Category Archives: Theatreland Tales

And THIS is why Ritzi doesn’t do internet dating any more

Posted on June 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

Remember last year, I was all enthused about men again, for all of ten seconds, and Blondie set me up on the oh-so-classy dating website ‘mysinglefriend.com’? I went on some shockers of first dates, from mind numbingly dull to… oh no, wait, they were ALL mind numbingly dull. However, one day last November, I happened to log in to find a message that was not so much dull as HORRIFYING.

First, lemme give you a bit of backstory here. Last summer – the summer when I discovered my new addiction to the gym and so got so skinny I could fit into my favourite Anglomania pencil skirt again – I happened to help a friend/colleague out one day as she had a huge meeting going on and no minions around to fetch coffee and the like. Being the queen of caffeine, I stepped in with a couple of pots of the strong stuff and saved the day, and unwittingly caught the eye of a big shot producer whose path I had not crossed before.

Fastforward to November, and who should send me a message on MYSINGLEFRIEND.COM but the big shot producer???

Mortifying doesn’t quite cover it.

I staggered into the office in a whirlwind of despair,  demanding of my friend (the fool who couldn’t make her own bloody coffee for her own bloody meeting) exactly what I was supposed to do. She found it hilarious. I did not.

Together we composed a polite, but clear rebuttal, and I hit send and crossed all appendages that I would hear nothing more of it.

Oh my dears, perhaps this is the time to break it to the world at large that crossing fingers and toes really doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to the world, and one should really keep appendages un-crossed in these situations, since they may be needed for running away and reaching for wine.

His reply was equally as horrendous. OF COURSE he didn’t want to date me, I was soooooo out of his league after all (his words, not mine. Remember this man had only seen me on a particularly good outfit day) but he just wanted to bask in my presence and perhaps buy me a glass (read: bottle) of wine in a swanky exclusive members club and discuss my career.

OH. DEAR. LORD.

That was the moment I decided to stop paying my subscription and promptly disappear, never to be seen or heard of on mysinglefriend.com ever again.

And that was the end of that.

Or at least it would have been, if I didn’t work in the bloody theatre industry, where everybody knows your name (it’s like a sequinned version of Cheers) and so, dolled up to the nines at the Olivier Awards not so long ago, who do I turn around and almost soak head to toe in champagne? Yes, that’s right.

He emailed me, and he added me on Linkedin. Bloody Linkedin – why am I even on that??? Goddamn my amazing ability to network like a motherbitch.

As of yet, I’ve ignored both. Which is terribly unprofessional but what can I do? This man is twice my age, and not in a George Clooney kind of way. And I do not want to date him, nor do I want to ‘discuss my career’ with him. Ew.

And THAT, my friends, is why dating websites are the work of Lucifer.

Regards,

RitziCx

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Dating And Dancing On Tables

Posted on November 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

La la la, Ritzi’s back on the dating track, and who knew it could be so bloody tedious?

In October, Blondie and I reached breaking point with 2012, and so turned our backs on gloomy England and headed off for a week of 35 degree sunshine and swarthy Turks. We had a very wholesome and sober holiday and absolutely noone lost their bikini nor their dignity. Anyway, when we got back from our chaste break away, forearms and ankles a glorious shade of mahogany, Blondie slipped easily back into disgusting happiness with her tiny boyfriend, taking a few days to shag his little socks off before declaring enough was enough and she was going to sell me on the interweb.

£28 and an agonising profile approval process later, I’d hammered the final nail in the coffin of hopeless single life and joined My Single Friend Dot Com. Can you bloody believe it?

People tell me you can have a lot of success of MSF if you put the effort in – you know, if you send countless messages and trawl through pages and pages of losers and lower your standards to somewhere around knee height. Now, frankly I’m a busy woman, and don’t really have hours and hours to trawl the internet for much more than shoes or novelty Christmas products, so instead I decided to be one of those people, who just sit back and wait for their true love to find them. If you can tell where this is going already, you get a lollipop.

My first date courtesy of MSF occurred last weekend. A relatively good looking guy (you can never really tell from a carefully selected profile picture can you?) wanted to take me bowling. Cliché, yes, but I’m not really one for your standard sit down ‘dinner and a movie’ kind of date, so bowling on a Friday night in November was right up my street.

Unfortunately, about 5 seconds into said date, I realised that Mr Superbowl was so far away from my street that he paid his council tax to a different Borough.

In short? NOT 6ft 2 like his profile said (more like 5ft 10, ick), weird flathead haircut (if your head is flat, why emphasize this with a dodgy Bart Simpson haircut and partial Jedward quiff?), over-enthusiasm for motorbikes (and not in a cool way), zero appreciation of Harry Potter and a dislike of cooking for vegetarians. Also – and this is the vital part – BORING as hell. My god. A girl can only single-handedly select interesting conversational topics for so long before she succumbs to the temptation to smash her head into the table and end it all. What’s that? Oh, was the bowling part fun? Well, I wouldn’t know that because the genius thought there wouldn’t be any kind of need to actually BOOK a lane at Bloomsbury Bowl on a Friday in November. Brilliant.

