Daisies

From Batesman Bay to Anna Bay and back into the middle. Another 300k epiphany run and I was entering fatigue. More than that my up-beat optimism from yesterday was starting to wear off, and reality was running interference. You know you can’t drive this car forever and ever, at some point you’ll have to get out and deal with this. Really deal with this. Come out of your castle in the clouds Princess, and see things the way they really are.

Alvmah mentioned that very same thing over dinner once. ‘Mush, you don’t run on the same tracks as other people.’ When he saw the look on my face, he added ‘It’s not necessarily a bad thing.’

Tired, frustrated and emotional, and with a million kms til I could get home and crawl into bed, I was bereft. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of yellow and suddenly the Pacific Highway opened up and both sides of the highway were covered in yellow daisies, just big bursts of daisies in stretches. I have never seen anything like it.

A month ago, I was staring out the window into the sunshine and I was dreaming about walking out of work for the day and just taking ourselves and a book and driving to a field of daisies. I mentioned this to him and lamented the lack of daisy fields in greater Australia. We both made futile searches to find one but it was never really mentioned again. I kind of just filed it away as something of a pipe dream.

So when I saw what was going on outside my window [stretches and stretches!] I didn’t really know what to say. SPIRITUAL HIGHER ENTITY, I DON'T GET IT?? Am I supposed to take this as a sign??
I pulled over for a little bit and took it in [but obviously I couldn’t pull over for long because vehicles were whizzing by perilously close to the hired moo cow that I was driving]. It was pretty. But maybe not something you'd like to lay down in.

So I kept on driving, a bit more optimistic than before and I zipped past.. an actual field of daisies. Like a field field. I couldn’t stop because I was in the overtaking lane and people were behind me. There wasn’t going to be a U-turn point for something around 64kms. There was just no way.

I’m just going to take the entire thing as some sort of cosmic joke, well you really are not at work, you didn’t drive to but you did drive past a field of daisies, there’s a book in your bag? It’s like the Higher-ups completely misheard me. I guess I'm glad I kind of found it, actually I don't really know. I don't really know what to think.

400kms and 6 hours

So pretty right? No photoshop involved and done on my dingus camera.

He once said to me: If you don’t want to date someone, you’ll always find a reason not to date them.

I guess so hey?

So if I wasn’t going to take a one way to Hong Kong, I was going to drive off into the ether for a bit.. and I was ffs not going to tell anybody because anytime I even vaguely mentioned it, I had my head bitten off. I think people had vague notions of a) me ending up in a Wolf Creek type situation with my head on a pike or b) losing my way and driving into a canyon.. even though I’m pretty sure there are no canyons within a 600km radius.

I really really needed to clear my head and there was no way I was going to do it bouncing off the walls of my studio, so off I went to the car rental place. [I felt so disloyal to my Civic but there was no way I was going to take it into the desert or wherever I was going for a little soul searching.]

The guy behind the counter looked at me and said ‘Big day huh?’ and I drily replied ‘I have no job and my boyfriend dumped me so just driving.. away.. from here.’
He just looked at me a little more without saying anything and I wondered if maybe he had probably heard every sob story in the book already. I mean come on, it was a car rental place in the suburbs.. every 2^nd person coming through there had probably been in a pile-up, a smash-on, or was attempting a Thelma and Louise. It was not a tourist spot.

I went to the car to fetch something, and when I came back, he said very gently “We’ve given you an upgrade.” I think if I wasn't giving him big wet eyes before, I was giving him big wet eyes after.

They had replaced the sedan I ordered with a big mofo SUV, and as I gingerly climbed in there.. well let’s just say I climbed in there. I was really not used to being so high, I’m used to lowered cars and being close to the ground. I felt like I was going to squash people with it, I passed a Ferrari and I was something like three times its height. It was good and safe and totally turned me off [if the hippie in me wasn’t already turned off] ever buying an SUV. The side mirrors were bigger than my head.

So for the first few hours I just spaced out and just drove, and it really is therapeutic. You just kind of hit a blank and go on auto-pilot. I once told R6 that and he freaked out ‘Isn’t that equivalent to micro sleeping??! I really don’t like you doing that.’ I guess it’s a good thing that I didn’t tell him that when I do it, I can’t remember it afterwards either. I probably squashed a few people in my time.

And you know after a while, your head comes back to earth and you start noticing things and figuring things out.

The world is ridiculously big and pretty, and you can drive and drive and never be able to traverse all of it. So in no way, are you the centre of it and anytime you feel your problems are too big, you should go out and take a look at it- because you are one miniscule lollipop. Everything will work itself out eventually and even if it doesn’t.. we all turn to dust and ash at some point, so maybe you shouldn’t spend so much time worrying. That’s obviously much easier to do and say in a moving car than in a workplace, but it’s true.

