Smaggle

Today’s awesome New York day consisted of shopping, followed by Pink Berry. I got chocolate soft serve with chocolate swirls and yogurt chips, in case you’re wondering. We then had an amazing spicy Thai dinner with dragon fruit cocktails, which was easily the best cocktail I’ve had on the north side of the hemisphere. Oh and the cocktail was lovingly made by the prettiest Lady Boy I’ve ever seen. Killer legs. We then wandered through the streets of the West Village and picked out fantasy apartments for us to live in. I then met the insanely gorgeous Ms Critique for a cheeky champagne at the Dream Hotel roof top bar. We’re blogging buddies back in Oz and met for the first time tonight when we realised our paths had crossed in NY.

More weird shit about NY and US

The Children

Every child I’ve come across is like an advertisement for Oreos or Fig Newtons or some other biscuit type snack where kids love their parents a little too much on the commercials. They are all (insert US kids accent) ‘I’m so happy that I get to see my mom today, because I love her SO MUCH!‘. I’m all, jesus kid, calm the frick down. They are also really clean. I kind of want to rub dirt on them.

The Taps

Are backwards. I often turn on a tap, go to turn it off and end up turning it on even more. I then stand there as water splashes all over my front with my brain struggling to comprehend what has just happened. ‘Why… more water coming?‘

The Self Love

American women have this positive affirmation thing going on that fascinates me. I have heard at least ten conversations in the past few days where a woman, who has clearly been dumped, is firmly and confidently listing her positive qualities to her supportive girlfriend. ‘I’m smart, I’m funny, I’m beautiful, I’m successful.‘ Blatant self promotion is not really the done thing in Australia. We also rarely sit around talking about how awesome we are after a break up. We generally get drunk and sleep with other people.

The Pedestrian Crossings Don’t Make a Beeping Noise

My Pavlovian instincts make it very difficult for me to cross a street without my safety beeps. I never feel like it’s the right time to cross.

People Are Friendly

People don’t really talk to each other in Australia. Apart from occasionally giving directions, there’s really no speaking to strangers at all. New Yorkers are experts at striking up random conversations. In shops, on the street, at bars. It’s unnerving at first for an incredibly insular Aussie gal, but I’m growing to like it.

Summary? New York is magnificent.

I’m dedicating today’s post to Things That New York Offers Me That I Didn’t Know I Wanted.

Chopped Salad

I found a salad bar where they toss together whatever ingredients you want to form a custom salad and when they had finished putting it together the guy said ‘Do you want that chopped?‘. I was under the impression that the salad was already chopped but, no. The guy got all samurai on that salad’s arse and practically food processed it for me. It made it so much more manageable to eat. So yes. I would like my salad unnecessarily chopped.

A Baseball Cap

The wholesome college girls at NYU can rock a casual baseball cap like no ones business. It’s bizarro. I hate baseball caps… but I really, really want one.

Drugs

It’s not illegal to advertise pharmaceutical* drugs in the US which means that most evenings I’ve got Jamie Lee Curtis trying to sell me a cure for irritable bowel syndrome. I’m finding myself wanting drugs for ailments that I don’t even have, just so I can live life again and roll around in green fields with labradors.

Dog Sneakers

I don’t even have a dog but I’m considering getting one so I can get some sweet lil’ Nikes for it.

Anything that’s 99c

It’s been a long time since anything in Australia has been 99c. In New York, you can get chocolate bars, hamburgers, coffee, nail polish or a sink full of soda for 99c. I fall for it every time. Hotdogs for 99c? Shit yes. Strange, pink packaged cake for 99c? Don’t mind if I do. Mystery meat on a stick covered in yellow goo for 99c? Yes please.

Day three in New York was supposed to be spent in doors avoiding the hurricane, which in Chelsea turned out to be more like 24 hours of heavy rain. So in the afternoon we put on our adventure clothes, walked to China town to find the only open restaurant in Manhattan. We ate pork buns and rice while watching the stormy water under the Brooklyn Bridge.

