WEEK TWENTY-NINE

So it was my first full week at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and it started with a day off, which was quite nice really. Although I had only been working for four days, I was already starting to miss y evenings, and crave proper food. Not good at the start of a festival! I’d just had rubbish luck trying to find anywhere good near work that actually sold nice food! Shouldn’t be too much to ask! I got up relatively early, and got to work on my bit of wood – it’s the bit I got from Tasmania, and now I am going to attempt to make it look pretty! Hmmm, could be interesting. Sadly I didn’t last long at it this time – I scored a massive mark across it with the edge of the sander, and I stormed off in the huff, vowing the burn the bloody thing. Patience may be a virtue, but I do not have it! So, I left it alone for the rest of the day, and Will managed to fix my rookie mistake. With that taken care of, I was free to play around on my computer! I spent the evening being very geeky, and trying to organise my trip to the ‘Jacobite’ train back at home – the train they used in the harry Potter films.! Told you it was geeky! I didn’t get very far with that though, as I still have no idea where or when I am going to be working at the Fringe, so I gave up, and booked my flights to Amsterdam instead! I’m going when I am home, just for a few days, and my plan was to go with someone (my ex – but before he was my ex!) and decided that may not be such a good idea, so invited Rebecca and Daniel along. Much better. As they had both agreed to it I just jumped the gun a bit, and booked the flights. It was only £70, and I might be able to get free accommodation – which will be nice if it happens! The other two weren’t ready to book their tickets though, as they have to sort out grown-up stuff, like holiday-time from work, and all that kind of stuff, so currently I am actually going to be going on my own! Fingers crossed they can come! In the evening my craving was satisfied, and we all had a proper dinner, on a proper plate, with cutlery. It even had proper veggies in it – all very exciting!

I woke up relatively early(ish) to the smell of cooking, and was treated to an egg sandwich, courtesy of Toni. How lovely! Sadly, despite my early start I didn’t get up to much else until the time I had to go to work. I did go out and inspect my bit of wood, and it does look much better now Will had attacked it with a belt-sander! Maybe I should trust him on this one…ha! Work was actually relatively exciting, although I missed the actual event. Some stupid punter was texting during the show, and the comedian picked up on it, and called her rude. Apparently this was unacceptable, and the punter, and her friend then sat glaring for the next 20 minutes. Hilarious. Anyway, the punter then complained (embellishing her story somewhat, and somehow adding that I was also rude to her – interesting, considering I wasn’t there!) and got a refund. Bloody ridiculous – if you play on your phone during a show, expect to get picked on! However, this was not the lady’s opinion. It was a shorter shift than normal too – I like the fact I only have four shows sometimes! So, I finished at a semi-reasonable hour, and went to try and find the ‘Trades Hall’, which was where Toni, and some other people were drinking. I got directions, and was also told it was 2 blocks away – I’m not entirely sure what they counted as a block, but I walked for much further than I thought I’d have to, and eventually, found it. I just had to find how to get in. That cost me another 5 minutes or so, and when I got up the stairs I found a massive queue. Boring. Thank god I had my staff pass and could get past them all! So, I had a few beers there, and then when everyone else left, me and Toni headed back down the road to the Hifi to wait for Will. We were well past the time for the last train, so we were relying on his cab-charge to get us home! This did mean we could have a couple of beers, and waste time. Lovely. At some silly time in the morning we all piled into the taxi, and were off home.

On Wednesday I was ready to face the bit of wood again, and I spent some time making a mess in the garage, and eventually managed to get back to the same point I was at on Monday, before the incident. It was starting to look pretty good, and much better than I thought it would – but there is still a long way to go, and after inhaling what I considered a reasonable amount of sawdust, I decided enough was enough. I was also covered in it head to toe, and in desperate need of a shower. At least I hadn’t wrecked it anymore! Work was the same, I did decided to take in my journal though – may as well do something productive in my many hours in a corridor! I was grateful that it was a shorter shift though – I don’t think I’ll ever complain about it!

