Mood Swings and Angry Cooking

I don't know what my problem is today. I think the sleep deprivation might have finally pushed me over the edge. I've been sitting around rainy, depressing Zagreb doing nothing and hating on myself.

I managed to get real sleep last night, which is perhaps why I'm really annoyed now. I thought I'd feel better, but apparently the sleep debt still has a few repayments due. It might even have accrued interest. In any case, I got up determined to do something with myself, so I ate 4 bananas (the only thing I had that resembled a breakfast) and disappeared into the city streets. I should have known right away that something was wrong, but I still had residual happiness lingering in my psyche. I thought it'd be enough to get me through.

So I'm walking down the street and I'm thinking about throwing myself in front of a speeding tram. Then I'm thinking about beating the hell out of a gyspy in the street, crying out for change. Then I'm drifting through history thinking about the violence in human nature. Then I realise I'm lost. How did this happen? I only took one turn and yet I'm hopelessly awash at sea. The rain is in my hair and in my shoes. I feel like shit. I hate Zagreb and I can't be fucked with any of this tourist shit any more.

So I rally. I go through the motions of all the things that usually cheer me up. I pick a goal and follow it through: get something to eat and get back to the hostel. I do this, but it isn't enough. I hit the computer and I want to write something but I'm just so damn sick of myself that I sit impotently at the blank screen.

I get on the internet and talk to pretty much every friend I have in this world on a combination of Skype, MSN and Facebook chat, and impossibly, I still hate myself. What is going on here? I try another walk and nothing. I start stewing in it. I think awful thoughts, and I think them real loud. I want to get back, get on the blog and just rip myself apart for everyone to see. I guess in a way that's what I'm doing now, even though I no longer intend it.

I realise that I need to get some dinner so I go out to find something. I don't want to eat out, I don't want to be around people I don't want anyone looking at me. Somehow I can't find the supermarkets, even though I've been to two just the day before. I'm getting really worked up. There's a storm inside me that's far worse than the weather outside.

Eventually I find the stores and I calm down enough to walk inside in a composed way. Inside a crazy woman is wreaking havoc with the staff, making outrageous demands in Croatian, scratching her hands, her string-hair shaking. I want to just snap her neck.

Later I've calmed down. I'm in the hostel chatting with a nice Canadian guy with a cool sense of humour. We seem to 'get' each other. After a chat I decide to make myself dinner. I've picked up some rice, some frozen vegetables and some kind of Asian mystery sauce. (I can't read the label). For some reason whenever I'm feeling angry, sad, self-pitying or self-destructive I end up attempting to cook. So far everything I've made is edible. It shits me not being able to make anything decent. I hate having to buy minimal and shitty quality things. I have no choice. No storage space, can't take things with me, can't trust people not to steal my shit.

This day was a mess. When I get back I'm going to cook something real.

Somewhere between Buda and Pest with a fistful of Florints

Left things a bit late chatting on facebook and had to run to the train station in Vienna. Caught my train to Budapest with seconds to spare. Rode along with Radiohead in my ears, trying to catch my breath and sucking down apples like some people do cigarettes.

Got into Budapest and felt that electric buzz in my heart that I haven't felt about a city since Munich. Went and changed my 200 Euros for something like 60,000 Florints, feeling like a high roller. Caught the metro to the hostel and even the subway winds smelled good to me.

Got to the Goat Hostel and was greeted most warmly by Steve. Gave me the low-down, hooked me with maps and suggestions and I took off for the markets with a grin on my face and a scarf on my neck. Everything is good, everything is cheap. Eastern European songs playing in the background, groceries plentiful and the people friendlier than I'm used to. Makes me want to go all the way to Russia just to see if it gets any better. Between France and here, it just gets friendlier the further East I go.

Decided to climb the highest point in the city, the hill with the citadel at the top so off I went, racing against the sun. I won. Photos, photos, more photos. Couldn't get the grin off my face, crossing the bridge, thinking about New York and so grateful for everything on this trip. Budapest is on the list of favourite cities.

It's like someone up there is looking out for me. Yesterday I was real low. Made an idiot of myself in front of new friends because of it. I always say to myself that tomorrow will be better, but who could predict I'd feel this good?

The beauty of travelling

The beauty of travelling is that one minute you can be sitting around on a filthy, smelly couch doing nothing, feeling isolated and alone on Australia Day and not wanting to have anything to do with the yobbos downstairs, feeling so low and depressed that the suicide thoughts start creeping into your mind like Nazis on the Night of the Long Knives,and the next minute you're getting high in a hostel room with a gorgeous Argentinian girl, laughing yourselves stupid because neither of you can understand what the other one is saying.

On praise and encouragement

One of the things I've found strange is the acceptance I get if I tell people about my writing aspirations. Back in Perth I wouldn't dare tell anyone I didn't know about it. Somehow it seemed like something to be ashamed of back there. It probably isn't. Maybe I was always just too shy before and traveling has opened me up enough, given me enough confidence to just be me.

Still, I'm sure if I did say such a thing in Perth, I'm sure it wouldn't get the same reaction there as it gets over here. In Perth I imagine a person mumbling: "cool" as the best reaction I could hope for. Not that I think people in Perth are any more indifferent than other folk, I just think it surfaces in different ways from place to place.

