Fodder

A glimmer in sunlight. Forever(ness).
What should I know?
Opportunity, like some slow, distant wink on the horizon...
A fat black cat who sits on a mat
and a block of dark chocolate.
Apprehension. Waiting, but patiently? I cannot be still.
Luscious.
Inviting. Daring, but soft - like a bed of featherdown.
I know it will catch me should I fall.
I can taste it, tantalisingly close, but too far to touch.
You kill me, do you know it?
It winks, slowly. Once, twice.
It will not last forever, this chance.
So of what am I afraid?

India

This is such a strange slice of land upon which to set foot.

Many things slosh around in the muck, like wet rags in a bucket.

Yesterday, a squirrel, nibbling on a rosebud on the kitchen windowsill.

The day before that, Singapore in hazy heat, a dark hotel room and a stolen water bottle.

Today, fourteen blue budgerigars, chirping gently in a too-small cage with a newspaper floor.

Who buys newspapers anymore, except for the fringe benefits?

I watch for signs of pretty things which elude my paltry attempts at capture. Do I really wish to own these things? My half hearted approach suggests otherwise. Perhaps I am simply more used to them as things like butterflies, delicate and wild, with wings and promises.

Where does it begin, this slow descent into madness?

My eyes sting from computer screens.

The lungs burn with dirty air. And my feet, my poor, poor feet - so dry are they from this land of dust and sweat that they do not even look like my own anymore.

At home, a warm, freshly made bed; icy Magnums straight from the fridge; foot baths; a quiet, dark room with a TV all to myself; bathrooms that smell like nectarines; milk that doesn't need to be boiled-before-drinking. It would seem like the lap of luxury.

I take no notice of the dark things, here. Perhaps that is my compromise. Still, I would trade other things. My priorities, you see, are not the same as everyone else's.

Why Even Bother?

Why does the film of Where The Wild Things Are look so sad? I would love to make films, but what would I do if they turned out to be sad ones? I don't really like watching sad films, so I can only imagine how I would cope were I to actually make them.

But of course, I would not make them. Because I have no film-making skills.

Girls only want boys with Skills, remember?

I can't remember reading the book, anyway, and I am glad that I can't remember reading it if it too is so immutably sad. (I have started using words in wrong places, like everyone else, now. It disappoints me, but que sera sera.)(Actually, no, but writing is painful now, like sticking tacks in my thumbs.)

Susannah Clarke needs to publish again, soon. I am waning away in this literary fog.

So. Who's hungry?

Over the Oceans, They Come To Me

I dreamt of Troy last night.

It's less of a regularity, and more of an Occurrence. Which is still somewhat bizarre, and still takes some getting used to.

We were navigating ourselves out of a tricky situation. Which really shouldn't mean anything, but it does, because in Real Life we never did any such thing. It seemed that the time we spent together was bathed in brightness, like sunlight or moonlight (which is nothing but reflected sunlight? so.) and was time that was bereft of tricky situations, or anything that required anything like resourcefulness or intellectualism, and nothing more than laughter.

What kind of friendships do I have these days? A nomadic question; one that is constantly moving place, restless like a storm.

I drank lots of coffee today. Mostly because it was the only thing in the house. I had five cups, and now my leg is bouncing and my eyes are bright and my fingers are running away from me. I was hungry before, but now! Things are much simpler.

I want to say to someone, one day, that "All is Forgiven". Is it too Biblical for me? Maybe I can write it.

I know why people, in general, believe in God. I try and convince them out of it, like Richard Dawkins would. But it's hard work, eh? On the whole we are a superstitious species; a lingering characteristic of growing up in a world of dark forests and strange seasons and unfathomable spaces in the sky. But that doesn't mean that now we have our minds we can choose not to use them. I want to live in America, and send down roots there, and watch my leaves grow.

And then I want to pick them off, one by one, like drying scabs, and watch them fall gently to the ground. And then I want to drag up my roots, slowly and painfully, and catch my breath, and push off out across the sea to somewhere lush and green where I will not be the only wizened old tree on the landscape.

And there, I want to put other things in the ground, smaller clumps of roots like wrinkled children's feet or strawberries, and tend them gently, and watch them outgrow me in wisdom, and happiness, and chance. And when they're ready, they can choose for themselves whether to stay in the dark and peaceful forest, or fly away into a bright and terrifying sky.

Iris

So.

I'm happy.

This may come as something of a surprise.

(It did to me.)

Eden's coming to see me. She might stay with me for a long time.

There are other things too, difficult to explain.

I don't understand why this comes and goes so quickly, like a bullet train changing stations.

Today, I watched a documentary on fighter jets.

They can go from deadstop to 50,000 feet in sixty seconds.

Can you imagine what that must feel like?

The sky's not even the limit, any more.

People have walked on the moon.

The black hole at the centre of the Milky Way has a density that's less than air.

What other mysteries is this universe concealing from us?

Imagine,

what else have we yet to discover

A James Amongst Colbys

So recently, as you may have noticed, I got my own internet.

It's called "mobile broadband internet" and is used by plugging in a USB into your computer.

I am using it at the moment, while watching old reruns of Oz on SBS.

It's 1.27am

Oz is a very unique show. Violent, but intelligent. It's not often those two things combine well.

I am also nibbling at some Cadbury Honeycomb chocolate, one piece at a time.

It's really far too late to be eating chocolate. Or writing.

But I'm reminded of things, and my fingers will not sit still, because I've been enjoying this "mobile broadband internet" since it was delivered to my house this morning.

In fact, I was so eager to start using it that I put the sim card in the wrong slot and had to drive to Milton to the service centre so they could spend exactly 8.3 seconds prising the sim card out with tweezers and laughing at me.

Oh, they always seem nice enough before tweezers arrive on the scene.

Also, I need to somehow find $4000 to fix my teeth.

That ought to be exciting.

(Eden, I am thinking of you. Your feet may be far away but to be honest, sometimes it feels like you never left.)

How to Deal with Boys

The main difference between boys and girls is that boys like doing things - driving cars, playing football, throwing stuff, eating, farting, etc. - and girls like feeing things - love, friendship, excitement, happiness, etc. Boys are very physical; girls are very emotional.
Of course this is a gross generalisation, but it helps to remember that when you ask a boy 'How are you feeling?' he will probably answer 'Hungry' or 'Cold' and not 'Deliriously happy because I am with you'. To begin with this can be disappointing, but it can't really be helped, since expressing emotion comes as naturally to a boy as ballet does to an elephant.

Boys are often spoilt by their mothers so they have a tendency to think girls should do all the boring things in life, like cleaning, cooking and ironing their favourite T shirt, while they get to do all the exciting things, like jet-skiing, playing in rock bands and being spies.
Don't indulge this belief; the sooner they get re-educated the better.

- Rosemary Davidson & Sarah Vine

An Old Mind of Photographs

A great sweep.
Snapshots huddle together in tight clusters, like shivering atoms. One, of a beach. Another, of an ivory headdress that made my hair rain in waves down my back.
A melancholy settles around my shoulders, and pushes me deep underground.
Katy Rose dances around me, her feet (afire) stamping pentacles and charms into the earth. I am trapped in the middle, and the earth will hold me now, until Katy takes her toe (gently) and scrubs the symbols away.
Purple rain, they say, and red earth and winds as white as heaven. An elemental force. Which is missing? You know, of course. It pulls at you daily, this imbalance.
A multicolour fire.

What Writers Write

In Grandma Zing's kitchen, Marbie hyperventilated, her mother baked a carrot cake, and Fancy sipped wisdom from her coffee cup.
'He will return,' was Fancy's wisdom. 'He won't be long.'
'I suppose he will.' Grandma Zing measured a teaspoon of dried ginger. 'But Marbie, darling, what were you thinking?'
'That's the thing.' Marbie sat back up, wide-eyed. 'I don't think I was thinking.'
'Someone as special as Nathaniel -'
'Stop it, Mum,' interrupted Fancy. 'Nathaniel will come back eventually, Marbie.'
'No, he won't,' murmured Marbie, turning to her sister. 'You didn't see his eyes. He was so calm. He listened to what I said, and then he got out of bed, and took out his suitcase and packed. He folded his clothes like they were going on display in the window of a shop. And then he slept on the couch, and in the morning when I got up, he and Listen were gone. And the snow was here.'
'Never mind,' Grandma Zing comforted, 'the carrot cake won't be much longer now. I'm about to put it in the oven.' She glanced over to confirm that the oven was preheating. 'We'll leave your dad in the TV room for the moment. He loves that game show of his, doesn't he? And he's spent all morning in the shed.'
'Look,' said Fancy, firmly. 'It was just once, wasn't it, Marbie?'
'Yes,' agreed Marbie. 'Just the once.'
'And you don't plan to see him again, do you? This aeronautical engineer of yours?'
'No,' insisted Marbie. 'Never again.'
'Well now!' It was settled. 'Nathaniel will come back.'
'No, he won't.' Marbie shook her head, with tears blurring her eyes. 'No, he won't.' Then she dried her eyes, looked thoughtful for a moment, and added: 'I admire his resolve.'

