Moving

Because this blog has been giving me hassles about signing in and approving stuff since day 1, I’m moving it over to http://www.foraciously.wordpress.com, in case that helps. Always assuming anyone is even reading this 🙂

#FirstWorldProblems

You know how some public toilets have cubicle doors that swing closed by themselves? In what world is that a good idea? How are we supposed to know if anyone is in there? And don’t tell me to look at the “vacant/occupied” sign, because those things don’t ever bloody work, anyway. And since I know full well how much it sucks to be caught with my pants around my ankles while I squat precariously over an unclean toilet seat because somebody couldn’t be bothered to knock (or look under the door like a normal person), I’m not doing that to someone else.

The other day I was in a pub restroom, and there were five of us standing there, assuming all the cubicles were full. I now suspect none of them were. But if there were any pervs with hidden cameras in there, I imagine they were having a good old chuckle at us, carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, as you do, and dancing from one foot to the other in the effort to hold on to our pee longer than expected. While more cubicles than there were us silently taunted us with their emptiness.

 

September 11th

It was my honours year at university. I remember we were filming a short movie in a dirty boiler room in some flats in Rosebank. We went back to uni to drop the camera equipment etc off, and I got into my green VW Beetle and left campus. I put the radio on and heard that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. It had just happened, and was still being reported as a probable accident. I didn’t feel like listening to the news, being tired after the day, so I switched over to my tapedeck (yes, tapedeck) and listened to music all the way home. When I got home my mother told me another plane had hit the second tower. It still didn’t sink in how big this all was until I realised it was on every tv channel (all four in SA) and most scheduled tv had been cancelled. Larry King was doing a live show about it. It was bizarre. I checked my email and discovered a message in the girlsown book chat group I belonged to from a member in NYC, who had seen the planes hit the towers. She sent it right before they were all evacuated and sent home. She was far enough away that she was in no danger, but there was no transport running, and she was very pregnant and had to walk for ages until she found a way to get home. I think hearing her description of it really brought it home to me what had just happened.

[from my facebook status today]

The return to Aunt

My niece is the best baby in the world, and she arrives tomorrow! A month after my sister did, but still, she’s finally going to be here. I feel bad for my sister; I can’t imagine what it’s like to be apart from your 15-month-old for a whole month. I miss that little girl like crazy, and I’m only her cool aunt.

May 2011 – 2 hours old

I can’t wait to take some photos of her – although apparently she doesn’t sit still much. 🙂

May 2011 – 6 days old

I haven’t seen her since April, and in that time she managed to turn from a baby into a toddler. She’s a little girl now. I can’t quite wrap my mind round that.

October 2011 – 5 months

I want to be close to her. I was never really close with my aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents growing up, so I’d love for her to think of me as the awesome aunt she can come to when things are crap for her, or that she’s excited to tell when something great happens.

April 2012 – 11 months

She’s just the loveliest.

 

Judy Garland fangirling in London

So, I’m a little on the obsessive side when it comes to Judy Garland. Not in a crazy “OMG I must own everything Judy ever touched!” way, but, you know, I have all her movies and I know stuff about her and I’ve made tribute videos. That kind of way. Anyway, one of the things I know is that Judy loved London, and lived here intermittently in the 1960s, eventually marrying a Brit (Mickey Deans) and settling down with him in Chelsea, in central London.

Now here’s where our story gets a bit sad. Because she died, in that house, in London. At the age of 47, which is far too young, and ridiculously sad, and I’m actually still pissed off about it, despite the fact that I wasn’t born for another ten years after that, and I’m sure she didn’t do it to spite me, anyway.

So naturally as a Judy fangirl, I had to go see this house. And a few other Judy-related places, too. I got my friend Marielle (whom I met last year at a Liza Minnelli concert, which means she’s totally awesome) and we set off for a day of Judy discovery.

First stop was Judy’s house at no 4 Cadogan Lane, Chelsea. Well, actually, first stop was using the bathrooms in Harrod’s, which is just round the corner, and where I valiantly didn’t look at any clothes. Okay, I looked at the clothes. I just didn’t look at the prices.

Judy’s house is just off a main-ish street, in a little cul-de-sac. It’s somewhat rundown, presumably because it’s been empty for at least a year, as far as we can judge. Thoughts of trying to buy it whirred like windmills through my mind.

And then I stood in front of this house, realised properly that Judy Garland DIED IN THERE, and this was me:

Marielle had Mickey’s Judy biography, “Weep no more, my Lady” with her, and we poured over it to find his description of the house. Apparently the bathroom where Judy died has a window on the back of the house, which we couldn’t see. We tried to go around, but we couldn’t get there. Although maybe that’s just a bit morbid, anyway.

You know, unlike going to see the rest of the house.

This is the view down the other end of Cadogan Lane:

And cars driving past Judy’s cul de sac (her house is on the left, next to the one with the pink flowers.

