"You need shoes, right?"

...asked the shoe guy at the store today when he saw me in flip flops in 50 degree weather. (I'd just had a pedicure and was carrying my boots while my toes dried.) Things to do with this:
A. I got more WTF-stares today in flip flops than I ever have in any single 1 hour period. I think I was the only person who was wearing flip flops but wasn't homeless in the entire state of New York.
B. What do locals do with newly pedicured toes in cold weather? They wrap them in plastic before they put their shoes back on. The girls at the nail place and I were endlessly tickled by their Saran Wrap way versus my flip-flop way. Anyway...

(prepare for a tone shift...now.)

Yesterday, as the plane began to descend, I noticed a big empty space where Excitement usually sits- or rather, where Excitement bounces around, has restless leg syndrome, or does the Snoopy dance. I knew I was excited to finally be landing into my own dream (duh. If you're not excited about your dream, it's time to get a new one.) but damned if I could feel Ms. E anywhere. Did I leave her in Sydney?

As the plane touched down, I continued to soul search... There was a quick sharp stab of Fear with his seizing heart and his ice-cold blood, and he monotoned, "This is it. We've got no more excuses-" As quickly as he appeared, he was gone- mercifully shut up by something inside me that knew better than to let Fear spin anxious tales of What-Ifs and failure. In Fear's place was nothing but a shell-shocked silence that numbed me out better than Xanax.

Inner Xanax - I'm gonna call him Xander- cocooned me (thank God) as I made the heavy and sweaty mistake of taking the train to Brooklyn rather than springing for a cab, heaving my 100 lbs of luggage down flights of subway stairs and rolling/carrying the whole shebang half a mile to my new place. Xander and I met my new roommate Anouk and her precious, amazing, sweet, awesome dog Blue. We put on a decent show of alert/awake/alive Bianca, but once I was alone in my new bedroom I could only stare at my bags with polite interest- as in, "Bags. Okay."

After looking at my belongings for longer than I'll ever admit, I took Anouk to dinner. Between the wine, the stories, and the slew of welcome-i-wanna-hang-out texts from NY friends, Xander finally started to relax his hold on me and I luke-warmed back to human.

After dinner, I took a stroll thru my new neighborhood. I came across this cute bar (with a fantastic name: Pete's Candy Store) where they were showing the debate. I walked into the packed place and joined the herd of young, drunk hipsters as they shouted at the TV, cheered on Obama, and boo'd in outrage at Romney (SOLVE gun violence with a 2-parent household? I've heard smarter, more well-thought and effective plans from toddlers. Jesus.)- all debates must be watched like this. It's hella fun.

At one point, a couple huddling together next to me speaking French clearly asked some sort of question to one another. A cute drunk hipster girl in front of us turned around and explained in the most beautiful French what the debate was for, why it was important, and why they were all yelling & screaming at Romney. I think. I don't speak French.

I loved this drunk girl. It was shots, beer, shots, pointing at the TV with a political fact, beer, shots, French, French, French, then "oh fuck, I just lost my French" and she turned back to the TV to hoot for Obama. I felt like it was an only-in-New-York moment, and it made me so happy to be exactly in that spot, exactly in that moment.

And with that, Xander disappeared completely, and Excitement ran straight for me, picked me up in an Amazon woman bear-hug, and hopped me up and down as we laughed...

GOD, I LOVE IT HERE!! HAPPY!!!!!!!!

this is what I look like when I blog

tilt up to see Williamsburg sky from my window

tilt down to see back yard from my window

"Have you ever traveled before?"

...asked the nice lady who essentially helped me and my 100 lbs of luggage jump the turnstile in the subway. We set off an alarm- but let me back up...

It's exactly a week since I returned to LA from Sydney, and I'm back on the road for Phase 2 of The Point: "Everything I've always wanted to do..."

This last week all I could do was inwardly bitch and outwardly sigh loudly about being in LA. There are a million reasons why, but writing the previous sentence all but spelled it out. LA isn't what I want to do, it's what I have to do: bills, rent, repairs, driving, health insurance, blah, blah, blah... I'm aware that the whole world has to deal with all of this, everywhere, all the time; but for the moment I'm content to run away from responsibility, having just left a job where I ate, slept, peed, pooped, shaved, texted, drove, fed, jumping-jacked, etc responsibility 24/7. So run away, I have... to New York!

Okay, Brooklyn.

As I've written before, I'm here to write- in the grand sense, but also literal, as I sit here in my new bedroom in Williamsburg. I'm here to write, but I'm also fulfilling another prong of "everything I've always wanted to do."

