Christmas Wishful Thinking

My New Man Friend is going back to Brazil at Christmas to spend time with his family. Two of my girl friends are going to be spending their Christmas and New Year in Thailand and Cambodia. What fun. I could do with a cash injection right about now to book me a ticket to far, far away places. I'm willing it to happen!

Dancey Dancey

I;ve just got in from a night out. Not drunk but I',m tired and weary so I feel a little drunk. I did a bit of chatting up and some dirty dancing so it was a good night. Helped that there was some good music playing. I don't need any trendy electro trance beats or shite like that. Give me Beyonce, Pussycat Dolls, Shakira Shakira, Lady Gaga and sme vintage Whitney Houston and I can be found throwing shapes on the dancefloor like a madwoman. And I had a lot of fun doing it. it felt good to let go and dance myself dizzy with my girlfriends. It also didn't hurt that I teased some of the boys my (sometimes) dirty move. I am naughty.

Anyway, I need to wake up in fours hours to shower, get ready and travel to the shooting of some viral. I have not idea what it's about. Something involving a free runner and apparently I'm going to be "right up in the middle of the action". It's something to do, innit?! So I should have not gone out (but I had too, my friend is going back to Australia to sort out her visa) but gone to bed early to I would be chipper in the morning and looking halfway decent. Not a chance now!

BEDA Day 24, 25 & 26 - The Weekend

Yes so I've probably failed the BEDA challenge now but I don't care and I'm going to continue blogging until the end of the month anyway.

I came from on Friday night after some goodbye drinks with the people from my former department. Then plan was to make watch some TV, blog and make dinner. I got as far as watching TV. At some point during the Jonathan Ross show I nodded off and didn't wake until 3am. I decided it was probably best for me to continue sleeping and rest properly than blog.. and boil water for pasta while half-asleep.

The next way was jame packed with activites and not helped by my nearest tube line being down therefore making me late. It didn't matter too much though as everyone else was running late too. A small group of us went on a nature walk and took in the sights of North London's parks before dining in a Colombian resturant then (some of them) calling it a day. Me and New Friend (NF) then headed to the cinema to watch In The Loop. Some of it I didn't understand but it did have some very funny moments. Afterwards me and NF went back to my flat and I was tied up with hostessing duties....

...which continued into Sunday morning and afternoon until we parted and went to have lunch with a girlfriend completely missing out on doing anything marathon-related. We were both knackered so it was fairly uneventful but we had some nice food and a brief shopping trip in the chemist.

Now I'm getting ready to call it a day quite soon. I'm extremely tried as I didn't sleep well last night and I really need to catch up on some Zzzs in preparation for this week. I'm not looking forward to it. Wor will be hetic and tiring and we are still trying to iron out all the details of our new flat and contract before the supposed move date this Friday. Stress! Bring on the Bank Holiday weekend!

BEDA day Eighteen & Nineteen: Unexpected

This blog covers days Eighteen and Nineteen. The weekend took an expected turn of events so I wasn't at home last night and most of today. I'm extremely tired as I haven't slept much.

I went to a playreading last night at a friends house which turned into a mini party with is wailing on Singstar until late and I ended up staying the night. I befriend one of the guys at the playreading/party and in the morn I went back to his house where there was a Goodbye Breakfast for one of his housemates leaving today to travel. The rest of the day was spent there eating, watching TV and listening to Prince songs. Among other things.

So now I'm finally back and need to have a quick wash and hit the sack. Got my first 5 day work week in almost 2 months. Tiring!

BEDA Day Seventeen: Now It Gets Interesting

Huh-lohhhhh. Eye'm Mel. Eye hov un El Jay. UuuuUUuuuUUuuuuuhhhhhh. We just woched HUGE JACKMAN and frothed at the gusset. Roben Write Peyeannnnnn! CUN REED MY PO-ER-FEACE. UuuuUUUUUuuuuuUUuuuuuuhhhhh!

Translation: I have an L.J. staying over and it's hella fun. We have ate pizza and queefed and creamed over Hugh Jackman on the Jonathan Ross show. We also do a wicked Lady Gaga impression even though she's a humourless, miserable twonk! We compiled a list of celebrity buhbuies that are cute.