Two glasses of Rioja in and I’d had enough. I made a lame ass excuse about promising to pop in on my friend on the way home, and hightailed it out of there.

Being in town at 9.30 on a Friday night, a bit pissed, and in my best smart/cas gladrags, I decided I just couldn’t waste my carefully coiffed hair, so I decided to pop in on The Guru, seeing as she did happen to live literally around the corner. God bless central London dwelling socialites.

‘Babe, come round for a cocktail! I’ve got to go and meet a bunch of bankers at The Box at 11.30 though, do you mind tagging along?’

Ah Guru. You always come through for me.

Ten minutes later, I was tucked up on The Guru’s couch with her gay lodger, sipping vodka and coconut (limited mixers available), and chuckling at things no sane human being should really chuckle at watching Heathers. If you haven’t seen that movie, rent it immediately. But maybe not if you haven’t gotten over being the unpopular kid at school yet… could be messy if not. The Guru spent about an hour trying to work out whether the Marc Jacobs clutch or the Ralph Lauren purse went better with her custom Manolos and Erdem skirt. I felt I should be having a similar crisis and so took thirty seconds or so to buff a scuff out of my Dune shoe boots.

I’d love to tell you what happened at The Box. I can tell you what I drank… up to a point. There was some champagne, and then a shot of something that may have been sambuca. Then there was some more champagne, and a jaegerbomb. Then there was some more champagne and some kind of sticky passionfruit shooter. Then there was something black. Then I was dancing on a table. And it was a rather good job I wasn’t picking up the tab because it came to three and a half grand. Srsly.

Saturday came round and I couldn’t get hold of The Guru all day. I was pretty sure she was dead in a loo in The Box. They light that place with candles for feck’s sake, it could days for someone to stumble across her. But then, in the hazy hours of Saturday evening as I was trying desperately to drag myself out of the house to Mr Producer’s housewarming party across town, she popped up on facebook chat.

‘Are you alive??’ I demanded.

‘…just.’ She responded.

‘Did we dance on a table at one point last night?’

‘You did. You were genius.’ Genius? That sounds like I might have done a little more than gyrate atop a table for forty five minutes. Oh lord.

‘Don’t tell me. I’d like to live in blissful ignorance.’

‘No worries. I lost my blackberry and somehow have to get three and a half grand out of my clients to pay the bill, and I shagged the blonde one.’

…there was a blonde one?

RitziCx

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Big Brother Wants You In The Diary Room – A Diamond Geezer Update

Posted on August 6, 2012 | 3 Comments

Okay, after this one I PROMISE to start having some adventures of my own again. Really I do. I’m going to go home and get Blondie to sign me up to My Single Friend RIGHT NOW.

But in the meantime, here’s Aussie’s latest conundrum… and a few words of Ritzi wisdom at the end…

(Shh, Aussie is speaking now)

So here we are. 6 weeks in with the diamond geezer and it feels like this epic romance has been going for a lifetime! (In good and bad ways!)

This week I have been in Melbourne for work – this is the town where DG’s parents now live. I was there from Tuesday and he the planned to fly in for the weekend to spend his days with his Dad who is in hospital and his nights in a hotel with me. I was tremendously excited, it had been two weeks since our last visit and I was really looking fwd to seeing him.

Then I had dinner with my brother. It turns out that through all of his protesting this week that  ”I’m so happy about all of this” he’s not so happy about any of it. I sat down with him, just the two of us and he very kindly said the following.

“It’s just the thing is this. The reasons I love him as a mate are all the reasons I would never want him to date anyone I know. Just know that he’s distracted by shiny things and you are clearly the shiny thing right now.”

I fiercely bit my tongue, refrained from highlighting all the insulting things in that comment and kept going with dinner as everyone else was arriving and I didn’t want to make a scene. But, as the night wore on his words echoed in my head. And then, of course, came the doubts and questions from my own mind. Was I blindly being an idiot? Have I been so excited by this whole thing that I can’t see the plain truth staring me in the face? After all of these years of false starts and failed attmpts have I fallen for bullshit yet again? Am I an idiot to take a leap of faith on something so impossible? Is it in fact entirely impossible?

And, of course, right on cue came through a lovely text from him, as sweet and as charming as ever. As I had been guzzling wine I replied, letting him know that it hadn’t been the best evening of my life, that all was not well in the family and that I was feeling pretty shite. I regretted it immediately because I knew I was making drama where there was no need and dragging him into something that is actually more about my brother and I than it was him. I just wanted him to reassure me without having to actually tell him what was said and what I was now having a typical-female-freak-out over.

He called immediately – upset that I was feeling rubbish and followed up with a text that simply said “I would not be flying halfway across the country to see you if I didn’t think this was something serious” So I took a breath and slept on it. By the time morning rolled around I had decided today was a new day and all was ok. Screw my brother and what he thought – it’s his rubbish and not mine. No one knows what’s going on between DG and I, but DG and I (and the entire database of Ritzi Cortez of course)

But when I see him again on the Saturday night the doubts come back. All of a sudden I was second guessing everything he was saying to me, asking myself if I thought it was a lie, no matter what I did I couldn’t get out of my own head. He was talking about wanting to go away together in February next year, about all sorts of things in the future and I couldn’t let myself believe them at face value. As a result I was disconnected from the whole night, I couldn’t relax and enjoy his company as there was now this stupid little voice now trying to shout “It’s a lie! He’s like all the others!”

