Rock Chick Day

I'm so glad I got out of the flat today.  And not just to go to Tesco.  (Hurrah!  Finally!)  My turning feral and moulding at the edges has been averted.  I had a date with a studio.  Yippee!

I put on my charity shop Lily Allen type dress, my black leggings and my green, biker (grove!) boots: 

and did the rock chick thing.  I listened back to my 'Sweet Silver Ride' track and wrote out the lyrics and wrote in where the guitar bits need to be (for my own clarity on a rather old song as well as to help the guitarist) and sang along momentarily with rapture at the thought of resurrecting an old friend of a song.  Nothing like a bit of rock singing to fire up the engines...

I got my somewhat delicate flower of a body (thanks to the beginnings of period pain) carefully over to the studio.  It is a wild labyrinth of a building with no bell and as luck would have it, on the day I'd purposely set out earlier in order to be on time, I couldn't get through to the producer guy on his mobile.  "Ten mobil je mimo provoz..." the message told me in Czech, to the background music of 'Knight Rider' .  In other words, it's out of order and I now had no hope in hell of contacting the guy that I was waiting outside.  No direct windows, so no direct contact.  So I kept re-trying and waited in the lunchtime Prague summer heat like a goth on a beach and sweated it out.  (Literally.)

Thankfully, he texted me on his other mobile, to say that this was his other number and didn't we have an appointment today...?  So I called straight back and we got started.  There aren't many ways to describe this guy other than he's the genuine rock god article.  He's much less producer-looking than Hollywood Rock singer/guitarist, but man, is he quick at ProTools!  He's got it all down to a "T" and I was amazed that we got the guitar parts recorded within the hour.  He listened to the mp3 I had of the old version and copied the parts I wanted flawlessly, with a couple of variations and a bit of doubling-up and copy and paste-ing here and there.  He even got some lighter, airy sounding bits done in the verse that I thought we'd run out of time for.  

The guitar itself lived up to the rock god look.  I sneakily took a picture of it:  

He said he bought the guitar feeling that even if it wasn't great to play he wanted it because it was so 'pretty'.  (That sounds less pathetic when said in an American accent for some reason.  I don't know why.)  Anyway, it was great to walk away knowing I could look forward to doing some kick-ass rock vocals on this track soon.  I took this in my euphoric mood on my walk back home:

However, a tip-off about a cellist who might be able to record the original cello part I wrote for it means I might delay a while in order to get that done first.  We'll see what transpires.

It was so much fun to be back in the singer-songwriter's seat today.  I was so excited when I got home I took arty pictures and played my keyboard loudly with my boots still on.  

I can't wait for Rock Chick Day 2...

Ruinous fashion and cheery eccentrics

My natural proclivities towards quirky fashion and strange accessories is definitely coming back.  I've got to meet a new meet-ee in a cafe tomorrow, so I've decided to go to Paul's bakery and get myself a nice table upstairs where I can sit and write a bit before meeting him and read the copy of Harper's Bazaar that I shouldn't have bought because imported magazines will ruin me but I HAD to give myself a break after months of this miserable scrimping and scraping.   I wore pearls today, to make up for wearing boring trousers and a black vest top because I just had to have a tiny show of effort and, goddammit, fun.

I had to walk past the crazy Russian fashion-house of a shop on Vaclavák earlier and I'm now longing for one of their silly, sequinned sparkly bags.  They had pink ones and turquoise ones and green ones....  But I cannot afford such fripperies right now.  And who knows when I will, as meet-ees are dropping like flies (not dying, just cancelling meetings) and I am so low on funds I STILL don't know how I'm going to pay the rent in 5 day's time...

But in the meantime, I shall just have to amuse myself with old copies of magazines and the new ellicit one I got today and hope that I can just enjoy seeing the nice things I'll never be able to afford.  What if seeing was 9 tenths possession...?  That would be good in this context alone perhaps.  Maybe one day in the future, all shopping will be done that way - you take a look at a magazine and the things you look at longest will pop up in a holographic image infront of you with the price on and a link to type in your credit card details...

So I looked through the magazine last night while having a luxurious bath after aerobics and I was rather pleased to note a few amusing things.  First of all, the terrible fashions that just look stupid, such as the orange slices earrings and the tablecloth/tapestry top that looks like someone just ripped it from off the wall and stuck it on a T-shirt.  I could do better than that.

Then there was a delightful picture of Uma Thurman looking lovely in a white dress with a splash of colour from her earrings:

And then there were the true eccentrics from the ballet-inspired runway weirdness and old lady colour clash couture, to the inimitable Bill Murray who seemed to be plonked into this photo shoot looking silly but utterly sweet and funny nonetheless.

The proper fashion pages filled with pictures of Kate Moss were positively boring and repetitive in comparison.

