Storm in a paper cup

I love the cafe Paper Cup, it has a map of the world, an excellent selection of magazines, an interior endearingly like an Ikea catalogue and astonishingly good coffee but is has caused more than one mild existential crisis on my part.

The Peach is situated in a position equidistant from two IGAs, one in Stanmore and one in Enmore. For almost five years my IGA of choice has been in Enmore, not that it is superior, it is just located in a place of greater possibility. There are at least seven thousand cafes, shops and people on Enmore Rd at any point in time and of course it is a short walk down to Newtown where most of my friends, my PO Box and the world at large resides. It was never a difficult choice to turn and left and head to Enmore, not until Paper Cup opened its doors.

I once had a coffee at Paper Cup that was so good I sat in astonishment, holding the steaming cup against my heart as an offering to my internal gods, who had never before that moment been satisfied with anything. It was a perfect cup of coffee, the kind of flavour that other cups have hinted at but never actually delivered. I have drunk nine cups of coffee from Paper Cup since that first moment and am yet to be disappointed, in fact I have begun to experience constant cravings.

Lately I have chosen to turn right and walk to Stanmore, purchase any necessary items at the IGA and then cross the road and once again experience the satisfaction of delivering my inner gods the perfect coffee. What comes next is the main problem. Stanmore, on that side of the tracks, is a terrible place to be, there is a meth clinic masquerading as a doctor's surgery, a pharmacy both ancient and over-stocked with lavendar powders, a primary school full of screaming children running about randomly like behatted fish in a barrel and the distinct absence of everyone I know. There is nothing to do there,  nothing new to observe, there is no one to talk to and it is double the distance to my PO Box and collecting my letters begins to feel like a chore.

Every time I leave the house in search of coffee or supplies I stop at the front gate and face a minor crisis. Should I turn left and top up an inferior coffee drink with the delights of the world or should I turn right and once again experience transcendence with the ritual satisfaction of inner gods? It is an existential crisis that needs to be experienced to be believed.

The enormously frightening job interview

On my way to The Enormously Frightening Job Interview I was telephoned by another employer and asked to attend Another Enormously Frightening Job Interview next week. So long as I am not averaging more than one a week I think I can cope with this ratio of reality/abnormal fear and only use the usual amount of underpants in a week. In other news Grizelda has super vomit, she vomited in the bathroom two days ago and the smell is as fresh as if it were a steaming pile upon the floor. We have discovered a new kind of very mild superpower.

Every afternoon, before homework

Walking straight into an Autumn setting sun clicked sense memory into action and suddenly I was eleven years old trotting a straight and terrifying line from one end of the arena to the other on a patient little shaggy pony. The sensation of my own footsteps gave way to the jarring little tap taps of a beginner rider learning to feel the rolling rhythmic power contained even within a patient little shaggy pony, whose tiny hoofbeats sounded like thunder in my terrified ears.

Unexpected difficulty typing a word has no correlation on the emotional front

Helplessness is a difficult word to type. So much hovering over 's', 'l's where you don't expect them to be and the sound in your head is quick, so slippery that fingers have trouble tapping the right double rhythm. Helplessness. But that's not what I want to talk about.

There have been dreams that follow me through consciousness, close as a cat, changing the tone of whole days, changing the angle of my hand as I stir sugar through an otherwise bitter coffee. This time being unemployed is not my fault. The corporate opressor moved operations offshore leaving me in unexpected freedom and there are no bars on my cage. Each morning I stir from dream into action, rising even as the others are still readying themselves to breach the warmth of The Peach dressed in workplace disguise. I can return to bed, hot coffee in hand, cat at my heels, and sift through possibilities with determination. It is always a relief when helplessness is merely a word to type and not a thing to feel.

SLAMMATOWN - This old peacock world

Illustration by Onnie Cleary

There are days when keeping a heart beating takes more energy than it’s worth and on logical reflection the notion of carrying on is at best a farce. This Sunday people knelt and prayed for the magic Jew they nailed to wood, felt love, hope and gratitude in their hard little hearts. I sat at home eating chocolate and snivelling, wondering whether drinking seven coffees in a row would push the boundaries of my beating heart so fast that it would suddenly stop. Death by coffee in my favourite cup.

Some people wear sorrow with grace. Wave their wan little fingers at translucent tears on porcelain skin, sit elegantly folded under blankets with gin. I hate those people so I walk. Train tracks, highways, back lanes, anywhere I hope the world isn’t but like I said the world is a peacock and I’m no better than a hen. 

