This morning the whole situation is starting to remind me of that episode of Dr Who where the Doctor convinces Ace she is half wolf or cat or something in order for them to get back from Crazy Planet 4 Million but the Doctor knows the whole time that Ace will suffer from this action.
On second thoughts it might be less like that and more like he's just letting me do this part of the deal because he thinks I'm better at it, or less afraid or something, than him. And I'm just not handling the stress well. Last night I smoked a cigarette in the shower. News flash - I quit smoking last year, so about five months ago now. Oh yeah, the deal.
So here's a super quick and confusing catch- up. Grizelda and I moved out to Summer Hill when Mr Oddweird, the landlord of The Peach, defaulted on the mortgage. We have a part-time housemate here in Summer Hill at Eggers, the new house, and I don't like it. The house is pretty but part-time housemates confuse my vibe. Cut jump. Grizelda has a boyfriend. She wants to move in with him when our arrangement with part-time housemate ends this October. Cut jump. I ring my mum and complain, violently and with great passion, about being swayed by the winds of housemates. Cut jump Mother offers me some assistance to buy a place of my own. Cut jump. Mr X wants in on the deal so we set about buying a place together. As friends.
Single People Alone Together.
Its so crazy it just might work.
Skip forward again to the present moment. As in this very exact moment in right now time. Grizelda's cat Oscar is asleep on the end of my bed, a bus pings and rumbles its way past my window. My mobile telephone lays flat and dormant by my pajama-clad legs. This is fucked. How many times does a person -in-the-middle-of-negotiations-to-buy-a-property have to phone the real estate agent to actually get through to them? HOW MANY?
Showing posts with label Mr X. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mr X. Show all posts
A Hollywood who dunnit solved
Yesterday Mr X flagged down a taxi and zoomed us over to Surry Hills to see Spencer and Abdullah play solo sets at Adam Lewis's Sunset People at the Hollywood. This boring background information is crucial for two reasons. Reason the first, I like being zoomed in taxis. Reason the second, a mystery occurred at the Hollywood. It was time for The Peachette Detective Agency to solve another case.
The detecting business is more tricky than I thought. So far I have solved no mysteries despite opening my first detective agency thirty years ago. Someone must have slipped determination into my beer because when a new mystery presented itself I went ahead and solved it.
The Mystery
Who wrote "WHY AREN'T YOU DATING ADAM LEWIS? HE IS A BABE" on the tiles in a toilet cubicle at the Hollywood?
Answer
I know but I can't tell you. The investigative process was furious and swift. People were questioned, text messages were sent and Adam Lewis became bemused.
By the end of the night beer provided an anaesthetic effect on my broken foot and pain became a memory, which is a shame really. There's nothing like a limp to add a hint of the hardboiled to working a case.
The triumph of solving the case has not been dimmed by the watertight confidentiality agreement made during the investigative process. Triumph whilst sometimes exhibited externally by yelling, clapping, smiling, crying, jumping, dancing or hugging is first and primarily experienced in the mind. Besides, I know who dunnit and in Hollywood that's all that really matters.
A short history of my early years as a detective.
Oh and in answer to the question in question. I would date Adam Lewis but I might be arrested for dating someone young enough to be my son, I think. I haven't done the maths but that answer seems right to me.
The detecting business is more tricky than I thought. So far I have solved no mysteries despite opening my first detective agency thirty years ago. Someone must have slipped determination into my beer because when a new mystery presented itself I went ahead and solved it.
The Mystery
Answer
I know but I can't tell you. The investigative process was furious and swift. People were questioned, text messages were sent and Adam Lewis became bemused.
By the end of the night beer provided an anaesthetic effect on my broken foot and pain became a memory, which is a shame really. There's nothing like a limp to add a hint of the hardboiled to working a case.
The triumph of solving the case has not been dimmed by the watertight confidentiality agreement made during the investigative process. Triumph whilst sometimes exhibited externally by yelling, clapping, smiling, crying, jumping, dancing or hugging is first and primarily experienced in the mind. Besides, I know who dunnit and in Hollywood that's all that really matters.
A short history of my early years as a detective.
Oh and in answer to the question in question. I would date Adam Lewis but I might be arrested for dating someone young enough to be my son, I think. I haven't done the maths but that answer seems right to me.
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.
Dividing rages and a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours or both more tender and more violent
It's been about a week since I started answering the question 'how are you going?' with the blunt answer 'I feel like shit, the world tastes like sawdust', or an entire Hamlet soliloquy (III) communicating more elegantly the world-is-sawdust feeling.
My friends now seem to have divided into three distinct categories:
1. The disbelievers
(not the band) but people who see me and hear what I am saying and then dismiss it as flippant word-vomit and carry on talking about their shoes, dog, band, ex-girlfriend or housemate.
2. The ignorers
They seem to listen to what I am saying and receive the information as truth but then decide it is irrelevant and carry on as normal. Spencer is leading the charge in this group (I) with Mr X a close but different kind of second. Mr X may in fact not be an ignorer but just a close-card-holder, it can be difficult to tell with him but then at other times he is jumping around all floppy and winsome like a four-year-old child. He is an odd mixture of warm and aloof.(II)
3. The warm lights in a dark world:
Two of my friends have been cheering me up and making me feel loved and welcome, for some reason this seems to make Spencer angry(I). These are the best kinds of friends, the ones who listen and then respond. I'm fortunate they have chosen a kind response but really any response is better than none.
Footnotes
(I) How do you solve a problem like Spencer?
He's not a complicated man. He thinks a lot, acts inappropriately a lot, occasionally deigns to write a song, plays in a band, drinks too much, deliberately says the wrong things and stays up too late. He's just like everyone else in the Inner West except that he is my friend and I might want to punch him in the face. Just once. Maybe.
