back to it tonight - i'm actually looking forward to it! i wonder what our audience will be like tonight. a cross between opening night and today's oprah audience vibe would be good. i swear. today on oprah, they applauded and cheered (amongst other things) a stockpot, a place mat, and wonton wrappers. lucky is the inanimate object that unwittingly finds itself on oprah. daytime television has taken its toll this week - pinnacle of which is a daytime ad jingle, the first two lines of which has embedded itself in my brain. sung in a very laid-back, old-blue-eyes kinda jazzy way are the lines 'you've come this far, you deserve this spa'. the people who made that ad must've thought 'stuff subliminal messages! let's just go ahead and sing it out!'. i did a little bit of writing this week, but my head's all over the place. is that an excuse? or is it the fact that this week, the midday movie lineup has included such classics as 'mannequin', 'look who's talking' and 'look who's talkin now'.
hey - don't judge me. just love me. here's a link to an interesting article that a friend sent me today, about something close to my heart - mr darcy. enjoy!

one thing to look forward to, when putting yourself out there, is reviews. here is an excerpt from the first review (that i've found) of our fringe show follows; seeing as this site is all about me, the following excerpt is (obviously) all about me.
'2003 Raw Comedy finalist Shalini Akhil was the first act of the night. Although the stand-up comic's job is to try to make you laugh, she didn't seem to be trying to (sic) hard, which I mean in a good way - her easy conversational style makes it seem as if you've slid a beer across to a mate and she's telling you about the humorous events of her day.'
hmmm... initially, this review read a little like a backhanded compliment. good thing or a bad thing? you be the judge. my hyper-critical sense of self appraisal is too overpowering for me to see any different. to read the full review of our show (last saturday's show, to be exact), go here. tonight, mark and i checked out a couple of other fringe shows - 'betty blues' and 'the super happy robot hour'. betty blues moved me - great show, and a credit to nelly thomas for writing it, and all the performers for interpreting it so well. super happy robot hour delivered (as i knew it would) many laughs. a great night was had by all... to my fello fringe-ers - well done, people! i'm very happy, and very, very proud!

even though i'm not a football person i'll always watch the grand final, either at the cricketer's, or at a mate's brand final bbq. i missed the game this year, opting instead to sleep in well into double digits, go out for brunch and buy dvd's. mark bought me presents - series 2 and 3 of sex and the city, and i found a copy of 'anita and me' for ten bucks. it was a day of inaction that i needed - performing for three nights in a row (performances bookended with the the obligatory fire-up and wind-down drinks) really took it out of me. one thing's for sure - i could never be a rock star.
then sunday happened.
i heard some shouting, then all these sirens stopping somewhere near the house around midday - sounds not too uncommon in flemington. when we left the house, we saw that the mcdonalds on the corner had police tape around the entrance, and about four squad cars. then on the late night news i saw that a 32 year old man was stabbed to death there. in broad daylight, at the maccas at the end of our street. that knowledge, coupled with flashbacks to re-enactments from a television show on psychics trying to solve murder mysteries, ensured i could not get to sleep at all last night. i'm not sure if the police choppers i heard were in my dreams or for real. i've never been that close to a murder before.

last night we played to a full house, and then afterward we partied till they'd all left.
this morning, i have a headache.
though this is making me feel a whole lot better...
wooohooooooooooooo!

fringe update - night one
opening night went really, really well. it started with the dvd vanessa made for us - a montage of several photos from the day we had the poster photo shoot - i guess it felt real when we saw that projected for the first time, before the audience came in to the theatre. there were 24 people in the audience - great opening crowd! it was excellent to see beck and al, naomi, helen, shun and rose there. i had the first ten minute spot, and despite the heat in the theatre i think i went quite well. it's an excellent environment, and the vibe between all the performers is excellent! i think it's going to be an experience we'll all look back on fondly. one down, nine to go! must remember not to drink too much tonight though. will purchase some bottles of pop to take with me this evening... you know, even though i thought i wouldn't like it, i find i'm craving cherry coke quite a bit. which is weird, because as a general rule i hate cherry flavouring.
ah, well.
such are the mysteries of life.

