28 posts tagged “life”

My days go something like this:

• Set alarm for 10am
• Get out of bed at 12:25pm
• Decide I should eat something healthy
• Melt cheese flavoured with soysauce and then add some bread as an afterthought
• Decide I should walk the dogs before I go out
• Go and train Marilyn's alsatians
• Get home, realise I haven't walked my dogs
• Play with dogs for 2 minutes
• Have a shower
• Facebook, gmail, dinosaur comics, msn, Nedroid, hotmail, xkcd, yahoo mail, cyanide and happiness
• Sit and stare at the screen blankly for a while
• Pat dogs
• lolcats, loldogs, overheard in new york, overheard everywhere, overheard in the office, overheard at the beach
• Decide that I should probably cook dinner for everyone
• Facebook, renew dead msn conversations
• Let dogs out of loungeroom so they can say hello to mum and dad who just got home
• Failblog
• Eat crappy dinner prepared by tired parents
• Feed birds, feed dogs, take dogs for piss, realise I still haven't walked dogs
• Half-watch random tv shows parents put on while surfing net until 10:30pm
• Decide to go to bed early
• Engrish, texts from last night, graphjam, lookalikes
• Realise that it's after midnight
• Set alarm for 10am
• Rinse and repeat ad nauseum
  
• I have no life
  

There are things I probably should do, but I can't. I need to write. Not about anything in particular. It's just been too long, and my headspace needs sorting.

I look out the window at the darkness and ponder, as the music swells and swirls around me. I walk to the door and whistle for the dogs to follow. It is warm, so I wear a short skirt and no jumper. We are the only ones in the park. The grass is deliciously new beneath my feet as I look up at the stars and dance for them because no-one can see me. I love the sky at night. When it is clear you can look up and see the familiar constellations overlayed on a glittering backdrop of the milky way, and try to expand your imagination far enough that it can encompass the whole galaxy. It doesn't matter if you fail - it's the trying that counts.
The spell breaks with the sound of shattering glass. The dogs have wandered away, lost in their own universe of earth and smells, so far from where I was. I call them and they don't appear. For a second dread sinks icy teeth into my stomach: what if I never see them again?
And then the whisper of a tiny body racing towards me, the flooding relief as I lift her in my arms and lose myself in her fur. Our heartbeats slowly settle into synchrony again, and together we sigh as we realise  we were thinking the same things. We could never leave each other. Peace reclaims my soul. We walk home together, me and my friends, my dogs, my children.  There are people walking down the street, and they smile at me. I wonder why people are afraid  to go out at night. I wonder if they miss the moon and the whisper of warm night air through the gum trees.
Shadows move before me, flowing hair and silent grace; I wonder if it is a side of me or a lie told by the silvery light to make me happy.
I curl up in my chair and slowly sink into myself, start to feel lost again. As my dogs fall asleep in carefree innocence I wonder if I should be doing work, wonder how long I can put it off before it is too late, wonder why I would do that to myself, and find no answers that I can accept. And yet I cannot move. Instead I write, and I listen to music, and I let my thoughts out to play.
I think about how in gaining new things we lose old things. I think about taking risks and regretting nothing. I think about fear, about serenity and apathy, wonder if there is a difference. Something clicks and I start to think in moving pictures and suddenly words aren't adequate anymore.
Walking blind
Betrayed by the slink of skin on skin
Legs whispering to each other as you move
A light comes on
A different kind of blindness
Soothing nothings are shared
Under a flutter of fragile wings
As a moth batters itself senseless against clear glass
Darkness returns in a rush
Was it soon enough to save it from itself?
The sound of a hand running through clean hair
The tinkling of a tiny silver bell
Sink into the pillows and keep on falling
Is the world moving or is it me?
Patterns and flashes
Things that have been
Things that could never be
Things I would have said
If only time would stop long enough for me to think
This is not my life now
Nameless, I explore a familiar world
Remember all the things I have done
I save a damsel in distress
But they see me and give chase
I run, panting, through the long and winding tunnels
Rabbit feet pounding the earth
But they are waiting for me
As they raise the knife to end my life, I scream
And the white roof of my room is so far above my head
For a second there is a shiver as the scene fades
Then I realise the world was not mine
I was recalling things which never happened
I will never remember these hours I spent
I return to my life ignorant
Perhaps it is for the better
But I'll never know
Breathe in
Breathe out
Blood
Laughter
Holding each other close
Afraid of the dizzying heights that apear in the chasms between every person
Trying to close them
Wondering if it is futile
Hoping it is not
Fearing that it is
Then he glances up and smiles
And together we sigh as we realise  we were thinking the same things
And the distance doesn't seem so very far after all
I drive home
I am alone, but the stars are watching me
I love the sky at night
And sometimes it only matters that you try

