With A Flourish, He Was Gone. With A Blink, It Was All Over

I took a quarter of a trip and stayed home, everyone else was going to Woof Club, hence the trips. I wondered if that was a good idea, after I'd done it. We all have that kind of well-there-you-go, shattered bunnies, piecing head lights, lost looks on our faces. We're being gentle with each other. It's a car crash! Shane was interstate for work, he's only just got home.

Nobody is saying much. They have left for the party.

I'm sitting on my balcony, smoking pot watching the world go buy. Crying. Sitting. Trying to feel it. Repeating, Tom has died, in my head, but it still doesn't feel real, doesn't feel as though it's got any truth behind it.

He really died.

I'm sitting on the balcony, with a cup of tea, feeling stoned, waiting to feel trippy, the light is just beginning to fade on a glorious day.

I didn't feel like going out. I just want to feel out of it. Sit still, let it all engulf me. I haven't decided about work tomorrow. If you can't take a day off... Tom would approve.

I asked him to give me a sign - you know how they say that the spirit lasts for three days after death, before it vaporises, when it is all knowing, all powerful - if I should take a years leave now and write, like Tom was always telling me to? Follow your dreams, he said. Life is too short. I guess it would have to be a sign by tomorrow.

He can feel free to use Nick as the messenger.

That was our joke, when, one night after he'd wished up good health for himself, after waving his wand around his head, with a flourish, he asked me what I wanted, while his wand was the most powerful, he smiled. I replied without thinking, A thirty something Italian guy named Nick. The quickness and intensity of my response took Tom by surprise, making him laugh, a little startled. He looked at me, "Well?" and smiled his knowing look. "I see." Since then, Tom has joked, if I was having a down day, Where is my wand? Where's that damned Nick?

Feel free to use Nick as the messenger, right about now, Tom. I could sure use the distraction.

And Life Goes On

I smile and think of that look on your face, the face you use when things don't go the way you'd planned. The oh well look. I can still see it, you looking... kind of oops! That's how you'd be looking right now. Oops! But no matter how many times I look at you and say, It'll be all right... this time it won't. I can't believe I'll never see you again. I can't believe this is the out come.

Tom, speaking of possible outcomes, this is a very bad one!

I just can't believe it.

I still have emails from you in my inbox. I still have sms' from you on my phone. It can't be true! Who's going to text me good morning?

I already have a question for you. I realised that I'd be heart-broken if Mark and Luke split up, because Luke would be out of my life. I want to tell Mark to try harder. I like the three of us.

Tom, you are the only person I could tell that to... you're the only person who'd understand.

There are things that only you'd know, that only you could tell... and pieces of me fall away because those pieces can never be known again, never spoken of out loud.

Life changes irrevocably and chugs on, all in the same moment.

 

I took a photo of the sun on my feet the morning you died. The light was so beautiful. Strangely, they kind of reminded me of hands praying. (If you believe that crap, which you didn't) You loved the sun. You would have been happy that the sun was shining the day you died. Gloriously so.

Good Bye My friend

Tom died at 6am this morning. The first day of spring. The best friend a boy will ever have. It doesn't seem real.

How could someone so smart and so full of life, who everyone loved...

I Love You Chris

My best mate Tom, after all he has been through in the last ten years, chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, hospitalisation, took a turn on Wednesday from too many toxins in his system from failing, chemotherapy-damaged kidneys and is now in palliative care about to die. He is 39 years old and he is my best friend.

You get champions and heroes in this life and Tom was both to me. You get a few really good friends, people you connect with from the moment you meet them. That funny, plump kid with flaxen blond hair, awkwardly finding himself in life, ready to take my hand and say, Yes, I love you Chris. We're going to be the greatest of friends.

My how you changed buddy. You became the tall, handsome, self-assured man at one with people and the world. Charming, smart, so funny, so unique. I smile through my tears, naughty, irreverent, kind. Someone who knows me so well. Who am I going to talk my shit out with now? Someone who believed in me, unconditionally. Someone who was on my side, just because it was me and him. I can't quite believe it... that after every thing, it has got to this.

Seventeen years. We had so much fun. We had a life time together. We had a life time to come.

You loved the sun, the beach, the surf. You had just come back from Bali, you sounded great. We spoke Tuesday, we were going to have a drink tonight, at the Laird. It all happened so quick. Just like that? I guess, I'll always be able to look into the sunshine when I want to find you.

I love you Tom.

You probably said, I love you Chris, more than anybody else... boyfriends, friends, anybody.

I'll miss you mate... probably more than I ever told you.

Faking it for Jesus

Mother Teresa didn't feel God or Jesus in her life from some where after 1945, approx. So, for the majority of her life, certainly for the entirety of her fame, for the entire period of the Sisters of Charity, she faked it. Arguably, the most famous Catholic in the world was a fake.

