LeishBlog

Geeze Louise I have had some blogging triumphs over the past few weeks….mainly due to the racy titles of my blogs and lots of you believing you are going to get some LeishPorn on the LeishBlog. Sorry guys, but seriously I have to leave something for the slow collapse of my career in about 4 years. That’s were childhood star Nikki Webster went wrong, she got the girls out as soon as she was legal, not much mystery there. I just noticed that I started the last sentence..That’s were childhood star Nikki Webster went wrong…that is not right; Strawberry Kisses was a world of pain and so was her prancing around the Olympic stadium with her frigging pigtails.

Nikki Jr Nikki with the girls out

Flat Mate Mick suggested that I should just give all of my blogs sexy titles and then people will be constantly disappointed that they don’t feature me nude and aren’t at all provocative…well maybe just a tad.

Last night was interesting, Flat mate Sarah, Flat mate Mick and our house guest Jill sat around like dweebs with our lap tops at the dining room table. Seriously it looked like we have networked all of our shit together and at one stage Mick and I were playing facebook scrabble against each other at the same table. So considering this last statement it isn’t surprising that three out of four of us at the table are single!! Gill made an executive decision that she wants a boyfriend and Sarah was helped her sign up for RSVP. At the same time Flat mate Mick decided to,

‘Check out the ladies online’

(I just made him sound creepy and now with this photo???)

This was just asking for trouble. Now I want to put it out there that I am not against dating websites but I just don’t think they are for me. I am so big on the whole vibe when you first meet a person that I just don’t think you are going to get from a screen…it’s like you reading this and falling in love with me….you don’t know me, you just see the grainy black and white photo in my profile and ready my sometimes droll and witty observations….I’m really not like that at all.

(In real life I’m a librarian from Parramatta, with mousy brown hair, dry skin and reside with 16 cats in a house that reeks of urine)

So I sat next to Mick annoying him as he trawled through hundreds of photos and profiles of these chicks, putting my 2 cents in

‘You can do better than her…..she is very gummy, would you get sick of the gums?…She lists watching weird movies at Dendy as an interest, like they are called arthouse….. that photo looks like it was taken in the 80s she is listed as a Catholic, watch out she has a 7 year old you’ll be an instant Daddy,’

I could see Mick flinching after every smart arse comment that made so I decided to the good thing, not get murdered and I retired to the lounge room to watch trash TV.

I say good luck to the RSVP people, good luck!

And no, for those interested I did not partake in the husband hunting online. I prefer my men in the flesh….flesh there is another tag I can add to this post to get more hits!

Tonight I am cooking the lovely Nicole from work and the rest of the house lasagna and I am going to attempt to drink a glass of wine. It’s always mildly horrifying going back to the booze after a hellish drinking session, but I have given it 2 days, plenty of time to detox, so it should be just spiffy.

Nicole and Aleisha…or the other way around!

Rock it

Leish or as I am known when I am in trouble Aleisha.

*Mick just read the draft of the LeishBlog, much to my protest (he is dictating this to me now (including this)) and I/he wasn’t flinching at Aleisha/me comments, he was flinching at some of the religious affiliations and bad grammar, just so you don’t judge him

*dictated not read.

Mick Dictating

Now for a naked LeishBlog photo……sort of…might not load up all of the way if you don’t have a state of the art LeishBlog computer!!!

Well I have had enough recovery time to finally put fingers to keys and document my night at the ARIAS but I must say that yesterday was rough and I did have a sleep at work in the board room behind the big table. That sounds like a joke but by about 12 o’clock my head was lolling around like a bladder on a stick and I thought I was going to keel over if I didn’t do a George Costanza and lie down somewhere. One of the ladies from the office came in and I think I gave her a bit of a scare getting up from behind the table. I wanted to be witty and say ‘ah that’s were the pen was!’ but I was too exhausted and I just nodded at her, like a zombie woman and went back to my desk. We had a big production meeting after that in which we were expected to contribute, which sucked and my performance was mediocre.