This started its life as a response to Gity's post. It got a little wordy. Here you go, the comment that decided to be a post:

I was feeling a bit nostalgic recently too, so I read through all my old blog posts. It's funny, I thought I couldn't remember anything, but then when I read what I'd written I remembered all of it...
I like remembering the quiet times, the everyday routine we got into. The times we never wrote about, because that was just our life, and now it isn't anymore. I used to go to the library everyday and wait for Marie and Jess and Cass, and at lunchtime we would pick up a book but we wouldn't read because our conversation would take over, becoming louder and louder. Silence in the library my arse. They should've kicked us out more often than they did.
It changed in year 11 when I started to get to know you and our other friends. with the demolition of our old haunt, the scitech became our new monopoly. Josh taught us to play Bang, and games became our next big thing. It was a great way to spend an hour, more if we had a free to spend. Everyone wanted to be Jose delgato. We did eventually get banned by tight arsed teachers, and from then on we would shift from the tunnel to the scitech locker bays, the sofas downstairs, and (once it was finished) the new library. It was so nice to curl up on the radiators in the depths of winter. You and me and Jess and Marie and Josh and sometimes one of his friends - Sam became a regular. AJ would sit nearby with a book, or she would get the newspaper and we'd do the word puzzles. Sometimes I'd nick off to see Andrew, Bharat, Tess or Aparna and the rest, sometimes they'd join us. Occasionally, when the mood struck, we might go for a wander around the grounds we felt we finally owned now that we'd reached the top echelons of studenthood by virtue of surviving the first 5 years of it. The last days of school were the best and the worst. I realised that after all these years of hating school, I couldn't imagine anything I'd rather do than wake up at 6am, wait around for crappy public transport, and then spend several hours pretending to listen to various teachers prattle on while actually devising sneaky ways to communicate with friends without getting in trouble. I have to confess I even cried a little, when all the exams were over and it was time to move on. But they were the best days because it was the start of something new, something big and fun and full of possibilities.To steal the corniest phrase ever, it was the start of the rest of our lives.

Lying on the sofa wrapped in my blanket. Mystic jumps up immediately and curls into a little ball in the curve of my waist, and then Merry will quietly join us and stretch out in the nook between my legs and the back of the sofa.
Slowly bing lulled to sleep by the sound of the rain on the roof.
Waking up gently, dreams slowly dripping away, and staying wrapped in my blanket for hours just because I can.
Green leaves and warm sunlight, admiring the ethereal tapestry as dusk melts into swirling constellations.
Walking barefoot through soft grass and watching the dogs leap and race.
Seeing a friend and being unable to stop the smile which creeps over my face.
Warm hugs.
In jokes.
Laughter.
Good books and board games and racing just for fun.
The murmur of voices close and quiet late at night.
"Let's not go home yet."
Feeling loved, and loving in return.
Family.
Friends.
Life.

Well, not holidays so much. But I haven't updated in ages, so YAY list

• Mum got me work experience with the detector dog program - they breed labradors to sniff out drugs at the airport. It was interesting at first, just seeing how they train their dogs (throw something and hope they fetch it). But after the hundredth hour of scooping diarrhoea, walking halfway across the muddy compound and blending it in the insinkerator, I was REALLY glad it was over.
• She also got me work experience with a veterinary behaviourist, Dr Debbie. She's nice. She does some training in a hall near our house, getting reactive dogs used to other dogs. There are a couple of nice dogs who've had bad experiences, and a couple who are just completely barking mad. Literally. She also does house calls, can she's let me come to a couple so far. It's really helpful.
• A lady who came to help Debbie asked if I would be an instructor at their dog school, so I'm now doing their short instructor's course.
  