Sunday afternoon he goes to see his Dad again and comes back to meet me for dinner. I slept in, had a long hot shower, got all dolled up and gave myself a good Oprah Winfrey talking to in the mirror. “This man has not given you any reason to not trust him. Everything he has promised, he has come good on. Everything he has done, backs up what he is saying. You have no choice but to trust him! The past is the past and has nothing to do with him. All you can do is go one day at a time and enjoy it for what it is at that moment. If it all falls apart then at least you gave it a go. It’s been so long since you’ve felt like this, you can’t screw it up with fears baed on other people’s past behaviour.”

So we go for a drink before heading out and  while leaning on the bar I can’t help but drop some joke into the conversation about “all of his other girlfriends around the country.” He sighed, looked me right in the eye and simply said:

“There is noone else baby. As soon as we had our first weekend together, I’ve not been vaguely interested in anyone else. Anyone who was on the scene now seems dull and boring and they are no longer around. All I want is you. However we do this – it doesn’t matter.”

So what do you do in a moment like that?

Either you choose to assume he is full of shit like all the douchebags that came before him, preferring to be alone and hating the world than in the company of this beautiful man…  Or you look in his big brown eyes you make the conscious decision to yet again take a leap of faith. Another one. Which I guess is the entire point of this entire caper.

And so here comes the inevitable Carrie-Bradshaw-sign-off-with-a-question….

What is a relationship if not a series of leaps of faith?

(I’m genuinely asking as it’s been so long I don’t remember!)

x

(Okay, Aunti Ritzi is back)

Now, I might have descended fully into hopeless romantic mode by this point (blame Blondie, her sappy happiness is annoyingly all around now that she lives with me) but my advice to Aussie is this:

DON’T GIVE UP ON TRUE LOVE! TRUE LOVE NEVER COMES EASY! HAS JANE EYRE TAUGHT YOU NOTHING?!?! (Oh, actually, maybe you should check his attic for crazy ex-wives when you get a second too, thinking about it…)

Seriously though, I really think she needs to take the risk. The thing is, if we stop taking risks, then we’ve basically given up and settled for settling, and we all know my opinion on settling.

I get the brother thing now. It kind of makes sense why he’s been such a dick about it, and he really is just concerned about his sister’s well-being because he knows his friend historically, but at the same time he can never truly know how DG feels and what he’s said to Aussie. Guys, as we know, do not share things with each other that are deeper and more meaningful than; ‘Grunt grunt… shagged her… grunt grunt… yeah, she’s a bit fit innit’ (not sure why in this gross generalisation all men appear to be knuckle grazing Northern chavs but I’m running with it…)

And frankly, if he still turns out to be a dick after that ‘There’s noone else baby’ speech, I’m pretty confident that my and my twitter army could gather together enough pennies for a round trip to the Southern Hemisphere so I can rip off his balls, bring them back and lob them into the Thames.

Right, now it’s your turn – pleeeease, leave a contribution, in the leeeettle box*.

RitziCx

*10 points and the plus one to my next outrageous West End freebie if you actually got that reference.

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Family Ties – A Diamond Geezer Update

Posted on July 23, 2012 | 2 Comments

I do so love it when a blog post appears ready formed in my inbox… and so allow me to hand you over to the lovestruck Aussie for what is frankly THE BEST EMAIL EVER. (If you missed the first one – where have you been? Click here)

Hello!

So when Diamond Geezer gives you 72 hours of notice that he is coming to town, you have to do some MAD PREP to be match fit and ready for his arrival!
Flat was sparkling clean, sheets changed, all possible laundry done, booze bought, anything that makes me look like a crazy person well hidden, manicure, pedicure, everything plucked, waxed and exfoliated, beautiful yummy breakfasty things on standby in case he wanted when he arrives at 7am Saturday, pretty new lingerie to casually be wearing under some sort of sexy mans white shirt type ensemble when said early morning arrival occurred.

So – 6am the alarm goes off. I get up, do hair, tiny bit of make up to remove blotchy-sleepy-face and I wait knowing his plane was landing at around then. I put coffee on, I get lights to perfect dim level, heater on so flat is perfect temp…. he takes what feels like FOREVER to arrive and finally the buzzer goes. I let him through the security and the open the door to see him walking down the hallway. I am not kidding I just go weak at the knees. He sees me, drops everything and just scooped me up in his arms and kissed me. We stood there like this for ages just looking at each other, kissing each other, hugging each other – I start to get the giggles because I am just so friggin’ happy. It was heaven.

We spend the day hanging out, we go for lunch where he starts telling me he’s told his mum about me, that all his friends know about me, that everyone is saying he’s “stopped his whoring ways because he’s met some girl in Sydney.” We have a brilliant afternoon, he talks about wanting us to get a dog and naming it Mr. Funny, we go shopping because he wants my help choosing new shoes – it’s all very silly and fun and wonderful. Then we get ready to go to the opening night of A Chorus Line.

