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Have I mentioned how much I love the neighbourhood I live in? I’m not sure I’ve gone on about it quite as much as I should have, and now that I’m rapidly nearing my leaving date, I want to get it all down on ‘paper’ lest I forgot at a later date, its charms and idiosyncrasies.

Potts Point, with its leafy streets, bustling cafes and high end shops that sell things so expensive, you wonder how they manage to say in business, was once a more residential, quiet area made up of grand, showy mansions that lined the waterfront, each competing for prominence over one another along the gently sloping hill that is now the main drag. Sadly only a few of these mansions remain, as most of them were knocked down to make way for the monolithic apartment blocks with grand names such as The Maclay Regis, Elysee and The Pommeroy that now make up the bulk of the expensive real estate in this tiny little suburb.

I arrived in Potts Point in late 2011. At the end of a ten year relationship, I was supposed to feel free and excited but in reality, being that I was eight thousand-or-whatever miles from home and out of a job, without my dogs and home, I was feeling a little bit scared, tired and just wanting to hide under a rock. I headed to this area as I had great memories of my time spent staying in a backpackers nearby, albeit twelve years previous. I knew the street names vaguely and felt safe here so I found a job and then set about finding place to call home.

Within a short time I had painted a room a clean wash of brilliant white, had a new ikea bed delivered and was spending time on a balcony enjoying the most amazing views of Sydney harbour, the skyline, the Opera House and Bridge (nightly fireworks!!), usually whilst smoking a joint as my new flatmate at the time seemed to have a never dwindling supply. Life was really fun and it’s stayed that way, got better infact. Not only do I still live in one of the best apartments in Sydney (furnished entirely from finds off the street & donations from friends) for next to nothing (wealthy old landlady seems out of touch with todays rental prices), not only does one of my best friends live just two doors down the hallway, but I feel like I’m one of the locals, in an inner city suburb in a distant city, something which I dreamed of growing up in the English country side.

As I walked to up to Woolies earlier tonight to buy some Popping Corn, I stopped on the leafy main street to say ‘hi’ to various people I know, waved at John in the deli, the guys in the Video Ezy store (which is sadly closing down, a bloody institution and Go-to for any lonely soul here), chatted to a waiter from the Bistro and quietly said thank you to the universe for putting me in such a great spot. This has been the perfect City experience, a place to compare against every other place I live.

And although I’m heading temporality back to my home town, where a much longed for evening walk around the block with my dogs will sadly end with me not seeing another soul, not looking through any fantastic window displays, not chatting to any one person about anything, I plan to live in as many cities as possible before I decide if I want to call one home. Cities are great things, extraordinarily resourceful places where anything and everything happens and is possible. So I’m asking the universe for a particular something to happen that can free M and I up to move somewhere new with the dogs, because I do want to return to city life, as soon as possible. But Universe…by City, I don’t mean Croyden.

Did anyone wonder about the Popcorn? I used organic kernels, popped them in Coconut oil (as I’m now aware at every turn, how dangergous ‘Vegetable Oils’ are, I use Coconut oil in everything. I even take it into my restaurant and ask the chefs to cook my meals with it), I then added maple syrup, Himaylayan rock salt and 100% Cacao powder into a big brown bag and shook it all together. Healthy, delicious and danger free.

Following on from my last post regarding the Sugar Free diet, I continued for a while longer before falling off the wagon quite spectacularly, gorging myself on one pastry after another after Tiramisu. And then I felt like shit (as predicted in one of the books I read). Bloated was the first feeling, then kind of …anxious. Kind of how a sex addict would feel after just getting laid. Fulfilled but then instantly needing sex again, but knowing it wasn’t really necessary. The way I can sum it up to myself is that cutting out sugar from my diet is like an Alcoholic cutting out booze.

So I am firmly back OFF sugar. Earlier this week I met up with my two friends from college at a bakery in Bondi, a place apparently famous for its vanilla cream filled Donuts with home made jam. I looked at all the cakes and was just like “Pah, whatever”. I mentioned to the the server I was sugar free and she said “Me too, twelve months sober next week!” “Sober?” I said. “Sure. I’m an addict, I’ve never had any of these cakes here and couldn’t work here if I still had my problem” “So you’ll never have a slice of cheesecake again?” “No, because it wouldn’t just be one slice of cheesecake, it would be this entire counter” And that about sums up how I have felt at times. Completely at a loss as to why I can’t stop after one slice of cake, one serve of Tiramisu or one Croissant. I really am a sugar addict.

When I had my appendix out earlier this year, I kind of knew, deep down, that it was due to my overeating, eating Banana bread until I felt uncomfortable, then trying to make it all go away by drinking tea , or having a coffee, or a juice or something (maybe a Pain Au Chocolate?) And now I feel like that horrible “what do I want next?” thing has actually gone. I went with friends to Sydneys most famous Gelato shop night before last, a place where I used to want to eat every flavour, as place where sadly, I have been to alone and gorged. This recent night I just took a back seat, read all the delicious descriptions and watched the world go by. Was it an awful experience? No, It was totally fine.

So I think I have turned the corner with sugar, where I no longer feel it’s something I need, and now I have identified myself as an addict, sugar is no longer something I want either. Glad that’s sorted…I’m off to Melbourne tomorrow for the weekend where I’ll be happily celebrating my 35th birthday, without having people around me to remind me, my birthday has just kind of crept up on me this year. Next Wednesday however, I’m travelling to the Blue Mountains for a ten day silent meditation retreat (Vipassana), where not only will I be woken at 4am every day, but eye contact, talking and exercise is strictly forbidden. TEN DAYS!!