(from The Spell Book of Listen Taylor, by Jaclyn Moriarty, pg. 165-166)

What Writers Think

My dreams are schizophrenic.
They play cat and mouse games with my senses.

ForLove

If I have ever been in love, it is here

www.forever21.com

Four Letter Word

Dear B,

I awoke this morning in darkness. The windows failed, as Emily Dickinson said.
We were trapped in something; a sticky dark mucus thing, like molasses. We fell asleep in this thing, and floated for many years, wrapped in something so thick we thought we were warm, and safe. In fact, we were spinning out of control in the harsh freeze of deep space.
We didn’t realise.
One day, we were supposed to combust, when we spun too close to a supernova. But we managed to float on, dry and alive.
Little bits of us were falling away at all junctions, everywhere. We littered the cosmos. The parts of us, small things like pets or memories, swam away in the darkness to light upon new shores. We paid no heed. Darkness blinded us. Darkness, and other things. Sometimes people are so naïve, or so self involved, or both, that they see nothing but their own invincibility. We believed this.
I asked others why they thought this was so. The answers came fast; because we were young, because we’d known each other for so long, because we were happy. Because who thinks that things are going to fall apart any second? Who anticipates the fragility of existence? Who are you to say that tomorrow, there will be nothing where we stood?
Of course, there were things that were left.
Photographs, which show you grinning toothily into the sun. The scent of an old shirt of yours, tucked into the back of my closet. A CD burned by you, lost amongst mine. A book we’d read together once, which now I cannot pick up. Where are our memories stored? To me, they are not in my mind, but in things external. Books, and CDs, and shirts and photographs. These are the things which now hold the entirety of me.
But, it is not the entirety, is it? It is only a part. That is what I said.
What do I read now, if I cannot read books? I see your face in every reflection, I hear your footsteps in every shadow. We ate each other, nibbles while we watched how the other reacted, chunks when we were hungry for more. Biting into your flesh was the fondest thing I remember.
Is it not strange that we lost ourselves here, when there was so much out there that sought to tear us apart, and consume us whole. We didn’t put a step outside our own speciality. We knew the contours of our landscape intimately, so closely we could draw it with our eyes closed, without doubt.
Where are you now?
Do you think of me?
You are seared onto my mind; into the lids of my eyes; at the back of my throat. I can still taste the way you found me and kept me safe. I put my hand on the seat beside me and feel nothing under my palm but you. There is a warmth in the world that I have found, that traces itself between the two of us. It is a faint scent, and like a hound, I might follow it to where you lie. I don’t think I will take that chance. There is a risk it will finally cause that combustion that we narrowly escaped so long ago (a combustion is a thing which, once it lights upon you, follows you for the rest of your life). Scary to think that I could throw it all into the stars in a moment.
What have I learn from you?
I have learnt that I am not invincible. I have learnt that the sky will change colours depending on my mood, and there is nothing I can do to shift it straight. I have learnt that little chances in this world all add up to bigger things, that there is nothing scarier than taking a path with nothing under your palm.
What have I lost?
I had the chance to combust, once, and we floated on. I want that now, for myself. That feeling of explosion. There is a tight knot in me now, in my mind, in the lids of my eyes, at the back of my throat. I want to run, and feel myself tear apart, into a million pieces. Which then float away on a dark sea, to find calm. Dear B.
Can you hear me now?

Yours ever,
L

I Get So Fussy When I'm On My Own

What does it take to work things out? I stayed up all last night trying to answer that question. Why do I live this life? I obtain little bits of information about how the world works, the kinds of things which are going on, but where do they go? How do they help me?
I am used to doing things by myself, for myself, but I won’t lie - if I had a choice I’d choose help. Would everyone? I would choose help so that I wouldn’t have to work so hard to get down the basics; I’d choose help so that I would have something to lean on when things start to fall apart. Because things are always falling apart, around me.
I’m clumsy. I forget to hold things upright.
There’s some saying, about watching the vase as you’re holding it, and that applies to me. How do I make things work? Why do things work for other people and not for me? The same action, the same situation. I come off covered in mud, while others fly away on white feathers. I need someone to answer that question.
I need a lot of things, actually. I don’t know where to go to get these things fixed, you know? All the parts of me which are defective. The way I think, and the way I speak. Where does one buy a new larynx?
So what am I trying to find. What am I trying to build? Inside me I’d like there to be some sort of spark, some sort of shining City of Alvin Maker, but I know that’s not going to happen. I just know that not everyone else feels this blackness, this decrepit half-evil thing that lurks in the very darkest places of humanity. I know that somewhere on the road, quite a while back, the thing which kept me afloat sort of just flew out the window, and I didn’t even notice it was gone.
And by the time I’d realised I’d travelled too far to go and get it back.
So now it’s just me, and my churning gut, facing the world. But we can’t do it alone, you see? There is something that we need, a missing thing, and it would help us do the best we could, only it was gone. And it left no mark, no forwarding address. Only a brief scent, the faintest trace of a fingertip, just to show that it was once here.
Which is crueller, really, don’t you think. At least take your memory with you.
So I eat, to fill the blackness. I lust. I blow out my brain cells with caffeine and alcohol and mind-numbing boredom. I throw away all that is good, is possible, about me, to become someone that I know I shouldn’t be, and who I don’t want to be on a good day, and try and console myself with the idea that we are all many facets, at the moment, and at the end?
We are all nothing but a mess of chromosomes, and a tangle of things nothing more than sheer luck.
It doesn’t make me feel better, but I’ve never been able to justify anything that had.
I don’t want to be a cliché - I don’t want to do ‘rediscover myself’, or jump off cliffs, or deep see dive to swim with humpback whales. I don’t want to do any of those things and have some woman write about me in New Idea. That’s not what I want.
I want to be normal.
It is so elusive, normality. It shouldn’t be. Why is it? I have a finger wrapped around it, at times. It’s in my sight, I can smell it and taste it and feel the very fragile beginnings of it; until the rug is brushed violently and my world slides off that atlas into deep space once more. Blackness. Nothing. Calm.
It feels like no matter how many times, how hard or how little I try, I always end up in the same place. Why is that? What am I missing that these other people know how to work?
Why am I not normal? And what do I do to - once and for all, finally - get there?

All You Good, Good People

To tell the truth - I am kind of obsessed with good looking people.
I think about them all the time, stare at them in public, wonder what makes them tick. In actual fact, I am observing, and thinking what parts of them I can steal and horde away in my own little burrow for the cooler months.
They are everywhere, of course. At bus stops, in shopping centres, at uni. They fly on wings of dew and cobwebs. I mull them over, all of them, every single time. And yet, whenever they come close, I morph into a hunchbacked, gabbling weirdo, and refuse to look them in the eye.
Also, I agonise over words. But, you already knew this.
My words are black, congealed like tar. Maddie's words are the scarlet of fresh blood. Belle's are the hummingbird-fast whir of pastel greens, yellows, and pinks. Eden's are blue - like shifting sands they run from the deep indigo of despair, to the crystallised optimism of a summer sky.

Andy sent me a letter yesterday. It is very old, this thing between us. He said he regretted that we'd fallen out of touch, and that he wants us to talk more. Of course, what could I do? I sent a letter back. But I put nothing of substance in it. Andy and I would talk about everything, once. I don't know what point people change, and become someone you do not know. But there is no turning back from that.
I don't think Andy and I will ever be close again. But I am a coward, and will not tell him this.
Instead, I will present fake smiles and fake letters. Why can't I say what I mean? For one thing, I have known Andy for many years, and shared with him many special moments. At a turn, I was the closest thing he had to a soulmate. So. This, then, is why I cannot tell him that he is different, and that I am different, and both of us too different to reconcile.
And, moreover, I don't actually know how much true intimacy I shared with Andy. It is true that I rarely share true thoughts with anyone. But I let Andy talk, and I let him believe I listened. So in that, I think, there is something more that I owe him. What do I owe him? If it is honesty, then I have no choice.

