That’s Stella

*My favourite agency is everything I dreamt it would be. The work culture and people and office and relationships exceed my expectations. The work I am getting is not. I want MORE work.

*London sits in front of me. I get turned on watching him create pieces of art. He has the hottest bod ever and is super handsome but I swear I am over him.

*I have officially fallen in love with the area I’m working in. I am never bored during lunch hour. Shops and cafes and crowds and hidden treasures galore!

*I turn 21 again tomorrow. I haven’t accomplished everything I wanted to by the time I turn 22, so I’m stalling. I’m in denial. Twenty-two can wait.

*Adam called me last Monday asking what I was doing on my birthday. I said I had nothing planned other than dinner with him and other close friends on Friday. He said “Good. I’ve organised a birthday party for you.”

*I went on a date with someone new a few nights ago. He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to him so I wouldn’t step on a big puddle of water. I thought that was pretty sweet. But could Adam organising a birthday party for me be the sweetest thing a guy has ever done for me?????!

*What would you say is the sweetest thing a member of the opposite sex has done for you?

*I am one of those people that say “Nooo! You don’t have to get me a present!” But don’t really mean it.

I went out for a fancy dinner with Adam tonight. No particular special occasion. Although, now that I think about it, starting at my favourite agency next week (ie. where London works) would’ve been a good reason to have a beer. Anyway when we walked back to my car with our full bellies, Adam says to me “Why do you have a bear on your car?”. I gave him this degrading “What the fark are you talking about” puzzled kinda look. But there sitting on my bonnet was a teddy bear. It was absolutely bizzare! We looked around for any notes but there were none! When we got into my car we laughed our asses off. It was a cute bear, but I told Ads to keep it because it freaked me out - I mean, who goes around putting plush toys on strangers cars?

I spent most of the weekend at Adams. To think that last year we dated and there were romantic vibes and now… well now I would consider him one of my closest friends.

I was at London’s pad on the weekend explaining to him about my situation with Adam.

“I love that Ads and I have this comfortable relationship… You know, I can just call him up to come over to watch paint dry and we’d still be comfortable”

“Yeah! Like the way you feel about me right? Like I know if I came home from work and was lonely I could call you to come over and hang out.”

And there was this awkward (anything but comfortable) silence. In my head, I’m thinking “Uh no… I don’t feel that way about you. Yet. I still get butterflies when I write you an email. I want to throw up every time I’m about to call you. We are NOT at the comfortable stage”

But I was hesitating too long with my response and ended up just saying “Yeahhhhhhhh!”

After our “last date” last week I convinced myself that I had lost my romantic vibes for London. We went out for dinner then went to Planet to read books on the lounges and watch the traffic on Beaufort pass by us and picked DVD’s to watch, and I didn’t have one single urge to tear off his shirt. Not ONE! London is HOT. Mmmm… it was a natural conclusion that I had possibly lost interest.

But after a girlie catch up with Tiff (where we demonstrated that it IS a small world after all and I suffered a minor nervous/frightened shock in discovering this) I popped by Londons place to find him sick and disorientated and worn out. And you know what I wanted to do? Take care of him. You have to know that I am not the motherly caring type at all. The thought of sick people gives me shivers and the smell and sight of spew makes me… well… SPEW. Could ruling out my love and romantic vibes for London have been a little premature?

I don’t know… but the thought of another Adam is a lot more exciting then the thought of having a relationship with someone who would drop me if his ex girlfriend showed up at his door and break my precious heart.

Fine. So I’m going out on one last date with him tonight. So sue me!

After a month of seeing Mr. London I’m always surprised how shy I am when we initially meet up. Within 10 minutes of our date we act like we’ve been together for years and I couldn’t be more comfortable, but it always takes a little encouragement from him to get things going. Man, I am anything but shy so I’m baffled why I’m always a little reserved at first, but when I think about it, maybe it’s a conscious effort not to lay all my cards on the table.

