroom shades were open in front of the screen (they were), I realized it was time to put in the screen for my window, maximizing the potential for wind-tunnel gusts. (Sarah's room and my room are at one end of the first floor and the living room, with its big windows, are at the opposite side of the apartment. What does that spell? Cross breeze.)
Why didn't I put the screen in earlier? Am I lazy? Maybe. Am I a jerk? Perhaps. Do I just like the heat? Definitely not. The problem was that there was a whole spider civilization attached to the window. I am not a fan of spiders. Before I get any comments on the subject, yes, I know I'm bigger than they are, and yes, I know they're more afraid of me than I am of them, but just stuff it, because we all know that those are just lies that we tell ourselves before the big, scary spider jumps from its web and eats my face off. However, in the name of the cross breeze, I sucked it up and opened the window.
I moved my books and papers from below the window, so I could have maximum movement possibilities. With a box of tissues and a bag to put them in, I began grabbing the webs attached to the window. They were also stuck in the corners and up high. It may have happened that once or twice or seven times, I yelled loud enough to bring the roommates running to see if, in fact, my face was being eaten off. I promise you, the yelling came naturally and I would have stopped the impulse if I could have. But when the breeze blows just as you are picking up a handful of nastiness and you feel it creeping all over your skin, with its bug carcases and fly wings and possibly other unknown things still alive, umm, ew! you might yell also. For the up-too-high things and big-alive-pinchy things, I recruited Eric the Brave, who compassionately set free the living spiders to find alternate dwellings.
With the screen in place (and me in a change of clothes because who knows what got on me in all that mishagas), our cross breeze was free to, umm, breeze. Standing in certain spots, it was great. In general, though, it was just too hot. So before I boiled over, I was rescued by the invention that has impacted many a life. Not the microwave, not the tv, not Freaky Freezy mittens. It was, my friends, the bag of frozen peas. Oh gawd, had I but world enough and time I would amaze and astound you with its feats of glory. But let me just say, for a headache, a sore knee, or a hot day, there is nothing better than a bag of frozen peas.*
I wet a washcloth, put it over the peas, and put the two on a plastic bag on the floor and set my feet to it.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Best thing ever.
*Idiot tip: Slam the bag on the kitchen floor before use to break up the peas. The brilliant little things will perfectly mold to the shape. And a big frozen block is just kinda painful. Frozen broccoli is less useful. Corn niblets are fine, but the peas will last longer in the freezing and refreezing process. Do not eat.
You want a tort with that?
To my be-fri Christine, a smart, kind, and terribly clear-sighted person, who won't let me sign up for Hamburger U.
or law school. same difference.
Thanks.