These days, I am truly alone. No one is under the illusion that I share with them anything of true relevance, and no one asks from me anything of importance. But like Posner, "I am not happy, but I am not unhappy about it."

Deciding to Write

Decisions are only very small things. It can take a little less than a moment for the whole course of your life to be muddied, or cleared up. Less than a second, less than a moment, less than an instant. Decisions we make without mulling over, decisions that one foot should land there, or that that piece of paper should be thrown in the bin. Small things. Larger decisions, for which we write pro-con lists and catalogue inventories and gnaw our nails. Large decisions which bare upon us without us even realising - unexpected, unplanned for. Often unwelcome. Only when we accept responsibility for our decisions will we begin to work to be free. I think that's what that book on Desire was about, but it's more than that. I know, I know we can never truly be free. I know that it's pointless wanting so much, that it's the state of the human condition, to be tied down to laws and to the earth and to the people around us. I know that small tastes of freedom are special, like the ones on your tongue on a summer's day at the beach. At a glimpse of something spectacular that washes the slate clean. I know that there are many things (most of the things) that I wish for which will never happen. I know all this. But I also know that deciding to decide for myself is one of the most powerful things of all. I know that being tied down is not an excuse to look for excuses. It is a knowledge to be worked with (against) or else it will become just another thing that has tied me down.

The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it - this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience, and they occur in country and in town and in the most differing stages of education. If experience consists of impressions, it may be said that impressions are experience, just as (have we not seen it?) they are the very air we breathe.
- Henry James in The Art of Fiction

Quote of the Day

My mother: "This, Taylor, is where people live." (We were driving through the country.)
Yesterday, Belle: "His pants totally clash with his hair."

Yesterday was a day of most fitful surprises! Now, I am a true sucker for surprises. I never suspect a thing (it is purposeful work this, not giving way to the anticipation) and therefore allow myself to feel the full force of Surprise! My eyebrows have an entire expression to themselves, in most of these cases. But enough of that!
The fact was, that yesterday, we sped down roads with our hearts in our mouths and hounds on our tails! We could feel the beat of their howling shuddering in our spines! We'd swallowed our stomachs! (Also, the whole noise of the affair was so loud we could barely hear ourselves think.)
Belle mourned the loss of her car, in light of this most extraordinary of circumstances.
It was trial which we endured, and at the end, there were glorious rewards.
One of them was called Adam, and he was really quite the charmer.
It was brilliant!
Also, I met Nicole, who has porcelain skin and lives at the top of a tower! Her laughter is soft, like dew on fresh buds. She was hospitable and gracious and it appears to be that I seek these people out, these faraway people of secret islands and beds in trees, and feather them (gently) into the lanes of my life. If this is true, then I hope it will always be the case.

Oxford Street is a funny place. Every time I go there I learn something new. I find something new. Every single time.
It glitters, that place, like a fairy island lost in the seas of time and space.

The Birth of a Cat

Cats, they say, are lucky. What with their night time vision and riding on broomsticks and their nine lives.
So it follows that the birth of a cat, therefore, would be a fortuitous affair.
And so it is.
We celebrated the Birth of a Cat two nights ago, as the sun set along the river in this frenzied city, and we lit the bridges with our fire and the smoke of us spiralled out of view. And some people stayed dancing til the early hours of the new morning, when the river twinkled a different hue of violet from the night before (because each day is different), and the peace of their merriment swallowed others whole, so that they became immobile, and sank languidly to their rest.
There were balloons, and champagne, and chocolates strewn about (I strew some of the chocolates myself, actually) and the people on the docks below shaded their eyes with their hands and watched us dance.
For a moment, it was our city, and we owned it whole, and everything and everyone in it.
The moment passed, and the new day dawned (as it will) and we moved on, with our pockets full of numbers and hope, and our heads groggy, and the taste of salt and sweet nothings on our tongues.
We were enriched, from a night of debauchery. It is the case with humanity that this can sometimes occur.
Anna Funder also told me, today, that studies show that depressed people actually have a firmer grasp of reality, and a more accurate view of the 'real world'. Although the usefulness of this, if it makes a person depressed, is debatable.
So a peacefulness then, is what I seem to have found to align my lost equilibrium. Not happiness (happiness is like a diamond; rare and expensive and glittery so that it shoots light off into many different directions) and not emptiness (I know that feeling all too well, and would recognise it in a heartbeat) but a peacefulness, so that for a few moments I am suspended in a bubble, separate, and contained.
Oh, and look at that. Chris Martin appears to agree with me. He sings his words to me now. The Birth of a Cat indeed. ;)

The Lost Thing

A while back, I was one of the first to purchase Lo-Tel's CD The Lost Thing.
(Yeah, I said it was a while back.)
Before I even listened to the CD, I read the cover art, as I usually do. But then (yes, that's right) a strange thing happened.
I slid the cover back into its case, and closed it, and left the CD on my shelf, unheard, for two weeks. The story of the little lost thing on the album art was so wrenching, I found myself unable to listen to the damn CD until I'd read something that made me reach equilibrium.
Now, years later, I find myself in the same position. (Trauma repeats itself, as Zadie Smith would say.)
Whenever I lose things, I am inconsolable. Maddie first pointed this out at school, one day when I lost my laptop. (It turned out Daniel McFarlane had the laptop, stowed away in his locker. Maddie admonished him when he told us.
"But why the fuck did you take the laptop?!" she cried.
"Her locker door was open!" he cried back. "I was afraid it would get stolen!"
(It was true, though, Maddie and I shared a locker and we didn't have a lock for it. Usually we never put a thing in there except for our lunches, so it never usually mattered. I forget exactly where I usually put my laptop. Funny thing, memories. Unreliable.)
"But the laptop was stolen!" Maddie was irate. "It was stolen by you!"
Daniel could find nothing to say at this, and just gaped at us.)
At any rate, I cried all lunch hour, and then spent the rest of the afternoon laughing hysterically, and randomly shouting out things like, "Locker!" "Daniel!" and then collapsing into peals of laughter again. I was, for all accounts, quite mad when I was at school.
I forgot the point of this story.
Ah yes, I am quite inconsolable. So.
As the years progressed of course, I learnt to take better care of my things. In Year 12, when I lost my hockey stick, for example, I did not allow myself to get distraught, instead patiently retracing my steps to the exact location I had seen it last. And lo, there it was! Waiting patiently.
And today! When I lost my ring in the change rooms of a store! (I was at the other end of the shopping centre, by this time) I grabbed Belle's arm and simply flew back to the dressing room.
A very nice girl was just about to enter, who smiled at us as we swooped in and shouted a most impolite, "Fuck oath I found it!"
So the point is, I am getting better at not being sad at loss.
Yet, we all lose a lot, everyday. The East Germans, for instance, (I am reading Stasiland) certainly lost more than they bargained for! (To dig it up or leave it lie in the ground? as Anna Funder would say. A most pertinent question!)
But there is a tendency in the universe toward equilibrium. Most things will balance.
What of the letter I never received? Where is that balanced? Who will receive the credit for that?
Most people can't answer your questions. At least, they can never seem to answer the ones I have. I have learnt not to ask, because of this. But every so often I wonder if I shouldn't visit a psychic, a good one, who can read my palm and for half an hour make me believe in something I can't see.
Today, Belle's old flame called me and asked.
(I should have said I had nothing to give, as it was lost, but maybe the balance is retrieved by giving more, so I said nothing.)
It is a strange mix of things, this world.

Troy & the Record

Last night, a strange thing.
I dreamt of Troy.
It has been so long since this happened, that I could not even be sure of what was going on.

