volume one hundred and forty-three
do you have a dollar for me? do you have a story for me?
📍Written from the dining table of my latest temporary home in Darkinjung Country otherwise known as Wyong while one of two bengal cats purred at my ankles.
It’s a tiny plastic slip, packaging from something I bought years ago and couldn’t tell you what. It is sealed tight with numerous strips of sticky tape. It sits in amongst the contents of my purse, nestled wherever it ends up, friendly with the debit card, health care card, Canadian ID because I still have not gotten an Australian one, multiple transit passes for different places I frequent, sobriety chips, a lucky stone and a note an old crush wrote me recommending a podcast I have never listened to, her handwriting the only proof that she existed.
In my early twenties, Mum gifted me a new wallet on my birthday. It was bright orange, my newest favourite colour. It was the favourite colour that stuck. It had two compartments that zipped open, one for all of the cards an adult carries around and one for bills and coins to sit in, should you be the kind of person who had enough money to fill those slots. Or the kind of person to carry cash. I wasn’t. Money was spent the moment it hit my bank account. It’s a habit I have slowly almost broken over many years of work.
“It’s bad luck to gift someone an empty wallet,” she told me. So inside it, she placed a one-dollar coin. The orange wallet, over time, peeled and crumbled back, slowly revealing the grey beneath. The zip became stiff after many uses and many years. Eventually, it was replaced with a leopard print wallet of the same style. This one had one face covered in spikes. It was the wallet that when asking for change at the laundromat I was told the spikes mimicked a pressure mat and I could relieve tension by massaging my palms with them. I did that often, whenever I was paused and waiting. It got passed around at bars after it was my shout and people saw what I was doing and became curious. I lost a handful of the spikes over time, leaving a sharp metal hole in their place until it was time for that wallet to go, too.
In the great purge that was 2023 and some years preceding it, I realised I didn’t actually need a large wallet. How many loyalty cards did I actually use? I cancelled my credit card, a lot of things went digital. Then a glow mesh golden coin purse was enough to fit the essentials and that has been my purse ever since.
I still have the dollar.
It has friends now.
They all live safely in that little plastic packaging, so as to not mingle with the other money that is for spending. In my thirties, I carry cash.
It is the dollar and the money that even if (and many times when) it has been all I have had, I wouldn’t spend it. It is the dollar and the money that when the cashier doesn’t want to break a large bill and asks if I have a dollar, I say “No, sorry. I don’t”.
The plastic pouch rarely crosses my mind. But now and then I will be in a crowded concert surrounded by people, or lying in bed almost falling asleep, or in the middle of a distracted meditation, or watching a movie in the cinema and BAM! The pouch pops into my head.
“I haven’t seen it for a while,” I think. I immediately have to check it is still there. Tucked away. Never to be spent. Always to make me feel safe. Always to remind me I am loved.
The friends that exist with it all tell a story. There is the five-dollar Canadian bill I found on the ground the first day my good friend joined me at our new employment, the start of our career era and stepping out of the job one. It flew by my feet and I grabbed it and looked around what was usually a busy street to see no one but us. Right as I accepted it was mine for the taking, another bill floated to his feet. We kept them as a sign of a good omen. We never spent them, we hung them above our desks as reminders. When I left, mine was rehomed to my purse.
There is another Canadian five-dollar bill in there. A much different story accompanies this one. It was a tip I received from someone I admire. It was October and I was attending a weekly drag show I often used to go to while my boyfriend at the time would hang out with his friends and play video games. We would meet later that night and each week have very good sex that I very much enjoyed. Until I realised it wasn’t, I always put it down to Sundays being tipsy days and that is why it was so much more fun for me. Once I leant into my sexuality, I realised that being in a room of screaming queers for three hours made me hornier than any boy I have been with ever could. Being October, it was a Halloween-themed show and for the first time, the audience was encouraged to dress up. Those who did were invited on stage to compete for the winning look. I don’t remember who won, I know it wasn’t me, but I do know that my favourite regular performer, the one I would scream the loudest for, the one I tipped the most, the one who would go on to be a tattoo on my ass cheek, ran up to me immediately and tipped me. I was ecstatic. This began our phase-out of fan and drag performer and into friendship (but also still fan and drag sensation, always).
There is another tip from someone I admire in there. A much different story accompanies this one. I was working in what I now know to be my shadow career. I loved it so much because I was amongst all of the people I admired a lot, unknowingly wanting to be like them or realistically, have the courage to be pursuing life like them. It was the end of a very busy weekend, with multiple sold-out shows every night. I interviewed her and I ran the venue and I shared stories with her wife in the green room about our young sexuality discoveries and at the end of it all she told me that I was the best comedy club manager she had ever met, how much she had enjoyed herself, how much fun she had. I insisted she keep the money she was trying to hand me, that not only was it my job, it was my pleasure, too. She insisted I keep it. I did. I am not sure what for. At the time it was a reminder that someone I admire appreciated the work I did. Now I think it is a reminder that it was okay to be in a shadow career, it got me where I am now, and I had a wonderful time doing it. Maybe, a small part of me hopes I can mention it one day when I meet her again.
“This is where I saw it!” I said to my Mum the last time I saw her — our relationship distant for too long both geographically and emotionally and in attempts of repair. A nice day together the first step.
“I saw the platypus right up here! I had to wait for about twenty minutes, but we have time don’t we?”
We had time. We have time. We never saw a platypus, but we both found five-cent pieces, face up, for good luck. We keep them in our wallets. It’s a good omen.
Lovely reader, head into the comments and tell me what do you always carry with you?
here are three things i struggled with this week:
😽 I am devastated by how quickly I have fallen in love with the two cats I am currently caring for and that I don’t get to live with them forever.
🍪Saying no to the offer of a sweet that Poppy wants to share — knowing full well I am allergic to it — but not wanting to pass up the opportunity to share a sweet with him while I can.
🔮 Having the conversation in my head before it even happens, and always getting it wrong.
here are three blessings from this week:
❤️ Cuddles and smiles from Nanny and cuddles and smiles from Poppy.
📺I finally binged the rest of Hacks that I didn’t get to watch on my flight to Australia, I binged the entire season of Colin from Accounts and if there was more than one season I would have binged that too and at the time of writing, I have binged almost all of Our Flag Means Death. 10/10’s all around!
🧘♀️The three-month meditation course I am taking involves different methods being taught, journaling, reading, group discussions and homework! I love homework!
here are three goals for the coming week:
🥾 Grab my Australian version of a winter wardrobe from storage at Nanny’s AKA my Doc Martens and a second jumper.
🫧 Get the bubble gun out every day for the cats because they love to chase them and I love to watch it happen.
⚖️ Don’t be disrupted by the balance in my life right now. It feels weird. It feels unknown. It is going to take some getting used to but I have worked so hard for it (and complained about it a lot) that I need to just accept it is happening.
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. Now I am off to prepare for a week that includes interviewing one of my comedy heroes for the podcast and seeing one of my music heroes in concert. No big deal that I am in love with my life and pinch myself always.
Lovely 😊 also … I appreciate your reflections for the week gone and ahead at the end of your post. As a newbie to substacks … I might borrow this idea 😬
Loved this! There was a stage when my aunt always bought me a purse for Christmas and she always put a coin in it. It must be a thing!😀