For me one of the most interesting observational aspects of my evening at the ARIAS was being surrounded by fame and notoriety and watching how people dealt with it. The red carpet can only be described as surreal. I just kept internalising,

‘Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t draw attention to yourself, look cool, must get to the end,’

I have been really lucky to meet a lot of cool people this year with my old job at the radio and the one thing I was always aware of was not being too much of a fan when we had guests in the studio so as not to appear as a stalker. I am also of the belief that celebrities are just people and you should talk to them like you would talk to everyone else. Saying that, there have been occasions were I have been in awe of people and acted like a bit of a dick. One instance which will probably mean nothing to most readers, but was huge for me, was when I met Jon Plowman, the Head of Comedy at the BBC and Executive producer of some of the best comedy shows around such as The Office and Absolutely Fabulous. So I met him and babbled on like a child, couldn’t look him in the eye and generally came off like a bit of twat rather than a composed aficionado who knew everything about his career and deeply respected what he does. That experience is defiantly in the top five most irritating memories for me that still make heart race and I blush when I think about it. One day I will meet him again and I will be uber confident and share a proper adult conversation about the television industry and the pros and cons of sitcoms.

Me & my BIG hair!

Jono & Julia

Leish, JC from Powderfinger, Andrew & Jess

Anyway at the ARIAS I found it absolutely fascinating watching random people come up to my fellow table members and approach them for a photograph and a chat. I must say everyone was very polite and obliging but I was intrigued with the confidence of some people when approaching celebrities. I watched a girl approach Megan Gale, sort of hug her and then lean in and talk right into her ear for a while. She then got up and had her photo taken with Megan and then took off. I asked if she knew the girl because the way she was acting just seemed far too personal for a total stranger but she just replied that you’ve just got to be obliging, with the photos etc and people are happy, which I thought was pretty good of her because she was forever getting up to have photographs taken with fans, which must get irritating after a while. Also on our table was Hamish and Andy, Andrew Hansen and Chris Taylor from the Chaser, their partners, Jono Coleman and Julia Zemiro. It was a fun table and I felt totally comfortable taking to everyone. Jono was particularly funny as he asked all of us at one time or another, who the artists were and was searching the room for golden oldies of the record industry to mingle with, which was endearing in a Jono way!

Some of our table peeps

We were sitting a couple of tables away from Nicole and Keith and I became semi fixated with them throughout the evening (as I think most people did). I really don’t know what to say about them except they appeared to like each other and again I can’t imagine what it must be like to be aware of everyone looking at you all of the time. Surely they must be used to it but fuck oath, it would be irritating.

Nicole and Keith

The conversation around our table got on to facebook and how much time we all spend on it, but I was mildly disturbed in hearing from Andrew Hansen about some of the identity theft idiots that are out there are who use his name and his lovely girlfriends Jess name to create fake profiles. Cyber people you really need to get a life.

Jess and I had a lot of fun towards the end of the evening scanning the room for people to be photographed with. We made a beeline to Richard Wilkins (who is even more leathery in real life) and giggled along like his biggest fans. We missed out on the elusive Daniel Johns photo, which was a shame because I would have liked to highlight in LeishBlog just how teeny and tight his jeans really were. Dessert was served while everyone was mingling and our table has a fun moment when Chris, Jess, Andrew, Julia and I sat scoffing while it people networked around us. It seemed to be the busiest spot in the whole room and we sat there and fed our faces. Lovely stuff.

Richard Wilkins, Leish & Jess

Our table had a killer view of the stage. My highlight was Silverchair and those pocket rocket kids, Operator Please who went off and were genuinely stoked to be there. After the show we headed to the after party and met up with Colin Lane (Lano and Woodley).

Colin Lane
And also Scod from Tripod who was a legend and listened to me shitting on about comedy an awful lot. Check out his other band here! After we went to the normal party we went to the Sony Bmg party and had some lovely chats with interesting people.

Damien Leith was a lovely bloke and his wife Eileen, again was very interesting to talk to about fame and how they dealt with it in such a surreal way. We also discussed the similarity in our childhoods, having both shifted a gizillion times and gone to many, many primary schools (for me it was 16!) I talked for a while to a spunky guy in a sharp suit and it wasn’t until last night when I sat down to de-hangover and veg, that I realised that he was one of this years Idol boys. Go suit guy (he might be called Carl….).

So that was pretty much it in a condensed sort of way.