Yesterday I messaged him for his reasons for the split and he gave them to me. [Messaging! I will never reach adulthood at this rate.] And when I saw them I was fit to be tied. There was much swearing and cursing and rock-throwing.
Yesterday, I thought they were unfair and invalid and I was going to tell him which way to go .. [left.]. Today, I still think that those reasons are unfair and invalid but I’m just … what’s the point really? I can probably call him up and argue those points til I’m blue in the face, but what is that going to achieve? Absolutely nothing. This relationship will still be an extra-special car crash no matter what I say because I think the world is round and he thinks it’s flat. So.
And you can’t make someone date you who doesn’t want to date you, he’s right, you’ll always find reasons not to do it. And I guess to make it work, you need two people who want it to work and not one. So maybe I’m not so much hurt anymore, I still grieve but that can’t last forever.
Some of the shock has worn off and I guess I can think about it more logically.

The moon in the country is big and full and yellow, and it’s just something amazing to see. When you drive back into Sydney, the moon for some reason or another becomes very small and very white.

400km, 6 hours and lots and lots of [much-needed]perspective. And I still have the SUV for two more days, but I figure I don’t need it anymore. And I think I have my equilibrium back.. I think it's back.

You haven't really gotten very far hey?

I finally dreamt this morning, I dreamt that I was in New York and I was wandering around Sephora and when I stepped outside of Sephora, I recognised Central Park but it was just coming towards night time and raining and I started walking towards it and .. I woke up.

I rolled over thinking.. I really really miss New York. I miss the crowds. I miss the anonymity and I just miss the wandering around and the healing that came with it.

I realised as I rolled over again, that it's almost exactly a year that I was there. Thanks subconscious - I've come so far. You're a peach.

She scolded me again this morning: You're not listening to me! He is not worth it and when you see it, you will be fine.

And I think: The same lesson applies yeah? You just don't get over things until you're ready. I don't know about most people.. but I can't just switch love on and off like a tap, I don't even really see how people do that, boggles my brain.
Or alternately, you can push it underneath and ignore it, but you know that stone in your shoe is going to eventually lodge itself right under your foot. So you have to sit there and shake your shoe until it comes out.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: It's going to take me a little time to shake out my shoe, I just take a little longer than most I guess. [and also that I miss New York but maybe if I just got into the car and just started driving and driving, the total effect would be the same]

Seeing Yooj

**There I go again with the whole deleting thing. Now you see it and now you don't I guess.

And I'm awake again at 4. Thank you heart twisting nausea. Nauseating heart twists. Both.

--

I guess I've just decided to not talk about it [hello elephant in room] until I feel a bit less achey. I don't know when that will be, two days? two months? two years? Maybe I give up and blog everything tomorrow [today]. So let's talk about something else shall we?

So yesterday, I went into 711 to buy cigarettes [seriously, don't start with me on buying cigarettes, if anyone ever needed one it's probably me.] and I'm in a waking-coma when I enter, and then I hear someone call 'Mush!'
I look up and I see Yooj.
He throws me this most amazing smile, it's like all blinding white teeth and I'm so dazzled and it was so genuine that I couldn't help smiling back.
"Hey Yooj, long time no see."

We did the whole small talk thing for abt 30 seconds longer, and then he turned to leave. I was so thrown by the smiling thing [after a weekend like this one, I was pretty sure that the muscles around my mouth had disintegrated] that I didn't even ask about his sleeve. I really wanted to see it too.

I guess even though Yooj is friends with Matty and Sumo and is exed up with Tatergirl [wherever she is] I still don't actually know him that well, we run in parallel lines of mutual people but never joining [why is the North Shore so small??]. We spent quite a bit of time together that many years ago, and now that I think about it, I don't recall having a single conversation with him one-on-one.

What I do know is that Tatergirl hurt the holy crap out of him, and he hasn't dated anyone since.. which is a good four or so years ago. Four years! Four years is a crazy hella long time to be out of the game.

But you know what? He's doing really well [from all accounts] and he looks really good and he's come such a long way from the dour Yooj I knew from long ago. I guess what I'm trying to say is.. when I look around and see all the relationship car crashes around me [including my own, natch] that maybe taking some time off to not date is probably not such a bad thing. 3 months of R6 and 2 months of DS and whatever equilibrium I had left is completely fallen off the bicycle.

So here's to Yooj, a good person to emulate while I try and get back on my feet. The goal is to be well adjusted and smiley.

