And so summer arrived. Finally… after months and months of darkness, rain, cold winds and snow the sun arrived in London. How lovely it was… to begin with. For some inexplicable reason I had been harboring wonderful memories of lovely London in summer, sun baking in Hyde Park, boating around the lakes, eating ice cream… It was going to be fabulous.
Unfortunately, my selective memory had erased the simple fact that London is completely un-equipped to deal with any kind of hot weather.
This place is a god damned furnace and life in London in summer… (I mean real life… house, job, bills and such…) SUCKS LIKE A DICK SMITH HOOVER!!!!!!!!!!! There is no air, no cool, no respite… everything sucks here in summer. No one understands to concept of fans, air conditioning… or available working working deodorant.
Everything that is part of a normal, working life, has now become unbearably horrible.
Example a) The tube can be a quick way across town, but in the summer it has become a stinking hot tunnel of death rammed full of people who have lost their minds with the heat.
Example B) The gym. WHO HAS A GYM WITH NO AIR CONDITIONING???? Are these people mad? Have they lost their minds?? I cannot bring myself to work out there any more because I will die of heat exhaustion and b.o. inhalation. And yet I am still tied into paying 40 pounds a month to NOT go there…
Example c) my housemates. As much I love them (and there are new ones to tell you about) They all bugger off every weekend to their parents house to go to the beach, or the lake or take out the boat or whatever the hell they like… and then they come back for the week with their clothes washed and ironed, a fresh supply of food and some extra cash in their pockets… all from mummy and daddy. AND THEN they have the indecency to say "Amy… you should get away for the weekend… it would do you the world of good!"
Ah what a luxury that would be, to pop home for the weekend… If I could escape from the prison that is Harrods I would, oh and LET ME PULL OUT MY SUPERSONIC AEROPLANE AND GO!!!!!!!
I think I may have actually lost my mind.
Its been quite a couple of months… I don't even know where to start to tell you all.
Somewhere in June, I found myself in a rather large rut. Or banging my head against a rather large wall. Or, drowning in a rather large bath of self pity, OR or D) all of the above. Everything needed to change. I was now 4 months back into the London life and I had settled down… but I woke one morning to the realization I needed to get back onto the path of why the hell I came here. I was completely fed up with Harrods and fed up with life on the whole really. My photography course was over, gigs with Tim were on hiatus, my auditions have been a complete load of bollocks, all my friends were in happy and functional relationships and I was simply feeling like a pile of "she used to show so much promise" shit.
When you decide to move countries, before you leave one of the attractive things about living on the other side of the planet is that you will be on your own, that nothing will be there to protect you… that you take away the safety net, leap out of the nest and fly on your own. The only problem is that when things turn a little sour… when the chips are a little down… there is nothing there to protect you, there is no safety net and you are flying on your own. Be careful what you wish for… because this can be a frighteningly lonely place to be.
Enter: a big gay distraction.
Although Urban Retreat is a haven for London's most moronic and demonic clients, every now and then you meet someone a little bit different.
It was just another day at work… rich women yelling at me, telling me I am nothing compared to them and soon will be unemployed unless I get them "MY FUCKING SPRAY TAN!." And then with a grand flourish walks in Jason.
Overly flamboyant, overly fabulous and overly androgynous, this walking a-sexual pride march was a breath of eccentric fresh air in my otherwise dull working life. Now… grab yourself the poshest, most over the top "jolly hockysticks grab the oars and lets go boating" English accent, stand in the centre of your living room and SHOUT after me… "OH DAAAHHHRRRRLING MY NAILS ARE ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY HORRENDOUS AND YOU MUST GET ME IN FOR A MANI AND A PEDI… ITS ABSOLUTELY AN EMERGENCY" and you will get something close to my new friend Benton. And so… after weeks of crazy appointments and ridiculous amounts of money rolling through my cash registers… we formed a little friendship. It was a give and take really. I get his nails done, he gets me into clubs I would never be allowed in alone. I squeeze him in for waxing, he takes me out buys me drinks and introduces me to his fabulous millionaire investment banker friends… I get his hair treated… he let me prank call his friends the Osbornes… You get me drift. It was all going so well. A lovely life of beauty treatments, free drinks and rich good looking people.
