SIX FLAGS: New Awesome

The thing about being an actor is that more often than not it describes something one can't help but be, like an Australian, or a schizophrenic... rather than something other people might actually pay you to do. So that when you find you are in the rare position of being involved in the commerce of acting, and turning up to a theatre (or tent) six days out of seven to act, for money, you feel obligated to an almost religious practice of gratitude. To say often, and with a huge smile on your face, that you are lucky, and privileged and so excited to be able to do the thing you love to do.

All that is true. But it’s also a job and just as for any lawyer or teacher or ice-cream truck driver who works a full time week, it’s exhausting.

And so I did something I don’t often do. I took a day off.



‘Six Flags: New England” land of the roller coaster and the water slide and the over priced arcade game. In short, land of awesome.

I can’t really remember the last time I went to a bona fide theme park. There was Disneyland in 1995, and Dreamworld on the Gold Coast sometime around 2000, but I think that’s it. I’d nearly completely forgotten how much pure, unadulterated fun they are. How much fun it is for the biggest stresses of the day to involve choosing between the ‘Mind Eraser and Batman’ (let’s do both!), and trying to remove the abject horror from your face just long enough for the photo on the descent of the award winning ‘Superman’ roller coaster.

Not to mention the fun and utter humiliation of being drowned by the 'Blizzard'... a white water rapids ride where you are at the mercy of where the spinning raft lands... in this case, with me directly under the waterfall... twice.





Mostly though, how much fun it is to spend a day yelling and squealing and laughing, instead of networking, budgeting, rehearsing, auditioning, or strategically planning my next move. I feel as if I’ve unclogged something.

Last night I slept. And I slept well.

A thousand words...

I have been lazy, or absent, or maybe just scared off by the fact that on the very first day of rehearsals, for my very first New York professional gig, the Artistic Director announced that he had "really liked that photo of me in my bikini." (So much for semi-anonymous blogging.)

So here it is, my laziest update ever, or perhaps we could call it a tribute to Dan's exciting new job as a photo editor at Wall Street's favourite journal...




After three years, I graduated with an MFA from Manhattan's New School for Drama. Here I am with one of my most lovely classmates, also my scene partner in the agent showcase.




At the same time, Dan 'met the parents' and gained official security clearance for forthcoming Christmas/New Year travel to Australia.



Then, Mum and Dad met Dan's mother Betty-Jo. No major international incidents occurred, despite much time voluntarily spent together in high pressure tourist situations, including the Circle Line Tour (pictured), the Staten Island Ferry and a long, hot walk over the Brooklyn Bridge (both pictured below).







Once all parental units departed, quick check revealed relationship still in tact. (Author acknowledges this is a completely unnecessary picture in terms of story telling... I just really like the hat.)




Next came the trip up to the lovely estate in the Hudson Valley for the opening of the festival. Pics below depict opening of Twelfth Night, in which I have a bigger part, and therefore a fancier opening night dress.








In short, life (in the pictures) is grand.

Low Level Panic

There's a play by that title, written by a woman named Claire McIntyre. I once did a monologue from it, which I can hardly remember now, except for the first line; Sometimes I come home, go upstairs, take off all my clothes, climb under the sheets and masturbate.

Or something like that.

There's actually no correlation between the play and the subject for today's post, except that every so often I like to pretend this blog has something to do with acting or the theatre, and that the title of that play happens to perfectly describe the relatively mastabatory state of self-induced anxiety in which I find myself languishing.

The end is nigh. I know I've been saying that forever, but now it's really, really nigh. As nigh as it's ever been. And I'm sure everything will be fine - unless one night I lose perspective in the wee hours, and jump off the nighest bridge.

Actually, my general state of anxiety is at such a constant buzz I hardly notice it anymore. The list has been the same for the past three months. Hell, for the past three years.

Finish all coursework.
Build strong auditioning portfolio.
Learn all my lines for showcase.
Find a way to be so fabulous in three minutes that the best agent in New York wants to sign me.
Sublet apartment so can afford to go and earn regional wages upstate for three months.

And finally...

Find mum and dad alternative New York accomodation, since heretofore reliable and charming Broadway Inn on 46th Street, where I know Otto the porter will take care of them, is showing possible signs of having closed down. (Hints include a disconnected phone, re-directed website and boarded up doors and windows).