There is unfortunate magnificence in the minute, the overblown, the absent, the present, the two severed fingers on the railway tracks. That was some trick the train played, taking for itself a sample of the things that made it, the two things who first took up a pencil and dreamt it into shape.

I had an abhorrent conversation the other night while a self-confessed manipulative liar poured wine after wine and I discovered what it was like to go glass for glass with someone accustomed to becoming drunk. He was helping because I had asked him to help. He was talking about ways to make it work. Ways in which to wake up and go willingly into harness every nine to five, and then again, and then again and then again, to earn money.

There are more than two kinds of people but today only two of them count. Those who can, and those who rejoice because they can’t. Two sets of shoes a person can walk in but the catch is in the choosing. Most people don’t stand back and make the choice, most people don’t sit down and write lists to see if living is worth it, not that I’m aware of. 

Now because you reading this and some of you have soft little souls I’ll tell you this. I’m only taking today, just this one day, to sit down and moan like I mean it. I’ll spend the day cat-curled and rattled. I’ll spend this whole day asking what shall become of me but tomorrow I’ll probably get up and walk. I’ll probably go visit those severed fingers and wonder else they dreamed of. 

First published on RHUM...

This will be the last SLAMMATOWN for a little while. The editor at RHUM has been kind enough to let me take a little break.

Pancake Mozart surprises self with super glue in hair

It occurred to me this morning, half way through supergluing a ceramic toast rack back together, that the life a retired and not too elderly gentleman would suit me enormously. Before 9am this morning I had eaten breakfast at the kitchen table whilst listening to classical fm, had one and a half cups of tea, read two chapters of a natural history book about earth winds and decided I was very happy indeed.

There might be something significantly wonderful about purposeful pottering interspersed with civilised activities such as sitting at the table to have a cup of tea. It has been a long time since I was civilised enough to eat breakfast, with a knife and fork, sitting at the table. I usually forage for food in the cupboard or fridge and eat it walking down the hallway, or standing at the kitchen sink staring idly into the middle distance.

I was going to light a fire in the library and work at my manuscript in there for the rest of the morning, with a tray for tea, until I remembered that I have run out of firewood and the work table in the library was replaced by a drum kit some time ago. This was the first clue that my life was not as lovely as the early morning made me believe.

Shortly after remembering about the firewood I discovered an alarming amount of super glue in my hair. It occurred to me that I had other more boring things to pursue than making notes on earth winds for my manuscript such as preparing for a job interview on Monday, pushing PAN issue 2 to print, cleaning out the cat litter box and applying for more jobs so as not to rely to much on Monday's interview. Boring. Not only boring but nothing like the orderly life of a retired gentleman, or retired colonel, or retired sea captain. Nothing like it at all.

At least I have the memory of two unsullied hours of what life might be like, sunlit and calm with clear acres set out sparse and free for ordering ideas, objects and music upon for no other purpose than just for me.

Flying solo cheese, one mystery key and evil soup of almost ultimate doom

The cheese flew across the aisle at high speed and smacked into the floor. Nothing too unusual about high speed cheese except that there wasn't anyone else in the supermarket aisle. The cheese was flying solo.

In other unusual events I found a key in my PO Box in an unaddressed envelope, the key is wrapped in a piece of paper with '1727' written on it. It is a mystery key.

As for the soup, I don't want to talk about it.

Translucent and a saturated yellow

I found a yellow plastic toothbrush in the depths of my least favourite armchair. My brother telephoned this morning to ask if he had left his keys at The Peach last night.  He bade me look for them and I obliged unwillingly. Removing the seat cushion from the armchair and plunging my hand into three decades of crumbs, coins, dead things and anonymous detritus was not one of the things I had thought to do today, before I was halfway through my first cup of coffee.

The Thursday before Easter I was somewhere in Spencer’s house when I thought ‘this is the closest thing you can experience to plunging your hand into a sack of grain, when you live in the city’. Spencer was not in the room at the time. I do not recall which room, which level of the house, whether inside or out. Since that night I have been trying to remember what that ‘thing you can do’ is. It is not plunging your hand into the depths of a least favourite armchair that is in every way identical to the other armchair, except in rank of favour. Spencer’s house contains no large jars of buttons, no small sacks of slipping particles cool and willing to part for the casual plunging of flesh. It has become my second most recent mystery.

