Officially a gay man

My teeth have been shitting me off for MONTHS now, ever since my filling fell out.  I never got it replaced right away because I never felt any pain, but over time it’s just started to feel yucky and food gets stuck in there all the time, not to mention how self-conscious I am that I have bad breath because of it.  So I carry gum everywhere, and I notice after i eat certain foods, that I’ll feel absolutely sick in my mind about how my breath is because of the damn filling falling out.  I’ve never once felt pain since it fell out, but I guess if there’s no filling there, it’s only edging closer and closer to the nerve.

I’ve written in here countless times about how much I hate the dentist, with a passion, but now is the time to get it down.  I need to repair my body in so many ways.  I’ve gotten my skin checked, I’m going to gym and this morning I booked in with my dentist.  It’s been probably 18 months or so since I was there, so he’ll get up me about that, but they really should advertise dentists are friendly fuzzies more often and not these huge ogres that not only put you in pain, but take half your life savings in the process.  I ummed and ahhed about whether I should just go to a close dentist to my house, but I decided to go back to my regular dentist.  He is a Chinese guy who used to be a plastic surgeon down in Melbourne, before moving to Brisbane with his family.  He is sometimes very hard to understand, and yeah that worries me a little, but he’s always taken good care of me in the past.  When I rang up, even the receptionish couldn’t understand me spelling my name out to her.  I was like, "P" – she repeats back, "T for Tomato?"  Me:  "NO!  P!"  God I hate having a weird last name sometimes.  Anyway eventually we got there and she saw I’d been there before when it must’ve popped up on her computer.

I’m booked in for 2pm next Thursday.  I’ve got my skin check appointment and probably biopsy 3 and 4 on Wednesday (and hopefully results from 1 and 2), and as Thursday’s my only other day off, I’m booked into the dentist.  I’m hoping he doesn’t just scale and clean me and does the filling that day, but he’ll probably ask me to come back, as dentists tend to do so they can rape your wallet twice as hard.  I think it’ll be good to actually use my insurance though because those bastards have been bleeding off me for a year and a half now.  Originally I was happy I’d claimed back more than I’d paid, but it’d be well the opposite of that now.  I hope I haven’t damaged other teeth around this tooth by putting it off, but I guess there’s only one way to find out.  Stupid body falling apart I tell ya!

I made a status on facebook yesterday:  "I’m officially becoming a gay man today", which was a smart-ass way of joking that I was gunna buy a new bag.  Of course, you’ll notice you’ll notice that my parents or any relative will ever comment on anything I write to do with the word gay, like ever.  I know they see it but they never acknowledge anything ever.  But that’s a whole other story!   I’ve used my backpack for so so long now, I think even since highschool haha, and one of the zips has been busted for ages, but I decided I needed a new, sleek, more spacious bag that I can carry my gym stuff to work in.  I was originally opting for the cliche’ ‘Country Road’ bag, which is where the gay reference came from, because there is no such thing as a straight man who carries around a Country Road bag, and if any of your friends do, you need to tell them to replace it ASAP.  The Country Road bag is the epic of gay, everyone knows that, no matter what colour it is 🙂  So that was the ORIGINAL thought, but I realised I’, buying this as a gym bag, not an everything-else bag, so I looked around the sports stores, like Amart and Rebel.  Rebel is where I found the bag that grabbed my eye.  It’s a brand I’m not overly fussed on, but I don’t hate either, and the bag cost me $100 (about $30 MORE than a Country Road one would have), but I’m quite happy with my purchase.  It’s good to just splurge every now and then, because I’m usually such a scrooge.  I mean you have to be when you’re unqualified with an okay paying job and not living at home scrundgening money off of Centrelink.

I often wonder how other people fare financially.  I mean, compared to me.  I really do.  I mean I understand if you’re a CEO or own a chain of brothels or drug houses that you’re gunna have money coming out of your arse, but I mean I wonder how I fare compared to the other average Aussie battlers out there.  I read in reports ALL the time that the AVERAGE Aussie weekly income is around $1300 a week.  $1300 a week!!!??  That’s an INSANE amount of money!!  And I look at that and they are saying that’s the AVERAGE.  What kind of fucking jobs is everyone else working in?  Because most of my friends and family are in either retail or hospitality or hairdressing and they certainly do NOT make anything NEAR that amount of money, as far as I know.  Do they mean the average qualified wage?  Because to me that’s the average wage in general.  Is that what other Aussies are on, or more?  Do the weekly pay packets of $3000+ in the mines make the average higher?  lol, it just baffles me.  THEN I read that the average Australian credit card debt is around $1500.  Like, what the fuck?  Does that cancel out the Average wage?  What the hell are people buying??

It makes me wonder where I stand.  I don’t have any debt whatsoever on my credit card.  Does everyone just pay for everything on credit and deal with the consequences of scurrying up the money later?  A friend of mine, younger than me, owns an $80,000 Volvo.  Does he just drive that and then sell it later on?  I have a shitty little car that barely even starts half the time and the rego costs more to keep it on the road than the actual car itself!  Should I be throwing away money I don’t have on a car worth like $30,000?  Same goes with a house!  Christ.  I’ve never been able to stand the idea of interest, but with a house, pretty much no-one has a choice!  I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle by paying rent like I do, and people are saying to me ‘Rent money is dead money.’ – Ahh actually, i have a roof over my head and am not six-figures in debt thanks very much, and the money I DO have is actually being saved up FOR a house.  I haven’t decided if I’ll just save up enough for a deposit, or save up enough to actually buy the house, but I reckon I’m DELUDING myself if that’s ever gunna happen.  It just seems to make a lot more sense, unless you’re gunna rent renters in to pay your interest for you.  But who knows with all these stupid laws and such what you can and can’t do.  And there’s no way a bank will grant me a home-loan without a full-time job lol.

But yeah, my point is, what is the normal amount of money to have?  I think I do alright, but then I wonder if I really am.  Like I’m talking about people who don’t own their own home.  Am I even anywhere near the medium income vs debt average?  Does everyone just have $20,000 sitting in their bank accounts accumulating compound interest?  Does everyone have $20,000 DEBT on their credit cards accumulating oppositee interest?  Does everyone just throw $1000 on their credit card each week and then when they are paid, they pay it off?
I really have no idea.  I know that once I get paid, I set aside what i need for rent and insurance, and then I spend whatever is left on groceries or whatever else, clubbing, train fares etc.  Am I living my financial life right?  Am I doing the right thing setting aside $400 each fortnight into my savings?  It used to only be $100 a week, but I upped it and spent the next two or so years whinging I had no money cos I’d saved it all.

What’s the point of saving if you’re gunna get hit by a bus tomorrow?

It’s just… I’m trying to understand if I’m keeping up with the Joneses I guess.  I don’t need a shitload of money to be happy, but does everyone in the world just live on credit and pay it off, or are they like me and save it before they spend it?

Anyway, enough dribbling.  Here’s my bag I bought yesterday, and my new flat-kitty umbrella I bought the day before, haha.  I got an umbrella for Christmas, but it’s one of those big ones and it’s annoying to carry around.  I needed a compact one to put in my bag, as I use that often and it’s not in the way.  The one I had was broken. 

I love my new bag =)  I think that’s my splurge item for this month 🙂  Oh and the dentist next week will be a kick in the teeth (ba-boom-boom-tish).  At least the doctor is free.

And I got a Valentine’s Day card from my OD Favourite, Mermy!!  😀

And here’s my ‘flat-kitty’ umbrella lol – it’s prob a bit too gay but oh well keeps the rain off 😀