Ok now, why?

Just why the fuck do all train trips that are supposed to be just under 3 hours take 3 hours and 40 minutes?

Why the flying fuck of fucks do the fucking 1st class carriages have to be on the side that you come out of the station by, when your train's on platform fucking 5, after waiting in the line that some fucking woman used as a 1000 questions info stop to buy you ticket?

How the fuck come do people working in government offices need to tell you they need to check on some stuff that's pretty much greek to you (or official papers and forms Czech, which might as well be) and make you wait in the hall while they check it out?

Why the heavenly holy fuck are station maps completely fucking WRONG? And I mean it's wrong, not just that I can't follow maps properly and that's why I went the completely wrong way and came back and started again TWICE!

And why oh why on god's green earth are internet timetables for trains from Brno to Prague just wrong! And I mean wrong, like actually wrong, not like station map wrong.

And for fucks fucking sake? Why in the jesus fuck do canoodling not teenagers (no excuse people!) have to be right in front of the place you at first think is the street number you need, so you don't want to go and inspect it properly because they're there, so you walk past and then you go back cos you thought it was it, and it isn't so you have to go past them AGAIN to go up to where it actually is. All the time they're looking at you like YOU'RE the weird one, who like, doesn't have a right to be there or something. And get this.. they're STILL FUCKING THERE when you finish your business and go down the hill again! I mean FUCKING GET A FUCKING ROOM FOR FUCKS SAKE!



Fuck!

Being responsible and stuff

I'm busy this week. I did that important thing on Monday that I mentioned.. I think, and I'm doing part 2 of that today, which involves going to Brno. It's another city in the Czech Republic. Anyway I'm just there, do it, take some shots of the town square or whatnot and back. It should be pretty boring but kind of exciting seeing as I never go anyway.

Tomorrow I'm being summoned to České Budějovice to take some stuff to my parents that they dumped on me while they gallivanted around Germany. It's heavy, but I should be mostly on the train so it's forgivable. I'm to hang out there about 2 days with the rels and co. When I return Erik's parents will be here so we'll be doing the tourist thing with them.

Quite busy I am. And in unrelated news, it's fucking dustier than fuck in here! I'm sneezing and eye watering like crazy.. yesterday I tried to beat the mattresses and pillows to get the dust out and well.. we don't really have an outside bit here, and though the pillows can be hung out the window, and I took the mattresses into the other bit of the flat it's fucking worse than ever! Who'd have thought that sending dust flying into the air of this tiny flat would make people sneeze and shit.. huh? Fuck.

Anyway.. very busy, off soon.

One down..

And one to go. Or is that 2 down? Is it only one to go?

And then after that I've got all the other stuff.

What the hell am I babbling on about I hear you yelling! Er... stuff. Annoying stuff, worrying stuff, the sort of stuff you want to be down already. It's gonna be a while.

Weather's been nice...

*Looks embarrassed and stuff*

Why oh why did I think it was Thursday yesterday? It was certainly Friday, it had totally the feel of Friday, and I even didn't get around to doing a certain thing I went out to do because it's Friday and stuff closes early. I don't get it!

Of course, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, and I can have a photo captioning post any day of the week and indeed I do the stuff on the "wrong" day all the time and nary a heart flutter.. but I did put Thursday in the tags so I feel I have to point out how silly I am. I'm really silly.

Now it's the weekend, and that's nice.

Take a look at this!

Leave a caption if you like.

Things that suck, and things that in some way sucky if you look at them in a certain way..

Well wadda ya know. Vyšehrad really is just up the hill. I mean, I knew this, I just know now that it's a simple walk there. I wish I'd known before I walked up there yesterday evening. I set off in the general direction, very general as it were, actually the wrong direction. I had to divert myself around rows of buildings that had no break in them 4 blocks along, and found myself on a busy road. One them ones that's just for cars, and no trams or anything else. I walked and walked.. oh btw the way to Vyšehrad is all uphill, and even though I was going the wrong way, I managed to be walking uphill all the same.

