Make-up shake up

I work for a rather large firm, with a huge community of people who rarely see each other except at the odd corporate event. At the last such gathering, it was suggested that we have a "ladies night" just for the chicks in our particular department to get together once in a while, to which everyone of the female persuasion politely agreed.

So, we just had our first Gathering of the Womens the other night (not arranged by me, obviously - I never got further than prep level in "Organisation & Tidyness") - and it was great! We had an evening of champagne, posh nosh and make-up at the very swish Space NK. Of course, being so notoriously shambolic at make-up, I was first in line for a makeover. Pictures to be posted shortly...lets just say, my boyfriend was very happy to see me when I got home, with my new extra-long lashes, expertly applied eyeliner and shimmery, greeny-blue eye-shadow. I didn't recognise the mysterious vixen leering back at me from the mirror.

I tried to recreate the effect the next day for a swanky farewell lunch we were having, but my eye-liner application skills were so laughable I gave up after the first few stabs (literally).

New specs

Well, here they are. Got a kind of funky secretarial vibe, don't they?

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

I've never really been a "girly" girl. You know; the girl who applies make-up expertly from the first day of high school; who can't wait to buy her first pair of high heels; who spends long, giggly afternoons with her sisters/friends in the "boudoir" acting out the romantic scenes from Top Gun and swooning over Tom Cruise. (Well, alright, I did have a bit of a thing for Keanu Reeves in Point Break).

I am a strictly no- to low-maintenance girl (don't shave in winter, make-up inexpertly applied and worn sporadically, never owned a blow dryer).

So how the hell did I end up with this hair??

This hair that reaches nearly to my bra strap. This hair that gets caught between my back and the bus seat, so that I can't tilt my head forward. This hair that is a tangled mess in the morning if I've had a restless night. This hair that is too long to tie back in the old "looped-through ponytail".

This hair that makes me look like Marcia Brady.

I have to agree with my boyfriend, however, that it is a marked improvement on the short, red, lesbian crop which features on my old drivers licence (horror!), and the short, blonde, lesbian crop which features on my passport. Not to mention the gelled-up double-fringe which was the bane of my early highschool years. I can't look at any pictures of myself circa 1989 without hyperventilating with shame.

Lately I have been wondering how much my lustrous/lank locks (depending on how close/far away wash day is) would earn me should I decide to sell them to some upper-crust wig-makers. For a few hundred squids, I would be thinking hard about returning to that lesbian crop.

Why blog?

Because everybody else is and I want in on the action!

No, not really. Because I like to write and this is a good way for people at home to keep up with my London misadventures. Because I feel like I have a lot of ideas to share, but once a thought occupies my brain for the length of a bus journey/lunch break/kettle boiling, it disappears and is lost forever (yes, I have the memory-span of a goldfish. A particularly vague goldfish who gets easily confused). Because I am feeling a little isolated over here. And yes, because I'm (secretly) hoping it might lead to something or somewhere.. different and exciting.

"Melbourne dreaming" refers to me missing my home town of Melbourne, Australia, and to the quite possibly rose-tinted view I have of my home town after being away for over 3 years. The song "California Dreamin'" pretty much sums up my mood at the moment - the London winter feels interminable, despite a couple of bizarrely sunny (but still cold) days which have been thrown in the mix just to cause confusion. Everybody here is reaching that "approaching end of hibernation" point where the cold weather and trapped indoor-ness is starting to feel less cosy and more...hair-tearingly frustrating.

I can picture myself as a teenager, lying on the trampoline in the backyard, summer breeze lazily drifting over my inert body. The "tramp" was the ideal summer reading spot for several reasons:

1) it was black and therefore, soaked up the sun's heat like a cat;
2) despite the above, its handy open-weave material meant that it never got as hot as, say, the vinyl seats in my Pulsar; and
3) it kept you suspended (hammock-like) above the ants and scratchy grass blades below.

Looking foward to summer.... what an understatement.