Carla Gypsygirl's Blurty

Birthday cake and the beach always make things better
Image hosted by Photobucket.com

As I emerged from the delightful chrysalis of the weekend, I felt within myself the natural urges of a superhero. This week, Spacegirl Princess Carla fought equally powerful forces of good and evil. Will Spacegirl Princess Carla's life ever be balanced or quiet? This week showed no evidence of her life calming down. It seems that her life is always in extremes...

Monday could perhaps be defined as one of the highlights of my brief career so far. I, Carla Gypsygirl, went on my first ever official photo shoot. At 6:15am, I found myself in a taxi with an extremely chatty driver, hurtling over to Atarmon. Maria, the art director working on the shoot, was letting me drop by her place before Hana picked us up to go to the photo shoot location. I waited with Maria's 5 year old son, Mytaeo, who was sitting on a little chair while he was eating Nutri-Grain and watching "Kim Possible". After a brief few minutes, Mytaeo and I had become the best of friends: he even invited me to see his X-Box.

I spent the day in a beautiful house on Iluka Road, Palm Beach, watching our summer catalogue being photographed. It was such a great day. I got to hang around outdoors on the beach and in the sun, which of course, is always a massive bonus in my eyes. I learnt a lot. Elsa, the make-up artist, told me all about her interesting life- about how she'd travelled to Africa with "Cleo" magazine for a photo shoot, and about how models were always super friendly to her because it was she who had the power to make them beautiful or ugly. I did lots of running back and forth, ironing and grabbing clothes. I realised that I, too, could be forever beautiful if I had a make-up artist smoothing my hair and putting lip gloss on me every five seconds, and if I could have people pinning my clothes just right, and if I had these massive light reflector thingies around me all the time. It was pretty funny being on the beach for the photo shoot- we had all of the professional photographic equipment, and all of these people were walking past, trying to figure out who our models were and what we were doing. Even though Hana kept telling me that photo shoots aren't glamorous, I have to say that I felt pretty glamorous that day. I liked pretending that, in my every day life, I hung out in beach mansions with photographers and art directors and that I thought about beautiful things all the time. After the shoot, I went and had dinner with Geoff- I had an anchovy and olive pizza (my fave, hurrah!), and he listened to me as I spoke sleepily of my day.

I got back to work the next day and felt like my working life was in complete harmony again. I felt totally refreshed. I no longer saw all the small tasks I was given as insulting; I felt that everything was a step up to a more exciting life in the fashion industry. This glow lasted up until Friday. On Friday, the ever-present evil forces that plague my junior designer person came out in full force. I spent the entire day panicking, stressing, freaking out, flipping out and feeling like my head was going to explode. I had to get two images scanned for a 3 metre by 4 metre trade fair display, which is something I have never, ever done before in my entire life. I had to rush over to St Leonards to choose the photos, and I had to explain to the people at the scanning place about the ratio and dots per inch and resolution. Then once I got back to the office, I found out that one of the photographs I had chosen was completely unsuitable for the display, because parts of the model's faces got cut off. So in the end, I had to blow the photograph up. That way at least the photograph looked passable and not dreadful. Even so, I felt pretty terrible that day, because it wasn't a small mistake: it was a mistake that is going to cost thousands of dollars and be blown up to a 3 by 4 metre display. Plus, heaps of people (including this lady from Melbourne who I've never met before) were pretty mad and irritated at me. It made me feel pretty mad, too- I had no idea how to do what I did, and it wasn't fair that I had to do it.

The day after- yesterday- everything about my working life was completely forgotton in the rush to prepare for my sister's 21st birthday party, which was on that night. As it was my sister's actually 21st birthday, my whole family headed off to Crow's Nest for breakfast. I had these really rustic-looking (ie. lumpy and weird) hotcakes with this sour passionfruit butter on top. Afterwards, Sonya and I visited one of my new favourite shops: Professor Plum's, which is a really cute science store. I bought matching holographic bookmarks for Geoff and myself- they had these red and blue lips that opened and closed when we moved the bookmark around in the light. Very "Rocky Horror Picture Show". The rest of the day was spent scrambling up and down a massive ladder, stringing streamers, cut-out paper stars and balloons across a hall. The hall was Geoff's church hall, and Geoff was there to help us set up. He was such a sweetie- I hardly spoke to him the whole morning, yet he sat there quietly and chatted with my sister while they tied balloons together. Sonya and I dashed back home, and I curled her hair and she slipped into her party dress. During the party, I felt like something magical happened- everyone was really happy and glowing. We shared secrets with each other and there were lots of hugs. I felt a bit weird- I didn't know many of my sister's friends, and I went a bit shy. I made a speech for her, but I had lost my voice by then (from all of the shouting over the music), so I sounded really husky. The theme was "kid's party", so we played musical chairs, pass-the-parcel, and we whacked a pinata. On a tangent, guess who bought the pinata? Me! I bought a massive, sun-shaped pinata and two whacking sticks from Woollie's Metro at 8am on Friday morning, and ended up looking like a mad woman as I carried them home with me on the bus and train. Geoff met all of my extended family, which was so nice. He got on really well with my grandfather. Geoff really felt like part of my family last night, which was so wonderful. Then, once everyone left, we pulled all of the streamers down and packed up. Geoff stayed to help again, even though he had to get up early for church the next day.

So this morning, I feel really strange. I went to bed at 3:30am and got a sufficient amount of sleep. The magic still remains somewhat- my Mum, Dad, baby brother and Sonya are currently sitting in the lounge room listening to Motown music while my sister opens all of her gifts. I feel pretty tired and gross. Even though I had such a great night last night, and even though I had a lot of wonderful moments last week (including an 8 month anniversary dinner with Geoff- wow, that is SO long!), I feel an overwhelming desire to be melancholy today. Maybe it's knowing that a few things aren't right in my life right now. Maybe it's because I'm reading "Jane Eyre", and I'm up to the bit when after Jane almost marries Mr Rochester. I feel a bit like Jane today- you know, after she takes off her wedding gown and puts on her plain clothes again. Hmmmm. I think I need to read the Bible and pray and wake up a bit more. Actually, it's a nice day for some outdoor exercise. And, guys, don't forget to watch "The Canterbury Tales" tonight on the ABC- I bought a copy of Chaucer's famous tales this week!

Okay, I'm going now, to continue my recovery process. The solitude of my bedroom is very appealing right now.