Damned If I Do, Bored If I Don't

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Thursday night I was suppose to meet up for coffee with Jay - the guy whom I met as I was grabbing some free postcards the other day - but I ended up going to see about a room in Redfern instead. Jay, being of a kind disposition, understood my priority, and we rescheduled to Friday night.
So off I went on my bike into the Sydney night, nearly getting killed more than once by rabid and reckless car drivers, despite my lights both front and back. I miraculously managed to arrive somewhat unscathed to the address given, but it really is only a matter of time before I get hit, and I’m not looking forward to it. I hear metal can be rather uncomfortable to bump into at high speed.

I rang the door of the apartment. A guy named Mike opened and invited me to park my bike in the stairwell, an offer I accepted since I’m absolutely paranoid about getting it stolen or broken one way or another. I estimate Dave would be angry if I lost his bike.
We went into the apartment where I met Susan, the other flatmate, and her boyfriend. Susan works with programming, which is of interest as I need someone to make a more advanced webpage than I can create for my company, and from a brief conversation with her on the topic it seems like she’d be able to help me out while improving her resume. Her boyfriend is a hairdresser, which, needless to say, is a most prestigious profession in my eyes. As I stepped into the room, he immediately complimented my do, which I was just smoothing out after a sweaty ride with a helmet on, and when he heard I was sick of it and wanted to chop it off, he offered to cut it. It would be a little too good to be true if I should score both a programmer and a free monthly cut through this setup, so I was on my guard. What's the catch in this Utopian arrangement?
I believe everyone should aim for at least one hairdresser (and one car mechanic, if you own an automobile) in their social circles. Empirically speaking, having a mom who’s a cop can come in handy, too, but not everyone can be so lucky.

Mike and Susan invited me to sit down in the living room, and we started chatting. An hour and a half later, it felt like I already knew them, and I was feeling pretty darn good about their impression of me as well. Given the importance of the situation, I was at my very best behavior, exuding my most charming self, and when making an effort at this I have a lot of confidence in my bewitching abilities. It seemed as if they all liked me well enough, so it was with a hopeful heart I parted with them and headed out for the perilous bike ride home.

Other than the extortionate bond (4 weeks rent up front, + 2 weeks in advance) everything seemed really great about the place. The appliances were nice, and the room was perfect. It wasn’t huge, but it had a balcony, and it would come with a nice double bed, which would be sweet for me as I don’t really feel the urge to spend loads of cash on a bunch of furniture right now, if I can help it. Since a bed is pretty much the only immediate need, it’s nice to be all set with that. Dresser, closet and bed stands can wait, I just need to be able to sleep for now.

I spent Friday helping Brian the Boss sorting through his files in the office, instead of doing the usual order-picking work. It was nice with a change, and I quite like that type of work, as it’s so quiet and still that one can get lost in thoughts, while still getting the necessary stuff done.
Brian drinks his coffee out of a mug that says “Because I’m the Boss, that’s why!”, but I'm pretty sure it's meant as a joke.
There’s only work for me to three days a week when picking orders, but the boss seems keen to keep me on payroll, and says he’ll try to get me some work in customer service if possible. That would be nice, since I’m not sure three 8-hour days will get me through financially very well, and to find a job that wants to hire me Tuesdays and Fridays only seems difficult. I know I could still go back to the sales job, but I’m not too enthused about it, for various reasons, so I’d rather cut down my costs as much as possible and accept two extra days off in the week.

Saturday had big plans in store for me; I was going on a lunch date with James, one of many friends Will left behind when heading out on his mighty trip.
For those of you who follow this blog as religiously as I write it, you might remember that I’ve been hoping to add a flamboyant gay man to my circle of friends, and even though James wouldn’t fit that exact description, he is what we like to call “a gay”. That’s good enough for me.
His sexual preference is not really of interest, of course, other than perhaps for one very simple reason; I don’t have to worry about his aspirations regarding our friendship, which is dandy for little ol’ me.
On top of that perk, James is articulate, smart and has a great sense of humor, and as far as a girl can fall in love with a gay man, I think I have. Fag-hag, that’s me! In short, he makes good company, and I’m a sucker for that, so yay for Yames (as we Swedes like to pronounce his name).
While waiting for him to show up for our date, I got a call from Mikey with the room, confirming what I already suspected; they found me irresistible and want me to become their new flatmate for life. Or at least for a while. This means I finally have a home, can you believe it?
Smooches to Life.