I finally got to Pankrác, which is 2 metro stations the other way, but fortunately a station so I hopped on the train. The wrong one.. for some reason, but all I had to do was turn around and go back and I found myself in Vyšehrad before long... got out on the wrong side of the station, minor mishap.. then walked to where the castle grounds is at, and then walked around before I found the beer garden Erik's work people were at. Oh.. I didn't mention, I was meeting him somewhere he was having an after work gathering. It was big, crowded, there were people all over the place and some hanging out on the grass so I had to wander around for 10 minutes before I found them. After that it was cool... beer, nice view, a kitty on the top of some shack they have.

We walked home. You can sort of see where we live from the view up there so we went in the general direction. We went through some park thing, right under the bridge. When we came out we recognized the spot... just a block over in the park we always visit or go through, ie, very close. Right under the bridge we walked back on the last time we walked home from Vyšehrad. It's the opposite side of our place that I decided to walk when I went there. It didn't occur to me to you know.. follow the bridge.

So anyway, today I was finally going to get something done that I sorta kinda really badly need to do, well start the process anyway because it has the potential to be long and arduous. And I realize I don't have some very important papers that I really need and totally should have and fuck knows what happened to them they should be there so now I don't know how to even start going about it. With barely 2 weeks to get it all done so I don't have to worry about a certain thing I've been worrying about. That's the thing that really fucking sucks. The other thing was a little bit sucky, but overall amusing. And it's nice to know we're really kind of close to that cool beer garden.

It'll help when everything else falls out from under me. Assuming I'll be able to partake in the enjoyment of it.

The A-Z of great thespianism.

I thought I'd compile a list of all the faces I might potentially need over my acting career, so I can practice them, and get real good at them. It's a plan, and I do love plans. I shall start.

agitated
alarmed
aloof
amazed
amused
ambiguously emotional
angry
angst-ridden
apathetic
ashamed
awed

bamboozled
baffled
bashful
bemused
betrayed
bewildered
bewitched
bitter
blank
blissful
blithe
bloated
bloodthirsty
bored
bothered

And there you go..

Ok, so it's a- some of b,but there's enough there to practice for now. Now what exactly is the difference between bamboozled and bewildered?

Not a bad day n a bit's..

Finished filming. Went rather quick really, and overall was quite relaxing and easy, sans mishaps. Well not entirely free of them, not at all free of them.. they just weren't the negative, screwing with one's art, holding everyone up, pissing people off sort of mishaps. Not to me anyway.

Started yesterday, I met them at the director's flat. It's a street I know well and have walked up for this very purpose before. I wondered if perhaps just I'd been to this exact flat before and lo and behold it's the same flat I shot a film in last August. One where I didn't say anything and gave a lot of spooked out looks. You know.. that one..

Right away we shot in the bedroom, it was dressed up as a doctor's office.. that went pretty quick and then we went out for a coffee and moving on. The coffee was good. We walked on and stopped halfway down some steps to shoot a scene. I managed to get some "stills" in this spot, so you might just get to see me recreating one of the famous looks from the film some time soon.

And on, to some sports centre which has a statue in front that we used. My job was to stare wistfully at it, regretting my lost youth and health. And we moved on.

The next scene was on a street, a couple of tram stops up. I look into the mirror in an art store window eating and ice cream and look at myself. I had a Magnum. Quite a good choice as they don't melt so quick.. and I did have to hold on to it for some time. I had to keep the licks small.

And we moved on up the street a bit, to Zelevskeho where there's a big reflecting building and I continued eating the ice cream there. All of it took some time, with the walk and the setting up and when we finally went to film all went well until my ice cream fell apart all over my skirt. There was a slight mishap as we waited for them to get a napkin so I could clean myself up a bit, but I got some good ice cream mess shots, as well as some reflection ones. There was more to shoot so they had to get me a new ice cream.

Then we went to the "square" where we met the other actress who was playing the ice cream lady. No, I'm not the ice cream lady.. I didn't get the idea until I saw her, we just shot that scene earlier.

So, they g0t her an ice cream and she ate ice cream and I watched her, with looks. We shot both from different angles and it started to rain. It continued a little in the rain but alas it neither stopped nor abated so we sought shelter in the metro.