Addictions. we’ve all got them. For some it’s recreational drugs, for others its alcohol, and for some like me, its the more benign addiction to buying magazines that causes the occasional flutter of guilt mixed with a high of seratonin as I flick though the glossy pages of a tome that can cost anything up to $45 a pop.

Many people who assume they don’t have any addictions may think they’re entitled to feel smug as they watch us nurse a terrible hangover, listen to us over the phone describe a particularly brutal comedown “I just want to kill myself’ or waft the smoke away from a cigarette whilst pulling a face (to be fair, I do that one all the time now that I am finally sans nicotine)

But one thing that people (everyone, for that matter) don’t realise is that we are all addicted to something so dangerous at such a huge level and it’s right under our noses (I’m not talking Facebook , although that’s another story). If everyone who reads this blog actually takes what I say next as the total gospel, reads the following articles and makes a concerted effort to break from the addiction, we will all live happier, healthier lives.

About a month or so back, I was in my local bookshop, killing time before meeting a guy for a date and going to see the Francis Bacon exhibition at The Art gallery of New South Wales. I flicked through a book whose front cover, with Kath Kidson colours and hipster styling, featured a woman with bronzed legs and cheesy smile who was just begging to be punched. The book was called I Quite Sugar (by Sarah Wilson).

I didn’t think much more about the book, apart from questioning the task in hand (quitting sugar) and the need for it. Why would some skinny bitch be harping on about quitting sugar ? Whatever next, I thought.

However I kept seeing the book in different shop windows and on a recent night around a friends for dinner, the book was on the coffee table. I decided to look at it again, and this time I read the first few pages. My friends flat-mate came home and told me more about how she has been using the book and as she gave me the odd fact or two about sugar in our diets I started to feel concerned. For me . And then I began to feel really motivated.

So after consuming a huge Thai meal, which I later found out is one of the worst cuisines in terms of sugar overload, I decided to go sugar free (oh, I ate a whole bar of chocolate too, as a kind of Swan song).

I’ve had a few conversations since, with more enlightened people and it seems that what I thought was a fad, is in fact the next big food movement and something that we should all be taking serious notice of. Sugar is killing us all, sugar (and not fat) is making us all fat and we are all addicted. It’s in the Supermarkets’ best interest to have sugar in everything, even at such a small amount that we can’t taste it, so that we keep shopping. And it makes food cheap. The reason that Organic, free range and natural products are more expensive is simple-that is how much food actually costs.

It’s been a really difficult thing to try and pull off, I’ve given up smoking and my beloved caffeine but sugar is kind of next level addiction, and as I’m so addicted and work around food I’ve been throwing those afternoon Pain au Chocolates away rather than eating two, and walking straight past the Banana bread like it’s wearing the same shoes as me. But it’s been a week now and I haven’t had ANY sugar,  I’ve been cooking with coconut oil instead of vegetable oil and I feel so good. I’m more alert, no late afternoon energy slumps, and I sleep perfectly. But don’t read this as a purely superficial food movement, it’s not all about losing weight, having clear skin and feeling great (although they are all benefits of going sugar free).

Sugar is actually killing me (and you by the way).  From fruit juices, mueslis’ and the abundance of fresh fruit (which as an evolving species, we would never of had such access to) to chocolate bars, cereals and tomato ketchup, sugar is being absorbed so quickly by our bodies, turned straight to fat (none of this “sugar is calories that you can burn off”) and causing us to be obese, have heart failure and liver disease. In actual fact, FAT fills us up, so we eat less off it, where as with sugar, we don’t have the same switch in our brains to make us stop eating it…

Back as evolving species, we came across sugar so rarely, that were programmed to gorge on it ( imagine a bush of berries) incase we didn’t find any more for months. Nowadays it is all within arms reach yet we still don’t know how to switch off. The food giants have become aware off this, and made sure cheap, easy to produce sugar is in everything.

Have you ever said “I’m hungry but don’t know what I fancy?”  or after eating a meal said “I still feel hungry…what can I eat”…that’s the sugar talking and as soon as you get free of it, you start to actually see food in a different light, and eat things that you actually want to eat… You won’t believe how much of what you normally eat is decided by cravings rather than actual requirements until you stop eating sugar.

So as I go into my second week without sugar , it gets easier and easier. And the idea of eating sugar becomes more and more distant. Where as in the past I would literally stuff myself with desserts to the point of feeling like I was going to puke, I am already starting to see that it wasn’t even me choosing to eat that crap. My hope is that I can completely forget about eating sugar and spend all the extra energy doing more interesting things.

I can’t wait to get back to England in June and apart from the weddings, festivals and my Grandads eightieth birthday, I’m looking forward to doing all the flea markets and finding some new pieces of furniture. Before that though I have another huge challenge ahead of me. I’ve just been accepted to participate in a ten day Vipassana meditation course at a retreat in the Blue mountains. No eye contact, talking or exercise for ten days, with a daily alarm of 4am.
It doesn’t sound like much fun but I’m hoping it will be amazing.