L

Is there a difference between being confident and being slutty?

Well I bloody hope so.

Ski boy Blake told me last week that I ‘think too much’. Flat mate Mick has also made this statement on occasions as well. I think in both junctures they were right. I do think a lot, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, is it? See, there I go again.

I suppose the age old difference between chicks and dudes is that very condition, brain power. I’m not trying to make any rash statements here about intelligence, I am talking about the time spent pondering what other people are thinking and particularly about implied meanings in text messages. Text messages, I believe are one of the most ambiguous and hazardous forms of communication currently available.

Flatmate Sarah last night morosely but helpfully informed me of ‘rules’ regarding timelines of communication in relationships. Apparently after 3 day of non communication, the other person isn’t interested in you and you may as well just pack it in. Fair enough too.

This conversation came around because last Friday Ski Boy Blake and I had a pretty open phone conversation which afterwards I thought I felt good about. I had said and asked what I wanted and Ski Boy Blake seemed ok with the conversation. When I got off the phone, Tonia in the office said,

‘Fucking hell, who was that? You were way direct! Was it a boy? They don’t like that!?’

I then felt this pang of regret and panic for saying what I thought and I spent the rest of the evening pondering about what I should and shouldn’t have said. I went from confident ‘I know what I want so don’t screw me around’ to self doubting moron in under 3 minutes.

Part of the Aleisha package is the self assured, flamboyant and outgoing person but it seems that many blokes don’t know how to handle it.

My lovely friend Kath, who also shares a very similar personality to me once told me about a date that she went on with a guy years ago, where she made a conscious effort to be quiet and flirty without being boisterous and overly candid. She said by the end of the night the guy was so intrigued by her mysterious ways she could have asked for anything and got it, but she was put off because she wasn’t being herself all night.

Another time that comes to memory was after I performed this stand up gig,

My friend Kenny was in the male toilets and overheard some dudes talking about me. They said something like,

‘She was good and that, but fuck I wouldn’t want to mess with her…..shit she’d be a handful’.

Kenny laughed and then smashed them both out with his nunchucks. Apart from the fact my whole act was about the end of my relationship and how fucking messy it was, these dudes where totally clueless about ‘dealing’ with a girl that is confident and outspoken and dare I someone that doesn’t fear honesty.

Why is honesty a big issue for people? I mean it’s not like I am a member of the “radical honesty movement.” (great article) Sheesh I know that white lies bind our society, but when it comes to my feelings and not getting hurt, I would rather be confronting than get fucked over.

So even with my phone call with Ski Boy Blake I am still not really sure if I freaked him out because it has been very quiet from his front ever since. I hope I didn’t freak him, but maybe he just doesn’t like me, or his phone is out of reception, or he was being nice for the sake of not hurting my feelings, or I should be more patient, or he is really secretly married??…oh there I go again, ‘thinking too much!”

Remember the only thing you can plan on in life is to be surprised!

To finish this blog off, here is a clip I love, maybe I should just go out with this guy?

(update*)

Ski Boy Blake just called me! Apparently he was not freaked out, so that is good. Looks like I was over thinking and he was being an arse waiting until the last possible moment to get in touch!!! What a cheeky monkey. Ha on both accounts.

x

Tonight I had the bizarro experience of partaking in a spray tan. Yeah, I know it isn’t very Leish, but hey, you have to try new things and I thought a bit of colour might help to cover up the paint ball bruises…it is sort of working. The bruises have changed a bit but are still intense and look like I have suffered an ill fate. The other night at yoga I caught one of my fellow yoga ladies staring at the bruise on my shoulder. She was fixated by it and then when I noticed what she was glaring at, she looked away as if to say

‘I can see you have been beaten but I am going to do the polite thing and ignore it!’

I wanted to say

‘Hey, yoga girl don’t feel sorry for me, it’s a paintball bruise, no need to call the department of social services’

But the instructor was already moving us on to our next sun salute so I had no time.

