Heartbeats, Fast

God DAMN it I have been busy... at least it feels like I have. Often times I have to breathe out quickly and mentally slap myself in the face, then focus on something still and try and figure out which set of emotions that I seem to constantly dart between are real and which are make-believe. Am I constantly on the verge of losing my head and jumping out of the nearest first storey window, just to exert the frantic energy that frustrates me from within? Or are the moments when my body feels most on edge simply fleeting weaknesses? Am I really so stressed? Am I really so busy? Is life really as hectic as it seems in the depths of my most flurried of moments? Or am I still floating gently through a series of difficult moments, only ever becoming conscious when the times seem far too tough?

This week I took a quick trip to Adelaide (I left on Sunday night by bus and returned Tuesday afternoon by plane) with the original stated purpose being to farewell my now-estranged ex-girlfriend, Melanie. While I had made a commitment to return for her last day in Australia several weeks ago, I knew deep in my heart as I departed Melbourne at 8pm Sunday evening that I did not want to go, and I bore a shameful resentment towards her for the fact that I was spending money that I didn't have on a trip that, really, I didn't need to take. I had a good time in Adelaide – I got to see my friends again and performed a killer spot at Rhino Room – but the truth of the matter is that I didn't need to be there and I should have just told her I wasn't coming in the end. We had fought enough and the last hug wasn't a hugely moving experience, as all the goodbyes were said long ago. I need to learn to say no to myself and to other people when faced with hard decisions that involve other people's feelings and I need to man the fuck up and cut my losses sometimes. This was one of those times. Yeah I mate a commitment to go, but what good was that commitment once it had become clear than any friendship we were going to have would be hollow and forced for the remainder of the time that she was in Australia and.... ugh, I'm just going to stop myself there. I think I've said everything I needed to say on that... Melanie is gone. Adios francessa, bien viaje.

So with that I can move on to something else I have been avoiding discussing in here – my new girlfriend... and there's an ugly little phrase if ever I saw one. We made it facebook official today... wow. If I could delete those last few sentences from this page and replace them with some sort of dot or squiggle or picture of a cat with a funny caption that could convey the same meaning, then I would... those words are ugly, and they make me cringe. Unfortunately though, they are a necessity, and while I'm not happy about writing the words themselves, the events that have brought me to this point could not have been better.

Rach and I met in the first couple weeks that I was in Melbourne while I was on the door at the Worker's Pub taking coin for a gig in the band room... she came up to the door and we chatted for a while, but I didn't ask for her number under some misguided pretence of 'playing it cool'. Good job Tugboat, cool. Professional. “Don't worry babe, I've done this all before.” Well anyway after your standard courtship etc. etc. we made it official for us on the 9^th of August (her calculations not mine) and then made it official for everyone else a few hours ago. I'm seriously fucking ecstatic to have met such a funny and interesting girl after only having been in this city for two months and am excited to see what happens with us as time goes on. But the catch – and there is always one – is that she is leaving for a gap-year tour of Europe on the 11^th of September and, while her stated return date is somewhere in February, it could be as long as that, or as short as the time it takes to get mugged at Heathrow Airport and be extradited home for vagrancy outside the international terminal.

It's the uncertainty that's really getting to me, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it I guess, and for the moment, I'm having the time of my life... as always pretty much. I don't want to expound on this shit too much here, as these are really thoughts for my private pages and surely are as laborious for you all to read as they are difficult for me to write. Other than that though I have done three spots this week, and did as many last week, and I have a big one lined up for Tuesday at some place called Soto E Sopra which I have invited all DA BOIZ to come and check out. I know I have grown a lot in the two months that I've been here and while seventy percent of the material I put down ends up being scrapped before I even get to the stage, I have managed to put together a fair amount of good stuff including a solid five to seven minutes that I am confident I can take to whatever stage I can get on to. I can safely say that the initial period of settling in here is finished, and interestingly enough I feel like the first stage of me as a stand-up comic is over as well. I am confident enough on stage now to not fall completely to pieces if a bit doesn't work and while I am still coming up with a lot of stuff that, upon reflection really isn't very good, I can look back on the gigs when I ate shit back in Adelaide and say that I roll with the punches a lot more smoothly now.