Troy was in my house (of all places!)
He was talking to my family! He had brought his family! To talk to my family!
(This whole time, he was ignoring me resolutely.)
But then! My washing had to be taken down from the line (it looked like rain.)
And so he helped me.
He carried the laundry basket into my room, helped me make my bed, and all this while we didn't speak a word, and for all intensive purposes acted as though the other didn't exist.
Until.
I said, 'Thank you.'
And he smiled.
And then he turned to walk away, whereupon I called out, 'Wait!'
And I turned my back and rummaged in my wardrobe before pulling out an Eagles record!
This I then proceeded to hand him, and he looked at it a moment, before running out and playing it on the record player in the living room.
(In the meantime, I'd written a script! For a movie! And pages of the script were somehow floating around the living room, speaking their lines, so that the voices of the script mingled with the music of the record. All in all! Rather extraordinary.)
And then Troy sent me (how fitting) a rather incoherent text message that said something along the lines of 'o3ux oa,xlp i love you i love this record! ajouxsx 2p2190' and so forth.
So I ignored the text and got on with my Life.
The next moment I found myself really rather ravenous, and so ventured into the kitchen.
(Troy's parents still laughing wildly in the living room with my parents, red wine sloshing around everywhere.)
Who do I spy upon?
Troy is half naked, rummaging through my pantry! (His chest is really rather delightful.)
'Ah ha!' he cries triumphantly, holding up a glass to the light. 'Oh, hello.' He peers at me through the glass.
'What are you doing?'
'I was looking for a glass of RUM!' he says happily, watching as the glass fills with a dark brown liquid.
'That's really rather disgusting,' I say after a moment.
'No,' he says, and runs off with a beer clamped in his hand, the rum left spinning on the counter top, like in a cartoon.

As I said, last night, a strange thing.

Desire

Once, I came back from holidays overseas, and Forrest texted me:
Hey! I have so much to tell you! Well, not really. Ha. But yay!
I think about that text all the time, and how useful it is for myriad situations.
I think about describing things all the time, too.
I told Maddie this once, and she looked at me with wide, awe-filled eyes.
'But that's simply marvellous!' she cried. 'I wish I could think like that!'
It is not, I informed her, marvellous. It is mostly annoying.
For example, I will be looking at a spectacular view (a sunset, a good posterior, an oil painting, etc) and next thing I know I will be mulling over my describing words. How to define the soft curve, or that precise shade of colour?
It stops me from Living In The Moment!
Not that I do much of that anyway. But perhaps this is why!
Recently (this morning) I read a book on Desire. It was called On Desire. By a professor of logic. So this professor, wrote something of a large essay on desire, which he then put into a book, and I must say! It was rather boring. Such an interesting topic! Why do we want what we want, and all that. Mostly, he just dispensed advice on how to overcome your desires. From philosophers. Which is nice, but really.
I think it should have been more scientific, personally.
Like Steven Pinker. That man is my hero. Actually, I won't say that, as I'm not ten years old.
Hopefully I get Eden's letter today, I really have to stop waiting so long before I post mine! I'll keep them at home for no reason for an entire week before I'll think of posting them.
An advantage: the university campus has a post office, so I can just take them with me when I go!
Belle's gone somewhere. When she gets back, she is going to speak to Troy, and tell me all the details of his life. She has done this, already, a few times, but mostly I was just annoyed and refused to listen. I don't know why it annoys me so much. But I am glad it does! It means that I care no longer! The fact is that now: I would prefer not to know.
Hoorah!
(Another Forrest phrase.)

and the burrower dug on...

I found an old notebook, with only one page filled in, at the back of my closet yesterday.
This is what was written on the page:

Man's greatest victory is won, not with blood, which recognises nothing save its own, but with tears, which are all the same, but remember each other for their differences.
It was a bleak time, that winter, with less food than mouths to feed, and less warmth than those who needed it, but we knew that when springtime came the war would be over, and we could go back to our lives, go back to being fed, and warm.
When the springtime came, would come our peace, and we knew this because otherwise, we would starve, and pass from this war to another kind of peace, which we dared not look in the face.

Last night, I had a dream. I dreamt of sharp, silver teeth, and a cold, mechanical intelligence; a sharpness of exact angles, and a tangle of ecstasies.
It bit soft things, and spilled their blood.
The blood excited some sort of primal instinct in me, and I woke, sweating, my teeth bared in fury and triumph, in a nightgown of spun silk the colour of crisp winter dawn.
Fingers, momentarily clamped on my neck, dissolved, and outside the rain continued to pour, wickedly enchanting, eternally sad.

Captured, Conquered, Vanquished

The curve of the road ahead is not steep, but it is new.
And the idea of impending - anything - be it success or failure, is haloed with a sort of haze, as though it may never come to pass at all.
The only thing that matters now is the drive.

Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, am I

Eyes & Hands

There was a certain magnetic resonance in the chill blue of his eyes -- something not entirely malevolent, nor completely benevolent, but watchful, and knowing, and sparked with a sort of cold intelligence one usually associates with the eyes of great predators.
His hair was a tangle of dark secrets, and even though his smile was white and broad, it was also somehow dark, and the flash of it suddenly sometimes was unexpected, and unsettling.
It is as if he simply knew too much of the world, and what he knew had cost him some small parto f his humanity, a part of compassion and empathy, and had left him pitiless and bestowed with a dark sense of humour which was quietly amused by the absurdities of the human condition.
It was not malicious, but it was not kind, and one would do best to steer clear of his sort of thinking altogether.

it tolls for thee

Belle and I met.

We sat under a velvet sky, and played cards in grass greener than envy. And the cards spoke, and the things they said were shocking, and true.
As though on cue, the wind threw the Shout Out Louds Please Please Please over us, like a shroud. The wind flicked her ashen hair, and the hem of her dress caught the song and danced.
Two gypsies were we, once again, drunk with promise. No one could trace our steps, no one would know the shapes we carved into the air, as though we were masters of John Uskglass' magic, his old alliances of wind and earth and rain and fire.
The world is ours, again.

Also, Belle wore a pair of red Converse, which I must remind myself to purchase.

One thing I forgot to mention, in some of the earlier texts, was my fascination with A.C. Grayling. Surely the man must be proud, to furnish a book with his most private opinions?

When Darkness Falls There Will Be War

A curious examination of past events:
has led to this Conclusion.

(there is no Conclusion, I merely felt inclined to write those words.)

Today, as most days lately, is tapered with a soft mist, like faded lights.

Just happened to be, the most precious night

It is nothing exceptional, but it is warm and comfortable, in that haze we lie, without questioning. There is no burning desire in me anymore

Burn burn burn burn

And that doesn't worry me, at all. In fact, I'm happy to wait, until Fate so chuses to present this wily character to my hand.

I'd like to know what I'm fighting for, before I die.

Court Jester

And for the first time in a long time, it feels ok to be me.

I don't want.

(Sure, there are still things on the brain. Oops, was that an Impure Thought I just had?)

Seattle wraps its arms around me, wet with rain and chilled with zest, like a lime.
Ash blonde is the new hair colour this season. Who knew?
(a slow eyebrow raises at this, and chuckles quietly to itself.)

the Suit of Swords

Reading the cards is tricky.

Yesterday, when the sun was hot and moist against the backs of our necks, I picnic-ed, with Maddie and Forrest and it was nice. Unexpected, but nice.
One of the things we spoke about:
when are we happiest, and what do we drink to make it so?
It seems to me that people just hurt themselves, sometimes, and to no great avail. They are not happy to do this, nor after, when left with their consequence. (Is a consequence a punishment in itself?)
What to do when we spy this occurring? Are we the Knights who ride in on horseback with our shields and swords and fight away the darkness with lightning strokes?
Are we the archers, who dispel evils from afar with our flaming arrows?
And what of the peaceable acts? What can we do to stop the pain without fire or lightning or ferocity? How do we save and protect those we love without annointing ourselves with the blood of our enemies?
Maddie: It is not our job to save people. People should want to help themselves.
Forrest: Surely we should try?
Maddie: Masochists don't want heroes.
(Maddie has a certain affinity with italics)
Forrest: So. That stops us from trying?
Maddie: What do you think, Taylor?
I lie in the grass, slowly dreaming of a crimson sky, and violet drapes for my windows.

Do you know something?
Belle comes home in a week.
My heart grew little wings at the thought, and soared away on the breeze.

