The Last Two Weeks of the Year

One thing that really annoys me about word processing programs is the way that they have developed to be so complex that half of the subtle formatting options seem to auto-adjust, and arbitrarily change without warning. When I write my blog, I write each entry on a new page in the same document, and the formatting is always the same: date, double space, then start writing. Lately though, pressing enter in this particular document has started making a wider space than before, and so I've had to start using shift+enter to make my line breaks instead of just pressing enter. I know it's not a big deal, definitely nothing to hunger strike over, but it's a part of my life, and if I don't say something, who will?

I've been thinking about this drinking thing next year again – I feel like the pressure is really on now, because on one hand, this year has been the most productive year ever and I know that a lot of that is down to the fact that I haven't been drinking much. Based on that argument alone, I should continue with my fifty-two days of drinking a year in 2013. On the other hand, though, not drinking this year has taught me valuable lessons and I've developed the ability to say no, and refrain from over-indulging in my favourite vice. I think maybe I've even tempered my previously fawning reverence for liquor, and if I were to go back to not having self-imposed limits on my alcohol intake, I think I could employ these lessons myself. I just want to recapture a bit of spontaneity in my life instead of having to plan every outing like a prison break. Lame.

My alarm just went off: I have two alarms set every day – one at ten-forty am that says 'Write', and one at five-twenty pm that says 'Write you lazy fuck!' – and then there are the other ones reminding me to pay rent, call people, be awake or do my washing. My life is so ordered, or rather, I try so hard to make it ordered. But for every alarm that goes off, my threshold for ignoring these reminders increases, thus making me all the less likely to take notice of any URGENT NOTICE that I might have given myself for that day.

Fuck I hate this double enter thing.

The Kieran Butler Roast is coming up on Wednesday, and also, ding ding, ta-da ta-da, Rachel, my absentee girlfriend is flying back into Melbourne from places afar on Tuesday. Then on Thursday morning I'll be grabbing my dirty hobo mitts around a couple of mushroom caps and valiums for the ten-hour bus ride to Adelaide – The Christmas Party awaits. My good friend Rouse's twenty-second birthday is on Friday and against the odds he's made it this far without getting his ass locked up so we're off to celebrate in style by attending the same club that those fuckers smash their heads at every week. That sounds sarcastic, like I'm not excited, but really I am... next weekend is going to be sick.

So also tomorrow (Sunday) I've got a spot at 100% Nuts in Brunswick which should be a lot of fun, and I'm catching up with Millie, a British girl I worked with at AIDA Promotions in Adelaide – the job that pushed me over the edge of sanity and into this mixed-up experiment in the first place. She's been living in the outback for as long as I've been living here in Melbourne, but she's finally emerged from the dirty shrub she's spent the last four months sleeping in to wash her hair and rejoin civilization. She'll be at the show on Sunday as well, which is nice... Everything is coming together for the last two furious, high-octane weeks of the year. Last night at work I found out that our bar is closed for New Year's Eve because we only managed to get a license until one am... I was planning on working NYE for the fat stacks and free booze, but now that the decision has been made for me, I am WIDE EYED AND JUBILANT!! So many possibilities. So many opportunities. Christmas. New Years. Fuck the resolution, someone hand me a beer right now.

Okay, maybe don't... I've toyed with the idea of dashing a whole year's worth of restraint and self-control just for the joyous thrill of doing it. Smashing my own arrogance and destroying something beautiful... fuck that would be awesome. But no, I'm NOT going to do that, I have four more drinking days left and sixteen days to use them, fuck man that's not even hard, this really is not a challenge anymore. I probably won't make the final decision on whether I'm doing 52 Days I 2013 until about March... or maybe I'll try and put it off until later... and later, and later again. Who can tell at this stage? I'm just sitting at my computer, here and now, fingers fluttering and eyes pupils dilating in the darkness. The blinds are drawn, my shirt is off, the floor is shaking from techno. I think I'm going to cook some bacon.

Peace, Taco.

