Oh good lord I've lost the knack of blogging. Laziness I suppose. Or being busy. Buying a house. And killing dreams.
I don't think I killed the dream on purpose its just that my One Day I Will Have Very Own House is now the house of my daily existence. Reality has been rubbing against the dream and causing blisters. The first and most unexpected blister is Mr X, who I will now call Withnail if only because when I think of myself I say "I".
Monday morning was my first official getting out of bed early to write before work morning since I moved in (no name for flat yet). Everything began well. I woke up. I put a jumper over my pyjamas. made coffee and sat down at my newly assembled old desk. I was just about to think of a complete sentence when Withnail, banging and clamouring all the way, emerged into the living area to make his lunch for week and lace up his shoes. I don't know if this is his normal habit but he began to read his mail out loud, interjecting the text with exclamations of "Cunt!" every fifth or six word. The letter was from the strata company but welcoming us to the building and listing emergency contacts.
The dream died in other ways. It is not the incredible design den sure to strike envy into the hearts of every mortal human, the way I always assumed my very own home would be. Withnail has a tendency to leave little messes about the place, piles of receipts from his wallet, a yoghurt cup inexplicably full of water on the side of the sink, shoes under the coffee table, neatly coiled guitar leads and electrical things piled carefully on the corner of the rug. I don't understand his messes, not yet. And the furniture. Oh dear the furniture. There are more books than bookcases, the long-promised dining table has yet to make an appearance and then there is the coffee table. I can barely bring myself to describe it.
Withnail has an aunt with an eye for bulky furniture on the brink of turning back to its natural woodland state of rotting wood and falling generally into the ground. Assembled together in her large and beautiful home its quite an appealing aesthetic but as a singular coffee table in the middle of The Dream its quite another matter altogether. I find some consolation in not having to bother with coasters. I suppose.
If there is one corner of The Dream that survived its split evenly between my bedroom that I painted, wall-to-wall in a colour called Dark Harbour, and my bathroom. My very own bathroom. There is another bathroom that I assume Withnail is in raptures about calling his very own bathroom. Long have I dreamt of a shower where there are only the necessary things of one person, not a household full of shampoos and soaps and conditioners and three different brands of toothpaste and tampons, as is the way with rented share houses. Three days before settlement Grizelda patiently waited while I chose matching everything from the supermarket. The shampoo is the same brand as the handsoap as the moisturiser as the shower gel. One matching set of everything with acres of room in the shower for the pointing of elbows and bending over to wash feet. If you'd ever seen the bathroom in The Peach you'd understand...
I suppose I could be more specific about being for the first time ever at the mercy of no one but myself and my team mate Withnail, who despite being awfully snappish and tall is quite trustworthy. For the first time ever I can lock my door and know that not one person can force my locks and return me to the streets because if you've ever been homeless, like me, you'll know that the fear of having nowhere, not one place in the world, is something that once begun does not lightly leave. Not until now when reality caused blisters on The Dream.
Showing posts with label The Peach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Peach. Show all posts
One more post and then its closing time
I returned from the wedding triumphant. That had a lot to do with Spencer, Grizelda, my family and a few more friends like Ron and Robert and Mr X, and the usual list of suspects.
You see, about a year ago my brother decided to get married. Some time after that he decided to get married in a park, the same park where I was attacked by a man some years ago. The park is located in the town where I used to live with Artboy.
I haven't really been back there, not since I came crawling into The Peach.
I wanted to attend the wedding I just didn't want to go back to that town or that park or that region. I didn't even want to think about it. Spencer and Grizelda both received invitations so we stuffed ourselves into Grizelda's tiny red car and drove and drove and drove.
I packed brandy for the journey. Brandy and painkillers for my broken foot. By the time we narrowed in our trajectory we were one sheet to the wind. Arriving at the park, grass by a lagoon really, the first thing I noticed was the exact spot I crawled away in the mud, undercover of darkness, when I made my getaway all those years ago. The second thing I noticed was the white cat fur on my black dress left there surreptitiously by Oscar the kitten. I decided to focus on the dress.
I saw my brother arrive in a car full of men wearing tuxedos. A familiar sight thanks to his years of playing in big bands. And then my parents and then the ceremony and then nothing but acres of goodwill.
Spencer and I were drunk and chatty with relatives and friends alike. My parents kept ageing and beaming then tearing up and doing it all over again. I performed one good deed. There was the bridal waltz, and her parents walking up to join in, and my father with his wife and there over at a table sat my mother by herself. Her partner nowhere to be seen, I think she was photographing something. I stood a little uncertainly because of the wine and my broken foot but I made to over to her table and held out my hand. I lead my mother to the dance floor. She said "I'm not sure how to do this". "It doesn't matter", I replied. And so we waltzed on that roomy floor in between the tuxedo-clad big band and the hundreds of pair of eyes.
Afterwards my aunts and uncles came surreptitiously one by one to tell me what a good thing I had done asking my mother to dance. I did not disagree with them but I looked at them a little beadily. Its been some time since a relative thought highly of me. I thought for a moment of my dead grandfather and wondered.
After my brother took his new wife away in a car Spencer and I stole all the wine we could and started drinking while Grizelda worked at driving the car. The turn off to my old house came up ahead of us. I felt uneasy but shouted at the very last second 'turn here I want to see the house'.
Grizelda found the old house easily and brought her small car to a stop across the road from it. The new people had ripped out the old weeping cherry tree and chopped down the jacaranda. There was a white metal letterbox in place of the crazy old wooden one my father bought from a man who carved things with a chainsaw.
I remembered the last time I was there. Half mad and convinced I was being followed by a cube of sorrow. This time I was not alone. We got out of the car and crossed the road. Spencer and Grizelda held back but I walked on my broken foot, all dressed up and drunk. I walked right up the driveway smoking a cigarette and taking huge swigs from a stolen bottle of wine.
