Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed

The more time that passes, the more I see through the pain and ugliness (which was not insignificant) to the things that remain. The way I changed and the things you taught me. The good things. The marks of love that aren’t scars.

And even though I don’t write this for you, I write it nonetheless. Because hatred never ceases by hatred. Because I want to chronicle the beauty. Because I want to thank you.

For the aversion to things that gather dust. For packing light. For minimalism.

For music with words: The National, and Ryan Adams, and Tallest Man on Earth, and John Legend.

For eye contact during intimacy. For never going to bed on an argument. For always saying goodnight.

For telling me to hold my power. To stop apologising. To pander less.

For showing me it was possible to never get bored of someone. That such relationships exist. That I should settle for nothing less.

For the joy, and terror, and challenge, and boredom, and sweet bliss of parenting. It may be the only experience of motherhood I have.

And the small things: for teaching me how to take a corner at speed, use cruise control to avoid a speeding fine, edit my own self tests, deal with shitty clients, negotiate a salary.

And above all…

For believing in my ability to make a living as a writer.
For pushing me through my own wall of fear.
For giving me this greatest gift. It changed my life.

And despite the cool touch of disappointment and regret that lingers, for all of this, I thank you.

The end of the thing that was

I think what you're looking for was me.
I think what I'm looking for was you.

(I worry we'll never find it)

I think you were a cunt.
I think I was too critical.
I think you could learn to not hear criticism where none exists.
I think I could learn to let things go.
And accept.

I think you weren't as bad as I thought in many ways.
I've realised you were much worse that I suspected in others.

I've been shown the things I needed. The things I kept asking for.
I've discovered the things I craved, in other people.
I've realised what I felt was missing really was.
I've realised what I took for granted deserved more acknowledgement.
I've realised just how extraordinary you could be.
But also how selfish. How cruel.

I wonder if I'll ever find the thing we had.

Maybe there are other ways to love.

That may lack the things ours didn't.
But have the things we missed.

Or I'll spend my life chasing after the perfection, without the pain.

And maybe one day settle for peace.

And be happy.

Without you.

How many ways can you lose a friend?

It still amazes me how well I can function even from within the depths of deepest darkness.

And I step outside and the world is bleak and beautiful in the same breath of wind. And I listen to Paul Kelly sing Careless on repeat and allow my eyes to well and dry in a pathetic loop of self-pity.

And I think back on all I have experienced, suffered, been blessed with, and overcome in my 32 years and wonder if I will ever actually learn to live with myself. If all this endless work to self-improve, to be kinder, to forgive, to let things go, to accept what is, has really made any difference at all.

And I sit in my comfortable, White, able-bodied certainty and feel sad because apparently that is my right.

And even my depression disgusts me. But it's still the safest place I've ever been.

___________________________________

How many cabs in New York City? How many angels on a pin? How many notes in a saxophone? How many tears in a bottle of gin? How many times did you call my name, knock at the door but you couldn't get in? I've been wrapped up in a shell nothing could get through to me. Acted like I didn't know I had friends or family. I saw worry in their eyes, it didn't look like fear to me. I know I've been careless. (I took bad care of this) Like a mixture in a bottle. Like a frozen-over lake. Like a long-time painted smile I got so hard I had to crack. You were there, you held the line, you're the one that brought me back. How many stars in the milky way, how many ways can you lose a friend?

On Evil

Am I, in actual fact, a bad person? I've carried this self-label for as long as I can remember and it was only two years ago that someone was finally able, after much work on both our parts, to convince me otherwise.

But maybe they were wrong and the seven-year-old me was right. Maybe I simply am a bad person. The embodiment of evil, so to speak. Because what is evil if not someone who is consistently and irreparably bad? Someone who makes others cry, who lets down and hurts their parents, who is mean, spiteful, envious and lazy. Who manipulates for personal gain and lies and cheats and steals. Who has never loved.

But isn't everyone one or all of these things at some point in their life?
Well, yes. Of course. But is it possible that I am these things more often than most?

And why? I don't choose to hurt people. I never chose to have loose morals. I didn't decide to be a c*nt. It's just the way I turned out. Or came out. It's been consistently and torturously beyond my means to change it. And God I've tried. I've tried and tried and tried till the trying has become a song stuck in my head for all eternity.
I'm so very tired of it.

