The Feeling of Defeat

OK. So I spoke too soon yesterday.

Half an hour into the office today, a Friday - the last day of the work week and supposedly the next happiest day to Saturday, I sat slumped at my desk enveloped by a feeling of defeat.

That was just it. The feeling of defeat, even though I wasn't sure what or who had defeated me. It was as if i'd lost my will...to work. The momentum I had fell and landed with a loud thud. The week had finally caught up with me. The late departures from work and later nights to bed. The marathons between emails and phonecalls and meetings and briefings.

Still, though sick leave was just a thought away, I met a supplier, sat in for a food tasting session that turned out to be my lunch, took the photographer on a site tour, and finally finished up at a decent time of half 5. All the while still carrying with me this sense of hopelessless, physical weakness, and a 5-second lagtime behind the normal speed of the rest of the world.

Going to bed now. Here's to a better first best day of the week tomorrow.

If Nothing Else, There's Always Cheesecake

Something huge is happening at work. I must resist from getting down to details, just because commonsense tells me there must be an informal confidentiality clause somewhere in my informal acceptance of this temporary and informal role. That and there'll be media and ministers in attendance, so I guess mum's the word for now.

Last Friday I was offered the blue pill-red pill option. "You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes".

I could have said, "What? Me? But I've never co-ordinated events before. Oh no no no..." But here I am, still falling down this rabbit-hole, just as Neo, despite his comparably more comfortable existence in the Matrix could not look past Morpheus's sales pitch.

Since then, i hadn't been able to find the brakes. I'm free-falling on the fast lane, and every day since Friday has been go-go-GO. The phones are going off, everybody needs answers to meet someone else's deadline, this morning's decisions are useless by mid-morning, there are meetings with PR agencies, photographers, caterers, staging guys, and that's only been the last four days.

Admittedly, i'm loving the challenge. Sure the hours are a little crazier, I've gone from virtually a desk job to suddenly having early morning solo meetings with impressionable suppliers under the pretence that I absolutely know it all, but for a change i'm being paid to not do my job. And changes...aren't necessarily all bad...

To be continued...

New York: Meeting People - Part II

What's a holiday without meeting a few interesting people?

The Empire State Boys

The panoramic night views of Manhattan and beyond atop the Empire State Building can only be described as none other than…surreal. Awesome. Thrilling. Just when you think you couldn’t feel any smaller in the city that has 24-hr pharmacies the size of K-Marts in Melbourne, walk-in diners the size of a buffet halls and buildings that pierce through the clouds, you’re on top of New York City on this clear windy night, trying to comprehend how insignificant you truly are in the scale of things, and meanwhile overwhelmed by its presence.

Dragging our feet reluctantly back to Earth, WF and I went through our visitors’ guidebook on a bench just at the base of the ESB. At midnight, the night was young. What does New York have to offer? Who will answer our call?

“Do you girls need some help?”

We said we were looking for a place to go and they said they knew a cool place, an open rooftop bar nearby that overlooked the Empire State Building. They asked if we’d join them. We put the guidebook away and entrusted our night plans to three local New Yorkers who obviously had better local knowledge than we did.

Turned out they were three friends who’d recently reconnected after years of losing contact - Rob currently a Masters of Philosophy student, Jason a banker and Mick in Finance went to school together. It was an evening of culture exchange over cocktails and beers and getting a crash course on pure strangers and what led each of us to this very place tonight. Unfortunately the cocktail I had kicked in sooner than I would usually expect, and with a promise to meet up again, the boys hailed us a cab back to our hotel. The night ended there, and so does this story. By the way, that open rooftop bar – it was lovely. View of the ESB. Benches lined against the wall with cushions and pot plants. Candles, jazz and the open sky.

When Lindy met Charley O

Was in Times Square when out of nowhere a massive craving attack for Lindy’s famous NY-baked cheesecake hit me like a raging guided missile. I had to get some. But it was on 53rd St, and I was only at about 46th – oh gosh, I’m never gonna make it! Kill me now!

Then I remembered Charley O’s Times Square Grill served slices of Lindy’s cheesecakes and it was only on 49th St at the corner of Broadway. I can make it to that one! Yes - saved!

Ushered to my seat by the window, I scrolled right down the menu to desserts for cheesecake.

I’ll have the cheesecake, please.
Not having any dinner?
No, I’ll just have the cheesecake, thanks.
Any drinks? Our bartender makes amazing martinis here.
No, just the cheesecake. That’s all I want.
You really like cheesecakes, huh?
Yes I do.
Well, next time you come back, I’ll buy you cheesecake. My treat.

Only half listening by this time - fingers tapping away subconsciously, body fidgety from fighting this sudden drop in cheesecake levels.

It was consumed in a slow, satiating process. I stared blankly outside at the silent moving picture that is Times Square human traffic, and simply indulged myself on one of these last nights in New York.

