Isn't It Funny

How things change and take a new shape, either because you have willed them to change or simply because you've sort of sat back and picked Option A over B which has lead you down a different way....

I am in Melbourne, and have now been in Australia for about 9 months. I was never really 100% sold on this country until I came here, and now am trying to figure out a way to stay longer. Out of nowhere, I love this city and the thought of leaving it makes me sad. It's like this little (well 4 million people little) gem of a city, way down south in the Southern Hemisphere... so far away from everything and everyone I know, but somehow it feels safe, cozy, familiar, and right... I can't put my finger on it, or even really explain why, but it's the closest I've felt to "home" in a long time. I don't feel homesick here, or intimidated, shy, anxious. For the first time in a long time I feel semi-stable... like I have found a place where I might want to actually stay for awhile. Again, I don't really know why...but I think I would feel homesick for here if I left.

I am temping as a receptionist for a large accounting firm, and surprisingly, I really like it... it's easy, pretty mindless, yet the days go by fairly quickly, and it's social. It's not mentally taxing, so I have my brain free most of the day to scheme and daydream and think... I have probably come up with ten times as many design ideas/thoughts while working here than when my brain is being drained at design jobs because of the task at hand. I am also bartending at a cozy smallish bar called Prince Alfred... I love my bosses, love the people I work with... it's fun, the nights go pretty quickly, we have a few drinks before, during, and after work.. it's basically the perfect bar job. And now I am about to start freelancing for the design studio above the pub... S

SO much for the "travel blog" that i was meant to keep up while gone... I wrote loads while I was on the move, but just not on here... it was easy to write in a journal when I was laying on so many beaches and sitting on buses, but not as easy (or fun) to sit at a computer. Now, though, I am back at a computer with more time on my hands, and to be honest, it's nice to have some of that time back. To be able to sit still for a minute and want to be where I am. I've gotten back into somewhat of a routine, as far as work, the gym... work, work. but somehow, I am enjoying all of it. Maybe it's the novelty of being "foreign"- people are curious and nice bc i have accent...

okay. all for now.

Off.

I'm headed for the airport in 2 hrs. I bought a new Ipod last night, since there's really no possibility of traveling alone without music. I'm not nervous, but feel a little wierd about being gone for so long, alone. I know I won't really be alone-- probably not even as much as I would like to be, but it's hitting me that... I am leaving, even though I've been "gone" now I am really leaving. I'm excited. A little nervous. Unsure of what to expect. Feels like jumping off the 10 meter- so great once you're off , but can be a little scary to jump. So. I'm off.

Frustrated.

I am the girl who has these things happen.

We were at happy hour on Friday evening, at a bar with a group of my brother's co-workers. We were the only ones there, in an outdoor area. My green purse was hanging off the back of my chair. I was talking, laughing, drinking. A chinese lady in a blue shirt sat at the table behind us. Later, I went to pay. And it was gone. I had already had a few drinks, so my initial reaction, was, oh. Hm. Well. I still have my passport. Then people started quizzing me on what I had inside and I remembered, I am the girl who carries too much around. The camera is really what made me cry. Things are just things. But I like to keep my pictures, they are memories of people I won't see for a long time, or places I will never see again.

We went to Kawah Putih yesterday, a 3 hr drive from Jakarta. Amazing, up high in the moutnains, it's a crater (since Java is made up of tons of volcanoes) and there's a sulfuric lake that's always steaming and is an unreal shade of aqua-green, set against the black volcano, it's what the end of the world looks like I think.

I think I may have to stay in Jakarta for another week, because of the credit card situation. I was going to just go, but the thought of traveling for so long with no credit cards and nothing but cash and a passport seems a little stupid on my part. I'm not happy with this wrench thats been thrown in my plans, but I guess since I am not on any real schedule, this doesn't really matter. I see visions of my cash being stolen or lost, and me working in rice fields, with a wide brimmed hat and pants pushed up, and this makes me think, maybe better to carry a Visa instead of selling my body for pad thai.

up.

and I don't want to be. I think too much of a caffeinated painkiller... slamming heart... can't sleep.

I have never talked to myself so much before, in my head. And it is only going to get to be more, when I am not with my family. It's a little intense, all this time alone with my brain. which is why this blog is still yawn worthy. tapping out the bullshit inside my overthinking, undertalking head.

i don't get homesick, i don't really feel like i have a home. i do get friendsick, even when traveling and with new people i meet. maybe already friendsick. sometimes, it would just be better with one of a handful of people. by my side.

2 Tix Bought

I spent half the day trying to find the best and cheapest way to get to Phuket... I found plenty of cheap tix to Bangkok but that is too north and I want to work my way up there via the beaches.... so, I am going to Malaysia for a couple of days first, then to Phuket. It's still only costing less than $100 between the 2 tickets, but since I have no money coming in anymore, I am such a cheap bastard. I went to Kuala Lumpur last time I was here, but was really sick and basically hating the world so hopefully this time around am in better health and spirits. Although if I don't stop being eaten by mosquitos, I may get malaria. Or dengue fever. OR both. Which would be stellar.

Ate amazingly spicy mie goreng (noodles with seafood) today. Wow. This blog is b o r i n g right now. It will pick up when I start moving, I promise. RIght now I kind of feel like a kid on a snow day from school... sleeping in, showering late, lazing around... watching bad TV... BUT not spending money, which is good. Because, as I mentioned, I have none coming in. Zero. Oh. Scary. Minor panic at that thought.

oh.

and the reason for all this "coco this" and "coco that" is, aside from being a nickname that I will never be able to shake, I didn't want future employers (or weirdos) to be able to google my name and find my blog. So, all the Coco.

Casablanca

Is where I just spent 6 hours... it's a ridiculously nice sports club/ outdoor pool thing, and i had the whole thing to myself. Now I'm a new shade of red, I thought the smog might protect me, guess I forgot my proximity to the equator. There's a huge pool, with rocks and palm trees and fountains and I had it all to myself... ahhhhhh... I read 1.5 books and also, just laid there. Alone. Then got to shower and get share a mirror with a totally unabashed woman, who sat down too close to me and let her pale doughy nakedness spill out into her lap while she blow dried her hair.

There are a lot of things my brother is jaded about, after having lived here for 5 years-the pollution, the traffic, the corruption, etc etc... but for some reason, this makes me like it more. The heady, sweaty air that smells like street meat, incense, asphalt, orchids (or some flower), tea, spices, astounding b.o., cleaning solution and ehxaust, and the humidity lets it stew and it smells like a city that's never stopped being 80 degrees and has just been churning and burning and it's never seen a blanket of snow or even a chilly night, just this hotness, this eternal flip-flop climate, neverending sweltering summer. The mishmash of random streetside businesses, the bike vendors that ride around neighborhoods, calling out what I hear as "ziiiii-ooooo" which I think is something to do with vegetables? The vendors everywhere with carts of huge fruit, or noodles, the huge mansions across the street from makeshift shacks, ditches filled with branded debris flowing next to huge beautiful balconied homes. It all reminds me that. I'm gone.

The taxi had to stop 2 times to ask someone on the side of the road how to get where i wanted to go. Kind of a helpless feeling, sitting in the back, motioning and speaking irrelevant syllables, hoping that if i point and repeat, he'll understand "uh, no keep going, keep going, straight, then left." He doesn't. And I guess it's human nature to still keep speaking, because I know he knows I don't understand one word he's muttering, so I smile politely, nod slightly. And still, we keep speaking. Baby gibberish at this point.