Junior Andre
Jayden Spears
Shiloh Pitt
Kingston Rosdale
Suri Cruise (L.J. wants this one)
Violet Affleck
Maddox
Romeo Backham

We danced to a guy's ringtone on the bus home, went to Sainsburys, talked louldy about getting chlamydia screening in the Sainburys pharmacy. But it had closed.

Now I'm schleeeepy.

BEDA Day Thirteen: Gearing Up For The Week Ahead

The Easter holiday is now over and I'm getting ready for working tomorrow and dreading it more than usual. The woman I was working with has now left the compnay (and in probably in Chicago right now as I type) so I will be in the driver's seat from tomorrow and will have lots to do and take responibility for. I'm still in the process of learning the job so something's going to go wrong and I will probably be in tears before the week's out knowing me.

I have to remember that the role's only for about 6 weeks so I just need to drag myself through the next month and then it will become a distant memory. Hopefully I'll find another job to go straight into so I'm not stressing about work and money again. I know the ecomony's in the shitter at the moment but would it hurt to give me a nice, chunky job contract 6+ months?

I should be grateful that it's another 4 day week this week. Not long for the next weekend and have plenty planned for that. This weekend was a lot of fun if you ignore the non-existent transport system. Apart from my two trips out to Zone 6 to see Rent, I was well-fed yesterday by friends and watched loads lof films last night before having a good old girlie chat. More of the same please.

Wish me luck for tomorrow.

BEDA Day Four: Recovery

I rolled in at 4am last night. Went to bed at 5am, slept until 1:30pm woke up, surfed the net then fell back asleep. It's 9pm, I've just been to the shops to get food and coca-cola and now I'm ready to function properly.

I had a lot of fun at the birthday party last night although I probably should have gone home earlier. There was flirting, scandalous photos and most shocking of all, a SENSIBLE conversation with the birthday girl's brother. We also amused ourselves by stick glittery stars over our faces. Look how pretty they made me:

So I've done nothing today and I feel a bit crap & lazy about it. I went to the supermarket and bought pizza, Haribo and fizzy drinks and on the way back decided that I really MUST eat better and lose weight soon... but not tonight. I met up with my friend Jess earlier this week and we promised to take part in some runs, I'd like to say it has motivated me to exercise again but it hasn't. I will start running again... but not tonight.

Maybe I'll start tomorrow.

BEDA Day Three: Party!

It's very late (early morning) but thought it best to blog now as I might not get the chance to blog later in the day. I shall be spending most of my life in New Job and then afterwards I have a friend's birthday celebrations in the evening and we shall probably party well into the night. Or until I have to leave to catch the last tube home.

I still feel a bit down. I have to stop dwelling on certain things and look ahead now. I'm also not happy that I have to wake up early. I start my job at 8:30am which is just plain wrong. I'm probably going to get 5 hours sleep maximum tonight. Maybe I can programme my brain to think that hours is a reasonable amount of sleeping time.

Guten nacht!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I can't let this day pass without sounding somewhat patriotic. So here it is: Hooray! Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone.

In other news, I still have no new job and I'm so bored. I'm bored of pressing F5 on my email browser and hoping for ray of light to appear in my inbox offering something interesting and lifechanging. Come on, joke's over. Employ me now.

Radio Mel-Mel

I'm so tired right now and need my bed soon. It's been an active and crazy couple of days and I need a good sleep to feel better. Mj has now left town so things might calm down until the concert tickets go on sale on Wednesday/Friday. I need to hope & pray that me and/or my friends get a pre-sale ticket code soon.

I stayed in Friday daytime making up for the tiring and hugry day before then went out in the evening to go to the cinema with Ellie. Afterwards we decided to walk to Covent Garden as we heard tha Michael was watching "Oliver" that night. We didn't stay too long as we weren't prepared to wait 2.5 hours for the show to finish and for Michael to reappear. I did however use this time to schedule another interview, this time for LBC radio for the following day.

