secret dinner party

autumnal

amanda out

when it comes to winter fruit, nature is a virgo. she breaks the task into small segments and makes it so you can eat the packaging as well.

apostrophe

even the apostrophe is in the right place.

trippy taco

in pieces

How’s that story coming along?

Oh, it’s in pieces on the living room floor, like the car engine my friend once took apart to see how it worked. I’m pretty sure I can get it back together again but it might be a different vehicle altogether when I'm done.

mother's day

If they're going to give you donuts, at least make them Spanish.

patience

panic bolt

train crash

‘Good luck with your wife and your girlfriend,’ Lolli said to Pete on the way home last night.

And here we are: Pete, his not-quite ex-wife and her parents, their kids and me, standing around the outdoor chairs at his wife’s new place. Shuffling plates of grain waves and watermelon to make way for sadness and sandwiches.

‘What’s going on in the garden?’ I ask the five year old, hoping that someone will sit down in those chairs while we’re rummaging through scorched basil, pumpkins and bees. Pete’s wife comes out with a bug zapper made to kill small things. ‘It’s sort of fun,’ she says.

The three year old has his helmet on. He takes his new bike up and down the driveway on a birthday walk of glory, then lets it clunk against the side of the house. Back to the table full of sugar, his hand in a bowl full of snakes. I give him an hour before he crashes.

I follow Pete’s wife into the kitchen for a glass of water and her mother follows shortly after, to fuss over the symmetry of the train cake she has baked. ‘Do you read The Age?’ the older asks, standing too close. Sizing me up, diverting attention.

I know that you know that he thinks I’m fucked, Pete’s wife says with her eyes as she hands me a tumbler. Please don’t think I’m fucked.

In the middle of this kitchen, my face is up against the glass at the end of someone else’s marriage. And there’s a three-carriage, four-colour train-shaped cake between us.

lismore veggo

us: what's good to eat here?
bartender: all of it.
barfly: the fish is beauuuuutiful.
us: how's the lamb shank?
bartender: i dunno, i'm a vegetarian.
pete: but you said it was all good!
bartender: yeah, well we don't get any complaints about the meat from them (waves her arm at the front bar, where blokes are standing belly to belly with beers at their chests). i eat the chicken and fish ones, they're good.
barfly: you're makin' me hungry (drinks white wine from pot glass).
me: fish for me.
pete (later): i have a 50kms rule when it comes to seafood, and we're within that range, but that barramundi is far, far from home.

lismore hotel, hamilton hwy

hot lava

life cycle

come to daddy

aphex twin at the palace

k: i can see six women in this whole place.

b: you're not counting the chicks who are disguised as men. i can see at least ten, not even counting the bar staff. this is what testosterone smells like.

genes for jeans

p: wow, that's the primary colours of hipster pants. if the guy in red slept with the guy in blue, they'd make purple pants. if the guy in yellow slept with the guy in blue they'd make greens pants and if the guy in yellow slept with the guy in red, they'd make orange pants. and if they had a big orgy they'd make brown pants.

k: that's borderline homophobic buddy.

p: what, that's gold right there. it's the primary colours of hipster pants.