The Pirouette

pirouette - french for 'to whirl about' 

When one learns to do a single, double, triple turn, we are taught to focus on a spot. An unmoving object to keep you from spinning out of control. If you lose your focus, or your constant is no longer there, you lose sight, get dizzy, and fall. As a dancer, you get accustomed to the routine of having the lights on you, find where you belong on stage and really own your part.

What happens when the dance is over? I have found that is when we truly have to face the music. There are no more rehearsals three nights a week to occupy your mind, no little thrills, and someone else has taken your place in the centre of your former stage. My spot that I focused on for so long is now someone else's to concentrate on. I felt dizzy, and landed on my Grande Derriere.

The opinions we believe to be fact always alter, and the only constant thing is change. Sometimes, this can make you feel crazier than the girl that hid chicken under her bed in Girl Interrupted, but time will make fools of us all.

I'm no longer in the same place. I have changed so much that it feels good to stop, wipe my brow and reevaluate how this former dance has made me a new person.

I learnt that sometimes men say the sweetest things, just before they make you cry.
I learnt how it felt to feel so very alone, even though you are right next to someone.
I have learnt that going out on a weeknight to catch your breath, may result in you purchasing a new thermos for your coworker, as it's your fault she threw up in hers.

Most of all, I have learnt that no one will ever stand up for you, if you can't stand up for yourself. It feels so good to finally have the core strength to say exactly what I am thinking without worrying if I will lose my place at the front of the chorus line.
The new dancer in my place could be taller, get a shiny new costume and a better health plan, and I just have to accept that is a bigger and better show out there for me to star in.

Even if you're dizzy, or lost, or sad because you fell. Just take a breath and keep. on. twirling.

Working out what happens after you exit stage left,

<3 coordinate="" i="" miss="">

The Roller-coaster

Hold Your Breath for a Bumpy Ride

Lately I’ve learnt that caring about someone or something can make the difference between existing and living. The excitement and fear creates a rush as powerful as jumping into a cold pool. 

At work and in my personal life, I found that my world was spinning out of control. I was forced to review the notion that maybe there is such a thing as being too passionate, too emotional and just a little bit too much.

When it comes to not being in control of ones emotions, I believe it’s time to turn myself in as a repeat offender.

At work, the most common emotions are identified as:

Frustration/irritation - for example, when your competitor hotel's buildings look like war-torn Bosnia, but you still fail to make budget for the month.

Disappointment - like when you find "noilly prat reduction" in one of your menu item accompaniments and are positive it is a swear word that snuck in there, but you are wrong. 

My personal favourite at work is the nerves that I feel before Something Big. Working in events is like a constant roller-coaster of adrenaline.. Or what I like to call The Swell. 
I know it's going to be a bumpy ride when I get to work and have barely had time to add cold water to my coffee so I can throw it back, and I have three event staff swamp me to tell me how bad my client is behaving. 
I have learnt that the morning will go one of two ways:
1. they would have calmed down enough to be as nice as pie by the time I put on my big-girl stilletos and go and meet them or
2. they threaten to sue me and it goes all the way to the CEO who gives them their whole event complimentary anyway.
It's exciting but it's also exhausting... and of course, as usual, I apply the same theory to dating. 

Personally, I talk so much about being brave and always jumping in, but the truth is I am just as scared as anyone else.

Getting involved emotionally feels like holding a big deep breath. In fact, that's exactly what it is.

The chase is fun. The first couple of dates are great. You laugh, and feel like a light and charismatic creature. Getting involved and having feelings is a wonderful thing… which is always followed by the downside. It’s the shift of power that makes you shift from the grounded tree to the kitten stuck in it.

At which point do you catch yourself?

Is it when you smile to yourself when you're on your way to see them?

Is it when you're warm and close and falling asleep and every molecule wants to scream IFREAKINGLOVEYOUALITTLEBITRIGHTNOW?

Or is it that Moment of knowing how stupid and exposed you feel never want to feel that vulnerable again?

The waiting. The anticipation. The expectations. All the things you are finally excited to let yourself feel again, all the while aware that what goes up will probably come down... 
Roller-coaster. It's exactly like shuttling forward at warp speed where it's all so fast and exciting, only to feel you have slowed all the way down to an almost-stop with your head hanging upside-down, your heart pumping at warp speed, your underwear hopefully still intact and the want to vomit at an all time rise. 