And now that I look out the window, I see that the sun has come out. Heart still aches like a mofo but maybe I'll try and see if I can get some sleep.

26.

Before and after anything else, there are 26 stars in the sky.

I stood there and counted them. For some reason I felt there was no-one else in the world doing the same thing, drinking and sleeping I guess.

The last person in the universe counting stars and making wishes.

I'm not defeated.

"Tongue – tied
Talking to my feet
When there’s nothing better than self-defeat
I stop – stall
Try to stand tall
When whatever I say means nothing at all"
- Talking like I'm falling downstairs/ Sparkadia

This afternoon the rug was pulled right out from under me. I finished up with my job and then I lost my boyfriend.. somewhat in the space of approximately three hours. They both vanished into the ether and I fell down the rabbit hole. Completely discombobulated. Grasping to make sense of the universe, the reasoning behind it and it just eluded me.. like I was trying to hold onto a doorknob that I could not get my hand around.

And here's what I got out of it: sometimes you don't ask why. If you ask why [and why now? and why today?] to an answer that will never come, you are going to make yourself mental. Sometimes the universe just doesn't have a fucking reason and possibly we're all just bits and bobs, slamming into each other at random intervals. God probably doesn't have a plan for everything, and if he does... he's keeping it pretty damn well hidden, hopefully he'll let us figure it out later.

And thus the conclusion to all of this, after hours of analysing and re-analysing, I came out of my discombobulation coma and I'm okay. I will not lie down because of today. I just won't. In my defiance [and my ridiculously rebellious nature] I know going on will be the ultimate fuck-you, and I know myself and I know how good I am at my job, I'll take this as a setback and aim for something better and a little higher [seriously, what if I gave up on my career because I let it? What would happen? Nothing, they'd tsk tsk .. and who loses? Me, that's who. Because I'd be on the dole and eating instant noodles for the rest of my life.]

And as for the other one? I let it be. I will never let anyone damage me ever again. That's never going to happen again if I live to see 100, so anybody who thinks that they can blow in and out of my life and just think it's okay to leave a great big mess- Don't expect .. love and civilty. You underestimate my tolerance for bullshit.

And that's all folks. Going out and going to get on with it.

Banksy Simpsons Clip

So this is exactly what I was talking about with Matty the other day! I was talking to him about how much I love Banksy and I admire his passion and commitment but in all honesty? I never want to meet the man. I think he would probably be the most depressing and humourless person to talk to ever, his vision of the world is just so .. bleak.
That being said, I found the unicorn funny so maybe he has a funny bone or two.

Zen.

I refuse to participate in this pettiness. I'm going to rise above and beyond it and be zen. Zen. I will continue this zen over the weekend and into next week. I am going to be a frigging lotus rising up above the mud, and everybody is going to admire my newfound serenity, it'll be like Mush v3.5. I will not be bothered by the little people and I will not go around thumping anyone, even though I really want to (oh God, I'm so itching to pick a fight. Zen. Zen. Calm blue oceans.]

And if that doesn't work I'm going to smoke like a chimney and drink myself into a coma. Which sounds like a far more logical and workable plan.

So much emotion packed into such a small car

"SHE SAID WHAT? SHE FKN THINKS I DID WHAT?!"

Oh. Oh. I was so mad that I was ready to peg something or somebody into the ocean. I'm not the kind of person who goes off and picks fights [well.. only with random strangers but they don't count] but there's no doubt that sooner or later there was going to be a confrontation, and it wasn't going to be pretty.

I must've sputtered for about ten minutes." How the hell am I.. What the hell.. I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE SAID THAT." How the hell am I supposed to see her and not look like I want to belt her across the room???

--

This afternoon Speedy gave me a little self-analysis "You're too transparent. When you're happy, everyone can see it. And when you're unhappy - the entire world knows."

--

Which brings me back to trying to remain cool and collected but clearly failing because I couldn't stop fkn shouting.

We finally parked and I was still mumbling away into my hands when she broke down.

Weeks and weeks of tension came flooding out and she couldn't stop crying.

Between the two of us, one was turning lavender purple with rage and the other was suffocating on her sobs.

We'd been collectively waiting so long for that dam to burst. The point where numbness turns into sorrow.

I think it took her by surprise as well. When it hurts.. it really hurts.

Sitting here

So here I am sitting in the prettiest spot in the world, the sun is out, the sky is blue and the laptop doesn't work. I don't know if that's a sign of whatever. To put it down and just enjoy the moment. (Ironically, not the blackberry which I'm typing on atm)

I got into the most ridiculous discussion this afternoon over meteor showers and the word 'apparently'. If you're reading this and you're still mad at me- Imma let you be mad but really life is too short. Tomorrow one of us may be hit by a bus or get squashed by random anvils and we won't be talking over the semantics of some dumb word.