Day four started on a good coffee quest which was satisfied at Stumptown. If the barrista gets a little fancy and does a swirly design on the coffee with the milk it’s generally going to not be terrible. We then went for a casual stroll which ended four hours later, so easy to do in NY when there’s so much to look at and do. The day ended in Brooklyn at the PostSecret app launch where I ate a beef sandwich with Frank Warren. It was awesome.

Dress from Heart My Closet on Etsy, obi belt from Elizabeth Kelly on Etsy, shoes from Whittner, Tinkerbell earrings from Disney Couture, Kenneth Jay Lane turqoiuse ring, Kenneth Jay Lane tiger bangle, leather flower bangle one of my pieces from my grad collection.

* I just really needed to point out that I spelled pharmaceutical correctly, right off the bat, without needing spellcheck. Snap.

I had this giant plan of doing a day by day New York posting schedule for you but the moment we arrived in NY, we were told to stay inside until Hurricane Irene blew over. Cue 24 hours of horizontal cable watching and 2 minute noodle eating. So far, NY isn’t that different from when I have my period. I do have a few anecdotal foreigner tid bits to share though, because travel wise, I’ve only seen Times Square so far and lets face it, no one wants to hear about that.

Here’s some weird shit about the US and New York.

Coffee

Ordering coffee in the US is like Russian Roulette. You can get cappuccinos but you’re never sure if that’s actually what you’re going to get. If you order one, you’re likely to get a cup of luke warm, coffee flavoured milk. I got a cappuccino at LAX that was served in a beer stein with two straws. I ordered a small cappuccino yesterday that was the size of a small bucket. They also don’t have instant coffee here which made our hurricane lock down unbearable, as my caffeine addicted man tried to get his fix from this awful tin of vanilla latte flavoured powdered coffee with built-in creamer. A warm sugary vanilla milkshake didn’t quite hit the spot.

Obessession with White Meat Chicken

Every commercial that’s for Wendy’s, Applebee’s or MacDonald’s hosts this bizarre claim that their chicken burgers or nuggets are made from 100% white meat chicken. I thought all chicken meat, as in breasts and thighs, was white. I’m kind of creeped out by whatever the alternative might be.

New Yorkers love to drink complicated iced beverages in clear plastic cups with straws

You can pick a tourist a mile away because they aren’t drinking a litre-sized, zero calorie, strawberry detox, limeade with extra ice or a non-fat, sweet’n'low, lite Mocha Frappucino.

The toilets

The water lives in the bowl, it just sits there inches away from your naked bum. For an Australian, it just feels like every toilet is blocked. I’m terrified of the inevitable splash back. I’ve been very careful with my number twos here.

Eggs

Are white and completely consistent in colour. They don’t even look like they came from chickens. There also doesn’t seem to be a battery chicken thing here, which is terrifying. I like buying ridiculously expensive eggs knowing they came from happy chickens, scratching around in paddocks. I don’t know where the hell these eggs came from.

You can get ‘diet’ everything, everywhere

If you are on a diet in Australia and you want a sweet drink at the movies you’ve got Diet Coke or Coke Zero. In the states there’s Diet Snapple, Diet Vitamin Water, Diet Juice, Diet soda, Diet Iced Tea, Diet traditional lemonade and my personal favourite Diet Frappucinos at Starbucks. It’s awesome. They also have this 100 calorie obsession so if you go into Tasty D-Lite all the yogurts are less than 100 calories or if you go into a deli they’ll have the calorie content on every label of the sandwiches and salads. I freaking love New York. You can also get an iced coffee that is actually cold coffee, not sugary mocha bullshit covered in cream that you get in Australia. It’s total bliss for a seasoned calorie counter.

New Yorkers speak really fast

I’m a really, really fast talker. When people first meet me, the people who know me often have to translate what I’m saying. Let me tell you, I got NOTHIN’ on New Yorkers. I’ve been doing a lot of nodding and smiling here.

