Not a griffon, but a...

"Feathers are my paint. Over the last ten years I have developed my own technique and style using feathers from road kill, cat kill and dead pets. Recently I have moved into a new source of feathers. I have been trapping and killing the registered pest, the Indian Mynah bird. With these feathers I made Mynah Collie 2007, a feathered dog, one of my dog flu series..." - Emily Valentine

On and on

The GigaPudding flops out onto the plate gleefully wobblingly - almost exactly as the japanese televison commerical had predicted it would.

I don't know why I'd waited so long to make it.

I guess I was a little scared to fail.

But I walked around the office that morning with the large 1-litre novelty pudding wobbling side to

side in my trembling hands and a disposable cup filled with disposable spoons asking people to have a go.

I'd sent out a mass email to the department the day before saying that I would do exactly this.

In truth, I'd always just loved walking around the office with generous servings of food - you feel like for a moment, everybody loves you. People pause, stop you in your tracks to say hi, ask you how you're going, smile, gourge themselves with a silly grin and then thank you. No, thank You.

So that's how I'd planned to leave the office - carrying a precarious wobbly pudding, through the various departments at 10am.

That afternoon, there'd be pingpong in the 'bouncy room' - a very sterile looking meeting space that'd been temporarily transformed by some of the guys into the perfect table tennis arena. I'd eat a pretty awesome burger, sit in a concall to say goodbye to a client and do some handover stuff. I'd write my last emails and make a timesheet correction, before processing my 'out process'. I'd sit at

my old desk and yack and take some joy in folding and wrapping things up - like my telephone and ethernet cables. I'd hang around till 5.30 - when the townhall meeting takes place, where I'd sit one the same step I'd normally choose and listen before opening a beer and heading out to the balcony and saying a few farewells. This is where Stephen (our chairman) says he'd read my blog the night before (which I'd flogged in my farewell email) I'm still quite tickled. 'Thanks' I'd grin.

The sun is setting on Robinson road. I'd always loved the view from the balcony at this hour.

I grab the oversized crumpler that Maurice and Renee had given me when I'd first started work as a junior here and wave goodbye to the department with a glass of white wine in my other hand.

That evening I'm at the pub, and we're drinking to Michael Jackson (who I'd uncannily refrenced in my last blog entry). There's clearly a pretty serious MJ conossieur on the decks I comment to Sonal - who is clearly the biggest fan at the table. I recall that once in primary school, while our substitute teacher was sick, I'd taken it into my own hands to entertain the class by sing/scatting the entire Dangerous album from cover to cover with my friend (who could moonwalk).

Eventually, everybody arrives and the day slowly burns up like a warm kindeling memory I'm already having trouble trying to pen down.

TTYL!

(last office email)

Hello,

It's my last day here, so I thought I'd write a quick mail to try and thank you and say gooybye to you (and everyone else in the office) as well as let everyone know not to email this address anymore, as I can't check it.

Thank you for making this place home to me for the last 4 years; for always smiling or nodding back at me when I grinned your way. For the opportunities, goodmornings, deadline-extensions, sympathies, constructive comments, compromises, polite excuses, noise tolerance, meeting makers (that I didn't learn to respond to till last week), elevator rides, youtube videos, hi-fives, advice, lunch, rehersals, beer, ideas, stationary, coffee breaks, strategies, second chances, cigarettes, pats on the back, feedback and vending machine change you've shared with me over the years. It's been very emotional, and I'm sure I'll forever cherish these years like a mature man looks back at his University days while he changes his child's daipers. So thanks again.

Finally, I'm going to attempt to make a Japanese 'giga-pudding' in the morning, so if any of you are interested to discover what a litre of pudding tastes like, please by my desk on the fourth floor to try a piece.

Otherwise, I'll see you later on...

Facebook,

or Gmail,

or here

or someplace else

soon.

Moonwalk

10,000 hours is what it takes for anyone to become good (not just good very good) at anything. This is what Eugene tells me after I tell him of my resignation. Lin worked out for me the other day that if you practiced something for 5 hours a day everyday, it'd take you about 5 years to achieve the said 10,000hours. in 10,000 hours anyone could go pro at anything. And unless you allocate the next 10,000 hours wisely, you'll fall behind.

We're in the billiard room of the Raffles hotel, and I'm nervously making the cheese sticks disappear between sips of beer. He continues on several other theories, drawing pyramids in my sketch book, writing figures, sighting names followed by generous quotations. I nod a lot, and try where I can to interject and query where I can. I feel heavy. And I'm trying to fend off the alcohol, but it's already in there mixing up my feelings.

He was going to tell me - before he had heard the news of my resignation, that he was proud of me I'm guessing. But, he had instead been told of my departure from the company and this moment had been suddenly over shadowed by a grim showdown that was already taking place.

He would have said something to me if I was his son. He would have told me I was being foolish. That I am loved. That I needn't look any further. That I'm about to make a big mistake. But he couldn't because I wasn't. And he didn't have to, because I already knew it when he'd called me to set this meeting up the same day I'd written to him, even though he was on holiday, and had just flown into the country.

I was at the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) a month before this with Joe and Kim in Melbourne about a month ago. I'd gone looking for a book that I couldn't find. and had instead bumped into Noelle while she was looking at this book of oriental snuff bottles. She asked how I was doing at work. and the answer was quite crummy, which was quickly remedied by a 'but I' might be leaving soon', 'oooh' she replied, 'to a boutique firm?'. Yeah, I replied - a bit embarassed at how transparent the decision was. 'Oh, don't you worry' she said, it was one of the best days of her life. She'd told them to stick it and sashayed out of there...

'Nah', I said to her - a bit sad even then - 'I'm going to have to gently moonwalk out of there.'

Eugene looks up solemnly between thumbing through his blackberry over his famous horn rimed spectacles. He manages a smile before continuing.

I am, in his words, determined to fail.

And I am.

'Find my feet' I say, 'spread my wings', 'broaden my horizons.' I type in various exit emails over the next couple of days. What opportunities can hope to find out beyond what I've been given here? 'Myself' I reply. Walkabout. failure. the ground.

The showdown ends in a cozy little restaurant quite near my house.

'Let's have one for the road' he says. We settle for a pino, and the restaurant manager - who turns out to be a friend of his, comes round and we have a short discussion about his cuisine and the childlike proposition behind his flavors. And as I sit and listen to the man I'd always regarded as the 'Master Yoda' of Advertising, I feel the the gravity of my words rise to meet my face.

I don't 'Yada' what I'm asking for he'd explained. (Which apparently is Hebrew for 'know intimately' - as Adam did Eve. (but that is only 1 of 6 intepretations for the word.))

And I don't know. I really don't Yada yada yada what I've just done, where I'm going to be, what good it'll be.

