Searching

Sitting home alone on a Monday night, wrapped in a blanket, sipping on cheap white wine from California, Anastasia noted that many gymnasts in the Olympics shared her first name. Maybe she could go do gymnastics, she thought to herself.

Well, not actually do gymnastics, but maybe coach gymnastics. She could fake that she knew what she was doing, her name was  Anastasia, and she’s been glued to the Olympics watching gymnastics since it came on.

She took another sip of wine.

She felt her life was like a bad Woody Allen movie. Not that his movies were bad but that they were long, drawn out, moody, emotional, ironic, and deep on a pretentious sort of level. She could be an actress, she knew it. She was always told she was a drama queen.

Anastasia Sempura - movie star. Celebrity. But she wouldn’t be like a glamazon like Angelina, J.Lo, or anyone else who soaked up the limelight by being sexy all the time. She would be a hip star, kind of like a Sienna Miller, Kate Moss, Mary Kate girl but with something different - she was brunette after all. She’d be a brunette version of what they are.

Or maybe she could just be a model. She read enough Vogue and has seen enough America’s Next Top Model (all ten seasons) to know how to smile with her eyes, lift her chin, and contort your body to make it look skinny and waif-like.

Anastasia liked her food though. She was never more than 5 or 10 pounds overweight, but models are generally 10 pounds underweight and she knew she could never be happy and malnourished at the same time.

Taking the last sip of her wine, she grabbed the bottle quickly, almost knocking it over but catching it last minute, and filled up her glass. She shook her head at the tv, knowing the American girl was robbed.

She knew that the one she shared her name with should have won, she stuck her landing for chrissakes. She knew that the poor girl wanted to bawl her eyes out, kick the gold medal winner and take it out from under her.

Anastasia stretched on her uncomfortable leather sofa, put down her glass, and changed the channel. She wondered if she drank too much. She wondered when she’d get a new job.

She switched the channel to TMZ, watching stupid celebrity shows made life a little easier, or maybe it just made her forget, she wasn’t sure. She stumbled off her couch to her huge windows that overlooked the city down below.

She was wearing only lingerie, a D&G bra and panty set, with her bright green Louboutins.

Anastasia was hoping someone was going to stop by, but realised that at 1:30 am at night, it wasn’t going to happen for the thirteenth day in a row.

She thought of going to bed.

Instead she lay on the couch, watching Britney flail, and thought about how difficult it could be to come out with your own handbag line. Anastasia had huge ideas, green clutches, yellow croc, and even red satin, how hard could it be?

Lost in Celine

Celine sat on the bench in Paris, the setting sun casting an angelic glow upon her golden hair, the wind causing her skin to shiver, hugging her huge YSL Tribute tote and glancing around at the crowd, waiting for someone. But who?

Who was going to save her?

Celine had started her day off in a small town on the French Riviera, close to Cannes, sprawled out on a yacht that belonged to a rich business man she had been seeing. They spent three days drinking wine, fucking in the sun, and getting body treatments at the spa close by. It all had to end when his Spanish wife came aboard, furious, slapping her husband and screaming profanities at him in her language.

A maid told her to quickly get off the boat, so Celine stuffed her bag with whatever she could get her hands on, and walked her tanned little butt onto shore. The rich businessman called her phone repeatedly until she finally answered - to which she heard a few half-assed apologies and ended up hanging up on him.

She went to a little cafe for a late breakfast, where she met the most beautiful Hungarian boy, who loved her YSL tote, loved her sense of style, and was going to Paris that day to see his boyfriend. Celine realised that she had nowhere to stay and nowhere to go, so she went with this beautiful gay boy named Harry to Paris.

Hungarian Harry drove a sporty Peugot and took Celine across France to Paris. It was a long trip that took up most of the day, but she learned enough about Harry to know that he was somebody to know. He was a stylist at heart, a makeup artist by trade, and loved to take photos of beautiful people in dirty places.

He made her promise to pose for him one day soon.

She agreed and quickly fell asleep.

