Sarah Wilson

Justin Bieber: close up and clear

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I got close to Justine Bieber this morning. How close? This close:IMG_0163

Close enough to get what the screaming thousands of teen girls outside the Sunrise studio (where I was filming this am) are on about. He sells happy and fresh and clarity and unadulterated. And I bought it.

That’s what happens when you’re discovered overnight and there hasn’t been enough time for your enthusiasm to be watered down. In myyyyyy daaaaaay, you had to play in the garage a few years, graduate to the pub circuit, hope a scout from Stock Aitken and Waterman passes by, negotiate a deal and get a T-shirt line printed. Then maybe get a record released in three Christmas’ time. By which time, your zeal has been zipped a little. You’re 25 and a little hardened and cynical and compromised.

Justin has bypassed this due to the wonders of the inter-web. And his energy is clear and pure as a result.

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Sunday Life: the gorgeous value of strangers

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This week I embrace my “consequential strangers”

tomine

Down the road from my place is one of those cheap nail bars with the vibrating vinyl chairs and wall-mounted TVs that’s always screening Dr Phil. I’m not a fancy nail person; I tear or chew mine. But one of my Favourite Things To Do In The Whole World is to go in for a $25 pedi, merely to take part in the funny human vibe of this place.

I love it. There you have Lena and her extended family from Vietnam buzzing with the efficiency of drone bees and bossing around the well-heeled, alpha-female PR executives and eastern suburbs wives who frequent the joint, telling them to choose their polish colour faster and berating them for putting their shoes on too early.

Gorgeously, it’s a social contract that suits everyone.

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have a sunny weekend xoxoxo

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In my neck-o-woods it’s going to be a scorcher this weekend. The water here in Sydney is 23 degrees. Blimey.

One of Eugene's shot from this morning.

Which has posed a dilemma this week. I just got my hair coloured – darker for the cooler months. But my hairdresser has asked me to stop swimming so much, because it’s making my hair dull. I ignored her, but it does make me wince a little when I look at my salty, ratty mop just now.

Therein lies my dilemma as a girl who hates beauty regimes, doesn’t brush her hair, hates shopping etc, etc etc…BUT who works in an industry where she has to look and play a certain part. Square peg, round hole?

I tell you it’s exhausting. What to do with running top tan lines when you have to wear a strapless dress? I have a scab on my nose and shoulder today from running into a wall on my bike…and have to film on Monday. Oh dear.

My first day at Cosmopolitan, I arrived on crutches.

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two really rather awesome moments

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Don’t you just know these two scenarios, drawn from 1000awesomethings, a blog that’s been turned into a book of 1000 awesome things, published on Friday:

Greyhound_panel_van_lo

#997 Locking people out of the car and then pretending to drive away. My Dad was a big fan of doing this. Most Dads are.

#527 The night before a really big day.

Stare at that ceiling. Sweaty palms, white knuckles, deep breaths in bed.

Maybe the ring’s stowed away and the reservations are made. Maybe the results are coming in and everyone’s coming over. Maybe you’re buttoning down for a new job or following your heart and leaving an old one.

As the moonlight shines in your window excitement bubbles in your brain.

It’s almost here.

Love this. I get excited the night before Big Things. I hope I never stop getting excited in this way. Christmas Eve, sleeping on the family room floor at home, I get that sense of  anticipation and specialness described above. Kind of dorky. Yes.

Before a big, scary job, I’ll go and stare at the sky, or sit in the dark, and think about the enormity of things. And the incongruency.

Me?!! The Bigness? !! Wow, how does this fit? The fact that I’ve been plunged into Something Big feels so incongruent that I just can’t put it down to my own doing. It feels bigger than a work of my orchestrating. It feels inevitable, preordained, destined by a force bigger than me. And very, very special.

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what your surname says about you (if you’re a woman)

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This is kinda interesting. Something I wonder about a bit. New research says when a woman changes her surname when she gets married, or hyphenates it, she’s judged as more feminine, in the painfully stereotyped sense of the word.40674_1_468c

Surname-changers were seen as more dependent, less intelligent and less ambitious, according to the study by Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research in Holland. Participants were asked to judge a hypothetical woman based on five categories: caring, competent, dependent, intelligent, and emotional. When she used her own surname, she was branded with more “powerful” terms.

The worse bit? How it affects pay:

“These judgments affected the chance that a woman would be hired as well as the estimation of her salary: compared to a woman who kept her own name, she was less likely to be hired and her salary was estimated considerably lower”

…about 861 Euros/month lower.

I’d add this: It’s a disaster when it comes to your Google rankings.

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