And so perhaps I'm not a good person who sometimes makes mistakes. Perhaps, even though it smacks of melodrama, I am actually the modern definition of evil. I do believe it may be true. It is possible. I may quite simply be bad. And this being the case, perhaps I should just accept it and do my best to protect the world from the harm of me. Shut myself away from friendships and family and meaningful interactions to prevent any further pain.

And the fact that I'm writing this here - that I'm actually admitting this openly to whoever it is that will read this - scares me. Because it makes it feel true. As if it were a confession. Which it isn't, really. Because there is a part of me, the part that is gentle and light and caring and warm and so-very-full-of-love-and-wanting-to-be-loved that it breaks my heart a little each day, which still believes that I am fundamentally a good and beautiful person. And it desperately wants me to keep trying to be good. To keep trying to exorcise the evil. To keep seeking joy.

But damn it if it wouldn't be easier to just have this guy throw some holy water my way:

read to me i love you

I should be working on a script, but I’m not.
I’m sitting here typing to myself, and you, because I’m overcome with the need to connect with someone.

I’ve been busy.

I have a new job. A real job. That I’m not qualified for but which I got anyway. And which I’m ridiculously good at. At a desk with a computer and a new wardrobe of clothes that can, if you squint, pass for conservative but are really just longer/looser/duller/neater versions of what I already own, worn without coloured socks and other accoutrements. 

I’m also working on a play. An Australian premiere of a new translation of a classic play. The one with the orchard and the rich folk who lose all their money and cry about it. By the Russian guy who hated the theatre and died of TB.
I have a lead role; the one who cries the most and feels unwanted and doesn’t get the guy in the end… What a stretch.

And finally, I’m Assistant Director to someone I greatly admire, who is famous, on a play that he wrote, which is being performed by a highly respected theatre company. And although this actually means I’m assisting the director, not assisting with directing, it’s still a wonderful opportunity, which I created for myself through sheer determination and a shitload of temerity.

BUT.
Whilst all these things are wondrous and blissful and point to my ability to get things done and disregard obstacles others would consider insurmountable, I’ve been feeling lost and disconsolate. And the theatre work, which I’m usually so desperate for, is turning me in on myself and forcing me deeper into my own head, my bedroom, my bed.
Why?
I don’t know.

But I do know I’ve been feeling so lonely it’s eating me alive and all I want to do is disappear into a crowd so big I’ll never find my way out, and where it’s never dark, and where it’s never quiet.

Or maybe that’s my own idea of hell.

Or Tokyo.

I don’t know.

But I do know that if I don't pull myself out of this inevitable descent into the mire of self-pity and melancholia, things could get very bad. Worse even than they have in the past. Because this time there is no cause for my retreat and therefore it cannot be rationalised away.

So to aid in my recovery, I leave myself, and you, with this. It's not particularly cool, but it's bittersweet beautiful and that's kind of how I'm feeling right now.

What I Need to Say When I Need to Say Something

I’m sitting here, smoking in my room because I have the house to myself, and thinking:

Fuck it.

I’m sick of being So. Fucking. Good.

I’ve had enough of not having sex on the first date, let alone with strangers. Of no longer taking drugs. Of getting anxious around the smell of pot and being shy with guys. Of my need for approval from those in authority.

There is a duality in me, like in all people to some extent, which confuses and frightens me.
I yearn for the self-destructive consumption of alcohol, yet I’m equally repulsed by the lack of self-control it represents.
I am intense and violent in my sexuality but, until very recently, felt horrified and dirty at the thought of presenting anything other than the illusion of pious virginity to my parents. Not to mention the impression I make on men of being intimidating and difficult.
I have a merciless contempt for anything conventional and popular – musically, sartorially, artistically – but I long for the simple sexuality of blonde hair and fake breasts and have a secret playlist of pop R&B songs that I listen to when noone is around to hear it.
I spent a good part of my life trying to starve myself to death, can tell you the caloric content of almost any food you could name, use Equal, drink soy, eat organic… but nothing warms my heart more than deep-fried slivers of potato covered in chicken flavoured sodium chloride with some form of processed meat product. And as a child I would cry myself to sleep about the state of the world and wake up having wet the bed, but these days I eat McDonald’s and never give money to people in the street, as if the $42 a month I send to Lidia Rodriguez in Honduras somehow frees me from any further responsibility or guilt.

