All I want for Christmas...



A couple of weeks out from the looming festive season, the questioning begins:


'What are a few of the top things on your wishlist for Christmas?'

'What would you be upset about not getting for Christmas?'


And finally, desperately;


'What is it, specifically, that you want for Christmas?'


The first present buying occasion in any relationship is always fraught, particularly if that first occasion happens to be Christmas, when, let's face it, gift giving is kind of a competition. (If not to see who loves who more, then at least to see who is the better listener.)


The thing about my ghosts of Christmas past (or at least the past three years) is that the day seems to come and go in a blur. School screeches to a halt on or around December 23rd, I get on a plane, December 24 gets sucked into the Space-Time Continuum, Christmas morning I emerge from the plane dazed, confused and in need of febreezing, varying kinds of roast meat get eaten, varying qualities of wine imbibed, jetlag crash lands, and the whole thing is over for another year.


As might be evident from the lack of updates, the lead up this year was no exception. In fact, if possible, it might have been the busiest semester ever, and one particularly loaded with a sense of finality; last Fall, last year, last degree.... unless of course this acting thing doesn't work out and I decide to study medicine. Suffice to say, the last three months induced the kind of nauseating, weight-loss causing stress that made my Christmas wish list pretty short.



1. Sleep.


(Please!)



With just 48 hours between finishing classes and getting on a cramped plane to clean my apartment for subletters, pack, Christmas shop, take in Broadway's latest, hottest offering and catch up with some very dear Irish friends in town for a short visit, it seemed a tall order, even for Santa.


Then, something amazing happens. Due to 'weather', and the craziness of Christmas time, our plane is almost three hours late getting out of JFK, and thus lands at LAX fifteen minutes after the ever faithful QF 94 is due to depart for Melbourne. Fifty-two disgruntled passengers suddenly find themselves being rebooked on QF 108 to Sydney, and in the blink of an eye, losing their respective Christmas lunches. Instead of arriving at 9am, we will now arrive into Tullamarine on a domestic flight from Sydney at 1.30pm, Christmas Day.


According to my body, it's about 5am, and all I want in the world is a window to pass out against. The lady handing out boarding passes, is, however, decidedly lacking in Christmas spirit, and hands me my non-negotiable ailse seat ticket on the now packed flight 108 to Sydney.


I walk away with my tail between my legs and as I go I hear the two Australian gents behind me ask for 'the manager'. When I finally return from making a rather pitiful phone call back to the only person in New York who will abide my 5am whimpers, the announcement comes that those passengers originally bound for Melbourne should wait behind as the others boarded. Irrationally I feel nervous, like I've just been paged to the principal's office - though I was never in trouble back then, so why now should be any different I'm not sure. The same two men seem to know what's going on. They stand right by me, not saying much, yet filled with the tension of a secret, as if holding tightly to the Christmas wish that dare not speak its name. I don't say anything either. If what I think is going on is indeed going on, I don't want to be the one to break the spell.


Then, without much pomp or ceremony, in fact, I would say almost begrudgingly, we are called up in groups of three and handed brand new boarding passes - that is we are handed BUSINESS CLASS boarding passes. I snatch mine and run onto the plane, before they can change their minds.


As I huff and puff with my overstuffed carry-on luggage up the narrow stairs to the top section of the 747 (orignally designed and utilised as a bar/happening nightclub for international jetsetters) an impossibly fresh air hostess looking down from above informs me with a wide smile that 'it's worth the climb'.


And it is. As I settle myself into front-right window seat 11K, and take out my phone to put in yet another (this time elated) status report to Manhattan, the gifts just keep on coming. First a glass of non-vintage French champagne, (before even taking off, business class passengers get to celebrate the achievement of, I suppose, just managing to be them.) As I sip, I ponder the myriad of choices for breakfast, and tick the appropriate boxes on the form (so I won't be disturbed during the 'evening').


I almost giddily accept my complimentary Morrissey pajamas and sleep socks, as well as the toiletries' pack including the four-part organic herbal extract high-altitude skincare regime. It's now nearly 6am, so I can't say I'm hungry, however I also seem to have lost my power to say no.


I choose the recommended 'healthier choice' Sea-Bass for dinner, with the Margaret River Chardonnay, and for dessert a Baileys on the Rocks and a screening of 'No Reservations' on my private TV. (Not sure what it is, but something about the thin air seems to diminish my capacity to choose quality films.)


Then, the most magical part of all, with clean teeth, glowing skin and in my 'jammies, I press the button that indicates my chair will coordinate itself in a 'horizontal' fashion, climb under my natural fiber blanket, secure my eye mask and lay my head down on my soft, soft pillow.