Why the Knight of Wands Ran Away

Tonight, the air is cold. It burns my fingers with curious ferocity as I sit and lay out the cards before me.
My plans will unravel, tempered as they are with darkness.
My smile will be lit, by the knowing. The cold, carefully shadowed lust for knowledge, which I cannot abandon.
A certain pleasure, and a certain peace, instil themselves quietly into my heart. (They are hard as rocks, and consequently they cause me no small measure of pain for their prize.)
And what of those things which we cannot know?
Be wary, for magic stands at your back.

non-self indulgent

what do we know of happiness?

from the sea

Belle calls from across the sea, her voice like honey on the wind, like the hidden scent of wildflowers buried in the grass.

From here, all looks well. Until, on closer inspection, the garish wounds from midnight to daybreak are apparent; their edges raw and ragged, freshly tagged on wet cement.

What would Jonathan Strange have to say about this? And Arabella?

As I look out over the Palace on the Water, a stillness washes over me. Cat and Laura are at my back, quietly laughing over some old photographs. On the radio, there is the song Stairway to Heaven.
And my question is, if all of this were not apparent in the light of day, if all of this were hidden and closed off to the world, and if I never had a moment's rest or peace or enjoyment, what would it be worth then?
What would Taylor be worthy of then?

Rain

The rain, they say, washes the slate clean.

Today, raindrops ran down the glass in races--like tears; like snakes on the windowpane.
In contrast, the river was a flat, blank slate of steely grey.

Subtle signs of Troy float across the atmosphere to me; I seem to attract them. Or perhaps I am the only one who notices because I am the only one who cares.
(a thought.)

Today, a mop of fresh hair, and a scent on an exposed shoulder of cinnamon and sweat and leather.
It wasn't Troy, but it was close.
There was warmth.

how many stars will i see tonight?

The days flash by, so fast, like frames from a movie.
A good movie in which you can tell what someone's like just by looking at them.
(I was never good with the intuition)
In contrast, the nights are balmy, moist with luck and quiet with ease. The stars drip slowly, like question marks, into my eyes.

I know if you read books on magic, it doesn't make you magical. But still, what else can?

In the Dark, there is little to see (this much we know.)
So I offer to lie there, silently, unflinchingly, strong and straight as a board.
(it is the only thing that makes the world stop spinning.)
Today, I woke up with something other than stardust in my eyes.
There was the taste of blood on my tongue.
Something vaguer than mist has clutched me now, and I did not see it coming. It made no noise as it stole through the night, dimmer than the shadows over which it passed. It clawed no mark upon the doors through which it slid, slimmer than a cloak, slyer than a fox's eye.
It saw, and it came.
The stillness will not prevent it from returning once more, to take the last of what is left.
The stillness will not shy it away, like rose thorns or oak wood or salt by the door or bright red berries on a twine of ivy. But there has to be something more than charms that can be used to fight it. There must be something we own that can be used to beat this thing, this evil thing, a stealer of dreams.
If we cannot find it, it will take us, and our children, and there will be nothing but memories like dust, and that will be the only taste in our mouths.

Combs

So what are the stories of our lives, when they run and bleed and melt into one another like paint? What does it matter if there are many colours, or only one?
If I had to pick, what would I choose?
Nathan Scott said it best:
I call it pushing back.

Once, there was a Thing that I was longing for. I found it, only to realise I'd never really owned a piece of the land where my heart lay.
Compensation for This:
a new job. new friends. a new haircut.

A Fact of Relevance
experience is the comb life gives us after we have lost all our hair

So. These things? Did not really work.
The question is: What Lies Beyond
And:
Will I want it?

(answer: No.)

BUT WHY.
For that, we must wait.

(I am sick of waiting.)
Solutions:
a new job. new friends. a new haircut.
Bandaids.
What is it I am lacking?
Integrity.
(Stephen R. Covey would be proud.)
But who do I want to make proud? Stephen R. Covey, or Oscar Wilde?

Ah yes, now I see. The issue is
Illuminated

Wizards & Poets

So much has happened, that I have not written down.
First of all: I know Myself.
A wonderous thing, no? To know this person who has been at your side since birth? Since you first knew you were a 'you', separate from the world?
And another thing: how far are we separate from the world?
(but that is an aside)
Another thing: I know Others.
This, is a grand feat. Not as grand as knowing Oneself, but still noteable.
When I speak to Frank, it is with smiles, that I have not felt in a while.
Sometimes I think I pick the people with 'school' written across their shirts. What does that mean, you ask?
Well.
'School' denotes that you are young, vivacious, quirky, infinitely interesting, and with a colourful history. So much to find out! about you, that i do not know.
When I get my hair cut short, I will write and let you know.
This is a promise.
A girl today, she inspired me, in images, with her hair cut sharp across her chin. The razor edges glided across her skin in the breeze, biting like wit. What would it be like? To feel the breeze on the back of my neck?
I have not felt it since I was last in school.

and she said,

When the colours are strong
it's hard to imagine things ever not going your way.
When the grey matches your eyes, it's hard to ever know where to draw the line.
Am I, as Joanne Harris so subtly implied,
a raw bird's body covered in moss?
Or am I Zozie, with her evil eyes and fabulous shoes and fingers of magic?
Andy is home, but gone from my heart.
His insolence irks me.
Frank (who is my new curiosity) caught the bus home with me. He was pleasant, and obliging.
On my calender, the days til Belle arrives home, marked down in red.

Milk & Sharp

Once, Rory Gilmore wrote an article, on how the refurbishment of a high school carpark was symbolic of the ruthlessness of progression, and the eternity of the obsolete.

Once, there was a girl. And that girl was me.

Today, it felt like my mouth didn't stop moving, for the words. And I knew what it felt like to have something, and then let it slip from your mouth in a wash of words, like silt. The words kept coming to my lips, unbidden, and it was a nice feeling because I don't often feel that way around strangers. But today, something extraordinary happened.
Today, those strangers became friends.

I don't know if we lose things because they're far away, or if they become far away because we've lost them. Today, I had a job, but then I didn't. Today, I had a friend, but then I didn't.
Eden is so far away. I read her blog and it's like this whole other world that I don't know about. I know I can't be involved in every second of her life. But it's an odd feeling, like the slow tilt of a globe onto its side, or the expression a dog's face when you don't throw the ball.
You expect something to happen, but it doesn't.
The anticipation isn't fulfilled.
What happens? Where does the energy of the anticipation disappear to? Where does it go to recuperate?

Belle runs home, like milk down a mountain stream, highlighting her passage.
I'll wait for her, but like Eden, it's a painful game, full of sharp tacks.

Unlike Helen Of:

If I do say so myself, I am a master at weasling out of things I don't want to do.

If the stars align, of course, Troy will come back to me.
And the fact is (and this is the bit you say in whispers):
if i can't have Troy
i don't want anyone

What?! Shhh! Who said that?

So until I feel like that again, I'm not forcing myself.
Yes, everyone has someone. Yes, I'm the exception.
Yes, it's lonely. But it's also pure. And until I can be pure with someone else, I don't want no part of nothing.

Sideways

Like the song,

this feeling won't go away

Today, a strange thing happened.
The strange thing was this:
the world tipped a little, sideways.

Things fall when you're not watching. This is true of apples (if you're a brilliant scientist), as well as things that you should be holding up--like vases, for example.
I pushed back but there was no resistance.
In actual fact, I don't really want a date for Saturday night.

Is it too rude to call and cancel?
Perhaps. I mean, I have to see him every day.
Also, he is Russian, so he may have me killed.

But apart from that, perhaps I am just making too big a deal of it. We'll go see a movie and get something to eat and have a bit of a chat and leave it at that.
It's just so much effort.
I rather like being single.

Most Recent

Today was a slow, sparkling day, full of small surprises.
In one corner, Ryan, from school, who looked like somebody’s idea of twenty. In another corner, three cute boys, who it appeared preferred to watch, rather than listen to, Taylor.
In another corner, Maddie, who made me laugh.

Things, Other

If you see something pretty, and then it vanishes, was it ever really there?
And: should you try and get it back?

Also: If you are overwhelmed, and the bus is about 3 hours late, what is there to do? In the castles of your mind? (Although, ever since I read Hannibal, I have avoided constructing any mental artistry. Sadly, it's just too creepy now. So. The question then is: should I stop the reading?)

An insight:
Much like an ADD sufferer, often, I pay too much attention to the wrong things.

I have always wanted to navigate by the stars.
It seems so luxurious a hobby, so pointless a skill to have, so poignantly romantic. Imagine! Looking up at the stars and knowing exactly where you are in this world!
Wouldn’t that be a feeling?