For anyone interested in further reading…

http://sweetpoison.com.au/wordpress/?page_id=473

http://sweetpoison.com.au/wordpress/?page_id=100

http://www.sarahwilson.com.au/i-quit-sugar-ebook/

Tonight is MardiGras here in Sydney, one of the biggest nights on the social calender for this city and one that last year, I got to grips with in full force. I was on the lead float in the parade, even showing up to a few choreography rehersals before hand. I went to the huge after party and carried on until the next day and day after that.

This year however, just saw me finish a 14 hour straight shift at work, before gliding effortlessly down the aisles of a near empty Woolworths, getting some groceries before turning in for the night to write my blog and watch Jennifer Lawrence on repeat fall over at the Oscars, field ridiculously innane questions at a press conference, and get hit on by Jack Nicholson (isn’t she great?!).

And I’m glad to report I feel not an ounce of ‘FOMO’ or Fear Of Missing Out, (new Gen-i acronym that I keep hearing people use) because to be honest, I actually couldn’t afford to go, or rather, I wanted to spend my money on other things. I’ve recently been able to begin to execute my vision for my apartment here and slowly a new look is rising out of the ashes of the old one…my first flat mate has finally moved all her furniture out so I have been left with nothing the past few weeks. At first, I loved the empty echoey space, the glossy parquet flooring and the floor to ceiling windows framing the incredible 180 degree view. But really, it is impossible to live in a ‘home’ when you have no furniture. So with no budget I have set about obtaining a few key pieces. Just a couple of days back I bought a big steel travel trunk, covered in old stickers, and two matt black Panton chairs from a junk shop out west, which have been put to use as coffee table and patio seats.

And for a very long time now as part of my plan for apartment, I have been asking the universe to find me a black leather 2-seater sofa. It’s a common occurrence here in Sydney that people throw all their old furniture out on the street for the council to collect, and whilst most of it is crap, you do see the occasional gem. So I knew it would only be a matter of patience so I’m not kidding but the other day, about a week ago, I was cycling along Maclay Street late for college when it was sitting there amidst a pile of junk.  Black, two seater, leather and in totally decent condition. I knew it would be there when I got back later in the day from college, because this was my sofa and low and behold as i whizzed down the road after a long day in the gym, there it lay in the sunshine.

So I sat on it for an hour, flagging down passing Utes (all of which declined my request for a 2 minute ride down the road with my new sofa in the back) and fending off a girl who seemed to think it was infact her new sofa. Eventually, with the help of L, I got it back into my apartment and gave it a good clean. I’m laying on it now as I type. As always, I forget when asking the universe for things , to specify. Because I should of added ‘Italian’ and ‘crome legs’ – it’s not the prettiest thing, but it mine, and has that slightly VICE magazine feel about it, of being cool in an un-cool way.

So next up was a like for a like replacement of the Eero Saarinen inspired table that was here before, it perfectly matches the Tulip dining chairs that I have inherited from my  80 year old chinese landlady and was given to me by a friend, one whom I spent christmas day here with dressed in drag. Then she was called Karen, now he’s back to being Keiren, He replied to a post I put on Facebook regarding my empty space and so within two days I have a ‘living room’ and ‘dining room’ sorted out.

Add to that the floor lamp a nice neighbour gave to me, and a few bits here and there I had already found, collected or acquired and I have it nicely turned out. The Australian Royal Navy have so far refused my repeated offers to relieve them of the set of huge steel metel lockers currently going to waste in a skip over on the docks, but watch this space. And as of next week I will be the lease holder of the entire apartment. I have a new visa
(hence the reference to college- I’m studying a martial art.) which allows me to work, so in a week or two I will set about making contacts out here in the magazine world and hopefully begin freelancing again. Looking back to 2011, when I first arrived here, I never thought I would get all this.

To top it all off, my Ex, the main one, is talking to me again and not only that, but is actually here staying with me for a couple of weeks. He sadly couldn’t bring my dogs out in his luggage (which would of been amazing), in some ways his visit has only high lighted the huge void and guilt I feel without them, but it’s amazing that he’s here. We’re arguing as usual and nothing much has changed (wet towels all over the place when I got back earlier from work, front door locked the wrong way, etc) but it’s so good that he can see all this and experience it too. He’s out tonight with my friends, at the big Mardi Gras party…which brings me back to that.

I was quite shocked today at work by the reactions of people, when asking me if I was going to Mardi Gras and I replied no. It was as if I was ill, or that I had maybe gone mad or perhaps wasn’t even really gay. I think it’s unique to Sydney how people here identify a person as firstly and formost gay, secondly as a person with other interests. I’ve never lived or worked in a more homophobic (in a slapstick-comedy kind of way) and homo-obsessed place than here in Sydney. Maybe it’s because I’m on the front line, working in a very busy, popluar cafe in a very laid back gay-heavy community but it seems every gay man here wears his sexuality on his sleeve for all to see, and whilst I’m not in any way ashamed of being gay, I realise that back in The Motherland I didn’t really identify myself as being foremost gay. I was a magazine designer, furniture dealer or gym addict.

So as usual I have everything I have asked for, a beautiful new flat-mate moving in on Monday to my big sunny cat-hair free apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour, many new and interesting friends and finally a few possessions to call my own. Things are different this time around in Sydney though. The nights that would turn into mornings with me still in the smoking area of some club have not been revisited, not even once, and as summer turns into autumn I realise with shock that I didn’t spend a single Saturday on North Bondi-a ritual among the gay guys here that last year I was fully involved in. And when I got a call the other week asking me to work as a Gogo for a party over this weekend, I turned it down-I guess I don’t have a fear of missing out, more an appreciation for what I actually want.

