Mysterious Shopping Cart Disappearances Elude Cops, Draw Support from Rich Morons

These flyers were at the checkouts of the grocery store last week. Considering this particular store is in Collingwood, I'm not sure how the trolleys' owners can remain this baffled.

Even I, a non-junkie, know that the bench in front of the store is a hot spot for scoring smack; across the street in two directions are popular places for outdoor drinking at 9am. It's Smith Street for Chrissake—a road I once described to my sister as the Old West, if you added tacky aluminum awnings, dollar stores, tram lines, drunk Aboriginals and toothless heroin addicts. Charming, no?

Actually, it is. Maybe it's because this street was my first exposure to Australia—back when I came to visit husband back when he was my bf—but Smith Street on a sunny day is probably where I'm most at home here.

But another street in Melbourne, Sydney Road, which features many of Smith Street's characteristics, is just ugly and depressing to me. I can't really tell you why, although part of it is also that people like Sydney Road better than Smith Street, and I'm an underdog kind of girl. [Locals: don't argue with me on this. You will not change my mind. Yes, Ray has the best coffee evs. I don't care.]

Anyway, I'm neglecting my point. Then again, so are those trying to "clean up our streets" by offering rewards for missing carts.

A Lil' Note about Culture Clashing

I'm going home in a little over a month, and as excited as I am, and as much as I've been waiting for this, I'm starting to get nervous. I'll finally be doled some perspective about the differences between here and NYC, and I have no idea what to expect.

I'm also realizing that I haven't experienced enough in the past year. Haven't even made a dent in all there is to see. I've been so busy downshifting from One of the Biggest Cities to a smaller city that I sometimes forget that there's like, a lot more than the city of Melbourne on offer. But I do try.

It's an incredibly difficult thing to motivate oneself to explore an area that, for all intents and purposes, is completely foreign. It's daunting. You relinquish the confidence of control when you decide to make such strides away from familiarity. My bff cokane has recently joined me in our respective experiences of culture shock, although unlike my kind Aussie friends and neighbs, she's not being very well received.

Her struggle with starting a new life in the Deep South has really helped put my own move into perspective. Yeah, I moved so far away I can't even visit my family without taking a dent out of my yearly salary, but I moved to my husband's home, where friends, family, and familiarity were already well-established. I haven't had to work too hard to find companionship. Awesome people are seriously everywhere. 98% of them don't even hold my Americanness against me.

While it's not all that hard for me to come up with things I love about Melbourne, I do get incredibly homesick, so it's more entertaining for me to point out how (sometimes, literally) backwards shit here is than to whine about missing my mom. And you know what? The locals here think my outsider's views are funny. They don't take offense that I bitch about the fact that despite its best efforts, David Jones is no Barney's. They're not competing, and they're not insecure.

So get a clue, BaRou: our observations about your home are sometimes just how we cope with missing our own.

Dangerously Boringly Skinny

It's every where right now, isn't it? Girls being too skinny and girls obsessing about not being skinny enough—whether they're famous and stumbling off the cover of some shit magazine or they're insecure and eating cucumbers at each meal—haute couture says, "the thinner, the better!"

Just think, even porn star Jemma Jameson [left]—whose appeal once lie in her curvy (albeit silicone) figure of tits, hips and ass—has turned into a walking Cheeto. I guess a lot of people who see her now think ewwww who'd wanna fuck that? And yeah, fuckability can be a valid measure of how attractive someone is, but more rationally, what's going on in the world where a porn star feels the need to emaciate herself in order to get some fucking attention? Why wasn't being fucked on camera three ways til Sunday good enough?

So it's particularly appalling to me that I keep walking by these department store display windows in Melbourne and seeing emaciated mannequins sporting the new lame sack dresses du jour. You can tell they're trying to be all anorexic chic by the really attractive slump in their posture (early onset osteoporosis happens when you don't have any nourishment) and the pronounced clavicle.

Nothing says beautiful, confident, independent woman like a piece of plastic that could've gone on to live a fulfilling and productive life as a dildo, only to be molded into a limp, slouchy, vacuous IV stand.

Let's compare these photos to the true mannequin: Kim Cattrall in 1987 cult classic Mannequin. At least Kim had something to say, you know? She was lending her proportions to the art of that mush-face Andrew McCarthy. They rode on a motorcycle. It was real living, man.