Until… after a particular night in a particular bar (and a particular sighting of Orlando Bloom) Jason is rather drunk and ends up crashing on my couch. This is fine… me casa e su casa for the people of the world… but then… he wouldn't leave! And I'm not talking about he was there for three meals of the day… I am saying he stayed for three consecutive days of the week! A little odd yes… an androgynous millionaire dosser is not what I was looking forward to coming home to each day. He is lovely… a very big heart… and a very big and exhausting personality. And yes I realise the irony of me saying this.
This went on for a few weeks… one night out… Jason living on my couch for three days… and then four… and then five. It got a little out of control… this had to be dealt with. It was time for the millionaire dosser to go.
And then… he dropped a bomb shell…
"Dahrling… I have a fabulous idea… I am selling my house in Eaton Square… and moving to Cheyne Walk… I need to make a loss on one of my houses to sack off the income tax… why don't you move in to my place in Eaton Square for basically no rent… and it works out for us all… its only two bedrooms and only has one dining room… but you could have it to yourself and be able to walk to work."
It all seemed a little bit to much and I just wrote it off as a joke… but then he mentioned it again… and again… and again…Until one day we were sitting at dinner and I said to him… "Jason… if this is for real, if this is all true… then I need to give notice on my place. I need to make this real." He assured me it was all a done deal… and so I gave notice on my apartment.
MEANWHILE… at some point a month or so ago… I decided to take a promotion to be the reception manager at urban retreat. NOTE TO SELF: NEVER PUT THE NUMBERS IN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT ABOVE THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR OWN SANITY. Dear lord… normally I like being a manager… it's always been a better place for me to be… UNTIL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear god that place is now sucking the life out of me… there are only so many times you can have rich women hepped up on xanex and valium tell me I am useless… that I am an idiot… that I am stupid… that I am a lier… and these are the nice ones.
So I had been casually applying for random photography jobs and not really thinking much of it and then… out of the blue… came a reply. That told me I had got the job! Part time photog for a management company taking pictures of their artists they represent… perfect yes!!!! So off I went and gave notice on my job. Amelia had received her marching orders.
So… quit my job and moving out of my house…times of change… change is as good as a holiday… things are on the move… was gonna get out of this rut.
Not quite my friends… not quite.
Almost immediately… there was trouble stirring in the woods. It was then that everything started to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Upon accepting my new fabulous job as a photog… things weren't adding up. Jobs were getting cancelled, phone calls not returned and emails bouncing back.
Don't panic. It's just London Baby.
Add to this, at the promise of a fabulous new apartment, all of a sudden Jason was putting me off and rescheduling me… but assuring me everything was fine.
Don't Panic. It's just London Baby.
Then… after a week… the photog job was still not answering calls. I would just get random emails setting up jobs and then canceling jobs twelve hours later.
And Jason kept apologising, assuring me we would sort the house "today" and then rescheduling me by two hours… and another two hours… and another two hours… and then wouldn't call. So I was rescheduling my life by two hours… and then another two hours and very quickly finding myself sliding into the "shit friend zone"
Don't Panic. It's just London Baby.
This went on for three weeks. There was a sick feeling in my stomach. My skin broke out and I was eating my worth in emotional baggage.
Very soon I was quite possibly going to be homeless and unemployed in one of the most expensive city in the world. Good plan!
Or not.
So… finally was randomly going through my junkmail of my website… and there it was… an email saying the photog job had fallen through. That the company went bust. I had 10 days left until I was supposed to leave the salon and move house.
DO PANIC!!!
(And it is just London baby)
After six weeks of being messed around by Jason, I finally had enough and threw in the towel… telling him to forget the entire thing. I don't let anyone mess me around that much… especially when it comes to the room over my head.
So… what do you do when you have no job and no house?????? Quite simply BEG TO HAVE THEM BACK!!!!
And that is exactly what I did. On my emotional hands and knees I managed to get myself right back to the place where I started.
So here I am one month later… same job… same house… same figuratively emotional place.
People speak of crossroads and of maps of life… I strolled down the London road of house, job and fabulous friends… took a detour at "photography diploma" avenue, somehow tried to take a short cut through "Jason" lane and got lost in the woods.
Now that I am back on the road I find myself standing at a crossroads with no map, no guide book and all I can do is sit on my suit cases and look from one road to another thinking… where the hell does this go?
And so… when the going gets tough….
THE TOUGH GET THEIR BEST FRIENDS AND GO TO PARIS…
Yes… stay tuned for the next blog entry which has all the ridiculous details of my wonderfully beautiful week in Paris… let me just go and write it all!!
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