I always get to a point where I come to wonder...

Why do we do it to ourselves? I know the highs are worth it but when you think about the lows, they fall into one category. The Cold. I think about all of the times I have doubted the man I entrust my Goodness with:

- waiting in my car for them to get home because they aren't on time, it's extremely late, dark and I am dying to wee

- waiting out the front because the taxi costs too much to wait at 3am, because they aren't on time, it's extremely late, dark, I am drunk because I barely ate to keep my ass tiny and I am dying to wee

- smiling very sweetly even though your first romantic evening was spoilt because his little sister mentions your hair colour is the complete opposite to the girl he was with the previous evening. I am a mother truckin' lady. I don't cry in public. I smile with a smile that says "We at MissCoordinate Enterprises aim to make you happy. Your Smile makes us Smile, but we are actually working out how to calmly, quietly, and very smoothly.. burn your house down".

- investing your time and saying "call me later", when you're really thinking "I'll just wait right over here and old my breath yeah". Just because there are rides for your pleasure at this carnival, does NOT make it a circus and I am NOT a clown!

I have to come to the realisation that an event is just another one of it's kind that will swell and will eventually be another folder to file away into archiving. As for men...

Let's just say some archiving would definitely not go astray. I'll file this current one as "Lover - over with a big L". Don't ever feel bad for walking away. They won't remember holding your hand. They will remember wanting to... and I might not be talking about your hand.

Learning to exhale,

Miss Coordinate 

The Circus

As an event coordinator I need to be able to wear a lot of hats to make my job come together. It's all a balance of acts. Sometimes I am the Ringleader, cook, the stall holder, the poo shoveller, the audience, the maintenance girl, the psychic, the AV & lighting technician,  the tightrope walker, the accounts department, the Strong Man, Lion Tamer, and sometimes I'm too tired to be anything at all, and have to peel off my painted face for some blank R&R. All of the acts eventually come together to be one (hopefully) smooth show. In work, and in our personal lives, things can always happen to disturb our balance. Our roles always change, and so do we.
Maybe:
- You fall off the tightrope when the only thing positive about your day was a pregnancy test
- You thought you were dating a lion, but he was a coward, who tended to run and hide in other women's privates
- you're a snake charmer and have recently been bitten (otherwise known as a bad dating experience)
- you have just read the Women's rule book and have realised that your phone is indeed working- it's just that no one wants to call you
- You see backstage & get disappointed
- You are a spectator - you run the breakfast buffet at a hotel and watched an international tourist construct their bacon and egg sandwich with every trimming imaginable, except the plate, to then ask you for one to eat it off- as if you weren't just a witness to an act of immoral hygiene.

Whatever the experience might be, we are always taking it all in, reinventing, fine-tuning, and always reshaping our acts to change the feel of the show.

I've come to wonder though, when are we 'ourselves' the most? Is it when we are alone? The happiest? Or is the Bigger Picture; every facet of yourself that makes the one rough cut diamond?
When we go through periods of change, sometimes we feel lost, cowering in the corner of the Big Top of opportunity because we just don't know what we like, who we love, or who we are for a time.

When we hide, it's easy to go through periods of, what I like to call, The Cruise. We don't get involved emotionally, never feeling extreme happiness OR sadness. We just exist. It gets boring. In playing it safe, I have become said Cruiser, so I decided to Change it up.
I then did research for our department head meeting & came across a hot deal for "Trapezing - the Catch". I thought this would be my chance to feel something - if not just my pants wetting. I decided to test my fear, defy gravity (and my bladder), and put adrenalin.com.au and myself to the test.

I was the girl in high school that convulsed mid shit-scared-squat on the mini balance beam, so when we rounded the corner of the building and saw the trapeze apparatus, boy did I feel something. I felt like an adult midget-toddler standing at the bottom of mount Everest with nothing but a toothpick and a can of Heinz to get to the top.

Our first exercise was to hang from a bar, swing your legs over and let your hands go, so you are swinging from your knees. I panicked and said 'I can't do this', and I was left to hang there flailing until I did in front of a group of strangers that now had the knowledge I was a chicken shit. The intructor gave me no choice. I was convinced that my lease on life had a big EVICTION stamp across it. I was very shaken up and definitely pushed out of my comfort zone.
I may have forgotten to mention that this was on their practise bar; a metre off the ground.

