Make-up Free Zone

I am attempting to enter a make-up free zone.
The problem with being a child performer is that you learn to put on make-up at an early age in a fashion that enables your facial features to be seen from the nose bleeds of a white-lit auditorium.
Breaking those kind of habits is a tough gig.
I feel I need to step away from the bronzer - I caught a glimpse of myself the other day and in normal daylight, it looked like I had gone native - that or I was secretly a chimney-sweep.
I need to put down the mascara - Eyelashes should not double as a fringe.
And I need to back away from the illuminator. I'm my own traffic directing device on a heavy-handed day.
It's hard to get used to the naked reflection staring back - and naked is how it feels. I feel exposed, vulnerable and self-conscious. I feel worried that some is going to capture a "stars without make-up" picture of me and plaster it across the 'book.

But for me, entering the make-up free zone is a challenge.  A personal challenge to feel comfortable in my own skin - but beyond that, it is a challenge seeking more than comfort, more than acceptance, more than tolerance.  It is an attempt for me to step back from the garishness that can all too easily invade The Party.  Recently The Party has felt like a whirling, possessed carousel. On this carousel horses with hollow eye-sockets bray shrilly - the spinning is round and round and up and down and out and in. The lights that flash snap red and blue-black - blindingly and leaving spots echoing in my vision. And, like the captive I have become - I become part of the garishness, talons and fangs and course skin. The undertone that undermines sweeps dizzily alongside me. This is not The Party I had come in search of. This is the carousel I must escape.

Ede Kane at the office

Sometimes I think I should rename this blog - I am never at The Party. I have had brief moments where I have flitted through The Party, but my life at The Party has been reduced to almost nothingness.

This is Ede Kane at the office.

What is it about crying? You can receive a super blow and hold your shit together but if someone opens their heart and asks you if you are okay, you lose your shit.

Why do we lose our shit when people love us, and we are able to hold it together in front of people who hate us? Isn't it the people we love - aren't they the ones we want to be strong for? Why am I holding my shit together for someone who hates me, and in all emotional logic - I should probably hate back?

And then at the end of the day the only real hating going on is hating of yourself and the only really loving going on is incomprehensible and intangible through all your self flagellation.

It's a mixed up, messed up world at the office.

I always wish I was back at The Party.

I looked at my pictures of Montmartre and I wish....

Judge a book by its cover - judge a person by their friends

It occurred to me at 3am on Saturday night, that before 3am Saturday night, I had never even seen any of the three girls I was talking to.  We were immersed in nutting out of the girls’ five year plan.  But it wasn’t just me as the outside, they didn’t know each other before this Saturday night either.  In fact, as I looked around me I realised the only person I knew out of the thirty or so party-goers in our very crowded corner was the Birthday Girl.

The Birthday Girl and I were new friends, but she was one helluva girl, so I came along to her b’day bash.  The Birthday Girl is one of those bubbly, insatiably positive and uplifting goddesses that has friends from all walks of life.

I believe you can judge a book by its cover: -

a)      Saves time.

b)      It is quite telling- old/new?  Publisher with a lot of money/self published? Era, genre, length, etc, etc.

Just as you can judge a book by its cover – you can really judge a person by their friends.  This effervescent Birthday Girl was brilliant enough and popular enough to bring together people who may otherwise have never even given each other a sideways glance.  And here we all were, French martinis in hand, booties shaking and good times being had all round. 

Which  restores my faith – the good people are out there, you just have to search for them, and hold on to them when you find them.

Hold on to them for dear love’s sake.

The Listmaker

I make a list for everything.

I write my shopping in a list - not just my grocery shopping, my future shopping too.

I write birthdays in a list.

I write, on average, two to three to-do lists a day: a work to-do list, a home to-do list, and a to-do list I call the "life" to-do list.

I feel like it makes me organised. I feel so powerful and successful and confident whenever I can cross something off the list.  Striking out something you have achieved is a unique kind of uplifting bliss only the truly obsessive compulsive could ever truly understand.

