That’s Stella

My friend Jason was hanging by a shopping mall in Beverly Hills when he bumped into Bstein - aka. my New York romance. “Fancy that!” Jason says to me. In my head I’m thinkin that Jason must have a pretty good story to tell because we hardly ever talk. Then he opens his mouth and it was like a stab to the heart.

“He was there with his girlfriend”
- first blow to my heart. But he didn’t stop there…
“He said he’s moving to LA in August!!!!”
- second blow to my heart. Oh but there’s more!
“His girlfriend is hot” - third and final blow.

OUCH!

The thing that actually hurt the most was the second blow - news that he was moving to LA. A couple months ago, my favourite man in NY, Katzy, told me Bstein was in LA but things were on rocky terms with his girlfriend and yada yada. Upon hearing the news, I clearly remember msging him straight away,

“In LA AGAIN? Quit it New York Man. I need you at home so you can pick me up at the airport. Heat up the seat warmers for me. X”

(I experienced car seat warmers for the first time in his car. Very rare in Australia coz it’s not a necessity. Not that heating your tush is a necessity, but certainly not needed in our mild winter. It was something like -1C outside and when he put on the seat heaters without warning, and I started getting a warm sensation down there, I thought my butt was going to explode).

Anyway… he never replied to my msg. And now when I hear this news, I know that he must’ve felt pretty embarrassed about telling me because we always had this LA vs. NY mentality, like how Aussies feel about New Zealanders, or Western Australians have this “us versus them” mentality with eastern staters. To be honest, I do like LA, but no where near as much as NY and I do think NY is better than LA. More real people. Less plastic. More variety. More culture. Less sprawl.

I fell in love with New York years before I met Bstein, but he is still part of an element of the city that I love so much. When I was first living in New York, I fell in love with the independence one can find in the city. I loved that I was 19 years old, living alone in the big city and that it made me really open my eyes and grow up. I loved that there were millions of people in the city, but I could still manage to find my own quiet sanctuary in my first home in Tribeca. I fell in love with Chinatown and doing my routine grocery shopping there every couple of days and how it reminded me of my parents routines. I fell in love with the people that were so welcoming and friendly and kind. I fell in love with my successful friends that I made (fashion designers, CEOs, art directors) who took me under their wing and inspired me. I fell in love with the streets and loved that one could walk the same street every day and still find something new on every journey, whether it was an art gallery or market or jewellery store.

But when I went back to live in NY for the second time, I met Bstein and Katzy, and they became my New York Men that I love so much. With Bstein moving to LA, it’s like a piece of the city that I love is gone.

When I think of returning home to NY, I dream of surprising Bstein and Katzy, not actually telling them I would be in NY. I dream of buzzing Katzy’s door and waiting outside with vegemite and crackers and giving him a big surprise. I dream of waiting on the corner of Bsteins apartment building on 81st street on the UES, waiting for Bstein to step outside and I would purposely rush by him and knock him over, and he would apologise like a gentleman and after realising it’s me, he’d hug me and swing me around in the air like they do in corny movies.

I feel like Bstein leaving NY is a sign. Lately I’ve been thinking about doing a 2 year stint in London. I’m not a huge fan of London, but two of my best buds are there - Miss. 23 and Hinius, plus there are fantastic opportunities there and lately I’ve been in agony deciding over NY or London…

New York or London…………?
London or New York………..?

