Adventures Update: Melbourne Comedy Festival

You may have noticed that I haven't updated in a few days. It's ok - I haven't died in some kind of ridiculous accident. I'm in Melbourne! I haven't been writing at all, both because I have been very busy having adventures, and also because I lost my glasses the instant I arrived in Melbourne. I don't know what it is, but every time I'm in this city I lose something ridiculously valuable the moment I arrive. Last time it was $300 in cash which was especially fun as this happened shortly after realising I'd left my wallet, complete with ID and credit card on Vegatrain's bed, thousands of miles away. This time it is my glasses. I also lost one of my mittens, but no-one can help me find it because they just get so distracted by how adorable that is.

Here are a few thoughts I have had during this trip:

• I am terrified of pigeons as it is. Most birds are pretty scary (except cockatoos, they're fantastic. I guess any bird that can sing, dance and insult people is ok by me), but I especially don't like pigeons. People call this an 'irrational' fear, but they're wrong. It's not irrational, they're terrifying. I don't trust any creature that is incapable of feeling fear. But at least in some places I can look at the pigeons and be reassured that they're just fat, fluffy little morons who will probably leave you alone if you throw a crust of bread far enough away. But see, in Adelaide we feed our pigeons bread rather than heroin, which is the only way I can explain Melbourne pigeons. They look like the living dead, all scrawny and crazy-eyed and they fly right into your face. I'm not sure that they're not all actually zombies but no-one has noticed yet because they're so used to ignoring them. Terrifying.
• A thing that happened to me in the airport: I was walking through the metal detectors when a security guard starts looking at me funny and gestures for me to stop. I instantly got a bit nervous. I thought that I wasn't doing anything illegal, but you can never tell with airport security. He gestured to my water bottle and asked what it was. I stuttered out that it was water, remembering that water bottles have been banned in the past because of the possibility of liquid explosives. He glared it me and told me to take a drink, which I did without hesitation. He waved me through. I was relieved. The thing is, I would really like to know why they didn't just do that in the first place, rather than going through all the hoopla of banning water and then charging $5 for a tiny bottle on every flight. Commercial flight has honestly become a competition between airlines and passengers to see who can rip each other off the most, and as a result I no longer feel bad about stretching the definition of 'cabin baggage' to it's loosest possible terms.
• I have been a bit anxious recently. Well, ok, a lot anxious. Vegatrain has been telling me that I should take anti-anxiety pills and I kept telling him that I didn't have a social anxiety problem, it was just the fact that the majority of people who are in public places are totally and completely awful. However, then I had this assignment due for Psych 101. I had a lot of technological difficulties that I'm not going to go into, but the result was that I was too stressed to even look at what the subject of the assignment was. I eventually did look at it and discovered that it was on stress and coping methods. If there is one thing that is going to make me learn my lesson, it's poetic irony.
• I was in the backyard of Sally-Tsar's house (where I am staying) the other day and I saw a shape in the sky. I looked up to see whether it was a bat or a bird, because I have the same curiousity levels as your average five year old*. It was a goose. A motherfriggin goose, flying across the night sky. I asked Sal if this was a common thing to see in Melbourne and apparently it's really, really not. The problem with being a tourist is that if something amazing and unusual happens, you're not quite sure it doesn't happen every day there. Like the time I was in London and it started snowing while I was on the top level of a double-decker bus. I thought it was a very pleasant English scene, not realising that it's extremely unusual for it to snow in London at all, let alone in April. Wizardry, obviously.
• I really like Melbourne. When I was growing up and had to go to Sydney to see any major bands that came to Australia, I always thought I hated big cities. It turns out I just hate Sydney. Seriously, the only reason there is even a debate about whether Sydney or Melbourne is better is because there are so many people who live in Sydney. They seem to take pride in the fact that they can always pick a tourist on their turf. What they don't realise is that everyone else in Australia can pick when somebody is from Sydney and it's because they're usually awful. But they seem to think that their city is just the bee's knees, always going on about how they have the harbour bridge and the opera house. Yeah, well, we have human decency but you don't hear us harping on about it. Melbourne, let's be best friends.
• A list of people who have a show at the Comedy Festival that I would probably make out with: every person who has a show at the Comedy Festival. But especially Andrew Mclelland and Deanne Smith. Which is infuriating because I met her and spent the whole conversation trying to figure out why she looked so gosh darn familiar, then realised I have only watched all her videos on youtube. Friggin facial recognition issues.

But now, I'm leaving on a jetplane, don't know when I'll be back again. See you this afternoon, Adelaide.