You see last Friday night Spencer, R and I were sitting together at an after-party for a record launch. R was being deliberately kind to me but every time she said something Spencer would raise an eyebrow and suppress a smirk. I've known him too long to miss signals like that, to me it was the fair equivalent of a flashing neon sign. Ordinarily I might have just let it go, like the thousand other arch expressions, wry grins and outright sneers that Spencer produces in the course of any conversation, but not this time.
The combination of exhaustion and world-is-sawdust had me feeling vulnerable and raw enough to actually feel all of Spencer's slings and arrows. I am used to him being the first illustrate my shortcomings with an anecdote from his arsenal of my failings. He has a story about me for everything from bad dancing, interpersonal ineptitude, ignorance, bad taste in music, absence of fashion sense, being afraid of things, giving terrible speeches to general hard-hearted and fuckwittedness. I usually endure these stories with humour as most of the time they are not meant to sting.
This time Spencer's raised eyebrow seemed to indicate that R had no idea who she was talking about, that I was much more of a fuckwit than she suspected and that perhaps I wasn't worthy of being taken under her kind wing. This made me want to punch Spencer in the face for R's sake if not mine. R has seen me act appallingly often enough to have made an informed decision.
I wanted to perform a fluid ninjaesque leap across the table and punch him in the face whilst emitting loud volumes of violent yelling but all I did was leave the party. Since then I've been trying to talk with Spencer so I can work out if I do want to punch him or if he was just having one of those moments. I want to explain to him that he must have missed something in all those years of talking with me because I feel both more tender and more violent than he seems to understand. But you know, he's busy...
(II) A beginner's guide to impersonating Mr X.
First make yourself very tall, make your hair very tall, wear black-rimmed glasses and a Rolling Stones t-shirt.
1. Sit down quickly. Cross your long legs haughtily.
2. Ignore DS and stare at your telephone for at least three full minutes.
3.Turn suddenly and fully back to the conversation.
4.Smile disarmingly, reveal something personal, say something generous and kind.
5. Re-cross legs haughtily. Steal cigarette directly out of DS's hand without asking (smile disarmingly or act as though this is normal and everyone does it all the time).
6. Give cigarette back. Re-cross legs haughtily.
7. Ignore DS for at least three full minutes.
Repeat ad infinitum.
(III) An Entire Soliloquy from Hamlet
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
preuent your discouery of your secricie to the King and Queene: moult no feather, I haue of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed, it goes so heauenly with my disposition; that this goodly frame the Earth, seemes to me a sterrill Promontory; this most excellent Canopy the Ayre, look you, this braue ore-hanging firmament, this Maiesticall Roofe, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeares no other thing to mee, then a foule and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man, How noble in Reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel! in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seeme to say so. | ||
—The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Scene ii, 285-300)
| ||
Additonal notes to be yelled out loud
A STERILE PROMONTORY!
RICHARD E. GRANT!
NO OTHER THING THAN A FOUL AND PESTILENT CONGREGATION OF VAPOURS!
I AM BOTH MORE VIOLENT AND MORE TENDER!
THIS EXCELLENT CANOPY THE AIR!
QUINTESSENCE OF DUST!
HUG ME YOU FUCKWITS! (because I can not shake of this feeling of doom and I have become afraid)
HUG ME YOU FUCKWITS!
Additional viewing to be watched and also listened to (because I said so)
Safari or What kind of cheese can you hide a small horse in?
Spencer waited with me on the corner for Mr X to come and collect me in his car. We stood in the rain, after all those years of drought I still think of the rain as rare. It rains here every day now and there are floods and the dam has overflowed but after living so long with dry bones the rain will remain, in my heart, a rare and beautiful spectacle to be embraced. We drove away leaving Spencer on a back street in Newtown. I never worry about driving away from Spencer every third person in town is someone who wants to sit down and spend time with him.
I don't know how Mr X steered so straight and steady, the rain came in diagonal drifts and all I could though the slanting darkness was freeway markers and pale lights from other cars. We arrived at the venue and I was piled up with stands and bags of leads and one heavy guitar. Mr X went about the business of setting up, plugging things in, turning things on up on stage with the rest of the band. I am used to these kinds of procedures and know the very best thing I can is stay out of the way so I wandered about a little and took in the vast electric rooms.
The venue was a club. The kind with acres of poker machines and an all you can eat buffet. Rooms opened onto other rooms onto more rooms. It was vast and lit with a combination of fluorescent lights and small dim stars meant to add atmosphere. The carpet was a uniform deep dull red but the walls varied from charcoal to beige. I found a cafe in one of the rooms and ordered myself a coffee and a sandwich, busied myself having dinner and making notes from a small table near the stage.
The band played and I intermittently wandered around having little chats with the locals. The gulf between me and the residents of Western Sydney has never seemed greater. I don't understand how this has happened. I grew up in Western Sydney, went to public schools, all my friends lived in the same area, I even went to the University of Western Sydney but there a difference so deep that I am sure it is forensically detectible at every level even beginning with DNA.
I participated in a conversation with two other women. One was dressed head-to-toe in turquoise and aqua tones she insisted on calling aquamarine. She said her eyes were the greatest eyes anyone would ever see, she told they were aquamarine the same as her birthstone and pointed at the cheap looking studs piercing her ears. The stones were aquamarine, like her eyes, but neither were beautiful. The other woman looked to me like an off-duty stripper. Bleached hair rolling over her enlarged brestas, down past her the tail of her painfully thing abdomen, huge black false eyelashes fanning like spiders across a heavily made-up face.
The two women speaking to each other. Instantly, before exchanging names, they entered a competition I have never witnessed before. It was like a prolonged and violent exchange of volleys at a championship tennis match. Each sentence a fired and condensed repor to the very worst moments of their lives.
"My husband died."
"My son is in jail."
"My husband abused me."
"I nearly died in a car crash."
"I've had two major back surgeries because I nearly died in a car crash."
"I've had two car crashes."
I asked if they knew each other because it seemed to me that something more than an introductory conversation was happening but they simultaneously denied it with, "No. Why?".