James and I went to the madly praised Indian restaurant Maya on Cleveland St, and indulged in a banquet for two, along with a bottle of wine, courtesy of Sir James himself. We toasted to finally being rid of that horrible Will, and a little bit to my new housing as well. But mostly to being liberated from Will, good riddance!
The abundance of succulent food that we were served during this meal made me glad I had gone for a run earlier that morning, since that would help burn off some of all the delectable calories that I happily gorged on. No one enjoys feeling stuffed for a whole day, but you also don’t want to go for a run when you feel like a blimp, so exercising ahead of the meal really is the only way to do it.
She’s on to every secret of a happy life, you’re thinking to yourself, and it’s true.

Once we were done with our regale, we went to the Surry Hills Festival and met up with Jett and Kevin. It was a really nice event, especially considering it was free, and I enjoyed some Sydney hip hop from the Spit Syndicate. James had to go shortly, but we decided I would head up to Manly later that day for a night out. “I promise I’ll show you a good time, and I won’t try to make you sleep in my bed”, James promised, referring to Paul the Legend. I wasn’t hard to convince as I was in a celebratory mood, and also thought it was about time that I had a proper night out. Seven weeks in Sydney without being drunk even once? It’s simply not acceptable, and thus I committed to a plan to fight sobriety for at least one night.

James left and I went back to where Jett and Kevin had been 20 minutes earlier, but they were no where to be seen now. I called Jett and asked him where he was, but only heard his voice as a garbled mess thanks to the cacophony in the background. “Just text me your location!” I yelled, and hung up. Thirty minutes later I still hadn’t heard back from him, and it was getting a bit nippy now that the sun was setting, so I grabbed my bike and started pedaling back home instead.

I met up with James in Manly after a beautiful ferry ride with a fantastic view of Sydney at night, and we started the evening by sharing a pizza and a salad, as if the food we had had earlier that day wasn’t still causing protuberance in the abdominal region. Then we went on to a rather classy place and had a few vodka-cran, my all time fave among alcoholic beverages, namely because it always seems to be the precursor of an eventful evening (usually caused by my subsiding sense of appropriateness).
But things didn’t really get out of hand this time, probably thanks to the solid foundation of food in our systems, which prevented us from getting very drunk.
We went from one bogan bar to another, dancing to not one but three Spice Girl’s songs, as well as various masterpieces from Aqua and other European musical gems. I was so embarrassed to be Swedish, and laid on my American accent thick, for once.

Towards 3AM we started to get sick of the selection of skanky dance floors where people bumped their rumps to whatever the beat, so we began the nice, quiet walk to James’s house by the beach.
Try as I might, I don’t think I’ll ever get into Vegemite. I force-fed myself some since James insisted it was great for preventing hangovers, but it’s not the least bit enjoyable.

The next morning James walked me to the ferries, where we shared a decadent brownie with chocolate sauce and ice cream while waiting for my boat. In that regard, James really does a good job of replacing Will; when we hung out I constantly found myself eating massive quantities of sugary treats, and my friendship with James seems to offer much of the same, so far.

Back in Stanmore I called up Pete, who had promised to come with me to IKEA, where I would pick up blankets and sheets as well as some Swedish kaviar from the little boutique with products from my homeland.
The best thing about Pete is that he believes that I’m a doctor, who no longer practices medicine because I started to freak out about surrounding myself with sick people every day. It’s a long story how he formed this idea in the first place, but it’s pretty much the result of me majoring in Theatre and him being a somewhat gullible person. The other day he asked me what he should do about his low blood sugar, but since I didn’t know, I circumvented that topic, and then looked it up online later. Armed with answers, I waited for him to ask me again next time we met, and when he did I casually threw out what I had learned from Yahoo. The whole thing is tremendously entertaining for me.

