Sometimes there's only one solution and that's to hit the old man jazz scene at The Hero of Waterloo where I'm guaranteed to find Boli, a large group of old men in hats and some of that wandering jazz you only get to hear when the people playing it have been doing it for at least forty years.
Additional note - make that sixty years.
Showing posts with label Boli. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boli. Show all posts
Even Alf Wight was chastised or periodic escape from the Inner West can prevent trench foot
My final frontier is the mid-inner west of Sydney. It's all the same to me, Ashfield, Strathfield, Lidcombe just slide on by, a physical explanation for time between the city and the mountains, a reason for the rhythmic click of trains.
I wandered there yesterday, on purpose. Boli lives in one of these mythical places now, where his rent money buys more space than I remembered to imagine. His house feels new, though it is not, all houses feel new after three years of walking through the ghost haze and sinking crooked facade of the Inner West. He has a basement storage room almost as large as The Peach, he has a tiled laundry, neat and accessible through a full-sized door in an internal hallway. He and Yolde have strung nets from the ceiling in anticipation of a baby.
I wandered there yesterday, on purpose. Boli lives in one of these mythical places now, where his rent money buys more space than I remembered to imagine. His house feels new, though it is not, all houses feel new after three years of walking through the ghost haze and sinking crooked facade of the Inner West. He has a basement storage room almost as large as The Peach, he has a tiled laundry, neat and accessible through a full-sized door in an internal hallway. He and Yolde have strung nets from the ceiling in anticipation of a baby.
Trombones, guitars and a flugelhorn
It is strange where a brass band can take you. My brother and Boli have both played in the same brass band for years. I scoffed, initially, after all brass bands are the opposite of rock'n'roll but as it turns out playing in a brass band can take you places. My brother has twice toured internationally, played live on stage with The Goodies, had his life size image plastered on the side of a bus, had parts of cities shut down while he and the band are whisked through by secret police, appeared in a mini series and now tonight will play live on national television. It is a great shame that I can not, no matter how hard I try, accurately and reliably pitch tones on a brass instrument. My greatest musical skill is getting overtones on beer bottles.
Boli and brother are not the only ones being media whores today. Spencer will be interviewed on the radio. They will ask him questions, he will answer the questions and then he will play some songs.
I hope they are not all on at the same time, it could be awkward trying to listen to the radio and watch the television at the same time. I guess that's why they invented multimedia.
Listen to Spencer on FBI tonight. I'm unsure of the precise time but I'm going to tune from 7:50pm.
Boli and brother are not the only ones being media whores today. Spencer will be interviewed on the radio. They will ask him questions, he will answer the questions and then he will play some songs.
I hope they are not all on at the same time, it could be awkward trying to listen to the radio and watch the television at the same time. I guess that's why they invented multimedia.
Listen to Spencer on FBI tonight. I'm unsure of the precise time but I'm going to tune from 7:50pm.
Traumax, dress death, incredible happenings and the superness of Superman
One moment I was sitting in the Zammercarship happy after seeing The Maple Trail play at the Hopetoun and going to the gallery Serial Space, hungry for the late late dinner Superman and I were planning on having on the way back to The Peach. The next moment I was lying in an ambulance confused and hurting so profoundly that I did not know where exactly the hurt was coming from. At one point I heard a voice and said, "Oh, is Superman here too?". The ambulance lady told me yes he was but I forgot again and again and was surprised when he appeared by my side in my very own personal trauma room in the emergency part of RPA. I was sure that they were pretending, I could not remember being in a crash, they kept asking me how I opened the broken car door. I did not know that Superman had flung it open, not until he told me the next day.
Small notes of gratitude are scrolling through my still fuzzy and unattractively swollen head for:
Superman who was exceptional, even at 3am sitting in a plastic hospital chair at my side. He went out of his way to be extraordinary. For doing everything possible including making me go in the ambulance and stay in the hospital when I did not want to. For going to great lengths to print and post my manuscript that had to be posted, for wiping the terrible mascara trails from my face when I could not do it myself, for sitting in the hospital forever. For conjuring doctors to come and explain just what the hell was going on. For miraculously fetching hot hospital blankets fresh out of the drier when I was shaking with cold. For his powers of invincibility and not being horribly injured, for talking to everyone from police to parents and friends. For his concern for the occupants of the other car and his gratitude for everyone that helped. For holding amusing things in my field of vision when I could not move my head and could not stand staring at the one roof tile any longer. You're alright Superman.
The woman who lived on the corner where we crashed who came out with her dog, comfort and glasses of water while I sat on a wall and wondered what was happening.
The ambulance lady who was commanding and kind. She held me in a calm centre while police and people and firetrucks made chaos. She did not leave my side, sat by me and put a warm hand on mine every time I started to cry, even while she went about poking me and flashing lights in my eyes. In an amazing display of competence she took my arm softly and cannulated me while the ambulance was moving. She was stern and thorough and wonderful.
The emergency staff at RPA were mostly excellent, except for when six of them suddenly stopped doing all the odd things they were doing to me, all at once, rolled me on my side, cut off my clothes with scissors and let some doctor stick a finger in my bum. That was not excellent. It was also unexcellent when they held open my jaw for x-rays or when they bound my hands to my feet and pulled the ropes tight making my bones scream, or when the nurse pushed pain killers down my throat or when they insisted that the neck brace stay on. What was excellent was being voted favourite patient in emergency.
Grizelda stayed with me all day in the hospital and remedied my cracked lips with ointments, held things up into my limited field of vision for my amusement. For making tea and fetching pillows and telephoning my brother.
The Spatula for coming to the hospital and then missing her appointment to help Superman post my manuscript that had to be posted. For feeding the cat and marching to the shops to fetch me things.
My parents who miraculously appeared from far away. My Dad for waiting in the hospital and in my house, for talking with Superman and saying reassuring things. My Mum and her partner for coming armed with a teapot, two kinds of tea, a bottle of arnica and a fresh apple cake and talking to Superman and saying reassuring things.
Spencer for appearing with a pink shiny beruffled umbrella with whistle attached then sitting in The Peach listening to Superman and I tell and retell the same stories in a blurry fashion whilst high on painkillers.
Ron & Rita who telephoned me from a different hospital where they sit with Ronita and their brand new one day old baby which is so far named Untitled 2008. I am very upset that I did not get to see him this weekend, this tiny brand new person. Being smashed in a car is nothing compared to what just happened to Rita.
Sputnik and Boli for their messages of concern.
My dress, that served me well, I was wearing it the first time I met Superman, I had forgotten this until he pointed it out. My dress that went to parties, galleries, gigs, supermarkets and hospitals. I was going to have it altered next week because it has become too big. The first dress I ever bought for myself, I loved you so. RIP green jungle print 1950's party dress.
My painkillers for making typing and just plain being possible.
My spine for defying all things and not being broken despite the incredible concern of medical people. My left arm for coming out of the piece of car it was momentarily stuck in, this I remember.
I have this picture in my head of a smashed and shaken Superman coming back to the dark Peach alone in the early hours of the morning. How he walked alone and could not find a taxi for such a long time, opening the door to The Peach with my unfamiliar keys and feeling his way down the dark hallway then not going to bed but staying up and printing my manuscript. How he said he was shaking for hours. I would not like to have been him, I would not like to watch him flat and prone surrounded by doctors and lying forever in horrible pain. It is cold, uncomfortable and exhausting to wait in a hospital.
I do not remember the crash. Everything hurts except my right hand and left foot. My jaw is swollen down to my shoulder, I have no neck right now, none at all. My whole face retains a cartilage feeling that comes with a blow to the nose. My teeth, all of my teeth ache and ache and ache. I feel terrible, crushed, smashed, confused, unable to concentrate even on a movie. There is simple sadness and a base need for constant comfort. I cry unexpectedly, sleep unexpectedly, I have no desire to write these words but I type in an attempt to usher in some sense of normalcy and cast out determined surreality in this small window where the painkillers begin to work but have not yet rendered me unconscious.
