Portrait

looks like tracy holsinger had enough people call her and ask ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing? having such limited seating and having got all the tickets sold?’ so…there’s a final chance for everyone who has missed out on seeing the most amazing fefu and her friends.

there will be a repeat performance at 10.00pm tonight, at barefoot. tickets for this special showing of fefu and her friends will go on sale at 4.00pm and remain open for purchase till 6.00pm at 350/-, at barefoot.

all of you that did not manage to get tickets for any of the regular shows, please do not miss out on this chance. i already told you this : this is not something you want to miss. just go see it.

i got locked out of my own room on friday. that was un-funny to the core. i shut the door to my room on my way out to take a shower and when i came back my room door was locked, from the inside. paranoia set in, and i thought there was someone inside my room…and there wasn’t. something had mysteriously happened to make my door lock from the inside upon my banging it shut. so i was forced to break open the window pane, open the window, and crawl in through it every time i wanted something. does one even want to imagine how this must have felt? having to creep in and out of your own room? there is no justice. none whatsoever.

yesterday was a nice day. we had lunch at D’s. everyone was pretty much there. we talked alot about each other’s weddings-to-be, since S was the only one out of us who actually already had one. when walking to the shop for coke, S and avidly discussed pregnancy, labour, children and i decidedly proclaimed that by the time i’m pregnant she better be there every bloody step of the way because i’ll just give up and die if not…she agreed to do this on the condition that i be completely at her disposal next year, which is when she has decided to ‘get pregnant’. it just then hit me that soon, we were all going to be very much a part of S and her pregnancy. the thought fills me with love. love for S, and love for whoever she will produce. wow. a baby in the family. i dont think there has ever been anyone who’s that close to me getting pregnant. not recently enough for me to have cared and remembered it, anyway. its the overwhelming sense of enormity in something like that, that humbles me. what a life changing thing. S will have children. and i’m actually going to be there alot of the way, holding her when she throws up, cleaning up her toilet, bringing her whatever she needs whenever she needs it (these are conditions drawn up by her, btw). i’m going to watch this kid grow, every step of the way. from being a bulge in S’s tummy, to being an actual baby , to being an individual with personality and zest. i’ll be there to bug him/her about all the silly things he/she did as a baby, when he/she is older and pretending he/she knows none of her mother’s nutty friends, to watch him/her go to school, to watch him/her grow into another inevitably bound branch of this ever-extending family. and then, as S and i agreed, he/she will baby sit my kids. hah.

tracy is coming on friday! yiipppeeee! like this friday! how exciting is that? i cant wait. i have missed her so much.

i have a theory about myself. in the many years of trying to decipher the innermost and utterly complicating things about myself and why i do the things i do (and why i dont do the things i dont do) i have understood and accepted many of my existing qualities. most of them are not so good. now, this may sound insanely silly to most of you, but i only realized the simplicity of one of my problems last night, over dinner. its something i know i’ve been for a long time…but its just last night that i realized its in a lot of things i do.

last night i was on my way home and i had this uncontrollable urge for chinese food. i mean its one of those things. you know exactly what you want, you know exactly how much you want, and you think you can eat and eat and eat. so i stopped at this place, 88, and ordered take-away. of course even the singular portions are quite large, but i planned to hog it all. the food in the boxes smelled great, and i absoloutely could not wait to get home because frankly, i cant remember the last time i ate chinese. it must have been when i was in london, where i ate chinese pretty much ALL the time. after the first initial bites, which were divine and completely satisfying, less than half way into my dinner, i’d had enough of it. that’s it. its not that there was anything wrong with the food. it was perfection, just like i had imagined the whole way home. but i just couldn’t eat anymore. i wasn’t even full, its not even that. its just…i didnt want chinese anymore. after the first taste, you realize its something you’ve eaten before, and its the same damn thing. i got bored. closed up the boxes and put them in the fridge and starved the rest of the night because i just couldnt forgive myself long enough to get something else to eat.