Memories that house seemed like a huge shadow falling over everything I do. I stared at the front door and waited for something to hit me until something did. I don't need this anymore. I ground out my cigarette on the red brick driveway, shrugged at the idea of Artboy and walked on back to the car.
Half way home Spencer said "You did good tonight". And I thought yeah, I did.
We sang and drank and laughed our way back towards the city. The street lights started growing on every corner and maybe a plane roared overhead or if it didn't it could have. People were walking everywhere on the streets and there was life more than darkness and the big solid feeling of coming home.
Thanks for listening.
That's a full lid.
You see, about a year ago my brother decided to get married. Some time after that he decided to get married in a park, the same park where I was attacked by a man some years ago. The park is located in the town where I used to live with Artboy.
I haven't really been back there, not since I came crawling into The Peach.
I wanted to attend the wedding I just didn't want to go back to that town or that park or that region. I didn't even want to think about it. Spencer and Grizelda both received invitations so we stuffed ourselves into Grizelda's tiny red car and drove and drove and drove.
I packed brandy for the journey. Brandy and painkillers for my broken foot. By the time we narrowed in our trajectory we were one sheet to the wind. Arriving at the park, grass by a lagoon really, the first thing I noticed was the exact spot I crawled away in the mud, undercover of darkness, when I made my getaway all those years ago. The second thing I noticed was the white cat fur on my black dress left there surreptitiously by Oscar the kitten. I decided to focus on the dress.
I saw my brother arrive in a car full of men wearing tuxedos. A familiar sight thanks to his years of playing in big bands. And then my parents and then the ceremony and then nothing but acres of goodwill.
Spencer and I were drunk and chatty with relatives and friends alike. My parents kept ageing and beaming then tearing up and doing it all over again. I performed one good deed. There was the bridal waltz, and her parents walking up to join in, and my father with his wife and there over at a table sat my mother by herself. Her partner nowhere to be seen, I think she was photographing something. I stood a little uncertainly because of the wine and my broken foot but I made to over to her table and held out my hand. I lead my mother to the dance floor. She said "I'm not sure how to do this". "It doesn't matter", I replied. And so we waltzed on that roomy floor in between the tuxedo-clad big band and the hundreds of pair of eyes.
Afterwards my aunts and uncles came surreptitiously one by one to tell me what a good thing I had done asking my mother to dance. I did not disagree with them but I looked at them a little beadily. Its been some time since a relative thought highly of me. I thought for a moment of my dead grandfather and wondered.
After my brother took his new wife away in a car Spencer and I stole all the wine we could and started drinking while Grizelda worked at driving the car. The turn off to my old house came up ahead of us. I felt uneasy but shouted at the very last second 'turn here I want to see the house'.
Grizelda found the old house easily and brought her small car to a stop across the road from it. The new people had ripped out the old weeping cherry tree and chopped down the jacaranda. There was a white metal letterbox in place of the crazy old wooden one my father bought from a man who carved things with a chainsaw.
I remembered the last time I was there. Half mad and convinced I was being followed by a cube of sorrow. This time I was not alone. We got out of the car and crossed the road. Spencer and Grizelda held back but I walked on my broken foot, all dressed up and drunk. I walked right up the driveway smoking a cigarette and taking huge swigs from a stolen bottle of wine.
Memories that house seemed like a huge shadow falling over everything I do. I stared at the front door and waited for something to hit me until something did. I don't need this anymore. I ground out my cigarette on the red brick driveway, shrugged at the idea of Artboy and walked on back to the car.
Half way home Spencer said "You did good tonight". And I thought yeah, I did.
We sang and drank and laughed our way back towards the city. The street lights started growing on every corner and maybe a plane roared overhead or if it didn't it could have. People were walking everywhere on the streets and there was life more than darkness and the big solid feeling of coming home.
Thanks for listening.
That's a full lid.
Indignation afoot
I have become angry at my foot, just as Gemma was angry with her tonsils. I don't about Gemma's tonsils but my foot is letting me down. I haven't had a car since Superman smashed and killed the Zammercarship (and after that our friendship) so for three years now I've been walking everywhere I want to go. I had intended to buy a bicycle but Mr Oddweird put an end to that dream by requiring me to save my all of money for bond on a new house.
This is where the foot comes in again. I need it to walk with. I need it to get to work in the morning and back home in the afternoon. I need it take me to the shops and down the hall to the kitchen and back up the hall to the bathroom and then wherever else in the house I wish to be. I need my foot to work.
My foot doesn't work. It hurts when I wriggle my toes, it hurts when I roll over in bed, the other day it hurt when I turned on the shower and water hit my skin. It hurts when I stretch my leg or stand up or sit down or put on a loose sock.
I'm packing up the contents of The Peach one-legged and unsteady. Yesterday I spent four hours ironing every piece of linen in the house, standing on one leg. The story of packing is boring, even on one leg. First I select a cupboard or drawer or corner and go through every item checking if I need it or can donate it to charity, sell it or throw it out. I thought I would be overwhelmed by the onslaught of memories inadvertently attached to every tiny thing I own. This is what has happened in the past but I find myself enjoying the ruthlessness of culling. I don't know if its the crazy pills, the foot or lingering thought that this house turned out just to be a house and nothing more. Nothing like the temple of my personal salvation I thought it was going to be or was, from my time to time. Nothing but walls and a place for me to wander around in temporarily.
I am finding that I can't follow a thread of thought. I am unsure about almost everything except the urgent need to cull and ongoing anger at my broken foot. People keep asking what the new house is going to be called. I suspect it might end up being The Embassy. I don't think that's a very good name but it floated out of my mouth while I stood at the front gate with my left palm flat against the brick wall topped with wrought iron spikes. The Embassy. It sounds ridiculous, more ridiculous than The Peach. What are we to be called? Ambassadors? Diplomats? That's even worse than Peachettes. I suppose I'll think on it a little, when I stop being angry at my foot.
