I Got A Sweet Tooth Today So You Better Not Cut That Pie

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My financial situation is dire, to say the least. How will you survive when you go back to the States? asked Dave the other Sunday when we were having our usual hangover-brunch, and I found myself sitting there wishing I was armed with a better answer than “I’m not sure”. After putting away money for rent, chiro, acupuncture and all other weekly / bi-weekly / monthly expenses that I’m trying to stay on top of, I’m making my allowance for food and anything else a measly $150 per week. Whatever is left after this division goes into the savings jar, and although it’s not much every week, I reckon something is better than nothing.
My weekly amount of pocket money doesn’t get the average person very far, at least not if he/she is living in an expensive city like Sydney, but thankfully I’ve perfected the art of living off less than nothing. I’m convinced my penny-pinching abilities will get me through the inevitable segment of utter poverty I’m about to enter, and I’m actually not all that phased by what’s waiting. If there’s one thing I got to thoroughly practice during my last relationship it was how to make a monetary deficiency into a fun adventure. And at the end of the day, with friends like mine, there’s no need to fret about something as superfluous as the C to the A to the S to the H. Romnee called me up and said he’s already made cheap plans for us when I get back to the States; we’ll undertake a surf-oriented road trip, and all I can say is saah-weeeeet. Ninja, you’s the bestest!
When hanging up the imaginary phone after our Skype conversation, I was darn pumped about getting to catch up with all the fabulous people I left behind 8 months ago, not to mention hitting up the beach volleyball court again, and I didn’t have one single thought about how broke I’ll be. I guess it's all about shifting one's focus from the problems to the possibilities, from the negatives to the positives, and Romnee sure helped in doing so.

Since I first borrowed Wonga’s board some weeks ago, I used it pretty much every single day. She’s been fine with that seeing how she barely skates at all anymore, but I’ve been feeling bad about hogging it to the point where I think of it as my own, so it was with joy I answered “Hells yeah!” when she asked me if I wanted to buy a board off her mate Louie for $70. Nevermind that this meant living off only $80 for a week; I was so stoked I couldn’t care less about the miniscule amounts of food I would now be able to afford for my gaping cupboard.
To not worry any of you (primarily Mom), I should clarify that since I eat my main meals at the coffee shop I don’t really need much money for groceries at all. Last week I got by just with my daily $5-6 tips, which really is quite impressive. During work hours I gorge on luxurious wraps (filled with pesto, avocado, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, baby spinach, olives etc), and perhaps I choose to wash it down with a freshly squeezed fruit and/or vegetable juice. Or maybe I’ll have Eggs Florentine, or an omelet, or a smoothie. In short, I can eat whatever I fancy. As for my shelf in the kitchen at home, my staples rarely deviate from the following list; Weet-Bix, crispbread, canned tuna, protein shake powder, soymilk, ingredients for making hummus and a box of green tea. In the fridge there’s sometimes the occasional pack of hi-protein tofu and in the freezer I may store frozen vegetarian dumplings. In the end, this doesn’t cost me much per week, and I still eat good, nutritious food every day. So don’t worry, Mom. Despite no money I eat like a king.

A while back I tried to initiate a weekly get-together with Will and Dave, and suggested the Thursday meal-deal at the Fitz. We went once, had a great time, and then never went again. But a few weeks ago, Dave and I joined G at a pub called Friend In Hand, located in Glebe, which is just 10 minutes by board from my gym. G’s mate Liam arranges a stand-up comedy night there every Thursday, and for a measly $10 you get to enjoy around 5-7 comedians, some of them big names. The first night we went we were entertained by a good line of jokers, and as the final act we saw none other than John Moloney, supposedly one of Britain’s finest comedians. I mean, not that I’ve ever heard of him before, but he was hilarious, so I’ll believe it.
The next time the whack trio Axis of Awesome among others helped keeping our abdominal muscles activated, and Dave and I vowed to attend every Thursday from then on. Finally a weekly date with my platonic boyfriend!

“Would you want me to tell you if a customer is interested in you?” asked Kit last week. “No”, was my instant reply, soon modified by the addition “Unless they’re hot”, followed by “Why? Who’s interested in me?”. But now Kit had decided his conscience prevented him from revealing any more information, claiming he had promised this mystery admirer to not tell. For those of you who know me well, you know this is a mild form of torture. “Give me a clue”, I insisted, but Kit said he was a man of his word and could not possibly pass on what he knew. He did blurt out that the guy makes $1,000/day on average, and is only about 2 inches taller than Kit, which means he’s still a little, little man, but that was as much information he was willing to convey. When I didn’t get any further with Kit, I instead started working on Ming, who is easier to manipulate, and although it took a little over a week, I finally received a puzzle that soon led me to the name of the customer. Ming scribbled down “KBSPO” on a piece of paper and told me he had now done all he could for me. I consider myself a person of at least average intelligence, so it’s with great shame I admit that it took me two days to solve it. Once I figured out that the letters needed to be pushed back on step in the alphabet, I had the name ‘Jason’; I knew exactly who it was, and that I wasn’t interested. Oh well, at least I was given a juicy mystery for a week.

