Hey there!

How about that! I can finally see my own blog! After checking out some friend's blogs though, mine appears quite boring. It's funny, I don't write that often because, no offense to anyone, sometimes I think I have a ton of other things I could be doing with my time etc. I've never been too into computers, my myspace page is still blank, and I would have no idea how to even begin putting up a background, so mine now looks, well, old I guess. Sooo last year! So here is the latest... Still waiting to hear from the club site, though our backer says she thinks we will know in 2-3 weeks and is pretty sure it will be a Yes! I have been contacting some speciality acts, people are very eager to come here to perform. We are starting a business, most likely forming one with one of our backers, which will give us better Visas and allow us to bring people over to perform. Looking into getting an apartment/office close by... Ideally we would like to have a 2 bedroom place were we can house performers when they come and use the other room as an office... could work. There will be an office at the club of course, but one close to where we live would be nice too, and it would be great if we could rehearse there as well... We'll see. Are meeting a lot of very helpful people here and learning a lot from them. I am channeling ideas at the moment and brainstorming constantly. At this point it looks like the club is going to be called "Gosney and Kallman's Shanghai" and will open in October.

We fasted for 3 days on juice and tea, lost a bunch of weight, felt really good. I learned a lot too in the process. It was mostly to detoxify and even time you eat your blood goes to your stomach, so this gives your blood a chance to clean itself, and your other organs a chance to get the attention they often lack. YOu feel sort of high from it, and surprisingly I wasn't terribly hungry. My energy was a bit low though. Norm broke it on the third evening and I was going to hang on another day, but then we went to the opening of this new boutique Hotel called JIA Hotel, and there was a free buffet as long as the eye could see of foods one normally can't afford to indulge in!! It was torture! Free champagne, cocktails, everything. Well... I decided this was as good a time as any to break my fast! Norm and I ate little pieces of a few things (and a few pieces of chocolate!) and Boy! Did we enjoy tasting food! It was so delicious! It was crazy for me too, because I saw people eating plate fulls and plate fulls not tasting a thing, and then all my friends who were drinking glasses and glasses of the free champagne get drunker and drunker, and I have to admit, I am usually the type to get in there on the free champagne, so it was a bit of an eye-opening experience for me to see everyone from a sober point of view. We then went to a friend's birthday party in a huge apartment, smokey, full of hipsters, loud music, lots of drinks... And I was the one who said "Honey I have to go home," and Norm was the one who wanted to stay. It's usually the other way around! Overall a really good experience though!

I meant to write this blog about a week ago because after that I was feeling so healthy and good. I have been doing yoga everyday, working out, getting regular massages, steaming, relaxing, eating right. I've impressed myself with how much I like being real healthy and into the healthy lifestyle that was forever escaping me in NY. But then... Well, here's the story...
I rubbed my eye last Thursday and thought "Why is my eye sore?" Then I worked as a dancer at a party at the re-opening of the very popular club Bar Rouge, here on the Bund. It was a very nice gig, thursday-Saturday, 3 5-10 minute sets of dancing on little tables with 3 other pro dancers, in conservative, kinda cute costumes and wigs, with boas etc. I made really impressive money for the amount of work I did, twice as much as dancers make in NY, and I mean in US dollars it's twice as much! So that was fun, but I woke up on Friday morning with a big, red, nasty stye on my right eye. Then I had to work two more evenings in full eye make-up, with fake eyelashes etc. It got infected, and by Sunday it was swollen shut. Norman made me an eye patch so people wouldn't cross the street when they saw me! I went to see the doctor on Monday, which is a fascinating experience in itself! You go in, pay 17 kuai (roughly $2.20) to be seen, take a number, wait, your number comes up (they actually took me earlier since they had an English speaking doctor available and I think I was scaring the children in the waiting room!), he examined me, wrote a prescription, then I went downstairs, paid for the prescriptions at one counter, then walked twenty feet to the other counter where they gave it to me. No Insurance bullshit, no drug company bullshit. I got eye-drops and 2 things of ointment, the whole experience, medicine included, cost me $10 US dollars. Unreal. There is something to be said for that! So here was the kicker for me though... I'm in the waiting room or a hospital, sick people everywhere, and I go to the bathroom, where there is no toilet paper (very common here, you just have to remember your own...and trust me, sometimes you get caught without!) and No Soap!! In a hospital! Isn't that nuts!!??

So anyways, I have been rocking a black wig and eye-patch ever since. My eye is practically back to normal now, but I just bought a shirt that has a face of a girl with black Louise Brooks hair in an eye patch that looks so much like me, I am obliged to wear my wig and eye-patch and my new shirt at least for one more weekend. It has become a fashion statement of sorts!

Speaking of fashion! We went to the Salvador Ferragamo party here the other night. Quite a big deal, with a huge exhibit at my friend's museum, MoCA, celebrities. It was nice. A little too much like window shopping at a store you know you can't afford, so you walk out more depressed than anything by the end, but here there was a party at the end, which was very nice! Oh, and speaking of shoes! (Sorry boys!) I think I have mentioned once or twice it is very hard for me to find shows that fit me here, but today when I went next door to get the shirt (Norman discovered the shirt actually and went to buy it for me, but got in a fight with the salesperson, so he said he couldn't go back in, but I had to go in and buy it!) They had just gotten a shipment of shoes from Charlotte Russe! I'm guessing these guys never made it to the states, so there were some shoes my size! I got a great high black shoe for 50 ($7) and 2 pairs of summer heeled sandals for 10 kuai each!! (that is $1.40 for a pair of heels!) Of course I came home and looked them up on the internet. The blacks they were selling for 39.99 and the other two pairs were 24.99 each! I'm very excited for myself!

The weather here is beautiful! We've been having fresh juice shakes every morning out on the balcony in the sun! Also been enjoying the NY TImes, which I recently discovered I have an online subscription to! (Wish I found that out earlier!) and Wikipedia is back up, along with youtube, and blogs! Things are nuts! Oh! And our new favorite thing too is I discovered we get international radio stations on itunes, so now we constantly have WBGO, the NY jazz station that was the soundtrack of our lives at the Chelsea, on all the time. I have to admit, I get some perverse pleasure out of hearing "Right now it is 38 degrees and raining, high of 45 today, chance of thunderstorms," though I know I shouldn't say that too loud or the weather gods will hear me!

I'm going to call it quits for today, I will try to put up new pictures soon, but now you know why there haven't been many taken of me lately! Too bad, I was all ready to do a photo shoot, as I haven't been this slim and fit in a while, and then this eye thing happened. Oh well, soon enough! Norman is deliciously well and fit and as handsome as ever! That's all for now! Thanks for reading!
xxx
Amelia