365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 70 : Catching Up With Every Man and His....

Today was another stress-inducing nightmare of a day getting packs together for a major presentation on the executive level tomorrow, with packs not properly spaced out (not my doing thank god, but it affected me because the packs have to be 100% perfect when the CEOs of both the company I work for, and the parent company, are looking at them), extra trips two buildings, and three levels away necessary to replace the incorrect parts of the slide packs, and no one to really assist me.

After all that stress, in a job I increasingly don't enjoy, the idea of going out tonight was not that appealing, not because I didn't want to see my Facebook friend, Marc (above) visiting from the UK, or my very close friend, Jason, temporarily in town from East Timor where he works, but simply because all I wanted to do was go home, throw the doona over my head, and hide from the world.

Thankfully I didn't give into my doona-hugging instincts, met Marc at The Observer Hotel in The Rocks and I had an absolutely wonderful time with a man I only ever knew via Facebook postings. He is the boyfriend of another friend of Mine, Craig (who's Aussie), and through 3 beers (him) and 3 Sauvignon Blancs (me), we didn't stop talking about our lives, gay issues, and all sorts of other stuff. He is a really lovely guy and it was a pleasure cacthing up with him.

We then walked uptown from The Rocks to MYER where Marc headed back to his hotel to watch Cougar Town, and I met up with my close friend, Jason, fresh from a holiday in Brazil with his sort of boyfriend, a holiday with so much melodrama and intensity it sounded like one of the telenovellas so popular on Latin American TV. It was so good to see him again (he normally is based in East Timor, which makes popping out for brunch on a Saturday a wee logistical challenge!), laugh with him, have him pour out his heart to me (we love our D & Ms and really get each other, which I love), all over copious amounts of sushi at Sushi Train, home of cajun sushi (I kid you not!).

I hope his next visit will be a little sooner than this one was in coming. I miss the guy.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 69 : Cuffed!

I feel oh so grown up.

Today I finally wore my first pair of cufflinks. I got them mainly because a shirt I really like, which had buttons in place to hold the sleeves together (you snip them out to put the cufflinks in, but I couldn't be bothered to buy a pair of cufflinks so I just left the buttons in place) was unwearable after the buttons finally came close. So I headed to Oxford, got a pair of 1/2 price cufflinks that matched the shirt perfectly, and today's the first day they have adorned my person.

.... and I have to say that for someone who thought cufflinks were too frou frou, I love them. They look and feel great, and appeal to the fashion sensible part of me. Even so, it's doubtful that I will rush and buy more cufflinks or the shirts that need them mainly because while the fashion part of me loves them, and thinks they're kinda sexy, the Keep the Work Wardrobe Simple part of me still can't be bothered, and it's, um, far more powerful!

Yeah I know my soul is like the Balkans, fractured and infighting but at least be thankful I don't hear voice.... well not yet anyway.....

AFTER all the cuff link love....

I had another relaxed dinner with my best friend, Waz, recently moved into the seriously quirky and fun suburb I live in, Erskineville. We went to Stir Crazy Thai and sat outside on what turned out to be a chilly-ish kind of night, but neither of us minded... we had two delicious bottles of Sangria to keep us warm. and sparkling conversation of the kind that flows between two people who have known each other for a long time, and genuinely enjoy each other's company. It was a kick back, and just shoot the breeze over mixed entrees, and stir fries night, and this is what I am loving about having him so close... neither of us need to rush anywhere anymore since home is so close now (we used to meet in the City and Waz faced an hour's drive home, and I had a 20 minute + waiting time train trip home; now we walk home in 5-10 minutes at our leisure and full of alcohol!), and we can take the time to properly catch up and enjoy being with each other....

Life is good.

......and FINALLY.....

Here's the latest photo of my darling almost 8 months old niece, Zara, fresh from her weekly swimming lesson, which she loves.....

She is so cute!

The Food Is Alive! (Wacky Adventures in the Kitchen)

....OR people who have too much time on their hands.....

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 68 : Christmas in....March?

