Friends- friends sing together, la la la laaaah!

This blog is dedicated to a Kat loving friend of mine. She has the biggest heart ever, which is especially amazing since she’s a Kat.

There are times in everyone’s life where life doesn’t seem all that lacksadaisical.

Times when you feel like everyday is a replay of the time you just demolished all of your chocolate Lindt Bunny. (Shit, I can’t believe I just reminded myself of that time!)

Times where you feel like you’re walking through this life cold and alone....

(Here is a picture of my nephew-dog Bobby.

He’s the best at being cute-pathetic.)

It’s as if a Shakespearian Voodoo Witch Queen

has put a pox on your houses....

....(I’m not sure what this “growth” in the bathroom is, but I’m pretty sure it could be a pox on my houses. )

And instead of reaching Friday night and singing the Happy days theme tune, you reach Friday night and worry everyone else might think you’re an idiot for singing at all. So you decide to stay inside your prison/room.

At times like these friends surprise you with their awesomeness.

Friends are like…. the miracle of seeing three monkeys Jesus’ competing at the Willoughby counsel synchronised swimming carnival.

I’ll leave the next space blank so that you can employ your vast and powerful imagination to create your own image...

(IMAGE CREATED BY THE POWER OF YOUR MIND)

However, as far as simile’s go the monkey Jesi are a weak comparison. Monkey Jesus miracles are kind of a flash in the pan… a chlorinated flash in the pan, whereas friends….friends are….

Well they make the world a little bit more like you’ve just been sent a million peony roses.

They are honest when they need to be and they lie a little bit when deemed necessary:

Scenario 1. Non-friends:

You: I’m thinking of launching a rocket to the moon.

Others: Have you any training as an Aeronautical engineer? No. Not even an undergraduate degree in Astro-physics? No. A TAFE course in rockets then?

You: Yes, what a silly notion that was. Silly me. I'll just be in my prison room.

Scenario 2. Friends:

You: I’m thinking of launching a rocket to the moon.

Friends: Aaaaahhhhhhh Aaaaawesome. The moon is the best!

You: Bloody oath it is!! Come and watch!! ….but you have to bring your own safety glasses, I’ve only got one pair and they’re broken.

They remind you that you’re dreams aren’t silly and are worth pursuing and inspire you to break out of your prison room and into song. That song may well be the Happy Days theme tune, it may also be a song by Madonna or Olivia Newton John. They’ll probably even join in.

They are surprising, funny, generous, and amazing.

Beyond words really.

They make you’re heart feel like a light made of colourful umbrellas.

And you realise you and your colourful umbrella heart don’t always have to be on the outside of things

The support of friends is more deeply valuable than any words in this blog could articulate. Truly, I can’t adequately represent how grateful I am to you, so all I can say is:

Thank you. Ellibelli x

Lindt Bunny- Today I lost a friend.

Lindt Bunny. He has been my constant companion on this journey of reckless under-employment.

His steely gaze has given me the confidence to stare joblessness in the face and laugh just like him- a sociopathic lindt bunny. He was my confidant and my inspiration.

His shiny golden armour of foil has always stopped me from giving into sweet temptation and taking a big ol’ chomp out of his chocolaty bunny butt. He has also given me my own metaphorical golden armour, for which I’ll always be grateful.

We were the best of friends…until now. Before I tell you what happened lets look back at some of the better times.

This is when the cheeky little bunny got into the herb garden. Actually it’s more of a Basil garden...

Ummm, okay my camera broke, but believe me, he was in the herb garden.

And this is when Bunny and I watched a clip on video piracy together. He’s against the burning of DVD’s and illegal downloads,

especially if it’s Watership down...

.... he's still watching...

And here is a picture of maple syrup, because I couldn’t show you the one in the herb garden:

(a picture of maple syrup)

Anyway, believe me, we had some good times! Things were going swell between bunny and I, until I started applying for jobs in the hospitality industry. Our lives stared to go in wildly different directions.

Bunny was living a life of leisure, while I would traipse around in the rain and mud applying for bar jobs to keep us both in the life to which we were accustomed.

Eventually I managed to snag a trial at the bad assest pub in all the land. Things were looking up on the job front. Maybe bunny and I could reconnect, maybe things could get back to the way they were. I did the trial and all seemed to be going well. They said I did well and they’d let me know how I went on Monday.