In Z Block's final hour a man spilled red soda into my shoes
Spencer finished art, last night. He did it with guitars, two drummers, an occasional accordion and the raising of his right arm but right now I’m in Penrith RSL watching a big band. The women are dancing together, men all dead.
I avoided Z Block for a while, a year or two, feeling that it belonged to all the things I left behind when the great tide moved me East and away from this RSL with big band afternoons, shopping malls and heat haze. I came back for the last hurrah, the night the University of Western Sydney shut its art school doors.
Most of the time I think of Western Sydney in the frame of mind I reserve for being stung by bees, undergoing chemotherapy or being pulled out to sea in a rip but I have to tell you this big band is very good.
Z Block is a rat maze warehouse with toilets and one kind of ceiling higher than ladders. Whole glass walls fold and raise like sails with insides worse than weather like, greenhouse, submarine, Western Sydney maybe that’s why they’re shutting it down.
It is important to note that the trombone section just spelled out a giant letter ‘E’ using four trombones, this made the audience clap.
I cut beats with tennis balls in some sort of miniature satellite dish, the balls tracked by cameras, projected onto walls and generating sounds. I drank wine from a popular interactive fountain, saw brains floating in tanks, stood on a platform wearing headphones and a vest heavier than lead. I walked in spirals through diaphanous curtains, a jelly fish forest and the space where once there was a giant walk through vagina. Student art is always precisely what it should be but this is isn’t about the art its about the artists.
We all went, all except Boli who was tired from Jazzercise, the long haul west to where we first came across each other, in Z Block, O Building or the Swamp Bar or on the hills in Werro. The catering at the last ever Grad Show defied the temptation to go out with a bang and instead supplied us with baskets of sandwiches and two bath tubs full of beer. The big band is now playing Jump by Van Halen.
The woman who fell out the window with Spencer, Mona and Mr Hunter made some noises. Freddie Mercury Guy took to the stage with his band Numea, he was breaking for cigarettes in the middle of his set, rolling on the floor and screaming like Damo Suzuki.
It is difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling, memory confined to memory.
I might have been eight years old when they opened the University of Western Sydney. My father took us, my brother and I, to the grand opening. There were free balloons, sausage sandwiches and the biggest library I had ever seen. Dad stood above us on the big set of stairs with the light looming behind him. He told us about the necessity of this university, the great hope for the future, access to education for everyone no matter where you live. He talked about the tyranny of distance and explained the concept of elitism then looked up at the ceilings with a kind of reverence muttering about brutalist architecture. I stood three steps down clutching my balloon and staring about with a sort of wonder.
Fourteen years later I walked down those same set of steps and took my place in the queue outside the co-op bookshop, clutching my first ever compulsory book list, a small sense of hope and a free balloon. Nine years after that I stood there holding half a sandwich, a free can of beer and a mobile phone.
The problem is that this university is mine, I belong to it. I have belonged to it since that day on the stairs but it is very difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling. At the end of the night a man pulled down the folding glass wall, the lights went off and there was nothing left to do but leave.
(article about shutting down Z Block)
I avoided Z Block for a while, a year or two, feeling that it belonged to all the things I left behind when the great tide moved me East and away from this RSL with big band afternoons, shopping malls and heat haze. I came back for the last hurrah, the night the University of Western Sydney shut its art school doors.
Most of the time I think of Western Sydney in the frame of mind I reserve for being stung by bees, undergoing chemotherapy or being pulled out to sea in a rip but I have to tell you this big band is very good.
Z Block is a rat maze warehouse with toilets and one kind of ceiling higher than ladders. Whole glass walls fold and raise like sails with insides worse than weather like, greenhouse, submarine, Western Sydney maybe that’s why they’re shutting it down.
It is important to note that the trombone section just spelled out a giant letter ‘E’ using four trombones, this made the audience clap.
I cut beats with tennis balls in some sort of miniature satellite dish, the balls tracked by cameras, projected onto walls and generating sounds. I drank wine from a popular interactive fountain, saw brains floating in tanks, stood on a platform wearing headphones and a vest heavier than lead. I walked in spirals through diaphanous curtains, a jelly fish forest and the space where once there was a giant walk through vagina. Student art is always precisely what it should be but this is isn’t about the art its about the artists.
We all went, all except Boli who was tired from Jazzercise, the long haul west to where we first came across each other, in Z Block, O Building or the Swamp Bar or on the hills in Werro. The catering at the last ever Grad Show defied the temptation to go out with a bang and instead supplied us with baskets of sandwiches and two bath tubs full of beer. The big band is now playing Jump by Van Halen.
The woman who fell out the window with Spencer, Mona and Mr Hunter made some noises. Freddie Mercury Guy took to the stage with his band Numea, he was breaking for cigarettes in the middle of his set, rolling on the floor and screaming like Damo Suzuki.
It is difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling, memory confined to memory.
I might have been eight years old when they opened the University of Western Sydney. My father took us, my brother and I, to the grand opening. There were free balloons, sausage sandwiches and the biggest library I had ever seen. Dad stood above us on the big set of stairs with the light looming behind him. He told us about the necessity of this university, the great hope for the future, access to education for everyone no matter where you live. He talked about the tyranny of distance and explained the concept of elitism then looked up at the ceilings with a kind of reverence muttering about brutalist architecture. I stood three steps down clutching my balloon and staring about with a sort of wonder.
Fourteen years later I walked down those same set of steps and took my place in the queue outside the co-op bookshop, clutching my first ever compulsory book list, a small sense of hope and a free balloon. Nine years after that I stood there holding half a sandwich, a free can of beer and a mobile phone.
The problem is that this university is mine, I belong to it. I have belonged to it since that day on the stairs but it is very difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling. At the end of the night a man pulled down the folding glass wall, the lights went off and there was nothing left to do but leave.
(article about shutting down Z Block)
Insensible
Superman was walking up and down the hallway with a raw egg in a small white bowl first thing this morning. He said "I've got this egg. Do you sometimes wish your surname was Wow?", I do so I nodded and turned left into the bathroom, Superman continued on his way down the hall, this is unrelated to my party.
At one point late on Saturday night I feared for the lives of everybody. Superman and Spencer had linked arms and were dancing in circles at an alarming velocity, jumping over furniture and narrowly missing Robert and his snare drum. Robert, Madam Squeeze and Boli were cranking out some kind of Freylekh on drum, accordion and clarinet. The Peach Deck was in danger of crashing to the ground killing everybody at once or at least horribly maiming people with large splintery bits of wood that poking right through their middles, that would teach them not to stamp their feet enthusiastically to Gypsy music whilst seated drunkenly on The Peach Deck. The stamping was repeated, the music ranged from the bizarre to the sublime but the deck and I survived.
I have never thrown a party by myself before, there has always been someone, a brother, a housemate or a partner. I anticipated that nobody would come, not just for me. I had planned in my mind how I would walk slowly from one end of The Peach Deck to the other packing away chairs and taking lanterns down from the trees. I would put away the clean glasses and plates and lock the front door. I would shower and turn on my electric blanket. I would wake in the morning diminished. I did not anticipate that every single person would turn up with a bottle under their arm and a smile on their face. I did not anticipate that sitting on a cushion on a milk crate under the curved branch of a mulberry tree I could look in any direction and see someone that I loved.
A party is a wondrous thing where it is appropriate to laugh or sing or dance or jump around for no reason and instead of staring at you weirdly people join in. I drew sharks and aeroplanes on the fridge with Ronita, I danced like pirate with Madam Squeeze, I offered round warm things that were thoughtfully provided by Rita, I showed everyone my library, my bedside table and my brand new chair, I talked and laughed and ran around waving my arms with glee.
I wanted to draw bricks in the gaps between the shoulders of my friends until I was fortress. I wanted to spin slowly in the centre of the deck until everyone I love blurred into lines of colour and it was all I could see. I didn't manage any spinning but I'm not sure that I needed to.
