Poor Stevie

I wasn’t really looking forward to Las Vegas. I don’t drink a lot, I like to go to bed at 10pm and I can only play snap. Translation: I have a huge stick up my jacksie.

Driving into Vegas, I wasn’t exactly reassured because, in the harsh light of day, it looks like a freshly shaved armpit:

That night we decided to go to the strip. I painted my lips red, put on a new jacket and did my hair in an 80s bun, ready to hit the town. But I needn’t have dressed up because, despite what the documentary The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills would have you believe, Las Vegas isn’t the most glamourous place. There are a lots of desperate people sweating over their chips, sad-looking morbidly obese people wheeling around in mopeds and midgets trying to force you to into live porn shows. And boy was I getting sick of doing live porn.

Also, I was worried people would mistake me for a dealer in my cheesy jacket:

Also, Celine Dion was there:

Also, even the sky was fake in Vegas:

Later, we had accidental $30 drinks at The Bellagio, almost paid a $12 transaction fee at an ATM and J-man got elbowed out of a Blackjack game. It was a little depressing, so we sought out some wildlife at The Flamingo:

Yep, actual flamingos at The Flamingo. Trust the Hiltons to make money from their pink bits.

But turns out Flamingos smell like Flamingo poop, so we did the walk of shame back to our motel, having come to Vegas and failed at gambling, drinking and having fun.

The next day we had to up the ante. Let’s just say it involved a limo, Elvis and tears over tapas.

Here’s a little peep show:

To be continued.

I want to preface this post by saying that hosteling around Europe, particularly eastern Europe, has been a life-changing experience. I’ve met incredible people – a guy who kayaked his way through Germany, an old, cheerful and, not surprisingly, lean Japanese man making his way around the world on a bicycle and lots of young, strong women exploring the continent on their own. We were privileged to stay in a hostel in Sarajevo run by a 22-year-old incredi-dude who set up rooms in the top storey of his parents’ house after it was bombed. Without hosteling, I would never have tried a traditional Hungarian stew made almost entirely of potatoes and actual buckets of sour cream (umm, hello boys!) cooked by the most fun, gracious and kind host we’ve had. Without a doubt, we have met some 0f the best people on planet earth and experienced the best of human behaviour.

But enough of that wankery. Having shared a bedroom and bathroom with up to eight strangers every night for the last four months, we’ve also met some people who should have been left on the mountain at birth.

They fit into the following categories:

The selfish: Really these people are the most harmless of the lot but they still drive me to the brink of bite-the-curb violence. They’re the kind who rifle through their bags at 1am, turn the lights on and off all night or let their alarms ring for minutes at the crack of dawn. Just the other night, I was kept awake by a room light that was still on at 2am for the sake of one girl “doing work”. Eavesdropping on her earlier inane conversations, I knew she was a receptionist at a language school so I wondered what kind of work she could be doing. Translating hieroglyphics? Cracking the Da Vinci code? When I got up out of bed and asked if I could turn off the light, she hesitated and when I did she said “Sorry, do you mind? I have pages to read, I’m not just using my computer”. Really? That’s interesting because my husband knows ninjitsu – once he takes off his eye mask and pulls out his industrial-strength ear plugs, things are gonna get real biatch.

The spewers: We’re lucky to have only met one of these a-holes. One night, J-man and I were rudely awoken from our dreams of unicorns and adultery by what we both initially thought was our roommate choking on some water. We looked over at each other in shock when it became clear this guy was puking all over himself, his bed, his bag and all over the floor. We were even more horrified as he swiftly got up, dressed only in his tight undies, stripped the bed, threw his soiled sheets in the hall, flipped his mattress and scrubbed his bag clean before going back to sleep. The next morning he apologized profusely, blaming the whole thing on a bad mushroom pizza. Nice try buddy, but there was one dead giveaway. Not only was he swaying and bumping into things as he cleaned up the funghi death slime, but as he bent down to pick up his sheets, he let out a ripsnorter. Nothing says pissed as a fart quite like … a fart.

The rooters: Ah yes, there have been many, many of these incredibly romantic moments on our trip. There’s no lullabye like the sound of two drunk strangers lick each other clean not five metres from your head. A story I’ll tell at every dinner party for the rest of my life comes live from a lovely little hostel in the Bulgarian countryside. We were sharing a room with a bunch of the usual backpacker crowd and a couple of elderly dudes. In the middle of the night a young couple started doing the bad thing on the good foot on the bunk bed above a snoring, gassy English grandpa. That night I was suffering from a very unsexy condition known as Bulgaria Butt and was up and down until dawn. But that didn’t stop the young lovers, who were also up and down until dawn and still canoodling in the morning light. When they still hadn’t wrapped things up after breakfast I – feeling angry, tired and about 12 kilos lighter – scolded them for being inconsiderate and walked out of the room in a huff as they tried to plead their innocence. Later, I came back into the room to find the girl talking sweetly to the old guy she’d been bonking on top of all night. In the middle of their conversation about Israel and the joys of world travel, the old fella pointed to a screwed up pair of sexy underpants that had fallen on his pillow from her top bunk. “Are these yours?” he said, “because they’re certainly not mine”.  Aw snap, you dirty slapper.