In any case, people in this hemisphere seem genuinely interested, even excited at the prospect of a wannabe writer. Some express wonderment, wishing they had it in them to do the same, or something similarly creative. The relations took this to a new level. They really took things to heart, took me to all these Irish writer places (restaurants, pubs, etc) and got it into their heads that I'd be writing about them in someway. Some of them had similar interests and wished me luck, telling me not to miss my chances like they had.

It's all a bit overwhelming. In other cases I might have felt it appropriate to remind myself not to get a big head with all this praise around, but I'm not really in any danger of that. I've been so down about myself and my uncertain future for so long, that all this encouragement is kind of exactly what I need to get myself moving in the right direction.

I have to wonder though at the impression I make on people. I'm a quiet guy. Friendly enough, but not too friendly. Open to those around him, but not one to actively seek out others. I wonder what I'm projecting in my appearance and demeanor. I mention this because the other night I was in a pub somewhere in Galway, probably Fibber Magees (and boy would I like a penny for every time I've been inside a Fibber Magees!), and my cousin Gareth introduced me to a friend of his. The name eludes me now, but he was an older chap, a professor at the local university and a bit of a character. I think his accent was English, but I was pretty drunk at the time, so I could be mistaken.

He was quite a talker, and he spoke at length about soccer with Gareth, and rambled on about a lot of other things too. We exchanged pleasantries and spoke a little when Gareth was in the bathroom. He ribbed me for looking like such a student, wearing a scarf in a pub. Made a mental note of that one. In any case, we didn't know all that much about each other, and as the night progressed we both became increasingly smashed. At some point he asked me what I studied and as I answered Gareth chimed in that I was trying to write a novel.

The old man was in to it. He starts going on about how he can tell I'm a smart guy and that I have it in me, and all this stuff. Maybe it was drunk talk, but it's something I've been hearing a lot lately. It kind of scares me because I really don't consider myself to be all that smart, or all that capable. Then he starts telling me to send him the manuscript when it's done and he has contacts and he'll let me know if it's good or not and he can hook me up with other university and publishing contacts.

Now, that's a lot to process. Who do people think I am? And am I that person?

Thoughts on a city.

What determines whether you like a city or you don't? I have no idea. I've been on the road 6 weeks, and seen about as many cities, but I still can't put into words why I feel the way I do about a place. Often I don't even realise I feel anyway about somewhere until after I'm gone. I thought I had a ball in LA, but after leaving I realised I hated it there. It's strange. But it's even more strange how much I love New York.

I feel really alive here. I feel like I could live here. I feel at home and not at home at the same time. And I can't really explain why. A woman asked me the other day what I thought about NY compared to the rest of America that I'd seen and I told her it was a million times better but I couldn't explain why. I guess that made me look kind of stupid considering I also told her I wanted to be a writer.

Some guys in the dorm were talking last night about what makes a good travel experience. The consensus was that any place on earth could be great one week or awful the next, and that it all depends on the people you're with and the people you meet. Everything about an experience will boil down to the people involved. Normally I would agree with this. The people around me made my experience in New Orleans awesome. The people around me in Miami made it shit. But that theory just isn't stacking up for me here in New York city.

Here's why. I'm avoiding everyone. I haven't made any friends here. I'm not trying to. I'm avoiding everyone, especially other Australians (shudder). And yet, I'm enjoying this city at least 10 times more than the rest I've visited.

I definitely need a new city theory.

All I can come up with though is gut instinct. I don't know what it is I love about this place, but the important thing is that I feel it. And I feel it. Just seeing the city as I flew into LaGuardia had my heart pumping. Seeing the Statue of Liberty today sent a charge through me, and seeing the skyline, sans the WTC makes me feel hollow inside. Tears welled up in my eyes at Strawberry Fields. Seeing the buildings, the streets, the incredible diversity makes me smile inside every day.

I <3 NY

Strange feelings I am having

Life has been strange since uni ended. I feel like I'm in stasis. Neither here nor there. Time is passing, but nothing is really happening. Everyone else dances around me while I'm fixed to the floor in the centre of the room. It's comfortable, and fun most of the time, but nothing is really going anywhere. I'm just waiting to go on my travels. But in the lead up to my exodus from Perth I feel even stranger.

I'm filled with this strange nostalgia. I have all these loving feelings for the people around me. I guess these are the sorts of feelings one normally gets in there last few days of uni or school when they are about to end a chapter and start a new one, but I've never felt them before. I couldn't wait to leave the crazed zealotry of my high school, and I cruised through uni with about as much emotional investment as you find in a basic Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

So it's all new to me. I go to work and I feel like giving Jen a big hug. I feel like kissing Maria on the forehead. I feel like staying up all night talking to Kayleen. I have strange and symbolic dreams about James and Todd. I want to fondle Ben gently under the starlight. I'm going to miss that place.

Haha, I must be crazy.

But I will miss it. There were a lot of dreadful times and pathetic fights, and bickering, and all kinds of injustices, but in the end I can't help but feel that there aren't too many jobs I'll get in the future that will have me working alongside such cool young people, and hilarious old crazies. I'm pretty grateful to have worked at IGA and to have lasted so long. It's weird to think of the friends and workmates who have fallen on the wayside and been fired or asked to move on. I'm glad I can leave on my own terms.