Monday went by, and then Tuesday and then Wednesday. I rang the pub and asked how I went and they said: “Sorry, the manager said ‘No”. I wondered if that meant, “The manager said NO bunnies, but yes to me working there”, he said “No, we don’t have a job for you” and then hung up.

I was in a rage. I decided to channel all my feelings of inadequacy and rejection into blame and I mostly blamed bunny. He could watch the Bold and the Beautiful whenever he wanted! Rooooaaar!! He could sleep in until 3pm and sleep with prostitutes and gamble basil leaves, while I had to starve and only eat Paddle- Pops!! Our friendship had to come to an end...

and this is what happened......

It didn’t end up making me feel better. It mostly made me feel a little sick because I’d lost a friend

..and also because I’d eaten quite a lot of chocolate.

I’m not proud of my story and I miss my evil little overconfident bunny friend.

The stand-off at the 7 eleven.

When you’re poor and kinda hungry this funny thing happens to your brain. You want to eat ALL food ALL OF THE TIME. Even when you’re not hungry you’re hungry. You’re sole purpose in life is to gather as much calorie dense food as possible and store it safely on your hips, so that when the time comes and the need is great enough you will be able to reach down and snap a peanut butter cup off your thighs, like a delicious, edible mole.

You can understand my absolute delight then when I finished the last lick-e-dy-lick of my banana paddle-pop and it revealed that I had won another free paddle-pop! Not only was it food, it was free food AND it was made of ice cream. Oh, happy day of daisies!!

I started to get a little high from the thought of a paddle-pop for nothing (even though I had bought the original paddle-pop). I was THAT lucky person and the rest of the world could go fuck itself.

It was the turnaround and win that I needed. I was going to become a person of excess amongst an elite crowd who were so rich that they no longer need to buy things because things get given to them. I would go to A list parties and my life would be full of people who are terribly fashionable, chortle, have real tans and snort lots of things up our noses. I’d probably also become anorexic and wear lots of maxi dresses. My parties would be full of girls with bizarre-ly long arms (partly due to the anorexia because they haven’t eaten any paddle-pops) and they’d flaunt and flail their arms everywhere until eventually the parties became nothing but rooms full of girls with flailing arms.

Clutching my little stick of glory I waltzed, head held high into the seven eleven and slapped my paddle pop stick on the counter.

Me: “Another paddle-pop please Rajeev”.

Rajeev: Makes expressionless, full body sigh

Rajeev’s poker faced reply made me start to worry he might not front up with the goods. Panic set in. Perhaps he doesn’t have any more paddle-pops!! …No, I checked the freezer when I walked in ...maybe he wasn’t going to give me one….I’d have to report him to Streets, I’d take him to court, he can’t do this, it says it quite clearly on my stick “You WIN a free Paddle Pop” motherfuckka!!!!

Rajeev: (Another sigh), “Yeah, okay, which one you want?

Me (Gleefully): Banana please.

With the mere wave of his brown Pakky hand Rajeev indicated that the freezer was all mine for the next 50 seconds to a 1-minute. I could choose any banana paddle-pop that I wanted and not just from the top ...and I did. I made my selection and for the next 3.5 minutes I was queen of Australia, until I took that last lickedy-lick and it revealed that I’d won one half an X-box.

It was like a kick in the teeth.

The trials and triumphs of the googley-eye vagrant.

I’ve found it, I've found my hook! Until now I have taken a rather “alternative hippie school” approach to blogging. I wanted to take my readers on an organic journey of discovery as we decide together what this all might be about. I’ve been told this is confusing and occasionally physically alarming for my readers. So for your own mental comfort here it is.

You: WHAT IS IT?! TELL ME ALREADY, I'M STARTING TO FEEL PUNCHY!!

Me: I'm getting there.

It is definitely not a “how to” guide. In fact, the only thing I really know “how to” do with any level of success is make my eyes go really goggely without moving any of the other muscles in my face. I’m not willing to share my secrets about that so you guys are on your own with the Google-eyed-ness. (Below you will find a very poor picture of my "Goggley-eye in action". It's powerful stuff).

I can also lacksadaise fairly well. I’m less good at lacksadaising than the google-eye. It involves mooching around, without a proper job. It’s pretty fun, but it doesn’t seem to pay very well and sometimes it makes me wish I were better at useful things.

My third and final skill is to successfully advise people on any level of problem or subject in the world.

For example:

Fred: Lacksadaisy, explain the twin paradox. (It’s a rather complicated Physics conundrum) From Fred.