This is where the foot comes in again. I need it to walk with. I need it to get to work in the morning and back home in the afternoon. I need it take me to the shops and down the hall to the kitchen and back up the hall to the bathroom and then wherever else in the house I wish to be. I need my foot to work.
My foot doesn't work. It hurts when I wriggle my toes, it hurts when I roll over in bed, the other day it hurt when I turned on the shower and water hit my skin. It hurts when I stretch my leg or stand up or sit down or put on a loose sock.
I'm packing up the contents of The Peach one-legged and unsteady. Yesterday I spent four hours ironing every piece of linen in the house, standing on one leg. The story of packing is boring, even on one leg. First I select a cupboard or drawer or corner and go through every item checking if I need it or can donate it to charity, sell it or throw it out. I thought I would be overwhelmed by the onslaught of memories inadvertently attached to every tiny thing I own. This is what has happened in the past but I find myself enjoying the ruthlessness of culling. I don't know if its the crazy pills, the foot or lingering thought that this house turned out just to be a house and nothing more. Nothing like the temple of my personal salvation I thought it was going to be or was, from my time to time. Nothing but walls and a place for me to wander around in temporarily.
I am finding that I can't follow a thread of thought. I am unsure about almost everything except the urgent need to cull and ongoing anger at my broken foot. People keep asking what the new house is going to be called. I suspect it might end up being The Embassy. I don't think that's a very good name but it floated out of my mouth while I stood at the front gate with my left palm flat against the brick wall topped with wrought iron spikes. The Embassy. It sounds ridiculous, more ridiculous than The Peach. What are we to be called? Ambassadors? Diplomats? That's even worse than Peachettes. I suppose I'll think on it a little, when I stop being angry at my foot.
Medical Report
Broken fifth metatarsal due to walking in to furniture bare foot at medium speed. Suspect temporary failure of navigation systems. Navigation system failure occurred as result of inebriation, fatigue and negligent use of light switches in hallway.
This has been an excellent use of the internet.
This has been an excellent use of the internet.
Cataclysmic but slowly and not without joy
We were up to our necks in love. Well that's what it felt like to me as I danced across the kitchen and down the hallway while about a dozen people sang their hearts out in my lounge room.
The idea was simple. I wanted to drink some and sing a little. Gemma had the bright idea of throwing a singing party at The Peach, so I did.
The night was dark and stormy (I have always wanted to write that and mean it). Some guests arrived drenched and shivering, clutching a guitar under one arm and a six pack under the other. Some swanned in shaking out umbrellas holding bottles of wine and one or two appeared in the kitchen as though teleportation was possible.
The singing began slowly but the chorus swelled until we were delirious and not one person was silent in the house. We had three people with guitars, Spencer, P. Street and Jeremy Smith, Robert on the floor with a tambourine and a snare and enthusiastic singing from no less than one dozen people at any one time. We wandered recklessly through musical history and modes of good taste, anyone got a go, anyone from Samantha Fox, David Bowie and Robyn Hitchcock to The Pixies and even Counting Crows. No one was more surprised than me to realise that all of us, without exception, knew all the words to Mr Jones.
The weather, jetlag and tour dates kept us to a small and merry band. From time to time one of us would look up and around the room and get a little misty because while we were singing just for the hell of it we were also saying goodbye. At midnight I gave a toast to The Peach and all who have sailed in her because Grizelda and I are moving out, for good.
Mr Oddweird the landlord has gone and done it this time. He has defaulted on his mortgage and The Peach is being repossessed by the bank. I have lived in fear of the day we would be forced, by one disaster or another, to leave this house but when the day arrived I surprised myself. I don't really mind.
When I first came to The Peach I'd been most thoroughly shredded by the tragic end of a long and dramatic relationship. I wasn't sure it was possible to feel worse than I did, perhaps not even possible to feel like I did and stay alive for a whole day at a time but I did. It hasn't always been easy here in The Peach but I have loved it, every difficult, horrible, euphoric moment of it since I first walked through the door carrying nothing but a game of boggle and a plastic bottle full of water.
Its been almost seven years since I signed the lease and handed over all of my savings for bond and two weeks rent in advance. The cat and I were both astonished by the light and noise of what we call the city when we first moved in. The cat spent the first fortnight in my wardrobe refusing to come out for anything but to use the litter tray or take a small drink of water. Now the cat roams the house freely and I can sleep through just about anything.
Mr Oddweird has let me down as a landlord over the years. The water has been turned off three times because he didn't pay the bill, he took off with the inside front door handle four years ago and never brought it back. The back door has never had a lock on it and he failed entirely to make any repairs to the bathroom after the mirrored cabinet crashed to the ground and smashed about six years ago. Last year he began renovating the flat underneath The Peach (which has been vacant the entire time I have lived here) by removing the floors, walls, kitchen and bathroom and digging large holes in the now dirt floor. But this time I suspect he has mostly failed himself.
It seems strange to me that I am almost looking forward to the move. I'm ready for a new adventure. Grizelda and I are headed just three suburbs away but around here that's like a whole new country. We'll be setting up shop in a beautiful little house with polished floorboards, a dishwasher in the kitchen and a neat little courtyard out the back where I can plant strawberries and herbs. Sylvia the cat and Grizelda's new pain in the arse kitten Oscar will be making the move with us as will Edith the gold fish and most of our stuff.
I've been giving away belongings, throwing things out, selling furniture I've carried with me from relationship to relationship. Junking all the built-up useless things and jettisoning the ballast. When I pack my bags and make my way to the new house I'll probably be carrying a few little heartaches and a head full of memories but I'm going to put my teapot in the cupboard anyway and see what happens next.
