The Real Me – The OC

26 February 2006

(Lara, Clint and Athalia at the Barracuda Bar)

Yesterday’s purposeless and entirely non work-related TV binge was exactly the type of night I used to indulge in back in Australia. The kind I thought I’d left behind.

But recently I’ve been feeling sentimental. For all its apparent sophistication, Hanoi’s a fishbowl. The bars blur together, the beers flow too freely, the cocktails are rough and I can’t afford the wine. While the crowd’s good, they’re always the same.

It’s when I’m alone that I truly come alive. People are so wild and amazing that I can’t be with them all the time. They shine too brightly, they’re so random in the way that they interact. It’s an incredibly complex social ecosystem and when I’m in it, I’m pumped, drugged up on the things I’m seeing. When I was a kid, I didn’t breathe when I played piano. It was fine until I started playing longer compositions. One day I fainted in front of my teacher. I was so involved that I’d forgotten the basics of living.

So sometimes I just have to have those stupid Friday nights where you stay up till 5 in the morning watching Season 2 O.C. I mean I know it’s bad, Season 1 was much better. And although TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) told me that it was just a symptom of my imbalance that I liked to do stuff in an intense way – go without sleep, build a website from scratch in a week, watch 9 sun-kissed episodes in 24 hours – I’m starting to think it’s me. I’m an adrenalin junkie who just chooses to push herself in less apparent ways. I might not bungee jump, share needles or rob banks (yet), but there’s nothing like the thrill of a deadline, and the tighter the better. I do my best work that way. Afterwards my heart beats faster than its resting rate of 60 bpm. The Western doc says that’s too slow for a woman. So I guess I’m just trying to help. She also told me to get back on the “sauce” – my drug of choice, caffeine.

(Suzi and Madelaine - not at the Barracuda Bar)

So back in nerd-land, why do I feel so cool when I manage to get away with doing absolutely nothing? Wearing tasteless but extremely comfortable clothes, like too-short trakky dax, the bain marie of my long-legged existence. And a cardigan. I know there is a god because of the cardigan. And jewelled flip-flops, so my housemates don’t completely freak out, which also enables me to see my freshly painted toenails. Looking at my pink pinkies, with their Studio 54-inspired glitter stripe, helps me realise that I am in control and that the universe is not completely random.

As for teev snacks, I begin with scads of green tea and then scale back. There is a limit because I’ve hallucinated on it a few times – no more than 8 glasses. Peanuts, chilli tofu, sliced pineapple, maybe even chocolate but then we get back in the caffeine zone. Within three days, it’s ugly and I’m hooked. Don’t believe me? I’ve never met anyone else who was the subject of a coffee-related intervention (Miller Street, Fitzroy,1994).

Tonight it’s even better because we just got broadband Net and I’m getting over bronchitis (deathbed cough, OTT phlegm production), so I’ve got an excuse to cancel. Over the years I’ve found a lot of ways to be alone without hurting people, without them even realising what I’m doing.


(a slice of MTV)

It began at 13 with “homework”, which I didn’t even begin doing until university. But parents will let you off everything if they think you’re studying. What would I have become if I hadn’t have been lying, I wonder – a statistician? Then, in Indonesia, I faked illness to get some space, in a culture that traditionally doesn’t understand it. Having been a hack journalist over the past few years, I’ve always found that referring reverently to my writing is a good way to wriggle out of things. And it’s not like I’m lying, I probably will write something meaningless. And the imminent caress of solitude, or the approaching Zone, feel the same. That’s the writing zone, to which I have returned after years of exclusion. Yes, what I write has a purpose, but even the quality or topic isn’t as important as the journey.

(Teresa modelling Bia Halida, the beer of choice, given that Beer Lao is unavailable)

Sigh. And I want world peace. Nah, not really. That would be a slow news day.
But it would be wonderful if someday, people in the poorest nations had the time and income to indulge in that traditional Western luxury, navel-gazing. Cultures need time to reflect so that they can develop.

I’m not sure how watching the OC qualifies, but I know that the epiphany is approaching. Meanwhile, Seth, Captain Oats, and the ever-stoic Ryan await.