Get Thee to the Gym

At the risk of this post rating so low on the average reader's I-give-a-shit-about-this scale to as not even register, I joined a gym!

Actually, I joined a gym five months ago now. What can I say, something about the looming 28th birthday must have spurred me into action. I spent my whole life until 24 eating whatever the hell I wanted and not gaining a micogram. Seriously, I used to eat fried lunches every day simply because I could. I never skipped desert when eating out and baptised all my cake in baths of double cream. Just because I frickin' could! Thems was the days!

But to my own shock and horror it occurred to me that these happy circumstances might not continue forever, after turning 25 and the appearance of everyone's best friend, cellulite. Especially since fitting into the first pair of jeans I ever bought in Athens is now nothing but a distant dream. I couldn't even get half a butt cheek into them any more, so I got rid of them, by the way, lest they make me feel bad about myself.

I decided to join the nearest gym I could find, knowing myself to be much too lazy to take a bus trip to a cheaper one, and all sorts of hilarity ensued. "I'm interested in your evening classes" I exclaimed, innocent still of what was to follow.

The trainer looked me up and down. "Have you been to a gym before?" he asked.

"Never!"

"You might not survive the classes then."

Day one and the trainer took me around the equipment and made me do a few sets of exercises on the various machines. Yes, I was so unfit I actually had to be prepped for about a month before they made me a programme.

It didn't go too badly until we got onto doing leg curls. I tried one. "Oh God!" I wailed "I can't do this! Can you take some more weight off? I'm dying!"

The trainer said "Um... there aren't any weights on there. You're just working with the weight of the machine." Feeling like my thighs would snap off and slide down my knees, I persevered.

At the end of session one, the trainer warned me I might feel sore the next morning. I did feel a little sore the following day but nothing I couldn't handle, I thought valiantly, envisioning being able to crack open walnuts with my thighs in a week's time. Session two went much like session one. And the next morning I felt like every muscle in my body had been lovingly bathed in acid all night.

The pain! I thought I would never walk again. And yet I had to still keep going to the gym in order to stop it getting worse. I wondered when I stopped loving myself enough to voluntarily inflict so much suffering on my poor body.

Anyway, that was a good few months ago and believe it or not, I love the gym now. Here are some interesting things I have observed about my local Athenian gym (though it's not like I ever went to another one in the UK to be able to compare):

1. The serious people go in the morning. That's when you'll find me too, but only because I know if I leave it the rest of the day I will talk myself out of exercising

2. People bring their toddlers with them! I've seen this more than once. If you tried that in the UK someone would come screaming at you with a Health and Safety manual.

3. The beefcakes go in the evening and hog all the machines and make constipated sounds

4. The chicks hunting for beefcakes go in the evening too, with perfect hair and makeup. They consistently fail to work up a sweat. I admire their determination for beefcake baiting - gyms are expensive to join.

5. The male trainers are much easier on you than the female ones. But the female ones are much more understanding of what you want to achieve and determined to get you there dead or alive. Most likely dead in my case.

So there you have it. I can add "Joining a gym and following a gym programme in Greek" to my list of things I have achieved in my continuing, ever expanding adventure of life in Greece.

Image: http://cdn.smosh.com/smosh-pit/4/body-5.jpg

Greek Government Says Everything Now a Luxury!

The Greek government this month raised Value Added Tax from 21% to 23% and is considering doing away with the 11% tax bracket for non luxury items like food.

"We're asking the Greek people to be a little patient while we ride out this crisis'" said Prime Minister George Papandreou, "This means making a few more sacrifices, like food."

Luxurious


Fashion student Maria, 19, agreed that food is overrated. "Which is why I try to get by on fresh air. The fashion industry is a bitch."

But shoppers at Greek supermarkets were less than enthusiastic. A housewife who wished not to be named said she was still coming to shop, filling her trolley and then emptying it again. "Sort of like shopping bulimia" she added.

Stavros Spyridakis, 29, free camping in the national gardens added "I'm not free camping. This is the only place I can afford to live now. But I guess it's for my own good, as the government says."

A spokesperson for the KKE Communist party of Greece blamed the bourgeois upper classes for witholding the food and driving up the prices in collaboration with the US and Israel, while the far right party, LA.OS insisted it had hard evidence that the immigrants were operating on a stealth policy of starving ethnic Greeks out of existence.

