The Anti-Cool Girl (20 page)

       
Me:
But if the money doesn't actually exist, what happens if everyone goes to the bank and wants to get their money out at the same time? Doesn't the bank have a responsibility to make sure everyone's money is available?

       
Jamila:
Well, that's called a run on the bank. Think about what's been happening to the Greek economy in the past few years, or in Argentina a few decades back now. The problem they had is that people were so concerned about the constantly changing value of their money (this is called inflation) that they became distrustful of the banks.

       
But when huge numbers of people are going to the bank, all trying to withdraw funds at the same time, the bank won't necessarily have the cash on hand to cater for that. So you want to prevent that sort of situation occurring.

       
Me:
What?
But it's our money! Where is all the money?

       
Jamila:
The bank takes people's money and invests it, or loans it to other people. That's the whole point of a bank.

       
Me:
I didn't give them permission to do that!

       
Jamila:
Well, you did. When you signed up to the bank. And they pay you for letting them use your money while you don't need it; that's why you get interest on your savings. That's
the bank basically paying you back for letting them use your money for other things for a period of time.

       
Me:
But how can they invest my money and still have the money in my account when I need it? What if when I go to the bank to withdraw one hundred dollars, they're like, ‘Soz, Rosie, your moulah is kind of tied up in Amalgamated Building Society stock right now. We'll let you know how it goes.'

       
Jamila:
(silence)

       
Me:
And what if they lose it! What if they invest my money and lose it? I get like four cents a year in interest on my savings. What if they lose all my money and then are just like, ‘Well, we were giving you that four cents a year so . . . you knew the risks.'

       
Jamila:
Okay, maybe let's try a different tack . . . Do you remember what happened in the
Mary Poppins
movie? When the little boy started yelling that the bank wouldn't give him his money back? And then all the people thought the bank was in trouble and wanted to withdraw their funds?

       
Me:
(freaking out and ignoring Jamila) So, let me get this straight. Money is just a concept. The money I earn doesn't actually exist. Everybody gives the bank their non-existent money, which is then hypothetically spent on hypothetical investments, which means the bank doesn't actually
look after
everyone's money, they just hypothetically send it away. So if everyone wanted their money at the same time, the bank
wouldn't have it. And if the bank invests badly on your behalf and loses everything, the hypothetically non-existent money becomes
actually
non-existent and then it's gone. And too bad, that's it.

       
Jamila:
Um, sort of . . .

       
Me:
What?
Our money is resting on a
house of cards,
people. How is this legal?

       
Jamila:
Well, if you want to have your money in a bank, that's what you've agreed to.

       
Me:
Can't I just say to them, ‘Look, guys, I want to keep my money here but I don't want you doing anything fancy with it. I'll pay fees and whatever, but I want my physical money here, in a box with my name on it. When I put money in, it's in. When I take money out, it's out. And I'm going to do random cash “spot checks” to make sure it's all here and there hasn't been any funny business.'

       
Jamila:
Well, you're basically describing the equivalent of a shoebox under your mattress.

       
Me:
Well, maybe that's where we're at now.

       
Jamila:
(no words, foetal position, head in hands, tears)

I suppose I was lucky to end up where I did, surrounded by a lot of people who were willing to take the time to explain the ins and outs of adulthood to me. And considering just a few months before starting at Mamamia, I had gotten so drunk I woke up to find
that I had shat the bed, I certainly had a lot to learn. A 27-year-old who drinks so much she shits herself is hardly the epitome of adult behaviour. I didn't think it was possible, by the way. I mean, I can understand peeing the bed, because all that takes is for your bladder to get a little too relaxed. But to shit the bed? You've actually got to push that sucker out. At some point in the night, I must have woken up and decided that I couldn't be fucked going to the toilet. At some point during the night, I had weighed up the options and decided that sleeping in my own shit was worth it if it meant I got to stay in bed. I clearly had some growing up to do.

I'd been out drinking with Jacob, and when we drink together we don't mess around; it's usually eight solid hours of wine and bitching about how unjust it is that people we don't like are doing way better at life than us.

I don't remember the moment when I'd had one drink too many, but I do remember I felt completely fine until I went to the toilet. I'm a firm believer in the theory that you never truly know how drunk you are until you're sitting in a toilet cubicle alone. That's when you realise how much the floor is spinning and how you can't get your eyes to focus on the love poem Tammy wrote about Corey's sexy rat's tail in 2002. You go into that cubicle feeling like you could take over the goddamn world, and you leave it barely able to walk. I wobbled over to Jacob and told him the night was over. The ‘I'm about to vomit' look on my face meant he knew I was serious. He made sure I got home
safely. I crawled into bed and puked on the floor next to me, a problem that I decided to leave for Future Rosie to take care of. I passed out, in what was certainly one of the more attractive moments of my life.