At one point late on Saturday night I feared for the lives of everybody. Superman and Spencer had linked arms and were dancing in circles at an alarming velocity, jumping over furniture and narrowly missing Robert and his snare drum. Robert, Madam Squeeze and Boli were cranking out some kind of Freylekh on drum, accordion and clarinet. The Peach Deck was in danger of crashing to the ground killing everybody at once or at least horribly maiming people with large splintery bits of wood that poking right through their middles, that would teach them not to stamp their feet enthusiastically to Gypsy music whilst seated drunkenly on The Peach Deck. The stamping was repeated, the music ranged from the bizarre to the sublime but the deck and I survived.
I have never thrown a party by myself before, there has always been someone, a brother, a housemate or a partner. I anticipated that nobody would come, not just for me. I had planned in my mind how I would walk slowly from one end of The Peach Deck to the other packing away chairs and taking lanterns down from the trees. I would put away the clean glasses and plates and lock the front door. I would shower and turn on my electric blanket. I would wake in the morning diminished. I did not anticipate that every single person would turn up with a bottle under their arm and a smile on their face. I did not anticipate that sitting on a cushion on a milk crate under the curved branch of a mulberry tree I could look in any direction and see someone that I loved.
A party is a wondrous thing where it is appropriate to laugh or sing or dance or jump around for no reason and instead of staring at you weirdly people join in. I drew sharks and aeroplanes on the fridge with Ronita, I danced like pirate with Madam Squeeze, I offered round warm things that were thoughtfully provided by Rita, I showed everyone my library, my bedside table and my brand new chair, I talked and laughed and ran around waving my arms with glee.
I wanted to draw bricks in the gaps between the shoulders of my friends until I was fortress. I wanted to spin slowly in the centre of the deck until everyone I love blurred into lines of colour and it was all I could see. I didn't manage any spinning but I'm not sure that I needed to.
I'll be drinking til we meet again
I'm not going to walk you through this. The inbox inside my telephone is empty, that's the only thing that's empty. The bathtub is full of DVD's there are office chairs on wheels in my kitchen, the table is piled higher than the top of my head with books. I tried and failed to access my kettle and there is nowhere to have a little sit down. I am sharing my bed with two boxes, one basket, seven books and a plate with the corners of toast, I ate the rest of that toast on Friday morning.
I still don't know what happened really. I know that it definitely started with condiments and now everything is upside down or in the wrong room, this is a not a metaphor. The cat is confused and somebody put their sneakers in the pantry. Last week I decided I would write cover versions of poems in short story form. I am sick of the musicians and their freedom, Grizelda made herself pasta bake for dinner and The Spatula ate cereal for breakfast every morning. This week I decided to sit sensibly in my warm jumper and write my essay and The Peachettes systematically dismantled my carefully assembled still life.
Superman canceled cause he's sick and I was disproportionately upset, somebody has filled the hallway with chests of drawers. I was on my way home from an emergency trip to Ikea, I was pushing a trolley with my impulse purchase white steel locker, two lampshades and one scented candle. I was trying not to vomit a one dollar hotdog and lingonberry soda in the carpark. I was disproportionately upset and wishing it was possible to wind back two days and stand in a house without a wardrobe in the middle of the bathroom.
My brother arrived and he smirked at the chaos, said he definitely did not want to be helping with this shit so we walked to a cafe and waited for Boli. Boli told me he wondered what in the hell I was thinking when I first told him I was moving into a sharehouse in the Inner West. He looked at me and he was thinking about the horizon. There are pillows in the kitchen sink.
The Hoptoun, geological anomaly, guaranteed to be at least thirty degrees in there, no matter how cold it is outside. Fault lines and lava. Spencer took to the stage and three songs in I thought I have had enough of this shit. They've got everything we ever needed, songs, presence, skills, magic, they even have the fucking trousers.
I'll tell you about my bias. I expect more from my friends, I expect rooms to explode and audiences set on fire or I cringe and that is why I am sick of this shit. Gig after gig after gig Spencer's band, The Holy Soul, cancel sentences in my brain. They shake out reason and my arm rises unconsciously with the heel of my hand pressed out in reverent salute while the crowd surges around me calling for more. I'm sick of this shit where Spencer packs venues and rolls light and the hard edge of rock right through the middle of every fucking person there then wakes up on Monday morning and goes to his shit job.
So I'm standing on the footpath outside The Hopetoun sucking down cigarettes and pink lemondae with Boli and my brother. Up walks Artboy and fuck me if this day just didn't get worse. This is how it used to be me, my brother, Boli and Artboy at Spencer's gig but that was before The Holy Soul were good and Spencer was just trying on his rock face to see how it fit, that was in The Swamp Bar at uni, that was before I lived in a house with filing cabinets and oil paintings on the front verandah.
Something's shaken loose and I'm rattle walking in circles again. My essay seems fucked beyond redemption, fail this and I have to pay back the grant money. My home has vanished and I'm living in that junkyard from The Labyrinth, Artboy has pulled off my permanent bandages and I'm a walking, shaking, heartbeat away from panic. I sent Artboy a text message as I watched him cross the road and walk down some dark street. I was pressed against the wall of The Hopetoun standing next to Madam Squeeze, surrounded by friends, flanked by friends, I was standing in the middle of my very own Roman Turtle formation but the words still came out and now the inbox in my telephone is empty and there's six mugs in my sock drawer.
I still don't know what happened really. I know that it definitely started with condiments and now everything is upside down or in the wrong room, this is a not a metaphor. The cat is confused and somebody put their sneakers in the pantry. Last week I decided I would write cover versions of poems in short story form. I am sick of the musicians and their freedom, Grizelda made herself pasta bake for dinner and The Spatula ate cereal for breakfast every morning. This week I decided to sit sensibly in my warm jumper and write my essay and The Peachettes systematically dismantled my carefully assembled still life.
Superman canceled cause he's sick and I was disproportionately upset, somebody has filled the hallway with chests of drawers. I was on my way home from an emergency trip to Ikea, I was pushing a trolley with my impulse purchase white steel locker, two lampshades and one scented candle. I was trying not to vomit a one dollar hotdog and lingonberry soda in the carpark. I was disproportionately upset and wishing it was possible to wind back two days and stand in a house without a wardrobe in the middle of the bathroom.
My brother arrived and he smirked at the chaos, said he definitely did not want to be helping with this shit so we walked to a cafe and waited for Boli. Boli told me he wondered what in the hell I was thinking when I first told him I was moving into a sharehouse in the Inner West. He looked at me and he was thinking about the horizon. There are pillows in the kitchen sink.
The Hoptoun, geological anomaly, guaranteed to be at least thirty degrees in there, no matter how cold it is outside. Fault lines and lava. Spencer took to the stage and three songs in I thought I have had enough of this shit. They've got everything we ever needed, songs, presence, skills, magic, they even have the fucking trousers.
I'll tell you about my bias. I expect more from my friends, I expect rooms to explode and audiences set on fire or I cringe and that is why I am sick of this shit. Gig after gig after gig Spencer's band, The Holy Soul, cancel sentences in my brain. They shake out reason and my arm rises unconsciously with the heel of my hand pressed out in reverent salute while the crowd surges around me calling for more. I'm sick of this shit where Spencer packs venues and rolls light and the hard edge of rock right through the middle of every fucking person there then wakes up on Monday morning and goes to his shit job.
So I'm standing on the footpath outside The Hopetoun sucking down cigarettes and pink lemondae with Boli and my brother. Up walks Artboy and fuck me if this day just didn't get worse. This is how it used to be me, my brother, Boli and Artboy at Spencer's gig but that was before The Holy Soul were good and Spencer was just trying on his rock face to see how it fit, that was in The Swamp Bar at uni, that was before I lived in a house with filing cabinets and oil paintings on the front verandah.