They continued firing facts at each other like bullets, sizing each other up. It was hard and impenetrable and I was well out of my depth. I have no idea how to interact in that kind of conversation. The talk came to an abrupt halt when the turquoise woman declare she was going to vomit, spilt her glass of lemonade on the floor, she told me she never ever drinks, and took off like a shot through the acres of poker machines.
A man walked up to me as I sat puzzling over what had just happened. He walked right up to me, shoe to shoe, and threw a stick of gum in my handbag. He winked at me and told it was for later. By this time the band had finished their first set and I took refuge backstage with them. I stood leaning against the wall nursing a beer Mr X provided, thinking it all over. The band began remarking on the club and it's patrons and I laughed with them at the strangeness of it all but I have to admit I was a little shaken.
What causes two women to lead a social interaction with the very worst moments of their life? Why are they so hard that they converse like battalions of soldiers charging at each other with bayonets? Why was the atmosphere so tense it made sense to me that the very next step would be violence?
On the way back to the Inner West Mr X and I pondered the nature of the town we were just in and each declared it would be impossible to live there, impossible to survive living anywhere at all like that. I panicked a little as though that is exactly what would happen, as though I was being forcefully transferred there and would have to survive as best I could. Mr X snorted when I told him, he said living there, or anywhere like that, was entirely out of the question and to my relief I believed him.
Mascarpone.
I don't know how Mr X steered so straight and steady, the rain came in diagonal drifts and all I could though the slanting darkness was freeway markers and pale lights from other cars. We arrived at the venue and I was piled up with stands and bags of leads and one heavy guitar. Mr X went about the business of setting up, plugging things in, turning things on up on stage with the rest of the band. I am used to these kinds of procedures and know the very best thing I can is stay out of the way so I wandered about a little and took in the vast electric rooms.
The venue was a club. The kind with acres of poker machines and an all you can eat buffet. Rooms opened onto other rooms onto more rooms. It was vast and lit with a combination of fluorescent lights and small dim stars meant to add atmosphere. The carpet was a uniform deep dull red but the walls varied from charcoal to beige. I found a cafe in one of the rooms and ordered myself a coffee and a sandwich, busied myself having dinner and making notes from a small table near the stage.
The band played and I intermittently wandered around having little chats with the locals. The gulf between me and the residents of Western Sydney has never seemed greater. I don't understand how this has happened. I grew up in Western Sydney, went to public schools, all my friends lived in the same area, I even went to the University of Western Sydney but there a difference so deep that I am sure it is forensically detectible at every level even beginning with DNA.
I participated in a conversation with two other women. One was dressed head-to-toe in turquoise and aqua tones she insisted on calling aquamarine. She said her eyes were the greatest eyes anyone would ever see, she told they were aquamarine the same as her birthstone and pointed at the cheap looking studs piercing her ears. The stones were aquamarine, like her eyes, but neither were beautiful. The other woman looked to me like an off-duty stripper. Bleached hair rolling over her enlarged brestas, down past her the tail of her painfully thing abdomen, huge black false eyelashes fanning like spiders across a heavily made-up face.
The two women speaking to each other. Instantly, before exchanging names, they entered a competition I have never witnessed before. It was like a prolonged and violent exchange of volleys at a championship tennis match. Each sentence a fired and condensed repor to the very worst moments of their lives.
"My husband died."
"My son is in jail."
"My husband abused me."
"I nearly died in a car crash."
"I've had two major back surgeries because I nearly died in a car crash."
"I've had two car crashes."
I asked if they knew each other because it seemed to me that something more than an introductory conversation was happening but they simultaneously denied it with, "No. Why?".
They continued firing facts at each other like bullets, sizing each other up. It was hard and impenetrable and I was well out of my depth. I have no idea how to interact in that kind of conversation. The talk came to an abrupt halt when the turquoise woman declare she was going to vomit, spilt her glass of lemonade on the floor, she told me she never ever drinks, and took off like a shot through the acres of poker machines.
A man walked up to me as I sat puzzling over what had just happened. He walked right up to me, shoe to shoe, and threw a stick of gum in my handbag. He winked at me and told it was for later. By this time the band had finished their first set and I took refuge backstage with them. I stood leaning against the wall nursing a beer Mr X provided, thinking it all over. The band began remarking on the club and it's patrons and I laughed with them at the strangeness of it all but I have to admit I was a little shaken.
What causes two women to lead a social interaction with the very worst moments of their life? Why are they so hard that they converse like battalions of soldiers charging at each other with bayonets? Why was the atmosphere so tense it made sense to me that the very next step would be violence?
On the way back to the Inner West Mr X and I pondered the nature of the town we were just in and each declared it would be impossible to live there, impossible to survive living anywhere at all like that. I panicked a little as though that is exactly what would happen, as though I was being forcefully transferred there and would have to survive as best I could. Mr X snorted when I told him, he said living there, or anywhere like that, was entirely out of the question and to my relief I believed him.
Mascarpone.
Geographical facts in numbered list form but not in chronological order
- The IGA on Enmore Rd smells like dill and offers cold comfort from the hot thick air.
- Enmore Rd is swarming with beautiful boys sporting traditional 80's metal hair, bandanas and leather pants. Quite a lot of them are wearing Skid Row singlets, the kind with wide open arm holes exposing skin drawn tight across ribs.
- The best example of the swarming men was one young one in read snakeskin pants.
- One hour ago I was drinking coffee on King St with two people, one of them was more eccentric than I am, and also slightly creepy at times. At one point he mimed throwing a sheet, thousand count Egyptian cotton, over my head and then pressed a finger to my lips saying 'shhh, shhh'.
- Nine hours ago I paid twice for my morning coffee on the way to work, once for today and once for yesterday when I forgot my wallet and they made me coffee anyway. This is the benefit of putting up with inane small talk from cafe owners every day.
- Six hours ago, in my office, I was listening to Mr X's new album when a wasp flew into my dress. I performed the most remarkable dance.