I am a walking contradiction and I no longer know how much of this is natural human caprice and how much has come about as a result of attempting to fit my passionate, intense, violent and self-destructive personality into the outlines of the body I’ve chosen to present to the world. But what I do know is that I’m sick of holding it all together. I want to spill out over the edges of my carefully drawn lines and run screaming at the world while I’m still young enough and beautiful enough to do so.

That’s what I want to do.
But after twenty odd years of building up walls, how the fuck am I meant to break them down now?

Of Hands and Teeth

It’s cold and wet and I’m overcome with a familiar feeling of loneliness and solitude. The heater is on. The dog is licking himself in that way that drives me insane. My 26 year-old sweater smells like fabric softener.

The aimlessness is torture.

I’ve never been a person who copes well with inactivity. I fill my days with work, chores, outings, events, to avoid, at all costs, being left alone with my own thoughts. But in the depths of my busyness, nothing excites me more than the idea of an uncluttered day. Because we are wired to strive for happiness in something ‘other’, regardless of whether that ‘other’ has proven itself to be pleasurable or not.

So today, like on all my other days off work, I went out1. I wandered around Sun Bookshop looking for The Trick is to Keep Breathing but ended up being seduced by zombies yet again. Then I went across the street to Cornershop and spent a solid 3 hours reading, eating, drinking coffee, and awkwardly responding to the subtle flirtations of the cute waiter who is slightly too young and too shaggy to interest me enough to want to pursue him. I put off returning home as long as I could. I even walked back across the street to the cinema to see if it would save me from the inevitable. It didn’t and here I am. Sitting in the quiet warmth of my living room, legs tucked under me, on a folded quilt on the ground, feeling… feeling… feeling alone and surrounded by the deafening noise of a million other sorry people rushing about or sitting quietly alone, inflicting some form of pain upon themselves, all in the same state of aloneness as me.

Oh my God. Have you read this thing I’ve just written? Who am I? Please someone take me out and shake the black eyeliner and razor-blades off of me.

And after you’ve done that, stay for dinner and keep me company.


1Because in the three years and four months since I moved to Melbourne, I have spent only one day confined to my house. No. Wait. I did leave the house that day. For breakfast. But I spent the entire rest of the day at home on the couch reading a book. Quite a feat! I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks afterwards.

On Men and Parallel Parking

So.
Men.
I don’t get them.
And lately I’ve found myself more and more attracted to the kinds of men I’ve always reviled. The tattooed and the dirty and the drug addicted. Is this the after effect of a six-year relationship with a ‘nice guy’ (who, as it turns out, wasn’t so nice anyway)? Or is it a rebellion against my Eastern European, Catholic, clothes-freshly-washed-and-ironed upbringing? Whatever the reason, I find myself being inescapably drawn to the suggestion of a no-strings-attached liaison with a man who will expect nothing of me but simultaneously shower me with attention. “Fantasy!” I hear you say. Very possibly so, but a girl can dream can’t she? And by God I have been.
But dirty men aside, what I really don’t understand is the whole courting ritual. Once again I blame my LTR* for my complete lack of dating savvy but really, if a girl is interested, but not overly so, why must men make everything so complicated? Is it that they believe all women want to marry them? That every interested girl automatically thinks of nesting down? Because I can truthfully say that in my case this isn’t so. So why the hot and the cold? The on and the off? The furtive glances across a crowded room and the arrogant attitude? I mean for God’s sake (should I believe in him, which I’m not sure anymore that I do), just tell us what you want and be done with it. But I guess that’s asking too much. After all, I have a 6-month-old secret crush that I express by being openly rude and hostile, so what can I really expect in return? And, deep down, at the very core of my subconscious mind, I don’t actually believe that any man is really capable of loving one woman for the term of his natural life, nor that he really wants anything more than sex, so what am I getting so upset about anyway? If only I could, a) become emotionally self-sufficient and actually stick to my resolve for more than a day; and b) train myself not to view every man through the relationship filter left for me by my parents.
If only.
But if I am to be completely honest - and I always am with you, my reader - what I really want, really truly want, is someone to be nice to me and make me cups of tea and kiss me on the forehead and hug me when I have a bad day and come to me with their sorrows and tell me jokes that aren’t funny and buy me clothes I’ll never wear and speak to me in languages I don’t understand and wave their smelly socks in my face and be impressed by my parallel parking and play with my dog even when I’m not around to see it and watch disgusting zombie films with me and listen to me talk about books they’ll never read and show me work of theirs I don’t care about but will pretend to anyway and, and, and… make me feel like their day is that much better for having had me exist in it.
Is that so much to ask for?
Is it?
Perhaps.


