Life is Short
Say yes to the Universe
I once slept on a balcony in Monaco, just like the one in the picture. I was a country bumpkin from New Zealand, sipping cappuccino in a street-side cafe in Nice, France, when I got talking to a man and he invited me on a sailing regatta. On his sailboat. With others. The following Saturday in Monaco. He said he’d provide accommodation. I went. But that accommodation I found after dinner with the crew, standing in the dark in my black dress, carrying my heels, was in the skipper’s hotel bed. I refused. Actually, I was very annoyed, it was nighttime and I had nowhere else to go and he had been deliberately vague about the sleeping arrangements. Anyway, a stretcher was brought up and I closed those little Venetian doors on him in the hotel room, and lay down on the balcony in my little black dress looking at the stars and the curve of buildings over the gorgeous little street — and I thought, here I am, at this moment, sleeping on a balcony in Monaco.
It had a certain romance to my sensibilities.
You see, in New Zealand a year prior I’d been paid $25K for acting in a commercial. That’s a lot of money. I intended to go overseas but was afraid. I was afraid of going by myself, all alone. I bought a money belt, you know, the kind you wrap around your waist and hide under your shirt because, you know, traveller beware. I knew about…