Havent’ we all self indulgently daydreamed about running out into the road (absent minded-ly doing something wonderfully modern and selfless – perhaps texting a friend the address of Colette boutique), getting hit by a bus and being surrounded by people who are amazed at our bravery and brilliance in the face of dire prognosis. The obligatory “I’m afraid you’ll never walk again” scene reaches a dramatic climax as we haul ourselves out of rickerty wheelchair, nurses fainting at the sight of our first few unsteady steps to the thumping bass line of Cher’s “Do you believe”.

The beginning of this week found me in the middle of my own medical emergency, and with not a catwalk or glamorous nurse in sight it wasn’t the drama filled fantasy I had imagined.  My previous weeks bout of flu had been replaced by a few rather badly situated cold-sores, one being in my eye, which prompted my local pharmacist to enquire if I had HIV. Instantly concerned that I was now sero-converting, I was reassured to hear that the symptoms could in fact be something less ‘worrying’… “it could be Leukemia” she chirped. lolz.

A few hours later I was at Sydney Hospital under going various tests, when I became aware that the stomach ache that had started earlier in the day was now becoming quite unbearable. I recognised things were maybe turning serious when I had to give a sample of blood whilst lying flat on the floor to relieve the discomfort I was feeling…after that, I crawled to the emergency department downstairs and asked for help.

I don’t remember being put on the stretcher, but I do remember passing out (and pulling myself straight back out of it again),  I’m not sure when I realised I had a needle and an IV drip needle thing stuck in my arm but ten hours later I finally buckled under the weight of the pain and asked for Morphine. “I give up, can I please have some Morphine now” were not words I was ever expecting to hear myself say that Monday. I have a huge aversion to taking anything to inhibit pain and as the cold numbness raced along my arm and spread over my shoulders, I cried out in shock. I slumped into the bed, a weighty, alien feeling taking over. Teared streamed down my paralysed face as I reconciled that I had no idea what the fuck was going on. And no one I knew, knew I was here.

Later that evening, as I was stretchered into an Ambulance and driven to a larger hospital across town for exploratory surgery, I was reminded of Britney Spears as she was stretchered out to a psychiatric ward in front of the waiting paparazzi. How helpless we all look on stretchers, and how comforting it is when the ambulance doors close behind us!

The next 28 painfully-nil-by-mouth hours passed in a dull daze of toilet trips with my IV drip stand in tow, and two hour sleeps punctuated by regular blood pressure and temperature checks. I had one lovely vivid dream where my three little dogs were licking my face excitedly and I was so happy to see them. Other than that, signing authorisation to my body being operated on was the only detail that kept me aware of the actual point to my impromptu stay in hospital – I stared at the suspended ceiling as I writhed in pain and cursed my bad luck. “why me?” and “what have I done?” were swiftly answered by “you deserve it” and “drugs”.

So as not to labour the story too much, I’ll get to the end. I had my appendix taken out through my belly button, my first experience under general anaesthetic ending with the slightly anti-climatic prognosis that I mustn’t visit a gym for six weeks. We’ll see.

So I hobbled out on the street and made a call to my lovely Bondi guy L, who swiftly pulled up onto the curb and took me back to his place for R&R, homemade soup, scary movies and freshly squeezed juice. His kindness knows no bounds, we laugh from beginning to end and I watch him as he sleeps, wondering what he wonders…

Now I’m back to the land of the living in every way, I can actually look back at the beginning of this week nostalgically, a time spent reflecting on my own, and others mortality. A time to think about what is important. I spent most of the time thinking about my three sons, thinking how I’d give everything here up if I was just given the signal to go home- although I know deep down those bridges have been burned. Christmas and New Year were a blast, and a blur of drag, drink, music and drugs. Smoking, cackling laughter and late nights were all ingredients of a brilliant ‘holiday season’ that I couldn’t of controlled as so many people were involved, but as the mist has lifted it is always the same old story surfacing. My Ex , the dogs.

Hindsight they say, is a wonderful thing but how boring would life be if we knew what was around the corner every step of the way? Take today for example, would I of gotten out of bed if I’d known what lay before me? Probably not, but would I change the outcome all the same? No.

So, I’m not sure where to start this tangled web of a story as it goes back many years but lets start it from two weeks ago when I saw a man in my local cafe shuffling tarot cards (yes, it’s going to be one of those posts). I saw him again the next day and asked him what he was doing with them, considering he was all buff and tattooed and didn’t look like he would know the first thing about cards. He told me he was a (tarot) reader and that he would read for me maybe some time. I told him there was an old set of tarot cards laying about my apartment somewhere to which he suggested I take a shuffle of, pick one out and tell him what I find.

So when I next saw him, funny enough on the day he was leaving town to start life anew in a different city, I asked him what the Judgement Card meant, the card I had picked out for myself a day or so earlier. “wow” he said and I paraphrase here as I can’t remember the exact words he used but he told me everything was going to change, “come crashing down”, start of a clean slate etc etc. Very good card, but also very dramatic card. He gave me a big hug and a kiss and wished me well in life. I said I’d see him maybe someday in London perhaps ( weird thing to say, I know?)

Cut to today when I wake up to a text from M asking to Skype. I make my way bleary eyed into the lounge and as I pass a huge abstract oil canvas, it falls off the wall it’s beeen hanging on for the past four years and hits the floor.