The yellow plastic toothbrush is problematic. I have never seen it before, I can not attach its ownership to any known face. It is impossible that is owned by the cat, who also favours the other chair. The handle of the toothbrush is translucent. The bristles a usual kind of white. The yellow is heavy, saturated, unpleasantly reminiscent of the first passing of water after a night spent drinking gin. The ability to pass water was one of my first and earliest mysteries, since solved by the clockwork power of science.

I left the toothbrush in the chair, not back in the depths but underneath the seat cushion. It seems important that it not be entirely removed from its chosen home but left almost where it was, where I can lift the cushion and observe its journey through time.

Work for it honey

As if science is the answer! A person can drink half of $120 worth of wine and still not be any closer to anything like human. It might as well be toast as chicken or mask or money or shoes as anything else. Spencer said, 'don't drown in the shower, you're drunk'. But what does he know? He could be anywhere in telephone land and everybody already knows that showers are mostly for standing up in.

Emo

I have become platonically enamoured with a nineteen year-old Russian boy for one particular reason. I was lying on the floor with my head under his desk, to rest, while he ignored me and continued doing some kind of film editing thing. I started talking about the children's book I am writing, outlined the plot, explained what I am hoping to convey through story, being out of place, the sorrow that comes with unsuitable surroundings, the physical manifestation of despair through metal diving suits and sinking parrots. He paused in his work, cultivated a wicked grin to throw in my direction, declared the story to be 'emo' then carried on doing some kind of film editing thing.

Surely one has to become platonically enamoured with anyone who can convey, in two seconds, that they have heard and properly understood, have sympathy for your process and value your presence enough to cheer things along with playful irreverence.

I think it's getting complicated

Searching for a new job involves the kind of fortuitous miracle needed to convince a cat to vomit on the tiles and not the carpet. I'm not saying it's exactly the same thing but it gives the same kind of feeling in my bones.

SLAMMATOWN: Mad Men Strike Back

Illo by Onnie Cleary

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away I was interviewed for a new job. I didn’t realise I was in a different time zone and galaxy until after the interview concluded and I was spat back out into a normal Wednesday afternoon in Sydney. It was then that it hit me, something really fucked had just happened.

After shaking my hand and sitting me down she launched into the first of many stupendous and terrifying rants. She told me she hated my resume, all of it, from the font to the layout. She ranted for ten full minutes while I sat and wondered just why in fuck was interviewing me if she hated my resume so much.

The interviewer interspersed her ranting with comments about how great I was, how smart I was, how many qualifications I had. I was entering an advanced state of confusion when she kicked it up another gear and started to really go for it. She hated my hair, said she’d never seen hair so unprofessional before. I was going to mention that we had almost identical haircuts it was just that my hair is wavy and hers is straight when she started on my shoes. 

I was wearing the wrong kind of shoes, apparently only an idiot goes to a job interview wearing flat shoes. She stood up to demonstrate how she was wearing high heels, pulled up the leg of her trousers so I could properly view her shoes. After the ‘one must always wear high heels’ rant she started on the rest of me. Fortunately she decided that my face would have to do because she didn’t suppose anything could be done about that, apart from more make up.  The horrifying conclusion of this job interview is that she thinks I would be fantastic for the job but I have to be interviewed again first, just to make sure. She said she’d give me a couple of days to ‘do something’ about my hair, my shoes and my wardrobe.

I have to confess I’ve been obsessed with watching Mad Men. I came a little late to this party, most people I know started and finished their own Mad Men obsessions some time ago. What everyone failed to mention about Mad Men is how horrifying it is. Everyone talked about the fashion, the cigarettes, the stupid men with their suits and slicked down hair but not the horrifying slow reveal of repression and oppression. How the women were judged more on their legs than their ability to do the job well.

In the first episode of Mad Men the new girl gets a proper going over, everything is commented on from her hair to her shoes. I remember thinking how glad I was that that kind of shit was over years ago, nothing like that could possibly happen to me, not now in 2011 when the most important thing is having the skill, aptitude and qualifications to perform well in a job. As usual it turns out I was wrong.

First published on RHUM...

High heels and straight hair turned out to be weapons

I've almost figured something out. I thought I had it yesterday but it slipped away on one of those inevitable  cleaning the house, cooking the food, going to sleep tides. I can't quite remember. It had something to do with outsiders or Harry Potter or irrevocable change.

There is part of me that always thought I was just being wayward, or slipping into the idea that I am an outsider now, a marginalised person, but I could go back in, to where most other people are, if I just stood up and opened the right door but that's finished now. I can't go back to where I never was.