I'm swollen with fear and anxiety.

It hits me then too that I sadly don't actually know how to moonwalk either.

Nobody's first, and you're next

'Don't take it too seriously', cautions text message from Eugene on Thursday.

'It's not real'. 

'In fact', (he'd continue later, with a grin on his face) 

'It's probably one of the worst things that could ever happen to you...'

I remember being an intern at DDB Melbourne, flicking through 'the Work' - a book compiling advertisements from around asia and australia - and spotting an ad I helped make at my internship and Ogilvy Singapore a year before. 

I felt my heart leap a little as I gleefully ran over to my mentor at the time, hand wedged between the heavy book's pages. He politely looked over the campaign, squinting at the details, and patiently trying to read the body copy. 

Grinning, he looks up and slowly punctuates 'So! Adrian, Chan : Art director - you must be on the list!' 'The list?' I gasp (heart obviously still in throat), 'Yep, the rankings' he says flipping through the pages of a magazine called 'Campaign Brief'. And sure enough, I was listed there, somewhere near the back, on stripe of red, no more than 4 millimeters high, #700-n-something, a place I shared with about 20 other people. 

 

A wow coursed through my shuddering body. 

I was listed! I am in advertising! Yes. yes! YES?

In the years to come, I'd casually follow the Campaign Brief rankings, looking out for familiar names and faces of the men and women some of whom would eventually become my mentors, peers, and friends. We'd laugh about the rankings, making them out to be these absurd abstractions of ourselves. (which they are, right?) ...700+, 168, 24. Who's keeping track right. 

right? 

I'm standing in the corner of a club called 'Zirca' on wednesday night, trying to keep the horrible free-flow house whiskey down, while anxiously waiting for Datarock to come on stage when a cryptic SMS flashes. 'Congratulations! you're number one!' it says. 

It's from Troy. 

And I'm not sure how to interpret this, as Troy (once my partner) has been known to make cheesy puns, and I was trying to figure this one out. But then comes another this time from Ash. And another and then I'm texting back, clarifying, and then I'm getting piping the cruddy whiskey through my system and then I'm hammered and hugging people, beating down the ground with my feet to Datarock... fa-fa-fa fafafa-fafa. 

it's not real! 

So. totally. not real. 

yay? 

um, hi

Today is the last day we'll spend in melbourne as a family.

It's been quite a trip and though I've been slightly less emotionally involved, than the rest of the members its been really good for everyone  I think.

We went to visit my younger cousin Chris who is slowing coming out of a coma (he sustained in a skiing accident), and is now in rehab. 'Talk to him' my dad instructed. So I told him about the Wolverine movie, and how it's pretty gay, and I think he caught on and maybe clutched my hand a little tighter. Though maybe I was just imagining it, he seemed to respond well, as I slowly recounted all the games worth and not worth playing this summer. I told him how 100 bullets ends and how America now has a black president, and showed him pictures of people in singapore on my iphone who have sent their wishes. 

I rub my hand through his hair, trying to imitate my hairdresser. There's a long groove beneath my thumb where his skull was fractured and then cut open to release the swelling. Apparnetly the doctors had opened his skull, removed his brain, kept it in cold storage, and only just put it back in. 

'Hi' I say again, unsure how to continue. 

His eyes roll back over. 

Dad is demonstrating a kung fu move on mum, in the corner of the room who's actually laughing. This - though arguably insensitive - actually comes to me as a relief, as they'd been real-fighting for the last two days. 

I remember kung fu fighting Chris. Making him cry. Taking him clubbing. Lying about the meanings of acronyms. talking about the grossness of periods and vagina juice. I remember him telling me things he thought 'were gay'. I remember telling him how gay he was. 

I clutch on to his head and imagine that he does too. 

'Good luck' I whisper into the groove on his head, 'I love you'. 

55th

this was a speech

About as far back as I can remember my grandparents have always been my ‘grandparents’.

‘Grace’ and ‘Eddie’ would only be terms I’d come to grasp much later in life…

Their house and life was always one giant treasure chest to me; filled with quirky eccentricities, and things far too exciting to find in our regular family home. Replica Swords, Starwars, whiskey, stamps, power tools, air rifles, naval mapping equipment, rare vinyls, retro clothing, vintage books, vintage porn, aviator shades.

We’d watch black and white slides of a family grow up in new guinea, of navy men dressed in white saluting a bride and groom, in the exotic backdrop of Burma.

We’d hear stories about an epic romance between a man at sea and his relationship with a beautiful sepia photograph of Grace. And how she’d never been kissed and how she waited for him on a distant shore. And how they raised a family between journeys aboard great steam powered ships all the while fleeing an evil oppressive government.

How they braved a new world, sacrificing everything, and surviving on instant mash potatoes, and selling their worldly possessions for what they have today.

2/17 Bowen street Camberwell is a testament to this life.

A life so foreign, exotic and resilient I sometimes wonder in awe at how I fell out of it.   

Today, it’s all mostly packed in boxes in a garage that my parents have been slowly convincing them to discard each year.

Today they’re sitting two identical lazy-boy arm chairs, watching the television. switching between Nickelodeon cartoons (grace’s new favorite past time) and then switching back to catch Mariah Carey on MTV at the commercial break. They’re Sitting on a well worn couch by the kitchen, making sense of the bible together. They’re in front of the computer, jointly typing an email - eddie is on the keyboard taking dictation from grace, as she leans in to correct typos. 

So tonight, they’re here, sitting up right in their seats, being humble and attentive. They’ve battled cancer. Sailed the 7 seas. Are fluent in 3 languages, Mastered 3 versions of windows and most of the internet, raised 6 children, (including myself and my sister.)

Tonight they’re 55 years old. 

And I just wanted to say. ‘Wow.’

 

Monkey Love

My sea monkeys discovered sex. The office hasn't really been the same since.

The Heart of Darkness

I didn't know what we were looking for, but we'd left Mellow Mountain in a hurry, forgoing 'around the world' by Daft Punk (which I was really digging).  

Dragging our feet across the sand, I was convinced (as I'm sure the rest of the group were - though now I maybe doubt it a little) that we should head toward the horrible but beckoning sound of some Gwen Stefani track. And the flames.  

We get about half way, and then decide to slow down, eventually grinding to a stop. But how will I know? Asks Ollie. I point to a string of fairy lights, and squint at them. Lights like spiraling tentacles are spiraling out like tentacles. 'That. is how you know.' I manage to spout.

A woman - or something that resembles one - cackles at us, waving a bucket of green liquid at us as we back away. 

Ollie squints and nods. I believe we have and understanding. 