- Robert has performed his last day as a not-for-profit slave worker in Ultimo and will from this night forward be a Writer, he insisted on the capital W. I do not doubt his success.
- Walking home the humidity was so high I feared I might at any moment sweat myself into non-existence. Vanish right into thick air.
A.H. Cayley's Confession Booth and Rhys Muldoon's fake santorum
I seem to have accidentally joined a hypothetical band with Adam Lewis* and Matt Banham. When I say joined what I mean is bullied into saying "Maria" when pointed at by Banham while Lewis croons a long 'ooooo'. I think we will be very popular.
I've never met Matt Banham before but people, like P. Street tell me that I should have. The first thing Banham ever said to me, and other people in the room, was a long drunken tale about shitting his pants twenty minutes from home. Yes it was crass but not quite as crude, when listened to first-hand, as the story Rhys Muldoon told about concocting fake santorum in his kitchen to fool Ben Mendelsohn with. I do not know why this occurred, or when.
I knew it was going to be a strange night when Mr X cancelled last minute, citing exhaustion. It's a good thing he is not a celebrity, we all know what 'exhaustion' means when someone is a celebrity. In the case of Mr X I suspect it was a case of being very tired indeed. The strangeness began when I immediately rang and booked a taxi for myself without pausing or making a clear strategy for using in case of emergencies, which is what I usually do when I have to get picked up in a taxi by myself. This time I calmly thought oh well Mr X is tired, sucks to be him, and then went about my solo-taxi business. The taxi cost five million and twelve dollars and fiftybillion cents, due to traffic. Strange event number two, I cared only mildly.
Many odd things occurred but none so odd as my catching the train without bothering to look at where the train was going, after I had already decided to catch a taxi home. I wound up on a fast train to Bankstown, for those who don't know where that is don't worry I don't either. Judging from the other passengers on the train it is a sub-level of hell. I had some time to think, on the trains, about the oddness of the evening. It is a great shame that I am now too exhausted to write about it, a great shame indeed.
It is good though that no one has changed any of the signs at Central Station so that they read Entrail. This would be possible by the simple removal of the letter C and the small addition of an I.
* Listen to Adam Lewis's radio show, it's quite good.
Oh and the reason I left the house with box of PAN magazines was to attend A.H. Cayley's Confession Booth. A.H. is the Chief Sub-Editor of PAN magazine and once pulled all the legs off a spider, I believe she was an infant when the leg-pulling incident occurred.
I've never met Matt Banham before but people, like P. Street tell me that I should have. The first thing Banham ever said to me, and other people in the room, was a long drunken tale about shitting his pants twenty minutes from home. Yes it was crass but not quite as crude, when listened to first-hand, as the story Rhys Muldoon told about concocting fake santorum in his kitchen to fool Ben Mendelsohn with. I do not know why this occurred, or when.
I knew it was going to be a strange night when Mr X cancelled last minute, citing exhaustion. It's a good thing he is not a celebrity, we all know what 'exhaustion' means when someone is a celebrity. In the case of Mr X I suspect it was a case of being very tired indeed. The strangeness began when I immediately rang and booked a taxi for myself without pausing or making a clear strategy for using in case of emergencies, which is what I usually do when I have to get picked up in a taxi by myself. This time I calmly thought oh well Mr X is tired, sucks to be him, and then went about my solo-taxi business. The taxi cost five million and twelve dollars and fiftybillion cents, due to traffic. Strange event number two, I cared only mildly.
Many odd things occurred but none so odd as my catching the train without bothering to look at where the train was going, after I had already decided to catch a taxi home. I wound up on a fast train to Bankstown, for those who don't know where that is don't worry I don't either. Judging from the other passengers on the train it is a sub-level of hell. I had some time to think, on the trains, about the oddness of the evening. It is a great shame that I am now too exhausted to write about it, a great shame indeed.
It is good though that no one has changed any of the signs at Central Station so that they read Entrail. This would be possible by the simple removal of the letter C and the small addition of an I.
* Listen to Adam Lewis's radio show, it's quite good.
Oh and the reason I left the house with box of PAN magazines was to attend A.H. Cayley's Confession Booth. A.H. is the Chief Sub-Editor of PAN magazine and once pulled all the legs off a spider, I believe she was an infant when the leg-pulling incident occurred.
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.
Dead sea captains, my very own pile of bones and the United Nations
This is the very first draft of a letter I intend to send to a friend.
Dear Friend,
Firstly, this is a kind of letter of thanks. Secondly, this is the first letter I have written on HAL so in this way at least it is special. I don't know what in the fuck came over you to make you decide to give me my very own ticket to see PJ Harvey at the State Theatre. There is no possible way I could have accepted such a generous gift if it wasn't for the kind and equally generous words that accompanied the giving. I suppose this letter will be entirely redundant by the time you receive it seeing as you are going to the very same PJ Harvey show tomorrow night but I'm not afraid of a little redundancy, every now and then.
I think I've come away changed. It was her quiet deliberateness that's done it. She was so sure, moving in and out of the light, making use of shadows. She was so sure of every exchange of silence for sound. I'm thinking my pile of bones will be talking about the time I saw PJ Harvey long after the rest of me has vanished.
She began in darkness, edged forwards into a dim light and cast a tall shadow up the vaulted walls of the theatre. There are angels in the architecture here. I couldn't tear myself away from the dark image, the long feather tendrils of her headdress casting ideas of ragged bones and fallen wings while she sang and strummed that damn autoharp like it was easier than breathing.
I used to play the autoharp, when I was a kid, in the garage. It was where all the interesting things were, old ammunition boxes, glockenspiels, melodicas, tamborines, guitars, an ancient upright piano, basses, amps, quad boxes, wood blocks, workbenches, train sets, easels, paints, a banjo, jars fulls of coloured picks and an autoharp. Dad covered the floor in avocado green carpet tiles that scratched and itched bare flesh mercilessly. It was basically coloured sandpaper. I'm not sure why he did that. Between the carpet tiles tearing at the backs of my legs and the autoharp taking the tops off my fingers I don't really know why I spent so much time in there.