Pete came over and caught me online, looking up the buses to go out to the shopping centre where IKEA had their massive warehouse.
“Don’t worry about that, I know how to get there. We’ll just head up to Parramatta road and catch the bus to Strathfield and then we’ll switch to the other bus there. You don’t need to look it up, it’s easy.”
Outside the rain was pouring down, hard. I had a rain jacket, Pete didn’t, so I figured he must be sure of this, since he would be the only one getting soaked if it turned out he was wrong.
“But let’s at least look up when the next one leaves”, I insisted, to no avail. “They leave all the time, let’s just go.” I don’t like to argue over stupid things like buses, or at all really, so I grabbed my bag, put on my rain jacket, and walked out into the cats and dogs with Pete.

We waited for the first bus for about 25 minutes. At this point I was still doing OK, as there really was no major hurry. It was Sunday, and I was no longer homeless. It was a day for celebration, if anything, and I was even blessed enough to not have a hangover, so I should really just be happy. We got off at Strathfield, like planned, but this is where the day started to bug me.
Sydney Public Transport, or Pubic Transport as I like to call it since it sucks balls, insists on giving you little or no information as to where you catch the buses, or where they’re actually going. It’s an esoteric game where those of us who are not yet initiated suffer a massive waste of time every time we’re daft enough to try to utilize this bus system. After numerous encounters with immense incompetence among the bus drivers, we finally caught the right bus, an hour after having arrived to the bus stop. I was having a really hard time controlling my frustration, and ate 3 snack bars in a row, hoping my blood sugar would enable me to laugh at the whole thing. Mostly, I wanted to make sure I didn’t take out any of my aggravation on Pete, which I’m pretty sure I did anyway.

We finally made it to the shopping centre, and by now we were both starving. Once I was fed and kept a dreamy gaze fixed on the IKEA-sign, life seemed bright again. I was about to buy things for my bed, in my room, at my place. Everything was peachy.
$400 later I had a luxurious duna, two lovely pillows, some fancy sheets, a few baskets for storage, a few candle holders and a red lamp. I wanted a white lamp, but they were out of the kind I wanted, so I settled for the red one, and now my room is referred to as “Amsterdam” by Mikey.
Cool.

Chuck’s Wagon is an Australian country band that was playing in a bar close to where my new home was, and Pete suggested we’d go to check it out after the extended IKEA ordeal. There was no cover charge, and the bar served my favorite ale, so I was easy. It had been a long day with the tormenting bus experience and what not, and it was nice sitting there drinking Amber Ale and listening to live music. As I kept drinking, my judgment slid further and further away, until it was completely out of reach and I consequently thought it was a good idea to write “You’re hot” on a napkin and drop it in front of the lead guitarist during a song. He wasn’t really very hot, but that’s beside the point. Details schmetails.
What matters here is that I was highly amused by doing this, and since chances are the guitarist would find it somewhat entertaining as well, I didn’t see a reason not to indulge in some tipsy idiocy.

Today as I was chatting with two random Aussie guys, they asked me where I was from. Canada, guessed one, and the other one thought America. “Think outside the continent”, I said, and told them to disregard my accent and just guess purely based on my looks. I gave them my most lascivious smile and waited for their answer, which of course was spot on. First guess, ladies and gentlemen! God, it’s good to be Swedish.

I’m a little worried to give you guys my new address, since you flooded my last mailbox with all kinds of loving packages and letters conveying how much you all miss me, but since that concern is derived from a sardonic fantasy nowhere near reality, I’ll go ahead and take my chances.

(Bro, I want that Hartmut t-shirt. Please ship a size small to me.)

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Photos

My bed
It's not an illusion, it really does take up 80% of my room

"You're hot"
...in a kind of dirty trucker 'please don't touch me'-type of way. But still, hot.

Comments

[sandra]

hiyah
I hope you don't mind if I take your address and use it for subscribing to all the snail-mail-spam there is ;) No, seriously, I'm gonna use it, I promise! Cheers for you for finding a good home! I hope everything stays peachy! If I ever make it to Sydney (in time) we most definitely have to meet! All the best!

[annis]

It would be nothing short of confusing if the only package I actually receive is from someone I have never met before. Still, I'm all for it! :) Keep us posted on the job and sponsorship.