Eden

Today, Eden wrote me, and my heart tripped.
Eden is magic, her hair is gossamer, her voice: fairy floss on the wind.
Perhaps she has wings of maple syrup, and spun gold?
I cannot tell: I am too blinded by her radiance.

The Way I Feel About Eden:
Nothing in my life has compared.
Not Andy, or Belle, or even Troy. (If I could choose, on a good day, I'd only hurt myself.)
If this is Chance, then surely I am more lucky than I know.
But, I don't believe that. Meeting Eden made me believe our lives are preordained.
Isn't that a funny thing, for an atheist?

A Law of Attraction:
The theory of electromagnetism is the physics of a field encompassing all of space, in which a force is exerted over particles that possess an electrical charge. This field is, in turn, affected by the presence and behaviour of those charged particles.

Coloured Hair and Cornered Hearts

What is disappointment? Who disappoints you?
Constantly, there is a dripping in my gut, like slow, muddied water.

T.H. White said, Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically? To those who hardly think of us in return.
(and the punctuation? is my own.)

I coloured my hair last night. It never turns out, like on the packet? That’s okay though, because I was prepared.
So now my hair looks like chocolate frosting, laced with dew.

Because? It’s my heart you’re taking. It’s my heart you’re breaking. And—
if I can find a lyricist who poeticises the strange blankness that fills my veins, and empties the crowd that bickers and bites inside my mind, then, and that is how,
I will know love.

Charles Dickens once wrote:

Over the prisoner’s head there was a mirror,
to throw the light down upon him.
Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected to it,
and had passed from its surface and this earth together.
Haunted in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been,
if the glass could ever have rendered back its reflections,
as the ocean is one day to give up its dead.

Misc. (much like "Mischa", only with less media coverage.)

To learn, we must first, unlearn.

Belle comes home soon.
The tension knots my heart into tight little bows. They start and smile, every so often, these bows, just to remind me they are there.
To welcome her back, I will bake brownies, with multicoloured sparkles.

Reading gathers your mind, much like Yahn with his fingertips of sky gathers hair of silk, gently, into soft clouds.
The wind comes then, and pushes the clouds out to sea.
There you hover, for a while, uncertain, until you place a delicate foot down into the water.

To Eden

The necklace is pretty, like you.
Also, it will remind you to keep your wings open.
(It is easier to fly, that way.)

For Me

What would it be like to sleep forever?
They ask this, without really comprehending what it means.
When I ask, I know.
Or, I know that I want to know.

Last night, the stars threaded themselves, like a daisy chain, through my hair.

I fell asleep in the sky, wrapped in bohemian rhapsody.

Documents in an Attempt to Save Her Life:

including:
The Diet That Nobody Does

Once, Penelope ate an entire mud cake. It was white chocolate, and melted smoothly in her mouth, covering her teeth with itchy sugar. (This was by the end of it.)
She felt sick for the rest of the day, and didn’t eat a thing, tucking herself into bed early in the hopes of sleeping it off.

I bought a cake today, but I didn’t eat it.
I stuck a pin in it, and left it on the kitchen counter, to stare back at me in wonder.

also including:
A Scrap of Paper With a Proverb On It

What they don’t tell you, at cooking school and in the military, is that you CAN have your cake and eat it too.
This is something you discover, on the night of your twenty eleventh birthday, walking knee deep in sand under a starless sky.
It is something, in other words, that comes unawares. The best realisations come this way, like a black cat, that slips sleekly through the darkness and into your house.

The Elements of Having One’s Cake and Eating It Too:
- Patience;
- Perseverance;
- Luck; and
- Audacity

The Elements should be combined in roughly equal quantities, and then blended thoroughly. In this way, slowly a certain amount of a potent elixir known as Good Fortune will distil.
Collect it gently, in a small glass vial.
Keep it in your soul box, and use generously. (One drop is good for an entire year of Eating One’s Own Cake and Other Business In The Same Vein.)

When I...

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
There is no darkness that cannot be penetrated. There are no secrets that can be kept in a civilised world. Life is but a masked ball, in which people hide their true faces, and then reveal them, by hiding.
A shiver covers Penelope’s skin, as she reads this. Her hair curls, chilled, over her ears.

When I write, little slivers of multicoloured sparkles shimmy through my fingertips. They congeal, sticky, on the keys, like shining toffee. They make me shiver, make my heart ache, and my eyes water. There is no known cure for this affliction. They say the best thing for it is time.
But I am sick of waiting.

According to Listen Taylor

if there is a little less colour in the world, it is my fault.

Otis & Max

One thing Penelope remembers about Thomas:
She didn’t exactly feel entirely enveloped, completely worry-free.
Sometimes she would glance across at him with a look of astonishment, that she could find herself with a person with such perfect collarbones.
‘How could I end up with you?’ she would wonder, but not aloud.
He would never notice her staring, but would glance over himself, and smile gently.
With Max, the atmosphere is so thick with safety that she drowns in it deliciously.
‘How could I ever end up with you?’ Max says, regularly, turning to her with wide eyes. She kisses the tip of his nose, at that point.
Otis’s opinion: There will never be anyone like Tom, but surely Max is a better match? Overall.
Unfortunately, Thomas was a fabulous cook. Penelope’s favourite recipe of his was a seafood stew he made with prawns and other delicious things.
‘This is for my little kipper,’ he would say, setting down a bowl in front of her. She would grin, at that point, but it made her feel like she had sharp teeth, and her jaw would ache for a while afterward.
If Penelope had a choice, she would run away to Dubai. Once, Thomas had gone there on a business trip for two weeks, and sent back photos outside expensive buildings and desert scenery.
But would she take Max with her?
Otis’s opinion: You should ask Max if he wants to go! For all you know? He might not even like Dubai?
Penelope considers the idea carefully, toying with it, like a string of caramel on her tongue.
Otis also, is an accomplished cook.
When Max arrives, that evening, Penelope imagines she is walking on a cloud. She imagines stepping deeply into the warm, fluffy cotton of clouds, and smiles at Max indulgently.
‘Why, hello,’ he says, his eyes sparkling. ‘Your eyes look sleepy, but I must say, poignant. What are you imagining?’
‘That I am on a cloud,’ she says, but her voice is so serene that she imagines it’s lost on the horizon, like the sleekest of mists.
Otis has cooked their meal.
‘I simply must get you a Jamie Oliver,’ Otis said earlier, throwing a tea towel over his shoulder like Gordon Ramsey.
Otis has broad shoulders and eyes the colour of chocolate. Also, he reads a lot, and runs his own website. He teaches Tai Bo at the local gym, and completes charity marathons.
When Penelope told Max this, he whistled softly.
‘Lucky I’m not competing with him, then, hey?’ he chuckled, and kissed Penelope’s shoulder.
With a sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Tonight, there is butter chicken, mounted on high piles with fluffy white rice underneath, and an accompaniment of cold apple juice.
‘That Otis,’ Max grins.
Suddenly, there is something askew.
According to Dan Scott:
if once he could go back to the beginning
and go over it all slowly
then perhaps he could find that thing he was missing.
Penelope’s breath catches at the back of her throat, suddenly. She gasps for air, like a flailing fish. Throw me back into the water, she says, her eyes tearing up, throw me back in for God’s sake please the water throw me back into the water the water for
‘Are you all right?’ Max is in front of her now, clutching a serviette and a glass of water.
‘Can you breathe?’
She shakes her head.
‘Are you having a panic attack? Where are your paper bags?’
She shakes her head again, and points to the fridge.
Miraculously, Max finds a packet of paper bags in the cupboard across from the fridge, tucked neatly behind the cans of soup and tuna.
‘Breathe into this!’ he instructs, shoving the bag over her face.
She breathes, and slowly the fish slides into the water, flicking its tail. The world rights itself.
‘Do you like Dubai?’ she rasps, finally.
‘Dubai?’ he sucks on the end of his fork, at that point, and looks at her inquiringly. ‘Well. That’s to say.’
She stares back at him.
‘Would you want to go to Dubai with me, if I had blonde hair?’
She hasn’t told anyone about the week after Thomas left on his business trip, where she went to the hairdresser and had her hair coloured an impressive, rich caramel blonde. She’d died over it immediately, of course. She wasn’t a show pony for God’s sake!
‘Are you insane? You have beautiful hair. Why would you dye it blonde?’ Max chuckles into his chicken.
‘Well, let’s just say.’
‘I am not having this conversation.’
‘Well, you don’t know. What if it happens? What if I won tickets to Dubai in a raffle?’
‘How many raffles offer two tickets to Dubai? What sort of raffle is this? Have you been associating with known criminals?’
‘Please answer the question.’
‘I would then, yes, I would go to Dubai, if you won two tickets in a criminal raffle. But absolutely NOT if you had blonde hair!’
Penelope blinks at him, once, and he blinks back, then grins, slowly. ‘What?’
The chicken is delicious.

