I write this blog as a older, bearded man with less than perfect posture. Mental stress has actually made my face less symmetrical. Anxiety seems to shrink your skin into the skull unevenly, like a non approved plastic container in a microwave. Does anyone else get this?
Anyway, I started this blog as a setting of the stage for myself and my anticipation-trepidation about my impending Sti lankan expedition. I'm more self-conscious than in the last blog, possibly because as a younger man I was only able to inject bravado and chicanery into the text. Am I more insecure, more deranged. Am I less fun? Am I a worse writer. Do I only produce good work on the road? Should I stop writing sentences that end with a question mark? Im definitely side-tracked. The blog is about Sri Lanka, Will.
So this story starts in Brunswick, Melbourne. I was living in a debauched bachelors pad (Plural. Three of us, god...) full of cat hair and surface grime. Bachelors operate under the cloak of twilight, thither the cat hair is left tenebrous. We, Shawn the half Indian man child, Joe the garage rocker and Alex the depressed shadow of Joe the garage rocker decided to rent out a small nook at the rear of the house to itinerant foreign folk of the road. Now this was never outwardly articulated between us but we seemed to only secure lodgers that were attractive and european. God knows how we found ourselves in this situation time and again. We had a dreadlocked berk of a woman from Bryon Bay who brought bikies back to smoke indoors on weeknights, she was replaced by low iq canadian that would take ghb of a weekend and, conversely, of a weekday, facilitate obscure hindu rituals on our balcony to paying customers. We also had Juliette a mild mannered french girl who embodied australian surf culture more than Australian I actually knew. I think she has since constructed some kind of idyllic beach existence with a symmetrical toned surfer. There was also a scandinavian girl whose 'thing' was minimalism. We settled for a bit longer with another girl though that saw through the rest of my time at that house (create more imagery about the house, paragraph is bleak still).
I missed the round of interviews for the room this time and questioned Joe if they found someone suitable (upholding the still hitherto unspoken trend). Joe replied
"Yeah bruth, we had this American girl and an Italian also. The american was haughty and outspoken and kind of talked over the Italian girl so we went with the Italian. She's really cool man"
I arrived home from work later in the evening and I was sitting on our luxurious balcony holding off the urge to roll a borrowed cigarette. Joe and I were talking and he said how 'Carlotta' had moved in and that she actually might have been in the new nook (room is too generous an adjective). He hollered her to come introduce herself. I felt a tingly-mental sensation before she walked out (do other people feel this when meeting people? I think its exitement misinterpreted as anxiety). She came into the dim light of the balcony as she approached me. Oh my god. She had leisurely arranged chestnut hair, a non pudgey 'button nose', a 'button face' actually and wide young eyes, like a deers eyes, non headlight ones, really open universe gravitating eyes, yes and incredible breasts, rather large ones. I thought 'hold eye contact William, don't belie your obvious intimidation. Yes, beauty intimidates. Step into the fear. Love her. God she is beautiful, and Italian for gods sake. Italy. San Pellegrino, deathtrap motorbikes and little cups of coffee. Rome, she's from Rome for gods sake. Aqueducts and Caesars! She is timeless. Im a mangy dingo with an imperfect DNA sequence. A dusty confused new land. She is timeless! Lord, we have a Peroni advertisement walking around the house'
We got along, she studied Philosophy. was a warm old soul. I promised to show her the city. Not in an Aladdin magic carpet way. Maybe in a stylised earthy way. In a van. Chicks love vans. I wanted to be her friend though and make her feel welcomed. People must close in on her like vultures ceaselessly. Shawn would, he'd close in on a cantaloupe if it looked like it was winking and had the correct moisture content. So I played the friend game. A game that became blurry from time to time after you've been out dancing and you fall asleep together on the balcony. When your at a beach at 2am with backpackers and your feeling your age wondering why your putting in the effort. Or when you sashay around leisurely in a mediterranean area trying artisan bread together that a man in a fedora encourages you to dip in earthenware olive oil crucibles. When she explains all the incomprehensible products at an italian grocer and you feel like she's giving you a personalised tour through her childhood. The kind of tour that in my mind, is reserves for special people. But i wasn't a special person. I was a housemate, just a friend.
I think it was a few months Carlotta lived with us at the house. I think she had a father who applied pressure to come home and study. She didn't want to leave, or atlas thats what she told me. She was young and was on an oddessey. Maybe more lessons could be learned? Maybe she didn't know what the hell to do and why return when the reasons you travel is to perhaps work out what direction to focus yourself. She had an end date in my world. She had a few weeks left, she wanted to make it count. She told me that she felt like she didn't want to leave me. This is why men and women say they don't understand men/women. Because I lot of the communication is from inference. We protect ourselves from total discovery by leaving breadcrumbs upon the doors of our truest feelings. I have to work out what she means when she says she wants to see more of me. We had a party together and gravitated around each for basically the entire night. Hugging tenderly and kissing each other on the cheek. Also Joe, the apparently jealous garage rocker saying 'move dickhead' to me as he grumpily walked past us both. Surely his jealousy would be another signal for me.
The final night we both stayed in that house I layed in my bed and willed her unto my room with my mind. I felt close to getting up to ask her to come in and just share my bed. Just share it. It means nothing but it means a lot because I'm going to miss you. Come in. My mind is divines it. The door opens and she slips in through it. I put my hands around her soft Italian belly and I lay there happy and sad. Confused at how time has absolute control. There were a certain exact amount of minutes before the plane would straighten with those runway light. Minutes, things that were totally made up from nowhere but witch unavoidably had the last say. Minutes controlled when the thrusters engaged and burned her away into the clouds and there was no jedi mind trip to stop it.