Yes in the middle of March, there's a pizzeria up on King Street, not far into my morning walk, that still has their Christmas decorations up on their awning hooks! Now I am a huge fan of Christmas, and love the idea of celebrating Christmas all year round - it would certainly go some way to justifying my vasy expenditure in Christmas decorations! - but that's not the main reason why I love the eternal decorations being up.

What I love the most is that leaving the decorations up all year around is so Newtown/Erskineville, embodying that quirky, eccentric sensibility that I adore about the neighbourhood. The residents of the area will often ignore what's conventional, and ordinary, and just do what they think is funky and interesting, and that's why I love living here.

 Having a whimsical touch of Christmas greet me very morning as I am starting to pound the pavement again after a long break is a delight. It's kind of funny though as its the Christmas flab, among other things, that I am trying to banish at the moment! How ironic as dear Alanis M would say.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 67 : Oscar! Ham and Cheese......

The day has been frantic so far!

So much the same as always.

But it will be interesting to see what happens with the Oscars today. Usually I avoid all and any mention of the Oscars so I can watch the show at night and be surprised, and but I have finally acceded to the fact that I can't stay up late enough to watch the delayed telecast on Channel 9, that walking in the morning is more important than watching the watching the Oscars and sleeping in, and that if I am going to devote great globs of time to anything, it isn't going to be the Oscars when I have scores of DVD box sets to watch, books to read, and most importantly, friends to catch up with.....

So I shall be checking the websites today to see who wins what, who embarrasses who, and what corny, over the top things are said and done so watch out if you see me on the train because I will now be one of those annoying people ready to spill the beans ahead of the telecast tonight....

On second thoughts, no I won't. I shall keep mum, respect those people who will watch it, and concentrate instead on going home, swimming some laps and trying to get the net working at home again...

POSTSCRIPT

I am thrilled my favourite actress in the world, Sandra Bullock, won the Best Actress gong! She's is very talented, funny, articulate and wonderfully down to earth and apart from the odd stinker or two - Speed 2 or Two If By Sea anyone? Now you don't want to! - I love her movies. Oddly I have yet to see The Blind Side but may just do that now, even if it a bit mid Western US heartland (read Christian) for me. By all accounts, it is a good movie and worth the price of admission.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 66 (Sunday 7 March 2010) : More Sloth, Indolence and Food

Another delightfully chilled day..... yes a weekend full ofhtem although sadly not enough of them!

A long langorious sleep in, and cuddles in bed with my gorgeous guy, followed by a wonderfully relaxed brunch at La Cachette, a cute cafe just down the road from me on Mitchell Road. Usually it's close enough to walk there, but it was a hot and humid day, and so I didn't sweat out all my electrolytes yet again, I opted to drive the 500m or so there. yes I know a very Sydney thing to do, but not something I generally like doing because (a) I like to get the exercise and (b) it irks my greenie sensibilities to drive when a walk will do just as well, or usually better. In this instance, I chose my own comfort over the planet - sorry to any ecosystems I have doomed by selfish desire not to be a sweaty mess!

It was lovely to go somewhere a little different for once - the Big Breakfast was delish! - and so nice to have a chance to just sit and chat with my gorgeous man about anything and everything with no deadlines or places to go. After brunch/lunch, we hit the Oxford business store nearby to get business shirts cheap and then I headed home for a nap, while my guy headed back to his place to clean. (There is a reason why someone would clean on a Sunday afternoon rather than veg out - he's working in Bathurst, west of Sydney, and so time at home is at a premium.)

I headed over to his place for dinner at 6pm, some snuggly cuddling on the couch as we watched TV, and then we settled in for the first episode of the re-imagined "V", that cult hit from the 80s. It wasn't the worst hour of TV I have ever watched, and shows some real promise, but by and large, it lacked much gravitas and tension, and fell into the category of "Good TV but not compelling". Still I will watch episode 2 since one of my favourite shows of all time "Battlestar Galactica" (the new version thank you!) had a very lacklustre miniseries to kick things off, and then became a very sophisticated, clever show that still enthralls. Hopefully "V" will be able to climb to that lofty standard.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 65 : Sleeping In, South End (and Out) and a Par-Tay!