We then went off to Sir Carol Reed’s house, which Judy rented in the early 1960s, with Lorna and Joe.

He has a blue plaque. Don’t know why Judy doesn’t. Boo, London.

The Chelsea Registry Office, where Judy and Mickey were married, was our next stop. Here’s a shot of the wedding day in 1969:

And us:

And a long shot:

After that we ate takeaway lunch on someone’s front step. True to form, about three people came in and out while we were sitting there, but hey, if you look like you’re allowed to be there, they won’t say anything. And they didn’t.

We were all:

And they just went:

I just thought it was ridiculous that we picked the busiest house on the street! Only in my life.

After misusing the doorstep, we went over to the London Palladium, where Judy and Liza had their famous concert.

I also think it’s awesome that the stage show of The Wizard of Oz has been showing here for ages, and in fact just closed the weekend before we visited.

After that we went to what used to be The Talk of The Town, where Judy performed quite a bit, but it’s now inside the Hippodrome casino on Leicester Square and called something else – although they have made it look just like it did back in the day, apparently. But I’m not going to share those photos because they’re pretty ghastly. We look like blurry demons, I swear. I actually even took my DSLR with me, and it died five pictures into the day. I was soooo cheesed off. Again, SO my life. Me about twenty times a day:

So yeah, that was our Judy day. Morbid/not morbid? I can’t decide.

Siblingry and Travelry

After many epic months of fighting with home affairs and consulates, my sister finally arrived in London two days ago, albeit alone. Husband and perfect baby niece-goddaughter had to stay at home because apparently the birth certificate you get given when you give birth to a new human being is apparently not enough to allow you to take said new human being out of the country on your work permit. I know, right? This is something of which the world needs to be made aware! And something up with which I will not put, to quote Winston “I don’t hold with prepositions at the end of sentences” Churchill. Except in this case my sister totally has to put up with it, because her job started this week, and she kind of had to come, baby or no baby.

In other news, my husband finally had to believe it, after so many “I’ll believe it when I see it” comments over the last few months. And it’s so great to have my sister here! We might not be the closest of the close, but we’re family, and there’s nothing like having some family there when you’re all alone in a strange new country. London might be awesome, but it’s a scary place nonetheless.

I had a strange taxi driver lady out in Oxfordshire a few weeks ago, who told me at great length, for a 30 minute journey, how much London scares her. She’s particularly terrified of the tube, and has never been on it because she can’t understand the map. Which I find hilarious, because she has to drive to different places every day for a living, and the tube is so much easier than driving that it’s not even describable. But I’ll try. On a scale of literature, the tube is Enid Blyton and driving is James Joyce. On a scale of film, the tube is Legally Blonde and driving is Inception (driving in London would be more like The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, but that’s another thing altogether). And on a scale of art, the tube would be Thomas Kinkade and driving Edward Pollock. You get what I’m saying.

On a tube-related topic, my husband found these earlier. I literally LOLed. Meaning that I know what both literally and LOL mean, and I did just that.

I’m almost sad now that I never take the central line (there’s nothing worth going to on the central line, innit), because these seem to be a Central Line Only Feature. Boo to that.

And my use of “innit” just there was completely ironic, I assure you.

 

In which I don’t go to Hogwarts and get very hot, not necessarily in that order.

Today I went into London with a hot towel draped over my electric heater. Oh no, wait, that was actually just London. Which is better, I suppose, than actually having to carry a heater and towel around with one all day just to make a point. But only just.

As usual I’d cut things fine and was running late, so I hared up the escalators and down the corridors in the tube when my legs allowed me, while everyone else tortoised themselves in my way. I must be figuring things out in this city, because (for possibly the first time ever) I could actually have found the restaurant I was aiming for without the aid of my phone GPS. This was a completely new revelation to me. I did, however, cuddle my phone afterwards and tell it I still love and need it. And we had some quiet time on the train home together.

After Covent Garden, which is possibly my favourite area in London (theatres plus cobbled walkways plus cute little shops = perfection), I made my way over to Waterloo at a more leisurely pace, since I wasn’t actually late, for once. The tube there was so packed (it being the last day of the Olympics, as well as a rare-and-to-be-cherished warm sunny day in London) that I felt vaguely faint by the time I got to Waterloo. Not sure if I needed salt or sugar as a pick-me-up, I wisely bought both, because you can’t go wrong with salt ‘n vinegar crisps and jellybabies. Though not at the same time. There you could go terribly, horribly wrong.

Then I did a shoot with a couple who are getting married in October along the South Bank. The shoot, not their wedding. It was packed tighter than a constipated elephant, but I think we did okay. Lots of cool stuff to see down there. Like this baobab tree (I assume) made out of rolls of fabric (I’m guessing) and painted in some sort of sealant to keep it from crumbling under the weight of its own mould.

