Survivor Oxford ... Costume style.

By Alex

I thought it would be fun if I just indulged myself. For the future me reading this, and for all of you ... I am just gong to out line what a normal day has consisted of for me for the past few weeks.

Just to put things in context, I love Oxford. I love my job right now. I love the people and the new friends and romantic surroundings. It is all wonderful. I have one, and only one major frustration. Portland, in the thrift world, in the creative world, in the 'hi I am Alex, the biggest tight-wad shopper in the world' world, could kick Oxford's bum on a rainy day. I was very disappointed today to look in the phone book, where I have been checking off charity (thrift) shops one by one as I visit them, and see that I had been to them all.... And I think that every Oxfam, every Bonnie-bobby-fee-fee-support-kittens-center in Oxford added up equals ONE Goodwill back home. This frustration keeps going. I need to make a set. One major componant is I am painting a back drop of a woman in a bathing suit. Very stylized very pretty.... I have no supplies. At home I could go to the fabric store, buy untreated canvas for ...ooooh, $2 a yard. Go home, just hook up the tracer stick the raw picture under it, get out my paints and have at it. It would take less than a day.... Here, oh here I have to find the only fabric store in Oxford, which is on the second story of a Chinese restraint, by muslin because they 'don't have that kind of stuff'... To treat it I have to make a washing machine out of sticks and bits of paper that I have gathered about of the rubbish bins of university parks. After injecting it with the life force I keep in my shoe I have to dye the fabric in my rustic washer and then let it dry on the roof of Aaron's apartments. Then, with the brushes I have made out of pieces of bark and bits of twine I have to flick on berry juice and mud for paint. All of this after I take in tylers suit (for £13 mind you ...the costume god's loved me that day) with the feathers from a pigeon that I have sharpened into a needle after killing thee bird and making its skin into thread... ... ...Orr something like that.

A usual day here starts with breakfast in the flat around 9:30, depending uponTyler, Aaron and I's motivation levels that day. Rehearsal starts at 10 at Merton Pavilion which is the sports facility behind St. Cat's college. I take the bus in with them with our incrediblybrilliantt passes that are as good as gold. After the initial run down meeting @ the beginning of rehearsal,I begin my hunt. I usually hit all of the stores in town every day. They have INCREDIBLY high turnover. So, things are different all the time. I then go to The Unicorn.

The unicorn is and interesting subject. There is nothing like it in Portland, or most likely anywhere for that matter. It is on a side street off of cornmarket, which is by far the shopping and townie center of Oxford. The Unicorn is owned by a woman that lives upstairs. This shop, no joke, looks like my room on its worst days. About a fourth of the shops clothing is hanging. The rest is in heaps on the floor and literally in drifts up the walls.You don'tt browse in the unicorn. You have a list, and you tell the lady and she just dives in and burrows like the snake-greatere in the trash compactor in Star Wars. About 30 seconds later she will emergee with what you want or a disappointed grimacee, but usually the grimacee. The most frightening thing about this woman is she freaking knows where every damn thing in this place is. It is reallytroubling. She can find a smalle pair of white ladies gloves under stacks and stacks of coats and dresses and shirtss. She just shoves her hand in and slurps it out and ..Bamm, gloves. The best part is her deciding how much things are going to cost. She has one of those goofy eye do-dads that jewelers wear, she puts on one and goes over the seems. The whole time you are thinking she is going to quote you some mortifying number that you are going to have to go along with because she has the eye thing and you are just standing there and maybe she is right, I mean, she inspected the seams ... maybe it is worlh £30 of the shows producers money. And then she usually groans and then tugs on what ever seams she has found and then says, in her eastern European accent 'I cant charge you any more than 6' .. And then I say, how is 5 quid? And the whole ordeal is done. Usually through out this whole thing 3 or 4 people will walk through the door, look around and make this puzzled face like... 'oh my gosh, have I just walked into someone's house?' or try and browse in the 2 yards of open floor space and just give up.

I got on a tangent. I have several orders in with her, so I go in every day. Their first rehearsal ends at 1, so we usually meet for lunch. Most of us pack, but lately, we are getting a little lazy in the mornings. We are going to try and do better. They start again around 2, i go back with them and my morning loot and show it to James. After this I usually take the bus back up Cowley, which is the road we live on. As i go down this road I stop at all of the scary shops. Cowley is sort of like a British equivalent to 82nd .. on a really clean day with less lanes and ... and 200 year old buildings. Except, replace all of the Asians with Indians and Lebanesese and all of the Mexicans with Africansns. Let me also say that I just love cowley. It is really kind and really eclecticic and reall really REALLY cheap. They people there are helpful and nice. They are forign, I am forign so i dont feel wierd about being an american. Most people in Oxford hate Cowley. Well, the city center university of Oxford types. They don't get out of the university much. But that is fine I would rather they stay out of Cowely, they would mess it up.

So, after that I go to a couple of delis usually to get dinner. It takes about 2 hours going in and out of shops and such to get from High street (city center) to the flat. I stop at the grocery store out there because it is really inexpensive and has loades of ogranic veggies. Everyone is in the third rehearsal of the day until about 9:30 at which point they have been coming out to the flat for a dinner of my choosing. 3 cast members, and my self at times, are vegetariansns which is just fine here because of all of the ethnic-ey stores around have lots of interesting grains and beans and vegatables. There is Africanan whole foods place down the road that makes its own tofu. This stuff is incredible! We scrambled it like meat and put it in chili and tacos's the other day and it was deli'ssh.

Right... I have more to babble on about but we are going for drinks tonight with a cast member, Emma, who is in a play presently at the University. I am just killing time in the internet cafe while Tyler, James, and Liz rehearse the awkward scenes where I shouldn'tnt be staring at them.

Love you all talk to you soon!

a