Some guy (Alex from Parramatta!) is leaning over the railings watching the fish in the water. Looking for leatherjackets. He keeps yelling over to his brother. It's funny to see how excited he is. I guess you don't see that kind of enthusiasm very much anymore.

Temporary Emotional Growth

For the longest time I could not listen to A&E by Goldfrapp, it was just so representative of that whole miserable period that I took it off my iPod. Anyway I reloaded my iPod the other day making myself a summer list and throwing old songs on there and just for kicks I put it back on there. It's just a song, it doesn't mean anything.. right? right.

Anyway for those of you who haven't heard it - I'm not trying to put you off it, it's a great song but in the words of Holden Caulfield.. it's as depressing as all hell. Basically the narrator is in hospital because she tried to kill herself on pills because he [the invisible hero of the story] wouldn't call her back or wouldn't take her out or both. It's not a wedding song- I don't think I can stress that enough.

It came back on my stereo as I was driving and you know time has passed a little bit and everything has changed.. and I can listen to the song again. Hear it in full without wanting to peg myself out of the window with said narrator. That being said though, I'm not still ready to dance the robot to it or anything and possibly once is enough. Life is too short, and I just don't want to think about hospital gowns and dancing on the floor [so to speak] at this moment of my existence so it's coming back off the pod. Temporary emotional growth.

--

So when I was a bit younger, I was quite bratty [actually I am still quite bratty] and Alphabeta and I were friends with this couple called Jackie and Eva At the time of this ridiculously brief friendship- I would say that Alphabeta and I were about 20.. and Eva was give or take 26. When we were 20.. people who were 26 were in our brains closer to forty. In fact the classification was anybody who was over the age of 23 probably needed a wheelchair and a new set of dentures. It looked really really really far away.

Eva for some reason or another took a special liking to me I think probably because we spoke the same language or something and I was a bit in awe of her because she was just this perfectly made up glamorous glamazon. When I grew up.. I was going to be Eva.

Until you know a couple of months later, Alphabeta and I were walking through Grace Bros and we saw her and she looked terrible. A zombie back to life is probably the expression, and she was as kind to me as ever [she was trying to sell skin care. hmm.] but I don't know if she could tell that the two brats in front of her were judging the holy moly out of her for looking tired. We made our excuses and left and then we posited this theory outside where the railings were.

'Women hit the peak of their beauty at 25, and then from then on afterwards- it rolls downward and pretty much your face falls off at 26 - like Eva's.' Clearly, we thought had through this really throughly- this whole face-falling-off-process, whatever they put in those Midori Illusions must've warped our brains. For months afterwards, when we looked a bit tired or under the weather or whatever, we'd refer to ourselves as looking like Eva.

I guess we never thought we'd hit 26. Or what would happen when we surpassed it.

Well our faces haven't quite fallen off, but we were probably right in concluding that we weren't going to look as good as we once did. We didn't have to be so mean about it. I kinda grew into my nose though - which is nice.

This morning, I pulled down the mirror in my car and checked myself out, I kind of shocked myself at how haggard I looked, I think I visibly winced.
DS: Everything ok?
M: I'm just looking a bit...
DS: [Doing the obligatory good boyfriend thing] You look nice.
M: [not willing to go into a 20 minute lecture on obligation and bias and perspective, but appreciative of the effort] mmhmmmm........................................................................

So whatever, I guess this is karmic something something that my face is falling off, a little bit later than what I expected but still pretty much right on schedule. I wonder what Eva looks like now.

[I could've sworn that I blogged this however many years ago, but I can't find it. Maybe a good thing. My old blog entries are ridiculously ridiculous and re-reading even just a bit gives me kidney failure.]

Shoes, cats and photobombing.

**Sorry, ignore my nighttime rants- I figure I must have once again made your RSS feeds a bit nutty. I am doing that alot this year. Still didn't get any sleep if you managed to read it.

I'm just going to avoid talking about it. Going to go around it until I can write about it rationally. Big old elephant in the room. [On a completely unrelated note, should I just go and buy that stupid drawing tablet yet? I miss illustrator.]



And.. and three pairs of brand new converses! You can't see the sparkly detail on the blue ones [in case you're like.. don't you already have a pair in that colour you nut?]. I actually saw a pair of my Dr Seuss's, but I resisted. I closed my eyes and walked past. Why twist my arm like that?

I actually laughed out loud.

I'm in a really strange mood musically lately, I'm mixing my 80's power ballads [Whitesnake! yeah!], with my summer list- I expect neighbours to kick my door down any minute now.