In the end, I climbed the 50,000 ladder rungs to the top, looking back down at the ground as everything seemed to get smaller and smaller. I stepped onto the platform, listened for the cue to 'Jump', Tuck, Flip, Let Go, executing the move perfectly... except for when my front flip was more of a flop- ending with my face mashing the net, where my back should have been, but we don't talk about that. I went there intending on being the best Natural-Circus-Spider-Money there was, but even though I didn't try and get The Catch, it was the most amazing, liberating, freeing, Jack-I'm-Flying moment of my entire life.

No matter how hard or tiring things get, I'm glad I have had time to myself to work out all the different things I can be. Sometimes I think of taking a step backwards, to who and what I used to be, know, and love- for the comfort of it.

Maybe that's The Catch. You have to be in every different act to see the show in full. Sometimes getting what you want isn't always what you need. Maybe what you need is to risk looking like a clown. Jump, Let Go, hit your face on the net and climb back up the ladder to do it all again in order to fly & get a standing ovation.

How does one become a butterfly? They have to want to fly so badly, that they are willing to give up being a caterpillar.

I have realised that with finding my balance, I have found the key to myself. If you go back to something or someone & re-invest in something that only hurts you, you're bound to lose it all over again. There is no going back down the ladder. The rest of your life is waiting on ground level, but you won't be able to go on until you see it from a new angle. From above, there is clarity, and the old things get a little smaller every step you take. Move on, push forward and jump. The safety net is the lowest you can fall, and even if you go down head first, it will heal.



Finding my wings,


<3 Miss Coordinate 

The Shape Up

The All Around Make Over

I believe that everybody has a subheading; something they are most known for, second to their name.
For example, I am Miss Coordinate, and secondly, I'm the girl with the huge knockers. From now on however, I will be known to many as Miss Coordinate - the girl who fell off the treadmill.

My new health kick saw me doing things I had laughed about doing before, like not drinking at the bar on Friday night and being the designated driver. I was very put off at first - change tends to shock me out of my habits.

Much like a man with commitment issues, I like to try before I buy, so I kept purchasing casual visits to the gym. I had started feeling very good about myself after a few sessions, and finally bit the bullet and joined (for a month). I don't know if it was an indicator of the storm to come, but much like toxic relationships, as soon as I was committed to it, I started to find things that were wrong about it and panicked.

- I went to take a photo for my membership, and the computer actually froze. I thought he was kidding, because I was that reluctant to have my after-work-frazzle-monster-face caught and immortalized. My face actually broke something, and I had to pose again (this time with a little bit of a jilted smile)

- I decided to take a spin class, and after doing a full lap of the gym, and walking through the weights area (aka the hello-baby-man-smell-rape-dungeon-pitt-of-kaniption), I found the class in a small dark room filled with close-knit bikes and strobe lighting. After about 20 minutes of this class, or hell- whichever, I felt like an epileptic mountain goat & could no longer lift my limbs above 5cm from the ground. I had to (very politely and sheepishly) flood the room with light once more and leave. Due to the shin cramping, I thought it would be a good idea to walk it off on the treadmill, as penance for giving up on my class. As I started to feel better and get excited, I lifted my leg to run and once more cramped up. The result of this was not to
a. press the emergency stop button.. it was
b. forget I was on a fast-moving platform that would not stop to check on my welfare, and proceed to fall quite flailingly, on the ground.

As I post my inner-most thoughts, I reflect on them. I guess if you keep everything to yourself, you have nothing to measure it by. Somewhere, between the dolls that splash around in their make up kits before their 3 minute stint on the treadmill, and the sweat factory that is always open for business in my pants when I am there, the gym has helped me find myself. I don't know if it's the layers o' mine shedding, but I have realised how bitter I have been, and how happy I am to just let it all go, and change my own subheading.

I think people that seem bitter are just doing so because a part of them wants to "prepare" for the worst, so that we don't expect too much and are more let down when (sorry - if) something doesn't work out.
It's always braver, and always stupider, to give yourself away every time with no reservations and just
Shape Up & Quit the Bitterness.
Sweat is just fat crying. Bitterness is just wasted Opportunity building a blankie-fort and eating a bucket of Ben & Jerry's on a Saturday night.