I love Yoga. After every class I feel repaired. My muscles feel like I’ve actually used them and I make a real effort to switch my brain off for the hour and a bit each week. Sometimes it is hard but to not have my brain whirling around, thinking about inane problems and people, is a real pleasure. One of the things about taking yoga classes is that you never know what the class is going to be like and who you are going to be next to. Last week I was directly next to ‘Mr, I know this class better than the instructor and am going to try and beat her to the poses, tool’ he bothered me. This week I was next to ‘Heavy breathing lady’. She reminded me it of my old art teacher and was breathing like she was just about to have an orgasm. It was disturbing and not really how yoga breathing should be. I tried ultra hard to ignore her , but there is something about a woman in her mid forties making whining noises while her arse is in the air that is hard to disregard. Our instructor Kate, however was great, she was mega flexible and was full of wise cracks. She was also very brown. So much so I became slightly fixated on whether her tan was real or if it was fake. Which brings us back to my spray tan.

I have never had a spray tan before, with my cynical part of me deeming them pretentious and peculiar, which in actual fact they are. Prior to the spray tan I had a bikini wax which again is a a strange experience because you are lying there having a lovely old chat while a total stranger is removing and styling your pubic hair! I suppose it is like going to the gynecologist. Ladies we’ve all been there and really you just have to lie back, hope for the best and pray they make all exploration speedy. I think I am quite good at carrying on a conversation while in precarious and somewhat uncomfortable situations. Hell, I’m good at carrying on a conversation in most situations.

The spray tan lady told me to get my kit off and stand starkers in a weird shower area. I had a papery hair cover and also a weird disposable g string that reminded me of the hospital. The lady then came back and instructed me on where and how to stand while she blasted me with tan! She decided I need a ‘2′, a middle range tan because if she used a ‘3′, I would ‘look like a Jamaican. I stood there naked, laughing to myself about the ridiculous concept of someone drenching a total stranger in a coloured mist that may or may not eventually make them look like an oompa loompa!

After we finished she informed me ‘I couldn’t shower for 48 hours!’

‘48 hours…that’s disgusting!’ I answered.

“oh actually, I meant 14 hours, so tomorrow morning will be fine!’

Thank fuck for that or as Flatmate Mick would say ‘I would smell like a Frenchman!’

When I got home Flatmate Mick took a step back from the door, in mock horror when he saw my brown face and I shrieked and played round pretending to an idiot (pretending?) and then I realized Sarah friend Jill, our guest for the week was sitting in the kitchen observing this tomfoolery. We then had a lovely risotto for dinner which the lovely Flatmate Sarah whipped up and Mick and I mucked around with my web cam.

I am really hoping I don’t wake up tomorrow glowing because the tan has continued to develop and I look like a Malibu Barbie on crack. That would suck.

Not too brown yet???

Tomorrow is Friday and I can safely say I am done with this week. Not for any reason except I am looking forward to sleeping in and to catching up with my lovely friend Julia on Sunday (and getting dressed up and partying) Yay for us.

I want to say publicly that Trent beet me in the game of facebook Scrabbleand I am not afraid or ashamed to say “well done you”. However we have started a new game and I have a good feeling about beating him. I think perhaps we should wager his room so I can move to the central coast and not need a spray tan because I would live on the beach.

Enough said.

I am only just recovering from my weekend and unusually the ‘recovery’ has nothing to do with the over consumption of alcohol. On Friday night I met up with Riccardo, from now on I will refer to him as the Italian as he informed me that I could not say his name right and I should just call him Ricky. Riccardo is the brother in law of one of my friends Alex, who lives in Italy with his wife Fede (hi guys!).

Riccardo has come to Australia for a year to travel and hang and I said I would show him around Sydney. We had a good night, had some drinks and I went about trying to speak slower and not include Australianisms like ‘bogan’ in conversations. Do you know how hard it is to try and explain what a bogan is when you don’t have any collective point of reference? It’s hard.

When I got into bed on Friday night, being the doofus that I am on occasions, I accidentally dropped my mobile phone in a glass of water on my bedside table……yeah I know, embarrassing.

It tricked me because I pulled it apart and wiped it down and then I switched it on and it worked but after a minute or so it gave up the will to live and expired. So anyway this caused all sorts of hassles because I was phoneless for Saturday as I hauled arse around Chatswood trying to find a good deal on a phone and one that would take my Sim card. In the end I found a pretty red one that takes pictures and everything….I know what you’re thinking.