Later that evening, we're huddling in the hotel room. I'm drawing the demon on the floor, and slurping Jameson straight from the bottle. There's a window, and perhaps there's something beyond it - a whale I think. it must be a sperm whale to have been able to squirm up the driveway. Someone makes a comment about the patterns in the ceramic, I think it's a complaint. but we're all startled by the knock on the door, where we meet a black guy with a french accent. He murmurs something about a cigarette, and we eventually find him one. He'd be lying face down in a pool of his own blood less than an hour later. None of us would figure out why, or the extent of his injuries. 

All we knew was that this place - the sea palace. Haadrin. was evil. and we should hide. run inside, find our, selves and disappear.  

 

The Ocean

The water laped gently against the fine white sand, forming a straight moist ledge - like the top of a chocolate eclair.  

the entire beach is practically empty, apart from us and a few small huddles of hippies smoking outside their apartments. 

Then from out of nowhere we hear explosions behind us. I turn round and am smacked in the eyes by bright burning phospherous flowers. Ther light is searing my fully dialated pupils which seconds before had been straining to see sharp edges on the sand. 

The Yai bar is blasting Moby's 'why does my heart feel so bad'. I think. It might have been another song. But it's strerching my cheeks, as a large smile forms between them.  

The ground below me feels like creme brulee cracking under my heels. 

'Come over here' marc beckons. He'd found a smalled sub stream running parallel to the ledge. 'This part feels like walking on captain crunch'. I plod in excitedly, and he's right.  

"I think I've found a moment" I tell him, but he's texting.

"I think I'm really happy". I go on anyway. 

I then notice that my cheek - which had been involved in a minor scooter accident moments before) is acheing because I hadn't stopped smiling. 

And then I decided right there and then to double check and interrogate my happiness.

But another tune comes on, I think I know its from the Forrest Gump soundtrack, and I grin again. 

Earlier in the day,  I'd been floating in the ocean rocking back and fourth with the froth, when I vaguely overheard a female voice singing what I thought was 'memories' (my ears were submerged) I rolled over and started swimming toward the sound, and then noticed a long but visible (and audiable) distance away, a small blonde female head is bobbing up and down in the sea, literally belting out these random tunes.

Marc has stopped throwing a frisbee and asks if I can hear it too. 

I giggle a bit. but I'd thought it was amazing at the time. 

Standing back in the blackness of the captain-crunch beach once again, and quite thankful the fireworks were kept short and sweet. My SMS sound goes off again, but I don't really need to see who it is or what it says. I already know. And I'm happy. I just know. 

They Ran

'Hey...' I flaied frantically as we approached the half way point. 

She didn't hear me, so I keep trying to run harder and catch up. 

Closing the distance, I realize that we're both panting in chaotic symphony.

I keep chase but she's almost deliberately slipping away; evading my arms reach, and then she isn't and I manage to land a sweaty finger on her shoulder. 

Pulling out an earphone, she looks back at me slgihtly puzzled but also quite breathless, but never slowing down in the slightest. 

My music is off, but I decide not to speak in a weak attempt to guise my dwindeling lung capacity. 

So instead I make a 'v' with my fingers point at my eyes, before pointing at the bridge in front of us, and then repetitively bang a straightened palm down across the tops of my fingers on the other hand to make a 'T'.  

She flashes a toothy grin, before shooting off towards the bridge. 

My muscles panic for a second and squirt acid wondering if she'd understood - as we're already at the foot of the bridge, and she's still bounding up it.

"you're pretty quick", I pant later. 

She's panting too but only grins back. 

"Do you always run this quick?" I manage to squeak out.

Thats her normal pace she says.

"Powah. I haven't gone that hard in a while" I say to console myself. 

And maybe flatter her.  

When the man comes around

The last month, has been quite forgettable and destructive.

I'm not sure how many units of alcohol have been consumed.

Or how my credit card got maxed out. Or why people smile at me and shake their heads when I open the minibar at the office at 5 pm. I'm not sure what I feel aside from disgust. I'm not sure what's kicking in my stomach. I'm not sure what time I came home or if I passed out. Or who I tried to talk to. Or how I got tackled by a bouncer and hauled down 2 flights of stairs by my neck.

I can't remember.

and I don't particularly want to.

Chuan came over the other morning; I was wasted. 'Hey, hey hey' I said to him, 'So hey, like you always see movies and read the books about the guy who goes back into time to stop himself from doing something (and then gets stuck there). But why don't you ever see the guy from the present jumping into the future to discover his full potential (only to be stuck there in the future)? Is it that much of a logical enigma that it has escaped fiction entirely?' - Actually I doubt it has - but it was early in the morning.

I told Daniel about this later in the day (cont..) I think you'd possibly look back (from the future) and go 'wow!' - I don't recognize myself. I don't remember wanting to do any of these things that I've done. I didn't think I'd be married to her. or get tied down to this. or get that deep into that.

But then there's the other scenario where you catch yourself looking at a much much more predictable scaled-up version of whatever you are right now. Like a lateral job move, with the exact 20% pay-raise doing the same old things just under a different fluorescent tube.

What if the future you saw you and burst into tears, because he'd spent every day of the last 20 years of his life trying to return to being you. What if you realized at that very moment that that was your renaissance, the two of you meeting in the future, that you'd just be this nostalgia-hugger person. And that rather unexplainably, you'd just both arrived and met at that moment simultaneously.

I'm not sure if you could consider either alternative much happier. Either way you'd have strangely missed out on however much plot you selectively skipped forward to - and didn't really get anything out of it - It would essentially be like slipping into a coma for several years and then waking up. Or alternatively spent that time drunk and drinking.

Daniel says we should make a film about it.

There's not much point, I say.

It'd just be like writing a spoiler into the synopsis.

Or in my case - just waking up tomorrow.

I woke up that tomorrow though, and would remember one memory ; A single thread that strung a series of deep and desperate feelings together, culminating in a delicate series of kisses.

It was at that point that the tomorrow guy saw me and told me to get my shit together and run.
run after that feeling.

Pngcows

The fondest souvenirs from February.  

Bicycle

A few weeks ago, I went for a bike ride that involved me getting hit by an unparking car.

I wasn't hurt too bad. I'd lost a bit of skin off my foot and had an elegantly bruised big toe, but was mostly unscaved. Unfortunately, the front wheel of the bike was crushed under the car, and both my rear view mirrors shattered on impact. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet and my iphone was safely burried in my front mounted basket - which acted like a roll cage, preventing any damage to it at all.

I remember sitting on the curb, in shock, trying to figure out if my bike was still ridable. And then looking at dark clouds and listening to the thunder and then flicking through my iphone contacts trying to think of who to call. I felt a little hopeless. 

Even mum couldn't help. 

An hour before the crash I was cycling along the Singapore river toward the marina where I stumbled across a field of lovers. literally hundreds of lovers, lying in the grass, hand in hand.  