Yes. This heterosexual man was willing to come to the opening night of a musical with me and not only watch the show, but do the pre and post schmoozing events and talk to all the theatre types. He absolutely nailed it. He was funny, charismatic, held his own, spoke to everyone, I could leave him on his own and was all good. We ran the gauntlet of an opening night and he breezed through it like he’d been doing this for years. We leave, head home and in our black tie outfits get a dirty late night burger and fries and curl up on the couch watching TV together. Bliss.

Sunday we get up late, go for lunch and then park ourselves in a wine bar near my apartment and proceeded to try every possible wine on the list. Over lunch he raised the subject of the “elephant in the room” conversation we were avoiding – if we lived in the same city we’d be going for it, holding hands and walking off into the sunset, but what do we do about the distance? Can we make this work? So under the influence of some white wine dutch courage we faced it head on. I said (absolutely terrified) “you know how I feel – I am throwing my hat in the ring and am willing to see if we can do this if you are” he just looked at me and said “Count me in. you’re my girl. I want you in my life, I want you to come to see me and my life, meet my friends. As far as I’m concerned I’m seeing you and I want to tell everyone. I’ll fly out once a month to see you to begin with, we’ll take it one day at a time, nice and slow and see where we end up.”

Although absolutely glorious, this meant one more thing. We had to tell my brother. I wanted to wait, I waned to do it in my own time but Diamond Geezer wanted to tell him. Said it felt like he was lying to him and he has the right to know.

So. I picked up the phone and texted him. “Hi. I have to tell you something” While I was attempting to send him a photo of the two of us to let the pictures do the talking, he called saying “what do you have to tell me?!” I took a deep breath and said “um. I’m seeing someone. And he’s great. And you’re going to love him. Because it’s Diamond Geezer.”

Silence.

I give the phone to Diamond Geezer to speak to him – he says “Hi. Yes I’m here in Sydney with your sister. It’s been going on for a few weeks. We wanted you to know.”

Silence.

He gives the phone back to me. Brother says “ARE YOU JOKING?!?!  YOU DO REALISE WHAT YOU ARE SAYING DON’T YOU?! AND HE LIVES ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY. THIS IS TOTALLY INSANE. THIS IS A JOKE RIGHT!?!? “

“Um… no. no it’s not. And I am happier than I have been in years.”

And then he hangs up on me.

We both send some text messages to him telling him it’s not a joke, that we are both crazy for each other and have weighed up all the pros and cons and still want to give it a go. We get nothing but silence.

We head home, fall into bed (have an amazing night) and then he gets up at 5:30am to get the plane back to the other side of the country where, with the time difference, he will make it back in time to start work. We say goodbye, I get a beautiful message as he gets on the plane and I curl up in bed in the t-shirt of his that he has left behind for me. I wake up again when my brother sends a text to both of us (abridged version):

“Ok, I’ve slept on it and this is definitely not cool. It can end about 10 different ways and all of them disastrous. If it makes you happy then it’s all I could hope for but I am staying right out of all of the insanity that is bound to ensue”

I don’t reply. I figure I’ll let him cool off. He then called a couple of hours later and we speak like rational adults. I tell him how I feel, how we’ve really thought it through, that it’s not just some stupid indulgence, that he is saying the only other person he felt like this about was when he met his first wife, that neither one of us are in a place to not give this a shot. At each point in the conversation I hear him gasp and he just keeps saying “THIS IS A LOT OF INFORMATION TO DIGEST” but to his credit he hears it all out and I think could hear in my voice that things are different.

He pauses for a while and then just says “I’ve known you literally your whole life. I’ve known him for longer than I haven’t. Its just taking me a moment to pick my jaw off up the floor and get my head around that it could work” Which is when I broke the news to him that DG and I will be in Melbourne together next weekend (where he lives). At which point he said “ok that’s enough information again now. hanging up now”

And that’s where we have left it. A brilliant weekend, a shocked/confused brother who doesn’t know what to do and a brilliant Diamond Geezer who I can now officially say I am dating. AND I get to see again in two weeks!

Now I just have to tell my parents.

Aussie xx

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Where Did Everyone Go?

Posted on July 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

This summer is shaping up to be a non-event, wouldn’t you say? I mean, there’s this big old sports day thang starting next week, but aside from an abundance of pink stickers on the underground and a bit more moaning about TFL than usual, you wouldn’t know it. The rain has persisted, to the point of ricockulousness. Seriously, I’m on the verge of emigrating on the NHS (they do that, right?). And to top it all off, I seem to have misplaced my friends.

Remember, Ritzi’s gaggle of gal pals (a term which often also includes EB and a few gays) are the best. If anyone out there thinks they have a better clique kicking about, I dares ya to challenge us – we’ll win and we’ll do it with a cocktail in hand. But of course, that only works when every one is AROUND. Most, it seems, are not.