I woke the next day, mid-afternoon. When my brain realised it had survived the ordeal, it began to focus on the room around me. I was lying virtually exactly as I had fallen asleep – face down on the mattress, naked. The previous evening's spew surprise had dried into the carpet. I looked into the mirror that was adjacent to the bed, thinking that the sight of my hung-over, naked body would at least shame me enough into getting up.

That's when I saw it.

‘What the fuck is that?' I thought, as I looked at the little pile of brown positioned perfectly on top of my bum. I was still too hung-over to process what was happening. I was squinting into the mirror, looking at my reflection, trying to figure out what on earth was stuck to my butt cheeks. ‘Is that . . . is that a
mouse?'
I suddenly panicked, and reached back to slap away whatever was sitting there. That's when reality kicked in. Why, Rosie, would there be a fucking mouse sitting on top of your arse? You
shat
yourself, you fucking gross bitch! You got so drunk last night that
you shat the bed.

The fact I now had shit on my hand from where I'd tried to slap a mouse away made it abundantly clear that even thinking it could be a mouse was, in fact, ridiculous.

I lay still on the bed, defeated. I was naked, on my stomach. There was shit between my bum cheeks and all over my right hand. There was dried vomit on the floor next to me. And the mirror that ran alongside my bed meant I was forced to look at myself in one of my most shameful moments. I reached over to my phone with my left hand and dialled Rhiannon's number. ‘Rhi,' I said, ‘I need help.'

‘What is it? Where are you?' She sounded a little panicked.

‘I'm in my bed, and I'm lying on my stomach, and there's shit all over my arse.'

‘What? Whose shit?'

‘My shit! Whose shit do you think would be on my arse, you sicko? I got really drunk and shat the bed. And now I'm stuck here because as soon as I turn over or try to get up, it's going to go everywhere.'

I heard nothing but hysterical laughter from the other end of the phone. ‘You're on your own, freak,' she said. ‘Just get up and try not to touch it.'

‘But I already touched it. I thought it was a mouse on my bum.'

‘Why would there be a mouse on your bum?'

‘You're the one who asked me whose shit it was! I'm hung-over, give me a break.'

‘Well, you're going to have to get up some time,' she said, laughing as she hung up.

It took me a good half hour to muster the strength to take care of the situation, all the while promising myself that I would never get that drunk again. Which of course, I have. Many, many times. But I've yet to wake up to another poo surprise, which only suggests growth, in my opinion. I may not know how to cook. I may not know how to carry a conversation with adults that isn't about television. I may not know how to clean a toilet, or how banks work or how to post a letter. But I've only ever pooped once from being drunk. And that seems pretty grown-up to me.

I'm currently sitting in a blanket fort that I built around my TV, drinking vodka and pretending that I don't have a book deadline. I haven't showered in three days, partly because I don't want to leave the blanket fort, but mostly because my cat has done a big shit in the bathroom and I can't be bothered cleaning it up.

I'm scared to come out. I'm scared to come out of a freaking blanket fort. I'm feeling overwhelmed, and tired, and I just figured out how to get Netflix to play on my TV, so it's really difficult to muster the motivation to leave this safe, warm, vodka-filled happy place.

I'm twenty-eight, I'm not wearing pants, there's about seven different food stains on my t-shirt and I'm hiding in a blanket fort in my living room. And you know what? I don't give a shit.

Sometimes I just need to sit in a blanket fort for a while with some fucking vodka. And it took me a long time, but I'm finally okay with that. I'm an often glorious, currently pantsless, cheese-loving mess, who will never, ever be cool enough to
handle life without the occasional fort-related breakdown. That's just me.

I spent a lifetime struggling to understand why I wasn't a cool kid, constantly wondering just what I was missing. From my early days trying to hide my poo pants from my sister's friends, to my later days doing drugs and pretending to enjoy sex with boys who were terrible at it, I've always been so fixated on trying to impress everyone around me, trying to be what I thought I was meant to be. But I spent so much time attempting to crack the damn code that would finally get me on the inside that I never stopped to ask myself if that was actually where I wanted to be.

It wasn't until I found myself there that I realised it wasn't.

Not too long ago, for a very brief and exhausting moment, I found myself on the inside looking out. I was surrounded by glamour and famous people and lots and lots of air kissing, and I ended up sitting on the side of the road by myself, eating a taco in a ball gown.