The other night when we went out for drinks, I sat a metre away from him at the bar and in seconds he was grabbing my chair from underneath me whilst I was on it and pulled me close to him. He pulled me so close we were cheek to cheek, forehead to forehead, lips to lips. He said “Don’t be so shy” and I could feel my cheeks (on my face that is) go cherry red. By the end of every date, saying goodbye is always this long ordeal and I have to tear myself away from him.

One of my male besties Hin gave me advice a year ago to date a man and give up seeing silly boys who made me cry and wasted my time. Enter Mr. London. When I first met him, I knew this was the type that of guy that Hin was talking about. It’s amuses me greatly thinking how much Hin would get along with him and approve of Mr. London.

It’s not just the fact that Mr. London is 11 years my senior that sets him apart from the boys, but I love that what you see is what you get. He’s a real thinker. He’s super creative. He has this open mind and brilliant sense of humour. He gets a tick for every criteria I look for except the no baggage criteria. Mr. London has plenty of it.

Baggage 1 – He still loves his ex girlfriend (they were together for 8 years)
Baggage 2 – He has been dating someone else for a year (non-exclusively)

Man, I do a good job of making him sound like the bad guy, but I must admit that he told me all this on our first date. Of course I was put out of place and a little pissed off because I haven’t met a guy I’ve been so compatible with, so…. admittedly, I was the devilish (perhaps stupid?) Lolita who pursued things with him despite everything and I’m the one who started the touchy feelies and so and so. I was even more spurred on after my latest renewal.

I suppose by continuing to see him I just wanted to keep my options open till I decided how I wanted to go about things. If I didn’t like him so much I wouldn’t have a problem with him seeing someone else and it would be just a whole lot of fun to keep me distracted from other things, but after getting to know him, I’m definitely having a problem with it.

So… the time has come where I have made my decision.

I’m going to stop dating him.

*sob sob*

In a few weeks I start work at his agency. I said awhile ago that I would rather a job at his agency then him. I can’t say that’s completely true now (my how things change!), but I would rather have nothing in my way of getting a permanent position there whilst keeping him as a friend. To lose him as a friend would be pure stupidity.

Also…I’m not head over heels in love with him to go to great efforts to win him over.

And finally…in a fairy tale sort of reason - I have every intention to stick around in his life because the more we see each other, perhaps the more chance he’ll see what a super couple we’d make OR the more chance for me to see if it’s just not meant to be.

I went to Table Seventy8 last night with Mr. London. It’s the latest and greatest hoo har that the whole city seems to be talking about. It was a good restaurant, but when we went to pay, I saw my former colleague’s business cards discreetly hidden to the side of the register advertising his new public relations company and it hit me - I got sucked in!

Honestly, I wasn’t all THAT impressed. It’s good, but it’s not great. The restaurant and decor and wallpaper left me a little speechless - I was eating in my dream house! Even the lime green flower wall paper got me a little inspired to seriously start thinking about saving for my dream place.

Frankly, the menu was a little bare and kept to one page. I had veal and pork meatballs for the entree, followed by salmon wrapped up in prusciotto under a bed of spinach and lentils with yoghurt. The yoghurt sauce was sooo delish. I thought about using my fingers so I wouldn’t let any of the sauce go to waste, but didn’t think Mr. London and I had reached that point of comfortableness in our relationship. The salmon was way too overcooked and prusciotto was barely there. For desert Mr. London and I shared vanilla bean pannacotta and Belgium chocolate tart with plum and cream. It was so damn good. The tart was like eating pure melting chocolate and mixed with the plum and cream gave it a sensational mix of sweet and sour and bitterness all at once *drool*. I was secretly a little happy when Mr. London didn’t take too well to the combination of sweet and bitterness of the tart combination and gave it up for me. Haha! The panacotta was pretty slick though.

Man, I love eating out, but everything is the same in Perth. I’m stil waiting to be completely impressed and taken aback. Sure, I love The Moon, but that’s because of the vibe and strawberry cokes and easy menu and games and darkness. Otherwise the food is pretty ordinary. If you have any suggestions, shoot!