Twinkle just left forever (well, not forever, but for a year, so she’s out). The Diva’s disappeared off the face of the earth with ‘family problems’. DC doesn’t get here til the second week of August (and WHAT a week of debauchery that will be – can’t wait for the sexual tension, how about you EB?). Irish had a teeny tiny mental breakdown and ran home for the summer to have sex with her ex and film a mini series. And Flora is still MIA – I still haven’t seen her since she discovered her tripod lover. I seriously am starting to think he’s murdered her and hidden her under the patio…

Bridget, to her credit, has been around. Talking about weddings and hen parties, admittedly, but around none the less. Blondie, though less available due to her little situation (read: short arse boyfriend), is here. But she’s not moving in to Castle Cortez til August. WTF is that about? And EB is back. Back, but very busy with social engagements every weekend of course, since he’s so damn popular – which means midweek hangovers. Always useful.

Summers in London are awesome because we make them awesome. We spend our weekends in beer gardens and parks, having picnics, wandering the streets from ice cream truck to ice cream truck and sampling every form of frozen coffee drink Clapham has to offer. Last summer was great, we did all that and more. I recall dancing to Stevie Nicks at Hyde Park Calling, in a tiny playsuit and stifling heat. This year they needed pack-a-macs. The summer before, we did all that AND we had a bunch of hot hippies to rub up against since Hair was in town and all. The summer before THAT, I believe I was dating TVboy… (Cough – what a dick).

This year, what have we got? An empty promise of disgruntled army men on every street corner and a bunch of sub-standard Jesuses*. And NO SUN.

So in short, sort it out 2012. Because I am here and I am raring to go. I want a repeat of last year’s unplanned late nights on the veranda at Somerset House. I want Sundays in the park, or sunbathing on the Common. I want spontaneous trips to Brighton (avoiding any passing almost famous musicians) and weekends in the West Country. I want to go to the Open Air Theatre and not take a poncho. I want to get my fucking beach body out before I get so depressed with Seasonal Affective Disorder that I comfort eat seven months of hard work away – I’m taking St Johns Wort daily to keep a smile on my face, I haven’t done that since I was a troubled teen for cryin’ out loud.

Hey, summer of fun? Come the fuck on dear. We’re all waiting for you!

Yours desperately,

RitziCx

*except blondie boy lion man Jesus. He can win and if he doesn’t, I’ll give him a job singing me to sleep (amongst other things)

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Ways to tell Eton Boy has returned to London

Posted on July 6, 2012 | 2 Comments

1) I have a hangover roughly the size and weight of China

2) I didn’t make it to the gym this morning

3) My bank account is quivering in fear

Yes, Eton Boy has landed in a blaze of glory. Frankly, the French economy should be worried now that it doesn’t have EB around to keep it afloat any longer.

We’d been considering a cozy soho pizza evening – copious amounts of red wine and carbs as standard – but then in an unprecedented act, the fecking sun only came out didn’t it? So we did what any self respecting Londoners with access to free tickets to everything would do, and dragged ourselves all the way out to the middle of nowhere (read: Kew Gardens) and sat on the grass, downed three bottles of rather decent white wine and nibbled on some gourmet cheeses to a backdrop of Tim Minchin singing songs about gingers.

I can hereby declare that it was a damn near perfect way to spend an evening.

As we chillaxed in the early evening sunshine (it’s like EB actually controls the elements with the unnecessary brightness of his crisp white jeans) we lamented last summer, hazy nights of drunken debauchery with Dawson’s Creek, afternoons at posh country clubs (they LOVE me there and don’t want to kick me and my flip flops out AT ALL) and questionable theatre, and EB dangled the carrot of an equally alcoholic 2012 summer before me.

‘But I go to bed early and go to the gym at 6am now!’ I protesteth.

‘Well,’ EB replies with a knowing smirk. ‘We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?’ Smug little get.

I refuse to give up my healthy new lifestyle. Frankly, I like my size 10 status, and my gym instructors are too darn attractive to miss out on, but I’m clearly going to have to do something about my boozing stamina, because after an evening trying to keep up with a man who’s spent the last year in Paris? Frankly, I feel like I have actually died, been buried, and then dug up again and propped up at my desk and forced to give a shit about the West End.

And I’ve just remembered putting a lunch date in the diary for next week.

Lord help me.

RitziCx

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Aussie And The Diamond Geezer

Posted on July 2, 2012 | 1 Comment

While the lovelife of Ritzi Cortez is well and truly down the proverbial pan, things don’t seem to be going to badly down in the Southern Hemisphere.

A couple of days ago, this appeared in my inbox;

So my dearest Ritzi, I have had the most amazing weekend of my life. So here’s the lowdown. The guy spent some years in my home town which is where he met my brother, the were in high school together and my dad was his boarding house master and geography teacher! He and my bro stayed friends for years, lived together in Sydney, he studied film at uni and is an amazing writer. SO. GOOD. WITH. WORDS. He had some dark years where he developed a little substance abuse issue and wasn’t a well man. He got out of Sydney, cleaned himself up, moved to Perth and now works high up in Diamond mining. (it’s a HUGE industry. Mining men make a ton of money and it’s a big thing here) He got married about 6 years ago, they split 2 years ago (no kids) And so then we saw each other at my brother’s wedding where he was there with some other girl who lives in Melbourne. We had a kiss and he promised he would come to Sydney to see me.

