I think I'm old enough to 'man up' now. Put down the stout, drink a nice big glass of cement and toughen the fuck up! I'm almost old enough for a seniors card yet cold climates, commitment and cucumbers still frighten me. My wardrobe has expanded enough to keep half a platoon warm, dry and dapper.The desire to high-five often is a good sign the new relationship is going well. And cucumbers, well, they're just a lost cause really.
It is time for me to start acting my numerical age, or at least a significant percentage of it, rather than the lowest possible number that still avoids diaper wearing. I know I should if, for no other reason, the circumstances are perfect for doing so. How things can keep getting better I don't know as I thought I had drained the karmic honeypot with my previous city/house/lifestyle.
Hobart is rocking right now! Not literally, as it's nearly 8pm on a weeknight and even living within the CBD, it's rare to hear a car drive past at this time of night. It is a sleepy little city, and it's cold enough to freeze your nuggets if you're not thinking warm thoughts all the time. I'm loving it though. Within the space of a month, I've gone from unemployed and homeless to more employed and more 'homed' than ever with a full time job and two places to call home.
My gf's house in Battery Point is an old hospital and the interesting architecture makes it a fun place to run way from the moaning ghosts of its previous tenants. I have also procured my own room at a friends house two streets from the Elizabeth street mall. With a single bed only, it acts as a bachelor pad capable of featuring all manner of dude-like behaviour. In reality, it sees more blanket forts than bedroom gymnastics. So that's two places 'I can lay my head', a phrase that would sound extremely bizarre if it was read out of context.
And my full time employment is working a 38.5 hour week while being paid peanuts BUT, and that's a Rosanne sized 'but', I get paid annual leave and sick days. They may see the error in that as soon as I catch a rare genetic disorder as soon as a single sick day is accrued. Even though such benefits equate to forced savings, I'm still sure to find a way to blow it all before it could develop any worth through interest.
And my job is to deal drugs all day. People pay me a small amount of cash for a highly potent stimulant to get them through their otherwise boring day. The fact that coffee is legal the world over doesn't mean that it is any less of a drug. As mentioned in previous entries, I may be a pusher, but I'm not much of an ingester. Once I've passed my one coffee a day quota, a decaf coffee that sat too long next to the real stuff has the same effect on me as any powder sold on the street for 20 times the price. At least I assume so.
After crop dusting my resume on cafes around town like it was confetti, most places treated it as such and quickly filed it away in the nearest garbage bin. One place actually advertised the need for staff in their window so had they have rejected me, I would have resorted to either sperm bank donations or bank robberies praying I never got the two places confused. A few pots of gold line up on the karmic slot machine again, and the job turned out to be one of the best I have had!
The bosses are friendly, considerate and extremely generous. A great attribute for them to have owning a patisserie filled with enough delectable pastries to help all the liposuction clinics in the country get huge advances on their mortgage. I'll never have to buy bread again, as long as that 'never' also applies to leaving the job. All the other staff members are super friendly and all that is expected of me is pouring pretty patterns on the tops of coffees.
Being a barista (a lot less law orientated job than being a barrister) is the only aspect of hospitality that I actually love. All other roles involve talking to customers, who are invariably idiots. It's a shame men don't apply the same willingness to ask questions when lost as they do to being a customer inside a bakery.
“Do I order through you as you feverishly pump out coffees or do I line up at the till with everyone else?”
“Really? You're seriously asking me that question?”
I have to answer that question at least 4 times a day, my view of the offending moron half blocked by a sign that clearly states to hand over cash at a till, where money lives, and not a coffee machine, where disbelief is currently residing! I try to look so absorbed in the coffee making process that either my focus, or maniacal drooling, relieves me from having to field too many of these stupid questions. One feigned eyelid twitch is usually enough for people to realise it's safer to use their own brain than to bother someone so obviously deranged.
People mean well generally, and usually think better AFTER consuming a little somethin'-somethin' of what I'm pushin'. And it's not right to prove how good the job is by stating what it doesn't consist of. I've made coffees for four years and if I couldn't do them well by now it's time to throw away the condoms or find a balaclava and vaguely realistic toy pistol. It's sort of creative at least, with the pictures of hearts, ferns and dicks I draw in the coffee. It's fun because hospitality workers are generally more sociable people out of necessity than say, grave diggers or Jetstar check-in staff. And it's not monotonous thanks to all the crazy things I do, often involuntarily, while under the influence of my caffeine self-medicating.
One such thing could be agreeing to completely change my look for the sake of the job. Bear in mind that this was before I knew how awesome the job was. Everyone I spoke to said that I shouldn't conform for the 'man'. I don't know who the 'man' is, but when you're broke and trying to impress a gf as a go-getter, turning down a job because they make you shave daily is not really portraying sound business sense. Because I've been a paragon of sound business sense all my life as well!
So I have to cover my tattoos, meaning I can show caffeine addicts my right hand and face. That still gives me the opportunity to show them my middle finger but I haven't quite found just cause for that yet. I have to be clean shaven, which apparently makes me look younger than I am, but still far older than I act. And I have to take out my lip stud meaning I can no longer pin my face to someone when I kiss them. All because our clientele from the nearby Parliament house are too conservative to trust someone who's chosen to be a little bit more creative with the way they look than just mixing up the colour of their ties every so often.
Even as a pale, generic version of a human, I still stand out from the average Tasmanian. Firstly, my skin is not Victorian Era pasty having tanned without frying sometime in the last 10 years. Secondly, I've found ways to rug up against the cold that differ from the big puffy jacket every single person sports. Everyone looks like a cross between Michelan Man and a crash test dummy for a rocket powered pants prototype. And thirdly, I'm the only one who seems utterly shocked with the horrendous state of the roads here. I doubt whether a single repair has been made in the three years since I was last here. Everyone must think that even cobblestones would be too bigger a leap forward and happily navigate over roads that only have consential use to validate that distinction.