Excitement

Laura and Cat have invited me away for the weekend! I am thrilled!
The sunlight hits differently when I am with those two.

Music, Badges & Pizza

Eden sent me a badge with a sheep on it.
My mother said, Why the sheep?
My mother does not understand things.
The badge said I had a bright future.
I wish I could put music in a packet, and push it inside my chest. So that my heartbeat was filled with the sounds I love most.
Andy has moved. Andy has moved far away. And Troy? Troy has now been lost to my dreams.
Actually, he crops up there quite often. The other night, he was dressed in black pants and unwashed hair, with bright skin.
‘He-ey,’ he said, ironically, grinning at me.
He was standing in the corridor, outside my door.
‘You hungry?’
The grin enticed me outside, for pizza, even though I was wearing bright floral leggings and a baggy grey sweater. It appeared that Troy had returned from his sojourn simply to ask me out for pizza.
What deliriousness, no? What simple pleasures.

According to Aerosmith:

My my baby blue yeah
I’m thinking bout you
my my baby blue
yeah you’re so jaded and
I’m the one that jaded you

It is funny that Troy knew so well in advance the contours of the shape he would imprint on my heart. He spelled it out to me, many times, in songs and notes, and the words he spoke. I was the one who chose not to listen, then.
Leave Troy to the dust! they whisper. Andy (even though he would have to shout because he’s so far away), and Eden and Belle. Even Maddie, though I don’t speak to her anymore.

Katy Rose holds out hope that ‘You might just turn into something I like’. Which is really, the optimistic attitude I should have. So. Focus! Taylor! Focus!
But the only thing is, I have forgotten how to focus.
So how will the sheep be right, if I cannot focus? It is a quandary.
Poor sheep. I should tell Eden that animals on badges cannot accurately predict the future (a slow, lonely tear, will slide down my cheek as I say this.)

Breathing and Cockroaches and Orange Cleaner

One more thing I have forgotten.
How to breathe.
They say it’s easy. They say it’s a function of life. They say you shouldn’t have to think about it.
But I do, I think about it all the time.
‘Don’t speak, please, I’m thinking about how to breathe.’
Stephen R. Covey will be at my side then, touching my shoulder gently.
‘You know,’ he will say, ‘that’s probably the first true thing I’ve heard you say.’
‘Shut up!’ I will scream, throwing a book at him. ‘You’re disrupting the thinking!’

How many times are we divided?
How many people are stacked inside our minds, all shouting, all vying, for a voice? Like sheafs of paper, like reams of fabric, we pull at them, and watch them float to the ground.
They touch down softly, weightless. They look back up, with eyes as huge as planets. Don’t you want us anymore, their eyes say. Why didn’t you choose me.
I stare at them, their frail limbs, and lank hair.
There’s not very much breathing space, inside one mind.
‘You didn’t make it,’ I whisper, and my voice carries on the breeze. ‘You didn’t make it because I didn’t like what you had to say.’
You took us too quickly, they implore. You didn’t give us a chance.
‘I have no time,’ I say sadly. ‘I have no time to wait.’
What you are saying is: I have no time to give out chances. They don’t grow on trees, and I have no rations for them. I take them when I can find them, and so should you.
It is not a compassionate thing to say, but you have forgotten what compassion is. You forgot it a long time ago.
You breathe them in, these delicate creatures of transparency.
Won’t you try a little harder, they ask. For us, won’t you try a little harder to make sure we don’t fade into the wind?
I have no time. I have no time. I have no time.
Quietly, defeated, they fade.

Jack’s friend Rhys said, ‘Do you want us to lie about you? Do you want us to say you’re cool?’
‘No one’s asking you to lie,’ I said, and stared hard out at the water.
‘Don’t ever watch a war movie with her,’ Jack said. ‘She’ll make you explain the whole thing.’
Perplexed, I said nothing.
‘And another thing, what’s with the cockroaches? I walk into the shower, and there’s four litres of orange toilet cleaner everywhere, and this one cockroach in the middle.’
Jack grabs his crotch.
First of all, it wasn’t four litres.

Grey

When Troy first floated away, to land softly in the meadows of sweet memory, I didn’t even notice his departure.
It was only later, in the quietness, that a thought planted itself in my mind.
Where was Troy? said the thought said
Gone, memory answered.
A small smile lit my lips, briefly, until it too floated away.

The weather is heavy, with a hundred shades of grey.
Nick Earls could write a book of it.

What does Jack think about, those nights when his arms are not wrapped around Alice? Does he worry about where she is? Would I, if I were him?
Were these questions with answers, I would not be asking them.

Another memory: Eden.
She doesn’t write.
Where is she? Where are her Jacks and Troys and Alices and Lauras and Cats and Maddies and Belles?
Where are her Taylors?

As for Andy, he is fickle. We all knew this. He is sometimes better than Belle, sometimes worse. When he traces the charts of Troy’s travels, he is worse. When he bakes triple tiered cakes with edible flowers and passionfruit glaze, he is better.
He hasn’t called me for a long, long time. I wonder if it’s one of those things that sparks, and then frizzles, from too much moisture?
But of course I know it’s not. I know it’s something else.
I know that Andy has left.
Andy is in Melbourne, now. Closer to the Palace on the Water than I. No, of course, that is a lie.
I don’t know when Andy is coming back. Perhaps too soon for me to sadden. But perhaps so long that we will forget the contours of one another’s voices. When we do speak again, it will be a sharpness that straightens our backs, and perks up our ears. It will be the smell of water after being lost in the desert, and we will reach for it, desperate, dying with thirst.
Perhaps I imagine it. But the people who once walked with their bodies close to yours do not leave quite so quickly.

Last night, I fell into the pure, exhausted sleep of the weary.

A Fairy Tale

Do you know, the story of Alice and Jack?
It is this:
Yahn, with a heart full of cotton and candy, fell in love with a princess. She had wide, soft eyes, the colour of chocolate. Her hair fell in silky tendrils to her elbows. Her smile lit up the sky.
Jack knew all this.
He watched Yahn and the princess grow up together.
Over time, Jack played his hand.
The princess and Yahn would steal moments:
in dusk, in bedrooms, in store rooms.
Innocently.
Jack waited.
One night: he asked the princess to a fairy tale dinner. She accepted.
Four years later: and no one is happy.
The princess and Yahn love one another.
But they both love Jack. And Jack loves them both.
What to do? What to do with this heart split thrice?
Jack keeps the princess close. But she steals away from under his fingertips, and slips through the open windows of nighttime. Yahn welcomes her, gently, gathering her melted chocolate eyes and hair of silk.
Jack, outside, knows this. His heart cracks a little more, crumbles a little further, til what is left is bitter and broken. He has made his choice, and now he will pay his dues.
He cannot name what it is that makes him stay. It is a formless void, a slate of murky grey. It has neither name, nor form, but a great deal of persuasion. It is the most dangerous kind of Thing.
To Jack, it is the black dog that stalks his dreams.

Is Jack the prince? Or is it Yahn, with his fingertips of sky?

And as for the princess: why so indecisive? What makes her stay?

What am I missing?
There is something here that I am failing to grasp.
There is a link that I do not yet see.

A Fact of Relevance
Jack, if he knew I wrote these words, would strangle me and leave me to die, in the cool puddle of a gutter drain.

the Palace on the Water

Like all good stories, this one doesn't have a happy ending. I believe Leo Tolstoy would be proud.
Just under my left shoulder blade, there is a massive knot, pulling all the muscles in my back into a painful, twisted ball.
Forty five minutes away, Jack sits with his arm around a beautiful Alice, who sits with her hands in the lap of a Yahn who is so tall he can brush the sky with his fingertips. This is what they told me, about love and about life.
That there are those to whom a silver spoon is given especially for the cake.
Last night, the light danced over the water and made me wish, so hard, for a silver spoon. It is the one thing, above all else, that you cannot buy.
Can someone lend me one? I'll give it back, a little bent and bruised.