Since most hotels that might otherwise meet my parents standards of cleanliness and spaciousness seem to be quoting prices in the $500-$600 range, and since my parents have their own list of demands and quirks (including, but not limited to, my mother's strict standards about her cups of tea, involving ideal temperature, strength, milk quantity, and importantly, what she is prepared to pay) it feels like it might be time to venture out and find them an apartment of their very own.

Fortunately there's a little tool called www.craigslist.org, where you can pretty much find anything your heart desires, from a couch, to a live-in-nanny to a one- night-stand. All I need on this occasion however, is a vacation rental, preferably on the Upper West Side, which I figure with its brownstones and its homogenous ye olde worldy charm is about Mama and Papa's pace.

With a little hunting, digging and refined searching, it seems like I might have found it; a delightful duplex, available my exact dates, belonging to a Canadian performance artist with impeccable taste, a king size bed, two big screen TVs and (drum roll....) a roof deck! (Summer cocktails anyone?)

Now, New York real estate is not for the light hearted. You get to step in, do one quick walk around, sniff for bad energy, try to impress upon the owner/broker that you won't break or steal stuff. Then you probably have about three hours to decide whether or not you want it. Three hours that don't coincide with daytime in Melbourne.

So I try to stretch it out. I go to class, I turn off my phone. I avoid the broker for a little while. But sure enough, the message comes as soon as my phone's back on. A professional courtesy from Jon, telling me a bunch of much mythologised 'Harvard Boys' want the very same apartment. And they want it for the whole summer. Now he will honour my 'first dibs', but I need to come up with the deposit. Now.

So I find myself in the heart of Times Square, in a non-airconditioned Ben and Jerry's, sticking to the plastic furniture, clinging to $300 cash, willing mum to wake up and tell me I'm doing the right thing.

Just before Jon arrives my phone rings again, it's a very sleepy mum. I whip through the details. She hmmms and has... and eventually tells me she guesses I know best.

I come home later that night, elated, dying to get on Skype and send the pictures through. "Look at the TV... Look at the bed.... Look at the roofdeck!"

"Is that bed king size? It doesn't look king size..."

"Yes mum, trust me, it's king size".

And then,

"Oh..."

"What?"

"Well, I thought it would be two bedroom".


I choose to take this as a sign of love and desire for me to be around as often as possible, rather than any sort of slight on my clearly impeccable apartment hunting skills. Hopefully, once she sees it in person she'll be sold.

In the same vein, let's hope her in-person assessment of the now not-so-new man in my life is less exacting. Past experience suggests it's a slim shot. Certainly, between now and their imminent arrival, the only thing left to do is to work on his tea-making skills.

REMUNERATION... WITH A VIEW

This is where I'll be spending my summer.



That is, this is where I'm getting paid to spend my summer!!!!!!!

Yes - the mandatory post-graduation waitressing job has been put off for at least four months, since my first audition for work post school was successful.

I've been employed by the Hudson Valley Shakespeare festival (www.hvshakespeare.org) to be part of their professional company for the summer rep season, which includes 'Cymbeline, Twelfth Night and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)'

'Twas a three part audition, the final stage of which was filmed by PBS for a documentary they are doing on the festival from auditions through to opening night. (I only agreed on the condition that I could sign the release AFTER the audition - in case of a worst case scenario crash and burn).

Beginning April 29, we rehearse in the city until June, then we'll be shuttled to accomodations in the Valley, where we'll live for the three months of the festival. Presumably while being followed around by PBS cameras.

Beyond that, I have no idea what to expect. Right now, I don't even know what parts I'll be playing. But I do know I'll be getting paid to act. And I do know I won't have to be in Manhattan during the stinkiest parts of the summer.

However if I do happen to miss Manhattan's unique hot-weather aroma, the Hudson Valley is only one hour upstate of the city and therefore an easy train ride back to the gorgeous Grand Central Station.

Between now and then there's two more productions, agent showcase, graduation and a much anticipated visit from mum and dad to get through. But it certainly feels like lucky first step into (or at least a scenic way to delay the reality of) life outside of grad school.

"I am Google-able, therefore I am."