am i nuts, you ask? yeah, probably very much so. but this is my problem. i get bored fast. of work, of people, of activities. most of the time, i’m not giving something my all, i’m not giving something everything i’ve got in order to make it work, because it just bores me. even the things that really matter to me, i have little patience with them. writing, dancing…often, i dont have that drive. i dont have enough enthusiasm and patience to write a story, something i’ve been wanting to do for ages. i can’t get myself to wake up at 8 every saturday morning so i stopped teaching my early dancing class from 8 to 9. i did that so i wouldnt HAVE to go. so i could go at 10 and not feel guilty and irresponsible. and lets not even talk about boys…i’ll probably never be able to commit to anyone because it bores me. because, simply, i couldnt be bothered. i always wonder if i’ve already missed ‘the one’ because when we fought, i didnt have the patience to stay in it and make it work. i just gave up and broke up with him.

pondering about such things probably isn’t very healthy for me…but then, what out of what i do is?

i went to see tracy holsinger’s play, fefu and her friends yesterday.

firstly, tracy is one of colombo’s most talented actresses and directors. as a student, i can safely and truthfully say that she is also an amazing teacher. from my very first class, i was totally besotted with tracy. she has charisma, eloquence and sort of laid back-ness that is really comforting, and riveting. i think i’m now bound to be in love with her, and her utterly beautiful offspring, neha, forever. i’ve seen tracy on stage a few times, playing a variety of roles and thought to myself ‘that is one gifted actress’. i must confess, i’ve never had the chance of seeing any of her directorial works before this, and what a first impression fefu and her friends was.

barefoot is always a great place to do this kind of thing at. we did a dance production in collaboration with barefoot two years ago, that remains to date my most memorable dance performance for me, as a dancer. it was a coming of age, for a lot of us that performed that night. heshma melvani’s (chitrasena’s oldest grand daughter) choreography and concepts were absoloutely stunning and thrilling. in collaboration here means that barefoot provided us with every privilege that performers should have, but rarely do. they pampered us, dominic took promotional photographs free of charge for the local media, all we had to do was rehearse, turn up and perform. the fashion and material designers there executed each one of our costumes over three weeks, they gave us a full set up of stage, lights and sounds, and a weeks worth of rehearsals on the stage there, all free of charge. however, the deal worked out well. we pretty much danced in their clothes, and every other prop we used if at all was a product of barefoot as well…so they got the sales and we got all the proceeds from the tickets.

anyway, the two most insaely good things about fefu were the script and the cast. every single member of the cast was absoloutely fantastic. they performed with feeling, understanding and a sense of real-ness, that made the whole play come to life. i drew favourites though, them being ruwanthi, ruhanie, piyumi, anushka and karan. well, thats almost the whole cast. karan’s monologue was mind blowing. i know ruwanthi, and i love her work as a director. i’ve never seen her act before, although after seeing her yesterday i think she should, more often. however, upon having told her this, she told me ‘this is the last time! i like directing men. i was shitting bricks the whole time today!’. i wont ruin the play for those of you who are planning on seeing it. those of you who aren’t, trust me, this is not something you want to miss. the multiple set idea was also refreshing and interesting. sometimes, the audience was really close to the members of the cast, making one feel almost a part of the set, and strangely involved in what was happening. the script was ingenius. as a woman, even one that is much younger than any of the characters, their qualities were relative and understandable. their playful-ness with each other, the binding closeness to each other, the being intimidated by each other, it was all so familiar. they are all complicated, yet simple women.

it brings out a woman’s best and worst qualities, shows that women are lovable, but also, as fefu says ‘loathsome’. they are fighters, friends, lovers. confused, sad, angry, hopeful, idealistic. but with such a zest for life and friendship.

its strange. there are days (weeks even) when you dont feel like telling anyone anything, when you feel like just being with yourself. talking to yourself, smiling to yourself. i suppose the past week has been somewhat like that. spectralcentoid, its nice to know i was missed.

for sometime now, i’ve had this sinking feeling of drifting. that the best years and times of my life would pass me by and i wouldnt even have noticed long enough to sit up and enjoy it. that i’d be trying so hard to have fun that i would miss out on the moments that i was actually having fun, and not even know it. that i’d be trying so hard to find love that i’d not see it even if it was right there dancing in the nude in front on my eyes.

for sometime now i’ve complaining heartily about being lonely and bored. there have been times when i’ve gotten up, looked at myself in the mirror and thought ‘what’s up lonely? another day.’ this must be the biggest bull shit i’ve told myself in a long time. i’m niether bored nor lonely. i’m constantly doing all these fantastic things, constantly being told how much i’m loved and constantly having the oppourtnity of being with those people that love me and i love so greatly. at the risk of sounding 65, this has been a deeply comtemplative time for me. my life is filled with new feelings, and so many wonderful people. i like it. i like every single twisted, weird, painful glorious detail, and i’m keeping it all.