Everyone in NY has Sherpa legs

The people here are brown, buff and wholesome. They wear heart rate monitors and shout positive affirmations at each other as they run in tribes around the park. New Yorkers won’t let rain, hurricanes, heat, humidity or anything get in the way of their run and it shows in their slender yet bumpy with muscles bodies. I’ve never seen bodies like this in real life. I’m turning into quite the pervert over here.

Oh and I also saw a dog wearing little Nike runners today. I flipped my freaking lid.

Stay tuned for day three.

I’m currently packing (really, really badly) for my trip to New York but I had to take a quick break to share this trailer with you. The trailer was produced by Ben, my partner, for the app that he and his company made for PostSecret. I’m a bit proud. Here are a few things to watch out for.

* The guy that takes the photo of the door is our friend Sam. You can see him here at my 1000th post party.

* The ’74′ front door is my front door.

* The scene where the girl is cutting up magazine letters on the floor shows a pink quilt on the bed that my grandmother made for me 15 years ago.

* The guy that does the voice over is also the director of the commercial. He’s also Australian. As is everyone who worked on the trailer.

* The trailer closes on my outfit wall. They removed the ‘homm’ much to my distress.

* The tattoo parlour was filmed inside my house.

* I make a little cameo in the trailer. See if you can spot it.

They did a pretty amazing job don’t you think?

This week, I had a reader ask how to save face and move on if you’ve done something really embarrassing. Before we get on with it, I have to say that it is almost impossible to embarrass me. It can happen, but it’s rare. I’m the daughter of a nurse and a plumber so poos, wees and farts are child’s play in the embarrassment leagues for me and in my life I’ve worked with teenagers, drug addicts, prostitutes, kids with special needs, ridiculously stupid people and actors. There’s not a lot that shocks me. Believe me.

However if you were raised in civilised society as I clearly was not, here’s a few tips on how to deal with life’s little nasties. Hopefully, it will help you walk away from a red-faced moment with your dignity intact.

The Physical Faux Pas

I’m incredibly clumsy. I drop things, run into doorways and quite regularly fall down. Through out my years of public mishaps I’ve learned that the only way to deal with this is to be fabulous about it. I once fell down three flights of stairs, onto the stage of a theatre in front of 100 people. I cracked my face on my friends arse while simultaneously breaking my fall with both my knees on a concrete floor. It resulted in stunned silence from the entire audience and I ended up bleeding from nose to knees. It was humiliating, but I got up, faced the audience, did a little curtsy and asked if anyone could spare a tissue for my mass hemorrhage. Everyone laughed, realised I was okay and I ended up with plenty of tissues to mop up my rather frightening blood loss. It was so much better than if I had slunk, red-faced to my seat, burst into tears or left the theatre. It sucks if you fall over. It sucks even worse if you let it hurt your pride as well as your body.

The Body Blooper

I’m talking burps and farts here. I’ll start with burps. You can genteelly burp behind your hand and no one will ever know unless you ate a garlic kebab for lunch. If someone asks if you just burped, just reply honestly that yes, you did burp and apologise saying that you had garlic or whatever offensive food for lunch. Or beat them to it right after you burp by saying ‘I’m so sorry, you’ll have to forgive my breath. I ate this Greek salad for lunch it was full of garlic. Do you have a mint?’. Nipping it in the bud is always a great option.

As for the fart… all I can say is just try to pinch it off. Try hard. Really, really hard. It’s difficult to recover from a public fart. If it’s loud it’s awful, if it’s smelly it’s even worse. If one does slip out, as occasionally they do, blame it on something medical. Say you’re on antibiotics and they make you gassy or say you’re doing allergy testing so you’re eating unusual foods. Apologise quickly, and move on. After all, it is a normal bodily function so we should just unclench, pardon the pun.  Also, if you can blame someone else, do it. If you’re in a corridor, blame the guy that just walked past. If you’re in a mall, aim your fart at a kid and blame them. You can’t do this too often though or people will catch on that strangers seem to fart around you a lot. I have to reiterate that avoidance is truly key here, so work hard to suppress. Even if you have to make a little grunting noise. It’ll be way better than the fart, trust me.