For a couple of weeks now, J-man and I have been trying to think of ways to tell our neighbours to shut the hell up.

We’re not totally sure how many people live in the house next door but there’s always two people around – one very camp man, who should have been an opera singer because his voice carries like a sneaky parp after bad Vindaloo, and a woman. The house has a beautiful, leafy courtyard and it appears to be the perfect place to drink, blast music, cry and have very loud private conversations until 2am on any given day. I have yelled out ‘turn it down’, pointedly slammed my window closed and sulked myself to sleep with earplugs fashioned from toilet paper on several occasions. But they just haven’t got the message.

So while I’ve been lying in bed listening to U2, The Police, Beyonce and Robbie Williams against my will, I’ve been mentally writing them a little note. I figure if I wrote it, I’d be polite as possible to avoid any neighbourly tension.

It would go a little something like this:

Dear neighbour,

It sounds like you host some pretty sweet parties and you’re certainly making the most of the great weather! We don’t mean to be the neighbourhood party police, but we were wondering if you could keep the volume down at night. Both of us work odd hours and have often had trouble getting to sleep with your music up so loud. We’d really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Your neighbours.

But there are some days when I’ve thought instead about setting fire to said polite letter and going on a homicidal rampage. Today was one of those homicidal days. Not only were our good friends up until about midnight singing along drunkenly to Sting,  they were up again at 6am chatting very loudly about their fabulously boring plans. God, it’s enough to make you want to commit an indictable offence with a red hot skewer.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re all: “Dude, you’re 23 you should be over there with them, drinking them all under the table and providing them with the best Hawaiian bammy you’ve got”. Well, I don’t have any “bammy”. I have a job, some serious mood issues, a regularly upset stomach and, surprisingly, very few people to hang out with. Part of me does feel a little lame for being so angry about it, but I just think it shows so little respect and consideration. Oh God, now you’ve made me burn the Jam Drops I had in the oven.

Anyhoot, you can imagine how I felt this afternoon when I came home from a spot of Christmas shopping, only to again hear the familiar sounds of Bono. As I chopped up some fresh fruit, I thought about the four old ladies who live downstairs and how much it must ruin their quiet Saturday afternoons too. Then I heard something that made me gag on my mango. A woman moaning, grunting and wailing – the same noises I make when I’m eating a beef burger at The Counter with a side of onion rings. After some more listening, it became obvious the moans had less to do with onion rings and more to do with … sausage. I couldn’t believe it. As a people-watching fanatic, this was my dream come true. So I quickly bounded to the window, where I could get a better view and, sure enough, through the leaves I could see the faint outline of the mythical beast with two backs. Or as I put it to J-man in a frantic text message when he asked me how I knew they were doing it: I went to eavesdrop and could see some flesh bouncing around in the bushes.

So J and I have come to a consensus in the last hour. We will discretely drop some raw chicken in their backyard and let it sit in the sun. After all, who wants to play hide the sausage when you can smell rotting meat.

Usually harbouring great contempt for members of the human race outside my immediate family and my group of very small and carefully selected friends, I was so pleased to find myself standing next to a very polite man in a bookstore today.

As I was buying a copy of Chris Masters’ Jonestown, a man standing next to me was trying to return a copy of Neil Strauss’s The Game. And dudes, just as a side note, if anyone bought me that book there is no way I’d do something as sensible as take it back for a refund. I would probably tear all the pages out and create a small army of bald, skinny, arrogant paper voodoo dolls and arrange them in compromising positions.

Anyway the guy at the counter nervously told him the book wasn’t in a returnable condition. And everyone within a one metre radius held their breath waiting for the nuclear explosion that usually …explodes … when the customer is wrong. But this guy simply said: “Oh, okay. Fair enough.” And when the bookstore dude says: “I’m so sorry”, the customer tells him it’s not his fault and wishes him a good day. The girl serving me, who was wearing the most amazing shade of red lipstick I’ve ever seen, says: “Shit, he took that well”.

I happened to follow the customer down the escalator and I noticed him taking in his surrounds with a contented look on his face. What a pleasant fellow. Usually people in the city are puking, yelling, asking for money or handing out flyers advertising vacancies at brothels. Someone needs to put a ring on this guy’s finger because whoever does will forever be tiptoeing through the tulips, even on a shopping outing to buy three-ply. Or maybe, just maybe, I was fooled by The Game.