things have been hitting me. i have a friend who has an insanely dry joke about this. its typical of him though, owing to his generally dry (yet irresistable) sense of humour. he keeps us laughing about how my life must be rather painful, because things keep ‘hitting’ me. i’m blessed and glad to be able to say that usually, the things that hit me are seemingly pleasant, or atleast useful. see, there’s the back of my head, where all the ‘unthought about’s lie. and then there’s the front of my head, where the ‘much thought about’s lie. sometimes, things that need a great deal of thinking about tend to slink away to the back of my head and stay there till it’s too late. so, once in awhile its nice to get ‘hit’ by things. these things aren’t always happy, or exciting. but their always profound, always necessary. they range from ‘i’m in love!’ to ‘why did i do that?!’, but, undoubtedly, their all equally important things in my head. and in my life. things have begun hitting me like that, after awhile of suspended numbness to everything that required some serious thinking about.

suddenly, there are new feelings for new people that i know nothing about, for sure. but i can tell their going to change my life, if they haven’t already.

i watched this film, closer. it was such a great film, a realistic and seriously profound film after ages. it has a fabulous cast of just four people through out the entire film, julia roberts, jude law, natalie portman and clive owen. the cast makes the script and the film on the whole totally explosive. the script itself is ingenius, but i suppose the four of them have a lot to do with the impact it has. it’s sexy, sad, angry, infuriating and so so human. all the characters are so flawed, and so understandable. natalie portman delivers a wonderfully well crafted performance, despite her not so wise choices of roles before this. jude law is just something else. besides being hot hot hot, he is a kick ass actor, as this movie proves beyond a doubt if alfie didn’t do it for you. i’d dare compare him to johnny depp, and i wouldnt compare just anyone to depp. i worship him. he’s a god. jude law has his charisma, that capacity to be impish, sexy, yet so deep and moving. closer is an almost painfully honest account of humans, human behaviour and human emotions. it makes you mad to the core, and then makes you think ‘oh my god, people are like that. i’m like that!’ whatever said, one must admire the cast for doing such a brilliant job with the film, if nothing else. its just one of those films where its solely dependent on a miniscule cast, somewhat like how fabulously well colin farrel dealt with phone booth. this is, really, as time said, a love story for adults.

natalie portman also has this great line : lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking off her clothes.

yes, everything in colombo shuts at two am now. i’m serious. all the bars, the nightlubs, the pubs, even to our surprise, the coffee shops, and pretty much any place that was a hot spot for colombo’s teenagers and youngsters (with considerable amounts of money) shuts at 2 am. forget partying till dawn. forget drinking till 5 am, forget waiting till blue shuts down and going to glow for the after-party. you either go home at 2 am, or go to pilla’s which seemed to be the only place that remained open that was worth going to. it was amazing. it was amusing. seeing all the same people you see every weekend whose friday begins at about 2 am, not knowing where to go, not knowing what to do with the rest of their night, not knowing how to deal with the trauma of not being able to drink themselves into a stupor at glow or blue. we were at mkop, it was shutting at 2, so we headed to clancy’s, which was also shutting down. some of my friends had been at glow, which had also shut down, and some at hilton who also confirmed that blue was closing at 2 along with everything else. we go to the colombo plaza, to the ever famous coffee stop who also tells us that they were instructed to stop serving at 2 am. when did coffee become a safety hazzard?! my first thought was WTF? but then once i’d calmed down, i realized that maybe the only way to go to keep a hold on the mostly outrageous behaviour of young, frustrated and drunken people was to be extreme. if the rest of us who just want to have fun have to pay, maybe i’m willing.