Something's shaken loose and I'm rattle walking in circles again. My essay seems fucked beyond redemption, fail this and I have to pay back the grant money. My home has vanished and I'm living in that junkyard from The Labyrinth, Artboy has pulled off my permanent bandages and I'm a walking, shaking, heartbeat away from panic. I sent Artboy a text message as I watched him cross the road and walk down some dark street. I was pressed against the wall of The Hopetoun standing next to Madam Squeeze, surrounded by friends, flanked by friends, I was standing in the middle of my very own Roman Turtle formation but the words still came out and now the inbox in my telephone is empty and there's six mugs in my sock drawer.
Failed ant farmer
I spent more time than is sensible ransacking the house for drugs. Oh I found some stuff but it wasn't mine and it wasn't what I was after. What I wanted was a Camberwell Carrot. I wanted to do something to my brain but what I found was five millimetres of a stem wrapped in foil with three bits of green leaf so small it was virtually undetectable. I stuffed it in the end of half a cigarette I found in an ashtray then smoked it. Here's what happened. I stayed up way too late watching telly and not doing anything then I ate two forkfuls of cold spaghetti followed by half a spoon of peanut butter. My mouth turned into a bad cafe floor so I smoked another cigarette, in the shower.
There was a time when everybody was always high. There was a time when I could send a text message asking for drugs and almost immediately my lounge room would be full of people, with drugs. I'm not talking vest wearing junkies sitting in the corner facing the wall all night. I'm talking about happy boys with smokeless pipes and insatiable urges for ice cream. Tonight one message went unanswered so I rang my brother and he said yeah he might be able to hook me up if I'm not in a hurry but what he was really saying was no.
I want to drive around in my shitbox car all day. In my pyjamas. I want to get fucked up and ease this dis ease. I don't know where its coming from or what its supposed to be doing. This morning I was happy as a clam watching Boli walk across the stage in his academic gown throwing out the kind of glow that hurts your cheeks and busts your heart with pride. This morning I was walking around my university campus crunching knowledge with my flat shoes trailing years and the sure flag that I did something.
This evening I was sitting in an armchair staring at a virtual chess board spitting with fury at the fuck off metaphor of it all. I know how the pieces move, I know the aim but I'm new to this game. I can see disaster coming but don't know how to stop it. Every move feels defensive and every now and then I see all the gaps in my half baked strategy and just like that I wanted out. Dis ease is sitting in my window. It must be cause there's been a change in the light.
There was a time when everybody was always high. There was a time when I could send a text message asking for drugs and almost immediately my lounge room would be full of people, with drugs. I'm not talking vest wearing junkies sitting in the corner facing the wall all night. I'm talking about happy boys with smokeless pipes and insatiable urges for ice cream. Tonight one message went unanswered so I rang my brother and he said yeah he might be able to hook me up if I'm not in a hurry but what he was really saying was no.
I want to drive around in my shitbox car all day. In my pyjamas. I want to get fucked up and ease this dis ease. I don't know where its coming from or what its supposed to be doing. This morning I was happy as a clam watching Boli walk across the stage in his academic gown throwing out the kind of glow that hurts your cheeks and busts your heart with pride. This morning I was walking around my university campus crunching knowledge with my flat shoes trailing years and the sure flag that I did something.
This evening I was sitting in an armchair staring at a virtual chess board spitting with fury at the fuck off metaphor of it all. I know how the pieces move, I know the aim but I'm new to this game. I can see disaster coming but don't know how to stop it. Every move feels defensive and every now and then I see all the gaps in my half baked strategy and just like that I wanted out. Dis ease is sitting in my window. It must be cause there's been a change in the light.
Definitive
Special request. A definitions list for the cast of characters in Slammatown. Easy. This I can do. Much simpler than trying to define just how exactly that snorkeling makes me happy or why today when I sat on the edge of this continent with the lemon light behind me and nothing, oh nothing but that ocean, that I felt stitches pull tighter and empty places pop and vanish. I used to be scared of the edge of this land.
Not in any order.
Foto: Superman's friend. I like him, he lives near me, he seems kind and the verge of something, I'm not sure what but I'll stick around to find out.
Gemma:
Author of Gempires, owner of Cooper the small poodle. Gemma lives in Melbourne and visits Sydney occasionally. Gemma is super in all possible ways. Gemma is an honourary Peachette.
The Peachettes:
The Peachettes are residents or ex-residents of The Peach (my house).
The Spatula:
My friend for almost twenty years and a current Peachette. She is small. We met on the first day of high school. The Spatula sings, paints, massages and designs my zine "Ocarina". The Spatula is a necessary part of my context.
Leurf:
Cousin to The Spatula Leurf abandoned The Peach (she is still a Peachette) to pursue her studies in Perth which is a fucking long way away. Leurf is unpredictable, fantastic and stunning inside and out.
Grizelda:
Younger sister (8 years younger) of The Spatula and a current Peachette. Grizelda is an excellent chef but does not like to have hobbies. Grizelda is rapidly becoming a good friend.
Ron:
I like Ron, he's pretty tops.
My brother:
No explanation necessary. He is tall plays trombone professionally and has an unnatural love for all things flamingo.
Spencer:
Spencer is the walking talking home of rock. He fronts the band The Holy Soul. He sometimes wears a cowboy hat. Spencer went to university with my brother and Boli. His main squeeze is Madam Squeeze.
Madam Squeeze:
Madam Squeeze can often be found busking with her accordion on King St. She is a source of light.
Robert:
He is a poet. He often eats toast during the day, he has a plant on his desk called Sylvester the Abject Plant. He is quite excellent.
Boli:
I shared a house with Boli at university. He is a music therapist. He plays all the instruments to an excellent standard. He likes hats is recently married and is the man I phone to ask if I am being a spaz or not. He always tells me if I am being a spaz.
Mr X:
A friend of Elliot's. I don't see him very often. Sometimes I see him on King St, he does not appear to like me very much.
The Cowboy:
Lives next door. He sometimes sits out the back in a cowboy hat playing cowboy songs on his guitar.
Creamboy:
Author of More Boring Rants from Anonymous Eccentrics. Creamboy is Superman's brother.
Superman:
This is what I used to think about Superman: I high three Superman, he is excellent. He has a way of not letting me panic, the best way to describe is that he makes me stand on a platform which is higher than where I normally stand and I can see more, further forward, further back and with some clarity. He is immensely silly and quite possibly the most stubborn person I have ever met. When he makes a decision you can hear the clang of an iron gate dropping somewhere in the distance. We wrote a song. Superman is Creamboy's brother.
Now I don't think about Superman at all, I do sometimes think about Superman movies but that is not the same thing.
Elliot:
I once thought I loved Elliot. I fucked him more than once with little sexual success. He used to be an excellent friend. I haven't heard from him since I told him I wouldn't see him if he's drunk. He's back in rehab.
Artboy:
The ex. After seven odd years of living together he developed a major mental illness. He had a manic episode and literally went screaming out into the night. He did not come back. This is how our relationship ended. This is how my heart fractured. I sank to the floor and it took me a while to stand back up.
Benito Di Fonzo:
A man that I can not talk to because every time I see him my head empties of all words and I stand there like a fucktard. Once I went to a party with him and set my hair on fire in the bathroom. This was not on purpose. Benito is the author of Benito Di Fonzo Jr & The Loneliness of the Long Distance Writer.
Slammas:
My family.
Mum, her partner (I don't have a name for her on this blog), my brother, Dad, his wife (I don't have a name for her on this blog). Various relatives occasionally pop up, very occasionally.
Sylvia:
Gemma reminded me that I have not written a definition for her. Initially I did not use the cat's name in order to protect her privacy however I have since realised that this is ridiculous. The cat does not have any friends with the internet. Sylvia is a Norwegian Forest Cat, she is four years old.
Zissou:
I met him at a party, at my house on new year's eve, he stayed the night. We met for drinks, he stayed the night. He said "are we going to do this again?" I said "call me sometime" he said "I will". He called, we met another two times. He is a good man. He moved interstate for work, this made me sad.
The Beautiful Boys:
A bunch of beautiful boys of a literary bent. I admire them greatly for their verve, intellect, joy and youth.