They made a giant curry out of all the food. Try eating that, Niko!

Meanwhile the government appealed for calm and insisted this new measure was for a better, more stable and happier Greece. Greek nationals all agree that they can't recall being unhappy in the first place.

Julia, Please make another Sex Tape!

All everyone is talking about these days is the deepening economic crisis. So far, we've played it down, but I think the time has come to admit that yes, it is that bad.

A walk around my neighbourhood reveals shop after shop that has closed and let the premises out. The most tragic of these closures was the clothes shop in my neighbourhood that sold extremely ugly, extremely expensive clothes. It was also named Up Just. No matter how many times I turned it around in my head I couldn't understand what they were trying to get at with a name like that. I guess someone really did just pull it out of their ass.

Up Just was more than a bastion of ugliness, it was the source of many laughs from visitors and a useful landmark for giving directions to my house. Many was the summer evening when I would pass it and be impressed that the clothes had got even uglier (T-shirt with a picture of some girl, seemingly taken with a webcam, anyone?) and the shop that never had a single customer inside.

Personally I always believed it was a money laundering operation. That, and this Chinese restaurant downtown that I have NEVER seen a single customer dining in, and I've passed it nearly every Wednesday for four years now.

On the plus side, the sales have not really stopped since the winter, resulting in prices that are actually close to what the stores should be charging anyway. For example, a Body Shop body brush that costs GBP 7 in the UK costs EUR 14 in Athens. With a 50% sale, it comes pretty much on par with the UK price.

Sadly, supermarkets do not do blowout sales. And that's a shame, because we can all cut a few corners but when it comes to food, we can't look at out bills and say "No more food this month, kids! We'll survive on fresh air and love!" Supermarkets in Greece are some of the most expensive in Europe. A typical monthly shop costs me about EUR 200, and that's just staple items, not a trolley full of champagne. Brand loyalty has gone out the window. I just buy what's cheapest, and I think everyone else is doing the same.

Tourism is down, despite the GBP 200 for 7 nights, all inclusive to Kos and other such places that I saw in the UK. Not in my wildest dreams could I get that deal internally - it would be cheaper to fly to the UK and then fly back on such a package holiday. That's just wrong! Think about the hotel owners making jack shit out of deals like that. As Flubberwinkle so perfectly puts it, we live in Greece but can't afford a holiday here!

We're all bored to tears about hearing that the economy is getting worse and worse, and I don't think we've hit the bottom yet. Everyone expects the end of the summer to reveal to us just how shiteous the situation we find ourselves in really is. So enjoy the summer because it's going to be a bumpy ride this Autumn!

I leave you with a song close to all our hearts right now.

Where Everyone Knows Your Name

Yesterday I had my first swim of the year! Okay, I'll be honest. I had my first dipping my buttocks in the sea of the year. I took the 171 bus with my friend A to the end of the line in Varkiza and shoe horned myself onto the free beach there, which was more packed than usual thanks to the economic crisis. Pay for the beach? Are you joking?

The 171 was packed, packed with rowdy teenagers too broke to get to the beach any other way. At one point, close to Varkiza it got too much. I started to feel faint and elbowed my way off the bus before spilling into a nearby souvlaki shop, asking for the bathroom.

"Hey," said the guy "You're Bollybutton, aren't you?"

And it turned out that we knew each other through my friend A. Ah, Athens, the city where everyone knows your name! After a splash of water and something cold to drink, we set off on foot to complete our journey.

I left it much too late to take the first swim this year. But all that is coming to an end thanks for having officially failed my Exam from Hell, so I'm not studying for a while. I just enjoyed the sea and her charms, laying back on our towel with A and admiring the blue sky and scatterings of beautiful curly clouds. When on the beach in Greece, life doesn't seem so bad no matter how much you hate your job.

Speaking of which, remember my grand ambitions a few months ago about leaving my job? Well, they came to nothing. I pimped my CV all over the place and got no replies. Conversations with friends revealed that absolutely everyone, Mr Zeus included, hates their job but doesn't dare change it, or if they have tried they are getting no where. Jobs are mysteriously being posted and then not given out. Strangely, realising that jumping ship is not an option when you're jumping off into a shark infested sea has actually made me sober up and get serious. I hate my job, so does just about everyone else on the planet. No big deal. Someone once told me you can do anything you want in life, but not everything you want in life.