last night was undoubtedly frustrating. what a ruined night. there were all the doors pretty much shutting in everyone’s faces, there was that run-in to someone i wasn’t altogether prepared to run in to, and NO COFFEE. but once we came home, issa and i stayed up talking for a long time, as we haven’t done in absoloutely ages. too long. this was when i actually got filled in on the royal park murder scenario, that i only heard about when i was in london. at that time, everything on the web was kind of vague. apparently her head had been dashed agaisnt the steps, bloodied to a pulp and then she’d been starngled with her own pants. they had to have a closed casket. what was the point in her being beautiful, as i have been told she was. she was so bashed up, they had to keep the casket shut. how screwed up is that? how wrong is that? now that guy is one royally fucked up piece of shit with some serious issues. apparently when he made his confession to the cops he was on e, so he wasn’t making any sense and they couldn’t count on his credibility. what a crime of passion. its like a movie. you can’t imagine how scary this is, to be a girl, and know that if someone isn’t in their senses and is feeling particularly violent, all it takes is one tiny fight and to be alone. as if yvonne knew she as going to die. even when they were arguing, even when he started bashing her head in, she probably didn’t think she was going to die. when i heard the details, i was disgusted, scared, and worried. what is this guy’s mentality? how many more people like that are there in the world? i dont remember being so genuinely scared in a long time. like ’shit, everyone is vulnerable to shit like that. even me.’ i mean you think you hang out with well bred kids. from good schools, good families, i bet yvonne never thought twice about the people she hangs out with. these are english speaking, rich kids who go to international schools. not some desperately poverty stricken druggie walking on the road. what kind of sickness does he suffer from? not to sounds like a snob, but you always expect people who move in that particular circle of what we called well bred to have some values, some principles instilled in them. they have pretty much everything they want. this is the problem. they have too much.

its so unacceptable. things like this just hit home how unbelievably well we accept many totally unacceptable things. i have a feeling that shutting everything down isn’t going to make things that much better. i actually have this fear that its going to increase the amount of frustrated minister’s sons and the likes with nowhere to go and nothing to do, just spoling for fights out of pure boredom and desperation. but at the same time, i cant help understanding this decision, that to make sure you’re night gets cut short in time means it may prove helpful in an increasingly helpless situation. in a vicious cycle that’s fast spinning out of control, that has become everyday to us. maybe sobering up a little isn’t so bad.

so here i am. my amazing holiday is over, and i’m back to the heat and the noise and the dust. and the real life. its strange. i cant stop trelling myself i just spent the last two weeks in europe, because somehow it all seems like this distant dream. gotta face the music, the messes i made and escaped for a glorious little time, the responsibilties.

just for the record, the phantom was amazing. i loved every minute of it. the music was fantastic, the singing, the acting, the dancing, the sets, the special effects…it was all so over the top. so extravagant. nothing like i’ve ever seen, and probably nothing like i ever will.

have you ever felt like there was this beautiful thing, this moment, this second that you know is going to last you a lifetime that’s just slipping away right before your eyes? i have found that in myself. that i’m a sucker for feelings. i’m a sucker for feelings as opposed to the things that cause them. like, i like being in love. which is why i often rush to convince myself i am in love, when most the time, i’m far from it. i like being in love, i dont necessarily like boys. i like excitement, it doesnt necessarily mean i’m willing to hop back on a plane and take another trip. i like sucess, although i dont necssarily enjoy working my ass off for it. i like feeling happy. content. whole. i dont necessarily like being hard to satisfy.

its easy when you’re a stranger in a strange place. your slate is clean. people don’t know you, they dont judge on all the stupid slips you once made. people find it easy to like you. i guess i’ve come to understand that as deep as i try to be, i’m superficial in a way. i want people to like me, it matters that people dont have nasty things to say about me. it matters that boys think i’m attractive. it matters that people trust me, and respect me. it doesnt matter as much as it used to, and thats a good thing. but someone told me i’m ‘too nice’ yesterday, and i had to tell him that he was sadly mistaken. i’m not that nice anymore, and sometimes i miss how nice i used to be. how nice i used to be able to be. i’m defensive now, and judgemental, and even mildly selfish.

anyway, thats that. as always, its nice to be home.