And I sleep.


It's the first time I've ever found myself wishing the fourteen hour flight home were longer.


Renee Zellweger has a line in the movie Jerry Maguire:


'First class; it used to be about a better seat, now it's a better life.'


I'm not sure that's true. I'm pretty sure the best of life is still that which you get to spend with loved ones on either side of the epic journey across the Pacific. I will say however, that Business class most definitely represents a better sleep, and that perhaps I arrive a better (certainly better smelling) person in time for a most lovely and far more conscious Christmas dinner.





I should finish by saying that a few days before I left, unprompted, I received the entire series of 'Sex and the City' on DVD, neatly packaged in a hot pink velvet case for Christmas... so I think it's fair to say, he wins.

all about me

It was pointed out to me very recently that I have not updated this once optimistically prolific blog since July. So, it has gone the way of most of the journals in my life. (Much to the dismay of my irritatingly disciplined father who has kept a faithful diary, every day of every year of his life since 1964. Evidence below.)






That same irritating father also likes to wax lyrical about 'writing tomorrow's history
today'.... so in the spirit of that. Here I go again.

Tonight, I write, from the east. East Village, that is. I have been nominally 'housesitting' for Dan (see below) while he has been visiting family for a belated Thanksgiving in Kentucky.

By housesitting I mean enjoying having an apartment to myself that has food in the fridge, vodka in the liquor cabinet and (in recent times) Sex and the City recorded on the DVR every time it pops up on television.

Dan's apartment is a twenty minute walk from mine. Almost the same latitude, but a
long way away from the west village. A whole mindset away.

'Tis an interesting thing shifting neighborhoods in New York. For such a tiny island it manages to engender strange loyalties and comfort zones within very small radii. In fact, my friend Jane and I, who for most of the last two years lived three minutes from one another, had different coffee shops, different laundromats and different pharmacies. We did manage to come together, however, at the same bar.

Day five into housesitting, I did have to see about some laundry. An almost traumatic experience, as today, rather late in the year, marked the first snow of the season. And in my limited experience, the first snow is best enjoyed in pajamas, inside. I have however, ventured out once or twice. And here are the differences I have so far noted about the Village de East.

1. Laundromats are bountiful, and are predominantly self service. They are only marginally cheaper than the lovely korean ladies on my block, who both wash and dry for me, however, it did give me a perverse sense of satisfaction to do my own laundry for the first time since December 2005.

2. Manicures can be achieved in the East Village for $6. ($2.00 less than I am yet to achieve in the West).

3. Nail salons are very conveniently located to laundromats.

4. Bars have pool tables. And fewer wankers.

5. Sidewalks (footpaths) are wider, but on a Saturday night can just easily become overcrowded with wankers.... presumably heading west.

Five is probably enough for now. Hopefully this anthropological migration will last long enough for me to manage some actual insight.

Meanwhile the end of school looms. New heashots have been taken. (Sample below). Agents are being targetted. Commercialism and 'Schmoozing' have become part of the common parlance.

Hopefully you will hear again before May. But if not... that's when the sun rises over the new world. Whether it will be in the east or west.... or indeed northern or southern hemisphere... remains to be seen.

QF 94

I love airports. There is something timeless about them. And I don't mean timeless like Audrey Hepburn and Carey Grant. I'm talking about 'in the moment' timelessness, in that at any moment it could be any time at all. No one knows where you have been or where you are going. Whether forty-five minutes ago you jumped in a cab from Manhattan, or if you are eight hours into a thirty-two hour journey from Toronto to Melbourne. In practical terms, no matter what time of day it is, in an airport you can always plonk yourself at a bar and order a drink without fear of retribution, on the very solid basis that it is always happy hour somewhere in the world. This makes airports particularly good for introspection. (If particularly bad for drinking problems).

I write from Melbourne, having recently navigated the twenty-four hour trip home for the second time in six months. The flying visit was a whim of my mother's, and a very timely one. General good sense has it that Manhattan is a city to be loved from afar over the summer, and while two weeks of the Melbourne winter should be more than enough to ready me for my final year of grad school, I have to confess that mum's special brand of red wine, open fires, clothes shopping and green tea and sympathy for the soul, will be hard to leave. (Not that she really approves of the green tea... only tolerates it, barely).

In fairness, summer and the city are not without their charms. A day trip to Coney Island, a private jet for a long weekend boating on Lake Squam in New Hampshire, Romeo and Juliet in Central Park really just a few of the highlights in a very long list of the joys of having some time to enjoy Manhattan without school. (Of course, I would also include a trip to Home Depot to buy supplies to build shelves very near the top of that list, so perhaps I am not so very discerning.)