I'll admit it, within the modern dating landscape, I am highly dubious of anyone with no Internet profile. If a Google search for a prospective suitor turns up nothing, he immediately becomes a suspect individual. In fact, I may begin to seriously question his very existence. And I don't think I'm the only one. Anecdotal evidence garnered around a bar table at least, seems to suggest that "googling" prospective dates is not only no longer something to be ashamed of, it is recommended and standard dating procedure.

Perhaps paradoxically (perhaps not), I'm extremely nervous about exposing myself on the Internet. Unavoidable though it would seem to be. Initially, I even went to great pains to make this blog completely anonymous, which didn't stop the chair of the Playwriting department at school (who just happens to be Sarah Jessica Parker's brother) from coming across it. Highly embarrassing given the thinly-veiled origins of the site.

However, as graduation looms and my attempts to enter 'the industry' become imminent, the current man in my life (who judging by his passion for all things cyber-connected may be a founding investor in Google) is keen to help build my professional profile via the establishment of a 'web presence'. I guess the theory is, if you can't beat them, at least control the information.

Thus the counter on my newly imposed 'Google Desktop' tells me that I have 61 days to complete 'Project Over-Exposure', which includes my own website, facebook, flickr, myspace, youtube, wikipedia and any number of related groups through which I may 'aggressively market myself via the web'.

Now, call me old fashioned, but I can't help but cling to the notion that retaining a bit of mystique adds to an actor's allure, and ultimately to her effectiveness. I buy Helen Mirren, and I buy Emma Thompson, and I buy Jodie Foster as pretty much anything they choose to play. I don't buy Lindsay Lohan as anything but Lindsay Lohan... and to be frank, I'm not lining up to buy much of that.

Now, I realise that a bit of savvy self-promotion is a far cry from setting yourself up to be snapped panty-less upon arrival to an LA nightclub, or from getting arrested while driving home hammered afterwards, so I will comply and be very grateful of the assistance. But if I have my way, we will construct the dark sunglasses and floppy cap e-version of myself, rather than the Paris-Hilton-sex-tape version. That, I CAN control.

PUBLIC RELATIONS - CHAPTER ONE

In the first week of February, I sent the following headshot, accompanied by what I hope was a pithy, non-crazy cover letter to approximately seventy agents and casting directors.




It's supposed to be my 'I'm a serious actor' shot.

As of today I have been contacted by a total of zero agents and/or casting directors.

Just before school began in August, I went to lunch with the Chair of the school's directing program. Sitting across the table at the Bus Stop Cafe in the West Village, she told me the story of a well-known graduate of the program; how two months before she was cast in the role for which she would ulitmately be 'Tony-nominated' she'd been crumpled in a heap on the Chair's living room floor weeping and feeling completely lost.

I have pre-booked my appointment on said floor for approximately two weeks after graduation. Just in case.

CURTAINS

On February 16th 'TALK TO ME LIKE THE RAIN AND LET ME LISTEN' - my last major thesis project - came to an end, producing the weird sensation of somehow - though not quite - being done with school. Worst, being six days shy of completing the drinking challenge, I couldn't even mark the occasion with a stiff drink. (My apologies to Mr. Williams.)

While I still have classes, something pretty catastrophic would have to happen for me not to graduate. So that's it. Done... Sort of.

If it were a film, you might say my degree is in the can. Now all that's left are the rounds of interviews and walks down the red carpet to sell the shit out of it.

"I THINK NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME FOR A BEER"
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon repealing Prohibition laws in 1933

Let me paint you the picture.

It's Sunday evening, shortly after 8pm. I'm sitting at my computer wearing a floppy woolen beret, a grey blanket draped over my knees and a hot cup of 'Yogi; Breathe Deep' tea drawing next to me. I have been inside all day. Enjoying the moody grey blanket draped over the downtown skyline, and the occasional impressive swirl of snow outside the window.

Partly, I am being overly conscious of a vaguely sore throat that threatens to derail my big performance this week, and partly I'm only vaguely conscious of what I might otherwise have been doing, in a former lifetime, on a New York Sunday night...

I'm twenty days into a one-month sobriety challenge. Of course those of you even vaguely following this blog might remember that I tried that once before, and it ended after a rather pathetic 72 hours. But this time two things are different.

1. I have not only a pseudo-sponsor, but a partner in temperance, joining me on the crusade, and staring me down in moments of weakness.

