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tales from an ordinary world

2001-02-10

"I was a stranger
when I came to town
just yesterday
i was a stranger
they dont come much stranger..."
Smog.

So happy birthday. I can't help thinking of that old Lloyd Cole song - "does it feel so bad to be twenty-eight ? when you were twenty-three, you could do anything...". I figure I'm doing ok all the same, but today's wanderings through Auckland did seem a little more pointed - even a little desperate - because I wanted it all to matter somehow, just a little. Sunburn at the Devonport food and wine festival, I didn't hang around too long because it just seemed to be a growing mass of people trying to find somewhere to sit down to eat and drink.

I'm still trying to find my Reason To Believe. Right now I'm looking for it in a city with a downtown bungy-like experience, a couple of Burger Kings, no visible KFC (even though all the buses advertise it, and on TV there was an ad where you could win a year of KFC), helicopters flying banner ads for "More FM", sequentially numbered television stations (one, two, three, four - I mean, how quaint...), where the train plays exactly the same musak CD that they were playing in the Novotel restaurant the other night, and where the TV guide mentions such exciting shows as "Target : hidden cameras expose bad behaviour in the carpet-laying industry", where you can still buy a Toyota Corona or a Ford Escort, but where nobody's heard of a Macchiato.

I had some voice mail - the first one, surprisingly, from an ex girlfriend saying "oh...um...i'm not sure if this is the right number...you sound so different...but anyway, I didn't get around to sending you a card, so happy birthday" - the other one from Darren, calling from Steve's housewarming party, with voices in the background wishing me a happy birthday.

..end transmission...

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