Most of them looked like blue-collar foreign workers. It was a fine Sunday at that point, and no one could have predicted how drastically the weather would turn.  

I sat there waiting for the rain, which came, and then Marc's SUV pulls up with Sarah riding shotgun, and then we dismantled the front tire and slammed the booth. 

I'd interrupted something. I could tell. I stared at the rain drops pelt the window on he way back, and saw something strangely familiar - a green and gold trishaw, cycling away from the marina. 

And then it struck me that I'd cycled past it before . Passing them at a light, I glimpsed in and saw the rider (now covered in rain) bending down to kiss his sheltered passenger. 

I sighed to myself in the back seat, thinking: wow, what a shitty day and what a manly/ romantic invention the trishaw is. 

Haunted

A voice called out to me from the emptyness of my bedroom at 11.55pm on Saturday. I'd been trying to get into 'Resistance 2' on plastation, but I really couldn't, because well, it is just a dumb game. I'd just gotten off the phone with a rather distant aquaintace (who I'd once upon a time found attractive) who was inviting me to 'go party'.    

The voice simply said 'Stay', 'please stay', 'you need to stay'.  

And at that point I knew it wouldn't be the brightest decision I'd ever make. 

but I went out to meet her to party.

I am a ghost. 

Last night Kim described this effect as being 'super vague'. But thats what I am - a person who should have been in his room coming to terms with the secondary fire functions of his weapon in Resistance 2, now standing at a bar with a pint in hand. I sink like a cannon ball, though webs and webs of small talk. I'm introdeuced to a girl called 'Zerol' ('zero' with an 'L'). I'm yawnning and choking on my own cigarettes in the smoking room. A guy called Reggie tells me about his burger wrapping job back in St.Kilda. An private banker from Morgan stanley jokes about the frailty of his career. Noel, the modeling agent is walking in as I'm exiting  to yet another bar.     

'This place is haunted' I tell a friend who's too preoccupied with his girlfriend to notice, "I was wondering why I hadn't been here in a while, and now I remeber." The motions come effortlessly,  swapping of business cards, chitchatting, throwing in a slightly curious adjetive before a common retort, smiling, hugging someone I'd only met twice, the cheek kissing, the swaying by a crowded bar while waiting for drinks, watching the ripples in my pint, looking un-preoccupied. Somehow everything is all alot more loaded. A look from a girl standing across the bar is enough to set me wondering myself into a conundrum. The cold rush of the aircon escaping past an exit that I used to bounce back in on, instead condenses a film of water on my back, causing my shirt to stick. The gyrrating crowd on the dance floor is thicker than usual and seems imprevious to a guy carrying three cocktails.     

By the time they find me, I'm normally on the dance floor, annebriated and thrashing my limbs to the music. I'm yelling over-enthusiastically trying to fit very simple emotions into catchy sound bytes. I'm prowling around an office meeting looking for annoyances. I'm secretly snarling at anyone who doesnt diredctly say hi or acknowledge my vague presence. I'm smoking - violently.  I'm rambling about how remarkably shit things are. I'm drunk. 

And then,  like magic, I'm back in my room, where a porno on television is the only lighting. Where I dream about the death of a boy and how his father had to sit on the coffin lid to prevent the stray dogs on the street from running off with more of his limbs. 

I'm sorry I guess.

The voice simply says 'told you so'. 

Dark was the night

I woke up at 6am yesterday, to stand infront of the mirror and rehearse my bit. I was to present the television and the print work for a rather large pitch that morning. Be zingy I told myself, be manic, feel excited - c'mon it's something you destroyed yourself over.

the months leading up to this moment were a long bumpy process: I'd started the year on a high, after returning from a pretty awesome trip with to japan. Things were really bright especially knowing I'd be comissioned to work on a large installation job for Ben and Jerry's on my return (which was quite fun).

I'd left japan with a bit of anxiety though, Jac and I had fought on the last night and even though there were lots of good times, I couldn't help but sense a drift and that the trip had just highlighted many complex things that I wanted to bury and just float on. The installation job was really interesting, but all together probably a bit too taxing.

There were many days when I would question everyhting and get very very little done. How many meters of chicken wire does it take to make a 2 meter hollow whale-cow? or how do we make a 12 foot purple caterpillar ? and having made it, should it glow in the dark? How will we suspend the huggy-hands? How do we make giant tears swirl upwards and mutate into globs of orange goo?

While cute, these were questions I had to takle on an hourly basis for 2 months, and I soon found myself locked into an existential calamity. I would stand in ikeas and textile markets holding up sheets of cordouroy asking Stuart if it felt chocolate-ty enough, arguing in the lighting section with Maurice about the density of materials needed to pull the catterpillar's torso off.

Meanwhile, things between myself and Jac seemed to be deteriorating at a rate I couldn't comprehend. I found msyelf at ends with everyone. I couldn't seem to wrap my head around people's happiness, or their lust for life. I couldn't understand why I wasn't more fulfilled. I mean I had a perfectly chirpy existence, get to paint coke bottles into cow-skin colored penguins for a day job, liked my life and was (in hind sight) really really loved by a fantastic girl.

but the fight in Japan was raised more and more and lay between us like the DMZ, and our sparse meetings started turning sour, we agreed to seperate a week before valentines day, and for the first time ever, I started crying after drinks.

The installation was over. and with it, all my distractions.

I fought with Jac more often and decided that it wouldn't be a fantastic idea to end the seperation on valentines day, so we did it the next morning.

Singlehood began at this place called the boomerang bar on a humid Friday afternoon. It lasted about an hour, while I cheerfully ate a steak sandwich and enjoyed a few pints with Stuart, Eric, Daniel, Kelly and Peter. I eased its way into simple conversations, and wandered through my phone calls and SMSes, into 'I'm sorrys', 'oh, oh shit. are you ok?s' and then of course the more cavalier 'but they're so many fish in the seas' and 'welcome back to the clubs' ( I know, I know, its so arcaic but you dont stop hearing it)

By this point, things were getting strange. I felt cut off from anything wholesome. I went back to work at the office, which made me a little happier (just to be surrounded by people and normal predicaments again). The weeks that followed were a very turbulent series of fluctuations between having it together and 'fucking it'. I was able to pull myself together in small bouts, and the work kept me working, I even got some nice briefs.

So I'm staring at myself in the mirror. telling myself to be bold, be charismatic, be caffinated, be inspiring, be arrogant, be anything but who you are right now.

The meeting itself is tight, we manage to get all our ideas though (I think) and I'm still a ghost (I know this because after the meeting, I'm hovering around the exit desperately trying to land a smile on someone but no one sees me.)

I opened up the windows this morning for the first time in a long time.