Right before I realized how grim my financial state is going to become, I booked a ticket to Melbourne, frivolously planning nights out in funky clubs, meals in chic restaurants, and hung-over shopping in luxurious lingerie boutiques. But as it were, me and my beloved board left Sydney on Saturday morning with $250 in my AstroBoy wallet, hoping it would be enough for the two nights I was to spend away from home.
Like always after a long work week I was utterly sleep-deprived, so I spent most of the hour-long flight half asleep. Possessing the amazing ability to sleep most anywhere at most anytime, I would’ve been snoozing for real if it hadn’t been for the screaming infants and loud, obnoxious kids that were situated on all flanks of me, and it was with fatigued bitterness and a heavily amplified aversion to kids that I set foot on Melbournian soil. But, once I got away from the horrendous little children my spirits were instantaneously raised and I could fully appreciate the weather Melbourne had arranged for my arrival; 29 degrees Celsius by 10 am made the otherwise rather chilly city sing with joy, and it felt like every single person I saw was in a state of pure bliss.

I wandered around trying to locate the nearest café neighborhood by pure instinct, and was pleased to come upon Degraves Street, a narrow laneway filled with coffee shops and bars. I picked the first café that looked decent and ordered poached eggs on toast. I refrained from coffee, since the plan was to find a park and have a little siesta after my breakkie. Once I had finished my meal, however, I felt a bit more energetic, and decided to go straight to my host’s house to unload my backpack before finding a park to sleep in. Although small, my backpack weighed too much to comfortably ride my board with, and it was frustrating to not be able to take advantage of the smooth blocks of pavement in this concrete haven.
Equipped with the street address of my host, I took the train to the nearest station, which was South Yarra. Once there I walked in to a store and asked for Nicholson Street, received very exact directions, and soon found myself knocking on the door of my home for the following two nights. My host Alex opened the door, squinting at the sunlight, excusing his bathrobe-clad self with references to the massive intake of alcohol and pills the previous night. I said I just needed to unload, and that he could go straight back to bed, from which his boyfriend Anthony uttered a feeble “hi”, but Alex said he might as well get up and get to the market before they closed.
I went with him, and after having sampled every single plate of nuts, dried fruit, bread, dips and whatever else was offered for free, I parted with Alex and skated off towards the nearest park for a snooze. The weather was perfect for a noon-nap in the shade, so as soon as I laid down under a big tree with my sweater as a pillow and my cell phone on silent, I fell into a blissful sleep. They say the best things in life are free, and there certainly is something exceptionally luxurious about sleeping in the grass in the middle of a sunny day.
When I woke up about an hour later I lounged under the tree for just a bit longer, as if to recover from my nap, and once I was fully awake I cheerfully realized that I was in Melbourne, it was a beautiful day, and I now got to lavishly fill it with whatever I felt like. The first think I felt like was nutrition, so I grabbed my darling board and left the park in search of a cheap meal.

I skated around the South Yarra area, and found that this neighborhood wasn’t quite my cup of tea. In my comfy, tom-boyish, dirt-cheap attire I stood out like dog balls; here everyone was either ridiculously loaded, or ridiculously skilled at looking loaded. It didn’t help that the horse race was on; everywhere I turned I saw well-dressed, sloshed brat-boys, and tipsy women in exquisite dresses with matching, gaudy hats, just like tradition calls for. So when rolling down the pavement in sneakers, jeans, t-shirt and a baseball cap I wasn’t too surprised to be stared down, and as soon as I spotted a sushi bar that advertised 3 rolls for $6 I ducked in for an affordable bite and a break from the condescending gawk that wealthy people master so well.

