I Got More And More To Do, I Got Less And Less To Prove

The anticipated perks from being chummy with the regulars are finally starting to roll in, and all I can say is chi-ching! One favorite regular moved to Melbourne last week, but first he held a going-away party at the Shakespeare Hotel. The party took place on Wednesday night, and because he mentioned that there would be an open bar I had no choice but to accept his invitation. When walking the three blocks to the pub in question I ran into no less than 5 regulars, and when I arrived I already knew essentially everyone, or at least their coffees. After many drinks and a bit of food we all went down to a theatre to catch the end of a show, and then we joined the cast as they celebrated their last performance. Theatre people sure know how to party, midweek and all, but after heaps of free food in conjunction with even more free drinks, I shared a cab back to Surry Hills around 1 AM. When work starts at 7.30 in the morning, the party simply can’t go on all night, lest I’ll be a mess at work.
The next day Glen, my new theatre hook-up, presented me with a free ticket to a show at the Fitz that same night, and I think I can say that I well and truly have my foot in with the theatre crowd now. The show was great, and Glen promised more freebies. In return I promised to keep accepting them, gracious as I am.

When you have debts to your mom, your ex and a Swedish bank, it’s kind of hard to spend money frivolously without a bit of a guilt-trip. I wanted to get a new pair of shoes, so in order to circumnavigate the culpability of irresponsibly shopping items that aren’t absolutely necessary, I took another extra shift on Saturday. Just like two weeks ago, this also served the purpose of preventing drunken activities on Friday night. Instead of going out to get plastered, I shuffled down to the Surry Hotel in track pants and a hoody and played $2-pool with Will, and afterwards we capped off the night by watching “From Dusk ‘til Dawn”, all in sobriety.
After work on Saturday morning I biked down to the city and walked in to Hype, happy as a clam about my imminent purchase. I had my eye set on a pair of Chuck’s; black monochrome canvas hi-top, simple and versatile, and also; this would be a pair of shoes I could work in without having to worry about soiling. Black is the new black, or maybe it’s still the old black. Either way it’s a forgiving color.
I asked to please try on a 7.5, and the mega-trendy dude behind the counter kindly informed me that Australia doesn’t do half sizes. “Do you want me to fetch you a 7 or an 8 instead?” he asked, as if I was about to pay $80 for the wrong size. None of that madness for me, thank you very much. Instead I went home and ordered the shoes online from the States. Apparently this is how I should shop shoes from now on; the exact same shoe costs $42 from Berkshoes.com, and the international shipping only costs an additional $20, which means my total lands on $62. In other words I’m saving $18 by having them shipped from another continent, and I get my actual size.
Team America saves the day once again.

I find life to be far more eventful when you proactively create promising opportunities for fun things to take place, instead of submissively wait around for these fun things to find you, and I do my best to promote circumstances in which Fun might want to hang out. One example of recently exercising this maxim could be me inviting myself to a dinner party with one of my favorite customers; gay Sam.
Another example took place on Friday, when I made a ballsy move on the Greek cutie George who’s been flirting a fair bit with me lately.
“When you eventually come around to asking me out to dinner, George, will it be at your place or will we be going out?” I asked.
George kept a straight face when responding, for which I fell in love with him a little bit, and said that it would definitely be at his place. I asked if he’d be cooking Greek food for me, and he just answered “Of course”.
Alrighty then.

Being the conniving bitch I sometimes am, I have devised an evil scheme to convince Glenn’s friends that he is in fact gay. My plan is quite brilliant in its simplicity; they just need to find some incontestable proof at his house, and as you may have guessed, I decided it is my responsibility to provide it.
When heading over to his place to hang out on Saturday night, I first stopped in at an adult store and picked up a gay porn. I had to pay $25 for this part of the plan, but when I walked out of there - equipped with 5 hours of “Raw X-Men; Man Desire” - I knew it would be worth it in the end.
On Sunday morning Glenn took off to coach footy as always, and I stayed in bed until he had left, at which point I leapt up to plant Gay Evidence Material A in his DVD-shelf. I took out the American Beauty disc from its cover and replaced it with my clandestine addition to Glenn's household, a gift which he hopefully won’t be the first one to find.
Step two in this plan is to meet his friends during some sort of gathering and carefully approach the topic of Glenn’s homo-ness. When someone asks why I think he’s gay, I’ll give one or two vague reasons, and then casually add “…and the gay porn, I guess”. This final comment is sure to spur some interest. Glenn denying the whole thing is part of the plan, as this is the reaction they would expect from him if he were indeed a closet gay, and the DVD actually was his. Ideally I’ll lean over to one of the boys and in a low voice I’ll confide to him inside which DVD-cover he can find the proof for himself. If all goes well he will check next time he’s at Glenn’s place, and then my work will have been done.
Oh, the joy! I marvel at my own wickedness, and I can barely wait for the gratification of this carefully designed plan. Even if Glenn somehow ends up finding it before his friends, it will be worth it. If this happens, I can fully expect a text saying something like:
“Hey tiger… you wouldn’t happen to know anything about how 5 hours of intense gay porn found its way to my dvd-collection, would ya?”
These are the kind of things I live for.

Yesterday, while focusing hard on frothing milk just right for a cappuccino, Kit asked me if I knew who Cate Blanchett is. “Of course I do”, I mumbled without looking up from the milk jug, but he nudged me and pointed at the back of a woman in black sitting by one of the tables.
“It’s her”, he whispered. I didn’t believe him, but later on I saw that he was right; Cate effing Blanchett was sitting in our coffee shop. I thought that was kind of cool, but my workmate Emily got so ecstatic she nearly had a breakdown. There were tears of pure adoration streaming down her cheeks, and when Cate finally got up and left, Emily sprinted after her to ask for an autograph.
I’ve never wanted to be famous. Luckily there’s no impending risk of this ever happening against my will, but I frankly can’t imagine being happy with people going ga-ga over my mere presence wherever I go. Sure, the money that's usually associated with fame would be nice to have, but I honestly think I value my anonymity higher than wealth. It’s good to be able to blend in with the masses, to be part of the every day crowd. Fame seems stressful, and I’m not a fan of stress.

Speaking of money; going to the chiropractor twice a week while trying to pay off my debts and still provide a decent life with enough food is a bit challenging when you work in a coffee shop. In short, I don’t have a lot of money, so I’m doing what any responsible adult would do;
I’m selling myself on eBay.
More specifically, the item for sale is a dinner date with me, and the bid money will pay for this dinner, thus acting as an incentive for bidders to be more generous; in the end the winner is paying for me to treat him/her/undecided to dinner, so the bidder can fully control how fancy that dinner will be.
If you’re a steady reader, you might be suspecting that Will is somehow involved in this silly tomfoolery, and you’re right; this is one of our Challenges. Another one is for me to wear the ridiculous home-made Minnie Mouse-sweater in public of which a picture is attached. I’m hoping I won’t be asked to combine these two challenges by wearing Minnie on my imminent dinner date, as that would be a particularly malicious thing to demand. Cruelty is only fun when I’m subjecting someone else to it; put me on the other side of the spectrum and the best of pranks quickly lose all their charm.

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