2. Most importantly, this time, the challenge has been laid down by my father. In fact, it was almost more like a dare. And so, it has become a matter of pride, and more importantly, a matter of competition.

As one who likes to think I can do anything to which I set my mind, and who would firmly hold that my consumption of alcohol has always been well short of intervention-worthy, more horrifying than trying to live in Manhattan sans martini, is with what overwhelming pride (and perhaps borderline shock) my father has responded to hearing the news of my success. At the one-week mark he even forgave a speeding ticket I incurred in his car on a recent trip home to Australia. (Unfortunatley when the second ticket arrived in the mail, much of that sheen seemed to have worn off).

Having never been a smoker, I can only imagine trying to quit induces similar pitfalls. It seems to me it's the habitual associations that are the hardest to conquer. Great pizza without cheap red wine, the Superbowl without an icy beer, the pool hall without a strong vodka... Brooklyn without anything you can get your hands on. I mean let's face it, without a cocktail, Friday night happy hour becomes nothing more than one hell of an overrated hour.

On the other hand, drinking water all night in its various creative forms (iced/boiled/soda/seltzer/tonic) is an interesting sociological experiment. We get to watch, as others not only fall off the wagon, but knock over coat racks, kick over garbage cans, fight with their partners, stumble into taxis. Even more benignly, we get to walk through that uniquely alcohol-infused 'wet breath' expelled into the air and faces of passers-by in crowded bars. We get to enjoy the voices of fellow pool players become louder, and louder and finally dissolve into squeals and shrieks. And not mind so much, as realise that most weekends, or even most nights, it's probably us.

All that said, my interest in the social sciences have a definitive time limit, and that limit is exactly one month. No more, and (because I can't thing of a clever way out of this stupid challenge) no less.

So I will make it to February 22nd if it kills me. And it well might.

As if my father were the devil himself running around planting apple-martini trees in this dry, dry garden of Eden, I received an email last week inviting me to hear an Irish poet read at something non-ironically called the 'Global Nomad Poetry Salon'. It's sponsored by Jamesons. It's at the SoHo loft. Cocktails start at 6.30pm. ON FEBRUARY 21st!

Five hours from the finish line stands an Irish man, in downtown New York City, holding a free bottle of Jamesons. And while I suspect not even God himself (and certainly not my father) would be able to resist such temptation, I'm determined to make it.

Because when midnight comes, I will be ordering the biggest Big-Apple martini I can find, and announcing that while yes, YES I CAN go a month without drinking, I would never hope to be in the distasteful position of having to do so again. For if nothing else, I think we can all agree that listening to Irish poetry while sober is just plain bad manners.

HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS

For two and a half years now, I have had the good fortune (or better, small fortune) of living at one of the trendiest addresses in Manhattan; the West Village. (Also known as 'Hollywood's New York')

Once upon a time, not so many decades ago, 'The Village' was celebrated for affording a renegade, beatnick, bohemian lifestyle; speakeasys, coffee houses... both the cool Dylans. Now, it affords very little to very few. And most of those few work on Wall Street.

However, if you're prepared to live in a cupboard. And sublet half that cupboard to a Finnish movie star. And enter into negotiations with a heavily accented Italian man named 'Tony' when it comes time for the annual rent hike... Then it's what you might consider 'doable'. It's all a matter of perspective after all. As the broker pointed out when showing us the place, 'The West Village is your living room!'

As it turns out, he was telling the truth. And not a bad living room at all. A great Irish bar at the bottom of my building, the best tapas in Manhattan across the street, a laundromat full of non-judmental Korean women ninety seconds away... Best of all is school, a mere ten minute stroll down one of Manhattan's rare tree-lined and winding roads.

Unfortunately, if not planned with the utmost care and focus, that stroll can land you smack in the middle of couture central; the Paris end of Bleeker Street. Coach, Juicy Couture, Cynthia Rowley, Marc Jacobs, and the scene of my latest fashion accident, Ralph Lauren.

By way of background I perhaps need to explain that little dresses, or cocktail frocks, or 'numbers', are my personal Achilles heel. Or, if you will, my crack habit.