Sunday
Andrea and I spent the early morning concepting advertising ideas for a new client of ours. Her creative flair really emerged without Douchebag and PrimeMinister looking over her shoulder ready to fire the insults like they did when we were doing uni assignments. Andrea and I had to remind ourselves that we were now out in the real world and dealing with clients, not just lecturers and grades.
I organised a going away lunch at The Secret Garden for Miss. 23 with all our uni buddies, so we spent the afternoon with good food and catching up. On a side note, I dread the question “What’s your weakest point?” in job interviews. I always answer that I’m very meticulous (because this is a trick answer and this can be a good and bad thing) but lately I’ve realised that I’m extremely impatient and don’t have a lot of tolerance for idiots. So during lunch when one of our uni buddies flicked her coke bottle cap at me, and her idiot boyfriend demanded I pick it up despite it being next to his foot, I gave him my death stare and idiot boy unscrewed the cap of my bottle, coughed inside my bottle cap and put it on his girlfriends bottle, it took me a lot of self restraint to not break his nose. We have a long history of not getting along. He is the definition of ugly. Ugly personality and his looks? Think of Disneys depiction of the Hunchback of Notre Dame (but bald and uglier).
Late that night, Miss. 23 and I picked up the boys, Lochy, G’day and Adam. We grabbed some Chinese take out and went to the South Perth foreshore and ate in the dark, with only the city lights and the moonlight illuminating our cosy dinner. It would’ve been quite romantic had we not all been in the company of good friends. Adam tried to make up for the less than romantic company by cracking onto me, but this has become a big joke between us.
Monday
I spent the whole day craving Indian which is a little unusual because when I think of Indian, I think spicy and tummy aches and time on the crapper. After work, Miss. 23 and I went to Maya Masala for take out. She got butter chicken, whilst I went for the rogan josh, accompanied with garlic and butter naan, and Indian sweets. We went back to the South Perth foreshore, lay on picnic blankets, covered ourselves with a big quilt, resting on nice big pillows, armed with mossie candles and feasted on our takeout. We watched the night clouds and stars, and admired the bright city skyline. We made pacts and promises and laughed about boys and I realised how much I was going to miss Miss.23. Then I left in time to get home to watch Shameless (my favourite TV show atm)
Tuesday
Andrea and I pitched our advertising ideas to our client and it went down like a house on fire. They gave us the word go within minutes of our campaign pitch and it was a hectic rush to find a photographer and book in appointments with casting directors for models. Our deadline for the ad was Friday morning, which gave us one day to cast and organise, and Thursday to shoot the ad. I embraced the stress! Whilst Andrea seems to shutdown for a few minutes and has a look of worry on her face.
Adam decided to hold a going away dinner for Miss. 23 so after work I went over his place to help him cook. But within minutes of entering his apartment, I crashed on his floor and had a snooze before Miss. 23 and the others arrived. Dinner was awesome, but it got a little teary when Miss. 23 had to say goodbye to the boys.
Wednesday
Andrea and I spent the day casting for our advertisement. We had appointments with casting agents in the morning. It felt weird being on the other side of the whole casting process, choosing people rather than hoping to get chosen. When I did acting I use to hate how models got jobs over actors. Now I could understand. With models there is this assumption that they’re naturally photogenic, but not so with actors I suppose. The amount of talent shown to us was pretty limited in what we wanted. It was really important for us to be picky otherwise the point of our ad would’ve been lost. We needed a REALLY elderly frail man so we ended up going to a retirement village and found the perfect 90 year old.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the city to scouting for other talent. Andrea and I felt like dirty shallow old perverts having to check out potential people. Things that were coming out of our mouth:
“Oh no no no, she’s not pretty enough”
“She has a big nose”
“She doesn’t have big boobs”
“She looks like a bitch! Perfect!”
It was really quite awful having to be so brutal. Things that you would usually keep to yourself, but we had to be open with one another. We found the perfect one, but 10pm that night she canceled on us! It was stressful and I learnt the lesson of always having a back up, but it never occurred to us that day to get someone as an alternative.
Thursday
Andrea and I went back to the city in the early morning, quite stressed and desperate as the shoot was in a few hours. We approached one girl, but within an hour she cancelled on us. Minutes before she cancelled on us, I spotted this gorgeous girl next to me at the ATM. So, it seemed like a sign when she appeared again when the other girl cancelled. Luckily she was free to come to the shoot and was quite accommodating with her time. We paid the models generously, and they did a fantastic job. The shoot was perfect. We got the images burnt on a CD for me to design and produce the advert that night, but imagine my shock when I got home and the CD didn’t work! I hadn’t sworn so much in front of my mum in my life, yet she was so unflinching. I love my mum. Anyway I was even more pissed that I had to cancel on a night out with Miss. 23 (the night before she leaves for London) to travel 45 minutes just to get another CD. Even thinking about it now still gets me steamy! It had been a stressful day, and whilst I had been embracing the stress the past few days, I questioned if the hassle was worth it and promised myself I wouldn’t put myself in this situation again. But I took some solace in the fact that I would be asking for a hefty compensation for all this work. I got home late that night and stayed up till the early morning designing and producing the ad. I was feeling sorry for my tired ol ass.
Friday
Miss. 23 left for London. I went to see her off at the airport and when her mom started crying, I broke down. All week it still didn’t hit me that she was leaving, and even at the airport, seeing her go through the departure gates, I can’t grasp the fact I won’t be able to see her every second day or go for our walks on Melville Beach road or have her as my shopping buddy and that one of my best friends just won’t be around anymore, and that she’ll be on the other side of the world. She’s making it hard for me to realise she’s gone, because since leaving, we’ve spoken four times.