• The RSPCA has been reaaaaally muddy. Luckily I have, by pure skill, avoided falling on my arse in it or (permanently) loosing any of my shoes in the depths of it .... although I did slip and fall on the electric fence. Youch ... I swear the cow was laughing at me.
• I went to RMIT for a day with Josh. He made me an awesome bracelet. I watched Imaginary Heroes on his laptop while he was supposedly listening to his lecturer. We went out to eat and I finished watching the movie in the library while he and his friends did "work". Then I went to a bookshop and found the next Artemis Fowl book. Yay ^_^
• We've done some DnD. It's awesome, particularly the bits where the characters go completely nuts and kill each other and Andrew is left tearing his hair out and on the verge of a breakdown. I love Order of the Stick and DM of the Rings very much indeed.
• Went to see Dark Knight. Marie and Jess and I bought tickets early then went for dinner, and were joined by AJ (after initially walking past each other once or twice) and Aparna and we went in. About 10 minutes into the movie, Scott turned up and I had to tell him we hadn't bought him a ticket because we didn't know he was coming. One major guilt trip later, he somehow managed to procure a ticket for the seat next to us (in an otherwise comletely booked out theatre.) I felt better after that. The movie was really loud and violent, but good.
  
• Went to Josh's place and we walked to AJ's. It started to rain so we ran and I lost a couple of Uno Stacko pieces. We found one but couldn't find the other, so we left it. We played scrabble and stacko and Josh taught us how to play eucha (I think that's how it's spelt) with the olympics as background noise, and then we watched Flight of the Concords until 1:30. It was nice. I didn't find the stacko piece on the way back, but we did get rained on again.
• The next day I went to Jess's early and looked for it again. I found it! ... On the road, completely squished.  XD Andrew bought  a massive number of Stargate DVDs, and we watched a few episodes and then some Doctor Who for the benefit of AJ and Marie. People insisted on torturing me by flinging a revoltingly intestine-like pink thing at me at random intervals. *Is scarred for life*
• Merry got lots of passes in agility. She's teh awesome  =D
• Have been to libraries and book stores etc quite a lot. Books are nice.
  
• I have no idea if that's all. I cannot remember when I last updated on stuff wot I 'ave done, and I have probably left stuff out. Never mind. Onwards and forwards!
  

Ya, the last post was a tad too enthusiastic for its own good. So shoot me.

Anyway ... more updates.

A couple of weeks ago my great aunt Ingrid came to visit. She stayed with grandma for most of the week, but we had her on wednesday. She's been living in America for the past 50 years, but she still sounds charmingly Swedish. I can't believe I've never met her before. She's an animal trainer and always has been. And she's so nice and friendly and loves everything. Particularly my dogs. =D
We took her to the Wallaby Yards and showed her newborn wallabies - little tammars. So cute. Then we went to GWSC so I could get them to sign a thing saying I can do my exams there, and all the teachers talked to me and said "Come back if you need help anytime! Really! Or just visit! Anything!" Nice to be missed :P Then we went to Melbourne Uni, but the O-week bbq was already over (aw). We ate at the union building, then went to the zoo. I got a couple of good pics of a snow leopard. The Orangutans were SO COOL - one of them swung up the the viewing platform, saw us all watching, and covered itself in a box. From time to time it would peek out, see us still watching and try to hide better. Eventually it gave up, waked over reaaally close to the glass, staring into the eyes of a little boy, hypnotised with his nose pressed against the window. Then a little girl came and shoved him out of the way, and the orangutan got bored and went and got it's box, then lay down to watch the other orangutans - but it got too absorbed and leant too far over, and it lost it's box over the edge! He was like ... crud. I love the zoo : )
Then we went to see the wild bat colony. Bats are great. Like huge, flying rats (with big sharp pointy teeth : E3  < emoticon with teeth.).
On saturday we went to the zoo agin, so Viv could get more pics (she went to the zoo with school on friday). I drove there and the traffic was soooo shithouse. Of course dad and Viv insisted on sitting still for half an hour everywhere to get the perfect shot. I was a tad bored by the end of that. But oh well. They did get some good shots.

Last thursday I took my dogs to TAFE for show and tell. Everyone loved them =D

On saturday I Marie and I went to Jess's place to watch Torchwood (why can I never remember the name of that series? Argh)
And today I went to Josh's place. I got there before he did, and his dad had NO idea who I was or why I was there. That was kinda funny.
Josh helped me with maths and we ate way too much. He spent ages trying to convince me to eat fish. He lost. I am the champion of obsinance. Then we played scrabble and cheated (why would you play if not for the fun of cheating?). And one of his rabbits is seriously aggro. It is the monty python rabbit. Yay! ^_^

And apart from the normal paraphenalia of stuff I do (like fat pony walking, yoghurt-drop-feeding rats and getting my dogs to tell me whether they prefer Mama Mia to Sex Bomb), that is mostly all. Toodles!