Celine awoke to cars honking, people shouting and french rap music. Harry was stuck in Paris traffic and looking for a place to park.

“Celine, I can’t wait for you to meet Frederik! He is darling! Beautiful! Almost like you!” Harry’s Hungarian accent was muddled with a bit of French. Celine just smiled and waited for the car to stop. She loved going places, but she hated travelling, the constant movement always made her feel uneasy. She just wanted to get where she was going.

They met up with Frederik at a cafe close to the Eiffel Tower, a little kitsch and touristy for Celine, but the warm latte filled her up and the ambience all around her made the morning seem like it happened ages ago.

Harry and Frederik insisted that Celine wasn’t being a third wheel, but their body language and their eyes said something else - Celine took off ’sightseeing’ and saw the cute boys go up into Frederik’s apartment building.

She didn’t know where to go though. She just kept walking. She heard her heels hit the pavement with a satisfying clap, and she ended up on a bench in a park that she had never seen before. She had been to Paris many times, but she didn’t recognize the neighborhood she was in.

The bench looked welcoming enough though and she sat down, watching the crowd around her.

She saw familes with young children, couples laughing, smiling, kissing. She wondered if a normal life would ever happen for her. If she could settle like they did, get married, find someone who was normal too. That seemed like half of her battle, finding that normal person.

She wondered what she looked like to all these normal people. A beautiful skinny blonde girl, dressed in a colourful dress that could be worn on the beach or to a cocktail party, with bright purple shoes and a patent black leather YSL tote. Did people think she was a model? Did people think she looked sad? Or did they envy her perfect looking life?

The sun was almost gone now, the dusk settling on the park left her a bit uneasy, especially when she remembered that she didn’t know where she was. But still she sat. Waiting.

“Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle?”

Celine looked over her shoulder to see a dark haired Frenchman looking at her curiously. She told him that she had lost her bearings and wasn’t sure where she was, and they started to walk. His name was Marco, he was going to a party for a friend who had written a book, and was very well dressed.

And then Celine stopped him. They were right in front of Hermes. She knew exactly where she was now. She was in front of Hermes with Marco, in Paris, and she was going to a party with him. She was a little hungry so they had a small snack at an Escargot restaurant and went to the party.

She had a fabulous time, and the night ended with her going home to Marco’s beautiful penthouse apartment, after much insistence from him that she shouldn’t waste money on a hotel room and that she could have her own bed in his house.

She awoke the next morning in Marco’s large bed to the smell of coffee and strawberries and crepes. She spent the day shopping with him, as her luggage was stolen and she had no clothes to wear.

The following week she posed in those clothes for Harry and Frederik, who styled and photographed her for a full two days.

And Celine was saved once again.

Just Calling to Confirm

My friend Josie Rindee is a very busy woman. Her blackberry calendar is completely full from morning until night. An average day for her may look like this:

5 am - Personal Trainer
7:30 am - Work
11:00 am - Work Brunch w/New Client
12:30 pm - Work Lunch w/Existing Client
3:00 pm - Mani/Pedi
6:00 pm - Meet Steve for drinks
7:30 pm - Bikram Yoga
9:30 pm - Dinner w/Girls
11:00 pm - Calvin

This girl does schedules more in one day than I can in one week - and she almost always keeps to her schedule. No joke - there have been times where I’ve been cut off midsentence by Josie telling me that she has to run because so-and-so has scheduled her time starting in 10 minutes. Josie is single, but somehow still finds the time to date more than one man, two in one night sometimes.

She is a machine.

We were having lunch the other day (from 11:30 am - 1:00 pm at Sassafraz), and I grabbed her Blackberry to schedule myself and our friends in for a Saturday night with the girls. Her night looked free until midnight, where instead of a description, a reminder, the only info was “Calvin”. I scanned my mind quickly thinking of a guy she was dating named Calvin, but nothing came to me.

She told me it was a guy she saw a few times week. She canceled that night with him promptly, leaving him a bland message about cancelling, leaving it open for me and the girls.