Over the next few weeks I'll be working on a few stories that I have been telling to friends, and taking them onto the stage without having them written down word-for-word to see if I can capture a bit of the improvised feel that I have noticed crowds respond really well to. I'll still have my strict material there and will keep developing more of that stuff, but I think if I can make something that isn't written down work a few times in a row, then I'll be on the way to becoming a lot more versatile and gaining another level of confidence in myself again. It's all working towards what I know to be a very important goal – to be able to trust that what I'm going to say on stage will be funny, before I say it, and even when it isn't funny anyway, to keep saying what comes into my head again and again.

Fuck this entry is a little all over the place... um... I dunno. Maybe it reflects my slightly rattled mood at the moment. I feel like I have a lot of shit to do today, but really I don't at all... in fact when I walk back to the hostel I'm going to take it slow for once. Yep, that's the ticket folks. No worries. Maybe I'll listen to some Bob Marley... by the way, if you pay close attention, almost every one of his songs starts with a quick drum fill... now you know.

A little Easter Egg for everyone who kept reading.

Boobs.

Peace, Taco.

A Million Reasons Why Ebay Can Get FUCKED, and the Beautiful Busker I Saw on Swanston

So I bought this MacBook Pro from a guy in my hostel (Jordan) the other day for three-hundred and fifty ding-dongs after he had asked me to take it down to Cash Converters and sell it for him. They had offered that much and I said I'd match it and he could keep the money he was going to give me for running his errand. The whole point behind buying it was that me and my best mate Phil (who spotted me the money and came up with the idea) were going to give Jordan the money he was going to get anyway – money that he needed right now for a plane back to Perth – and we would sell it online at a higher price, but without any time limit. It seemed like a good idea at the time... and really, it still seems like a good idea right now. There's one hitch though – and it only takes one – that has brought our operation close to failure and placed my shuddering nerves on the precipice of complete collapse: Ebay... go fuck yourself.

We first listed the item with an instant buy price of $950 and a starting auction price of $700 over five days... seems simple enough right? WRONG. After about two days we got a bid for the full nine-fifty and we were ready to hi-5 and dance the funky chicken, but the buyer turned out to be a fake account from Nigeria and the person behind the keyboard came out with some “I'm just on holiday at the moment can you send it to my home account” bullshit. Fuck off, I'd rather my money remain un-grifted thanks. After the item was bid at the full price though, Ebay took the listing down assuming that we had completed the transaction and all was fine... even though it clearly was not fine, and any cursory glance from the Ebay staff towards the status of the transaction would have revealed this. No money changed hands, and no sale was made. Nevertheless nine-hundred and fifty chattleford noo-nahs were deducted from our Ebay account's selling limit for the month (which starts at $2500 and can only be increased by a rigorous proof-of-identity process which... well let's just say we can't increase it) even though... ahem... NO SALE HAD BEEN MADE.

I relisted the item (short note, I have noticed that I've been using that word – 'relisted' – an awful lot during this saga; on my phone, in gmail, in word etc. and nowhere is it recognized as a word... I keep getting the little squiggly red line telling me to hyphenate but GUESS WHAT – I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING HYPHENATE!)... Ok I relisted the item a few days later and surprise surprise the same thing happened. Dodgy lady paying the full price of nine-hundred and fifty imaginary moneys and then running her imaginary mouth about some imaginary story of how she's on holiday and needs the money into an overseas account and... well whatever. Of course, being the oracle of foresight that I am I had thought to list my phone number in the description of the item this time so that real potential buyers could contact me directly and we could fuck off the worthless middle-man that is Ebay and get this thing done right. So I got a text from someone in Sydney asking about the MacBook and I feel like we have developed some level of mutual trust in the concept that we are both real people and not darkness, West African confidence tricksters... but this (calm down Aidan, caaaaaalm... breathe) this person still wants to complete the transaction over Ebay. I'm assuming this is to ensure that his money is not made off with by me, an untrustworthy foreign entity, and as far as he knows, a shady West African confidence trickster.

