tales from an ordinary world

2000-10-01

"There'll never be another quite like you"
The Church.

I always feel like such a loser wandering around Target, but I can't quite work out why. I guess I feel a similar confusion trying to work out what a "family restaurant" really is. My general distaste for shopping centres ("malls" for you lot up north) mean that I'd hardly ever been to the one in Malvern, even though it's so close to home. The DVD rack in the music shop yielded a copy of Unforgiven for all of $30. About as good as ordering from overseas. I put it back, figuring maybe someday there'll be a bigger market in second-hand DVDs and it'll be the kind of thing I can pick up then. The bottle shop, however, stocked Tanqueray gin. Bonus points.

Home before the rain hit, the town hall near home lit up in stark white in front of the black clouds. The weather creeps up on you these days, hitting where it hurts, when you're not quite expecting it just yet. Everytime I wear my black suede jacket somewhere, it rains on me.

2000-10-02

On the way to work with droo, we're driving up St Kilda Rd. Some old guy's defiantly walking slowly across the road in front of the oncoming traffic, with his walking stick and a nasty look on his face. Tilting at windmills. I kinda get the feeling though, that we're not the droids he's looking for.

2000-10-02b

I remember that day. We sat by the lake out the back of uni, watching the geese and the grass and the birds, just like all those other times we came out here to talk, and you started talking about your 21st party which was coming up in a year's time, saying how I could help out, and I jokingly said "yeah, if you're still talking to me by then". You seemed so cheerfully cynical about everything else that I didn't count on you taking offence. As it turned out, by the time your 21st came around you'd already left me. So I guess I was right, even if I didn't want to be. Yet another time I should've just shut the hell up instead of saying something. I'm sorry.

2000-10-03

It's all about running on inertia, letting the road, the days, the events just roll away behind you as you count the steps to the next milestone, the next big thing.

It's all about helping other people. You didn't have anything better to do with your time. And besides, your needs aren't as important. You deserve nothing.

It's all about learning to enjoy public transport. Take it easy. Watch the world go by. Don't worry, the tram'll come along eventually.

It's all about detachment. Friends are important, without a doubt. But reliance and dependence merely lead to heartbreak. You have to be willing and able to Go It Alone^TM.

It's all about optimism. It's a complicated, confusing and sometimes completely overwhelming life. There are plenty of temptations one must avoid, and plenty of motions to go through. Hopefully one day it'll all seem worthwhile.

It's all about work. You'd die of boredom otherwise, right ?

It's all about balance. Good with bad. Fun with boring. Stuff like that.

It's all about...

2000-10-03b

The unfinished symphony of someone who ought to know better. Wanting in both rhyme and rhythm. Busy instead with a longing for places far, whilst tied to places near. One might think, one might hope, one might expect all manner of things. But we're working towards that common goal raising the hammer, shifting the rock, blowing the trumpet, that we may one day exclaim "Oh happy day !"

Just exactly how did it all come to this, anyway ?

2000-10-07

If I were standing on one side
of the Great Divide
would you see me waving ?
or maybe I'd be moping
or grinning at something
that's been brewing in my head
over on my side
of the Great Divide.

I could sing a single note
or row my own boat
and I'd wonder how high the tide
is over on your side
of the Great Divide.

2000-10-09

The sound of the first 30 seconds of the new Go-Betweens CD is stuck in my head all day, that nice guitar sound, and I see the Goodyear blimp (which made a comeback appearance after the Whitmans one moved on to South Australia or wherever it was) floating off to the sunny western skies as I get near home on the tram. When I get home and go to put the bin out on the nature strip, I hear that weird humming sound from above. Photos of aircraft never seem to work for me, I tried so hard to get pictures of all those 727s flying past us on top of the World Trade Centre...

2000-10-10

I was a month shy of 19, we were camping down on the foreshore reserve at Sorrento, and after a particularly intense night I woke up having had a dream that I'd received an 18th birthday card from 2 female counseller kinda women I'd apparently once known. The card said something like "we never thought you'd make it this far. Well done !"

2000-10-10b

Every time I passed by this old road sign on the tram, I wanted to take a photo of it before it got replaced or stolen or something.

2000-10-10c

"We've got four big clocks,
and they're all ticking."
Laurie Anderson.

Last week, while we were having a smoke outside the restaurant in Chapel St during our big work lunch thing, I noticed that one of my recently arrived co-workers has the same watch as mine.

