tales from an ordinary world

2003-01-01

We went outside at the appropriate time, looked at the stars, and heard the city fireworks booming across the suburbs. My phone rang with another long distance wish.

Later, in the afternoon, I sat on the smaller pier and listened to the tiny waves coming in, at least until the rain came. In the spirit of things, I tried to think about new beginnings and all that guff.

2003-01-03

The second-last tram for the night moves in slow motion down St Kilda Road, shadows flowing across the floor in a semi-circular manner as we pass each street light. A little later on in Carlisle Street, the lights inside the tram cut out for a few minutes but we keep moving, the outside world made brighter and a little more alive. I'm watching the time on the ticket machine, waiting for it to flick from 11:59 PM to 12:00 AM, but it takes longer than it should.

2003-01-05

dream: I'm at high school, and the empty desks are all pushed up against one side of a classroom. "Hello, sir," I say jovially to the teacher (even as I said it, I thought about how long it'd been since I had to call a teacher "sir"). He mumbles hello back to me. There's a yellow Post-It Note on each desk with a student's name on it, but I don't see mine. "I'll just grab this spare desk, shall I ?" "Yes, ok."

2003-01-05b

"I think they're bees," people said as they passed us. Hundreds(?) of tiny yellowish insects flying around and around in the street. A real swarm, seemingly out of nowhere. People walked a little faster down the street, some waved a hand in front of their face. From what I could see though, nobody was stung. I'd never seen anything like it, and then they landed. Dead bees on the ground. Puzzled pedestrians. A man in a white hazard suit. Applause.

2003-01-07

Swirling heat, distant sirens, an almost-cool wind. It's pretty quiet now, in the early afternoon. A red truck shoots past, advertising "australia's favourite duck." I'm fighting a feeling of terror, I'm passing the time with cool drinks and comfort food.

The change had come while I was inside - the expected hit of heat as I left the air-conditioned building just didn't happen this time. Sickly smell from the ice cream shop while I dodge fellow pedestrians.

The tram's late - you can see it in nervous passenger eyes. Collective exhalation as it screeches around the corner. Red light reflection - it'll turn green in a moment, just you wait and see.

2003-01-09

One moment I was sitting at my desk, worrying about why things can't be just a little better at work, the next I'm here at home, being caught off guard by the over-enthusiastic frothing of a newly sipped bottle of beer. I've never been much of a beer drinker at home, but it seems good enough right now. An occasional gin and something-or-other hasn't excited me, lately. I haven't been motivated to buy any more whisky, either. I ran out of Cointreau a while back. And what else is there, really ? Most of the time, lime (or lemon) juice cordial and soda water is enough, all by itself - It's no fun drinking alone, after all.

2003-01-10

I found myself pushed out of the house by some unseen force, heading nowhere in particular. But after a round-trip of different sorts of public transport I found myself buying yet another painfully-priced music book to read. I was hungry. Fear possessed me with grey hands. I walked and walked, but where do you go when you're feeling so alone ?

"Have you got a watch on, Tom ?"
"He's always got a watch on."

It didn't matter if I sat or if I walked - If I sat, I had no energy to move, but if I made myself stand, I found I had just enough energy to move.

My mind is a mess of half-remembered music and the wind in the trees. But then an orchestral rendition of the Thunderbirds theme blares from somebody's tiny car near the tram stop, waking me.

In the CD shop, I forgot about everything, I forgot how or why I'd come to this street. Upon emerging, I had to backtrack through my thoughts, my actions, and remember what I was doing here.

2003-01-11

I am the robot. I fix people's PCs. Plug this cable. Replug that cable. Reboot again. Try this. Go and buy another CD writer. Reinstall their old, old operating system. The end of ribbon cables is nigh, and I can't wait.

2003-01-12

Where did I learn to talk that way ? Tiny fragments of memories came back to me upon waking from last night's party. The people who knew people I once knew. The wide-eyed cat in the lounge room. The taxi driver asking me "are you Greek or Italiano ?" "uh. neither. I'm English."

2003-01-12b

An achingly hot, slow afternoon - sun's in my eyes, and I just want to lie down for a while. The tram's late, and even when it arrives the driver seems unconcerned, trundling along at a snail's pace. But when a passenger gets off, saying "it'll be faster if I walk", the driver loses it, stopping to hurl abuse from the window - "you stupid woman" - until a passenger calms him down.

2003-01-14

Cloudy days, busy cafes. Conversations burble on all sides. I've got time to sit, time to try and think. Somebody had scrawled "Elf Patrol" on the box attached to the back of a small motorbike.

I walked past Centennial Avenue. I'd been here before, many years ago - memories resurface for the first time since then, of dark green furniture and a cat called Max.

2003-01-17

I plunged into the depths of my cupboards. More old clothes. Some of these I haven't worn for 7 years, but I can't let them go just yet. I managed to part with my lab coat, though - it's a few months away from 10 years since I quit Chemistry.

But the diary. I saw an old notebook and opened it up to find a diary that I forgot I'd written, from the end of high school to a few years later. It's depressingly paranoid and inward-looking, and it's a good thing I didn't discover The Smiths until I was 19. I'm a fairly sentimental person (I have a lot of objects I can't bear to throw away), but I feel I must burn this book. Sometimes it's better not to remember where you've come from.