tonight’s the night!! the fringe – and so our fringe show - starts tonight. we had (for want of another term) a ‘tech run’ on monday night; mark’s our tech nerd, thus is doing lights and sound for the run of the fest. the show format is that one of us will be mc, and the remaining three will perform ‘spots’. so, mc goes for ten, then first spot goes for ten, mc back for three to five, second spot goes for ten, then a break of ten to fifteen. mc back briefly before headline spot of twenty, then we all go back on stage and take a bow... before collapsing on the bar. for the first week i think i will stick to the ten minute spots, the first of which is mine tonight. should be fun – apparently other comedians have been commending us on our format choice – basically running it like a general standup night at any other club - because it’s means we’ve effectively booked ourselves gigs for the run of the festival. i’m interested to find out how i’ll be feeling after it’s all over – i will have to document it all! also, if you come to our fringe show as a result of reading about it on this blog, please come up and say hi after the show... unless i sucked so badly the night you were there that you decide you’d rather leave than be seen conversing with me in public. if that is the case, i will fully understand.
yesterday, i had a run-through of my karaoke song for ‘hello kitty’. oh my gawd. i never realised how high pitched ‘the eye of the tiger’ is. but i managed to get through it without giving myself a hernia or damaging the earballs* of the other participants. i’m looking forward to the whole hello kitty thing – singing karaoke in front of a crowd will surely help get rid of any pesky nerves, i reckon!
*'earballs' - a reference to a soundgrab i caught on the apalling (and thankfully shortlived) reality tv show, 'the resort'. two female contestants were having an argument, and one said to the other something to the effect of 'you should shut your mouth for a change, and open up your earballs'. ah, quality.

ah, memories. today i was asked to clean out my drawers (ooh, ahh) at work, as someone else needed them. i didn’t mind, as i haven't actually used them in ages, so i stopped doing what i was doing and went the cleanup. what did i find? an issue of hq mag from 2002 with vince colosimo on the cover; a mini instructional/inspirational book called ‘take care of yourself’ (i don’t even know who that belongs to; somewhere out there is an ex-employee who has no idea how to look after themselves, and it’s all my fault...); a pack of strepsils; about ten unopened a4 sized envelopes addressed to me, sent by my superannuation company; vhs copies of ‘cluless’ and ‘romy and michele’s high school reunion’; herbal tea galore; a book called ‘the seduction of silence’ by bem le hunte; one fishy-shaped soy sauce container (obviously left over from a sushi lunch); about five half-used exercise books, one empty collins redbound feint & paged account book (yoink!)... and my most prized of possessions (it still made me blush) - a takeaway coffee cup cover that coffee boy gave me. want the full story? go here.

happiness is food. when we used to live in camberwell, we discovered this small japanese grocer's up the road. i thought i'd died and gone to heaven when i saw they sold green tea ice cream mix. the instructions were in japanese, so the person behind the counter had to translate them for me. then we moved away and away and away again, and i thought the only way i could get the ice cream mix was by making a trip back to camberwell. not so! the asian grocer's down the road from here has one little shelf dedicated to japanese ingredients, and what did i find there? the green tea ice mix, complete with stickered-on english preparation instructions. i was obviously not the only non-japanese person who's a fan of this stuff. i was just down at the grocer's before (it's called 'kfl', but mark and i refer to it as 'klf, uh-huh uh-huh'), and i found something else - green tea flavoured tapioca pearls (the same things that you can get in your iced tea at bubble cup - mmm, bubble cup!). when i was a kid and not feeling well, my mum would make me what we called 'sabu-dana' - basically, tiny globes of tapioca cooked in milk and sugar, like a pudding or a porridge. the tapioca absorbs the milk and gets plump and translucent, and it has a chewy texture. anyway, the pearls that i found look like jumbo green peas. made myself a bowlful before, and now my jaw aches, but it was well worth it. another thing i like about this grocer is that they have a huge range of what (when we were growing up in fiji) we used to call 'chinese lollies' - salty preserved plums. they are definitely an acquired taste - though it's fun to give them to people who've never had them before and sit back and watch their reactions. we used to pop them in glasses of coke or lemonade, then eat them after we'd finished the drink. they're also really good if you stick them in the middle of an ornage that's been cut crossways, then squeeze out the juice... ah, childhood memories. anyway, i was down at the grocers to get some glutinous rice because i read a blog about congee yesterday, and today i decided i must try and make some. this grocers also has shrink-wrapped bbq red pork - how cool is that? - so i will add that to the congee, together with some fried shallots, shredded bok choy and oyster mushrooms. to serve with, i have marinated some chicken wings in a spicy mix of lemon, pepper, ketchap manis, honey and garlic and stuff... because, to quote imani, 'there ain't no thing like a chicken-wing'.