‘Like der Aleisha, phones have had cameras and other wonderful additional options for years, have you been living in a cave?’

No, no cave but I have had a strong stance about mobiles phones, being that I didn’t need a telephone with a camera in it because I have my own real camera which I seem to carry everywhere with me anyway. I know it isn’t much of an argument which is why I finally surrendered to societies peer pressure and purchased a phone with lots of added extras. Extras which I don’t know how to use because it is a different brand to my other phone. If anyone received weird disjointed txt messages over the weekend (I know not much different to my normal messages) it is because I have no clue what buttons I am pushing, and accidentally kept pushing send instead of delete and the phone sent millions of unfinished txt messages out.

I got countless reply messages like this…

“Leish wtf?”

“Have you been kidnapped? Is this a cry for help?”

“Please don’t txt me again unless you can learn to use your phone”

“You are dead sexy” (actually I just made that one up)

Sunday was a big day. I headed up to the delightful Central Coast to be sprayed with paintballs and also to destroy the muscles in my thighs (from all of the comando squating). We all met up at a truck stop at Mt White before heading into a valley to get kitted up to shoot each other. Trent and I (see: The great Fireroom scandal) have had a long running competition on who was going to kick who’s arse at Paintball. Ironically on the day we were put on the same team so we had to find other inventive ways to shoot each other.

It was a pretty hot day and in all of the protective stuff they make you wear, it was sweaty and icky after about 3 minutes. There were about 7 girls and 7 boys and it was funny thinking about how neat and lovely we all looked at the start of the day and how trashed and grimy we all felt by lunch time. From the first round I teamed up with James who became known as ‘Sniper 2′ …I was ‘Sniper1′. (Writing that, I felt mildly insane) Sniper 1 and 2 had tactics and hand signals….we were the real the uber paintballers and even pretended we had comms systems which we would check before each game, much to the amusement of our team members (now I do feel insane). It was fun though. I got shot up a lot and I don’t believe that the breast plate that the girls wore really provided any extra protection because my back bruises are the worst!

Moments of my worst pain of the day was captured on film when I was stupid enough to stand up in the open when I thought there weren’t any members of the opposition left. I got shot in the head and momentarily believed my brains where going to come out.

Aleisha Shooting

Aleisha standing, prior to being pegged in the head…idiot

The final round of the day was an all in shoot out, where it was everyman for himself. Trent and I had a show down where he got me in the back twice. I thought that I had finished all of my paintballs but as I got up to leave I shook the gun and found I had one ball left. The referee suggested that I shoot Trent at close range because

‘He is being a smart arse’

So I did, execution style, while Trent was facing the other way, right in the ribs. I believe Trent called me a ‘bitch’ and some other expletives but I won’t hold that against him because the post paintball bruise was pretty bad. While eating lunch we all pondered on who would still be alive if the paintballs were real bullets? We would all be dead, having taken shots to the head and chest. I have concluded that we make terrible solders, even with good code names.

After paintball we headed to Trent’s pharmacy where I was given some bruise ointment because all of my main bruises were conveniently placed in areas where they will have full exposure when wearing my ARIAS dress (which is next week). Seriously I look like I have been involved in some horrendous domestic abuse incident.

We also took a dip in the pool and then I was given the grand tour of Trent’s neighbourhood which was stunning and I didn’t want to leave. It’s so beachy and laidback. I would fit in well there. I told Pam, Trent’s mum, that I was going to come and live in their spare room. She laughed politely, but I told her I was serious and that I would be moving my things in next week and that I don’t like eating fish, so if she could avoid cooking seafood that would be great. (They are changing the locks). All jokes aside, Playford family, I have had an architect friend draw up some plans for converting your patio pool area into a bedsit. It is doable/ I can give up my TV producing/comedy aspirations and just become and beach bum.

Finally I wanted to end on an election note…..DONT STOP READING….I knew I should have said threesomes…..Flatmate Mick is politically apathetic and I was bugging him the other morning about not donkey voting and ruining the country. He was hungry and had no bread and I said to him that he could have some of my bread if agreed to vote for Kevin. He saind yes and ate the toast. How easy was that?! I am working on Flatmate Sarah now.

