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.