hello from london [part thirty-five]

hello friends

i have many new things to tell you. i am always telling you things and i love it when you write back. what i am saying is, this can be a two-way street.

01/ i am properly single. i am not dating anyone or even wasting time eyeing well-dressed east london types. amazing, no? i feel so free! but i do miss the press of lips, oh well.

02/ last saturday my friend, bahbak, and i ventured way out south to wimbledon for a car boot sale. o m g treasure galore! and cheap! i came away with a fine china raccoon [50p], a bingo set [£1], a 1930s coin purse [£2.50, like the ann demeulemeester owl-looking one from a few seasons ago], and a charles and diana commemorative mug which i gifted to b. he very kindly bought me a polaroid camera and i melted a bit. i cannot wait to get film for it, polaroid is definitely my favourite film stock. the best thing b picked up was a functioning record player for £4, i still cannot get over it. i saw a typewriter [charming grey number] for £3 but i managed to drag myself away. the thing that owned my heart that afternoon was a 1950s snapshot album of black and white photographs taken by a couple on a cruise to morocco. ok i totes made that up but that is what i imagine is the meaning of the photographs. it was so beautiful and i sort of regret not forking over £10 for it but, you know, girl has got to eat. besides, i usually get all the material possessions i want, maybe it is good to be denied something?



how awesome is this fence? we saw it on the way to the car boot sale. the fence looks flat front on but it has something to say when one views it from the side. maybe superman was between jobs?

bahbak looking like a tourist in wimbledon.

03/ rodrigo and i had a difficult moment on friday night and after i promised myself not to see him again for a long time. but he comes over on monday to see my housemate, k, and brings my birthday present with him. damn. do you want to know what it is? you know how i am in awe of michel gondry and want his children and think he is a genius? months ago, r sent gondry his favourite photograph of me and gondry painted it and sent it back. are your knees melting? only my doppelganger would think to gift me something like that. i was so overcome with emotion, i hid in my room for a bit, then went over to rebecca's to watch television. the painting has been hiding under its envelope since monday, i cannot look at it.

this is the photograph r sent michel gondry as reference.

this is what michel gondry painted in return. i can sort of tell it is me but the man is a creative genius, i am sure i could see myself in a melting lump of ice cubes if he said so.

04/ guess who is going to paris fashion week in october? ok so maybe it is not a big deal for some of you because you go every season but it is very exciting for me. ok so maybe i am not really going to paris fashion week, per say, but guess who will be working the e k showroom during paris fashion week? mark thinks i am some kind of computer geek with retail skills [that pay his bills] so he made me part of the sales team for paris. sure, it will be hard work and long hours but bring on the after parties, free booze, hot french accents, and walking fashion plates. i am sure i will be in for a rude shock but right now that is how i imagine paris will be. nicola, laeticia, meet you there! oui oui.

that is it. this update was pretty much a vehicle for me to tell you about paris. oh i do have a bit more.

05/ i really miss jonathon. when i think of something to do, like a lie down in london fields on a sunny day or going someplace for a dance or a new cultural experience, i want to call j but he is not here and i have to think of someone else [who is not rodrigo] to call. my legs are in desperate need for a dance but who will go with me? jonathon, i know you are reading this, come back.

06/ my second visitor from home touches down next friday. you know timothy? tall, curly hair, likes to wear two necklaces and cuffed trousers? him! i am so excited about showing tim a london he might not have seen before. did someone just say adventures galore?

07/ i am getting my haircut tomorrow [just my short side shorter] and then my friend, bahbak, is coming over for dinner and to watch an illegally downloaded film. on saturday, unless someone offers something better, i am doing time at r's slave labour camp, oops, i mean painting party. he invited his friends over to help paint his new apartment [which he will own as of tomorrow]. in exchange, i am using his leftover paint to paint two wall-mounted shelves for my bedroom. on sunday, fingers crossed, i am going to a car boot sale in chiswick. i do not know where that is but it sounds faraway and full of goodies.

take care, you.

love
o

hello from london [part thirty]

hello friends

how are you? i am well. there is little to tell, maybe a few things.

i have a feeling i will be leaving london at the end of the year. it makes me so sad. i think i will apply for a working holiday visa for france and intern with bernhard willhelm [fingers crossed] before coming back. i made the mistake of going to b store to fawn over the new b w and i suffered another episode of imaginary feet stamping. i cannot think of anyone i want to work for when i come home. the plan was always to start a label when i return, maybe i will have run out of excuses by then?

i am so over wearing a coat every time i step out. the day i do not have to wear stockings will be a good day. winter, go away! you know how i used to laugh at english people getting excited by the mere hint of sun? well i have become the person i used to laugh at. when the sun delights us with her face, it is very hard not to get giddy. it has been warm [i admit i have lowered my standards] for the past three weeks and i feel my blood has been infused with sun. i still wear stockings but ditch the coat some nights. sometimes i cannot bare to sit at home, i have to be out enjoying my friends and the warm weather. i have not been home much. it is funny how the sun can affect people. we have all turned into whatever the opposite of a werewolf is.