Well here la-di-FUCKING-da buddy. I'm SORRY I don't have FIVE GOLD STARS next to my name when it comes up in your phone and my pleas for a PHONE CALL are met with stunned silence and RETARDED REQUESTS FOR PICTURES OF THE LAPTOP WHICH I AGREE TO SEND YOU AND THEN WHEN I DO YOU STILL STUTTER AND STAMMER AND SIT ON YOUR FUCKING HANDS LIKE A LITTLE BITCH NOT EVEN RESPONDING TO MY SUGGESTIONS OF HOW WE CAN FINALLY END THIS DISGUSTING FARCE OF A DEAL FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK KILL EVERYONE...

Can you tell I'm upset?

Earlier today I was walking down Swanston St in the middle of town and reciting the speech for my new job as a walking-tour guide in my head. I was about to cross over Collins St when I heard a lovely, clean guitar chord amplified by a small, portable speaker that the girl playing the guitar had mounted in her case. She started singing, and I forgot all about crossing the road and turned back to watch her – the only person in a sea of faces with nowhere in particular to be and nothing in particular to worry about missing. I sat down on a seemingly superfluous white, wooden block that I could only imagine was fixed to the pavement four-hundred years ago with the sole purpose of giving me somewhere to sit while this beautiful siren sang her songs out into the world on this windy Thursday afternoon. She played smooth and sweet as I rummaged around in the bottom of my bag for the silver coins I knew rattled around in some obscure pocket... I knew it wouldn't be as much as she deserved, but it would have to do.

I don't normally give money to buskers – mainly because I don't normally stop and watch. This girl though, and that moment, there was something about the five or ten minutes that passed as I sat on my lonely chair in the middle of the footpath... it was one of those perfect silences that come around very rarely in life and must be savoured when they do, no matter the surroundings. I knew the storm that was brewing in the cables and hollow wires of cyberspace at that very moment when I sat down and stopped my life for the girl with the guitar. I knew it was there, but when I sat down I decided that for now, just for a second, it could disappear. In these quiet moments when life stands still, only a smile can intrude on my peaceful meditation. No troubles. No worry. No scathing insults or fiery torment that grinds inside my brain and threatens to boil over violently at any moment. No jittery unease... just me, and the music.

I dropped the coins in her guitar case, and she quickly said “thanks” in the middle of singing. I smiled at her one last time, and walked off down Swanston street, ready to swear at people some more and curse the stupidity of creation. The MacBook is a long way from sold, but I feel that the blood clots inside my brain have begun to slowly repair themselves and I've stopped thinking about different ways of killing people.

Smile.

Peace, Taco.

Week Five? Six? Fuck it... Brain. Melting.

The rising sounds of Above and Beyond's 'Sun and Moon' tinge a new Monday with a drop of melancholy this clear afternoon. Spring is almost here, eleven days by my chronograph, and yesterday was Sunday. It was one of those Sundays. Oh boy, was it ever.

Losing control of your emotions never comes highly recommended, even when surrounded by close friends and sure allies. Yesterday as I was paralyzed by the burning fear raging inside my nerve centre my emotions swung back and forth and round and round, flinging out in all directions and taking out pedestrians like a giant truck fishtailing down a slippery, one lane road. CRUNCH – a mailbox. BOOM – three rows of apricot trees. BAM – the front of some lady's white sedan. I took my foot off of the brakes yesterday, and, as always, today I am left trying to get my bearings and pick up the pieces.