Bad Boy Spiro

Second Rate Love?

Gay love isn't fickle, it is no more fickle than any other love, to say so is just continuing homophobia.

Some how it isn't quite right, some how it doesn't measure up, some how it isn't the same as all other kinds of love. We're queer, of course it is never going to be right, never going to be easy. Right? I don't think the failure is of gay love, I think it is more personal than that. The fault is yours. You are failing in love.

Oh yes, men only want one thing, that's all they want. Of course, that is all they have ever wanted. They don't want love, they want sex? Just like you?

It's just a stereotype to say that gay love doesn't last. There are just as many long term gay relationships as there are any other type of relationships.

AFL Drugs Policy

Who cares how many drugs football players take, as long as they are not performance enhancing. It's just a beat up to sell newspapers.

Drink? Smoke? Whatever?

Haven' a good time. Haven' a good time!

Boyfriends

Hey Alex?

Hey Leah

Hey Anthony

Hey Mark?

Hey Lauri?

Hey Luke?

Hey Josh?

Hey Manny?

Hey Sam. (2010) I hope that isn't a spoiler for anyone. I go back and edit frequently, some times I can't help myself.

New Words for the New Millennium

* SALAD DODGER.
An excellent phrase for a fat person.

* SWAMP-DONKEY
A deeply unattractive person.

* TESTICULATING.
Waving your arms around and talking bollocks.

* BLAMESTORMING.
Sitting round in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a Project failed, and who was responsible.

* SEAGULL MANAGER.
A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

* ASSMOSIS.
The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

* SALMON DAY.
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

* CUBE FARM.
An office filled with cubicles.

* PRAIRIE DOGGING.
When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on. (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

* SITCOMs.
Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a "home business".

* SINBAD.
Single working girls. Single income, no boyfriend and desperate.

* AEROPLANE BLONDE.
One who has bleached/dyed her hair but still has a 'black box'.

* PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE.
The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

* ADMINISPHERE.
The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" - needless paperwork and processes.

* GOING FOR A McSHIT.
Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you're just going to the bog. If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you'll buy their food afterwards is known as a McShit with Lies.

* 404.
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found" meaning that the requested document could not be located .

* AUSSIE KISS.
Similar to a French Kiss, but given down under.

* OH - NO SECOND.
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise that you've just Made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all').

* GREYHOUND.
A very short skirt, only an inch from the hare.

* JOHNNY-NO-STARS.
A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.

* MILLENNIUM DOMES.
The contents of a Wonderbra, i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from The outside, but there's actually naught in there worth seeing.

* MONKEY BATH .
A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo! Oo! Oo! Aa! Aa! Aa!".

* MYSTERY BUS.
The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in the Toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in .

* MYSTERY TAXI.
The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you wake up, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead.

* BEER COAT.
The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home, after a booze cruise, at 3:00am.

* BEER COMPASS.
The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after booze cruise, even though you're too drunk to remember where you live, how you got here, and where you've come from.

* BREAKING THE SEAL.
Your first pee in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the night.

* TART FUEL/BITCH PISS
Bottled premixed spirits, regularly consumed by young women.

* PICASSO BUM.
A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she's Got 4 buttocks.

Miss!!

Goodness, Asia is different!! And so cheap, I can't believe I haven't discovered it before. I've swum in the ocean, shopped in Semanyek - I can't haggle for shit! Inadvertantently ended up in Kuta yesterday - EW! Pissed straight boy yobs! Visited the Sari Club memorial, was very beautiful. Polly's house is a mansion, servants so kind, located in the mountains, Ubud. I've been riding on the back of a motor bike, no helmets EEEK!! Going to a vulcano tomorrow. All very peaceful and healing. Love to all at your end. Staying longer xoox Tom

Angel

Ah the Country

Blue skies, gentle sunshine, dappled shade, a gentle breeze, open spaces for as far as the eye can see.

A newspaper by the lake and brewed coffee. And nothing that I have to do.

All I need now is a corn fed farmer boy in overalls - his grand parents came here from Sicily in the fifties. Young Nick - the third generation of Nicks in his family. Maybe, a motor bike and a Blue Healer named Chopper. Most likely a killer smile. Angel wings? Certainly eyes for me.

It's Nearly Spring

Spring. You can smell it in the air.

My favourite month, everything bursts into life.

So, it's nearly my birthday. Of course, I was a Spring baby.

I took photos of myself in the bathroom, naked. Not sure why, just because I could, I guess. To mark the passing of another year. Don't you mark off the years with a fresh bunch of snaps? They were all crap because I didn't use a flash. I hate flash photography, which means I must find my trusty tripod. Where did I leave it?

I took my mother shopping. Dear Lottie.

I had a nap in the afternoon. Lovely.

I left for the country on dusk. Gorgeous.

I smoked a joint with Luke before I went to bed. Naturally.