Reversing the polarities or Sleeping with weapons
I didn't want to reverse the polarities, or start sleeping with weapons but a strange series of events left me with no choice.
A state of tense unrest has been declared in The Peach. After more than ten years the cat has decided to yell at the front door in the middle of the night, every night, for as long as physically possible.
I tried ignoring her so as not to reinforce bad behaviour, that didn't work. I tried saying 'no', then saying 'no' followed by stumbling out of bed to shoo her away, then saying 'no' followed by stumbling out of bed to shoot her with a water pistol*. None of this worked because the cat adopted a hopeful and positive look about her every time she managed to get me to stumble out of bed.
Sleeplessness and repeated midnight visits to the hallway in sub-zero temperatures began to fray my nerves. A sleep-deprived Grizelda began to declare that she was going to murder the cat. This is unusual for her, so I knew it was time for drastic action. It was time to reverse the polarities.
Instructions for reversing personal polarities to optimise in-bed midnight weapon use
*Disciplinary measure recommended by the RSPCA.
A state of tense unrest has been declared in The Peach. After more than ten years the cat has decided to yell at the front door in the middle of the night, every night, for as long as physically possible.
I tried ignoring her so as not to reinforce bad behaviour, that didn't work. I tried saying 'no', then saying 'no' followed by stumbling out of bed to shoo her away, then saying 'no' followed by stumbling out of bed to shoot her with a water pistol*. None of this worked because the cat adopted a hopeful and positive look about her every time she managed to get me to stumble out of bed.
Sleeplessness and repeated midnight visits to the hallway in sub-zero temperatures began to fray my nerves. A sleep-deprived Grizelda began to declare that she was going to murder the cat. This is unusual for her, so I knew it was time for drastic action. It was time to reverse the polarities.
Instructions for reversing personal polarities to optimise in-bed midnight weapon use
- Drag bed close to bedroom door.
- Make bed up so sleeping position allows view out of door and into hallway.
- Prop bedroom door open with ugg boot.
- Prime water pistol with water.
- Place water pistol in bed close to hands.
- Sleep lightly and listen for cat.
- At first sign of cat yelling at front door squirt water pistol wildly and violently in direction of cat until cat retreats.
- Repeat until cat gives away hobby of midnight yelling.
The result of reversing the polarities should be the cat returning to usual habit of curling up on end of bed and sleeping peacefully curled into a ball with her little bat ears sticking out, until it is time for breakfast.
Cover me, I'm going in.
*Disciplinary measure recommended by the RSPCA.
Death by raindrop
One moment somewhere between determination and anger, with my elbows sticking in to my own waist and one foot slipping a little sideways on the wet path, I suddenly and completely surrendered to the rain and the water revealed itself as beautiful.
Knee deep in a cold puddle, witnessing sheets of water pouring down the ordinary front steps of a house, I fell deeper into the thought of submersion and surrender. First I thought about the obvious things, daily landscapes transformed offering a clean perspective, cleansing and redemption through deluge, fluvial geomorphology and rills, concrete, concreteness and the literal and figurative concrete nature of the paths I walk.
Submersion returned as an idea and my thoughts fell first to floating and the sensation of being held by an ocean then drowning and dying and there my thoughts locked. This must be like dying. The wild oscillations between anger, determination and despair, an entire life's landscape transformed and then the surrender and revelation of beauty.
Slamming through The Peach front door in a haze halfway to convinced that I had this dying process pegged Grizelda announced that she 'got heaps wet in the rain!'. And ordered me to stop dripping on the carpet and go and have a hot shower.
Knee deep in a cold puddle, witnessing sheets of water pouring down the ordinary front steps of a house, I fell deeper into the thought of submersion and surrender. First I thought about the obvious things, daily landscapes transformed offering a clean perspective, cleansing and redemption through deluge, fluvial geomorphology and rills, concrete, concreteness and the literal and figurative concrete nature of the paths I walk.
Submersion returned as an idea and my thoughts fell first to floating and the sensation of being held by an ocean then drowning and dying and there my thoughts locked. This must be like dying. The wild oscillations between anger, determination and despair, an entire life's landscape transformed and then the surrender and revelation of beauty.
Slamming through The Peach front door in a haze halfway to convinced that I had this dying process pegged Grizelda announced that she 'got heaps wet in the rain!'. And ordered me to stop dripping on the carpet and go and have a hot shower.
Desk-bound and drowning
I'm thinking now about the time Geoff Lemon stayed in The Peach, in the library, before it was properly organised and still housed the old floral stink source of a sofa bed I dragged in off the street. He was fresh back from both overseas and Newcastle and had in his possession only one bag and a tiny laptop computer. It was really minuscule and I wondered how on earth he managed to get anything done on such a tiny screen. But work he did.
He sat there nearly all day and worked on his tiny computer. Today I have been moving from room to room, working variously on paper or in notebooks or my relatively large laptop. I haven't been able to find one good place to sit and work. Every half hour I move again and try once more to settle into the work. Thinking about the solid concentration and work of Geoff that day in The Peach Library I feel a little ashamed and awkwardly unprofessional.
I suppose there is only one thing to be done. I shall go back in time and start this day again.
He sat there nearly all day and worked on his tiny computer. Today I have been moving from room to room, working variously on paper or in notebooks or my relatively large laptop. I haven't been able to find one good place to sit and work. Every half hour I move again and try once more to settle into the work. Thinking about the solid concentration and work of Geoff that day in The Peach Library I feel a little ashamed and awkwardly unprofessional.
I suppose there is only one thing to be done. I shall go back in time and start this day again.
