Hello again

Hello tiny room in my grandparent's house where I spent half of my teenage days feeling sorry for myself and my acne. Still with the colorful Scandinavian designed 80s duna cover, still on a 2 stack super single mattress where my great grandmother passed. Still with the world map sealed into the single drawer desk with the giant pink USSR still very much intact.

It's been a while.

In 1997 in the dim light of a CTR screen and to the constant 'uh oh's' of ICQ popups where the first boy-girl relationships were established. I'd sit here and sample my Grandad's liquor cabinet, playing Quake drunk while listening to Disco 2000 wondering what it'd be like 20 years from now.

Before Thom was about to marry Sally, before my grandma's cancer, before comics or playstation, or art, or advertising, or PLC girls, or anything. There was just this me in this room and a whole lof of hope and anger.

I put on Tripple J and then pull out a block of Super Sculpey.

At 3 pm I'm running through the sunny back streets of Camberwell, and as the warm scents of pine and eucalyptus grace my nose I feel the familiar hay fever sensations return.

By 4 I'm standing standing in my favorite part of the bathroom - infront of the frosted mirror and using my figer to make a picture around my face.

At 6, I sink into the lazy boy I used to have speed-reclining competitions with Wongo in.

The evenings slip away. But by 11 I'm back here in my bunk of a bed, sipping down stolen liquor from a honey jar, dreaming about where I'll be 5 years from now. It's almost as mysterious as when I was 14. and if I squint and squeeze my eyes together tight enough, I can just about see myself back as a tiny little zero, back to a tightened knot of hope and fury and kind confusion.

It feels warm and dreamy and for the first time in a long time, I sleep a deep sound sleep.