PS heat is bad. I dislike heat muchly.

PPS driving is now 44 hours, 15 mins and counting. I have my first lesson on wednesday.

It's getting to the point where I'm not sure whether I'll ever have the time to expand on my previous list of stuff that's happened since the exams. But now I have a little while - not long - so I'll make another dot-point summary of the stuff that's happened since I failed to expand on the last list. Only I can’t remember heaps of it. Damn. I’ll try and go through old emails to jog my memory … If I forget stuff or say something wrong, please correct me.

• I had my birthday party. We went to see The Golden Compass and had gelati. Some people came back to my place and played Uno and stuff. I got some awesome presents. Score : )
• I emptied my old piggybank and found $82 and 40 cents and 2 rupees and a button.
• I started helping at the Summer Film School. I got a lot of driving practice going to and from Melbourne Uni. I feel like I was cheating … I did almost nothing to help yet I got to do the entire course for free. The best bits where when I got to act like a brazen hussy on stage, and when they shot someone with a sub machine gun. In the lecture theatre. Hehe.
• And that took a whole month, except for the few days I was disgustingly ill. But I did get a diploma in filmmaking. So random …
• The Uni of Melbourne is up itself.
• I started studying Psychology and Maths Methods (why am I such an idiot … please shoot me now…) by distance education.
• I went to TAFE and sort of “accidentally” became a student. So now I’m doing Small Business Management. Yay … at least it’s useful.
• And I also started my Dog Obedience Instructor’s Course. That’s great. I love it.
• And in my “free time” (wasn’t this supposed to be a year off?!) I do my dog sports – agility, freestyle, hiking etc.
• In case you didn’t grasp that last little lament … I have basically no free time. So I tend to not do homework and go out with people instead. It’s great. Stuff that we did in the past while:
• On the 13^th of January (Since I went through emails to find dates I might as well put dates in, hey what?) some people went to Jess’s place to play games. Andrew put the counters in Marie’s shoes. It’s becoming a habit, that.
• On the 19^th we played Laserforce. Josh and I played pool afterwards – I suck. Hoorah!
• On the 22^nd we went to see Romeo and Juliet at the Botanic Gardens. It was slightly modernised in some points – like the truck – and it was really funny. People think tragedies shouldn’t be funny. I disagree. Some of the actors could have been better, but Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio were great and they’re the important ones, aren’t they :P
• On the 28^th was the Australia Day Duck Race, so Marie and Jess and Josh and I (and Josh’s friend) went to Birrarung Mar to watch. Some of the little duckies escaped, and the lifesavers “rescued” them. We didn’t manage to steal a duck. Disappointing.
• On the 3^rd of February we had a picnic at Jell’s Park. I took my dogs. The merry-making (ie football kicking and Bang playing) went on well into the afternoon.
• On the 7^th, Meggs passed away. I have already written about him, of course. : (
• But on the 8^th I went to My RSPCA interview anyway. I had my first day last Friday (22 feb)– I’m alternating between dog walking and working in the education barn.
• On the 12^th we went to see Sweeny Tod. It wasn’t as gruesome as we feared, because the blood looked like paint. They went through a LOT of paint. And all the songs are stuck in my head. Even the one about the cat pies.
  
• Went to Aparna’s place on the 13^th and watched “My Fair Lady”. I love that movie. It cracked me up. Mum left home with her phone turned off not knowing the house number. When I realised this I frantically SMS’d her and luckily she got it in time to interrupt us very conveniently at the end of an amusing card game.
• On the 15^th I went to Josh’s place and we played Imaginiff and stuff, and went to AJ’s house for lunch. After Marie and Andrew went home we watched Ever After, which was surprisingly enjoyable.
• On the 16^th I took Mystic to the Papillon club trial in the morning (she did some crazy stuff, but she had FUN!!! WHEE!!!), then raced off to my instructor’s course, went home and had lunch then raced Merry off to a trial in the afternoon. She fell off the A-frame in the first run, and refused it the next 2 runs. Her final run – at about 10pm – was Jumping, and she was just a few seconds overtime. Everything else was *perfect*. Love that dog.
• I went and crashed The Monash Law intro day. Which actually meant that I got stuck for hours in a horrendously boring lecture. But when we got out there was free food (and mud). And lots of friends were there, because most people I know are going to Monash … And they joined crazy clubs and Marie beat a knight with a big stick for ages, and we went and saw an incredibly suggestive play. Actually, it went through suggestive and out the other side. It contained condoms.