However the last few weeks also brought the end of romance, which seems most unfair since all the good love songs tell me summer is exactly the time for enjoying love and all its accoutrements. In this way, it is appropriate that I have abandoned summer in New York for the much more moody Melbourne winter. Much like happy hours, somewhere in the world, there can always be found a season to match your internal weather forecast.

In spite of its source inspiration, I think I'll resist the urge to turn this update into a relationship column - it seems to me 'Facebook' does a much more clinical job of filling people in. At the click of a button you can update yourself from 'In a relationship' to 'Single'. If only.

Oh I guess that means I am now on Facebook. It is very bizarre. And very addictive. I am convinced it is Big Brother's way of watching. Nonetheless. More regular, and believe it or not more banal, updates can be found there.

Eau de 'New York'


Yes that's me. Yes, in a bikini. Yes, in June. (I know for Australians the sun without the Christmas presents and New Year's Day hangover can be a difficult concept). Yes, I am the whitest person you know. No - despite Nicole Kidman's best efforts - porcelain is not the new black.



So this shot was taken a couple of weeks ago at a pool party at the shoe mansion. I know... it makes my summer look like a never-ending par-tay, in manner of reality TV shows Laguna Beach, or Girls Gone Wild. In fact it was more like; Foreign girl goes to Long Island overnight to escape increasingly disconcerting stench infiltrating the streets of Manhattan - but that doesn't quite have the same ring to it.


Summer looms ahead. Another three months, and for the most part an amorphous, unstructured inconceivable amount of time yet to be 'gainfully employed'.


To alleviate acute withdrawal I am putting in as many hours as bearable at the admissions office. A windowless, unairconditioned room that has the dubious distinction of being the one space in Manhattan smaller than my apartment. It's days like these I dream of being a Trust Fund Baby. Still my friends are there. The internet is there. And the paycheck I receive every two weeks largely depends on my being there every now and again.


Every other now and again I escape for an audition, or to the gym, or to a new babysitting job at an apartment on the Upper West Side that has the actual distinction of being a gorgeous, air-conditioned, obscenely large, cable-fitted, help yourself to anything in the fridge type apartment in a building inhabited by New York royalty types, where I do nothing but eat leftovers and catch up on Law and Order: SVU.


I had been warned about the New York summer. Words like unbearable, hideous, and pungent were oft bandied around in April and May, but as a bona fide summer lovin' Aussie I wondered how bad it could possibly be. And the truth is, not that bad. Except, occasionally and often without warning, for the smell. And that it has only been 13 days of said summer.


In regards to the smell, it doesn't help that I live in the west village, which suffers a daily hangover from being party central (just the other night, as I wandered home from babysitting, the window on a stretch limo in front of my building slid down and the male occupant oh so temptingly shouted, 'Hey you! Wanna party?'... how could I refuse? Very easily mum - I promise!). Ahem... it also doesn't help that Zay's place in Bushwick is opposite what is euphemistically referred to as a 'Transfer Plant'. Fortunately his loft is on the other side of the building, but the walk to and from the subway requires some serious alternative breathing methods.


Speaking of Zay (though that was probably not the most auspicious segue I could have dreamed up)... I seem to recall promising a photo. So here goes:



This was taken at 'Drama Proma' - end of school year celebrations. Open bar. Enough said. He leaves for a summer teaching job in California on July 5th, so there is some talk of my visiting La La land this summer. As a carrot I have been promised roller coasters and the Pacific Ocean. Now that is tempting...

Thursday Night

At Melbourne University I took a creative writing class called 'Journals, Diaries, Autobiography'. The professor had a favourite line, 'Begin with now...' she would say. When in doubt, 'begin with now'.

To begin with now:

It is 8.03pm. I am sitting alone in a converted loft apartment in an area of Brooklyn the hipsters call 'East Williamsburg', and those too cool to be hip acknowledge as what it is; 'Bushwick'.

I am drinking my second glass of Cavit pinot grigio. Cheap at double the price.

An ice cream truck keeps driving past. Would not have imagined this industrial neighborhood to be his demographic. He keeps it real by mixing up his electronic musak, and I keep thinking my mobile phone is ringing.

I am in Brooklyn because a dispute over the long standing 'open wardrobe policy' I have with my crazy scandinavian flatmate flared up on Monday due to an overdue pair of black pants on her part, built up frustration on my part, and aforementioned craziness (again on her part) drove me out of the west village in search of some peace. So here I am at Zay's apartment, while he is out at a Laure Anderson concert with his boss.