Low level procrastination from bed fortress of used tissues and cold cups of tea
A diversionary exercise for brain. Characters I am not yet sick of despite immersing myself in all their incarnations since I first discovered them:
Sherlock Holmes
Mr Darcy
Hank Moody (yes I know)
Timmy The Dog
Emma Woodhouse
Ted Hughes (counts as character because is dead)
Elizabeth Bennett
Mrs Dalloway (waiting for other incarnation to appear)
Sarah Lund
There were more to add to the list but a particularly powerful sneeze has cleared them from living memory. I am hoping further sneezes will also remove all sense of obligation and the need to earn money in order to pay bills and also fashion, all of it.
Sherlock Holmes
Mr Darcy
Hank Moody (yes I know)
Timmy The Dog
Emma Woodhouse
Ted Hughes (counts as character because is dead)
Elizabeth Bennett
Mrs Dalloway (waiting for other incarnation to appear)
Sarah Lund
There were more to add to the list but a particularly powerful sneeze has cleared them from living memory. I am hoping further sneezes will also remove all sense of obligation and the need to earn money in order to pay bills and also fashion, all of it.
I am a sucklord contd
Walking down the street I ran into this guy. I was dreaming and walking awkwardly slow. My shoes had taken their floral motif seriously and wrapped invisible tendrils underfoot. I saw him out of the corner of my eye but dismissed it as preposterous. That morning, rummaging around in my bedroom I fished out a ring I haven't worn since that night. The ring is ridiculous, a caricature of a ring, skull-shaped and bulbous. Heavy enough to drag my knuckles down and cause mysterious travelling aches across all fingers. I couldn't remember when I wore it last until I saw that man out of the corner of my eye.
I thought he was a phantasm, a holographic memory projected by end-of-day fatigue and wondered why I was suddenly thinking of him. But he smiled and walked right up to me. I tried not to take a step backwards. He was friendly and seemed open but then he detected my awkwardness. He said "You nearly didn't recognise me. I apologised, said I was elsewhere and waved one arm vaguely in the air. He said "Distracted" and I nodded because that was close enough. He looked at me earnestly and told me I looked humble just walking down the street.
Humble. How does he think I ordinarily travel? I thought immediately of gold-plated helicopters and a barouche boxes. I didn't notice he was still talking so I asked him how he has been, at the exact same time he asked me. We continued to stand face to face on Enmore Rd and ask each other the same questions at the same time while the traffic smoked past and people swarmed around us and the light went yellow and started to fade.
He was holding a camera, said he was working, taking photos of his most recent art. He kept talking but I was shrinking and my ears starting ringing and then he said farewell and swaggered away. He was older than I remember, his dark hair now salt and pepper, his crows feet more pronounced. I waited for him to diminish but he grew taller as he walked away.
I split entirely in two. Both observing and experiencing my reaction as I blathered around inside the adjacent supermarket buying toothpaste and panadol and a kind of chocolate I do not like. I kept thinking I don't need these things but I gathered random objects into my arms and lapped the tiny two aisle shop again and again. I was hyperbolic on all trajectories and run through with fifteen full-force emotions.
It seemed stupid, even at the time, to be experiencing anything at all at such a small encounter where nothing harmful was said or done. The effect faded as I cooked and ordinary tasks came and went under my unconscious hands but I took the ring off and threw it in a drawer underneath a tumble of half used candles, broken wallets and a box of drawing inks, just in case.
I thought he was a phantasm, a holographic memory projected by end-of-day fatigue and wondered why I was suddenly thinking of him. But he smiled and walked right up to me. I tried not to take a step backwards. He was friendly and seemed open but then he detected my awkwardness. He said "You nearly didn't recognise me. I apologised, said I was elsewhere and waved one arm vaguely in the air. He said "Distracted" and I nodded because that was close enough. He looked at me earnestly and told me I looked humble just walking down the street.
Humble. How does he think I ordinarily travel? I thought immediately of gold-plated helicopters and a barouche boxes. I didn't notice he was still talking so I asked him how he has been, at the exact same time he asked me. We continued to stand face to face on Enmore Rd and ask each other the same questions at the same time while the traffic smoked past and people swarmed around us and the light went yellow and started to fade.
He was holding a camera, said he was working, taking photos of his most recent art. He kept talking but I was shrinking and my ears starting ringing and then he said farewell and swaggered away. He was older than I remember, his dark hair now salt and pepper, his crows feet more pronounced. I waited for him to diminish but he grew taller as he walked away.
I split entirely in two. Both observing and experiencing my reaction as I blathered around inside the adjacent supermarket buying toothpaste and panadol and a kind of chocolate I do not like. I kept thinking I don't need these things but I gathered random objects into my arms and lapped the tiny two aisle shop again and again. I was hyperbolic on all trajectories and run through with fifteen full-force emotions.
It seemed stupid, even at the time, to be experiencing anything at all at such a small encounter where nothing harmful was said or done. The effect faded as I cooked and ordinary tasks came and went under my unconscious hands but I took the ring off and threw it in a drawer underneath a tumble of half used candles, broken wallets and a box of drawing inks, just in case.
Dig
I should be one of those tortured writers sitting at my desk groaning and swearing at the noise coming through the floor. My ears covered with impromptu muffs like scarves wound around my head or tissues stuffed in hard. There should be a montage of me working despite the jackhammer and concrete saw at work underneath The Peach.
But I'm not. I've been smiling fondly at the noise, mildly regretting not attempting to work but mostly reading the newspaper in bed with a cup of coffee on hand.
I almost like the noise, the knowledge of underground excavation wheeling out the structure beneath my feet one barrow at a time. I like the idea of living in a house floating above a dig. I feel sure that at any moment something important will be discovered about my life.