Prices are skyrocketing in Greece, pays are being slashed but still somehow people are getting by. As the lady in the post office said with a shrug "This is Greece. We've been through worse!"

On a side note, I have noticed lots of lovely emails in my bollybutton@gmail.com address. Can I just apologise for the late replies to them, if you've sent a question and need an answer, drop me a comment here so I check my mail and Bollybutton, Agony Aunt will be getting back to you soon.

Clothes Maketh the Man

It's funny the details you remember when under pressure. I was told on a Thursday night that things with Granny were not good, and I should come immediately. I took the first flight I could get on on Friday morning. At least I made it in time.

Over the next two weeks, I was amazed by the rubbish I had packed. A meagre supply of mismatched clothes, enough underwear to force me into a wash-and-wear cycle for two weeks, only one pair of smart shoes and incense sticks. Incense sticks? I mean, really.

On the funeral itself, I had picked out a dress the day before that looked to me like a smart pink shift dress that could be worn in the office too. That is until I sat down and discovered the artful fold in the side was a split that showed no shame and mercy once one was sitting. It rode up embarassingly high.

As for my office, I had taken one pair of office trousers which I promptly got paint on. So I turned up for a few days at work in some rather fanciful combinations that I hoped would pass as office attire. Rather helpfully, my department has been banished to the ground floor so I didn't have to explain the unhappy reasons for my less than snappy dressing.

***

Speaking of clothes... in the Home Country we have a saying: when the fox gets her tail chopped off, she tries to encourage all her pals to go get theirs cut off too.

Ever since my godson's mother popped the much beloved sprog, she has been trying to get me to do the same. This has culminated in her sending over all the clothes he has grown out of while I was gone. Guys, I am not joking when I tell you there is a mountain of baby things in my doorway. An absolute mountain.

I was supposed to start looking through it this weekend and organise it into piles. But I don't know where to start. Especially with my own potential offspring still being no more than a twinkle in my eye (as my Dad puts it), I don't feel particularly motivated.

But she did tell me that many people have asked her for these things over the years, but she's kept everything just for me. It is a lovely gesture, something you would do for your sister. Should the time ever come, our expenses for stockpiling ammunition would stand at nearly zero since she's included valuable items like a stroller (though this is useless in the car infested pavements of Athens) and a baby seat.

When I used to live in London, I used to wander over to Camden market on the weekend and check things out. I remember one stall that specialised in tie dye baby clothes. Since my lack of creativity has probably led to exam failure, I think I will let rip on this stash of white and blue clothes and turn them into items of dizzyingly colourful delight.

Yeah, I know. My poor future children. Don't feel too sorry for them, they didn't stand much of a chance. The universe tried to spare them by giving me all the normal, conventional baby clothes they could want, but forgot that I have an A at A Level Textiles. Mwahahahaha! And anyway, studies show* that a hippy upbringing is more likely to turn a child into a successful and boring career person.

*I have no evidence to back up this claim

Image: Image: http://cottages4you.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/packing-list.jpg

Where Have I Been?

Hello chums. I've just got back from a hellish, unscheduled two week trip to the UK. Reason being my grandmother died. I won't delve into family politics, suffice to say the whole experience was roundly awful. The death took place two weeks ago, yet the Church only had time to do the funeral last Thursday.

My poor mother's carefully planned funeral was ruined by a last minute speech by a drunk relative. To top it all, I then sat an exam on Monday which went terribly and finally flew out on Tuesday night. I give this tripe -250 out of 10.

When I landed very early this morning and the first blast of warm air hit my face, I cried great big tears of relief at being back in my dear city, Athens.

This morning things feel strange and disjointed. I can't find things in my kitchen where I'd left them. But I do want to apologise for abandoning you all. I was too busy studying to blog, or even go swimming. I still haven't set foot in the sea.

But since my well planned strategy of 100% study and 0% fun has probably yielded a big fat fail, I am now going back to my normal schedule of blogging and general merriment.

It's good to see you all!

Save Greece. Holiday here

Many, many moons ago, when I was still trying to adjust to the Mad Hatter's tea party that is life in Greece, a song irritated the hell out of me.

Proof that I have officially settled in Greece is that when this song plays, I am the one who is first on the dancefloor.

So, people of the world, we are in economic meltdown. A ton of you have cancelled your holidays after seeing the riots in Greece which, let me assure you, are a national sport and nothing out of the ordinary. Think of the interesting postcards home getting caught in a riot would make!

