Shelter

I haven't felt so sheltered in a long time. At first I sat in the driver's seat with my eyes closed while the wind rocked and buffeted the car. I moved to the back seat to search through my bag for money but the wind blew the door shut and once again I felt cocooned.

Nothing else feels weatherproof around here. I don't ordinarily have a car so I walk through wind or sun or rain to work and back again. The Peach sighs and breathes while rain breaches roof and windows and cracks in the walls. Even my office is ancient and allows fingers of air under doorways and window sills. But not this car.

This car belongs to my father and like all his possessions has art in its design. My neighbour thought I'd won the lottery when I parked it outside his house. It is large and sleek and every convenience has been thought of but best of all is how it feels to shut the door and turn the key in the ignition. All weekend I have had this car and the accompanying possibility of going anywhere at any moment without physical effort or even the need for shoes.

I opted for practicality and drove myself to the supermarket and then home again with two bags full of heavy cans. I made a long list of places I might like to drive. I thought a little and crossed them out one by one. I didn't really have anywhere to go.

I didn't really have anywhere to go until today. I drove to work, there was nowhere to park. I intended to circle the block and try a different backstreet when I seemed to suddenly arrive on the roof of a supermarket three suburbs away. It was fifteen minutes before I was due at the office. I could have made it to work, maybe even been on time but instead I picked up my phone and said I was feeling sick.

The wind buffeted the car and there I sat with my eyes closed while the car rocked and the clear light stayed steady. After I'd been motionless and without thought in the back seat for half an hour I started to realise something was probably wrong. I felt fine, motionless and empty-headed but fine yet not quite right either. Why was I here? When did I make the decision to drive here? Why did I call in sick for work at the last possible moment when I woke myself sneezing five hours ago? And the larger more important question of what the fuck was I doing sitting motionless in a car on top of a supermarket half an hour after I figured it probably wasn't a normal thing to be doing?

I need to be at the airport to meet my father tomorrow afternoon when he flies back into town. He'll drop me at The Peach and then drive four hours home. After that I suppose I'll be back to normal, shoving tea towels in cracks in the walls to keep the wind out and life limited to walking distance.

Reversing down Maslow's chart

Everybody thinks he is their black marauder, he's not. He maraudes himself mostly but I want to express my dislike of the word hierarchy and think a little about the notion of being proud by surprise.

Time

Obviously today is strange. I dislike the altering of time. I ordinarily feel at least partially adrift in the world and today, and on the other day when time is governmentally altered, my grip on when and where is now loosens. For decades I have known what quarter past two on Sunday afternoon feels like, whether I am alone or in company, at home or out, joyful or sad, the familiarity of the hour provides a small pin in my maps.

Yet more evidence that there is a fundamental problem with my brain. Probably should get a lobotomy or similar but I might go and play soccer in the park instead. Chances are a rogue kick will put me out of my misery.

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.

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.

Uphill battles can be won quite easily if you tip the world over a little

I really thought Spencer would demand some kind of Spencer Awesome Test but he didn't. Shows what I know. He did suggest some kind of negative test, a sort of unawesome test but I'll leave that kind of thing for the haters who hate. Everyone needs a hobby. 

Today was one of those stupid days where facts and tasks roller coaster around I point at them and laugh. There'll be time enough tomorrow to take the ride and do the screaming but for now I'm pondering out some early plans for something new. One of those side projects to a main project, like Tim Sinclair's

Re: Reading the Dictionary. In my fake interview with Tim I discovered that this remarkable project first came about as a distraction, a little project done on the side of a big one. Today it struck just how grand of an idea that is.

Writing a whole novel is sometimes boring, often trying and takes a long fucking time. Unless you are Ian Fleming who once wrote an entire James Bond novel in three weeks. It is a shame I'm not writing about spies, or in the 1950's when it was more acceptable to make loud typing noises on typewriters and fill entire houses with second-hand smoke. But back to the part where it takes a really long time. It takes a really long time and long deliberate hours of sustained effort and right now I'm finding this more exhausting than anything else, like the world has tilted and every direction is now uphill. But fuck that for a way of being, I'm going to take on a smaller project as well. One with a short deadline. A project that can be commenced and completed inside of a month. If that doesn't level out the tipping a little then fuck this I'm buying skis.

My new distraction project has the tentative working title of Remembering The Horse. It will be variable in content, crammed with the overly-sentimental, starkness, spareness and good raw bones. It will be what any anguished moments in April turn into. And then it will be an ebook. And then it will be done.

To help things along a little I'm going ghost protocol for all of April. This will be a combination of minimal electronic communication and blogging, pots of tea, a brand new notebook and possibly pen, and long stupid dresses worn inside the house. I might even be looking forward to it.

Everywhere man or The Adam Lewis Awesome Test

Adam Lewis is a young man who is everywhere that is good or interesting or brave or new. He might even be the young man who booked, organised or curated it. For a while now I've been thinking of Adam Lewis as a human everywhere dog. He seems to be everywhere, all the time, all at once. Unless he is secretly identical triplets (could happen) or can travel through time (could happen) or is actually a personal delusional of mine and friends are just being nice and pretending he exists (could happen).

