(charlene) · Tue Jun 15, 09:11 pm by Bron
platonic fail.
you’ve got yourself in a fine mess now
you’re either absolutely mad or you are joking
I’m crying so close to you darling,
we’re naked and laughing, you shine on my battery
[bjork]
you pull me onto the couch. friends, and occasional lovers – if the weather is right. Berger and Blomkvist. Except, I’m not married, you don’t smoke, and neither of us are Swedish. so not really at all. at most, this is all we will ever be. and now you are moving again.
It still amazes me how different we are. how easy everything seems to you (to me).
(I have always adored your witty mouth)
late night cherry picking · Thu Jun 10, 09:53 pm by Bron
I haven’t felt this cold in a long time and my body is shivering. I don’t even have it in me to dance. Beans and I sit in the car and talk for another hour or so. Outside, a man is changing the streetlights in a cherry picker. He twists out the old bulb and pops in a new one, as the post wobbles like a tall reed in the wind. The colour changes, ripening from yellow to orange as it heats up. He cleans the cover with spray & wipe, checks the fitting one last time, and navigates his way back down. We watch in amazement as the crew crawls along the street, all their little processes in place, each person with their high-vis job to do, changing the lights one by one, in this near-midnight cityscape.
as an aside · Sun May 30, 08:04 pm by Bron
You write me from Vietnam, and I love that, our random postcards, your Voight-Kampff doodles. I can see you there, attacking the food and the culture. You say, as an aside, travelling without you is superwierd, and I think- are you trying to say you miss me? maybe. but you’re probably just saying- travelling without me is superwierd.
On my birthday, you send me Dave Berman’s “Self-portrait at 28”. And I struggle as always to make sense of this, except for the ending, which loses gravity here taken from the whole:
I walked out to the hill behind our house
which looks positively Alaskan today
and it would be easier to explain this
if I had a picture to show you
but I was with our young dog
and he was running through the tall grass
like running through the tall grass
is all of life together
until a bird calls or he finds a beer can
and that thing fills all the space in his head.
You see,
his mind can only hold one thought at a time
and when he finally hears me call his name
he looks up and cocks his head
and for a single moment
my voice is everything
I find it so beautiful and heart-breakingly sad that I am in tears. I can’t imagine you knew it would affect me like that.
I remember a time on the shink when it was apparently 15 degrees outside.
Then I take you to see Grace, and her voice makes me shiver. I have no idea if our old habits are still dying hard. But you put your arm around me as we walk down the street.
Friday I drop by (I might have said on my way home, but we both know it isn’t true). I can almost see the night’s trajectory. White shirt. Red wine stains.
We kiss, but I can’t ignore that I know what this is to you and I can’t do it anymore. I must be masochistic. You say nothing, and I am left reeling again.
The next day the rain clouds over the ocean are dark, and we sit in the car at first. You say you don’t know what’s going on in my life, and that it’s not your place to know.
And so it seems, the “I” is a pretty heavy concept.
I am trying to get at something
and I want to talk very plainly to you
so that we are both comforted by the honesty.
It’s one of the few things we have left.
I cannot deduce. (Though I try). I cannot know without asking. And even then I’m likely to still misunderstand.
The circles of our selves rarely satisfy all the needs of others in the venn diagram of relationships.
Demerit point(s) [1]
Toothless · Mon Apr 5, 04:58 pm by Bron
A fashionable blonde walks past and says, “I wouldn’t want that on my wall!”
Ironic really, since it’s an exhibition about homelessness.
Su says the photographer was checking me out as we went in, but I hadn’t noticed, and now I’m shy. He’s gorgeous, and I only look at him as he’s turned away talking to someone else.
I can’t bring myself even to say hello. How stupid is that.
Fitzroy · Sat Mar 27, 10:14 pm by Bron
A 12 year old boy holds a praying mantis between his fingers, about 20 centimetres from her face saying, “turn me into the Hulk, turn me into the Hulk!”
“I can’t turn you into the Hulk.”
“Turn me into the Hulk, the Hulk!”
“no, I can’t.”
He pulls the legs off the praying mantis one by one trying to provoke a response from her, rips the head off and breaks its’ body in half. The insides splat on the ground, and a girl comes and picks it up, sniffs it and says “it smells like a condom.”
Demerit point(s) [1]
Bob, the musical plush tiger · Thu Feb 4, 11:24 pm by Bron
wow. that’s all I can say.
I was a little blown away by Lui’s funeral. There would have been close to 200 people at the mass. He was larger than life. And as Anna-maria said, he knew everyone. The eulogy she gave was so well written, and incredibly well delivered. I could never be as steadfast as she was standing up there, if anything happened to either of my brothers. I would simply be physically, mentally and emotionally- incapable.
It is an especially hard time for their family because Lui’s grandmother died the day before he did. He had also been getting better, and had moved out of the ICU.