But now am
I was lost. In my own unfinished manuscript and it was fucking awful. More crying than was strictly necessary forced me into an unusual manoeuvre. I sat down with one piece of paper and a pen and asked myself one question. What is the story of this novel? One hour and one sentence later and there are no more tears, no more frustrated screaming at the walls and halls of The Peach.
It seems so simple. Why did it take me three quarters of a day, in an emotional state closer to crazy than I care to admit, to figure out all I had to do was ask myself one little question? I must be a lot stupider than I thought I was. Either that or I truly am some kind of sucklord.
In other news I have thought of a project for April. No title yet but it involves leather straps and steaming breath before dawn.
Lessons in architecture
I have made here another fort of pillows and sea-green bedsheets and that hand stitched quilt from my mother. Volumes of poetry scattered like driftwood. Outside all is ocean and my newspaper on the doorstep pulped in the deluge. I have forgone tea for hot chocolate and the low echo of Maria Callas on the record player. The kitchen floor is a vast and saltless ocean so desperate is the rain to be warm in here with me it has found ways to begin. The dining room ceiling, the bathroom window, underneath doors and windows cold wet fingers clamour for the bare soles of my feet but I am here in my fortress warm and dry.
Soon I will forage for eggs and toast. First I will imagine room by room by the empty house with its echoing arias and the cat perched in the library windowsill noting the rising water and the pale weak sun. Room by room my mind will wander in silence in front of my feet. All the hung curtains breathe and flare making that one long day up ladders worthwhile. This house instructs me in ways of being.
Soon I will forage for eggs and toast. First I will imagine room by room by the empty house with its echoing arias and the cat perched in the library windowsill noting the rising water and the pale weak sun. Room by room my mind will wander in silence in front of my feet. All the hung curtains breathe and flare making that one long day up ladders worthwhile. This house instructs me in ways of being.
Two kinds of shiver and the bare table left adrift in the centre of the library
The shadows are strange in here today. Slow and deliberate but diffused as though less sure of themselves than they claim to be. There is sky of medium blue but I have disregarded it. In here the air feels rainsoaked and the smells are green and shaded, not pine nor eucalyptus in tone, neither so deep a green nor so olive. There is a sensation of being adrift in a haven while outside all things are moss.
The furniture remains rearranged from Saturday night's dinner party, here and there I find a wine-stained glass and dishes are strewn in a beautiful mess. Some of them washed some streaked with the final course of the night. The last guest departed, reluctantly at false dawn, as I shivered in my skin. There is a chill that comes and will not be denied when I have been awake three hours too many.
The dinner was successful, the guests full of chatter and goodwill, the wine never running out. We took turns at blindfolding each other and staggering around with a paper donkey's tail held out in one hand, the other hand stretched blindly into empty space. We decorated with linen napkins, flowers in empty jars, lit candles and borrowed plates. Mr X was the only person to successfully pin the tail on the donkey, his prize was to perform an interpretive dance to a song of his choice. Spencer eyed him suspiciously while he danced, almost always it is Spencer who is watched while we do the watching.
Now I have here some notes I made on Friday night when I was dragged, willingly, to Mr X's strange gig out West in one of those giant clubs with acres of poker machines and an all you can eat buffet featuring both Chinese dishes and pizza. I was horrified by the people I met, the forcefulness of their presence, the blunt and alarming manner they conducted themselves like alarmed and enlisted echnidas forced upright and forwards despite the spines and spikes pointing out in all directions and the hand grenade clutched in the palm of their right hand.
I am supposed to be at work but I found, after dressing there was a chill in the air and the strong urge to wrap knitted layers across my shoulders combined with a sensation that if I laced up my shoes and walked down the front path I would turn to glass and shatter before I reached the corner. I am probably coming down with a cold, it always feels first as though I have been indelibly altered and then a day later I realise it the usual case of a mild fever and the manufacturing of snot. There is the hope that one day I won't notice and I'll just walk around like everybody else clutching a tissue and making a cup of tea.
The furniture remains rearranged from Saturday night's dinner party, here and there I find a wine-stained glass and dishes are strewn in a beautiful mess. Some of them washed some streaked with the final course of the night. The last guest departed, reluctantly at false dawn, as I shivered in my skin. There is a chill that comes and will not be denied when I have been awake three hours too many.
The dinner was successful, the guests full of chatter and goodwill, the wine never running out. We took turns at blindfolding each other and staggering around with a paper donkey's tail held out in one hand, the other hand stretched blindly into empty space. We decorated with linen napkins, flowers in empty jars, lit candles and borrowed plates. Mr X was the only person to successfully pin the tail on the donkey, his prize was to perform an interpretive dance to a song of his choice. Spencer eyed him suspiciously while he danced, almost always it is Spencer who is watched while we do the watching.
Now I have here some notes I made on Friday night when I was dragged, willingly, to Mr X's strange gig out West in one of those giant clubs with acres of poker machines and an all you can eat buffet featuring both Chinese dishes and pizza. I was horrified by the people I met, the forcefulness of their presence, the blunt and alarming manner they conducted themselves like alarmed and enlisted echnidas forced upright and forwards despite the spines and spikes pointing out in all directions and the hand grenade clutched in the palm of their right hand.
I am supposed to be at work but I found, after dressing there was a chill in the air and the strong urge to wrap knitted layers across my shoulders combined with a sensation that if I laced up my shoes and walked down the front path I would turn to glass and shatter before I reached the corner. I am probably coming down with a cold, it always feels first as though I have been indelibly altered and then a day later I realise it the usual case of a mild fever and the manufacturing of snot. There is the hope that one day I won't notice and I'll just walk around like everybody else clutching a tissue and making a cup of tea.
You are boring
Work - challenging (in an odd but not bad way)
Home - peaceful (and mildly clean)
Friends - all fine (unless they are pretending)
Family - no problems (and presumably still alive)
Manuscript - going (yes)
PAN - in progress (a way to go but in progress)
BORING.
