Narn

It’s all about the journey.

It doesn’t take much to make me feel like a princess. For example, I caught the 9:49pm 385 bus from Ashgrove into the City on Friday night, just missing the 9:16pm, which is something I am grateful for in retrospect. I asked the driver to let me know the closest stop to Eagle Street. By Adelaide Street I was the last person on the bus. He asked me where I was heading and we chatted. He drove the bus off his regular route and dropped me outside where I was going, like a regular chauffeur. So a shout out to you, Mr Bus-Driver-Man.

But that was not the end of my befriending of strangers on my journey. I caught a cab home and shared my last two fortune cookies with the taxi driver. He received a message about making your own destiny, which meant something to him. He was from India and was working as a cab driver to save up enough money to support his fiancé who is in still in India. He needed to make sure that they would be totally secure, as their marriage would ostrascise both of their families. He is Muslim, she is Hindu, and they will never be able to marry openly. His story made my silly problems and silly fortune-cookie message seem irrelevant. Good luck to you, and your dearly loved fiancé, Mr Taxi-Driver.

Scene:
Want-to-be jazz bar. Packed. Noisy. Shite music. Girl is pacing down the length of the bar, looking for spare seats, vulture-like, clinging desperately to her rusty nail, and taking large gulps. Boy is leaning against booth, casually listening to the band, sipping beer.

Girl: (yelling) Is this seat taken?

Boy: Yes, I think it is...(moderately lecherous look) Are you from Brisbane?

Girl: Errr...yes?

Boy: ......*Small talk*

Girl: .......*More small talk*

(laughing)

(banter)

Boy: So, do you have a boyfriend?

Girl: No. But I’m in love with someone who doesn’t love me, which makes me even more unavailable to you, if that’s where you were going with that.

(short silence - Boy looks momentarily confused)

Boy: (laughing) Oh, I’m sure that’s not true...?

Girl: (defensively) What the hell would you know? I mean, you don’t even know me! For all you know I am totally unstable and screwed up!

(long silence - both parties stare at the ground)

Boy: Ok then, well you have a good night.

What chance of happiness do I have when my personality is working so forcefully against me?

What is more fun that Coles on a Thursday evening? Nothing, when you find treasure in the discount bin.

Oh, yes,I struck oil when I found vibrating condoms for just $1.99!!!

“Why would no one else want this?” I pondered. And despite the fact I do not quite know how such a device works, and there is, sadly, zero to no chance of me using such a thing any time soon, I decided to take the plunge and make the purchase. This was mostly due to my desire to face my irrational fear of purchasing condoms, a job that I have been able to delegate quite successfully for the most part.

When it came to the point of the checkout there were two queues. The first led to a regular looking 17ish year old girl and the second a pimply 15ish year old boy. For maximum embarrassment I had to go with the latter. Unfortunately the choice was out of my hands as a new register was opened where the person serving was a very normal, unshockable-looking checkout chick. Incidentally, her name was Christy.

And she certainly had a sense of humour, leaving the vibrating condom packet lingering until it was the very last item to be taken from my basket. This would not have been quite so effective had I not been lucky enough to have been followed in line by a religious zealot. He happily engaged Christy in conversation about the likeness of her name to the name of Our Lord. There is no way he could have missed the very deliberate scanning of the last item by my friend Christy.

The only way I could have perhaps enhanced this experience for myself would be to have included a large cucumber or carrot in my shopping. Maybe next time.

Tonight I went out. I even experimented with crazy modern technological things like hair product and a hair straightener. I am really pushing the boundaries.

We spent a good deal of time thinking of amusing slogans for T-shirts and other such banter. But what I shall share is my golden moment on the bus ride home, given to me by the two strangers behind me:-

“So he was like ‘Do you want me to come?’ and I was like *giggle* ‘Where? In my mouth?’ and he was like ‘Ummmm..... Yeah’ and I was like..... you know… like… what should I say to that shit?”

Having recently been reminded of the joys of google vanity searching by this fine piece, I decided it was time to check if my cyber-fame has increased. Strangely (very strangely) enough, it has. In fact, I found that I exist in ways that I never knew about.

Here I am.

Now anyone who reads this post no doubt will think, “Adriana, how vain you are. No doubt that site is meant to relate to some other person who shares your name.” While I cannot rule that out as a possibility, I think it unlikely. Although I have never met in person any of the people mentioned on this site, a couple of them are not total strangers to me. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps there is some other “Adriana Siddle” who is entangled in the same circles as I....

Anyway, assuming this is me, and as flattered as I am, there are two things that I am somewhat disturbed by.

Firstly, there is an ominous little note under my name: “This topic awaits. No-one has written it yet. You are its poet.” I am a topic that awaits? I do not entirely exist? I am but a mere shell of an URL - a cyber-void - only one step away from an URL-for-sale, covered in google ads. I am nothing. I have found myself, only to discover that I have no content, no meaning, no life.

Which brings me to point two. I have no control over my own destiny. By which I mean, I do not know the password to be able to edit myself. This cyber-self of mine will be determined by forces absolutely beyond my control, and I am powerless to resist. I am not free. I cannot even choose to create myself if I want to. This cyber-zygote of me has come into being, but not progressed, and I, the real me, cannot assist it. We both are at the mercy of its Creator.

Who knows how long I will last. Who knows how long I have existed. Heavens, I might be deleted tomorrow, or exist in my undeveloped state for years to come. Over all, however, I am grateful that I have been united with this little snippet of me which I otherwise never would have known.

On the bright side, perhaps I will be written. I guess I now at least have the potential to one day flower into a beautiful website.