Weekend away and a starry, starry night

Like all good Czech people do, we left the city on Friday night and ran away to Šumava.  Where the mountains and forests are.  And a river called 'Vydra'. [Otter]

It turned super-hot for Saturday, and the morning in particular was breathtakingly hot.  Even sitting in my favourite spot on the balcony in the shade, I was so hot that I had to come inside after a while because I was wilting.  It was a lovely place to have breakfast though and I was so glad I'd bought a pain au chocolat from Paul's bakery the day before, as it made for a luxurious breakfast.  All that was missing were the Saturday papers, but as my Czech still isn't up to much and you won't get any foreign papers here except German ones, which might have caused offence anyway, I skipped all the contemporary stuff and opted for trying to catch up on my San Francisco-related research, reading Armistead Maupin's 'Tales from the City' novel instead.

Try as we might, the cowboy and I can't entirely reconcile each other's differing preferences.  He likes to get up and watch TV straightaway in the mornings and has a big breakfast all in one go, whereas I prefer a slower approach.  Tea first, maybe with a yoghurt and some cereal and then later a bit of reading with some coffee and a pain au chocolat or croissant.  I need two phases of waking up ideally, but yesterday I settled for one and mixed things up a bit with a cup of tea and a pain au chocolat in one go.  It was my fault - I'd forgotten to bring some coffee because I thought I'd left some there anyway.

Oh the silly pre-occupations of the holiday-flat owning elite...It's amazing we even made it this far, considering I was convinced when we first looked around this flat, that by the time he'd bought it, he'd be with someone else.  It turns out we aren't the only (temporary) occupants though.  I just spotted a couple of swallows who seem to have made the gap under the drain piping on the roof their home. I think they were eyeing me with great curiosity earlier, as if to say, "What's she doing hanging around our house?"  At least they didn't decide I was too close and take to dive-bombing me.

Last night we came out on the balcony just to look at the stars, which were amazing.  There were so many.  I don't normally get to see clear sky like that but we're out in the country here so this is the kind of reward you get.  I couldn't make out even one pattern or cluster of stars among the whole wealth of constellations we could see.  There must be some kind of 'landmark' (or sky mark) star that helps you locate the other ones, but I'm not an astronomer, so I don't know which one it is.  

We had come back from a stroll around the 'town', tiny though it is, after eating a huge meal at the local pizzeria.  I had had the seafood pizza this time, and was rather amused and delighted by the tiny little octopus legs in it.  I must be truly evil though because the cowboy took one look at these half-baby octopi and said, "chudák" (i.e. "poor thing") and I hadn't really thought like that. (My reaction had been, "yum!") I'm clearly a seafood fiend. The pizza was delicious.  And the walk around town afterwards was truly romantic.  How gorgeous the church looks in the twilight... 

Street-watching

I've been having a tough day of inner-battles today.  But happiness is 'an inside job' so if I'm struggling, it's all up to me to fix it.  I haven't been feeling very well all day but hate it when I don't foresee this and have to slow down, just when I was hoping to get a lot done.  Sometimes I'm forced to obey my body rather than the other way around and I'm not very good at it.  I'm so impatient!

I have had an opportunity to notice some of the things I'd been missing out on in the midst of all my 'battling' to get things done.  One of which is just looking out of the window and watching what goes on around here.  It's funny being an ex-pat.  After a year or so your perception of a place changes and you find yourself becoming quite blasé about what's around you and almost bored with the surroundings you once found appealing.  But this evening I stopped to watch the comings and goings of my street, which are noisy and eventful at times, due to it being a very busy road that takes you out to the motorway directly from the central train station. 

It was mid-evening, that time when it's too late to try to continue without switching the lights on but there is still some light in the sky, and I watched people walking down the road.  Some were in a hurry, some dawdling, one pregnant woman was  trying to walk at the same pace as her two friends, then there were a group of tourists, one of whom took photos of the other two while they walked back to their hotel.  I watched him take that picture and I expected to see a brief flash of movement, but I was too far away to see it anyway, and it made me think of my old camera that used film and how it used to make such a shunting, sliding, snapping sound as the shutter was released.  It was reassuringly clunky, which made it seem like I'd done a good job just for taking a photo.  Kind of like a minute sound of applause per shot.

Of course, it's obsolete now.  Goodness knows where I'd have to go if I wanted a film developed these days.  Though if it were to still be possible commercially, you'd think Prague would be a good place to find such an old-fashioned service.  I have got used to some of that old-fashionedness about this city but I still appreciate enormously being able to afford to live somewhere busy.  My disdain for residential areas seems only to be getting more ingrained in me.  I love the noise of the cars when it's so constant.  It almost sounds like tides coming and going.

On the other hand, the view across the road is hardly a beautiful sight.  It's a run-down looking road with a hotel that seems to be well and truly shut down and some little dodgy looking corner shops and a block of flats.  Some of the flats look more modern inside than others.  One flat seems to have marble statues in it with their backs turned to me but surrounded by paper and cardboard, as though an artist used to work there but has since abandoned the place.  One flat on the corner looks totally open-plan and modernised, whereas most of the others look shabby and cluttered.  