Jack tucked me into bed last night. When he said my name it was a caress, like the wash of a spring breeze over new buds. 'Taylor,' he said. 'Taylor, you'll catch a cold.'

An Unrelated Answer

Once, Troy told me he only read to "exercise his mind".
Not for enjoyment, but as some sort of perverse masochistic sacrifice.
I am beginning to wonder what I ever saw in that boy?

A Question

Does Jack read?

The Book Thief

When Markus Zusak writes, he takes little chunks of your soul, and feeds them through a meatgrinder.
Then, he strikes a match to light what's left.
It is a thoroughly vicious, ravishing experience.

A Fourth Afterthought

I am a cruel, thoroughly unfunny person.

A Third Afterthought

Children are very ungrateful toward their parents.
He would probably be happier if I named him Jack.
That, of course, would be impossible.
Perhaps I should name him Troy
if I really wanted to set him up in life?

A Second Afterthought

Ambrosia: Refers to the mythological 'food of the Gods'
I have always wanted to name my son Ambros.
He will win at everything, with a name like that.

An Afterthought

I liked Maddie a little more today, as though she were a cool breeze passing through.
But for how long can we expect this new weather front to last?
I would give anything to lead a life like Alice and Jack.
I believe it is news to Ambrose Bierce that in fact integrity can be the spice to win.
I think it is doubly funny that I gave Laura a book on personal integrity, when I harbour so little of it myself.
But that, I think, can be our little secret.

Alice

It is hot, and my fringe sticks to my forehead in a worried tangle.

Alice has plush lips, plump and pink. Tonight, when I see her at the Palace on the Water, they will be stained with the juice of berries.

Acknowledging The Problem:
I have a love of symmetry.

When I read The Book Thief I always turn back to the beginning of the chapter, to check the progress of events.

When I see Jack and Alice pressed up against each other tonight in the darkness, it will not be enough to know this. It will instead snap something inside me, something duplicitous, and brittle. My love of symmetry will be my downfall.
Her'es hoping that writing about it will dispel the kotted dark energy that hangs around my shoulders, like a malevolent shroud.

Ambrose Bierce had the right idea, I think.

a Fact about Moths

Moths lay their wings out flat when resting, unlike butterflies, which hold them up over their backs. Moths don’t fly toward light; in fact they actually try for the darkest spot, which is directly behind the light.
Sparkles shoot out behind my eyes.
Do I lead the life of a moth?
At this point, my eyes begin to hurt, from the sparkles.

the history of chocolate

here is the history of chocolate:

the history of chocolate
The importance of the cocoa bean to the Aztec culture was immediately obvious to the explorers of the sixteenth century. The bean was used for currency and trade, as well as in religious rituals. Often nobles enjoyed a drink made by roasting cocoa beans and crushing them to a paste to be mixed with water. This was known as ‘xocolatl’ in the local language, coming from xococ, meaning ‘bitter’, and atl, meaning ‘water’.
The Spanish explorers took supplies of cocoa beans back home with them. The word evolved to ‘chocolate’, and the drink became enormously popular at court. For about a hundred years Spain enjoyed the cocoa monopoly, but gradually the secret leaked out.
Chocolate was probably introduced into England in the 1650s. It was available as a drink in coffee houses for quite a price, but before long specialist chocolate houses were opened, like the Cocoa Tree, one of London’s most fashionable society men’s clubs.
And thus began the world’s love affair with chocolate.

- a Fact about chocolate -
In experiments, scientists have found that the experience of chocolate melting over the tongue caused a higher rate of heart acceleration than sharing a passionate kiss with a lover.

Life is Unlike Cleaning Your Nails

Many secrets are kept behind closed doors. But the saddest and most fearful of them are those that are hidden in public, out in the open, right in front of everyone who walks by them.
Everyone has secrets.
Perhaps, it may eventuate, that Stephen R. Covey was wrong?
‘Don’t worry,’ he would say, a little sternly, gathering up his books. ‘There isn’t anything wrong with you, it was my theory.’
Then he would walk away, and everyone would sigh, a little sad, but also relieved.
Well really, they would whisper. Shouldn’t theories be proven before they’re put into books that people read?

Jack has hair the colour of sunrise, and eyes the colour of summer days. His voice, on the other hand, has all the dark mystery of a midwinter night.

If a bit of moisturiser gets under my fingernails, I grab an orange stick, and using the pointy end, I scoop it out.
I wait there, patiently, with the orange stick, until every last trace of moisturiser is gone.

much like a Snow Patrol song

On long car rides, Troy would press his thumb into the bone at the back of my neck: softly, tracing around in circles. My arms would erupt, out of my control, into goosebumps.
While this was going on, I would sit very quietly, staring out the window as though nothing was happening.

the House Jack Lives in

Going away to Laura's for the weekend is likely the best weekend short of a plane ticket.
The first time I visited, I was woken by the brilliance of the light there. Refreshed, I pressed soft feet into the grass.

They all have their own bathrooms. Somewhere during the night, I padded into Laura's brother Jack's. Success: Macleans toothpaste, identical to my own. A long blue tube, tucked behind a wide silver tray.
I turned my back to it, quietly satisfied.

Jack is in photos, everywhere. His eyes glimmer, like stardust thrown across water. In one picture, he is swimming in a lake with Yahn, their bare shoulders shining with morning sun.

Jack came home unexpectedly, throwing open the door with a crash.

When Jack smiles, the air frizzles and snaps, tight with electricity.
Sometimes, he will open his eyes wide, and roll over on the couch languidly.
'What do you do?' he asks.
When I tell him, he nods, understanding.
'That's what I thought.'
Then we both turn back to the TV.

'Are you getting a tattoo?'
'No, but my nose piercing is itchy. He pierced it right on the nerve. Are you?'
'Yeah, I might.'
'What do you want?'
'I don't know.'
'I'm getting three stars inside my wrist, with my friend.'
'Oh yeah I know. Don't tell me. Everyone gets those.'

Maddie

Sometimes I wonder if Maddie and me would be better friends if she hadn’t left.
She went to England after we graduated, and came back a thoroughly different person. I sent her a Christmas card saying as much, but so far, no response.
(Actually, she did call me about the card, and said, ‘What is this?’ very dramatically. I assume she was holding up the card, at the time.)
She shaved her head the other day, for the Cure for Cancer. Not that I think Maddie’s bald head is going to work to cure cancer. But you never know, scientists are very clever people.

Today I found:

A massive pimple on my forehead, on which I intend to use the mineral make up.

An old pink pen behind the cushions on the sofa, when I was searching for some change for a cheeseburger. I have used it to write Post-Its to myself, which I’ve stuck on the fridge.

Jaclyn Moriarty’s blog. I suppose I’m not even really a very good fan if I didn’t even know she even had a blog. She’s the woman who inspired me to write. She’s so smart and funny, it’s actually a little soul crushing. Surely there isn’t that much talent to go around?

This is another thing: Laura’s brother is in a ridiculous relationship. He has what they call ‘fear of being alone’. He is very good looking. Everyone agrees he would be alone for five minutes, at the most. He is young, good looking, with many friends. Where do the insecurities stem from?

Maddie and I were joined at the hip. People used to say where they found one of us, they’d find the other.
I think it’s just a phase.
I think we called ourselves ‘best friends’ because we didn’t know what this was, this clinging need to be close to someone. We didn’t read Stephen R. Covey then, or even Cosmopolitan. We didn’t really know how to describe it.
It was just dependency.
Now that we’re older, I wonder who’s the first to realise it?
Is it me, sitting in the Amazon, with Fitz under my arm and the sun in my eyes?
Or is it Maddie, in England, with her long, crazy hair (before the shaved head) and her text-message-addicted phone?
We would buy each other tops and chocolate and magazines.
No one knew her then, not Andy or Laura or Belle or even Eden. Troy didn’t know her, but he likes her for different reasons. Cat knew her, and is as sad as I am.
Once, we were each other’s orbit. I wonder when we will finally drift apart, the gravity between us lost forever.

It was the same when Paul and I grew apart.
‘You’re the most interesting person I know!’ he would say to me, daily, his eyes wide and astonished.
But slowly, it ceased to be true.