Some people say "I'm not bitter, I'm just realistic". Bzzzt. Bullshit. You're just as shit scared as anybody else, you are just too much so to admit that you don't want to be hurt in any way ever.
It comes down to what we believe.
Nobody wants to believe in something with their wholeness and then have that belief destroyed when their carriage turns back into a pumpkin.
And thus, you lose out on feeling, on opportunities, and most of all, on love.
I didn't want to believe that I couldn't finish that spin class, so I pushed myself.. but after my shins collapsed and I hit my head on the handles due to my legs giving way, I realised (when the stars cleared) that sometimes we just need a new pumpkin to carve into whatever the freaking hell we want it to be.

Recognising the difference between bitter and realistic:

Bitter: you're good looking, which means you probably have the mental capacity of a staple gun, and only want to staple me and move on to the next bit of paper.
VS
The benefit of the doubt (BOD) - ahhh. Our old friend BOD. I think I had a falling out with BOD when all my experiences made believing in it seem really really stupid. Let's reconnect with BOD, because maybe it can still surprise us. (The bitterness in me is cringing).

As my excess fat and fear falls away, I have dropped my bitterness and started to enjoy feeling the burn.

Sometimes the difference between bitter and realistic is as thin a line as a tightrope, but I BELIEVE that the difference is knowing what to believe in.

What do we let ourselves believe? What do we know? I think Life and Love are about ACTIONS, and not WORDS.

Don't talk about going to the gym, losing weight, toning up, your troubles, your worries, your lack of Something.
Don't talk about wanting to spoil me, prove yourself to me, treat me well, fight for me..

Just act.

Get up and do something.


Changing my subheading to 'The Will-Be-Chiseled Optimist'


<3 Miss Coordinate

The Ring Of Fire

As the weather turns colder, our bodies & brains yearn for things (or people) that have once kept us warm. We band together and bang together to start a little fire & thaw out; get the feeling back in ourselves again.

This week, in the sudden turn of cold, I have caught myself wanting several times to spoon the stranger in the train seat next to me to steal his body heat.
I think the cold makes one urge for two things, mainly. Alcohol and / or a nice warm bod.
I decided against all of these things (as most of the time i was at work- awkward) but my mind flashed back to a night when I was kept quite toasty by a particularly snuggly Past Tense. And then came the shiver.

It made me realise, in my seek for sunlight, that there is always a part of you that waits for someone in your past to come back. No matter how hidden or denied, i believe theres a little pandora in all of us, waiting patiently to be reopened so the trouble can start all over again.
The romantic in us never wants to completely rite someone off... Until too much time passes. 
Apologising after it is far too late is like putting a packet of bandaids on a mountain of lava. Even if you strap a hundred of the suckers on there, and even if melting is involved, it'll still disappear as if they never were there.
So what is there to do when one wants to fuel their winter fire without the will-he-call-me blues?


Drink! Or work out.. But who wants to do that?
The Past Tense (as I must remember him as) once told me that people speak their true feelings when they are drunk... of course, that would require actually intending to do some talking between the aggressive face embracing that you end up doing. 
I guess someone is either 'it' or 'Not At All', and maybe everything in between is just instant gratification.
It takes two to keep the flame alight, or the lid to pandora opened or closed. If the other party doesn't help carry the load, you are just standing there with a blown out candle and a used box.
The poor Nice Guys out there.. I think they miss out because there are just too many ways to play Bad Cop, Drunk Cop, Laid Cop these days...

Having said that, I can't blame alcohol for his or my poor POOR judgement, as I've realised everyone that I happen to dislike is a non drinker!
I don't know what it is about the clean living, liver loving, water & wheat grass freaks out there. Don't they know what they are missing? Maybe it's because they don't get the opportunity to 
- be irreparably Something (stupid, hilarious, whorey) and let go
- have a rambling deep and meaningful and exercise ones right to get a little bit Ghandi on the Shiraz
- have a public vom, pee, or other display of bodily Something 
- empathise with your hangover but..
My being friends with a non drinker seems to be as frequent as a leprechaun riding a mammoth-cross-unicorn through Hogwarts.. and maybe till now, I liked it like that.
I guess no one likes to be a booze-racist, so I'm trying to start seeing how the other half live. Shudder.

