where's ya wheelie bin

they've turned a recycling bin on its side and sit talking in the dark as i get home. i've been wanting to judge new love all evening, and feel glad that sound rises so i can eavesdrop from the balcony.

'i want to take you with me, but get your shit together.' he's wasted. there's silence. 'just get some fucking qualifications, veronica.'

she sobs.

'why are you crying? what's sad is that it had to come to this for me to tell you.'

'i'm crying because it's true.' she can hardly get the words out. he doesn't have to be such an arse about it. i feel like statler and waldorf, stage left in the muppets: gotta go to bed before i start heckling.

lone hippy at ceres

'it's dead out here, mate. I got here real early and only sold 13 bucks worth. the stall cost me ten so I've made three dollars. I feel like killing myself.'

'mate, there's 12,000 punters at rainbow serpent this weekend, that's where the money is.'

public sculptures

we're on the road to geelong, going past a public sculpture. 'ah ha, gynies!'

'they're supposed to be decomposing leaves, not gynies.'

'gynies!' there's quiet while we listen to my new mix tape, playing slow like when the batteries  run down in your walkman.

'i guess most public sculptures do look like boobs or erections,' says mr bies, on reflection. 'or anuses.'

'what about the yellow peril? the vault. which one's that?

'none of 'em. that's why it got rejected.'

about today

'everyone in this place has a beard except us,' says Is. we’re in the back row. one guy has both arms above his head, index fingers poking holes in the air. his silhouette against the stage lights makes me want to cry. i check my body. not drunk, not wired, not sedated. not stressed or anxious. it’s something else, this feeling, unfamiliar.

hey, are you awake / yeah i'm right here / well can i ask you about today / how close am i to losing you / how close am i to losing.

i feel the past year surge, wordless. panic, check my assets: i’m with people i love. i’ve got a home to go to and i can pay the rent. best of all, i’m listening to matt berninger recount what it feels like to be just this side of total breakdown, and come out singing.

leave your home / change your name / live alone / eat your cake … hangin' from chandeliers / same small world / at your heels

it’s happiness i’m feeling. i know clearly that the sky will not fall down. even if it starts pouring with rain inside the palais right now, we’ve nailed this moment, The National and me.

all the very best of us / string ourselves up for love

bureaucrats in stairwell

'you know Hugo, right?'

'with the white hair? looks like the incredible hulk?'

'yeah. up on the eighth floor.'

pink bits

black dog rocks

the black dog grins as it runs, lead in its mouth. close behind is a young guy on rollerblades, topless, and on his right, like the trunk of an old tree in motion, a woman in a wheelchair. then, a dude riding goofy on a skateboard with one hand on the wheelchair, his black mullet streaming as he brings up the rear.

i file this information so deep in my brain that it vanishes while i'm spooning tea leaves into the pot, waiting for the kettle. later, in the back of the Bies' wagon on the way to black rock, we see another dog carrying its own lead and i remember the view from my kitchen window this morning.

'well that sounds like a family, right there,' says Mrs Bies. i get another vision: in ten years from now i'll still be doing this, tagging along on their family outings, by then sharing the back seat with their little ones, amid mouldy fruit and half-chewed rusks.

another summer at half-moon bay.

darwin museum

the lesser labiaboxsaurus croc dines strictly on the ladies.

grace darling

the body knows

"some say the soul informs the body. but what if we were to imagine for a moment that the body informs the soul, helps it adapt to mundane life: parses, translates, gives the blank page, the ink and the pen with which the soul can write upon our lives?

"suppose the body is a god in its own right, a teacher, a mentor, a certified guide? then what?

"is it wise to spend a lifetime chastising this teacher who has so much to give and teach? do we wish to spend a lifetime allowing others to detract from our bodies, judge them, find them wanting? are we strong enough to refute the party line and listen deep, listen true to the body as a powerful and holy being?

"... in the wild psyche, body is understood as a being in its own right, one who loves us, depends on us, one to whom we are sometimes mother, and who sometimes is mother to us."


i started to tell mum about this passage in women who run with the wolves and she cut me off. oh, i never read that at the time. it seemed too fashionable. but if it's any good maybe i'll read it after you.

if i'd read this in 1992, it might have saved me a lot of fuss.

town bikes

tram stop

What i want ... more than anything ... is for you ... to fuck off.

ok fair enough, bleeding man lying on the footpath in the foetal position with your head rigid as though there's a pillow underneath. i did plough in thinking some dudes were kicking you round. they left, i tried to nudge you upright. white hair, torn forehead and knee.

those eyes, i know them. you were young and hot and funny or spiritual or something other magnetic. now a bit old and still drunk and watching to see what i'll do next. night.

also it's christmas and people are a bit nuts. yelling into phones while crossing the road. generally, with or without family, equally nuts.

i hope you get home. maybe prop yourself up against a wall.

town bikes

blue light limbo

i brush past her at the dessert table as she mentions the womyn's collective. must be one of R's friends from uni - post feral, shaved head. cute. trying to stay positive about this whole man-wife wedding caper.

later, in the line for limbo, she leans back to me. i can do this. i've been to enough blue light discos, yeah? she says. it hardly matters cos lolli will kick all our arses – i've seen her limbo under a coffee table before – but i like that she's taken her shoes off.

growing up lesbian in the goddamn suburbs. bummer, but she got there. here.

my spine hurts.