It's Time to Be Creative Now.

One of the reasons I left my Governmenty job and moved to Melbourne was so I could pursue more of the things I like, such as writing music and eating Nutella (750 grams for $5 at the Coles in Fitzroy!).

The problem, it seems, is that when I have the time to do something I want to do, it somehow always becomes much more difficult (I’m not talking about Nutella-eating, I seem to be have no problems at all with that.). It's as though my ability to be creative is reliant on my inability… as though they are the one entity... like Harry and Lord Voldemort. 

It all started when I discovered that the local Library in Fitzroy rents its meeting rooms at the low low price of $8.80 for three hours. This seemed to me a great price, and so yesterday decided to rent a room, all the while giving myself high-fives for being so resourceful, and thinking ‘I bet this is how Bob Dylan wrote so many amazing songs, and in exactly three hours I will have written Shelter From The Storm II.’  However when I told myself that it was time to ‘be creative now’, for some reason my mind went into some kind of pressure-fit, and I ended up writing Taylor Swift’s latest hit, but with different lyrics.

Seemed to me like a problem.

Did I mention that I’m really good at solving other people’s problems?  Usually, my strategy is to liken the dilemma to a similar situation, which by comparison seems less confusing. Then, all of a sudden the answer becomes clear and obvious, and I feel like some kind of genius who should have her own show.

Let me demonstrate. For this problem, I will use bees.

Think of a bee that likes to drink nectar from flowers (they do this right?) but is just way too busy with its other bee-commitments, such as making chocolate-freckles for a local chocolate factory (and besides, it could get the nectar cheaper from the Coles in Fitzroy anyway).

Then one day the chocolate factory closes down.

Having been frugal and financially sensible in the past, the bee luckily is not particularly worried, and is able to remain fed and emotionally stable (stay with me…) until it finds a new job.

So what this means is that the bee (who loves sucking nectar out of flowers, as mentioned in earlier rambles) now has loads of spare time to pursue it’s nectar-sucking, but somehow can’t seem to remember why/how/when it usually does these things and so spends most of it’s free time eating tapas at local restaurants.

So as you can see, I am way better at solving other people’s problems. Maybe I’ll just go with the Taylor Swift thing. A whole generation of teens agree it’s a great idea.

Please find below a picture (taken for a previous Nutella themed blog-post) of me and large jar of Nutella.

Why it’s OK to Blog about Chocolate Freckles.

Some current moving-to-Melbourne-stress has left me needing a little guidance with my blog this week. So I decided I’d turn to The Oxford English Dictionary, having remembered it being helpful when preparing for Year 8 English debates such as ‘Does the TV show ‘The Nanny’ objectify women?’.

Upon not finding an Oxford English Dictionary in my laptop bag, I instead turned to Dictionary.com.

Dictionary.com defines ‘Blog’ as:

‘A website containing the writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites.’ 

(NB. Cleverly, it can also be a verb.)

So, based on this, I happily concluded two things:

Conclusion 1. Yes, I am writing a blog. I am ‘blogging’, as it were.

Conclusion 2. I am basically allowed to write anything that I want, so there.

In light of the definition above, I will now provide you with an ‘observation’ I deemed blog-worthy…

I like coffee right? Right. So in my first week living in Fitzroy, I received cappuccino after capuccino in paper cups. Even though I was ‘dining in’, I still got them in paper cups. I remembered from past experience that this is commonplace at chain-establishments like Star ****s and G****Jean, but never at smaller hole-in-the-wall type holes-in-the-wall. I told a few Melbourne locals about this and even they couldn’t tell me what was going on, even though some of them wear black square-framed glasses. The answer, I realized eventually, is that, wait for it...

Melbourne does not do the ‘Mugoccino’!

Let me explain why this is so significant…

In Torquay, the Mugoccino is a perfectly acceptable form of coffee. This is presumably because surfers get up so early that they need lots of coffee in order to make it through a hard day of surfing and coffee. (Mugoccino (mine) from Torquay, pictured below).

No, I am not a surfer. My own reasons for enjoying a Mugoccino are much less cool/rational, and mostly to do with a self-diagnosed case of ‘Restless Legs’, which I diagnosed using the internet. Apparently, too much coffee can cause this annoying made-up-sounding condition, and so I decided to cut back from two cups per day, to one super-large mug, or ‘Mugoccino’.

To finish up, here is a picture of me with a giant freckle that I made at The Chocolate Factory in Corowa last weekend (that right, MADE!). Yes, that is genuine joy on my face.  No, it is not relevant to anything else in this post except I guess it’s technically an ‘experience’ (see Definition, above).

House-Dating.

Recently I decided to move from the No Smoke of Torquay to the Big Smoke of Melbourne. Friends directed me to a house-hunting website, which meant I could house-hunt while sitting on the couch and drinking coffee. Great. The site is basically the same as online-dating, except instead of dating you share intimate details about yourself, then meet up and decide whether you want to spend your immediate futures together.  

So basically it’s online-dating. Or more accurately, house-dating.

“I SAW YOUR PROFILE AND I THINK YOU LOOK NICE…”

Browse the website and register your interest with a person or persons you think you might like (because in house-dating it’s ok to date more that one person, so long as they all live together).  It’s important to remember that if you have two dogs, no job and a collection of stamps needing its own room, it’s unlikely everyone you approach will be interested. The beauty of online house-dating is that you are actually quite likely to find someone with two kennels, lots of money and a thing for old-school postage.

"YOU SEEM INTERESTING, TELL ME MORE..."

The approachee’s method of responding will give you some indication of your future compatibility. A phone call suggests maturity. A text message suggests someone more casual. A text message that reads ‘sori phone died on me yesterday.yas can com ova whenev’ suggests someone with whom you don’t want to share a bathroom.

“HOW ABOUT WE CATCH UP SOMETIME…?”

Remember that, like boys and snakes, potential housemates are generally more scared of you than you are of them. Use the initial catch-up to make important comparisons with their aforementioned advert. For example, you should verify ‘happy’ versus ‘crazy’, ‘eclectic taste’ versus ‘lots of stamps’, and ‘large-room’ versus ‘wide-lens’. (Note that housemates with wide lenses are ok, and are more common in suburbs like Fitzroy or Collingwood.)

“I HAD FUN THE OTHER NIGHT…”

Decide whether you’re really that into them. Vice versa, they’ll decide whether you’re the Brett to their Germaine. Remember that even though yesterday you were happily discussing what kind of milk you both prefer, there’s always a chance they’ll respond with a ‘it was a really tough decision, but we’ve decided to go with someone else’.

And you know what, that’s fine. Because at least you know that Stamp Guy is no longer on the market.