Yesterday I was sitting peaceably in a pub with some friends when Adam Lewis walked in. Straight away I knew that meant I was about to accidentally have a good time because a busy man like Adam doesn't just show up in a pub for no reason.

After I had an accidentally excellent time I started thinking about deciding whether or not I really liked it or if   the fact that I was covered in paint pigments, and a bit high and three beers in, were unduly influencing my decision towards the positive. At first it was kind of hard to tell but then I glanced over at Adam, who waved cheerily, and I had an idea.

Adam Lewis likes things that are awesome. He is a good judge of what is awesome because he sees everything all the time all at once. Once you see everything all the time all at once you can pick something shit a mile away. Here is an example of something that was shit.

Deciding whether something is good, or if I like it, is boring now that I have hung up my reviewing pen. One horrible side effect of being an ex-reviewer is automatically adding complicated layers of questions and filters on top of instinct before making a proclamation. The long deciding process bores me so I have invented something amazing. I give you The Adam Lewis Awesome Test for working whether or not something is good.


The Adam Lewis Awesome Test


1. Is Adam Lewis here? If yes continue to question two, if no then GO HOME RIGHT NOW because you are somewhere BAD.


2. Is Adam Lewis smiling and nodding his head in a joyful and benevolent way? If yes stay where you are and pay attention to what Adam Lewis is looking at. If no continue to next question.


3. Is it a break between bands or performers or similar? If yes get a drink or talk to friends or Adam Lewis or both and proceed to question four. If no GO HOME CAUSE IF ADAM HATES IT YOU SHOULD TOO, if it is not something with performances proceed to question four.


4. Ask Adam Lewis if he thinks it is awesome. Listen to his answer.If he thinks it is awesome then it is AWESOME, if he does not think it awesome then it SUX AND YOU SHOULD GO HOME RIGHT NOW AND HAVE A NICE CUP OF TEA AND A LITTLE SIT DOWN.


See how much easier my whole life is now?










PS. Hate mail bores the fuck out of me so in case you are confused, or from Finland, let this be your 'takeaway', I like Adam Lewis and think he is pretty great and one day, if he keeps this up, he will be the Captain of Sydney or similar because he is a talented young man with great instincts and popular social graces. I also like his glasses.

PPS. Adam Lewis - the bio by Dale Slamma:
Radiant on FBI
Those millions of gigs he organises
That other thing
Oh and his day job
And all those tweets and facebooks
OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT AND GOOD
might be best to ask Adam Lewis for his more official bio.

Killah

Today I will mostly be wishing 'ghost protocol' was an actual thing and not, as it turns out, the name of a film.

In my head going 'ghost protocol' means wearing a long wispy sort of greyish dress and having a teapot full of tea and sugar cubes instead of no sugar at all. There should be mist with a little fine rain and a definite chill in the air but not so cold the windows are all closed. The curtains breathe in and out and the record player is on low in the next room, something timeless winding slowly through song. There are no digital interruptions and the front gate is locked, maybe the last light of the day is glowing through the heavy heads of full roses in the garden. It should mean solitude and freedom to think and wander through rooms. That's what it should mean.

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.

The important thing about today

Is precisely nothing. Not one thing. Another dull day in Slammatown. Might be time to elect a new Captain or maybe the problem isn't me but everyone else. All I want is to see the face of some god or other, I don't mind which, trace elements of the transcendental. It's like the problem with toast, once you put butter on it everything is transformed from the bearable to the divine. That's all I want, every day, just one thing transformed.

Dead

So of course I was hoping there would be a minor acceleration through time and she would bear a hybrid zombie child just loaded with antibodies and everyone would be saved all over again by the child doomed to suffer and die. And my hope was sterile and regurgitated. Christ.

New resolution

Intermittently semi-intellectual existential loneliness.

Plash

Without joy, mild merriment sure but no joy no redemption. I hate those kinds of weekends where newspapers keep time and coffee making keeps time and the socks just stay wherever you put them and people come and go and open their pipes and pour words out. I might watch them make puddles on the ground and walk around wishing for some other course of action or maybe I'll pour a puddle of my own half-hoping somebody steps in it and feels a cold rush in one foot, maybe looks up or around or behind or down or asks "What is this doing here?".

Obviously I am a sucklord

I've been spending a fair amount of time with a friend lately and mostly it is quite enjoyable but this weekend it dawned on me that he might have got me all wrong. It feels like he has decided which boxes I tick on a list, writer, not stupid, careless with fashion, rebellious in some ways, good listener, but that is all.

It feels like a major failure of communication on my part. How can it be that someone I spend so much time with doesn't know who I am?  I know quite a few things about him, intimate things, broad things, daily habit things, but this knowledge is not reciprocated because he never asks and I don't offer. Ordinarily I am a font of information, about myself, but with him I don't ever feel the urge to tell, only the urge to listen and observe.

On reflection the failure feels more fundamental than just a lapse in communication. It feels like I let myself become unimportant in his presence, overwhelmed by the oddness of wanting to listen and listen and not speak in return. Obviously I am some kind of sucklord.