If I had to state my purpose in spending so much time in a hostile garage I'd choose possibility. The sense of possibility, you could do or make or play anything in that room, nothing was off limits, no flight of fancy I couldn't at least make a decent attempt at turning into fact. I eventually came out of that garage with the knowledge that not every idea works, a series of crazy attempts at weird instruments, a detective agency, a solid sense where I fail creatively and the ability to fall steadfastly into an idea.
This is where I'm going to try and make a point, I think I might have one. I feel like PJ Harvey came out of that garage in a way that I didn't and it has filled me with awe. Sitting under the gilt vaults and arches in the theatre tonight I struggled to comprehend something, it seems just beyond my reach, a sense of power and wonder unlike anything people call religious. Ideas turned tangible.
She was tiny, wrapped in that big black dress, trailing feathers down the back of her hair. Tiny but solid as definite as a tree. I believed, without struggle, every word she sang, wailed and uttered. Followed her without question down the thick path of mourning for a country I've never seen.
My friend N, whose ticket I had arranged to collect and hold for her, arrived two minutes before the show started so we barrelled in and took our seats as fast we could. Once the light died and we spied shadowy figures making their way onto the stage I sat in silence. Uttered not one word, shared not one thought, glance or movement. You have given me the indulgence of solitude. The unfettered joy of witnessing without the burden of being obliged to hack off part of my experience and give it away. I've collected each moment and pressed them into private unvarnished memory.
I don't need to talk about the music, you already know what I mean.
Last night you called the Sydney Festival "art served on white bread", which is just about perfect for everything, except this. So thank you for the ticket, in case it wasn't clear from this letter, I'm saying thank you for the ticket.
I'm glad you've travelled round the world and back again. You're a pal and a confidante.
With actual sincerity for once,
DS
Dear Friend,
Firstly, this is a kind of letter of thanks. Secondly, this is the first letter I have written on HAL so in this way at least it is special. I don't know what in the fuck came over you to make you decide to give me my very own ticket to see PJ Harvey at the State Theatre. There is no possible way I could have accepted such a generous gift if it wasn't for the kind and equally generous words that accompanied the giving. I suppose this letter will be entirely redundant by the time you receive it seeing as you are going to the very same PJ Harvey show tomorrow night but I'm not afraid of a little redundancy, every now and then.
I think I've come away changed. It was her quiet deliberateness that's done it. She was so sure, moving in and out of the light, making use of shadows. She was so sure of every exchange of silence for sound. I'm thinking my pile of bones will be talking about the time I saw PJ Harvey long after the rest of me has vanished.
She began in darkness, edged forwards into a dim light and cast a tall shadow up the vaulted walls of the theatre. There are angels in the architecture here. I couldn't tear myself away from the dark image, the long feather tendrils of her headdress casting ideas of ragged bones and fallen wings while she sang and strummed that damn autoharp like it was easier than breathing.
I used to play the autoharp, when I was a kid, in the garage. It was where all the interesting things were, old ammunition boxes, glockenspiels, melodicas, tamborines, guitars, an ancient upright piano, basses, amps, quad boxes, wood blocks, workbenches, train sets, easels, paints, a banjo, jars fulls of coloured picks and an autoharp. Dad covered the floor in avocado green carpet tiles that scratched and itched bare flesh mercilessly. It was basically coloured sandpaper. I'm not sure why he did that. Between the carpet tiles tearing at the backs of my legs and the autoharp taking the tops off my fingers I don't really know why I spent so much time in there.
If I had to state my purpose in spending so much time in a hostile garage I'd choose possibility. The sense of possibility, you could do or make or play anything in that room, nothing was off limits, no flight of fancy I couldn't at least make a decent attempt at turning into fact. I eventually came out of that garage with the knowledge that not every idea works, a series of crazy attempts at weird instruments, a detective agency, a solid sense where I fail creatively and the ability to fall steadfastly into an idea.
This is where I'm going to try and make a point, I think I might have one. I feel like PJ Harvey came out of that garage in a way that I didn't and it has filled me with awe. Sitting under the gilt vaults and arches in the theatre tonight I struggled to comprehend something, it seems just beyond my reach, a sense of power and wonder unlike anything people call religious. Ideas turned tangible.
She was tiny, wrapped in that big black dress, trailing feathers down the back of her hair. Tiny but solid as definite as a tree. I believed, without struggle, every word she sang, wailed and uttered. Followed her without question down the thick path of mourning for a country I've never seen.
My friend N, whose ticket I had arranged to collect and hold for her, arrived two minutes before the show started so we barrelled in and took our seats as fast we could. Once the light died and we spied shadowy figures making their way onto the stage I sat in silence. Uttered not one word, shared not one thought, glance or movement. You have given me the indulgence of solitude. The unfettered joy of witnessing without the burden of being obliged to hack off part of my experience and give it away. I've collected each moment and pressed them into private unvarnished memory.
I don't need to talk about the music, you already know what I mean.
Last night you called the Sydney Festival "art served on white bread", which is just about perfect for everything, except this. So thank you for the ticket, in case it wasn't clear from this letter, I'm saying thank you for the ticket.
I'm glad you've travelled round the world and back again. You're a pal and a confidante.
With actual sincerity for once,
DS
Don't go out tonight
That old problem again. Walking home drunk and it's late and I'm tired and I'm smoking someone else's cigarettes and what a good time it was and then I 'm lost and then I'm home and then the keys and the door and then that's all of it finished and gone. Just nothing but me in an empty house where it is dark and an obligation for being quiet and not screaming up and down the hallway for just one more thing, just anything, something, someone to happen but all is untying shoelaces and remembering teeth and vowing about morning showers and nothing ever happens but the ordinary slow winding towards morning and one more day rattling up and down the hallway.