After becoming a fairly popular writer on Mamamia, my editors decided to send me on a trip to Los Angeles to cover the ‘G'day USA' gala, which is basically just an excuse for all the famous US-based Aussies to get together and get pissed on someone else's dime. I had to go to a bunch of parties, swan about with famous people and then write about the experience when I got home.

I really thought my life had officially come full circle. I was the phoenix rising from the ashes, the flower growing out of the mud etc etc etc blah blah blah. The little girl who hid in her room memorising lines from sitcoms while her mum drunk-cried over Elton John music downstairs was GOING TO HOLLYWOOD, BITCHES. I had made it.

When I first saw the Hollywood sign from my balcony, I cried. After everything, after every god damn thing, I was standing in a plush Beverly Hills hotel room, looking at the Hollywood sign, and I was there as a
paid writer.
I got a taxi to take me to the Kodak Theatre, where the Oscars are held. I walked up to the doors and pressed my palms against them, thinking of every speech I had ever planned to give on that stage since I was five years old. I'm sure thousands of girls do the same thing every year. I'm surprised there wasn't an official ‘Look How Far You've Come' line for everyone who wants to take a photo with their eyes closed, while they smile wistfully with their hands pressed against the door of the Kodak Theatre. It was a cliché moment, definitely. But holy shit, it was a good moment.

Lifelong dream-fulfilling out of the way, I had to get down to the business of being an impossibly cool person in my impossibly cool new job. I had ‘made it', you see. I needed to get dressed up and go to parties and take selfies with the beautiful people. If only I had known, all those years ago, when I was
being laughed at while my mum wiped shit from my thighs, that one day I would be paid to hang out with celebrities and write about it. If only I had known, while being tortured by Wayne at The College, that I was going to become a total insider. If only I had known, every time I felt weird and awkward and out of place, that one day I would reach the absolute top rung of the cool ladder.

If only I had known, that once I got there, I would really, really hate it.

John Travolta kissed me on the cheek. Jacki Weaver laughed at one of my jokes. Kylie Minogue sang a private concert next to some hotel pool. I ordered a drink while standing at the bar next to Geoffrey Rush. I posted pictures on Instagram that made it look like I was having the time of my life.

But I was miserable. I was so fucking miserable. Those few days of fancy celebrity parties in LA were a few of the most uncomfortable days of my life. I don't know why I assumed that once I was finally on the ‘inside', that once I was finally a cool kid, it would all make sense to me. None of it made sense to me. I may have finally been accepted by the cool kids, but I still felt weird and awkward and out of place. And on my last night in LA, I realised why.

It's because I
am
weird and awkward and out of place. I was never cool because I was never meant to be cool, and standing at one of the most exclusive parties in LA that night, I looked
around the room and realised I didn't
want
to be either. Being cool is exhausting, and after just a few days, I'd had enough.

I needed air. I needed to stop pretending I enjoyed small talk and that my heels were comfortable. I needed to eat something that wasn't a wanky canapé. I needed to be somewhere that wasn't playing music so loud I couldn't think. I just needed to get the hell out of that party.

So I left. In my ball gown, with my face made up and my hair looking fucking fabulous, I walked out of the coolest situation I had ever found myself in. I walked away from the party I had spent my entire life trying to get into. I wandered the streets of LA until I found a food truck on the side of the road. I ordered a taco and ate it while sitting on the kerb, and I had never felt more relieved in my life. That kerb was exactly where I was supposed to be.

I'm weird and awkward and out of place, and sometimes blanket forts and taco-kerbs are just more my style. Realising that is what finally gave me permission to stop trying so hard.

After that night, I realised that as soon as you stop listening to what everyone else wants from you, and start listening to what
you
want from you, your life will get easier. There is nothing more liberating than accepting who you are, shit mishaps, taco-kerbs, blanket forts and all. It may not be cool, it may not be perfect, but it's you, and every experience you've had in your life has played a part in creating that. There were times my life
was rough, but all of it led to me walking out of that fancy party to get a taco, because I finally realised that after everything I'd been through, the only person I needed to impress was me. And sitting on that kerb, eating that delicious pocket of cheese and meat, I was pretty damn impressed with myself. I finally cracked the code I was meant to crack all along: being cool is all about compromising who you are. Being anti-cool is about accepting it. Accepting it, owning it, laughing at it and loving it. I was never meant to be cool. I was meant to be anti-cool.

That fancy LA party just wasn't me. You know what
is
me? This:

       
1.
    
I refuse to wax my pubes. There is honestly no grand feminist reasoning behind this choice, it's just that ripping hair out of your vagina really fucking hurts. I did it once, for a boy, and was so traumatised by the experience that I never did it again. Also, pubes just don't really bother me, and if they ever bothered a man I was with, I would ask him to kindly step away from my special place.

