hello my name is...

Hello, my name is.

Mochachild. Mocha as in the chocolate coffee, child as in not quite an adult yet. When I was little I always wished I had the kind of name you could easily modify. Daniel across the road got to be dan or danny, Kiesha became K. Matthew would only answer to Matt, even my dad's name shortened to Si by my nan, but Sara, Sara could never be anything other than Sara. And I soon gave up on ever having a nickname. And then one summer, freshman year, it came. I was at a theatre festival. I hung out with a bunch of kids who were from everywhere. The inevitable where you from question came up. And I'd had my fair ammount of drama in high school from being mixed race, not from my friends of course, but there were incidents of sorts, particularly in my first week where no one knew where to place me, initially passing amongst some of the latinas, and getting some love from the black girls, until my white father drove me into school one day and I remember all those faces pressed against the windows of those yellow school busses staring at me and my english dad with some confusion. The fact most of my friends were white (I had come from a predominantly white elementary school) and was probably given to dressing kind of indie at the time, certainly didnt;' help.

where was I from... well my mum, and then my dad. And you see..

my new group of friends at this theatre camp, mostly from the south i'd add, regarded this information with warm interest. And I remember one dark haired blue eyed boy smiling, and saying ' aw yeah girl I hear you, its like you're not black or white, you're like.....mocha with a bit of cream on the side” and the rest of them smiled and laughed and so did I.  the name mocha stuck. These kids also kept referring to me as “child”, which was partly a southern thing, and partly due to the fact I was so much younger than the rest of them. When we said our goodbyes at the end of the week, all cards, and tshirts and whatever else could be signed were adressed to me as “the mochachild” I liked it. I took It back to dc with me.

Years later I seem to recall those I dated liking the name. I remember being addressed as mocha fondly. Then there were all those raves me and my girls went to. We had to buy tickets for the big parties well in advance. We always trusted my friend ann to hold on to these precious tickets before the party happened, and so she made a ritual of illustrating the envelope they were kept in with cartoon renditions of her, me and my friend lauren. These cartoon alter egos of ourselves had nicknames of course, and so a series of illustrations were born of the raver cartoon version of myself -mochachild. I think many of the mix tapes I made then(electronic and hip hop usually) I also labeled   “mixed by the mochachild”. When I began making short films my production company was “mochachild  productions” (the closing credits always ended with a drumroll and “this has been a mochachild production”). And then myspace came and it was useful once again to have a nickname. And as each online manifestation occurred, flickr, twitter, lastfm or whatever. The  mochachild moniker made its face shown again and again. 

In the early days of the internet there weren't so many sara quins online. (Most adding h's and extra n's where they didn't belong}. And then those twin rockers sara and tegan quin arrived. And suddenly googling my name would never bring anyone to me. (When the other sara quin first joined myspace I think I may have messaged her as the only other sara quin, not suprisingly she never responded. My co-workers did find it funny however to find quotes online from excited fans saying things like “OMG I can't BELIEVE I saw Sara Quin yesterday!!! )  And so I thought it was time to claim my nickname. It was unique, it had been given to me, it was mine. I set about stamping it out on whatever virtual turf I could. . At one point even stupidly using it as my name on an online dating site (meaning that any stranger on the site  with even a glimmer of interest could google and find far more info about me elsewhere than i'd ever care to share. This led to some not so funny and fairly intense interactions.. but I digress)

It had become time when people started buying domains they may or may not use, just in case. I thought nothing of it. For some time any online references to Mochachild all referred to me. When it became common to trade websites rather than phone numbers I remember often drily saying,   I don't see the point in having a website, if you want to find out more about me just google mochachild.  Eventually this google search also led to three other people. A 29 year old gay boy bear chaser (as in he fancies men that are big and hairy) in trenton new jersey, on a couple bear/chubbie chasing sites. , a girl on some afro hair site, another girl on some afro-american wedding forum. But as I stopped paying attention to the matter, another mochachild was staking her claim on the information superhighway. ..

Sometime last year I realised I was taking the blog more seriously. I thought about buying mochachild.com. I looked it up and saw it was taken... taken? Would the bear chaser find it worthwhile to set up his own site? Or the girl who had asked about natural or permed hair on her wedding? What could it be for? Months passed and it was empty. And then finally the site appeared.
Who was my alter ego? Who would lost friends and exes stumble on when looking for me?
It was a site for hand made cards...