*LTR - Long Term Relationship

Brooklyn Flea Market Dogs

Now I love dogs as much as the next person. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I love dogs more than the next person, being something of a dog lover. But spending any substantial amount of time in New York could do some serious damage to my canine affections. And to be fair it's not really the dogs who are to blame, but my God people, get your tiny, rat-faced, harness wearing mutts out of my way. I can't walk 10 metres without stepping in your little pal's puddles of poodle juice and just because you can tug your practically weightless dog around behind you like a kite doesn't mean it should be allowed to wander all over the footpath impersonating a living land mine. Not to mention the fact that I have to step over it in the grocery aisle and make room for its carry-bag on the subway. But please, oh please, if you must have a carry-on sized pet then at least do me the courtesy of having a cute one, and being a little inventive with its mode of transport. Like these guys...






Look at the way they're just hanging out, cool as cucumbers. Couldn't you just eat them?

I take it all back. Have your little dogs, and while you're at it, spread some of their fluffy cuteness my way.

On a Perfect Day in Retail: Afterword

It would seem that one of my previous, somewhat politically incorrect entries has been the cause of displeasure in a number of readers. To illustrate:

Anonymous said...
To the retail bitch who whinges about her potential customers... I say... hey without us annoying shoppers you wouldn't have a job lady! Thanks for being so helpful, you'll get no commission from me...< Love "one size does not fit all". At least my food stays down...

Well.
I feel the need to make a few things clear.

Unfortunately for me, when I write I'll willingly forgo self-preservation for the sake of honesty. I'm not afraid to express a particular sentiment where others may decide it best not to.
So writing about the thoughts that occasionally go through my head during my 9-hour days of standing in a tiny space, giving all my care and attention to the complete strangers who walk into my shop, does not mean that these are thoughts I would ever voice, or in fact would have any desire to. Nor are they any different to the private, negative little thoughts that everybody has on a daily basis.
The difference is, I decided to reveal mine for your reading pleasure (or displeasure, it would seem).

But as an addendum to that entry I'd like to say this:
I love my job. Because making women of any age and shape feel good about themselves is a wonderful experience. It's also a service that is largely under-appreciated, due in part to the general perception of sales girls as commission-chasing Barbies. And they do exist, but paradoxically they are the sales assistants who earn their bosses the least amount of money. I, however, earn my bosses a good deal of money because I don't actually care about making money (and for the record, I earn no commissions or bonuses, just a flat, hourly rate). I think all women are stunning, and it breaks my heart when I hear a woman say she'll buy that beautiful dress after she's lost a few pounds, or a teenage girl admit her mother thinks she's fat.
Incidentally, the final, particularly nasty thought expressed in that entry did not materialise in response to the customers weight, but rather to what she was doing to the unpurchased clothes she was trying on; specifically stretching them beyond all recognition with her hands and aggressively pulling at them with no concern for their mass-produced welfare.

So, if I have offended, think but this and all is mended;
I didn't really mean it.

On a Perfect Day in Retail

To the customer who looks at EVERY item on EVERY rack, spending 25 minutes in my 10-square-metres of store space without choosing a single item while I'm stuck looking attentive behind the counter waiting for her to leave, I say:
"This isn't a library!"

To the chinese girl who brings a pair of earrings to the counter and says, "I take the earring", I say:
"You don't want the other one?"

To the woman who knocks on my CLOSED door at 5 past 6 and waves me over after I've mouthed quite clearly that we're closed, I say:
"Do you want to buy something? Do you want to give me some money? No? Then why are we having this conversation?"

To the customer who comes out of the changeroom and dumps a giant ball of inside-out, scrunched up clothing on my counter before leaving I say:
"What am I, your maid?"