It's 8.07pm. School finished on Monday. On Tuesday I began to have guilt at not being productive enough so I read through the day's casting breakdowns and discovered the perfect acting job for the summer; 'Black Comedy' a British farce being performed in the Berkshires. I even knew the director. Perfect! Today, I went in for an audition. 'Twas not perfect. Though I couldn't even tell you what was actually wrong with it. Just sometimes you know, and sometimes you don't, and today I knew, and the reaction was a very polite 'ho hum'. David Mamet says when you're done (performing, auditioning, whatever), you should wipe your feet at the door. I did; the door to a wine store.

Time to myself extremely weird. I guess this is the come-down from the high of school. Need to make a list of intelligent books to read, need to figure out my tax, need to find a way not to spend forty hours a week in the admissions office, need another glass of wine.

8.13pm. A guy outside the window keeps yelling 'Noooo....' loudly and weirdly. This is definitely not Williamsburg. Makes me think of the stalker phone call in 'The Bodyguard', and my father's subsequent impression of him at frighteningly regular intervals.

To end with now:

It's 8.21pm. The ice-cream truck is back, and the musak has looped back to 'Music Box Dancer'. It's actually kinda catchy. I am considering changing my cell phone tone.

Winter, Spring, Summer....


To begin; a haircut:

Above photo: taken the day of haircut, cut by my very favourite six hundred dollar hairdresser. A frenchman who works out of a salon in an upper east side brownstone, and thank god a friend, so for me, not $600. Not even anything like it.

The haircut was in service of the show, 'Limonade Tous Les Jour', by Chuck Mee, performed after four months of rehearsal with Austin Pendleton at 59E59 Theatres, Tuesday, April 24. My New York debut. Quite a night. Smashing, sold out crowd. Lots of compliments followed by lots of vodka on the roof top bar of the Peninsula hotel on fifth avenue. Famous for its rooftop bar, and people who can afford $21 martinis. And those who every so often like to pretend they can.

One performance only, unless we get picked up for a full season, which is looking, if not likely, then at the very least highly possible. There are a couple of producers 'talking'... a lot of which goes on in this town. Recommendation: keep fingers crossed but do not hold breath.

On a slightly related note, Austin, my 'co-star' or scene partner (depending on levels of pretention) is about to be awarded a special 'drama desk award' for being 'the renaissance man' of the New York theatre. Never met a real live one before, but can report that acting opposite a bona fide renaissance man is a highly gratifying experience.

Above photo: taken in an apartment on the Upper West Side that I spent 5 weeks looking after, for a playwright off on an artist's retreat. A playwright with two cats. Two psychotic cats, 'Bailey and Scout'. However a very timely 'time-out' from the village, and the joys of sharing a one bedroom apartment with high maintenance scandinavian. Also a good way to meet a real live playwright. One that gets to go to 'retreats'.

Above photo: taken by aforementioned Zay. Still around. Still lovely. Super lovely. This was taken Easter Sunday eve, before surprise solo easter egg hunt he prepared in lieu of my being home to attend highly competitive annual Handley Family hunt. Next update I promise a photo of him.

Two weeks left of school, and nine subjects left to pass. Actually, eight. Finished off dialects today with Russian presentation. Then the long, stinky New York Summer. Not sure of plans yet. Invitations to LA, Seattle, Long Island, London and a Lake House in New Hampshire. Also possible I will spend forty hours a week in a windowless office earning $12 an hour. Possible, but fingers crossed highly unlikely.

The city (girl) that never sleeps

So many blog options have drifted through my head since my return from Australia; pithy headlines, observational witticisms, gratuitous New York City star spots. But the time to sit down and craft these to my liking has never materialised. Now, sitting in the admissions office, with an unexpected hour to myself, I feel the need to write something. Just to prove I'm not dead.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

First of all, Australia was, as it always is in January, hot and awesome. (Yes, I just used the word awesome.) Thanks for the fine wine. Thanks for the conversation. Thanks for living in apartments bigger than broom cupboards. In fact, I had such a good time that I've gone ahead (with a little help from my mum - Well, let's be honest, mum's gone ahead...) and cashed in a stack of frequent flyer points for next Christmas. Almost the same itinerary; I'll be in town from December 25th until January 16th. Yes, I know it's a long way away, but it's also the first time in more years than I care to count that the Handley Family in its ever increasing entirity will be on southern shores for Christmas. Put your duty-free vodka orders in now!