I Don't Care

My eyes are heavy and my shirt is on the floor, it's hot tonight in Richmond. I'm listening to this album called 'Poor Boy/Lucky Man' by some guy called Asaf Avidan and his band, The Mojos. I had never heard of these strange people before today, and I never would have if I hadn't met a couple of people on my tour today, had lunch with them, and then told them to add me on Facebook. The guy added me first, and then the girl. I checked both of their about sections, (god, this is getting a bit to 'twentyfirst century social interaction' isn't it? Ugh) noticing in the girl's, whose name I refuse to write because I cannot pronounce it, that she keeps a blog. So I went onto this blog, and saw a few quotes – some really nice stuff actually, but the thing that really caught my attention was a song called 'Your Anchor' by the crew I'm listening to right now.

So I downloaded their album, and I'm listening to it, and because the only torrent (jargon, jargon, jargon) I could find of theirs was their discography, I have their other two albums as well. Maybe I'll give them a listen. This music, this vaguely folky, rocky, guitary kind of thing... oh look, a horn has started playing, lonely over an acoustic guitar riff. That's quite nice. I feel that this music is passionate and impressively raw – someone cried over this I think. Someone at least shed some bodily fluid. Someone cares a lot about the sound that is coming out of my speakers right now, and I'm really making an effort to be that person that cares as well.

Fuck I wish I could find something to be passionate about, I really feel like I have all this pent up energy inside of me, but nothing to throw it onto... and I can't just 'use it up' – it doesn't work like that. I'm sitting here, listening to this undoubtedly beautiful music, but I'm finding it really hard to relate it to anything real. What are these people singing about? What machine are they raging against? I feel like I'm almost at the point where Winston ends up at the end of Nineteen Eighty-Four when he has fought all his life against the creeping tendrils of the party and their mind-controlling propaganda machine, but then just as his final opportunity for redemption is at hand – when the party finally has him killed – he finds it within himself to submit to them and become one with his meaningless, lobotomized contentment. I feel like I am so close to saying, “well, that's it, who cares if things are bad for some people, who cares if I'm being marketed to, who cares if I have designer products thrown at me every day – what if I like it like that?”

I feel like I have to get angry at things, or be upset about something, in order to 'find a voice' in comedy – but what if I don't see the world like that? Fuck, I know this is even wrong to think, but what if I see the world as an inherently happy place? That is such a confusing statement to have just made – look at what I just said. Look at what you just said Aidan. “This is wrong, but I think things are good.” WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THAT? But apparently everything really is fucked, and as an intelligent, rational, observant human being, I'm supposed to notice that and be angry about it. And if I don't, then I'm naïve. Stupid. I'm enjoying my life, but I know that there are so many people out there that aren't – they don't even have the opportunity to enjoy anything. The vast majority of the people in this world are born, feel hungry, and then they die – that's a Louis CK joke, and it's so terribly true. But I'm having a good time though... fuck... what am I supposed to do about that? Do I stop having a good time? Should I be angry about the fact that I'm having a good time? Or should I just be happy with the fact that I've drawn the lucky number in life's ridiculous lottery and continue on with my easy life and simple pleasures, trying not to think about the writhing hell that continues to burn daily in most of the rest of the world?

I want to end this by just deferring to another one of my, 'oh well this is too hard to think about now, let's all have doughnuts' punchline/endings. The ones I'm so good at writing that tie everything up in a little bow... but I shouldn't. I can't. Fuck. This stuff really doesn't work like that. I just don't know what else to do... I can't offer myself a solution, I want to care about the bad things that are happening in the world, but every day as I wake up and find myself feeling good about everything, I am stared in the face by the harsh truth of the matter – I really don't care. I just really don't. What am I supposed to do about that? I hate my indifference, but it's mine, and I'm so indifferent that I don't even care. Catch 22. The ultimate trap. Staring truth in the face, it hurts, or at least, I know it should. Help me, someone, I am stuck in a paradox.

Peace, Taco.