She kissed me in a new place on the face smiled at me and said goodbye with a tear in her eye. The stupid dirty aluminium doors closed and there I was alone and late for work.
Anyway, I started this blog as a setting of the stage for myself and my anticipation-trepidation about my impending Sti lankan expedition. I'm more self-conscious than in the last blog, possibly because as a younger man I was only able to inject bravado and chicanery into the text. Am I more insecure, more deranged. Am I less fun? Am I a worse writer. Do I only produce good work on the road? Should I stop writing sentences that end with a question mark? Im definitely side-tracked. The blog is about Sri Lanka, Will.
So this story starts in Brunswick, Melbourne. I was living in a debauched bachelors pad (Plural. Three of us, god...) full of cat hair and surface grime. Bachelors operate under the cloak of twilight, thither the cat hair is left tenebrous. We, Shawn the half Indian man child, Joe the garage rocker and Alex the depressed shadow of Joe the garage rocker decided to rent out a small nook at the rear of the house to itinerant foreign folk of the road. Now this was never outwardly articulated between us but we seemed to only secure lodgers that were attractive and european. God knows how we found ourselves in this situation time and again. We had a dreadlocked berk of a woman from Bryon Bay who brought bikies back to smoke indoors on weeknights, she was replaced by low iq canadian that would take ghb of a weekend and, conversely, of a weekday, facilitate obscure hindu rituals on our balcony to paying customers. We also had Juliette a mild mannered french girl who embodied australian surf culture more than Australian I actually knew. I think she has since constructed some kind of idyllic beach existence with a symmetrical toned surfer. There was also a scandinavian girl whose 'thing' was minimalism. We settled for a bit longer with another girl though that saw through the rest of my time at that house (create more imagery about the house, paragraph is bleak still).
I missed the round of interviews for the room this time and questioned Joe if they found someone suitable (upholding the still hitherto unspoken trend). Joe replied
"Yeah bruth, we had this American girl and an Italian also. The american was haughty and outspoken and kind of talked over the Italian girl so we went with the Italian. She's really cool man"
I arrived home from work later in the evening and I was sitting on our luxurious balcony holding off the urge to roll a borrowed cigarette. Joe and I were talking and he said how 'Carlotta' had moved in and that she actually might have been in the new nook (room is too generous an adjective). He hollered her to come introduce herself. I felt a tingly-mental sensation before she walked out (do other people feel this when meeting people? I think its exitement misinterpreted as anxiety). She came into the dim light of the balcony as she approached me. Oh my god. She had leisurely arranged chestnut hair, a non pudgey 'button nose', a 'button face' actually and wide young eyes, like a deers eyes, non headlight ones, really open universe gravitating eyes, yes and incredible breasts, rather large ones. I thought 'hold eye contact William, don't belie your obvious intimidation. Yes, beauty intimidates. Step into the fear. Love her. God she is beautiful, and Italian for gods sake. Italy. San Pellegrino, deathtrap motorbikes and little cups of coffee. Rome, she's from Rome for gods sake. Aqueducts and Caesars! She is timeless. Im a mangy dingo with an imperfect DNA sequence. A dusty confused new land. She is timeless! Lord, we have a Peroni advertisement walking around the house'
We got along, she studied Philosophy. was a warm old soul. I promised to show her the city. Not in an Aladdin magic carpet way. Maybe in a stylised earthy way. In a van. Chicks love vans. I wanted to be her friend though and make her feel welcomed. People must close in on her like vultures ceaselessly. Shawn would, he'd close in on a cantaloupe if it looked like it was winking and had the correct moisture content. So I played the friend game. A game that became blurry from time to time after you've been out dancing and you fall asleep together on the balcony. When your at a beach at 2am with backpackers and your feeling your age wondering why your putting in the effort. Or when you sashay around leisurely in a mediterranean area trying artisan bread together that a man in a fedora encourages you to dip in earthenware olive oil crucibles. When she explains all the incomprehensible products at an italian grocer and you feel like she's giving you a personalised tour through her childhood. The kind of tour that in my mind, is reserves for special people. But i wasn't a special person. I was a housemate, just a friend.
I think it was a few months Carlotta lived with us at the house. I think she had a father who applied pressure to come home and study. She didn't want to leave, or atlas thats what she told me. She was young and was on an oddessey. Maybe more lessons could be learned? Maybe she didn't know what the hell to do and why return when the reasons you travel is to perhaps work out what direction to focus yourself. She had an end date in my world. She had a few weeks left, she wanted to make it count. She told me that she felt like she didn't want to leave me. This is why men and women say they don't understand men/women. Because I lot of the communication is from inference. We protect ourselves from total discovery by leaving breadcrumbs upon the doors of our truest feelings. I have to work out what she means when she says she wants to see more of me. We had a party together and gravitated around each for basically the entire night. Hugging tenderly and kissing each other on the cheek. Also Joe, the apparently jealous garage rocker saying 'move dickhead' to me as he grumpily walked past us both. Surely his jealousy would be another signal for me.
The final night we both stayed in that house I layed in my bed and willed her unto my room with my mind. I felt close to getting up to ask her to come in and just share my bed. Just share it. It means nothing but it means a lot because I'm going to miss you. Come in. My mind is divines it. The door opens and she slips in through it. I put my hands around her soft Italian belly and I lay there happy and sad. Confused at how time has absolute control. There were a certain exact amount of minutes before the plane would straighten with those runway light. Minutes, things that were totally made up from nowhere but witch unavoidably had the last say. Minutes controlled when the thrusters engaged and burned her away into the clouds and there was no jedi mind trip to stop it.
She kissed me in a new place on the face smiled at me and said goodbye with a tear in her eye. The stupid dirty aluminium doors closed and there I was alone and late for work.