I hope the sunshine helps.

It's tough lovin' in post apocalyptica

I hit Fallout 3 in a hard way. It's so good.

It's what I've sort of been waiting for for almost 10 years now.

And its pretty gay that I'd rather play fallout than come to bed.

Things I'm worried I will run out

There was a point today when I sat down to consider a few things I depend on but that I may very possibly out-live and never completely own again.

My red blanket is one of them. its been with me since before I was born, and every night it gets weaker and limper and the threads and stuffing are scrunched bent and folded in between body parts. Maybe one day it will be as small as a hankerchief and then I'll be able to carry it around in a breast pocket. But either way I'm quite sure it will disintegrate one day from now.

Maybe one day when the goodness is gone, I should frame it instead of throwing it into the washing machine again.

Another is my yo la tengo shirt - a green shirt with a smiley face that I bought at the corner hotel in 2002. I'd gone with Thom who'd bought the exact same shirt. It was one of my favorites, and it'd always be the first to be worn after my laundry was dry. But I got it autographed in 2006 when I saw the band in Singapore, and it'd sat in the bottom of my wardrobe since. I guess that was when it ran out of wears.

There are quite a few photographs that I'm tagged in on facebook. not all of them are of me. I'm not sure if they are mine. But I'm worried that when Facebook goes bust (like these things do) they'll be trapped there forever, and I'll never get another glimpse of them again.

There was the smell of the wash room after the last time you used it and a few bits of hair coiled around the drain that I stared at for a while before I picked them out. They definitely weren't mine.

And when I sank down into bed that afternoon I worried I'd run out of book to read, and then I worried about the hours I'd loose sleeping; the time I'd just spend feeling awake and restless.

And words.

jelly legs

It wasn't a strange morning. 

It was nice outside, and lunch was at one. 

But everything was strange: the act of opening a comic book. unwinding the bandages around my leg, waiting for the restroom. It was really hard to understand why I was doing anything at all. 

I questioned and counter questioned everything that followed.

Why are we laughing? 

Why did I make that joke? 

Why is the film I'm talking about relevant? 

Why are things so nice? 

What is my objective in saying anything at all?

Jac eventually smiles at me and asks why I look so sad - after all, it was my big idea. I brought this strangeness here. it could have just been a nice day. And she is nice. As she waves and says goodbye and disappears into a taxi outside my front gate, I feel heavier. Heavier than ever.

I have a Calzone at one. And the trick to eating a calzone is of course maximizing the use of the stuffing.  Much like eating a pie or a crepe. The most challenging part being the rope-like-pastry on the edges. I cut around them, while leaving just enough 'flat' pastry connected before I lather some mince and cheese on to it. The trick is of course is just to stay on it; to only cut things big enough that I can chew on, then concentrate on chewing until of course there's just the empty plate below me. Then I get on the crutches and make sure to make a little noise as I can as I lift and land up four flights of stairs.

Deciding to sort through the materials for Stephanie's wedding powerpoint, I open a manila envelope and empty some photos onto the desk. I open itunes and try to find a suitable track. I wonder what kind of music I would like to be married to. And then I start to make a play list of songs I think are romantic. I think Neil Diamond would be nice. Though it doesn't make me feel particularly nice. I delete a bunch of photos that have been repeated, and then I send out a desperate text message before I sieve through the physical photos until I can't seem to see them anymore. 

A warmth is traveling though me, on me, down me and its getting tapped between my fingers. Everything is warm. And as it flows and ebbs and pools, I sit here on the floor with one leg elevated. Just marinating in it.

And as everything around me starts to get wet with warmth, the nice day  outside uncannily clouds over, and as the family car pulls out of the drive way, my chest heaves uncontrollably and the snot streams down past my lips and the strangeness is gone.

And the day finally feels quite normal. 

Last Stands

So I was looking through newborn baby pictures from a colleague tonight on Facebook, and was scrolling through the long list of comments. They generally fell into two categories: the awws and ahhs and oh-so-cutes about the child, or semi-cool/clever statements about the new parents with undertones of their soon-to-be lives. 

Being a friend of the couple, I decided to join in. I mean I'd already congratulated them twice verbally, but this was facebook, so it was for the record, so I sat there perplexed, wondering which camp my comment should join. 

Sarah sent me this article about hipsters the other day. It was from Adbusters, and the thing that struck me most about the article was about the hipster need to stay ambiguous. To stay undefinable and nonchalant. Hipsters don't like being called or identified as hipsters.

According to the article, the Hipster-club DJ chanted: 'If you don't care, we don't give a fuck!'

Anyway, so I'm stuck trying to think of something clever/unrevealing about how I really feel about babies and the sort. Would an 'aww so cute' cut it? even if it were sincere? and worse still - is it too passe? I worry for myself for a moment, before typing something quite unremarkable. 

My mother asked me ( in a quite unrelated conversation) the other night if I still had feelings in my broken leg. And yes, I do. But I also had to smirk to myself. Because what I was wondering that moment as she asked the question was if I really was feeling was the leg or the trauma from trying to guise those feelings. 

I don't think I'm a very savvy or accurate hipster, but I do feel a certain desertion of emotion from my life. And I'm not sure what the departure from snags and emo kids meant, but it left me feeling pretty cool and culturally relevant. 

I read this article about Nirvana and Kurt Kobain, and how he used to break down and cry during concerts, and sometimes it'd be so bad that he'd not be able to finish the set. I listened to a bright eyes song about the first day of his life. I put on my favorite Wilco album. I listened to Ben Kweller till I got bored. I starred at pictures of babies on facebook. I felt my legs, and rubbed the good one against the air-cast.

I drank whiskey by myself. 

and yawned. 

And as I started to feel worse and worse, I decided that it was better than feeling nothing, and that perhaps I'm still pretty snagy and am less and less  compelled by my own argument.

Bedroom Radio

music I made while I was broken legged

Hey Matthew, I love you, come again and give one more Mat.

I've never really enjoyed these shows. It's not the content. I really do like the stuff on display generally. I quite like the venue too, well not in a huge way but it is (for lack of a better word) very cool.

The artist tonight is a pretty, mousey-looking girl who I've met several times since joining the OIC (an online drawing/art club of sorts). I don't think I've ever spoken to her properly, but her stuff is quite refreshing, and tonight, I'm staring at a magic maker drawing of two people fucking. I'd been drawn there by eaves dropping on a couple who'd looked like they were quite serious about the work and were talking about their favorites. The red haired lady had brought the Scotsman here and I'd rather unassumingly tagged along. The Scottsman, releases a farting sound from his lips, and mutters something along the lines of it being his least favorite, followed by a string of slurred and heavily accented profanities. The redhead rises up to articulate what exactly she likes about it, at which point the scottsman (now thoroughly aggravated) says something to the effect of 'well if that's how you feel, have a goodnight'. I head footsteps walking away behind me, followed by a heavy sigh and a muffled statement from the redhead.

