tales from an ordinary world

2002-10-02

I should've gone out tonight, just for a wander, to find dinner somewhere and stay out of the house for a while, but a self-defeating wind crept in again - "Just go home. Forget about it. You're spending too much money as it is." - and I hopped on the tram full of tired, after-work souls. A couple argued in Russian - at least, I assume they'd been arguing, looking at their faces afterwards as they sat in different parts of the tram, she with that slightly glazed and upset look on her face, and he just staring slowly around the tram, looking sullen.

Still, there's always tomorrow.

2002-10-02b

The biggest part of coping with the onset of a new decade of life is that I'm coming to accept that my days of opportunity for sweeping, all-consuming changes have passed.

2002-10-06

It was a meeting people kind of weekend, where friends had said "hey, it's been a while, let's catch up," and in these cases it'd been a few weeks, a few years, or a few months, respectively. I didn't have to try, I just had to turn up. I toured the inner suburbs, used all sorts of transport methods and ate a nice variety of food in the process. Spring unfolds the weather, it stirs us up and pushes us out of the house.

2002-10-07

A crumbly chocolate digestive night, contemplating the karmic powerplay between the weekend (good) and today (not as good). Somewhere in the maelstrom of things, I worry that my thoughts will get me into some kind of trouble. I'm too concerned by consequences - if only I could just shrug it off like others seem to do - and I regret this reliance upon routine, the feeling that I can't/shouldn't upset the delicate balance I've achieved. It's always tempting to make some kind of large, sweeping gesture that knocks it all over - to force myself to start again - but it seems a little heavy-handed, these days. I'd like to think I can get where I need to be (wherever that is) by a series of minor adjustments.

2002-10-09

Another day seasoned with successes, but peppered with the usual frustrations. I've been trying to be good in various ways, clamping down on one or two bad habits, and perhaps it's not exactly helping.

must. be. strong.

Dream: two old computers, the kind I would've seen (or heard about) as a child in the early 80's. I don't understand where the music's coming from, though. They never did that. Somebody's playing an old game on them. No time to lose, though, because I have to get to a friend's house for a barbeque. It's a sunny afternoon, and I'm going to ride my motorbike (?!) to his place. My helmet falls from my hands onto the warm grass of the front lawn. I bend down to pick it up, staring at my palms...

2002-10-12

Once inside the door, the frisbee-induced lethargy took hold - my eyes felt heavy and though I tried to sit up for a while, sleep took over.

An hour later, I forced myself up and out and walked a while, looking for dinner but never finding somewhere that seemed right for me - every little place I'd walk past looked "happily full" already as if I'd upset the balance by going in, so I continued on, wondering about the next place down the street.

For a minute or so there was a break in the cars while I passed some traffic lights, and in the silence I heard them all slowly ticking out of sync, like a house full of clocks, but bathed in yellow light.

Eventually I found myself back home, well-exercised but unfed.

2002-10-14

"Buy me a ticket to a sonic reduction."
pere ubu.

Hit the morning squinting. The gap in the curtains wakes you an hour early, and it's Monday, it's time to get all those things done - no more of the slow Sunday-night anticipation build-up. Drifting in and out of Mr Sandman's land a few more times, the click followed by the fading-in radio-sound still comes as a minor shock when it finally arrives.

In the midst of all the chaos, you feel so inert.

When it's over, all over, there's your post at the end of the evening tram, the pole to lean against for a while as we pull through the inner suburbs - leaves and asphalt, traffic and trees. Headphone wearers or best-seller readers, loosened ties or comfortable white running shoes. Some of us just look out the window, at the world passing us by. There's no reaching out - look but don't touch. Hop off and wait for the connecting tram, somewhere in the midst of the burbling highway. A screech and a whine and it's stopping on the bend, waiting for you. Up the stairs and notice that face across the tram, the one from other, older mornings. After all your years in this one place, there are too many familiar faces, too many people you'll never know. Others would talk - a quick "hello" never hurt anybody - but it's different when you can feel the reasons to keep silent slowly filling up behind your eyeballs. You can hear them second-guessing your motives. You can hear them judging you. When you hop off the tram, you can hear the people in the carpark judging you, too. Feel their eyes as you navigate through the empty parking spots to get to the gate at the opposite corner - "what's he doing here ? this is my carpark !"

It's time to get on home.

2002-10-17

Gripped by a hard earned thirst after a late finish at work, we drop into the local, over on Greville St. There's a table in the corner, near the large group of Happy Young People. Rugby top and tracksuit-pants walks past for another beer. The staff are dressed in shades of black. Two pots later we're leaving, and he looks at the pictures of Ye Olde Chapel St on the wall and points out that while all the women wore white then, black's the staple colour these days.

I'm home now, and, I'm gonna throw on Nonalignment Pact one more time...

2002-10-19

The world turns slowly, today - restless sleep from the gap in the curtains, and later it feels like the tram's wading through treacle as it heads up to the city. I can feel the sun on the back of my neck. Two tourists sit in front of me - one fumbles with her map, and drops a business card advertising something at the Queen Victoria Market - I hand it back to her and she stares at it for a while, turning it over and over in her hand. They leave the tram at Flinders Station, like tourists always seem to do.

2002-10-21

Dream: my parents were having a wedding ceremony, and to get there I'd travelled up something very much like the Monash bus loop, only with not so many buildings nearby - more just dry grass on a dusty summer's day. The wedding march theme started playing on an organ, just as I woke up.

2002-10-21b

Bad things are happening closer and closer to home, but at times like this I find it more appropriate to remain silent than to try and co-opt other people's grief. My ears and shoulders might be useful, but not my mouth.

2002-10-22

Conversations float around me while I wait. A candle in front of me, the bar behind. A sticky-tape star on a window pane, a slow breeze easing in.

2002-10-23

Rain, hail and shine all at once. I've stopped for coffee just in time, disproving my bad-luck theory. People in suede shoes wait nearby for a gap in the rain, others just trudge forth. Lonely but fortunate - these are the days, I suppose.

2002-10-25

Some days you try and imagine that she's just gone out for the night, and when you wake up in the morning she'll be back again.

Other days you ring her up, far across the waters, but you don't really know what to say - you just want to hear her voice.

Or maybe you're struggling to remember the particular nuances of her face, but each time you conjure one up you realise it was from a photo, rather than anything else.

On the other end of the phone you can hear the sounds of the evening bus ride, of people, movement and traffic. At your end there's nothing to hear, there's just a light above your head as you pace the lounge room floor or as you sit on the end of your bed, looking forward to another weekend of lonely lunches and a myriad of ways to kill time (but they're rarely useful ways).

It could be different, but it won't be for a while.

2002-10-31

"we can design future worlds"
meat beat manifesto.

Off-centre, and focussing too much on particular things. Pulled into parallel worlds, watching the world from a balcony. I'm dreaming again. I should be reading on the tram but I'm staring, instead - I've been leaving my CD player and books at home, so there's nothing to do but watch what's before my eyes. Second-guessing, frequently missing, always dreaming, never doing. I should be moving (and maybe even shaking). I should be... I should be elsewhere. I'm walking the last block home, again. Kids in the park, loud noises and girls squealing. Tram sounds, and passing cars. I'm thinking of other things, though - of the girl who smiles, far (but not too far) across the sea. I'm thinking of what I'd say - "I'd rather you were here than there" - but it doesn't sound right.