All money, no problems.

I think I have finally isolated - and gotten honest - about the crux of my issue with the Occupy Movement:

I want to be the 1%.

I've always hated the term, 'an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.' I want to do a dishonest day's NOTHING, for a fuckload of cash. The idea of selling your hours for a basic wage and struggling to earn every dollar is just such an absurdly dumb notion to me.

I guess at heart I am basically a hedonist. I keep myself in a lifestyle to which I have become very accustomed. It basically involves lolling around idly in bookstores and restaurants, spending all my money on the various substance I've become addicted to and reading blogs. "Now, start paying me a hundred grand a day to do this".

My aim is a personal fortune of 100 Billion dollars. NO less will suffice. I am going to require the finances to:

1. Live in a 5 star hotel for the rest of my life, eschewing disgusting "personal possessions" that require any sentimental attachment or cleaning.  
2. Fund questionable and borderline unethical scientific experiments
3. Fund an entirely unsuitable political candidate's entire campaign, then pay him ("or her") off when in office
4. Have enough money to fund every single addiction that I would like to take up - including medical expenses, a doctor "on hand", "in the style of Michael Jackson"
5. Buy love.

I guess I would also start my own printing press, and publish my various tomes of philosophical nonsense, passing them off as scientific fact, quite literally flooding the bookstores and streets with some really wonderful propaganda. 

People say that they can easily imagine me as a stupidly rich person. I think that is because I am already so thoroughly ridiculous, that taking this show on the road - up another 10 tax brackets- will be easy. I'll just do what I already do now, "only more stupidly". 

Recently I was talking to my great friend Limonce, about how I need to make my first ten million by my 30th birthday. He replied - reasonably - that I did not "need" that to be happy. "I think if you were just living in a nice apartment, with a nice job, by your 30th birthday you would be happy". Listen, this is a great sentiment, and I'm sure it's true for him. But it just isn't true for me. I love Limonce, and we are on the same page about SO MANY things, but I don't think he quite understands the lofty levels of excess to which I aspire. I won't be happy with anything other than achieving astronomical greatness on all levels and across all fields. I need money, success, achievement and recognition coming out my butthole. 

Now I know what you're thinking: "Crystal, you don't really seem like an ambitious person. In fact, your entire life would point to the complete opposite." Oh, I'm not saying any of this isn't basically a fantastical and seemingly impossible dream: I certainly don't want to WORK HARD for any of this. Because that's my entire thesis here: I don't believe, at heart, that money should be worked for, struggled over, or well earned. I honestly believe that every person should just be really rich and not have to work for that. How would that work in a capitalistic society? It wouldn't. Only a few people - including me - can become incredibly rich. That doesn't prevent me from ideally wishing everyone COULD be rich - it just means that I realistically know they can't: I realise that "the 1%" has to game the system, has to profit off the poor. I'm just saying that I want to get in on some of that action and take advantage of capitalism. And I genuinely hope for a distant future where everyone lives in 5 star hotels and burns every outfit after wearing it once, and lives in a technological dreamscape, where robots write novels and no human has to work. 

If any really rich people out there are googling "amazing person to leave as my benefactor", then look no further. 

No Crystal is an Island

Yesterday my friend Kortney expressed bemusement over my complete disinterest in travelling, proclaiming me "Island Girl Forever". At first I was all, what does that mean, I hate islands (more on this in a minute). She meant that I will never leave Australia, and I have come to like it as a description of me trapped and isolated on this giant continent, completely ignorant of the rest of the world. 

People think, "Oh, you're a feminist, so you must love being poor, looking bad, and travelling around the world 'volunteering at orphanages'/similar". Well I am not some basic bitch who just collects all the general characteristics of anything, let alone those of a feminist. Because I am telling you: I'm the side of the rich, the beautiful, and the oblivious. 

But anyway: Travelling is every I hate. Let's break it down:

• I hate planes
• I hate boats
• I hate cars
• I hate buses
• I hate trains
• I hate bikes
• I hate any form of travelling.
• I hate being uncomfortable in any way whatsoever
• I hate foreign food
• I hate "new experiences"
• I hate ANY form of "adventure":  Especially anything that involves being more than one metre off the ground, or within less than one metre of water. 

My friend Danny Kennedy works at "Scenic World" in the Blue Mountains, and he summed up my personality with the following quote the other day: "I tell people who want adventure not to come to Scenic World because it is so boring. But for YOU Crystal: it's TOO adventurous." Yes, it involves speeds of greater than 30kms an hour, and possible contact with "tree frogs" (pure speculation), so I will steering clear. (Another thing I hate is any kind of animal that is not a basic house cat, and even those I am kind of scared of).

This looks fucking scary as SHIT.

The thing is, that I do not need any adventure outside of my own head. You might have realised this already, but there is a LOT going on in here. Like a constant stream of preposterous ideas, intricately plotted scenarios and fantastical delusions which I "often substitute for reality." 

I've never been bored, I've never felt lonely. 

