Tears redux

I haven't cried, really cried, for months and then one thing triggers you and you can't stop. The sheets are soaked and your head is dizzy from it and you realize you're not crying just for that one thing but for all the other little injustices and troubles and everything that you just can't help.

Self Destruct

He looks at me and says "don't judge me."
I just sigh and I am only half joking when I say,"I am judging the holy shit out of you right now"

He looks miserable and the guilt is eating him alive. He shouldn't be having an affair with his secretary and he's doing it in such a way that at any moment his girlfriend and the boyfriend are going to find out.

I can see and he can see that he's going to crush his girlfriends heart. He's walking towards inevitability and it's damn hard to watch.

I wind the window down, "God, why can't you just keep it in your pants?"
"I know I'm doing the wrong thing." Though neither of us can explain why he's doing it.

Sofa

"And my eyes are closed
And I’m way too tired
Hoody still smells of the beach bonfire
On the sofa, where we lay
I wanna stay inside all day
And it’s cold outside, again

And we’re both so high
We could fly to Berlin, Tokyo or Jamaica
We can go where you want
Say the word and I’ll take ya
But I’d rather stay on the sofa
On the sofa, with you"
- Sofa, Ed Sheeran

Bucket List: 1 down, 13 to go

You know how some people are born performers and just naturally like being on stage? I am not one of those people.

So just for kicks, I thought I'd put perform on stage on my bucket list and maybe I'd enjoy it. I guess I thought that eventually when I did it, talent would come pouring out of me like a slot machine jackpot, well that's what I was hoping. Yes, I know -come back down to earth, little one.

Anyway I dropped it on my things to do and I forgot about it. Until it occurred to me some time last week that I'm approaching thirty and I have done close to nothing on it. It was time to get a move on.

So the challenge was: perform live on stage and clearly there were certain limitations to go with it. Like as in, I'm not going to squeeze myself into a box vis a vis Cirque Du Soleil, I don't have time to audition for the community centre performance of Les Mis and I honestly have no ambitions to be a rockstar [if I became once incidentally that would be okay though]

So the easiest way to do this would be of course to participate in a live karaoke session. Instant audience, no rehearsals and pants-peeing terror. In my dreams, I could see people booing me off stage, I would become the Rebecca Black of Chinatown, shunned and reviled for my inability to keep pitch.

I recruited a whole bunch of my closest friends so they could fight off the tomato-throwing contingent and the scene was set.

Location: Covent Garden. Notorious live karaoke joint in Sydney. Full of space cadet-y bartenders and regulars with bad haircuts and big performances.

I had never been to Covent Garden and for some reason I was expecting it to be much bigger and full of talentless mumbos like me. Of course, I was wrong and it was not full of talentless mumbos. I started having my first panic attack at some lady's rendition of Rolling in the Deep and then I had my second one when an office worker belted out the operatic version of The Prayer complete with high notes. Uh huh, the italian version of The Prayer as originated from Andrea Bocelli. That one.

So I started tippling at the wine bottle (it's a wonder I didn't slug from the whole thing!) and the more nervous I got and the longer I waited, the more the room started to fill up with people. I had thought that Covent Garden would be quiet and uncrowded. Wrong Assumption no 2. Lady, next time do your research!

If I had been by myself I would have started edging quietly towards the door but as it so happens, eight or nine of my nearest and dearest were there and I wasn't going anywhere. Erk. ND was giving me a Rocky Balboa massage while the others were giving me words of encouragement and promising not to boo me (aww, you guys!).

So I mounted the stage and I saw a million pairs of eyes looking at me expectantly and as I made my dedication, I was drowned out by cheers. The cheers of my friends. Surveying the room, I could see Egg and St Mary off to the frontside videoing, and everyone else at the table making woo noises. ND had stood on his chair so I could see him the most clearly and he was beaming at me.

I closed my eyes and launched into a rendition of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' (oh come on, what did you expect?) and it wasn't bad, it wasn't great and I certainly am never going to be the next .. Britney but it was kinda fun and when I finished the DJ whispered to me 'that was okay.' As I got off the stage, I was rushed by everyone for hugs and love and everyone told me how proud they were of me. And I was dazed, really dazed and all I could think of was 'fuck, how lucky am I? I really have the best friends in the world.'

Sometimes that kind of outpouring is a revelation in itself.

On a friendship implosion

I wasn't going to write about this because briefs and census forms stand in my way, but I guess I kind of want to document this because I'm learning a lesson from this- I'm not sure what kind of lesson exactly.

When she and I met, we were both extremely young pups. She was 19 and I was 21 and I guess we were kind of mismatched friends from the start. She was extremely glamorous and I was.. how I am now, a bit bumbling and goofy. If I look back in hindsight, we really didn't have that much in common other than that we were both isolated in what was a very very crap workplace.

And I think we were both disliked for completely diametrical reasons, she was maximumly confident and people resented her for it while I was the deer-in-the-headlights and someone had apparently pinned a kick me sign to my forehead, whatever it was, we bypassed that place and we've been friends ever since.

Through break-ups , career changes, birthdays and early twenties angst. We orbited around each other.

Until this year. This year it's been incredibly strained and I can't pinpoint why. Well I guess I can give a whole host of varied reasons from busy lifestyles to basic geography to just plain ol' growing apart but none of those things were the main reason or maybe they just combined to smush our relationship into the ground. I have no idea.

Two weeks ago, the entire friendship fell apart so fast that I gave myself whiplash watching it crumble. And the thing is? I don't know why [or how I contributed ] into making it happen. That's right- I have no idea what brought us together in the first place, what killed it or how I'm supposed to fix it. Essentially, this is a post full of giant question marks. Someone please buy me a clue.

And then I think if that's the end, it cannot have been that strong in the first place. That if no-one reaches out to the other, then no-one thinks that its worth saving. And ladies and gentlemen, thats one damn sad place to be.

I don't know about her, and I speak only for myself here, when I say, I am exhausted. I am really really tired of navigating relationships and when I think about all that time I spent in my misguided youth chasing around 'friends' who didn't want to actually be friends with me (not that I"m saying that she's one of those) but I want to slap my past self up in the head. Yeah, that's right past self, why the hell were you so damn needy?

I think I don't want to ruminate on this anymore after this because it just makes me too upset and there's no answer, I just keep going around in laps arriving at no conclusion at all.

Pantsless Cera and Schwartzman

Who knows why they're pantsless? It amuses me.

A different way of reminding yourself

"Carve your name into my arm.
Instead of stressed, I lie here charmed."
-Every You, Every Me, Placebo

He* has the words Love carved in several places on his arm, back when he and his-ex girlfriend used to be passionately madly in love with each other. You can't see it unless he rolls up his sleeve and twists his arm into a certain way in the light.

I gaped at it "Are you fucking crazy? That's crazy. Holy Crap." (Do you remember when I used to be open-minded? It feels like a loooong time ago)

He laughs, "yeah, it's crazy. It reminds me everyday that that kind of love? It fades."

*He prefers to stay anonymous. If you'd like to find out who this is- I suggest you start rolling up the sleeves of all my male acquaintances. I'm just kidding. Don't do that.