When our girl night rolled around, we all went to dinner where nobody ate anything, went to a martini lounge, and ended up back at Maria’s penthouse for drinks. Us girls were tanked. There was no way about it. We were all dancing to no music, lounging on couches but really just slightly slipping off of them, and one girl was even lying down on the fur rug talking about life and love and the new shoes she bought.

Josie was checking her phone.

“Joooossss! Who are you texting?” Maria shouted catching the same thing I was.

“No one, no one.”

We let it go, but then we both saw it again. Josie was texting on girls night. Drunk. Drunk texting is the worst. The words never type out right. You can’t read the message coming in. And it just ends up bad. Bad.

Maria ran over and grabbed Josie’s Blackberry out of her hand, scrambling to figure it out and then threw it over to me. Josie half-attempted to get it back, but all the champage she drank earlier was making her move in slow motion, and then just collapsing back in the armchair she cradled herself in.

“Calvin!”

I looked at her across the room and a smile rose on her face.

I read outloud: “Calvin, I’m just calling to confirm our 3:30 am”

Maria started howling, “You’re calling??? You’re texting dumby.”

Blake questioned why she was meeting a guy at 3:30, and Josie just shook her head, still smiling dope-ily.

“You mean, you’re meeting him tonight? After you leave here?”

A short silence filled the apartment. And suddenly a screech from the kitchen:

“BOOTY CALL!”

“You confimed a booty call?” I asked her, trying not to laugh too hard.

Josie finally mustered up enough sobrerity to say her little speech, “Listen ladies. I have so many demands in my life. I have a job. I have to workout. I have a dog. I have my friends. I have my dates. I work.” Josie was counting out her points on her fingers.

“And you know what? Sometimes, I just need to get fucked. Okay? And if we, as women, don’t do this for ourselves - well who the hell can we count on to do it for us? So I schedule sex. So what? At least I know when I’m getting laid.”

Maria was still laughing, “But you confirmed?”

“Emily Post requires you to confirm your appointments at least 3 hours ahead to ensure that all parties are on time.”

We all burst out laughing at Josie’s advice, while she held her head up high, threw on her Louboutin’s, and bid us all good night.

Too Many Days…

Giselle spent too many days pondering her future, her future in Europe, her present in Amsterdam. She and her boyfriend Antonio booked a month-long holiday through Europe, 8 days in they were in Amsterdam - and they had seperated.

Was it the alcohol? The drugs? The sluts that lined the alleyways of the red light district that had seduced her boyfriend and ended with him on stage at a live sex show?

She wasn’t sure. But Giselle knew it wouldn’t be too much longer until she found a new man, hopefully one that wouldn’t cheat on her on their holiday.

Giselle was pompous. A woman who was so self-assured it almost made you sick, but there was something about her that kept you listening to her annoying stories - mainly telling you that you had to buy something, be somewhere, or do a certain thing to even be alive in her books. She could have been beautiful, save for the overdone eye makeup she wore on a daily basis, her dark Italian hair piled high on her head, and her overbearing ways - that somehow made men smitten with her, and women either adored her or went crazy being in the same room with her.

No, she wasn’t too worried about the rest of her trip - she knew she would enjoy it immensly - she, of course, had all the paperwork, itineraries, and all the cash, of course. What started as a holiday with a boyfriend through Europe will end as a month-long shopping spree that her ex had funded.

The fun started in London, where it rained for all the four days spent there, continued to Paris, where it stopped raining on the second day, but was too humid for her hair to behave. They moved on to Amsterdam from there, where the weather was pleasant, people were in the streets until five in the morning, and where her now ex-boyfriend had gone wild enough to perform in a live sex show with another woman - and another man.

She shook her head just thinking of these thoughts. She was packing, it was supposed to be their last day in Amsterdam, then onto Germany. So she was packing up her luggage, and only her own, tossing all of his things into the garbage can that was next to her. Giselle had no clue where Antonio was, and as much as she wanted to not care, she kind of did. She knew the hotel only held their reservation until 3 pm today - and as it was 11:30 and his stuff was in the garbage, she knew he most likely wouldn’t make it out.