Melbourne really is an amazing city; there are ridiculous amounts of opportunities for anyone with even the slightest leanings towards artistic expression. Today I've made contact with an online magazine called YAWP that follows Melbourne's comedy scene and gives comedians and writers in general a place to display work and write about our world – I might just submit a few articles for those guys to have a look at... probably a few of the things I've written on here recently that I'm pretty happy with. Also there's a TV series on channel 31 (some community channel) called Crack Up Lab that will feature twenty-five up-and-coming Melbourne comedians in a five-episode stand-up competition with the winners from each episode going into a sixth episode final. I've put my name down for that and even if I don't get selected to go on, I'll probably end up in the crowd checking out which comedians that I've met around the place do spots. That's just the thing about this place, it is literally impossible to be stuck for something to do... if anyone somehow is then I would suggest fairly confidently that they aren't looking very hard and probably spend more than the fair allotment of time smoking weed and touching their dick.

But yesterday man... the part with the Adelaide crew at Timmy, Brodie, and Desh's place... I don't know what it was and I'm sure the fair majority of it was in my head, but there were some wack vibes floating around that place towards the tail end of the afternoon. I was paralyzed in silence for around two hours at the height of my trip which was definitely less than enjoyable, although it did give me time to think about my drastically altered social life when compared with the easy comfortability of Adelaide. Gone are my best friends – those who I can be absolutely sure to call at any time, day or night, and know that they'll be down for whatever cause I throw at them. It really goes along way towards creating a deeper appreciation for the few friends that I have found who I know will be friends forever. It's just like that song says; “understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on... work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.”

I feel like all my life I have been like that truck driver, trying desperately to keep my load under control, to stop it from taking out the bushes and fences and old people's shitty cars on the side of the road. If I let my attention slip, even for the briefest moment, some bump or twist will send the dangerous trailer viciously into the side of Mr Gerald's tool shed. Even sometimes when I remain vigilant, the task of keeping my emotions in check is too great, and shit inevitably gets fucked up. It's hard, this control thing... and sometimes I wonder whether I'm doing the right thing at all in trying to play puppet-master with my own feelings. This is all I know for now though... I guess that's the reason I'm out here. To break the cycle of destroy and rebuild, destroy and rebuild, destroy and rebuild. To kick the bad habit of entropy.

Peace, Taco.

Musings on Immoral Behaviour

This morning I woke up at 9:30am, had and went downstairs to the kitchen where I found that my milk had been stolen and the walls had been written on. There you go... that's a perfectly straightforward English story right there. No frills, no bows, very little difficult language. For those of you with shit to do today – the dishes, bathing, religious ceremony – you can stop right there safe in the knowledge that what you have just read fairly and concisely sums up the first hour of my day today. For those of you with a few more stones in your belly, continue on. Let's make an afternoon of it, shall we?

The last couple weeks there has been a string of seemingly random food thefts perpetrated by a shadowy, anonymous stranger lurking within the annals of the hostel... last week I lost two tupperware containers of lovely chicken-vegetable something that I had cooked and saved for myself. Jean lost one as well, and a few other random items of condiment or whatever have been reported missing from different people's food stashes in the freezer or pantry. Needless to say this behaviour is looked upon fairly unwelcomingly by the community and before long people had started leaving long, sometimes eloquent notes on their food to discourage the thief - my particular words were along the lines of “don't touch my food faggot, go buy your own... actually before you do that, kill yourself”. (I would like to say that I have been the spearhead of this movement and maybe in the eloquence department I fairly could, but plenty of other people have had some rather colourful words attached to their shit – it's not just me) Anyway... considering the recent string of mooch-crime it sadly came as little surprise to me this morning when I trekked downstairs after a shower (not in my favourite shower this morning – it was occupied by a couple of Germans AKGH – but that's neither here nor there) and found that my two litre milk was nowhere to be found... wait that's no good. My milk, that I had found... wasn't... find? Found. I couldn't find it... even when someone hadn't founded.... ugh

Some dick had stolen my milk... is basically what I'm trying to say here.