A letter to Spencer in Leipzig, Germany
Dear Spencer,
There's been a Bensplosion round these parts since you've been gone. I'm not talking just one Ben but many. There are many Bens. I have spent time with at least one Ben a day for the last week. In my head I refer to them by their surnames so as not to become confused, like I do with Hunter, and Wilson, and Worrad. I suppose you've being seeing a lot of those folk lately, say hi to them for me.
Gemma has been texting me words like 'Benglorious, Benerific and Benutopia'. She said I have Bens on a revolving schedule but it's entirely unintentional.
There's been a Bensplosion round these parts since you've been gone. I'm not talking just one Ben but many. There are many Bens. I have spent time with at least one Ben a day for the last week. In my head I refer to them by their surnames so as not to become confused, like I do with Hunter, and Wilson, and Worrad. I suppose you've being seeing a lot of those folk lately, say hi to them for me.
Gemma has been texting me words like 'Benglorious, Benerific and Benutopia'. She said I have Bens on a revolving schedule but it's entirely unintentional.
Diesel not truckers and a long-winded unrelated introduction to the promised Safe As Houses post
Times, they are a blurrin'. A weekend soaked through to the bone with exhaustion and mix'n'match pile of friends. The whole thing finished with a kebab eaten sitting on a plastic chair on Parramatta Rd with Mr X while he told me about his father and the war and the traffic tucked away for the night.
Before the kebab and the talk of war I made an adventure to the casino. Walking down the long guts of the place with Miles Davis on my mp3 player and those old brown lace-up shoes on my feet I looked around the lit calamity of the joint and the frocked up, clean-shirted crowd and wondered just what it in the fuck I was doing. Theoretically I went to write about the absurd 'Rock Lily' venue. Mr X's band has a residency there and the idea intrigued me. He took to the stage and I sat at a long empty table.
Diesel and his bass player asked if they could join me, but I didn't know who they were until they got up later to play. I'm not in the habit of recognising people I know let alone strangers. I made notes, got drunk on free beer handed to me again and again by Mr X and his band's rider. I rambled down a set of back stairs out into the night after an hour of non-stop Diesel. I was trying to shake off the impression that there's something very wrong with the world.
Back in the Inner West under roadside electric lights I gratefully devoured a kebab and conversation. They shut off the lights after a while so I carried home two borrowed books to read and a whole new set of memories.
Better memories than the ones I'm talking about in my houses project over here.
Before the kebab and the talk of war I made an adventure to the casino. Walking down the long guts of the place with Miles Davis on my mp3 player and those old brown lace-up shoes on my feet I looked around the lit calamity of the joint and the frocked up, clean-shirted crowd and wondered just what it in the fuck I was doing. Theoretically I went to write about the absurd 'Rock Lily' venue. Mr X's band has a residency there and the idea intrigued me. He took to the stage and I sat at a long empty table.
Diesel and his bass player asked if they could join me, but I didn't know who they were until they got up later to play. I'm not in the habit of recognising people I know let alone strangers. I made notes, got drunk on free beer handed to me again and again by Mr X and his band's rider. I rambled down a set of back stairs out into the night after an hour of non-stop Diesel. I was trying to shake off the impression that there's something very wrong with the world.
Back in the Inner West under roadside electric lights I gratefully devoured a kebab and conversation. They shut off the lights after a while so I carried home two borrowed books to read and a whole new set of memories.
Better memories than the ones I'm talking about in my houses project over here.
A letter to Spencer in North-West France (you told them you'd be back)
Dear Spencer,
You know how pineapple is the king of all fruit? Well I mentioned that last night, in a conversation about artificial fruit scents whilst smelling a scratch'n'sniff sticker. Nobody understood what I meant. The sticker-giving woman thought I meant pineapple was my favourite fruit, Mr X was just puzzled but he leant over a little and said "I like pineapple, it's a good fruit." but quietly, like you might say to a child who got something wrong by mistake. He only said anything at all because he is a kind interlocutor. He is kind in a lot of ways. Today he came to The Peach and drove me and some boxes of magazines to a shop so I wouldn't have to carry them, but then he said he had to do laundry and went home. So you can see it was one of those real kindnesses and not the fake kind, which is actually a little disappointing.
You know how pineapple is the king of all fruit? Well I mentioned that last night, in a conversation about artificial fruit scents whilst smelling a scratch'n'sniff sticker. Nobody understood what I meant. The sticker-giving woman thought I meant pineapple was my favourite fruit, Mr X was just puzzled but he leant over a little and said "I like pineapple, it's a good fruit." but quietly, like you might say to a child who got something wrong by mistake. He only said anything at all because he is a kind interlocutor. He is kind in a lot of ways. Today he came to The Peach and drove me and some boxes of magazines to a shop so I wouldn't have to carry them, but then he said he had to do laundry and went home. So you can see it was one of those real kindnesses and not the fake kind, which is actually a little disappointing.
Clockwork rising
I haven't stopped paying attention. Night sounds still crowd my ancient windows while the cat bolts under the blankets on top of my bed. She'll burrow and curl herself into a dear little bat-eared knot. Wait out the worst of the overnight cold with her measured breaths and unconscious whirrings. She'll emerge at a predetermined signal, known only to cats, step delicately across my shoulders and face. Paw to nose, paw to eye, paw to hair.
I might sleep through bat-eared whirrings and the hallway pulling cold breaths under doorways until well past first light. I may sit all night bent as a bachelor over hand-written piles of nothing or like last night I might lean back upon pillows and read through the hours of other people's words.
Some people ask me if I would be so kind as to read what they have written and tell them what I think. This happens more frequently than it used to, I suspect it has something to do with being the editor of a magazine. I always used to say no, some writers are horrifyingly precious, won't even take a modicum of measured feedback given gently, with sugar, in a positive light. Witnessing floods of tears followed by defensive justifications is not my idea of a good afternoon. Of course there are always people I will read for, writers who have the good grace to ask for an opinion only when they genuinely want one.
