great fitzroy soy spill

pleasure state

There’s a 360-degree view of trees and sea, but pete stares at me while I read jonathan franzen on the couch. Then I catch myself in the kitchen watching him read the paper in the afternoon light – I half expect him to offer a running commentary on the world as he soaks up the news, but he doesn’t.

Each time I leave the room, a past love flashes into my mind with little reminders of the first moments of that first falling. Like writing my 1999 Christmas to-do list on M's chest in our first week together, then staying in bed for days, blurred, indelible. Or waking in the night to study his face while he slept.

For once, these rememberies aren’t crowding out new love. Like moving house dislodges thoughts of all the shifting seasons that have come before, I am connecting gently with the last time I really felt this.

We’re putting on boots to walk through the forest. Razorbacks call out like mutant villains from either side of the path and I’m waiting for them to charge out of the bush and eat our internal organs, but pete says they’re only marking their territory and I choose to believe him.

I watch our shadows touch on the great ocean road and remember M and me on the beach after swimming in phosphorescence, the moment I said, ‘I reckon we’ve got legs’. 

This is the state of falling in love.

battery samoyeds

i'm standing next to a three-time 1980s AFL grand final player. i've sunk three glasses of prosecco and all i've had to eat is a couple of bites of paté on toast so i'm a little graspy as we try to find some common ground other than pete.

'marvellous dimensions, this room. imagine when there were people living in it,' he says.

'there's tunnels all under fitzroy, a chef up the road told me. they run beneath smith street between all the old warehouses ands shops,' i say. i can hear myself barrelling into a high maintenance anecdote but the only alternative is silence.

'i'd say they all have cellars at the very least, that's how they kept things cool.' he smiles at me from beneath his handlebar moustache. there's still some goodwill there. i'm trying to contain the inner tripper but she's clearly keen to get a guernsey.

'we were eating dumplings at a place just up the road when the owner took a delivery of all this dog meat. big bags of the stuff they had to carry in on their shoulders. which was fine, but then he came over and felt he had to explain himself. "samoyeds," he said. "we're breeding samoyeds in the cellar, that's why we need so much dog meat." then he told us about all the tunnels underneath smith street. now i can't go past that place without thinking about all the battery samoyeds in the cellar.'

*silence*

'that sounds stranger out loud than it does in my head. i'd better check it actually happened.' 

i spoke with him earlier

It doesn't look like the anchor has had a long day until he throws to the pre-record.

an earlier version of him, more freshly caffeinated, maybe. the skin tighter under his eyes, his forehead softer. He's pinker at cheek, jowls firmer against his jaw.

Grilling complete, they cut back to the studio.

It's a barely perceptible shift, this passing of hours in seconds, but i can tell. at least one pigment cell in one strand of hair in that Lego haircut has died in the scrolling back and forth.

we get to jump around in time.

planning day

we should be multitasked across the validity of our function.

weinmeisterstrasse

broken hearted soliloquy

hot winter night, 1.50am

mike? can you hear me? i know you can hear me. i can't go without seeing you. i missed your messages today and i tried to call you back but you didn't answer. come on. you were at my house today and you're always allowed in. mike let me in for two minutes that's all.

i know you think i'm insane. i'm probably a bit insane. i just need to look at you. i put a note under your door. just read the note. i can't leave. i'll just walk round and round the block. you could make this whole thing stop in five seconds. two minutes. if you're thinking i'm a nutcase and i'll tire myself out soon you're wrong. i'm just going to sit here until you let me up. just for a minute. two minutes. 

mike i'm going to throw myself off the balcony. i just need to see you before you go. i don't even know where you're going. that box of stuff you left for me. god it's heartbreaking.

have i fucked you up so much? do you not think i've felt any pain over the past few years? i'm here. i'm insane and a whore i know, but i'm not going anywhere until i've seen you. i just really need to see you.

if i had anything higher than this i'd throw myself off it. this is bullshit. come on. i can't eat. i can't sleep. i can't do anything. just five minutes. two minutes. i don't want your neighbour to yell at me again but i don't care now. ok i care a little bit but i don't care.

mike i'm not out of it. you think i'm insane, i'm not insane, ok maybe a bit insane.

repeat for one hour, then footsteps on the stairs and a muffled conversation. quiet.

mike i don't know if you can hear me but i'm sorry and you'll never hear from me again. i'm done. i'm completely done.

Keep away from naked flame

They're selling Burlesque Hour undies after the show. You going to get some? asks A, smiling.

Nah, I don’t reckon they’re 100% cotton.

Frilly undies are ruined for me forever by those labels in cheap kids' pyjamas:

FLAMMABLE
Keep away
from naked flame.

A terrifying warning for a six year old, who now has to face the horror of her own mortality every night. Especially after she’s seen what happens to the hem when she curls too close to the heater. The smell of burning plastic. Static fabric crinkling into hard waves.

I’m naked beneath my pyjamas. Am I going to die one night while I’m sleeping, or watching the Muppets?

In the morning, Dad makes a stack of thin pancakes, which we’ll roll into leaky tubes and eat with our hands. It’s a bright Jindalee morning. At the frying pan, Dad sings: ‘why do all my girlfriends spontaneously combust?’

I crack the sugar crust on half a grapefruit. Dad, what does spontaneously combust mean?

techno

I don't mind if it goes all night,
I just like it to go somewhere.

second date country

i walk through fields of fun and get through sticky wickets without so much as a hand in the small of my back. shop for veggies for one and freeze the leftovers, turn up to gigs and find my lovelies already at the roundest table with a chair for me. watch my favourite couples reach for each other on the beach, and feel happy.

it's in second date country that i feel the lonely. even with the wine and cheese and the dancing and the romancing and the sea just there. i see a protective film slide over his eyelids and my heart hardens in reply. the room is full of ex-girlfriends. i want to disappear into the guardian and find soft things there but it's all boredom and disaster, so reading the science of my own heart i get in the family wagon and drive home with Local and/or General for company.

it's a wonder that the people they find each other at all.

appropriating radiolab

oh, your dog went missing? that's terrible. but maybe in the last few minutes of its tiny life it heard a pack of wild coyotes howling and went out to greet them and felt wild again, before the cubs all tore him to pieces and ate him.

[silence]

oh sorry, i didn't mean it like that. it's just this thing it happened on long island to this chick who's a reporter for radiolab, you know radiolab right? well she had this dog and they got a holiday house and the dog always stayed on the porch and the coyotes moved in at the same time and they'd hear them howling at night and they were wild right, started to bite little kids and eat ducks and stuff, and one night they got home and their dog was gone from the porch but they heard him wimper in the ti trees behind their house ok maybe not ti trees but bush or forest or whatever they have on long island. anyway they heard howling coyotes and the dog wimpering then silence. no trace. but after all these years she got to thinking maybe at the end he really got to be a wild thing you know? cos we keep them like small things but maybe the wild can come back. i dunno.

so yeah. i'll send you the link. anyway sorry about your dog. have you put up posters?

punch drunk

'i've got a new rating system for first dates. it's based on how many times you want to punch the guy in the head. a five is pretty bad. last night, three times i wanted to punch the guy in the head. i mean really, who says: "when you point the finger at someone, there are still three fingers pointing back at yourself"?'

a dandy morning

my beautiful laundrette