 

That took me way too long to write, even in a form more condensed than Campbell's pea soup. Ah dear. I should write more often and not get behind like this … but such is life.

Okay now sorry if this is slightly inaccurate or if I skate over things. It was, what, 10 or 11 days ago now. I remember noooo-sink! Well I actually do. But it’s hazy. A glorious little hazy blur, just like the inside of a cataract (last bit is a Simpsons quote, ok?)

Spent about 15 minutes the night before convincing mum that I really *did* need a uniform to creatively destroy. Got there in the morning and couldn’t find my friends. I asked a girl I thought I’d seen before if she’d seen Marie and she said “No, but when you find her can you punch her for me?” Well, I did find her. We went around and signed shirts. Lots of shirts. Marie immediately took up half my back (and spelt her name wrong!) and Gity took the other half. All further attempts to sign my shirt were preceded by words to the effect of “Oh my goodness, there’s not much room”. And they signed my sleeves instead. By the time Phil turned up it was time to go to the hall for a ‘practice assembly’. Wasn’t much of a practice. We went through the song twice. Then we went out (Bharat had turned up by this stage) and started preparing for the skit. This involved me running to the Glen to buy a bottle of ‘piss’ (Juice. Orange I think.) and Jess and me going to the library to find a newspaper, or, failing that, and article about Ben Cousins and some horoscopes. Well, newspapers cannot be taken, only photocopied. Neither of us had a photocopy card. All horoscopes are blocked on the school network. Plan suitably imploded, back to the sci-tech. Well, assembly time came. I figured I was no longer needed for the ‘slutting it up for myspace’ scene (Phil did this perfectly well on his own. Teehee.) and went to sit next to Jess instead, and used her scissors to snip and generally artistically mangle my dress. Speeches came and went blowflies through the house when there’s a dead rat in the roof. Mr Penso made jokes about the ‘nicotene brothers’ and bagged his own ‘VCE swimming pool’ obsession. God I hate that pool. When Mr Penso talks about it I think he might just be trying to kill us all by making us fall asleep while we’re trying to swim. The first act was some guys running around stage to the tune of Doctor Jones, which was followed by (w00t) Marie, Bharat, Phil and Vanja. I have the whole script. Here I am not sticking it in because I’m hoping that EVENTUALLY it will end up on youtube or some other form of electronic media. If not, I will stick in the script. Teehee. It was great. And Phil didn't think it would work. Shun the non-believer. Shunnnnn-uh. Mr Imam was sitting right behind us and giggling the whole way through. As they were introduced everyone in the audience went “oooh it has MARIE in …” (ie, prepare to be bombarded with sick humour.) They were not disappointed. ‘ra for bagging every dodgy facet of modern society. :D

And then we all went home and had strawberry ice-cream.

Actually no we didn’t. We sat through a gay version of back street boys (people didn’t quite get the irony of this following the patronising statement that teenagers are unable to laugh at anything other than a gay joke). Then we had some good songs, some bad songs, got bombarded with hundreds of painful lollies during one of the latter, and then we were all called up to do The Songs. I was still sucking a lolly and had thrown away the wrapper. Oops. I nicked someone random person’s lyrics ‘cos no-one had had enough foresight to bring theirs, me included. I’m going to remember the line “Hit Me Ramsey” for a very, very long time. The song is, in fact, on youtube, but the camerawork is frankly shite and very sea-sick-making.

And THEN we all went home and had strawberry ice-cream.

Well no, actually, I went home and had a shower and waited for mum and dad to come and take me to Jess’s place, where she and Gity and I watched Doctor Who and I ate junk food (as is my wont) and generally made time disappear into a black hole, which we will never get back (unless of course my plans to make a real working Tardis actually happen. Which would be awesome.) Did make up – Marie turned up in time to tsk at my eyeliner, add more, realise that it was way too much and painstakingly remove most with one of those ear cleaney cotton stick thingys.

Wayne drove us. Wayne does corners way too fast. We got lost and did 3 or 4 circuits of the park before he finally gave up and called Albert by the Lake, and of course we found it as soon as the phone started ringing. We tried to figure out where our table was and couldn’t, until Josh found us and showed us to where AJ was sitting in a dress! Squee!

