I travelled to London today to do a makeup trial for a regular gig. It was for a glamour photographer, and at first, the fact that he had a link to an escort agency on his website, only lifted one of my eyebrows. As I made my way there though, I became convinced that the 'model' was more than likely going to be a hooker. Sorry, escort.
I had to punch in a code for the security gate to open onto the enclosed street.
Manoeuvering my makeup case over cobbled stones, I make my way to number 5, the door is already open to the house. A short Japanese man with a strong German accent greets me. Upstairs, the house is narrow but reeks of affluence, Versace furnishings, antique chairs, a fridge with a complicated digital pad where you could select what temperature your water would be, the biggest MAC monitor I've ever seen.
I am introduced to a skinny brunette smoking a marlboro light in the corner of the kitchen. I go to shake her hand, and she offers me some limp fingers.
Applying what makeup she will allow me to-it's evident she would much rather do it herself -"i vant eyeliner and I vant eyelashes"- I ask her if she has been an escort since she came to the country 4 years ago, from
Lithuania.
"sometimes a stripper, sometimes an escort" she tells me in her bored eastern European accent. She is rude and petulant, interspersed with a look that must earn her some extras in her business, chin down, looking up with bambi eyes through her long fringe, pouting. A look she's probably been doing so long, she doesn't even realize she's doing it anymore. Its helpless little girl, butter wouldn't melt but it has this grimy edge to it. When she actually smiled, I saw her mouth was filled with small jagged grey teeth. I caught the whiff of last nights whisky through her pores, of perfume on an unwashed body, of cigarettes.
A couple of hours later, as he paid me cash, none of it mattered anymore. I made in 2 hours what I make in 7 1/2 hrs stifling my dreams in that hateful retail hall.
Had the most sublime slice of lemon drizzle cake. Mmmnnn. CAKE.
Not listening to my dear, departed, first iPod
I get such a kick out of this http://www.churchsigngenerator.com. I think its for actual Christians, but its just too tempting. And seeing as i got the link from the London cokeheads blog, i'm obviously not the only one!
"The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." 
I had this vision whilst I was doing a guided meditation a couple of weeks back. Somewhere between consciousness and semi-consciousness, I received what could only have been a message. 