At the end of the day I guess my biggest problem is these bitches in the Myer windows clearly don't know how to have fun. But look again at Kim Cattrall! She's all into that burger head Andrew McCarthy! Why? Who cares? She can rock magenta!

Party Tram, Excellent.

It's that time again, to say something positive about Oz. It's been difficult lately, what with getting run down by Japanese Paris Hilton, and the jihad Aussies seem to have against Halloween. Someone told me the other day that when kids are growing up here, Halloween is sorta cool but you learn at the same time that it's "just another made-up, consumerist American 'holiday'".

Excuse me, but dressing up and being creative about it, then drinking a shit load to celebrate said creativity isn't exactly American ingenuity, it's French or something, so whatevs to that.

But The Party Tram changed everything. I spotted it while walking down Bourke Street the other night and my negativity about Oz just faded away. I couldn't tell if the passengers on-board were there to party or not. Either way: RAD.

Speaking of parties, summertime is almost here. It's strange being on the opposite end of seasonal depression/elation from my U.S. friends. I was talking to my dad the other week and he was lamenting that it will soon be too cold for him to live in the garage, which is basically where you can find him from May to October. Whereas here, the mood is only getting feistier.

Right now Melbourne is celebrating this thing called Spring Carnival, which has something to do with (mostly) white trash people (called "bogans") dressing up to go to the horse races in ridiculous hats and ill-fitting suits. It actually sounds like a fantastic sociological event, and I must confess I'd be remiss in my duties as a whining ex-pat if I left Melbourne without once bumping shoulders with these awesome people.

In other party news, I'm leaving Melbourne—for like, the third time since I moved here—to go to some friends' wedding in some place called Kyneton. I haven't been to a wedding since my own, during which the guy who's getting married this weekend did a faceplant at the after-party. Danger.

National "Safety" Month

I thought maybe by it being National Safety Month n' all I wouldn't have to explain where I've been (out defying safety, natch.) But the truth is that I was a little embarrassed to tell you what happened to me, after my last post was all X-treme! That, and I do have a life you guys--do you know how time-consuming drinking is when you have a tolerance like mine?

Anyhoo, I was riding my bike one early evening to yoga, and upon slowing down to turn (the wrong way, down the tram tracks on Bourke Street), I got rear-ended by a new silver Mercedes, driven by a twat I like to call Japanese Paris Hilton. JPH, for short. Now, since I didn't see this coming, and I don't actually remember being hit, I have no idea what exactly happened. All I know is I was slowing down to turn and then I was peeling myself off the ground, my legs felt funny, and my bike was under a car. Later I would notice that my helmet was a little smashy.

It was 6pm in the center of the city, so a billion people saw this, and two nice dudes pulled my bike from under JPH's car. Some lady helped me up and asked if I wanted an ambulance. I declined and stood up and just stared in the direction of the car, as no one had surfaced yet. Finally, JPH and her blue contacts emerged and, sporting a big dumb smile, declared, "sorry!"

Why is girlfriend smiling?
ECS: "Uh. Why did you hit me?"
JPH: [still smiling] "I didn't know where you were going--you were wobbling!" [smile]
ECS: "So...you decided to hit me instead?"
JPH: "Sorry!" [unrelenting toothy grin]
ECS: "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

JPH took this as her cue that it's all good and got back into her car. She and Japanese Nicole Ritchie and Japanese Loho (in the backseat, probs chewing her face off), all stared straight in front of them as I kicked the car and yelled "stupid cunt" for whatever amount of time seemed adequate (and frankly, I was just repeating myself at this point, and I didn't want people to think I was retarded, or worse, not tough.) Then I wheeled my bike back home. I was only a block away.

About 7 minutes later I realized I was the fool of the sitch, as I did not get any of the bitch's details, and I could've gotten a new bike and some physical therapy out of it. Whatevs. I sorta refused to get shaken up by it, especially seeing how, for once, it wasn't my fault. As my friend Luke once wisely told me, "ecs, if you get hit, you won't even see it coming. So don't worry about it." Thanks dude. A week later, he stacked it and gave himself homemade stigmata. Ewwwww.

Dangerous Girl in Dangerous Town

On Friday night we met up at Public Bar in North Melbourne to document the Melburn Massive Alley Cat. An alley cat is a bike race through a city, with checkpoints, at which participants receive the location to the next checkpoint. The people who race in these mostly bike couriers, and they're completely insane. And within this insanity is total awesomeness.