I first visited NYC just under 4 years ago -Thanksgiving 2008 - but I had wanted to live here for years before, for no good reason other than I just wanted to. It was intense love at first sight that first trip and each trip since. And living in New York became an active dream- when the time was right, when I had the money, when my boss got a movie here, when I sold a script, when I could stop making excuses for why I couldn't do what I wanted. Now is that time.

I'm not here for nearly as long as I would prefer- holidays are taking me back to LA and then back to Texas after that, but as my genius mother likes to remind me: "You never know, anything can happen if you're open to it."

I'm open to it.

(And that's such a nice note to end on, screw anything else I was going to say. I'm here, and I'm happy.)


bonus!! new roomie, Blue

yay!





"I'd Magic Mike the shit outta those pants..."

1st bestie night at Flinders!

...actually came out of Stella's mouth at dinner about something somewhere sometime. Instant classic.

So I'm home. It sucks.

1st view of Bondi

I'm at a phase in my relationship with LA that I get to in most of my long term relationships- bored and bugged. This did not make it any easier to leave Sydney- but I did, in spite of everyone I knew in Sydney encouraging me to do the opposite.

"You should stay!"
"Why don't you change your ticket?"
"Just move here already."

The only text I had when I landed at LAX?
"You should have stayed."


sleepy Hal



Sydney Football Stadium

The truth is I would have stayed until Stella's movie was over and I was forced to return, but I've already committed to writing and living in New York until Thanksgiving. Yeah, I can write anywhere, but I can only live in New York in New York and since that's been a dream of mine for years and years, I'm insanely looking forward to it.

Its the necessary gap-week in LA that's a bummer. My only consolation is I'm making super valuable use of my time here to get what's left of my life together and organized, since I left with everything half-finished three weeks ago including my job. Whine. Whatever.


this is how you know its
a good hostel

Anyway when I travel I like to reflect on stuff along the way and after the fact, so here's what I got:

- I stink in Australia. I never went through the BO phase when I was growing up, so (overshare alert) deodorant isn't a given automatic for me. I forget all the time. I don't know if it was the climate or the chemistry of the air or that I'm finally going through the last phase of puberty, but I got to smelling homeless-minus-the-pee often. I now try to be better about remembering deods, just in case it is a late bloomer thing (awesome.).

a night at Circular Quay

- If the UK is the middle-aged parent and the US is the snotty teenager, Australia is the badass nine-year-old. Young enough to be fearless and savor everything, not too young so that you can't relate. Old enough to be aware, but not old enough to have attitude. People here throw themselves into life with enthusiasm for everything- drinking til it counts, dancing til it hurts and connecting like it matters (Hey LA, it does.).
There is a lack of self-consciousness that makes everyone here drop dead sexy. One of my favorite things about our favorite bar (yay Flinders!) was the dance floor. It was a mess of goofy dancing, making out, sloshing drinks, taking pictures, shouting conversations, more wild dancing, more kissing, and more wet clothes all to obscure oldies and rap. It was Heaven. It was Australia.


still my fav morning in Australia

- I love drugs. Ambien to be specific. It works so well. It's the best pill since, well, The Pill.

- Australian guys are the most charming men on the planet. Like, movie charming. Like, it sounds like bullshit except you keep talking to them and actually find them to be genuinely nice. They have game for miles and it's not just the accent. Never once did I feel a bored LA hipster vibe or a bored industry vibe. Men approached us all the time. Men talked to us all the time. Men danced with us all the time.
I'd actually like to arrange an exchange program between LA & Sydney-- we get hot, charming Aussie men and our guys can have the gorgeous, kickass Aussie women (because they are. And nice, unless they're dancing. Then they hit you with their giant purses). Everyone wins!

- People here care about who you are, not what you do. When I talked to people, it wasn't until deep into the conversation, if at all, that my job came up.

hell yeah, Sydney

- I've mentioned the trust thing before. Australia is like my parents in this sense- they always trusted me to make the right decisions and behave myself so I had few written-in-stone rules. I'm not sure, but I feel like I was a better behaved kid because of it. I found example after example of that as I walked around- the weird half railing on the pier, the lack of guard rails near most bodies of water, the slot machine warnings.
Not that it's chaos, there is a definite police presence here, but they were like the cool parents at the party that walked thru twice and would rather you drink under their roof and spend the night than have you lie and sneak out and get wasted where they couldn't see you.


awesome Asian market

- To carry the My Parents Analogy one step further- the times I did misbehave (all four times- no, really FOUR times), I was jail-grounded like no other kid on the planet with no time off for good behavior (Mama, remember the time I was grounded from November to Prom of my senior year of high school? It was awesome...). I've heard its similar here.
I looked it up, and Australia's drinking and driving laws are far more strict than ours with a lower legal drunk cut-off (incidentally, .05 to our .08 with fines and license suspension minimums for a first time offender starting at our maximums)- and I can't say I disagree.

