Poor Stevie

Luckily we’re good friends.

If I’m left to my own devices for too long, I end up making bum jokes and losing friends.

This week I was chatting to a very glamorous girl – there she was in her stilettos, her red, flattering Carla Zampatti skirt, teamed with a sweet striped top and vintage gold beads. I stood next to her in my beat-up shoes with my clubbed toes hanging out the end, a pair of ill-fitting black pants that have faded to Dire Straits stonewash grey and a stripy cropped jacket that makes me look like I’m a volunteer at an old folks’ home. To top it off, I had the worst hayfever I’ve had this season – eyes watering, nose pouring, loud scream-inducing sneezes at every turn.

It was probably the salt water and mucus combination pouring from my nostrils that took our conversation from awesome eBay finds (her skirt) to illnesses (my allergies/social retardation). She asked me something about getting shots.

Me:  Yeah, I don’t get them because I’d probably have to have them in my butt cheeks.

Her: What?

Me: ….. Ah ha ha? I don’t get them because I’d probably have to have them in my butt chee-.

Her: -So what’s up this weekend?

I’m sure my face turned the same colour as my candy striper jacket, but I battled on anyway and managed to tell her about my awesome plans for the weekend  - making a fort, growing a beard, wearing a rope belt, catching insects for food and staying there for the rest of my life so I never, ever have to socially interact again.

I’m actually pretty used to this kind of thing happening. I’m no good at small talk and it takes a really, really long time for me to feel comfortable enough to show you I have a sense of humour. So I think 80 per cent of people who meet me think I’m a dirty mute, in the style of Steve Buscemi as The Marietta Mangler.

It’s seriously the small talk thing that gets me the most – I’m fascinated by how it works.

Observe:

SMALL TALK WITH REGULAR, SELF-ASSURED PEOPLE:

1: Oh god, I hate soft apples.

2: Me too. I once got such a soft apple that I swear it could have taken out the softest apple of all soft apples in the soft apples competition at the 1997 Granny Smith fair.

1: Oh my god, is that girl wearing track pants to work?

2: Woah. She so is. I like to wear trackpants only on the weekends.

1: Me too. Or when I’m hungover and going to Maccas for some food.

2: How good is Maccas for a hangover?

1: Oh, so good.

2: Actually, let’s go eat now.

1: Totally!

See what happened there? From their mutual dislike for soft apples and trackpants at work, 1 and 2 made an everlasting connection and have gone to lunch, where they will probably meet cute guys, who will buy them matching pug puppies.

SMALL TALK BETWEEN A NORMAL, SELF-ASSURED PERSON AND A CLUBBED TOED, DIRTY MUTED ME.

1:  Oh god, I hate soft apples.

Me: Same.

1: Oh my god, is that girl wearing track pants to work?

Me: Umm, yeah it looks like it?

1: Holy shit, is that mucus AND salt water coming out of your nose at the same time.

Me: Ah, yeah.

1: You should really get some shots or something.

Me: Yeah, I don’t get them because I’d probably have to have them in my butt cheeks.

1: What?

Me: … Ah ha ha? I don’t get them because I’d probably have to have them in my butt cheeks.

1: So what’s up this weekend?

Moving from the Central West to Sydney was always going to be pretty wack. You know, the electricity, the running water and the gays. But there are far more disturbing things…

- Kissing people as a greeting. This is a fabulous way to catch me off guard and make me far more awkward than I naturally am. And I am awkward. Say hello to me and I blush, cough and hide in the toilets breathing into my trusty paper bag. I don’t understand this greeting unless you are my family or boyfriend. I think there should be an unwritten law about this – unless you have seen me nude you do not get to touch any part of me with your lips. And yes, I hear you, my family have seen me nude. In the country that’s how we say hello.

- Seeing `live’ music played on a laptop. I like to call this `cheating’. I get that modern music these days is filled with robotic doo whoop a dops and I’ll admit I’m a fan. But it’s almost too much to bear when a musician is singing over pre-recorded vocals. I think if you’re a solo artist and you can’t recreate your sound live without the help of a Macbook you should go back to your toll booth operating career. Or at least get a friend to pretend to play a synthesiser or something. Even that would be more impressive than launching Garage Band. I’d rather sit at the Vic in Orange and listen to someone play Lithium by Nirvana or Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins. Again.

- Lunch hour. Since the beginning of 2007 I’ve been under the impression that no one actually worked in the city except for I. I’m lucky enough to work staggered hours and so I rarely ever see anyone when I go out and get my reasonably priced $15.50 salad. Yesterday I didn’t work and was in Pitt St at 1pm. And ohmigod why would anyone ever live in Sydney? You can’t fling a second-hand purse without hitting two businesswoman, a CEO, a cleaner, a homeless man, a child in a pram, a group of emo schoolkids, a nun, a man with dreadlocks painting bad portraits, two secretaries in high-waisted polyester skirts and the woman behind the Chanel counter. As my mum likes to note in large crowds – `imagine all those poos!’

Dear former dormie who now catches the same bus routes as me,

You know, yesterday you really embarrassed me when I waved at you and then pretended to be fixing my hair because you icily ignored my friendly gesture.

I know we weren’t the best of friends when we lived together all those years ago, but we got along okay. Didn’t we? Don’t you think it’s weird where life has brought us? To the same place, well the same bus route at least.

The thing is, I don’t want to sit next to you on the bus either, I just acknowledge you because that’s what two people who lived together for an entire year might do. If you’re worried I want to have an awkaward chat about the old times, you’re wrong.

I don’t want to reminisce about the time several members of our dorm got a stomach bug and I heard you loudly emptying the contents of your bowels and your stomach, sometimes at the same time, for every night for most of a week.

I also don’t want to talk to you about how I heard you giving it to your uptight girlfriend a couple of times.

I probably wouldn’t even bring up the fact that you playing Jack Johnson songs on your guitar over and over made me want to drag a sharp object across my eyeballs.

You might tell me how everyone thought I was little weird because I didn’t like sitting up until 2am every night talking to a bunch of twats about losing my virginity or going to the beach with my girlfriends or why there is always corn in puke.

Or how I really “came out of my shell” after Lip Sync.

Just so you know, I’m not bitter about my whole first year dorm experience at all and I hope you are really happy.

Next time, I’ll just look right through you like it never even happened.

Love,
Steve.

I’m seriously considering quitting my current job and taking up a position as a rapper. I think I’d be great, I have the ‘tude, the slammin’ body and my very own lingo.

I neeeeeeed to be Snoop Dogg. I’d be Snoop Kitten.

In other news, my sister got married, I realised I can’t wear high heels, I got us all lost with the help of Google maps and my hair is rapidly heading towards mullet-express.

I’ll post pictures at some other point…

Love Steve

Also..I know two picture posts in one day is too much, but here is a photo of me on my last night hanging out in Bathurst ever. The pub was empty except for these mingas who insisted in having their photo taken with me. Really weird and distressing, as illustrated.

I stole this photo from my friend’s myspace. That’s right Bron, I am watching you. Now. Hey, isn’t that my bra?