       
2.
    
I still have stuffed toys on my shelves.

       
3.
    
I've accepted that I'm not great at being ‘sexy'. Flannelette pyjamas and fanny farts are both words that I'd use to describe a typical sexual experience with me. And I like that.

       
4.
    
I'll never be afraid of being alone again. There are worse things than being alone, like . . . being with a man who treats
you badly. Being single can be scary, but it also means you get to drink wine in your underpants and take your laptop to the toilet.

       
5.
    
I've only vacuumed twice this year.

       
6.
    
I won't do any sex stuff that makes me uncomfortable. Emotionally or physically. Bum stuff is out. A guy tried once, and I reflexively kicked him in the balls, so venture there at your own risk. Also . . .

       
7.
    
I won't pretend that I've orgasmed when I haven't. I have faked many an orgasm in my time. Then I realised sex wasn't just about him feeling like a sex god. In fact, and this may sound crazy, but sex is actually kind of pointless unless you also enjoy it. As soon as I realised that, I wouldn't say I'd climaxed unless I had. You are entitled to orgasm. They may have to work a little harder but . . . well, I couldn't give a fuck, to be honest.

       
8.
    
I've made peace with my mental health. My anxiety will always be with me, and that's fine. It sometimes means I have to slow my life down. It sometimes means I'll hide in the bathroom at work and have a panic attack. It sometimes means I'll sit in a blanket fort until I feel safe enough to come out. I have to take medication every day and I'll probably always be in therapy. But accepting it has made me a better person.

       
9.
    
I lied. I've only vacuumed once this year.

       
10.
   
I don't let my appearance have anything to do with anyone but me. Every choice I make about the way I look is to make me happy, not so a man will feel good about having me on his arm. My hair? For me. My make-up (or, usually, lack thereof)? For me. The clothes I wear? For me. My body? For me.

       
11.
   
I can't cook and I have no interest in learning how. Anyone who ventures into my home must be willing to accept a thoughtfully ordered take-out meal or some variation of a toasted sandwich. Also, I never put food in my oven – it's for heating up towels.

       
12.
   
I have the alcohol tastes of a fifteen-year-old girl. I need all my alcoholic beverages to be sweet and bubbly. I don't like beer. Never have, never will. Some other girl can chug down with the boys – I'm perfectly happy with my sparkling wine, thank you very much. And it's usually the cheapest one, because I can't taste the difference. I may not understand the ‘woody undertones' of an expensive red, but everything I drink tastes like a glorious fruit cocktail, so suck it.

       
13.
   
I will never let anyone convince me that I'm not ‘fuckable'. If you like to fuck, you are fuckable. It's that simple.

       
14.
   
I have accepted that going out is for chumps. TV is my one true love. There was a brief period there where I tried to be ‘down' with the kids. I went to the clubs. I took drugs. I hung out in places with music so loud that my ears would ring for
days. Then I realised that it was the worst. I like soft lighting, yummy wine and a good TV show (and if you're lucky, I may even put on pants).

       
15.
   
I refuse to waste my time loving someone who doesn't love me.

       
16.
   
I have forgiven my parents. They did the best they could, while both dealing with tragic struggles of their own. And they gave me the gift of a brilliant brain, which I'll always be thankful for.

       
17.
   
I'm scared that if I learn to drive, I'll crash while singing a Disney song.

       
18.
   
Yes, I'm twenty-eight and I just admitted that I don't know how to drive.

       
19.
   
I feel like a fraud ninety-five percent of the time. I literally have no idea what I'm doing, and I cannot believe people pay me to write the words I have written when I still sleep with a teddy bear.

       
20.
   
I need to be able to fart in front of my boyfriends. Non-negotiable.

       
21.
   
Although I'm terrified almost all of the time, I really think I'm doing okay. After everything, after every damn thing, I'm actually kind of doing okay.

So there you have it. That's all my . . . stuff, embarrassing or otherwise, on the table. I accept it and I own it and I'm proud
of it. I'll only ever change that list if I'm the one who isn't happy with it. I'm not trying to be cool anymore – my list changes for nobody but me.

This isn't some grand life philosophy. There are no rules. I don't give a fuck what direction people lean in or what plan they follow or if they secretly love eating cheese in the bath. Just try to love yourself enough that you never feel like you have to pretend to be something that you're not. Sit on the kerb eating a taco, or stay at the fancy party until 4am, if that's what you want. Just make sure it's what YOU want.

It doesn't mean life will always be perfect, but it does mean that it will always be real.

And that's it. After everything I went through, everything I survived, the most important lesson I learned only came after having an epiphany while eating a taco in a ball gown. Do with that lesson what you will.