The reason this well-mannered man struck me so is because I spent most of my teenage years and some of my early 20s dealing with loser customers, including a notable time when I had to explain to a woman why she could not return swimwear with a strange smear and pubic hair in the crotch. I had to be stopped from hacking off my own hand and plucking out my eyeballs that afternoon, let me tell you.

But also I’ve had a strange week filled with rude, rude people. Like my taxi driver this morning who spent five minutes sounding his horn outside a park near my apartment block before dawn. He also had the hide to scold me as I got in the car. Last time I checked my address wasn’t Poor Stevie, fork of fifth tree on the right, near the leaves and kind of close to some blades of grass, and that dog poo over there, NSW, Australia.

I’ve also this week been hung up on, sworn at, mooned, called a dog and ripped off. It’s a bloody tough little city is Jonestown.

It’s really immature and narky of me but how the hell do I tell people to quit saying “Bless you!” after I sneeze. This seems like a small problem, and really it would be if I didn’t sneeze twice every five minutes. No, for real. I’m allergic to everything. My pillow, our blankets, the carpet, Joel’s manfume, Joel’s deodorant, my deodorant, the upholstery on bus seats, the Daily Telegraph, autumn leaves, the grey jumper I’m wearing today, my red bracelets, my office, the office fridge, the photocopier ink, my keyboard at work, the ABC AM program.

It sounds like I’m exaggerating, I know. But quit saying bless you. For one thing, I don’t need to be blessed. I am already – I have awesome Mississippi mud cake in my bag. For another thing, aren’t you bothering Jeebus who has to bless me every five minutes when he’d rather be watching The Sopranos?

Today has been the lamest day in the history of lame days:

+ Wake up late, figure it’s better to wait around and watch Ellen and Oprah before venturing into the city to buy a card for Joel’s grandma to thank her for letting us use her holiday house as a brothel/meth lab for two weeks. Feel okay about wasting time because I’m going to kill it at hip hop class tonight.
- Ellen Show had lame guests, Oprah was about old people.
+ Look at eBay and find a cute-slash-hideous owl shaped watch. Also find online shop for Melissa/Vivienne Westwood shoes. Consider making purchase(s).
- Decide it is too dangerous to go into the city with money burning a hole in my pocket. Walk to Neutral Bay, where the only shops are orthopaedic shoe boutiques, instead.
+ Buy card, look in Blockbuster and hire Two Days in Paris to fill my evening alone while Joel has dinner with buddies.
- Buy antihistamines for crappy allergies to crappy house.
+ Spot bank branch, judge it excellent time to open a savings account with a good interest rate to help me fund my own trip to Paris. Feel smug and organised.
- Helpful man behind the counter tells me my regular account is so old that no one has one anymore and those who do pay expensive, unreasonable fees. These include charging me for every single transaction, every time I go into any branch and seven bucks each month for, you know, not much. Also says bank will snatch my newborn child from between my quivering thighs and force me to cut the cord with my teeth whenever I decide to reproduce.
+ Helpful man switches me to modern account sans babynapping and cannibalistic rituals.
- Come home to find mobile bill for extraordinary amount, including overdue charges from account I haven’t received a bill for.
+ Figure I can claim most of it back from work. Suckers.
- Get text message from hip hop buddy saying she is feeling too lazy to go to class. I go to reply but find that my service has been cut off.
+ Pay bill, call Optus’ Indian Bureau, get service re-connected, reply to text message.
+ Decide to go to hip hop class on my own for I am empowered and confident, if not a little uncoordinated and lacking rhythm.
- Double check timetable, find class has been cancelled only to be replaced by class at 2.30pm on Wednesdays. Oh, how convenient.
+ Decide to go for a walk instead to make up for bad eating practices during beach holiday.
- It begins to rain.
  I start to mentally calculate how much money I’ve lost to banks/mobile phone companies. Realise I could have bought own apartment in Paris and be straddling French pastry chef right now.

In Orange you rarely have to line up for anything except the dole and methylated spirits. Oh I’m too cynical – mostly it’s for clean syringes and bourbon.

Today I queued for nearly an hour to buy a Christmas present and even though it’s my second Christmas in Sydney, I knew what I was getting myself into by shopping on the last Thursday before Santa breaks into my house and drinks my boutique Japanese beers.

And holy feck, 99.9 per cent of people are whiners. One woman, about 46th in line, finally got to the counter and didn’t take her headphones out while she was served. And she only answered questions with a shake or nod of her head. And didn’t make eye contact when they gave her change and a receipt. Then when her moment of pure First World torture was finally over, she moped out of the shop like someone had just forced her to strip naked and top off the human pyramid in the corner while we all took photos.