I was sent some writing the other day, parts of a journal not yet worked up into something bigger. He would like to know my opinion on whether or not they are worth the working. I debated whether or not to say yes. Not because he is precious or a terrible writer but because one of the great joys of my existence is reading other people's journals or diaries or scrawlings, notes, jottings, ideas, brain blurts. Anything that was written just for them. I took a moment to balance my desires. It seemed possible that if I said yes it would be to satisfy my own urge as a favour to myself and not to him.
It is not the first time he has sent me something to read, he is someone who knows what they are doing and would not send through pages without thinking it through first, so I said yes and I'm glad that I did.
There is nothing more magnificent than a writer with an open throttle, when thought and language combine in lightning fast unconscious combinations. All the good bare bones are there on those pages, whole paragraphs of flowing prose shot through with real and jagged ideas still hot and bloody. I adore this stage of other people's work. Every word is a footstep further into the usually guarded mind, sentences are raw and intentions unclear. I feel like a scientist with a microscope wondering at new puzzles of the universe. It is the very best reason for staying up late, a silent joyful worship for the absence of a clockwork rising.
I might sleep through bat-eared whirrings and the hallway pulling cold breaths under doorways until well past first light. I may sit all night bent as a bachelor over hand-written piles of nothing or like last night I might lean back upon pillows and read through the hours of other people's words.
Some people ask me if I would be so kind as to read what they have written and tell them what I think. This happens more frequently than it used to, I suspect it has something to do with being the editor of a magazine. I always used to say no, some writers are horrifyingly precious, won't even take a modicum of measured feedback given gently, with sugar, in a positive light. Witnessing floods of tears followed by defensive justifications is not my idea of a good afternoon. Of course there are always people I will read for, writers who have the good grace to ask for an opinion only when they genuinely want one.
I was sent some writing the other day, parts of a journal not yet worked up into something bigger. He would like to know my opinion on whether or not they are worth the working. I debated whether or not to say yes. Not because he is precious or a terrible writer but because one of the great joys of my existence is reading other people's journals or diaries or scrawlings, notes, jottings, ideas, brain blurts. Anything that was written just for them. I took a moment to balance my desires. It seemed possible that if I said yes it would be to satisfy my own urge as a favour to myself and not to him.
It is not the first time he has sent me something to read, he is someone who knows what they are doing and would not send through pages without thinking it through first, so I said yes and I'm glad that I did.
There is nothing more magnificent than a writer with an open throttle, when thought and language combine in lightning fast unconscious combinations. All the good bare bones are there on those pages, whole paragraphs of flowing prose shot through with real and jagged ideas still hot and bloody. I adore this stage of other people's work. Every word is a footstep further into the usually guarded mind, sentences are raw and intentions unclear. I feel like a scientist with a microscope wondering at new puzzles of the universe. It is the very best reason for staying up late, a silent joyful worship for the absence of a clockwork rising.
Some days are like houses
Some projects are long term, the kind that unfold as you age and become as essential as breathing. This project, my Safe As Houses project is like that. It us unhurried but permanent. Two days ago I remembered a house I once tried to forget, except for the part where Elliot and I got a horse truck stuck on the front lawn. We climbed things holding six-foot crowbars, we were sure this would help.
Two days ago Ben Rumble had a story about this house published in THE GROUP online magazine and I remembered that it is not easy to forget.
Two days ago Ben Rumble had a story about this house published in THE GROUP online magazine and I remembered that it is not easy to forget.
Spanish vs Mexican tunnels
I have socks. This has been a public service announcement. My new aim is to be the tallest man in the world, I start training on Monday. I am quite certain that I can achieve my new goal.
I was sitting on my bed smoking cigarettes, idly clicking through photographs of Mr X when it occurred to me that I must, with great haste, become someone else.
I was sitting on my bed smoking cigarettes, idly clicking through photographs of Mr X when it occurred to me that I must, with great haste, become someone else.
The Newtown Spaz
I navigated my heavy freedom up Enmore Rd then King St. It seems an age since I roamed the streets plugged into my mp3 player and people on streets. There are hydrangeas everywhere. On my street one house has two enormous bushes of pure white hydrangeas, I've never seen white ones before. There was red carpet outside the Enmore Theatre and men of rock standing in pointy toed groups smoking cigarettes and messing their hair delightfully.
As I arrived in Newtown I thought I heard drums but I was mistaken. In a beautiful synchronised moment planes, trains, traffic and people fell into a regular six eight beat. I bought Shaun Tan's The Arrival for my Dad for Chistmas but in a moment of panic I thought I might have given it to him last year so I phoned and asked if he'd already read it. He said "No but I'll look out for it".
Madam Squeeze was busking so I talked with her for while, I snuck up while she was playing and had the privilege of spying her alone with her music. I met Grizelda for dinner, as we made our way to Burgerlicious I kept setting off shop alarms by walking in through doorways. Surely alarms are only meant to go off if you are stealing something. I saw a window display of the worst shoes ever in the world. I yelled "UGLY SHOE ALERT" and dragged Grizelda over to look, unfortunately the shop man heard me and every time I walked past that shop (6 times) I had sneak and then dash.
I ran into Mr X, he seemed calm, happy and ugly, nothing at all like the handsome soul stealing vampire that I make him out to be. Grizelda was glad to meet him, I suspect she thought I was making him up. He was friendly and kind, I remarked on his new haircut and he stooped to point out the grey hair.
My burger wrap kept falling apart and I ended up with hamburger ingredients down my bra, my sleeves and in my handbag, that was not ideal. I stopped at the chemist to get some valerian. I am determined to sleep but the lady in the chemist talked me out of it. She kept telling me that I should get this aromatherapy roll on stick thing you apply to your head. She was oddly persuasive and had the same name as my cat. I was too tired to fight her so I bought the stupid $25 head roll on crap, luckily Grizelda dosed me with some night time cough syrup of some sort that is supposed to knock me out so that should work even the stupid head stick doesn't.