Me: Fred, exactly!? Some twins look exactly the same, but some are not identical at all…weird. Children are starving Fred, shuttup.

More often than not my response involves “people are starving” *. It works pretty well for almost any topic.

(* This is very possibly ripped off hyperboleandahalf.blogspot. I can’t be sure since I couldn’t find it when I quickly checked, but like the time that I thought I’d composed “I can’t help but lovin’ nobody but you” I actually didn’t. The Turtles composed that song. Anyway visit Allie’s work at www.hyperboleandahalf.com, and then check out the Turtles on iTunes.)

You: ENOUGH! YOU HAVE FAILED TO TELL ME WHAT IT'S ABOUT, GET TO THE POINT!

Me: Well it’s many things, but I’ve decided out of my three major skills the one I’m best at is google eye, but since I'm keeping mum on that issue

I have decided to write about my life and struggles as an unemployed vagrant…or at least someone who is miss-employed or under-employed. There you go.

Please allow my loss of self respect, cunning approach to foodlessness and my apathy towards employment educate you and more importantly inspire you to stay in your reasonably well paying job. Learn from me, learn with me, but definitely don’t learn at me or I will make my eyes go all googley-gog, evidence below.

My heroic journey into unemployment

Oh unemployment, you saucy minx, how I loath it when you come to visit; and me being the artistic variety of human, you insist on visiting with unfortunate regularity.

“Unemployment”. UN.EM. PLOY.MENT. ‘Un” is such an unfortunate addition on the word employment. Shall we just say I am ‘negatively employed’ and be truthful about it! I can’t be misemployed (to deprive someone else of employment… because obviously it is not an act you can bestow upon yourself, similar to the bowl cut. You should never, ever, give yourself a bowl cut, nor should you let others do that to you). I could be anti-employed, employment-less and possibly even reach a level of negative gearing in my optimal level of employment. Actually, as an economist friend of mine well knows, I have no idea what Negative gearing means. Actually, this friend is not even an economist; they work as a bank teller. Perhaps that is why I am unemployed. I did attempt to understand what negative gearing means. When I entered: “Unemployment” into the Negative Gearing calculator in Google it came back with the response: “You obviously have no idea what negative gearing is, no wonder you are unemployed”. Smart arse Google.

Now my unemployment journey has gone through many stages, some more alarming than others.

BRAVADO – the most enjoyable stage

This stage involves me wallowing in my lacksadaisical life, sautéing in my own free time and flashing it about to those poor mugs riding the bus to work, while I sit in my favourite coffee shop, in the sun, drinking 15 Soy Chai lattes, pretending to type on my computer. During this phase it is helpful to pretend you are a freelance journalist such as Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City. Well, her character “Carrie”, not SJP herself, I don’t like her hair much. At least she doesn’t have a bowl cut.

REGRET- less enjoyable than bravado.

Regretting I didn’t use my initial unemployment for good, rather than evil. Wishing I saw my dwindling funds as an opportunity to detox rather than drink 15 soy chai lattes. Regretting I didn’t drink more water to balance out all of the soy in my body and now feeling paranoid about breast cancer, urinary tract infections and Chai disease. (I’m sure it’s a thing). Wishing I had ridden the wave of euphoria to land a slammin’ job. People love to give you a job when you don’t need it.

FEAR- least enjoyable phase

Fear that I may never work again. Fear that maybe no body likes me and that the guy at the 7/11 is beginning to notice I haven’t washed my bowl cut hair in 7 days. Who is he kidding?! He doesn’t have hair! He doesn’t know the time is takes to look glamorous and why do I need to look glamorous anyway!? Who is going to see me, eh, Rajeev? Personally I think he needs to spend a little more time topping up the Oovie machine and a little less time noticing my personal battle with personal hygiene, personally! I wish they stocked Love Actually. Stoopid Oovie, stoopid Rajeev.

RESIGNATION- the most dangerous of the phases.

This is the phase I am currently experiencing. Resigning yourself to fact you may need to accept that job that pays $16.50 an hour. At least you won’t have to wash your hair ever again. Accepting that maybe your dream of becoming Princess Jasmine from Aladdin may be a pipe dream after all. Wondering how long you could live off muslie if you needed to and you also find yourself wondering about the practicalities of organ donation if you suffer an asthma attack and wild poodles eat you for breakfast.

Yes, readers, it is a hard road. A hard road indeed. Maybe I could be “missemployed”, because I’m pretty sure I AM meant to be Princess Jasmine.