It's in your hands to keep us afloat this summer. Come to Greece! We need your tourist euros/dollars/yen!

Still not convinced??

Eurovision 2010: Nil Points to Europe for taste in music

I *heart* Eurovision, though after all these years, even I know Eurovision is not a search for Europe's best song. It's a popularity contest.

Still, I was not ready for Germany's asstastic song to win. And I'll tell you why. There were much better singers at Eurovision on Saturday. The best of the lot was the Georgian entry. I give you exhibit A:




That girl has the best voice live I've heard in a long time. I've paid vast amounts of Euros to see celebrities that don't even come close to how talented she is. Compare this to the winning German entry:





Huh? This won? The mockney cockney accent? A song about blue underwear? If I were the Georgian entry, I would have killed myself. Talk about a slap in the face. I don't care what anyone else might say, this song sucks ass big time.

I knew that Greece didn't have a winning song, so my hopes didn't lie there, though well done to them for getting in the top 10 and delivering the first peppy song of the night, otherwise we'd all be stuck on a one way trip to Ballad City.

If you ask anyone in Greece you won't find many fans of the German song, partly because of Angela Merkel and partly because the song was a stinker. I would have preferred anyone to win, anyone except Germany.

I thought the Romanian entry was really good (minus the opera bit):




Armenia was represented by a booblicious relative of the Kardashians. She would have won but sadly they forgot that women and gay men make up Eurovision's biggest audience, therefore making fabulous breasts pretty much redundant. Write that on a post-it next time.

But it was the French song that I thought deserved win because it was so fun and with Eurovision coming so late in the year, it really got you into the mood for summer.

But no, Europe! You voted a totally lame song to win, thus proving in spades that you have no taste! France's entry was probably too good for Eurovision anyway.

And so for yet another year the Eurovision song contest is stuck in a frigid North European country. It's getting too much. At this rate I'll never go to Eurovision!*

So Greece, here is my proposal to you, my recipe for a winning formula. The last two years we sent men dressed in white and didn't get anywhere with it. I propose the following strategy:

1. Send more girls. It seems to get more votes and at least adds colour to the stage

2. Send a transvestite. It worked for Israel that one time

3. Send a novelty act like Finland did with Lordi, thus getting the highest votes ever on Eurovision.

*You're rightly thinking "But Bollybutton you moron, if France won Eurovision would be stuck in North Europe again, so where's the logic. I have friend in France so I could have gone to this and stayed with them. Life is not fair!

Tango Pimping

This is kind of an irrelevant post with all that's gone on in Greece. What can I say that hasn't been said already? There are plenty of other blogs covering this perfectly well. Last night I was at a show and while I was watching, I thought it would make good blog fodder. So here you go.

I shall not name any names, suffice to say it was a tango show and I went to support my brilliant and long-suffering tango teacher. I thought he was the best dancer, and always give him extra brownie points for tolerating my complete inability to progress in tango.

Now, we all know the history of tango and how it began in the brothels of Argentina, blahdy blah blah, and that tango is serious and dark and full of people making orgasm faces. Whatevs, said I, and went along for some light entertainment.

This is how it played out. Here's the story:

La Vie en Rose is playing. That must mean we're in Paris, chérie! A bunch of tango peeps are sitting in a cafe and enjoying themselves. They then break into spontaneous tango. Hurrah! Tango over, they go sit down. But, quelle horreur ! What is this? The hot waitress is being molested by a customer! He proceeds to rip off her skirt and tango-molest her. Then he decides he's packing this hot tottie off to Argentina with him. I could see it coming. She looked too happy.


Nooo wails the waitress, and the waiter tries in vain to wrestle her away from the evil Argentine, but he succeeds in taking her away. See, when I read that in the programme I thought they fall in love and run away to Argentina. But oh well. Kidnapping is good too.

The scene changes. On the boat over from Paris, the kidnapped and molested waitress gets a change of wardrobe and a lobotomy, because now she's totally happy to be hanging out with her kidnapper in Buenos Aires. But hark... all the other women here are prostitutes, and the head hooker ain't having none of this. She marches over to the evil Argentine and they dance, of course.

Dancing over, the fawning waitress is thrown to the group of hookers and then she realises she's been trafficked. Heinous!