To the business woman who can't be bothered bending over to try on a pair of shoes but rather prefers to mash her heel against the leather, I say:
"WOMAN. For GOD'S SAKE. BEND OVER and use your finger."

To the middle aged woman who responds to my "How are you today?" with a "Just looking", I say:
"Hmm, maybe you should get that checked out. I don't know what juslooking is but it sounds nasty."

To the overweight teenager who comes out of the changeroom stretching and pulling at a top that's too small and complaining "It doesn't fit right. My boobs are too big for it", I say:
"Honey, it's not your BOOBS, it's your whole BODY that's too big".

Afterword

The Wallmeyer Twins - a current affairs goldmine

Remember Clare and Rachel Wallmeyer? They made news back in 2004 for being Australia's most famous skeletwins, surviving on a piece of watermelon a day and the occasional hit of heroin (although the drug use was diplomatically omitted from the news stories).
Well thanks to ET and Insider Online they're ba-ack and striking hope into the hearts of prime time TV viewers everywhere.

Now please don't get me wrong, I have absolute empathy (get that, empathy, not sympathy - there's a clue there) for these women but, as with programs like The Biggest Loser, I find television Get-Well-Quick shows to be not only loathsome, but extremely harmful to the sufferers involved*.
While the new footage of the twins may seem promising, all I see is a couple of extremely sick women with serious drug and behavioural problems (which I had to do some digging of my own to uncover) being polished up for the cameras to bring a satisfying conclusion to an unfinished story.
And while I genuinely believe that Dr Ira Sacker is a remarkable man who has helped countless sufferers of eating disorders, it breaks my heart to see these women starve themselves for 10 days in anticipation of the American film crews only to be offered a couple sessions with Dr Ira, during one of which they are fed hot chips, for Christ's sake. Have these people done any research into eating disorders at all? Do they not realise that after this little outing the twins will probably spend a guilt-ridden and self-hate filled afternoon bent over their toilet bowls? Or one bowl in this case - they live together. And don't get me started on the initial interview where the flawless host comments on the girls' weight gain and asks them how much they weigh. Surely, working with Dr Ira they must have done some research, which leads me to conclude that they really couldn't care less about the long-term recovery of the Wallmeyer Twins and are merely offering viewers what they want to see rather than, God forbid, educating them.
When will I learn.


*Don't take my word for it; do a search on how many Biggest Loser contestants actually maintain any of their weight loss in the year following the completion of each show.

Things She Said

She's only 21, bless her, but acts like she's 27 and the world ambassador of everything that is 'cool'. Attractive, granted, but with enough ego and arrogance, were it meted out, to reintroduce 1000 social phobics back into the world.
From the day I met her she's been condescending and unbearable. Wednesday was the first time we'd actually worked in the same store together and although she barely knows me, she felt the need to criticize me for anything that didn't fit into her little view of what is socially acceptable.

1. "Do you ever stop playing with your hair?"
No. I don't want it to feel unloved.

2. "Oh my God, you cover your books?"
Yes. And I read them too.

3. "Is this Rihanna?! Oh my God you listen to such commercial shit."
Well actually I don't listen to the music I really like at work (Apparat, Telefon Tel Aviv, Victor Bermon, Vladislav Delay, Dictaphone, Arovane) because it's inappropriate.
Now let me explain 'irony' to you.
(I explain)
She doesn't get it.

4. "My God, how often do you put on make-up?"
Well I guess if I caked on foundation in the morning I too could leave my skin untouched all day. But seeing as my pores can actually breathe, they sometimes need a powder touch-up to stop me looking like I've been buffed to a high sheen.

(On hearing that I take my dog to dog school)
5. "You go to Dog School?!!"

(On hearing that I didn't want to work Saturdays so that I could do Agility training with the afore-mentioned pooch..)
6. "Agility?! Have you ever heard of lobbing a ball to it in the park?"
No. I hadn't. I thought paying $120 to make my dog jump through hoops was the only way to exercise him. Or, perhaps he's just kinda smart and I like giving him the opportunity to use his brain. But I don't suppose you'd understand that as a concept.

I let her go home an hour early to be rid of her.
I've also requested never to work with her again. I can't be responsible for what I might say if I do.
My reserves of patience have never been particularly ample.