I am going to upload some webcam stuff and paintball vision when I can be arsed….In polite terms, tonight.

This is my favourite youtube clip today. It is Comedian Jim Gaffigan. I love his style. So worth a look.

Later alligator

Life’s funny. What an understatement. You can spend so much time imagining what is going to happen that when it doesn’t come to fruition or when things don’t play out the way you imagined, it can be fairly shitty. I believe one of my strengths is being able to pick up the pieces pretty quickly and reconstruct a new desired outcome.

One situation where I was completely taken by surprise (and no this isn’t another wedding cancellation story!!) was in 2001. As well as going to uni, I was a running a business, manufacturing jewellery made out of bike chains….yes another unusual chapter in Aleisha’s life.

The business went from a hobby to a big deal when I won a national business award and I went from supplying 3 stores to 18 nationally in the space of a few months. That was fun and my lounge room looked like a bike shop. My Dad worked out this great potent chemical formula to clean the chains (because unless you ordered 60,000 from the factory in China, you couldn’t buy them without the grease) and I designed belts, necklaces and bracelets from all sorts of chains, cam shafts from motorcycles, big chunky tractor chains that we had chrome plated…blah blah blah.

Anyway part of the prize for winning this award was a trip to San Francisco to be the key note speaker at a conference. This was to be held in October 2001. You can probably see where this is going. The trip was for 2 people and could I find anyone to go on that trip with me? No bloody way. Nick the Ex didn’t want a bar of it; my Dad had already booked another holiday so he was out and none of my girlfriends wee interested (boy did they regret it now!). I was literally waving a plane ticket and 2 weeks accommodation in the US in front of everyone I met and no one wanted to go with me. It was unbelievable. There was so much scaremongering going on that time, people were scared of flying and travelling. Not me.

As the trip approached I developed a sense of desperation around not having someone to share the trip with. I wanted someone to say ‘Geeze that speech was shit hot Leish’ but more importantly, go to the theme parks with, because I am a sucker for anything that makes your guts turn.

I thought my saviour had come in the form of my uni friend Jess. We hung out at uni but not too much socially as she lived in the country and went home a lot. She was half yank. I remember the day I thought bugger it, I should just ask Jess, she’s American, she can’t knock back a free trip home and she would make a great travelling companion.

Ahem. Please notice ‘thought’.

Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about Jess. She is a genuinely lovely person. She is intelligent, pretty and was very popular. But there was aspect of her life that I was unaware about until we got on the plane in Hobart. She was home schooled and she was a Christian. No judgement there from me.

We were siting on the tarmac, waiting for the flight attendants to finish the ‘if the plane crashes these life jackets aren’t gong to save you routine’ and I had massive alarm bells chiming in my head. Apart from the fact I was pissed off that I had won this mega prize and due to the shit circumstances everyone abandoned me, I also had this weird ’something’s not right’ feeling in my tummy. I had a little cry to myself, with my sunnies on so no one could see and decided that I was going to make the most of the trip and that I had slogged my guts out to win and everyone else could fuck off.

When we got to San Francisco I had my first real horror moment with Jess. I was tired I wanted to sleep and I was trying to figure out what time I should take my pill to make sure it still worked. Jess took one look at me counting and said,

‘Aleisha, this is probably none of my business (opinionated people always say that) but you might as well be having an abortion on a daily basis…because taking the pill kills unborn babies!’

As I popped the tablet in my mouth, I laughed thinking that in her jet lagged delirium, she was joking. But oh no. She was serious. Can I say it again, home schooled and also I had just discovered, uber Christian with seriously uninformed opinions on contraceptive methods.

I sat there being calm and not panicking and tried to figure out what to do. I had just embarked on a 2 week overseas holiday with someone that I was ready to murder.

Let the fun begin.

For a little while I would argue back when she judged my lifestyle and lack of god beliefs. I like a good argument, but for people that have grown up in a situation where they have been brainwashed (home schooled by a fanatical mother) it can really becoming tiring for the opponent.

One day, after yet another comment that went something like,

‘Aleisha, if you don’t believe in heaven you will drift around in the limbo living in the worst pain and suffering that you have ever experienced for all of eternity!’

(lovely uplifting stuff from the fanatical Christians!)