i have been having a ridiculously romantic time with the boy. he bandies the word happy around like it is not a big deal. he will turn to me and say "i am happy. are you?" and i just look at him weird because i think happy is a big word. but you know what? i am happy. it is scary to allow myself to be this happy. it is not just because of rodrigo, i am in love with everything i have right now. so, the boy. i will limit my gushing to this one paragraph. he has very quickly worked out how to push my buttons. one, he winks at me. two, he calls me "o". three, he is not afraid to talk us through our awkward moments. four, he is so well-dressed it melts my knees. i usually do not care about what my squeeze is wearing but it is such a pleasure to be out with someone who can match me [not on a his-and-hers-matching-outfits level, more on a we-both-look-good level].


i wore my stick-on black thick eyebrows out on friday night to the double club and he liked them. sigh. last week he gave me a recommended listening list and i provided him with a recommended reading list. oh nerd-tastic. we have a sunday routine where we wake up late, have a lazy lie-in, then go to breakfast at this kitchen down the street. we order the same thing [eggs with sage for me, eggs and ham for him] every time, hold hands and make eyes across the wooden table. i feel so sorry for whoever is sharing our table, we must make people sick.

last night jonathon, cat [his housemate], ben [her friend], rodrigo, and i ended up at the joiner's arms [a gay bar near where we live].


jonathon [who recently broke up with his boyfriend] spies an eye candy boy and he starts the chase. by this stage cat and i are very messy, dancing up a storm, and unashamedly talking to random strangers. we are both excited j is on the pull and in our combined efforts to help him make a conquest he gets annoyed and tells us if we do not leave him alone, this boy will think he is straight. oh pout.

rodrigo steps in, one arm around the each of us, he ushers us a few steps away and distracts us with a dance. last night i wore a richard nicoll stripy shirt dress i bought at a sample sale with a white blazer, r wore a black jacket, black tux shirt, and black skinny jeans. die! can you imagine rodrigo, all debonair, with a girl on each arm trying to keep us away from jonathon who is making eyes with a boy? r starts to look desperate and tells j he needs to use the bathroom, he is not sure how much longer he can keep us at bay. oh die! needless to say, jonathon took a boy home last night.

love
o

snow snow snow! from london [part twenty-eight]

hello friends!

how are you all? having too much fun in the sun? london is putting on quite the snow show, white and powdery and pretty. want to see?


this is beck road, my street.


london fields, a winter wonderland!


look at that snowball!

instead of engaging in the usual knife fights, gangs of boys threw snowballs at random strangers. people built snowmen and snow penises [or peni depending on which school of thought you come from], they dropped snowballs down each other's jumpers, and made merry like people who do not have to go to school or work should. i did not have to go to work today, it was wonderful! snow snow snow!

this past week has been busy and stressful, you know, being peak production time and all. i racked up fifteen hours of overtime over four days. intense! but that is mostly over now. on friday night i had the best random night out with jonathon. we found a decent thai restaurant off brick lane. we both agreed we would not have such a hard time finding good thai or chinese or japanese food in sydney, those places sit pretty on almost every corner. why is good food so difficult to find here? we had a drink at my new favourite bar, the bistrotheque. i still cannot get over how cool that place is. come visit me, i will take you! it is brimming with well-put-together graphic/ industrial/ fashion designer types who most likely hail from hip european cities, like paris. who knows. they are certainly easy to look at. i would usually roll my eyes and heave a heavy sigh at such a crowd but this sort of works for me. oh no am i becoming one of them? someone slap me, quick! jonathon observed that we never see such people during the day down around hackney. true. outside there was a line of taxis waiting to take them home. where do they come from?

on saturday and sunday i attended nerdfest 2009. want to hear about it? i had a lovely afternoon with my friend bahbak at broadway market, dipping pastries and cakes into our hot drinks and trading stories. then we go to his house, sit in the kitchen and have a macbook-off. can you imagine it? two people sitting at the kitchen table with their macbooks open, facing each other, doing work. i worked on the e k online store, he worked on his dj set and photography project. nerd alert! on sunday i am still working on the online store but this time engaging in hour long skype sessions with stefan, explaining all the changes that need to be made to the store before we can go live. n e r d s ! i cannot believe a minute ago i actually thought i was cool. but are you ready for the pay off? the store went live on sunday night. visit it here! it has already made two sales yay!

i feel much better compared to last week, by the way. it is no fun to wallow. i am all over last.fm like a kid in a candy store. i love it! i have television covered too, with the bbc iplayer. oh so high brow! i like to sit in bed, hand-stitching felt faces, listening to music. do you know what i am excited about for you sydney people? take your time: olafur eliasson! ok so it is not on until december 2009, but still, i would come home just to go to it. olafur eliasson created an artificial sun in the tate modern in 2003, people still talk about it now.

ok ok just because you asked nicely, i have a story for you. today when i was slowly traversing the slippery icy streets home, trying desperately not to fall over because i had my macbook with me, a tall big man knocked my shoulder hard as he stomped by. there was no messing about with him. of course i thought he was a rude but what struck me more as i regained my footing was how strong he felt. he was all solid mass. my instant thought was "if i cut him open, he would be dense like a chocolate mud cake". is that weird? my second thought was "if i fall over now and smash my macbook, he would not care". i am still typing to you so everything is fine. 

love
o