I don't really understand what those emotions (feelings?) would even be like. I don't have a second to feel bored, because I am always entertaining some extremely terrifying thought about what might or might not be happening. I don't have a second to be lonely because I am incredibly in love with myself in every way. 

I would imagine a lot of other writers, feel like this: like they have no need for adventure outside their own minds. I mean, you do hear of writers who love travelling I suppose: but I can't help but think that they aren't really writers. I don't know WHAT they are, but they are obviously not terrified enough of mundane things or of their own imagination to properly call themselves writers. 

I've always said: my idea of adventure is reading the archives of a blog with a slightly different ideological slant then I have.

Darlington Monday

So, this morning I went to my regular haunt Cafe Abercrombie, a place I am becoming increasingly embarrassed to frequent, because they know exactly what I order, they know about my "immunity" to bacon - that I can consume 200 kilos a day without dying - and they know exactly how much I spend on coffee and breakfast items "per annum" (if they were inclined to do the math). When I leave I always think they are saying "This is one frivolous bitch we have here. She should be giving this disposable income to blind people or investing in some high risk stocks so that she can become a billionaire by her 31st birthday"* (*They have never almost definitely never said this.)

But I go there because it is not particularly "cool" like a lot of Darlington cafes are, PLUS I am too lazy to walk more than 10 meters from my house unless there is going to be a giant tub of ice cream or a chance encounter with Nick Riemer on the other end of the journey as a treat/reward. 

So what is this, some basic ass narrative about what I get up to every day? No no, I only mention it because I had what could loosely be described as an "interesting encounter" there this morning that "tells us a little something about the human condition." 

One of my latest ill-conceived schemes is an idea I have that I need to do $30 million worth of good deeds so that I  can win the lotto to the tune of 30 mil or higher - depending on exactly how karma works - (give me a minute and I'll locate the bible quotes to find out). So I am trying to do the right thing no matter how much I don't want to. (Though honestly, if I really don't want to I won't do it).

So, good deed alert! Coming through! I am basically the karma queen today, because I really went above and beyond by offering a spare seat at my table today to some poor guy looking around for a place to sit.  

Now I really really love to  hate to judge people I have just meet, so I had to bury some uncharitable thoughts I immediately had about him. I also have a huge fear of homeless people talking to me, and I was just like, bracing myself, like "It is going to happen, you put yourself in this position, just be nice and have a conversation." 

"What are you reading?" he asked me.

"It's called Bird by Bird. It's a book about writing."

"Are you a writer?"

"Yes." I replied, with about 1000% more confidence than I reasonably had any right to imbue that statement with. 

He then tried to tell me his name, but it was a Tongan name that I could not understand even when he repeated it five times, so he had to pull out some ID to show me. The ID also identified him as a general of some kind of marine vessel.

"I get sea sick", I said and handed it back to him. 

"I'm a sailor in Tonga," he replied. "I'm here on a mission to evict people from the housing commission in Redfern. The cops are too scared to go there. I want to write a novel about it! But I can't write. You're going to do it for me."

He told me a little bit more about what he was employed to do here. The way he phrased it, "I'm a sailor" "on a mission" was the kind of nonsensical rhetoric I like, so I was interested. The way he stated so definitely that we were going to write a book together just made me laugh, so I replied, "Yeah, okay, why not."

"We'll meet here every morning! I'll tell you the story and you write it down!" At this point I became a lot more sceptical about this actually happening but I good naturedly agreed, with the disclaimer that it would depend on how early I could manage to wake up. I gave him my number and I he gave me his card. 

The thing is that I don't know if it will happen, for a variety of reasons, most of which would be easy to blame on him. I could blame it on his illiteracy, on his race, on his social standing. It would be very easy to just laugh it off as "this idea a crazy man in a cafe had." But the truth would be that it would be all ME, it would be all my insecurities, fears, laziness that would and will prevent this from happening. 

And I want to use my writing to help the disenfranchised, to help people who don't really have a voice to tell a story. Wouldn't that be an actual good deed? Well, I don't know if I am really that good a person or that big a person. 

If he rings me, I will answer the phone, and I will meet him. 

Please, tell us the origin story of this, your latest harebrained attempt at becoming a writer on the internet.

So today I had one of my patented great ideas: I thought, "I know what will make writing REALLY FUN. I will buy a pink notepad and a pink pen! Then I won't be able to STOP myself from writing, so much fun will be had."

Well, the only thing that was "had" was severe eyestrain trying to read back what I had written. Also I seem to have early onset "hand arthritis" at the tender age of 25  24  23  22   21.

Another problem that comes with writing on paper, is that I don't receive the instant validation that only "my mum and three other friends" reading it can provide.  So I think I am going to put some of my great writing online for approx 5+ people to read.

PLUS, why should I be the only one to suffer from a nausea-inducing pink background? I am like "bitch, other people need to be privy to a really tacky pink colour scheme while also enjoying my writing."

So there you have it.

My plan is to make $30 billion from this before I turn thirty. (In 9 years).