In Bed, In Thought...

Here's a little poem I got woken up to write last night:
(For Alan)

A rumble rolls across my tummy
And comforts me
Like far-off thunder,

Coming from a place more
Precious even
Than home.

Coming from
The home I carry with me
Life-long, life-forgiving.

Muscles ache from working:
An honest day for honest pay.
I feel sleepy and alive.

My blood knows I am trying.
The cuts heal so fast, and
Itch with healing.

Your collage comes to me...
I see it!
Reds and whites and greyscale.

The flowers of addiction
And your beauty...
haemoglobin is the key.

A desert... and then

They say that when it rains, it pours.

I've been broke and had nothing much new going on for a while. Then I stopped work at Manacle, spent extra time on study and have some conference papers brewing.

Then my birthday and all that came with it. Alan, an amazing night at Kooky with family and friends, my scare, my little sadnesses, my special gift to myself, and my various wake up calls. Am I awake? I'm waking up. I tell you now, I'm waking up. Cos the rain is starting to pour. The summer rains - glorious and warm.


A hot day walking through the park the day of my birth, I decided - Sydney is my home and my soul. It was time to return. And the plan was hatched with Marnie and Phoebe.

So twenty days later, two vistits to Sydney to hunt for jobs, another unsuccessful trial at the Newtown, and now I have a job with a hospitality agency. I've worked one shift and have a long bar shift tomorrow in Centenial Park. Next saturday I'll be paid again! A wage earner. And in the bank, so I can leave my card at home and keep m y money away from the queen of denial.

And why is it pouring?

Because I am also working tues, wed, thurs and friday in the coming week. Only four hours per day, but wow! This will be me earning more money than I have in a long time. Cos I've been living on the smell of an oily rag.

But I'm not sure about the agency work with the tats on my hands, might get difficult. I only really saw it as getting me the bond to move back to Syd and helping clear the last few personal debts that are outstanding. Then another call today!!!!! From the Oxford (not in Sydney, but here in the Gong) It's the one place here I'd really like to work. The interview is on Monday. Wish me luck!!!

Pouring?! Sometimes I feel that my desert has become a tornado. I also have my progress report coming up and the interview in the next two weeks and have to have about another 15,000 words done for that!

Busy, busy. Thank God. I've been waiting for long enough to feel alive again.

My Cafe

So, even though this is a pipe-dream-future-plan-thingy I thought it best to record it here. I have had the idea that one day I want to open my own deli-style cafe. I’ll make and sell all my own pies and pastries, soups and salad-dressings. Marinades, dry marinades and spice-mixes, chocolates and deserts, bickies and slices, and maybe even ice-cream, etc. I’ll sell them for take-home use, as well as serving snacks, deserts and light-lunches (pies, sandwiches, pasta) with coffee and other beverages in a café style. We’d have local art-work for sale on the walls, local musicians come in to play, we’d show films, and offer meeting spaces for local groups, etc. And I would live above it to cut down on costs, as well as continuing to teach and lecture part-time or casually while the business gets off the ground.

Anyway, what do you think? It’s just a dream, a vague hope for the future…

Come-Down

I'm coming down, so crapily. I think it was the Sydney-Uni-ground-powder find.

Aside from that, everything's fine.

Got no motivation to write.

S has upset me.

I'll blog properly when my brAIN works again tomorrow.

This is SOOOOO perfect!

Your Birthdate: October 2

You're so intuitive, it's like you have a sixth, seventh, and eighth sense. You connect with others freely and easily - and you tend to have many best friends. Warm and caring, it's hard for you to close your heart to anyone. Affection is like air for you - you need to give and receive it to survive. Your strength: Your universal compassion Your weakness: Your unpredictable mood swings Your power color: Mauve Your power symbol: Butterfly Your power month: February

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Flame Trees

It's time for trying to sleep tonight, but I am restless and there's and anxiety in my fingers and toes. Mulberries, needles and blood. Alan and Josh. Mostly Alan right now. Where are they in this world? Where is Chris? And how will I find him to give him his dues? I touch A in my dream, and there's no pain. He holds my arm, so firm like he did on my birthday... But this is a firmness, a realness I can say goodbye to. Can't you hear me? I am in mourning under my breath. Every bloody day I am in mourning for it all. Not dead, but dead to me? So many tastes of wonder. So many poisons.

I am going to get counselling.

Danny and Cara went to hospital on the hill (in Wollongong) and gave blood. Cara also gave plasma - apparently they take the blood, separate the plasma and put the blood back in.

I am jealous. I want to feel and see that needle, taking blood to save lives - car accident victims, babies whose blood is bad, people who bleed and need the blood of others to survive... We all need a little bit of each other in our veins... But I cannot give blood. If it's not one reason, it is always another. No tattoos for a year now, but I have had sex with "gay" boys. I am high-risk? I am too risky. Take a chance on this girl? I have made decisions that make me helpless to help those in need of help. Hmmm. Maybe.

Anyway, after they gave blood they found a vacant lot full of fruit trees, climbed the fence and picked two plastic containers full of mulberries. Fat, ripe, dark, delicious mulberries. They brought one to me and I made mulberry and white pepper syrup for ice cream. You should taste it! Sweet, toffee syrup with a subtle bitey after-taste. And dark as dried blood.

We are planning the move back to Sydney earlier than I thought. Marnie and Phoebe are ready to go, to start their adult lives and throw themselves into the inner-west of sin city.

And I am not sure if I can learn much more from here. Or if I am willing to let the chance slip by of moving to Sydney with Marnie.

Anxiety. Unsure of when and how and if I'll be ok. Sure that this time I MUST cope. I MUST be strong and live right. I MUST build happiness again. A life of sunshine and creativity, of feeling strong and positive. Of COPING by myself. Of POSSIBILITIES ; for success, for love. For love again?

I never wondered before this point in my life if love was beyond me. I never really wondered if my soul was dead, or crippled. A leaf withering, drying out, turning slowly to skeleton, undisturbed, unnoticed.

But now I care. I feel fear because I care.

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