I cracked and thought

‘Hang on, as well as damming my soul to hell for eternity for having pre martial sex, taking the pill and buttering my bread, this chick is giving me the major shits and I gave her a free holiday! What is the deal?’

As well as all of that she didn’t want to come to the theme parks with me. That was majorly depressing, the worst of it all. I went to Universal Studios alone just to spite her, but it was no fun pointing at the shark from Jaws with no one else to agree with me that it looked a bit rubbery. I went on the Jurassic Park ride but didn’t buy the photo because I was sitting next to some random dude with an afro and his wife who both had their eyes shut in the picture. I tell you that was a low point. The whole trip got so bad that by the end of the second week I was looking for any excuse to get the hell out of the country. I walked to another hotel to use the phone and stood in the Lobby balling my eyes out to my Dad saying that the trip was ‘fucked and that I had never felt so miserable and crap arse on a holiday in my life!’

So much so that I called up Qantas and booked myself on a different flight home from Jess to just have some time to myself.

The irony of the whole trip was that it was really a perfect time to travel. We were welcomed with such generosity and eagerness by the tourism providers and hotels because no one was travelling. They needed our business and people were appreciative that we were there. Yes we had a sucky exchange rate (49c) and it was weird getting off the plane at LAX being surrounded by the National Guard in their riot gear clutching machine guns, but it was an awesome experience. If I hadn’t gone I would never have learned the most valuable lesson of all, never… ever… travel with someone that is home schooled and that you don’t know….especially if they are a conservative, Liberal voting Christians.

Oh dear Lord, I am getting palpitations just thinking about it all again.

L

I have had a pretty full on work week, plugging away at the Youtube clips…..shit oh dear we have watched a lot. I know I say that every blog but it really funny when in conversations with friends we talk about youtube and they try and suggest to clips to watch.

Seriously guys I’ve seen them all.

We have a funny thing going at the office, that we all sit with our headphones on, staring at our screens, a bit like youtube zombies. I do believe we are the quietest TV production team around except on Fridays when the insanity of it all gets a bit too much and air of mentalness flows through the building.

We have gotten to the stage that if one of us laughs aloud or grimaces we all jump out of chairs to watch the clip because we have become so immune to jackass rip offs, guys being hit in the nuts, stupid songs and crazy animal clips, if something genuinely makes us react we all want to see it. I do question the whole voluntary testicle damage stuff. Guys, you go on about how sensitive they are but there are literally thousands of clips of dudes, having them set on fire, crushed, kicked and twisted. It is a bit sad.

Last night when I got home, Flatmate Sarah her boyfriend Dave and I watched Wolf Creek. (See I do mention you in my Blog Dave!!)

Sarah and I had seen it before, so we were watching it for Dave’s benefit. He wasn’t that keen, but we peer pressured him. It is really icky poos and I sat cringing for the whole hour and a half.

When the film was released I was working on the radio and I got to interview John Jarratt with Charles Wooley. It was pretty cool, but all throughout the interview I kept thinking of him on Better Homes and Gardens with Noni, happily building children’s swing sets, fixing fences and potting plants. Then I pictured him as the ‘head on a stick’ psychopath Mick form Wolf Creek and thought maybe they could combine the 2 characters, Better Homes and Psychos, were Jarratt builds instruments of torture and shows us how to mix the right amount of sedatives, to knock your victims out.

Anyway, like my first viewing of the film, I was left with an eerie feeling knowing that a lot of it was based on what Ivan Millat did in real life and that is not goood.

This week I splashed out on a specky web cam. I got home, tried to install it, it freaked out, fucked my computer up and I had to do a reboot. A reboot I tell you, not just switch it on and off, I mean restoring factory settings. It was major. I love my laptop like I suspect I will love my first child, maybe more. And it’s lucky I am good parent and back up regularly or the shit could have really hit the fan, I could have lost all of my writing, photos, porn……gone. Anyway now I am going through the task of reinstalling everything which is mega boring. I went back to office works and got a new web cam where I was told the old one ‘wasn’t Vista compatible’ no shit Sherlock. This is the 90s people, Vista is everywhere, what a crappy deal. Anyway they slogged me an extra $50 for the Vista version, which I begrudgingly paid because I am a sucker. Bum to them.