I hadn't realised, but in the tenseness of the situation I'd actually reached for a large hand-stitched beaver (also on display) and was now pretending to be throughly engrossed with the reverse of its tail.

I feel a hot flush come over me. before I hear yet another resigned and muffled statement form the redheaded lady who is still standing behind me staring at the picture.

At For some reason I turn around and say 'I'm sorry?',

The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness

Noel has a theory.

There are two types of really successful people in this world, the people who see what they want and then work really really hard at getting it, and then the type who just have it in them and have to constantly eject visions out of their systems. Example: Man sees a vision in his dream, devotes his life to realizing it, comes out on top eventually.

Of course there is no guarantee that your vision will be worth anything, but there should essentially be a feeling of immense success and liberation from all other things - think doing a really massive crap that you really needed to do, that makes you feel really awesome, and then take that sensation and times 10 (?) maybe more.

Anyway, we thought about this.

'But don't you find the people who love their jobs the most are also the people who hate them the most?' I ask. 'no' he replies, 'please explain.'

Yeah, so you see.

Take this guy in our office, he loves his job. He's great at it. He's been doing it for like 20,000 years now. And he wakes up and just keeps needing to shit out this amazing crap because it's tearing him a new asshole. But, he's constantly burdened and surrounded by people who don't love the job as much. He can't understand. He's frustrated. He accepts their lack of enthusiasm. but their failure is perceived to him as being linked directly to what he does and he can get quite crabby a lot, and not in a hissy fit kind of way, but like in a totally deep-seeded underscoring kind of crabby way. Dig?

Noel Shrugs.

I haven't really convinced myself .

But essentially, the more you love something the more you criticize it, get depressed about it and well, out right hate it... right? It's the history of sexuality. It's the law. You don't stop loving it, you just start hating it more than anyone else does as well.

Then Noel does an impression of a cereal selling monkey.

Which is actually really funny.

Waiting

I woke up several times the night before.
I don't know why, but when this happens I generally start pacing.

Its tense, and my room and sheets are filled with the kind of vibrating anxiety and urgency I'd forgotten about since high school.

'It's at that point. You know?' (I explain to Stephanie and Adrian 3 nights after)... drafting text messages, setting mini ultimatums, reminding yourself that things are going to be ok.

The pacing is followed by rehearsing.

'Hi', hi sounds good. Hi's familiar, Hi's inoffensive enough and disarming. 'Hey', I mouth instead. I remember Scott once pointed out to me in uni the odd necessity to start SMSs with the word 'Hey'.

Closing my eyes again. I have another dream and think of Walter - the subject in 'the Gift' (by the velvet underground)- a boy who'd successfully posted himself to his girlfriend cross continent only to be accidentally stabbed in the head by her kitchen knife (which she useses to pry open the freight box).

The morning comes soon enough.

Humming bird

Chinese Newyear came quickly.

Between the pitches, 70s themed company AGM, and a rather foggy Tuesday night, I find myself time lapsing through a Wednesday afternoon.

I'd worn the new shirt I'd agreed to buy and save for the newyear - a Topshop number with lots of red stripes and buttons. The rain had just lifted and condensation was forming under the rims of my not very functional sunglasses.

I'd bumped into June and Jude on the train before. 'But I never expected that' June tells me, refering to the contents of my Robinson's shopping bag - which include 20 pots of play-dough and an ounce of mouldable sand. Jude notes that my shirt is really from top shop, and that he owns one too.

If you're so clever, why arn't you rich?

Pure is a party on an island that I never knew existed - largely because it only has one building on it (a yacht club).

Drinks are free between 7 and 10, so there are plenty of people milling by the bar and outstreched arms weaving with deft precision towards the moving trays of Vodka limes and VB pints (a beer considered quite novelty in Singapore).

I'd gone with Michelle, a journalist, who'd intoducted me to quite a few people from fashion and media. And I'd even bumped into Chuan (My neighbor - and not really form fashion or media), spotted a few Clients as well as Yang, a photographer who'd recently moved here from who I'd been bumping into quite alot recently.

Pure is a book of photographs showcasing 25 local celebrities. Naked and crying. Each book is going for $10,000 and Includes dinner.

Proceeds go to Cancer.

5 shots have been taken from the book and are on display behind the party's reception, the Most popular seems to be one of a guy named 'Mark' who has a long line of wet snot running down his chin - by far the most confrontational thing on this display that night.

'I can't beleive Mark let them use that photography without any DI (Digital retouching)' someone comments approaching photo.

People's thoughts on the photos seem to be the hot topic.

Noticing the Dominic (Pure's creator and photographer) in the vacinity, so I walk over say hi and shake his hand while congratulating him. We're approached by a crowd-photographer asking us to pose for a shot. I ask Dominic politely if he'd like to replicate a pose He'd shot of two young female models crying into each others shoulders. He thinks for a moment and then grins, extends one one arm and walks towards me allowing me to pour my best look of faux agony and sadness into his padded shoulder.

Later that night as Michelle and I are considering getting something to eat, I Notice Chuan (who'd been moving around the party in search of cigarettes) approaching the photo wall, then turning towards a skinny lady dressed in a tight fitted high cut dress and loose-fitted knee-high pointy-boot-stilettos, carrying an expensive looking Hollywood Cerise colored box of Dunhill cigarettes.

For some reason people seem to dress better on Thursday nights.

To my delight she pulls one from the box and hands it to him, so I quickly approach her, introduce myself and politely (and faux-apologetically) ask if I too could bum one.

After doing a quick one-over she smiles and says 'Maybe if you beg.'

'What if I bat my eyelids in quick succession and add a few W's to my pwretty pleases?' I ask while opening and closing in quick succession my eyes and inserting a few W's in to the word 'pretty'.

She faux-laughs, smiles, hands me one from the pack, and after one bar of conversation,
tells me 'You're so cheap', before doing a quick tuck-turn and ushering herself away from me.

Realising that I actually did suddenly feel quite cheap, I decided I'd best shut up and just enjoy the good value.

Rewind

'The whole world is a shop. One giant fucking shop.' proclaims the man with the moustache on a white stallion , pulling further and further from the camera.

I've noticed over progressive runs through downtown area the rapid transformation and reconfiguration of the city. Shop windows been stripped of their christmas content (apart from the smug and conveniently ambiguous festive husks) and then being replaced with oriental onnings, polystyrene gold nuggets. Red Chinese lanterns replacing the long strings of blue-neon lights.