Earlier on, one of the regular 'street watchers' in a flat opposite me came to the window to smoke a fag.  He's always doing this with no top on and he's very overweight, so it's kind of off-putting to look outside when he's doing his neighbourhood watch thing.  I sometimes wonder if he watches me pottering about in my kitchen, doing the washing up while the kettle boils.  He probably thinks my quirky clothes are weird and off-putting just like I think his half-nakedness is unpleasant.  Each to their own, I suppose.

It's nice to be able to enjoy standing and looking out of the window with a gentle breeze coming through instead of the guaranteed cold and rain that I would feel if I were in London.  It's that continental summer experience.  Leaving windows open all night because it's so warm, and it's only June.  It gets pretty stifling in August.  That's when you start praying it'll rain.  But I do miss the palm trees of San Francisco and the fun of being able to get stupidly big ice creams and walk along a foggy beach.  Prague is limited on food and drink choices.  It's not a place that 'grew up with' a lot of choice.  Prague-ers have only just started to consider the idea and still seem unsure as to whether 'choice' is worth the hassle.

I was only in San Francisco for four days but I miss it!  And I miss California in general because it was so beautifully varied.  And because I would love to see more of the coast.  This land-locked country is beginning to get to me!   I didn't think I was the 'beach girl' type, but when you get a glimpse of what a beach is supposed to be like (i.e. sandy, clean and warm) it wins you over.   Or maybe I just like what is the polar opposite of what I'm most used to.  In England, it was living in residential areas, miles away from the city centre, here, now that I have that proximity to vibrant city life, I miss the coast.  I didn't appreciate the coast enough in England but then that's probably because the seaside resorts in England are primarily a) cold and b) super-tacky and full of amusement park things and 50s decor.  Take away those two things and you've got yourself a nice beach experience.

I knew I shouldn't have watched that old 'On the beach' episode of ER....

Home comforts

I'm sitting on my big furry cushion on the floor and have become rather accustomed to sitting on the floor lately because this is what I do when I need some kind of urgent change.  It's the equivalent of when Bagpuss puts on his 'thinking cap' (a literal thinking cap) to really figure something out.  I'm hoping it will eventually work out for me.  It's been a bit cold and gloomy in Praha over the last few days and I think it's starting to infiltrate my brain.  Not only that but things are on the point of spiralling out of control financially as so many meet-ees have cancelled recently and are continuing to do so, which is more than I can afford.  Something must be done.

In the meantime, while I figure out what on earth that 'something' can be, I can at least reminisce about how I was able to look after myself better when I had money for nice chocolate and some reasonable Czech white wine. (Thankfully, that was only last week and I still have a bit of both left.)  I don't have the money to buy magazines anymore, and my Hearst magazine subscriptions have yielded all of 3 copies in the year since October so I'm furious with them (but I digress...) so I have taken to re-reading old magazines and books I've read before in order to keep surrounding myself with little bits of inspiration and comforting ideas.  I even took to the traditional 'old spinster' comfort of a hot bath and a bunch of things to read.  

As you can see I added the Slovakian chocolate and Czech white wine (in a champagne glass to pretend I'm living the high life) to give me the full relaxation experience:

If I'm going to descend into spinsterdom, then I may as well do it in style.  And I feel that this is indeed what awaits me because the cowboy is certainly, lovely as he is, not someone I could live with for any great length of time, especially being that I'm self-employed and work largely from home.  I pointed this out to him recently, in fact.  Most couples, I assume, have less of a hard time deciding to move in together because, for a start, there's the no-brainer of saving on the rent, but secondly, because a shared space is fine as long as you only have to use it in the evenings and at weekends.  But if you need it all day long as a studio, bedroom, practice room, library, writing room and chill-out space at the end of a long day, it soon becomes unbearably small to share it with anyone else.

I'm so glad that I do now live on my own.  Finally.  It was a long time coming.  I have had some 'interesting' flatmates from the past, one of whom used to put her hair in a towel when she came downstairs to do any cooking that involved onions because she didn't want her hair to smell of onions.  Another lived in the room next door to me and when he wasn't playing his own songs on guitar he listened incessantly to Radiohead.  Another had a dog who she palmed off to a friend she managed to get to come and live with us so that this friend ended up looking after her dog for her.  She was particularly unhappy and so was the dog.  Another had the most repulsive, smarmy boyfriend ever, who left the bathroom in a state which you would only imagine possible if the abominable snowman had just used it.  And another has become a well-known pop star in Denmark.  Wow.  There were some characters.  I could write a book about them...but I'd rather not.

So it's back to figuring out another source of income somehow.  Though I suspect a square of that Slovakian chocolate would do wonders for my brainpower right now, so I might just have to sneak into the kitchen and retrieve it from the fridge.  (Tip:  living alone is great, but the downside is there's no-one to judge you on your intake of chocolate so you'd be better be sure you've got fairly phenomenal willpower or at least, good old fashioned British self-restraint.)  I'm doing aerobics later, so it's ok.  Honest.