2003-01-17b

I remember, many years ago now, meeting a friend (in real life, for the first time) at the station. I wore a green shirt, because I owned a handful of them at the time. When we found one another she smiled, showing all of her imperfect teeth, which I found heartening - I still can't do the kind of smile that involves showing my imperfect teeth (the last time I tried, it looked like I was about to eat somebody). We found somewhere to eat, a 50's retro-styled hamburger joint, where she said "yeah, I always liked Buddy Holly." She told me how she adored Nick Cave, and that song about a six inch gold blade. But I didn't mention any of this in my then-diary, I merely noted that she was interesting - slightly moreso than other friends that I'd also recently made. I don't know where she is now, but I'm grateful for the time.

2003-01-19

So many things I no longer use. This time I'm purging old PC cases and motherboards, and I've amassed a box full of bits that spreads back through my life to at least 1994. "the passing of time, and all of its crimes", etc. I'm telling myself that I won't really miss these things. Green boards and chips and metal. They sat in cupboards for years, just in case I might need them again. The family trait, the hoarding instinct, it runs deep within me. Sometimes I'll make a token effort, I'll throw a few things out, but within a few months I'll find myself staring around my room, asking "why do I still have so many things that I no longer use ?"

2003-01-20

Arriving early I scout around on the main road, remembering the places I'd been around here on other days, long ago, when I was just visiting - a couple of restaurants and a pub that hosts bands I'd occasionally see. Now I'm trying to visualise living near here, using these shops, walking down this street in every mood I'll ever feel. I've never lived on this side of town before, so I'm energized (even on such a hot day) by the thrill of discovery and the terror of the unknown.

There's still time so I stop for a pint, listen to the music and watch a guy walk in with his magazine.

On the way to the house, I see some graffiti which says "more TVs on TV".

2003-01-21

This curious change in timing - I'm still adjusting to the advantages, hoping I'll be able to do something useful with the extra time. Mostly, though, I'm just not quite sure what to do with myself. It almost feels like a kind of rehearsal for retirement. I can feel the time falling between my fingers as I hop on another tram, stare out the window a while, order another coffee, or walk down another street. I try to ignore the inevitable guilt, the feeling that I'm not supposed to be here, that I should be chained to a desk in an office somewhere, paying the price for my frivolity. I don't want to go back.

2003-01-22

A night-time tram home, silence pierced by overly jovial boys. I stared at the trees lining the highway, the cars hurrying home, the dark blue sky, pondering the line out of the song on my headphones, which said "you got the best of my love". One of these days I'll be able to say that without hearing a nagging little voice of doubt. Speed through the night, toward the great white tower that guards my little home. Keep me safe so I can return to the glassy building tomorrow, and continue on my way. It's better than nothing.

2003-01-23

Gulp down dinner while watching pedestrians the other side of the window. Sometimes they watch back. Find the side street. "is this it ?" "yeah, over there." Up the stairs, another tiny hideaway masquerading as a little white art gallery. I like it. Books in little viewing desks you stick your hands through holes into (would've been more fun with gloves). Things on walls, collaborative and non-. I tried the headphones. I stared out the window at the crowd below, and made room for people stepping past. Process. Manipulate. Cleanse.

2003-01-24

I'm a man of few words, though I've said this numerous times lately. This morning I posted a card toward the tropics, with a rather small message of birthday love. This afternoon I happened to receive a card from the very same person, filled cover to cover with words. It's a little overwhelming, and it seems a little unfair that she wrote so much when I wrote so little.

2003-01-24b

dirt-grey laneway, dodging tables and slow people. somebody makes a face across a lunchtime cafe table to her colleagues, the kind of face you make after somebody tells their new hard-luck story. you know the sort. they're a meal in themselves for the lunchtime office folk. "hey, won't you play another somebody done somebody wrong song ?"

2003-01-26

I am a lonely stretch of grass, comforted by the hum and crackle of overhead power lines. A healing walk to the old station, piecing together events. "You don't remember talking to her, do you ?" "not really," I'd sheepishly replied. Old houses I used to frequent, in the street where almost "everybody" lived. Turn the corner and remember words from the afternoon before, her feeling of being caught in the middle. I'd slept for 14 hours, apparently. All I remember is waking at 1, the air conditioning on, the night air just the other side of a wire-screen door.

I stopped for a moment near the library, in front of what used to be my kindergarten but is now an empty carpark in front of rubbly ground with a sign saying "do not walk here". I remember a car ride home one day, courtesy of a classmate's mother - a small sports car, I'm guessing it was orange, but maybe just because it was a sunny day.

There's nothing quite like the feeling of being of use, when two Korean girls ask directions to get to the tram to St Kilda beach. We walk and talk, I try to ask all the "right" questions, to suggest places for them to go. As I leave, she says "thank you for your kindness". The kindness of strangers.

2003-01-30

Just as I went to close the CD case, the answer to my oddly frustrating week was there on the back of the booklet, like a fortune from a cookie :

those darker forces just ain't real.

Maybe not an answer as such, but it felt comforting all the same.