Initially I was just a social user, but then the social occasions became more and more frequent, until eventually I was buying dresses at will, in anticipation of the next event, and the next. Of course that led to a small shoe-purchase abuse problem, and had I not been smacked into submission by a return to the student lifestyle in one of the most expensive cities in the world, frivolous purses could not have been far too away.

On a strict 'Sex and the City' repeats 'methodone program', I have managed to stay more or less on the wagon for the past two or so years, with only the occasional slip here and there. (Surely sample sales are considered entrappment?)

Until last Friday.

I don't want to overstate it. It was just a little black dress. Slinky. Knee length. Silk. Not so much in the window of Ralph Lauren, as on a svelte mannequin just inside the brass-handled door, saying 'buy me... buy me'. The word 'Sale' was stencilled on the window in muted tones, engendering the smallest cause for hope.

I resisted for a full 24-hours before dragging my most grounded, yet gentle friend David along to watch me try it on. I needed someone there to tell me I was being insane, without embarrassing me in front of the Waspy, and highly judgemental sales girls.

They had only one. It was my size. I took it into the dressing room and scrounged for the price, which was nowhere to be found on the tag. Great. The only other thing I know to be 'Price on Application' is the sort of Real Estate for which you submit tenders. In short, if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it.

But I did ask, and Kent (not a made up name) went off to check in the computer. I probably had a total of 45 seconds to float around in front of the full length skinny-mirrors before she came back with the verdict,

"Twenty four ninety eight." (The decimal point is deafeningly silent.)

I can't help but smile a little at how the high-end masterfully manage to eradicate words like 'hundred' and 'thousand', and with such transparent devices. Take the the non-sensical irregularity of the price tag - it's not actually intended to trick us is it? They don't expect that we'll blithely hand over the credit card, and be too embarrassed to come back when we get the statement and realise the dress was not in fact sold to us for the bargain basement $24.98?

It's as if to acknowledge it would be crass, or dirty. As if saying out loud that this finely crafted piece of black silk will set you back TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS, would betray some silent code, or break the magic spell of couture. Would a very human, mutual acknowledgement of the extravagant price tag really ruin the fun of the extravagance? Would it really hurt us to be a little more real about the whole thing - after all, Ralph Lauren began life as one 'Ralph Lipschitz', a young lad from the Bronx, who sold ties out of the trunk of a car. So tell me, when did common sense become just plain common?

But Kent is not done. While the dress is unfortunately not part of the sale, the strappy four-inch heels she has grabbed for me to try on 'just for effect' are. More than that, Kent informs me, 'they are a steal'. Even level-headed David has to acknowledge that the reduction from $590 to $144 is fab-u-lous, and I'd be mad to pass them up. (For all my intentions, I can't help but feel I subconsciously took a gay man with me for this very reason.)

So I don't pass them up. I hand over my credit card and sign some form and Kent promises she'll have my size in from interstate before the off-broadway opening of Lynn Redgrave's new show I'm due to attend next Monday. Of course, with what dress I'll wear them (as clearly the little black number went back on the rack) or indeed what business I have wearing strappy satin heels in the middle of winter in Manhattan I have no idea, but I have some drying out to do before I can even contemplate that next (well-heeled) step.

WEEK ONE

22 January 2008

3:00pm
First class of the last first day of school, ever.

3.31pm
Heath Ledger is discovered dead by a masseuse and housekeeper in his SoHo apartment, naked, face down on his bed.

I get the news as I come out of class at around 6pm. Patrick's mother has sent him a text message. She lives in Ohio. At the moment we hear the news the paramedics are removing his body, in a bag, from the apartment. Tmz.com are running a live video stream for your viewing pleasure. Although if we wanted to, we could probably run over in about fifteen minutes, and watch it in person. I don't want to. I'm more shocked than I would have imagined. If I could have imagined.

It makes me think of Denver, my lovely irish bartender, who died March last year in much the same manner. Except with Denver it was a West Village apartment. Around the corner from mine. And I'd been inside it. I'd managed not to think about him for a while.

7.03pm
At 'Automatic Slims' I refuse my first drink for the 'month of sobriety', a post new-year challenge set by my concerned father. Later at 'Tortilla Flats' I pass on drinks 2 and 3. Turns out to be a most inopportune time as in meeting with production company discussing potential remounting of 'Limonade Tous Les Jour' with Austin Pendleton. Everything crossed by Fall I'll be legitimately employed in an equity 'off-Broadway' production.


