tales from an ordinary world
2001-05-01
It's a good and simple feeling, the feeling of having managed to Get Some Things Done, things you'd been putting off for various periods of time, because...like...you just weren't completely sure. Some days it just seems like the right time to charge in.
I live in a world of uncertainty, mostly of my own making. Perhaps it's because I'm frightened of being over-planned, being sure of what's going to happen in the future and losing the mystery. Or something.
Now I just have to work out if I want to go and see Registered Nurse on Friday.
2001-05-03
Well, I got something, not the whole thing, but in any case I don't know where it should go to just yet.
I am not a television.
It's hard to remember how much we really talked, or what we talked about, any of us. But what was there to talk about ? All my pointless anecdotes. I had no future plans then, and I don't now. In my own kind of way, I tried to be a helpful advice-giving person, but it's hard to feel like I did it. Now I just remember disjoint moments - good and bad and indifferent. We get what we deserve.
Send me those pretty, blurry lights again. A particular, fleeting kind of happiness. Just for a moment or two. It'll do for now.
2001-05-04
I was all prepared to spend some Quality Time (and cash) at some of the CBD's music shops, but I only ended up with two CDs. I suppose it's something to do with trying too hard to find the perfect purchase.
My first time at the Continental - I was too slack to get around to going all those other times. My next time (seeing the Magnetic Fields on the 19th) will be the last, before it closes for good, to be turned into office space. Untimely demise, another nail in the coffin of Melbourne's music scene, etc. I'll let the others say it. It's all true, it's a fucking tragedy.
2001-05-06
The long breakfast, upstairs, looking out the window at trams with ads and odd cars, and people - it's boot season again, it seems. If girls aren't wearing them, they're at least trying them on in the shop. Eggs Benedict, 3 coffees, 2 cigarettes and an orange juice later, it's time for some more guilt-inducing shopping, 2 new CDs and 2 second-hand CDs and 2 more Ben Sherman shirts and god I've spent too much this weekend make it stop what's wrong with me I need to save more money. I mean, I'm saving money too, but I can hear my parents' voices telling me it's not enough. I'm certainly not ready for the path of the house-"owning" bank slave but I'm aiming for it anyway, hoping that once I get there I'll be able to find a "better" path to take. Somehow. This is about as much future planning as I can manage right now.
2001-05-08
I'd forgotten about other peoples' voices. Especially yours - the way I felt that, even if things didn't go wonderfully in real life, we had pretty good phone conversations. This time, though, was a little different. I wasn't quite Myself. The shock of sudden contact, you understand. Next time will be better, I promise.
2001-05-12
Another film about moments. Moments don't always need words. But they're gone now, and life goes on without waiting for you to stop thinking about those moments.
2001-05-21
It's oh so quiet.
But I'm waiting.
Waiting for another near-life experience.
I bathe.
I sleep. fitfully.
I practiced lying down for the duration of a whole CD, without getting up. It's hard. Harder than you think.
2001-05-22
Solex's calculated randomness finishes abruptly and suddenly it's real cold on the pier, and people are walking past but nobody makes a sound. I don't feel like I'm in the way here, but it's hard to sit still anyway, and the sun just set so it's getting darker and colder. But I'm not done walking it off just yet. Everything else can wait.
2001-05-26
Grey skies, cormorants and swans, apartment blocks by the freeway[1], and Herring Island somewhere in the middle, as if it should be bobbing up and down in the water. Stories about bridges[2].
1: I like freeway signs, the greenness, the font, the "hey, this leads to somewhere" feeling. But what if this was just outside, visible from my glass-barricaded balcony every day ? Would I come to resent that I'm looking at the signs, but not following them ? Would I turn into somebody who can't sleep without the sound of traffic drifting softly in through closed doors and windows ?
2: ...such as "why there's a big kink in the road on the south end of the Punt Road bridge"...
"I found it to be quite overwhelming."
2001-05-27
Camberwell Market, I found the first 6ths CD, a nice old Chinese poster advertising "Red Lion" brand cigarettes, and my first ever Frank Sinatra CD (I'm becoming more receptive in my old age, I guess).
I could've fallen
through that hole in the clouds
where planes fly low
for you and I
We were on our way
to the building
with sadness on one floor
and joy on the other
Please do not leave luggage unattended.
2001-05-27b
The sequel (see previous). At a rate of one per year (entirely by my own doing, I might add), I'm not getting enough practice.
"six cubic lifetimes"
. the world is spinning at 45rpm . milk rock . strange hours . pinwheel herman . batucada . la depression . kabul is free under a veil . i'm still sleeping . 1.666666 . i've got a feeling . winter in july . everyone's gone to the moon . buffalo . happy birthday . mr fantasy's love
a few gratiuitous inclusions, I should curb myself, save it for the right time...
2001-05-30
"I'm gonna walk right up to heaven
I'm sure you'll see me there"
Recoil.
He looks at me funny, as I sit down juggling my headphone wires, my bag and my phone, answering SMSes on the tram at 7am from people who can't sleep.
My throat is dry.
I'm road-testing the mix CD, hoping it'll take on some kind of accidental coherency.
I wonder what Johnny Cash would do on days like this ?
2001-05-31
The smell of an orange, and then fish and chips, on the evening tram. I stood, and I sat, and I sighed, and I looked out the window, and everybody's going home, and I'm just the awkward guy in the black jacket and the yellow canvas bag and those damn headphones.