After that I toddled off to King’s Cross to meet up briefly with one of my internet friends and her new wife. I’ve known Ashley online for at least three years – I think we met on twitter due to our mutual love of Patti LuPone (all hail, three times), and now we randomly chat on facebook and text each other all the time. She even helped me dye my hair pink. Well, she advised me. I had to do the nitty gritty on my own. And by nitty gritty, I mean “get the pink off everything except my hair”. Anyway, I met Ash and Gemma, and we went to go find the Harry Potter trolley in the wall at Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Which we did, but it was kind of a let down, being nowhere near the actual trains at all, and just randomly sticking out of a boring old wall by some shops. I think we’d have missed it entirely if it hadn’t been for the long queue. Nonetheless, we queued (well, Ash and I queued) to get our pictures taken, as one does. Because it’s the land of Harry Potter, dammit, and we do not get shit this cool in Johannesburg. The only half-trolleys we see are the ones being used by skelms to braai on. Or the ones that have been pushed into dirty stagnant rivers. But I bet every country has those.

Ermagerd! Hergwertz!

 

Ermahgerd, I died laughing

In which I feel inadequate but write anyway

Something I’ve really got hooked on lately is tv show recaps. Not ones that just run you through what happened – because what’s the point of that? you already saw the episode! – but the ones that retell the episode in their own clever way, interpreting scenes, analysing characters, and adding their own brand of snarky humour to the whole thing, often with the help of gifs (another thing I’ve been obsessed with lately). And as per usual, when I see something amazing, I want to do it too. It’s the exact same feeling I get when I come out of a musical theatre show, that “OMG I love it so much I have to be part of it or die” feeling. Except in the theatre version, there’s no way I ever can be part of it, so I just end up feeling sad and like my joy curled up and died. But in the writing world, I can actually try. Even if no one ever reads it.

I’ve always written stuff, but most of it is embarrassingly bad, or so plagiarised that it’s practically illegal. Then I found some brilliant fanfic, and started writing my own. One day I even put some up on a site for people to read, and they seemed to like it. But I’ve never had a go at recapping. Of course, my first instinct is to say, “What’s the point? Person X, Y and Z write such wonderful recaps! You will never be better than them! Why even try?”

And usually, my instinct would be not to. But this year I’m on a “I just moved countries, I can OWN this shit!” groove, so I’m going to try anyway. Because how the fuck else will I ever get any better at it?

So be prepared for some Pretty Little Liars recapping coming your way. Ignore it if you don’t watch – or read it and become intrigued. Or confused. Your choice.

But my books are friends

So today it was a stormy afternoon, perfect for starting to go through things and chucking them out. I started with my shoes, which was weird because I found shit in there I forgot I owned. Like, literally, I don’t remember owning these sandals kind of stuff. For some reason I was hanging onto a lot of broken shoes, probably partially in the hope that I could fix them (never gonna happen), and partially in case I needed something like that and it would still be passably useable. So I got past that and just chucked the whole lot out – the broken ones into one pile, and the ones that were still useable but that hurt my feet, or that had gone way out of style, in another pile. I hung onto my Docs, though. Can’t help it. I got them in 1994 and I for chunks of my life I pretty much wore them everyday. They are THE most battered and worn things I’ve ever seen. I’d forgotten how crazy they looked. I also kept my FLYs…even though I haven’t worn them for the best part of a decade, I still think they kick ass and are awesome.

Jeremy went through his shoes too, which took all of two minutes, and we then attacked our bookshelves. I thought I was doing really well, a Susan Cooper here, a couple of Gerald Durrell non-fictions there, until I turned around and saw Jeremy practically emptying an entire bookcase. Goodbye Anne Rice, I don’t like you anymore. Goodbye random philosophical and sciency non-fiction, I’m never gonna read you. Goodbye Chuck Palahniuks, you’re not the kind of book that gets reread. It was crazy. There’s a pile in the middle of our bedroom floor that has more books in it than most people I know OWN. Gollum thought it was a whole new world. The piles are bigger than he is.

Jeremy says he doesn’t care; that he isn’t emotionally attached to books, and he finds it cathartic to start afresh. I believe him, but don’t understand. I can only get rid of the books that mean nothing to me, and that’s very few. If I liked it in any way, it has to stay. Even if I didn’t like it, but it’s part of a collection (like an author I collect), it has to stay. I guess it’s also that I look at  belongings differently – it’s my stuff and I paid for it, and it’s MINE, and I can’t just get rid of it. It’s like throwing my money away.

We are going to try and sell the books, of course. We’ve even made the decision to amalgamate our Terry Pratchett collections, which we’ve never been able to do before. But really, it is kind of pointless having two copies of everything!

Now all we have to do is get around to the selling/donating/throwing away bit. That’s the mission.