Failed Ant Farmers:
Members are Superman, Spencer and Madam Squeeze and me.
There is more but really today I cannot be bothered.
I think this is all. I should make links but oh I am lazy, so lazy. I am tired from swimming in Clovelly Bay for hours on end. The ocean is battering this continent so a sheltered beach was necessary but still, it was the edge of things.
Not in any order.
Foto: Superman's friend. I like him, he lives near me, he seems kind and the verge of something, I'm not sure what but I'll stick around to find out.
Gemma:
Author of Gempires, owner of Cooper the small poodle. Gemma lives in Melbourne and visits Sydney occasionally. Gemma is super in all possible ways. Gemma is an honourary Peachette.
The Peachettes:
The Peachettes are residents or ex-residents of The Peach (my house).
The Spatula:
My friend for almost twenty years and a current Peachette. She is small. We met on the first day of high school. The Spatula sings, paints, massages and designs my zine "Ocarina". The Spatula is a necessary part of my context.
Leurf:
Cousin to The Spatula Leurf abandoned The Peach (she is still a Peachette) to pursue her studies in Perth which is a fucking long way away. Leurf is unpredictable, fantastic and stunning inside and out.
Grizelda:
Younger sister (8 years younger) of The Spatula and a current Peachette. Grizelda is an excellent chef but does not like to have hobbies. Grizelda is rapidly becoming a good friend.
Ron:
I like Ron, he's pretty tops.
My brother:
No explanation necessary. He is tall plays trombone professionally and has an unnatural love for all things flamingo.
Spencer:
Spencer is the walking talking home of rock. He fronts the band The Holy Soul. He sometimes wears a cowboy hat. Spencer went to university with my brother and Boli. His main squeeze is Madam Squeeze.
Madam Squeeze:
Madam Squeeze can often be found busking with her accordion on King St. She is a source of light.
Robert:
He is a poet. He often eats toast during the day, he has a plant on his desk called Sylvester the Abject Plant. He is quite excellent.
Boli:
I shared a house with Boli at university. He is a music therapist. He plays all the instruments to an excellent standard. He likes hats is recently married and is the man I phone to ask if I am being a spaz or not. He always tells me if I am being a spaz.
Mr X:
A friend of Elliot's. I don't see him very often. Sometimes I see him on King St, he does not appear to like me very much.
The Cowboy:
Lives next door. He sometimes sits out the back in a cowboy hat playing cowboy songs on his guitar.
Creamboy:
Author of More Boring Rants from Anonymous Eccentrics. Creamboy is Superman's brother.
Superman:
This is what I used to think about Superman: I high three Superman, he is excellent. He has a way of not letting me panic, the best way to describe is that he makes me stand on a platform which is higher than where I normally stand and I can see more, further forward, further back and with some clarity. He is immensely silly and quite possibly the most stubborn person I have ever met. When he makes a decision you can hear the clang of an iron gate dropping somewhere in the distance. We wrote a song. Superman is Creamboy's brother.
Now I don't think about Superman at all, I do sometimes think about Superman movies but that is not the same thing.
Elliot:
I once thought I loved Elliot. I fucked him more than once with little sexual success. He used to be an excellent friend. I haven't heard from him since I told him I wouldn't see him if he's drunk. He's back in rehab.
Artboy:
The ex. After seven odd years of living together he developed a major mental illness. He had a manic episode and literally went screaming out into the night. He did not come back. This is how our relationship ended. This is how my heart fractured. I sank to the floor and it took me a while to stand back up.
Benito Di Fonzo:
A man that I can not talk to because every time I see him my head empties of all words and I stand there like a fucktard. Once I went to a party with him and set my hair on fire in the bathroom. This was not on purpose. Benito is the author of Benito Di Fonzo Jr & The Loneliness of the Long Distance Writer.
Slammas:
My family.
Mum, her partner (I don't have a name for her on this blog), my brother, Dad, his wife (I don't have a name for her on this blog). Various relatives occasionally pop up, very occasionally.
Sylvia:
Gemma reminded me that I have not written a definition for her. Initially I did not use the cat's name in order to protect her privacy however I have since realised that this is ridiculous. The cat does not have any friends with the internet. Sylvia is a Norwegian Forest Cat, she is four years old.
Zissou:
I met him at a party, at my house on new year's eve, he stayed the night. We met for drinks, he stayed the night. He said "are we going to do this again?" I said "call me sometime" he said "I will". He called, we met another two times. He is a good man. He moved interstate for work, this made me sad.
The Beautiful Boys:
A bunch of beautiful boys of a literary bent. I admire them greatly for their verve, intellect, joy and youth.
Failed Ant Farmers:
Members are Superman, Spencer and Madam Squeeze and me.
There is more but really today I cannot be bothered.
I think this is all. I should make links but oh I am lazy, so lazy. I am tired from swimming in Clovelly Bay for hours on end. The ocean is battering this continent so a sheltered beach was necessary but still, it was the edge of things.
I'm a fucktard or I'm so lonely I could die or how do you accidentally fall in love it doesn't seem very sensible to do that sort of thing
And so is Elliot. I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time, the other bits of time I am determinedly doing the wrong thing, on purpose, whilst telling myself it will all be fine in the end so this time I have deleted all of Elliot's phone numbers and no, I don't remember them, not even a little bit.
I'm still sick. I'm not getting much better, hardly better at all and I've made the decision that if it turns out that I am after all suffering from something terrible then I will just let it kill me. Elliot says that the Dale he knows will simply rise to any challenge and find yet more reserves of strength but like I said, Elliot is a fucktard.
Elliot feels bad about the shagging, says it won't happen again. Says that its just not working for him because it doesn't fit with his choice to be sober and celibate.
My problem is a very simple one. I accidentally love him. I like the way he stands when he chops vegetables and I want to have him chopping vegetables in my kitchen every day I until I die. He lives in rehab, he is literally living the one day at a time dream, he is determined right down to his last molecule to do whatever it takes to live sober. Whatever it takes is living one day at a time and keeping things simple. Having a relationship is complicated so its just not on his list of options. This is the simple problem.
The cure is more complicated. Whenever I imagine growing older and living in a different house it is with Elliot. My imagined future is Elliot-based or its white void and I couldn't be angrier about it if I tried.
I am the person who has imagined, for my whole life, living and writing and working and doing things all by myself or with a cat. Not once did I dream of a big white wedding. I only dreamed of my book launch parties and how fabulous I would be at my book launch parties but now I have this clouded vision of an emptiness and a meaninglessness.
I have developed a tangible need to be loved. I am now a person who needs to be loved but I am not loved. My family is not a close family, my friends are not the kind that will just come and be with me. I have become lonely and isolated. I did try and fill my life with interesting things and people but the very moment I became ill it all fell away and I lay for days and days without signs of love or care from the people in my life. It is all a construct. When Artboy went mental Boli told me to keep busy, so I did. I enrolled in my community college, went to yoga classes, took guitar lessons, went to poetry things and gigs and arranged to meet friends as often as possible but it was all so constructed. Infrastructure will collapse.
I'm not imagining the possibility of a lonely future because it has already begun. It does not matter if I wear my nicest outfit and feel very happy and throw myself into life. Its like my universe has run out of people to offer me and finally finally I get it. Elliot will not be chopping vegetables in my kitchen and it doesn't matter how I feel about it, its not going to happen.
I'm still sick. I'm not getting much better, hardly better at all and I've made the decision that if it turns out that I am after all suffering from something terrible then I will just let it kill me. Elliot says that the Dale he knows will simply rise to any challenge and find yet more reserves of strength but like I said, Elliot is a fucktard.
Elliot feels bad about the shagging, says it won't happen again. Says that its just not working for him because it doesn't fit with his choice to be sober and celibate.
My problem is a very simple one. I accidentally love him. I like the way he stands when he chops vegetables and I want to have him chopping vegetables in my kitchen every day I until I die. He lives in rehab, he is literally living the one day at a time dream, he is determined right down to his last molecule to do whatever it takes to live sober. Whatever it takes is living one day at a time and keeping things simple. Having a relationship is complicated so its just not on his list of options. This is the simple problem.