I've talked to Bobby, the night manager, about checking the cameras in the kitchen to try and pinpoint who the thief is and while there's been words and times floated around the place, I was sure from the beginning that no action would be taken in this crisis. Yeah sure there are cameras and it's not so hard to switch on a TV and check them from particular dates and times, but knowing the calibre of staff that operate this place, even work which basically involves watching an extended version of Big Brother until you see the bad guy is going to be put off for as long as possible. Bobby ain't a bad dude... he's great in fact. But he's never going to do it.

So then at around 10:10am when one of the other managers came out and said something to the effect of, “yep, that's it, we've got em all on camera” in a serious, big boy tone, my mind did backflips. “WHO IS THE MOTHERFUCKER THAT STOLE MY FOOD? WHEN CAN HE BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE? HOW MANY PUNCHES TO THE FACE DO WE GET EACH?” Real forgiving shit... So that was at 10:10am, but before I go any further I need to take you guys back to last night. Just real quick. Because it's fun. It breaks up the main narrative. And adds dramatic effect.

Last night I went and saw a couple comedy shows including one at Pugg Mahone's (interestingly enough, 'pug mahone' apparently means 'kiss my ass' in Irish soooo... there you go?) where Myrthe – a Dutch girl from the hostel – works. Apparently I left without saying goodbye – a faux pas that I was later chastised heavily for, especially because I managed to squeeze a free drink (a squash though, let's be fair) out of the lovely lady while I was there. I got back to the hostel around eleven and found Ollie, the lanky German with the brilliant laugh, back amongst the living after a week in Thailand. This is the guy who suggested to Jean (who has hilariously small eyes) that we should “have a competition to see who can open his eyes the widest and the loser has to buy everybody pizza” so yeah... he's alright. Ollie had bought a litre of Smirnoff back from the duty free store, and Myrthe and Hannah (black English girl... sassy etc.) were down for a drink. Simeon (looks 26, is 21) and Kieran (looks 26, is) joined as well... and the next few hours writes itself really.

After a few hours of these guys slamming down vodka and getting loud with me vicariously enjoying their antics we turned our eyes to the wall behind us which is covered in photos of people who have stayed at the hostel at various times in the last few years partying and having fun. The main problem that we could see with these pictures was that they were not of us, and as such were ripe for alteration... so ripe... top ten ripest. We set to work with a permanent texta rating the people in the pictures out of ten: top angle looking down on blonde girl – six. Fat girl hooking up with other guy – 2. Sexy girl with black hair who is hot in three separate photos – 9. Passed out dude with wack face – MONG. Etc... The real vandalism started when Dutchy and Hannah got on their bitchy-soapbox tip and started ranting about some guy they had both slept with who apparently was “too slow” and “gave no orgasm” and “had a lot 2 learn private lessons could have been 4 free bad personality X”. They wrote it on the wall in thick, blue permanent and faced the cameras blatantly. I'm on camera writing on the photos, which can just be pulled down, but their hateful mural will have to be painted over... silly silly... nothing good ever happens after 2am.

So anyway, that happened last night, and to bring us back to 10:10am this morning, the manager from the hostel had just rolled out the big guns, “yep, that's it, we've got em all on camera”. I realized though, after my initial hopeful fancy that it had been about catching the food thief, that he was talking about the writing on the walls, and that my ass could very well be on the line here. This was only a second after vicious, bloodthirsty images of a lowly, broken bastard, tied to the stake and gnashing his teeth, breath still smelling of my chicken-vegetable something and staring down the barrel of an open, running sewage pipe that was about to be blasted into his face. Guilty as fuck and fucked for sure...

