Highway to the twilight zone

Take a ride into the twilight zone. You might like it there. You might like it better than the Yacht Rock karaoke party I once went to wearing a borrowed scarf tied around my head like a cartoon pirate. You might like it better than I like my cold room right now. I went to the pub and was then whisked off the streets of Newtown by Boli and over to The Hollywood in Surry Hills for a birthday party which I arrived at late, drunk and without a card or present. I stupidly ate only an english muffin all day before going to the pub and then drank three or four drinks more than drink limit before heading to a party in a pub with FREE DRINKS. Oh no! Oh yes!

I once again found myself in a roomful of academics only this time there was also a drag queen, not a very good one. She used the same sparkle liner for eyes and lips and had hideous open toe white contraption kind of shoes. I'm very fussy about my queens. She also had some sort of smock frock thing going on in a sort of splatter vomit pattern and was wearing a red boa that was clearly cheap and did not at all coordinate with the sparkle liner, the hideous white shoes or the smock frock. The sparkle liner was the multi-colour kind with a dark background. Very 1996.

There was one man that kept following me around the party and trying to talk to me. He was scary and tall in a bilious way. He was wearing a cream cable knit jumper under some foul "I found it under five dead rats and half a cheese cake" jacket. He had a massive digital camera strapped round his neck and Boli tells me he kept sneaking up behind people so he could hide from me and would then stick his head out and take photos of me. He lives in Canberra and has recently taken up theatre sports. Yucky. He said he was less than forty but I don't believe him. I forget what he reckons his name was. But why was he taking all those photos? This is getting weird. At the zine fair some odd man came up and asked if he could take my photo. I said ok so he lay down on the ground in front of me and pointed his massive camera up at a weird angle. I think he must have taken a photo of my knees.

I am not photogenic and wonder why this man kept taking my photo tonight. Why? and Yuck.
It was one of the Randwick belles birthday. She is forty! Forty! That's a very long time to be alive. I hope I die before I get old, I'm not trying to cause a big sensation. She looked happy and lovely. A whole pub full of people went just for her. I hope I am that lucky when I am forty.

I wanted to talk to Gemma for a bit longer. It takes me a while to say anything that matters, anything with depth or probative value. I'm sure she must think I am a hollow vessel, one content to sit or follow. A friend of hers showed up towards the end of our visit to The Townie and she scared me. She was young and violently beautiful like a horse or blown glass. She had a force and confident energy. She was the kind of woman that reduces me to a puffy tall being with empty speech bubbles over my head. It doesn't happen very often but I was already sitting on the edge of Gemma's powerful presence and feeling a little bit at sea. When the beautiful one started talking about where she came from, which is where I came from, the room darkened slightly and the ghost of Artboy made an appearance. If I could explode eight years of my life. If I could wake up tomorrow with no memories I would because all I have learned from giving your heart away is that you will end up alone in a room full of academics being photographed by a yucky man, staring at a bad drag queen and feeling quite drunk and sheepish for not bringing a lovely present with a card stuck on the front.