The Slip of the Tongue

I once met a woman who said to me, mid-conversation ‘I love the Lord Jesus Christ. Love him, love him, love him.’ and I promptly laughed my arse off. Mistake. She wasn’t joking. She was the Pentecostal, organ playing, wife of a preacher. Like speaking in tongues and shit. Whoops. I apologised. Straight away and very sincerely. She brushed it off and we went back to our conversation. Then later, she said ‘It was so lovely to meet you. I would LOVE to set you up with my son. You’d be perfect for him. Well, except for the whole eternal damnation thing.‘ It was perfect, because I was sincere in my apology and continued our conversation despite a very obvious differing of opinion and she felt comfortable enough to have a joke about my slip of the tongue. Look, we all say unintentionally offensive things sometimes but I have to point out, it’s so much better if you realise it’s offensive at the time and can apologise and make things right. So the next time you accidentally make a joke about how rude French people are in front of a French person, be thankful of your awareness. Because you now have the power to fix it, rather than have that person walk away thinking you’re a jerk off.

The Monumental Eff Up

You screwed up at work. Big time. It’s a bad, stupid and idiotic mistake, and it’s not funny. You can’t blame it on a stinky kid and you can’t take a bow and demand applause. There’s only one thing to do. Own it. Apologise. Fix it. Do it quickly and never let it happen again. Also it helps to not have any opinions for at least a month and be really willing to do the coffee run. Just for a month until it all blows over.

The Prodigal Gossip

You said something not so great about someone else and it got back to them. First of all, naughty girl/boy. Gossip is nasty, but what’s done is done. When the person confronts you, you need to say ‘I’m really sorry. What I was trying to say was X and it came out as Y, and I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, I won’t do it again.’ Fights, feuds and bitchiness breeds when people don’t admit they are wrong. So save everyone a lot of time and negative energy and own it.

The bottom line is that you have the choice to be embarrassed about something and you have the choice to not be embarrassed. It takes some practice but you can re-learn your thinking and start to feel more positive about the little bumps in your life’s path.

Also… can you actually remember the last time you were really truly embarrassed? I can’t. Even the stories I’ve told for this piece didn’t really embarrass me at the time. They amused me more than anything. Honestly though? Time heals all wounds and it heals embarrassment the fastest. Just remember that.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter or add me on Facebook. I talk about farts all the time on my various social media platforms.

Yesterday, one of my friends asked my permission to post this photo to my Facebook wall. She loved it, but was worried that I wouldn’t.

I told her it was fine and to go ahead.

You know why? Because I don’t look fat. It doesn’t matter that my eyes are closed or my head’s at a funny angle or that I look like a zombie as one my friends sweetly pointed out. I don’t look fat and therefore this photo rocks.

What’s your photo phobia? When you look at photos of yourself, what’s the one thing that you always look for?

Feel free to contribute on Facebook and Twitter too!

Well dear readers, after almost four years of blogging, I’ve reached my 1000th post. It’s such a massive milestone and shows just how much work I’ve put into Smaggle over the years. So on the weekend, I threw a little 1000th post party with my crew. We ate curry, drank red wine and celebrated with champagne and ice cream cake. Perfect.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads Smaggle. Whether you’ve been reading for years or just a few months, I really do appreciate you taking the time out of your day to visit my corner of the web. I have the most amazing, intelligent and supportive readers. You guys make Smaggle what it is, so thank you.

xxx

Wearing –

* Linen dress from Barkins

* Cotton pants from Ozsale

* Shrug from a store on Smith Street in Melbourne

* Obi belt from Etsy

* Shoes from Whittner

* Revlon colour burst lipstick in Raspberry

* Leather and freshwater pearl necklace from my grad collection last year

Just to let you know this is my 999th post which means my next post will be my 1000th.

Mental.

Don’t forget, you can like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.