I feel odd after running into Mr X, I don't know if he knows about the Elliot thing, I suspect he might. I don't like people like him knowing things, coming as he does from a different camp but I suppose it doesn't really matter.
I am so pleased to have discovered that the rest of the world is still there and that I might have my very own small place in it, a place where transport, footsteps and heartbeats happily collide.
As I arrived in Newtown I thought I heard drums but I was mistaken. In a beautiful synchronised moment planes, trains, traffic and people fell into a regular six eight beat. I bought Shaun Tan's The Arrival for my Dad for Chistmas but in a moment of panic I thought I might have given it to him last year so I phoned and asked if he'd already read it. He said "No but I'll look out for it".
Madam Squeeze was busking so I talked with her for while, I snuck up while she was playing and had the privilege of spying her alone with her music. I met Grizelda for dinner, as we made our way to Burgerlicious I kept setting off shop alarms by walking in through doorways. Surely alarms are only meant to go off if you are stealing something. I saw a window display of the worst shoes ever in the world. I yelled "UGLY SHOE ALERT" and dragged Grizelda over to look, unfortunately the shop man heard me and every time I walked past that shop (6 times) I had sneak and then dash.
I ran into Mr X, he seemed calm, happy and ugly, nothing at all like the handsome soul stealing vampire that I make him out to be. Grizelda was glad to meet him, I suspect she thought I was making him up. He was friendly and kind, I remarked on his new haircut and he stooped to point out the grey hair.
My burger wrap kept falling apart and I ended up with hamburger ingredients down my bra, my sleeves and in my handbag, that was not ideal. I stopped at the chemist to get some valerian. I am determined to sleep but the lady in the chemist talked me out of it. She kept telling me that I should get this aromatherapy roll on stick thing you apply to your head. She was oddly persuasive and had the same name as my cat. I was too tired to fight her so I bought the stupid $25 head roll on crap, luckily Grizelda dosed me with some night time cough syrup of some sort that is supposed to knock me out so that should work even the stupid head stick doesn't.
I feel odd after running into Mr X, I don't know if he knows about the Elliot thing, I suspect he might. I don't like people like him knowing things, coming as he does from a different camp but I suppose it doesn't really matter.
I am so pleased to have discovered that the rest of the world is still there and that I might have my very own small place in it, a place where transport, footsteps and heartbeats happily collide.
Elliotitis
Fuck that fucker he is over-complicating my brain and has me thinking how much is enough? I think I might have had enough. It is very plain that I adore him despite his almost infinite flaws. It is very plain that he possesses the unique ability to pull me inside out and scatter my innards across the Sydney basin any time he chooses and the problem is he chose today.
I telephoned him in a happy moment thinking to say hello and see how he is. He is with Mr X doing some sort of stupid cricket thing but he was walking as he was talking to me and waxing silly and I had to keep yelling What! because I could not understand what he was saying. Soon after that failed conversation I was listening to Lou Reed and and sent him some silly Lou Reed lyrics about honey bears shaving their hairs. His reply was odd at best and downright fucked at worst and as an aside at the very end included "I don't think I can do next weekend either, will let you know."
I don't know what he is doing to me but I don't like it. I don't like the way he pushes my buttons. I don't like the way he is always in my head. I don't like the way his message punctured my carefully constructed gas cylinder of emotion. I don't like the way I am throwing things and raging around The Peach yelling without reason. I don't know what to do.
I telephoned him in a happy moment thinking to say hello and see how he is. He is with Mr X doing some sort of stupid cricket thing but he was walking as he was talking to me and waxing silly and I had to keep yelling What! because I could not understand what he was saying. Soon after that failed conversation I was listening to Lou Reed and and sent him some silly Lou Reed lyrics about honey bears shaving their hairs. His reply was odd at best and downright fucked at worst and as an aside at the very end included "I don't think I can do next weekend either, will let you know."
I don't know what he is doing to me but I don't like it. I don't like the way he pushes my buttons. I don't like the way he is always in my head. I don't like the way his message punctured my carefully constructed gas cylinder of emotion. I don't like the way I am throwing things and raging around The Peach yelling without reason. I don't know what to do.
Maybe just maybe I am fine with this
Or not. I haven't decided, maybe we weren't doing it right. No, that's not what I mean. I am confused by the absence of confusion. Before, or rather towards the beginning it was decided between us that we could do this without hurting each other. I said I'm not looking for anything other than friendship and as I said it I was astonished at the clarity of my meaning. I am not looking for anything other friendship with this man, right now. I love him, this is beyond doubt but it is not the fickle love that comes and goes with haircuts or seismic shifts.
I am astonished to find myself calmly sitting here after leaving him on King St with the dreaded Mr X. I whizzed myself off to the aquarium to spend a few hours with friends staring at fish as it was too rainy for the zoo. I am astonished that today I have no more words.
I am astonished to find myself calmly sitting here after leaving him on King St with the dreaded Mr X. I whizzed myself off to the aquarium to spend a few hours with friends staring at fish as it was too rainy for the zoo. I am astonished that today I have no more words.
I accept
3. To Mr X: I chased the dream of you across Newtown metallic and absent as a dragonfly until I looked in my left pocket and found you'd stuffed it with your own self-portrait.
4. I have already done a version of this with my experimenting but I will throw my life open
once again. Leave directions in the comments. I will do as instructed and report back.
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Think of my own dare? Ok...
1. I dare you to offer your soul to the next person who enters the front door of your house.
2. I dare you to imagine for an entire day that you're walking upside-down, and that there is a constant imminent threat that you will fall into the clouds.
3. I dare you to use the word 'dragonfly' in a sentence that illustrates how much you care about someone.
4. I dare you to make all of your decisions by the role of two dice, a la Beyond the Labyrinth, by Gillian Rubenstein.