November Life Update

What has even been going on for the last few weeks? I haven't kept y'all very well updated have I? Not that the majority of people give two shakes of an indifference stick about my day-to-day potterings and trips to the toilet, but for those of you who do, enthralling tales of a young man out in the wild lie within. Tacooooo is doin' it for hisself!

I have seven days of drinking left for twenty-twelve (FINALLY, my compulsive need to type numbers has paid off, none of this 'two-thousand and twelve' bullshit) and it's looking right now like they are almost all spoken for. I'm saving four for my trip back to Adelaide from the 20^th to the 28^th of December, which means only three remain. One will be for next Thursday when I hit up the Peek Tours pub crawl in an effort to gauge the amount of alcohol required to achieve complete standing-unconsciousness – doing it for science – and that means the last two days will fall somewhere in between a week from now, and December 20^th. I've found the best nights, even with my freakishly regimented year of monitored alcohol intake, have been the unplanned ones, and so with that in mind, I won't be pre-booking nights for those two remaining nights of drinking, but I'm sure that someone cool will pop up in the three or so weeks and convince me that Now! Now! Now! is the time for drunkenness.

Money-wise things are looking slightly tighter than I would like – and with every indulgent cafe lunch the noose keeps slipping – but as it stands I am making $250 a week from working at Yah Yah's, and probably another $250 a week from doing walking tours. Let's make that $200, just to be conservative. Realistically I'm probably pocketing around $550 a week, but at least a hundred of that goes straight into the wind so it's not even worth counting, $450 it is. Rent is $170 a week, so with another piece of nifty rounding that leaves me $250 a week to play with – and I really have to catch myself here, because although I use the term 'play with', what that should really mean is 'put away in an envelope and not look at'. I have to pay $500 by mid-January for the festival show I'm doing with Rob Caruana at Station 59, and a bus up to Adelaide and Plane back for Christmas – probably another $250 – and I'll be wanting some party-money for when I get down there, so unless the opportunity for sort of Mafia-sponsored contraband run on the Greyhound bus presents itself in the next month, that'll be four weeks of income spoken for. Conveniently, four weeks is the exact amount of time that stands in between me and Adelaide right now, so without getting too confident here, I think it's gonna be ok... there's always the surprise phone bill to worry about, but fuck it... live a little.

My ankles still hurt from repeated falls off my skateboard, although I'm getting better (marginally), although I'm guessing it's going to be a while before these badboys return to their regular size. Cruising down to the river-side skatepark the other afternoon with Brodie and his bro was easilly call of the week, watching people who can actually do things other than roll around gave me the balls to eat shit in the hope of being able to land even one tiny little trick. I just want to be cool guys!!! Fuck, that is seriously not far from the truth.

Also our internet is capped, which is probably the most crippling ailment known to civilized man. I have slowly begun to doubt the existence of AIDS, Hepatitis, and all forms of cancer, by the logic that if God wanted us to suffer needlessly through our lives, he wouldn't waste his time with microscopic viruses and fiddly tumours, he'd just cripple us by taking away our access to the infinite database of porn that should, according to all sane reasoning, be available to us instantly at any hour of the day. That's exactly what he's been doing to me and my housemates for the last six days, folks. God works in mysterious ways, and today his name is Telstra.

I think I just lost my notebook – one of three, even in note-taking I am meticulous and thoroughly organized – no massive loss really because this one contains the hurried scribblings of ideas for jokes and stories that I then look back on and expand in my other two books, but still annoying nonetheless. I've found myself lately thinking about the way that we use paper and the written word as a method for dumping the thoughts that occupy our brains onto a physical medium, thus eliminating the need for our minds to stagnate upon them. It's kind of like the way a computer uses a hard drive to store information it isn't using right now, while the info that it does need immediate access to is stored on the RAM. The written word is so amazingly useful because it allows us to free up our minds constantly for new information, and ensures that if we have a good idea, we don't need to stress ourselves remembering it, because we can just record it and have it waiting for a time when we feel ready to pick the thought back up again and follow it through.