She was so organizational that even in a crisis like this, a boyfriend of 2 years who had almost proposed marriage, she didn’t cry, oh no! She organized. She worried about the schedule. She didn’t care what happened to him - as long as it happened on time.

She called the taxi to take her to the train station, and she stood outside the hotel, with 3 bags, thinking Who’s going to carry all my luggage?

One Day in Paris

I spent one day in Paris last month. One miniscule day in which I took over 100 pictures of the sights of the city of my dreams. It was beautiful, romantic, and rainy - which made it even more romantic as it was a warm, light rain. I went to a cafe and had a latte and a crepe. I went to the Eiffel Tower and kissed underneath it. I went to the Louvre and looked at amazing pieces of art.

I had lunch in front of the Notre Dame - at a really touristy restaurant where drinks came with sparkly straws and the waiter thought that we were Italian and speaking to us in a broken down Ital-French language.

It was simply amazing.

More from Europe coming soon…

Thank You…

A thank you to Final Fashion for a mention…

What Are Friends For?

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve had it in my head to bring together a bunch of girls for a dinner party. A semi-themed posh dinner party - no boys allowed. I had ideas in my head - a pink party or a white party with matching speciality drinks - dinner at a posh resto-lounge and dancing at a club in the vip section.

I mentioned it only to a couple of my girlfriends who said it sounded like a great idea, they were enthused and looking forward to it. So I made up invitations, I decided to do the pink party theme - everyone wearing pink and drinking pink martinis - and set it up for a weekend in May, so it wasn’t too cold and not too hot. I sent out the invites a month in advance, invites that were hot pink with black embossed printing - I knew a company who did them so they gave me a huge deal.

A week after my guest’s received the invites I still hadn’t heard anything from anybody. No RSVPs, no questions, no remarks. I’m a control freak by nature, and even though there were two more weeks to rsvp, I needed to know NOW.

So I started making some calls.

Tara made an excuse about her boyfriend and said she ‘would let me know’. Another girl claimed she was too pregnant to come. Fari was confused - was this a birthday party? was this an engagement party? did she have to bring gifts? why couldn’t her husband come?

It was really making my head spin.

So I sent out a cute little email, all in pink, about the idea of the party (as if the invitation didn’t spell it out clearly enough for everybody).

Ladies!

You are all invited to a Pink Party - dinner, drinks and dancing. You are requested to wear pink from head to toe! My loft 7 pm for cocktails, followed by food at One, and finishing the night in the VIP booth at Circa. I need to know by next Wednesday who’s coming to make final reservations.

This is a GIRL’s night out - no presents required, no men - just crazy fun like we all used to have - and if you’re pregnant come out to dinner - you still need to eat!!

xoxo

Tuesday rolled around and I got a few phone calls. Girls were saying yes but whining about the dress code (I don’t wear pink, I don’t like pink, It makes me look fat, etc, etc), the restaurant (is it expensive? i’ve never been there before), and yes, even the club (why don’t we go where we always go?).

I really didn’t believe that it would be THIS difficult to get together a group of girls for no reason other to have fun and remember what life used to be before fiances, husbands, weddings, babies and houses - even if that wasn’t their specific order.

Was it possible that I was the only one who wanted to do this? We’ve all been talking about “doing something” for almost a year now! I was getting exhausted, what was wrong with them? What’s going through their heads? Should I just invite their boyfriends and make it a boring dinner party - NO! I need to save the girls!!

In the end, six out of twelve girls came out, and we had a smashing time. Drinking and dancing, getting hit on like there was no tomorrow. The next morning we all went out for breakfast with our boyfriends, but made them all sit grouped together while we carried on giggling about the night before.

Everyone came up to me and thanked me for taking the effort to do the party, and asking when the next one was going to be… which somehow made me think of a yellow party, but would that just be too much to ask?