23 January 2008

4.30pm
Meet with 'Director of Professional Development' to choose headshots. Good time not to be feeling insecure about physical appearance. It helps if you can think of person in photo as someone else.

'We' decide on two.

The 'Seriously Serious' actress, and the 'I want to work with this chick, slightly "whacked-out" (?) commerical shot'.

These will be sent out to the mysterious 'industry' in two strategic mailings.

After the meeting I refuse drink #4 at Slims, and instead share a goat cheese salad with Andrew and head to the East Village for first rehearsal of Tennessee Williams' 'Talk to me like the rain, and let me listen'. Opening February 14.


24 January 2008

Second rehearsal for 'Rain'. We do a physical improv and another read through. The play basically consists of two long monologues. I feel boring though trust the play is not.

Send the photos through to the photographer to organise touch ups and prints. Must do first mail out by Monday.

Having trouble sleeping. Can't decide whether it's the million things buzzing around my head, or lack of alcohol in my system.


25 January 2008

11.08am
Check in at ISS (International Student Services). This is my half yearly reminder that (despite all that hard work on a convincing neutral american accent) I am a foreigner and tolerated in this country only under the strictest of conditions, also with a definite expiry date.

3.00pm
First read through of 'Scab' a new play for director's full length festival happening at school in May. This will be my last project at school. Ever. I'm playing a 22 year old history student, beginning grad school.

10:00pm
Dan and I head to Amsterdam pool hall (where Jerry Seinfeld spent the best part of every week for 18 months working on his pool game after the show had finished and he came back to New York with a pocket full of serious cash and no responsibilities). The hardest part is waiting at the bar for our table to be free. Dan has 'tonic water' and I have a 'soda water'. The bartender gives us a look that screams 'The fundamentalist Christians have arrived!'

Probably avoid about six drinks over the course of the next two and a half hours. Watch with mild curiousity as others around us become increasingly intoxicated. Certainly no judgement, just curiousity and mild horror that that's usually me.


26 January 2008 - AUSTRALIA DAY

Drinks avoided: 6 (conservative estimate).

THE TIMES, THEY ARE A'CHANGIN


And with that nostaligc (if gramatically incorrect) headline, I'd like to announce a new era for New York Minutes.

2008 - THE YEAR OF TRANSITION

So dubbed by my family, who developed a slightly bizarre penchant for labelling each year some time around 2003 ('The Year We Had to Have'). I think it's both supposed to reflect a realistic acceptance of the yearly outlook, as well as some kind of 'Secret'-style manifestation of what we'd like to have happen.

Regardless, whether I like it or not, 2008 will be the year of much transitioning.

In May, school is finished. Forever.

That's twenty years of my life (count them!) spent in one institution or another... and that's not even taking three-year-old Kindergarten into consideration.

I will finally be let loose in the wilds of New York City. No longer protected within the confines of 151 Bank Street, Manhattan. No longer heavily scheduled, no more imposed timetables, no longer micromanaged, and most horrifyingly, no longer consistently gainfully employed.

On the brighter side, it occurred to me that a much more interesting part of this little New York story is about to emerge, one that demands more attention than the sporadic and largely inconsequential letters home to date. In short, the minutes are hotting up. And let's face it, in this, the era of 'Facebook', there's nothing about the general day to day that a quick 'status update' can't fill you in on.

So I'm going to shift focus, and in 2008 keep you up to date with the minutae of this Australian's quest to become a working New York Actress. In fact, let's go all out, a SUCCESSFUL New York actress.

In the dramatic structure of this narrative there are a number of formidable obstacles:

1. The number of actresses already in New York.
2. The number of new actresses about to graduate with me.
3. The Writer's strike.
4. The fact that I'm considered an 'alien' in this country, with all its unpleasant connotations.
5. Time; there are 18 months left on my visa before either they kick me out, I 'make it', or I marry a gay friend... start your watches!
5. The odds of anyone, ever becoming a successful actress anywhere - let alone New York.

Please note, I am purposefully choosing to use the gender specific 'actress' for the purposes of this tale, as I believe there is something uniquely humiliating about the fledgling female actor's experience of being introduced to 'the industry'.