My only consolation to having my moniker “taken” was that there were so many entries online related to me that this christian thirty something mother of three was probably less than enthused about people searching for her company and coming across my music or pictures, or blogs about being queer, or having one big drunken  night out after another, in one city after another. I was the queer heathen online other that she never wanted or asked for, or more crucially, failed to search for before spending the money on domains and hosting space only to realise I existed.

And I know she must be a little bit concerned about the fact ,because the last time I googled mochachild there were a whole number of sites she has recently tagged, breathlessly directing attention to her site in any way she can.  Meanwhile once again i've decided I would like to buy a domain for this blog and all the ideas i've had thus far have not inspired excitement from most. Its much harder naming a site than one would think. All ideas I had seem to either have connotations I don't mean to suggest, or are too long, or just aren't intriguing enough.  Thats why one's own name is generally the best way forward. So considering i've held the nickname since 1993 I think I have a solution. I'm thinking I buy the domain for

www.theRealMochachild.com   

Is that just b*tchy? Or amusing? Your comments are most welcome on the matter...

on the wrong side of the camera (again)

my friend lucas has just finished editing the video he shot for his band anhela. considering we shot it on a sunday morning after i hadn't had so much sleep (it was one of those panoram bar/ berghain/ bar 25 type weekends) my litte cameo worked out ok. i also really like how he plays with split screens/ windows. if only i could finish editing the online doc so quickly..
six in the morning

previous personas and alter egos

being a blogger/ writing a blog is a funny thing. you can never be sure of who is reading and how often.since coming to berlin i feel like this blog has evolved and become more regular, and it is certainly garnering more hits than ever before (who are you i wonder? the handful of people who admit they read this can't account for all the hits i'm getting...) i've found out that its safe to assume when you think someone you know is reading, they're probably not, and when it wouldnt' occur to you someone woudl read it , they read it regularly. this is a strange thing as a writer. i've said before it feels a little like performing blind folded, you know there is an audience but you can never be sure of who that audience is, which is great in that it frees you up, but strange because for all you know you could be performing to an empty space.

those of you who read this on myspace may not realise it also exists at http://mochachild.blogs.friendster.com/ . and i'm now about to buy a domain name and make it more of a proper thing, so i spent the better part of yesterday cleaning up the archives a little and reorganizing. I've been writing this for three years now. the themes looking back have been and continue to be., my relationship with cities, my intrigue with strangers, my obsession about technology and music, my aggrivations working in media, my rising neurosis about what maturity means and if i've hit it yet, a lot of stories about big adventurous nights out, and the odd ranty quasi-political post. but the strangest thing about going through the old posts was encountering the person i'm so far away from now. for example the conviction in which i utterd so many statements that i have now totally contradicted. such as...

" . I no longer enjoy being in crowded places unless it’s a gig, or a party with a lot of people I know. I don’t feel the need to go to the illegal bar, after the afterhours, after the after party. "

or

"coming back to this big old question of why, and the development of who i am, its abundantly clear to me that my interest and desire in women completely and totally overrides any interest i have in men. "

or

"But maybe that background is largely why I’m too passionate about this city to take it for granted. I chose
London. I’ve found a life partner in her. And when you’ve found the one, you stop looking elsewhere."

and then there are glimpses of a life that is now so totally ailen to me...

"wrestling? In our living room? For? Money?
Only wrestling? When we would all be working?"

//////////

"Right then all I wanted was to smash my fist kung-fu style through the bullet-proof glass, grab her wrist, yank her towards me sharply, and say“LISTEN BITCH JUST GIVE ME BACK MY FUCKING SUNGLASSES OR ELSE YOU MIGHT NOT BE HERE WHEN ‘CAROL’ COMES BACK!!!!!!”"

/////////
"the party was on a moored boat on the thames. Apparently owned by a film director. A dark wood panelled 1930’s bachelor pad with a massive living room, bookended by a spacious bed, and a vintage claw footed bathtub ) As I walked past a myriad of black dresses, unveiling the copper sheen under my leopard jacket was very very satisfying. the setting was made even more cinematic by all of the couples dancing intricate swing dancing steps to a scratchy sounding jazz track"
////////////

" somehow my caipirina morphed into a bellini and then the manager was giving us shots. I began to resent my heels and pencil skirt for restricting my movement,and started wishing I could teleport, for a quick way home. But I was being escorted to another bar, my arm loosely threaded in my friend’s.the bar was a gorgeous haven of antiques and expensive liquers. Everything felt "
////////////