On the flight back home in February, I was stuck in one of the very middle seats in the 747, on a 13 hour flight from LA to Sydney. I played with my Palm V, avoided the films, and kept the headphones on one radio station, even though the program only lasted an hour. I kept track of the passing of time by counting the number of times that Supergrass song came around.

It's a common Melbournism to meet someone under the clocks at Flinders St, although it's been a while (months, maybe even a year) since I've done this.

Whether it's because I usually catch public transport, or because I'm the nervous, worrying type, I'm usually early to things. If I get to a restaurant early, I'll usually just wander around the street for a while until it's time to go in. Being too early seems to just freak people out.

2000-10-11

A familiar face in a white Volvo, driving next to us at the lights - my celebrity-spotting ability is normally fairly pathetic (take NYC for example). It's not usually the who that I'm paying attention to, it's the what, the where, and perhaps the why.

2000-10-12

"This is the day when things fall into place"
The The.

Next month finds me in attendance of a couple of weddings. A celebration of how some of my friends have been able to get it together sufficiently to move on to the next stage, as it were. Good on them. My path has always felt like a slightly different one, and I'm still busy mapping it all out, thinking about the right way to approach my future journeys. Some of them will be taken alone, others might not. It's hard to be sure.

I've started wearing the red sunglasses again - it's making me feel fairly subdued, seeing things in a reddish near-monochrome color scheme.

The going-away thoughts keep coming back, even though I've really no concept of what I'd want to do when I get there. But I miss the feeling of moving. My restlessness feels like a curse at times like this. I want to move so that everything's new again. I feel like I ought to live with less stuff - I'm surrounded by things I don't make full use of. I hide behind them, too - fiddling with objects when I should be exploring the world, instead. My voyage has barely begun - there's so much to do, and so much to leave behind.

2000-10-15

There's something about the tram journey into the city, the way we curved up along St Kilda Rd, through the Domain Rd terminus, with some 20 year old Sakamoto tune stuck in my head, wondering and worrying about what I might be up to in 20 years' time - still searching, still lookng, still wondering. The curve of my life, such as it is.

2000-10-18

The endless circular journey of keeping up with friends, even the ones where 95% of my conversations with them are just saying "hi" once every few days. Have I been spreading myself too thin, perhaps ? There are so many people I only know peripherally, people I came across one way or another in my thirst for random knowledge of the things people do. There's a lot to know.

And there's so much new music to digest - 4 bootlegs last week, from someone overseas I did a favour for, and now the 6 CDs from The Wire with a random assortment of stuff on each one. I need to transplant myself from the computer desk into my bedroom, so I can examine these more carefully, without distraction. I'm so easily distracted, like my brain's constantly humming with the vibrations of people nearby - the more the merrier, but it's harder to concentrate.

2000-10-19

At lunchtime, it rained like nothing else. A mini-tornado near Geelong, apparently. 19mm of rain within 18 minutes. Raining like old times, like other places, like how rocking-chair bound people would tell you it used to be. We had to get back from lunch by a particular time though, so while others stood around the foyer watching the rain, I opened my umbrella and jogged to the restaurant - possibly the most strenous exercise I'd had in ages. My shoes filled with water...

...back in first year uni, 1991, I wore a hat for much of the time, perhaps to substitute for the lack of personality. Or something. But yes. In a laboratory full of white-coated first-year chemistry students, I wore my black hat. It was something to do. One afternoon, when Mum used to work just up the road, I remember walking up in the middle of a huge rainstorm, and by the time I got to her office my shoes and socks were drenched. Fortunately my hat was dry, since it was so close to the umbrella at all times. We have to be thankful for small mercies. Nevertheless, my shoes filled with water...

2000-10-23

After a near-apocalyptic weekend spent at Oktoberfest and then recovering from it, things look different now. On the way home in a friend of a friend's car, somewhere in between trying to sing along to that Shania Twain song (shame and sobriety go hand in hand, unfortunately), I scribbled something in my Palm V, saying "There was no blinding flash of light. I just Understood." Now, of course, I can't remember exactly what it was that I understood, only that I had some kind of moment. But the residual feeling still hasn't gone away, and it's delightfully calming.