Then some other feisty babe who dared to wear her sweaty gym leggings and headband in public demanded a terrified staff member named Connie TRAINEE to find her a particular product. So Connie TRAINEE, carrying boxes and answering inane questions from all angles, slinked off to the back room. This is a beautiful trick as a retail worker. People think there’s a magical back room with endless supplies of Barbie vans, the second season of Friends and that illusive carton of Winnie Blues. Get a clue – there’s nothing out the back except a dartboard with your face on it. So Connie TRAINEE emerged 30 seconds later with the news that no there was nothing out the back and no they were unlikely to get anything in before Christmas. Sweaty pants heard this, rolled her eyes and actually stamped her foot. Stamped. her. Nike. wearing. foot. Sheesh.

I hope the good lord audits the world soon, I really do.

Merry December 18 y’all.

This afternoon while walking towards my bus stop, a woman in a long floral skirt came running up behind another woman, stopped her and said: “You have the most radiant, beautiful face I have ever seen. I just thought you should know”.

I couldn’t help but look at the bus timetable and roll my eyes in disgust. I could just tell that this woman was a hippy-dippy jerk and thought she would make this other woman’s day by saying something semi-sensual and creepy in a really loud voice. When really, all she was achieving was making everyone involved feel awkward.

I went about my very merry business and went and bought a two pack of bread rolls from Coles to use as garlic bread tonight and wandered back to my bus stop. I hadn’t eaten much all day and started nibbling on the end on one of the rolls when I noticed the hippy-dippy woman doing some no-bra Woodstock dancing and delighting in the fact that commuters were looking at her like maybe she’d just eaten her own puke.

Unfortunately, I made brief eye contact with her male companion, who approached me and said: Excuse me, I was wondering if you would like to share your bread with us?

Okay, what? Would I like to share my bread with you?

I remained silent and widened my eyes in a way that should have suggested: Are you kidding me? One step closer and I’ll kick you in your Scientology nutsack.

But instead he said: Your bread just looks so beautiful and it made us all so hungry.

I was so flabbergasted, that instead of saying “two bucks. downstairs. not on my watch, L. Ron Hubbard.” I handed over my bread roll.

Him: “That’s so beautifully kind of you. thankyou.”

The thing is, I was thinking that I didn’t really even need the second roll when I bought the packet. So if I was a nice, sharing person I would have gladly handed over the roll, thinking the universe had taken the roll away and given it to someone more hungry because the universe knew I was probably going to freeze it for six months and then throw it out and the universe taketh and the universe giveth and the universe makes beautiful skirts in floral patterns for the whole universe to discover the beauty of dance and the universe is watching us all and will feed us when we’re hungry.

But no, the majority of my thoughts are more like: I can’t believe I have to share the universe people I hate.

When I was little I used to like twiddling my umbrella around like I was in Mary Poppins or some shit, but I’m well aware they can be freakin’ lethal weapons in Sydney.

I’m not giant tall, but lots of people walking along George Street seem to be teeny tiny and I have been semi-beheaded on several occasions.

The worst umbrella assault I have seen was when I was lining up for a bus in the rain recently.

This trendy little spiky haired teenager was in front of me, and a red-haired-toupee-wearing old dude was next to me holding a metal-tipped umby. What the old guy didn’t realise was that every time he stepped closer to the bus, while he was fiddling around trying to find his Travel Ten (I bet it was brown) he was ramming his umbrella up this poor kid’s rectum.

The kid didn’t know what to do, but the look on his face suggested that he was seriously considering reporting the old guy to the police.

And rightly so.

Right now, I would like to report Joel to the police.

About two weeks ago, Joel took me out on a hot date.

We were eating Thai in this incredibly romantic little place. Chatting and laughing away like our house was made of gold, probably angering fellow single diners. It was one of those dates where you maybe suck on the same piece of spaghetti, entwine your arms and drink wine, Joel might have pulled a rose out of his sleeve or put a diamond ring in my ice cream. One of those dates.

After consuming a whole bottle of wine – and feeling warm and tipsy, Joel looks deep into my eyes and says:

Nice wine?
Steph: Yeah, it was great. Where does it come from?
Joel: It was left over from an event the other night.
Steph: Oh, that’s nice.
Joel: Yeah, we went around and emptied left over cups into the bottles

And he doesn’t understand my concern that I may now be pregnant to an unknown man. Or at least caught a bad case of herpes.

My lyric of the day: So my label would change my image, I’m a pink lipstick chick called dipstick, This ain’t on my wish list, Oh shit I’m in FHM posing in a bikini,Next to a Lamborghini. Lady Sov 9 to 5