All over the Orchard roadside lie piles and piles of christmas debris - long tincel wrapped tnedris that used to house and support elaborate lighting systems, are chopped and piled on top of each other like the trimmings of trees. Silver bells made from plastic, are rolling around between the feet of sunday shoppers. The collapsed husks of christmas trees covered in astroturf are now bound by the same ribbons and decorations they used to support.

At the mid point of my run, a gigantic hand and Chinese head are towering over me from the top of a huge scaffolding - (that I assume is soon to be the rest of his body.)

In my bed later and in the novel I'm reading, it is still Christmas. Only this time in a Diner in LA sometime in the late 80s. The protagonist, Clay has been chain smoking throughout the novel,
and has stopped to stare at/ mention a pile of decorative Christmas presents. The kind I always used to lust after as a kid. The giant box with a huge ribbon in the fanciest shimmeriest cellophane wrapping paper.

I wonder why I didn't see any of them on my run.
Maybe it's because they're kind of recyclable.

On Thursday I was at a brainstorm with Stuart and Mark, and during one of those moments when you go completely off topic/ doing work, we digressed to bitching a little about what we did (advertisements).

"So he asked me, 'Stuart when's the last time you were just blown away? You know, taken, you had to put down what you were working on and just ran out to buy it (the product he was working on) And I said 'never', 'never?', 'never.'."

"He thought about it, and then agreed".

We had never been influenced by even our best ads. Unanimous. Not since the late 80s. Never. Maybe even before we started making ads, none of us had.

We are the placebo-present making people - who'd want to deliriously unwrap the placebo present you'd just spent the last 6months + research wrapping? We'd spent our professional lives art-directing and expending huge amount of brain activity trying to make sure that people, like my childhood self are enthralled and drawn toward the potential of the mysteriously friendly, and not-over-art-directed box, and believed.

Naomi Klein talked about wanting to reach up to the sky and touch the back-lit acrylic shell logo outside the petrol station.

I still do.

There's something magical about the ineligibility of a glowing plastic logo.

We used to steal them in College. Road signs, street lights, billboards, sandwich boards, posters, the price of petrol, corporate art. And just like trapped insects, they would cease to be the morning after - reduced to large, inconvenient (and usually dirty) chunks of industrial strength acrylic and a series of dead bulbs.

Much like my holiday in Hongkong when I was 8 and I discarded the present the hotel-Santa had given me thinking I'd be better off with one of the larger boxes under the decorative tree -it was even heavier- and I knew just by holding the flimsily wrapped oblong that santa had given me that I really didn't need another volume of the Hardy Boys.

Needless to say, I was miserable that night.

In Special topics in Calamity Physics (Pessel, 2006) Our Heroine and protagonist Blue Van-Meer valedicts from her class giving a speech that celebrates the goldfish- when your entire life is surmised by the last three seconds, everything is new, there are no hangups, no histories of depression, no rejection scars, no baggage. The goldfish is the perpetual student. the person who never tires of learning, the most progressive species who constantly embrace and evolve 3 seconds at a time.

I wonder for a moment if that's whats happening here.

I wrap, I unwrap, I disappoint, am disappointed, I forget, and then on friday I'm in love again.

I want an Xbox 360 elite, an I phone, a Macbook air, Alexander Mcqueen Adidas sneakers, an Aston Martin, Copies of D&Q comics and tickets to broken social scene. I would pay hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars for these things.

Maybe I should start writing ads for them and save a little money.

Yawn.

Far, Far Away

At 5.45pm, the sun is peering through dark, threatening rain clouds. I don't think I've ever seen the city in such high contrast.

I pass from one patch of sun to another, running shoulder-first through bystanders, shoppers and commuters. I can feel the Arches of my feet straining against the odd leather straps in my not-so-good-for-running shoes; They Tug and chew into the insides of my feet - which now feel raw and like something I'll regret it tomorrow.

I'm at the padang when it begins to rain rain - a sensible and nice amount of drizzle that builds slowly and then crescendos into thunderous machine-gun claps. I bound past a few people huddling under a bus shelter, past a valet escorting a driver out of his vehicle with a large golf-sized umbrella, and make my way toward the Esplanade bridge.

At this point my shoes, now damp, are sawing deep blisters to the insides of my feet, and as I sprint towards the river to the sounds of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch; I'm squinting though the warm rain running through my hair and then my eyes; through the yellow lens flares and back-lit rain: on the river - a sea of irregular floating white spheres are rocking with the tide as far as the eye can see.

There must be thousands of them, giant minties, mentoses and mothballs, strewn across the river, bopping in a synchrony.

'Where are we?' Asks a jogger to another between heavy breaths
(a scenario I recall from a Nike Advertisement I saw a while ago.)

'I don't know' She replies (bewildered) '... I've never run this far before'

They stand there hand on knee, huffing and baffled, staring at something neither of them have witnessed before.

Tomorrow is 2008 and there are others, 20 or so, standing there under the bridge, drawn to the shelter and the bopping balls.

I reach for my pedometer, wrapped in a ziplock bag in my pocket - I'm still 5.7 kilometers short of a standard half-marathon.

Bowen Street

I returned to the living room of two(dash)seventeen Bowen street Camberwell, home of Grace and Eddie (my maternal grandparents) as well as plenty of my pre/circa/post adolescent memories. It is also the birth place of this Blog - though many of those earlier articles were lost in a tragic but not very note-worthy incident.

When they first moved into the house it was 1988 or maybe 87.
My family had moved into a house just across the park form here on range street. It was my parent's first 'dream house' (according to mum), and my grandparents who had previously stayed in their newly emptied family home, had decided to downsize and move closer to us.

It was here I came to watch starwars, and the place I would have starwars explained in great length and detail to me (I was three); a place where Jake the Snake beat the shit out of hulk hogan with a collapsible chair (and then fed him to his snake) after dinner; a place where I was grounded for half a year during the final days of year twelve; a treasure trove of odd adult pulp fictions, exotic weponary (like my uncle's old air rifle, and a collection of blunt/display combat knives, sabers and a samurai sword), rare LP's and of course (and most memorably) the collection of technicolored 70s pornographic VHS tapes that were always under lock and key.

I pashed my first pash here, and passed out here after my first big night on the piss.
The computer inside still retains lengthy soppy ICQ histories from conversations with (fashionable at the time) aliases like ~pInKieGuRlie^_^ and DarKaNgEl4eVa.

A car pulls into the driveway. ( As many have on many eventful occasions over the last 20 years.)

It's Kim's Holden.

Grace politely offers some juice or 'cider'- but the non alcoholic kind you'd expect grandparents to offer. 'You forgot this' Eddie says holding up a blue CD. 'I didn't , it's yours' I reply. I glance at kim, who is snickering covertly.

that night, I'm on 59k - a window seat.