We met on Saturday night at 6pm. I had had my hair and nails done, bought some Calvin Klein underwear…. The whole thing. Was SO nervous! Had no idea what was going to happen, just didn’t want it to be a disaster. He’s my brothers best friend and if it went wrong, I would be mortified. But as soon as I saw him and we sat down… It was ON LIKE DONKEY KONG. Just couldn’t keep our hands off each other, there was this instant spark between us again, we kept cracking each other up, we were both a bit nervous and had realised that despite knowing each other for 20 years, we hadn’t seen each other for 10 years and knew absolutely NOTHING about each other. I was on a first date with someone I’d known my whole life. 2 bottles of champagne later, we were feeling pretty damn good and were in another bar of this hotel complex drinking dirty martinis. He sees a fountain that is pouring into a big pool thing and jokes about jumping into it just to see what happened. I made it clear that I was sure his hotel room would have a similar size bath so why don’t we just go check it out? So we get up there, I run a bubble bath and before anything else happens, we get in and end up spending about 4 hours in this huge bath tub drinking champagne, talking, fooling around, talking, drinking, talking, fooling around, talking… He poured champagne all over me… It was HEAVEN I tell you! But so different to what I thought it would be. So intimate, honest and lovely. The whole time I was just so comfortable with him. I was completely myself, without compromising anything, without looking at him and seeing anything that wouldn’t work, that wasn’t right… We were both so relaxed the entire time. At one point HE even said “this just feels like home” Not surprisingly, we end up in bed and stay there until about 2pm the next day. Again talking, fooling around, talking, snoozing, talking, cuddling, talking… It was so so so so lovely. He starts saying things like “what is this, I am completely crazy for you”, “I’m just lying here falling for you” “‘baby I am in this for the long run if you’ll have me” “I dont want to freak you out but all I can think when I look at you is “finally!”"

Now, admittedly, this was all through several states of drunk and sober, naked and clothed… So some of it was not at our most level headed moments… But it kept coming up in conversation. As the weekend wore on we went out of lunch, came back to bed, went out for dinner, came back to bed… But as this went on realised that we are so so so similar. We like the same things, are driven by the same things, have the same base values and couldn’t keep our hands off each other. By the time Sunday night rolled around we were deciding if we wanted to go out or not and I saw him see that some car race he loves was on TV, so I suggested we stay in, he watch the race, I’d grab him some beers and curl up beside him while he did. This was met with cries of “YOU ARE THE PERFECT WOMAN” which was then compounded by me quoting Anchor Man at him (it’s the little things….) but it wasn’t about the racing, or the beers or the Anchor Man… It was about just hanging out together. I don’t remember the last time I enjoyed a man’s company like that. Monday morning we slept in, checked out and had a coffee where we spoke about what happens next. We talked about other hotels, other cities, about him coming to mine for a weekend, about us graduating from texting to actually calling each other. Left it saying “until next time…” I sent him a little text saying “until next time” he replied with “can’t wait” Then I spent two hours walking around town in a daze working out if that had actually happened or if I dreamt the whole thing. So now Ritzi…. What happens now!? I feel like I should wait to hear from him…. GAH!

GAH indeed! I read this at 5.45am, bleary eyed and downing espresso on my couch, trying my damnedest to drag my ass out of my house and out to the gym. Frankly, when I read this, I practically bounced out of the door, skipped down the road and hopped on a bus like some kind of exciteable Juicy Couture clad cricket.

So, in short, Aussie has found herself a sex god with daily access to diamonds and no children.

My god, woman. MARRY HIM.

RitziCx

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Foxy’s Lemon Law

Posted on May 21, 2012 | 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, my frizzy headed pal (who really should be black with a voice like hers, so shall hence forth be known as Foxy Cleopatra) and I wangled our way into prime seats at the Night Of A Thousand Voices at the Royal Albert Hall. This wasn’t especially hard, seeing as we knew approximately nine hundred and ninety seven of the voices. Some of them intimately.

Post show, we schmoozed a bit with Flutey and the Ex, and throngs of other familiarish faces, and then – considering it was still early AND a bank holiday, blew that popsicle stand and headed into town for some very very bad food. And wine.

Foxy and I haven’t caught up for a while – mainly because she’s usually belting out showtunes whenever I have plus ones to stuff – so we managed to make our way through almost an entire Porchetta pizza reminiscing about the good old days before we got onto the subject of men.

Foxy had a boyfriend when I first met her. He was nice, and safe, and a bit dull, and she was a wrecking ball of unspent energy, bouncing off the cobbles of Covent Garden and through every stage door that would have her. I figured it was doomed from the start – turns out, I was right.

‘You know what was so great about Crash Bandicoot?* He was my best friend. He probably still is really, I could call him about anything. But the problem was, he wasn’t my… you know… I mean, he didn’t have enough… what’s the word?’

‘Balls.’

Foxy and I want the same thing. We want a man who knows where his bollocks are, and what they’re for (ie, not just for scratching when he’s bored). We want a great big towering man giant to throw us around, and (attempt to) show us who’s boss, before we take him down a peg or two with a snarky comment and an eyebrow raise. Then, of course, comes the hot, passionate sex in the hallway (because we just can’t make it to the bedroom) followed by an offer to get up and make coffee/pour wine.