And we took loads of photos and the food was boring and mildly shithouse, and Gity had brought the blue unicorn who takes LSD and steals Charlie’s kidney. We had fun torturing him.

And eventually the music improved and we went to dance, and it was awesome and fun and stuff. And Gity danced with a cow, and she was happy, and Marie convinced Mr Tatnall to dance with her, and then we joined the end of a conga line (he told her off for abandoning him. Hehe…) AJ and various transitory other people made a collection of glasses filled with water on which you could play the tune of Fur Elise. Yay!

Oh yeah, and we graduated.

Took a while to get through everyone. Half the year level up, classes in rows and people arranged alphabetically, call out name, shake hand with principal, take certificate, go away. Wow, that was really worth attending school for 14 years.

Aaaand … yeah. Went home, had shower, got up 5 hours later, got in the car, picked up Gity and Marie, went to Jells Park. On the way we saw a whole hoard of people making their way there, still in their formal clothes. (Nuts, all of them. Nuts. With beans.) We got slightly sidetracked. We were faved with a fork in the road and mum said “which way?” and we all pointed right so she took the left road. Sigh. Anyway, got there, met people. We were going to the playground but Jess came, so we didn’t.

About half the people there had stayed out all night and were looking slightly fatigued.

 

I will continue this tale after I have taken the dogs for “A little shit tour” outside. Mum’s words, not mine. Eloquence and propriety are her particular fortes.

 

Okay I’m back. Where was I? Oh yeah, breakfast. I went up when they first called out that food was ready, so I only had to stand and get blinded with smoke and flying grease for a little while before I got a sausage. The other people had to wait in a line. Suckers (snh snh snh). When everybody had been suitably fed, we resumed our quest to find the playground. We played on the swings. Swings are teh awesomeness personified.

Then I went exploring. I remember it from when I was a little tacker. Fond memories. ‘twas nice. For some reason we all ended up on the rope thingie. (Yes, I know, I have a very vast and varied vocabulary…) Actually, I think it may have been my fault, cos I went over there to sit with Andrew and David (and to take photos of him being a fool).

Other people started playing with a Frisbee, so I went to the car to see if I could find some sort of object for us to play games with, but there was none, even though there usually are. This is the downside of actually tidying things up. Mum said either she would drive Gity and me home now or we could make our own way back whenever. I went to tell Gity and bumped into Bharat, who had only just bothered to wake up. Gity said stay, so we stayed. Mum brought out a sunhat and sun block, but it was cold and I was wearing a jumper and I didn’t want any. She was disgustingly smug when I got sunburnt, damn her. I would listen to her more if she wasn’t wrong 75% of the time.

Anyway.

Oh, and Josh took a picture of this Minah bird that came and stole our drinks.

I don’t think people had really eaten enough, because someone decided that we catch and eat it. I think it may have been me. And then throughout the day there were multiple suggestions that we catch and roast assorted wildlife.

Phil and AJ and Gity and Marie and I all decided to take a wander down to the lake. Most people were starting to head off at this point, but it was a nice day and we had all been sensible and gone to bed the night before. It was really nice. The daisies in the grass were blooming, causing nostalgic memories of daisy chains in primary school and, in some cases, hay fever. We talked and laughed (Phil actually collapsing onto the floor pissing himself when we told him about the SMS Marie got from … someone …)

 We got to the lake and decided that the other side looked decidedly greener, and we set off again.

We found a sign pointing out the way to the Dandenongs. “Hey, let’s all walk to the Dandenongs!” “Okay, lets go.” I called Jess to inform her of this. She didn’t seem to find it quite as hilarious as I did. If it’s possible to raise an eyebrow verbally, she did. She told me that Josh had come to find us. AJ tried to phone Josh, but he didn’t answer. About 1/3 of the way more around the lake, we realised that his number had changed and I called him and told him where we were going. He caught up to us just before we reached the other side, riding very fast on his bike.

AJ threw a rock in the water and suddenly every duck in the lake was at our feet, staring up hopefully underneath the signs that said basically “If you feed the ducks they will die”. I suggested we eat them. Duck is nice.

On the way back Phil tried riding in tandem with Marie. It didn’t really work very well, but at least they didn’t kill themselves.

About this point Phil realised that I had just walked a couple of kays over gravel with no shoes on. For some reason, this surprised him. I explained: “I don’t like shoes.”

