Homelessness and Hopelessness, a quick catch up to where it's at

So, just as a catch-up to where I am at, when I first got to Perth, I was staying with a girl I was seeing. Part of the incentive to move in the first place was that she was here, of course AND that her uncle had gotten me a job. The DAY before I was supposed to start the job, I got a phone call saying it was no longer available for some bullshit reason. Then, less than two weeks in, she changed her mind about the relationship and within 24 hours I had to leave the house I had just moved all my stuff into. Which seemed a tad harsh to me at the time. Actually, it still seems harsh to me. Because it is. Here you are, in the city which you drove 3000+ kms to in order to be with me and where you hardly know anyone and I want you out of my house. Tomorrow. Yeah, I was right, that is bullshit.

Anyway, it lead to me sleeping in my car for a couple of nights, which I do not recommend. Luckily I have a couple of other friends in Perth, one of whom let me sleep on her couch for a couple of nights (thanks Michelle, you are a champion) and another one who I didnt feel like I could impose on and whom missed the million subtle hints I dropped. I ended up sleeping on the couch cushions of a guy I know through the comedy scene, an absolute fucking legend named Dave Cronin. If it wasn't for Dave and his awesome brother Mitch and their awesome mate Luke, I would have had to sleep in my car for more nights than the two I did and would probably just have driven my car straight back across the Nullabor. Then a Melbourne friend of mine named Serena offered me some work on a property she owns down in a place near Rockingham (about 50km South of Perth) so I had some money coming in. Life saving champion legend of all time. Then the real estate agent liked the work/couldn't get anyone better, so she offered me work as a handyman and I have been busy ever since. Which means, as my sister said, that I'm not charging enough.

So now you're up to speed. Except for my new living arrangements. And this is where it gets good.

In order to be closer to the work, I decided to live down here, near Rockingham. The Real Estate agent I am working for is in a place called Kwinana. I'm choosing to pronounce it the same as Quinoa: "Keenwa". So far what I've learned about living in Kwinana is this.
1. The Coffee is terrible. If I use Beanhunter in Kwinana, it doesn't show a single hit. The best cup of coffee in Kwinana is from a vending machine in a service station. This is not so much coffee as "brown drink". You know, like Orange Drink instead of Orange Juice. Luckily, Rockingham is only 10 minutes drive away and there is a one good coffee place there that I have found so far.
2. Woolworths is not open 24 hours a day. In fact, I'm not even sure it's open 12 hours a day.
3. If you stand in the carpark of Woolies here, you can see FOUR pizza shops, McDonald's, KFC and Chicken Treat**. There are NO other actual restaurants in the town. (The pub has a bistro). This is not a good thing.
4. It's CHEAP! And being near work means I can sleep til 5 minutes before I need to be there and I save money on petrol.
5. There are no comedy gigs here, which means driving to Freo or Perth when I have a gig.

Since arriving I've done some gigs and gotten an agent who has lined up some proper paying gigs. So it's starting to get good, although it's been hard this far. If it wasn't for my family giving me money, I would be homeless. Literally. Two nights of it was bad enough. So I'm in the next suburb to Quinoa - Calista - in a sharehouse with 3 incredible bogans from what I can only imagine is the highest tier of bogan society. Actually, bogan society probably only has one level. Entry Level. These people, as specimens of the human race, could almost pass as normal. But there are things that give away that they are not normal. The woman who owns the house almost always talks OVER what you are trying to say. She asks you questions and before you have managed to squeeze out a syllable she has started talking again so that nothing you say gets heard. You quickly learn not to say anything. Most of the time I just smirk, nod and say things like "oh, right". And she says incredible things most of the time that are loosely based on things she has heard second or third hand, like she gets all of her news through Chinese Whispers. Watching TV or a film with her is a gold mine but I'll get to that. 

The other two people who live in the house are a young couple. They sleep in the room next to mine and I usually only know they are home because I can hear them fighting through the wall. The first time I met either of them was memorable. The day I cam to check out the house I walked in and the female of the mating pair was sitting on the couch in pink tracksuit pants and a pink hoodie. It was only later that I found out that the tracksuit pants had "Playboy" printed across the butt. The first conversation I had with her went like this.

ME - "Hi, how are you going?"

HER - "Not great, I have cancer"

I can sympathise with that but as a first thing to say to someone, it's probably a little full on.
WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT? "Oh! What kind? Breast? Cervical? Pancreas?" Aside from it being TMI, I also DRC.

I didn't meet the boyfriend until the next day when I came home to be confronted by the pair sitting on the couch eating a brown gloop. I shook his hand and said "Hey, how are you. Bert.". He replied "Good, man, GRUNT/NAME" and that was it. I missed his name and still do not know it. I think it was either Keith or Leith. I would normally have asked him to repeat it but I had only one thing on my mind. His Mullet. He DELIBERATELY grows a mullet. The hairstyle, not the fish. Ok, look, maybe he has the fish too, I'm not sure. But the hairstyle would win a championship. Probably the thing I like about them the most is that they are not interested in being social.

So its been interesting so far. Watching TV with the woman who owns the house is my new favourite pastime. My favourite thing so far has been when we watched an ad selling shares in the offspring of Black Caviar. The voice over said "...will it run like the wind?" and she said "it probably won't be any good because that kind of thing can skip a generation". I've only been here about a week and I have an amazing backlog of quotes that I will update as they happen. 

Stay tuned because from here on in, this pretty much becomes me telling you what the housemates have been saying. And judging from the material I have already been handed, its going to be good.