On Saturday we paid another trip to the cinema (to see The Young Victoria - very nice!) before dashing home to await a phonecall from the radio station to put me on air. I knew this might be a tougher interview than the BBC one as the presenter had made it clear to me that he didn't rate post-8o's MJ that much, so I boned up on facts and figures to support my points beforehand. It's wasn't too bad actually. Yes the presenter made some negative comments but he wasn't nasty about it and gave me time to get my points across and agreed with some things I said. Apparently the people in the studio seemed impressed with what I said and one woman on their team saying that I should become MJ's spokesperson. Ummm.. yes please!

I spent Saturday evening doing something non-Mj related: playing this game at a friend's house. Which was a lot of fun. We carried on into the wee hours and I ended up snoozing on a friend's sofa until I had to leave in the morning to go home, change and go straight again to have lunch with a friend. Phew!

I'm feeling a bit better about myself and my abilities after the last few day. My friends have been very supportive of my interviews and given me praise where due. I have no pretty way of wrapping up this blog entry as I really need to log off and sleep so I'l just say goodnight now.

I need all the luck in the world for getting a ticket this week!

The Fan Is Back

Putting the job and auditions progress to one side the other hot topic has to be... the big Michael Jackson press conference at the O2 tomorrow and what it will bring. Most likely to announce his run of concerts at that venue over the summer. Of course I will be there, I'm out of work so I should take advantage. The timing sucks (no job, no money for tickets) but in a way it doesn't.

(30 mins later)

Just off the phone to Citz where we having been getting stupidly giddy about tomorrow's events. Can't believe we're all getting in my loony fan mode again. I'm sure we swore we'd never be like this again.

Until tomorrow... Eeeeeeee!!!

The Glamorous Life

Last week I received a call from my old piano teacher asking if I was "free to dance on Sunday". He'd been contacted by some people he met at a party a year ago and asked if he new any dancers who would be free on Sunday to do a video shoot for a scene in their bollywood film. He must have remembered that I told him about doing theatre and musicals when I was taking lessons with him and asked if I'd take part.

So I was thrown in at the deep end and had two rehearsals with the other dancers to learn the routine and during the rehearsals new bits would be added and learnt. It wasn't as daunting as I thought it would be and the professional and/or in-training dancers were friendly and helpful. On the day we got to Reading at 10am and then realised what a shambles we were getting involved in. The director and his crew were two hours late and he was giving no direction leaving it up to our choreographer to deal with the dance troupe and the extras, and my piano teacher more of less directing the whole shoot throughout the day... despite originally being asked to only find some dancers.

The actual filming itself was a lot of fun (and I burned some serious cals, always a plus!) and I'm glad of the experience but it was a long day, badly organized and come 9:30pm, having been on our feet in HEELS for the past 10 hours, our diva sides came out we gave the director 3 more minutes of out time and then promptly left to trek back to London. To be fair we had been their longer and worked harder than anyone else and I'm including some of the techy/camera guys who called up to help out just like us dancers.

The extras on set, looking bored and waiting around... a lot!

Us being filmed in mid-dance routine. I'm second from right.

It's Tuesday now and I'm completely knackered as between work, rehearsals and filming I've also been having a social life and getting to bed late with early rises. I spent Friday in the a charming, cosy little flat with lots of friends of a friend eating food and having big girlie chats and drawing up a list of all the qualities we want in a man. On Saturday I saw New Kids on The Block in concert. I was extremely impressed by the show as there was such a great atmosphere, certainly one of the most enjoyable concerts I've been too. One of the best bits was Donnie Wahlberg picking a 5 year old girl out of the audience to dance with and she was not impressed. She looked quite disgusted or maybe terrified of what was going on.

I'm looking forward getting a few more hours of sleep come Saturday but even then I have two auditions to prepare for and attend (one on Saturday, one on Sunday) and another rehearsal later this week for a musical. So no rest for the wicked, however as busy as I am I feel this is the way my life should be heading right now.

Australia (The Film)

I want it to rain and I was to stand in it while smooching a hunky man.

(In brief: I rather enjoyed this film. Thought it started off a bit silly but soon settled down and was pretty and endearing film. Some exciting scenes too.)