The cure is more complicated. Whenever I imagine growing older and living in a different house it is with Elliot. My imagined future is Elliot-based or its white void and I couldn't be angrier about it if I tried.
I am the person who has imagined, for my whole life, living and writing and working and doing things all by myself or with a cat. Not once did I dream of a big white wedding. I only dreamed of my book launch parties and how fabulous I would be at my book launch parties but now I have this clouded vision of an emptiness and a meaninglessness.
I have developed a tangible need to be loved. I am now a person who needs to be loved but I am not loved. My family is not a close family, my friends are not the kind that will just come and be with me. I have become lonely and isolated. I did try and fill my life with interesting things and people but the very moment I became ill it all fell away and I lay for days and days without signs of love or care from the people in my life. It is all a construct. When Artboy went mental Boli told me to keep busy, so I did. I enrolled in my community college, went to yoga classes, took guitar lessons, went to poetry things and gigs and arranged to meet friends as often as possible but it was all so constructed. Infrastructure will collapse.
I'm not imagining the possibility of a lonely future because it has already begun. It does not matter if I wear my nicest outfit and feel very happy and throw myself into life. Its like my universe has run out of people to offer me and finally finally I get it. Elliot will not be chopping vegetables in my kitchen and it doesn't matter how I feel about it, its not going to happen.
Aim for the apple on my head
Robert suggested that in order to boost my reader statistics I should not blog for a few days in a treat them mean keep them keen sort of campaign so I didn't blog for a day and then I thought to hell with it. I don't care a fig for statistics.
Lately I have been thinking about something I call my Death List. This is a list of people that I would like someone to telephone and inform them of my death, when I die and not right now, I am not planning to do an Elvis (the other Elvis, Elvis Presley).
The first problem is who to give the Death List to. Should it be The Spatula? She would probably be one of the first people to notice that I am dead because she is my housemate and because we have been friends for nearly twenty years she knows almost everybody in my life or at least knows all about them. However The Spatula might be upset if I died and not like to be left with a big list of people to telephone, she would also be busy advertising for a new housemate.
Perhaps Boli would be a good Death List person. He is generally very calm, he is very good at talking to people about the recently deceased, an occupational hazard of his, and he is extremely personable. However he has already agreed to take The Cat in the event of my demise and I am wondering if two items of responsibility is too much to ask from one friend.
My brother has a tiny tendency to not cope with things and so he is ruled out, he would also be very busy with my mother because she has also has a tiny non-coping streak and I can imagine them both in her kitchen being made to sit down and drink cups of tea. Other people would be making the tea.
My Father would not like this task. When his mother died he woke my brother and I up and then he went and sat in front of the television and ate chocolate ice cream straight from the container, not a bowl in sight. He stayed this way for some time, he was wearing black cotton pyjamas, leather slippers and his cotton dressing gown. I can't remember where my mother was.
Ron would be ideal because he loves telephoning people and talking about things, particularly recent events. However Ron is very busy and actually, maybe Ron would be ideal. I have known Ron almost as long as I have known The Spatula, he is good friends with my brother and my even be able to make my mother and my brother sit down and drink tea. Rita would also be good at this. I will give this some thought.
The second problem is who to put on the list. I don't want to be presumptuous and assume that people would want to know if I died, that would be embarrassing. What if they didn't care at all and it was inconvenient for them to have had the conversation and quite annoying for whoever was working their way down the list. For example what about Creamboy? I don't know him very well but I am considering beginning to think about counting him as a potential friend. Would he want to know if I died? I don't think it would matter terribly to him terribly much at this point.
I'm going to need to think about this some more, perhaps the Death List should be a who's who in the life of Dale Slamma. An exclusive inner circle of people of thought, friendship and substance. I will use a large sheet of cardboard and my best metallic crayons, it will be something to behold.
Lately I have been thinking about something I call my Death List. This is a list of people that I would like someone to telephone and inform them of my death, when I die and not right now, I am not planning to do an Elvis (the other Elvis, Elvis Presley).
The first problem is who to give the Death List to. Should it be The Spatula? She would probably be one of the first people to notice that I am dead because she is my housemate and because we have been friends for nearly twenty years she knows almost everybody in my life or at least knows all about them. However The Spatula might be upset if I died and not like to be left with a big list of people to telephone, she would also be busy advertising for a new housemate.
Perhaps Boli would be a good Death List person. He is generally very calm, he is very good at talking to people about the recently deceased, an occupational hazard of his, and he is extremely personable. However he has already agreed to take The Cat in the event of my demise and I am wondering if two items of responsibility is too much to ask from one friend.
My brother has a tiny tendency to not cope with things and so he is ruled out, he would also be very busy with my mother because she has also has a tiny non-coping streak and I can imagine them both in her kitchen being made to sit down and drink cups of tea. Other people would be making the tea.
My Father would not like this task. When his mother died he woke my brother and I up and then he went and sat in front of the television and ate chocolate ice cream straight from the container, not a bowl in sight. He stayed this way for some time, he was wearing black cotton pyjamas, leather slippers and his cotton dressing gown. I can't remember where my mother was.
Ron would be ideal because he loves telephoning people and talking about things, particularly recent events. However Ron is very busy and actually, maybe Ron would be ideal. I have known Ron almost as long as I have known The Spatula, he is good friends with my brother and my even be able to make my mother and my brother sit down and drink tea. Rita would also be good at this. I will give this some thought.
The second problem is who to put on the list. I don't want to be presumptuous and assume that people would want to know if I died, that would be embarrassing. What if they didn't care at all and it was inconvenient for them to have had the conversation and quite annoying for whoever was working their way down the list. For example what about Creamboy? I don't know him very well but I am considering beginning to think about counting him as a potential friend. Would he want to know if I died? I don't think it would matter terribly to him terribly much at this point.
I'm going to need to think about this some more, perhaps the Death List should be a who's who in the life of Dale Slamma. An exclusive inner circle of people of thought, friendship and substance. I will use a large sheet of cardboard and my best metallic crayons, it will be something to behold.
Eliza Donnithorne's got nothing on me
Aeon, cereal, eye, gnome, hour, knife, pseudonym, xanadu. These are all words that sound like they start with a different letter. By the end of the evening I aim to have an entire alphabet. I should point out that I stole this idea, Robert was telling me that his brother was talking about it but hadn't yet done it. I am going to beat him. I will probably never meet him but I still want to beat him. My alphabet will be first.
Tim Rogers walked past Gemma today. This is clearly very unfair as she does not share my views on aging rockers. Boli sent me a text today saying that he is getting married in one month. It is a family only wedding. I am not invited and this makes me inexplicably teary. I do not wish to talk about it in fact I have not even phoned him.
I understand that it is his wedding and if he wants to have a very small family only wedding then I should be saying things like "That's fine. Its your wedding, you should do whatever you want". I am sick of saying that. It is a lie.
I want to go to Boli's wedding so much that I cried. This is unusual behaviour. Weddings are ordinarily very boring and you have to eat horrible things and wear stupid clothes and sit around in a room painted peach being polite to fucktards for hours on end. The only real benefit of weddings is wedding cake icing. You can generally smuggle several pieces over to your table and peel off the icing. The unwanted yucky cake can then be neatly wrapped in a napkin and placed on a dirty plate or in an extreme situation in a handily concealed plant.
I always lie about weddings and end up saying things like " I am happy to wear the maroon lace sack of crap and then pose for photographs" or "Why on earth would I mind that you invited my ex from high school to your wedding? I don't care at all that once he had non-consensual sex with me". Lies, lies and more lies. I am a compulsive wedding liar but worse than that is I plan to continue being a wedding liar. I can't see any way around it, people become odd about their weddings.
I know eight people that are getting married in the next few months. They are all younger than me. I am officially a spinster. Left on the shelf. Crazy cat lady. Reject of society. Wild, lonely and free.