Thank goodness today was a quiet, unassuming day that happily did not demand more of my gorgeous guy and I than a wonderfully chilled sleep-in, a long overdue brunch at my favourite cafe in Sydney, South End (we hadn't been there in ages!) - although the walk up there was rather sweaty and hot, thanks to an unseasonably warm day - a quiet afternoon before I sliced and diced some quiches into small bite-sized pieces and we headed for our good friend John's delightfully low key birthday party at his place. We had  a wonderful time talking with his many and varied friends (including a straight Polish friend of a friend who was travelling with his gay best friend, and who was an absolute hoot!), eating our way through quiche, sushi and cake, drinking galloons of champagne, and even managing to get home at a reasonable time.

Pretty much a damn near perfect day.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 64 : Day off! Yeah!

Today I didn't go to work.

What I did do is finally clean up my room after two months of tidying up triage, put things away, clean up, organise, and generally reclaim my home life from a barely controlled chaos. It feels good, and to celebrate the sparkling new clean room of mine, I headed to Bondi Junction Westfield, did some shopping (DVDs, 'Entertainment Weekly' mags @ Borders, and two books - two books I don't really need given the graveyard of unread books lining my bookshelves but hey, I hadn't gone a shopping outing of any kind for 3 months and just wanted a brief circuit breaker from my new frugality....it was fun!), and then I had lunch with my very good friend Justin in the food court, which was just delightful (both the food court and Justin, although I enjoyed Justin's company more!). We talked and talked for 2 hours over fish and chips and then coffee at Gloria Jean's (psst don't tell anyone since I am not supposed to go there on ethical grounds! LOL) - Justin is the loveliest of people, intelligent, engaging, warm and friendly and I value his friendship a lot. It was wonderful to spend some unhurried time with him.

Then I went home, swam 700m (my first swim in ages and greatly needed), and came back to finally construct my IKEA Benno DVD Tower after a month of it sitting in the corner of my bedroom. All the DVDs that had huddled like scared rats under my TV entertainment unit - no, I have no idea why scared rats would hide under a piece of furniture but that's the image that sprang to mind! - now have a home, and there's one less pile of homeless objects in my life..... yay!

Right now, after changing the sheets and vacuuming my room, I am waiting for my lovely beautiful sexy man to return from his week's work in Bathurst, and a dinner of Thai spent mostly kissing him and gazing into his eyes (assuming we don't drown in the heavy rain getting there!).


It's been a great day and can only get better....

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 63 : I Can Walk Again!

No I have not had some Lazarus -like moment where a diety's son has come up to me, placed his hand upon me and cure my paralysed legs....


What I have done is managed after weeks and weeks and w..... you get the idea... of inaction, I have managed to get up early, put on my exercise gear, and hit the pavement to shape up, get fit and lose those pesky 5-8 kgs that are hanging around. I was beginning to fear I'd never exercise again, such was my inertia, but this morning I cast off the shackles of indolence (Not always bad - couple it with lust and oh baby!!) and got moving again....


YEAH!!!

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 62 : What a Fabulous View!

Every day my train commute takes me through Circular Quay station, which looks out onto one of the most magnificent views of any harbour in the world, taking in Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. I don't this for granted at all and I have been meaning to take a photo of the fantastic view that greets me every day for some time and I finally managed to at least photograph part of the view, which you can see below (or will do once I get home and load the photo on!).

Hopefully this week I can snap the view of the Opera House which bursts into my view as the train exits the dark tunnel of the City Circle and roars back into the light. It's a beautiful sight and makes all the commuting worth it.

Hmm, maybe not worth it but definitely makes it a far more prettier experience than it would otherwise be.

..... oh and the view going home is lovely too as the bus crosses the Bridge. Yes the guard rail does get in the way but it's still a glorious sight seeing the Opera House hove into view...

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 61 (Tuesday 2 March 2010) : Much Quieter, Warmer... and Clothed!