Now, at this point, I should of used what little psychic abilities I have to decide that perhaps I should not make any skype call to anyone and just go down the gym, or better still get back into bed…because what followed was one of the most vitrolic and hurtful exchanges between myself and my ex that I could ever imagine.

By midday I was left in no doubt as to the chance of me ever seeing my dogs again (nil) the number of magazines from my huge Magazine Library back in my old house being left in one piece (nil) and the hope of ever being able to see my ‘ex’ in the same light again after some of the things that were said.

I still fear for my 200 year old King James Bible, my backpacking photos and black marble Buddha head I bought in India but I don’t even want to whisper their names in case they are also burnt in a bonfire, thrown into the street or whatever fate befell the magazines. Oh, my leather jacket I bought in LA, bugger!!

And this all came about because many years ago I made a decision in a moment of weakness that I then kept to myself against all better judgement until today.

Anyway, late in the day today I find myself sitting cross legged on my bed opposite my friend Tim, who is about to read me my tarot cards. First card – King of Pentacles (thats M), second card, The Devil, third card Death. So it’s going well! We do a reading based on my ‘present’ situation. All dark moody cards and ending of this and that…reaffirming the Judgement card I dealt myself earlier.

And then we move on to the future, the next six months. And like pulling some kind of royal flush, I get card after card of positive colourful great wonderful things. Thank fuck for that!

After the Tarot, Tim offered some Reiki, much different than before. I lay on the floor totally relaxed as I involuntarily twitched and expelled air (through my mouth), felt my skin prickle and again felt hands on places they weren’t. And no talk of dead spirits. I was happy. I did have some funny visions though, different than before and again completely uncontrolled by my conscious mind.

So how do I feel now, after a really draining day, an early morning barrage of insults and again dipping ones toes into the sea of alternative healing at the other end? I feel better. I feel calm, no doubt in some small thanks to having had no caffeine for five days now but also because I know that whilst some things have definitely come to an end, other good things are out there. Oh and I joined Greenpeace too…call it karma or fate, who knows maybe I’ll find myself on the Rainbow Warrior someday soon. The woman who signed me up said all I needed to do to become an activist is to start by chaining myself to something. Judging by the way in which I get easily tangled, I can do that.

I’ve always been one for alternative medicines, spooky shit, conspiracies and tax avoidance. There’s something about experiencing or discovering something new that always makes me feel like I’m doing something good with my time on Earth.

My opinion is that it’s good to continually educate oneself and given my appalling education at the hands of a Church Of England school that felt no need to teach basic Arithmatic, English, History or Geography I have tried ever since to further myself where possible. I may not know the square root of  any number or vegetable but I do know that Sydney’s Hyde Park is laid out like the Tree of Kabbalah, and that you can’t fold a piece of paper more than seven times (that’s a joke, I know everyone knows that).

But sometimes the quest for more information, for gravitational learning and operation on a different vibration to everyone else can lead to disappointment or worse still, learning about things you probably shouldn’t of given too much thought too. It’s at these points that I usually think to myself “Why can’t I just be content like everyone else and just get a job in HSBC counting currency and watching X-Factor” (not at the same times obvs).

So last week, my friend Christina and I hopped on a plane from Sydney and flew down to Melbourne, to take a trip down memory lane and visit the old Victorian mansion I used to live in during my backpacking heyday, but more importantly experience the psychic healing power of a Reiki master. Was I broke? Only financially! Did I need healing? Don’t we all? And like I said, I’m game for anything. So thirty minutes into my session and I’m fully ‘under’. At one point I could feel four hands 0n my body, even though the Greek Othordox grandma who was performing the healing definitely only had two. Then things took a turn for the unexpected. Grandma ceased healing and looked me in the eye. “Are you a healer, Fred? Have you ever put you hands on someones’ body and given them pleasure?”

“Probably” I replied, to which she laughed. ‘You’re funny Fred. But you’ve got a dead spirit attached to you which I’m going to have to try and remove. You also have no Aura and you’ve got a lot of bad karma attached to you”

Basically the psychic world had me labelled a cunt and thank god this lady was going to sort it all out. As she began the ‘exorcism’ I must admit I was a bit scared, worried that she was going to start speaking in tongues and spewing green vomit from her swivelling head. As it turned out, it was a hugely relaxing experience, I throughly recommend an exorcism to anyone and suggest future screenwriters of horror films look to include pan pipes and crystals to add a sense of realism. At the end of my session, I received a warm hug with confirmation that all my chakras were indeed open, my aura was now positively glowing and the pesky spirit had gone the way of Casper and Slimer.

I was reassuringly told to text her with any revelations from my ‘past’ should anything new come to light. I made a joke about my Dad abusing me as a child and went on my way. Did I feel alive? Yes! Did I feel all smug and other worldly ? Of course! Did I still feel the need to bite the head off any bitch that dared push me off the pavement with her 4×4 baby stroller? I must admit I probably would’ve let that slide too. Wow, I was born again.

A few days back into the real world and I was positivly glowing and telling anyone who would listen about my brush with the spirit world and the healing powers of the little bit of crystal now carried in my pocket. It seemed like I was indeed spiritually elavated, until  the barista at my local cafe pointed out one thing to me “You’re an attention seeker, just like Fred” he said to another regular customer as he delivered a coffee to their table. It caught me off guard and pissed me off. Me…an attention seeker?… But now that I’m all other wordly I decided to let that piece of information sit rather then brushing it aside. I mulled it over and decided he’s right.