We’re seriously not asking much.

Bandicoot, however, was a bit of a wet fish. One that just needed flushing down the loo.

‘I could have just carried on, quite happily,’ Foxy admits. ‘But then it would come to an end eventually and then where would I be? How much time would I have wasted that I could have been getting jobs or going to class or spending time with my friends?’

And that’s the kicker, isn’t it? It’s the TIME. Maybe some people have it to spare, and don’t mind spending months and months agonising over whether it may or may not work out. If we go with our guts, we know pretty much straight away. It’s Lemon Law, pure and simple. Truth be told, you know within five minutes whether something has a spark or not. You know within five weeks whether something has a future or not. And you know within five months that you’re wasting so much time you’d be better off gouging your eyeballs out with a blunt eyebrow pencil just to get yourself out of that situation.

‘So now I’m not seeing anyone at all, and it’s a bit scary. Sometimes I would go home and just sit there, wondering what to do with myself, and I’d almost pick up the phone and call him but then I’d remember that if I did that, we’d most likely end up sitting, bored, doing nothing… just together.’

I guess it is scary to suddenly have to do things by yourself, when you’ve spent so long having to think about someone else. For me, it’s the other way round that freaks the fuck out of me.

‘But now,’ Foxy continues, with a big old grin (and a bit of tomato sauce…) on her face, ‘I go out all the time, I do little cabarets and gigs because I can and I have the time, I’ve got a new agent, I could bugger off on tour to another country at any moment – it’s ridiculous. The freedom, I mean.’

Gotta love the freedom. But what about the loneliness? It does happen, from time to time. Your friends are all busy, you can’t find a date, you’re sat at home watching Cougar Town and eating chips and hummous in your sweats on a Friday night because, well, why not? And you’re at major risk of slipping into ‘anyone is better than no one’ territory…

‘I just remind myself how I felt when we were together. It was boring, and unfulfilling. So now, I’m not going to waste my time unless I get that feeling straight away, that feeling that it could be something special. There’s no point hoping it will turn out to be something it’s not – you know, straight away, if it’s going to be good.’

Goddamnit, you know she’s right. Hindsight is a magical thing, but if we’re honest, we all know when it’s happening, don’t we? We have a niggle of doubt, a hint of hesitation. I know I had it with AF, and look how that turned out. And with TVboy, I knew all along it was doomed, but I wouldn’t admit it to myself until he forced it down my throat. Even with the Ex, who at the time seemed all peaches and cream to the outside world, I knew his dick eyes wandered but still I ignored my gut. What a muppet.

Next time I get myself into this situation, I’m just going to be honest with myself. You can all be my witness to this! Next time I am interested in a guy, I must be able to categorically say that I definitely don’t have that feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about him. You know the one I mean, and it ain’t butterflies. It’s the one you push down and down and down until you think you’re ignoring it, but it is going to bubble back up in the end. Usually just before one of you dumps the other.

Ritzi Cortez, revolutionising the dating process one fuck up at a time… maybe by the time I’m forty, I’ll get it right.

RitziCx

*this is what I’m calling her ex boyfriend. You think the fake name is ridiculous, you should hear what video game character his drunken parents actually named him after.

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I’m Too Busy Being Fabulous

Posted on May 14, 2012 | 4 Comments

I appear to have taken an unintended blog holiday since dumping AF unceremoniously via email. Sorry about that – not sure what happened there! I have no excuse except I was too busy being fabulous.

The thing is, after everything with AF, and the fact that I’m clearly entirely inept at being a human being with feelings, I’ve been feeling a bit… well… pants. Blondie is all loved up with her pocket-sized beau still, Bridget’s choosing wedding venues, Flora’s permanently attached to her lover’s penis and Irish has fucked off back to the land of the shamrock for a minor mental breakdown (don’t get me started). I had a run of maybe three or four ‘plus one’ events in a row that I found it damn near difficult to fill, and it bummed me out big time. Seriously, if your plus ones have found their own plus ones and you’re still just a ‘one’, that can get a bit effing depressing.

I chose – perhaps unwisely – to reignite my fierce independent woman status, by inviting The Ex to the theatre. The last we heard from him, you may remember, he’d sent me a rather wanky showbiz text when I was in France, and I’d replied about a year later telling him I was busy until the end of time.

Desperate times call for desperate measures though, so I dropped the text and immediately he accepted. I rather think this was through a love of a good freebie as opposed to any lingering affection held for me, but take from it what you will.

So we went, and we talked (once he finally showed up. Late. Of course) and I told him about work and life and the fact that I’ve just been promoted (slipping that one in there) and had that day come out of an appraisal that essentially declared the world my oyster (well, theatreland anyway – maybe more of a mussel or a clam…) and on top of that I’d just won a pair of Vivienne Westwood pumps on ebay for an absolute steal.

‘Wow, sounds like things are going really well for you Ritzi!’ The Ex enthused while clapping a slightly patronising but probably well intended hand on my shoulder.

And actually I suppose… he’s kind of right.