I am spending the evening writing an alphabet of words that sound like they start with different letters than they do. Pneumatic.
Tim Rogers walked past Gemma today. This is clearly very unfair as she does not share my views on aging rockers. Boli sent me a text today saying that he is getting married in one month. It is a family only wedding. I am not invited and this makes me inexplicably teary. I do not wish to talk about it in fact I have not even phoned him.
I understand that it is his wedding and if he wants to have a very small family only wedding then I should be saying things like "That's fine. Its your wedding, you should do whatever you want". I am sick of saying that. It is a lie.
I want to go to Boli's wedding so much that I cried. This is unusual behaviour. Weddings are ordinarily very boring and you have to eat horrible things and wear stupid clothes and sit around in a room painted peach being polite to fucktards for hours on end. The only real benefit of weddings is wedding cake icing. You can generally smuggle several pieces over to your table and peel off the icing. The unwanted yucky cake can then be neatly wrapped in a napkin and placed on a dirty plate or in an extreme situation in a handily concealed plant.
I always lie about weddings and end up saying things like " I am happy to wear the maroon lace sack of crap and then pose for photographs" or "Why on earth would I mind that you invited my ex from high school to your wedding? I don't care at all that once he had non-consensual sex with me". Lies, lies and more lies. I am a compulsive wedding liar but worse than that is I plan to continue being a wedding liar. I can't see any way around it, people become odd about their weddings.
I know eight people that are getting married in the next few months. They are all younger than me. I am officially a spinster. Left on the shelf. Crazy cat lady. Reject of society. Wild, lonely and free.
I am spending the evening writing an alphabet of words that sound like they start with different letters than they do. Pneumatic.
I rearrangement servant
I swapped the positions of desk 1 and desk 2 in my room and this prompted a burst of wishing to sort things out. I opened the giant floor to ceiling cupboard that runs the length of my bedroom with a view to once and for all discovering what is actually in there. This lasted about three seconds. I closed the door and went and had a nice cup of tea and a little sit down. I didn't used to be the kind of person that does not know what is in their cupboards. I must be feeling better or getting over things or some other equally boring cliche because I have been thinking about the cupboards a lot.
The story is that when my ex (let's not name him and make it necessary to put a little label to say this post is about him) went mental and left screaming into the night never to return I pretty much sat down on the carpet and sobbed. I occasionally stood up to go and vomit in the toilet or feed the cat but mostly it was lying on the floor trying to stop sobbing long enough to take a breath every second minute or so. It was not ideal. During this time of sobbing I somehow, don't ask me how because I don't remember, managed to find a new house to move to, buy a car, keep my job and try to prevent Elliot from drinking himself to death and I do mean literally. I had my fingers poised to dial for an ambulance for approximately two months. This is before he went to rehab and became sober. Der. Anyway I'll get to crux of it soon.
After my landlord told me I had to move, three weeks after the screaming into the night incident, and I had found a new house I failed to be able to pack and move. I was moving from a four bedroom, three bathroom, several lounge room, dining rooms, double garage two linen cupboards, one in each hallway etc house into a sharehouse in the city where I would be the proud inhabitant of one bedroom. I chose to tackle this problem by moving my sobbing from the floor to the bed.
My friend Boli is the Captain of Amazing. He drove two hours out to my house after working all day in the city, he would bring dinner, he would stay up until two or three packing my things, getting rid of all the excess furniture, explaining how to hire a truck and other useful things. He did this until the whole house was empty. He bossed around all my friends and made them put things on the truck then drive two hours into city and take things off the truck and put them in my cupboard. This is why I have no idea of what might be in my cupboard. This was quite boring. Better luck next time. Maybe I'll have something more interesting to say than I don't know what is in my cupboards.
The story is that when my ex (let's not name him and make it necessary to put a little label to say this post is about him) went mental and left screaming into the night never to return I pretty much sat down on the carpet and sobbed. I occasionally stood up to go and vomit in the toilet or feed the cat but mostly it was lying on the floor trying to stop sobbing long enough to take a breath every second minute or so. It was not ideal. During this time of sobbing I somehow, don't ask me how because I don't remember, managed to find a new house to move to, buy a car, keep my job and try to prevent Elliot from drinking himself to death and I do mean literally. I had my fingers poised to dial for an ambulance for approximately two months. This is before he went to rehab and became sober. Der. Anyway I'll get to crux of it soon.
After my landlord told me I had to move, three weeks after the screaming into the night incident, and I had found a new house I failed to be able to pack and move. I was moving from a four bedroom, three bathroom, several lounge room, dining rooms, double garage two linen cupboards, one in each hallway etc house into a sharehouse in the city where I would be the proud inhabitant of one bedroom. I chose to tackle this problem by moving my sobbing from the floor to the bed.
My friend Boli is the Captain of Amazing. He drove two hours out to my house after working all day in the city, he would bring dinner, he would stay up until two or three packing my things, getting rid of all the excess furniture, explaining how to hire a truck and other useful things. He did this until the whole house was empty. He bossed around all my friends and made them put things on the truck then drive two hours into city and take things off the truck and put them in my cupboard. This is why I have no idea of what might be in my cupboard. This was quite boring. Better luck next time. Maybe I'll have something more interesting to say than I don't know what is in my cupboards.
Highway to the twilight zone
Take a ride into the twilight zone. You might like it there. You might like it better than the Yacht Rock karaoke party I once went to wearing a borrowed scarf tied around my head like a cartoon pirate. You might like it better than I like my cold room right now. I went to the pub and was then whisked off the streets of Newtown by Boli and over to The Hollywood in Surry Hills for a birthday party which I arrived at late, drunk and without a card or present. I stupidly ate only an english muffin all day before going to the pub and then drank three or four drinks more than drink limit before heading to a party in a pub with FREE DRINKS. Oh no! Oh yes!
I once again found myself in a roomful of academics only this time there was also a drag queen, not a very good one. She used the same sparkle liner for eyes and lips and had hideous open toe white contraption kind of shoes. I'm very fussy about my queens. She also had some sort of smock frock thing going on in a sort of splatter vomit pattern and was wearing a red boa that was clearly cheap and did not at all coordinate with the sparkle liner, the hideous white shoes or the smock frock. The sparkle liner was the multi-colour kind with a dark background. Very 1996.
There was one man that kept following me around the party and trying to talk to me. He was scary and tall in a bilious way. He was wearing a cream cable knit jumper under some foul "I found it under five dead rats and half a cheese cake" jacket. He had a massive digital camera strapped round his neck and Boli tells me he kept sneaking up behind people so he could hide from me and would then stick his head out and take photos of me. He lives in Canberra and has recently taken up theatre sports. Yucky. He said he was less than forty but I don't believe him. I forget what he reckons his name was. But why was he taking all those photos? This is getting weird. At the zine fair some odd man came up and asked if he could take my photo. I said ok so he lay down on the ground in front of me and pointed his massive camera up at a weird angle. I think he must have taken a photo of my knees.
I am not photogenic and wonder why this man kept taking my photo tonight. Why? and Yuck.
It was one of the Randwick belles birthday. She is forty! Forty! That's a very long time to be alive. I hope I die before I get old, I'm not trying to cause a big sensation. She looked happy and lovely. A whole pub full of people went just for her. I hope I am that lucky when I am forty.
I wanted to talk to Gemma for a bit longer. It takes me a while to say anything that matters, anything with depth or probative value. I'm sure she must think I am a hollow vessel, one content to sit or follow. A friend of hers showed up towards the end of our visit to The Townie and she scared me. She was young and violently beautiful like a horse or blown glass. She had a force and confident energy. She was the kind of woman that reduces me to a puffy tall being with empty speech bubbles over my head. It doesn't happen very often but I was already sitting on the edge of Gemma's powerful presence and feeling a little bit at sea. When the beautiful one started talking about where she came from, which is where I came from, the room darkened slightly and the ghost of Artboy made an appearance. If I could explode eight years of my life. If I could wake up tomorrow with no memories I would because all I have learned from giving your heart away is that you will end up alone in a room full of academics being photographed by a yucky man, staring at a bad drag queen and feeling quite drunk and sheepish for not bringing a lovely present with a card stuck on the front.
