See Squared

Last Friday night was the annual West Coast Eagles Club Champion Awards 2013. It was my third, & although I have an odd superstition & voodooistic love for the number three, I was pretty blah about the whole thing really. The first year I attended was terrifying. A news crew? What the fuck? I very literally tried to run away, to no avail. Then I ended up quite drunk in a bath tub eating mini bar chips & crying by the end of the night. The second year, we got a limo & I wore a sparkly dress & it was a fun night apart from my strappy so-in-but-fucking-worst-trend-ever stilettos ripping my feet to shreds. This year, well, I’ll start at the beginning. You may know someone who has attended an AFL club Best & Fairest awards night. You may have even been to one yourself. This is what my experience was like this year.

Three dresses. Yep. Three. I bought them all with my own money (THE ABSURDITY?! Aren’t WAGs meant to know, like, everyone whose anyone?). I know no one. Not one single person with sweet hook ups. Sigh. So this year I went through three dresses before I found one I was comfortable wearing. I’m off to a bad start more than a month before the night. The white, ethereal Camilla & Marc dress which is totally reminiscent of what I would love to wear to my own wedding one day has a small problem. Ha, the irony. A small problem. My tits are too small. It looks stupid. I hang it up & leave it there for over a month while I drag my feet as to what to do because really… it’s a beautiful dress.

Then I find this sleek but slutty red dress online. It plunges at the front, it plunges at the back. Just plunging necklines/back lines/bum lines galore. I get back from Bali (I ate three full meals a day, to the point of gagging almost) & eye it off suspiciously. Fuck you, plunges. Or fuck you, delicious Bali food, either way. I put it on & the sexy satin grabs at the tops of my thighs. But not in the way a lover should… The way you grab them with frustration on an especially “fat” day. So maybe I was being really overdramatic. I am a size 8, I’ve got an alright bod. But FEELING pudgy in this dress wasn’t an option. I wanted to feel like a babe. That’s the best part of this annual night; getting dressed up & having heaps of Facebook display picture contenders.

Bec & Bridge come to the rescue. Thanks, girls. It’s semi see-through but I decide if my undies end up a laughing stock, it will blow over the next time the Fremantle Doctor comes through. AKA. the next day.

The winner. Front & back.

So next came the fake tan debate. Do I? Don’t I? Do, I decided. I asked for dark “but not ridiculous”. Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that I liked my fake tan to look like fake tan. I came home & looked at myself. I’ve had enough spray tans in my life to know when one looks slightly off. I instantly regretted the way I had worded what I wanted, as overspray was drying into speckled pools on my shins. Next comes an hour of frantically texting a handful of people asking what the fuck to do?! As if it’s someone else’s problem to deal with instead of mine. I shower once that night, & wake up looking like I never did. Shit. Another shower & a bit of a scrub, & I’m okay. CRISIS AVERTED, THE WORLD CAN GET BACK TO WHAT IT WAS DOING BEFORE MY TAN TRAGEDY.

My luck starts looking up when it’s time for hair & makeup. This is the fun part, when you get to feel like a princess. Ady Orupe from AROUSAL&DESIGN has done my makeup for three years. & holy shit, if I were rich I’d move her in with me. I show her a picture of Cara Delevingne. She doesn’t laugh, thank god. A pretty impossible task to make me look anything like her, but she does my face exactly how I want it. Makeup gods walk the earth ladies & gentlemen, & Ady is one.

Ady. She doesn’t do makeup so much as make your face a piece of her art

This is how much makeup it takes to get me ready

When I moved to Perth, I was pretty worried about how I was going to find a hairdresser (priorities). Queue David Marchesi, from Marchesi Coiffeur in Osborne Park. I’ve never let anyone else do my hair, for good reason. We do a slick pony, & for a few minutes I ask everyone if maybe my ears stick out?! Do I look okay? My head is really round, isn’t it? We decide it’s amazing, David never disappoints. Like, ever.

My regular hair saviour working magic

I’m feeling good. I had found out ALL my accessories did not match my dress about an hour ago, but that’s forgotten. Thank you two year old Diva rip off cuffs (I totally mixed Diva with Alexander Wang. Sacrilegious!). The night goes really quick, & I lament my outfit when I get home. I only wore it for a couple of hours. & the night wasn’t about me anyway, but it was fun to be a babe for the night.