2000-10-24

The kind of day where I need to go take a walk at lunchtime, even if it's almost raining, and even if I only wore that black denim shirt today instead of a real jacket (I can hear myself being told off already). And it's relaxing, and at least while I'm out there's a vague feeling of walking unafraid - something like that. A shop advertises a "beautiful mirror" for $750. I walk along the railway line, past places that make (or once made) polythene bags, some travel agency thing, and a casting studio, and up to Greville Records. Just like every other time, I flick through the Kraut rock section and eye off a few things I'd bought on vinyl 10 years ago and wouldn't mind having on CD one day when I've got infinite money to spend. But I don't buy anything.

Back at work, the inevitability of everything weighs down more heavily on me. I wish I could just disappear. Get me out of here.

2000-10-26

Dream : I'm standing on the side of a road somewhere, and some minibus-thing goes skidding past on the road, then rights itself and drives on. I notice this happens outside a church, with a sign next to it saying the pastor (? maybe it's dedicated to her instead, I can't remember) is a Maura <someone> Johnston. I think "Uh, hey. I kinda know another Maura Johnston (but with a different middle name), I should take a photo of this", so I go over to my bag to grab my digital camera and walk over and start taking pictures. There are people hanging around, cousins of mine and others I don't know, they walk past in front of the sign as I'm taking photos, making faces and such. After taking a few pictures, I go to look at them on the camera, to discover that it didn't take any after all. I'm puzzled, wondering if the camera's starting to play up again like it did in NYC (because of the cold, or whatever). I wake up before I manage to resolve this problem.

2000-10-26b

I'm not quite sure
where to begin again
this feeling
of starting anew
can't last forever
but I'm passing the time
by being good
it's something to do
while I search
for my lost inspiration.

I had it
I saw it
I Understood it
but only
for a moment
a mere flicker
of time.

I eagerly await its return.

2000-10-28

He gave it all up for a handful of wire.
A box of string.

2000-10-29

Apollo Bay is a nice little country town by the sea, I've been there or through there a handful of times before, and this time a group of us drove down to mourn the imminent marriage of a friend. Soccer on the beach (I'm still sore as I write this on Monday evening, I'm so out of shape), a night at the pub, more drinking back at the lodge, and the harsh daylight of the morning after that's somewhat eased by a filling breakfast at one of the new cafés that've been sprouting up on the main street. It's a pleasant place to be.

But the country driving. I'd missed it. Landscape sweeping by, Kookaburras sitting up on the wires watching you pass, the view of the ocean unfolding as you come around another bend, and so on. The anticipation as you head down the long straight "Road of National Importance" towards Geelong, because you know once you get through there it gets more interesting. Seeing a kestrel madly flap its wings as it hovers above a field. On the way back towards Geelong on some relatively minor connecting road, passing a sign pointing towards the "Anglesea complex for heavy vehicle endorsements". It's a whole different world, but all the same it's a nice feeling when you see the city buildings for the first time, heading back up the Westgate Freeway.

In the car, we listened to :

• Mr Wizard and Come on in, by R. L. Burnside.

• dubnobasswithmyheadman, by Underworld.

• Effector, by Download.

• The Grosse Point Blank soundtrack.

2000-10-29b

So I was heading over to visit Mavis, and as I sat at Caulfield station there was this kid following his father up the platform. He was dragging something along under his foot, and as he passed me he stopped, stamped on it, and jogged on towards his father. I stared at this mangled red piece of plastic through my red sunglasses and thought "what exactly does this mean ?"

2000-10-30

I can hear the trams out here, out in the back garden with my gin and lime and the old washing machine and my clothes hung out to dry and that weird writing on the garage wall that I discovered last summer. I can only hear a few birds though, just for once.

Something about nothing. I'm trying to analyse exactly what It is.

2000-10-31

"It only takes a camera to change her mind"
Kraftwerk.

Some days, it's something like this. Like trying to take a photo of a seagull. Everything's fine until you point something at it, then it nervously starts running away.

2000-10-31b

I'm withdrawing into myself again. Not talking much, feeling foolish whenever I try and put forward my thoughts on something, and an irresistable urge to just go wandering rather than doing anything else. I didn't want to go straight home, I walked down to St Kilda for a while, ate at the curiously named Thai Panic Cafe and then just walked for a while. There was nothing else I could do, nothing else I could concentrate on.

Something has to change. Something's not right here. I wish it was like a sitcom, like the first episode of The Good Life that was on TV yet again last night, where the guy sits down "for a few hours", writes lots of random stuff on pieces of paper, and suddenly it all becomes clear. What he has to do. What It is.