the next week will be like standing in the eye of a cyclone. all this activity beforehand - uni assignments, computer crises, contract negotiations... this week, calm and quiet, not much on the horizon... then next week. the fringe festival starts next week and i am in a show with three fellow chick comedians, called 'glitch and glamour'. should be an interesting learning experience for me, as i have never performed in a night-after-night sense before. it'll be a hurdle to do the same material - something i struggle with now, and i only do on average one gig a month. then later in october and november theres the hello kitty tour in lismore and canberra, which i am looking forward to - i will be reading an excerpt from my novel, and then singing 'eye of the tiger'... and a little bit of 'ive had the time of my life' from dirty dancing, too, hehehe! should be fun. i think it'd be safe to say that after all this is over, i might take the first chance i get to nick off somewhere for a little r&r. haven't been on holiday since january. wouldn't mind going back to qld to visit pat and julie, then nicking off somewhere different for a bit while we're up there. maybe cairns or fnq. or see the barrier reef. or back to byron - maybe this time we'll get some sunshine! ah, there's always hope :o)

so it's official. signed sealed delivered, i now can feel comfortable calling myself a writer, and will soon be able to use the word 'author' - penguin australia will be publishing by first novel next year. approximately twelve months from now, you will be able to see my book on shelves. i don't know what it will be called yet - still trying to come up with a good title - but when i do setlle on one, trust me - you'll be the first to know :o)
who'da thunk it..?
my book.
on shelves.
woah.

i've been going through some weird emotional rollercoater-y type times lately, and my evil twin seems to emerge every time i've had a healthy helping from the old alkyhol food group. family issues about one relationship in particular, have been bugging me - it seems in sober, waking life i don't really obsess about this one (now) non-existant relationship much, but after i've had a couple it all mushroom-clouds out of control, and i end up spitting hurt and ager and bile - unfortunately for him - in mark's general direction, because it all usually comes to a head in the car on the way home from whatever family function or whatever where the topic may have been brought up again. i realise that i have a lot bottled up about this situation - a lot of unanswered questions, and many feelings of betrayal which i feel i may never get over (i don't trust easily, and i do not cope very well when i find out that my absolute trust in an individual was misplaced, and/or disrespected, as i feel it has been in this situation) - and the way i have been dealing with it is to distance myself from the issue and not think about it. but the times when there is no actual physical distance, i find there is heaps of room for analysis and hurt. and the cycle of self-destructive analysis begins yet again... so, that was my saturday night.
the second thing causing me angst - working through the legalese of a publishing contract i have been offered for my first novel. there is nothing like legalese to suck the joy out of any given situation, and sometimes i feel like running away and hiding from it, and everyone else's opinions on what i should and should not do. when i speak with the publishers, they assure me that the contract is not designed to trap or trick me; when i relay this information to others, they smirk knowingly and give me that 'sure, sure' look. i have always wanted a publishing contract. i now have three copies of one sitting on the dining table. i give them a wide berth when i'm in the dining room, and wonder if it talks about me behind my back, if little secrets and smarms about me are whispered between pages in the middle of the night when i am not there to catch them. i advised a lawyer friend of mine that he should use his catchphrase on his business card. 'mr john q citizen, ba. llb. trust no c**t'.
trust seems to be a central issue in this post - i desperately want all the war stories about big, bad publishing houses and small, defenceless writers to be wrong. so far, they have given me no reason to want to hire a skywriter to plaster offensive messages about them in the crisp spring blueness; let's hope it never gets to that stage. i've heard skywriters are really expensive.