All work and no play makes Dale a dull girl.
I'm not seducing disaster, merely making an observation, pass me the champagne.
Home - peaceful (and mildly clean)
Friends - all fine (unless they are pretending)
Family - no problems (and presumably still alive)
Manuscript - going (yes)
PAN - in progress (a way to go but in progress)
BORING.
All work and no play makes Dale a dull girl.
I'm not seducing disaster, merely making an observation, pass me the champagne.
Portraits & lemon wheels distract island resident
 |
| I took this dodgy photo of Lyndal |
I planned to spend every waking moment from Friday after work until Sunday night in a deliberately blissful state of writing reverie but as it so happened one or two things popped up. The first thing was work, stupid fucking work, I ended up working until almost eight at night, until Spencer came in the office door with a Rolling Stones poster and the pronouncement that he was bored and sick of waiting for me to finish. We had planned, earlier in the day, to travel together to official distraction number one.
Official distraction number one was having our portraits taken by the excellent photographer Lyndal Irons, who happens to be a friend of ours. The portraits were Lyndal's idea, not mine. When we got to her house the lounge room was transformed, huge light panel thingos and boxes that look like amps but aren't, they were giant light-controlling box things. We all sat in the back yard drinking beer and yammering in our way until Lyndal called us in one at a time to take her shots. I don't like having my photo taken, I'm not at all photogenic, I'm all surface, no shadow, unlike Spencer who has more angles than a geometry lesson, but when Lyndal asks me I'll do it.
It was odd just sitting there, occasionally being directed to turn a little this way or another. Lyndal looked busy, changing settings on everything from her camera to the giant light-controlling boxes, moving big things on stands around. I have no idea at all about anything to do with photography, except this, when she works there is a beautiful intensity about her. She becomes transformed and it's mesmerising.
Official distraction number two came the next night. I had two to choose from, one party where Spencer was the dj and I'd know about a billion people. The kind of party that I might easily find myself still at as the sun rises or a party at Mr X's house where I would know almost no one and would most likely stay well within the limits of tame. I chose the wrong party if my purpose was partying. I went to Mr X's house to help his lovely housemate celebrate her thirtieth birthday. It was a mild party, the housemate's friends were over-groomed and simultaneously over-confident and embarrassed. The embarrassment became evident when the housemate declared it was time for an air guitar competition. There were grown men hiding behind the lounge to avoid being called up to compete. If I had declared such a competition at my birthday party a few weeks ago I'm fairly confident that at least three pieces of furniture would have been destroyed in the resulting mayhem. As it was Spencer, Madam Squeeze and AHC performed a five minute interpretive dance piece, with moonwalking, P Street and E from next door waltzed mightily into the refrigerator, Abdullah did something entirely unexpected and I injured myself jumping around with a bucket on my head, and at least three highly shocking yet hilarious events occurred before midnight.
At Mr X's tonight three sets of people competed in an abashed manner and then rejoined the herd as quickly as possible. The poor birthday girl tried getting everybody to do it at once, and then tried to do just general dancing but nothing would work. They all stood there hoping not to be noticed. I felt sorry for the poor girl who is obviously quite a bit more fabulous than her general network of friends.
Around midnight a serious case of the yawns set in, just as Mr X reappeared from the kitchen with a mug of gin and tonic that included a whole wheel of lemon. I suppose I might have stayed and talked merrily with Mr X and the small band of people I have come to know but the yawns got hold of me mightily and skulked back through the back streets to The Peach. I wrote for a few more hours but now I'm giving up for the day. It's three in the morning and I've run out of steam.
I'm hoping tomorrow, with no scheduled official distractions, I can get back to island living.
Damp towel brings joy to undisturbed woman who sits contemplating doing a crime
Everyone is talking about love, who loves them, or doesn't, or should, did or could or who they love or don't, or want to, will do or could. I'm not listening to them because as usual I am thinking about myself. I used to love and it was terrible.
Sometimes it was fine or good or mildly excellent but most of the time it was terrible. In theory it was good, someone to share the bills and the worries and the joys and the chores and the adventure but most of the men I have loved, even platonic love, were impractical creatures and more trouble than use in most matters. Almost all of them were deliberately selfish, except Artboy who was basically Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia but without the expensive wedding dress.
When I reflect on the compromises I used to make, the effort I used to go to, the time and energy and worry I gave away, I feel a little ill. Like a mild dose of flu of experienced at high speed but then it is gone and I am here again. When I say here I mean in The Peach, in the present, in my reading glasses and a damp towel with nothing on my mind or my to do list except what I want.
This is ideal. What I love is this, being able to sit around in my reading glasses and damp towel and know that I will remain undisturbed. Well at least until Grizelda shouts down the hallway about cupcakes. She is insisting on making red cupcakes with heart-shaped pink icing thingos to give to the people at her work tomorrow, because she is thinking about love.
I am thinking about stealing one of the cupcakes and how fortunate I am to own more than one towel. I plan on leaving both towel and cupcake wrapper on the floor overnight.
Sometimes it was fine or good or mildly excellent but most of the time it was terrible. In theory it was good, someone to share the bills and the worries and the joys and the chores and the adventure but most of the men I have loved, even platonic love, were impractical creatures and more trouble than use in most matters. Almost all of them were deliberately selfish, except Artboy who was basically Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia but without the expensive wedding dress.
When I reflect on the compromises I used to make, the effort I used to go to, the time and energy and worry I gave away, I feel a little ill. Like a mild dose of flu of experienced at high speed but then it is gone and I am here again. When I say here I mean in The Peach, in the present, in my reading glasses and a damp towel with nothing on my mind or my to do list except what I want.