So whilst the Reiki may not really of done what I said it did (in hindsight) it did provide me the seasonal bit attention we all crave. Some do it through Grindr. For some people facebook is their way of knowing there is someone out there, others it’s talking loudly to a friend in a Cafe for all and sundry to hear.

It’s the quest for OM, for inner peace, that leads me to people who tell me things I want to hear. The Reiki master told me I was very spiritual, to which my barista friend also pointed out to me was quite obvious given I had flown all the way down to Melbourne in the search for enlightenment. So that made me laugh. And what about those poor people who don’t have someone to talk to, don’t have ‘friends’ who like their posts on Facebook, or who haven’t discovered an ‘alternative’ medicine? Well, they go out into the street and start shooting people of course.

So my search for the answers has taught me one definite fact…none of use will ever feel wholly content or happy with ourselves, we just have to get to a point where we can say ‘I’m happy with this’. And so, to be continued…

Just as a footnote, I type this from my computer using the free wifi provided on Bondi beach. I’m sitting on a towel in the sand, there’s not a cloud in the sky and it’s 35oc. If anyone should feel content with their current situation it’s me, and I’m honestly thinking of all of you back in Britain putting up with the miserable bastard weather…don’t let it get you down. x

Having been lucky enough to of been invited to the media screening of The Life Of Pi here in Sydney this evening, I feel I owe it to Ang Lee, or just the powers that be, to dedicate this blog post to a film that made my evening really enjoyable and gave me lots to think about.

I’m happy to say I haven’t read the book that the film  is based upon, written by Yann Martel, because I wouldn’t want to know if there is any better way in which this film could of been made. I wouldn’t want to be one of those ” I read the book and it’s so much better” people. It’s in 3D which sounded weird for a non-animation, but the 3D-ness makes the film gorgeously glossy, crisp, multi layered and ultra colourful and visually becomes a cross between Blue Planet, Avatar and Brick Lane. So many of the shots would make gorgeous stand alone photographic pieces of art. And just like seeing Avatar for the first time, the film really makes you feel like you’re being taken some place new.

By default I always love films made by Ang Lee and The Life Of Pi is a really fascinating story to watch as a film. The dramatic bits really had me on the edge of my seat and the sad bits really were sad. The poor Zebra, and Orangutan!!

Most of all though, and this is something I always love about Ang Lee films, is the way you are almost forced to feel the emotions of a person or animal, subconsiously as though you had had some kind of invasive mind-reading device implanted in your brain.

The tormented Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain doesn’t really have to speak any words to get his pain across to the viewer, and the Tiger’s desperate expression whilst clinging on to the egde of the life-boat in The Life Of Pi is infinitely sad, making me want to immediatly save every animal on the planet from every nasty occurance.

After the film had completely finished and every last drop of it had been absorbed though watching the credits, I found myself in one of the most bizarre restaurant experiences of my life. Like a scene from Blade Runner, two of us sat at a large table in a packed downtown Chinese restaurant where we were served trays of dumplings, first bought close to our table by technician-uniform-clad chefs (white overall coats and full mouth masks) and then finally delivered to our table by mute waitresses who neither acknowledged or spoke to us in any way- no eye contact. nothing ( even when I tried to say thanks).  Huge paper lanterns hung from the tall ceilings and the skyscrapers outside, lit up in various colours, were the perfect sci-fi backdrop. Oh, and I almost forgot…the frozen apple smoothie was the most disgusting but weirdly more-ish experience ever. Imagine frozen apple tango slushy, dyed bright green and full of chopped up pices of jelly. I think I kept on drinking it simply because I couldn’t believe how horrible it was.

As we walked outside though an empty piazza bizarrely decorated from above in an animated white LED  snowfall, which even had accompanying sound, I couldn’t help by wonder (finally got that into a blog post!)…could the simple step of moving back into a city from the suburbs be all that was needed to quench my first for visual enlightenment? How is it that on any one evening here, I’m able to feel inspired by so many things, yet back home I can stare out at the fields and farm animals and feel nothing?

I hopped on my new bike and cycled though the neon hubbub of the city and made my way back to my quiet and cosy little enclave of Potts Point, where my view is again of the Skyline, of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Once again I can judge the time for bed by the time the Bridge lights get turned off, rather than by what phone-sex TV channel is about to start. And once again I feel much much happier, except I really haven’t got it all here.

I really miss my dogs, especially after watching this evenings’ film. I’ve noticed I’m back to my old sub-concious habit of avoiding the pet food aisle in the supermarket for fear of getting a pang of guilt, and earlier today I knew to turn away from the Boston Terrier crossing the road infront of me, not wanting to look like a deranged childless mother at the school gates.

So this time I’ve made a list of all the things I want in one place to make me happy. The dogs are on it, as are a few people and a small business…which brings me to my final point and something that I probably should of mentioned first. I’ve gone back to Sydney. A few days to blow out the jet-lagg and home sickness cobwebs where I was waking up thinking ‘What am I doing here again?’ and now I’m sure that this is where I want to be. But I don’t want to be pining for my dogs and my ex if that’s the case, so I’m going to try my hardest to bring it all to me instead.
A simple case of having my cake and eating it too.