Once I was back at the house I took a much needed shower and got ready to go and meet up with D’s brother Kevin, who was celebrating his birthday in a bar in Fitzroy. I had never actually met Kevin before, but when I eventually did he felt oddly familiar, most likely for his few similarities to D. They don’t look much like each other, but there is a very particular facial expression they both share, and I marveled at how much it made me miss my good old D.
We did a bit of barhopping before they left for the night, but at this point I had already made friends with an adjoining group of people, and I spent the rest of the night partying with them. We went to the Night Cat followed by First Floor, and in the latter I ran into another fun body of people that I ended up hanging with until the wee hours, at which point two of the lovely gentlemen gave me a ride back to South Yarra.
Next day was supposed to be another warm day according to the forecast, so I packed a beach bag and headed in to town to grab a train towards the water. As it were, it was cold and drizzly, so I instead met up with two couchsurfers from Brazil, Daniel and Tiago. They were good fun, and we hung out the rest of the day. Tiago left after we had had lunch, but Dan and I went to see the latest Coen Brothers movie - Burn After Reading - and followed this up with delicious veggie-burger at Grill’d.
Another couchsurfer that I had emailed before my departure for Melbourne was celebrating his birthday in Fitzroy, at the same Night Cat where I had gotten drunk the previous night. Dan and I decided to head over there to help out in the festivities. Since I think it’s a bit embarrassing to show up to a birthday celebration without any kind of present, we stopped in at the gas station across the street from the club and looked for anything to give Aaron, the birthday boy. We found a cubical, fluffy chocolate-covered treat, and against all odds this gas station also sold birthday candles, so I bought a pack of 24 and poked them all into the little square. I then borrowed a lighter from a guy outside the Night Cat, convinced the bouncer that he should let us step in to the club with a coconut treat in flames, and once inside I phoned Aaron and told him to come meet us at the entrance. When he found us he couldn’t stop laughing at the “cake”, but since the candles were positioned a little too closely to each other, my greeting and congratulations were quickly followed by an order to blow out the candles right away lest we burn down the place. Aaron did as he was told, and then we devoured the treat while walking over to the bar where I bought Dan and myself a Jägermeister shot for 10 extortionate Australian dollars. “Don’t you know there’s a recession?!” I yelled at the bartender, but he just shrugged and held out his hand for the $20 I owed him since he had poured me and Dan a shot each. I guess he thought I could’ve looked at the chalk board behind him listing the prices, and I guess he was right.

I didn’t stay out very late this Sunday evening. I was tired from the night before, and the salsa night we had stepped into wasn’t really my flavor, so I left around midnight to catch the last tram back. But whoever told me that the trams ran until 12.30 was off with an hour, and I watched the back of the last tram drive away from me as I ran up to the stop at 11.30. However, three people got into a car just next to the stop only a few minutes later, and I managed to hitch a ride with them. We followed the tram line until we were alongside it by a red light, and I hopped out of the car and into the tram in one smooth motion that would leave Mr. Bond gawking in awe of my incredible agility.
The house was empty when I returned, and I went to sleep on the couch in the living room, only to be awoken at 5 hours later by my two hosts and their friends. They were all high as kites, insisting I got up and partied with them. I sat up and chatted for a while, but I soon excused myself and moved into a vacant bedroom to return to sleep.

I had planned to try out the Hare Krishna restaurant on Swanston Street before my photo shoot at 2 pm, so I took the train to Melbourne Central and skated downhill the perfect pavement to the restaurant around noon. Because I’m an unabashed cheap-ass, I shameless presented my Swedish ID-card when asked for student ID, which made the very affordable $6.50 buffet even more so at $5. Nope, I’m not too good to cheat those lovely Krishna’s off a buck fifty. Hare Hare, I’m broke, but I didn’t have seconds, which I believe should balance things out.

After the photo shoot I had two $50-bills in my wallet, and they itched a bit. Meanwhile, I had a few hours to kill before my flight home, and cheap clothes stores beckoned for me to take a peek at their many items, just a peek. I knew better than to spend it all, I knew it belonged in my savings jar, but I had been really good all weekend, and I decided I could at least take a look. I found a dress for $20 and another one for $30, but the latter hung off a rack that advertised 50% off. Quick math gave me a very reasonable figure of $35 for two dresses, and I decided that I was allowed to spend that much of my earnings if I vowed to put the rest in the savings jar.
But Life must’ve sanctioned my little splurge, because when the clerk rang up my items the final price came to $25; most likely he somehow gave both items a 50% discount. And who am I to tell this fine young man what the clothes in his store cost?

I don’t know how I managed to end up short on time, but I eventually had to scram back to the house where I quickly packed up and bid farewell to my hosts, and just when I was about to bolt out of their house, a fair bit worried about my awfully tight time-margins, I received a text message from Virgin Blue informing me that my flight was canceled, and that I could instead catch the one that left 30 mins later. Yep yep, that would suit me just fine. Damn, I'm good.

And to top off a marvelous weekend, I caught the most beautiful sunset from my window seat on the flight home.
What's there not to love about a life like this?

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