...and now that was me. I was the one staring down the pipe and the sewage was coming straight for me. I am, and it is. And as much as that sucks, I brought it on myself. I did the stupid thing on camera, and even if they caught my thief, his crime is really no worse than mine... well marginally, but they are both shitty things. The photos that I drew on can be taken down, and so too can my food be replaced... the base transgression at the core of both actions is disrespect. I didn't ask to draw on the photos, fagboy didn't ask to take my food. In both instances, I'm sure the answers to the request would have been yes – “can I have some food?” 'yes'; “can I draw on these pictures of mongs?” 'yes' – but the question was never asked. After last night I have been forced, as I seem to be on about a weekly basis, to re-evaluate my position and rethink some of the hasty thoughts that have sprung into my head. Simply reacting to situations is only the clumsiest way of getting through the day and I really have to stay vigilant on my snappy, self-indulgent thoughts if I am ever going to make change. Ultimately, I guess I just have to start making my food a little less obvious. I'm never going to find the thief – sinful bandit fucker that he is – but at least I can make my stuff a little less appetising for his grubby little thief-fingers. Maybe then he will disappear forever, and I can forgive him for his sins, and those two serves of chicken-vegetable something that I miss so, so much.

Peace, Taco.

A Well Thought Out Budget

This week I've decided that I need to start sticking to a strict budget if I'm ever going to make it out of the god forsaken hell hole that is the Melbourne Connection Travellers' Hostel. I may have been a bit harsh there, this place isn't that bad... in fact, it's actually quite a lovely little corner of Melbourne and I'm quite sure that if I had to be holed up anywhere for a period of months (and let's face it, I do) then this would be my preferred location. Well, top five, easy. The kitchen floors are gritty and brown from dropped food, the bathrooms are wet and slippery, and my room mine is frequently noisy thanks to a snoring New Zealander who sleeps on the bottom bunk of a two-bunk single bed with his Romanian girlfriend and gargles what I can only assume is motor oil in the back of his throat from the hours of 2am to 5am nightly. I could rant at length (far greater length than one particularly long sentence, of this, my people, you can be sure) but I will NOT! (Raised fist. Bright Eyes. Angry mouth. Defiant stance.) because tonight is a night for much softer voices. Tonight, you will come with me, my friends. Tonight, you will listen.

About ten days ago it became clear to me that my passage out of this homely three-storey bomb shelter would not be as simple as my previously half-formed ideas about moving into a rental house had led me to believe. For some reason I only choose to envisage the final moments of any plan when thinking about it in my head – the final handshake, the last signature, a fattish man in a suit exiting briskly – I never consider the weeks or months between me and those thoughts, or how much effort and work will be involved. Ok I do know the reason... it's WAY easier. I don't want work... I want PAYOFF MUTHAFUCKKAAAAA!!!... Sorry, I know... yelling.

But since it's become clear that moving out of here isn't going to be a simple hop-skip-catchalaterbaby I've slowly had to accustom myself to the unwelcome idea that making a budget and sticking to it may be my fastest passage to complete independence. So here it is yeh... behold! budget:

Expenditures

$140 a week for hostel

$40 a week for food

$20 a week for other fun things like drinking or a lady of the evening

Money In

$250 a week from job

$30 (ish) a week from tips

Ok so granted it's not the most comprehensive budget... in fact I'm quite sure that for all the fuss I've made over this piece of accounting the sole calculation here – $280-$200=$80 – takes all of five seconds to do. Whatever... the crux of this meandering story is that I am planning to save $80 a week every week from now on... plus more whatever I end up making from this tour guide noonah once that kicks off... Money is coming in is all I'm trying to say... batten down the hatches, it's MONEY... CAN YOU SEE THAT ON THE HORIZON???? MOOOOONNNEEEEEYYYYY.!.!.

I am seriously fucked... and I'm going to be in this hostel for a long time.

God damn it.

Peace, Taco.