So I’m four months in to my return to England and I’m now planning my escape, my return to Oz. My plans to move to London never amounted to anything more that a few tepid email enquiries to prospective roomies/landlords because it became a bit of a catch twenty-two… I couldn’t rent a room until I had enough work/money behind me and I couldn’t get any little bar job in the east end until I had a place to crash everynight at 3am at the end of my shift.

So. I went back to freelancing in magazines, and I’m still here. It’s been really useful, not only have I been fully trained at one of the biggest titles in the country to design Apps for the iPad, but whilst I’ve been waiting for various invoices to come in, I seem to have built up a nice little nest egg in the process, money that won’t be spent on renting a box room in Hackney, oh no. I’m taking my pounds back to Oz and can’t wait to order my mediterranean eggs from Deli Bottega down in Bondi.

It hasn’t been all serious hard work and commuting to London each day…last week or whenever it was I took off with a group of trannies to the Isle of Wight for Bestival. As the dance collective ‘Sink the Pink’, we ran our own Tranny-shack every night until 4am in an old fairground style venue where we pumped out the loudest music and wildest performances-even managing one night to get ourselves shut down by the police. Early saturday morning found us on the main stage dancing alongside Mr Motivator as he woke the whole festival up re-living his glory days as the keep-fit guru of daytime tele.

Six days worth of dressing up, being shown by drag queens how to correctly brush a wig and hanging around with some lovely, crazy people in gorgeous weather, reminded me that whilst I love the whole furniture and homeware styling scene, there’s no reason why anyone should limit themselves to earning their cash in only one way when there are so many other fantastic things you can get involved in. Do I want to work in magazines day-in day-out? Hell no! Do I want to be lifting sofas into the back of a lorry , Silence of the Lambs style, for all eternity? Of course not. So I’m now adopting the term ‘Slasher’ to describe my rather erratic career path.

A slasher undertakes multiple disciplines to earn cash, and so I’m now turning my fair hands to a spot of DJing and adding another string to my bow because d’you know what, it feels perfect for me, as someone who gets easily bored and is always restless.

So this week will see me sending out a number of A&D parcels, photographing some friends for a magazine feature, modelling for a photoshoot tomorrow night -front cover of a magazine!-, consulting on the styling and design of a homeware shoot/catalogue and designing the branding for a new country lifestyle festival in Sussex. By the weekend I’ll be in DJ mode (Kate bush’s ‘Running up that Hill’ mixed in with Carlo Lio’s ‘MB Electronica’) and I’ll no doubt work the breakfast shift at the bar on Sunday morning as I’m the only one ever sober enough to make good coffee that early. As usual I’m really busy… but for once I’m loving it.

On the eve of reading a snippet from a Telegraph interview with Jilly Cooper where the ‘Queen of the Bonkbuster’ was lamenting the loss of the hetrosexual woman’s libido in this modern age, I found myself in a trendy gay bar in the east end of London, anxiously pondering if the very same problem is now spreading around the gays too.

As I sat back up at my bar stool next to my friend David, having just been for a piss in the dingy unisex cubicles of the The Dalston Superstore (the bar in which to seen…circa 2010), I asked him a simple, retoricle question “When was the last time you were actually cruised in a toilet of a gay bar?” “Yeah, right” he snorted.

And it is with this observation, coupled with La Coopers earlier comment and an article I read late last year on how porn was killing off the hetro males sex drive (“HOW PORN KILLS YOUR SEX DRIVE, Mens Health Nov 2011)  that I have begun to realise that we’re all so fucked. Or not at all.

I looked around the sea of blunt-fringe monk-style haircuts, platform brothel creepers and long skirts (this is the men I’m describing here) and I realised it was my three sexy  transexual friends, all long blonde hair-do’s, amazing makeup and pointy shoulders that were catching my eye the most (simply because they looked good, by the way), the rest, the actual men, were way too trendy, indifferent and cool to be playing the game.

So as the sound of shit pop music (Shampoo’s ‘Trouble’ isn’t even ironic) competed against the noise of the screeching girls dancing on the bar (yes that’s right honey, GIRLS) I concluded that ‘the gay bar’ was dead and we, David and I, coined a new genre of bars that are filled with straight fashion-student girls, trannies, gender fucks and gay boys that aren’t looking for sex. The Sexually Ambivalent Bar.

Not a very catchy name, I know and I’m not even sure it’s what we actually called it last night, but it can’t be called a gay bar if it doesn’t deliver- it’s more a village hall disco for people who live in a city and wear Proenza Schouler. So what did we decide to do, us bona fide up-for-it’s wearing fourteen eyelet Doc Martins and shaved heads? The only thing we’re programmed to do when the chips are down. We took our T-shirts off.

Within an hour we were on the bus back down the Dalston Kingsland Road. A number of disapproving glances from a fashion assistant’s assistant wearing next seasons metallic snood from some as yet un-sold fashion graduate collection and I took the hint. I don’t often experience the feeling of being out of my comfort zone, especially not in a gay bar and actually now that I think about it I’m not sure I was uncomfortable, more bored. Un-impressed. Here we go again. But anyway, this isn’t about me, more about you, or us. Us all.

When did everyone become so un-interested in sex. When did everyone become so…homogenised?

Do you care more to discuss Cheryl Coles arse with your friends rather than keep eye contact with a stranger and see what happens? Would you rather describe yourself as happily single and sit in with a box-set then go on a few awkward  dates and have a couple of one night stands. Are you afraid of it? You’re happy to wax and tan, shop and exercise and take your friends out for a few drinks, but when it comes down to actually getting laid, you bottle out. Shameful.