On the way back I made friends with one of the many flies who were enjoying the now sunny weather. His name was Frank. I said, “AJ! I found a new friend for you! His name is Frank.” And I proudly proffered the little animalcule for her inspection. She killed him. I collapsed in hysterics. Josh took my shoes. As we passed the teahouse we met an odd sight – a post wearing a child’s jacket. It looked eerie. I took a photo.

We found Jess under a tree, and we lay there for a while. It was calm and warm and nice. Josh found a very pretty bug and Gity named him Quentin, and he was my friend and Marie smacked my hand and made me lose him. AAAAAAAA

 Next time I will think a little harder about what I wear, cos my top was too short for my pants and I had to keep pulling them up. You didn’t need to know that. Sorry.

After an hour or so of lizarding (lying outside and enjoying the sun), we decided to get lunch at the teahouse. It was very expensive. Josh took photos of people’s shoes. Jess’s grandpa was there, and he took her home, and it was time for us to go home too.

“Er … how exactly are we getting home?”

“Let’s walk.”

“Okay.”

Hm, great idea. All the way from Jells Park to the Glen. It was fun though, in an it’s-suddenly-35degrees-and-we-don’t-have-hats-or-sleeves-or-sunblock kind of way. Except for Marie, who had sun block so she didn’t burn her eyelids again, and of course Gity has her scarf. People took turns riding the bikes. When Marie rode Phil had to carry her handbag and he struggled for a while to see if there was a word for how it made him feel, and came up with “emasculated”, and then wasn’t sure if it even existed. We found a bus stop, but the bus wasn’t gonna come for ages so we kept walking. Eventually AJ and Josh had to split off to go home, and eventually Phil too. Gity and Marie and I were getting thirsty, so we went and became juvenile delinquents and stole water from someone’s garden tap. And we came across the Glen, all majestic and huge and air conditioned, and Marie went to catch the bus and Gity and I went and bought ice-cream. Not strawberry. But it was nice. And we went home. And it was late. And there was a guy on our bus still in his formal clothes. And we raised our eyebrows at him, but not while he was looking, because that would have been rude. The end.

 

PS, today was our English exam. I think it went moderately shite. Won’t know until results come out. Went to Jess’s house, didn’t really do much useful but ate good food and watched 300, which is incredibly Gory (with a capital G) but also beautiful. And yeh. Other exams next week. Eep etc.

The actual end.

Well, it will be once I've pinched some of Josh's photos and stuck em in where they should be. Tomorrow. Pip pip.

Edit: Done it. The END.

I just wrote this. It kinda freaks me out. And yes, I know I've used the phrase "sound of silent tears" before, but it's a nice one. I like it.

My heart is bleeding. They ripped it from my chest while it was still beating, and they hold it in their fists, dripping gorily.

This is my story. This is the sound of silent tears.

Every day, more come. Big, yellow trucks. Bulldozers, factories, uniforms and clipboards. Murder weapons. All official, written down and signed by some stuffed bureaucrat in an ivory tower. I cannot complain. I can never complain. They turn their heads and they cannot hear me screaming. They ripped at me, tore at me, stole away my children and raped me mercilessly … but I am still alive. How can I be, when there is nothing left but pain? How can I go on?

But I am the ageless one, and the death of my body will take an age longer than the death of my soul.  I am the earth, and I can hear you laughing.

I gave you life. I gave you everything you ever needed, but you took more than that. You took more than I could ever stand to give. Once there stood massive forests, full of life and wonder. A miracle it took a million lifetimes to grow. You destroyed it all in an instant. Your tender hands are drenched in the blood of a million lives a million times over and you do not even realise it, or perhaps you do not care. I loved you once, as I love all my creatures. How did it ever come to this? Where did I go wrong? I gifted you with minds, I gifted you with a spirit, I thought I had gifted you with morals but I know now I was wrong, oh so wrong. And now the children have grown into men, and there is nothing I can do now but wait.

I once thought that there was hope, but now even that eludes me as I lie here watching the destruction of everything I cherished. I never thought that it would come to this. The only relief I can see from the endless torture is my impending oblivion.

Goodbye, my children. Do not worry, I have forgiven you. I know that it is all my own fault. I think that when I gave you minds, I forgot to give you hearts…

I got some new toys on Saturday: "The Algebra of Infinite Justice" and "The God of Small Things". I found a quote which I adore. Would it be too presumptuous to say it reminds me of me? I will say instead then that this is what life should be, and what I want my life to be:

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the sadest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try to understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget." ~ Arundhati Roy