Reception

One of the most important features of a bathroom is cell reception. Politeness and subtlety absolutely depend on it.

City Pets

"Mommy, that dog is laughing!"

No, it's so fat it's struggling to draw breath.

A Life In Shade

I'm impressed that in a country so sunny some people can be so pale.

"I left a part of myself in the outback." The words werent mine; they came from a German guy staying in my hostel. He had just spent a month travelling alone across the wide open land. So many sunrises and sunsets, blistering hot days and dark starry nights etched into him; empty hours, endless weeks, time without reference.

I left a part of myself in the outback. Some buzz. Some restlessness. That fitful compulsion to talk all the time. The constant mental activity. The need for fast, loud music. Its gone.

Instead, there's a peace or calm which is almost unsettling. There's a compulsion to eat alone and enjoy the food. Not to drink. To listen to calm music. To talk to one person at a time so you can focus on them. It's a desire to appreciate and invest in everything, and to gaze at the world through your senses.

I wonder if it will fit in with the rest of the world.

I left a part of myself in the outback and I wonder if I need it back.

Busking

The central station tunnel in Sydney is like my atm. Want to withdraw 20? Pop down to the tunnel, sing for a few minutes, bam.

Excerpt From My Misguided Monologue

"...afterward, I went to McDonalds and laughed at the irony as "savings" flashed up on the card machine. Saving was never something I was good at. Money has no intrinsic value. The only thing you can use it for is to get something. Spend it and suddenly you have tuned coloured paper into something useful..."

My People

Are generally people who circumstance occasionally makes look completely ridiculous. There's a charm to being lost in an awkward situation you were waltzed into by the world.

Friends of the Opposite Sex

It's a pain in the ass trying to work out whether someone is enjoying talking to you, just wants to shag, or is lost in some blur of the two that leads to things like holding hands, comfortable silences, and eventually IKEA.

For now I'd be happy to tell the first two apart. Or more accurately I'd prefer if others could. I'm sick of the blur. I'm sick of some girls looking at me with a smile as if they're waiting for a flurry of adoration, and others shying away as though any moment they'll be set upon.

I might start a yes/no list online so everyone knows where they stand.

Paper Photos

Photos are there to make a moment immortal. Digital photos do that. Drag a second out to an eternity. Turn it into something etheral. Kundera would say meaningless.

Printed pictures are different. They grab the moment, then they age, wither and tear. They get damp. They get lost. You bond with the dream and the paper it's printed on.

Which has more value, I have not yet decided. The impermanence has a certain romanticism to it though.

Music Returns and Fills My Soul

Nothing like that first breath into an SM58 after so long apart. So familiar, like the touch of an old lover.

Songs

Millions of them, being written everywhere. Being sung in back alleys and railway stations, bars and clubs, parks and stadiums. Three people know it, two hundred, half a nation, one kid in his room.
Metephors fly about the air, a broken heart from the window of a passing car, gang wars on a construction site, peace and love in a cafe.

Songs everywhere. Millions of them.

Freedom, Finance and Angels

This post was written about a week ago, and then edited before being posted.

I'm in Sydney and it's beautiful. The people are gorgeous, the weather perfect and the living easy. How I came to be living in the precise hostel I am now in, and have the friends and job I have is probably lost in the mists of time but that's to be expected when the only reason to know the day of the week is that dominos pizza is cheaper on Tuesdays.

Last night as I walked home through Hyde Park in the rain with a charming Italian girl, the skyscrapers were lost in cloud, their upper lights like a celestial aura. Now it's blue with cartoon clouds, crisp and white. The glass faced towers throwing light down onto the streets in patches.

I'm walking to a guitar store to buy a string. It's Monday morning and last night I broke one while busking, which was about the worst thing that could happen to me. I have very little money and playing guitar is how I make it. It's a day to day living. If I need to pay a night in a hostel, 35 mins of singing. Eating? Round it up to an hour. Takeaway food? Make it 2 hours pay tomorrow's rent as well, and take the day off.
The two worst things that can happen then are losing my voice, and breaking a string when I have no money. Fortunately, and by chance, I had 17 dollars in 20 and 50 cents I hadn't managed to spend and should be able to buy cheap strings.

Then I'll be off to work. I picked up a job selling milk and veg door to door. It's commission based, and as an engineer, it's interesting to learn to sell. At the moment I have a satchel around my neck on one side and a guitar slung on my back without a case. I'm not wearing a top because it's already very hot and I don't want to get sweaty before work. Later, when I'm selling, I'll wear shorts, runners, a polo that says "milkman" and an ass licking, shit eating grin to ingratiate myself with whoever owns the door I've just knocked on.

Time moves fast in the lives of the common people.

William Shatner - Common People