catch28

I’ve stayed up late tonite reading a book a friend gave me for my birthday. My general policy on fiction is that if I have anything going on in my life that needs attention, then I have to not read any new fiction. I get too easily cuaght up in it. Unlike the books of my teenage years which I have since read and re-read many times over, once I get into a new book I find it difficult to find a break in the narrative significantly big enough that I can put the book aside and think to myself "that’s all for tonite." So I’ve spent about the last 5 hours reading. Now I can’t sleep, and I have to get up for work in 5 hours.

The book, by the way, is "Dead Europe" by Christos Tsiolkis. Many thoughts and feeling rushing about me because of this book, not quite sure how to express them, not sure if I will.

As I’m writing this I’m waiting for my father to arrive to pick me up and take me to my brother’s bucks night. I’m feeling a little jittery as I’m never actually gone out socially with my brothers before, we don’t really have that sort of relationship. Or I could just be feeling the effects of no food since 11am, four strong coffees and my new crazy meds. Either way I think I’ll have the prawns for dinner.

So I spent quite a while trying to decide what to wear. Sure, I knew what to wear to the queer thing I’m going to afterwards, but I can’t wear that stuff to that bastion of straightdom, the coogee bay hotel. My mother said I have to "dress up" for tonite, which has totally different conotations for the straights than for the queers. I don’t think turning up in nipple clamps and arseless chaps is what she had in mind. The basic look was easy to decide upon, but choosing shoes and accessories was a nightmare. How to look gay, but not too gay? So, navy trousers, my funky italian shoes, white collared button up shirt with faded print, leather wrist cuffs, and my blue RBK glasses. I call the look sophisticated gaybo. I actually am quite happy with it, although I didn’t think I would be.

Wish me luck. Hope I don’t get bashed, or worse, hit on. 

The challenge for today; apply for 5 jobs, finish my uac application, get milk and newspaper, hang out my washing. All by 5.30pm this evening.

The time is now 2.45pm. Task completed: 0.

We sat in the middle of the road, drinking mimosas as the wind storm blew around us. We’d arrived early to government house, as we had to purchase tickets at the gate and we wanted to stake out a good spot on the lawns to spread our blankets. It was springtime in sydney, a time of picnics and garden music, and, as we were soon to be reminded, changable weather. What had begun as a hot sunny day, by twelve pm had turned blustery and cold, the change rolling in from the sea. We wondered which gods we’d offended. Still, the wind brought a frission of danger to the excitement that already hung in the air. Would the trees in the gardens blow over and crush us? Many of them had been condemned, rotting from the inside out over the last one hundred years, but who were we to know which ones? The scheduled opening time was delayed for an hour. "It’s too dangerous to let people in right now, things have already blown over." Sound check continued inside, beyond the hedge wall, keeping our hopes high. At the announcment, hundreds left the queue to picnic on the grass next to the wall, but we stayed, drinking mimosas on the road, hoping for the wind to abate.

 As the hour passed friends joined us in the queue, sitting and drinking on the sunday afternoon. We made contingency plans, back to ours to eat our picnic, then on to the pub. It was too windy to unpack our food here, our cutlery a threat to the children that toppled around us with each new gust of wind. Soon some inside information from the boyfriend of one of the guys in the band (curses to them for being so attractive! *shakes fist in the air*), the outlook wasn’t hopeful. And then the announcement came; "Unfortunately we’ll have to cancel Garden Music. The wind is too strong and we can’t gaurantee your safety. Apologies." At last, sadly, reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse, and we forsook our place on the ground, our waiting done.

As we walked away, back to the city, we passed him again, the boyfriend of the boy in the band. They were selling the new cd, and the old ones too. I got the new one "Calling Mission Mu." It’s beautiful. "They’re playing at the vanguard next month." "We’ll be there," we replied. We’d missed them last month at the Tilbury because of the rain, and now we’d missed them at Garden Music because of the wind. Let’s hope the Vanguard doesn’t burn down. 