"SIXTY EUROS!!!??" my friend exclaimed. I hoped she wasn't back on the topic of the shoes. while i had been thinking about sex workers my friend had found the write up for the supper club in our time out amsterdam guide. apparently there was only a set menu available, and it cost sixty euros." i think this is roughly forty pounds. now i admit this is a little on the pricy side, but living in one of the most expensive cities in the world makes you less fussed about money when traveling. every friend i knew who had been to amsterdam had always gone on about the supper club. i had to go. "
............/////////////

"8:40 walk to bus stop
9:15 wake up on bus to realise you are comfortably sleeping on random guy shoulder who gratefully finds it amusing/cute
9:30 stumble out of Italian café, guzzling triple shot latte'.
9:45 begin to watch entire series of boys action adventure animation cartoon in effort to make script match final edit. And they pay me for this.. really
1:00 meet father for lunch and ramble about state of labour party and abundance of 9-11 docs.
2:15 before getting back into the wonderful world of animation work, fire off frustrated email to manager of French hip hop band for not being terribly communicative with regards to film music festival."

and so on and so on. and it doesn't bother me that i can't relate to those older posts. because they were true to their moment. it does make me wonder a little though, in a few years time, what statements will i have made in this era of my life, that will mystify me then...

p.s. if you want to check out any of the posts i've excerpted from here, check out the archives here most of the posts i've used are in one of the following categories.
choose your own adventure
am i a grown up yet?
the l word
there are far worse ways to make a living

a month away from my thirtieth birthday

yesterday: august 23rd, 2008...
First thing in the morning , I urge a beautiful greek girl I barely know, to finish unfinished business with a finnish boy in a distant german town/ another beautiful greek friend flies to brussels to get acquainted with a white kitten she will bring back to berlin with her. / My best friend rings me from israel to say she will do all she can, to visit me for my birthday (unfortunately it falls in the middle of some jewish holidays so tickets are silly expensive)

A friend and I are unknowingly part of the commentary of a berlin canal boat tour. (Another friend who had been on the boat with his mum, tells us later the guide had gestured our way and said. See those two young ladies enjoy breakfast, a little late perhaps). /The neighbors of my work space bring street theatre to alexander platz / my brunch date muses with me that it would be so nice if she had a bike as well, only to have a fairly dodgy guy try to sell us one five minutes later, for twenty euros (she decides against it and buys a gold dress instead)

a friend from london rings randomly, saying he too is now considering a move to berlin. /A kind of ex of sorts who had been needlessly sharp recently, emails to admit that he's seriously down, and apologises for taking it out on me. / my editing software unceremoniously crashes just as I have the last ten tapes left to digitise. / Two of my favourite partners in crime resist my invitations to come out at night, staying in instead (and write maybe, like I could be doing)/ Two friends, newly coupled, navigate what it means to be out as a pair

as the night crosses over to early morning, I am progressively less convinced as to why I came out, more tired, more aware of the money I spend, and more and more guilty about not crossing town to go to a party to meet a good friends's girlfriend. And then after a boat party I freeze at, and an illegal cellar party i'm too tired to properly enjoy, I come home. Feeling far too sober for saturday night, and definitely less than rock and roll.

now that I have something like a normal schedule, where I work eitght to ten hours a day every day and do my best not to have late night after night. What felt like my first real weekend" in ages seemed to leave a lot to be desired..

until today...., when i walked in my bright pink raincoat in a berliner monsoon to my studio. after an hour of tidying up my office and my computer desktop there is a knock on the door. my new friend felix has not only finished the german subtitles of the notbar doc, he has encoded it onto dvd for me. and seeing this film finally come to a close is by far the coolest thing to happen all weekend. and when i say that i mean right now it has totally made my week.

maybe its time for me to start redefining what makes a good weekend...

after these messages we'll be right back.

wrong place/wrong time/wrong guy

I'm not supposed to be here.
Or rather
I feel like I shouldn't be here.
yes it was me
who agreed to meet you here.
But right now,
what I'm thinking is.
I'm meant to be out
with another guy.