I've gone off track slightly... but now that we're here, you can get a pretty good idea of how my life is faring right now. Without anything serious to think about – no real troubles to speak of, no stress, no pain, no emotional hangups – I am free to float and dawdle around whatever thoughts and pastimes I want. Sometimes things feel hard – comedy is not an easy pursuit, as friendly as the people might be (and they are), the stage is a lonely place – but whenever I feel myself getting down on setbacks, I recount the things I've done in the past week and shake my head once the ridiculous simplicity of my life sinks in. Life gets hard friends, but right now it seems easy.

Peace, Taco.

A Bad Day Turned Good

This blogging thing seems to be going in cycles and I've decided to stop trying to force it so much and just let it happen. That's not to say that I won't be pushing myself to write whenever I have a free moment – hell yes I'm going to be writing as much as possible. Just that if I've just had a few good weeks of solid output, I can accept maybe that my brain might need some time to catch up. I CAN'T KEEP UP MY RED-HOT, FULL-TILT, MAXIMUM PACE ALL THE TIME!!! That was a Red Dwarf quote, for those of you playing at home.

So today has been a great day so far, and it only promises to get better. If we are going by the conventional 'midnight-to-midnight' day system – and for the purposes of this recap I think we just may – then the day started rather poorly with me beginning my shift at Yah Yah's. Yah Yah's is a great place to work; it's fucking brilliant actually, but starting work is never any good... although, being as it was that my shift started at midnight exactly, and that I had realistically already started working by 11:55pm, it could be said that the worst part of my shirt – the dreading anticipation of a night's labour – was already over by the time the thirteenth of October, twenty-twelve was upon us. I only worked until three because I had to give a tour this morning at 10:30am, which required a 9am alarm and it seemed the day was going to be one feral shit-storm from the get-go, but I think all that sad, dejected moping about how much my Saturday was going to suck has ended up turning things on their head.

So I got home at three thirty to my housemates (and OH what mates they are) parting hearty in the lounge room with thudding house music and deep grooves aplenty. I bought a pack of Doritos (Cheese Supreme you FUCK what else?) on the way home with five dong I found on the floor at work and skated down the big hill. Yes, yes and yes. The scenes I return home to after work every weekend are inspiring to say the least. This is the house I always wanted to live in from ages eighteen to twenty – a natural after-party destination that any self-respecting head would want to return to after the din of the dancefloor dies down. It is precisely because of my adolescent desire for such a place that I never was able to create one in those days, and the greatest comic irony of the whole thing is now that I live in the house of my naïve, popularity-obsessed self's dreams, I don't so much care about the parties that happen here. I'm willing to join in for a while, maybe suck down a few puffs of the spliff in circulation, but before long I'm in bed, and sleeping while the walls continue to shake.

I did my tour – woke up at nine, pickups in town from ten, tour until one, and made eighty cash units from the seven people on my tour, although I did forget to take the photo of the group (god DAMN it I keep forgetting that shit) so I'm looking at a thirty-dollar pay-in for that one. 'E neva lerns, duz e'? Nope. Also ran into an old friend from way back in Adelaide – Dom the Drummer from Brighton. He picked me out of the lineup at Aldi and by the sounds of it he's doing the do just like everyone else is over here in Melbourne; tearing shit up and screaming down the dangerous road. Numbers were exchanged and I'm sure we'll be seeing much more of olde Dominic from now on.

Back at home by one-thirty and in bed watching season two of Community with commentaries by two, and now I'm up at five thirty after a quick chat to Peter Pan of Neverland fame about how he's striking his demons back with bamboo poles and a head of positivity... things are looking up. Tonight I'm doing a spot at Station 59 for the late show, and then work, which somehow seems a lot less ominous after last night's shift and the catharsis of writing this post. Everything is so much simpler when it's laid out in simple terms doncharekkin? Yes, is the answer we were looking for there. Yes people. Just yes.

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.