My car was still in motion when Miss. 23 jumps out of my car before I could even contemplate what was actually happening. Seconds later, MoneyPants joins the party and is out of my car like a hot potato and dashes after Miss. 23.

I’m alone in my car driving up to a red light outside the QV1 building in the middle of the CBD and it’s nearing midnight. I’m having a conversation with myself in my head, contemplating the option of gunning the red light and doing a U-turn or actually stopping.

“Should I run my first ever red light? Isn’t that illegal? I could get in trouble. But is it actually illegal or just wrong? What happens if there’s a red light camera around and I get a fine? I wonder if I’ll actually have to pay it. I don’t really have the money. If I had the money I would’ve bought that cute polka dot purse in Urban Depot. Hrmm… surely the police would let me off this one if they catch me? I wonder if I could convince them that it was for a good deed…. Being a good Samaritan would surely be good enough reason to disobey a traffic law? Right? Right? Oh fuck it.”

I look around for cars and make sure its safe before I ignore the red light and do a U turn.

Minutes before when I had a semi full car and the girls hadn’t abandoned me, I saw a man walking on the opposite side of the road collapse and hit his head against the footpath. It was a bloody mess. The street was pretty much dead and the girls were singing (horrendously) Moon River at the top of their lungs. I yell at Miss. 23 to ring the ambulance, then I wind down my window and yell to a man running to aid the collapsed guy “We’re calling 911!” YES what an IDIOT! I don’t even watch copious amounts of American TV and I KNOW that in Australia the number is 000, but it just slipped out of my mouth! It was a rather stressful situation! That’s when the girls jumped out of my car to help the man.

When I got to the man, Miss 23 was on the phone to the ambos and a good samaritan was leaning the injured guy against him. The footpath was covered with blood but luckily it came from his hand and not his head. His fingers were badly cut up, his hand was blue and the injured mans eyes kept rolling into the back of his head when he kept losing consciousness.

Miss. 23 was wearing a scarf (yes during SUMMER) and when I suggested we bandage his hand with the scarf to put pressure on the wound, it was funny because despite the really good person that she is, MoneyPants and I joke that we saw her flinch when I suggested sacrificing warmth. Of course she did and the good sammy helped us bandage the injured mans hand. The injured man kept shouting in agony and swearing and actually got rather violent when we tried to bandage his fingers and hold up his arm so he wouldn’t lose more blood. The good sammy told him to stop being a pussy and Miss. 23 said “listen, it’s not like you’re going through labour pain!” hahahaha!! I wanted to laugh but this poor man was in complete agony. I had to have a silent chuckle to myself. (tehehe)

Miss 23 was busy on the phone to the ambos asking advice how to keep him conscious and luckily MoneyPants was the closest around when it came to bandaging his hand with our scarf. I may be good with ideas, but when it comes to blood, oh boy… I nearly yakked a few times from the sight of it.

Despite being in the city, and being only 5 minutes away from 3 hospitals, it took 25 minutes for the ambos to arrive. Seems that our case of drunken injuries weren’t unique on St Pats Day!

I couldn’t help but feel so proud of my girl friends! MoneyPants was covered in blood from bandaging his fingers and holding up his hand and she was totally unflinching about the whole situation. And there was Miss 23 on the phone with the ambos and keeping it real for everyone. I cleaned up everyone with water and Kleenex, but I still felt slightly insignificant. I would’ve thought that in that situation I might be a natural. How wrong.

We went out that night as one of Miss. 23s going away do’s. Next week she leaves to start a life in the UK. She’s one of my best friends and despite all my friends here, I see her the most (every second day) and I fear being a little lonely with her away.

I went out that night with the girls being a bit of a cranky pants. I had a long day at work, my iTrip isn’t working and the state of radio these days is shocking. The girls treat me too well and put up with my crankiness and generally mock me when I’m in that state or egg it on when it puts out a few laughs. What happened early on in the night made me even more cranky. We went to Northbridge planning to eat at Maya Masala, but of course there was no parking. The hunt for a parking spot got rather heated when there was a chase for spots and being in the cranky state I was in, I couldn’t resist but yell out a bit of abuse to a 4WD who hustled for my spot and got it. DAMNIT I hate 4Wders! So we left for Leederville and were faced with the same parking issues. We ended up stalking a few people and Miss. 23 wound down her window and asked a man if he was leaving, but then another man in his car interrupted Miss. 23 and asked the man the same question and the man told the other driver where he was parked. Son of a bitch! I honked my horn and threw my hands in the air to motion “What was with that!?” He yelled sorry and I screamed “WE’RE BETTER LOOKING!”.