Well I guess in some ways it’s for the best what with the human population already reaching over SEVEN BILLION and STD’s on the rise, and not surprising given the amount of hormones reportedly in our drinking water, mainly from the Pill, which in itself has a lot to answer for.

And anyway, what did I do the following night to rectify the situation? I took one of my dogs with me and went rummaging through a skip down a lonely industrial estate, during which a friend text me to say Big Brother was ‘amazing’ because someone had threatened to stick someone’s epilator up somewhere rather private. I’m like seriously, we’re all so fucked…

When I construct a blog post I usually have a brainwave of an idea and I make a voice memo as I’m walking along or I have a rough idea and get down to it straight away. With this post I’m really writing it Ad-Hoc (remember AdHoc on Kensington highsteet back in the mid ‘90’s?). I don’t know what I want to write about but I feel like off-loading.

I’ve been back in England for about five weeks now and although I’m not going to set down a day by day account of what I’ve been up to, I’ll summarise the bits that have stuck in my mind. So first of all – and can I just say I can’t believe I didn’t write about this in my last post- I have an iPhone, a 4S no less.

All those years of being totally afraid one would change my life for the worse were put to an abrupt end when I found myself yet again Sello-taping my beloved Nokia back together. “Fuck it, enough is enough, I’m ready to join the rest of them”. And although I have thrown it across the room already, last night infact (it landed on the sofa) to stop myself from checking it AGAIN whilst in the company of others (we were discussing me designing some digital prints for a luxury scarf brand), I have been able to enjoy my iPhone without it taking over my life.

The thing I love the most about it is the camera, the thing I hate about it the most is the bloody touch screen, or maybe the battery life. Either way, it’s not life-changing but life-easing. And my 6am dog walk is now spent scrolling through the previous nights activity on Instagram, leaving my dogs to poo in the woods whilst I ♥ and comment on photos taken by people I’ve never met.

So during a recent night out in Hoxton to watch a gender-fuck friend perform in a  Pub alongside a line up that included a weird DJ set from the crazy bitch from Dee-Lite, my own mental state was tested when I received an un-expected text from Him. Apologising for missing my birthday, he then asked what my plans were for the evening ahead. As much as I would of enjoyed seeing him, and it was weird to know he was out there in the same city as me for the first time in months, I didn’t feel the pull insanity that I used to, the need to change all my plans. He couldn’t be persuaded to come east ( I actually didn’t try ) and I didn’t want to go west so in the end we didn’t see each-other. That was about three weeks ago and I haven’t heard from him since. But today I’m wearing his old Diesel T-Shirt and would just love  to have a lunch with him, to see what’s new.

As a way to keep my plans of moving to London and Sydney afloat, I have gone back to freelancing as a magazine designer, doing Anglo & Dutch in my spare time (not work time, I PROMISE). It’s great being back in London, surrounded by all this history and meeting friends for lunch… however one lunch date this week really got me thinking of how lucky I am to be in the situation I’m in. I met up with a friend who works down towards the city in some financial institution. My friend turned up for the lunch looking fantastic and very smart, to counteract my vest and flip flops (my office is very laid back) and proceeded to patronise me in many ways, albeit probably not intentionally. The bit that really got me was when I was told something along the lines of  “For years I was like you, going from job to job and travelling and then I decided to get serious…”.

At the time I was quietly incensed…this friend is NOTHING LIKE ME, and I haven’t been going from ‘job-to-job’ I’m FREELANCE! I’ve not been off travelling, I’ve been living somewhere else (and before that I lived with my boyfriend on the same street for years…). But now I’m more like… whatever. I think of me sitting with L in Bondi eating frozen Yogurt in the sun and remember I was completely chilled out then.

So being back in London has seen my stress levels go up just a touch. Being back in London also means a strict routine in regards to bed time, wake up time, food preparation and setting time aside to be social.  Therefore the week just gone culminated in the joyous celebration of all-things-me-enjoying-downtime. I went carbooting (not a real word my spellcheck tells me). My friend Lucy and I have booted at this same spot for about ten years and have weathered many a wet carboot sale, hung over and eating hotdogs, staring vacantly at other peoples old crap. We’ve also had many a fortunate moment, like the time I found a KitchenAid Artisan food mixer in perfect condition for £30!

On the Sunday just gone, the sun was shining and we both came away pleased with what we’d found and as Lucy was selling, she made some money too. I spent the rest of my day off at home, in the garden with my dogs turning over the vegetable patch ( It’s not going to make a fourth year unfortunately, it’s becoming a much more manageable dining area) and reading the newspapers on the grass. It was perfect…

A long while back I wrote about how I got Jodie Harsh down to Dj at the opening night of the Bar my now ex-boyfriend opened last year called Idlewild. Recently I’ve been returning the favour by hanging out at one of the club nights that Jodie hosts in Soho…I’m sure he’s delighted. Random chit chats in the smoking area on these nights have led to me being emailed and asked if I’d be interested in being a ‘MuscleSlut Gogo” at this summers’ Lovebox festival. Of course I said yes, so that’s definitely something to look forward to. And I’ll have to dust off my leather jock strap it seems.

As I begin to write another paragraph, I realise I’m done off-loading. I’ve got a stack of work piled up on one side of my desk and a mountain of food to get through on the other so I think before I tackle any of it I’m going to take a stroll down Compton St, cruise the hot Brazilian guys and get a coffee.