Having written the script for our show, Greatness Thrust Upon Them, I am now 100% more fun. Given that during the writing of the script I was probably 300% less fun than, say, wading through pineapple juice with open leg wounds, I am probably still in need of 200% more fun points in oder to render myself social again.
Many of my friends are not speaking to me. Some of them because my absence is rude. Some of them because they're waiting for me to resurface. Some of them, I suspect, are currently down at the cop shop describing my hair colour to the missing persons unit.
What happens when you stop writing (and thus being locked in a room avoiding things) is that you have to do the long list of things that has built up while you've been locked in a room avoiding things. My list currently runs to one A4 page and consists, pathetically, of the following three things which will be on my list of things to do for the rest of my life.
1. Clean your room.
2. Go to gym.
3. Get a haircut.
The last of these was thrown into stark relief this morning when, on my way to my "other" job (the one where they actually pay me money) I was contemplating whether the massive gash in my stockings really did require the (annongly time wasting and expensive) purchase of a new pair of stockings. During the walk from home to work, the stocking gash - like an animated cartoon or a flicker book - majestically stretched further down my leg, into my shoe and across my big toe. Extremely uncomfortable. Ergo the answer to the question RE requiring new stockings becomes a resounding yes.
SO... (yes, I am aware this is a tangent and please hold on to your tickets, there will be an interval)... there I was thinking "gee, I need me some stockings - pity Myer isn't open this early" when Lo and behold! There's Myer - doors flung open, people streaming in off the street.
Now. At this point, it's important to flag that while I am not a vain person, neither am I particularly self-conscious about my appearance. When adults told kids that beauty was on the inside, I was the only kid who listened. Well. Me and the backstage dude in the trench coat and the acid wash jeans tucked into his shoes.
So - not usually very self-conscious. But for some reason, this morning, stumbling into Myer with my stockings ripped to shreds, my stupidly unfashionable, way-too-windswept total lack of a haircut, and my New Scientist laptop bag, I unexpectedly felt unusually... well... ugly.
I wondered why that was. I deconstructed my subjective approach to beauty. I wondered why I suddenly felt unnaturally short and piggy, with extra limbs and stupid lips and big forehead, and the kind of haircut celebrities list in interivews under "biggest regrets". Was it because I'd been locked away writing for so long that I'd forgotten how to be around other people without doubting myself? Was it because I was so tired from rehearsals? Was it the moon?
Turns out, Myer wasn't open. Turns out, I'd walked through the doors of Myer accidentally, ushered (perhaps herded is a better word) into the ground floor of Lonsdale Street by Melbourne Fashion Week models arriving for work.
Yup. Turns out it's fashion week. Turns out, the doors to Myer had just been opened and the models (with Melbourne Fashion week registration) streaming into Myer had been waiting outside together on the footpath when I joined them. Turns out I was right in there with the best of them, displaying the new "stocking-tear with lack of haircut in the morning" look. They were all checking it out. They were all wishing they'd thought of it. They loved it.
Next big thing. You heard it here first.
Seriously though. Beauty is subjective and all that, but honestly, if you're going to mix with the supermodels, try not to look like Helena Bonham Carter baking people pie in Sweeney Todd.