Much tango dancing ensues along with looks of anguish from the waitress who is being dressed by all the other happy hookers of Buenos Aires. She's all weepy and stuff until she spots her pimp again, and then she's all "Yay there's my pimp!" Lots of hugs and dancing ensue.

The scene changes. Waitress has again decided she's pretty pissed at her involuntary change of career and delivers a passionate modern dance interpretation of her misery. Then the waiter from Paris appears and they're both like "OMG where have you been all this time! Let's go back to Paris."

But oh no, you guys! There's the pimp again! And he's not letting go of his prize cash cow. Dance fighting ensues, the waitress tries to flee onto a boat, and is stabbed by the jealous head hooker and DIES!

The End.

And now what's happening? Everyone is dancing again. So is this part of the show or what? Are they in heaven now? If so, why is everyone wearing black? Or is Hell this tangotastic?

I was sitting there, feeling totally depressed by all this. The dancing was great, no question, and the live music absolutely wonderful. But jeez, people. I came out to have my spirits lifted and ended up thinking about human trafficking, and that made me feel sad.

Of Mountains and Moros

I swear you guys I have been so busy that my inspiration is gone, squeezed out like a lemon lying tossed in the garbage outside a taverna. There is just no more room in my brain for creativity thanks to studying for work related exams. I've buckled down so that I can be exam free before summer gets into full swing. Nothing is more misery inducing than studying while everyone else is hanging out at the beach.

I will just say thanks for still checking in. This is turning out to be my year of re-evaluation and freakishly hard work. I'm trying not to sweat the small stuff and focus on the big picture.

Since I have nothing much to blog about, I will use this space and time that I have available to complain and say yes, I am still the only person who got married last year without a baby. but that's not my complaint. The babies are pouring out of our pals like it's going out of style. It's some kind of Babygeddon.

And with that in mind, to all those so helpfully pointing out my lack of a baby and who seem to think that reminding me of this will spur me into action ("A baby? Why didn't I I think of that! And Mr Zeus is not going to be young forever? What a revelation!") I ask you to click here.

Now you're probably thinking "But Bollybutton, weren't you yourself desperate for a baby a while ago? What's with all the evil hag-like behaviour?" and you'd be right, and I was, but since I can't procreate on my own, aphid style, I got over it. And I would be the first to advocate the joys of children in a home and parenthood etc etc, but if I go visit one more set of friends with a new baby that says "You guys should have a baby." and then look only at me, I will scream. Or I'll just ask them what time they got up today.

What's with the "You GUYS" line but looking only at me? Do I look like a magical human freak that can procreate solo?

Seriously, there's only so many times you can hear the same damn line over and over again before wanting to stuff Little Junior's pipila in your ears.

That's all. Back to studying. I hope to resurface in a more pleasant and creative mood.

Been Busy

But I will get back to posting soon. In the last few weeks my free time has dwindled to nothing, but I have baby posts scribbled all over bits of paper in snatched moments, so thank you for visiting and rest assured I am going to get back to posting once I have a few spare minutes!

BB

x

Sparkle Dust

Since I have nowt all to blog about at the moment and just to let you know I didn't eat myself into oblivion (though I came pretty close), here we are.


It's been hugely depressing to wake up for work again after the long weekend, especially considering there was only one day when I actually slept in. The rest I was up at an ungodly hour to use the time and finish up dozens of half baked projects.


So let's be cheerful today and hope that a blistering summer is on its way. Because I'm getting tired of these low 20s temperatures.

Time to get random.






















Even a crushing workload seems possible...



After all, I have a magic sword


And my feline abilities are second to none


Evil shall not conquer so long as there are kittens in the world!















Images:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3001/2802166792_90ce71bc7e.jpg
http://reallycoolstuff.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/funny-kittens-preview-thumb.jpg

Reaching Out

This is a post for the ladies, and the men who care.

Imagine this: you are in a foreign country. You don't speak the language. This country has a reputation of being quite safe and the locals are known for their friendliness. A stranger approaches you and offers to show you the ruins. It's broad daylight in public, so what could go wrong?

He offers you a bite of something he's eating, a local type of food, and you think what the hell, a little bit wouldn't hurt. After all he's eating it too.

Then everything gets hazy. Snow White's poisoned apple. You lose track of time and yourself and wake up in a strange room, alone with this man. He has drugged you and you have no idea what else he has done. You, your body which is precious and sacred to you, which you take care of and choose with love who you give it to - you have no idea what this stranger did to it and why he treated you with so little value. Like you were a nothing, a nobody.