haven’t been keeping a record as often as i would’ve liked to over the last two days, so here goes…

the day before yesterday : we watched madagascar. it was fabulous, i loved every minute of it. another film in the line of animated movies following the trend set by shrek many years ago, some of the humour is really cheeky and more for adults than for little children, but the visuals were pleasing for anyone of any age. i loved all four characters, but developed a soft spot for the melman, the giraffe whose a hypochondriac. i thought he was just hilarious, and david schwimmer was just the perfect voice. the voice cast was also really appropriate and well chosen. overall, it was absoloutely lovable. after that, we went to the shakespeare globe theatre and watched a produtcion of a winter’s tale standing the yard. the globe is really nice, the top is open, and the weather is increasingly warming up since of late, and its been rebuilt in a really authentic way. apparently the original globe theatre, which burned down with the great fire of london was not too far away from the location of the reconstructed globe theatre. the produtcion was also really great. of course it had to be, right? the acting was super, and the second half especially was really funny. since the yard is really just below the stage and everyone is standing, the actors get really close to the audience in the yard. they talk to you, and ask you to hold things for them etc. one girl even got serenaded by one of the musicians. it was simply the best rendition of shakespeare i’ve ever seen. duh. next (this was a busy day) we went to the sadler’s wells theatre to watch these two guys, akram khan and sidi larbi, present the world premier of their piece together, zero degrees. they’re two dancers, both bought up in muslim families, both lived in england most of their lives. akram khan is essentially indian, and sidi larbi was of mixed parentage, but caucasian. this is the first time they’ve choreographed and danced together, and it was nothing short of mindblowing. world famous nitin sawhney composed an original score for this show, and he was actually the only famous name on the cast. but i guess that’ll all change. the two guys were amazing. i have seriously, honestly never seen such amazing dancing. forget anything that has ever been staged in colombo, forget shannon raymond, or the oosha garten of ballet, or yoshita or kevin or whoever. forget, even the bolshoi ballet that performed in colombo about two years ago. these two guys were absoloutely fantastic. the choreography, the dancing, the sets, the music, everything was just fabulous. i cant stop thinking about it. it must have taken so much time and hard work to produce such precision as they did. they used some really interesting concepts, it was so…profound. philosophical. it wasnt just dancing. it was just the two of them on stage, dancing for more than an hour, and two life size plaster cast dummies. that was it. no fancy backdrops, no fancy costumes, no change of items, no fill-ins by other performers. it was just them, and the two dummies, and the musicians behind the screen. anyway, just being at sadlers wells was nice, even though it has been heavily recontructed and modernized. that was the stage on which ballerinas like margot fonteyn and moira shearer were born, after all. i suppose akram khan and sidi larbi proved that, even now, that stage is bearing witness to fantastic young dancers with so many new ideas and so much creativity. i’m so glad we went. it was really a once in a lifetime performance.

yesterday : ammi and i went on the london eye. i thought it was hilarious, how tourist-y we were being. but it was definitely worth it. the sky was clear, and the day was nice, so the view was really great. its some 400 odd feet from the ground. you could see all of london’s landmark buildings and towers. after that, we took a boat from westminister to greenwich. we had lunch, went up to the international date line and the royal observatory, (actually i went, ammi sat under a tree and acted old and tired at the bottom of the hill), and took a boat back to westminister. the boat rides were really nice. its nice just being on the water. interestingly, most of the historically valuable and beautiful buildings in london are mostly by the river thames, on the bank or almost so. you can see pretty much everything on either side once you’re on the river. greenwich was full of tourists, but i was guessing it’s very village like if you took all the tourists away. then we went to leicester square, and watched mr and mrs smith at the odeon. finally! it was great, i loved it. i love the humour, and the action, and also that it’s about a little more than it lets on. part of it is about the dynamics of their relationship, and about the honesty (or lack of it), and how their marraige stales because they have to keep up this big facade to each other. i like how they get a lot more comfortable and loved up once they discover what each other really do. i think brad pitt and angelina jolie are a great match for that film. he is actually quite delicious looking. i also like the fact that she is as violent to him as he is to her. she’s so smooth, and suave and comes across as the smarter one at times. and he deals with that. under all the action, and the fast paced story, i think its actually about marraige and the stuff between men and women and how so many couples get into that routine of just ‘ hi honey. what’s for dinner?’ and stop having an actual relationship. but if 0ne doesnt want to delve that deep into it, its also just a great watch in terms of the comedy, action and speed.