This is ideal. What I love is this, being able to sit around in my reading glasses and damp towel and know that I will remain undisturbed. Well at least until Grizelda shouts down the hallway about cupcakes. She is insisting on making red cupcakes with heart-shaped pink icing thingos to give to the people at her work tomorrow, because she is thinking about love.
I am thinking about stealing one of the cupcakes and how fortunate I am to own more than one towel. I plan on leaving both towel and cupcake wrapper on the floor overnight.
Number nine
Recurring dream of giving speech of thanks at dinner party on The Peach Deck. During the speech it feels important to explain to all ten guests how I first met each one of them, as though joining dots in invisible puzzles. The dream repeats itself, sometimes two or three times a night, every night, without respite.
In the dream I am making a speech to friends, giving thanks for making known the possibility of joy, sketching lightly old histories of sorrow and how I arrived here in the city like a refugee clutching wildly at any shred of will to live and continue on into tomorrow. I remember I used to vomit on the way to work, every day, less than half way to the train station, I was so tightly wound and simultaneously undone I could barely breathe. And then there is now.
The speech is disturbing my sleep. I lay awake before dawn reciting it like an elongated mantra. At first I dismissed it as yet another folly of the unconscious mind but instead of forming a long-winded aphasia its meaning daily increases. Perhaps it is my ode to joy.
In the dream I am making a speech to friends, giving thanks for making known the possibility of joy, sketching lightly old histories of sorrow and how I arrived here in the city like a refugee clutching wildly at any shred of will to live and continue on into tomorrow. I remember I used to vomit on the way to work, every day, less than half way to the train station, I was so tightly wound and simultaneously undone I could barely breathe. And then there is now.
The speech is disturbing my sleep. I lay awake before dawn reciting it like an elongated mantra. At first I dismissed it as yet another folly of the unconscious mind but instead of forming a long-winded aphasia its meaning daily increases. Perhaps it is my ode to joy.
Happy fucking new year cocksuckers
I have developed a fondness for swearing, more so than I have ever felt before. I blame Deadwood for this. In an interesting side note I was wearing one of my mother's rings on Christmas day, the gold was dug out of the Black Hills of South Dakota, as was the gold in the necklace now laying on my desk. Both of these were gifts given to my mother by American friends a long time ago. I am sure they never dreamt the greatest joy they would bring to me is to stare at them while I watch Deadwood and yell "cocksucker!".
Oh yes, it is the new year. I can only report that I feel happy. That's right cocksuckers, I feel fucking happy. Spencer and I saw in the ticking of the clock on the Peach Deck with Gemma and one or two select friends. We wanted, I wanted and Spencer's wishes coincided, to have a quiet and drama-free evening doing anything or nothing as the notion took me within the friendly confines of these walls. Mission accomplished.
I am happy, a small part of me hopes you are happy too, the rest of me wants to joyously shout "cocksucker!" in your face and then fire a pistol into the air and gallop away on a horse.
Oh yes, it is the new year. I can only report that I feel happy. That's right cocksuckers, I feel fucking happy. Spencer and I saw in the ticking of the clock on the Peach Deck with Gemma and one or two select friends. We wanted, I wanted and Spencer's wishes coincided, to have a quiet and drama-free evening doing anything or nothing as the notion took me within the friendly confines of these walls. Mission accomplished.
I am happy, a small part of me hopes you are happy too, the rest of me wants to joyously shout "cocksucker!" in your face and then fire a pistol into the air and gallop away on a horse.
Tired of not being able to shoot people in the head? Me too
You know those days when you need, and I mean really need, to white the world out and have time, all of it, to concentrate and write? Every day is one of those days for me. But I can't manage to do it. There's always work to be done, or looked for, applications to write, money to worry about and dishes to wash. I'm tired of living like this. Exhausted beyond reasonable human capacity is more apt, which is why I placed an ad in Gumtree for a patron earlier this evening.
So far only one response, and it was a man who simply said, "That was well written". Well 'forfunandbeyond' you can suck my imaginary cock. I don't have time to sit down and write some ridiculous essay begging for money. I'm too busy working on my magazine, and on my manuscript, organising all my notes and research and applying for fucked up jobs so I can pay my rent and on top of that dealing with a housemate (not Grizelda) who has preposterously decided to only pay a percentage of the electricity bill based on some kind of ratio of how many hours she spends in the house.
You should come over, I'll introduce you to her, you can sit down together and work out how to prepare a well-written proposal to me to pay rent based on the size of her arse and how many cubic centimetres of air it displaces when she walks down the hallway, or a letter to the resident cockroaches of the Inner West advising them that because she spends less time in the neighbourhood she should spot a percentage less cockroaches in gutters. Actually don't come over, go have a drink at The Ivy and drown in the rooftop pool. I'll be sure to make time to write a eulogy that outlines my precise percentage of giving a fuck.
So far only one response, and it was a man who simply said, "That was well written". Well 'forfunandbeyond' you can suck my imaginary cock. I don't have time to sit down and write some ridiculous essay begging for money. I'm too busy working on my magazine, and on my manuscript, organising all my notes and research and applying for fucked up jobs so I can pay my rent and on top of that dealing with a housemate (not Grizelda) who has preposterously decided to only pay a percentage of the electricity bill based on some kind of ratio of how many hours she spends in the house.
You should come over, I'll introduce you to her, you can sit down together and work out how to prepare a well-written proposal to me to pay rent based on the size of her arse and how many cubic centimetres of air it displaces when she walks down the hallway, or a letter to the resident cockroaches of the Inner West advising them that because she spends less time in the neighbourhood she should spot a percentage less cockroaches in gutters. Actually don't come over, go have a drink at The Ivy and drown in the rooftop pool. I'll be sure to make time to write a eulogy that outlines my precise percentage of giving a fuck.
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