Week Four: This Post Is A Pipe Bomb

I don't know how long it's going to be before I start accruing things again, rather than losing them... or even whether it's a good thing that I want to start accruing things again. I keep thinking about that George Carlin bit about stuff where he says that looking down on a city and seeing people's allotted houses all in rows is like looking at 'a bunch of people's stuff with a roof over it'. It's true, most of the stuff in your house is crap that you are never (or hardly ever) going to use again, and realistically you could get by without ninety percent of it, but it's still nice to have, for some reason. It's probably the security of knowing that whenever you need to do something – be it cook or wash yourself or eat or sleep or be alone or drink or spend time with people – you have a space to do that and all the items that are necessary. But there is a certain idealistic freedom to not having to lug all that stuff around and worry about it when you can't see exactly what it's doing. This is stuff that may not be critical or even incidentally useful in day-to-day life any more, but stuff obviously has cost you money at one stage or another, and thus retains some value even after its usefulness has long passed. Right now though, my stores of 'stuff' are, slowly but surely, depleting. I am becoming a free, vagabond spirit, through no choice of my own.

Since I've been in Melbourne I've lost one Jacket (my warmest and favourite one) and another remains in the possession of a friend so I guess I'll tentatively say that that one's still ok. I've also lost a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, a bottle of sweet chilli sauce, a jar of spaghetti sauce and a full thing of salt... like, the big one. I attribute all disappearances bar the jacket to the group of Asians that shared room six with me during my first week of the hostel, (I KNOW those boxes were for something the sheister bastards) but nevertheless... food is replaceable and spring is coming so fuck the jacket anyway. I think I'm just about ready to let go of that one... sigh uhhhh (wistfully)... yep, there it is. Closure.

I'm sitting in the state library right now typing away on my laptop which I dared to bring on a rare adventure out of my room – the battery lasts all of about five minutes now so normally there isn't much point, although I might try and make this a bit more of a regular thing as being away from the hostel means no temptation to eat out of boredom, or sleep out of laziness. I might go play some chess in the fabled 'chess room' that I've heard so much about... although I'm guessing the chess monkeys that surely inhabit the upper levels of this complex would prove more than a match for my feeble chess skills. I guess there's only one way to find out: chess it is. Sorry JayBone, can't really be Charles Dickensed looking for houses today... I think it'll be better to wait until you're up here too so we can sort out going to inspections together... I'll have more money by then as well. Save save save. Come on Taco. Fuck.

Anyone still following this? Didn't think so...

Ugh. I need some chicken.

Peace, Taco.

Nothing Much

Ok so I know I haven't written in a week an a half or some shit but it's sweet, I'm here now, and I'm ready to open up my heart. Cue music – let's go.

I went to Sydney last week for a few days and besides breaking the bank and still owing French Girl some one-hundred noo-naahs I had a pretty chill time – almost better than the last time I visited Sydney, although not as good a story to tell around a table of drunks which is generally my final measure of how good an experience something was. We went on a tour of the Blue Mountains, ate lots of sushi, and fought bitterly in the way that exes trying to give friendship a crack are inevitably wont to do. All around though, I had a nice time.

Other than that I've been thinking about becoming a walking tour guide in Melbourne and am meeting the dude that's going to be sorting that out on Friday to get a script and learn the tour etc. etc. so that should be a chuckle... and I did my Victorian RSA yesterday so I can work behind the bar at Yah Yah's and hopefully pick up a few more shifts and whatever.

I really don't feel in the mood to crank out something very interesting right now which sort of sucks because I haven't written since before Sydney and so much interesting shit has happened... but maybe I need to wait until I tie up one more little knot out here in the real world before I can start changing the record on here and writing about what's actually on my mind right now. I think I'm just going to wait until it's a little bit easier, a little further down the track.

I've been writing a whole bunch of comedy though, and last night I had some mushrooms and came back to the hostel and wrote a WHOOOOLE bunch of what was, at the time, A-grade Material. I'll be trying it out at the Comic's Lounge workshop tonight so we'll see how good it really is but I've re-read it and it does look rather intriguing. It wasn't just he psilocybin.

Peace, Taco.