anyway, we have tickets to the phantom of the opera tonight…and tomorrow we leave at about 11 am. i’ve had more than a great time, but i think i’m cool with coming back home now…

its ironic that i, having lived in sri lanka all my life, amidst bombs and terrorists and a time of a civil war that went on for decades, had to come all the way to london to be faced with some more acts of terrorism. life is funny that way, isn’t it? anyway, things are just about calming down here after yesterday morning’s tragic happenings. everything is still kind of ambigious, but having started from 2 fatalities yesterday morning, this morning we heard of 37. isn’t that crazy? the way the numbers just rise like that over night? i hate it. every single number is a person, an actual person with a family and a history and a home. like it went from 250 to 30,000. last morning we just happened to turn on the news and there it was, all this chaos and pandemonium. around mid day, after lots of rumours about there having been 6 explosions and 12 fatalities, the polica issued an official statement saying there were 4 explosions, and only 4 bodies so far…but there were also about 200 serious injuries and many other casualties. they also said they strongly suspect its the al qaeda. no shit. there have reportedly been more deaths because of all the chaos on the underground, some of the trains had gone into each other because they were unable to stop them once the explosions happened inside etc.

thankfully, we were on our way to oxford anyway, we didnt think we needed to hang around and stay in, so we went ahead with plans, and jayan avoided central london as much as possible. we did get caught in some hardcore traffic, but once we were out of the city, it was relatively smooth and easy. i met my cousin varunika after 10 years, this was the first time since the last time, when she was 17 and holidaying in her parent’s homeland before going off to college. she’s lived in perth all her life, and is totally australian, but what i like about her is that she doesnt try to be anything else. she doesnt pretend she’s sri lankan. now she’s 28, a very serious academic, and on a prestigious scholarship doing her PhD in lady margaret hall, oxford. she’s great. i remember the last time we met, i was a brat, and i loved her. i worshipped the ground she walked on. we did everything together, and we had a great time. she’s fantasitc now. she’s beautiful, intelligent, hyperactive, opinionated, and totally weird. she lives with some flat mates who call her veronica. we had a great day, she, jayan, ammi and i. we walked around, she showed us all the different buildings and towers, and the famous bodlien library, ashmolean museum, and the radcliffe camera (not camera, you idiots. its the latin word for ‘room’, sounds like the sinhala word for it). the buildings were so breathtaking. most of them are so old, and so victorian. the colleges are so beautiful, they have these great gardens and lucious grass quadrangles. the buildings are made of these lovely caramel shaded sandstone, and the texture is so smooth and grand. the towers, the stained glass in the chapels, the carvings on the huge doors, it was so surreal. its so wonderful, the whole town is full of students (and some tourists), and everything is existent for the students. we also passed by this pub called lamb and flag, which is apparently where c.s lewis and tolkien sat and discussed philosophy and god and things. but oxford is really where all the best loved classics were produced, its where c.s lewis wrote all the narnia novels, and where lewis carol wrote alice’s adventures in wonderland. we had lunch and then we walked around some more, then we went to this pub around 6.30 and had a drink, and then we went punting on the river. of course, there was some handome young man doing the actual punting, and the four of us sat back in the boat and sipped the free champagne and relished the feeling of being on the lake. it was so serene and quiet, a moment in which you feel ‘ah, this is the life’. its that time when you can be romantic and idealistic, where you can dream and fantasize. because about then was when i though ‘fuck it, i’m coming to oxford’.

then we went to LMH (varunika’s college), and walked around in their extensive gardens. their so beautifully well maintained, and the flowers in bloom were so unreal. after that, we went off to dinner at this indian restaurant, the food was divine. we ate and ate. and ate. then we drove back to brixton, in much less time than we took to get there. all in all, it was a great day. today i went to this store called primark, where nothing is more than about 10 quid. it was so great. i bought so many really nice clothes, for such an absurdly cheap price. well, my mother bought more. this is once shopping trip she cannot blame me for. then, i went to this small salon and got this lady to braid my hair! it looks great! it feels great too, like this one big massage! she braided tiny little braids all the way down my scalp and it looks so cool…this is really the neighbourhood to get this done, almost everyone is so super cool, and black.

anyway, the news is still pouring in the about the bombings. not to sound like a complete bitch, but wasn’t this a long time coming? tony blair looked devastated though. i can really sympathize with the man. just this once. he’s generally ok, i quite like him, i just wish he wasn’t smitten and in love with bush. who i detest.

i just wanted to say thanks to everyone who mailed me, concerned about my whereabouts and if i and mine were ok. it was so stunning, to see all these mails by people i don’t even know the first name of. there’s nothing quite like it.