A LOT goes in behind the scenes, even for something as ‘low-key’ (it’s no Brownlow) as the West Coast Eagles Club Champ Awards. Saying I struggled might be a bit of an understatement, thank god for the amazing people who were there to make me look half decent. Lastly, a quick congratulations to every one of the boys at the club. I’m going to throw a really cheesy one out there & say you’re all champs. 2013 wasn’t so great but 2014 is a new year.

Blue Carpet 2013

A lot of people probably know a football player, or if not, his missus. Yet, I am always surprised at the amount of girls still wanting to date an AFL player. Some people also seem to think I live in this mystical land of free things, champagne & pretty people. Well, I just spent a good 30 minutes cleaning up dog turds on my decking because my puppies are really dumb & lazy. I clean up a lot of poo. So on that note, let me tell you why being a WAG is a BAD IDEA. VERY BAD IDEA.

This guy is lucky enough to be able to call me his girlfriend. Ashley Smith of the West Coast Eagles.

It’s not about you.
Ever. I don’t mean sometimes, I mean all the time. Really sick & have no family because you moved interstate to be with the love of your life? (I’m an expert on this shit). Doesn’t matter. Your boyfriend has to play footy & the fact that you feel like you may have died & met the devil himself in a feverish hallucination is beyond insignificant. Can I just reiterate that I am an only child quickly? You may have garnered that fact even if you didn’t previously know. But seriously, it sucks. People ask about your partner all the time. Sometimes even omitting a “so, how are you too?” in the process. I grew up the apple of my family’s eye, & to be ushered to the sidelines both literally & metaphorically can be hard on a girl. The constant reminder that you are just another brick in the wall & your boyfriend is part of an elite group of professionals can kind of suck on those days where you’re up to your tenth blank stare from someone & you just know they’re thinking “who the fuck are you?”.

Footy becomes your life.
Don’t close the browser tab, I’m not insulting your intelligence. Footy becomes your life in a way you never really considered before. Let me elaborate. You’re buying the weekly groceries, & planning what to eat for the week. In a lot of households a “what do you want?” may suffice. Uh uh. Not here. “What day is the game this week? Are you playing AFL or WAFL? Will you even be home for dinner or are you doing a handful of appearances & clinics this week?” is what I need to ask. What day the game is is by far THE most important. Ladies, an AFL player needs to carb load. Even local footy players need to do this, but this is the big league & god forbid you better feed him right lest he have a shitty game & you feel guilty for not fulfilling your WAG duties. On a low carb diet? HA! Think you’ll make two meals & avoid that massive bowl of spaghetti on a weekly basis? I’m laughing. I have tried, & maybe my resolve is especially weak. But, you will be carb loading once a week too, I almost guarantee. & it hurts.

The WAG bit.
I am no Rebecca Judd, CLEARLY. I can best be described as “nobody”. I am about 10 kilos heavier than Mrs. Judd even though she has had a child (HOW?), & my bank account is much lighter (dear god switch these two things around will you, please?). This is probably why my WAG life is so different to what a lot of people imagine. But, I anticipate there are a lot of girls out there who would nod their heads in agreement because only a minority are filthy rich & extremely well-known. The WAG bit is hard when you’re a bit of an unknown straddling the perimeter. The ability to dress fabulously while maintaining you spent no time or effort at all is one that is really hard to master. Three years later & I’m still trying desperately. My role of WAG can be better described as this: a second mother, a lover, a cleaner, a chef, the cheer squad, the therapist, the psychologist, & the fierce lioness who will RIP YOUR HEAD OFF IF I HEAR YOU SAY ANYTHING ABOUT NUMBER 28. You have many, many roles to play. Many more than donning a dress & making your man look amazing at the annual Best & Fairest Awards.

2012 WCE Best & Fairest.

I hope it is obvious that this is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek rendition of my life, & also an attempt to tell you what it’s really like for a lot of the partners of professional athletes. Most of all, what I would like people to understand most is that both people in the relationship of WAG & AFL player work extremely hard. My boyfriend trains roughly 5 times a week, but also with a game on the weekend in front of tens of thousands. & his midweek day off is taken up with various other commitments related to his job. Don’t get me wrong, there are perks. For some a lot more than others. But it is a taxing life. Emotionally, physically, & mentally. Life is hard no matter who you are or what you do, but it is an extremely misunderstood profession.

Ladies, date a tradie. He’ll have a killer bod & can fix anything around the house at your whim.