By the time Thursday had come around I was already starting to feel like I was over the whole festival, but a mere 3 weeks to go. I’ve never had to do two festivals that are pretty much back-to-back, and the feeling of apathy had set in. Not good. Luckily, I was lifted out of my little slump, by one of my friends who came to see me in my hallway, and so I at least had company for a while, and it wasn’t quite so mind-numbingly boring! I also got chatting to one of the artists, who was telling me about the NGV – I thought I had been before, but apparently I have only been to the little offshoot museum – I’ll have to find the real one at some point! But, apparently it’s a lovely place to sit and have your lunch, so I’ll go next time I am in City fro pleasure and not work. I don’t think it would be so relaxing if I was thinking about having to go to work. I also got told about an op-shop, which I was told was great, and as soon as I told Toni the name of it, she turned her nose up at it! Maybe it’s not so good after all! I’ll still have to go and explore it one day! Once I had finished work, I was putting all my stuff back in the office, and got talking to my friend from Scotland. Turns out she is living in Yarraville at the moment – it really is scary how small the world is! So, we both got the train home together, and had a big catch up on the way! Fantastic! As well as the normal stuff, she also told me that a couple of night before she had seen someone getting the crap kicked out of them at Yarraville Station – not scary at all! I always thought Yarraville was a lovely little safe place! Obviously not! Anyway, I didn’t have to worry that night, as Toni was also on the train, and had brought the car! Hurray! So, we could zoom home – past the servo so we could pick up the essentials of milk, and bread. How do we get through it so quickly?

I was woken up the next morning by Joey jumping on my face, which was the first time she had done that in months, but, it is still a horrible way to wake up! I stayed sitting at the kitchen table for a majority of the day, trying to get some writing, done, but in actuality, just making, and drinking far too many cups of tea. I had also convinced myself that I could get a bit of cake in Yarraville if I survive until then on tea. It worked, and I had just enough time to quickly scan the cake display, and decide on a caramel slice. Sadly, after the 4-hour build up in my head it was no where near as good as it could have been, and to be honest, rather revolting, as they put coconut in the base of it. Gutting! I wont be going back to that café! Good job there are about 5 others in the village! After my disappointing cake I got myself a $1 cup of tea for the 7/11, which did the job of slightly cheering me up – and re-fueling the caffeine – it had been 40 minutes since my last cuppa! It was finally starting to get slightly busy in my venue, and for one of the comedians, we were one seat of selling out – not bloody bad! I also had the joys of stupid people just not listening to me, and doing what they want – one day I’ll kick someone out for being a twat! Haha! But, at least it was getting a bit busier – I was still able to do a lot of writing whilst I was there though! May as well use my time wisely!

I did very little before work the next day, apart from drink tea and procrastinate from the things I was meant to be doing. Hmmm, productive! Work was also, much the same as before, apart from one important factor – one of the shows finally sold out!! Thank god! I had a proper queue an everything – I probably shouldn’t have been quite so excited, but it was the first time in over a week! And, I think the person who got it, deserved it the most – although I have no favourites. Yet. After work I was feeling a bit rubbish, so phoned Mum for a cheer-up chat, sadly, she was in need of one too, so we just had a good old bitch and a moan at each other! Not exactly what I wanted, but it did the trick! After that however I did have a long chat with The Doctor, but sadly still no news about Amsterdam. Shame! Ah well, it was a great little gossip – it had been 6 months since we last spoke, so you can probably guess how long the phone call was! Hurray for Skype!

Work was the same again. But, as it was Sunday, no fun of a sold out show. It was a shorter shift which was nice, but at the end of it I was just going to go home, but found out Will and Toni were staying out for a bit so I went to meet up with them. That’s about all I can remember from it all, apart form the fact I bumped into two of my friends, and accepted a job at Edinburgh Fringe. Not sure what I’ll be doing there….Safe to saw the rest of the night included 3 pubs, about 10 Comedy Festival staff and a lot of alcohol.