Even if you were not raped, someone put something in your blood without your consent, took you somewhere you didn't want to go. You take care of yourself, there are people out there who love you. A fiance who is making plans to marry you.

What gave this man the right to do that to you?

On a scale of one to ten, how terrified would you be? Can you imagine this scenario? I can't, most of us can't because it's an unlucky few that have gone through the ordeal of having their body violated.

This is the story of Natalie Karneef, who came to Athens in 2005 and went through what I just described on the second day of her holiday of a lifetime. Her trial was due to begin this month, but the Greek courts have postponed it. To 2011. To start with, it was over 24 hours before she was able to find a hospital in Athens willing to run a rape exam on her. Then an agonising three months to see if she had been infected with an STD, or even worse, HIV.

This is unacceptable. The man they caught in connection with what happened to her had done the same 4 other foreign women. Unfortunately, there still exists a certain school of thought amongst certain men in Greece that foreign women are fair game.

I must say though that although assholes exist the world over, I did not expect the Greek courts to have the same attitude. Bah. She's a foreigner. No one in Greece to make a big deal of it for her. So what. They have sex with strangers on holiday all the time and then come crying to us afterwards that it was rape.

For shame. I say that not as a foreign woman in Greece. I say that as a woman. I say that as a sister. What if this had happened to Mr Zeus's niece? Or one of my Greek friends from bellydance class? Or my little sisters when they came here on holiday one summer?

What if it happened to someone you knew? What if it happened to you? This man has been left to roam the streets free once more, despite being convicted of other rapes. Us women who live in Athens could be coming into contact with him during our daily lives. Doesn't that thought make you feel completely revolted?

The Greek courts are a law onto themselves. There is not a lot we can do to make them take the issue of the abuse of women seriously.

We can, though, show our support to Natalie. She is one voice who wants to be heard out of God knows how many that choose to stay silent. I know that if this had happened to me, most likely I wouldn't have pursued it. Especially in a foreign country. I just don't have the courage and strength to last as long as she has.

So please, let's show her some support and drop in on her blog. Leave a comment, no matter who you are or where you are from. Let's let her know we are thinking of her and supporting her stuggle.

UPDATE: If you are a female blogger reading this, I ask you to link Natalie's blog in one of your posts. Let's look out for our fellow sisters. Let's not let this be a case of "There's nothing we can do." We can keep up to date with this case, and when it comes around again in January 2011 we can be present outside court. Numbers speak, maybe the judge will take notice.

Image; http://th07.deviantart.net/fs49/300W/i/2009/172/9/3/snow_white__s_poisoned_apple_by_daughterofthemist.jpg

Intergalactic, Planetary

I spent all day yesterday convincing myself not to lie in the middle of the road waiting for a car to run me over, and much to my surprise everyone I spoke to felt miserable yesterday. It must be something to do with the energy in the air, the feeling that Spring was so close, close enough to smell, before it disappeared again, the lining up of the planets throwing bad energy around and having the TV choice of more bad news on the economy and Julia's fame-whoring.

On the first point at least this morning I took matters into my own hands and helped the Greek economy by going shopping. My target was Greek shoe temple, Migato. I adore Migato because they sell overpriced shoes according to winter and summer seasons, and once a season is over, they drop their prices so low I can actually afford them.

Thank God for fashion's stupid slavery to seasons.

So today I took advantage of their gracious offer of any two pairs of winter boots for EUR 50 and bought four new pairs of boots for EUR 100.

There you go, EU, I just paid some precious tax euros into the Greek economy! Time to give us a break.

Into the Blues

I admit it. As of the last few days, despite fighting against it, I have sunk into a terrible depression. Yesterday we invited some dinner guests over, and I spent hours and hours cooking. But I was unhappy, so nothing turned out right and I refused to serve any of it to my hapless guests. We ordered pizza instead.

Today I have woken up utterly miserable again. The cold and cloudy weather is not helping, either.

I hate feeling this way. Mr Zeus is always telling me to snap out of these miserable spells, but it's easier said than done. When I feel this way I can't do anything. Work seems like an impossible task (and it is, since the job hunting is going from bad to worse and so I am stuck for the foreseeable future in an utterly soul-destroying job) even doing nothing feels impossible. I can't sit still without all sorts of dark and miserable thoughts crashing around my brain, or running through checklists of all the unfinished projects I have running.