But the shame - the horror - the failure and the defeat to close a day with a to-do list glaring at you with outstanding entries.

The paranoia - the defeat, the descent into hollowness and antipathy.

The spiralling out of control as the list grows then again the next day - more to do - more still un-done - hovering, waiting, scorning.

The list giveth and the list taketh away, at the start and close of each and every day.

Bitchin' Central

All the earth and all the love
All the stars and all the skies
Oh why does it take all my life and all my heart
It's never yes and never no
All it is, is to and fro
And I'm never knowing which way to go
All the money and all the time
All the oceans and all of the roads
All of the mountains and all of the hills
All of the fish
In all of the sea
All of the air
Terminal and velocity
Oh it's never yes and never no
Always just looking through, standing apart
But I've said take all of my life and all of my heart
I've give you all of my mind
just to find a way there
Chasing understanding
Never landing
Never knowing
Just to-ing and fro-ing
And hit and miss
Can this be fixed
And my my my I hope so.

Expensive chicks for cheap kicks

I was arriving at The Party and saw there was a queue to get in. Never a big believer in waiting and more a believer in the now, I sauntered to the front, flashed a smile at the bouncer, Jack, whom I know from way back and he waved me in.

Then the male spoke up.

“How come girls always get to skip queues and never have to pay cover charge? It’s not fair. And then they get inside and we have to buy them all their drinks or their drinks are free off the bartenders. This is a total joke.”

Silly, silly, silly little male.

You want to know why girls don’t have to queue? You are standing there in your “going out jeans”, sneakers and a t-shirt. We are standing here in sky-high strappy stilettos and a sequined mini dress–freezing our asses off.

You want to know why girls don’t pay cover charge? Shall I work my way from the top down?
Hair: how many ten dollar barbers do you see around? Hundreds! - because most guys get pretty simple haircuts, there isn’t always that much hair to work with. Girls? We have to have involved architecturally sound works of art with shimmering colour tones, products, products and more rare diamond dust, pearl essence, moon oil products. And straightners? The only straightner a girl can use is $300. Haircut? $100-$150. Colour? $200-$250. Let’s face it, our hair probably cost more than your entire outfit.

Then the face? Makeup and mascara and lipgloss and perfume and facials and creams and lotions and potions and eternal youth stupefying mist because if we don’t look like the photo-shopped to oblivion whores in your dirrty girrly mags, we don’t qualify as the version of “hot” with which you are brain-washed into expecting by the conglomerates that control you.
The outfit? While it is completely socially acceptable for you to wear the same jeans out all the time, or the same sneakers and maybe rotate through a few shirts – However,we have to present an entirely new look with each outing. New earrings, new accessories, new clutch, new attire, new shoes.

So by the time a girl is ready to be social accepted out at The Party we are taking in excess of $800 to get there.

And you want to know why we don’t line up and don’t pay to be there?

You are paying to see us gentleman.

You, and your “going out jeans” from the last three weekends are paying for that pleasure.

Breasts, breasts, and the beast.

I was at The Party – a gala awards night for outstanding professional women. And boy, did I see a lot of breasts. There were those down-to-the-navel cowl neck numbers. There were side boobs, under the chin boobs, double boobs, severely separated boobs, severely squashed together boobs. One unfortunate choice of gown even gave one woman I saw back boobs.
There weren't many legs, just breasts. I wondered what it is that drives woman to send their juggernauts out into space like that. Is it the point of difference? Men have legs, but they sure as heck can't make it look like their head is bouncing on a bounty of bosom.
And while breasts truly are a wonderful female feature, they seem to somewhat lose their exclusivity when you realise that, with the right bra, they are also being doubled as a pouch for mobile phone and money.There is something ultimately more feminine about only softly educating our fans about our lady lumps through sheer fabric, or figure hugging ensembles, as opposed to introducing anyone and everyone face first to the girls. We are precious, valuable treasures ladies. No-one likes a present that is already unwrapped.