its unbelievable how proud i am! i’m surprising even myself with the general sense of pride i’m feeling. but maybe thats just because even the air is charged with a kind of electricity. everyone is partying non-stop, there are large (drinking) gatherings in every square, that’s all their showing on tv, and the celebratory feeling is, i admit, contagious. utterly and totally contagious. watching that moment on tv over and over again is like seeing a really well made film thats meant to make you cry. the campaign here was humongous, and all the boards that said ‘london 2012, candidate city’ have been vandalised by passing londoners and turned into ‘london 2012, olympic city’. champagne is being given at less than half price at sainsbury’s just since about two hours ago. we were peacefully viewing the frida kahlo exhibition at the tate museum of modern art, and things are generally quiet in a museum, and suddenly there was this huge roar from downstairs, where there was a screen put up in the cafe, especially for today. its a great, great day. for everyone who worked on the london2012 team, everyone who went all the way to singapore to back the bid (david beckham!), everyone who took part in the ‘back the bid’ campaign via sms, even everyone who sat eagerly in front of their tv’s waiting for the verdict. the french look heartbroken, but the english simply aren’t selfless enough to be feeling sorry for them. and good for them too. this is the first time their getting to host the games since 1948. just a thought, did new york actually think they had a chance against paris and london? ha ha! i’m coming in 2012 to stratford. anyone…?

anyway, here’s a record of events yesterday and today. yesterday jayan and i went to madame tussaud’s wax museum. the queue was just beyond anything i would’ve believed, and i was seriously prepared for a long queue. we were in the queue for more than an hour, why we hung around, i have no idea. entrance cost 23 quid each, can you believe what a rip off that is? there is simply nothing short of thousands of people going into that place everyday, and they take 23 quid per person. imagine how much they make? and that’s just in london. tickets to shakespeare’s globe theatre costs £5, that place of great historical and cultural value, and people pay more than four times that to get snapped with wax celebrities. anyway, it was fun, no doubt, but not worth 23 quid, absoloutely not. particularly since we didnt get to see britney spears breathing, and the justin timberlake figure was missing. also, justin hawkins from the darkness was around, but i was astounded to find there were no figures of queen, or atleast freddie mercury. wtf? there was no demi moore, jack nicholson, audrey hepburn, and there was NO prince william. sigh. what kind of crime is that? the chamber of horrors was really the best. now that, is class. i think though, that a chamber of horrors in which every passing girl doesnt get felt up is just so relieving that i would’ve thought it great even if it wasnt. but really, it was. i haven’t screamed so much in a long time. and i’m not much of a screamer, when it comes to shocks and scares. there were live actors as well as wax figures, and though they didnt touch you, they came right up to your face. totally unnerving. interesting fact: david beckham is the only person who has two figures, one with victoria, both of them in snazzy matching white clothes and gold bling, and one with the other sportsman in his football outfit. later last night, we all went to this great bar, where there were these fantastic comedy acts. really good humour, not just the usual slapstick stuff. i also made some wise purchases, i bought two large posters, one for myself that says ‘boys are stupid, throw rocks at them’. my mother told me that it promotes the two very things that she has spent her entire adult life discouraging, sexism and violence.

today we went to the frida kahlo exhibition at the tate. that was really great, seeing, somewhat in the flesh, all the paintings i have seen endless pictures of. there is so much hurt and pain in most of her paintings, its so moving. their all so raw and honest. after that, we took to the shops. we went to h&m, which is a really large clothes store. there, lo and behold, i came across the jeans. no wait, don’t laugh, i mean, i really mean the jeans. the jeans that i have had dreams about, the jeans that i have seen on other girls, the jeans i have painstakingly looked for, but never found. you know, the kind of jeans that just fit you like they were custom tailored for you. the kind of jeans that hug and settle in all the right places. the kind of jeans that make anyone, even me, look like they may just have something that resembles an actual ass. the kind of jeans that have your name on them. the kind of jeans that are hideously overpriced, but happen to be at a 70% off discount rate. have you ever heard of such an alarming discount rate? 70% off? its practically free! i couldnt stop grinning for a long time. its nice how these little things can make you so happy. i also managed to find this really cute beige cap for a really good price, in, gasp, the men’s section, and also these great little silver hoops. maybe that’s where i should start shopping, since i bought two pairs of long shorts in the men’s section at odel anyway.

i’m going to this barbeque in the night…good food, warm fire, and my miracle jeans.