In this moment
I 'm completely distracted
but for better or worse
i'm a good enough actress
I'm asking all the right questions
I'm perfectly sure
i've convinced you i'm interested
meanwhile
i'm secretly rehearsing my exit line

and its not that
there's anything wrong
with anything you're saying
and its not that
I find any fault
with the way you're behaving
perhaps its just unfortunate that
on the day we chose to meet
this random text arrived....

from another boy
who had been terribly hard to get a hold of
who I had been terribly interested
in a repeat meeting of
who'd been so terribly busy
in the last few months
and I must admit
I was terribly frustrated
with how to reply

he wrote that
he'd very much like to see me
because he wouldn't have
very much time in town you see
and it had been so very long ago
since he'd met me
so perhaps
if he was very lucky
i'd be very kind to have
a drink with him tonight.

and when I read it
for an hour I deliberated
considering cancelling the plans
we'd created
but somehow I just couldn't do it
knowing I'd feel guilty
on the rare chance you questioned
"why?"

and so here I sit sipping my drink
nodding and smiling when appropiate
trying to make the most of it
when actually
honestly
sincerely
truly
there's one thought in my head only

right about now
i'm supposed to be
with another
guy...

meine neue freundin

so after nearly six months here, a german girl finally asked me to have dinner with her. it was a charming invitation that i couldn't decline, the only problem being she's six years old. she's the daughter of the one of the people who work in the workspace i share.

dinner was nice, she said my accent needs work, and my german definitely needs improving, but to temper that she also gave me a very nice oriental fan, and told me she thought i was pretty (her dad better watch her, gosh knows what she'll be like at sixteen)

after dinner i left to go back to digitising. she caught me smoking, and told me i was a bad girl, but she smiled as she said it. i asked her if she was my new friend. and she answered "why?" when i said "why not" she just rolled her eyes at me and started singing some amy winehouse song.

gosh, girls can be harsh

dear stockholm....

thank you for being so open and friendly and nice to look at and easy to get around. forgive me for getting quite so drunk, maybe it had something to with not being used to drinking so early. thank you for the food, and the scenery, and the ferry trip, and the particles of randomness, and the endless amount of perfectly composed cool design, the buildings, the interiors, the clothes, the furniture. thank you for being welcoming to me. and though id did complain of the seductive prowess you had with my bank balance, thank you for offering so much i wanted to bring back with me in the first place.

it was nice to meet you, really. it was nice to get to know you and get an idea of what brought people to you. i'm sorry if i caused you any offense at any point, the people who are with you kept asking what i thought of you, what i made of you? what did i girl who had lived by dc and briefly in new york, and for ages in london and now berlin, what did i think of you, what would i say to my friends about you on your return? and maybe i said the wrong things then, because you're so very different from berlin, and had i visited you from london what i said, what i felt being with you would have been very different indeed.

i think our first time will be our last time, but don't take it the wrong way. because what i'm left with, what i've really taken from this trip is how much i like your people, and it means a lot to me to now feel like by meeting you, i can know them that little bit better. take it easy lady. it was fun.

x s.

thisisnot-your average holiday

It was two a.m this morning . i am sitting in this amazing kitchen , street light pouring from the busy intersection through chinese roller blinds. i..m sitting with an attractive young swedish couple, halfdressed, fresh from bed, who i had never met before ten minutes ago. it was then that i had arrived somewhat dramatically, somewhat randomly, very much without a place to sleep, and more than a little shell shocked.

the flat i..d found myself in was not really a flat, or at least its not supposed to be. it used to be a toll house or a customs house or something, and is now technically a work space but is kind of sort of being lived in. the day before my late night flight yesterday had been silly stressfull, and i had been so tired on the eighty minute coach ride from the airport when i arrived, that when i woke up between naps, i was sure i was still on the plane. at one a.m. , one hour before arriving in this strange but wonderful flat, i had found myself freezing in my berlin summer clothes in a bus station in the middle of stockholm, feeling a bit like a kid whose parent doesn..t show, to pick them up from school. add to the drama that i stood alone in this open bus station, with no money, no credit on my phone, no idea where my friends lived and no sign of either of my friends.

but lets go back to where my story began...
The dark haired female across from me offered me a marlboro menthol. her and her boyfriend asked me about the friends i was *meant* to be visiting. could something have happened? why were they not answering their phone? What could have caused them to not show up to the central bus station where they knew i was arriving at 1am, when they knew i knew no one else in stockholm, had never been to the city before, and crucially had no where else to stay? and how did i know this couple i was in stockholm to see? and what had they been doing in london_?

and then something about the surrealness of the situation made me laugh. and i lit my ciggarette, inhaled deeply and said...