Anyway, if you’re ever in the area, I can swear by the following:
Clam chowder at Atlantic Bar and Grill on the UES in New York
Mushroom Croquettes Tapas at Pipa in the Flatiron District in NY
Mushroom and sausage pizza in NY!!!
Carbonade Flamande beer stew at Cafe De Bruxelles in NY
Braised beef at the Farmers Markets in Los Angeles

After a few weeks of a rather poor social life (bar shopping with girlfriends and so) I’m finally back into the groove of things. Work took a bit of a toll on me and I’ve been in bed by 10pm for the past two weeks. I know, what a lightweight! But I am back with a vengence!

I had two free tickets to see Hidden so Sonya and I forced ourselves not to succumb to being victims of work fatigue and headed to Cinema Paradiso. I’ve been wanting to see this film since I read the reviews, but… admittedly I fell asleep. When I awoke to watch the last 10 minutes of the film and found there was no real ending, I thought I had slept through the corker but was relieved when Sonya didn’t get it and the two guys in front of us asked if we had an answer. I said no like I had been studying the film throughout it’s entirety, and failed to tell them I slept through half the film.

On Friday I met Tiff at Soto in Mount Lawley for New York Cheesecake and hot chocolate. I have decided that she officially gets “Best Fashionably Frocked Friend”. I don’t know where she gets her amazing outfits from. I don’t know anyone else who could pull it off like she does anyway.

After meeting Tiff, I went to a cocktail party for a short while, then headed to Ads and Elvis’ to celebrate his birthday. Tiff made me 24, Neighbours and The OC buttons to give to Elvis for his birthday. It was lovely and cheesy and he loved it. I also gave him Monopoly cards and a fortune cookie box filled with peanut m&ms. We had dinner in Fremantle but after not eating for a couple days, the NY cheesecake and my pear salad with gorgonzola and walnuts didn’t agree too well with my tummy.

Last night was Red and Spuds engagement party. As per usual, considering how many engagement parties we’ve been to this year, we all had a bit of a grumble about how everyone is hooking up. FB and I came up with a brilliant idea to cash in on this engagement scene. We are going on our ‘first date’ to see Hidden (yes, again) , then announce our engagement a couple weeks after, have a cheap engagement party and people shall bring us lavish gifts! THEN, we will split and after some time he’ll announce his new engagement to Sugar and I’ll announce my new engagement to Ads and more engagement gifts to come! The plan that never stops giving! FB is also known to me as ‘The Creative’ and he calls me ‘The Suit’, so really, despite breaking off our ‘engagement’ this could potentially be a great match for thinking up more evil plans.

Well… I am quite fond of myself (hahaha!), but I invaded and was accepted into the secret society at work. It made this week completely enjoyable. Well, that’s a lie. I still dreaded waking up in the mornings, but when it was busy and I was on the run, and there was time to chat and get up to tomfoolery, I was in bliss.

There were still ups and downs, but my time at the top couldn’t have ended better. Things went a little haywire when they employed a newbie to work on my account whilst I was working, and I was rather offended that they didn’t give ME the permanent position. I’m not one to bite my tongue, so I piped up and was rather flattered to find out that they gave my position to someone else because they had bigger plans for me. They wanted me to work on a bigger, multimillion dollar account! HA!

Unfortunately, when they hired the newbie, I had already made up my mind to leave. After finding out what they had in mind for me, it was tempting to accept their offer, but I didn’t want to make a decision I would regret simply because I was flattered.

My FAVOURITE agency offered me some temporary work. It’s not secure by any means, unlike the job that my latest agency was offering me which would be permanent, but I decided that I would regret not taking this temporary work. I have been trying since last year to get in and I figure, I’m young and I can take risks and hope that temporary becomes permanent. Plus - this is a dream come true.

Of course… this has repercussions for me and Mr. London because he works at my favourite agency…

So many unexpected revelations last night over a few drinks.
All will be told soon…