- I love grocery stores. I found myself ducking into every grocery store I could find just to browse. I don't do that in America, just foreign countries. I love all the unfamiliar food and packaging- especially because we were in Koreatown on the fringe of Chinatown, most of the markets were Asian markets therefore they had all matter of mystery veggies, mystery meat, mystery canned sodas, etc. And kimchi!


bestie & a trifle

- Stella is the best best friend in the whole world. The morning I left we hugged and cried, and I composed this long thing in my head about every way she is the best person I know and every reason I love her. I'll spare you the details- not because they're yada, yada, yada but because they're mine and I'm precious about them. Those of you who know her, know what I'm talking about.

home away from home

- I'm capable of anything. That I committed to a writing schedule I previously thought was next to impossible and accomplished my goal of completing a script in less than three weeks reminds me of that. Oh, and turned a new city inside out at the same time. Go, me!

- Homeland and kimchi are amazing together. This has nothing to do with Australia other than its the only show Stella and I watched and the only food we ever had in the house.

Until we meet again, Australia...

 

"I made friends with corn cobs when I was little, true story!"

...I said to defend myself to one of the Wolverine producers when he teased me for naming all the animals I meet. Lemme back up...

Monday equalled my last full day in Sydney and since I'd finished my script the morning before-- oh, sidebar please...

I FINISHED MY SCRIPT TWO DAYS EARLY. THAT HAPPENED. IT'S AMAZING, I'M SO SUPER HAPPY AND PROUD OF MYSELF FOR ACCOMPLISHING MY GOAL AND IT FEELS FUCKING INCREDIBLE!!! End sidebar.

I decided to treat myself to a day off from writing and just do exactly what I wanted to do. Today, that was play with koalas and kangaroos and then visit Stella at set and watch Jim work.

Jen turned me on to this Wildlife Park in nearby Featherdale-- okay after collective 2 trains, 2 buses, and 3 hours travel, not so nearby. But these guys were totally worth it.

 

What I learned:
-Koalas stink.
-Koalas are mean.
-Koalas are stoned all the time from the eucalyptus they eat.
-Dingos are dogs?? I thought they were these big weird monster animals. They're not though, they're really cute.
-Bats swivel around by their little feet when they're hanging upside down. It's genius.
-Older Japanese ladies FREAK OUT over koalas.

That's it. That's all I learned. I didn't read any of the placards except for the Dingo one.

My visit to set was magic, as always. This is The Best Set I've ever been on- from the crew to the cast to the producers and Jim, everyone involved could not have been more generous or welcoming. I know I've said it before and I can't say it enough- I love this set. And, of course, NBFFHJ couldn't be a better human being. To get to spend the afternoon watching what I love surrounded by the nicest people I've met was the perfect way to end my gorgeous trip.  

gettin' artsy on the train

this bus station is so far away from Sydney

huge bats = flying foxes = total badass

Peanut and his underbite

 

sorry, can't think of a good caption for this kangaroo because my heart just exploded from awesome

dingos are dogs?! who knew??

Hal is even cute when he's ignoring me

"NOOooooooooooooooooo!"

...is what I texted Stella at the bar when she sprinted after a random guy to order him to call me. Lemme back up:

Because shooting schedules suck sometimes, Stella had to work all day Saturday. I took that day to lock myself in our room and write. All day. By the time night came and Stella came home, I'd been cooped up for over 12 hours.  To say I was fried was putting it mildly. It was going to be the only night left for us to go out out but after we both worked all day I honestly didn't expect it to happen. 

perfect day

But it did. Oh, boy did it. 

The end of the night had us both drenched in sweat and other people's drinks, exhausted from laughing, dancing, flirting, laughing, and dancing. EPIC FUN!!!!! And why I love my best friend.

Sunday we had brunch with NBFFHJ staff affectionately known as the schmoopies- for 4 hours. Repeating: 4 hours of fine Italian food and bottles of wine. We really only left because we had dinner reservations in 2 hrs. We are Stellanca. We love food. 

schmoopies in Bondi

nothing better

My goodbye dinner was an oyster orgy with Jen overlooking Blackwattle Bay. Jen did the math and  figured out we ate for 6 straight hours of the 13 hours we were awake. 