-Smackie Onassis

*Coincidentally, I also have the shoe size of your average five year old. The shoes I am wearing now I just bought from the children's section of a shop down the road and they're pink boots and they're fantastic. Kids get the best clothing options these days. I made a friendly comment about how great it is to be able to fit into children's shoes to the woman behind the counter, who responded by developing an instant and irrational hatred of me. I really don't get why woman are embarrassed to have big feet. No-one cares, you guys. Admittedly, I do have feet small enough to qualify for a position as a geisha so I haven't ever experienced this first hand, but I still don't get why having big feet is apparently something to be ashamed of.

Feelings are boring, Kissing is awesome

Over the years I've had a fair few "romantic entanglements". When I was at school I always developed crushes very easily, usually on my friends. Unfortunately for me, they usually looked at me as one of the boys rather than as a potential ladyfriend. The people who were interested in me were people like the kid who was mad for buses. Don't get me wrong, he was a good guy, I just wasn't interested. However, that's not to say I didn't date at all.

One of the first guys I went out with was a guy I did theatre with after school. I really liked him, he was a sweetheart. Unfortunately my friends did not. He was a bit of a geek and so they ripped on him mercilessly, constantly pressuring me to break up with him. Eventually they made up this whole big thing about something he had apparently said about me. I knew it wasn't true, but I broke up with him anyway because I was sick of my friends being jerks. "Peer Pressure". The guy actually wrote me a really sweet letter explaining that there'd been a misunderstanding, and that he was sorry for anything he might have done. It really touched me, but I didn't reply and I felt guilty about it for the rest of high school. At that stage I wasn't expecting to see him ever again.

When my friends and I went to schoolies, we didn't do the whole Gold Coast thing. Instead, we went to Byron Bay after the official schoolies time had ended. It was cheaper, and there would be a significantly lower douchebag quotient. We were out dancing when I saw a friend of mine being chatted up by a guy. A guy who looked very familiar.

"Hey," I sidled up to my friend when the guy had gone to buy a drink, "What's the name of that guy you're getting all friendly with?"

She told me and sure enough, it was the guy I'd dated when I was fourteen. I'm not sure how that even happens, considering how far away from home we were, but it was him. It could have been very awkward. Luckily I'm not the type of person who cares about these things and I thought it was hysterically funny. I even got to make my peace with the whole situation, telling him how bad I always felt about breaking up with him. He told me that he'd always felt bad about some of the things he did to me too, things I didn't even think were a big deal. We laughed, forgave each other and I told my friend that he was a good guy and that she could go out with him if she wanted. They ended up dating for about two years, I think.

The guy I had the biggest crush on in school was a guy who basically disappeared after we graduated. People saw him around occasionally, but no-one really knew what he was doing. What I remember about him was that he lived on a working cattle farm and was a die-hard supporter of communism. He was a down-to-earth country boy, but he was also a total weirdo. One of the conversations with him I remember most vividly was about garlic, of all things. I was talking about how I needed a mint because I had eaten something garlicky. He questioned why I would want to get rid of a delicious garlic taste. I told him that while it was delicious, other people might not be so fond of it. Other people would especially not want to kiss me. He informed me that he liked garlic so much that he sometimes picked up whole cloves of garlic while he was walking through the kitchen and ate them raw. I nodded, trying to figure out if he was insinuating that he wouldn't mind kissing me. Whether he was considering it or not, he didn't kiss me.

The problem was that he was so strange I could never tell if he was flirting with me or messing with my head. I remember once hearing him say 'Hey Sarah, want a date?' only to turn around and see he was offering me part of his lunch. To be honest, I love dates so this was just as good, but it was still confusing.

I didn't hook up with my friends a lot in high school, unlike a lot of people. That is, until we all turned 18 and started drinking legally. I thought kissing was the bees knees and so did it most times I was drunk. I rarely went any further with the guys and now realise that I probably must have looked like something of a tease. But guys, I just really like kissing.  

There was one particular kissing story from when I was in year 12 that was repeated back to me by almost everyone I knew the next day. We had all gone out to celebrate our upcoming graduation and gotten quite drunk. Yes, in Newcastle we started celebrating our graduation before we even graduated. It was on a weeknight too and we all still had to go to school the next day. It does kind of seem to defeat the purpose.

I ended up spending most of the night macking on a friend of mine. The problem was, I'm quite short and he was one of the tallest people I've ever met. He was at least a foot taller than me. Probably more. Our friends were pissing themselves. They came up to me afterwards and told me that it was like watching an honestly funny comedy sketch. I haven't seen that guy for years, but I have actually heard that he is now doing stand-up somewhere on the other side of the country. I can't help but wonder if he has ever told that story.

-Smackie Onassis