Funstuffs

What does one do for fun when money is short? Go into various clothes shops, with a good friend, during the January sales and take the piss out of all the hideous clothing and jewellery that we're expected to buy. Be loud. Lack of discreetion is part of the fun. How I wish I'd taken a photo of the hideous, tacky and plastic jewellery in one shop. Also walk down a busy street and proclaim loudly "How does a mermaid take a poo?" for all to hear. Unfortunately no one on Oxford Street could answer my question.

And that was my Saturday evening. I also saw this which was brill. I love my friends. They are a bunch of fruitloops like me. I have L.J. on email getting me through the work week with her cut-throat one-liners and insults and Ellie at weekends who always laughs at my randomness because she knows the obscure Michael Jackson fan/Saturday Night Live reference behind it. I finding everyone's company pleasurable at the moment. Maybe we're all trying harder because it's January and therefore a depressing time for most so we're putting our best face forward.

Tomorrow, after attending a playreading, I will be dining with another great friend and catching-up lots with her. I expect to draw up another plan to take over the world with as what usually happens when the two of us meet up and are both in good moods. I'm really hoping this enthusiasm for "Life in 2009" lasts throughout this year. I expect it to wear off once we have all fully settled back into life after the holiday season and realised that very little has changed. Maybe I should blog about it as much as possible now to read back on once I think life is being less than spectactular. I need hope this year and lots of it.

Back To Work!

The performing kind, not the office kind. After a much needed and deserved 3 evenings off, we were back at the theatre yesterday for the second run of our play. As the shows at our theatre only run for 4 or 5 days over one week, it felt so odd to be walking back in to prepare for another run of shows when we knew we'd already completed a run. I think I even said at one point "Oh, I can't be bothered doing this again" and a couple of people agreed with me but that all changed when the show began and we got back into the ol' routine and thrill of entertaining an audience. I'm now looking forward to tonight's show and not just because I want to leave (office) work.

We also had a great audience last night who joined in with the "panto" elements of the show and some of my lines got good laughs from them. I think this week will be fun. We had a couple of diffult nights last week when we had a small audience in, which changes the atmosphere, but tickets sales are looking quick healthy for the rest of the nights so hopefully we'll have more shows and audiences like yesterday.

It will be sad when the show finally ends as the cast have got on so well with each other and new friendships have been formed, old friendships strengthed. I think the intensive (and disorganised) rehearsal schedule really made us bond. Time will tell if it lasts but right now they are a great group of people to hang around with and during quiet moments in the shows (and in the pub afterwards) we have the chance to amuse and counsel one another.

Ahhh... Peace & Love & Zen. You can definitely tell it's a Thursday and not a Monday in 'Meldaland.

Food & Sleep

What more could a Mel want?

Not long back from the theatre after our second show and I'm sitting here with a big bowl of pasta and a cuppa tea. Niiiiice. Trying to ignore the fact that I've got a 9am conference call to Singapore in the morn and wondering if I'll get in trouble with my manager tomorrow for not making it stupidly obvious to someone to save a report as .xls and not .csv.

I'm so glad to be performing the show even though I'm completely knackered and have no time to do anything. The rehearsals were soul destroying, we had to replace one cast member as he's currently stranded in Italy and not allowed back into the UK due to visa issues and another cast member pulled out on Sunday. With such short notice the only way to get around that is to have his character played, via one cast member, by a hand puppet and voiced by another cast member. Crazy! Despite everything, we're having fun doing the show for real. Even when there's more cast members than audience as was the case tonight. We got through it as best we could. We've got six more shows to do so hopefully we'll get larger audiences (opening night was good). We've got the weekend shows coming up so people will be happier to stay out late in the knowledge that they won't have to get up for work.

Speaking of which, time I hit the sack. I've been getting no more than five hours sleep every night this week so I'm going to try for six tonight. I love sleep. And sleep loves me!

X-Factor: Ruth Lorenzo For The Win

This is amazing.



At the time of writing she's still in the contest but the results show is coming up soon. Unfortuantely I don't trust the voting public. She's not a cute boy or in a cute boyband so it's not looking good. As usual, in competitions like these the women have to work extra hard but still get beaten by average male acts. Pfffft!