A bit later we went back out, got a new ice cream for ICL and filmed more. She dropped the ice cream which for her was part of the script. Our director went off to get her a new ice cream, which her character does, and we hung about, I took a bunch of photos of the splat on the ground, and she started cleaning it up... which was a boo boo as the mess was needed for the next scene. So another needed to be got. They shot the scene and ice cream lady was done.

Next we did the tram scene. I sit on a tram, making faces and flipping through but not reading a book, and that's it. Went pretty smoothly, the exact time it takes to get to the destination we were going anyway, so pretty convenient. That was it for yesterday.

Today was the bath scene. I arrived at the flat.. another one. No one was there and I didn't recognize any of the names on the buzzer, so I waited, this is quite typical for film students, they never give you proper instructions for meeting them so you find yourself outside strange flats with no idea what to do. They need to sort this out!

After about 10 mins my director came out saying she'd burnt her hair. I didn't ask. Well I did when we were up about the 3rd floor and she said it she was lighting a candle. I think I said "oh".

I went in and they were lighting candles all around the bath.. I remember skimming over this bit in the script. They set it up, I came in to draw a bath and then found myself trapped in there because the camera was set up right in front of the door. This sucked because I wanted to get photos of the setup, but one can't always have everything how one wants.

The candles around the bath were melting like ice cream that's been made to wait on a delayed film set, wax was dripping and making shapes around the bath, and eventually getting into the water.

The bath was full and we shot. I sat, looked at the candles, looked at my toes, pretended to cry and this was the fun bit, submerged myself under water several times. It kind of sucked because my nose got full of water and well.. that just sucks.. and when you do it a few times..

It was full of wax, it didn't bother me, it was just strange. Some did drip down onto my toes as we were shooting a scene that featured them. She waited until last to film my toes by the way so you get to see them in all their shrivelly, wrinkly splendour. I did just cut my toenails though, of which I was glad.

We finished and I got out of the bath. She blew out all the candles to make it easier for me to get out of there, so I didn't get my shot of the lit up bathroom, though I got some of the aftermath, as well as some typical dorky in the mirror shots.

And we were done. I thought we were doing another scene by the river but for some reason it's not happening. So I came home.

THE END

That's it, I'm putting together resume.

For acting. A little bit about what I've done. A very little bit, because it's not much, and under skills I'll put "very good at making anxious, inquisitive, scared and thoughtful faces. Experiences in bath scenes. Doesn't have much experience with dialogue but knows some English."

I might need to fill it out a bit.

Well, actually...

Someone did email me, but she got my name wrong and I thought she had meant to email someone else, so I replied saying my name's not Melanie bla bla bla.. and no answer. I figured she had meant the real Melanie and hadn't bothered to write and say "no, I actually wanted someone young and pretty who can act" or something.

Oh by the way I'm talking about film students.. I went to the casting last week, didn't hear anything for a few days etc etc etc.

Anyway, I got another email and she did mean me so I'm shooting on Monday and Tuesday. I'm playing a woman with cancer so it should be deep and let me exercise those skills I'm supposed to have. Any luck I actually have some and they're gonna show themselves one of these days. Preferably tomorrow.

Innappropriately interpeted photo Friday.

Or alternatively, Caption this Photo on the wrong day.



And I mean.. just cos I called it inappropriate doesn't mean the caption has to be er.. ya know.. I mean, don't let my warped mind make you read something iffy into a perfectly innocent photo of cherubs playing. Just sayin.

You know how they thought me?

Well I went to the casting, went ok it seemed, caught up with some people and had a drink with one guy I hadn't seen for a while in a bar I hadn't previously known which is quite near and Erik would really like so we're totally going there but..

no one's called me!

*cries*

yet.. oh well.

Hey they thought of me..

Here I was the other day, thinking about stuff. And I remembered how I was looking forward to the summer upon completion of my last film, anticipating the month courses in which I traditionally participate to some degree, and thinking how last month nothing of the sort happened, and castings for this month should be coming up around now and I've gotten no phone calls and no emails or nothing of the sort. I was even thinking specifically today that it would be cool if I got a phone call, out of nowhere. And when I got a phone call from an unknown number I thought yes this is it but it turned out to be the fixit guy from yesterday who came back to get the money I didn't have on me yesterday. And then.. well the typical stuff.