SAME OLD NEW SCHOOL

School is insane. Quite literally ('tis a method-based program after all). Second year really seems to be about stretching you to the limit of your capacity and seeing what shape you bounce back to. If you ever do. On the plus side (or I guess more accurately, the minus side) I've lost about 5 kilos, which has made up some time in missed gym sessions.

At this point I'm debating over whether to give you a comprehensive rundown of how I fit in nine (9!) subjects, rehearsals, readings, work and wine or just to cut to the two most exciting things....

Okay,

Number 1: I just got cast in a third year production. Very small part, but very flattering, and it means I'll be up on the mainstage for the rep season. Which is fun. The play is called 'Desire, Desire, Desire' by Christopher Durang. A comedy. Apparently. Rehearsals start Monday. Show goes up final weekend in March. Y'know... in case you're in town.

Number 2: (this one almost needs a drumroll). I have been cast in the lead of a full length production called Limonade Tous Les Jours by Charles Mee. (Actually, if you're super keen you can read it on-line at www.charlesmee.org - unless you're Zay, and promised not to read it before opening night!) In my opinion it's a super fabulous two-character play. But that's not the best bit. Nor is the best bit that I get to play a character called 'Ya-Ya', nor that she's french, nor that she's a cabaret singer. No, the best bit, is that due to a late recasting, I get to play opposite this guy! Actually his career as a broadway director/actor and recently writer is even more impressive that the film and tv stuff. He teaches one of the directing classes here at school, which is how we were able to approach him to do the show. Anyway, rehearsals are a dream. It's such a funny, sexy play and he is so generous and easeful as an actor, that all I have to do is turn up and ride the wave. So.... y'know.... if you're in town at the end of April...

I GOOGLE NY
or
THE YEAR OF YES - A CONFESSION

Those of you who have been following these ramblings regularly might remember this blog, about my new life philosophy based around a book I found 'while sufing the web recently'. I should have known that casual phrase would one day come back to bite me. So... here goes... a funny story for those of you with some time to kill.

The reason I was surfing the web that fateful day back in November was that a certain first year playwriting candidate here at the school had caught my eye, and I wondered in the age of myspace and cyber-everything, if some insight into his background, or hell, even relationship status might be revealed on line. Among reviews of plays he'd had produced in San Francisco, his own comprehensive theatre blog and professions of devotion from a bunch of teenagers he'd taught at the California State Summer School for the Arts, I found this.

Revealed on the promotional website for the book were the true identities for some of the featured characters in it. Including one Zak/Zay, the 'best friend/roommate' character during Maria's 'Year of Yes'. So enamoured was I by the concept of the book, that I was sent off on a bit of a tangent, and promptly neglected any thoughts I might have had of pursuing Zay outside the cyber realm.

Flash forward to just before school ended in December, and far more traditionally (for a third-grader) Zay asked a close friend if I was seeing anyone. Which of course that same faithful friend ran and told me. And so, aided by the many end-of-year performances/after parties, we got to spend a little time together, and when I got back we actually started to do what the Americans refer to as 'date'.

In the interests of time I'll save you the unabridged version of this story, except to say that due to one rather false step early on you were very nearly treated to a blog entitled 'All Men are Idiots'. And so, early on, I had 'hand'. Until of course Zay decided to google me. Now I'm not above admitting I've googled myself in the past, and know that this blog has been very carefully constructed not to appear under a google search of my name. However this guy (who once worked for Ask Jeeves for god's sake!) managed to find it through a combination of an old email address leading him to www.handley.cc and my brother, who without authorisation, had recently chosen to link my blog to that completely unauthorised and previously obscure website.

Alas... all was revealed. And in a very roundabout, slightly spooky way, The Year of Yes worked its magic a second time around.

We (we being Zay and I, as a couple - yes I said it!) actually had dinner with Maria (the author) when she was here in New York last week. She was here to attend a 'Self Help Book Awards' ceremony in which 'Yes' had been nominated under the 'relationship' category. We spoke at length over dinner about how the book was clearly a memoir, and had nothing to do with self help. Although... after hearing the above story, she promised to mention us in her speech if she won.

Whew! And finally...


I HEART NEW YORK

When the snow melts and suddenly the sun reappears in a golden wash over Greenwich Village, it's like waking up after a glorious sleep, stretching and finding you are still in the dream. It's lovely. And while I'm not sure that we're completely done with the cold weather, the hint of Spring is extremely encouraging.

My head will be mostly down until mid-may, but then I'll be very ready to re-stock my wardrobe with some open toe shoes with cork wedge heels (the look for Spring!).

XO