Friday Unplugged

No change to my general health. I've still got a monster cold, headaches and a wee cough a-brewing in my chest. Lovely. it's to be expected though. Winter is young, I have a busy schedule, I'm run down and my immune system is shot. I cannot wait for December 20th/21st when I should be back home for Christmas by then and I can look forward to a week of sleep, food and more sleep.

Despite feeling crap it came as a relief that Friday night's concert was a relaxing and chilled out affair. We even had seats to sit on. The unplugged concert took place in an auditorium and we got ourselves some good seats and a evaluation questionaire to ponder. The night started off with short sets from three great acts before Roachford got on stage. According to the host introducing him, he's been phoned by Michael Jackson and Prince. Niiiice! It was a short gig but a great show with a few favourites performed and the little singer within me twitching.

Oh, and earlier that night me and Ellie wandered around the venue and ended up crashing some reception on the first floor. I thought I was doing well with my "we SHOULD be here" confident attitude until we got discovered by the (free) bar-man who noticed the concert logo stamped on our hands (in place of a ticket) and we were told where to go... in a really nice, friendly way. I'm so rock 'n' roll!

Post Show Life

Another show over. This one went well but I was only onstage for 5-10 minutes so not much chance of messing up. Even the girl-on-girl snog went well and I enjoyed hearing the audience's reaction to that every night. After the final show and Get-Out we began the aftershow party which turned into another all-nighter full of left-over party food and dancing to every genre of music possible. After a 3am snooze (see below) I got a second wind and returned to some energetic dancing (including the now famous, in my world, Jumping Boob Thrust Dance. I may make a video of that someday) and teadrinking. Rock on.




Me and a friend eventually left the theatre at at 12noon the next day. One of the cast members passed out on the sofa and we couldn't wake her at 8am so we snoozed on the sofas with her until she felt awake and sober anough to get home. We're nice like that!

On my way home I dropped into Drop-In Reiki. I always see this advertised at the start of every month but never get aroudn to checking it out. However after all my recent health problem and a flare-up in my bad eye on Thursday (got it checked out, no infection coming back and got some drops to help keep my cornea moist) I wanted to give it a go and see what it could do. I left the session feeling quite chilled and noticed that my sensitivity to the light in the clinic hallway had decreased. It was also nice to talk through recent events with the therapist and she gave me some advice to help with my eye. I think I'll give this a go next month again, at the very least it's relaxing and that's not a bad thing.

The therapist advised me to get an eyepatch to help with the photophobia and general eye recovery so I got one yesterday. I'm wearing it now as I type, feeling quite piratey, and I wore it all day yesterday (when indoors) and got lots of sleep. The eye is looking better for it (and for the ibuprofen I'm taking too?) so I shall continue to do so for a while. Arrrrrrr!

In among the job hunting (I might be starting an alrightish, not great paid job soon but still waiting the outcome on some applications so it's better than nothing) I'm preparing for my next show. It's a one-off show atthe end of the month, based on a play which I was a dancer in last year. A friend booked the venue so we had to think of something to fill it with asap so the writer is re-wrtiting one of her old plays to suit. I'll be getting the corset, fishnet and hotpants out again as I'll be playing a stripper (NO nudity!) and we will have very little time to learn our lines (haven't received the new script yet) and only 3 rehearsals. Sounds rushed (it is!) and stressful but I like that. It'll also count as a professional production which will be great to stick on the ol' (performing) CV and just to say out loud. Go me.

Life may be rubbish in some areas but it's looking not too shabby in others. Hurrah!

Today Is My Friday

I'm taking tomorrow off and will fly home to see my neice, sleep lots and gorge on curry chips. I'm looking forward to it at as it means the weekend begins tonight! As I have not moeny a tthe moment (not my fault, manager didn't sign off my timesheets) I'm also looking forward to not spending any money while I visit home. I have my mum to drive me to where I wanna go and she has a well-stocked fridge of food that I will guzzle.

Kicking off my long weekend by going to a play reading tonight at my theatre company, then home to play on my new computer. So glad it's arrived. I can start to feel normal again!