If I wasn't awake before I am now

Of course on your day off, what you should do is drag yourself out of bed at nine and start running all those errands that you've been putting off for a year. Over a year.

Bleary eyed and not really awake, you call whoever you're supposed to call. And then they put you on hold.

The on-hold music starts off with Take it easy by the Eagles and you start to hum. What? It's kind of catchy. Don't judge me.

It switches to Blondie's Call me. I'm not made of stone, people. Call me! (Call me!) la la la la...

As the topping off finale- Do ya think I'm sexy by Rod Stewart. It's in full swing and I'm awake. Maybe I should be woken up like this everyday.

Friday Night with Indiana Jones

The party girl. She has retired and is not coming back. Well at least she's on a long long hiatus.
I don't know. I'm just sick of the party scene lately, I've ruined so many shoes on sticky floors in the past year, I make myself broke on gin and tonics [and buying people gin and tonics!] and all my favourite haunts are just.. being blah at the moment (Argyle needs a change of Dj. Stat.) So here I am, watching Indiana Jones on tv on a Friday night- would this be considered growing up?

Now that I think about it, I think I blame growing up this movie for my nascent bug phobia. The scene where Willie Scott has to put her hand through the hole of bugs always makes me feel slightly ill. Of course if you asked me to put my hand through a hole of bugs.. well Indiana Jones and Short Round would probably have died under the spikes and it would've been a very short movie.

"You're going to get killed chasing after your damn fortune and glory! "
"Maybe .. but not today."

Amount

You ask for too little
You aim too high
What is the right amount to ask for from a person?

Banksy Love

So excited to see some Banksy works in person in a few weeks. A lack of street art here makes me miss Melbourne. It might be the rain outside too. Homesick for my other home. I might lift the blinds for a bit and watch the storm.

The four things you can't live without

And so she asked: What are the four things that you can't live without? And my response was off the top of my head:

1. Moisturiser
2. Friends
3. My iPod
4. Diet Coke

Actually I could probably live without these things, but I would probably not want to- if you removed them permanently. Also high on the Mush quantifying standard of living; sour cream, my blackberry, books (I don't know how books fell down to second tier- I blame my increasingly short attention span) and those black art sharpie pens.

Anyway apparently, that's one of the questions that they ask you on one of those internet dating sites (!!) and then of course if your answers gel then they try to match you up. My worry is that if a computer matched me up with someone who also couldn't live without moisturiser then what would follow would possibly be the girliest and lamest relationship of all time. But I guess we'd both have nice skin.

**No, I'm not internet dating you lame-o's. If I fall down that far, I give you free permission to laugh and point as you please.

On dating a non-aggressive person

Speedy: I can't believe you blogged and DS knows I got you flowers! Does he want to punch me?
Mush: No, he's not a puncher.
Speedy: If he punches me, I'll get deported. Poor me.
Mush: ..hahaha, he's fine.
Speedy: So when are we going to salsa?
Mush: Flowers then dancing. You're trying to get yourself killed I see.

--

(In a cafe with Campbell and Speedy)
Speedy: So what's DS like? Have you met him? Will he punch me?
Campbell: DS? DS? DS would never punch you! DS is a butterfly
Mush: Did you just call my boyfriend a butterfly?!
Campbell: A butterfly. A lovely butterfly.
Mush: I resent that on his behalf.
Speedy: I feel so much better!

Friends and flowers

**Don't ask why I'm excessively blogging. I figure the dam is finally breaking.

Aren't they just ridiculously beautiful? This afternoon I walked out to get lunch with Speedy and when we got to the deli, there they were. Remember 17 posts ago when I said posies were going to make me feel better? Well there are posies and there are these and so I made to go pick them up.

Speedy: What are those for?
Mush: I'm not feeling too good lately so I thought I would get these for myself to make myself feel better.
Speedy: You're going to get them for yourself?
Mush: Yeah? Not pretty?
Speedy: They're great. But who buys flowers for themselves? That's not how it works. Let me get these for you.
Mush: ... .... ....

[We walk outside and my face is buried in them, and I'm on the verge of.. tears]

Mush: Thank you, I feel better. You're a good friend.
Speedy: [grins] You're an expensive friend.

Heartbeat by Enrique

"No matter what it is you think/
I'm not the kinda girl to blink/
And give my heart away."

Before the song gets overplayed [and I have a feeling it will] I just wanted to share this absolutely amazing video clip. I saw a glimpse of it at Puppy's place - and I had to stop and sit down and just watch it. Of course, it really doesn't hurt that it's populated by two impossibly good looking people. It's an aesthetic dream. Enjoy.

[Also I really love that piano base. Eep.]