Life is good. So why do I feel so hopeless today?

Here's hoping the weather gets warmer soon.

Image: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2008/055/5/7/sad_bunny_by_mariaesthetics.jpg

Look Into My Eyes

In a belated tribute to International Women's Day, I must say: Where can one acquire this fabulous accessory???

Forehead Tittaes w/ Marion Cotillard from Marion Cotillard, William Fichtner, Jake, Taraji P Henson, Leslie Ann Warren, and Seth - Video- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Economy and Pornography are Greek words

On Friday night I passed a Greek-living milestone. I went to my first bouzoukia at Frangelico. It's been almost four years since I moved to Greece and in all that time, Mr Zeus has never taken me to something like this. For those who don't know, bouzoukia clubs are your typical grass roots Greek entertainment - a club with live singing and music, usually very emotional and dramatic, where in the past plates were smashed on the stage to show appreciation of the performer.

These days, plates have been replaced with over priced trays of carnations. I've got to say, as corny as the whole set up struck me, I am a glutton for cheese and campness and I LOVED it!! Okay, it's not something I would do every night, but it was still hugely entertaining and completely different to any night out I've ever had.

Frangelico is frequented by some Athens celebrities, and on the night we spotted the mayor who married us and that mean chef from Efialtis Sthn Kouzina. And would you believe it, he was wearing a baseball cap even inside a dark club.

Anyway, at one point one of the performers took a break from singing, looked out into the crowd and said , "Ah... Julia.." at which point everyone broke into applause and a hand in the crowd shot up waving a DVD.

With everyone in Athens getting tired of talking about the shiteous economic situation, one of Greece's Queens of Skank, Model/Singer/Whatever Julia Alexandratou did us all a favour and released a sex tape of herself.

Okay so she claims it was done without her consent, but I'm not buying. According to her this was a private moment. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but personally my private moments tend not to happen with a professional camera man and a professional porn actor.

Furthermore, she claims someone did the same thing to her in the past and she didn't go public that time. Eh.. if it bothered you that much the first time, surely something in your brain would say letting a cameraman into your bedroom again is a bad idea? Or not? Dunno.

Within hours of the news breaking, everyone with internet access had seen the tape. That's the thing with porn in Greece, at least those out of Mr Zeus' generation don't take it seriously. It's watched to be laughed at, not to draw inspiration from. It was the number one topic at our dinner party on Thursday.

Normally, I avoid porn because you can never be sure who is exploiting who, and it's so obviously fake I don't see the attraction. But celebrity porn is considered fair game and even I watched it, and here's my verdict: she was stoned out of her brains, looked really bored, and it was too well filmed and edited to be an amateur job.

Actually, I listened to more of it than I watched because most of it was so boring. Eventually I got tired of that too and skipped along the tape to see what it contained. Your standard stuff really, some oohing and aahing, a bit of this, a bit of that and the money shot. Ta da. It's not rocket science, and you should think twice about denying something that is so obviously professional.

Especially when there are photos of you circulating with two representatives from the biggest porn production company in Greece! I mean, really Julia! No one is buying your story!

But everyone is buying your DVD. On Saturday as I walked through the vegetable market outside my house, someone was shouting "Two kilos of potatoes for two euros, and a free DVD of Julia!"

Oh well. At least we all got a brief break from talking about the economy.

I Got Told!

When I pitch articles, they usually disappear into a yawning chasm of silence. Sometimes, I get a rejection email, sometimes I get an email saying write us 2000 words for $5. I share them with you here in order to pick at my scabs and strengthen my resolve that I don't care if my article was totally not appropriate for your magazine genre, one day you will beg me to write anything, anything at all for you!

This is the first one as of yesterday and Bollybutton's Quest to Make a Living From Writing:

Olive Magazine:

Dear Bollybutton,


Many thanks for your email and idea.

I'm afraid this idea would not be appropriate for Olive at this time. Please look carefully at the structure and format of the magazine before submitting ideas to ensure they are appropriate to the publication.

Many thanks,

So and So

May I punctuate this post with the following song, dedicated lovingly to myself. Nothing but death will stop me trying to make it as a writer, so take that, rejection letters!!