The Aircraft is particularly humid and the flight quite non eventful. the Guy next to me, a tall Moby-looking physiotherapist is talking to me about our futures. He's bound for London to find his love, and eventually return there for a year to work, he thinks Singapore is the city of the future and that in 30 years time all big cities will be modeled on it. I agree but am not too convinced. I start work tomorrow and had left Kim a rather soppy SMS (as SMSes go) as I'd left the terminal before.

I'd been christmas day 24 hours before and we'd been trying to coax Kim's little cousin into entertianing us for a little while. 'Lets go for a walk (cigarette)' says Kim (rather resigned ) to myself and Clare. So we take a walk round the block though a rather incandescent christmas afternoon, kicking small acorns across the pavement while Kim thralls a rather domesticated reed she'd plucked before across various picket fences. She still thinks I look more like a stingray than a Panda. I do my stingray face (which makes her chuckle in an unpolite way.)

As her Holden pulls away from the front steps, Grace's eye's are pink and she's on the verge of tears. I wave to her form the rear window - at which point I wish I could have taken her with me or just held her for half an hour. It was only yesterday afternoon that they'd fought over what channels to watch - Eddie's into MTV and Grace likes Cartoons. 'you just skipped over the best part' she yells at Eddie, who'd briefly flicked over to the Video Hits Christmas special to check if Wham had finished and Mariah Carey had come back on. She was visibly upset about not finding out how timmy had been saved from the Lavapit. 'You're so selfish' she yells 'inconsiderate!' at which point Eddie quickly flicks back to her cartoon. 'She's started watching cartoons again,' he explains, 'she really likes those japanese ones with the pretty eyes'.

I'm in her arms, and she's thanking me for bring her back soggy hash browns and poached eggs.

How do I deserve love like this?

I'm not sure.

I tell Kim I'll see her in February. And give Adelle a big hug and before that Clare, and the night before Jackson and Stephen, and the morning before Dawsey and before that Dom and Michael, and Eddie and Bebe, Robyn, Ian, Grace, Liz, Gigi, Brian, Carrina, Jess, Dad, Chloe, Mum, Canjida, Rosaline, Sean et.al. Hug after hug after hug, until Kim again at tullamarine. She tells me how she can't believe it'll be a while till I'd next be back there in melborune.

My boots are heavy as we walk away from each other.

See you soon.

You, Me & Ripponlea

The Lucky Coq, is a garishly colored colonial building sitting on the corner of chapel and high street. Large vats of fruit flavored vodka are suspended above the barman, beyond which are diecut levers for their house brews 'blonde coq' and 'black coq'. Somwhere inside Dawesy and Danish are nursing two large pizzas, a vodka & soda and a scooner of draught.

They're discussing a Christmas present they'd gotten from one of their clients - a giant sunshade - like the ones you normally use for your car, only for humans - one human.
'ya got to chuck it against a wall, and then boom! there's your tent!', 'that's awesome!' I reply (sincerely) - Unknown to me at the time was that I'd be carrying around this anti glare hut for the rest of the night.

Pizzas there are 3 dollars and as australian pizzas go they overwhelmed me with the sheer amount of meat and leaves stuck to the dough. The girl across from me is having the same toruble I'm having with keeping the topping off her lap. I crack a joke about how I'm astro-turfing the bar floor which gets a few laughs, but the rain outside is keeping me anxious.

A third scooner, helps calm me - there's something about the weather that's keeping me jittery. I tell this to the petite asian girl next to me, she looks at me funny, before replying that it's perfect weather to stay in and just curl up. I decided to maybe just stop thinking about the weather, and end up talking to Dawsey about boobs.

Later that evening Dawes and I are in a 'fucking huuuge' maxi taxi (quote unquote the taxi driver) and on our way to the Gertrude Nightclub - a speck life in an overgrown industrial landscape, lit by tiny serialized flashing bulbs. It's here we read the birthday book with Kim and Jess - a pretty energetic social worker who I'd get to know better by the end of this post - and according to the birthday book has psychic mind controlling abilities and may one day be in need of psychological help ( but apparently so will Dawsey.) She's telling me about horse riding before learning to walk, apparently riding a thorough-bred down a beach isn't all that, I should warn Serene about this as it could make or break her ultimate daydream fantasy which currently would be :

'riding a stallion down a beach on a Tuesday morning.'

At 9 I'm sititng onthe steps of Melbourne central station with Jess, trying to use the compacted anti-glare hut as a windshield. she's trying to explain the practice of 'zoning' to me:

Jess: 'Hmm, lets see, where could we imagine we'd be?'

'In the future! of the universe! where cars have taken over the people as citizens of the world!' I yell triumphantly. Jess pauses for a second and umms 'I was thinking Zurich.' 'Zurich?' I ask. 'Yeah Zurich', Jess confirms. 'I've never been to Zurich' I reply, 'Niether have I, but thats the idea', I stare at the multistory carpark above 'Digiworld' and 'CrazyJohn's mobile world' - all lit in fluro lights - Zurich!

Later that night I'm back at the Coq, and wedged under her arm and next to Emma. 'You're my fourth Asian friend!' says Jess, 'you're my only Kiwi friend!' I reply. My brain is swelling and swirling and it's all a bright warm blobbing lava lamp. I'm using words like 'visceral' and phrases like 'the cultural drip of melborune', while smoke and ale pass in and out of my lips. For a moment I'm talking to Bradley, an up and coming radio producer who eventually wants to make documentaries, and his sister Emma, a pretty brown haired nurse who is also form Newzeland and lives with Jess. With Mervin, who I'm explaining the cultural drip to. My head is a surf and I'm capsizing neck first. 'dots!' says Jess. She's grinning, kim's grinning and I hadn't a clue what she meant but Kim is waving at us from a moving taxi. Dawsey's down with the plan too, which somehow comforts me - I mean there's only a handful of things in this world that dawsey wouldn't kill - and thats a comforting sort of person to spoon in bed.

I'm passed a broken corona bottle and breathing through its yellow-stained neck. 'Wow you got it all', 'yeah' cough, 'Feel. Awesome'. I'm, I doing eyebrow-semaphore with dawsey from the between the legs of a coffee table while Jess sits firmly upon the dining table while Bradly dances around the stove with glowing knives and something is burning. There's another person

7am, we're huddling out the door, and walking up-draft to the marker green map jess had drawn on her fridge the night before. My head feels like a hardening marshmallow, and my mouth is parched and slicked over with 20 flavors of bad. We're at Ripponlea, and the automated MET operator is telling us we've got another 12 minutes of cold to sit through.

Dawsey says 'It's gonna be like in that film',

'We catch the train, wake up, and this place will never have existed'.

So I take a picture, just to be sure.