I once again found myself in a roomful of academics only this time there was also a drag queen, not a very good one. She used the same sparkle liner for eyes and lips and had hideous open toe white contraption kind of shoes. I'm very fussy about my queens. She also had some sort of smock frock thing going on in a sort of splatter vomit pattern and was wearing a red boa that was clearly cheap and did not at all coordinate with the sparkle liner, the hideous white shoes or the smock frock. The sparkle liner was the multi-colour kind with a dark background. Very 1996.
There was one man that kept following me around the party and trying to talk to me. He was scary and tall in a bilious way. He was wearing a cream cable knit jumper under some foul "I found it under five dead rats and half a cheese cake" jacket. He had a massive digital camera strapped round his neck and Boli tells me he kept sneaking up behind people so he could hide from me and would then stick his head out and take photos of me. He lives in Canberra and has recently taken up theatre sports. Yucky. He said he was less than forty but I don't believe him. I forget what he reckons his name was. But why was he taking all those photos? This is getting weird. At the zine fair some odd man came up and asked if he could take my photo. I said ok so he lay down on the ground in front of me and pointed his massive camera up at a weird angle. I think he must have taken a photo of my knees.
I am not photogenic and wonder why this man kept taking my photo tonight. Why? and Yuck.
It was one of the Randwick belles birthday. She is forty! Forty! That's a very long time to be alive. I hope I die before I get old, I'm not trying to cause a big sensation. She looked happy and lovely. A whole pub full of people went just for her. I hope I am that lucky when I am forty.
I wanted to talk to Gemma for a bit longer. It takes me a while to say anything that matters, anything with depth or probative value. I'm sure she must think I am a hollow vessel, one content to sit or follow. A friend of hers showed up towards the end of our visit to The Townie and she scared me. She was young and violently beautiful like a horse or blown glass. She had a force and confident energy. She was the kind of woman that reduces me to a puffy tall being with empty speech bubbles over my head. It doesn't happen very often but I was already sitting on the edge of Gemma's powerful presence and feeling a little bit at sea. When the beautiful one started talking about where she came from, which is where I came from, the room darkened slightly and the ghost of Artboy made an appearance. If I could explode eight years of my life. If I could wake up tomorrow with no memories I would because all I have learned from giving your heart away is that you will end up alone in a room full of academics being photographed by a yucky man, staring at a bad drag queen and feeling quite drunk and sheepish for not bringing a lovely present with a card stuck on the front.
Let's be grown up about this
I don't want to have guitar lessons anymore. Not for a while. It feels like too much pressure to practice and get better each week. Boli is my teacher and I don't want to let him down by being a poor student. I'm supposed to go over to this house in about half an hour for a lesson. Instead I'm going to show up with pastries and say let's just have a cup of tea. I need to talk to you about these lessons. If I wasn't feeling grown up I would send a text message twenty minutes before he's due in rehearsal saying I just woke up. But I'm not going to do something as spineless as that, I'm going to be grown up about this because I am the Captain of whether or not I have guitar lessons. I hope.
City beat
If there's one day of the year its good to be a secret fan of marching bands its today. It echoes. The bands pass and the sound of the next band merges into the last. Unexpected syncopations emerge and we are all here. There were beautiful indie boys with all their foppish dyed hair and tight pants marching with their grandfathers, all the band nerds and the boy everyone wanted to go out with marching with his high school pipe band.
Most years I go into the heart of the city to wander through the shut down silent streets and listen to the ricochet of drum patterns. I go to watch the city fill with people more thoughtful than they usually are. It is a day of grief, for me. It started the year my Grandfather died. I went to the dawn service with a band my brother was in and as the sun rose I discovered for the first time my well of personal grief. All around me people were quietly sobbing and the band played hymns as the sun rose through the mist. Since that dawn each year today feels like the day for thinking of all who have fallen from my life, all that has fallen from me. But not this year. This year I stayed with the thrumming crowds and heard the full melodies of all of the bands. I watched the players in their fierce concentration to maintain tone, pitch, rhythm, I watched them intent on staying in step with the march, I felt their joy at being a part of something bigger.
I stood out the front of the Town Hall with my brother and Boli in their silly scarlet band jackets and Chef and his lovely girl, in the middle of a breathing crowd. We watched the parade and drank a beer on the street and went back to my place. Spencer came over and my housemates were home. My life felt full. I felt in company. Then I got a phone call.
An old friend I have been out of touch with since Artboy pissed off contacted me. Her husband has bipolar. Her husband went mad, her husband left without warning and left her sobbing and alone with a mortgage and a phd thesis. She told me how hard it was to keep going, how hard to find a job to pay the bills and feed herself and the horses. How hard to have this hollow place where her husband should be but instead he is mad. He is mad and in Melbourne running up terrible debts and making wild accusations.
She got another job, packed up her house, moved herself and the horses, finished her thesis, battled with the university, organised the finances, started divorce proceedings so she can sell the property. I thought. You are so brave. You are so strong. Your story is breaking my heart.
I thought I could never be as good and strong and brave as you and then I remembered. Her story is my story. This happened to me. I did what she did.
I was struck by two things. The first is how spooky that we lived the same thing at the same time, the second is that until today I didn't give myself any credit for living through this the way that I have. I wonder if this day next year will be my day for strength and thinking with wonder of all the adversity each of us is capable of living through. Maybe we all need a moment now and then to reflect on our strengths and the personal battles we have won. Lest we forget.
Most years I go into the heart of the city to wander through the shut down silent streets and listen to the ricochet of drum patterns. I go to watch the city fill with people more thoughtful than they usually are. It is a day of grief, for me. It started the year my Grandfather died. I went to the dawn service with a band my brother was in and as the sun rose I discovered for the first time my well of personal grief. All around me people were quietly sobbing and the band played hymns as the sun rose through the mist. Since that dawn each year today feels like the day for thinking of all who have fallen from my life, all that has fallen from me. But not this year. This year I stayed with the thrumming crowds and heard the full melodies of all of the bands. I watched the players in their fierce concentration to maintain tone, pitch, rhythm, I watched them intent on staying in step with the march, I felt their joy at being a part of something bigger.
I stood out the front of the Town Hall with my brother and Boli in their silly scarlet band jackets and Chef and his lovely girl, in the middle of a breathing crowd. We watched the parade and drank a beer on the street and went back to my place. Spencer came over and my housemates were home. My life felt full. I felt in company. Then I got a phone call.
An old friend I have been out of touch with since Artboy pissed off contacted me. Her husband has bipolar. Her husband went mad, her husband left without warning and left her sobbing and alone with a mortgage and a phd thesis. She told me how hard it was to keep going, how hard to find a job to pay the bills and feed herself and the horses. How hard to have this hollow place where her husband should be but instead he is mad. He is mad and in Melbourne running up terrible debts and making wild accusations.
She got another job, packed up her house, moved herself and the horses, finished her thesis, battled with the university, organised the finances, started divorce proceedings so she can sell the property. I thought. You are so brave. You are so strong. Your story is breaking my heart.
I thought I could never be as good and strong and brave as you and then I remembered. Her story is my story. This happened to me. I did what she did.
I was struck by two things. The first is how spooky that we lived the same thing at the same time, the second is that until today I didn't give myself any credit for living through this the way that I have. I wonder if this day next year will be my day for strength and thinking with wonder of all the adversity each of us is capable of living through. Maybe we all need a moment now and then to reflect on our strengths and the personal battles we have won. Lest we forget.
He's been right before
When I told my good friend Boli that Elliot was being just as sweet as Elliot pie he said Be careful. He's an addict, he's manipulative. Its going to take a while before he casts off all those addict behaviours if he ever does at all. Now I know that Boli wants only the best for me but my first reaction was to kick him in the head, hard. I'm going to need to think about this.
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