As I was leaving, the usher stopped me and said again that he’d buy me cheesecake the next time I came back. I was about to laugh off his gesture when he suggested a time I should come back. How about Sunday? I could have, but I declined. Equally for the reason that I wasn’t sure what message I’d be sending out if I’d accepted his offer, as that I was fulfilled enough to leave my cheesecake rendezvous-ing days behind me.

New York: Meeting People - Part I

What's a holiday without meeting a few interesting people?

The Dodgy

After many a tray of airplane meals, 2 in-flight movies and having crossed a dozen time zones, I finally landed in Los Angeles. This business of travelling in a time capsule that finds you departing on a Sunday afternoon and arriving 14 hours later, still a Sunday afternoon of the same day, certainly leaves you more than a little disorientated.

It’s interesting that being armed with a couple of hundred dollar US notes don’t get you anywhere outside airport grounds if you don’t have even two quarters to make a local phone call. The 5-hour flight delay had left me with under 3 hours to get to Hollywood, and my only focus was to get to Les Miserables on time! I must have paced back and forth one too many rounds with my big blue bag that I caught the attention of a seemingly kind elderly man in his late 50s/early 60s.

Moments like these he’s God-sent, because he offers you his cellphone to make your call & helps you get your NY-sector luggage into storage. He assures you that he’s an airport ground staff (offering you a business card for proof), his wife works for American Airlines and he was waiting to pick her up. He asks you some general questions and you show him your itinerary quickly. And before you whisk off, he tells you that he lives really close to the airport and if you ran into any problems that night you should call him. You thank him gratefully, and just about forget all of this whilst you applaud with shameless tears the cast of Les Mis in a spectacular standing ovation.

The next morning, my head up in the air looking at the signs for my boarding gate, I bumped into Bill again. Actually, it looked awfully a lot like he had been waiting for me. There couldn’t be that many QANTAS flights, flying outbound to New York, departing in the morning. So there he was, equally surprised to see me but unable to adequately satisfy my question of why he was there. Then he reiterated the same facts he should have known I already knew: he lived near the airport, his wife was a flight attendant (who apparently kicked him for not inviting me to dinner last night) and in that moment whilst still listening and smiling attentively at him, he wouldn’t even realise that I was already processing the loopholes. Something was amiss. I then remembered to forget when I was returning to L.A, not even whether it was an A.M or P.M arrival, what my real name was, and suddenly “dying for a chocolate croissant, so I’ll see you later. Yea, sure I’ll email you when I come back to L.A”.

Just as I was queuing up to board, Bill returns again with a box of chocolates. He says he only does this for “special people”. Well, I guess we’d never really know how ‘special’ he thought I was. I know I could have just been a paranoid pessimist who mistook kindness for deception, but whether my photo ends up a statistical face on the ‘Missing Persons’ board throughout LA, or whether I live to tell the next story, was a decision I faced just hours into my holiday. Curiosity killed the cat, but not THIS cat. She’s going on holiday!!

The Married

On the packed shuttle bus from JFK International Airport to Midtown Manhattan, I took an empty seat next to someone who would later introduce himself as Eric. Finally, two days and 19 hours of flying later, I was in New York! I was completely fixated at the rolling scenery, but he said hi and we engaged in a conversation about 20 minutes into the 45-minute journey. He was Israeli, in New York for two days on business, a record producer at heart but his main business was sourcing American clothing and importing them to his home country. He spoke fluent English, so I don’t know why he said: “I don’t know how to say this in English, but umm…would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night? I get bored in New York.” The polite chit-chat came to a halt. Seeing his wife gave him that wedding band, and between us we shared a 20 year age gap and an unimpressive conversation so far, it helped my excuses flow oh so naturally. They were half-truths, not lies entirely. Apparently I was meeting a friend and didn’t have a phone to be contacted on, so it was goodbye and good luck.

The African Prince

Yes, bizarre as it was for a tour bus ticket seller to be an African Prince who abdicated the throne to be King, and for him to tell me this within 1 minute of stepping in my path, I might just have to take his word for it. TJ’s theory is that if 10 women walked by and he yelled out only to get the attention of one woman, that woman was destined to be his wife. I looked at him in that ‘you befuddled fool’ look (which channels through as a forced smile) and just entertained his theories. Heck, I’m on holiday – I’ll listen to anything! Big mistake because now he says we HAVE TO meet again. “It’s my day off tomorrow, I can take you on the tour bus for free and we can go sightseeing together.” “I really like you, I think you are really friendly. You must must call me”. I don’t have a phone, but yes, I’ll take your number. Let me talk to my friend first and see what she wants to do tomorrow. But sure I’ll call you. Yup, definitely. I actually thought of calling him just to say I couldn’t make it, but then decided there was nothing more I wanted to add to this story.