Then she called me, said the castings are tonight oh thank you for the notice but what the hell I don't have anything else to do so I said yeah I'll be there. Then I remembered that my parents made a vague date for tonight though they haven't called yet. Oh well.

So I might just be in something else this year yet. Then again maybe I won't. I should spend all that spare time learning how to write proper grammatically and stuff. Maybe I won't bother.

Toiling, working..

Dinner guests tonight, none other than the very "those that spawned me", so I'm toiling away like a little beaver getting the place ready, fixing up the refreshments.. this place is a dump but goddammit if I ain't gonna get it sparkling..

well, as sparkling as half a day's moderate toil can achieve. I am making bread after all, and I had to run out and get some ingredients that I previously thought I had but didn't after all, and I have refreshments to prepare. The main course has already been premade by considerably more hard working than me man friend, but I need to chop up tomatoes so there.

Now, if only Cooley will greet them nicely :Z

So the rents are here.

I'm not sure that's right, the proper way to say it would be "the 'rents". Or I could just say "my parents" for maximum clarity. Actually I prefer "those who spawned me", which is how I introduced them to Erik (the partner, bf, so "man friend" as I like to say) when we met at U Draka, the Dragon pub.

So I met them at the metro, took them to U Draka, we ate, drank some wine/beer/coke/mineral water depending on which of the party we were and the time we were drinking. It was pleasant. They told us all about what they've been up to, London, Paris, Amsterdam, cruise, Budapest, Croatia.. etc etc. And we told them about, well, me not much but Erik told them a bit about himself.

Yesterday we had lunch in the centre at U Medvidku, the bear pub and walked around the centre.. very slowly as my mother had to stop and photograph/film nearly everything she saw.. did I mention these people spawned me.. and in the evening we went to the flat they're staying in for dinner and to pick up the goodies they brought me. Clothes and stuff and some Vegemite.. a pretty good deal.

That's about all really. We're hosting them here for dinner tomorrow, so I should clean up a bit..

*stretches.. comes to life*

Hello.

Happy whatever holiday you're having, if you're having a holiday. I know the sepos had their big day and possibly are having a day off today to make up for that being on a Saturday.. which they do in some places I've heard. They don't do that here. It's kind of grumblesome because we have holidays on the 5th and 6th for some saints or whatever and of course one of those days fell on a Sunday this year.. and WE DON'T GET AN EXTRA WEEK DAY FOR IT! It wouldn't make a difference to me really but as I like to hang out with the SO or whatever you call them people these days it's a bit annoyin.. that's nothing though.. last year the 5th and 6th fell on Saturday and Sunday! Fucked up! The many years before that these days fell on weekdays and it holidays meant nothing to me except for days where everyone you're trying to do business with is away and everything is closed so the timing is particularly shitty.

Anyway.. it's actually cleared up a bit, we've had only minimal rain and overcastness for the past few days so by next weekend we might be able to go on a longer walk without the likelihood of being rained on. I'll let you know if that happens, and I'll take pictures.

My parents are coming tomorrow. Not sure what time, or if I'll met with them until Thursday or Saturday or when but.. I'll see.

What can you possibly have to say?

About this.

There goes July..

It's the 1st of the month, so happy July all of those inclined to celebrate. I was looking forward to it.. after the last one we had. I mean.. June was ok, nothing terrible happened, overall the usual mix of fun and boring and sucky and kinda cool. It's just that it rained. I don't mean it rained during the month.. I mean it rained all the time. And yes.. I mean literally all the time, every second of every day it rained! ALL THE FUCKING TIME! I mean there were a few breaks of sunshine here and there, a few days when it didn't rain but it was a mix of overcast and sunny and somewhere in between and days where it was all of everything through the day... pretty much every day was like that actually. But apart from that it just rained. All the time. We have looking like it's going to flood to show for it.

I had hopes though. A fresh new month brings a fresh new weather system thingy and this morning we were woken up.. well not really woken up because we put blankets and stuff over the windows to replace our other makeshift curtain system which was flimsier because the sun comes up so early.. but it was sunny, very nice for most of the early part of today.

I thought it meant the curse had been broken. It's July! It's going to be sunny now!

And then evening came and it rained. Just like it did every day in June. Bugger.