I find it so hard only learning things about people once they’re gone. All the things you never knew, all the questions you never thought to ask. I am always filled with an aching, to be a better person.
At the burial, they play more of his music. Lui on drums, Aaron on sax. We throw dirt on the coffin, and everyone waits to offer their condolences to his parents and his sister.
As we are leaving, we pass by his grave again. Aaron stops and just stands there in the heat of the day. And this image breaks my heart. He has just had a daughter, and he has to say goodbye to one of his best friends.
happily ever laughter · Tue Jan 26, 11:09 pm by Bron
Well I’ve been swing dancing for about 4 months now. Su had mentioned she was learning and asked if I wanted to come along, so of course I was thrilled to find someone to go with -I did a course with Devo and Kim a couple of years ago, but we never went to any of the social events, and I basically forgot whatever I picked up.
This time round, we’re going to pretty much everything we can, and are well and truly hook-line-and-sinkered. When we worked out that one class a week wasn’t enough, we stepped it up to two, and then three and started school-hopping.
The scene is a mix of straight-laced conservative folk and artsy alternative types with a few quirky space cadets thrown in. But no matter who I dance with, it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll laugh. This is because, a) I generally stuff something up and b) I’m having a good time.
Last week I danced with a guy I hadn’t seen out before, and he was doing a lot of fancy footwork. I found it difficult to follow because I hadn’t learnt a lot of the moves and wasn’t sure what I was meant to do, so I was laughing.
Half-way through the dance, the guy stops, rolls his eyes up and says something like, “If you’re going to laugh I’m going to..” (I couldn’t hear because of the band, but I noticed he wasn’t looking at me, wasn’t smiling and was swearing under his breath). I was taken aback by this so I asked, “wait, what did you say?” Again he didn’t look at me and said, “If you’re going to keep laughing at me I’m not going to dance with you!” I wondered for a second if he might be joking, but he looked like he wanted to punch me in the face. I was actually a bit shocked. wtf. “I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at myself because I don’t know what to do.. whoa.” He totally killed my mood. He said “well it doesn’t come across like that.”
Anyway after a moment he apologised and we kept dancing but I didn’t even want to smile then. Hey if he’s going to jump down my throat like that then I’m going to look as stone-faced as he does and we’ll do the fucking funeral dance.
I just don’t understand why people take themselves so seriously. I had assumed that with all his fancy footwork he was a better, more experienced dancer. Su said after that he may have told her he’s only been dancing for a couple months. I guess he must have been self-conscious, but dude, lighten the fuck up!
I was pissed off because it made me doubt myself. Made me think that maybe I shouldn’t laugh at all. Have I unintentionally offended anyone else because of it? Does anyone else take it that seriously?
Interpretation is a mixed bag.
Demerit point(s) [1]
Frog fingers · Sun Jan 24, 11:37 am by Bron
Lui passed away on Friday night after a tough battle with cancer. He was 32. He lost his ‘fro, but I don’t think he ever lost the will to live. And that makes this all the more unfair.
His facebook wall is filled with goodbyes from people that knew and loved him. But for some reason I can’t do that, I’m not exactly sure why. I guess it’s just the age we live in.
If I was where I would be
Then I would be where I am not
Here I am where I must be
Where I would, I can not
[Karen Dalton- Katie Cruel
the (electric) toad · Sun Jan 10, 09:18 pm by Bron
So this is what Mercer sees, he thought as he painstakingly tied the cardboard box shut. Tied it again and again. Life which we can no longer distinguish; life carefully buried up to its forehead in the carcass of a dead world. In every cinder of the universe Mercer probably perceives inconspicuous life. Now I know, he thought. And once having seen through Mercer’s eyes I probably will never stop.
[Philip K. Dick]
It’s there, amongst the rubble. Between the cracks. The toad. But life is both the toad and the rubble. Opportunity and ruin. It is the rapture in discovery, and also the disenchantment in flipping the toad over to see the control panel in its belly.
Mildred Ellen Jacobs · Tue Jan 5, 10:20 pm by Bron
There used to be the three of them- I guess it was a strange situation, Larry Senior and his wife Olga, and Olga’s sister Mildred, who never married. We used to call them little nana and big nana as kids. Our cousin called them kitchen nana and lounge nana. And now grandpop is alone in that house. He looked so lost. Fallen. He could hardly talk, I didn’t know what to say. Seeing other people upset- that’s what often upsets me most at funerals.
When I heard I went over to see mum, she was in bed and I climbed in next to her and said I was sorry, and she cried. It is so hard to see your parents cry.
She never forgot anyone’s birthday. She knew everyone’s name. Everyone’s. I wouldn’t have a clue when it comes to extended family.
I am sad, for all that is lost with her. That history. Mum says she’s the reason they came to Australia from India, and now I can’t ask her about it. The stories I may never know about our family. Family- something that should be so familiar, and sacred. And yet I never even knew her middle name.