It was back to work today, and after the exhilaration of yesterday's naked photo shoot, today was much tamer and sedate. Not to say that it was quiet - it was Tuesday after all, and every Tuesday, thanks to the management meeting that gobbles up the entire afternoon, is frantic and stuffed with more activity than a swingers party on a Friday night.

But it was nonetheless routine, and involved me drinking lots of water to try and stay focussed and hydrated, especially after my health tests a while back which found me to be quite dehydrated. Hence my ever present companion is the water bottle above, which looks like something out of Forbidden Planet or Lost in Space - "Water, Will Robinson, Water!" - and thanks the metallic casing, keeps the water wonderfully cold.

True it was a date with Spencer Tunick but it was a good day despite all the chaos and busyness.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 60 : Getting Naked With Spencer

I got naked in public today.

No, don't worry I didn't have a brain snap today, turn into a babbling idiot and disrobe on public transport. Fun though that might be....

What I did do, however, was volunteer to be photographed by world famous photographer and artist, Spencer Tunick, who was commissioned by Mardi Gras to create an art installation on the steps of the Opera House called 'The Base'. The distinctive element in all of Spencer's installations are naked people - and lots of them! - at famous landmarks and they don't come much more famous than the Sydney Opera House! 

So my gorgeous guy and I joined about 5200 other people, who created a traffic jam to rival peak hour along Macquarie Street at 4 a.m. (it took us 45 minutes to reach the car park) - see the photos (above) - including our good friend Stephen, and his friends John, and Debbie, and after waiting for just over an hour in the Botanic Gardens, just near the Opera House forecourt, and watching a beautiful lightening of the cloudy sky over the harbour in just 15 degrees with a brisk wind, we were given the order to disrobe, and surprisingly with 3000 other people doing it along with you - the other 2000 were in a separate group who were photographed in the concert hall as well on the steps of the Opera House - it was surprisingly un-traumatic, and was accompanied by whoops and hollers of excitement. We then surged through the gates back onto the forecourt, and by miracle or happenstance, ended up right at the front of the shoot, well in view of the media scrum behind the barriers, and just below Spencer's photographic tower.

The entire shoot took something like 2 hours as Spencer got us to fill in various 'holes' (not sure if the pun was intended but it gave us all a giggle) in the crowd who were directed to stand and lie in the shape of a triangle, and we were photographed looking towards him, our back to him and face the majestic sails of the Opera House, at angles to the House and facing the Bridge, and lying on our backs on the forecourt and steps, in an effect that was simply mesmerising with myriad shades of brown and white, and all tones inbetween creating a dappled ripple of humanity in front of Sydney's most famous landmark.

It was surprisingly non-sexual, and while I did see some gorgeous men's bodies, and far more female anatomy than I had planned to see in a lifetime, the focus was well and truly on creating this artwork, and nothing else. There was lots of laughter, and fun too, and a shared bond that we were all naked and the amazing leveler that it is. I have never felt more comfortable in my life, and certainly we all agreed later that it was the clothed volunteers around us that ended up looking odd, and not the masses of fellow naked people around us that looked so different, and yet so very much alike. 

To top it all off, we managed to get Grant Denyer, weatherman on 7's "Sunrise" program to strip down and join us for part of the shoot, and then my friend Stephen and I got interviewed later - with just our t-shirts off but all my friends assumed I was still naked! I shall let the assumption stand - by him during one of his weather updates. I was also photographed by more media reps than I can count and saw full frontal nude shots of myself filmed by the Sunrise photographer, as I stood just behind Grant Denyer. I have no idea if they will ever reach the internet but I am surprisingly relaxed about it, and really value the fact that we all shared this amazing experience, and created some sensational art and history in an event unlikely to be repeated in my lifetime.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 59 : Nice Slow Snail's Pace

Today was a lovely chilled day.

We slept in almost till noon - yes scandalous I know! - had a lazy lunchy-brunchy thingy of croissants and rolls, did some shopping at Broadway and then had a quiet night at home after picking up the last of the Fair Day stuff at Bill and Ian's. After a dinner of Crust pizza, we went to bed early to get up for our early start the next day....

A day without deadlines or demands or parameters.....

BLISS.