There's something about the freezing cold that makes me want to leave the perfectly good warmth of home, strip down into my gym gear, strap down my girls with duct tape so they don't escape and show the real girls how it's done... yeah right. But that's another fail for another blog to come.
Stay tuned!

Strapping on my nikes, setting down the beer goggles & saving the sambuca.

<3 Miss Coordinate

The Yellow Brick Road

Being in the hotel industry, I tend to collect a lot of odds and ends (and get a lot of phone calls from people needing a room only for an hour, but that is neither here nor there). On a day where I actually left my desk, I ventured into the staff room and found a row of books loved and lost by past travellers and sex-seekers. I decided to re-read the classics, Of Mice and Men, and The Wizard of Oz. 

I found Dorothy in a flat, dry, dying plot of land in Kansas. It may have taken a hurricane to lift her out of her grey home, but the important thing is that one part of her life was over, and she had to let it go and move forward.
As a suburban girl, I come across most people that build their lives in the one place. Some are begging to leave and start a fresh life somewhere exotic on the coastline, some drop off the face of your earth even though they are only a hop, skip and a taxi away (oh my), and some stay exactly where they started.

I myself, love the change of pace when I stay in the city. It's colourful & refreshing for a 'break', but I learnt that you can't take a holiday away from yourself - you just need a hurricane brain to lift you into a new state of mind. It made me realise that coming home is always the hardest thing to do when life gets tough, but the clarity will have refreshed the grey tones and everything becomes OK.

It's a fine line between brave and stupid to pack your bags and move somewhere else. I have always envied those people that moved to Australia and set up their life and made it work. It's easy to romanticise the idea of moving far far away, where life will be better, sunnier, happier.The emotive Tin Man yearning for a heart, the protective Lion wanting bravery, and the lively scarecrow who wants a brain, all allude to the concept that "if only" some particular thing would happen, all our problems would be solved. 

If only I had time to.
If only I was brave enough.
If only he wanted a relationship.
If only he wasn't already in a relationship.
If only my old boss had been a little bit nicer.
If only I had realised sooner that "stressed" is just desserts spelt backwards!
If only he hadn't seen you for the last time in an oversized, see through "I love Napoleon Dynamite" shirt.. Then he definitely would have called.  
If only I had realised he was a good friend of your family before telling you how much of a tool I think he is. 
If only I didn't salsa dance with that stranger, I wouldn't have fallen over while everybody in the club watched and developed a bruise on my ass in the shape of "YouShouldHaveStayedHomeLastNightyouTwanger". (Maybe some "If Only's" are allowed!) 
If only he didn't 'get away'. Let me ask this; can The One get away twice? If The One Got Away, was he ever really The One to begin with? If he was The One, he would be with you, and not have gotten away, even if wild horses chased him the other way and then built a moat of hay around them. Some of our Ones always tend to get away several times before our If Only's run out!
Some days I think men see women more like bugs, than beautiful humans. They don't wait to see if we're the harmless kind, or what type of bug or anything about them.. They just scoop them up, lull them into a false sense of security till they are on their backs with their legs kicking in the air and then flush them down the toilet! 

What I truly believe, however, is that There is No Such Thing as a fresh start. You will always take you with you.. and that's where the issue will remain until you take that journey and face your truths. What does my heart know? What does my head feel?

When I am home, in the place where I have slept all of my life, in the place that knows me, I have no choice but to remember who I am and what my reality is. And there, in the dark, is where you find yourself. You brave The Night. You face The Alone. You have a cry, and you let it go. Loneliness is the human condition, and the best we can do is to embrace the journey, learn our own heart and never let it go. 

This bug knows that she will always survive the trip through the yellow brick pipes, overcome her fears and trump the wicked witch. Even thought I didn't find what I was looking for in the Emerald City, the journey was exceptional!


Clicking my Heels,


<3 Miss Coordinate 

The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect: the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.

