I need a holiday after all this talk
about commitment, and marriage and every other aspect of human
interactions that is scarier than watching 'Wolf Creek'. Its open
wallet season and not one, not two, but three interstate trips are
forcing my savings into its frequently compromised position. My
pleasure receptacles are bracing for overload as the next month is
all about fun and frivolity, and probably fasting, out of fiscal and
physical necessity.
A five day man date to Sydney with Trev
was the first leg. The UFC obsession that started in Broome has
finally become a stadium spectacle instead of a couch riding
experience. Such is the popularity of the sport that the event sold
out in less than an hour. That was great news for us when we heard
about it 3 days after ticket sales had opened. The $250 initial
budget we discussed was made to look like chicken feed when we
realised the only way to get tickets was through a professional
scalper, for twice the price. That took a fair degree of resignation
to sleep off, but shady deals multiplied exponentially until our only
option was $620 for a corporate box. Already over committed, there
was no way to back out by this stage without a large side salad of
regret.
If that wasn't debilitating enough,
Trev brought tickets for the Twenty20 cricket match through the same
suspect character, and paid double the gate price for general admin.
Amongst numerous other similarities, Trev and I obviously have the
same approach to disposable income. I don't even like the Twenty20
format believing it to designed for people with limited attention
spans. A point proven at the game when short snippets of music blared
out between each delivery just in case the punters fell foul to a
moment of self awareness. The fact that the current West Indies team
would have trouble beating an under age suburban side, meant the game
was never even a contest. Australian openers Warner and Watson
provided some entertainment by hoisting every second ball into the
crowds; an event celebrated with fire works and loud music to further
enthral the mindless masses.
Compounding the pecuniary problem was
our mutual love of beer, as every wander through town under the guise
of sight seeing was just an extended pub crawl. One stop was at a
German Brew-house where beer was consumed out of buckets with
handles. Trev's larger frame happily absorbed a few full steins but
the middle of the afternoon was not the time for me to tackle such
slipperiness and expect to see anything of the evening. A visit to
the Sydney version of our James Squires bar accommodated our desires
in the name of business research, and helped put a rosy glow on the
rest of the days perambulations.
We looked at all the iconic landmarks
of Sydney from a respectful distance as neither of us had much
intention to be tourists. I took a handful of the obligatory
snapshots, including a rather impressive sunset as we caught the
ferry over to Manly for dinner one night. Most of the cameras work
was done at the UFC event, something so large it warrants its own
journal entry. An early morning stroll through Newtown offered little
in the way of alternative people or shops but a visit to Chinatown
did. For $2 a smiley Eastern European man cut a profile portrait of
me out of black card in about 2 minutes. While overly simplistic, the
similarities were uncanny as it showed I had a chin, a nose, a hat on
and a vastly sloping forehead like a frontal lobotomy had removed
over half of my brain. Alcohol was probably doing that in reality, so
perhaps the portrait wasn't too dissimilar after all.
The obvious contradiction between this
party trip and my recent intoxicant abstention is somewhat lost on
me. Life is a dynamic process and I'm not one to tie myself down to
any one thing that cannot be contradicted by whatever follows it,
especially when it comes to vows or personality traits. There is no
rule that says we have to fulfil the expectations of ourselves or
others and be anything but that exact person we want to be in that
very moment. I think it makes life more interesting to be living like
a rock star one day, contemplating life in a monastery the next, then
celebrating the corporeal commitments of others after that.