In the middle of dinner, Stella looks out over the water and says, "I wonder if they'll do fireworks?", to which I reply, "REALLY, you think they will?!" (to fill you in, I love fireworks and every Saturday night so far, we've been able to see them over King's Harbor from our window. I guess it's a regular thing? So fun & beautiful, so like Sydney.) Then Stella says no which I think sucks- but not for long because just as we get our punch-me-in-the-face-delicious desserts THE FIREWORKS START.

Thank you, Sydney!

best best bestie



new bestie

i love you too, Sydney


 

 

 

"No probs!"

...said the beautiful muscular tattoo'd probably-fireman (why not?) when I darted out of his way with a "Sorry!" as he came running at me like a cheetah in kilometer 3 of my 10km hike to Manly. Blush and a siiiigh... but I'll back up.

After a full day of recovery from my Melbourne trip, I hit the hike from Spit Bridge to Manly Beach. The hike is 10 km which, in my guide book and every Spit Bridge to Manly guide along the trail, equals 4.5 hours. But in Bianca thinking, that translates to this:

so I named him Peter, whatever...

"10 km equals 4.5 hours which means I'll probably EASILY finish in 2.5 because I'm not regular. I'm Bianca. I'm better and faster."

I start the hike about 2 hours later than I plan (naturally) on the most beautiful day I've had in Sydney so far. I'm happy I had the anxiety attack that kept me from trying to do this hike last week because the day is beyond perfect (last week was humid and kind of gross). Of all the things I've done in Sydney, this one is the real gem (not counting dancing with Australian boys). Yes, I loved the hike from Coogie to Bondi but something about Spit Bridge to Manly was pure magic. Maybe it was my mindset, maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the iguanas that helped guide me a la the munchkins in Munchkinland ("follow the yellow brick road"), but I was smitten.

The hike was challenging (it was rated a "Gentle to Medium"-- I'd actually feel okay with upping that to "Medium to Medium") with breath-taking views. You know how I like to cuss at the pretty? North Harbour and Manly Cove got a lot of "shut the fuck up" from me.

After three hours of hiking I arrived at Manly Beach-- it wasn't the official end of the hike, but it was my official end. Somewhere along my walk a cold front blew in and the only thing I hate more than being hungry is being cold. I was both by the time I got to Manly, so I got the recommended fish and chips from the fish market and ate them by the beach.

Rocky

As soon as I sat down, there was a guy with his eye on me. He was bold. He was beautiful. He fought other guys away from me when they got too close. He was a seagull, and I named him Rocky.

Rocky and I developed a quick and torrid relationship over my french fries. He stared intently at me and at them-- I knew what he wanted. His passion was undeniable, but with passion comes possession and he became violent to anyone who tried to get too close. I'm not down with being a kept woman, and there was NO way I was going to give him any of my french fries. I had to end it. I tried to be composed but firm-- he was a beautiful bad boy, and they are my weakness, but I was able to do right by me. I says to him, I says,"Sorry, buddy. No fries for you." I tried to ignore the pain in his eyes as he watched me collect the leftovers of my lunch and throw them in the un-bird-friendly rubbish bin.

He squawked.

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry."

When I turned around he had left me-- moved on to a teenage boy of all people, someone who would give it up whenever he squawked. I knew it was never me he wanted, but... that he could just fly to the next teenage whore? I felt that.

I caught the next ferry back to Circular Quay, and let the memory of Rocky go like a gum wrapper in the chilly breeze. I'll always have a soft spot for those pretty boys with their insatiable appetites, but I was happy I showed up for me today. I walked home from the ferry, a free woman.

that's 4.5 hour hike for regulars, not supers like me

wanna see me happy? put me in this picture any time

where the water meets the wall? that's part of my route

hells yes

aboriginal drawings, what? yeah, that's like history and stuff

one of the many different landscapes of Spit to Manly

another great example of Aussie trust: "Oy, there's construction here! Bugger off that a'ways!"
(my bad Aussie accent always morphs to a bad English accent)

hi, most favorite color ever!

the place of my future yacht docking

Sydney has the best graffiti ever

God, seriously?

North Harbour has tiny penguins. I wanted to see one so
badly, I pretended this was one

i've never seen a bird preen like this before, but if I was this guy on this rock
in front of this gorgeous water, i'd do the same thing

Rocky was like all bad boys- he only wanted me for one thing

shut the fuck up, Sydney