Things have changed for me in the last year.

I have a full-time job in a hipster suburb, where the chicks wear combat boots and thrifted 80's high-waist pants, and where ironic mustaches are so common that they have, gasp, become mainstream. I am too chubbym and definitely not fashionable enough, to ever feel at home there. In the not-too-distant future, I will see another art student, "fashion designer", or cafe-dwelling (presumably unemployed and supported by a trust fund of some kind) fabulous person, and I will seriously lose my shit.

I am a commuter now. I have learned to breathe in shallow, mouth breaths only, and I avoid eye contact whenever possible. Unless someone is demonstrably disabled, old, or pregnant to the point of appendages being visible, I do not offer my seat for fear of offending a fat person. And ever since I encountered a human poo in a row of 3 empty seats on a full commuter train, I do not trust empty seats on a full commuter train.



On Monday, 5.30am, my alarm goes off, and snooze goes on. It continues this way until 6.05am, when, in a slow panic, I roll out of bed groaning.

Sometimes I release the bunnies. Other times, when I am running very late and know that they are feeling like mischief, I leave them in their house so I won't need to chase them. Days like that also mean less poo to collect in the evening, which is always a good thing.

 At 6.53am I leave the house, safe in the knowledge that I will probably miss the first of my two trains. It's ok, I can do with the walk anyway, so I walk to the next station.

Monday, when I start earlier than usual in the cool of the morning, is the only day that I can walk and not be overheated by the time I make it to the station.  I do not enjoy sitting on the vinyl seat of an un-airconditioned train whilst overheating.

Notice, my shoes are neither combat boots nor are they gladiator stilettos. My unfashionability continues.

Planes pass overhead, 12 seconds from landing, and I begin to wake up. Yuppie residents of the inner west spill ristretto over their granite bench tops, and write heated letters to the Sydney Airport Corporation and Clover Moore.

"Honestly, these aircraft movements are ridiculous. They are upsetting my organic worm farm, and I am sure the jet exhaust cannot be good for the paint on my specially-imported eco-friendly smart car! I know we chose to live here after the airport was built, but for god's sake has no one in this place heard of gentrification?!"

Upon arrival in Kings Cross, I avoid eye contact with junkies and homeless people. I try to stay out of the way of prostitutes, and anyone who looks like they might be carrying a syringe, and I walk the few blocks up, into Darlinghurst (see above, hipster suburb).

Once there, darling, I get my coffee. I avoid eye contact with anyone sporting a mustache or ordering a half-skim weak long piccolo.

On a good day, there will be some kind of puppy outside to talk to whilst I wait for my order.





At 7.55am, The Green Park Hotel. With beer garden.


I seriously consider it.





But I continue, needs must, to work.  Where I stay, until 6pm, and prepare myself for the return journey.

The only real difference is that by the evening, there are more obnoxious drunk people, and a lot of yummy mummies with their bugaboos parked outside the cafe dining strip.

I can dodge a pram now like no one's business.


Returning home in the darkness, thank christ for the 7.30 report and red wine.

I guess in that regard at least, my life is not so different...