Other than that, I have nothing to say except that I promise to tell it all. Even the crash and burn bits. Especially the crash and burn bits.

In that way, this blog becomes like my insurance policy; the bigger the disaster, the more entertaining the story. (Screenplay rights, anyone?)

quiet time or sugar crash?

This morning it's just Ana (5) and Xavier (4) and I, for about three (3!) hours. I'm officical caretaker while their mother (my sister) is off collecting the newly arrived cousin (with the American accent) and visiting the great grandmother.

All is grand as we set off on our much hyped 'coffee date', which both charges have been very excited about all morning. Even to me, it sounds a very grown up and sophisticated thing to do with their much-hyped 'New York' auntie, and I'm rather proud of my inspired suggestion. Ana and Xavier even want to leave half way through Justine (their favourite playschool presenter) reading about some mud loving, ever increasing in girth, backyard pig.

I've chosen Torquay's hottest little breakfast nook 'the Nocturnal Donkey', which is 'just around the corner'. By the time we've crossed the road, Xavier asks 'where the corner is?' When we actually reach the corner, home to Torquay's pub and one stop gambling shop, Ana asks if this is where we will be having our coffee date. A few more steps, and Xavier is hot and wants to know if the hardware store is where we get the coffee.


To kill time I begin a lesson on the meaning of the word 'nocturnal', which seems to distract from the already formidable heat at least long enough for them to decide they will order the very gender-obvious 'one strawberry and one chocolate milkshake'. 'But I thought you wanted something with froth, like I have with my cappucino?' They stare at me like I'm an alien and shake their heads. Apparently, just a milkshake, and then maybe an icy-pole... tres chic.


Except the Nocturnal Donkey doesn't serve milkshakes. Only iced/hot chocolate, or iced/hot coffee. Xavier may be swayed with the promise of marshmallows, but Ana is not having a bar of anything but a strawberry milkshake.

So, we go to the take-away bakery next door, and grab cartons of flavoured milk out of the fridge, which the obliging waitress back at the donkey pours into proper cafe glasses, and serves with silver spoons and straws.

Except the straw is a little high for Xavier, and the glass a little heavy, so a third of the chocolate milk lands in a puddle in his lap. I ask the waitress for a napkin. And the biggest coffee she's got. She brings a pile of paper towels served with a knowing, if not entirely sympathetic, smile, because 'you can never have enough'.


We manage some conversation about favourite kinder friends, and what's best about the beach, and I try to describe the difference between the maple syrup and what they are convinced is actually honey on the Dutch pancakes. Despite any faux European cache in the labelling of our breakfast, they are only interested in the icecream, the syrup and the icing sugar dusted around the egdge of the plate, which Xavier cleans off with a freshly and repeatedly licked finger.

Before the bill has arrived, requests for the next course of icy poles, or maybe ice cream have begun. This time I pull out the old faithful 'I Spy' to distract, and learn that 'Aunty Elle', begins with the letter 'L', and that 'Rebecca' is a legitimate answer for 'something beginning with R', even though this presumed real, but perhaps fictional being was not even on the Bellarine Peninsula, let alone dining in the 'Donkey.

By the time we leave, a dusty-wind of Dorothy Gale proportions has blown up, and I'm out of games. The kids shield their eyes agains the debris as we round the corner once more, and before too long crash on the couch in the airconditioned living room resorting to whatever 'abc kids' has to offer. (I have to confess to being oddly drawn into the will-they won't-they love affair between the blonde, french equestrian rider, and the simple but honest Aussie stable hand on 'Saddle Club'.)

By the time Cynthia is back it is time for lunch. There is still much talk of icy-poles, which Cynthia deftly ignores in favour of one ham and one cheese sandwich. Then it's nap time. From what I can tell there is only the standard amount of protest before the kids crash out.

So, while my rather feeble attempt at introducing my niece and nephew to cafe latte culture was perhaps premature, and while a later quiz on the definition of the word nocturnal was met with blank stares and the pronouncement from Ana that she was 'not good at anything and should be thrown in the bin', and while I can't be sure whether the kids were genuinely tired, or just crashing after being jacked up on flavoured milk and fried batter covered in sugar, I do now strongly suspect I am an aunty better suited to happy hour than brunch, and henceforth plan to do all my parenting as I do my cooking... with a glass of wine in my hand.