Sometimes I fear that my words / actions have too much gravity. I can make or break a relationship. I can spoil, inspire, uplift, or break a person's spirit. I can make their wedding day they happiest of their lives. I have the ability to make the DJ show up on the wrong day, double book a Ballroom, forget to order their AV equipment. I could alert the media of the secret auditions for a TV network or tell them where the state's football team is preparing before the game. I have resources at my disposal to do powerful things.
We all do.
The Internet, for example, is a powerful weapon available to us all. We live in a time where our separate worlds collide. Nothing is secret or sacred or private, and it is our human condition to pass judgements on what we see in front of us.

Now we surround ourselves in this lifestyle where you can tell 350 of your closest friends about your hatred towards your ex-person / boss / self at that moment.

It immortalises our thoughts and feelings, when these things AREN'T ever permanent. 

When social networks enable us to present our opinions as facts, doesn't that just promote the idea of judging someone purely by face value? FaceBOOK value?

If we want to have a party, we 'create an event'. 

If we want to reinvent ourselves, we update our profile pictures. We tag, untag, upload, delete, crop, post, share, like and comment.

And apparently, if we want to make ourselves feel better by putting someone else down, we can crucify the way someone is perceived with the click of a button. 

I don't want anybody to have the power to do that to me, but the sad truth is that the Internet just makes it easier for people to project their bitterness & be both an obvious and subtle bully. 

What I've learnt is, it's not the Internet's fault. Those same people might be saying bad things about me using other means. At least this way, I can see it for myself. 

In the Events World, the Butterfly Effect can be a son of a bitch. If a client finds one small thing to complain about, I can bet my mini-salary that there will be more issues to follow.
Yes, I am aware that there is currently a tea and coffee station set in your room, with no fresh tea and coffee currently available to you. Yes, I do have the paperwork I sent you in front of me, yes I am aware it says a tea and coffee station is set in the room. You are looking at it. If you read the paperwork I sent you, your "TEA AND COFFEE BREAK" is scheduled for 2:30pm, written in three different ways, on each page. Yes, I can see how this is not made clear. Yes, next time I will not make the 25 cups, saucers, mugs, spoons, sugar, tea boxes and side plates visible while you notate buzz words on butchers paper.  I will remember to cover it with my invisibility cloak until it is serving time.
I do, once more, apologise for the inconvenience. You will probably now, very conveniently, notice that the air conditioning is one degree too cold, that the corner of your sandwich did not contain cheese, that the PA is not simply switched off- it is an indicator of my disorganisation, and that we don't even KNOW THE PASSWORD TO YOUR LAPTOP. It is YOUR laptop! But I do apologise that my staff were unable to assist you with your concern on this occasion.

The butterfly effect with our social networks is this:

We pass on our opinions as facts, and we create ripples in our real worlds.

We can cause couples to break up, friends to create pack mentalities and people to perceive you forever in the wrong way.

Take twitter for example - it's the global acceptance that your every thought deserves to be projected! They aren't all gems, and some things just aren't meant to be shared!
Want to connect? Pick up the god damn phone and call me!
Want to catch up? Don't write on my wall and then never comment back, just come and see me!

The Bright Side (because there's always one of those)
I do have to thank Facebook, and take my hat off to Zucheberg. Remember those people in our past (or unfortunately, in our present), that were way too good at juggling? They juggled friends, manipulated their stories, had multiple partners and never got caught? Facebook is like the lie detector of the 21st Century. Everybody is desperate to leave their imprint - all you have to do is follow the trail of breadcrumbs!
Even if it takes a map and a double shot of bourbon to navigate, I will find the answers I seek! Sometimes, though, it can be too late. Like for example, when you're happily fluttering along in a casual love-induced daze and soon realise, after lengthy perusing (I refuse to use the word "stalk"... The information is right there!) that you're actually The Other Woman.

Do you
a. send the unsuspecting partner a private message?
b. organise a shipping container to China for your betrayer. (I have given this one some thought and decided that it would be best for both parties if they were at least tranquillised. I know, I'm humane).
c. Stupidly wait for them to call you and explain that the whole thing is not what it seems (hint.. it always is). Even if they do call, it's like finding a chicken nugget in your fries. It's a pleasant surprise that you weren't expecting, but at the end of the day, it's just a nugget. It'll go down the exact same way.
d. Realise that sometimes the best business, is to mind your own. Jugglers can't keep those mini beanbags up forever, and those ripples in the Butterfly Effect aren't for us to make.


Waiting for the other shoe to drop,


<3 Miss Coordinate