I rolled up still wearing heels, so I think I bought a little cred from the crowd, most of whom had started in on the first of many beers. Husband and I joined them, and for an hour and a half everyone continued to put 'em back. I was instantly struck by how friendly and inviting this group of kids was—a few of them knew Husband, but the fact that people came up and introduced themselves to me was really cool. I get really sick of the hipsters in this city, a lot of whom have to meet you five fucking times, and then assess whether they think you're cool, before they'll actually acknowledge you. Most of these people also happen to be total pussies. They are the cause of roughly 79% of my rage, which gets aggravated by alcohol (consumed at venues I have to share with them) and why people consequently think I'm a cunt.

So this was a total welcome change. Bike kids are not pussies. They are the opposite of hipsters. Pictured at left is Hillary, who is also a really awesome skater, and I suspect is not afraid of anything. As for me, I had a nice little buzz happening by the time the organizers decided to start things up. It was almost 8 o'clock, so it was completely dark at this point and starting to get really cold. Everyone scooped up their bikes and headed across to the Queen Victoria Market to begin. The participants had to lean their bikes up against a fence, then go about 25 yards away from them to learn the first checkpoint. Once they found out where they had to go, they ran over to their bikes, each grabbing a can of Red Bull from the ground, and they were off.

Husband and I had volunteered to man the second of the 5 checkpoints with a nice graphic designer/ex-courier dude. As we started to head over to our checkpoint, Husband said to him, "just so you know we're not like, awesome riders." I was so glad we gave forewarning, because as soon as we were off, the guy was weaving through traffic and jumping curbs at (my) top speed. If I hadn't had that alcohol, I would've been way too scared to keep up. As it was, I don't think I did too badly, and when we got to Telstra Dome, I tried to be cool about it.

It wasn't long before the first few started coming through, snatching the envelopes we extended out to them with instructions and directions. There were 25 racers altogether, so after giving out 21, we headed back to North Melbourne, where the winners were already drinking. The first guy through was totally crazy and won on speed, but the second guy through actually completed the tasks, so he was the real winner. One of the tasks along the way had been to bring a takeaway menu from a restaurant. One of the guys brought a whole sandwich board instead.
Everyone headed back to the bar and recommenced drinking, and prizes were given out: cash to the winner, bike shit to the guys who came in second and third, plus First Girl prize, which went to a girl named Sarah, a courier from Seattle. They even gave us a six-pack of Melbourne Bitter cans to thank us for doing the checkpoint. Such rad people! And all the amazing danger inspired me to ride all day yesterday. Score one for Safety Town.

Dead Man Jaywalking

I haven't figured out yet why I haven't been hit by a car. In New York, pedestrians not only jaywalk, they hover around the edges of the streets even as oncoming lunatic cabbies threaten to slice the points off their shoes. People are like cockroaches, staying just far enough away, ever-encroaching, still daring to step ten feet off the curb in that crazed rush to get to the next place. If you've ever tried driving in Manhattan, you've seen this. A friend of mine was in the back of a cab once when a particularly brave little old lady stepped out into the street. The cab driver slammed on his brakes, stuck his head out the window and screamed, "you don't look like a fucking stop sign to me!" and proceeded to floor it through the intersection. In true NYC form, the old bag wasn't even phased by it.


In Melbourne, when you're waiting to cross the street, you stay on the sidewalk. Every time I step off the curb, looking up the street, watching for where I can dodge through like human Frogger, husband pulls me back and gives me that bitch is crazy look.

And apparently the authorities of Safety Town agree with him, because they've now instituted jaywalking blitzes across Australia. Blitz?! Like the fucking blitzkrieg?! So ... this is like, the fucking WWII of all Australian sting operations? Does this mean Australian cops are the Nazis and jaywalkers are the Jews?

Okay. It's on. I'm getting Russian on this sitch. (Husband is remaining contently Swiss) I hereby refuse to cross at crosswalks. Nein! I will stagger through the flow of traffic, leap toward moving trams, (Husband/Switzerland: you heard about the old lady who got chopped in half by a tram, didn't you?) and flip off that flashing dickless red man on the crosswalk sign.

Then, when the Nazis try to come for me, or my comrade (pictured), I'll bat my eyelashes, ham up my American accent, and pretend to be an ignorant tourist. Like I do when I'm getting out of tram fines. Shit costs money!

But once that's over I'll totally go to the bar and exaggerate my heroicism. It's the principle.