Okay, so I haven’t found my Darcy, but frankly I’m smashing the crap out of Darcy’s estimated ‘ten thousand a year’ on my lonesome and it’s still too cold to expect a man to dive fully clothed into a lake as a form of foreplay, so maybe I’m not missing much.

So instead of moping around while everyone else picks out paint for their picket fence, I’m reminding myself that being single is basically awesome. Last week, I bought SIZE 10 skinny jeans*. Today, I’m off to Starlight Express press night with a gang of gays. Tomorrow, I’m taking over the world.

Just think what a girl can do with all that pointless ‘snuggle’ time…

RitziCx

*this is a big deal. My bootilicious ass has been in 12s for years. Nothing tastes as good as fabulous feels – and 100 squats a day doesn’t hurt either**.

**okay, that hurts. A lot.

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From Poncho To Honcho… Sort Of…

Posted on April 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

That’s still one of my favourite taglines ever to grace E4… but I’m not here to talk about advertising genius worthy of Don Draper, I’m here to tell you how the heck I ended up at the birthday party for the Sultan of a little known country somewhere in Southeast Asia*…

It was a Wednesday, nothing much was happening and I’d spent most of my afternoon locked in a horrendous cycle of excel documents and invoices. My blackberry buzzed with a text from Priscilla, one of my favourite gay dads, and  veritable pillar of the fashion industry.

‘Hey Ritzi babe,’ (it said) ‘Do you fancy helping out at a show I’m doing on Saturday? My assistant’s dropped out. xx’

Help out backstage at a fashion show? Will there be male models? I reply that yes, I am free, and enquire as to just what I might need to do. I get no reply… which is pretty normal for Priscilla really. Bless him, he don’t do texting all that well.

Being me, I immediately forget about it. Until Friday, when I’m up to my eyeballs in promotional performance hell, fighting off photographers and trying my damnedest to keep track of randy West End actors backstage at a show with rather more half naked dancers than is necessary. When I actually paid attention to my blackberry, I noticed that among the 300 odd boring work emails, there was also one from Priscilla. With a call sheet. On which I was listed as ‘assistant director’.

Oh fucking hell.

I called Priscilla immediately, pretending that I’d totally not forgotten all about it and mentally working out if I could realistically fit in a Saturday morning gym session before making a tit of myself at a fashion show.

‘Don’t worry darling, you’ll be fabulous. Just be my eyes and ears and make sure everyone walks in the right place at the right time… wearing the right dress, of course.’

Right, okay. I could do that.

‘Oh, and don’t touch the royals, or talk to the royals unless they talk to you first.’

Wait… what?

See, up until this point, Priscilla had failed to mention that this fashion show was designed to accompany the desert course of a right royal banquet. Fer cryin’ out loud.

So Saturday rolls round and I show up, as instructed, in my blacks as if I’m ‘backstage in a theatre honey’. Priscilla is also in black. And a fucking cape. I shuffle my baggy black trousers over my sensible black Flossies (damnit, why didn’t I fork out the extra £30 for actual Toms?)

Half way through rehearsal, we realise we’re lacking an item in the props department. Priscilla is adamant that his show will be ruined unless he has an over-sized birthday card for the Sultan, so off I go into town, on a mission.

Unfortunately, the only card shop around is… Clintons.

I can’t buy a fecking Sultan a birthday card from Clintons! I can see it now… ‘Happy birthday your majesty… I hope you like Tatty Teddy! Or maybe Forever Friends is more your bag…?’

And the fun didn’t stop there – due to an agency balls up, we were down an actor, and didn’t fancy trying to get any of the models to actually do anything other than wander around in couture looking smokin’ hot, so I was told, four hours before the show, that I had to find another actor. On a Saturday.

Enter… Irish. Oh thank goodness I know so many fabulously talented actory types, or I would have found myself trying to squeeze my ass into the £8000 dress and dancing around like a twat for the assembled royalty myself. And while Priscilla assured me that thing was one size fits all, I’d hasten to disagree, considering a few hours later Irish and I become more closely acquainted than ever before as she poured herself into it. And that girl is a skinny bitch.

It wasn’t all bad though… once the couture arrived, I had the pleasure of marking up the male models costumes. These rather attractive men have no qualms about stripping off to their teeny tiny pants in the presence of anyone dressed in black and carrying a clipboard. And GOOD LORD. I caught the eye of one of the more coherent, English-speaking models and she grinned at me and said;

‘And that’s why I do this job.’

Too bloody right dear.

A few hours, and more than a few bags of Haribo and five cans of diet coke later, it was all over. And I still had my head, which I figure means I didn’t offend any royalty.

And that, my friends, is how Ritzi ended up at the birthday party for the Sultan of Mjhdfiwehfoiweoirjeper.

I seriously get everywhere.

RitziCx

PS – Once I met Marc from Ugly Betty. I shook his hand and told him I loved him a little bit. As I recall, his hand was unnaturally spongey. And I was rather hammered.

*I’m not posting the country on the blog (not in this post anyway, those of you who’ve been paying attention will recall I did mention it a few posts back) due to the fact that I don’t fancy any scary palace officials trawling through my sordidness if this post pops up on their google alerts…

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