The other month I purchased a pair of no sweat shoes. They were great, incredibly comfortable, and they gave me that warm fuzzy feeling on the inside, cuz they were like, no sweat, you know. It’s similar to that feeling you get when you purchase organic fairtrade coffee. However, the shoes started falling about within 2 months, which is a very short time for shoes to wear out on me. So, thinking that this might just be a manufacturing anomaly, I purchased another pair. And now, 2 months later, these shoes are also falling apart. In particular, my right shoe is falling apart. Fortunately, with my first pair of no sweat shoes it was the left one that was in worse condition. This means I can still were the left shoe of my second pair, and as for some strange reason I never through shoes away, I have rescued the right shoe of my first pair. Which hopefully means I’ll get another month of wear out of them before I have to buy a new pair of shoes. Sadly though, I think I’ll have to get a different brand of shoes, as purchasing a new pair of shoes every two to three months is a little excessive (unless, of course, I’m buying different types of shoes. the point is the shoes shouldn’t wear out so quickly. If I’m actually expanding my collection of shoes evey three months, well, thats alright.)

Sure, no matter how I want to avoid the truth, no matter how hideous it is to admit to such a thing, no matter how much I wish things were different, I can no longer live this lie. I have to stop and admit the harsh, harsh truth. And when I admit this to you, gentle reader, I shalln’t, or shan’t even, blame you if you treat me like the pariah I surely am.

 I have a cold.

Yes, a cold! Oh the wailing and knashing of teeth! I have a cold!

At first I though I could pretend that it was simple hayfever. It was windy, there was pollen in the air, no wonder my eyes were sore and my nose was runny and I was sneezing all the time. But that was 4 days ago now. I suppose the moment of truth came when I rushed to the chemist this morning before work and bought some codral. I made not a murmur of complaint when I handed over my license so the government could track my pseudoephedrine consumption, so eager was I to get my hands on the good stuff. And now I sit, doped up to the eyeballs, waiting for the nighttime formula to take effect.

damn government. 

Often I think to myself what would I do in certain situations, and often my response is that I would sit and cry. For example, if I were in some sort of tragic ordeal, and then I returned several years later to the scene of that tragic ordeal, I would just sit and cry. The past two days have felt very much like that. Like I’ve been visiting the site of some terrible thing I went through, and even though I’ve survived and moved on yada yada yada, returning there makes me feel like I just want to sit and cry. Not because I’m still upset or hurt or anything, but the memories are still very strong, and I can so clearly remember what it felt like at the time. The identification of my present self with my past self is still so strong, and yet it is hard to not acknowledge the changes, the disconnections between then and now. The feelings are no longer a perfect fit. Still it is hard to make sense of it all. I’ve often been accused that I don’t let go of things easily. I suppose it is true. Yet I wonder; how long will it take?

I downloaded a biorhythm widget. It says the emotionally I’m at my lowest ebb yesterday and today.

 So its the end of the october long weekend. The beginning of the summer clubbing season, the weekend of sleaze and associated pre, post and alternative parties. All in all, ususally a very big weekend. And after weeks of waffling, I had actually planned to have a very big weekend. So it was a little underwhelming that it wasn’t very big, nor spectacular in any way. The music was mostly good, but rarely vering off into excellent. The atmosphere was pleasent, but without the frission of possibilites that usually hangs in the air. On any other weekend but this one it would have been an excellent weekend. I slept a lot.

 Looking back over the past three days I would have to say that the best bits have only occured in the past few hours. Beers and boy-watching at the newtown with Mr A, dinner at happy chef with Miss L. Up until this time I’d mostly been left with a sense of dissatisfaction over the events of this weekend, and it’s this sense of dissatisfation that I shall carry into the coming week. Time spent with Mr A and Miss L this weekend has shown me that it wasn’t what I was doing that lead to the weekend being underwhelming, but rather it was my approach to choices I was making, and places I was choosing to go. For example, I went to after work drinks at a straight pub in parramatta with work friends, rather than pre-sleaze kooky with queer friends. I settled for going to sleaze with straight girl friend, thinking that because she was there it would make it different and interesting, rather than organising people to go to bad dog and therefore missing the best party of the weekend. There was much potential for great things to happen, but in choosing the safe options to avoid social awkwardness, I side-stepped it all. Which means that pretty much everyone I know had a better time ushering in summer than I did.

I have displeased the clubbing gods, and they have punished me with boredom.