Sugar Smooth

Hope just posted something about her hairy legs (sorry, girl, there was no delicate way to put this) and it got me thinking. As a hairy Asian girl, I know which direction every follicle on my waxable surfaces points. I could wax with my eyes closed. And yes, I do it all myself because I don't want Anita at the salon taking a look and shouting, "Cancel all my appointments! This one's going to take me all day!"

I recently cracked the technique of making my own sugar wax. This is a really ancient method of hair removal involving a sugary goo and strips of cotton. What, did you think waxing was a modern invention?

I take equal parts water, sugar and lemon juice and boil them down in a pan until they turn caramel coloured. Sadly, here I can offer no advice on timings etc. It took me a lot of wasted sugar to get a feel for when the paste was done. I keep a plate near the pan and drip the syrup onto it at intervals, then I rub it between my fingers and when it gets to the right texture that's how I know I'm done.

This home made sugar wax isn't as effective as the usual waxes, but it has one major advantage: it's 100% natural and you know exactly what went into it. Plus, I don't see why we have the right to change a few thousand years of beauty wisdom. Sugar wax is the only type of wax that won't rip off the top layer of skin with it which means you can wax the same area a couple of times if you missed hairs, and the ingrown hairs are much reduced.

And finally, you can eat what's left over in the pan. Do I do this? Of course not! I'm Asian , remember? There is never anything left over in the pan! If anything you will find me scraping it with a toothpick to extract just a little bit more wax for a missed patch.

Life in Plastic

Good bed linen costs stupid prices in Athens, so I literally brought back all the high quality cotton bed sheets and pillow cases that I could carry from the UK this time.

If anyone had told me 20 years ago that bed linen would become my new Barbie, I would have laughed in their face. In 1990, I was still getting high removing a new Barbie from her box and inhaling her delicious, plasticy, fresh from the box smell, stroking her hair and promptly losing her little plastic shoes.

Fast forward to 2010 and I'm pulling new bedsheets from their packaging, inhaling the fresh cottony smell and insisting Mr Zeus feel their quality.

Barbie was a big, big part of my childhood. I don't quite remember when I stopped playing with her. I do remember my first university lecture ever was about Barbie's media image, her constant career changes and her bad influence on self-image. I sat there thinking "Really?"

I felt bad. I searched my inner psyche for things I could blame on Barbie, but found nothing.

Me and my sisters had about 20 Barbies between us, and none of them left a negative mark on us. The only doll who always played the sinister role in our games was our solitary Sindi doll. That girl was bad news, with her real eyelashes and rotating wrists.

Our Barbies were in total control of their collective destinies. They did what they wanted, when they wanted. They divorced and married one of our three Kens as they wished, with no ill feelings towards the previous wives. They had spa days before battling dragons and monsters, went on expeditions and discovered new countries while the Kens were busy being idiots.

It was the Barbies who always saved the Kens from the stupid messes they got themselves into, never the other way around. In my Barbie World, Ken was an unreliable and immature moron who often had to grovel at Barbie's feet to feel worthy. I mean actually put his plastic grin to her chewed-up tippy toes. That's another thing, why were Barbie's feet so deliciously chewable? Tiny bite marks peppered her little feet and some even had extra long, bumpy fingers until my sisters and I got over eating our Barbies.

Sometimes I wonder if people give kids less credit than they deserve. I knew Barbie wasn't real and didn't have an actual life, so I had no interest at all in being like her. I certainly never undressed her and thought "I hope I have a little plastic body when I grow up". I was only concerned with throwing elaborate Barbie weddings each year, complete with hand-sown Indian wedding gowns and once, a fight with the neighbour who owned a Ken, that now my Barbie had to go live at Ken's house i.e. her house as is tradition.

Barbie was the spokesperson for the things me and my sisters had trouble expressing as just ourselves. Our Barbies would sit in a circle and conduct conferences on the various issues in our lives ("Should I change schools like Mum says?", "Shall I cut my hair short?", "Mum was mean to me. Is it a good idea to run away?")

These conferences of us three sisters (before the fourth arrived) were voted upon by raised Barbie hands. Ken's were never invited to the conferences and if they were, no one paid much attention to their opinions.

If I had a daughter, I wouldn't stop her playing with Barbie. I would take extra care not to let any fashion magazines into the house which is easy since I don't read them.

For now, I fold my new bedsheets like little Barbie outfits. I miss her sometimes. I don't think I ever truly grew out of playing with her.

Image: http://www.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/culture/2005/08/05/barbies.jpg