This evening in Adams bathroom I did that thing that we woman apparently do. Truthfully, it was my first time doing it, but in movies and such they tend to make out that this is purely a WOMAN thing to do, and that is to check out medicine cabinets in a man’s bathroom.

Seriously, I’ve never had any particular desire to do this because I could imagine a medicine cabinet could be filled with little horrors you’d just prefer turning a blind eye to. But just like society’s pressures and exclusivity of joining mile high clubs and backpacking through Europe and other little social cliches, I felt like raiding the medicine cabinet was one thing I could tick off my list of things to do.

So I did. It was bare. I was a little disappointed. There wasn’t even any paracetamol or cotton buds.

There was however a bottle of Hugo by Hugo Boss cologne. This is my favourite men’s cologne. THIS and Aqua Di Gio seriously makes me want to devour a guy. Okay… that sounds a little nasty, but you get my message. So one of my weird things I like to do is associate certain smells with certain people, just like I associate certain songs with certain cities because it brings back memories. When I think of New York I think of Coming In From The Cold by the Delgados. When I think of London I think of Uncle Pat by Ash. When I think of the smell of coffee, I think of Subiaco Markets, etc…

So I put the bottle of Hugo up to my nose and take a whiff. Ahhhh heaven! I open up the bottle to get more of a whiff and FARK! The bottle drops on the ground and the cologne is slowly gurgling out the bottle as if in slow motion. FARK X 1000

I quickly pick up the bottle and violently yank metres of toilet paper to clean up my evidence. I flush it down the loo and return the bottle to it’s original position in the medicine cabinet praying that Adam doesn’t suspect a thing. I spray a bit of my own perfume (Sui Love by Anna Sui) that I keep in my bag in his bathroom to drown out the Hugo.

I join him on the couch in the lounge and during conversation Miss. 23 who is totally oblivious to what happened in the bathroom questions who in the group smells so lovely. I could’ve thumped her if she was sitting next to me! She could obviously smell the wreaking sensation of overpowering cologne and I pipe up and say it must be Adam.
“Yeah maybe.” He says.
“What are you wearing? Hugo right?” I question him.
“Nah Aqua Di Gio. My housemate uses Hugo”
FAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRK x 10000000000
Spilling housemates cologne kinda puts a stinker on our relationship.

Spending the night at Adam’s last night made me remember why all those years ago I had the slightest inkling to do psychology. To think that in my first year of uni I was on my way to a future in clinical psychology, I can only look back and ponder how much drugs I must’ve been on for me to come up with such a bad career choice. But when I do think back to those years, hell, I wasn’t even on drugs so really the only clear justification must be STUPIDITY. Perhaps all that deafening rock music and massive alcohol consumption in high school did have an overall long term side effect.

In my teens everyone realised I had this uncanny ability to break anyone. I’m not even talking exclusively about friends. I could get my friends, cute boys, teachers and random strangers to pour out their heart and soul to me. Perhaps there was no one else to speak to? Perhaps it was my honest face? Perhaps it’s the whole Asian thing and just like that Donna Chang Seinfeld episode, people think that I could dish out some wise Chinese proverbs and wisdom? Who the hell knows! But after I started getting into psych, I realised it was my ego that kept me in psych. I didn’t give a crap about peoples problems. What a way to drag down your life with other peoples worries. So yeah, I took the ethical path and figured I’d use my powers of persuasion and manipulation in advertising and business instead.

Of course when it comes to friends it’s a totally different issue. I want to know what’s going on in my friends lives. And I do care and would hope they would turn to me for a chat and have all the time in the world for them. So last night Adam and I were on serious mode and he had a rant about how I don’t really know him and that he has issues and that he couldn’t and wouldn’t tell me and that he didn’t feel comfortable talking to me about it. Three hours later, 3am in the morning, he’s worn and frazzled and bug eyed and baffled how I got him to spill the beans.

He’s generally closed off and reserved when it comes to feelings, etc.
It was a proud moment.