Me pointing oddly to my laptop

Lastly thanks for reading LeishBlog, it has had 2000 hits, which is nice.

There will be a new LeishBlog the movie post this weekend, so watch that if you like.

Over and out.

There haven’t been many blogs recently because I have been wasted. Not in the intoxicated sense, unfortunately, just physically tired, which I had genuinely forgotten how that felt. When I was working morning radio (Wooley show), I was tired all of the time because I would get to work at 7am and then work my arse off and then still want to live a rocking life so I wouldn’t go to bed till late. (Didn’t help that Nick Ex was always a mega late to bed person so I would often feel the couple peer pressure to stay up too).

At my last Radio job, we didn’t start work until 11, so I lived the life of cruise. Now I am working much longer days. I’ve got a good routine going now though. I walk in the morning at 6.30, which I love. Without sounding like a Nanna it is a wicked time to be up and about and I always enjoy seeing how many people say hello to me on my merry way. I think that is a good way to judge if people are nice or not…it doesn’t take a lot to nod, mouth hello or come up to you and give you a full on tongue pash.

Fucking hell, I do sound like a nanna….especially with the pash bit!

There is one guy who walks at the same time as me every morning who is David Kochs doppelganger. He never says hello and always looks grumpy. My main aim in the morning is to make him crack and for him to show some sort of nice trait, even if it is just eye contact. I will beat the niceness into him if I have to.

Nothing much happening on the home front. I had a moderately boring weekend with a tinge of disappointment and some funny times.

Friday night, I hit the Opera bar with Kurt and Ben, my 2 illegitimate husbands. I unwittingly did the teenage thing of going straight to work to the bar, no dinner, drank wine, behaved like a show pony and then woke up feeling none too pretty the next morning. We did have a good night though and I met some shiny new people, which I like doing. One in particular was Sam, who had just been admitted as a lawyer, so I am going to be his first client (handy for those armed robbery charges and my upcoming divorce! Who will get the kids? Hopefully not me!). It’s always good to have a lawyer on your side, particularly if you are me.

Saturday was a total blah blah…except for shopping with Justin for my ARIA dress, my new shoes and wishing Dave a happy birthday. Again I ended up back at the Opera Bar and had a smashing time with Dave’s crew but due to my lingering hangover, took off home to watch a shitty movie on TV (The Island) and play on facebook (rock the cazbah Aleisha…rock it).

Sunday I headed off to enjoy Yum Cha with Sarah and Dave and their crew but had a mild panic attack in the car on the way over and hopped ship at Bondi Junction. Nothing major, I just needed some Leish time and what better way to this than head to Kmart. Although I love a god designer frock, one of my favourite tight arse activities is bargain hunting and Kmart is a bit of a tight arse Mecca. My lovely friend Kath always knew the way to my heart was a bargain hunt and one of our favourite activities was heading to Kmart on Friday arvo after a work lunch when we were pissed to try on clothes. Our respective partners, I believe, were fearful of the bags of stuff we would come home with after these expeditions. Well I wasn’t drunk on Sunday but my credit card got a minor work out and gee it boosted the old endorphins.

Today at work one of the segments I have been working on for the TV show is researching Life Casting. If you thought I was open and honest in my blogs (I’m not really, I have missed out some pretty major details of romance and heartbreak….oh yes, it will come out eventually boys, it will!) Life casting is a whole different ball game. It is basically people that film themselves 24/7 and stream their every move on the web. I became mildly obsessed with a couple of these sites today, watching people sleep, eat their lunch and talk to people that are also watching them. I don’t know what the benefit is, besides the attention I think it may become a little wearing….I would have to sleep in my mascara! To check out a couple of lifecasters in action, check out……
http:www.justin.tv

Tonight I cooked my famous Pizza and Flatmate Sarah and I sat around like facebook junkie tech heads at the dining table eating with our laptops, playing around. Flatmate Sarah has created a ‘catbook’ profile for karma…..god help us.

Girls gotta Blog….

Lili

HAPPY BITHDAY TO MY DAD DAVE TOMORROW: I LOVE YOU!
60 is the new 25!

http://leishblog.wordpress.com/