"well if i tell you the story of how i know the couple i..m supposed to be visiting, you..ll probably not be so suprised at my situation, in fact now that i think about it, i..m not either..

the couple that were "not living" .in their .."workspace.". were intrigued, and asked me question after question until i had told the whole story of this couple i met in london, from stockholm, who had opposed the smoking ban through creating a gallery-bar, and subsequentally, the film i had made about the bar , and how i had planned this trip to stockhom to show the film to them.

and then i got a text message... my favourite fabulous chaotic couple had finally managed to text my phone after my network playing up, they had started drinking early, decided to take a power nap and had woken up not long ago. please could i call them. here was there address, where was i? they were really sorry, they were up for taking me on the big night out we had all been so looking forward to? tired i said i would meet them tomorrow. or rather my new best friend and guardian angel samantha arranged with them where they should meet me tomorrow. and getting off the phone with them, told me i was very welcome to stay for the rest of my four days in stockholm and in fact, as she was interested in meeting them, i could invite them to the flat for dinner this friday. and so in true notbar chaos fashion, my introduction to sweden had begun..

ok, more than a little poetic license has been taken. I should tell you now that the moment andreas and kiki woke up and saw a litany of increasingly panicked messages and missed calls, they were ready with a mission to scour the hostels and bars near the bus station. and that they were very worried and then extremely relieved to finally hear from me. i should also tell you now that the lovely couple i am staying with, are friends of my friend martin. and the martin had been kind and concerned enough to tell them i was going to be in stockholm and may at some point need a place to stay. it is also extremely lucky that by total coincidence this martin happened also to be flying on the same flight as me to sweden yesterday. this is very lucky, because without him i..m really not sure what i would have done when i found myself suddenly homeless in another city. it may have been an interesting new life experience but i..m happy without it.

the more our world goes global, the more our generation goes global, the more the network of friends of friend builds and creates a web of common experiences in the cities we move in-through and settle. the more we all have these experiences, the more open we get and the more fluid we become.

i am now sitting in the flat of the strangers i met yesterday, who are friends of a friend i met sitting by himself outside a bar in berlin, and remembering what that had been like i started talking to him. i am now in a city i had never considered visiting until meeting kiki and andreas last year, who i met because i had decided to take a different shortcut one day in london to brick lane, and andreas had walked out and invited me and my friends to come in and smoke. i´m on holiday from a city i never thought i would move to, because i thought learning another language would be too hard, here, understanding the menu on this swedish interface because it looks like the german words that i know,

i am more in love with randomness than ever before...

stream of conciousness

five months ago I ran away from the big smoke to a town that had already been burnt down. after four months there the words *artist* and *project*  became loaded terms for me. to this day, whenever someeone asks me why i moved there, i have a different answer.

i  like writing because writing is like talking. and i like talking but only to some people.if you're reading this, you are probably one of those people. i'm often surrounded by guys, but don't get the wrong idea, they're my friends. i sometimes walk hand in hand with girls, but don't get the wrong idea, they're my friends.

my mum always told me not to talk to strangers, somehow this made me powerfully drawn to them.

i'm  head over heels in love with berlin. we're having a trial seperation period at the moment. i thought she wouldn't care but much to my suprise,  she cried the day i left. so where am i now?

i'm walking about in polka dot wellies in the hundred acre wood . i was curious to hook up with christopher robin but i can't seem to find him. the animals aren't about either, but then again it is raining...

its soooo not berlin.

wilkommen, wie gehtes, how are you? what brought you here?

ake a seat, pour yourself a drink of your choice and listen... they say you meet someone for a reason a season or a lifetime. back in the day, fresh out of film school, i worked in a bookshop. and i had a crush on a girl who worked in the neighboring shop. one day a man came into her shop. this man was a director, and this man fancied her. and in true postmodern cinderella style he suggested that maybe she should stop working at this shop and work for him instead. and so she did. but the twist of the story is, he underestimated my friend. she resisted his advances and soon proved to him that she was far more important as an assistant, than a random fling. and so she advanced in her career and his interest shape shifted to professional respect. another friend told me a story recently, about how once as a teenager she had been out walking a friends dog. not being a dog person she was suprised at how the dog made strangers come up and interact with her. and then there was one man who was really taken with the dog ) and told my friend how having a pet was like having a partner. and that you had to really watch over and take care of that partner. he went on to say that in each relationship we have we prepare the person we are with for the next person they will be with. my friend replied, well whats the point of preparing them for someone else? and he smiled and said because someone else is preparing someone for you. the thing is when you encounter someone, and you engage with them, i mean really engage with them, your world changes a little. i'm always fascinated with the journey i make and continue to make with others. sometimes when i think about how i have met someone, the way we are now with one another couldn't be further from the way we began .sometimes there are people who seemed to resonate so strongly with me at one point, that now i would struggle to have small talk with. you never know. all i know is that when you open a door to someone, they in turn open a door to you. and the trip you take through those doors is never a waste of time.