The masochistic holiday.
Another day in the life of Vicky. So after being a part of an absolutely mortifying discovery of which I was the one being absolutely mortified, I completed that damned cover letter (see previous post). Come tomorrow, we shall see if I could top my already colourful résumé with a jewel straight from the local media centre.
Not much has passed today, but it could, if only my French person would budge from his ultra-King sized bed for a stroll down Sydney’s most debauched lanes. Darlinghurst. Kings Cross even. But that was not to be.
My vinyl hat brings the boys to the yard. Damn right, it's better than yours.
So I reluctantly allowed my eyeballs to guzzle four episodes from Disc Two of my favourite American series, House. Disc One has not arrived yet, from the highly unreliable but necessary Quickflix, an online DVD and Bluray rental site. My consciousness has not gone to waste indeed, for those episodes were some of the best of House! I apologise for the plethora of superlatives and intensifiers today, but any fan of my favourite curmudgeon Doctor would agree with me on this, or so I fancy. Memorable patients include an African-American teenager with an horrific facial deformity the size of two cricket balls (cricket? Yes, I’m Aussie), a magician whose performance went (near) fatally awry. I adore the magician and his British accent! I adore all accents if you must know, yet some of my strongest affections are obstinately veered towards those without an accent, or those with an Aussie accent. I cannot emphasise how much that accent irks me, yet I am getting used to it, after living here for a good portion of my life thus far.
Moving on.
In a bid to lubricate my charred throat (no, not the kind used by people who are “at it”, as my happy slip calls it), I have been slurping down six cans of Guīlínggāo Chinese herbal jellies aka Tortoise Jelly. These mass-produced kinds are definitely sweeter than those I recall having in Asian restaurants. I have an easy, sweet tooth so I suppose it suits in the end. The ‘Nutrition Facts’ list was printed in such small print, that I could not quite decide as to the future of my throat: whether it will progress on the Stairway to Heaven or towards Lucifer’s den. Judging by the empirical alone, I’d say my throat is edging towards the latter.
Jelly's definitely guilty.
Oh, and I’ve bought another pair of tights. Falke fishnets, and pink ones at that. I’d like to try it with a predominantly white fit. I should look rather symbolic. I have been preoccupying myself with trying out a myriad of ways to wear my new Therese Rawsthorne silk blouse. As a consequence, I was thought a bride or a bridesmaid more than one time. And lo and behold, two hours later, a newly wedded couple waddled past us.
Tragic.
I have my ways of overstating the understated, which I tend to transfer to my tastes in clothes, music, as well as in the suggestive vectors in my eye and bodily movements.
It is an hour past midnight now, and I think, gosh, isn’t it marvellous that I am no longer a child, bounded by curfews governed by mechanical things such as clocks and mothers?
Alas, not quite.
I miss innocence. I miss the 5 cent artificially flavoured popsicles. I miss stuffing Enid Blyton’s ‘The Mystery of the Missing Necklace’ into the toilet tank for fear my mother would find that I’ve been ‘defecating’ for six hours straight.
I was an odd one. But I was normal in that I would have gladly stuffed myself down the tank, even the bowl then, to avoid taking my cough medicines. Mother broke the door down, literally, and I knew then I chose the wrong toilet in which to cower. The meds were issued, and I have recovered since.
Ella Fitzgerald’s sultry ‘You’re My Thrill’ beckons me back to my reality. My reality, really, only equates to long hours of frustration and bewilderment. It’s either those or hours of gluing my eyeballs to Dr. House solving gruesome cases, Dr. House chasing Dr. Cuddy, Dr. House illegally self-prescribing Vicodin, and Dr. House hoodwinking a league of colleagues.
And back again.
Ella Fitzgerald is really quite wonderful. Hers is a voice that could demand undue attention even from the most severe ADHD patients, a voice that makes us keel over like dogs, a voice that caresses and pants by our ears, arousing desire, wonder, and sorrow.
The Lady Day could teach Moses a thing or two about parting waves gently. She could create ripples of warm feelings in the coldest of hearts.
She could make me enjoy writing.
Oh, what a trickster!
Fittingly, I thought to include a sound clip of her singing ‘Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)’, a delightful jazz standard.
And oh yes, she beats Billie Holiday to a pulp. Vocally. And maybe sexually. Holiday, I’ve been informed, was something of a masochist.
